Argue against Pathfinder

[Lord.Sorasen]

So, I just decided to finally drop my senseless distaste for any 3rd party D&D material and check out pathfinder.

I think I might be in love. I currently see honestly no reason to play D&D 3.5 in its original form.

But I feel I could be wrong about my feelings? So basically I want to ask the forum: Where does the original 3.5 beat Pathfinder? Should I switch over or would you recommend I do not that?

[Doc Roc]

Pathfinder's neat because it's supported. That's the killer feature, the one that matters. The rest, any fixes, any changes... just kibble. New material, a place to talk about it, books you can buy. Done.

[TOZ]

Do you know 3.5 rules by heart? Have you fixed things that break your game already? Stick with 3.5.

Do you want something you can run right out of the box? Don't want to dig through bookshelves of splats to make a character? Need modules you can run as is? Go with Pathfinder.

Or, do like I do and use Pathfinder as a splat for your 3.5 game.

[The Rabbler]

So, I just decided to finally drop my senseless distaste for any 3rd party D&D material and check out pathfinder.

I think I might be in love. I currently see honestly no reason to play D&D 3.5 in its original form.

But I feel I could be wrong about my feelings? So basically I want to ask the forum: Where does the original 3.5 beat Pathfinder? Should I switch over or would you recommend I do not that?

paladins go up a tier. that's about it. Pathfinder gives some extra goodies to the people who really need them, but it doesn't go nearly far enough to really balance all of the classes. The skill changes are nice, though.

Aside from that, I play 3.5 mainly because pathfinder doesn't have nearly as many options for characters (it does if you import 3.5 stuff, but that isn't really pathfinder).

[Jude_H]

I like pathfinder more than most versions of d20, but I have one complaint: at the same time PF makes various class abilities beefier, it puts harsh per-day limitations on them. Even with the Rope Trick tweak, the nova-narcolepsy paradigm gets a lot of support; it's the sort of silly thing that can really kill game momentum.

[Grommen]

I very much like the things I read from Pazio and the Pathfinder RPG, game world, and their adventure paths. I think my players are coming around to it as well. Trust me it was not an easy sell.

Deep down when you look at their staff. It's a lot of the people that created, or supported 3.5 for Wizards. It's really just the next step in the games evolution.

In all honesty though. The big sell. It's still being produced.

[Lord_Gareth]

Honestly, my big complaint against Pathfinder is that it's physically composed of lies. Paizo claimed to be fixing 3.5 and failed on every possible level to follow through on that claim, then spent time patting themselves on the back for it. I was rather offended to have spent money on their books over that.

[Curious]

Honestly, my big complaint against Pathfinder is that it's physically composed of lies. Paizo claimed to be fixing 3.5 and failed on every possible level to follow through on that claim, then spent time patting themselves on the back for it. I was rather offended to have spent money on their books over that.

That isn't really true; yes, they were going for more class balance- a goal which they succeeded at, in my opinion -but the real thing they had to maintain was backwards compatibility. The classes had to be at least interchangeable with their 3.5 counterparts, and they are.

[RaginChangeling]

That isn't really true; yes, they were going for more class balance- a goal which they succeeded at, in my opinion -but the real thing they had to maintain was backwards compatibility. The classes had to be at least interchangeable with their 3.5 counterparts, and they are.

They aren't though because they changed a ton of little things. Like how after a Single attack a target loses its flat-footed status so Rogues can't sneak attack for full against flat-footed targets. Thats a really random and minor point to change that only trips up backwards capability. Or the Entire Combat maneuver system. That makes it difficult as hell to backport or foreport monsters from and to Pathfinder.

They even changed the levels you get feats at, the way the skill system works (rank wise) and total amount of skills, included a bizare flight skill. Changed a ton of monster types, like Giants (who are now vulnerable to hold person) and what sneak attack affected.

None of that screams "They had to keep stuff to maintain backwards capability!" Because that stuff is harder to backport than just nerfing more spells, or their crazy Bard and Barbarian nerfs. They even changed the fundamentals of tripping and grappling.

[Lord_Gareth]

Additionally, from the above post, nerfing Sneak Attack but leaving full casters intact? That's raw Made of Fail (patent pending) design.

[Bosh]

For me I'd rather not play Pathfinder since they keep most of the basic stuff and then make a 100 random little changes that there's no way in hell I'd ever be able to keep track of without all of those little rules changes really doing much to make the game more balanced, fun or streamlined. They're not BAD rules changes (for the most part) it's just that the effort of learning them out-weighs the (very marginal) improvement that Pathfinder makes to the game.

That and it adds a bunch of bells and whistles that makes a game that already has more little annoying things to keep track of clunkier, especially since the devs really really really aren't good at balancing things.

Basically if you think that 3.5ed is a pretty nifty system at heart but has a lot of implementation issues then Pathfinder won't look good since it doesn't fix most of the implementation issues but instead futzes around with a 100 little details.

If you think that 3.5ed is a pretty nifty system with a pretty nifty design that works well in play but you want some new cool stuff and more minor class abilities and want grappling rules that are a little bit better than Pathfinder is for you.

[GoatBoy]

I like most, if not all, of the changes Pathfinder made, but as long as they were changing stuff, I wish they had done more.

Still, it's my edition of choice, but it won't make 3.5 appeal to anyone who didn't like it already.

[Tvtyrant]

It doesn't add enough Epic magic to lower levels for my tastes. I want to make Mythals dang it! :smallamused:

I really like the new classes (Summoner and its Eidolon! Witch!) but for the most part I just want its fluff to steal.

[Curious]

http://www.d20pfsrd.com/gamemastering/combat#TOC-Initiative

Hm, I can't see anything in there that says you lose flat-footed status after the first attack. Perhaps you can point it out to me.

Additionally, it is incredibly easy to port monsters to and from Pathfinder. Seriously, it takes like a minute. You don't have to remember that giants are now vulnerable to hold person, if you need the thing you can just grab it straight from the MM and calculate it's CMB and CMD, done. For a more in-depth conversion, it can take several minutes, yes, but it still isn't much work unless you are trying to ocnvert the whole monster manual or something.

Anyways, I'm not saying that the game is now suddenly super-balanced; it's not, but it is more streamlined and at least somewhat better in concerns to spells and such. And as several posters before me have said, it's still in print, and more will be coming. That's more than enough for me.

[Lappy9000]

Picture Pathfinder as a mod for 3.5 if it were a video game. There are a lot of differences and changes, but it's still the same game. Pathfinder doesn't really fix much per say, but it does neat things like give classes actual class features and boatloads of options within those.

One of my favorite things about Pathfinder is their SRD (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/); it's got everything and they update it on a semi-regular basis. Comparing it to the d20srd (http://www.d20srd.org/) alone, Pathfinder has waaaay more options for characters.

I'd say give it a look over, and either convert, or cherry pick the things that you like and port them over to 3.5

[peacenlove]

Pathfinder's neat because it's supported. That's the killer feature, the one that matters. The rest, any fixes, any changes... just kibble. New material, a place to talk about it, books you can buy. Done.

I can't quote this hard enough.
Rules can change from table to table, homebrew kicks in. Pathfinder doesn't change anything in this regard, and it is very easy (from a player's perspective) to convert.
Also Pathfinder > 3.5 Core and it won't cost you a penny if you use only their SRD (linked above me).

[LordBlades]

Pathfinder did quite a few good things: streamlining skill mechanics, give all classes actual class features, changes to races etc.

They also got quite a few things wrong: they nerfed melee (indirectly via the nerf to Power attack, which was the bread&butter of 90% of 3.5 builds), nerfed the things that made casters awesome melee (Polymorph, Wildshape, Divine Power) but on the other hand they did little to touch Battlefield control (the true power of casters). This IMO makes the game even more biased toward casters than 3.5 IMO.

[Grommen]

Pathfinder did quite a few good things: streamlining skill mechanics, give all classes actual class features, changes to races etc.

They also got quite a few things wrong: they nerfed melee (indirectly via the nerf to Power attack, which was the bread&butter of 90% of 3.5 builds), nerfed the things that made casters awesome melee (Polymorph, Wildshape, Divine Power) but on the other hand they did little to touch Battlefield control (the true power of casters). This IMO makes the game even more biased toward casters than 3.5 IMO.

