Pathfinder 1E Pathfinder 1.5 rumblings: Corefinder

[RangerWickett]

Honestly, all it would take to get me to buy a core finder game would be for it to provide a diverse list of fun and dramatic character choices, eliminate trap options, and have some intentional design of what high level gameplay should look like before they actually stumble their way to high level.

If you could find a way to eliminate something like what happened in my iron gods campaign, where by the end, we would roll initiative, and then I would use a swift action of a helmet with a frog head to fire a tongue of telekinetic force to yank myself adjacent to an enemy, so that I could make a full attack, using two weapon fighting, which involve me rolling seven attack rolls, and for each weapon that hit, I would roll four different damage dice, and add a bonus that was something like plus 17.

It wasn't interesting. It was a chore. Low level Pathfinder was never the problem.

 

[RangerWickett]

Oh, but it would be nice if character balance were not so dependent on wearing a Christmas tree of magic items, and if monsters had tactics that were more compelling than standing in place and full attacking you, or using a special ability and hoping that you roll low on your saving throw.

I want monster combat to feel more like horizon Zero Dawn, or monster Hunter, where you have to put some effort in and deal with specific threats within the monster. Treat large monsters somewhat similar to how you would treat a collection of smaller monsters.

 

[kenada]

Corefinder is intended to be backwards compatible with PF1, though there will be a certain amount of new rules and options and a lot of condensing and streamlining of redundant and/or kludgy rules that have piled up over the decade of PF1's lifespan.

That seems like a herculean task, but good luck! PF1’s no longer the game for me, but if you can put out something that makes the PF1 fans happy, then that’s certainly good for them (and presumably you).

 

[dave2008]

I want monster combat to feel more like horizon Zero Dawn, or monster Hunter, where you have to put some effort in and deal with specific threats within the monster. Treat large monsters somewhat similar to how you would treat a collection of smaller monsters.

Well they have said the intent is that you can use PF1 monsters. However, who knows, maybe the come up with their on Bestiary too.

 

[GreyLord]

I'm not a huge fan of it, but I know those that are. Some ideas of Unchained I think would be good ideas to incorporate into Corefinder...

Things such as giving the Monk full BAB and a d10 HD (makes the Monks less squishy and more able to stand up and do what they are meant to do).

I think the base or core rules of Pathfinder were not as math heavy as many make them out to be, but later additions to the system (archetypes for example) really made the game far more complex.

I think there is a large audience out there that would go for another d20/3.X type system now that Paizo has left the boat for the new PF2e from the things I've read in this and other forums.

 

[ZeshinX]

As someone who adored 3.x/PF but burned out on it it completely, Corefinder does raise an eyebrow for me.

I loved the sheer number of options (in PF) and felt the sky was the limit for character options that also had, at least, some moderate to good mechanical options to support them. Whether that's true or not depends on the individual of course (and could be endlessly debated elsewhere), but that was my feeling of it.

Though shortly after the release of Ultimate Intrigue, I found myself rapidly losing interest. I'm not sure really what spurred it, but PF quickly became a slog for me...I began finding 3.x/PF's simulation-like approach was both its greatest strength and greatest weakness. I became tired of the, at times, overwhelming number crunch. I started singing, in a mocking Old MacDonald style "a +1 here, a +1 there, here a plus, there a plus, everywhere a plus plus!" I still appreciate the options in classes and archetypes to allow customization, but all else with feats for actions that I started to find would be more enjoyable as just "sure, you can do that" without the need for a rule to govern every damn thing. And the math (simple though it was)...I started to (and still call it) math porn. Some of the classes, despite appreciating options, just started to get a little ridiculous too (the hybrid classes come to mind).

After the wildly refreshing 5e (it's far from perfect), I find it'll take quite a lot of work to get me to even look at a 3.x/PF1e-inspired ruleset again. Corefinder has my curiosity piqued though.

 

[LegendaryGames]

Oh, but it would be nice if character balance were not so dependent on wearing a Christmas tree of magic items, and if monsters had tactics that were more compelling than standing in place and full attacking you, or using a special ability and hoping that you roll low on your saving throw.

I want monster combat to feel more like horizon Zero Dawn, or monster Hunter, where you have to put some effort in and deal with specific threats within the monster. Treat large monsters somewhat similar to how you would treat a collection of smaller monsters.

We're definitely working to crack the code on both of those issues - winnowing down the Christmas tree-ing of items and making combat more dynamic and less "stand and smash"/"save or suck."

 

[LegendaryGames]

Well they have said the intent is that you can use PF1 monsters. However, who knows, maybe the come up with their on Bestiary too.

Sure, if things progress agreeably and the market is there, we'll certainly keep expanding things with monster books and more.

 

[LegendaryGames]

I'm not a huge fan of it, but I know those that are. Some ideas of Unchained I think would be good ideas to incorporate into Corefinder...

Things such as giving the Monk full BAB and a d10 HD (makes the Monks less squishy and more able to stand up and do what they are meant to do).

I think the base or core rules of Pathfinder were not as math heavy as many make them out to be, but later additions to the system (archetypes for example) really made the game far more complex.

I think there is a large audience out there that would go for another d20/3.X type system now that Paizo has left the boat for the new PF2e from the things I've read in this and other forums.

We think so as well, or else we wouldn't have embarked on this project!

 

[TheSword]

Pathfinder APs are good and have some amazing ideas. However I sometimes think each part being written by a different author can make them disjointed. The quality across a series can vary wildly. Usually the first two are awesome and then they go downhill.

They can also be very long, with a lot of padding... dungeons that should probably be a single encounter filled with four or five filler encounters. I almost always ended up combining encounters.

Pathfinders biggest issue was a fear of going over old ground which meant their products and APs became more and more niche as they went on.

To go back to the first point there are some absolute crackers.