If you want it to 'feel like D&D' rather than E6's aim of feeling like literary fantasy, E10 or a 1-10 level game (& no NPCs over 10th) works well, I've done the latter for my last several 3.5 & PF campaigns. E10 lets you have the classic D&Disms like Raise Dead, Teleport, and gear up to +3, without drowning in magic.
Pathfinder 1E What are the advantages to Pathfinder -- for DMs?
If you want it to 'feel like D&D' rather than E6's aim of feeling like literary fantasy, E10 or a 1-10 level game (& no NPCs over 10th) works well, I've done the latter for my last several 3.5 & PF campaigns. E10 lets you have the classic D&Disms like Raise Dead, Teleport, and gear up to +3, without drowning in magic.
Thanks. I'm still kinda amazed Paizo makes all their content available like that.
I'm shooting for open-world, exploring both wilderness and decaying urban fantasy mega-city environments.
I think the only way we'll play E6 is if the campaign tanks. The player's I've got like higher-powered stuff. Unfortunately for me, the group's previous DM --who used to post a lot around here as shilsen-- was very good at that sort of thing. He set a high bar.
We actually started using an AP, part 1 of Skull and Shackles. It wasn't a good fit, and, at for now, I'm going to be writing the adventures myself. Can anyone recommend some good non-AP, non-Paizo modules? I hate to say it, but I just don't like the way Paizo adventures are written/organized. They seem about 10 times more wordy as necessary.
I don't know if this campaign will make it to 10th level, but I'm pretty sure my players want both the 'classic D&D-isms' and a good soaking in magical gear.
Dragonblade
Adventurer
The only advantage to a DM is familiarity if you are already comfortable with the system. There is a lot of adventure support, but I have found the adventure quality of even Paizo's lauded AP's to be terribly uneven. Still, its nice to have a campaign laid out for you if your group doesn't mind the railroad tracks.
I personally have found DMing Pathfinder to be a burden. Even running the AP's requires a lot of prep since monster stat blocks are little more than lists of feats, spell and abilities, which often require you to look them up in other books. Over time, with enough experience and familiarity you'll have memorized many of these things which can ease the burden. I also recommend access to d20pfsrd.com. It is indispensible and can ease the burden of looking these things up. But expect a lot of book flipping and notetaking either in play or prior to play.
Depending one the makeup of your party, encounters can be swingy and the resource attrition model doesn't work well. If the party only has one encounter in a day, they can nova all their best abilities and often easily overcome what would have been a tough fight. On the other hand, if they have slogged through a number battles already, they could be weak enough that a few bad die rolls leads to an unexpected TPK from what should have been an easy fight. Be prepared to fudge liberally behind the screen to adjust encounter difficulty on the fly.
The experience for players in a Pathfinder game can be quite rewarding. It offers an amazing degree of player customization and flexibility. But that comes at a price. DMing Pathfinder requires more effort on the DM's part to manage all this and make sure everything works smoothly in play. Don't be afraid to take a break from DMing if you feel yourself getting burned out.
Just remember to have fun!
I personally have found DMing Pathfinder to be a burden. Even running the AP's requires a lot of prep since monster stat blocks are little more than lists of feats, spell and abilities, which often require you to look them up in other books. Over time, with enough experience and familiarity you'll have memorized many of these things which can ease the burden. I also recommend access to d20pfsrd.com. It is indispensible and can ease the burden of looking these things up. But expect a lot of book flipping and notetaking either in play or prior to play.
Depending one the makeup of your party, encounters can be swingy and the resource attrition model doesn't work well. If the party only has one encounter in a day, they can nova all their best abilities and often easily overcome what would have been a tough fight. On the other hand, if they have slogged through a number battles already, they could be weak enough that a few bad die rolls leads to an unexpected TPK from what should have been an easy fight. Be prepared to fudge liberally behind the screen to adjust encounter difficulty on the fly.
The experience for players in a Pathfinder game can be quite rewarding. It offers an amazing degree of player customization and flexibility. But that comes at a price. DMing Pathfinder requires more effort on the DM's part to manage all this and make sure everything works smoothly in play. Don't be afraid to take a break from DMing if you feel yourself getting burned out.
Just remember to have fun!
I'd like to point out that the linked site is not Paizo ran (d20pfsrd.com).
AFAIK, they are required to put stuff online because of the SRD / OGL.
