Just curious to hear any feedback on Pathfinder. Has anyone had a chance to play the system with the published (non-play test) version? Or just had a chance to skim the rules?
From what I can see (and what I think most of us know) it's basically "3.75" as it were, but can anyone shed any light onto how the game has improved?
Some things I'd be curious to hear about...
- Stat blocks for monsters and NPCs. They were a mess in 3.5, just a nightmare to read and reference, with information scattered everywhere.
- NPC design. One of the huge bright spots of 4e, the speed and elegance in the NPC design system.
- Grappling and other "optional" attacks. How have they cleaned that up (grapple in particular)?
- Class balanace. What have they done to tone down some of the out of balance classes (ie: druid) or for that matther, did they beef up the other classes? What have they done for class balance?
- Skills? Is the skill system the same? Have they streamlined it?
I shudder at the thought of ever giving it a try. At a glance, I see at lot of the same problems that existed in 3.5, but curious to hear from some of you who may have had first hand experience with Pathfinder.
This is the 4E forum. To avoid possible edition war-like conduct, I suggest you find an appropriate forum for your 3rd party/past edition questions.
I don't see the problem...people post 4E threads on Paizo's boards.
It's not that you cannot post it on these boards, but this is the wrong forum.
I'll put in a request to move it.
Of those who say nothing, few are silent. ~Thomas Neiel
Class balanace. What have they done to tone down some of the out of balance classes (ie: druid) or for that matther, did they beef up the other classes? What have they done for class balance?
- Skills? Is the skill system the same? Have they streamlined it?
Well, I picked up a copy at GenCon - but I've yet to have enough time to dissect it.
Classes:
Looks like each class gets some power, trick, choice at every level. Moreso than in D&D. That seems interesting enough.
Now as for wether they actually balanced the classes in the way people here on these boards prefer? I've no idea. But, like I've said, I've not dissected it.... Then again, I'm also in the distinct minority concerning class balance anyways - because while I'll grant you that maybe the D&D designers could've done a better job in the 1st place, the REAL problem IMO lies with the people playing the game. IE; If you've got balance issues going on at your table, pretty much it's your own fault.
Skills:
The skill system is pretty much identical to what you're used to. There's a few tweaks, but nothing worthy of me typing it out for you.
What I really noticed most was that my two least favorite aspects of 3x are still present:
Multi-classing at will per lv. & tying ones skill points to ones class. Granted, it wasn't really a surprise that both of these would remain as-is, but hey, I could hope, right? Anyways, if I use PF I'll just keep my existing house rules on these subjects....
I've a feeling that at our table we'll just use PF & 3x interchangably - much like we did with 1e & 2e AD&D back in the day.
- Stat blocks for monsters and NPCs. They were a mess in 3.5, just a nightmare to read and reference, with information scattered everywhere.
- NPC design. One of the huge bright spots of 4e, the speed and elegance in the NPC design system.
- Grappling and other "optional" attacks. How have they cleaned that up (grapple in particular)?
- Class balanace. What have they done to tone down some of the out of balance classes (ie: druid) or for that matther, did they beef up the other classes? What have they done for class balance?
- Skills? Is the skill system the same? Have they streamlined it?
- Stat blocks: as a player, only thing I haven't seen and been able to study.
- NPC design: no real change here, sad to say.
- 'Optional Attacks': much easier to figure out. You target a static defence instead of opposed rolls. The attack and defences are directly tied to Str, Dex, and BAB, ways to boost are there.
- Barbarian: different rage power-up. Also now rounds per day, not times per day.
Bard: a bit more useful, easier to maintain music and do other stuff, more uses for perform.
Cleric: more powers associated w/domains, turn undead just deals positive energy damage to undead or heals the party.
Druid: toned-down wild shape, animal companions more powerful.
Fighter: inherient bonuses to armor, weapon groups, and bonuses to some Will saves.
Monk: little change, more bonus feat options, better attacks w/unarmed.
Paladin: Smite still per day, but works more like a mark. Lay-on-hands does extra healing effects.
Ranger: favored terrain added to class, combat style feats now choosable, not specific.
Rogue: special abilities every level you don't get SA, trapfinding and trap sense are better.
Sorcerer: some of the best improvements, bonus feats and lineages, which give free bonus spells known, abilities (like flight), and other cool effects
Wizard: right behind the sorcerer in cool factor. Ever specialist, and the universal, gets free spells in their book at certain levels, and special abilities, as well as the Wiz's item casting instead of familiar. Also, prohib schools now just take up to slots, not uncastable.
Polymorph is significiently better, much easier to use. SoD spells (especially low level ones) deal (massive) damage more often. Feats do get better at high levels, especially fighter-only feats.
- Skills: streamlined, like stealth, perception, and disable device. Fly is also a skill now.
"yeah I'm not picking it up. 3.5 was broken too horribly to be fixed by mere house rules. If it was salvagable WOTC would have don it. I hope PF fails horribly. Pazzio should have stuck to designing worlds rather than a system. Keeping SOD spells in the game just proves how little they know.
Nice reviews gang. Thanks for the feedback.
I like that change to non-class skills (the flat +3 to class skills make sense and is certainly more forgiving to non-class skills) and I like the fact that there is a flat # to go against in those optional attacks (like grapple) instead of opposed rolls.
Still, don't think I'd pay 50+ dollars for a hardbound version of a collection of 3.5 house rules. Not to say it would not be enjoyable, I just have a feeling (for me anyway) it'd be like the_hated indicated..."different enough to be fun for a little while" but in the end, it's still 3.5. If you like that, more power to ya. I was just curious as to what some of the major changes/improvments were.
PF has an SRD avaliable that has everything there ready to read.
I don't see the problem...people post 4E threads on Paizo's boards.
That may be commensurate with their standards, but I don't feel that it's in keeping with those of this forum. Seconding the report.
It's hard to imagone that pathfinder handled the underlying complexity of creature and NPC creation.
:-(
Played a mid-level game session with some friends. It felt like 3.5 with house rules and the broken aspects were still there to a degree. The other players were still breaking the game, although they did have to find some new ways to do it. The basic problem of cherry picking your MC stuff is still there.
just checked out that SRD link. i like what they did with the sorcerer, he actually has cool happening for him but sadly I feel the benefits he gets from bloodlines are too much and the class feature is broken. the one i reaad in depth was the aberrant bloodline and that thing reads like the warshaper prestige class. a class feature shouldn't ever be as good or better than a whole prestige class
I bought the PDF. It seems a better version of 3.5 and seems to be selling well. The book looks very nice (Ok PDF) and I would love to see a real copy of the book.They basically nerfed the spellcasters to some degree via their spells and powered up the non spellcasters. The prestige classes are alot more powerful than the 3.5 DMG ones as well. I woiuld have to see the bestiary to see if the monsters have been tweaked.
If you hate 3.5 I doubt you will like Pathfinder. If you like 3.5 you will probably like it and its probably better than 3.5. Recommended if you're a 3.5 holdout or if you play both 4th ed and 3.5 or if 4th ed doesn't quite float your boat.
Really just feels like an extensive set of house rules. Doesn't really fix any of the balance problems inherent in 3.5. Personally I feel like I could've done a better job myself. I got the free pdfs, and there are some good ideas in there, but I wouldn't pay for the physical version, as I'd likely just take bits and pieces and add it to 3.5.
The prestige classes are alot more powerful than the 3.5 DMG ones as well.
this is one of the reasons i never liked third party material for 3.5. Yeah wizards produced some pretty broken stuff but everything in my experience from a 3rd party was usually broken then broken some more. whenever i looked at the stuff that 3rd party publishers it was like they were just tryign to let you have all the stuff that the official books wouldn't let you have. i liken the feelign to that of a kid whose affections re being fought over by his parent, you know, mom said no but dad says yeah because he knows by doing so he scores points with you against mom.
