3.5 over pathfinder

[SpacemonkeyDM]

I pretty much skipped over 3.5. So I was wondering why people stuck with it form a mechinical view point over switching to 3.p. What did it better, does it play much different. From a quick read over the difference in clerics, I would think would make it slightly more deadly. What else is there that one might of missed?


Edited cause I am an idiot.

[el minster]

from what I understand they aren't mutually exclusive

[Kurald Galain]

I pretty much skipped over 3.5. So I was wondering why people stuck with it form a mechinical view point over switching to 3.5.

Why do people stick with 3.5 instead of switching to 3.5? Wait what?

[el minster]

Why do people stick with 3.5 instead of switching to 3.5? Wait what?

absolutely hilarious

[GrayDeath]

I pretty much skipped over 3.5. So I was wondering why people stuck with it form a mechinical view point over switching to 3.5. What did it better, does it play much different. From a quick read over the difference in clerics, I would think would make it slightly more deadly. What else is there that one might of missed?

Not much, as Pathfinder was intentionally aimed at "people who want to keep playing 3.5 but with fewer exploits/Bugs".

Which they mostly achieved.

Overall, in my personal experience, people stay with 3.5 compared to 3.x or PF because:

A: They have all the books, and dont want to add something new

B: They have their exact number of Houserules down pat, and dont want to change the experience

+or C:

Their specific OP Character no longer works.

^^

[Cerefel]

+or C:

Their specific OP Character no longer works.

I don't think that's entirely limited to overpowered characters. I can think of a good few character concepts that are much harder to build in pf than they are in 3.5, but aren't really the most powerful options

[Gavinfoxx]

I believe the points mentioned in this old thread are still valid https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?234853-Pathfinder-vs-D-amp-D-3-5

[Kurald Galain]

I don't think that's entirely limited to overpowered characters. I can think of a good few character concepts that are much harder to build in pf than they are in 3.5, but aren't really the most powerful options

Well that's a nice handwave. Can you give a few (as in, more than one) actual examples? :smallamused:

[SpacemonkeyDM]

I was reading a few PDF of 3.5 and saw some very different classes. I liked the Tome of Battle, I
thought it was a nice way to give martial characters a boost. I also loved the Psionic book. So those two things on the top of the old infirmed brain had me wondering if I should try a straight 3.5 game.

[Psyren]

I pretty much skipped over 3.5. So I was wondering why people stuck with it form a mechinical view point over switching to 3.5. What did it better, does it play much different. From a quick read over the difference in clerics, I would think would make it slightly more deadly. What else is there that one might of missed?

I assume you actually meant to ask "why people stuck with 3.5 over switching to Pathfinder."

Not being one of those people I'm not at all an authority, but some of the reasons I've seen over the years:

1) PF isn't different enough from 3.5 to justify internalizing all the fiddly rule and spell changes for some folks.
2) Dislike of Golarion as a setting, and not willing or able to take the time to convert (insert favorite setting) to PF.
3) Dislike of one or more of the few major changes, e.g. removal of XP costs, removal of LA, removal of deity stats etc.
4) Want to continue using {insert trick, combo, interaction or concept that PF made impossible or impractical.}
5) Some form of trauma/negative experience during the PF playtest that is now lost to time.
6) Aesthetic reasons, e.g. disliking how PF statblocks are laid out or disliking Wayne Reynolds' cover art.

As above, none of these were particularly compelling to me but I've seen them come up when this question was asked before.

[Kurald Galain]

I was reading a few PDF of 3.5 and saw some very different classes. I liked the Tome of Battle, I
thought it was a nice way to give martial characters a boost. I also loved the Psionic book. So those two things on the top of the old infirmed brain had me wondering if I should try a straight 3.5 game.
Ah, so your actual question is, does PF have tome of battle and/or psionic classes. The answer is that yes, it does. TOB equivalent (https://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/3rd-party-classes/dreamscarred-press/), psionic equivalent (https://www.d20pfsrd.com/alternative-rule-systems/occult-adventures/occult-classes/).

[Telonius]

1) PF isn't different enough from 3.5 to justify internalizing all the fiddly rule and spell changes for some folks.


This is pretty much where I come down. The way my brain works: when something gets stuck in my long-term memory, it's very easy for me to remember things, but much harder to forget. 3rd edition pulled a big switch on me once before, when they moved from 3.0 to 3.5. It was truly a pain to forget all of the rules I'd already filed away.

For Pathfinder stuff, unless there's some big bright reason for me to remember which version we're using, I'd end up spending the entire session looking up rules instead of playing the game, since I'd never trust myself to remember which is the active rule.

There are parts of PF that I really like (skill streamlining for example), and I do use those in my houserules. Stuff like that, I remember, because it's a big and obvious change, and easily reflected (and reminded) on a character sheet. But comparing all the fiddly bits ... that gets filed under "No Fun" for me. It would be easier for me to learn a whole new system (like changing to 4th or 5th) than it would be to change to PF.

[Kaleph]

I pretty much skipped over 3.5. So I was wondering why people stuck with it form a mechinical view point over switching to 3.p. What did it better, does it play much different. From a quick read over the difference in clerics, I would think would make it slightly more deadly. What else is there that one might of missed?


Edited cause I am an idiot.

As far as I'm concerned, the specular question would be: why should I switch to 3.pf? Aka, this:

1) PF isn't different enough from 3.5 to justify internalizing all the fiddly rule and spell changes for some folks some brilliant people

[Psyren]

I pretty much skipped over 3.5. So I was wondering why people stuck with it form a mechinical view point over switching to 3.p. What did it better, does it play much different. From a quick read over the difference in clerics, I would think would make it slightly more deadly. What else is there that one might of missed?


Edited cause I am an idiot.

No worries, typos happen.

Addressing the second part of your question - Clerics have a much higher ceiling in 3.5, primarily because DMM exists; in addition, some of the other toys they can pick up through spells (like melee ability, blasting, and shapeshifting) are stronger or easier to acquire there. Furthermore, 3.5 turning is based on the target's HD (which are much harder to buff/defend than their will save), and since one of the potential outcomes is instant destruction no save, you get more dividends from optimizing it. Lastly. getting additional domains is easier in 3.5 too.

At lower optimization levels, the PF Cleric feels a bit better to play because they get more powers aside from their spells, and channeling is usable in more situations by default.

[Kurald Galain]

As far as I'm concerned, the specular question would be: why should I switch to 3.pf? Aka, this:
That's a fair question. Without having to change rules minutiae like how often you save against Glitterdust, 3.PF offers a large amount of new classes (e.g. Alchemist, Magus, Oracle); alternate class features for existing classes (dozens of straightforward "archetypes" for each core class); and flavorful ability choices to diversify some classes (e.g. barbarians get rage powers, rogues get dirty tricks, and sorcerers get a bloodline).

Overall, character concepts in PF take off several levels earlier (often at level one) and don't require carefully planning prestige classes several levels in advance.

[Quertus]

If I wanted to play heavily house-ruled 3e, I'd play with my own house rules.

If I wanted to completely redo the classes, but still leave them highly unbalanced… I'd just *add* new classes on top of 3e.

If I wanted to buff Wizards by giving them XP-free crafting… I'd just do that.

If I wanted to let Fighters in on the crafting love… I'd just do that.

Oh, and the Crusader is better (more fun for me) than its PF failed rip-off.

Pathfinder really offers less than nothing to me.

Actually, that's not entirely true - I'm told that Spheres of Power would allow me to run a character with Animate Dead, nothing else, no religion necessary, coming online from level 1. If so, then it's *technically* tied with 2e… *unless* SoP is 3rd party, in which case I could just homebrew my own for any game, and we're back to pf offering me less than nothing again.

[Aotrs Commander]

My answer was initally "I didn't think PF had actually understood what needing fixing in 3.5," based on, fundementally, the first look and specifically them Adding Numbers To Fighter, nerfing power attack (as it seemed) and Dispel Magic, Concentration not a skill and generally seeming to have missed the point. Basically, as Psyren said, I got the impression that their house-rules were fundementally not better than my house rules at that point.

(Now, that didn't stop me swiping some of the obvious good ideas (skill ranks, some of the skills being rolled together).)



Over the years, though, I slowly found that, actually, more or ONLY those parts were the bits I disagreed with them on (and had Unchained Rogue/Monk existed from the start, I would likely have moved over very much faster!), and that in general, Pathfinder had a lot of clever ideas we slowly starting filtching back into our 3.5 houserules. (Skills, then feat progression, then monster tweaks - with an eye to the fact that when we start a new adventure path next (if ever, plague apocalypse) if will be PF, not 3.5-era, so this means less monster tweaks).)

Until about September, when I thought "you know, I wonder if there are any good versions of Soul Knife, since even the Untapped Potential version is a bit paff," and found the Pathfinder one. And, what started OUT as me back-fitting PF Soul Knife to my existing 3.Aotrs house rules (already some hundred or two pages, given all the 3.5 stuff I compied up and tweaked) turned into a massive project that more or less is an edition all itself (3.Aotrs v2.0, at over a thousand pages), which sits somewhere between the twain with probably far too many options for sane people (59 base classes before archtype, which almost all of 3.35's with a veru high proportion of PF's...!)

But as most lesser mortals are not daft enough to go through basically massive swathes of 3.5 and PF1 over the course of nine months and untold hundreds of hours and go "yes," (my approach has often been "what you could do with this ability in 3.5 AND what you could do with this ability in PF" if they were different) and I suspect that a lot of people get stuck on the first one.



For the record, now that I have pretty thoroughly read PF, I think it is generally better overall if you HAD to use one or 'tother; but I still say "why one or the other when I can just have the best parts of both?"

[Psyren]

@Quertus:
Spheres is third-party.

Not sure which class you're referring to when you say "failed Crusader ripoff" as the only attempt at converting ToB to Pathfinder was also third-party.



For the record, now that I have pretty thoroughly read PF, I think it is generally better overall if you HAD to use one or 'tother; but I still say "why one or the other when I can just have the best parts of both?"

This is pretty much where we landed, and also adding in some improvements on both (like the Athletics skill, or removing some of the feat taxes noted in my sig.)

[Kurald Galain]

If I wanted to completely redo the classes, but still leave them highly unbalanced… I'd just *add* new classes on top of 3e.
Then it's a good thing that 3.PF offers a large amount of new classes (e.g. Alchemist, Magus, Oracle) that would take all of five minutes to backport to 3E :smallbiggrin:

[Aotrs Commander]

Then it's a good thing that 3.PF offers a large amount of new classes (e.g. Alchemist, Magus, Oracle) that would take all of five minutes to backport to 3E :smallbiggrin:

Well, depending on how thoroughly you want the job to be done, it takes a little bit more effort than that. Having done that Thorough Job...! Though that IS probably more thoroughly than most groups would probably need.

But, ostensibly, that's what I did, though; upgraded existing 3.5 classes (which many had already been previously tweaked anyway) to PF standard where they were common and added a lot of the PF classes straight in with the 3.5 ones (Merged a few; Knight knocked Cavalier on the head and stole most of its stuff and made it an archtytpe of its own class, Oracle assimilated Favoured Soul into an archtype.)

[Rynjin]

Well that's a nice handwave. Can you give a few (as in, more than one) actual examples? :smallamused:

I mean if nothing else, and even as someone who didn't play 3.5 at all, I can think of one: there's no true Warlock successor.

I hear people really liked non-Lawful Paladins as well, which Pathfinder does not execute on very well when it bothers to at all.

[afroakuma]

Then it's a good thing that 3.PF offers a large amount of new classes (e.g. Alchemist, Magus, Oracle) that would take all of five minutes to backport to 3E :smallbiggrin:

None of these are worth the bland misery of Pathfinder, which took every opportunity to do something interesting and consciously ran the other way. If I were not required to run it in order to have a functional playgroup, I would gleefully delete it all from my brain. 3.5 is bad, but 3.P isn't anywhere close to a solution. It just does bad things differently.