Ya know I've never yet figured out how power attack got Nerfed. Were using it all the live long day and racking up a lot of damage.

[Lord_Gareth]

Honestly, any further comments I make will likely be unavoidably poisoned by how much I despise Paizo as a company, so I'ma gonna just bow out.

[RaginChangeling]

Ya know I've never yet figured out how power attack got Nerfed. Were using it all the live long day and racking up a lot of damage.

It lost its granularity for one, I can't power attack for a bit of extra damage any more or dump all my attack into it. Its on or off.

This makes it difficult to get even a second iterative to connect, let alone a third or fourth if you're facing any kind of High AC threat.

[TOZ]

It's a matter of perspective. If you play high-op, they nerfed PA because you can't do a billion damage with it. If you play low-op, the buffed PA because you get more damage for less penalty.

[Coidzor]

Honestly, my big complaint against Pathfinder is that it's physically composed of lies. Paizo claimed to be fixing 3.5 and failed on every possible level to follow through on that claim, then spent time patting themselves on the back for it. I was rather offended to have spent money on their books over that.

Indeed, that's my main problem with it. I'll certainly use material from there if I find it worthwhile, but it took the flame of hope in my heart and callously snuffed it out on my nose like the cigarette of a diva.


It's a matter of perspective. If you play high-op, they nerfed PA because you can't do a billion damage with it. If you play low-op, the buffed PA because you get more damage for less penalty.

Which has what to do with the above point you were replying to which was about losing the ability to PA for only a little bit? :smalltongue:

[ericgrau]

Pathfinder's neat because it's supported. That's the killer feature, the one that matters. The rest, any fixes, any changes... just kibble. New material, a place to talk about it, books you can buy. Done.

This. I used to hate pathfinder alpha because of all the lousy way over the top changes. Now they changed hardly anything major so it's almost impossible to complain about anything except "it's the same, it might as well be a set of minor houserules". They have new books with new classes, feats and so on too. So here's what I did: I didn't buy the core book, I jumped straight into one of the other books. Any differences can fit in the margins of my character sheet or if all else fails I can borrow a book occasionally.

[TOZ]

I was replying to Grommen. It's not my fault someone posted before I did. :P

Edit: Look, it happened again.

[Lord_Gareth]

Honestly, does no one think that the repeated nerfs of melee alone are evidence that Paizo's designers are less than competent in this particular arena?

[TOZ]

Lord_Gareth: You are not alone. (http://paizo.com/paizo/messageboards/paizoPublishing/pathfinder/pathfinderRPG/houseRules/kirthGersensV2Houserules)

[Killer Angel]

PF improves something, but the big holes are still there... and sometime they're even bigger. Something similar to the passage from 3.0 to 3.5... nothing so decisive to justify a whole new set of books.
So, unless you need a system still supported, I don't see a real reason to spend money for a game system that isn't "new".


AND, You'll have a sort of a copy, with something different, so you had even to check if you're remembering a PF rule or a 3.5 rule...
At least, imo.
(edit): the post below, sums it up very nicely:

that's really a trap if you are familiar with 3.5, because there's so many small detail changes everywhere that can trip you up real bad. It's like playing "find the differences" with two giant wall paintings.

which is exactly my point.

[Firechanter]

Moi, I was at first rather enthusiastic about PF, but now I'm jaded.

- class balance has not been fixed to any meaningful level. For every nerf the casters got, the melees got one as well. Like the aforementioned Sneak Attack nerf. For any boost the melees got, the casters got one, too.
- Fighters can hit things with a stick. Better than in 3.5 Core, but worse than in 3.5 with all splats. More importantly, they still can't do anything _but_ hit things with a stick.
- Rangers got some minor situational upgrades, but the whole class looks like a haphazard amalgamation of different concepts to me now. Like they couldn't decide which route to go and just mashed it all in a big pot.
- Wizards are still gods...
- ...while Melees have even fewer options now. For instance, Power Attack as such may be more effective, but it is reduced to binary on/off, taking away another choice from you.
- you get a few more feats now (3 over 20 levels), but at the end of the day you lose out, because so many 3.5 combat feats have been split up into a chain. Again, I find that Melees take the biggest hit here.