The sorcerer is awesome. I like the skills changes. The rest I haven't fully gotten into yet, because I won't be using the PC oriented side of the rules till after my current 3.x campaign is finished. Once it is, my next campaign will use PF rules and be set on their world of Golarion.
At the moment I'm more looking at the changes w/ respect to monsters and some items, since that impacts me most on current projects I'm working on.
I like Pathfinder, I really do. The rules adjustments are an improvement on straight 3.5, and there aren't the profound, seemingly random, flavor changes which were largely responsible for my not going with 4e.
A shame this will get moved most likely. There really should be an edition neutral D&D general forum rather than trying to make it 4e exclusive.
I took a look at it, since early on I was not very enthusiastic about the switch to 4e (I have since changed my opinion about that, but that's another topic entirely).
I was not very impressed by it. It claims to fix key problems with 3e while still maintaining compatibility. I don't think that's even possible. IMO, fixing the underlying issues requires a total revamp, like 4e did. If I was going to stick with 3e, I'd go with Arcana Evolved or Iron Heroes (which I thought was ****ing awesome) or True20 (or more likely some combination of the three) over this.
I was also surprised about the artwork. A lot of other people spoke very highly of it, but I really didn't care for it at all, but I guess that's just a matter of personal taste.
I like Pathfinder, I really do. The rules adjustments are an improvement on straight 3.5, and there aren't the profound, seemingly random, flavor changes which were largely responsible for my not going with 4e.A shame this will get moved most likely. There really should be an edition neutral D&D general forum rather than trying to make it 4e exclusive.
Not trying to start an edition war or anything, but I'm honestly curious as to what flavor changes you thought were completely random in 4e. Flavor is the easiest thing to change, which is why I haven't worried too much about it in any edition. Now rule changes, that's another matter entirely. As for the improvements, I agree that some improvements were made, but I don't think there were enough to really fix the underlying balance issues with spellcasters.
And I agree that there should be a neutral D&D general forum, but more than likely at least 50% (probably more) of the threads would devolve into edition wars, and then it would get closed down. I'm surprised this thread has been as civil as it has.
The prestige classes are alot more powerful than the 3.5 DMG ones as well.
this is one of the reasons i never liked third party material for 3.5. Yeah wizards produced some pretty broken stuff but everything in my experience from a 3rd party was usually broken then broken some more. whenever i looked at the stuff that 3rd party publishers it was like they were just tryign to let you have all the stuff that the official books wouldn't let you have. i liken the feelign to that of a kid whose affections re being fought over by his parent, you know, mom said no but dad says yeah because he knows by doing so he scores points with you against mom.
May not be a bad thing as alot of the powered up PrCs sucked in 3.5. Arcane Archer, Dragon Disciple for example now have spellcasting progression in PF. I'm probably going to pick up a copy of the book just ot add it to the RPG collection. If I can get my gaming group up to 4-5 players probably play 4th ed again, otherwise might play Pathfinder if we're going to run a fantasy RPG with a smaller group. Alot of the fun from 4th ed seems to be in the interactions and combos between the various powers each PC has. For me 4th ed wasn't as much fun with 2-3 players as what it was when we had 5 and Pathfinder/Star Wars Saga seems to work better than 4th with a smaller group.
4th ed has Darksun next year though and the cover looks great and if done well it will drag me into 4th ed full time I suspect. Depends on how thye handle it and how many stupid races they try and shoehorn into Darksun like Devas (which I like BTW but not in Darksun).
May not be a bad thing as alot of the powered up PrCs sucked in 3.5. Arcane Archer, Dragon Disciple for example now have spellcasting progression in PF.
that's pretty cool. anyway liek i said the sorcerer was the only thing i looked at. i really can't believe that wizards released the sorcerer they did for 3.5. the whoel time i played the edition i was looking for some errata because i was thinking there was no way they hadn't fixed this. they tried with information across several splat books but none of it matters if you have a DM that insists on only core.
Paizo did do a good job of improving the sorcerer however i think they overcompensated and made it too powerful. that's just my opinion, maybe someone with more experience concerning the classes in that editon would have a different take on this.
I've got the PDF and it looks pretty good to me. A lot of the book is rehashed stuff though, since the book serves as PHB and DMG, and a lot of stuff is really the same as their 3.5 counterparts (most spells, as an example).
It looks like (and I haven't studied it, but I have read through it), the main problems they were trying to address were giving classes something at every level - in 3.x, there was absolutely no reason to take the 20th level of rogue, as an extreme example. They also simplified combat maneuvers: grapple, sunder, trip, etc... to use a single mechanic and changed most of the save or die spells to deal damage, and radically altered the clerics turning ability. They didn't try for the level of "balance" the 4E aspires to, but the martial classes did get a pretty good boost.
Other than that, it's pretty much 3.5 with some minor tweaks and fluff. If you liked 3rd, then it's worth taking a look at. If 3rd wasn't your cup of tea, then Pathfinder won't sweeten it up much for you.
They nerfed some of the more prominent issues in 3.5E such as save or die, polymorphs, and the spiked chain; mostly eliminated dead levels; consolidated the skill list (hey look, Perception and Stealth instead of Spot/Listen/Hide/Move Silently); and brought up the power level of every core class.
On the other hand, in the process of simplifying the rules for grappling/disarm/etc., they made it basically impossible at high levels because Combat Maneuver Bonus does not scale at nearly the same pace as Combat Maneuver Defense; and there's still quite a lot of save or suck.
Overall, Pathfinder's an incremental improvement over 3.5E, but if you like 4E stick with 4E.
Having played the playtest version, I must say it is still too close to 3.5. We were all getting tired of D&D (specifically, the D20 mechanic) as a whole anyway, and Pathfinder was just a tweaked 3.5... some like to call it 3.75 and I can't say I don't agree or see where they are coming from.
They tried to fix some of the issues that existed in 3.5, and they did... to a degree.... kinda...
It was different enough to be fun for a while, but it was still too much like 3.5 for us to stay satisfied very long... but like I said, we don't care for D20 that much anymore...
Pathfinder was designed to fix some of the problems in 3.5. While it didn't actually fix the problems (it simply made them less noticeable) it does what they made it to do. It functions as 3.5, but kind of not, that new content is coming out for. Good for the 3.5 fans, good for those who like 3.5.
If you don't like 3.5, you aren't going to like Pathfinder, because they really are very similar.
It's a very pretty book. Paizo do design and adventures very well, but for me (played basic D&D, AD&D, 2e) 3e was the edition of D&D that turned me cold. 4e brought me back into the fold, and a house ruled 3e variant does nothing for me.
The adventure paths are well done though.
I agree with the general feeling around here.
Pathfinder is a improvement on 3.5 design - if I ever had to play that edition again, I would strongly vote for Pathfinder. However, if you're satisfied with 4ed changes, it will not have as much appeal to you. It is aimed directly at those who didn't like the new D&D - they're revamping 3.X for those who wish to see further support to that game system.
I would reccomend it to anyone playing 3.X, if one is willing to spend the money.
I would just like to thank everyone for making this a nice, enjoyable, friendly "edition neutral" thread! We should be able to discuss the merritts of the different versions of the game like that in a civilized and respectful manner. Kudos to all!
If you still enjoy 3.5 then Pathfinder is for you. If you got sick of 3.5 or found a system better to your liking great, stick with it. Pathfinder is for those of us who want to continue to use 3.5 and if you like 3.x then this is for you.
I have a few fairly picky players in my D&D group and they are in love with Pathfinder. I am playing a level 13 PF- Fighter (Homebrew Minotaur) he is a damn blast to play let me tell you!
If you still enjoy 3.5 then Pathfinder is for you. If you got sick of 3.5 or found a system better to your liking great, stick with it. Pathfinder is for those of us who want to continue to use 3.5 and if you like 3.x then this is for you.
I have a few fairly picky players in my D&D group and they are in love with Pathfinder. I am playing a level 13 PF- Fighter (Homebrew Minotaur) he is a damn blast to play let me tell you!
Well I'd say that's good to hear. For any of you that posted you are enjoying some facet of it, I'm happy for ya. I could never go back tp 3.5/Pathfinder (at least not running, maybe as a player) but I give Piazo credit for doing what they did. Hey, if Wizards and D&D has a little competition from Piazo, we all stand to benifit
Trip etc.: Wrecked. Higher number to beat, two feats to do what Improved _____ used to do.
Skills: some are combined, some are not.
features: full casters and Paladins rejoice, others not so much.
feats: pretty much all the interesting ones are from PHBII, several standbys are weaker/unrecognizable.
I heard that PathFinder sold out of its first run on pre-orders. While it is very likely that their initial run was far smaller than 4e's (or for that matter, any release of D&D after 1e), this is good news. We're seeing a niche entertainment item sell very well. Given that the economy is still trying to limp into recovery, I think that says good things for the RPG market as a whole. And even more so for Paizo.
I'll probably grab a PDF of PathFinder when I get back to the states (my internet out here has been pretty unreliable as of late). Overall, I'm happy for Paizo. Always good to see a gaming company succeed.
From what I could tell of the system, they acknowledged all the problems with 3.5, and then did not fix any.
Basically I would sum it up as "If your group's fighter could compete with your wizard, and you still play 3.5, go ahead and grab it you will probably enjoy it. If your groups fighter was left in the tavern while the party adventured, don't expect a change."
The core big problems with 3.5 still exist, it was sort of like saying "Hey this band sucks" when it comes on the radio, so your buddy turns it down. You still hear it, but its not as obvious.
To give you perspective from where I am coming from I am the guy who has become less enamored with 4e as time goes on. (Still the best fantasy RPG out there, but leaps and bounds from where it could be)
I heard that PathFinder sold out of its first run on pre-orders. While it is very likely that their initial run was far smaller than 4e's (or for that matter, any release of D&D after 1e), this is good news. We're seeing a niche entertainment item sell very well. Given that the economy is still trying to limp into recovery, I think that says good things for the RPG market as a whole. And even more so for Paizo.
I'll probably grab a PDF of PathFinder when I get back to the states (my internet out here has been pretty unreliable as of late). Overall, I'm happy for Paizo. Always good to see a gaming company succeed.
That's certainly good news for them, though it's hard to judge what that really means. I have heard Pathfinder touted since before 4e came out as the soon to come savior of 3.5 that was going to fix all the problems while keeping all the good things. I was kind of expecting pretty much anyone who is devoted to 3.5 to pick up at least the Pathfinder PHB when it came out, based on all the hype, and then discover whether it lived up to their expectations after the fact.
I hope for their sake it suits their needs better than 4e did. My biggest problem with 4e is that my minor involvement with the edition wars focused my mind more on analysing balance discrepencies and such and made me more disassitisfied with Hero system. Darn 4e spoiling me.
After digging through it a bit, the most appropriate thing for me to say is: It's not for me.
But hey, it wasn't "for" me in the first place, since I enjoy the changes 4th Edition wrought.
Still, looking through the book left me... disappointed. Perhaps it was talked up too much by some folks. No matter the cause, it left me with an empty feeling. Some of the changes I enjoy. Many I find just... not for me (the Rage changes, the Bard's killy capstone thing, the Fighter left getting numerical bonuses, rather than interesting options).
Overall, I feel like, if I'm going to go back to 3.5, I found WotC's own "changes" (in the "experimental" supplements of the last few years of its run) to be more satisfying than the Pathfinder changes. For me, as one who (along with my group) enjoyed those later "experimental" options as steps in the right direction, it's dissapointing to see a game that seems to ignore all of the progress that was made, and step backwards, to the core 3.5 material, before building their house rules. (I realize that they didn't really have the option to include the more experimental stuff, since it wasn't SRD. I understand why they couldn't do it, but that doesn't make me like what they wound up with.)
So, again, it's just not for me. (I would at least consider buying a WotC "3.75" book, if it included a mix of the things I liked: some core classes, some psionics, the Warlock, and the Tome of Battle options.)
I heard that PathFinder sold out of its first run on pre-orders. While it is very likely that their initial run was far smaller than 4e's (or for that matter, any release of D&D after 1e), this is good news. We're seeing a niche entertainment item sell very well. Given that the economy is still trying to limp into recovery, I think that says good things for the RPG market as a whole. And even more so for Paizo.
I'll probably grab a PDF of PathFinder when I get back to the states (my internet out here has been pretty unreliable as of late). Overall, I'm happy for Paizo. Always good to see a gaming company succeed.
Where are you stationed? Stay safe out there!
Pathfinder is what 3.5 should have been right from the start!
But it is still 3.5 edition with most of it's quirks and all of it's charms!
If you like 3.5 better than 4e, then I advice strongly that you play Pathfinder - it is that much better while still preserving the 3.5 feeling (i.e. this is a game of high fantasy and not an adventuring game build around tabletop battles) and the book is done very very well - nice, clean, with a lot of atmosphere.
If you like 4e much better than 3.5, Pathfinder is not for you.
Changes:
- All classes get a little something extra that makes them more interesting
- Skill system has been overhauled and stremalined
- Feats are much better now and scale nicely with level
- Spells have been changed and offenders simplified, Spelllists streamlined
- Conducting Combat Maneuvers (Trip, Grapple...) has been streamlined and is easier to use
Would Fantasy Craft be a better bet if you where looking for a re-invisioning of 3.5?
Is it balanced at all? Thats my question. It seems that fighter does not get real options just bonuses to armour and basic attack which still means they are going to be boring to play. I'll take a look at it and if someone runs it a night i can I'll do a one shot to try it out. But I expect to be disapointed when I do.
As others have said, Pathfinder rehashes a lot of the mistakes of previous editions of D&D, while providing band-aids over the most obvious errors. Among them...
The game is still designed to balance everything absent magic, and then adds magic on top. "We can't have the fighter easily knocking people prone at will! That would be overpowered!" But then the wizard can have a spell to do that. Power Attack was balanced in this manner. They didn't want a certain kind of fighter or barbarian to completely overshadow the damage contribution of other types of combatants (Yay!) while ignoring the fact that it was the only thing that allowed those classes to compete with the full casters.
People didn't like spending xp to make magic items. So they removed that. But they left crafting as costing half what purchasing does, only now without any balancing cost.
Combat maneuvers are intentionally made practically impossible without completely devoting all your resources to it, and even then it's less likely than just going for damage, even though they also removed much of the mechanical benefit of using them. It's the illusion of an option--you're still better off just swinging for damage pretty much all the time, unless you were going to miss on all but a 20 anyway, or the fight is so trivial it doesn't really matter what you do.
They did a nice job of re-doing the polymorph line of spells, essentially breaking them up into separate spells, and offering discrete benefits, rather than "you get whatever's in the monster manual". They had to leave in Polymorph and Shapechange for compatibility reasons, but they're a lot better than before.
They recognized that fighters falling victim to every fear effect out there was contrary to the spirit of the fighter. So they gave him an insignificant bonus that won't actually do anything at all to help him defend against fear, but might make the player feel a little bit better about failing the saving throw.
Players still have iterative attacks that slow down combat. There's a new feat to try to patch this, but it actually only upgrades the damage on standard action attacks, leaving no incentive to give up your full attack action. And monks and dual wielders have little incentive to use it at all. So you still wind up with guys who should be the most maneuverable at the table, standing around making 8 attacks in a round, and taking a half hour to finish a turn.
Spells are still the most powerful options on the table, now even less constrained by the doctrine of limited resources than before, thanks to the even cheaper crafting rules. Yes, some spells now get some saving throws, yes insta kills largely do huge honking amounts of damage rather than killing outright. But there are game winners at every level, raising your save DC is still easy to do, and there are still spells (Hi Wind Wall!) that negate entire character classes.
Yes, everybody got new abilities to play with, but a rising tide raises all boats, and if you give both the weak class and the strong class new abilities, you haven't really affected the relative balance between the classes at all.
It's a beautiful book though. It gave me that old time feel I got picking up a rulebook and got me thinking "Here are the words to create worlds!". I hope Wizards steals their layout & design guy for 4e. 4th Edition is a much better game, but the Pathfinder rulebook is much more evocative than the 4e ones.
As others have said, Pathfinder rehashes a lot of the mistakes of previous editions of D&D, while providing band-aids over the most obvious errors. Among them...
The game is still designed to balance everything absent magic, and then adds magic on top. "We can't have the fighter easily knocking people prone at will! That would be overpowered!" But then the wizard can have a spell to do that. Power Attack was balanced in this manner. They didn't want a certain kind of fighter or barbarian to completely overshadow the damage contribution of other types of combatants (Yay!) while ignoring the fact that it was the only thing that allowed those classes to compete with the full casters.
People didn't like spending xp to make magic items. So they removed that. But they left crafting as costing half what purchasing does, only now without any balancing cost.
Combat maneuvers are intentionally made practically impossible without completely devoting all your resources to it, and even then it's less likely than just going for damage, even though they also removed much of the mechanical benefit of using them. It's the illusion of an option--you're still better off just swinging for damage pretty much all the time, unless you were going to miss on all but a 20 anyway, or the fight is so trivial it doesn't really matter what you do.
They did a nice job of re-doing the polymorph line of spells, essentially breaking them up into separate spells, and offering discrete benefits, rather than "you get whatever's in the monster manual". They had to leave in Polymorph and Shapechange for compatibility reasons, but they're a lot better than before.
They recognized that fighters falling victim to every fear effect out there was contrary to the spirit of the fighter. So they gave him an insignificant bonus that won't actually do anything at all to help him defend against fear, but might make the player feel a little bit better about failing the saving throw.
Players still have iterative attacks that slow down combat. There's a new feat to try to patch this, but it actually only upgrades the damage on standard action attacks, leaving no incentive to give up your full attack action. And monks and dual wielders have little incentive to use it at all. So you still wind up with guys who should be the most maneuverable at the table, standing around making 8 attacks in a round, and taking a half hour to finish a turn.
Spells are still the most powerful options on the table, now even less constrained by the doctrine of limited resources than before, thanks to the even cheaper crafting rules. Yes, some spells now get some saving throws, yes insta kills largely do huge honking amounts of damage rather than killing outright. But there are game winners at every level, raising your save DC is still easy to do, and there are still spells (Hi Wind Wall!) that negate entire character classes.
Yes, everybody got new abilities to play with, but a rising tide raises all boats, and if you give both the weak class and the strong class new abilities, you haven't really affected the relative balance between the classes at all.
It's a beautiful book though. It gave me that old time feel I got picking up a rulebook and got me thinking "Here are the words to create worlds!". I hope Wizards steals their layout & design guy for 4e. 4th Edition is a much better game, but the Pathfinder rulebook is much more evocative than the 4e ones.
Wow I now have no desire to even pick up the book.
4th Edition is a much better game, but the Pathfinder rulebook is much more evocative than the 4e ones.
This.
Pathfinder: not a terrible system. However, I have difficulty buying fully into a system that was created as a thinly-veiled temper tantrum when PAIZO felt they had been jilted. Not to say that PAIZO makes displeasing products, but...
Take care, friends.
Salamandyr2000, that is what I was trying to say but done in a much more thorough manner. Good job.
Interesting read. Can't say I'm all that hyped about PF though myself, as a campaign setting or a ruleset, and reading over this stuff is mostly confirming an opinion I already held from what I saw of it. While I prefer 3.5e over 4e, I just can't bring myself to get all that behind PF for whatever reason.
Interesting read. Can't say I'm all that hyped about PF though myself, as a campaign setting or a ruleset, and reading over this stuff is mostly confirming an opinion I already held from what I saw of it. While I prefer 3.5e over 4e, I just can't bring myself to get all that behind PF for whatever reason.
Wow, that's an interesting opinion. I wonder how many 3.5 players share that opinion. I know I've heard comments from one source that 3.5 players would not pay $50.00 for a re-hash of what basically amounts to a collection of house rules (not my words mind you, comments I saw elsewhere, though they may be true).
I personally would like to see Pathfinder continue to have success, again, can only bold well for the hobby as a hole.
Interesting read. Can't say I'm all that hyped about PF though myself, as a campaign setting or a ruleset, and reading over this stuff is mostly confirming an opinion I already held from what I saw of it. While I prefer 3.5e over 4e, I just can't bring myself to get all that behind PF for whatever reason.
Wow, that's an interesting opinion. I wonder how many 3.5 players share that opinion.
You might be surprised. Ever had training in "change management" (as it applies to people - unfortunately often a business euphemism for sacking people)?
A change, even one that can be lauded for various reasons, is still hard work. Many people need a push, even if they think they might prefer the difference (a "push" might be a big marketing campaign, peers also changing, no choice).
Wow, that's an interesting opinion. I wonder how many 3.5 players share that opinion. I know I've heard comments from one source that 3.5 players would not pay $50.00 for a re-hash of what basically amounts to a collection of house rules (not my words mind you, comments I saw elsewhere, though they may be true).
Something interesting i keep reading is a lot of pathfinder fans were pissed off that the final version failed to carry through with many of the changes that were proposed during the Beta version, effectively causing a mini edition war of sorts between people who liked the changes (beta fans) and those who wanted pathfinder to more closely stick to 3.5 (final version fans). It seems Paizo upset a percentage of their potential costomers by reverting back from a lot of the "advances" they had proposed making.
That said, on many of the non-paizo boards ive been to, 3.5 fans who actually want more balanced game seem more enthused about Trailblazer and Fantasy Craft far more than Pathfinder. The makers of Trailblazer, for example, have done a good deal to explain the actual math of the game and why it was broken all to hell before while Paizo actually came out and explicitly stated on their boards that they were not interested in anyone showing them why the math of 3.5 didnt work.
I personally would like to see Pathfinder continue to have success, again, can only bold well for the hobby as a hole.
Funny typo of the day. ;)
Heh, I don't have anything against them as a company, I just don't particularly like the setting they've come up with (way too dark, darker I thought than even the 4e Realms, which was far too dark for my liking), and the rules don't compare that well to SW: Saga Edition, which would be my benchmark for a good evolution of 3.x edition. Having said that, I don't find 3.5e particularly broken in the context of my own group, so its still more than useable to me, with the upside of not having to worry about assigning semi-arbitrary defenses to critters from various Monster Manuals. If I'm going to bother with that kind of effort, it had better be for something at least as good as Saga, which I'm in the process of converting anyway (though magic is a pain in the arse, and there's been a lot of debate as to whether we should treat them like force powers or use the more traditional spells from a mechanical point of view, with me tending towards the force power approach more and more).
Where are you stationed? Stay safe out there!
Well, my unit is from Ft. Hood, TX. Right now I'm riding out the tail end of my Iraq deployment. About 2 months after we get back I muster out of the service.
Interesting read. Can't say I'm all that hyped about PF though myself, as a campaign setting or a ruleset, and reading over this stuff is mostly confirming an opinion I already held from what I saw of it. While I prefer 3.5e over 4e, I just can't bring myself to get all that behind PF for whatever reason.
Wow, that's an interesting opinion. I wonder how many 3.5 players share that opinion. I know I've heard comments from one source that 3.5 players would not pay $50.00 for a re-hash of what basically amounts to a collection of house rules (not my words mind you, comments I saw elsewhere, though they may be true).I personally would like to see Pathfinder continue to have success, again, can only bold well for the hobby as a hole.
I'm a 3.5 player/DM and I could care less about PF. There are some good things in PF, like the Paladin and Bloodlines, but overall I find it lacking. It's too much like 3.5 for my tastes to warrent a purchase. Many of the changes that they did do nothing for me snce I've already implimented them long before PF was announced (condencing skills, reducing/removiong SoD, SoS spells, fixing the gap between casters and non-casters, removing the Christmas Tree effect ect).
And with the release of Trailblazer I can use the fomulas there to re-firm and correct any of my houserules I made to make a fun, balanced game but still keeping the spirit of 3.5 alive in my games. So to me, PF is a set of houserules that doesn't cut it for my group.
I personally would like to see Pathfinder continue to have success, again, can only bold well for the hobby as a hole.Funny typo of the day. ;)
DOH!!!! LOL!
I have the new game on pdf. They are selling it on the paizo site for about $10, so it's not a bad price. I like the revisions they've made for the most part. As one poster mentioned some of it seems more powerful than 3.5, but I think part of their goal was to beef up the core classes, so that it could actually be worthwhile to keep things simple and play a corse class from level 1-20. I've never run a 3E game where PCs didn't end up with a mishmash of classes and prestige classes in their builds by the time they got to higher levels, so this might be a refreshing change. However, in essence (like others have said), it's basically 3.5 with some tweaks. The game will likely play as fairly balanced as long as you stick to the core book. If you start letting 3.5 spells and prestige classes trickle in from all the old splat books, you'll probably run into the same problems you might have experienced with your 3.5 games, especially at higher levels of play.
I personally would like to see Pathfinder continue to have success, again, can only bold well for the hobby as a hole.Funny typo of the day. ;)
DOH!!!! LOL!
DnD is deffinately a money pit for me, so i found the typo sort of appropriate. lol
They recognized that fighters falling victim to every fear effect out there was contrary to the spirit of the fighter. So they gave him an insignificant bonus that won't actually do anything at all to help him defend against fear, but might make the player feel a little bit better about failing the saving throw.
And to rub salt in, other classes get flat out immunity to fear.
Wow, that's an interesting opinion. I wonder how many 3.5 players share that opinion. I know I've heard comments from one source that 3.5 players would not pay $50.00 for a re-hash of what basically amounts to a collection of house rules (not my words mind you, comments I saw elsewhere, though they may be true).
When you already have a wall full of 3.X material, yet another alternate PHB isn't exactly thrilling. And while it may be backwards compatible, in the sense you can plug a 3.X statblock into PF and pretty much have it work, there's enough small changes, some of them pretty fiddly and addressing no known issue (bardic music being rounds per day), that any existing system mastery is rendered largely moot. Because while you may still know the base mechanics, your understanding of all the lil things that plug into them, and how their synergize, is now suspect. In some ways, that can make for mroe of a learning curve than just learning a new game.
I'm going to be honest with you. If you want a seriously balanced and elegant 3.5 game that takes the 3.5 system and really tweeks it and almost eliminates the MC bargin hunting you're going to LOVE "A Game of Thrones D20". Hands down THE BEST use of the 3.5 rules set and adds just a the right touch of balance and characterization that IMHO its the absolute BEST in an alternate 3.5 system other than DnD 3.5 of course. Problem is, the game has been out of print for some years now and you're going to have a hard time finding that sucker.
When I read many of he comments here I find it strange how anyone could ever play a system as bad as 3.5!
Paizo stated from the beginning that it was their goal to expand 3.5 but stay true to it's core, which is certainly the right way to go, as someone who really wants something different can find that easily in 4e.
And it still stands that many rather play a roleplaying game with some clunky mechanics than a tabletop skirmish game with a bit roleplaying tossed in.
When I read many of he comments here I find it strange how anyone could ever play a system as bad as 3.5!
Paizo stated from the beginning that it was their goal to expand 3.5 but stay true to it's core, which is certainly the right way to go, as someone who really wants something different can find that easily in 4e.
And it still stands that many rather play a roleplaying game with some clunky mechanics than a tabletop skirmish game with a bit roleplaying tossed in.
Or maybe they want some actual honest improvements to the 3.X game they love, and not some half-baked houserules being passed off as the messiah to 3.X gaming.
And it still stands that 4E is just as much an RPG as any other edition of D&D.
Well, my unit is from Ft. Hood, TX. Right now I'm riding out the tail end of my Iraq deployment. About 2 months after we get back I muster out of the service.
Good luck.Come home safe.
What he said! I was in the Air Force myself, did a very short duty in the UAE during Desert Storm.
Thanks for your service.
When I read many of he comments here I find it strange how anyone could ever play a system as bad as 3.5!
Paizo stated from the beginning that it was their goal to expand 3.5 but stay true to it's core, which is certainly the right way to go, as someone who really wants something different can find that easily in 4e.
And it still stands that many rather play a roleplaying game with some clunky mechanics than a tabletop skirmish game with a bit roleplaying tossed in.
I don't know how people play 3.5 without massive amounts of house rules. The game becomes a game of casters doing everything fighter is pack mule at any level passed level 6. 4E is a real rpg game that gives us balance. Pathfinder seems not to have fixed the balance errors so to me it is not worth touching. Then again I've never been a fan of pazzio's crunch. The old dragon magazines were not worth getting when pazzio ran them. Lets release a class that is just druid with slight tweaks and call it something else!! Rolls eyes.
I don't know how people play 3.5 without massive amounts of house rules. The game becomes a game of casters doing everything fighter is pack mule at any level passed level 6. 4E is a real rpg game that gives us balance. Pathfinder seems not to have fixed the balance errors so to me it is not worth touching. Then again I've never been a fan of pazzio's crunch. The old dragon magazines were not worth getting when pazzio ran them. Lets release a class that is just druid with slight tweaks and call it something else!! Rolls eyes.
I've noticed, the people who most enjoy 3.5 tend to be people who don't so much play with house rules, as people who don't spend a lot time worrying about System Mastery, or playing in a truly efficient fashion. Instead they play a lot like the characters in the Order of the Stick, the fighter fights, the cleric buffs the fighter, the thief fires her bow and gets an occasional sneak attack, the wizard throws fireballs and very occasionally a save or die that the monster just happens to save against or is immune to, and the bard cracks jokes and keeps the mood light.
They don't really pay too much attention to the rules, and the DM sort of wings it with some combination of 3rd edition, what he remembers from 1st and 2nd edition, and whatever pops into his head at the moment. They have a great time, and generally win by the skin of their teeth, with just the right mix of daring, luck, and good old deus ex DMachina.
Pathfinder is made for these guys. It's designed to give them exactly the stuff they want...more neat abilities for their characters, the illusion of options (I can disarm every round if I want to!). They intentionally didn't design the game to be challenge to optimizers; there's a line in the FAQ where the game says it's balanced around stats "normal characters have" (I've probably mis phrased it, but that's the jist). Their "beta testing" consisted entirely of having people play the game and report if they had a problem, great marketing but hardly in-depth analysis. They made clear they weren't interested in theorycraft, or rigorous testing at all. Truth is, you need both.
The thing I love about 4th is the more I learn the system, the better it gets. Contrariwise, at a certain level of mastery, 3.5 breaks down, and by extension, so does Pathfinder. I don't really want a game that breaks if I learn how to play it.
I don't know how people play 3.5 without massive amounts of house rules. The game becomes a game of casters doing everything fighter is pack mule at any level passed level 6. 4E is a real rpg game that gives us balance. Pathfinder seems not to have fixed the balance errors so to me it is not worth touching. Then again I've never been a fan of pazzio's crunch. The old dragon magazines were not worth getting when pazzio ran them. Lets release a class that is just druid with slight tweaks and call it something else!! Rolls eyes.I've noticed, the people who most enjoy 3.5 tend to be people who don't so much play with house rules, as people who don't spend a lot time worrying about System Mastery, or playing in a truly efficient fashion. Instead they play a lot like the characters in the Order of the Stick, the fighter fights, the cleric buffs the fighter, the thief fires her bow and gets an occasional sneak attack, the wizard throws fireballs and very occasionally a save or die that the monster just happens to save against or is immune to, and the bard cracks jokes and keeps the mood light.
They don't really pay too much attention to the rules, and the DM sort of wings it with some combination of 3rd edition, what he remembers from 1st and 2nd edition, and whatever pops into his head at the moment. They have a great time, and generally win by the skin of their teeth, with just the right mix of daring, luck, and good old deus ex DMachina.
Pathfinder is made for these guys. It's designed to give them exactly the stuff they want...more neat abilities for their characters, the illusion of options (I can disarm every round if I want to!). They intentionally didn't design the game to be challenge to optimizers; there's a line in the FAQ where the game says it's balanced around stats "normal characters have" (I've probably mis phrased it, but that's the jist). Their "beta testing" consisted entirely of having people play the game and report if they had a problem, great marketing but hardly in-depth analysis. They made clear they weren't interested in theorycraft, or rigorous testing at all. Truth is, you need both.
The thing I love about 4th is the more I learn the system, the better it gets. Contrariwise, at a certain level of mastery, 3.5 breaks down, and by extension, so does Pathfinder. I don't really want a game that breaks if I learn how to play it.
This is perfect. We had a group where we winged the entire thing not worrying about rules for 3.5 and it was great. Then I joined a different group when I moved that was all about following the rules exactly as written, and it was a nightmare...
I've always been the fan of "Rules are guildlines". Rules are systems are there to aid in the over all balance of play that the developers felt would ultimately cause balance in your games. If this is not true for you and your gaming group change the rules I say. Some people run 4e w/o healing surges. Some run the new PF 3.5 game WITH healing surges. Whatever works for you and your group I say go with is. If you found 3.5 fun and exciting, more so than 4e, with all its flaws I say go for it. Have fun. No need for edition wars anymore.
I've always been the fan of "Rules are guildlines". Rules are systems are there to aid in the over all balance of play that the developers felt would ultimately cause balance in your games. If this is not true for you and your gaming group change the rules I say. Some people run 4e w/o healing surges. Some run the new PF 3.5 game WITH healing surges. Whatever works for you and your group I say go with is. If you found 3.5 fun and exciting, more so than 4e, with all its flaws I say go for it. Have fun. No need for edition wars anymore.
Don't think there's any edition war going on in this thread. Just been general discussion over what Pathfinder did with it's release.
I've always been the fan of "Rules are guildlines". Rules are systems are there to aid in the over all balance of play that the developers felt would ultimately cause balance in your games. If this is not true for you and your gaming group change the rules I say. Some people run 4e w/o healing surges. Some run the new PF 3.5 game WITH healing surges. Whatever works for you and your group I say go with is. If you found 3.5 fun and exciting, more so than 4e, with all its flaws I say go for it. Have fun. No need for edition wars anymore.
Don't think there's any edition war going on in this thread. Just been general discussion over what Pathfinder did with it's release.
Yeah if people like 3.5, or pathfinder no skin off my nose. I'm disapointed that path finder isn't better than it is. I was expecting more from it. I was expecting fighters to work something like the tome of battle mechanics not just flat bonuses to basic attack, and weapon groups. To me that seems rather boring.
Its interesting how wizards has perhaps shot themselves in the foot(a grazing blow at best though) with the OGL and how they have treated pazio.
They've essentially created their own competition. You would have thought they would have known they would eventually be making a new edition and that their would be "edition hold-outs". Allowing 3rd party companies to compete with you (in perpetuity) using what is essentially your IP doesn't strike me as the best move ever.
My view of the actual game would be that I'm not interested (although the art looks pretty rockin'), but if it keeps people in RPGs then it's good for the game in general.
Its interesting how wizards has perhaps shot themselves in the foot(a grazing blow at best though) with the OGL and how they have treated pazio.
They've essentially created their own competition. You would have thought they would have known they would eventually be making a new edition and that their would be "edition hold-outs". Allowing 3rd party companies to compete with you (in perpetuity) using what is essentially your IP doesn't strike me as the best move ever.
Actually, it's more of a mixed blessing. Yes, they did effectively make their own competition. Yes, they did effectively create a situation where their game would exist in perpetuity potentially creating a situation where all future renditions of the game would have to continue to compete with 3rd Edition in all of it's incarnations. However, they also revitalized a stagnating industry, created a number of new RPG companies where there were so few before, and push open gaming into the limelight.
It really wasn't as much a shot in the foot as you might think. It really did replenish the industry.
Read and played PF. True, there are few major changes to the game. Character's do get more options, especially the non-full casters. Paladin Mercies, Barbarian rages, Rogue abilities, all this does add to the power level of non-mages. But fighters still 'I attack', rogues still 'I attack', monks still 'I run around the world and attack'.
Now the fix implemented for trips, disarms, sunders, etc., is good. Does make life easier. But, as with a Jedi Wizard in SWSE, eventually your character just cannot make the rolls you need in order to initiate a combat maneuver.
Skills have been condensed, sure, but I had done that a while ago. Though the skill Fly is well done.
Feats did get scaled up; better feats are for higher levels. But they aren't that special.
Honestly, as others have said, PF is just a collection of house rules that work together. It's not bad; heck, I believe it's better than the 3.5 core book hands-down. My 3rd ed. games are all converting to Paizo. But it doesn't stand up against SWSE as 'the next evolution' of 3rd ed. SW is just so much better in most areas: character options, combat, feats, actions, FP, and magic system. Then again, SW's magic doesn't have to be nearly as varied as a D&D universe. The whole high fantasy vs. space opera.
Now, in my group, the heaviest supporters of 3rd, as well as PF, are the heaviest house-rulers in the group. Examples: spell-point system, recharge magic, inheritent magic bonuses (+x to attack), condition systems, fighter-feat-fix, 'all non-mages get ToB stuff!', gestalt (our version), combat maneuver powers, etc. Next to nothing they wanted fixed was implemented in pathfinder. Most of the stuff they like is in 4th. But because of the equating of power-level in 4th they won't play. One has said it was because the fighter can kill a monster as fast/faster than a wizard.
Now I've GM'ed a plethora of games: Call of Cthulhu, Mutants & Masterminds, World of Darkness, d20 Modern, SWSE, Game of Thrones, Wheel of Time, Firefly, even Munchkin. My favorites have always been WotC's; easiest to understand (usually), easiest to run. Now 3rd ed. is #4 on my top three, but I still will play, ofc. Paizo does fix three of the biggest four issues I have with the system: Spells being so much better than anything else (SoD dumb-down, polymorph, etc.), non-caster limitations (now we have options), feats being the same at low or high levels. But they still haven't addressed 'I attack says the fighter'.
Well, my unit is from Ft. Hood, TX. Right now I'm riding out the tail end of my Iraq deployment. About 2 months after we get back I muster out of the service.
Good luck.Come home safe.
What he said! I was in the Air Force myself, did a very short duty in the UAE during Desert Storm.Thanks for your service.
Thanks, guys, I appreciate it. I don't really think of myself as anything more than a guy with a job, the whole idea of being a war vet overwhelms me sometimes. "Whoah, when did that happen? ... Oh, yeah, that deployment thing, heh."
I'm not sure you can fix the "I attack" thing for most stuff, as I tend to view it more as a matter of description and attitude, more than some mechanical issue. And by addressing it, you run the very real risk of bogging down the flow and pace of combat with 'interesting things to do' because you can't think of a better or more interesting way to say "I attack". If its coming down to that, I'm not sure its the fault of a ruleset so much as a lacksadaisical view of combat.
My own view is that if you're players aren't telling you that they're going to make this attack with the goal of accomplishing x result, whether that's to achieve flanking, to distract, to position them, or whatever, then its pretty much reduced to a grind of HP/health levels/whatever, which I think is bound to be boring after a while, regardless of the system. Its up to the players and DM to make things more interesting as far as I'm concerned, and rulesets doing it tend to be a bad thing in the long run due to inevitable overcomplication and time-sinking.
I agree that the best designed rules in the world will not help you if you have unimaginative players or DM. However both the combat manuvers of 3.5 TOB or the fighter powers of 4E are preferable to system where meele combat is largely reduced to making basic attacks each round.
Pathfinder is in a lot ways no diffrent than a comminity made mod to an existing video game.
Pathfinder is a improvement on 3.5 design - if I ever had to play that edition again, I would strongly vote for Pathfinder. However, if you're satisfied with 4ed changes, it will not have as much appeal to you. It is aimed directly at those who didn't like the new D&D - they're revamping 3.X for those who wish to see further support to that game system.
I think you can like both 4e and Pathfinder RPG. There's no choice to make in the matter. I think that Pathfinder RPG isn't so much directed at people "who dislike 4e" than people who still like 3.5, regardless of their opinion about 4e.
Pathfinder is a improvement on 3.5 design - if I ever had to play that edition again, I would strongly vote for Pathfinder. However, if you're satisfied with 4ed changes, it will not have as much appeal to you. It is aimed directly at those who didn't like the new D&D - they're revamping 3.X for those who wish to see further support to that game system.
I think you can like both 4e and Pathfinder RPG. There's no choice to make in the matter. I think that Pathfinder RPG isn't so much directed at people "who dislike 4e" than people who still like 3.5, regardless of their opinion about 4e.
While I agree that liking both games is both entirely possible and something to be encouraged, I've gotten the very strong perception that the vast majority of Pathfinder enthusiasts fall into the anti-4e crowd. Whether or not that's the angle Paizo is trying to take advantage of, the unfortunate truth is that, in all likelihood, that angle would be pretty successful for their hardcore audience.
While I agree that liking both games is both entirely possible and something to be encouraged, I've gotten the very strong perception that the vast majority of Pathfinder enthusiasts fall into the anti-4e crowd. Whether or not that's the angle Paizo is trying to take advantage of, the unfortunate truth is that, in all likelihood, that angle would be pretty successful for their hardcore audience.
Actually, big fan of both, because I refuse to limit myself to a single game. I love console shooters, which is why I play Halo, Gears, CoD, Splinter Cell, Mass Effect, Fallout. Pathfinder is a good change to 3rd; not 3.75, more like 3.5.1, an extra package Windows has to upload. But it doesn't change the fact 4th has things 3rd doesn't, nor vice-versa.
Like other posters, I too like a variety of games. I am very satisified with 4E and still have a large collection of 3.5 books that I play with when I get the urge. Although I haven't looked at in depth yet, from what I have heard I won't be buying pathfinder in the near future. It sounds like an improvement over 3.5 (and probably a well done product), but it is not enough of an improvement to make me spend my money.
If I had an unlimited gaming budget, I would enjoy having it on my shelf. However, their are just too many other games that I want to justify spending part of my limited gaming budget on yet another version of D&D.
Actually, big fan of both, because I refuse to limit myself to a single game. I love console shooters, which is why I play Halo, Gears, CoD, Splinter Cell, Mass Effect, Fallout. Pathfinder is a good change to 3rd; not 3.75, more like 3.5.1, an extra package Windows has to upload. But it doesn't change the fact 4th has things 3rd doesn't, nor vice-versa.
There's a pretty significant difference between picking up a new console shooter and a) purchasing a new tabletop game, b) getting a group of people together who are interested in playing it, and c) organizing a regular meeting to play that game.
The reality is that most tabletop gamers don't play multiple games regularly. And the more pressing point is that 4th Edition is the "natural" progression of the hobby, in the sense that it would be normal to move from 3.5 to 4e as the latter is the current officially supported product. It follows, then, that those who prefer Pathfinder didn't just like 3.5 (heck, I liked 3.5 but you don't see me playing it now), they also disliked 4e enough to not make the switch.
It's great to imagine the tabletop community as a bunch of enlightened people who branch out and diversify their gaming experience as much as they can, but it's simply not the case. People have a limited amount of time and money they're willing to invest in the hobby, and as long as they enjoy the game they're playing there is little incentive to shake things up with more games.
I've noticed, the people who most enjoy 3.5 tend to be people who don't so much play with house rules, as people who don't spend a lot time worrying about System Mastery, or playing in a truly efficient fashion. Instead they play a lot like the characters in the Order of the Stick, the fighter fights, the cleric buffs the fighter, the thief fires her bow and gets an occasional sneak attack, the wizard throws fireballs and very occasionally a save or die that the monster just happens to save against or is immune to, and the bard cracks jokes and keeps the mood light....
...The thing I love about 4th is the more I learn the system, the better it gets. Contrariwise, at a certain level of mastery, 3.5 breaks down, and by extension, so does Pathfinder. I don't really want a game that breaks if I learn how to play it.
There have been very few posts I read that I want to applaude more AND rebuke more at the same time!
The first paragraphs sum up my feelings exactly, but the last one is simply wrong to me!
"Mastery" of a game does NOT necessarily come through knowing it's rules in and out BUT to know it's spirit! At no point of my over 22 years of DMing (A)D&D has my game ever broke down and I can cite most spells text and rules by heart and my group that is with me during all these years nearly unchanged (7 people) contains two real power gamers and two real "noobs" (and no, the noobs are not the women)!
Everyone who has ever witnessed E. Gary Gygax playing D&D knows what I mean!
Where would D&D now if early on someone had said "oooh, this Wizard is too strong, maybe we should scrap him in order to balance things out"?
Pathfinder plays homage to a great game and 4e catapults it into the modern world - both good things I say, but saying games can only be good if they are balanced is not.
So it stands, those who love 3.5 will not go wrong with Pathfinder, those who love 4e don't need to look back.
Where would D&D now if early on someone had said "oooh, this Wizard is too strong, maybe we should scrap him in order to balance things out"?
Of course you'd use the word "scrap" for this example. It makes balance sound so much more evil when you make the claim "But if they thought about balance before, then there wouldn't even BE a Wizard!"
But what about if they had actually tried to make Wizards balanced with other characters from the get go? We'd have a legacy of balanced choices. We'd have a legacy where the Caster classes aren't immediatly assumed to be, nor are they thought of as "supposed to be", better than the Martial classes. We'd have a legacy where people thought before they threw random garbage into the system, where people would think and actually look at the implications before they impliment a "cool" concept.
Bottom line? If they had actually tried to balance the Casters before 4E, then I believe that D&D as a game would have progressed much faster, and with much higher quality. It took two decades for balance to be fully integrated into the concept of the game*. Think how much faster it would have been if they had had that as a core concept from the start.
Pathfinder plays homage to a great game and 4e catapults it into the modern world - both good things I say, but saying games can only be good if they are balanced is not.
But shouldn't "your character will be useful regardless of class choice" be a core concept? Shouldn't designers at least try to make the classes balanced? In my opinion, it shows laziness on the part of the designers of the game if they choose to ignore balance. It shows that they don't care enough to make all options viable. It shows they don't care that all aspects of the game work as they are said to. I can at least admire that "rebalance 3.5" was a design goal for PF, although in my opinion they failed to achieve it.
*I'm not going to say that there wasn;t even the notion of balance in older editions. In some of the very old ones, classes had differing EXP charts to try to make it harder for the stronger classes to overpower every other character, and most very storng classes started out relativly weak. It didn't really work, though, since it didn't address the problem one bit, but at least they tried, I guess.
3E though? No, I'm not even going to pretend they tried to balance anything.
A lot of it depends greatly on how you define balance. If your concept of fantasy includes the idea that magic tends to trump muscle and steel, then its balanced just fine. If it doesn't, then there's lots of issues there. I'd say a lot of it had to do with attitude and approach. If you approach it from the idea of system mastery and getting the biggest bang for your buck, then yeah, it gets pretty broken. If its just another system to help tell a particular genre of story, it can work just fine as is without getting broken. For some, that's an indication of poor game design, for others, its an indication of poor gaming habits. I don't think its really either though, and hold to the view that certain rules systems don't mesh well with the preferred styles and expectations of certain play styles. Its not right or wrong, just different, and depends greatly on the criteria of judgement and evaluation.
Prior to 3E the classes were fairly balanced whether that was the design goal or not. In those editions generally the most effective party of four was magic user, thief, fighter, and cleric. Clerics could be the back up melee warrior as well as being the support caster, but the fighter was the undisputed champ at combat in the system, hands down. Likewise the wizard could use spells to supplement the thief, but he could not replace him. Wizards while being capable of extremly powerful things had much fewer spells per day than in 3E and had many vunerablities that did not go away as he gained levels (it was very easy to ruin the casting of spells and there was no mechanic like the concentration skill).
Prior to 3E the classes were fairly balanced whether that was the design goal or not. In those editions generally the most effective party of four was magic user, thief, fighter, and cleric. Clerics could be the back up melee warrior as well as being the support caster, but the fighter was the undisputed champ at combat in the system, hands down. Likewise the wizard could use spells to supplement the thief, but he could not replace him. Wizards while being capable of extremly powerful things had much fewer spells per day than in 3E and had many vunerablities that did not go away as he gained levels (it was very easy to ruin the casting of spells and there was no mechanic like the concentration skill).
Funny, I thought they were a lot worse about trumping other classes in earlier editions than they were in 3e. It was one of the reasons I gave up on D&D fairly early on, as I hated the rules, despite loving a lot of the settings. Whenever I think of AD&D, its always with thoughts of human male wizards dominating everything, while fearful members of other classes and races grovelled and whimpered at their feet, begging for scraps of their awesomeness. 3e to me is the one that got rid of the latent white man's burden from the game and which levelled the playing field quite a bit... not perfect, but showing signs of improvement.
Wizards kind of ruled the highest levels but unless you started past level one, you will have a damn hard time getting there. Also my recollection was that 1 hp of damage automatically ruined a spell. There was nothing the wizard could do other than hope the fighter would protect them long enough to cast their spells. In addition the melee classes need less xp to gain levels, so they advanced faster. It was by no means perfect, but it was pretty functional. Unlike in 3e where a party of 3 druids is more effective than a party of 6 fighters.
Didn't make much difference, beyond encouraging the casters to maintain more stand-off range. Its not like the really powerful effects were often short-range affairs. And its not like they had AoO's without readied actions as I recall... and I'm not entirely sure even then RAW.
Regardless though, it largely depends on how the game is played more than anything inherently flawed in the ruleset, from both the DM and the player perspective, no matter what ruleset you're talking about. If the ruleset doesn't allow for effective blocking, then you either need a new ruleset or houserule, or you need to abandon the tactic. Its not that the rules are broken per se, just that they don't really cover a situation you're tossing at it well, which is kind of what the DM is there for when it comes down to it. 3e, 4e, 2e, GURPS, Storyteller... all of them have their strengths and weaknesses, depending on type of campaign being run and what you want them to do.
I have moved this thread at VCL request. 
First, I need to say that I have not played Pathfinder; second, I have no read every response in this thread.
I was at the local gaming store today and flipped through the pages of Pathfinder for the first time. I have to say, it looks impressive. Without having played the system I can't attest to whether or not the tweaks they made to 3.5 to make it in Pathfinder work as intended, but from just briefly browsing through the book it looks good. I like the artwork; I like the changes made to how skills work, and I like how they made favored class actually matter without making it too much of a straight jacket. There are a few changes I would have personally done differently, and there are a few things that I personally would have included that Paizo did not, but overall it seems to be a very well put together product. However, in particular, there are several things which I think would have made the product better, and they include the following: including a brief overview of what changed from 3.5 to 3.P; using fractional save progressions instead of rounding them off so as to not end up with multiclass characters who end up with one ridiculously high save and one ridiculously low save (this was an optional rule in Unearthed Arcana), and including at least one class or race which was not in the core 3.5 set so as to further highlight that Pathfinder is a living product and an evolution rather than showing me so much of what I've already seen and making me feel like I'd be relearning things I should already know. I'm glad they kept the old option; I just wish they would have given me some sort of sneak peek into what direction they want the evolution to go by showing me something a little newer.
It looks nice, but I'm not sure if I'll pick it up or not. I've found myself buying less and less D&D related material in favor of the products produced by the folks over at SJ Games. I might consider it though; at the very least I feel more inclined to pick up Pathfinder than the majority of the new 4E books. I do admit that I was impressed, but I find it difficult to turn back to the d20 system after being exposed to other systems. I might pick up Pathfinder just to play around with it while waiting for some of the GURPS suppliments that are on my wishlist to be released.
My group has switched to Pathfinder, and we've really liked it. It is very similar to 3.5, but I don't see that as a bad thing. Among the highlights:
Channeling energy (or, as our group calls it, "going BWOM") is a real benefit, and it frees up spell slots so our clerics can do stuff other than heal.
Consolidated skills are much easier to handle.
Cantrips and orisons at will - really handy.
CMB/CMD - more streamlined than original grapple attacks. We fought some chokers last week, and it barely went any slower.
If you liked 3.5, I strongly recommend it.
A friend of mine and a friend of his really like it. I'm completely neutral cause i have not made or tried a pathfinder game. HOWEVER, the customizability of the classes makes it interesting. I would like to see a character creator thing for this since i, personally, dont own any of the books.
"A friend of mine and a friend of his really like it. I'm completely neutral cause i have not made or tried a pathfinder game. HOWEVER, the customizability of the classes makes it interesting. I would like to see a character creator thing for this since i, personally, dont own any of the books."
I use a character builder called HEROLAB, it is awesome. it is compatible with many system as as well as 4e. But I still use the Insiders character builder for 4e. As for 3.5 and Pathfinder, Herolab is perfect.
They nerfed some of the more prominent issues in 3.5E such as save or die, polymorphs, and the spiked chain; mostly eliminated dead levels; consolidated the skill list (hey look, Perception and Stealth instead of Spot/Listen/Hide/Move Silently); and brought up the power level of every core class.
On the other hand, in the process of simplifying the rules for grappling/disarm/etc., they made it basically impossible at high levels because Combat Maneuver Bonus does not scale at nearly the same pace as Combat Maneuver Defense; and there's still quite a lot of save or suck.
Overall, Pathfinder's an incremental improvement over 3.5E, but if you like 4E stick with 4E.
Ya, I find it funny, they nerfed the spiked chain but they added a weapon called the Elven Curve Blade which deals 1d10 (for medium creatures) has an 18-20x2 critical mutiplier and is a 2 handed weapon that can be finessed, o and if you're an Elf proficient with martial weapons this is a martial weapon for you.
So really all you have to do is play an Elf Fighter with Power Attack, which now if you take a -1 on attack you get a +2 on damage and on top of that if you're using a weapon that you add str and a half on you deal the extra damage and a half, so a -1 would equal a +3, a -2 would equal a +6 and so on. So anyway my level 2 Elf Fighter with an 18 strength deals 1d10+9 and at 4th level when I take Weapon Specialization I will be dealing 1d10+14 and as you advance in levels it just gets even more powerful. At 20th level (assuming my strength is only 20 and I'm only taking levels in Fighter) I'll be dealing 1d10+29 with my critical threat/multiplier being 15-20x3 which I automatically confirm. On top of all that my Elven Curve Blade cannot be taken from me with disarm attempts and gets a +2 against Sunder attempts.
I flipped through the Pathfinder book and noticed there were some changes to the PHB1 classes. If I wanted to play a class from a different book (i.e. the knight from phb2,) what changes do I need to make to put it on par with the Pathfinder classes?
I don't like the whole rounds per day on the bardic music or the barbarian's Rage ability...but really that is a easy fix.
As for converting characters it is very easy to do...except if you have a class or PRC out of the core books...but then again you can use them as stated but your power level might suffer slightly...others it would be good. Though I have been thinking it wqould be a great marketing tool for WotC to either use the Pathfinder OGL to convert those old 3.5 books to Pathfinder or come to a liscensing deal with Pazio to allow them to do so at a cost.