Hi there. I was a long term 3/3.5 DM who has spent the last 5 years or so playing other things (older versions of D&D, CoC, WFRP, DCCRPG etc). It's time for a change and I was thinking of PF. What I am wondering (having been browsing the SRD) is if there is anything outside of the core book (or in it I guess) I need to watch out for?
For example, I like the look of summoners but I've heard various people saying the class doesn't quite work. Things of that nature. I'm not interested in odd feat/class power gaming stuff that will almost certainly not make it to my table. More general stuff that would make the game less fun if we used it.
Any thoughts?
Pathfinder is much like 3.x, with all its good and bad points.
Because there's been another pass at the rules, core Pathfinder is a little more balanced than 3.x. But note I said a little, because little has changed. A very few spells (Grease, Mirror Image) have actually gotten more powerful when they didn't need to be.
Low-level wizards are much better (in a good way). They get a few spell-like abilities per day based on specialization (or lack thereof), so they can go longer before they have to pull out the crossbow. Conjurers are amazing, you get an acid dart several times per day. Necromancers not so much, you can just touch people to make them scared, and not even deal any damage.
Turn Undead also makes sense. You no longer need to use the chart. It's called Channel Energy now, and can be used for AoE healing too, saving the cleric a move action, as you can tell a wounded PC to come to you. On top of that, there's a feat to make using Channel a move action, so you call for the healing huddle and spend your standard action casting Doom or something that you actually want to do.
Every class gets scaling abilities, which means prestige classes lose value (since you have to give up those abilities). The abilities are thematic but not necessarily powerful.
For instance, fighters get weapon training and armor training (which give bonuses to hit and damage that stack with specialization bonuses, as well as reducing ACP and increasing max Dex, a big deal at high levels) as well as bravery, which gives tiny bonuses to saving throws against fear.
Wizards gain special abilities based on specialization (or lack of specialization, as the case may be), such as the evoker's Energy Wall at 8th-level, and sorcerers have "themes" that include warlock-flavored themes (there's fey sorcerers, infernal sorcerers, etc). I'm converting a Pathfinder adventure to 4e right now and generally convert sorcerers into warlocks, although at least one, a fire sorcerer, will remain a fire sorcerer.
Clerics are probably the only class that don't gain benefits like this, and even then Channel Energy scales with cleric levels, and you'll need to give that up if you take a prestige class. Clerics got a
slight nerf (no longer gain heavy armor proficiency for free) but to me that's not significant.
Although Pathfinder has put out fewer products than 3e and 4e (given the amount of time that it has run) it's already running into bloat. There's a bunch of classes that don't add much to the game except confusion, unbalance or both. (I put summoners and gunslingers in that category.) There's no official Character Builder, but everything is in the SRD, so players have access to everything, chipping away at DM authority. If you're not a fan of bad classes, you'll be saying "no" a lot.