It did give me this though and he's pretty cool. (https://i.pinimg.com/originals/fe/60/63/fe6063e2f5855632956b148124edee3d.png)

[Kurald Galain]

I mean if nothing else, and even as someone who didn't play 3.5 at all, I can think of one: there's no true Warlock successor.

I hear people really liked non-Lawful Paladins as well, which Pathfinder does not execute on very well when it bothers to at all.
Inquisitor and Warpriest cover that, but if you insist on the paladin class then there's archetypes like Gray Paladin and Vindictive Bastard. Generally though, when people say "non-lawful paladin" they just mean "champion of a deity", which means "cleric".

Fair point about the warlock, though. Although a PF sorcerer can probably do it. Yes, I'm as disappointed in PF's kinny as most of us.


None of these are worth the bland misery of Pathfinder, which took every opportunity to do something interesting and consciously ran the other way.
Well that's a nice handwave. Can you give a few (as in, more than one) actual examples? :smallamused:

[Psyren]

Well, depending on how thoroughly you want the job to be done, it takes a little bit more effort than that. Having done that Thorough Job...! Though that IS probably more thoroughly than most groups would probably need.

To be fair, what you did was less backporting PF classes to 3.5, than it was developing an entirely new framework (part amalgam and part new creation) that you then proceeded to port parts of both forward to. So I'd say Kurald's statement is still correct if all you're doing is a simpler one-way conversion.


I mean if nothing else, and even as someone who didn't play 3.5 at all, I can think of one: there's no true Warlock successor.

I hear people really liked non-Lawful Paladins as well, which Pathfinder does not execute on very well when it bothers to at all.

I agree on these points, but (a) we got close enough that 3PP got us the rest of the way there, and (b) even if you don't want to use those, developing these concepts from what we were given with is pretty easy I'd say.

[Gauntlet]

1. My playgroup already knows 3.5 and a lot of them won't want to learn a new ruleset. Especially if it's similar enough to be confusing.

2. I like running games set in Eberron, and porting everything across is more time than I'm willing to invest.

[Twurps]

For me the question is as alien as why do you play d&d3.5 instead of poker, mtg, or backgammon for all I care.
I play 3.5 because I like it. It works for our group. All of us are having a great time. Maybe 3.p would be better for us, maybe 4e, or 5e would*, or like I said: maybe we would be better of playing a different game altogether. But if it works, why fix it? So we're happily sticking with 3.5.

*from what I gather from this forum, neither 4e nor 5e would fit us, but that's all hearsay

[Eldonauran]

Not much, as Pathfinder was intentionally aimed at "people who want to keep playing 3.5 but with fewer exploits/Bugs".
Hmm, I was around these parts before that happened and I did not get that impression as their aim. But I could be wrong about other people's take on the matter. Personally, I transitioned to Pathfinder more out of loyalty to the 3.x edition of Dungeon and Dragons, and the loss of faith in the direction of Wizards of the Coast (which still hasn't recovered even this far into the 5e of D&D). I've still got tons of material from 3.5e and 3.0e that I still use in my home PF games, but I've general done away with purely 3.x games. Perhaps the fewer exploits/'bugs' was a part of the draw. I've always been a bit against the general grain of optimization crowd.

To answer the OP's question, I'll come at it from from the 'why I switched... mechanically speaking'. Simply, I think 3.x became too bloated and needed slimming down. When I say that, I mean all the different design concepts from wildly different authors that just did not play well with each other, and the player expectation of what should be allowed in play. Pathfinder tightened things down, trimmed the fat and made things run much smoother. Grapple (and combat maneuvers in general) got better, though not perfect. Transitioning prestige classes to more specific and less desirable from an optimization standpoint was a big plus. Archetypes for classes reminded me much of the Kits from 2e, and I thought was a huge bonus.

[Spellweaver]

Well, I'm a gamer that started with BECMI, then 1E, then 2E......and 3X is the last of that line of D&D. With only a couple tweaks 3.5E is the same game I have been playing all along. It's easy to ignore the bad 3.5E changes and port back the good 2E things.

Pathfinder is....ok......but it goes off on a wild tangent. Much like all the late 3.75 D&D stuff, Pathfinder rips apart classic D&D to make it cool. Part of the whole down hill slide to make D&D cool, even more so to new players, that lead to 4E. 5E makes a partial comeback, but the change is done.

[Zanos]

One of the advantages to 3.5 is that it's abandoned, so I don't have players citing to me rulings that came out last month in the bottom of an article nestled in a collapsible web element in an FAQ that's buried 15 pages deep in Paizos website. Their approach to FAQ/Errata is truly horrendous.

Also not a huge fan of their massive kitchen sink approach, which 3.5 already irritates me with. I'm just more familiar with the bits and bobs of 3.5 and don't like Paizo much as a company. So I stuck with the OG.

[Kish]

For my part, I have two answers to this, one general and one specific. The general one is that Pathfinder, by design (and yes, I have read the chief developer saying this is deliberate), favors single-class characters. If you want to play a multiclass character who's something other than "one standard class to qualify for X single prestige class," expect to be weaker in Pathfinder than in 3.5ed.

The specific one is that I really don't consider Path of War a good counterpart to Tome of Battle or an appealing supplement/subsystem in its own right.

[Zanos]

The specific one is that I really don't consider Path of War a good counterpart to Tome of Battle or an appealing supplement/subsystem in its own right.
What, not a fan of the discipline that is entirely focused around quickdrawing your katana? :smalltongue:

[Rynjin]

Inquisitor and Warpriest cover that, but if you insist on the paladin class then there's archetypes like Gray Paladin and Vindictive Bastard. Generally though, when people say "non-lawful paladin" they just mean "champion of a deity", which means "cleric".

Fair point about the warlock, though. Although a PF sorcerer can probably do it. Yes, I'm as disappointed in PF's kinny as most of us.

I love the Inquisitor and Vindictive Bastard, but neither really scratch the "Paladin" itch, and I'd honestly prefer they had never printed the Warpriest at all.

Gray Paladin and Vindictive Bastard are also headscratching in that they lose pretty much all of the Paladin's base level class features.

The closest we get is Chevalier, which is technically a 3.5 Prestige Class anyway, not a Pathfinder one.

[gijoemike]

One of the major design differences is that 3.5 has the concept of level to 5 then switch to a prestige class to gain new powers/abilities. And the game evolved into early entry techniques and stacking 2 core classes with 2 or 3 prestige classes and that isn't getting close to top level optimizations.

In Pathfinder one selects an archtype of a class as early as level 1 and then you just level. You don't need to multiclass. And there were very few Pathfinder prestige classes. They abandoned the concept early on.

Also, Pathfinder has rules that are named the same, in same section, belong to the same class but are in some cases radically different. Many 3.5 experts had more problems learning Pathfinder than players coming from 2e or other systems. (Glitterdust spell, Paladin smite, Uncanny Dodge)


If you wanted to be a shadow weave magic user Red wizard pale master it is easy in 3.5 by jumping through the prestige class hoops.

In pure Pathfinder that would be near impossible as the wizard archtypes could overlap. Or you simply choose to do that at lvl 1 because the archtypes didn't overlap.

[afroakuma]

Well that's a nice handwave. Can you give a few (as in, more than one) actual examples? :smallamused:

Can you see how this might scan as disingenuous, especially given your word-for-word use of it upthread, and knowing that I know your position on the two already?

The short answer is, I can, but why would I? I have no interest in trying to persuade you of anything, were it even possible; I certainly don't need to make the case to myself; and you're just looking for something to argue at in defense of your preferred system.

[Quertus]

@Quertus:
Spheres is third-party.

Not sure which class you're referring to when you say "failed Crusader ripoff" as the only attempt at converting ToB to Pathfinder was also third-party.

Well, sadness. Back to "less than nothing to offer me", then. (Not even a failed Crusader replacement)


Then it's a good thing that 3.PF offers a large amount of new classes (e.g. Alchemist, Magus, Oracle) that would take all of five minutes to backport to 3E :smallbiggrin:

I'll bet D&D wiki has even more classes, already in 3e format.

That said, I've heard good things about some of those new PF classes.

[Zanos]

Can you see how this might scan as disingenuous, especially given your word-for-word use of it upthread, and knowing that I know your position on the two already?

The short answer is, I can, but why would I? I have no interest in trying to persuade you of anything, were it even possible; I certainly don't need to make the case to myself; and you're just looking for something to argue at in defense of your preferred system.
I'd be interested in what you find bland about some of the PF classes. I don't like them either for the kitchen sink I mentioned earlier; there's only so many ways to cast magic you can add to a setting before 'magic' ceases to mean anything. But that doesn't mean I wouldn't be interested in someone else's take.

[Rynjin]

Well, sadness. Back to "less than nothing to offer me", then. (Not even a failed Crusader replacement)

This seems like such a strange logic.

Taking it to its logical conclusion, 3.5 has nothing to offer you either since you could just make your own RPG system from square 1.

[Dalmosh]

I play in homebrewed settings, so Golarion content doesn't interest me.

My players are generally low op, and my games are roleplay focussed and pretty much exclusively low-mid level, so I don't find game-breaking stuff comes up often. When it does, I try and just use that to inform my world-building and get on with things.

Things tend to peter out naturally at mid-high level anyway as we don't enjoy the superhero/anime type feel to that kind of play, or find 3.5 a particularly fun system for dealing with armies and strongholds. It kind of turns from immersive invested storytelling into listening to accountants describing Minecraft, which is likely as much a reflection on me as DM than on the specific rules system I use.
These kind of issues nudge us further and further into E6 style play, which is basically what we're about anyway and really happy with. Pathfinder doesn't seem to be able to fix that to me...

The breadth of 3.5's options, including Dragon Magazine articles, and forward-porting stuff from 3.0 means I rarely need new rules for anything that I can't just homebrew. I occasionally use PF content to improve things like gun combat, but no more than I do for say D20 Modern, Kingdoms of Kalamar or completely unrelated systems.

Generally the new content I want is broadscale collaborative worldbuilding tools that my players can engage with - and I haven't gotten a sense that Pathfinder has much to offer there compared to what I can already do through integrating systems like Microscope and Dawn of Worlds into my campaigns.

[newguydude1]

3.5 is better because it has more stuff.

for example, im making a wizard right now that uses animal companions to generate corpses for his necromancy which is free thanks to fell animate. which is achieved early level thanks to the illumian race and by going dread necro instead of cleric to fuel naenhoon i have at will undead healing. then im gonna switch to simulacrum scrolls crafted for free using ambrosia, minor creation, and a monster with simulacrum as an sla using cooperative crafting rules.

try doing that in pathfinder. no. your stuck with summon monster into spending money for animate dead on corpses the dm gives you on a silver platter and your screwed in an undead or construct centric campaign. and you got no way of cheating simulacrum components even if you decide to dedicate your entire character for it.

[Crake]

I've seen a lot of people in this thread seem to refer to pf1e as 3.pf, but I've always taken 3.pf to be a mish-mash of both 3.5 and pf1e, which is personally what I run. I use a mix of the pf and 3.5 base systems, for example, maintaining xp costs, continuing to use LA, but include a lot of pathfinder content, like feats and classes.

Generally speaking, where there's content that exists in both forms, I allow players to pick which version they want to use, for example, 3.5 PA vs pf PA, or spells, or base classes, but generally only allow adjustments to those that apply to the version they chose, so for example, no lion totem barbarian on a pathfinder barbarian.

