Should I convert to Pathfinder 1e or 2e, as a fan of D&D3.5e? [Archive]

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Vrock Bait

2020-05-10, 09:26 AM

I’ve recently been thinking about switching systems. I came into the D&D crowd pretty late, while 5th Edition was in full swing, but I’ve only ever found appeal from 3rd Edition. But I’ve read almost every sourcebook, Dragon Magazine, and web enhancement that I could dredge up from the Internet, and while I know there’s still loads of things I haven’t tried, if I stick with this system, I probably won’t be able to relish the experience of cracking open a new sourcebook ever again.

4e isn’t D&D, and 5e, as I said previously, wasn’t to my taste. I’ve looked at a few alternate systems such as D20 Modern and Ironsworn, but they didn’t have the same pits of customization. So I’ve been looking into Pathfinder: 1e seems more in line with my tastes, but 2e offers some new features I really like, such as the action economy overhaul and the skill proficiencies system. Which system would you recommend me to switch to?

Nifft

2020-05-10, 09:31 AM

1 - If there's not enough content for you, you can write of it yourself.

2 - Probably PF 1, the intended audience seems to have been people who wanted more 3.5e.

Rhyltran

2020-05-10, 10:00 AM

Psyren

2020-05-10, 11:09 AM

So I’ve been looking into Pathfinder: 1e seems more in line with my tastes, but 2e offers some new features I really like, such as the action economy overhaul and the skill proficiencies system. Which system would you recommend me to switch to?

Worth noting that the action economy overhaul in 2e actually debuted in 1e as an optional system (https://www.d20pfsrd.com/gamemastering/other-rules/unchained-rules/unchained-action-economy/), if that's one of the main things giving you pause between them.

NigelWalmsley

2020-05-10, 11:14 AM

Omoikane13

2020-05-10, 11:15 AM

I'd definitely concur to aim for Pathfinder 1e, as it's really, really close to 3.5. With a minimal amount of work, you can blend and use what you like from both systems interchangeably.

Vrock Bait

2020-05-10, 11:34 AM

Have you considered just reading sourcebooks for fun? If you want to read books full of new material, there are hundreds and hundreds of games out there. Go pick up a Shadowrun or Earthdawn or Exalted sourcebook. If you're satisfied with a game, there's no reason to change to anything else just for new reading material.

Not really my thing. I like building characters for fun. The relish of opening a new sourcebook comes from new ideas for builds and new options for them, not just lore and mechanics.

Psyren

2020-05-10, 11:58 AM

Not really my thing. I like building characters for fun. The relish of opening a new sourcebook comes from new ideas for builds and new options for them, not just lore and mechanics.

If that's your source of fun, P1 has many more build concepts at the moment - even without considering the backwards compatibility aspect, there are 4 dozen base classes, many prestige classes and god knows how many archetypes to choose from. P2 has much less variety owing to being newer, but also a bit more rigid in its design philosophy.

Kurald Galain

2020-05-10, 01:09 PM

Not really my thing. I like building characters for fun.

If you want creativity in building, I recommend P1. P2 is notoriously combo-averse, is pretty limited in what options can be taken together, and has a lot of choices that don't actually make any difference.

DrMartin

2020-05-10, 01:17 PM

as a fan of dnd 3.5 consider that Pathfinder 1 is more of a lateral move - most, if not all, of the things that wotc printed in the last years of 3.5´s run have not been picked up by paizo, while the most popular ones (like psionics, tome of battle, incarnum) have been converted to the system by third party authors.

So really when you read that pathfinder was the continuation of dnd 3.5 it really means it is more of a second branch from the trunk of the 3.5 core books from 2003, while all the 3.5 material published between 2003 and 2007 included only in as far as pathfinder is "backwards compatible".

Pathfinder 2 plays and feels like a different game altogether - still d&d, but somehow unfamiliar, like parallel universe d&d.

If you like 3.5 customization options I would think the best fit for you might be pathfinder 1, including third party material (stuff from dreamscarred press and drop dead studio is very popular on this forum, and rightly so).

But if you are still open in looking for other systems, maybe take a look at some of the following systems:
- Heroes and Masterminds: lots and lots of customization options, and somewhat setting-agnostic for superhero inspired action. But someone on the playground did some heavy-lifting homebrewing to use the system to play dnd / fantasy adventures
- Warhammer Fantasy: tons of options, but more meant to be explored and picked through playing than planned ahead. Characters can easily become competent in areas that were completely outside of their expertise at character creation, and this is in most cases not something that has to be mapped at level 1 to ensure you meet some feat chain / prestige class requirements. Very fun system in my experience.
- Fantasy Craft: the Other 3.5 legacy system. The Betamax, to Pathfinder's VCR. A fun and well put together system with plenty of character options and some storytelling gear in it, alongside d20's more traditional "simulationist" ones.

Kelb_Panthera

2020-05-11, 07:33 PM

There's no need to change systems. You can backport stuff from PF1 to 3.5 just as easily as you can update stuff from 3.0 to 3.5.

Trying to change from 3.5's core rules to PF core rules is going to trip you up constantly because of the fact that it's a bunch of tiny, niggling little changes that are easy to forget. Personally, I don't like a number of the changes made either but that's just taste.

As you've noted, eveything else is so different from either of them that all you can really move accross the gap is ideas. You can make an aglarondan griffon rider, for example, in 5e or PF2 but about all that you're porting over in that case is the idea of a dwarf riding a griffon into battle and the cultural aspects of Aglarond that go with it.

Palanan

2020-05-11, 09:49 PM

Originally Posted by Kelb_Panthera
Trying to change from 3.5's core rules to PF core rules is going to trip you up constantly because of the fact that it's a bunch of tiny, niggling little changes that are easy to forget. Personally, I don't like a number of the changes made either but that's just taste.

So much this. I can't count how often I've been tripped up in a session because of some minuscule little rules change which I never realized had been changed.

That said, the PF skill system is a definite upgrade from 3.5, so that's worth considering.

Fizban

2020-05-11, 10:24 PM

That said, the PF skill system is a definite upgrade from 3.5, so that's worth considering.
Or a downgrade, if you consider the granularity of 3.5's class/non-class skill, maximum ranks in non-class skills, and distinction between sight and sound a good thing. :smallconfused:

There's also a whole wide world of 3rd party books and old Dragon Magazines out there, many of which are for sale in pdf form. The quality varies, which isn't any different from 1st party of Pathfinder content. But for ease of access yeah, if you want to look at new stuff that's usable in 3.x, randomly opening something from Pathfinder "1e" (how many tags is this forum going to need?) will probably do just fine. Until you reach the point where instead of needing to crack a book for new concepts to build characters, you start building your own mechanics to build characters.

Something to watch out for is that there is an underlying sort of design ethos change- for lack of a better term, I see most Pathfinder classes as bloated with class features, and while prestige classes exist they definitely seem to lean hard on new or hybridized base classes for everything. So if you do any heavy amount of "backporting," you're liable to end up with a bunch of base classes that just don't match with the 3.0/3.5 base classes, which also don't want to interface much with the prestige classes due to having their own features which are probably better. They're also heavy on feat trees and ACFs.

Psyren

2020-05-11, 11:03 PM

So much this. I can't count how often I've been tripped up in a session because of some minuscule little rules change which I never realized had been changed.

I've honestly found most of the changes to be intuitive. On the spells front for example, they boil down to things like "glitterdust isn't an auto-win for the whole combat anymore" or "you can no longer retire from adventuring as soon as you learn wall of iron" or "protection from evil is less useful against non-evil opponents."

Or a downgrade, if you consider the granularity of 3.5's class/non-class skill, maximum ranks in non-class skills, and distinction between sight and sound a good thing. :smallconfused:

You can distinguish between sight and sound just fine without taxing the Fighter's skill points so much that a soldier or guard can't keep watch.

Fizban

2020-05-12, 06:49 PM

Fizban casts Wall of Text! A DMing and game design rant appears!

You can distinguish between sight and sound just fine without taxing the Fighter's skill points so much that a soldier or guard can't keep watch.
Or you can accept that soldiers and guards don't actually need max ranks to do their jobs, because the job of 1st level warriors is to stop 1st level commoners and setting watch is more about lines of sight and making sure there's nowhere for people to hide and the fact that every round every spotter gets a new roll and a competent guard doesn't need ranks to roll two extra active checks each round and picking locks and disabling devices both take several rounds. That's zero rolls because there's no cover or concealment, or three rolls per round per guard, vs other people that are also rolling +0, and basic security precautions extend it all further. Guards can guard just fine, and Fighters are not expected to spot.