- not balance-related: the Combat Maneuver system looks great at first, but I've grown a dislike for it since it all feels the same. It doesn't make a difference whether you want to disarm or sunder or trip or whatever, it's always the same CM Roll. In 3.5, individual opponents may be more prone to one maneuver than the other. In PF, it's six of one and half a dozen of another. I got fed up with it after a couple of sessions.

- "backwards compatibility" my foot. 95% of the rules may be identical, but that's really a trap if you are familiar with 3.5, because there's so many small detail changes everywhere that can trip you up real bad. It's like playing "find the differences" with two giant wall paintings.

All in all, it may be worthwhile to newcomers who don't have 3.5 stuff yet, simply because it's in print and supported. If you do have your 3.5 stuff, I'd say stick with it.

[Yora]

Additionally, from the above post, nerfing Sneak Attack but leaving full casters intact? That's raw Made of Fail (patent pending) design.
No. Not leaving full casters intact. Boosting full casters up. :smallwink:

The changes to races were completely unneccessary.
I don't like the Skill-System.
PF crams even more stuff into the classes, and I actually like my game to be less special ability focused.

[NamelessNPC]

Can anyone point me to the rule that says that your second attack doesn't get Sneak Attack damage?

[PinkysBrain]

They have an insane love for trap options ... the latest Vow of Poverty SNAFU just being a symptom for a larger problem.

[Hida Reju]

They aren't though because they changed a ton of little things. Like how after a Single attack a target loses its flat-footed status so Rogues can't sneak attack for full against flat-footed targets. Thats a really random and minor point to change that only trips up backwards capability.



I may be missing something but I can not find any mention of the loss of flat footed to a single attack.

From Pathfinder SRD
Flat-Footed

A character who has not yet acted during a combat is flat-footed, unable to react normally to the situation. A flat-footed character loses his Dexterity bonus to AC and Combat Manuever Defense (CMD) (if any) and cannot make attacks of opportunity, unless he has the Combat Reflexes feat or Uncanny Dodge class ability.

Characters with Uncanny Dodge retain their Dexterity bonus to their AC and can make attacks of opportunity before they have acted in the first round of combat.


So where is that line in case I missed it we have never played it like that.

[Gullintanni]

IMO - If class balance is really that big of a deal for you...just play E6. By far the most balanced iteration of 3.5 I've played.

[Tyndmyr]

IMO - If class balance is really that big of a deal for you...just play E6. By far the most balanced iteration of 3.5 I've played.

E6 is just broken in different ways, IMO.

PF is broken in the same old way as 3.5. They tossed more spells known to sorcs, a better version of specialization and an item familiar that grants spont casting to wizards, and gave them both more hp, for crying out loud.

No, the big positive of PF is what Doc said. It's currently being published and supported. That's fantastic. The other changes are...meh.

[CTrees]

I'm also baffled by the sneak attack thing...

On the negative side, it was a shock to me, the first time I used Black Tentacles in PF. Didn't really look at how much the exact numbers changed, and so, versus three equal level enemies? It turned out to be natural twenty, or their not grappled." Useful! Still, hordes of low level stuff, sure, it wins the fight, but our DM doesn't like going that route.

One thing that really bugged me is the huge nerf to turn undead. I loved being a cleric, looking at undead coming towards me, and making them explode. Now, it's a feat to even get anything beyond a weak AoE, and the old domination of a cleric of Pelor? Not even possible. You nerf turning, something iconic for clerics, to the point of near uselessness, but left chain-gating as-is? Seriously?

[ericgrau]

Channeling positive energy still annihilates undead pretty well. It's a lot of targets.

There was a recent thread about how combat maneuvers got nerfed. I thought the same thing when I looked at CMD, but it took about 5 minutes of looking at other rules and build options to find out these got boosted overall. I ran the numbers in that thread and the probability of success came out to be exactly the same even though their new convoluted factors reaches it a different way. They just add an extra minor effect. So melee is about as well off, plus a little extra class features.