I just personally don't see the appeal of running one or the other, when you can instead utilize both, the only choices that matter to me are the underlying base system changes, like whether you want to use pf or 3.5 skill ranks, whether you want to group skills like in pf, whether you want to use CMB/CMD or not, whether you want feats every 3rd level, or every odd level, etc.

[Kurald Galain]

Pathfinder is....ok......but it goes off on a wild tangent. Much like all the late 3.75 D&D stuff, Pathfinder rips apart classic D&D to make it cool.
I'm curious what you specifically mean by that.


If you wanted to be a shadow weave magic user Red wizard pale master it is easy in 3.5 by jumping through the prestige class hoops.
I don't think that most players would find it easy to jump through prestige class hoops :smalltongue:

[Kaleph]

That's a fair question. Without having to change rules minutiae like how often you save against Glitterdust, 3.PF offers a large amount of new classes (e.g. Alchemist, Magus, Oracle); alternate class features for existing classes (dozens of straightforward "archetypes" for each core class); and flavorful ability choices to diversify some classes (e.g. barbarians get rage powers, rogues get dirty tricks, and sorcerers get a bloodline).

Overall, character concepts in PF take off several levels earlier (often at level one) and don't require carefully planning prestige classes several levels in advance.

Thank you. I partially agree - as a 3.5 DM, I would probably agree to import some new classes, or the PF's version of old classes into my games.

I don't know if the "single-class-based" approach is better or worse of the "PrC-based" approach, but I guess they have both advantages and disadvantages, so this aspect is also no clear win for PF.

Furthermore, some other changes (like CMB/CMD) looked very promising the first time I've seen them, but honestly I've got afterwards the feeling that they are the same crap as also in 3.5

Finally, some nice tweaks - like merging a couple of skill together - are actually stuff that in a similar fashion we spontaneously developed also at my table as house-rules.

All in all: I have the feeling that with PF you lose something, get something, and the game is maybe marginally better than 3.5 - but not enough to justify "losing" my game mastery with the old system and studying to build a new game mastery for the other system. Probably a minor import from PF into the 3.5 (like some specific base class or ACF that the x-player is interested into) would be a good compromise for me.

[Quertus]

This seems like such a strange logic.

Taking it to its logical conclusion, 3.5 has nothing to offer you either since you could just make your own RPG system from square 1.

But PF isn't really "a new game" - it's 3e, but less.

If I had wanted 3e house rules, I'd make - and prefer - my own.

If I had wanted something to *add* to 3e, I'd make - and prefer - something already written in 3e parlance.

So, again, given that I *already have* 3e, Pathfinder offers me less than nothing. I already have "rock scissors paper" - why would I want "stone cutter" (no papyrus included)?

[Kurald Galain]

If I had wanted something to *add* to 3e, I'd make - and prefer - something already written in 3e parlance.
Pretty much all of PF's feats, spells, and archetypes are written in "3e parlance", probably moreso than the (often creatively worded) D&D wiki.

So that's clearly not less than nothing. It's a lot more than nothing, or it is exactly nothing if you arbitrarily decide to allow any and all third-party and homebrew material except for Paizo's.

I get the impression that you dislike the publisher so that you haven't even looked at the material - and that is entirely fine, it just doesn't help the OP at all, nor does it answer the questions posed by this thread.

[Aotrs Commander]

I don't know if the "single-class-based" approach is better or worse of the "PrC-based" approach, but I guess they have both advantages and disadvantages, so this aspect is also no clear win for PF.

I'm not sure that, while it may have been the designed intent, whether PF has actually achieved more "single-class only" as much as it has made "single-class more viable." (I know my first technical PF character was in Kingmaker the game, where I had a Rogue/Paladin/Monk...) Granted, it definitely did not emphasise the PrC as much but...

... I don't think that's a bad thing since, I have always felt 3.5's approach to PrC was heavily flawed from the get-go. Starting with just the name, which was itself sort of a tie back to AD&D and earlier in tacitly making a connection to them as stuff that was organisation specific1, or the hoop-jumping for the OD&D classes, for like, Bard or paladin or something I've heard of from reputation. "Advanced classes" would have been a much better term, I feel.

I have always felt that the vast majority of 3.5's PrC fell into the following catergories, in rough order of frequency:

a) Mechanically crap

b) Mechanically crap with terrible flavour

c) Weird mechanics with such specific crap flavour as to render it unsalvagable

d) Mechically broken power-wise in one direction or the other or both (*cough*Ur-Priest*cough*)

The concepts that I thought were always the best conceptual space (the hybrid classes, ala Mystic Theurge) predicated on you sucking at your concept for several arbitary levels and then being merely okay.

(Notably, my hybrid edition has 59 base classes from across 3.5 and PF, and currently less than half that PrC from across 3.5 (and none specific from PF yet) and most of THOSE are the aforementioned hybrid classes.)

I personally think that being able to play your concept mechanically from level 1 (or at LEAST low-level, not mid-level) is better design that the hoop-jumping of a lot of PrCs require, and I've always felt that base-class multiclassing should be the primary default if you want to play multiclass. PrC still very much have a purpose, I think, but for stuff which two base classes can't achive (especially when casting progression is involved) but gated lower, or a set of class features that you can't get from any of the base classes (provided they are not something that ought to be replicated by a simple feat chain (*cough*Tempest*cough* *cough*exotic weapon master*cough*) and that are actually, y'know, meaningful (*cough*Order of the Bow Initiate*cough*). (You also shouldn't have to cheese early entry to, say MT, to avoid sucking later on, in my opinion - just let 'em start at level 3 and be done with it.)



(Anecdotally, as well, the vast majority of my players (out of the collective, what, dozen of us in groups) only about three of us were ever bothered about looking into PrC anyway, so single-classing being a viable option, as opposed to "you really out to PrC or multilcass out at high level" is a benefit.)



1I generally dislike the idea of gating mechanics behind organisational ties, especially when presented as something that has to arbitarily be assumed to be put into a world solely for that set of mechanics to exist. It's messy kitchen-sink design and I hate it.

[gijoemike]

I don't think that most players would find it easy to jump through prestige class hoops :smalltongue:

I agree completely. And this is my main barrier to playing 3.5 these days. How do I get to play the character I want my jumping through all the P. Class entry tricks. One MUST plan out every level, feat, skill, from level 1 to lvl 12 at a minimum before you can play. Most of the people on this board will suggest a build for up to lvl 18 just to cover how to enter P classes and finish the character even though we all know the campaign will almost certainly end prior to that.

The way the P Class system was implemented was a TOTAL disaster with prerequisites. A PC couldn't evolve via story, or relationship with an NPC in order to advance into a P. class. Instead for some P Classes you wished to enter at level 7 you --HAD-- to be human and pick 2 specific feats at level 1. Otherwise you would need to pick up that last feat at lvl 9 ( possibly 12) and go into the class at lvl 10/13. A delay of levels that sometimes are an entire campaign's worth. It was nearly impossible to roleplay out the development of the character when it is OBVIOUS this was the intent from level 1. Don't even get me started on prereqs that don't thematically fit the class or are advanced by said class (I'm looking at you MASTER THROWER).

[Spellweaver]

I'm curious what you specifically mean by that.


Classic D&D has set classes, each with unique abilities to make each different. Once you get into late 3.5E, that is 3.75E(the Tome books mostly), and Pathfinder 1 and all the way to 4E, that is no longer true.

Starting with 3.75E everything is watered down to each class gets couple copy abilities just like every other class and all equal. The warfighter can use ''crescent attack" to hit all foes in a 20 foot cone just like the spelltosser can cast fire cone to do the same thing. And it gets really bad with "encounter powers", and the idea that the class must do their special attack every round. Even the wizard doing the sad ''pew pew" of endless magic missiles.

All of that makes D&D not like classic D&D: it's all new and different. And made for a group of people that does not include me.

Also Pathfinder is the worst with too many options....so many classes are like "you get magic one...pick from one of the 25 mini games on the list for your magic one power". It's just too much.

[SangoProduction]

Strengths of Pathfinder:
-Most pathfinder classes heavily incentivize you to single-class the whole way through, and simply customize the class with archetypes. Mostly by having heavy class-level-based scaling, and at least good abilities each level. Not to the point of spells, but still.
-This creates a more generally cohesive character than one that dips through a billion classes getting what it wants and getting out.
-Despite the discouragement from multiclassing, archetypes, allow for a fair amount of customization, even if it can be an absolute headache if you want to use more than 1 archetype that replaces more than like 2 abilities each.

-Has Spheres of Power / Might, which undoes 80% of that mess, and allows for a billion times more customization than even 3.5's multiclassing, and keeping the archetype customization as well.

Weaknesses of Pathfinder:
-Fails to have much of its own identity, as it tried to capitalize on the 3.5e kiddos who were failed by 4e. An attempt to be new but nostalgic.
-Archetypes get fiddly if actually used extensively....which means that your customization is fiddly. Which isn't good in an RPG.
-Aside from the outright broken stuff that it basically wrote out of existence (yay), its changes are generally minuscule or weird. Like the Beast Shape series, which is simultaneously limited, lacking of flavor, and doesn't really tell you how to use it.
-Its players are not incredibly likely to accept Spheres of Power, due to not being first party content.

[AnimeTheCat]

Well that's a nice handwave. Can you give a few (as in, more than one) actual examples? :smallamused:


Well that's a nice handwave. Can you give a few (as in, more than one) actual examples? :smallamused:

Actual examples, without dipping in to 3rd party, include:
Any Psionics
Any Tome of Battle
Any Incarnum
Stalwart Battle Sorcerer with Draconic Heritage Feats (i've tried, you can't realistically make this in PF, even with multi-classing or anything. Closest you can get is a Eldritch Scion Magus with other archetypes to give you a wider variety of spells)
Paladin of Freedom
Paladin of Slaughter
Paladin of Tyranny
- None of the above paladin types are actually available using PF base classes or PF archetypes -

So, at a minimum, that's going to be 12 full classes that have no pathfinder analog, a specific build (far from broken) that can't work, and three archetypes that have no representation.

I'm with Crake though, there's no reason to go fully to one or the other. Take the good, leave the bad, and blend the two to your liking.

[Kurald Galain]

Actual examples,
Pathfinder does have psionics (https://www.d20pfsrd.com/alternative-rule-systems/occult-adventures/occult-classes/), as well as a TOB-equivalent (https://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/3rd-party-classes/dreamscarred-press/). Your draconic sorcerer as you mention is covered by archetypes (you're not going to get 100% identical abilities, but many PF builds clearly cannot be 100% duplicated in 3.5, either).

PF admittedly doesn't have Incarnum. It is fair to say that WOTC experimented more with alternative magic systems, although it is also fair to say that these had pretty mixed results (such as the truenamer). Is it a weakness of PF that it doesn't have a truenamer? Or is it a weakness of 3.5 that it does have a truenamer?

And since you mention paladin three times, it helps if you clarify what you actually mean. "Opposite paladins" are are one of those common can-of-worms controversies, that have little or nothing to do with edition wars. The easy solution is probably to play an Inquisitor or Warpriest; I'll wager those have the mechanics that you actually want, unless you insist on the class with the word "paladin" in its name...

[SangoProduction]

Pathfinder does have psionics (https://www.d20pfsrd.com/alternative-rule-systems/occult-adventures/occult-classes/), as well as a TOB-equivalent (https://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/3rd-party-classes/dreamscarred-press/). Your draconic sorcerer as you mention is covered by archetypes (you're not going to get 100% identical abilities, but many PF builds clearly cannot be 100% duplicated in 3.5, either).

PF admittedly doesn't have Incarnum. It is fair to say that WOTC experimented more with alternative magic systems, although it is also fair to say that these had pretty mixed results (such as the truenamer). Is it a weakness of PF that it doesn't have a truenamer? Or is it a weakness of 3.5 that it does have a truenamer?