Most complaints about the skill system stem from "PC blindness," where people expect everything to function as if a PC had maxed out a primary thing, which is not correct. The only skills, literally the only two skills the game actually expects, are Search and Disable Device, and that's only because many traps can drop physical barriers that you can't seriously smash through with a normal weapon. Nothing else matters. Spot and Listen are not expected skills, let alone required skills for the Fighter, let alone required max rank skills for 1st level NPC classed guards. They're just not.

And the more homogeneous you make the system, the more it trends towards bounded accuracy where everyone does everything with a bonus that's just a few points apart, and everything resists the same, the more that sneaking suffers. Oh look, anyone can have full ranks in something so there's only a 3 point difference, guess that means everything has to be written assuming that they always have full ranks in something, which is what actually forces it to happen. Oh look, we've written all these enemies so that skill checks have a 50% or more fail rate against them and then complain that magic is the only thing that works. The problem is not that certain classes have too few skill points, it's actually that some classes have too many, and PC blindness makes people think those classes are the only thing that matters, that nothing else works. A dedicated rogue absolutely should be able to reach the point that they can sneak past normal guards within a certain range on pure skill with a 1; And against those same guards an unskilled person still has a chance if they move efficiently, get lucky, have a distraction, the guards have a poor area to watch over, or yes a little bit of magic. And that matters because it's a team game and if the rogue goes in alone, when they do get spotted by powerful bad guys/magic/etc and have to fight, they can't do it alone.

If you want to use stealth mechanics then you need level design, but so many people are so far up their builds that they forget that the most important part of a stealth game is the layout and positioning, followed by your interaction mechanics with distractions and knockouts. How long it takes them to notice you, how well you can hide in different light levels: the arbitrary "hide" skill, can be constant or change, but if that's all the game has, it's a terrible stealth game. But in a world where people just go "eh, roll a hide check to get in," rather than building a stealth map, so that the only point of defense is arbitrarily making all the guards spot-gods so that one roll has a chance of noticing the one character who should be actually able to ignore them, gee what happens? Only people with max ranks in "stealth" can do anything, which means everyone has to have it, only people with max ranks in "perception" can resist it, so everyone has to have it, the only question of whether you can do something is if you're tall enough to go on the ride.

If you're running a game where random guards can 1v1 the fighter, then sure it makes sense for some guards to 1v1 the sneaker, but even then it shouldn't be the same guards. Specialist vs specialist.

All of that is many words to say that the Fighter's low skill points have nothing to do with spot and listen, and if you're merging skills for them then you've got it backwards. Classes which actually have spot and listen on their class list? Druid, Monk, Ranger, and Rogue. All of whom have 4 or more base skill points in 3.5, so they can easily afford both even with an Int penalty if desired. But only in 3.5 can you take one of them and have a character trained for sharp eyes or ears, and save some skill points for other things in exchange for limitations on your "perception" skill. And characters whose profession does not include that training are limited, as they should be.

The PF skill changes homogenize things, but limitations are what actually make things distinct. One of the main problems with 3.5 is that there are essentially only 2.5 spell lists (arcane, cleric, nature stuff) and thus only 2-3 caster types*, rather than each spellcaster actually having their own class list. Spellcasters should be different because of the spells they cast, but instead they have to take one of these uber lists and differentiate on something else: in 3.5 it's spontaneous/prepared, and in PF it seems to mostly be an entire secondary progression of class features**. Making every character capable of using every skill doesn't make the skill system better, it makes it worse, because now there's no real inherent difference between classes. It's not even 2.5 lists, it's just one list! PF has dozens of base classes that are all supposed to be different, except for the skill system which basically doesn't care?

Which is where I have to bring up roles again. Because whether people like it or not, 3.x is built on four specific character roles, and the classes enforce those roles, and the roles ensure a division of gameplay, and part of that are the limits on cross-class skills. Get rid of those limits, and it's the same as if you got rid of class spell lists: you can make a party which matches the intended roles and plays normally, but without the players coordinating their exact spell selections, they're going to end up with holes and overlaps. Giving everyone all the skills just means that someone with low skill points (this fighter with spot/listen or hide/move silently or diplomacy etc) is likely to put them all in something they think is cool, only to be completely overrun by someone who picked them up on the cheap because they had a ton of skill points and happens to be more "appropriate" for using them (the rogue). The difference is that unless you've built your game to require certain skills, the holes won't actually matter- but if you do, then any holes need to be compensated for the same as a lack of critical spells. The skill system is not supposed to be participated in "equally," the game does not expect "skill roles" for every class, but if you want a change that will really matter then you *nerf* the *rogue*, so that they can't just do everything.

The more you "optimize" the party by making everyone have all the "important" skills at "full" power, the more those skills just turn into 5e (the last bastion would be equipment, if the stealth guy buys bonus items but the "not-stealth" guy with max stealth ranks doesn't, in which case why buy those ranks?). If everyone is playing perfect generalists, why use a class-based system at all, why DnD at all? Well again, in PF it seems to come down to those glutted class features which actually define the class, but even then the hybrid classes cross over a bunch of those.

And if that's the goal it does so fine I guess, but I wonder how anything is supposed to flow where everyone can be good at everything. It sounds even more focused on PC=win vs DM=just throw stuff at them and hope it works out, which is how it's seemed to go in campaign journals I've read (admittedly not the most diverse lot). I really, really don't like the supposed conceit that at some point the DM has to just start ignoring CRs or even reading monsters and just throw stuff that looks nasty at the PCs and the PCs will handle it because they have so many abilities and combos. That's just lazy design reinforcing lazy DMing. 5e went too far stripping things out, but PF (and some later 3.5) goes too far piling them on.

There is potentially something to be said for over and udersized parties. With only three people it can be good to have one, two, or even all three as split capable characters so you don't lose even more actions. And I hear a lot of Pathfinder parties in the 6-8 range where no matter what you do it's going to overlap, so you might as well overlap everything and have half or more of the party all able to do the same thing. The latter I simply don't care about because I'm never running that large of a party, and the former can also be handled by just cutting out one of the roles so the players can play the three that they want.

*That the fixed list spontaneous casters need to go so far to be noticed and yet still brushed off as "objectively" worse than the tier 1s basically says it all. Even with all the blasting and BFC you'll ever need, the Warmage is ignored, even with a ton of extra class features the Dread Necromancer is "just good at minionmancy," and even with all the mind control and a crapton of skill points and a few extras the Beguiler is merely "good against non-mindless."

**I'd bet the splat spells are all scrupulously added to as many class lists as possible, including retroactively, so that once all the splat spells are included even lists which were originally quite different are probably pretty samey. It's hard to tell looking at the all-at-once list on the srd, but the major class features certainly stand out more to me.

PairO'Dice Lost

2020-05-12, 08:27 PM

Most complaints about the skill system stem from "PC blindness," where people expect everything to function as if a PC had maxed out a primary thing, which is not correct. The only skills, literally the only two skills the game actually expects, are Search and Disable Device, and that's only because many traps can drop physical barriers that you can't seriously smash through with a normal weapon. Nothing else matters. Spot and Listen are not expected skills, let alone required skills for the Fighter, let alone required max rank skills for 1st level NPC classed guards. They're just not.

Indeed. As an oft-forgotten or -ignored PHB sidebar says:

When you create your character, you will probably only be able to purchase ranks in a handful of skills. It may not seem as though you have as many skills as real people do—but the skills on your character sheet don’t actually define everything your character can do.

Your character may have solid familiarity with many skills, without having the actual training that grants skill ranks. Knowing how to strum a few chords on a lute or clamber over a low fence doesn’t really mean you have ranks in Perform or Climb. Ranks in those skills represent training beyond everyday use—the ability to impress an audience with a wide repertoire of songs on the lute, or to successfully scale a 100-foot-high cliff face.

So how do normal people get through life without ranks in a lot of skills? For starters, remember that not every use a skill requires a skill check. Performing routine tasks in normal situations is generally so easy that no check is required. And when a check might be called for, the DC of most mundane tasks rarely exceeds 10, let alone 15. In day-to-day life, when you don’t have enemies breathing down your neck and your life depending on success, you can take your time and do things right—making it easy, even without any ranks in the requisite skill, to succeed (see Checks without Rolls, page 65).

