Pathfinder 1E PC power in Pathfinder

[GregoryOatmeal]

Note that you're replying to a quote of mine that specifically dealt with feats, not other aspects of character creation.

I said that some feats got nerfed, just as others got buffed. I would be happy to provide you with examples, if you feel that I am wrong or that you feel your own understanding of both game systems is lacking.

Good example. Otherwise it is clear you are not capable of providing a constructive disagreement and this conversation will not be productive. Have a good day sir.

 

[enrious]

Facts are one thing, personal attacks other. Lets keep the discussion civil.

-Stalker0

 

[Lwaxy]

What materials do you use? Do you have any conversion rules?

We have about everything Wizards released and a looong shelf of 3rd party material. A lot of it gets used at one point of the other. We also had to convert our many custom races and magics to PF as 3 of the games are long time running and in homebrew settings, going as far back as 1999. The good thing is, some of the PF changes were already house rules in our D&D games.

My husband and one of the other players have a conversion system (which partly includes killing some of the benefits of a specific class/prestige class but dependent on who uses it) while I'm trying to keep the flavor of it straight. I'm not good with numbers and statistics (dyscalculia) but my husband and our Mr. Statistics are.

I do not always agree with them, but usually I can see why this or that was changed to keep the game balance. I think since PF was released there was only one PrC that was deemed unfeasible as it was designed to boost a fighter/mage combination in a way pointless to PF.

You've got a lot of faith in your players...

We have experience with them I have yet to see anything really broken, with the exception of my son (new player at the time) not noticing that his destrezador (homebrew class) combined with some feats from a 3rd party book turned out overpowered. We noticed half way through the game.

The bad part? Before we can start any new game or have to replace a character, the discussions about how to make a single PC balanced can take time from gaming. But that was not that much different before PF. We kept our neighbors awake many a summer night sitting in the pool and discussing characters on weekends.


Oh yeah, I have one group where this wouldn't work, one I'm playing in, but we come together rarely, maybe 4 times a year, and haven't converted to PF.

 

[Lwaxy]

If you limit yourself to PF Core, you might be satisfied with it alone. It sounds like however, because of your interest to use your 3.5 material, that you want more variety. By the time you (if you do) purchase the APG, UM, and UC, you might find the variety available there lessens the need for 3.5 legacy stuff. If you're like me and allow 3pp Pathfinder material then definitely 3.5 belongs on a shelf to look at and not play.

We NEED more variety, as in our epic game lasting several years already, there are 169 characters and a lot of former characters and support characters. Not even counting the NPCs. There needs to be enough differences in the characters to give the game flavor

To me it is also a waste not to use what's there, if just as inspiration. It is definitely true, of course, that no one needs any pre-PF material to have enough variety for non-crazy games.

 

[Ramaster]

It all depends on what you are comparing the characters against. If you compare a PF character with a 3.5 one (barring cheese and X-TREAM CHEEZE!!1!) then the PF character will come out ahead like 95% of the time. The most notable exception is druids with the nerfed shape shifting.
But, since any given PF monster is indeed tougher than its 3.5 counterpart, then you should realize that while there is power creep, it goes both ways. Therefore, it kinda gets cancelled out (Not all the time, obviously).

With the big amount of PF books out there by now there really is no need to use 3.5 material anymore, unless you want something VERY specific that can't be found on PF (yet).

As for the issue of balance, in my opinion the only way to solve it is to talk to the players. Make sure everyone is on the same page. If one of the players makes an 20 Charisma/5 strength halfling two-handed fighter and the other makes a conjuration-specialist-batman-wizard, then there is going to be imbalance no matter how the game was designed. Everyone should sit down at the table at the moment of character creation and say "Ok, this is what I want in my game and this is what I am going to play. If anyone feels that my choices are under/overpowered compared to everyone else, let’s talk about what we can do".

The Tier system is useful for this. It helps point out the things that can cause balance problems and sorts them out.


TL;DR Power Creep is relative; there is so much PF material that you don't really need 3.5 that much; talk to you players and decide on the power level before starting a game.