And since you mention paladin three times, it helps if you clarify what you actually mean. "Opposite paladins" are are one of those common can-of-worms controversies, that have little or nothing to do with edition wars. The easy solution is probably to play an Inquisitor or Warpriest; I'll wager those have the mechanics that you actually want, unless you insist on the class with the word "paladin" in its name...

...You quoted him saying, excluding 3rd party, and then link to 2 third party rule sets.

[Kurald Galain]

...You quoted him saying, excluding 3rd party, and then link to 2 third party rule sets.
PF's psionic classes are first-party. And several people in the thread (e.g. Quertus) have argued for 3rd-party 3E content, so I really don't see how that is much of an argument.

The funny thing about Dreamscarred Press is that it is much more commonly accepted in PF games, than Tome of Battle is in 3E games. So if you're going to exclude one of the most prominent PF books because "it is third party" then you should likewise exclude controversial or usually-disallowed material from 3E. Because let's face it, most 3E games just aren't going to let you play tome of battle, OR incarnum, OR a chaotic evil paladin.

(edit) Spellweaver's post right above is a good example of how controversial TOB is,

3.75E(the Tome books mostly) ... Starting with 3.75E everything is watered down to each class gets couple copy abilities just like every other class and all equal. The warfighter can use ''crescent attack" to hit all foes in a 20 foot cone just like the spelltosser can cast fire cone to do the same thing. And it gets really bad with "encounter powers", and the idea that the class must do their special attack every round.

[Psyren]

Well that's a nice handwave. Can you give a few (as in, more than one) actual examples? :smallamused:


Can you see how this might scan as disingenuous, especially given your word-for-word use of it upthread, and knowing that I know your position on the two already?

The short answer is, I can, but why would I? I have no interest in trying to persuade you of anything, were it even possible; I certainly don't need to make the case to myself; and you're just looking for something to argue at in defense of your preferred system.

Yeah, to both sides I would say - it's been over a decade at this point, by now everybody who knows about PF1 and has formed an opinion on it is unlikely to change that opinion, whether favorable or unfavorable.

With that said, there are certainly likely to be factual inaccuracies or misconceptions in this thread.



I'll bet D&D wiki has even more classes, already in 3e format.

Yeah, and you can probably find lots of decent furniture in a landfill too :smalltongue:



-Has Spheres of Power / Might, which undoes 80% of that mess, and allows for a billion times more customization than even 3.5's multiclassing, and keeping the archetype customization as well
...
-Its players are not incredibly likely to accept Spheres of Power, due to not being first party content.

I'd say the fact that we can have Spheres at all, and moreover have it be decently popular instead of being one-tenth the size and stuck in the back of Dragon #747b or someone's Geocities page or something, is a strength of Pathfinder.

[Nifft]

Is there a Pathfinder equivalent to the Binder (Tome of Magic)?

[Psyren]

Is there a Pathfinder equivalent to the Binder (Tome of Magic)?

There is a 3rd-party conversion/upgrade called the Pactmaker (http://spheresofpower.wikidot.com/pactmaker). It gets its own vestiges spirits, but is mechanically compatible with all the stuff the Binder can get and has a much more powerful chassis.

In 1st-party only, your closest bet is the Medium (https://www.d20pfsrd.com/alternative-rule-systems/occult-adventures/occult-classes/medium/) - it matches up thematically and fluffwise to an extent, but has several major mechanical differences.

[Nifft]

I'll take a look at those.

How about Dragonfire Adept?

[Kurald Galain]

So to summarize, thematically or fluffwise, basically any concept that exists in 3E can be duplicated in PF, and vice versa; and that's before getting into the "fluff is mutable" can of worms.

Mechanically speaking, there are a number of 3E mechanics either don't exist in PF (e.g. spell points) or don't function very well (e.g. warlock vs kineticist). But the inverse is also true, i.e. a number of PF mechanics don't exist in 3E (e.g. Vigilante) or don't function until very high level (e.g. Magus/Warpriest casting-in-a-full-attack). But the answer to these is that the systems are mostly cross-comptaible. It's very easy and by no means overpowering to play e.g. an Incarnate in PF, or a Magus in 3E.

So "system-I-like can do X and system-I-dislike cannot do X" is mainly a red herring. In other news, strawberry ice cream is objectively better than chocolate. So there.

[Psyren]

I'll take a look at those.

How about Dragonfire Adept?

Not much there, PF isn't big on at-will classes. You can get a thematically similar class using something with the draconic bloodline (like a sorcerer, bloodrager, eldritch scion magus etc) but again, won't be the same mechanically.

Alternatively you can use Kineticist, which was their attempt at an at-will Warlocky class, but which fell flat on its face at the starting line and chipped all its teeth.

[SangoProduction]

Dragonfire Adept is basically a Destruction-sphere focused character from Spheres of Power, who took the drawback to only be able to use Sculpt Blast as its blast shape (for line and cone blasts).

[Psyren]

Dragonfire Adept is basically a Destruction-sphere focused character from Spheres of Power, who took the drawback to only be able to use Sculpt Blast as its blast shape (for line and cone blasts).

Yes, good point - Spheres is particularly good at converting the at-will classes. Of course, you could convert them fairly straight without worrying about subsystems at all, maybe giving them some new toys to play with like a bloodline in the process.


So to summarize, thematically or fluffwise, basically any concept that exists in 3E can be duplicated in PF, and vice versa; and that's before getting into the "fluff is mutable" can of worms.

Mechanically speaking, there are a number of 3E mechanics either don't exist in PF (e.g. spell points) or don't function very well (e.g. warlock vs kineticist). But the inverse is also true, i.e. a number of PF mechanics don't exist in 3E (e.g. Vigilante) or don't function until very high level (e.g. Magus/Warpriest casting-in-a-full-attack). But the answer to these is that the systems are mostly cross-comptaible. It's very easy and by no means overpowering to play e.g. an Incarnate in PF, or a Magus in 3E.

So "system-I-like can do X and system-I-dislike cannot do X" is mainly a red herring. In other news, strawberry ice cream is objectively better than chocolate. So there.

This is precisely why I enjoy 3.PF so much - it doesn't take much effort to get the best of both worlds (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neapolitan_ice_cream) :smallbiggrin:

[Nifft]

There is a 3rd-party conversion/upgrade called the Pactmaker (http://spheresofpower.wikidot.com/pactmaker). It gets its own vestiges spirits, but is mechanically compatible with all the stuff the Binder can get and has a much more powerful chassis.

In 1st-party only, your closest bet is the Medium (https://www.d20pfsrd.com/alternative-rule-systems/occult-adventures/occult-classes/medium/) - it matches up thematically and fluffwise to an extent, but has several major mechanical differences.

Medium is a 20-level Chameleon, not even close to Binder.

The 3rd party Pactmaker looks like it might fit.


Dragonfire Adept is basically a Destruction-sphere focused character from Spheres of Power, who took the drawback to only be able to use Sculpt Blast as its blast shape (for line and cone blasts).

Interesting, SoP looks like a good candidate to port into other systems.

[SangoProduction]

Interesting, SoP looks like a good candidate to port into other systems.

Definitely.

[Psyren]

Medium is a 20-level Chameleon, not even close to Binder.

Not mechanically, no - but the whole "get the powers you need to solve today's specific problem, risk your character falling under the GM's influence" theme is there.


The 3rd party Pactmaker looks like it might fit.

I backed the kickstarter for that book :smallsmile: worth every penny!

[Aotrs Commander]

This is precisely why I enjoy 3.PF so much - it doesn't take much effort to get the best of both worlds (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neapolitan_ice_cream) :smallbiggrin:

The 3.Aotrs hexblade particularly liked the idea, having nicked Witch hexes on top of it's designer-suggested 3.5 rework...!

[afroakuma]

Yeah, to both sides I would say - it's been over a decade at this point, by now everybody who knows about PF1 and has formed an opinion on it is unlikely to change that opinion, whether favorable or unfavorable.

I mean, I'd be happy to debate in good faith, but...


So "system-I-like can do X and system-I-dislike cannot do X" is mainly a red herring. In other news, strawberry ice cream is objectively better than chocolate. So there.

That's not on offer, so why even bother?

I disliked Pathfinder and still elected to run a campaign with it, since it wouldn't be fair to dismiss it out of hand. Four years later, I've completed a 30-month campaign and am running a new one, still in the same system, and I still hate it more than ever. At this point I feel I've given it a fair shake and come away with a bad taste in my mouth, which is really only made worse by certain fans' insistence that it can do no wrong.

[Psyren]

I mean, I'd be happy to debate in good faith, but...

That's not on offer, so why even bother?

I think his statement was a tongue-in-cheek way of saying we're ultimately arguing preferences, so there isn't much to actually "debate" (in good faith or otherwise.) Hence the ice cream analogy - we can debate strawberry vs. chocolate but it's not likely to go anywhere.


I disliked Pathfinder and still elected to run a campaign with it, since it wouldn't be fair to dismiss it out of hand. Four years later, I've completed a 30-month campaign and am running a new one, still in the same system, and I still hate it more than ever. At this point I feel I've given it a fair shake and come away with a bad taste in my mouth, which is really only made worse by certain fans' insistence that it can do no wrong.

What I personally found a bit off-putting was that your statement was phrased objectively ("bland misery of Pathfinder") rather than subjectively ("I found PF to be bland and miserable.") But such phrasing is something I've come to live with after years on forums like these, so I didn't see a need to engage with it directly (and yes, I'm aware of the irony of engaging with it to point that out.)

Anyway, something I missed from earlier:


3.5 is better because it has more stuff.

for example, im making a wizard right now that uses animal companions to generate corpses for his necromancy which is free thanks to fell animate. which is achieved early level thanks to the illumian race and by going dread necro instead of cleric to fuel naenhoon i have at will undead healing. then im gonna switch to simulacrum scrolls crafted for free using ambrosia, minor creation, and a monster with simulacrum as an sla using cooperative crafting rules.

try doing that in pathfinder. no. your stuck with summon monster into spending money for animate dead on corpses the dm gives you on a silver platter and your screwed in an undead or construct centric campaign. and you got no way of cheating simulacrum components even if you decide to dedicate your entire character for it.

PF has its share of broken tricks too, they just get less publicity because that's not what PF players are really here for. For example, if you want to "cheat simulacrum components," Blood Money can help with that, and if you want to cheat metamagic there's Sacred Geometry, but PF players typically see those as aberrations that aren't likely to fly at a table instead of lovable game bugs in the Skyrim sense.

If I had to guess why 3.5 gets more of a "warts and all" pass from its players, it's because (a) the system is now two editions out of date so nobody is expecting anything approaching a patch or fix at this point, and (b) the game really hamstrung itself in terms of how the devs could meaningfully patch it, thanks to its Primary Source rule and other red tape getting in the way.

[afroakuma]

I think his statement was a tongue-in-cheek way of saying we're ultimately arguing preferences, so there isn't much to actually "debate" (in good faith or otherwise.) Hence the ice cream analogy - we can debate strawberry vs. chocolate but it's not likely to go anywhere.

The part where he contends that there can be no window regarding things that can be done in 3.5 but not 3.P, on the other hand... but you're right, I'm not particularly interested in engaging on that.


What I personally found a bit off-putting was that your statement was phrased objectively ("bland misery of Pathfinder") rather than subjectively ("I found PF to be bland and miserable.") But such phrasing is something I've come to live with after years on forums like these, so I didn't see a need to engage with it directly (and yes, I'm aware of the irony of engaging with it to point that out.)

It's a qualitative opinion, by definition it is subjective and not objective. If I say "masaman curry is tasty," that's not objective merely because I didn't put "I think" in front, it remains subjective, because "tastiness" is subjective. Conversely, "blandness" is also subjective. Even misery is subjective, which is why there's a 4E forum. I don't ask you or Kurald to say "I think Pathfinder can do everything 3.5 can do" and I think a different standard is being applied when it's my distaste vs. your approval.