You’re always welcome to assume that your character is familiar with—even good at, as far as everyday tasks go—many skills beyond those for which you actually gain ranks. The skills you buy ranks in, however, are those with which you have truly heroic potential.

If you assume an AD&D-style "every nameless NPC is 1st level" setup,. a 1st-level warrior chosen for his sharp eyes (Wis 14) and 2 cross-class ranks in Spot and Listen is still noticeably more capable than the average 10-Wis 0-rank mook on guard duty and enough to give an average 10-Dex thief with 0 to 2 ranks in Hide and Sleight of Hand pause. I usually assume a baseline of 3rd level for NPCs, but even then I don't spec every town guard for amazing observation skills.

There are definitely a lot of other benefits for consolidating Spot and Listen into Perception--being able to handle scent and other nonstandard senses with the same skill, not forcing stealthy people to succeed on two checks every time, and the like--but Perception finally allowing people to stand watch without maxing out the right skills isn't one of them.

One of the main problems with 3.5 is that there are essentially only 2.5 spell lists (arcane, cleric, nature stuff) and thus only 2-3 caster types*, rather than each spellcaster actually having their own class list

[...]

*That the fixed list spontaneous casters need to go so far to be noticed and yet still brushed off as "objectively" worse than the tier 1s basically says it all. Even with all the blasting and BFC you'll ever need, the Warmage is ignored, even with a ton of extra class features the Dread Necromancer is "just good at minionmancy," and even with all the mind control and a crapton of skill points and a few extras the Beguiler is merely "good against non-mindless."

The warmage is considered worse due to a lack of noncombat utility expected from a PC filling the "party arcanist" role, not because it isn't plenty good at what it does; the dread necromancer is considered worse because, while it's the best class for having an army of weaker undead, its small spell list prevents it from matching a cleric or wizard necromancy at debuffing or having smaller numbers of much stronger undead. The beguiler, meanwhile, is widely acknowledged at being much more versatile both in and out of combat than the wizard or sorcerer at low levels, where the beguiler's Int is on par with the wizard's Int or sorcerer's Cha and its spells known dwarf the sorcerer's repertoire or wizard's spellbook. It's only at mid levels that the disparity shows up and reduces their tier, and even then they're not dismissed for their weaknesses.

Basically, you're only comparing number and strength of class features here and ignoring the spell list disparity. A wizard or sorcerer who had the same spells known as the warmage or dread necromancer would be considered even worse than those classes, and a warmage or dread necromancer with comparable breadth of spells known to a Focused Specialist Evoker or Necromancer would be head and shoulders above the sorcerer and wizard in their areas of competence.

Also, having shared lists of "pretty much all arcane casters get these" spells is actually a good thing for the game; without that, you have something like 4e where either classes are very pigeon-holed and can't do much outside their one niche (making everyone like the over-specialized warmage) or you have to write up a bunch of almost-but-not-quite-identical spells to let multiple classes do basically the same thing. The reason it's a problem in 3e is not that the wizard, sorcerer, wu jen, dread necromancer, beguiler, warmage, duskblade, hexblade, bard, and spellthief might have a bunch of spells in common, but that when a Complete Spooky People book comes out, any new Enchantment and Necromancy spells in it are going to go on the wizard and sorcerer list and no one else's, rather than the dread necro and hexblade getting a bunch of Necromancy spells, the bard and beguiler getting a bunch of new Enchantment spells, and the other classes getting a subset of both depending on the spells and classes in question.

Aotrs Commander

2020-05-12, 08:46 PM

As to the 3.5 or PF1 debate, my answer (and stop me if you're all bored of this by now no seriously, the project is getting ridiculours I think I need help or something) was "yes."

PF1 improves a very great deal of things 3.5 needed improving on, but it also made a lot of unnecessary nerfs that really didn't need nerfing, folded a couple of skills too many into it's otherwise unilaterally better-handled skill system (skill synergies, I would just like to issue you a special FRACK YOU along with non-retroactive Intelligence skill points for making my life as DM generating legions of NPCs (especially during Dragon Mountain 16-Epic) far harder than it needed to be for no gain whatsoever) (*cough*Search*cough*1); and in other ways, didn't go quite far enough down the line of improvements.

And I hear a lot of Pathfinder parties in the 6-8 range

Hi. Never less than six character parites in anything with that one time we were down to three players an a DM for a stretch being memorable for being the only such instance in thirty years...!

(Has taken LITERAL PLAGUE APOCALSYPSE required to stop goup meeting weekly...)

You really want to give yourself a migrain?

This is your party size:

https://photos.smugmug.com/Primary-Gallery/i-FBbFW2L/0/902cf608/X3/Timeshade%20attacks-X3.jpg

And you're playing ROLEMASTER.

Have fun sleeping tonight!

1It would have been, in the benefit of hindsight not available at the time, better to have clonked 5E's Investigation on the head and assimilated into itself.

Nifft

2020-05-12, 08:53 PM

You really want to give yourself a migrain?

This is your party size:

https://photos.smugmug.com/Primary-Gallery/i-FBbFW2L/0/902cf608/X3/Timeshade%20attacks-X3.jpg

And you're playing ROLEMASTER.

Have fun sleeping tonight!

As a perpetual DM, it looks like there's only one character in ~my~ party, and it's a big dragon skeleton monster.

This means I'm going to be experiencing the sleep of the brutally victorious.

Psyren

2020-05-12, 09:06 PM

Fizban - not all soldiers, guards or mercenaries have to be NPC classes. In fact, this is how a lot of PCs start (or even continue) their careers. And having a slightly better skill system doesn't suddenly mean they auto-win against rogues, either.

Fizban

2020-05-12, 09:22 PM

If you assume an AD&D-style "every nameless NPC is 1st level" setup,
(Which is what the city generation rules in the DMG say).

being able to handle scent and other nonstandard senses with the same skill,
Someone actually called me on that once, to which my response was that if the game actually justified making a Scent skill, I'd make a Scent skill they could put ranks in. That leaves what, tremorsense? And neither are standard PC senses, and one could just as easily remove them rather than make a new skill, or simply not have adventures where there is need for such a skill. They're both supposed to be auto-success monster abilities specifically allowing the DM to have rogues that are good at stealth, without being un-counterable.

The warmage is considered worse due to a lack of noncombat utility expected from a PC filling the "party arcanist" role,
Which is a crux of the problem, because the "arcanist" role is not to do everything. It's to have armor piercing and AoE effects. The Cleric is the one with automatic access to all the problem solving which forms the safety that lets the game do whatever, not the arcanist. And most of that, the flying and teleporting and whatnot that people usually focus on, isn't really required either.

Also, having shared lists of "pretty much all arcane casters get these" spells is actually a good thing for the game;
Only for effects that are actually required by the game, which should really not even be spells at that point, because spells should be mostly things you choose to do because you wanted them. If you separated all the status removal and some critical problem solving into its own thing (class feature, skill, ritual, NPCs, whatever), then you wouldn't need the cleric, and could have a whole swathe of spellcasters mixing and matching various spell lists and non-critical problem solving.

without that, you have something like 4e where either classes are very pigeon-holed and can't do much outside their one niche (making everyone like the over-specialized warmage)
Except party roles aren't a problem. If you've made something so specialized that it only does part of a role, then yeah you screwed up (but it's hard to do that because they're pretty simple). But the warmage isn't over-specialized- it's actually perfectly specialized, once you understand the "lopsided" Cleric and arcanist roles (evident in all sorts of ways from fluff and descriptions and advice etc in the books). [But even the Cleric isn't so much a problem as a choice, because the inherently lopsided nature of gaming groups themselves means that you could be lucky to get even one person willing to put in the work to Solve Problems, so it's actually a good idea to have one class that consolidates that all so the one player who will do it, can do it. Otherwise you have to limit what sorts of Problems you can publish.]

or you have to write up a bunch of almost-but-not-quite-identical spells to let multiple classes do basically the same thing.
No, that would be silly.

The reason it's a problem in 3e is not . . but that when a Complete Spooky People book comes out, any new Enchantment and Necromancy spells in it are going to go on the wizard and sorcerer list and no one else's,
I did have a line in there about that, but it got removed as I didn't want to end up arguing about how a bunch of PF splats do do that, 'cause I expect so much integration can have its own deleterious effect.

Fizban - not all soldiers, guards or mercenaries have to be NPC classes. In fact, this is how a lot of PCs start (or even continue) their careers. And having a slightly better skill system doesn't suddenly mean they auto-win against rogues, either.
I get real tired of arguing about how few leveled NPCs the city generation rules actually support and how DMs should not rely on piles of fiat NPCs. But you're the one saying that the Fighters and guards need to have access to spot because reasons and the skills should be consolidated so they can afford them. So what's the reason? And how does it justify homogenizing the whole thing? It's not any individual justification, it's the desire for a homogenized system that begets a homogenized system, at which point I ask why is this thing homogenized and not all the rest? I really find it to be just an absurd half-measure, skill ranks but not really, class based bonus to skills but only partly. Better if they'd just dropped the concept of class skills entirely, since that's clearly what people actually want.

PairO'Dice Lost

2020-05-12, 10:24 PM

(Which is what the city generation rules in the DMG say).

Nope, the DMG says that the majority of NPCs are 1st level, but even the sample "typical hamlet" on page 139 has 6 out of 200 NPCs being 3rd level (3% of the population), and with extreme rolls that can go even higher both absolutely and proportionally (48 out of 81 NPCs above 1st level, or 59%)--and that's just a Hamlet, not a Metropolis where "city guard" is a much more established profession and average levels are higher.

That's in contrast to 1e, where nameless NPCs were explicitly "0-level humanoids" unless noted otherwise.

Someone actually called me on that once, to which my response was that if the game actually justified making a Scent skill, I'd make a Scent skill they could put ranks in. That leaves what, tremorsense? And neither are standard PC senses, and one could just as easily remove them rather than make a new skill, or simply not have adventures where there is need for such a skill. They're both supposed to be auto-success monster abilities specifically allowing the DM to have rogues that are good at stealth, without being un-counterable.

There's scent, tremorsense, blindsense, and blindsight out of the common MM senses, plus more exotic ones like mindsight and lifesense. And yes, they're there to give the rogue more of a challenge than usual when sneaking around those monsters, but giving the DM absolute counters to Hide and Move Silently just leads to needing counters to those counters like Darkstalker.

It's not necessarily that Scent and Tremorsense and the rest need to be (or should be) their own skills, but that as it stands those abilities are absolute and ideosyncratic and need their own special rules for detection, hiding, and so on because just plugging them into either Spot or Listen wouldn't work, whereas a generic sensing framework based on a single Perception skill could handle all of them uniformly without needing things like Darkstalker to avoid them being unbeatable.

Which is a crux of the problem, because the "arcanist" role is not to do everything. It's to have armor piercing and AoE effects. The Cleric is the one with automatic access to all the problem solving which forms the safety that lets the game do whatever, not the arcanist. And most of that, the flying and teleporting and whatnot that people usually focus on, isn't really required either.
[...]
[But even the Cleric isn't so much a problem as a choice, because the inherently lopsided nature of gaming groups themselves means that you could be lucky to get even one person willing to put in the work to Solve Problems, so it's actually a good idea to have one class that consolidates that all so the one player who will do it, can do it. Otherwise you have to limit what sorts of Problems you can publish.]

"Wizard" and "cleric" are not synonymous with "blaster" and "healer." The cleric's portion of the problem solving pie is mostly about personal-range and reactive effects, which does include lots of healing and condition removal but also includes combat avoidance like calm emotions and hide from X spells, decision-making like augury and commune, and similar. The wizard's portion is more environment-based and proactive, with things like darkvision and knock for navigating dungeons, alarm and arcane lock for staying safe in dungeons, charm person and disguise self for social encounters, levitate and spider climb for general mobility, half a dozen Knowledge boosters for research, and so on.

Not every arcanist needs to be able to do exactly what the wizard does, but the smaller a portion of that pie a given arcane class can accomplish, the lower it will be rated comparatively. And if you're in a beer-and-pretzels group where most of the players don't want to do much strategizing and problem-solving, it's usually the wizards, not the cleric, who will fill that spot; that makes sense on the wizard side, because mechanically it has high Int to justify good reasoning skills and a lot of oddball spells that can come in handy in corner cases and thematically wizards are the "wise old mentor who knows useful secrets" type, and it makes sense on the cleric side because "mindless healbot" is an easier role to fill than "mindless blaster" because it's purely reactive and doesn't need to worry about targeting, resistances, etc.

Only for effects that are actually required by the game, which should really not even be spells at that point, because spells should be mostly things you choose to do because you wanted them. If you separated all the status removal and some critical problem solving into its own thing (class feature, skill, ritual, NPCs, whatever), then you wouldn't need the cleric, and could have a whole swathe of spellcasters mixing and matching various spell lists and non-critical problem solving.

It's not just a matter of having certain spells the game "needs" shared among multiple classes, it applies to everything. If you want multiple classes to be able to nuke things with fire, say (and of course you do), it's much better to have a single fireball spell that's iconic, memorable, and present on multiple lists rather than giving the wizard fireball, the warmage fireblast, the duskblade flame burst, the sorcerer sorcerous flame, the bard flames of passion, and so on, with every class having their minutely different variation on it.

You say lower down that that would be silly, but that's literally what 4e did with its "all class powers must be unique" paradigm, and the moment you find yourself debating whether the "Conjure Fire Elemental" spell should go to the Summoner or the Pyromancer class instead of giving it to both of them, you run into the same issue.

Psyren

2020-05-13, 12:30 AM

I get real tired of arguing about how few leveled NPCs the city generation rules actually support and how DMs should not rely on piles of fiat NPCs. But you're the one saying that the Fighters and guards need to have access to spot because reasons and the skills should be consolidated so they can afford them. So what's the reason? And how does it justify homogenizing the whole thing? It's not any individual justification, it's the desire for a homogenized system that begets a homogenized system, at which point I ask why is this thing homogenized and not all the rest? I really find it to be just an absurd half-measure, skill ranks but not really, class based bonus to skills but only partly. Better if they'd just dropped the concept of class skills entirely, since that's clearly what people actually want.

If having 26 skills instead of 40 counts as "homogenized" to you then... well, I don't really know what to say to that, other than I'm glad you didn't have a say in Pathfinder's development :smalltongue:

I hesitate to point out that Unchained has a variant to consolidate them even further. (https://www.d20pfsrd.com/skills/consolidated-skills-optional-rules/) Now, bear in mind that I haven't checked recently, but I don't think the sky has fallen quite yet.

Rynjin

2020-05-13, 12:35 AM

Pathfinder 1e, and best played with the optional subsystems for Background Skills and Automatic Bonus Progression, fixing a swathe of the major issues with 3.PF. Not nearly all of them, to be sure, but if you're a fan of 3.5 you've probably already made your peace with stuff like the Caster/Martial disparity.

Fizban

2020-05-13, 02:50 AM

If having 26 skills instead of 40 counts as "homogenized" to you then... well, I don't really know what to say to that, other than I'm glad you didn't have a say in Pathfinder's development :smalltongue:
I mean, yeah, that's a huge reduction, though the main homogenizing effect comes from the abolishment of proper cross-class skills. Consolidating primarily removes the granularity and verisimilitude from the fact that locks and traps are not the same thing, spotting and listening are not the same thing, etc. Removing proper cross-class skill limits means that aside from a +3 that most optimizers won't even blink at, everyone is equally good at everything they put ranks in. And combined it means that oh it "only" costs 1 skill point per level to have this skill that "everyone" should have regardless of whether or not it makes any sense for your character, which immediately eclipses the fact that there are zero skills *anyone* needs to have if you just facetank some traps. It's a slippery slope, a bad precedent, yet another slight increase to the already toxic pressure that a character which doesn't x/y/z is unoptimized and bad. To fix the skill system you make a skill system with defined expectations for the party which each type of class can contribute to, you don't just remove all the limits and tell people to figure it out.

I'll say it as many times as I need to. 3.5 skills are not superfluous, but the descriptive ability of their limits is probably more important than their actual use. Make trap disabling a bonus under trapfinding and it's pretty much fluff and roleplaying rewards (where "we scout/sneak up" is roleplaying).

I hesitate to point out that Unchained has a variant to consolidate them even further. (https://www.d20pfsrd.com/skills/consolidated-skills-optional-rules/) Now, bear in mind that I haven't checked recently, but I don't think the sky has fallen quite yet.
Not surprising. As I said, most people who complain about 3.x skills seem to really just want homogenized skills (and often classes that can just everything as well). After seeing enough class "fixes" that all have 6+ skill points and everything but the kitchen sink in-class, as well as the people who prefer Pathfinder skills, it seems pretty clear. And it's not going to destroy the system, because skills weren't required in the first place. And the people that wanted those changes will be happy. It's only when you need to look to the mechanics-backed fluff of skills and find that that the distinctions are all gone that there might be a problem, and it's mostly a roleplayer/DM problem, not a game mechanics falling apart problem.