As quoted it seems you still get full attack sneak attacks against flat footed targets.

Some of the spells seemed like they might be nerfed in little annoying ways, but I need to look more into it.

So ya, the more I look into it the more it seems the same. I suppose I could complain a little, but the difference is really quite minor, I know people who play it, so I don't really care. I'll continue to play 3.5 as well, depending what's nearby.

[Gnaeus]

One thing that really bugged me is the huge nerf to turn undead. I loved being a cleric, looking at undead coming towards me, and making them explode. Now, it's a feat to even get anything beyond a weak AoE, and the old domination of a cleric of Pelor? Not even possible. You nerf turning, something iconic for clerics, to the point of near uselessness, but left chain-gating as-is? Seriously?

I think most people (including myself) see channel positive energy as being much better than turn undead. Because:

1. Turn undead scaled very badly with level. Undead tend to gain more than 1 HD/CR, so by high level a cleric who isn't designed for turning will have very little chance.

2. Undead that have turn resist (either naturally, or through bolstering, items, desicrate, feats, etc) are pretty common.

3. Most cleric PRCs do not advance turning, so UNLESS you are a RSoP, you can pretty much give up on it after level 5.

4. Undead are a pretty small % of the game's monsters, but channel positive energy is virtually always useful. It lets clerics perform the healing role that is even more iconic than turning, without burning through useful spells.

The only thing that turning really has over channel is its use in powering other feats, like DMM or Devotions. I strongly suspect that the vast majority of DMs who play in PF+3.5 splats would allow channeling to be used similarly, but since DMM and the devotion feats aren't in PF, it isn't clearly RAW.

[Coidzor]

4. Undead are a pretty small % of the game's monsters, but channel positive energy is virtually always useful. It lets clerics perform the healing role that is even more iconic than turning, without burning through useful spells.

Highly situational and dependent upon individual groups. They were everywhere in 3.5, such that one would be hard pressed to find a book that didn't feature undead. So, if you're going to stand by that compatibility thing...

And, well, this (http://brilliantgameologists.com/boards/index.php?topic=1115.0)pretty much sums up what a good cohort of people coming in from 3.5 would think about the healing role of the cleric.

[McSmack]

They aren't though because they changed a ton of little things. Like how after a Single attack a target loses its flat-footed status so Rogues can't sneak attack for full against flat-footed targets.

I haven't found anything in the books or the PRD that says that a target regains it's Dex bonus to AC once it has been attacked, or that a rogue can never get a full attack against a flat footed target. I might have missed it, so I 'd like to see a source on it if possible.

A suprise round IS only a move or standard action, so a rogue would only get one attack during a surprise round (barring feats/abilities). However, a target is normally flat-footed until it's first full turn in the initiative. So if a rogue surprised a target AND rolled higher on the initiative, he'd get a single surprise attack AND a full round of attacks before the target stopped being flat footed.

As for bards/barbarians according to the PRD they can use their abilities 4+stat + an additional 2 per level after 1st. Assuming an 18 in the appropriate stat a level 5 barbarian could rage for 16 rounds per day. Which is more than enough for most encounters you'll go up against in a day.

Back to the OP, there are some reasons why you wouldn't want to use PF.
- certain races/classes aren't OGL so Paizo can't touch them (e.g. warlocks and warforged).
- some cheese was removed via 'nerf' (e.g. Powerattack, Polymorph rules)
- fewer character options. Wizards pumped out a ton of options -most of them not too whippy- and PF just doesn't have the library to match it. Many people say that PF has better, more balanced options, especially with the archetypes from the APG.

[Gnaeus]

Highly situational and dependent upon individual groups. They were everywhere in 3.5, such that one would be hard pressed to find a book that didn't feature undead. So, if you're going to stand by that compatibility thing...

I'm not saying that they don't exist, but outside of Ravenloft, there are a lot more encounters that AREN'T undead, than ones that are. Without doing any math, I'd put them at maybe 15% or so? Roughly one encounter in 8?

With numbers like that, it is better to have an always useful ability and just memorize anti-undead spells when you go to the graveyard.

[Cruiser1]

The biggest problem with Pathfinder is the same problem with 4.0: It fragments the gaming community. A few years ago was what I consider to be the heyday or Golden Age of D&D. WOTC was still producing interesting 3.5 books like PHB II and Spell Compendium, and there was a huge library of material and options. Everybody played 3.5, making it easy to find a RL game. Now, 1/3 of the players have moved on to 4.0, 1/3 of the players have moved sideways to Pathfinder, and the remaining 1/3 have stopped moving and are sticking with 3.5 like an old codger in his rocking chair complaining about "kids these days". Yes, I'm in the last category myself. :smallwink:

[navar100]

I'm also baffled by the sneak attack thing...

On the negative side, it was a shock to me, the first time I used Black Tentacles in PF. Didn't really look at how much the exact numbers changed, and so, versus three equal level enemies? It turned out to be natural twenty, or their not grappled." Useful! Still, hordes of low level stuff, sure, it wins the fight, but our DM doesn't like going that route.

One thing that really bugged me is the huge nerf to turn undead. I loved being a cleric, looking at undead coming towards me, and making them explode. Now, it's a feat to even get anything beyond a weak AoE, and the old domination of a cleric of Pelor? Not even possible. You nerf turning, something iconic for clerics, to the point of near uselessness, but left chain-gating as-is? Seriously?

Channeling can be used for healing. That means the cleric needs to cast Cure Wounds less often, allowing him to cast more pertinent spells. It's also healing at a range and affecting more than one person, making it more useful for in combat healing tactic than 3E. Selective Channeling is a useful feat for that. The feat Turn Undead is more powerful than 3E Turn Undead because undead HD is now irrelevent, replacing it with a saving throw. You can affect all undead in range, not a select few starting with lowest HD.

[cfalcon]

Additionally, from the above post, nerfing Sneak Attack but leaving full casters intact? That's raw Made of Fail (patent pending) design.

Paizo changed a hell of a lot of spells. The most broken ones were nerfed pretty profoundly.

[RaginChangeling]

Paizo changed a hell of a lot of spells. The most broken ones were nerfed pretty profoundly.

No they weren't. They left Planar Binding alone for one, which is pretty huge. Polymorph and Shapechange were nerfed, as were Glitterdust and Grease, but that isn't all the broken spells in the game.

[cfalcon]

I'm pretty sure the commonly interpreted working of Planar Binding as "lol ur muh slave" is not so much correct. Additionally, I've never seen this be a problem in pretty much any game. Can you give me a quick example of this being broken in Pathfinder with, say, Lesser Planar Binding?

...and long term, I suspect most DMs fix these spells regardless.

[Ashram]

I'd like to see where people are getting this idea that flat-footed ends after one sneak attack? It seems kinda silly that the flat-footed status would end during someone else's turn, unless they were feinted.

Kinda sounds like a retarded houserule an old DM of mine once instituted for 3.5.

[cfalcon]

I'm not at all familiar with that rule. The guy who hates Paizo brought it up, so maybe he'll hate Paizo less if it isn't true.

Practically speaking, the problem there is if the ranger's dog wins init and attacks the guy for 13, you lose all your sneak attack with your perfectly positioned rogue- to say nothing of dramatically reducing the power of winning init.

Anyway, never heard any claim that was a rule until today. I saw plenty of flatfooted things stay that way until they acted in org play at the Paizo room at Gencon too.

[Knaight]

The biggest problem with Pathfinder is the same problem with 4.0: It fragments the gaming community. A few years ago was what I consider to be the heyday or Golden Age of D&D. WOTC was still producing interesting 3.5 books like PHB II and Spell Compendium, and there was a huge library of material and options. Everybody played 3.5, making it easy to find a RL game. Now, 1/3 of the players have moved on to 4.0, 1/3 of the players have moved sideways to Pathfinder, and the remaining 1/3 have stopped moving and are sticking with 3.5 like an old codger in his rocking chair complaining about "kids these days". Yes, I'm in the last category myself. :smallwink:

Out of curiosity, why is fragmenting the gaming community inherently a bad thing? The notion of one game that would appeal to everyone is absurd, as is the notion that people can only play 1 game, and having options is nice. Of course, I'm of the opinion that role playing games would be improved if D&D would fade into obscurity and a whole bunch of systems rise in prominence, so I'm biased in the other direction.