I had some sarcasm here but I've decided to roll it back in the spirit of us trying to be productive about this for someone else's sake. I've said my piece, and unless someone wants to smugly pretend I've got no right to my opinion again or that it's somehow less valid than those of PF's fans, I'm happy to leave it there.

[PairO'Dice Lost]

My group(s) decided to stick with 3e when PF came out because it wasn't actually doing anything new or different--its original design goal was "continue 3e to grab 3e fans while being just different enough to justify its existence," its major selling points like the skill system and combat maneuver changes had been floating around the intertubes in homebrew form for years, Paizo was very resistant to incorporating alternate magic systems, and so on--and I simply didn't like their philosophy on certain things, like making favored classes more noticeable rather than less and deemphasizing PrCs.

When they eventually did start doing new things--making classes that weren't just ports of 3e stuff, getting DSP on board, and so forth--it was on par with 3e third-party material (that is, a mix of some great stuff and some terrible stuff) so switching over still didn't make sense and there wasn't much call to port large amounts over and do a 3.P game any more than there was to incorporate any given 3e 3PP content before. My groups had already been doing things like houseruling a bunch more feats and custom-building PrCs and such for years before PF was a thing, so we just...kept doing that, and if someone thought something in PF looked cool, well, we'd consider it.

Plus, I'm not at all a fan of Golarion, so all the flavor integration was a mild dealbreaker just like a Greyhawk anti-fan dealing with more and more Greyhawk fluff creeping in over the lifetime of 3e or a Forgotten Realms fan dealing with the setting massacre in 4e, but that took a backseat to the mechanical stuff and wouldn't have stopped me refluffing things if we had decided to switch over.


If I had to guess why 3.5 gets more of a "warts and all" pass from its players, it's because (a) the system is now two editions out of date so nobody is expecting anything approaching a patch or fix at this point, and (b) the game really hamstrung itself in terms of how the devs could meaningfully patch it, thanks to its Primary Source rule and other red tape getting in the way.

I think it's less that 3e gets a pass and more that a lot of people who switched over to PF early on were the ones who liked the "PF is going to fix 3e" pitch so the PF community started out not liking that aspect of the game while the 3e holdout community started out either not caring about or actively liking that aspect of the game, so it's more a matter of taste and playstyle than anything.

[Psyren]

Fair points afro but I'll hone in on just one bit:


I don't ask you or Kurald to say "I think Pathfinder can do everything 3.5 can do" and I think a different standard is being applied when it's my distaste vs. your approval.

Objectively you're correct - pure PF cannot do everything 3.5 can do - but just as objectively, PF was designed such that "pure PF" is never something you have to play, outside of PFS anyway. The assumption was always that you would continue to use your 3.5 books with the system and take the best of both worlds - it's on the CRB store page and even inside the book (CRB pg. 4), even though they couldn't say D&D by name.

In short, I won't speak for Kurald, but my own objective statement wouldn't be "I think Pathfinder can do everything 3.5 can do" - rather it would be "I know 3.P can do everything 3.5 can do, and more besides." Because every table has the freedom to tailor 3.P so that it includes everything from 3.5 they want to keep, and everything from PF they want to add, however little or much that might be.

Whether they find doing so to be beneficial or not is where things get subjective again.



I think it's less that 3e gets a pass and more that a lot of people who switched over to PF early on were the ones who liked the "PF is going to fix 3e" pitch so the PF community started out not liking that aspect of the game while the 3e holdout community started out either not caring about or actively liking that aspect of the game, so it's more a matter of taste and playstyle than anything.

Well, speaking as someone who did switch early (feel free to check some of my original posts on the forums), I never once bought the pitch that "PF is going to fix 3e" because I knew even back then that "fixing" 3e is impossible. Even just in this thread we have people that want to be able to do things like cheat their way to free simulacra while others want spellcasters to be balanced with martials; reconciling those two viewpoints while maintaining diverse classes is basically impossible.

I switched, not because of my balance issues with 3.5 (I had some but didn't care that much) - rather, I switched in large part because Pathfinder was doing something radical, it was proving that what amounts to open-source gaming could be commercially viable. This was right at the cusp of Web 2.0, wikis and apps becoming a big part of the way we game, and I wanted to be part of that sea change.

[PairO'Dice Lost]

Well, speaking as someone who did switch early (feel free to check some of my original posts on the forums), I never once bought the pitch that "PF is going to fix 3e" because I knew even back then that "fixing" 3e is impossible.

Oh, I'm not saying everyone switched because of that, nor that I bought into their marketing pitch either, just that "PF is going to fix 3e" was one of the stated goals and major talking points early on, with their public playtest to show a commitment to balance and everything, so a nontrivial chunk of the 3e playerbase switched over because of that and that sort of set the tone going forward that the PF community cares more about balance and doesn't like theoretical optimization to the extent the 3e community does and so on.

You could see (and still do see) the influence there in the way people talk about certain changes in 3e vs. PF discussions, where people will e.g. compare Wild Shape and polymorph between the two and emphasize "PF nerfed the druid and balanced shapeshifting" over "PF separated shapeshifting from monster stat blocks for simplicity," or compare the class building styles and emphasize "2/3 casters are more balanced than full casters" over "the 2/3 casters do X, Y, and Z that the full casters don't," and suchlike.


I switched, not because of my balance issues with 3.5 (I had some but didn't care that much) - rather, I switched in large part because Pathfinder was doing something radical, it was proving that what amounts to open-source gaming could be commercially viable. This was right at the cusp of Web 2.0, wikis and apps becoming a big part of the way we game, and I wanted to be part of that sea change.

I can certainly appreciate what Paizo did with that--I'm an open-source software developer in real life, so I didn't need to be sold on the benefits of open-source gaming at all--but I could appreciate their business model and online resources from a technical and philosophical standpoint without buying into their system myself.

D&D Beyond is a thing, after all, yet it doesn't make me dislike 5e any less. :smallamused:

[Quertus]

I get the impression that you dislike the publisher

I like to be aware of my biases. I don't know enough about the publisher to really be strongly biased. I have *minor* biases both for and against the publisher - nothing particularly relevant to my evaluation (like, "I'm not a fan of the name" level minor biases).


so that you haven't even looked at the material

I haven't spent *much* time reading that particular set of 3e homebrew / house rules, no. Enough to begin to estimate the cost of learning the system, or to begin to evaluate how that compares to just making a homebrew for 3e (making the homebrew being much more enjoyable for me than learning PF, on top of being significantly easier).


Pretty much all of PF's feats, spells, and archetypes are written in "3e parlance", probably moreso than the (often creatively worded) D&D wiki.

That's possible. It just wasn't my experience from my limited selection of each. "CMB"? It's like d20 Star Wars having "Wounds" and "Vitality" - it's trivial once you know it, but it's still something that requires conversion.


So that's clearly not less than nothing. It's a lot more than nothing, or it is exactly nothing if you arbitrarily decide to allow any and all third-party and homebrew material except for Paizo's.

*Switching* to pf involves *changing* mechanics (this qualifying for the OP's "from a mechanical PoV") for no gain, and a *loss* (thus qualifying for my "less than nothing") of a) 1st party material, b) 3rd party material, C) my training, house rules, and instincts. OK, that last bit isn't *directly* mechanics, it's simply the *inherent cost* of *changing* the underlying mechanics away from a known quantity.

Sure, I *could* replace the 3e 1st party Crusader with the pf 3rd party failure, or rewrite the better 3e Crusader into pathfinder… but why, when I can just keep playing 3e?

Depending on how you define 3.pf, that might no longer be in the "less than nothing" range.


- and that is entirely fine, it just doesn't help the OP at all, nor does it answer the questions posed by this thread.

Perhaps this answer will resonate better with you:

3e was big into the "build" minigame. Players could enjoy optimizing their race, class, skills, feats, spells, maneuvers, items, and - in the case of one particularly silly build - even their name.

Pathfinder, OTOH, be all like, "dude, that's silly", and made "class" optimization as simple as writing "Fighter" on your character sheet (because, of course pathfinder took the opportunity to make the Fighter perfectly balanced with - or, at least, the same tier as the Wizard, right? The pf Fighter can totally compete against the infinite army of free Simulacra that Pathfinder gave the Wizard, right?).

But then they left every other form of optimization minigame intact. :smallconfused: But created *less* content to play with. :smallconfused:

So, if you *like* the optimization minigame, there's *less* there for you. If you don't, guess what, it's still a huge part of the game. It's afaict the worst of both worlds.

(Personally, I like 2e - the ability for your build to (almost) be as simple as writing "elf Wizard" or "human Fighter" on your character sheet… but with the *option* to create something more complex (kits, skills and powers, etc). Whatever mood I'm in, I can make a functional 2e character.)

-----

Or, how about this one: mechanically, it's a ****-ton of house rules… that don't actually fix anything. At least, nothing that was broken at my tables.

So, again, has cost, offers no value. Or negative value, depending on what I'm measuring.

Clearer?

EDIT:
Conversely, "blandness" is also subjective. Even misery is subjective, which is why there's a 4E forum.

Lol! Good one!

[the_david]

Because you've yet to play X. X likely being some kind of prestige class or specialized build based on some kind of unholy combination.

Back when I used to play 3.5, this was the reason a core D&D campaign got shot down hard, which is too bad because it actually sounds like a nice challenge.

[Psyren]

Oh, I'm not saying everyone switched because of that, nor that I bought into their marketing pitch either, just that "PF is going to fix 3e" was one of the stated goals and major talking points early on, with their public playtest to show a commitment to balance and everything, so a nontrivial chunk of the 3e playerbase switched over because of that and that sort of set the tone going forward that the PF community cares more about balance and doesn't like theoretical optimization to the extent the 3e community does and so on.

You could see (and still do see) the influence there in the way people talk about certain changes in 3e vs. PF discussions, where people will e.g. compare Wild Shape and polymorph between the two and emphasize "PF nerfed the druid and balanced shapeshifting" over "PF separated shapeshifting from monster stat blocks for simplicity," or compare the class building styles and emphasize "2/3 casters are more balanced than full casters" over "the 2/3 casters do X, Y, and Z that the full casters don't," and suchlike.

I mean, PF did balance shapeshifting. Even The Giant thought so (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?172910-Articles-Previously-Appearing-on-GiantITP-com&p=9606750&viewfull=1#post9606750) (minus the fact that PAO still existed.) That's not saying that PF as a whole is balanced - but improved balance edition vs. edition is certainly a thing they could accurately claim, because really there was very little direction to go other than up from 3.5.


I can certainly appreciate what Paizo did with that--I'm an open-source software developer in real life, so I didn't need to be sold on the benefits of open-source gaming at all--but I could appreciate their business model and online resources from a technical and philosophical standpoint without buying into their system myself.

D&D Beyond is a thing, after all, yet it doesn't make me dislike 5e any less. :smallamused:

Sure thing - just explaining another reason why someone who didn't expect "fixed balance" (i.e. myself) could have jumped into PF with both feet.

As for D&D Beyond - well, that's not really open source either, you can only access those materials through their platform. Anyone can contribute but it's not like you could make something like d20pfsrd or Pathbuilder using DDB content.

[afroakuma]

In short, I won't speak for Kurald, but my own objective statement wouldn't be "I think Pathfinder can do everything 3.5 can do" - rather it would be "I know 3.P can do everything 3.5 can do, and more besides."

