PDA

View Full Version : Getting Back Into the Game: 5e or PF



AtlanteanTroll
2016-12-15, 05:34 PM
While I currently play on the forum in PBP, I'll be leaving college soon and would love to get a meatspace game going again. As much as I enjoy 3.5e (which is what I play on PBP) both Pathfinder and 5e have piqued my interest. Homebrew can be great, but there's just something nice about having a constant stream of quality material with gloss.

I have some limited exp. with PF. A friend showed me some of his PDFs and I briefly DM'd a game on the board. I enjoyed it a lot.

I know very little about 5e, other than it looks much better than 4E, which I played and hated. From what I can tell, the Player's Handbook is online in full, for free, from Wizard here (http://media.wizards.com/2015/downloads/dnd/BasicRules_Playerv3.4.pdf). Obviously there's more to consider than the PH, so what else am I missing?

Which system is better and why?

ComaVision
2016-12-15, 05:36 PM
I don't know about better. They're different.

If you like the vast amount of options and don't mind the finicky rules and bonuses of 3.5, you'll probably prefer PF.

If you think that the rules of 3.5 get in the way of a good time and wish things were more streamlined, you'll probably prefer 5e.

IShouldntBehere
2016-12-15, 05:42 PM
They're like pizzas:
Pathfinder:
https://s3-media4.fl.yelpcdn.com/bphoto/7t0sF7SeR5ms3_Ko-pLq6w/348s.jpg
5e:
http://pizzasnobo.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/patsys-2-300x225.jpg

Which do you like more? "Best" is subjective.

AtlanteanTroll
2016-12-15, 05:48 PM
Of course, "better" is subjecive. It's why I want to know why. :smallsmile:

jitzul
2016-12-15, 05:55 PM
Boy oh boy this is gonna be one heck of a thread. I am sure this will not be filled with opinions presented as fact, personal insults and people telling other people there fun is wrong. I can not wait to see how civil this conversation will be.

IShouldntBehere
2016-12-15, 05:57 PM
Of course, "better" is subjecive. It's why I want to know why. :smallsmile:

Pathfinder has tons, and tons and tons and tons of options. To be honest it really feels to me like 3.5 with a different set of add-on classes and some minor house rules. If 3.5 is Megaman 4, Pathfinder is Megaman 6. Same format, same game engine, same blue guy jumping around, kill 8 bosses get weapons, dr.wily yadda ydda.

If you liked 3.5 you'll like Pathfinder since it is basically the same game. I think even folks who'd argue I'm wrong on that part and that they're totally different(tm), would have to concede they play very similarly and follow very similarly design philosophies. If you want a to climb Mt.Splatbook to optimization town Pathfinder is your game.

It's like the first pizza picture I posted. Loaded with tons of toppings, kind of falls apart when you lift off the plate. A bit bloated and muddled for my personal tastes.



5e has less expansions and a slow roll-release schedule, and a feeling that you're meant to be keeping the focus more narrow. It's far more streamlined, with fewer rules and a greater expectation that the GM will wing it and fill in the gaps.

I like it but some may find it a bit too loose and poorly defined. The most passionate complaints I've heard on 5e tend to call the game unfinished. While it's kind of rules heavy on the grand scheme of things compared to something like 3.P it's rather back-to-basics and bare bones (though that is not saying much at all).

Koo Rehtorb
2016-12-15, 06:28 PM
Pathfinder is bloated and unwieldy.

5e is simplistic and soulless.

Ninjaxenomorph
2016-12-15, 07:27 PM
Pathfinder is bloated and unwieldy.

5e is simplistic and soulless.

I'm a diehard Pathfinder fanboy, and I won't argue. I will say that Pathfinder has a lots of things the GM can look up; a 5E DM is pretty much on his own. If your DM is fine saying "Yeah, just use shortbow stats for that laser gun!", 5E is your game. The upside to the massive amount of material for Pathfinder is that a GM can look up pretty much anything. Wanna fight a jabberwocky and not a reskinned red dragon? PF is your game.

CharonsHelper
2016-12-15, 07:38 PM
If you liked 3.5 you'll like Pathfinder since it is basically the same game. I think even folks who'd argue I'm wrong on that part and that they're totally different(tm), would have to concede they play very similarly and follow very similarly design philosophies.