[Infernalbargain]

Aye, there indeed be no rule against FF ending from attacks.

http://www.d20pfsrd.com/gamemastering/combat#TOC-Initiative


At the start of a battle, before you have had a chance to act (specifically, before your first regular turn in the initiative order), you are flat-footed. You can't use your Dexterity bonus to AC (if any) while flat-footed. Barbarians and rogues of high enough level have the uncanny dodge extraordinary ability, which means that they cannot be caught flat-footed. Characters with uncanny dodge retain their Dexterity bonus to their AC and can make attacks of opportunity before they have acted in the first round of combat. A flat-footed character can't make attacks of opportunity, unless he has the Combat Reflexes feat.

This matches the flat-footed condition

http://www.d20pfsrd.com/gamemastering/conditions#TOC-Flat-Footed


A character who has not yet acted during a combat is flat-footed, unable to react normally to the situation. A flat-footed character loses his Dexterity bonus to AC and Combat Manuever Defense (CMD) (if any) and cannot make attacks of opportunity, unless he has the Combat Reflexes feat or Uncanny Dodge class ability.

Characters with Uncanny Dodge retain their Dexterity bonus to their AC and can make attacks of opportunity before they have acted in the first round of combat.

[McSmack]

No they weren't. They left Planar Binding alone for one, which is pretty huge. Polymorph and Shapechange were nerfed, as were Glitterdust and Grease, but that isn't all the broken spells in the game.

Planar Binding is only as powerful as the creatures you can summon with it, and on the whole it's left pretty open-ended as to the consequences. It's one of several powerful spells that really require DM guidance to prevent abuse (wish, miracle, simulacrum, etc).

Some of the creatures got nerfed a bit IIRC, which helps. But some of the old gimmicks are still there. And yeah so that's a spot that can be abused, they probably should have done something about that.

[Coidzor]

Some of the creatures got nerfed a bit IIRC, which helps. But some of the old gimmicks are still there. And yeah so that's a spot that can be abused, they probably should have done something about that.

Indeed, thus the source of one camp's distaste for Pathfinder. They knew and they just didn't care about making a better product.

Professional pride in one's work or lack thereof still makes an impact on some people.

[Tyndmyr]

Out of curiosity, why is fragmenting the gaming community inherently a bad thing? The notion of one game that would appeal to everyone is absurd, as is the notion that people can only play 1 game, and having options is nice. Of course, I'm of the opinion that role playing games would be improved if D&D would fade into obscurity and a whole bunch of systems rise in prominence, so I'm biased in the other direction.

It's not a big deal for me...I live in an area with lots of gamers. Finding players is never hard for me.

But, if you move to an area where the # of gamers can be tallied on one hand, and they all play the game you don't...you have an unhappy choice to make. I can see why fragmentation is a concern for some.

[Archpaladin Zousha]

Hey, could be worse. Where I live I can count the number of gamers on one finger. And that gamer is me!

If I want RL gaming opportunities I've got to go to the Twin Cities a half-hour away, which is hard to do without a driver's license and car of my own.

[FMArthur]

Different aspects of its purpose succeed to different degrees.

Simplification: They succeed reasonably well here. The single player's handbook which contains everything from the 3.5 PH and DMG, sorted properly, is finally legitimate in its claim of 'everything a player needs', and increases the feat count by a fair bit to make it feel less mandatory to look elsewhere for a high level Fighter. The reduced skill list gets rid of a lot of redundancy and generally combines 3.5's skills that fantasy archetypes never have only one of and not the other (like Sleight of Hand and Open Lock). The Combat Maneuver Bonus and Combat Maneuver Defense system wonderfully collapses the bloated systems for trips, grapples, bullrushes, etc, and then disgustingly hoses combatants who specialize in them by weighting the CMD with more bonuses than the CMB and then simultaneously nerfing the bonuses the old feats for each gave and breaking them into two feats.

