Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 Wuzzard Mar 30, 2015 20:19:02	Warning: this is very much anecdotal. Not intending to generalize beyond that, even if I seem to.   I was at Emeral City Comicon this last weekend and was able to play in some D&D 5E Adventure League intro adventures and one longer adventure.  There was also Pathfinder intro adventures I could participate in (first time with Pathfinder for me, though old hat at 3.5, so not totally new.)  As far as I could tell one relatively local gaming store was hosting the D&D sessions and a different store was hosting the pathfinder sessions.  Both had a room that could handle 8 or so tables.    I played in almost all the intro adventures and by doing so was able to experience multiple DM's take running a game session. Now, I generally perfer ongoing homebrew campaign style games to community drop-in/drop-out one-off style, but had a fun time playing regardless. Since I mostly DM, it was able to play through many different 1st level character classes.   I found that each DM had some styles in common but where also unique in many ways too.  One played pure theatre of the mind still, one played with some minis but no grid, another had a grid and minis used for actual combat, etc. The Pathfinder games, however, were all strictly minis and grid based, had a very 4E feel (at least how I played 4E).    All DM's were cognizant that many players at the table were either new to D&D/Pathfinder or new to RPGs. The D&D 5E DM's all seemed to take the rulings-not-rules philosophy to heart, and there was a lot of give-and-take to the strictness of interpretation with a focus on letting the newbies just have fun. This was even mostly true for the longer D&D session (not intro) that was packed with experienced players.  There were lots of "sure you can do that, roll a d20 and add xxx", "sure, I'll allow that", "yes, and you can even have advantage on that roll", "that was great, have inspiration", etc.   The Pathfinder DM's, however, even though there were aware they were running intro adventures for mostly newbies, had a very less forgiving approach to play. The game was operated against strict rules interpretations, lots of counting of squares every turn for every player, lots of "no you can't do that, you have to this" responses, lots of rules jargon without explanations directed at the newbies.  This happened regardless of being in combat or out.    All in all, the Pathfinder game play felt just like 4E game play to me, except, of course, for the actual mechanics.  Again, this is based on how my group played 4E, though I suspect was probably the most common play style. (Of course, you could certainly have played it differently and that's great too.)  In fact, if I'd had power cards instead of just a character sheet, I would have thought I was playing 4E.    So just wondering why so much past bitterness between Pathfinder and 4E players. It seems to me that if you liked one, you'd like the other.  Just nerd rage over specific mechanics?    Of course, all you fine people are absolutely free and able to enjoy them both.
#2 Auticus Mar 31, 2015 5:26:07	4e and 3.5/PF are similar in that they are both heavily codified rulesets that place a large emphasis on tactical movement during combat and have a lot of rules to cover most situations.   Thats about the extent of where their similarities end.  They are two completely different games and two completely different experiences.
#3 Wuzzard Mar 31, 2015 7:48:45	That may be true for some or most, but aside from noting that some of the mechanics may differ, my point was that to me a major aspect of the experience was entirely the same.  Kind of like playing solitaire and trying to make a distinction based on the size and or color of the cards. The differences being not all that different to actual play experience.  And the *implied* point was that 5E was distinctly different to me than either in that aspect, and that maybe that was a good thing.
#4 Ralif_Redhammer Mar 31, 2015 8:26:15	If I had to draw a parallel between PF and 4e, I’d say it’s that both have a huge amount of rules and options. 4e was at the time of its closure, and Pathfinder is currently, in full-on Rules Bloat. They both started off very differently, but ended up in the same place eventually, albeit taking different paths to get there.
#5 Wuzzard Mar 31, 2015 11:25:02	It was true that the Pathfinder games had a few "oh, that rule changed recently, its now xxx", implying a culture of errata.
#6 Wuzzard Mar 31, 2015 11:28:04	I guess I wasn't trying to claim that there are rule similarities between Pathfinder and 4E. There is some, but thats because both come from the same roots.  I was pointing out they seem to me to be played in such a similar way that now seems somewhat foreign as compared to what might be the predominant 5e style.
#7 feartheminotaur Mar 31, 2015 11:57:21	None of the below is a value judgement on how you play or what you play, but my opinion based on what I've seen in years of playing DnD:   4E and 3.x/PF share the common characteristic of using the die roll to adjucate everything based on a rigorously codified set of rules and options - that is, both use rules to cover every possible situation and have every possible situation resolved with a roll.  This is, of course, may not be the intent of the designers, but is the way I've exprienced both systems played.    So, why the big 'schism'?  I think it's mostly a matter who you play with - examining , or admitting similarities, is less important than "standing up" for your edition.   So, althought both systems have, for example, tons of feats, the players of one system will claim their ton is "options" the other system's ton is "over-saturation", or that the multitudes of bonuses are "number porn" for their edition, but "reflect game situations" for my edition.   I   Sure, there are differences that get harped on: "healing surges suck", "no at-wills mean my wizard is reduced to plinking with a cross-bow", and so on.  But at the core, both are, IME, played nearly idenitically, and both sides are more interested in telling you their version rules, that other version drools...
#8 Wuzzard Mar 31, 2015 13:25:45	I don't remember playing 3.5 with as much hard core focus on the rules being sacrosanct. Yes, a bit more than 2e and 1e, like a gradual shift that didn't really become predominant until 4e. At least that happened to me. So I'm suprised to find that Pathfinder went this route too.   I'm not going to dig into this further or it will start to sound like I'm harping on 4e, and that's not intended.
#9 Mechatarrasque Mar 31, 2015 14:14:35	I would say that 3.5/4e/Pathfinder have similar underlying philosophies and actually play fairly similarly, as they are all built around high custimization/system mastery/optimization.  If you look at more recent fantasy rpg's (like 5e/the Strange/13th Age/Sean K. Reynolds stuff on Kickstarter), a lot of developers are moving away from the customization/system mastery/optimization treadmills (and feat chains), since it is stressful to produce products for it and stressful to run as a DM (with the exception of 4e for DMing).  Even Pafthfinder is moving away from it with the Core Only Pathfinder Society option and the Unchained book.
#10 Wuzzard Mar 31, 2015 16:21:46	I'm sure there are lots of ways to compare and contrast the game systems themselves, but I was just pointing out the differences in the way games were being played and run by the DM's. The pathfinder games were being played in a style that reminded me of the predominant 4e playstyle (that I infer from my own experience and my interpretation of the stated playstyles of other 4e players taken from years of posts on these forums) and yet the 5e games were starkly different.    I'm sure that pathfinder & 4e could be played using the same playstyle as the 5e games I experienced, and so it is either a matter of choice of the specific DM's or the expressed intent of the community play organizations for each product.  It might just be the 5e games were influenced by the rulings-not-rules philosophy epoused by the 5e product, which seemd to change the focus and/or role of the DM.   You can also take away that I prefered the way the 5e games were being run.. but I was having fun regardless of which style.
#11 Ralif_Redhammer Apr 01, 2015 7:40:24	Very happy at the move away from this, I have to say. Though, I found 4e to be incredibly stressful to DM for. Maybe it was just my group, but combat was a real drag.   Mechatarrasque wrote: