D&D 4E What was Paizo thinking? 3.75 the 4E clone?

[Shadewyn]

Edited by Shade to include a repost of a note below that better sums up my thoughts. Original post is at bottom for those who want to see how my mind half formed a thought and spit itout on these boards ... and for some reason folks didnt understand ...

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LESSON 1: Never post in a hurry ... jogging out to a meeting and slapping send = bad grammar and unfinished thoughts.


That said ... : )


Paizo is full of BRILLIANT TALENTED WRITERS ...

I own MANY of there products.

This is not a "hate on Paizo" thread.

Nor is it a "hate on how Paizo approached the 3.5 problems".

10 design teams will find the same problems and all come up with similar solutions. Argueing that one is better than another is like sayign suede is better that leather compared to rawhide etc ...

This is the logic path I am following;

1) RPGs are based on network externalities. How COOL and PERFECT a game is often takes a very distant back seat compared to HOW MANY PLAY that game. If you are a hardcore Paizon fan in a small midwest town where the RPG gaming community all plays 4E, or 1E, or maybe GURPS, then you are not playing. It doesnt matter HOW cool the pictures are or clean the rules are.

2) WotC just fragmented the community by bring in 4E

3) You face a choice ... support the old 3E or new 4E, maybe a hybrid ...

4) You instead choose to build your own NON COMPATIBLE version of D&D. Does not meant the solutions were better or worse that WotC's to the 3.5 issues. Thats why several folks were detailing how the upgrade to Pathfinder is not going to allow or encourage you to still use your heritage 3.5 material. The 3.75 Paizo stuff powercreeps and shifts the gameplay focus in such a way that it is a whole new game (the same way 4E does when it apporached the design problems of 3.5)

5) You now took your target market of 3.5E players and broke that peice into "those who will upgrade to Pathfinder" and "those who keep the core 3.5".

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Thats why I say it is a bonehead move.

Frankly if I didnt care that about Paizo I would have just snickered at the annoucement and gone "nubs". I will miss their writing in 4E.




OLD POST (ORIGINAL INCLUDING HLAF FORMED BRAIN THOGUHT STUFFZ)
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I can only guess that Paizo Publishing has felt slighted by the legal team issues with the OGL and Hasbro. As a result they are publishing their own rules set that addresses issues. It allows them to control their own destiny so to speak. However when you see things such as;

Improve the Game: The 3.5 rules set is excellent, but it has its flaws. Over the past few years, a number of common problems have seemed to crop up again and again, problems that delay the game or cause no end of arguments (grapple and polymorph, for example). I wanted the Pathfinder RPG to clean up these rules, by streamlining in places and adding options in others...

Compatibility: ... I wanted to ensure that any conversion work would be minimal. In most cases, this meant adding to existing rules, instead of subtracting. So, while we changed the way turning undead works, we did not remove turning undead from the game. We added options to the fighter without removing any of them. This design philosophy doesn't always hold true, however...



Looking deeper, tell me if any of these things look familiar from all the 4E announcements ...

• Encourage players to stay in the prime class be making each class deeper themed
  
  Adding more "at will" or "per day" abilities to martial character
  
  Lowering damage output of PCs to extend combats (power attack, sneak attack, etc)
  
  Increased starting hit points to allow low level adventurers to survive their first module
  
  Fighters that specialize in a group of weapons
  
  Simplifying the combat subset rules such as grapple, trip, etc to be easier and more consitent to run
  
  Reducing the number of skills and improving the remaining ones
  
  Introducing reasons to play one class from 1st to 20th with intresting content at each level removing the "need" to prestige class to keep on the power curve
  
  Adding in more significance to the choice of a race beyond 1st level

At some point I gotta wonder how you can say with a stright face that 4E has issues yet address the problems with the similar fixes?

If you have to convert to a "better" version of 3.5 in such a way that your "old" 3.5 material is not written in the same spirit is it really still compatible? Why would I ever take splat book power X from 3.5 as a wizard feat if I can take the new 3.75 Pathfinder free spells per day cheese? Why have old books of P classes, if the old P class abilites are now rolled into the main classes?

Maybe its just me ... but this does a disservice to all those 3.5 fans and Paizo fans. The system Paizo is pushing is not 3.5 its a bad 4E clone, and you will have very little need for the old 3.5 splat books crunch it looks like with the new 3.75 power creep. And the non crunch bit on 3.5 books? Well that was always portable.

 

[Walking Dad]

...

At some point I gotta wonder how you can say with a stright face that 4E has issues yet address the problems with the similar fixes?

If you have to convert to a "better" version of 3.5 in such a way that your "old" 3.5 material is not written in the same spirit is it really still compatible? Why would I ever take splat book power X from 3.5 as a wizard feat if I can take the new 3.75 Pathfinder free spells per day cheese? Why have old books of P classes, if the old P class abilites are now rolled into the main classes?

Maybe its just me ... but this does a disservice to all those 3.5 fans and Paizo fans. The system Paizo is pushing is not 3.5 its a bad 4E clone, and you will have very little need for the old 3.5 splat books crunch it looks like with the new 3.75 power creep. And the non crunch bit on 3.5 books? Well that was always portable.

Did you even read the alpha? Itseemed not very 4e. And more abilities for fighters is not exactly "power creep".

 

[iskurthi]

Evolution Not Revolution

At some point I gotta wonder how you can say with a stright face that 4E has issues yet address the problems with the similar fixes?

They're doing what I suspect a lot of people will be doing and happily taking some of the things they liked and houseruling them into 3.5. They are also giving people a very early alpha look at the rules as well, so if it's too far out of line then there's the chance people will scream about it and it'll get changed.

If it's too much of a revolution against 3.5 - like 4e is currently - and less of an evolution from 3.5, then it will be in the unenviable position of competing against both. I can't imagine they'll make that mistake.

 

[Maltrok]

If it makes the many feet of 3/3.5 books I have as valueless as 4e, then what is the point of switching to PF over 4e? I don't see how spending $400 on PF is any better than $400 on 4e.

 

[delericho]

I disagree, and here's why...

Looking deeper, tell me if any of these things look familiar from all the 4E announcements ...

<snip list>

Okay, so they've identified many of the same flaws in 3.5e as the 4e design team. This is hardly a surprise: almost the same list of issues has been compiled by many DMs over the last eight years. The key question (for both 4e and Pathfinder) is: what are they going to do about them?

For 4e, the answer has been "take the game apart and rebuild from the ground up in a different form." For Pathfinder, it appears to be "work around the edges to create something that is 95% the same, but with the rough edges smoothed out."

Personally, I would have gone with the former approach; I believe some of the key issues are so fundamental to the game that fixing them properly requires a rebuild from base components. That said, I don't care for many of the design choices taken in the development of 4e. Consequently, it looks like Pathfinder will end up being closer to a game I will like.

However... having looked at the Pathfinder document, I get the feeling that it probably does nothing for my 'must have' issues (multiclass spellcasters need fixed, and LA races are too weak), doesn't go far enough in some key areas (removal of Trained/Untrained skills, Favoured Classes, and the like), and introduces yet more power-creep. All-in-all, I suspect this isn't the game for me either - I'll probably stick with 3.5e over this game instead. As with 4e, though, I will keep an open mind until I get a chance to play.

If you have to convert to a "better" version of 3.5 in such a way that your "old" 3.5 material is not written in the same spirit is it really still compatible? Why would I ever take splat book power X from 3.5 as a wizard feat if I can take the new 3.75 Pathfinder free spells per day cheese?

You wouldn't. However, there are thousands of pages of feats, spells and prestige classes out there, only some of which are now rolled back into the Pathfinder core. The rest will still be useable. Sure, no-one will take a feat giving the ability to cast cantrips at will... but that still leaves 99%+ of "Complete Mage" (or whatever) that they might use.

 

[HeinorNY]

I've seen some people saying Paizo's decision to make a 3.5 of the 3.5 to be blessing...

So Wotc going 3.5 is an outrage, but Paizo, a 3rd party publisher, going 3.75 on everyone is a blessing??

What if wotc instead of going 4E went 3.75? Would it be a super blessing or a even worse outrage?

Ah humanity...

 

[thatdarnedbob]

I've seen some people saying Paizo's decision to make a 3.5 of the 3.5 to be blessing...

So Wotc going 3.5 is an outrage, but Paizo, a 3rd party publisher, going 3.75 on everyone is a blessing??

What if wotc instead of going 4E went 3.75? Would it be a super blessing or a even worse outrage?

Ah humanity...

"Pay-zo"

edit: for clarification.

 

[Transit]

If it makes the many feet of 3/3.5 books I have as valueless as 4e, then what is the point of switching to PF over 4e? I don't see how spending $400 on PF is any better than $400 on 4e.

The whole point of Pathfinder is that it will be backwardly compatible. So ALL of your 3/3.5 books will be useable with Pathfinder. That's why Paizo just picked up a couple million new customers with this announcement.

 

[Psion]

I've seen some people saying Paizo's decision to make a 3.5 of the 3.5 to be blessing...

So Wotc going 3.5 is an outrage, but Paizo, a 3rd party publisher, going 3.75 on everyone is a blessing??

Those who want gradual change instead of extreme change preferring a gradual change to an extreme one? What logic is eluding you here?

 

[Charwoman Gene]

a couple million new customers

No. Talking about millions of customers in NON-D&D products is like talking about bajiliions of dollars.