Pathfinder 1E Opinions on Pathfinder

[Mark Chance]

I much prefer a system that can add new options without breaking the game.

That sounds like every RPG I've ever played.

 

[Vyvyan Basterd]

That sounds like every RPG I've ever played.

That is every system I've played, except 3.5

 

[jaerdaph]

In my case, I like new options. When those options combine with other previously published options to create broken-ness in ways the author or the DM could not imagine it becomes tiresome to keep fixing things that rear their ugly head. Also, when a system lets you cherry-pick class features at-will things spin horribly out of control each time you add new options. If I didn't want new options I would have kept playing other systems with one (or few) rulebook(s). I much prefer a system that can add new options without breaking the game.

And that's why I'm glad Paizo is at the helm of Pathfinder, not WotC!

 

[Mark Chance]

That is every system I've played, except 3.5

Odd. I've pulled it off with every version of D&D except 4E, which I've never played.

 

[Dannager]

And that's why I'm glad Paizo is at the helm of Pathfinder, not WotC!

You clearly haven't been following 4e very closely. WotC has done a really outstanding job of keeping their power creep and broken combinations under control.

 

[Vyvyan Basterd]

Odd. I've pulled it off with every version of D&D except 4E, which I've never played.

My main problem was class dipping. One level of this plus a dash of that plus prestige class A. All three classes on their own could be equal in power level, but 1+1+1=5. Multiclassing in 3E seemed to make sense and I liked it for a long time. Maybe my players pushed too far into system mastery and power gaming to make it fun for me anymore. Or I should say some of my players. I don't really care if the whole table is running at "5", that's easy to provide a good challenge. It's when the system masters produced "5's" and the other players produced "1's" that challenging the group became more of a chore and at times too overwhelming a task. Since we all had been playing 3E from Day 1 to its "final day" (actually a couple weeks past the release of 4E just to finish our current campaign) there really wasn't much hope that the non-system masters would ever catch up.

Not "odd" because there have been many discussions regarding this very issue.

 

[jaerdaph]

You clearly haven't been following 4e very closely. WotC has done a really outstanding job of keeping their power creep and broken combinations under control.

Well good for them!

But I'm still not interested in 4e. For those who are, good gaming!

 

[Votan]

Odd. I've pulled it off with every version of D&D except 4E, which I've never played.

Curious. Late 3.5E was really vulnerable to this type of hyper-optimization. I suppose either really nice players (who deliberately avoided cherry picking) or tough house ruling could do it. But it was so easy to do in so many ways that it got kind of painful in my experience.

Our current 3.5E game has 23 books and 200 pages of house rules. No joke.

 

[Votan]

You clearly haven't been following 4e very closely. WotC has done a really outstanding job of keeping their power creep and broken combinations under control.

I'd tend to agree with this but I'd argue that I'm not the biggest fan of how they do it. What they did was a form of intense templating where all players at level X have Y powers of potency Z. To keep balance you merely need to make sure that power XYZ is comparable to other things in the class. Remove most options for heavy synergy and cherry picking and the result is noticeably more balanced.

But it seems like a "rules heavy" solution where I might have preferred a rules light one.

 

[Vyvyan Basterd]

But it seems like a "rules heavy" solution where I might have preferred a rules light one.

I'd argue that the rules light version is AD&D (more 1E than 2E). Although in 1E the number of extra options past the core rules barely surpass a 3E or 4E splat book or two (and those extra options were orignally intended as NPC only options). Not that that's a bad thing.