Pathfinder vs. 3.5E?

[ProfessorCirno]

There is a big difference between constructive criticism of what I see in the alphas and people saying stuff like "yeah I looked at a page or 2 of the 4E PHB in a store and decided it wasn't for me" or saying that 4E is "A crime against nature." (ok that alst one was part of an Amazon review mentioned in a thread here, but still).

It must be really nice to live in a world where the only shallow complaints are about 4e, and every complaint about everything else is in depth and well studied.

Sadly, that world is not the one most of us live in.

 

[billd91]

And yet everytime you see someone from Paizo talk about the need to rebalance the core classes, they are talking about balancing them against later non-core wotc books, Bo9S and such. I don't feel it's the best course of action, but stopped talking on the paizo boards b/c fanboys just shouted down anything at all against their ideas.

Well, considering the non-core WotC books aren't OGL, they can't really balance them. So what's to do? Re-balance the ones that they CAN edit so that they become the gold standard once again.

 

[billd91]

How about the needless revision of the XP tables (and don't say that the existing tables are PI - they can be legally reprinted because they're just a math formula; there's no need to have several different tables).

I'm not sure that's entirely clear. I think it is clear that WotC left the tables out of the SRD to make sure that PHs would still be needed.

How about how domains now work very differently, requiring that you alter the number of spells clerics have, and give them special powers (pretty much making any domains not listed there incompatible with PFRPG).

Domains had to change substantially if you wanted to fix the problem of there being little opportunity cost (the cost being turning) to taking a PrC rather than continuing on as a cleric.

These aren't all the changes in the book that don't need to be made; this is just a list off the top of my head. The point is that none of these are fixing problems that a great number of people were bemoaning about 3.5. Moreover, the increased number of changes makes it very hard for DMs to convert NPCs, because they'll need to do so whenever using a 3.5 NPC in a Pathfinder game (or vice versa).

I think you'll find that there are a lot of people who feel these changes do need to be made if PF wants to be serious about improving on D&D 3.5.
But I disagree that conversion will be difficult. For many cases, NO conversion will actually be necessary because most of the changes are unlikely to be brought to bear. If an NPC has unspent skill points because he originally had move silently and hide, there is little lost in the encounter. If the NPC cleric running the evil temple's domain has changed, how will the PCs really know if he's using spell-like abilities from PF or spells from his old 3.5 version or just using other spell slot's he's prepped? Is he really likely to exhaust his spell slots? Probably not, so what does it matter if not all are defined correctly for the updated version of the game?

 

[der_kluge]

I can't imagine playing [3.5e] without:

--a whole crapload of stuff--

3.5E to me is going crazy with all the high powered stuff it encouraged you to do, and just run the game starting from 3rd-5th level and end it when it starts degenerating into rocket tag.

Its easier just to stick with 3.5E D&D.

Uh...

My head just exploded.

I'm just gonna back away from this one slowly.

 

[Alzrius]

Uh... no. The only change to skills is to do away with the stupid cross-class skill penalty and a bonus on the first rank with a skill IF it's a class skill. There's no "drastic change" to the number of skill points a character has. Actually, there's no effective change to how many skill points a character has.

Uh... yes. You seem to be forgetting that a number of skills were folded into certain other skills, meaning that if you've taken ranks in two or more skills that were merged, you now have a lot of skill points that need to be reallocated. Just a few examples are if you put ranks into:

Balance, Jump, and/or Tumble (all are now Acrobatics)

Concentration and Spellcraft (both are now just Spellcraft)

Decipher Script, Forgery, and/or Speak Languages (all are now Linguistics)

Gather Information and Diplomacy (both are now just Diplomacy)

Hide and Move Silently (both are now just Stealth)

Listen, Search, and/or Spot (all are now Perception)

Open Lock and Disable Device (both are now just Disable Device)

So yes, if you put ranks into a wide variety of skills, prepare to go through quite a bit of reallocating, since there's a good chance that many of them merged, freeing up skill points which will now need to be put somewhere else.

 

[Maggan]

I'm not sure that's entirely clear. I think it is clear that WotC left the tables out of the SRD to make sure that PHs would still be needed.

For games following the d20 STL. OGL Games could, and have had, tables for XP gain, as well as descriptions of character generation methods and levelling up.

/M

 

[Zurai]

So yes, if you put ranks into a wide variety of skills, prepare to go through quite a bit of reallocating, since there's a good chance that many of them merged, freeing up skill points which will now need to be put somewhere else.

Which will matter for maybe a quarter of characters. Most characters don't have the skill points to spend on multiple skills, and most of the skills that got merged were rarely if ever used. Spellcraft and Perception are about the only ones likely to affect any significant fraction of characters, and all indications point to Concentration being split back off into its own skill again.

 

[Alzrius]

I'm not sure that's entirely clear. I think it is clear that WotC left the tables out of the SRD to make sure that PHs would still be needed.

It is entirely clear. The formula to calculate XP is based on a pretty clear mathematical progression. Other OGL books have it, so there's little reason PF can't.

Domains had to change substantially if you wanted to fix the problem of there being little opportunity cost (the cost being turning) to taking a PrC rather than continuing on as a cleric.

Even if that were true, changing the way clerical domains work purely to make staying with the cleric class, rather than taking a PrC, is another example of needless change. Prestige classes are supposed to be more attractive options than base classes. This is another solution for a problem that very few people cared about.

I think you'll find that there are a lot of people who feel these changes do need to be made if PF wants to be serious about improving on D&D 3.5.

I think you'll find that the people who don't think those changes need to be made far outnumber the tiny minority who do.

But I disagree that conversion will be difficult. For many cases, NO conversion will actually be necessary because most of the changes are unlikely to be brought to bear. If an NPC has unspent skill points because he originally had move silently and hide, there is little lost in the encounter. If the NPC cleric running the evil temple's domain has changed, how will the PCs really know if he's using spell-like abilities from PF or spells from his old 3.5 version or just using other spell slot's he's prepped? Is he really likely to exhaust his spell slots? Probably not, so what does it matter if not all are defined correctly for the updated version of the game?

I'm not denying that 3.5 and PFRPG materials will be completely incompatible. But again, saying "they pretty much work together" isn't what most people are looking for. Again, 3.0 to 3.5 is a good parallel. Some people are comfortable mixing in 3.0 material to their 3.5 game, but for every person who does so, far more prefer that there be an official conversion. You can look around and see that. It may be a case of public perception, but it's that same public that buys the material, so their perception is very important.

Pathfinder needs to be compatible with 3.5, but more important is that it also FEEL compatible with 3.5. If people view it in the same light as 3.0, or another d20 game that changes rules from the 3.5 baseline, then that will significantly hamper their desire to pick it up and use it with their 3.5 game. And that will hurt Pathfinder significantly.

 

[Alzrius]

Which will matter for maybe a quarter of characters.

It will matter for every character with even some focus on skills, such as rogues, bards, and quite a few other characters too.

Most characters don't have the skill points to spend on multiple skills,

You think most characters only spend their skill points on one skill?

and most of the skills that got merged were rarely if ever used. Spellcraft and Perception are about the only ones likely to affect any significant fraction of characters, and all indications point to Concentration being split back off into its own skill again.

So you don't think that Spot and Listen, or Hide and Move Silently, were used very often?

 

[billd91]

So you don't think that Spot and Listen, or Hide and Move Silently, were used very often?

He did say most skills, not all skills.

Still, reducing the dice rolling involved in sneaking past the sentries of an enemy camp from 4 dice (hide vs spot, move silently vs listen) to two (stealth vs perception) is a good thing.