Reply to thread

Message

<blockquote data-quote="John Little" data-source="post: 6708063" data-attributes="member: 6801342">Honestly, Pathfinder sort of... well, it codifies playstyles that before had sort of been bad habits, and it felt like it detracted from the magic of the game world.&nbsp; Stacking up numbers was not only easier in Pathfinder, but it was more necessary.&nbsp; For example, take poor Bardic Knowledge... what before had been a curious and uniquely flavorful way to get insight into secrets that might not otherwise be covered by knowledge checks just became a standard knowledge check... with a numerical boost.&nbsp; I'd seen players just treat Bardic Knowledge as a sort of Knowledge (Whatever) skill before, and near the end of 3.5 some of the books even started treating it the same way, but for Pathfinder to make it the default assumption rubbed me the wrong way.Having said that, I didn't neglect Pathfinder entirely, but I instead treated it as an optional rules patch to 3.5.&nbsp; I'd already taken Unearthed Arcana's advice to improve Half-Elves by giving them a skill point every level to give them a little something more from their human heritage, but Pathfinder's half-elf improvements were nice, and flavorful.&nbsp; So in addition to the extra skill-point every level, I gave Skill Focus as a free bonus feat and allowed for two favored classes instead of one.&nbsp; (And since I still use 3.5's favored class rules instead of Pathfinder's, half-elves become mechanically more useful as a race for people who like to dip into several levels at a time, though I confess I've never had a player interested in that enough to ask me how I handle XP penalties.)So... I *do* use Pathfinder.&nbsp; Sparingly.&nbsp; Like Paprika.&nbsp; It's good in small doses, but get too much in my games and they turn into giant quests to just ramp up the biggest numbers again.Fortunately, 5th edition is here now, and that's even *more* about the story and roleplaying, so I'm making a comfortable transition to that.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="John Little, post: 6708063, member: 6801342"] Honestly, Pathfinder sort of... well, it codifies playstyles that before had sort of been bad habits, and it felt like it detracted from the magic of the game world. Stacking up numbers was not only easier in Pathfinder, but it was more necessary. For example, take poor Bardic Knowledge... what before had been a curious and uniquely flavorful way to get insight into secrets that might not otherwise be covered by knowledge checks just became a standard knowledge check... with a numerical boost. I'd seen players just treat Bardic Knowledge as a sort of Knowledge (Whatever) skill before, and near the end of 3.5 some of the books even started treating it the same way, but for Pathfinder to make it the default assumption rubbed me the wrong way. Having said that, I didn't neglect Pathfinder entirely, but I instead treated it as an optional rules patch to 3.5. I'd already taken Unearthed Arcana's advice to improve Half-Elves by giving them a skill point every level to give them a little something more from their human heritage, but Pathfinder's half-elf improvements were nice, and flavorful. So in addition to the extra skill-point every level, I gave Skill Focus as a free bonus feat and allowed for two favored classes instead of one. (And since I still use 3.5's favored class rules instead of Pathfinder's, half-elves become mechanically more useful as a race for people who like to dip into several levels at a time, though I confess I've never had a player interested in that enough to ask me how I handle XP penalties.) So... I *do* use Pathfinder. Sparingly. Like Paprika. It's good in small doses, but get too much in my games and they turn into giant quests to just ramp up the biggest numbers again. Fortunately, 5th edition is here now, and that's even *more* about the story and roleplaying, so I'm making a comfortable transition to that. [/QUOTE]

Verification