Why would they argue? Pathfinder was specifically made to be backwards compatible with 3.5 because Paizo didn't like 4e and Wizards was hosing 3pp people in 4e (a bit of both).

Pathfinder was a huge patch on 3.5, though it kept many of the issues they obviously knew about to retain backwards compatibility, some they didn't spot, and they added a few minor issues all its own. (Pathfinder has actually come out with Pathfinder Unchained - where they are no longer 'chained' to the backwards compatibility to 3.5 - making more major tweaks to the barbarian, monk, rogue, and patching their own Summoner class. Plus a bunch of optional rules.)

I will say - Caster/martial disparity isn't as bad in Pathfinder as it was in 3.5 until higher levels (probably somewhere in the low double digits). They did a good job streamlining maneuvers and patched polymorphing to be less crazy etc.

5e is more streamlined, simplistic, and relies more upon GM subjectivity for edge cases.

nyjastul69
2016-12-15, 07:44 PM
If you want lots of nibbly bits PF is where you want to go. If you want a little less rules and a little more DM (freedom, fiat, whatever) then you probably want to look at 5e.

Knaight
2016-12-16, 01:46 AM
This comes down to what in particular you value in a game - they both have advantages, they both have disadvantages, and while those lists overlap pretty extensively* the difference between them is enough to matter. You could probably manage to give both of them a shot (2-3 sessions) and decide from there.

With that said, I suspect that Pathfinder is the better choice for you. You explicitly mention having a constant stream of material as a good thing. That suggests that big piles of mechanical fiddly bits is considered a plus; 5e deliberately moved away from that.

*I mean, being a class and level system alone with all that implies gives them a lot of similarity.

oxybe
2016-12-16, 03:46 AM
Pathfinder is Subway to 5th ed's "I bought some coldcuts and a sub bun home"

Simply put PF has a lot of options available and out of the box. The online SRD hosted by paizo has years of free content on it. However if you don't like their offerings, or find them too confusing, you're still able to make your own.

5th ed gives you a very basic framework that's workable but after bringing it home if you want variety outside it's initial scope, you'll have to do the legwork yourself.

And in the end, even comparing two similar bare-bones concept games (the "coldcut sub on a white bread with some cheese stuff on it") it's still going to play out a bit differently as they do use different products to get that similar result.

As a side note, that WotC document is not the full PHB whereas very little from the rules on the PF side is actually missing (fluff stuff, like names and flavour text is absent in areas), but rather the 5th ed pdf has the basic rules on how to play the game with some of the character creation rules inserted to get you started, specifically only one subclass for Cleric (Life domain), Fighter (Champion), Rogue (Thief) & Wizard (Evocation school). I believe a good portion of the spells are also missing from the PDF.

Theodoric
2016-12-16, 04:02 AM
I know very little about 5e, other than it looks much better than 4E, which I played and hated. From what I can tell, the Player's Handbook is online in full, for free, from Wizard here (http://media.wizards.com/2015/downloads/dnd/BasicRules_Playerv3.4.pdf). Obviously there's more to consider than the PH, so what else am I missing?
That's not the full PHB, it's just the Basic rules (so, there's more to 5e than that, but even then it's pretty steamlined). There's also a Basic DMG, and of course the OGL, but you can still cash out for the full PHB for more classes, class options and races, as well as plenty of other stuff.

Thing is though, that Basic set of rules is more than enough to get a proper, fun campaign started, and it's free. You could start a game with the Basic rules to see how it works out for you, and you don't even have to break any copyright laws.

hymer
2016-12-16, 04:46 AM
Let me say first that my PF experience is limited, but I've played tons of 3.5 and quite a bit of 5e.

I agree generally with what's been said, but let me add a further perspective: 5e is far less annoying to DM for. The fights run smoother and faster, and preparing an NPC's stats is a matter of a few minutes, 10 at the most once you get the hang of it, whereas getting an NPC just right by the rules in 3.X/PF can take half an hour of poring over splatbooks and looking up guides; a whole hour if we're talking about a spellcaster.

I also haven't seen mentioned that 5e is better balanced between classes than 3.X/PF. PF by all accounts is slightly less pro caster than 3.X, but still massively pro caster. 5e takes it down a nudge more by introducing the Concentration mechanic, generally reduced stacking of buffs, and a reduction of total number of spells castable per day - though compensating a little by giving casters at-will damage that scale with level (though still well behind melee at-will damage).

CharonsHelper
2016-12-16, 09:01 AM
PF by all accounts is slightly less pro caster than 3.X, but still massively pro caster.

It's not bad for the first 8ish levels (which I think are the best levels for Pathfinder anyway for a host of reasons - maybe a few beyond that). But yes - beyond that it inherited the 3.x caster/martial disparity issues and they start to get more blatant at 9+.

AtlanteanTroll
2016-12-16, 11:05 AM
It's not bad for the first 8ish levels (which I think are the best levels for Pathfinder anyway for a host of reasons - maybe a few beyond that). But yes - beyond that it inherited the 3.x caster/martial disparity issues and they start to get more blatant at 9+.

I have never played a character above 8th level. And while that may soon change, I've always loved E6.

The balance issue is good to know, regardless.

Grod_The_Giant
2016-12-16, 11:27 AM
Pathfinder is, basically, a fantasy heartbreaker. It's 3.5 plus someone's houserules, published as an independent system. So everything from the PHB in slightly altered form exists; then a bunch of new stuff was written for it. If you set specific options aside, it's a functionally identical system. Basically, this:

https://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/googleplus.png
Only with RPGs instead of social media sites

If you liked that game and just want a huge pile of new material to dive into, Pathfinder is your guy. It's also entirely available online, for free, legally, which is nice.

5e is, basically, a stripped down version of 3.5, one I've heard compared more to older editions. It has the same basic structure as 3.5 did, just simplified. Many, many fewer options, both in terms of choices for characters-- you can easily get away with race/class/subclass/background and make no other choices for the rest of the game-- and options for players (there's core, another MM, and a few tiny dribbles of new material here and there). It plays much faster, it's much more balanced, it tries to flatten power across all levels in weird ways*, and the DM will have to do a lot more work in terms of making up rulings.

Based on what you said... I think you, personally, would like Pathfinder more; you'd probably really like mixing in 3.5 content, too, to create a gloriously sprawling system of Options. However, based on my own experience trying to find gaming groups post-graduation, I think you'll find that 5e is easier-- certainly if you have to break in new groups, as I did.


*Skills very nearly don't scale at all; combat scales primarily by damage-vs-HP. A bunch of goblins will still hit a 20th level fighter regularly, they just can't hurt him.

Hawkstar
2016-12-16, 11:30 AM
One thing to note about 5e - It doesn't have Pathfinder/3.5's "Full Attack" bull****. If you get extra attacks for any reason (Extra attack feature, bonus actions that let you attack), you are entitled to take them all and still move your full speed. You can also attack at any point during your movement, and Opportunity attacks only trigger when leaving a person's threatened area (Instead of threatened 5' square). All in all, melee and martial characters are much less bogged down and screwed over by the action economy of 3.5e.

Barbarians can effectively fight unarmored.

If you want to play Pathfinder, Dreamscarred Press' Path of War is near-mandatory for martial characters.

Kaerou
2016-12-16, 11:35 AM
If you enjoy 3.5, you will enjoy Pathfinder. its 3.5 with a few tweaks and fixes. Classes have a lot more to them, there are a lot more options. Still hasn't fixed the issues with magic, but its still a ton of fun. Honestly martial classes feel a lot stronger in pathfinder than 3.5 while casters feel about the same (though sorcerers actually have class features now instead of a blank slate).

5e can be a lot of fun and its a lot more balanced. Compared to previous editions you will be surprised at how strong martial classes feel now. There is still some imbalance (greatweapon master and sharpshooter can be fairly ridiculous in the right situations) but all in all everyone is going to be able to participate better.

5e is a lot simpler and is very easy to jump in to.

CharonsHelper
2016-12-16, 11:40 AM
I have never played a character above 8th level. And while that may soon change, I've always loved E6.

The balance issue is good to know, regardless.

If you stick to those levels then you won't have any significant Caster/Martial disparity at all in Pathfinder. (Just use the unchained versions of Rogue & Monk - the core versions kinda suck [there are patches to make core monk good with archetype combo-ing, but Unchained monk is solid out of the box], and the core Summoner is kinda OP so I'd go Unchained there too as it both simplifies and nerfs a few things.)

AtlanteanTroll
2016-12-16, 11:44 AM
Pathfinder is, basically, a fantasy heartbreaker. It's 3.5 plus someone's houserules, published as an independent system. So everything from the PHB in slightly altered form exists; then a bunch of new stuff was written for it. If you set specific options aside, it's a functionally identical system. Basically, this:

https://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/googleplus.png
Only with RPGs instead of social media sites

If you liked that game and just want a huge pile of new material to dive into, Pathfinder is your guy. It's also entirely available online, for free, legally, which is nice.

5e is, basically, a stripped down version of 3.5, one I've heard compared more to older editions. It has the same basic structure as 3.5 did, just simplified. Many, many fewer options, both in terms of choices for characters-- you can easily get away with race/class/subclass/background and make no other choices for the rest of the game-- and options for players (there's core, another MM, and a few tiny dribbles of new material here and there). It plays much faster, it's much more balanced, it tries to flatten power across all levels in weird ways*, and the DM will have to do a lot more work in terms of making up rulings.

Based on what you said... I think you, personally, would like Pathfinder more; you'd probably really like mixing in 3.5 content, too, to create a gloriously sprawling system of Options. However, based on my own experience trying to find gaming groups post-graduation, I think you'll find that 5e is easier-- certainly if you have to break in new groups, as I did.


*Skills very nearly don't scale at all; combat scales primarily by damage-vs-HP. A bunch of goblins will still hit a 20th level fighter regularly, they just can't hurt him.

Ah. That's something else to consider. I am hoping to, at least in part, get the gang back together. A friend's dad used to DM all our 3.5 games back in high school, and because that almost certainly won't happen, the need for a NewThing (tm) emerges. I am so far becoming convinced PF is right for me, but if roping in more than a couple new players occurs...

NomGarret
2016-12-16, 01:00 PM
Ah. That's something else to consider. I am hoping to, at least in part, get the gang back together. A friend's dad used to DM all our 3.5 games back in high school, and because that almost certainly won't happen, the need for a NewThing (tm) emerges. I am so far becoming convinced PF is right for me, but if roping in more than a couple new players occurs...

I've found that while players have plenty of system preferences, someone else offering to run a game goes a long way.

obryn
2016-12-16, 01:27 PM
PF is very terrible. 5e is less terrible.

Play games that aren't D&D. :smallbiggrin:

Joe the Rat
2016-12-16, 01:46 PM
I am a 5e type person. This does color my perspectives on the games. the SRD/OGL stuff will give you a larger picture. I will say that monks actually work straight out of the box, which is nice.

I think that if you are happy with 3.5, and are happy with the options and complexities, you will be happiest with PF.
If you are bringing new players in, especially new to RPGs players, then I highly recommend doing the heavy lifting for character creation. Find out what they want to do, and build a character that can do that. 3.5 players will know some of the basic tricks - leverage that knowledge. Have people collaborate on ideas - the rules junkies can help the drama team get their characters running.
When you start play, focus on the what, then come back to the how. Ask for actions, then explain how it works by rules, and what roll you need (or don't need).

There are a metric [verb] ton of 3rd party settings and options if you decide you don't like the base world. And if you absolutely hate Golarion and wish it would die in a fire, you should play Starfinder when it comes out. :smallbiggrin:

I do think you should still give 5e a try, to see what it's like. But I always think it's good to try new things. It helps you grow, or at the very least better define what it is you *do* like.


They're like pizzas:
Pathfinder:
https://s3-media4.fl.yelpcdn.com/bphoto/7t0sF7SeR5ms3_Ko-pLq6w/348s.jpg
5e:
http://pizzasnobo.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/patsys-2-300x225.jpg

Which do you like more? "Best" is subjective.
That is a remarkably good analogy.

Knaight
2016-12-16, 06:26 PM
PF is very terrible. 5e is less terrible.

Play games that aren't D&D. :smallbiggrin:

It's like the subtext of a significant fraction of my posts right here.

With that said - the OP seems like the exact target audience for Pathfinder, so working within the parameters of that question that's what I recommended.

Incanur
2016-12-16, 07:04 PM
If you like 3.5, you'll like Pathfinder unless you're wedded to one or more of the specific mechanics PF changes.

Personally, I don't like either PF or 5e, but I prefer the latter. 5e at least ain't as complicated as PF, and has a pleasant old-school D&D feel. On the other hand, I was impressed by PF psionics.