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

[Psion]

Possible, but that does make a lot of people's splat-books (or at least big parts off) quite obsolete, much like 4e... wait for it. wait for it... yeah, you are correct, a lot of people will be very pissed off, because, wasn't the whole point of sticking with Paizo to be able to keep using all their books?

Yes. Well, to keep their adventures compatible, but that's a consequence.

As excited by this move as I am, if it's largely incompatible with other books I want to use, there's really no reason to use it from a consumer standpoint.

At the same time, I do want to see bona fide issues addressed.

That's a tough road to hoe. Whether they come up with a workable compromise remains to be seen.

 

[pawsplay]

Audacious. Potentially interesting.

 

[Shadewyn]

Every market has it's niche products. I worked in industrial valving out of college for a niche supplier 14 years ago. I thought for sure they'd be out of business by now as electronic equivalents built in low cost countries became cheaper for the end buyers.

Taking that as an example though if your company in response to competitors valves which reduced the share of your market decided to ohh say ...

1) design a new valve incompatible with current interfaces for valves on the market
2) stop servicing the portion of the market they still had left and focus on this new micro market

What would you think then?

Its one thing to be forced into a niche and learn to survive there ... its quite another to voluteer fo an even smaller niche.

 

[trancejeremy]

Not to be pedantic, but BRP has seven ability scores (8 in CoC), no character classes, no experience points, no class levels, armor as DR, etc.... Other than the fact that the idea of RP games can be traced to Gygax and Arneson, BRP has nothing in common with OD&D.

Er, no. It's basically a classeless, leveless form of D&D.

You have the same 6 stats, all 3-18. Oooh, they added one more, Size. Big innovation. Sanity OTOH, was something pretty innovative, but even that is just the Wisdom (excuse, me "Power") score multiplied by 5 (and it gets market off just like hit points). And the d100% skill system was also lifted from D&D.

 

[Haffrung Helleyes]

Er, no. It's basically a classeless, leveless form of D&D.

You have the same 6 stats, all 3-18. Oooh, they added one more, Size. Big innovation. Sanity OTOH, was something pretty innovative, but even that is just the Wisdom (excuse, me "Power") score multiplied by 5 (and it gets market off just like hit points). And the d100% skill system was also lifted from D&D.

It's different from D&D in just about every way. Static hit points, skills, armor that absorbs damage, 3 different types of magic instead of two, tight integration of character background with culture ..I don't even know where to begin.

And please explain how it is that the d100% skill system was 'lifted' from D&D , when characters didn't even -have- skills in D&D.

Were you even playing RuneQuest back then?

Ken

 

[Klaus]

But from looking at the Alpha pamphlet I'd say that PF will not be that compatible with straight 3.5.

The changes to the Fighter alone, with his extra bonuses to AB and damage invalidate a lot of prestige classes. I doubt you'll be able to use an adventure for straight 3.5 and use it without changes under PF.

And if PF pulls out the Christmas tree, you'll have to re-invent even more mechanical stuff as well.

I'm not trying to tell that it will be impossible to convert s3.5 to PF, but I seriously doubt that PF will allow you to use all your books.

---
Huldvoll

Jan van Leyden

BUT...

You could make up a party of Pathfinder PCs and run them through a 3.5 adventure, without changing anything, and it'd still work. Sure, a 3.5 NPC Fighter will be slightly weaker than his PF counterpart PC, but you balance that by reducing the XP a tad (say, 10%). But you'd still be able to use your old 3.5 adventure.

 

[Dacileva]

If you think the difference between a 10th level Human Wizard with 7 Feats (D&D 3.5 RAW) and a 10th level Human Wizard with 13 Feats (current Pathfinder rules) isn't severe then we just don't view the game in the same way.

Completely agreed.

Conversion from 3.x -> PF will not be easier than from 3.x -> 4e, and will in fact involve more niggling little decisions about which to use when, where, and how.

Any adventure with a lot of NPCs will either (1) be left as-is with 3.x classes' stats, at which point the NPCs are severely underpowered compared to the PCs; or (2) be restatted completely to PF classes' stats, which is a conversion that has to be done with any game system.

This is all, of course, from only seeing a few classes and combat rules so far.

 

[Keoki]

Backwards compatible?

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.

Except any 3.5 product used with Pathfinder would need a myriad a tiny adjustments for the new racial bonuses, fighter attack and AC bonuses, etc. At a quick glance it looks about as compatible with 3.5 as 3.5 was with 3.0.

 

[The Little Raven]

I think you've missed something about Paizo's new classes. The fighting classes are way more powerful than the ones they replace, to the point where it would rarely be a good idea to take a prestige class instead. I am sure that is intentional.

I'm sure this will also cause issues with encounters, since more powerful characters will more easily trounce monsters of the expected CR, thus requiring monsters and encounters to be altered to maintain the right level of challenge.

Glancing through the alpha document, I immediately think of Monte Cook's comments about 3.5, in which he said that a lot of the changes were good ideas to help the system and flavor, but there were so many small tweaks that his mastery of 3.0 actually caused problems, since he couldn't always remember which rules had been changed and to what degree. I'm seeing that same issue here.

 

[Klaus]

Except any 3.5 product used with Pathfinder would need a myriad a tiny adjustments for the new racial bonuses, fighter attack and AC bonuses, etc. At a quick glance it looks about as compatible with 3.5 as 3.5 was with 3.0.

... which is "compatible enough". So the NPC Fighter will have a few less feats, and the half-orc warlord will have -1 Will than he would in PF. But c'mon, that doesn't make too much of a difference when you run the game. For the *really* important NPCs, you convert them, but for the rank-and-file opponents? Run them as they are and call it a day.