But when I hear someone say it's better, I must protest, 'cause for some of us it just ain't.

Kurald Galain

2020-05-13, 03:15 AM

I mean, yeah, that's a huge reduction, though the main homogenizing effect comes from the abolishment of proper cross-class skills. Consolidating primarily removes the granularity and verisimilitude from the fact that locks and traps are not the same thing, spotting and listening are not the same thing, etc. Removing proper cross-class skill limits means that aside from a +3 that most optimizers won't even blink at, everyone is equally good at everything they put ranks in.
Practically speaking, most players aren't optimizers; so in an actual game it is really not the case that everyone is equally good at everything (because of the +3, and racial bonuses, and because ability scores differ). That you can be, if you choose to, class X and good at skill Y (for any X and Y) is very much what players want.

Also practically speaking, filling in 3E skill points is overly complicated. PF is "level x int mod, go", whereas 3E goes "level but x4 at first but remember your int mod at each level because it's not retroactive but half ranks for those particular levels where skills aren't class skills". Yeah, that's pretty off-putting to players who aren't optimizers.

Aotrs Commander

2020-05-13, 06:08 AM

Practically speaking, most players aren't optimizers; so in an actual game it is really not the case that everyone is equally good at everything (because of the +3, and racial bonuses, and because ability scores differ). That you can be, if you choose to, class X and good at skill Y (for any X and Y) is very much what players want.

Also practically speaking, filling in 3E skill points is overly complicated. PF is "level x int mod, go", whereas 3E goes "level but x4 at first but remember your int mod at each level because it's not retroactive but half ranks for those particular levels where skills aren't class skills". Yeah, that's pretty off-putting to players who aren't optimizers.

I think you can drop the last five words of that last sentence.

Nothing made me more glad to dump 3.x's skill calculations for adopting a (slightly modified) version of PF's quite so fast as the three campaigns of conversions of AD&D modules (Vecna Lives!/Vecone Reborn/Die, Vecna Die!, Night Below and Dragon Mountain (16th to Epic version), which in total ran to about 330 pages of stuff, being the majority stat blocks.

'Cos trust me, after the *pause to actually count* 76th time doing Wizard stats on that system - most of that in Vecna - (varying from level 1 to level 23 in multiple combinations with varying multiclassing, race and stats so that even with recycling as much as I could didn't gain me much ground - especially as you had to not infrequently dismantle the skills of the existing statblock to work out where the skill points even went), you can bet I was HEARTILY sick of having to calculate ANOTHER wizard's skill points level by level every sodding time and that was just solely and specifically Wizards (I don't want to COUNT how many stat block there were total over JUST those modules that I had to deal with skill syngergies and stuff for...)

As soon as I heard about.read how PF had changed how you got and spent skill points, even before we ever looked at consolidating skills, we dumped 3.0's system like hot garbage and never once looked back (except for Judge Dredd D20, but I'll come to that hot mess momentarily...)

I mean, yeah, that's a huge reduction, though the main homogenizing effect comes from the abolishment of proper cross-class skills. Consolidating primarily removes the granularity and verisimilitude from the fact that locks and traps are not the same thing, spotting and listening are not the same thing, etc. Removing proper cross-class skill limits means that aside from a +3 that most optimizers won't even blink at, everyone is equally good at everything they put ranks in. And combined it means that oh it "only" costs 1 skill point per level to have this skill that "everyone" should have regardless of whether or not it makes any sense for your character, which immediately eclipses the fact that there are zero skills *anyone* needs to have if you just facetank some traps. It's a slippery slope, a bad precedent, yet another slight increase to the already toxic pressure that a character which doesn't x/y/z is unoptimized and bad. To fix the skill system you make a skill system with defined expectations for the party which each type of class can contribute to, you don't just remove all the limits and tell people to figure it out.

3.0's cross-class skill system basically said "if it's cross-class, don't bother." So nobody EXCEPT the Fighters who had frack-all class skills anyway would bother; every one else just basically took class skills and nothing but class skills. It also made making NPCs and monster a great deal more faff (see also skill synergies and non-retroactive Intelligence skill points (oh how I came to LOATHE that last one) - especially since until PF, 3.5 didn't even have class sklls for monster types making it even more faff as you tried to work out what skills were class skills and what weren't if, for example, you had to advance something...

Look, dude; I had to MAKE A FRICKIN' SPREADSHEET to check all the Judge Dredd D20 characters (of which there are 11 in rotation) to make sure we had the right skill point totals, because it uses that system; EVEN after personally checking through everyone's character sheets SEVERAL times. (And this coming well AFTER all that stat block work, so it wasn't like by that point I was not intimiately familair with doing that particular load of maths.)

Hell, I had less problems running that afore-pictured combat with the skeleton ninja dragon in Rolemaster without hiccups, so it's not like there's anything wrong with my ability to Maths generally!

But, speaking of? If you want a far better granualar skill system? Rolemaster (RM2/SM2) has more skills than literally every edition of D&D's skills combined.

(But still only has one skill for General Perception.)

So if you want a system with more granularity and versimilitude? Rolemaster's a FAR better system for than than D&D ever was or ever will be. You want a system where you character classes (Professions, rather) gravitate inherently to only have certain skills1. Rolemaster does that. Seriously. Rolemaster even traditionally helpfully always gives you conversion rules so you can convert bits of the system to others, so it wouldn't even take much work. I'd straight link you to the current RMC's (a revisied version on RM2) free conversion pdf, if not for the fact the GitP isn't the only place that's had catastrophic website/forum failures knocking it down for the count this year (ICE is currently having what appears to be the same problems).

1When you have something on the region of 30 "skill points" per level (and I don't think even with the most obscene stats more than 45 on an actual PC in thirty years), there is no way the fighter is getting even 1 rank of a spell list (giving him all of a 5% chance og learning said list), nor the wizard MAYBE more than one weapon, if any at all at 9 for the first one and 20 for the second.

Psyren

2020-05-13, 09:16 AM

But when I hear someone say it's better, I must protest, 'cause for some of us it just ain't.

I refer you back to the first sentence of my previous reply; nothing else to do here but agree to (vigorously) disagree, then.

Regardless though - nothing is stopping you from, in your PF or 3.P games, re-bloating the skills system if that's what you like. Almost any change they made was guaranteed not to be able to please everyone, and this is one of them.

Practically speaking, most players aren't optimizers; so in an actual game it is really not the case that everyone is equally good at everything (because of the +3, and racial bonuses, and because ability scores differ). That you can be, if you choose to, class X and good at skill Y (for any X and Y) is very much what players want.

Also practically speaking, filling in 3E skill points is overly complicated. PF is "level x int mod, go", whereas 3E goes "level but x4 at first but remember your int mod at each level because it's not retroactive but half ranks for those particular levels where skills aren't class skills". Yeah, that's pretty off-putting to players who aren't optimizers.

Yep.

GrayDeath

2020-05-13, 09:20 AM

Pathfinder 1st edition and the best part is it is so largely compatible you can utilize both if you feel so inclined taking aspects, items, classes, and even spells to tailor everything to your liking.

I'd definitely concur to aim for Pathfinder 1e, as it's really, really close to 3.5. With a minimal amount of work, you can blend and use what you like from both systems interchangeably.

Sidestepping the reemitting "2.5 cs PF 1" Discussion (which should not reemerge in every thread, guys, really...).

I agree with the above.
If more "D&D" in style of 3.x is your forte, PF 1 is THE path to go. Especially due to its amazingly complete SRD (for now..).

Aotrs Commander

2020-05-13, 09:42 AM

As a perpetual DM, it looks like there's only one character in ~my~ party, and it's a big dragon skeleton monster.

This means I'm going to be experiencing the sleep of the brutally victorious.

Nope, five of those were NPCs accrued over the over-twenty years; leaving the remaining ten distributed among the seven players.

CAN YOU SEE WHY I RETIRED THAT PARTY!?

*eyeglow twitch* *eyeglow twitch*

Put it this way, the party that has taken over is a group of high-tech magical space-Liches and that was a STEP. DOWN. From the random collection of adventurers...

DrMartin

2020-05-13, 10:11 AM

Skills in 3.0 took over what in ad&d 2nd editions were two previously separate sets of abilities: one set of skills with soft class protection (non weapon proficiencies) and other skills unique to a very small subset of classes (thieves and, to a smaller extent, bards).