Regarding the DM'ing bit; it's a teensy bit easier than 3.5, but it is a ton of preparation. Like all 3E based games, it is definitely a system for the players rather than the DM (Paizo has better tools for their DMs, but it's the equivalent of being given a shovel to dig your way to the center of the earth rather than by hand. It still takes forever). The NPC Codex helps, d20pfsrd.com helps, and frankly, the biggest benefit of Pathfinder are the adventures they write. (If you do Rise of the Runelords, the NPC names are unintentionally hilarious, for the record)
But, if you do have the prep time, the games will usually be remembered forever.
Ahnehnois
First Post
They do, however, run their own PRD site which has a large portion of the content. The pfsrd site is more complete, including esoteric rules published outside the core book and even a variety of 3rd party products. It is also very nicely constructed and easy to use. I use it even though I don't really run PF per se.
And, to their credit, I don't think Paizo had to put all their supplements online, just the stuff that references the original OGL material. They chose to.
innerdude
Legend
Regarding fast and dirty balancing encounters on the fly--
One of the things I quickly discovered was that the lack of AC scaling becomes a HUGE deal if you don't like running lots and lots of non-humanoid encounters. I generally prefer people fighting people, with the occasional "monster" thrown in. Once characters hit about level 6, most regular humanoids just don't have the AC to keep up with the Full BAB characters, and even some of the combat-oriented 3/4 BAB characters (cleric, inquisitor).
Basically, after a while, I just stopped justifying why I increased enemy AC ("Oh yeah, his AC is 21, because he's got a +1 Ring of natural Armor, and +3 Studded Leather!"), because otherwise the entire party ends up with massive amounts of magic items granting AC bonuses . . . or you just have to fudge the fact that yes, really, that CR 5 rogue really does have a +6 DEX modifier.
I was exceptionally gratified when I later discovered that Fantasy Craft basically sets up its enemy stat blocks exactly the way I had been GM-ing Pathfinder (set the challenge level as appropriate, and pick the numbers you want, DONE!).
One of the things I quickly discovered was that the lack of AC scaling becomes a HUGE deal if you don't like running lots and lots of non-humanoid encounters. I generally prefer people fighting people, with the occasional "monster" thrown in. Once characters hit about level 6, most regular humanoids just don't have the AC to keep up with the Full BAB characters, and even some of the combat-oriented 3/4 BAB characters (cleric, inquisitor).
Basically, after a while, I just stopped justifying why I increased enemy AC ("Oh yeah, his AC is 21, because he's got a +1 Ring of natural Armor, and +3 Studded Leather!"), because otherwise the entire party ends up with massive amounts of magic items granting AC bonuses . . . or you just have to fudge the fact that yes, really, that CR 5 rogue really does have a +6 DEX modifier.
I was exceptionally gratified when I later discovered that Fantasy Craft basically sets up its enemy stat blocks exactly the way I had been GM-ing Pathfinder (set the challenge level as appropriate, and pick the numbers you want, DONE!).
Dragonblade
Adventurer
Agreed. FantasyCraft and 4e are both excellent models for how to make DM friendly monster stat blocks.
Jester David
Hero
The benefits of Pathfinder are:
1) A flexible game. You can choose to have lots of magic items, or almost none. You can be high level or low. You can level up fast or slow. You can have lots of monstrous opponents or humanoid NPCs.
For my current campaign I started the party with NPC classes and stat arrays and made them play as everyday folk. But I could have just as easily given them 20-point statbuy and let them create level 5 characters. And with the Mythic rules coming, soon there'll been an even greater potential power range.
2) Everything's online/ digital. There's d20pfsrd.com and the official site.
Plus Paizo sells cheap PDFs with simple variants optimized for e-readers like an iPad or Kindle Fire.
3) Lots of adventures. Even if you don't plan on running them, you can mine them for ideas and opponents.
4) Lots of fans. 3.5e/PF is arguably the most popular edition of the game in since 1e. So there are lost of people willing to offer advice, and help. Paizo has a pretty ardent fan-base and active community, so there's lots of people willing to offer advice on their site or here at ENWorld. And Paizo staff-members frequent their message boards.
Which is also how PF does monster creation, pick a CR and there's a chart of where the various values should roughly be. This doesn't really work well with humanoid opponents because classed characters stats have to be "justified".
