Pathfinder 1E What Direction is Pathfinder Headed In?

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

Pathfinder Beta page 294 Chart 12-7 Suggested monster HD by monster type to CR chart.

If this is playtested well enough, that should work.

Or does it? What's with a Strength 34 6 HD monster? What "typical ability scores" did they take into account for that? Suggestions from the DMG monster creation guidelines? Actual monsters as benchmark?

Well, I suppose the Pathfinder monster manual will be very interesting for these purposes.

 

[Voadam]

Knowing the gaming community? I think we won't have to wait long for people to complain about 4e stat blocks that don't conform to the guidelines in the 4e DMG either.
The types of people who complained about mistakes in 3e stat blocks aren't likely to change because of an edition change.

That happened a while ago. I believe it went as follows, someone noticed the discrepancy between the DMG guidelines and the actual MM monsters and created new DMG quick monster creation guidelines based on the MM patterns. The file is available as a download here.

 

[Kerrick]

My point, if it wasn't clear, is that switching the "role" of a creature is (a) easy for any reasonably informed DM and (b) almost always going to be a CR wash.

Oh, I know. The first part, at least - the second I suspected, but wasn't entirely sure.

Convincing them of that isn't a design problem, it's a PR problem. Resetting the 3e-hard-science-player-empowerment mentality to a 1e-art-form-DM-empowerment mentality is a PR problem that would require WOTC- or Paizo- or Monte-sized clout to solve.

Not necessarily. If they switch to some new system that says "You can do this, and here's how" I think they'll feel more confident changing things that aren't covered. With Project Phoenix, I'm revealing all the mechanics, so DMs/designers know how I put things together and can change them to suit their own tastes. That, I think, is a large part of the problem with 3.x - you had to reverse engineer everything on your own, and most DMs don't have that kind of time (or if they do, they have better things to do with it, like prepping for the next game). Making the system more "user-friendly" would be a large step toward empowering the DM once more.

 

[Wulf Ratbane]

I think using types is ... flawed. Why should all Outsiders be good warriors (BAB = HD) - what if an Outsider focuses on spellcasting? Where did he "learn" or "evolve" that BAB? Why shouldn't a hunting animal not have a high BAB?

I don't recall this being a problem in 1e. Monsters had their own THAC0 table, did they not?

3e really did not go far afield, here. 60% of the monster types still use the 3/4 BAB progression.

I think folks are putting a lot more emphasis on the difference between a 3/4 progression and either of the other two than is warranted. You won't see a +/- 3 point difference until 9-11 HD.

This is working from the assumption that plus or minus 2 points on the d20 is not a gamebreaker by any means, and by the time you're looking at +/- 3 points on the d20, there are enough other factors in play that it won't matter much by that point either.

I will be happy to go over the growth of those numbers again with you MR. But by 9-11 HD, the game has already shifted away from the relevance of a single d20 attack roll*. So you'll be +/- 3 points, and as HD increase, move towards +/- 4 and then +/-5 points at 20HD.

Basically if you wanted to switch all monster types to the 3/4 BAB standard, your game would survive.




* (And onto the relevance of a single d20 saving throw...)

 

[Kerrick]

Double post.

 

[DaveMage]

What's wrong with them? What is the advantage of using types as base?

I'm not asserting that using types is the way to go - I just don't want "roles" as 4E uses them.

 

[Voadam]

If this is playtested well enough, that should work.

Or does it? What's with a Strength 34 6 HD monster? What "typical ability scores" did they take into account for that? Suggestions from the DMG monster creation guidelines? Actual monsters as benchmark?

Well, I suppose the Pathfinder monster manual will be very interesting for these purposes.

Your jumping around to Chart 12-8 now for typical str by size for that 34 str creature and pushing it out to the most extreme applicable for minimum HD.

The average 34 str is for gargantuan sized creatures on chart 12-8 for which they suggest a minimum CR of 6, which will only be 6 HD if it is a dragon or an outsider.

In the MM/srd the lowest CR for a gargantuan creature is 6 for the baleen whale (12 HD in the SRD with str 35) and the Gargantuan monstrous centipede (12 HD in srd with str 23 and poison). Going by Chart 12-7 a CR 6 animal should have 8 HD and a CR 6 vermin should have 10.

So the PF guidelines come pretty close to the MM, exactly so for the minimum suggested CR although off if you follow the formula out to get HD.

It gets a little trickier in analyzing something viable under the guidelines here creating a minimum CR 6 gargantuan outsider or dragon with 6 HD.

There are no gargantuan outsiders in the srd but looking at the dragons the lowest CR gargantuans are the white wyrm (33 HD) at CR 19 and the lowest HD gargantuan dragon is the old red dragon (28 HD) at CR 20.

So going with the pathfinder guidelines for creating gargantuan creatures we see the minimum CR does not match up well when applied to the exemplar dragons while it does for animals and vermin.

 

[thecasualoblivion]

In my last 3.5E campaign, I scrapped the monster system entirely in favor of a hypothetical interpretation of 4E's monster system based on what I read from Worlds and Monsters, using the 3E rules. I used the 4E roles as they were described there, and built encounters around multiple enemies. I built monsters giving them whatever BAB, AC, saves, HP, and attacks I felt were appropriate, with no regard for the actual framework. Goblins throwing fireballs were a common sight. When we went through our Goblin phase, you could count on them in every other fight. Lots of enemies based off of the 3E Warlock class. Warlocks make great artillery. Birds with flyby attack and the mobility feat became HATED sights, as did the invisible teleporting ninja skeletons. I even made Soldier type enemies who marked and did double damage on opportunity attacks.

We all agreed that this was the best combat we ever had in 3.5E D&D. Nothing came close. When 4E actually came out and I saw real 4E monsters, it was eeire how close I was when I did this last 3.5E game.

 

[Voadam]

Please, no "roles." Bleh.

I'm the opposite, I really like 4e monster roles and would like a little chart saying:

"For brute role monsters increase hp by X, lower AC by Y lower attack by Z and increase damage by AA. with perhaps formula or chart to modify it by CR."

"For Soldier role monsters increase AC by X, and modify the other stats as follows:"

 

[NilesB]

Spend an action point to re-roll any saving throw (including on a later round, if desired).

This could create the impression (true or not) that action points are needed to save PCs from grim instant death, strongly discouraging all the other uses for them.