So anyone could stealth, using the environment, positions, players´creativity at the table and their ability to convince/amuse the DM, but only the thief could Move SilentlyTM (and only another thief could Hear NoiseTM through that) in ways that could go beyond what "the common man" can do. No more than a fighter could cast a wizard spell or Turn Undead, thieves skills were the thief´s own Thing. To note that skills were a flat % roll: if you have manage to hide in shadows or move silently, and you pass your roll, you just succeed. No opposed rolls.

To note that 2nd editions Thieves were mostly very sad in combat. Backstab was a little extra damage, and very hard to trigger. The thief was almost entirely defined by its Thieving skills.

3rd editions decided to consolidate these two previously separated sets of abilities into the skill system. The thief became rogue, backstab became something that could be reliably triggered in combat, and got a whole bunch of social skills as class skills to cement the shift. But by doing this, anyone with stealth (or rather, move silently/hide in shadows) could do those things as well as the rogue (that means Bards, Rangers, and Monks in the player´s handbook - not so dofferent from the classes that had access to thieves skills in 2nd edition).

But the this is: now anyone else could invest in it as a cross class skill, and anyone could still roll it untrained - and more important than that, anyone could try to counter that with a spot or listen check. Hide became mundane, no more ThiefTime.

Anyone could do skills, the rogue was simply better at it, and the rogue´s Thing shifted more toward sneak attack and its role in combat than skill monkeying. Still the difference between class skills and cross class was significant, (i would argue also in part for the headache of tracking cross class half ranks keeping people away from it), and HasALotOfSkills was one of the Rogue´s big things.

Pathfinder took this a step forward. Anyone can do skills, the rogue has a lot by default, but the rogue´s thing are more and more their sneak attack (which got more reliable) and the new rogue talents. Consolidating skills means that a rogue doesn´t have to choose so much between sneaky, trappy and social skills (stealth, disable device, perception, sleight of hand, acrobatics, climb, bluff, sense motive could be maxed by an int 10 rogue with their 8 skills ranks per level - you would need 14 ranks in 3.5 to max the equivalent skills). Coincidentally the gap between specialist and non specialist (class vs non class) became smaller. All in all, skills became somewhat less of a big deal, system-wide. With traits anyone could nab pretty much any skill they wanted as a class skill, but the boon for doing so was rather small (just the +3 bonus).

If pathfinder´s change went in the right direction is a matter of taste. But it is not, in my eyes, a huge paradigm shift from 3.5, just a shuffling and fine-tuning of what is basically the same system. A bit more granularity on one side, a bit less math on the other.

(also:Playing 3.5 with PF skills or PF with 3.5 skills is also an option, as is the other way around)

Nifft

2020-05-13, 10:15 AM

Nope, five of those were NPCs accrued over the over-twenty years; leaving the remaining ten distributed among the seven players.

CAN YOU SEE WHY I RETIRED THAT PARTY!?

*eyeglow twitch* *eyeglow twitch*

Put it this way, the party that has taken over is a group of high-tech magical space-Liches and that was a STEP. DOWN. From the random collection of adventurers...

I hereby retract my previous claim of peaceful sleep.

Was the campaign finale something like "Goodbye and Thanks for All the Lich"?

PairO'Dice Lost

2020-05-14, 11:17 AM

Sidestepping the reemitting "2.5 cs PF 1" Discussion (which should not reemerge in every thread, guys, really...).

This is literally a thread about comparing the two systems to see if someone should switch. Of all the possible threads to discuss the comparative benefits of both systems, this one is the most appropriate.

(It's also theoretically about comparing 3.5 and PF2, but c'mon, even PF2 fans don't like PF2. :smallwink:)

Pathfinder took this a step forward. Anyone can do skills, the rogue has a lot by default, but the rogue´s thing are more and more their sneak attack (which got more reliable) and the new rogue talents. Consolidating skills means that a rogue doesn´t have to choose so much between sneaky, trappy and social skills (stealth, disable device, perception, sleight of hand, acrobatics, climb, bluff, sense motive could be maxed by an int 10 rogue with their 8 skills ranks per level - you would need 14 ranks in 3.5 to max the equivalent skills). Coincidentally the gap between specialist and non specialist (class vs non class) became smaller. All in all, skills became somewhat less of a big deal, system-wide. With traits anyone could nab pretty much any skill they wanted as a class skill, but the boon for doing so was rather small (just the +3 bonus).

If pathfinder´s change went in the right direction is a matter of taste. But it is not, in my eyes, a huge paradigm shift from 3.5, just a shuffling and fine-tuning of what is basically the same system. A bit more granularity on one side, a bit less math on the other.

This is basically the kind of thing that Fizban is talking about, I think. It's not that "granular skills" are an inherently good thing in and of themselves, or else we'd all be playing Rolemaster as Aorts suggested, but that the particular way PF has handled its streamlining of the skill system that he finds objectionable--not just consolidating skills, but shrinking the gap between dabblers and specialists, giving more of the skillmonkey's perks to all the other classes, shifting skillmonkeys away from their previous foci, and so on, as opposed to, say, locking skill progressions into their existing value spread and having Rogue get a bunch of extra skill-related upgrades instead of Sneak Attack-related upgrades.

There are other 3e hacks out there that handle skill consolidation differently, and other possible ways to consolidate skills in a different way than PF did. For instance, to make up an arbitrary example, a 3e hack could keep the full 3e skill list but have "base skill bonus" progressions like it has base attack and base save bonuses, and every class could allocate Good (+[level]+3), Medium (+[3/4*level]+2), and Poor (+[1/2*level]+1) progressions to every skill, which would be even simpler than spending skill points at all and would make every character noticeably more well-rounded while preserving the class/cross-class maxima of base 3e. That setup would be significantly less granular than 3e but presumably closer to Fizban's ideal than PF's setup because it's resistant to optimization and keeps bonuses distinct on a per-class basis.

(also:Playing 3.5 with PF skills or PF with 3.5 skills is also an option, as is the other way around)

Indeed, or one of many other skill systems out there. People have been rewriting 3e's skill system since long before PF was a glimmer in Paizo's eye, and if you don't like PF's take on skills you can always keep rolling your own.

Kurald Galain

2020-05-14, 11:39 AM

PairO'Dice Lost

2020-05-14, 11:57 AM

Interestingly, it's more-or-less a sliding scale that every newer edition makes the Rogue a more capable dirty-fighting-oriented combatant and less of a niche-protected skill guy. Or, conversely, every edition you step back makes the Rogue a more niche-protected skill guy and less of a capable combatant.

Each newer edition reduced role protection in general, really; just as other classes stole some of the Thief's skill mechanics starting in 2e, other classes stole some of the Fighter's combat mechanics, and formerly-very-distinct Magic-User and Cleric lists became more and more blended as time went on.

The only real difference is that both the Fighter and the Thief lost a lot of their reason for existence once their primary schticks became things everyone could do, but the Thief pivoted to the Rogue and found a different way to stay relevant while the Fighter basically stagnated, which is probably why a lot of people want to return skill supremacy to the Rogue and get rid of the Fighter as redundant, where comparatively few people want to return combat supremacy to the Fighter and get rid of the Rogue as redundant.

Psyren

2020-05-14, 12:05 PM

Nifft

2020-05-14, 12:07 PM

I think it's more that new editions realized their niche was not one worth protecting. "Someone in your party has to be a rogue specifically, or we can't use traps" is not a fun thing to tell any DM, so they made those abilities more broadly available.

I thought P1's compromise (everyone can use skills, but rogues get the highest base number and some free extras) was the best one.

Honestly the 4e solution is my favorite:

- Traps aren't a whole encounter.

- Terrain hazards (i.e. combat encounter areas) include traps.

- Combat or "terrain puzzles" which involve everyone are where you make your trap-related skill checks, but they're not specific gateway skill checks which you must pass to get through. You can be creative.

It's just that it came with a bunch of 4e stuck on it.

Kurald Galain

2020-05-14, 12:27 PM

Each newer edition reduced role protection in general, really; just as other classes stole some of the Thief's skill mechanics starting in 2e, other classes stole some of the Fighter's combat mechanics, and formerly-very-distinct Magic-User and Cleric lists became more and more blended as time went on.

I don't think your generalization holds true for anything newer than 3.5.

For instance, fighters have a pretty clear role involving combat supremacy in PF, 4E, and even P2. And spell lists appear to get less blended after 3E, not moreso.

That's basically the opposite from how rogues gradually go from niche-protected skill guy (in older editions) to capable dirty-fighting-oriented combatant (in newer editions).

Psyren

2020-05-14, 12:38 PM

Honestly the 4e solution is my favorite:

- Traps aren't a whole encounter.

- Terrain hazards (i.e. combat encounter areas) include traps.

- Combat or "terrain puzzles" which involve everyone are where you make your trap-related skill checks, but they're not specific gateway skill checks which you must pass to get through. You can be creative.

It's just that it came with a bunch of 4e stuck on it.

I mean, if you want traps to work more like hazards that can involve a variety of skill checks or actions to resolve them, you can do that in PF too. (And probably 3.5 as well, but I'm rustier there.)

Nifft

2020-05-14, 12:40 PM

DrMartin

2020-05-14, 12:46 PM

Also - having certain skills curtained beyond certain classes limits the usability of those skills for a company whose core business revolves around publishing adventures, and would like for those adventures to appeal to a broad spectrum of players and groups, and not necessarily only to those with a rogue in their party.

This is not to condemn the decision - starting from the kind of stories you want to tell and building the system backwards from there is quite a successful formula - it just might help framing why skills in PF are designed the way they are.

(One of the easiest "hack" to bring niche protection back in PF is limiting non class skills max ranks to half your level, while keeping the cost to 1 skill point = 1 rank to minimize math headaches. Difference between cross class and class skills is now 6 points at level 6 and 8 points at level 10, significant and comparable to 3.5)

but back to OP original question: are you actually only interested in picking between PF1 and 2, or would you be into trying completely different systems as well?

Gnaeus

2020-05-14, 02:31 PM

Yeah.

As an aside, the Rogue's niche didn't particularly exist in oD&D.

IIRC it was either 1e or 2e which really codified the Thief as having exclusive access to trap-related skills, and made traps a thing you rolled a skill to solve.

In ye olde editions, a trap was a puzzle which you solved by talking to the DM. There were often a variety of rolls made to do stuff, but you weren't limited to only rolling specific actions supported by numbers on your character sheet.

That said, and without defending the 3.5 implementation, which is admittedly flawed, there are good things about it also.

Some people aren’t good at puzzles. Some people don’t like puzzles. They shouldn’t be prevented from playing Indiana Jones any more than an unCharismatic player shouldn’t be blocked from playing a Bard because they can’t sing.

And that guy is a genre staple. It’s like having a hacker in cyberpunk/espionage. Yeah, the implementation is often horrible, like giving a player a separate mini game while the rest of the party sits on their butts, then he sits out the next hour. But it’s a genre expected archetype.

We have one GM, who is amazing, but he loves math puzzles. I HATE them. I’m a lawyer, all my group friends are computer or science types. I literally at one point said, I’m willing to fight the epic dragon and die, because losing my character is less painful to me than solving the puzzle to open this door. And they are always required to advance, like the door is super strong and blocks all magic. I literally now take Profession:Mathematician in his games, and when we hit one I make a roll and tell him to give my teammates a clue if I did well, then nope out of the game for the next hour. That’s what I think trapfinding should be like.

Nifft

2020-05-14, 04:18 PM

That said, and without defending the 3.5 implementation, which is admittedly flawed, there are good things about it also.

Some people aren’t good at puzzles. Some people don’t like puzzles. They shouldn’t be prevented from playing Indiana Jones any more than an unCharismatic player shouldn’t be blocked from playing a Bard because they can’t sing.

And that guy is a genre staple. It’s like having a hacker in cyberpunk/espionage. Yeah, the implementation is often horrible, like giving a player a separate mini game while the rest of the party sits on their butts, then he sits out the next hour. But it’s a genre expected archetype.

We have one GM, who is amazing, but he loves math puzzles. I HATE them. I’m a lawyer, all my group friends are computer or science types. I literally at one point said, I’m willing to fight the epic dragon and die, because losing my character is less painful to me than solving the puzzle to open this door. And they are always required to advance, like the door is super strong and blocks all magic. I literally now take Profession:Mathematician in his games, and when we hit one I make a roll and tell him to give my teammates a clue if I did well, then nope out of the game for the next hour. That’s what I think trapfinding should be like.

The 4e way would be to have the puzzle control some environmental hazard / difficulty (e.g. water level in a room) which was relevant to combat, and you who has no interest in solving the puzzle would spend your turn fighting the monsters and ignoring the puzzle.

You could brute-force your way through the encounter without engaging with the puzzle at all.

You could allocate more resources to solve the puzzle and thereby make the combat easier by removing the hazard / difficulty.

Dropping out of the game sucks, and shouldn't be the default for all non-Rogues.

Psyren

2020-05-14, 04:37 PM

The 4e way would be to have the puzzle control some environmental hazard / difficulty (e.g. water level in a room) which was relevant to combat, and you who has no interest in solving the puzzle would spend your turn fighting the monsters and ignoring the puzzle.

You could brute-force your way through the encounter without engaging with the puzzle at all.

You could allocate more resources to solve the puzzle and thereby make the combat easier by removing the hazard / difficulty.

Dropping out of the game sucks, and shouldn't be the default for all non-Rogues.

I think his point was that he (the player) may not like puzzles, but the character he's roleplaying should still be able to take them on, if built for that. Investing in skills like Disable Device or Knowledge Engineering, and then rolling, allows that to happen. But his character not being allowed to roll or otherwise solve the puzzle unless the player does, prevents that roleplay from happening.

Aotrs Commander

2020-05-14, 05:00 PM

I hereby retract my previous claim of peaceful sleep.

Was the campaign finale something like "Goodbye and Thanks for All the Lich"?

It was, actually; that was the capstone encounter of the final quest before that party offically retired (my 40th birth celebration in October).

The best of the three titles for that adventure (because I couldn't resist) was hinged on the fact that the PCs had to inflitrate an Aotrs planet (so y'know, full of entirely DIFFERENT Evil Magical Space Liches to the 50th level ninja dragon Time Drake Lich they were about to fight there). One option was just to, like, straight up ask them for permission; the Aotrs would certainly have agreed to help the party - but the cost would have been very high. (And I don't mean, "give us money," I mean "aside from the PCs not getting their Retirement Loot 'cos the Aotrs wouldn't have let them take it away and/or potentially being imprisoned post-adventure is they didn't behave themselves, the party's super-high tech (as in top-tier high-tech power) allies would have had to let the Aotrs wander around THEIR planet unimpeded for a bit.")

Hense: "Every Lich Way Is Lose."

Fizban

2020-05-14, 07:03 PM

This is basically the kind of thing that Fizban is talking about, I think.
Ya.

as opposed to, say, locking skill progressions into their existing value spread and having Rogue get a bunch of extra skill-related upgrades instead of Sneak Attack-related upgrades.
Actually. . .

a 3e hack could keep the full 3e skill list but have "base skill bonus" progressions like it has base attack and base save bonuses, and every class could allocate Good (+[level]+3), Medium (+[3/4*level]+2), and Poor (+[1/2*level]+1) progressions to every skill, which would be even simpler than spending skill points at all and would make every character noticeably more well-rounded while preserving the class/cross-class maxima of base 3e. That setup would be significantly less granular than 3e but presumably closer to Fizban's ideal than PF's setup because it's resistant to optimization and keeps bonuses distinct on a per-class basis.
My ideal is already the 3.x system (give or take a few skills and uses, etc, we're talking about points and cross-class here)- I happen to have started with the system I like, and have mostly stayed put. However, I would respect such an assigned bonus system more than the half-measures in PF 1. I similarly respect the flat on/off proficiency skills in 5e (though not their refusal to actually have a skill system by getting rid of all standard DCs and replacing them with "make something up"). Both are systems that define things well. But trying to combine a point system with an on/off bonus system, having part of it care about class but not the rest, no.

The only real difference is that both the Fighter and the Thief lost a lot of their reason for existence once their primary schticks became things everyone could do, but the Thief pivoted to the Rogue and found a different way to stay relevant while the Fighter basically stagnated, which is probably why a lot of people want to return skill supremacy to the Rogue and get rid of the Fighter as redundant, where comparatively few people want to return combat supremacy to the Fighter and get rid of the Rogue as redundant.
I mean, I was just calling for a Rogue skill point nerf and I maintain that the Fighter is absolutely a usable class if you just stop char-opping your monsters and run the game the way it was written. So you could say that I want to "get rid of" the rogue as "redundant," by nerfing them because they have more than they need, while I'm "returning supremacy" to the "fighter" by nerf-batting all the bogus ACFs and combos that make mockery of non-gimmick builds which rely on normal weapon attacks and positioning.

I think it's more that new editions realized their niche was not one worth protecting. "Someone in your party has to be a rogue specifically, or we can't use traps" is not a fun thing to tell any DM, so they made those abilities more broadly available.
Better to just expand the number of classes that can trapfind- the Dungeonscape ACFs for Barbarian and Ranger were excellent ideas, though somewhat hampered by still needing to respect rather than write-out the Trapfinding mechanic, or just make it a feat if no one wants to play those classes. As is redefining traps and their usage so that a trapfinder is a bonus rather than a requirement, but that has less automatic backwards compatibility.

Psyren

2020-05-14, 07:22 PM

Better to just expand the number of classes that can trapfind- the Dungeonscape ACFs for Barbarian and Ranger were excellent ideas, though somewhat hampered by still needing to respect rather than write-out the Trapfinding mechanic, or just make it a feat if no one wants to play those classes. As is redefining traps and their usage so that a trapfinder is a bonus rather than a requirement, but that has less automatic backwards compatibility.

They did both - there's a bunch of archetypes that grant it, AND it's a feat trait (https://www.d20pfsrd.com/traits/campaign-traits/mummy-s-mask/trap-finder/).

It's not just a "bonus" though - without it, you can't beat magic traps with Disable Device, you need to do something else (like dispel, disjoin, or sunder) instead.

Nifft

2020-05-15, 10:16 AM

I think his point was that he (the player) may not like puzzles, but the character he's roleplaying should still be able to take them on, if built for that. Investing in skills like Disable Device or Knowledge Engineering, and then rolling, allows that to happen. But his character not being allowed to roll or otherwise solve the puzzle unless the player does, prevents that roleplay from happening.

The trouble with that is, in this case, the other players were enjoying the puzzle.

Allowing one player to remove the puzzle with a die roll would worsen the experience for the other people at the table.

Hence, my suggestion that the puzzle be solved in parallel with a non-puzzle challenge, and that the player who dislikes puzzles be allowed to devote all his attention to the non-puzzle portion.

Psyren

2020-05-15, 10:28 AM

Gnaeus

2020-05-15, 02:12 PM

The trouble with that is, in this case, the other players were enjoying the puzzle.

Allowing one player to remove the puzzle with a die roll would worsen the experience for the other people at the table.

Hence, my suggestion that the puzzle be solved in parallel with a non-puzzle challenge, and that the player who dislikes puzzles be allowed to devote all his attention to the non-puzzle portion.

In that particular case, I would have been fine working on a non puzzle problem. I would also have been fine if the puzzle wasn’t so heavily plot armored that we could avoid it until someone figured it out at home.

In abstract though, I still feel that knowing how to solve puzzles shouldn’t be based on player skill any more than playing a bard should require me to learn an instrument or playing a monk should require regular trips to a dojo or playing a hacker should require knowledge of IRL coding. The 26 int wizard should be good at puzzles. The 8 int fighter shouldnt. Regardless of which player is holding which sheet. I’ve heard of groups that say elvish is Latin and dwarvish is German and you need to learn a language to learn a language. But I’m not smart enough to do that either, and I don’t think I should need to be to play magic elf game.

PairO'Dice Lost

2020-05-16, 09:37 PM

I don't think your generalization holds true for anything newer than 3.5.

For instance, fighters have a pretty clear role involving combat supremacy in PF, 4E, and even P2. And spell lists appear to get less blended after 3E, not moreso.

That's basically the opposite from how rogues gradually go from niche-protected skill guy (in older editions) to capable dirty-fighting-oriented combatant (in newer editions).

Regarding fighters, they might have the highest numbers and most feats and such in 3e/PF/4e/PF2/5e, but they're still using all the same tools the fighter does, where before there was a much sharper division between classes. In those editions fighters and rogues both get more attacks as they level, can take combat-related feats, can buy magical weapons, and so on, and wizards and clerics can get in on the game if they really want to, as that's all part of the game engine and core game assumptions; in AD&D, meanwhile, things like percentile strength, extra HP from high Con bonuses, multiple level-based attacks, weapon proficiencies, using a wide variety of magical swords, and so on were literally inaccessible to other classes (barring fighter subclasses, of course) in the same way that thief skills were literally inaccessible to non-thieves.

Regarding spell lists, 4e definitely doesn't allow individual powers to be shared between classes and so is very distinct in that sense, but I was talking more about the general character of the two lists. In 1e the magic-user and cleric were the two pillars of magic use and each one's spell list had certain characteristics and capabilities that the other Did Not Do. There's the standard "clerics don't blast, magic-users don't heal" thing, yes, but it was more than that: 1e clerics had no way of teleporting and 1e magic-users had no way of animating undead, for instance, so you needed a magic-user for mid-level mobility and a cleric for mid-level minionmancy. 2e relaxed that with spheres and specialist wizards, but always in such a way that one or the other was obviously the better class at something, often including giving cross-list spells at a 1- or 2-spell-level delay. And in both cases any other classes like the druid, illusionist, ranger, and bard always cast "as a cleric" or "as a magic-user," with the former two having their own spell lists that still retained the general character of the cleric and magic-user lists.

Then 3e comes around and gives healing to arcane casters via the bard, closes a bunch of spell level gaps, introduces new spells to cover capability gaps, and so on, as well as introducing a bunch of alternate magic systems and partial casters with hybrid lists that blur the lines; 4e comes around with its role/power source grid filling and its Divine Strikers and Arcane Defenders so now both arcanists and priests can both blast and heal (and teleport and animate dead, to the extent that that was actually a thing in 4e); 5e comes around and, while it ditches some of the 4e-isms, it fixes all spells at the same level across classes and makes it easy to blend capabilities via feats and a single multicasting spell progression, so casters are much less distinct than before.

So there is indeed a trend of classes going from highly distinct in 1e to still mostly distinct in 2e to standardized in 3e to diluted in 4e to blended in 5e. I'm not at all saying that it's a bad thing, just that its a trend for more than the rogue and the rogue is just the most visibly un-niche-protected class because it had a fairly sharp pivot in 3.0 where the others were more gradual.

In abstract though, I still feel that knowing how to solve puzzles shouldn’t be based on player skill any more than playing a bard should require me to learn an instrument or playing a monk should require regular trips to a dojo or playing a hacker should require knowledge of IRL coding. The 26 int wizard should be good at puzzles. The 8 int fighter shouldnt. Regardless of which player is holding which sheet. I’ve heard of groups that say elvish is Latin and dwarvish is German and you need to learn a language to learn a language. But I’m not smart enough to do that either, and I don’t think I should need to be to play magic elf game.

It's definitely the case that uncharismatic and tactically-inept players should be able to play silver-tongued bards and strategic warlords by relying on mechanics rather than player skill, but there are certain kinds of challenges that generally challenge the party rather than a single player and so can be allowed to trend more toward metagame challenges, and (certain kinds of) puzzles are one of those.

In the same way that you can have both "traps" that are basic obstacles resolvable by the rogue's Disable Device roll and that merely challenge his skill modifier and Reflex save modifier and "traps" that are entire encounters on their own which challenge the whole party's problem-solving and tactical skills more than just the rogue's, you can have "puzzles" that are basic obstacles resolvable by the wizard's Decipher Script roll and that merely challenge his skill modifier and spell preparation and "puzzles" that are entire scenes on their own which challenge the whole party's lateral-thinking and deductive skills more than just the rogue's.

The latter fill a valuable niche of varying challenge types and engaging differing player tastes that quick trap-finding and puzzle-solving challenges don't, and shouldn't be reduced to a single roll in the same way that combat encounters shouldn't be reduced to a single "Warfare" or "Knowledge (Tactics)" check on the part of the fighter (unless you're playing in a non-combat-focused system specifically built to support that, of course). By the same token, though, Indiana Jones-style room-sized traps and plot-advancing puzzles are a tool that the DM should use only if their party likes those kinds of challenges, just like you wouldn't run an intrigue-heavy dinner feast scene for a bunch of players who don't like talking in-character all that much or a characterization-heavy moral dilemma scene for a bunch of players who prefer a hack-and-slash playstyle, and then get mad that the players want to just roll a Diplomacy check or Wisdom check and get on with things.