Balance: Not really. Paladins are good now. Polymorph effects are now described in an infuriating cascade of "see spell X for the rest of the description"s, but now provide fixed benefits and hard limits. That's pretty much it for balance, though. Lots of spells got little nerfs and lots of them didn't, with no annotation of such, so it's a bit confusing and doesn't fix many spells. Notable easy-life spells like Black Tentacles, the fog series, crippling debuffs and lots of "just no, you autofail this method of harming me" spells are still there. So spellcasters are still trololol good, and not in remarkably different ways. About as many melee options have been nerfed.

Extra stuff and support: Obviously, they win at this pretty well. The rate at which they pump out new material is good, and compatability with 3.5 material is also better than most attempts to fix it I've seen (the reason you'd want to fix it instead of moving on to a different system was the massive amount of support it got :smallconfused:), with no major speedbumps in conversion except for Concentration-based effects. It's not impossible to convert in the other direction, but CMB/CMD and skill simplification makes it harder.

Overall I'm still willing to call it better than vanilla 3.5 if you're still using most 3.5 material with it, because it's lots of new things and at least a few problems have been addressed. If you're trying to "fresh start" 3.5 by only allowing Pathfinder material... it just isn't going to measure up, and the 'power creep' that came from having a massive array of books to collect abilities from which many apparently fear is well on its way in Pathfinder regardless, rendering the process mostly a musical chairs affair.

[Aricandor]

"It delivers something else than was originally announced."
Would about sum it up. It's really good for cherry picking (Summoner!) and easy, concise references to those spells it does fix if you're already running a heavily houseruled 3.5 like I do. :smallsmile:

[Grommen]

Out of curiosity, why is fragmenting the gaming community inherently a bad thing? The notion of one game that would appeal to everyone is absurd, as is the notion that people can only play 1 game, and having options is nice. Of course, I'm of the opinion that role playing games would be improved if D&D would fade into obscurity and a whole bunch of systems rise in prominence, so I'm biased in the other direction.

Is alluding to the fact that neither slice of the pie is big enough for any company to eat from.

Lets say that Pazio and Wizards now share the same amount of players that Wizards used to have exclusively. Both companies make half of what the one company did, but do they incur half the expense?

Secondly you either play PF or 4th. Not both. And you shun the other like it be caring the plague. At least around here that is.

[Firechanter]

I know a few people who play at least two out of the three systems (3.5, PF, 4E). But those may be exceptions.
Wizards made 4E to try and attract new players. The manner in which they went about this may be debatable, and frankly I don't know the results. It is often claimed that the 4E books "sit on the shelves like lead", while a FLGS employee I once asked about it claims they sell just like 3.5 did before. That may or may not be true, but since the goal was to sell _more_ it would be a fail either way.

Personally, I'm another of these old codgers in a rocking chair. I'm not saying 3.5 is a very good system; it sure has major deficiencies, but PF doesn't fix these either, and 4E isn't really comparable, but you might say it trades old deficiencies for new ones, so neither is worth my money.

[Knaight]

Lets say that Pazio and Wizards now share the same amount of players that Wizards used to have exclusively. Both companies make half of what the one company did, but do they incur half the expense?
Sure, profit margins are lost. However, its not as if D&D 3.5 was the only system before Pathfinder and 4e, and outside of D&D where there are a huge amount of smaller games people are perfectly willing to play a variety of games, in a variety of settings, genres, etc. Moreover, these games have explored much more than D&D has, its the smaller publishers and even the extremely "indie" pseudo-published games that drive innovation within the industry. The loss of the industry titans and emergence of many smaller publishers as the dominant face of the hobby strikes me as an improvement.

[Fax Celestis]

That isn't really true; yes, they were going for more class balance- a goal which they succeeded at, in my opinion -but the real thing they had to maintain was backwards compatibility. The classes had to be at least interchangeable with their 3.5 counterparts, and they are.

Backwards compatibility is, in my estimation, 100% the reason why their attempts to rebalance the core system failed.