This is my problem, though, because what you're arguing is "I can objectively state that PF is good, but you cannot objectively state PF is bad." You could have let it sit, but instead you're insisting that as an objective measure, 3.P is an upgrade to 3.5 because "you keep everything but also add stuff." As a DM, the absolute last thing I want to deal with is having to review more material from a "largely-but-not-quite" similar system to determine what merits inclusion, especially where it concerns having to go in and disentangle things. Every time a player asks if something Golarion-specific is true for my campaign, I resist the urge to throw something heavy at them. 3.P is objectively a "less-than" experience for me because it imposes work on me to reject its components and composites, which I wouldn't have to worry about in a 3.5 vacuum.

Now, are we going to keep having this "I'm objective, you're subjective" debate, or can we agree to let it lie?

[Psyren]

This is my problem, though, because what you're arguing is "I can objectively state that PF is good, but you cannot objectively state PF is bad."

Ah, but I didn't use the word "good" anywhere. That was all you.

[afroakuma]

Ah, but I didn't use the word "good" anywhere. That was all you.

Yyyep, that answers the last question pretty concisely. Thank you for yet another reminder of the biggest thing I hate about Pathfinder.

[Aotrs Commander]

Perhaps this answer will resonate better with you:

3e was big into the "build" minigame. Players could enjoy optimizing their race, class, skills, feats, spells, maneuvers, items, and - in the case of one particularly silly build - even their name.

Except for the latter instance and manuevers if you don't use Path of War, you have the same amount of customisation as 3.5, else I wouldn't have been interested. The only thing they have less of is prestige classes, and well, I think I stated what I think mostly of 3.5's PrC before.

I think there's at least as much customisation for race. Though perhaps different customisation, I never looked at any 3.x race books (nor looked especially hard at PF's race system), because NO edition of D&D has in my opinion, ever done a good job with race and I find the kitchen-sink approach to races and subraces to be a particular unappealling idea and since at least 3.0, they've ALL done that.

But again, it doesn't have to be a binary, there's no reason you can't just yoink something you like from PF and use it in 3.5, or vice versa. (Hell, I have no pity or remorse yoinking ideas straight-up from other editions or other games entirely, myself...)




Pathfinder, OTOH, be all like, "dude, that's silly", and made "class" optimization as simple as writing "Fighter" on your character sheet (because, of course pathfinder took the opportunity to make the Fighter perfectly balanced with - or, at least, the same tier as the Wizard, right? The pf Fighter can totally compete against the infinite army of free Simulacra that Pathfinder gave the Wizard, right?).

PF Fighter is certainly better than 3.5 Fighter, but I never thought EITHER went far enough, myself.




But then they left every other form of optimization minigame intact. :smallconfused: But created *less* content to play with. :smallconfused:

Point of order:

Having gone through the probably majority of the content (at least as far as character stuff) concentrated on Nethys and PFSRD over the course of nine months (on a 5-6 days per week basis because I'm as I have often noted, insane), I can categorically state from experience there is not appreciably less content at this stage of official "completion."

Just on spells alone, for which I swiped only a subset (not, I imagine disimilar to the subset of 3.5 we used, which was most of the non-fluff-specific sourcebooks), my document size doubled in page count. (Now, not all of that was new PF spells- a modest part of that was copying up more 3.5 spells that needed tweaking. But the document STARTED as fundementally "all spells from the Completes/Draconomicon/Libris Mortis/Planar Handbook/XPH/Manual of the Plains/Relics & Rituals 1/Seafarer's Handbook/Sandstorm/Frosturn/BoED/BVD" plus homebrew, so I only had four sources (PHB/PHB2/SpC and that document) to look up spells in.) My document which is a just LIST of available feats went from 37 to 50 pages, INCLUDING the fact I reduced the typeface from 9 to 8 (to match the documents, because it was getting annoying changing the sizes copying between them) and me deleting a good chunk of 3.5 feats that we'd NEVER used and getting rid of a lot of feat tax feats and amalgamating them; and I was definitely not grabbing every feat Pathfinder had. Put it this way, it took me a frack-sight longer to write up/tweak what PF had than it did to write up/tweak the aforementioned 3.5 splatbbooks...

[Twurps]

Ah, but I didn't use the word "good" anywhere. That was all you.

I'm confused as to how this can turn into an argument (this is the internet, so I shouldn't but I'm going to voice my amazement anyway).

Op asks a question, which is a personal one. "What reasons do people have to do X?"

the people respond: "I do X because Y"

And then you go: "Y is not true!"

The thing is: whether Y is true or not, is totally irrelevant. it's a personal motivation. One you can share, or not share, like/not like, agree with/not agree with, etc. but one that you cannot prove to be untrue.

[afroakuma]

I'm confused as to how this can turn into an argument (this is the internet, so I shouldn't but I'm going to voice my amazement anyway).

Op asks a question, which is a personal one. "What reasons do people have to do X?"

the people respond: "I do X because Y"

And then you go: "Y is not true!"

The thing is: whether Y is true or not, is totally irrelevant. it's a personal motivation. One you can share, or not share, like/not like, agree with/not agree with, etc. but one that you cannot prove to be untrue.

It's because certain people want to argue that nobody should do X, and that there is no valid reason to do X, so don't do X. For any Y they will present an argument that Y is not true or has no bearing on X.

[Psyren]

I'm confused as to how this can turn into an argument (this is the internet, so I shouldn't but I'm going to voice my amazement anyway).

Op asks a question, which is a personal one. "What reasons do people have to do X?"

the people respond: "I do X because Y"

And then you go: "Y is not true!"

The thing is: whether Y is true or not, is totally irrelevant. it's a personal motivation. One you can share, or not share, like/not like, agree with/not agree with, etc. but one that you cannot prove to be untrue.

You're preaching to the choir: I am in fact one of the very people who said "X because Y." (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?615522-3-5-over-pathfinder&p=24604464&viewfull=1#post24604464)

The only - ONLY - statement I disagreed with is "I can't do X in 3.P." That is objectively disprovable. Whether someone is motivated to do X in 3.P or likes to do X in 3.P is was never, ever, part of my disagreement. HTH.

[el minster]

I'm confused as to how this can turn into an argument (this is the internet, so I shouldn't but I'm going to voice my amazement anyway).

Op asks a question, which is a personal one. "What reasons do people have to do X?"

the people respond: "I do X because Y"

And then you go: "Y is not true!"

The thing is: whether Y is true or not, is totally irrelevant. it's a personal motivation. One you can share, or not share, like/not like, agree with/not agree with, etc. but one that you cannot prove to be untrue.

He is attempting to prove thier logic to be suspect and make them look stupid

[Biggus]

I pretty much skipped over 3.5. So I was wondering why people stuck with it form a mechinical view point over switching to 3.p. What did it better, does it play much different. From a quick read over the difference in clerics, I would think would make it slightly more deadly. What else is there that one might of missed?


While some of my reasons are similar to those already mentioned by others (I like multiclassing for example) there's one thing that hasn't been mentioned: I like epic level games, and PF has almost no support for them. There are lots of problems with the 3.0/3.5 epic rules, but I've spent years searching for/creating fixes for the worst of them, meaning that my epic games more-or-less work, and also that I'm loathe to dump all that effort by moving to a system where I can't use it.

So like quite a few of the other people here, I've frequently raided PF for their good ideas (which they have plenty of) and used them to improve my 3.5 game, rather than switching over wholesale.

[Quertus]

Except for the latter instance and manuevers if you don't use Path of War, you have the same amount of customisation as 3.5, else I wouldn't have been interested. The only thing they have less of is prestige classes, and well, I think I stated what I think mostly of 3.5's PrC before.

I think there's at least as much customisation for race. Though perhaps different customisation, I never looked at any 3.x race books (nor looked especially hard at PF's race system), because NO edition of D&D has in my opinion, ever done a good job with race and I find the kitchen-sink approach to races and subraces to be a particular unappealling idea and since at least 3.0, they've ALL done that.

But again, it doesn't have to be a binary, there's no reason you can't just yoink something you like from PF and use it in 3.5, or vice versa. (Hell, I have no pity or remorse yoinking ideas straight-up from other editions or other games entirely, myself...)





PF Fighter is certainly better than 3.5 Fighter, but I never thought EITHER went far enough, myself.





Point of order:

Having gone through the probably majority of the content (at least as far as character stuff) concentrated on Nethys and PFSRD over the course of nine months (on a 5-6 days per week basis because I'm as I have often noted, insane), I can categorically state from experience there is not appreciably less content at this stage of official "completion."

Just on spells alone, for which I swiped only a subset (not, I imagine disimilar to the subset of 3.5 we used, which was most of the non-fluff-specific sourcebooks), my document size doubled in page count. (Now, not all of that was new PF spells- a modest part of that was copying up more 3.5 spells that needed tweaking. But the document STARTED as fundementally "all spells from the Completes/Draconomicon/Libris Mortis/Planar Handbook/XPH/Manual of the Plains/Relics & Rituals 1/Seafarer's Handbook/Sandstorm/Frosturn/BoED/BVD" plus homebrew, so I only had four sources (PHB/PHB2/SpC and that document) to look up spells in.) My document which is a just LIST of available feats went from 37 to 50 pages, INCLUDING the fact I reduced the typeface from 9 to 8 (to match the documents, because it was getting annoying changing the sizes copying between them) and me deleting a good chunk of 3.5 feats that we'd NEVER used and getting rid of a lot of feat tax feats and amalgamating them; and I was definitely not grabbing every feat Pathfinder had. Put it this way, it took me a frack-sight longer to write up/tweak what PF had than it did to write up/tweak the aforementioned 3.5 splatbbooks...

So, 1st party is missing Initiators and is shy on prestige classes? That sounds like "less" to me.

If pf had made and kept a hard rule of "LA = CR", it would have won on playable races; as it stands, with "if not (formulaic) LA +0, play mother may I with undefined values", it loses hard. Savage species had "build your own, play mother may I".

Google is failing on telling me how many spells either has.

Oh, and let's not forget the "one world" as an example of limited content.

"Yoinking" things from one to the other is fine. But converting wholely? Playing one exclusively? 3e has some clear advantages in the content department (for those who think "more" is better). For the system? I've heard more complaints than praise for the whole CMD thing (which, I know, just listening to those without investigating leads to 4e). Still, my "understanding" is / ignorance says that the *system* is all but identical, it's mostly the *content* that differs. (Although we might disagree - would you say that a PF Wizard ported to 3e would need to spend XP to create items / a pf Fighter ported to 3e be *able* to craft items?)

I have no doubt that the PF Fighter is better than the 3e Fighter (it would be hard *not* to improve that boring chassis). :smalltongue:

[Ignimortis]

Well that's a nice handwave. Can you give a few (as in, more than one) actual examples? :smallamused:

Life drain! If I were to play PF 1e exclusively instead of 3.PF cherry-picking, then I wouldn't know of any way to get a good reliable life drain ability that wouldn't require me to sacrifice class levels and/or feats to get it going. 3.5 just gives you Vampiric for lower levels and Wrathful Healing for higher ones. PF nerfed Vampiric to the ground and Wrathful Healing is nowhere to be seen, and I haven't seen any other enchantments that would work in a similar way.

[T.G. Oskar]

I've voiced this opinion before, but I'll certainly do it again - that said, I've pretty much switched to 5e, but I wouldn't mind if someone says "hey, wanna play 3.x?", because there's several builds I like.

For starters, I feel Pathfinder is a sidegrade; that is, it's neither an improvement or downgrade to 3.x. It does things differently. There are some things that could be considered improvements (i.e. the skill system dropping off class skills in favor of a minor boost, ergo allowing everyone to spend as many points as they like) and some that don't (i.e. the Combat Maneuver Bonus/Defense, particularly as CMD scales faster than CMB; 3.x had mostly opposed ability checks which were harder to buff, and while you had large numbers to deal with, the monsters rarely had a way to boost those scores). Two I'd like to address are feats and archetypes.

While 3.x had less feat slots (a shame, since WotC overvalued some of the feat's worth, and judging by the "Ivory Tower" design paradigm mentioned by Monte Cook, IIRC, some of them were actually traps), it had more concise feats. The biggest example I can state is Sword & Board, specifically shield bash. You *can* do it, but it has its hurdles, in particular essentially forcing you to take TWF, which means you NEED a high Dexterity, which is painful for classes that are MAD. Sure, it might not be an issue to a Fighter, but it is an issue to a class that has a long standing relationship with shields - the Paladin. Couple with the fact that the shield feat chain is LONG, and you get the idea that it's not the best fighting style for a Paladin. (Conversely, 3.x followed the same trend at first, but then created an alternative strategy with Shield Specialization and its admittedly short feat chain, giving an extra attack with Agile Shield Fighter. Perhaps you can't make as many shield bashes as you can do attacks, but at least you don't require high Dex to do so). There's also the classic examples: Improved Bull Rush, Improved Disarm and Improved Trip, which were split into two feats to gain the same (though sometimes more) benefits than what 3.x had with one feat. That's not to say Pathfinder doesn't have any good feats - I stand for Dazing Assault as one of the best feats Pathfinder has to offer, and feats such as Quick Bull Rush and Quick Trip make those mechanics a bit more useful. However, PF1e (and to an extent, PF2e) loves feat chains way too much. Style feats, for example, are IMO bad choices unless you're well aware of what you want to do with them, since most of the feat benefits are minor numbers. In a way, it felt like those extra three feats you could gain were lost by having previous feats stretched out. And, it took them quite long to provide ways to ignore the INT prerequisite for some feats that made better sense to other characters (sp. Improved Trip).

The other is how archetypes work. While 3.x had a plethora of ways to optimize a class - alternate class features, racial substitution levels, or even alternate classes altogether - PF only has one, which is archetypes. However, while 3.x's options allowed specific replacements (perhaps not mix and match with alternate classes per se - no Savage Bard with vanilla Bard spell list - but you didn't have to take all substitution levels, and you could choose what archetypes to work with), Pathfinder forces you to take everything of an archetype, even if it ends up being detrimental. Again, for a big example: I love the package of the Empyreal Knight, both in flavor and in mechanics...save for the replacement of Divine Grace for the ability to learn Celestial. That by itself is a big loss, since you could spend 1 point to learn Celestial through Linguistics, meaning you lose one of the Paladin's biggest benefits for something that you can easily obtain. It's even worse if you play Aasimar, because you literally lose a class feature and gain nothing in exchange (well, something so redundant that it's painful). However, if you choose to be an Empyreal Knight, you have to replace ALL of the class features indicated, without exceptions. So you have to lose Divine Grace (which is a blow), and you HAVE to choose a mount as your Divine Bond, to get all the other awesome stuff such as the resistances and the ability to use Summon Monster I to IX. And "for purposes of balance" is a horrible example - I'll mention Grod's Law for that. Furthermore, because of that, working with mixing archetypes can be a pain. And some are just atrocious. (Ugh, Combat Medic Squire!)

However, if there's a real reason why I prefer 3.x to PF is because the system mastery between both systems is very different. I attempted to make a Paladin that I'd feel comfortable with, and to this day, I read it and can't feel as comfortable. In fact, the way it's built, its main trick is invalidated. (Step Up feat chain's granted attack is not an AoO, therefore it can't be used with Stand Still.) Considering that I had too few feat slots to make Sword & Board worthwhile, I went for Lockdown, and even that wasn't something I could do viably, in what little I could understand. And that was after pouring time looking at the system thoroughly, at least at that point - I even made a lengthy guide on the Paladin, which I posted here, mainly for self-reference. By the time I checked it, I felt like I was looking at a very different game. What I could work, with some tinkering, in 3.x, I couldn't do in PF, or at least find a viable alternative to do so. To attempt it would be to require familiarizing deeply with a new system, one to which I already had issues with.

Which is curious, since I took to 5e pretty quickly. I've played builds with which I've had a lot of fun, and 5e, despite its age, has less than a tenth of the content either 3.x or PF1e had at the same age; however, I feel that I can do a lot more with that, or at least the options seem more fun. It also addressed issues that neither 3.x nor PF1e nor PF2e have, such as allowing movement between actions for free, or killing the iterative attack concept. (Plus. 5e feats may be few, and they take away from ability score increases, but IMO they're far more powerful than a 3.x feat or a PF1e feat, and certainly superior to PF2e feats, if only for the contents of the feat itself). But, in 5e's case, though they sacrificed on the "building" game, they compensated for having much simpler system mastery.

So...in the end, I prefer 3.x to PF1e because I don't wanna have to learn another system where my previous knowledge will interfere? Though, if someone offers me to play PF, it's not like I'm gonna deny them. I just might not feel comfortable playing with it as I would 3.x, or 5e, or d20 Modern, or Shadowrun, or Dragon Age RPG.

[Biggus]

the "Ivory Tower" design paradigm mentioned by Monte Cook

What's that then?

[Ignimortis]

What's that then?

That's a design philosophy that emphasizes system mastery among players, so that there are objectively subpar choices that only exist to be traps for new players who can't yet evaluate all the options entirely. Thus, Ivory Tower - the people who have system mastery will be far superior to people who don't.

[Psyren]

That's a design philosophy that emphasizes system mastery among players, so that there are objectively subpar choices that only exist to be traps for new players who can't yet evaluate all the options entirely. Thus, Ivory Tower - the people who have system mastery will be far superior to people who don't.

This is a distressingly common misreading of Monte's point (https://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/2498/roleplaying-games/thought-of-the-day-ivory-tower-design), one I'm convinced will continue to be misquoted even while we're rolling up characters in 7e.

[Kitsuneymg]

Pathfinder does have psionics (https://www.d20pfsrd.com/alternative-rule-systems/occult-adventures/occult-classes/), as well as a TOB-equivalent (https://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/3rd-party-classes/dreamscarred-press/). Your draconic sorcerer as you mention is covered by archetypes (you're not going to get 100% identical abilities, but many PF builds clearly cannot be 100% duplicated in 3.5, either).

PF admittedly doesn't have Incarnum. It is fair to say that WOTC experimented more with alternative magic systems, although it is also fair to say that these had pretty mixed results (such as the truenamer). Is it a weakness of PF that it doesn't have a truenamer? Or is it a weakness of 3.5 that it does have a truenamer?

And since you mention paladin three times, it helps if you clarify what you actually mean. "Opposite paladins" are are one of those common can-of-worms controversies, that have little or nothing to do with edition wars. The easy solution is probably to play an Inquisitor or Warpriest; I'll wager those have the mechanics that you actually want, unless you insist on the class with the word "paladin" in its name...

Isn’t Akashic Mysteries (by DSP and expanded by other publishers with many of the same designers) essential MoI?

[PairO'Dice Lost]

I mean, PF did balance shapeshifting. Even The Giant thought so (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?172910-Articles-Previously-Appearing-on-GiantITP-com&p=9606750&viewfull=1#post9606750) (minus the fact that PAO still existed.) That's not saying that PF as a whole is balanced - but improved balance edition vs. edition is certainly a thing they could accurately claim, because really there was very little direction to go other than up from 3.5.

I'm not saying that they're wrong about it being more balanced, they're not, just that the way it's talked about illustrates a difference in the 3e-holdout and PF communities.

During the 3e era, discussion around the various "replace MM-function-call shapeshifting with astral construct-like build-your-own-form shapeshifting" homebrew ideas generally centered around streamlining, unifying rules, not needing to read 4+ rounds of errata, and other ease-of-use factors, with balance being an incidental "well obviously removing MM dumpster diving is more balanced" side benefit, and people who disliked the idea mostly argued against the lack of ability to grab the rarer and more interesting monster abilities. When talking about the benefits of switching to PF and such, it's pretty much always--at least as I've seen on this forum and heard from my real-life PF-evangelizing friends--framed in terms of balance first ("They finally nerfed the druid!" and all that), with the simplification being an incidental side benefit, and people who dislike the idea mostly arguing against the imbalance of certain items in the selectable ability lists.

Exact same rules change, two different ways of framing it. You see the same differences with other aspects of the rules (e.g. ACF modularity vs. archetypes package-balance, like in T.G.'s post), the shapeshifting thing was just one example of that.


As for D&D Beyond - well, that's not really open source either, you can only access those materials through their platform. Anyone can contribute but it's not like you could make something like d20pfsrd or Pathbuilder using DDB content.

I wasn't comparing Beyond to Paizo's open-source model, just alluding to the quality of the tool being independent of the quality of and/or my desire to play the edition. Paizo's philosophy is great and commendable, but I don't play PF except for the occasional fill-in-for-someone-in-a-friend's-game exception; D&D Beyond is the first WotC online offering that hasn't sucked harder than a portable hole placed inside a bag of holding, but I don't play 5e except under duress.


Which is curious, since I took to 5e pretty quickly. I've played builds with which I've had a lot of fun, and 5e, despite its age, has less than a tenth of the content either 3.x or PF1e had at the same age; however, I feel that I can do a lot more with that, or at least the options seem more fun. It also addressed issues that neither 3.x nor PF1e nor PF2e have, such as allowing movement between actions for free, or killing the iterative attack concept.

Comparing PF to 5e here is interesting, since I think a lot of "issues" 5e fixed were either sidegrades instead of upgrades or not actually novel, and a lot of the content is new and exciting but doesn't inherently let you do more than the old set, just like with PF.

The 5e classes have a lot more fiddly bits with their subclasses and such, but the option space is basically the same (the much-vaunted "casty fighter" and "casty rogue" subclasses are named directly after the 3e PrCs they mimic, for instance, and they pale in comparison to e.g. the Duskblade and Spellthief). Free movement between actions is definitely nicer than full attacks sticking you in place, but the yo-yo effect near chokepoints, the removal of "mobile skirmisher" as a distinct combat style, the trivialization of certain movement impediments, and other things make it different from 3e but not necessarily better. All attacks on a turn being made with a full bonus isn't new (AD&D did it, after all), with iteratives being added for a reason (it smoothed out expected damage over the level range rather than having levels where you got an additional attack be big jumpy breakpoints) rather than being random arbitrary penalties, and having extra attacks being a Big Deal rather than incremental improvements is a matter of taste.

So really, I don't see much difference between 3e vs. PF and 3e vs. 5e in terms of reasons to stick with the one or switch to the other, though if one switch works for you and the other doesn't, more power to you.

[EldritchWeaver]

Ah, so your actual question is, does PF have tome of battle and/or psionic classes. The answer is that yes, it does. TOB equivalent (https://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/3rd-party-classes/dreamscarred-press/), psionic equivalent (https://www.d20pfsrd.com/alternative-rule-systems/occult-adventures/occult-classes/).

Actually, the Occult Psychic casting is not psionic casting. It is literally Vancian casting, with verbal and somatic components replaced. Actual rule using power points are found in Ulitmate Psionics by Dreamscarred Press. Even though it is 3PP, Paizo themselves said they couldn't do better on their own and didn't do 1PP port.

[Ignimortis]

This is a distressingly common misreading of Monte's point (https://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/2498/roleplaying-games/thought-of-the-day-ivory-tower-design), one I'm convinced will continue to be misquoted even while we're rolling up characters in 7e.

Despite that being his point, the actual result turned out to be something completely different, and using their design paradigm, the Ivory Tower one, would result in such a thing again unless it undergoes severe changes (some of which Cook suggested in his essay, written way later).

[Aotrs Commander]

This is a distressingly common misreading of Monte's point (https://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/2498/roleplaying-games/thought-of-the-day-ivory-tower-design), one I'm convinced will continue to be misquoted even while we're rolling up characters in 7e.

