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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Windjammer" data-source="post: 5066619" data-attributes="member: 60075">Paizo and I parted company when they went all Pathfinder - by which I don't mean the point in time at which they started to playtest it but when they switched the rest of their product line to Pathfinder.* I'm extremely fiddly when it comes to backwards compatibility and think that the Paizo classes work best with Paizo spells and Paizo monsters. As a result, I never wanted to pick up PF just to mish and mash it with my ongoing 3.5 campaign. Otoh, I'm a 3.5 die hard fan, and more happily run the massive amount of material from Paizo I have from 2004 up to early 2009 than switch systems to enjoy their current offerings.So onto why I didn't switch system. I couldn't see the fixes. I mean that literally. I still can't. Take combat maneuvers. I'd like these to run smoothly at the table and to be good options for characters to take. Now, not only has PF skewered the % chance of succeeding at the maneuvers (all committed in the name of fixing a "balance" issue I never had) by loading two stat bonuses on the opposed defense roll (STR and DEX go into CMD). Also, the formating in the book doesn't make the rules any easier to handle. To be precise, the rules needed not just a simplification in their actual wording, but in how it's presented. Some time last year I created a <a href="http://www1.atwiki.com/ptolusalem?cmd=upload&act=open&pageid=10&file=TM.pdf" target="_blank">combat maneuver "cheat sheet"</a> which gave people a handier table reference than the overly long entry in the 3.5 PHB on Grapple e.g. That sheet borrows heavily from the 4E layout devices, and I regret that Paizo didn't make heavier use of goal-driven layout (you don't need to be a fan of 4E layout to think this btw). Secondly, the reason some maneuvers slowed down play wasn't just that the rule was badly presented in the rule book - so badly as to be impossible to quickly glance over at a session. No, the reason it stopped sessions - apart from being impossible to absorb at a glance - was that it was unclear about how it reacted with a lot of other circumstances. Just earlier today I read a Pathfinder rules thread in which someone asked whether a guy who escapes from the Pinned condition using the Escape Artist skill is still considered Grappled, or whether it takes a follow up check to liberate oneself from Grappled. Even with the PRD the thread (a day later) hasn't progressed. So apparently Grapple is just as unclear as ever, because how the combat conditions interact is apparently unclear (it's a two-step maneuver, moving the guy from condition 1 to 2, so freeing oneself from condition 2 would logically invite the reverse sequence; yet it's also stated that the conditions don't stack, so it seems as if condition 2 replaces condition 1).I've gone into quite some length with this example, but not with the intention to convey that it's the only one. It's just one of several cases where PF didn't convince me that it was a step up from 3.5. Yet it needed to convince me of that since, as stated earlier, for me it's really a question of playing only one of the two systems  - 3.5 or Pathfinder. I appreciate that PF does a lot of good things for a lot of people who've jumped onto that system (e.g. active product support, base classes viable up to level 20). It's just not for me, and I don't begrude people who switched systems. I just hope PF won't contribute to the trend of less and less new blood coming to 3.5. For, alas, the time is gone when 3.5 PHBs for new players were an affordable option, and I fear that having an affordable approximation (i.e. PF) it will be even harder to get people into 3.5.My whole post so far, though, only concerns the 3.5 campaign I DM. A friend of mine is going to run Legacy of Fire using the Pathfinder ruleset, and I'm quite excited about that, as I'll want to try out the reworked Paladin class. Aaand I'm superexcited about the adventure path.* (That said, I'd buy the first instalment of Kingmaker even if it was published for a non-D&D-ish RPG, to see if it matches the high hopes I have for it.)</blockquote>

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