Yeah. The problem with balance is that a complex system CANNOT HAVE all choices be equal - or they aren't choices - but at the same time, trap options are bad. And some stuff will be extreme niche, but IF you don't understand what that niche is, it can be a huge trap option.

I have better examples than toughness, because I basically had this issue come up quite quickly when I started to send my starship rules around to people who were reading it cold and started to realise that I'd inadvertently made options that were, if not used PRECISELY RIGHT were trap options.

Allow me to elucidate (though I'll spoiler.)

Armour, in Accelerate and Attack! is a layered defence. You have shields, you have (typically) 1-4 layers of armour, then you have the hull. When initially written, AccAtt had 10 levels of armour (because it has 20-tech level system, so a lot of stuff grades at about 1/ 2levels). Now, the issue is that armour's layers functionally ONLY give you protection against a) rerolls, which push the damage a layer in and b) penetrating weapons, when do damage down the layers, instead of across. Normal damage just destroys one layer, then the next layer and so on. So armour layers essentially cost a good chunk of technology points and extra points cost points for a fairly niche function. So, in practise, one layer of armour between the shields and the hull "catches" the 15% rerolls (18+ on D20) that make it through the shields (as penetrating weapons are quite rare, I'll come to that in a moment).

I realised that out of all the fleets I'd made at that point (circa 40?) ONLY two used armour in four layers, a couple in maybe two and no-one else used more than the single basic free layer you got technology for. The two fleets that used four didn't have shields and were pretty spcialised. And I realised that, as they were already at the maximum amount of armour points you could get per unit investment (i.e. higher tech levels would give more layers, but would have to be split among the same number of points or armour) that anything above that was a trap. So I shaved off the top six levels of armour technology.

(Not only that, but it became claer that the three fleets that have armour and not shields are actually really rather underpowered, more than you'd expect and a shieldless fleet is itself actuallu very difficult to get to work.)



Another one was long-range explosive missiles. Missiles in AccAtt are very powerful weapons, but they can be shot down by point defence. Normal missiles do 1 point of damage, basically. Long-range explosive missiles hav double the range. The explosive missiles deal D6 damage to the hull layer (but not the shields or aforemention armour layers). Missiles mostly all take up the same space, so you could fit as many long-range explosive missiles (if you have the technology, which is quite heap to get) in as you can standard missiles, they just cost about seven times as much. So, I can hear you thinking "well surely everyone uses those, then?"

Nope. See, the thing I realised - and again, it took a while - is that, especially as you get to higher and higher tech levels, the points cost of a missile salvo becomes astronomical (beause they give you probably the most damage per space-hull-unit of any weapon system, plus the best range). Now, the first salvo you fire in a round at an enemy squadron tends to be absorbed by the PD so that the second and subsequent salvos are unopposed (weapons can only shoot once per round). So, if you fire your long-range-explosive-missile salvo AND IT GETS SHOT DOWN (and against an opponent of about your tech level, it generally will), you have wasted a HUGE amount of points, just thrown away. Thus to even attempt to use LRE warheads, you can to be absolutely precise about it and almsot certainly want only a salvo or two in your launchers mixed in with other weapons.

(Short-ranged explosives - which half half normal range - are quite viable at low tech levels, because they even out to a little under double the normal missile cost, but even then, you mix your load with regulars or something to occupy the PD first.)

So I realised that AccAtt was a sufficiently complex emergant system that it needed me to basically have a section at the end of the rules where I had to go through and explain the subtleties and the interactions - fundementally, write my own "vlass handbook" for the rules myself, as the simple rules => coimplex interactions were stuff it took ME years to fully twig, and I wrote the damn thing.



So really, that's what you have to do in the end, with that sort of design, or you end up with what we got with 3.5 and with PF - options that sound good when you start, but are in reality tacitly newb-traps because they use requires understanding how the system works. And if you don't explain it, people can only find out when it Goes horribly Wrong.






If pf had made and kept a hard rule of "LA = CR", it would have won on playable races; as it stands, with "if not (formulaic) LA +0, play mother may I with undefined values", it loses hard. Savage species had "build your own, play mother may I".

Which I recall from reputation on the WotC boards were generally broken one way or another, which is why I never looked into the book. If Libris Mortis's undead classes were an example of what the level was (and I think they were) it was a neat idea, and one which I cribbed for my homebrew campaign races, but they were HORRIBLY implemented in 3.5 itself. (There's a reason why there's a whole seven thread run of of "LA assignment" on this very forum...)

For the record, having read how PF treats classed monsters, I think it IS an improvement over 3.5's LA, though it's always going to be a bit kludgy and as you said of the fighter, it would be hard not to be.


Google is failing on telling me how many spells either has.

Becauses Archives of Nethys is a thing and it has a listing of "all spells" a simple paste of the list into Excel tells me it had 3038 spells.

I can't find a master spells listing for 3.5 for comparison, I'm afraid. (A comparision of how much the list lists before and after I started importing PF spells wouldn't be that helpful, since I by far did not import every spell, but I'd guess probably a good thousand or so from looking at my old and new class spell list spread sheets.)



But I will note that in any game - an option nobody ever takes is not a real option and just wasted space and filling a list of trap options is also bad. At some point, where there are, like two thousand feats (as in 3.Aotrs currently) and you only ever get, like 10-15 of those (3.Aotrs human fighters can get 32) - or 8-ish, in 3.5 where most classes tend get less bonus feats - there are lots of feats that you will simply never see anyone take, because they're taking the important options (even though I've tried to reduce the feat tax significantly). The problem is that very niche spells essentially become one and the same at the point they sit there on the list and the circumstance in which a group might have a use for it might come up in a player's whole playing career once, like, period. (Given the finite number of characters people will play.)

(As I get older, I realise that the amount of play-time I have with my friends will be finite. We are already at the point where I have more adventure paths that we can functionally ever USE. It takes us about trhee years to do an AP (at two hours a week), and in another 30 years (which is only ten), the group will be in the 70s-80s, assuming everyone makes it that far. That's a sobering thought.)

There were lots of spells in PF that I looked at and went "yes, that DOES do something different that I could see being useful, but the situation is so rare it's likely to never come up in my games."




(Although we might disagree - would you say that a PF Wizard ported to 3e would need to spend XP to create items / a pf Fighter ported to 3e be *able* to craft items?)

If that's what the global item crafting rules in use were, then, yes and no respectively.

[Zanos]

This is a distressingly common misreading of Monte's point (https://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/2498/roleplaying-games/thought-of-the-day-ivory-tower-design), one I'm convinced will continue to be misquoted even while we're rolling up characters in 7e.
I think another important snippet from Monty's piece is actually the full text of where he says that some options are better:

This is the approach we took in 3rd Edition: basically just laying out the rules without a lot of advice or help. This strategy relates tangentially to the second point above. The idea here is that the game just gives the rules, and players figure out the ins and outs for themselves -- players are rewarded for achieving mastery of the rules and making good choices rather than poor ones.
This kind of implies that while they knew what they were writing wasn't balance, they didn't maliciously write poor options.

This is pretty clearly highlighted by how 3.5 optimization has progressed. When 3.5 was written the designers would probably tell you fireball was the best choice of 3rd level spell, and that sleet storm and tiny hut were rarely worth casting. In later supplements we see feats like Improved Toughness that explicitly does not require Toughness.

I also think it's okay to some degree for bad options to exist. It's probably not a good idea to prepare animate rope in all of your spell slots or take it as your only 2nd level spell known as a sorcerer, for example, but 3.5 doesn't stop you from doing this. Nor does it stop you from taking Weapon Focus in every single one of your feat slots for different weapons. Are weapon focus and animate rope bad choices in core? I'd argue that they're circumstantial but not truly bad, but you can certainly do stupid things with them if you aren't experienced with the system and believe that all combinations are equally valid. That's ok.

[Aotrs Commander]

I also think it's okay to some degree for bad options to exist. It's probably not a good idea to prepare animate rope in all of your spell slots or take it as your only 2nd level spell known as a sorcerer, for example, but 3.5 doesn't stop you from doing this. Nor does it stop you from taking Weapon Focus in every single one of your feat slots for different weapons. Are weapon focus and animate rope bad choices in core? I'd argue that they're circumstantial but not truly bad, but you can certainly do stupid things with them if you aren't experienced with the system and believe that all combinations are equally valid. That's ok.

There's a big distinction, I think, between "bad" options and "very circumstantial" options - as you say. The former should be avoided in any degree; the latter might need additional explanation; though there comes a certain point with how far you can go. I would find it hard to believe it would be necessary to explain why filling all your spells slots with Rope Trick would not be a useful option. (Except in some VERY circumstantial situations, maybe.)



One wonders if, in places like the character generation system walk-throughs that lots of RPG rules seem to have, it might not be worth just stating there straight-up something like "when selecting feats, do bear in mind that not everything is always equally valid and some abilities can be circumstantial in use, so choose your feats with this in mind (and if you're not sure whether a certain feat might be applicable to the game, you can always ask you GM)." As, I mean, if you assume that a set of rules is someone's first, they simply might not KNOW that is, like, a thing.

[Zanos]

There's a big distinction, I think, between "bad" options and "very circumstantial" options - as you say. The former should be avoided in any degree; the latter might need additional explanation; though there comes a certain point with how far you can go. I would find it hard to believe it would be necessary to explain why filling all your spells slots with Rope Trick would not be a useful option. (Except in some VERY circumstantial situations, maybe.)
I had a player actually do this, for the record. I did in fact, have to explain to him why that would be a bad idea. It was totally out of left field too, this was our second session and he had pretty good spells prepared for the first game; grease, sleep, scorching ray, and summon monster II I think. Not like I dropped any hints about plagues of rope monsters...


One wonders if, in places like the character generation system walk-throughs that lots of RPG rules seem to have, it might not be worth just stating there straight-up something like "when selecting feats, do bear in mind that not everything is always equally valid and some abilities can be circumstantial in use, so choose your feats with this in mind (and if you're not sure whether a certain feat might be applicable to the game, you can always ask you GM)." As, I mean, if you assume that a set of rules is someone's first, they simply might not KNOW that is, like, a thing.
Yeah, that's definitely a worthwhile disclaimer. Most modern TRPGs simply no longer provide options that aren't valid in all styles of game, which I think is a shame. I certainly miss item creation feats in newer editions, but when I play 3.5 it sure would be nice to know going in if the DM plays at a breakneck pace with no downtime for crafting.

[Ignimortis]

Becauses Archives of Nethys is a thing and it has a listing of "all spells" a simple paste of the list into Excel tells me it had 3038 spells.

I can't find a master spells listing for 3.5 for comparison, I'm afraid. (A comparision of how much the list lists before and after I started importing PF spells wouldn't be that helpful, since I by far did not import every spell, but I'd guess probably a good thousand or so from looking at my old and new class spell list spread sheets.)


Without excluding duplicates (i.e. spells that were printed in several books, often with major changes), I get 4911 spells on a certain site that's not allowed to be linked here. Limiting that to 3.5 core+supplements (still with duplicates) brings us to 3450. Even if we assume that duplicates are pretty common and take up a third, that still makes for 2300 spells. Which is, at best, about two thousand too many, I'd say.

[Aotrs Commander]

Without excluding duplicates (i.e. spells that were printed in several books, often with major changes), I get 4911 spells on a certain site that's not allowed to be linked here. Limiting that to 3.5 core+supplements (still with duplicates) brings us to 3450. Even if we assume that duplicates are pretty common and take up a third, that still makes for 2300 spells. Which is, at best, about two thousand too many, I'd say.

So 3.5 could potentially have more; though probably not a great deal in it, on the practical level, then (considering that one suspects that access to every single spell across all 3.5's various splatbooks would be unlikely for most groups to achieve, as I suspect the people that bought/read EVERYTHING that 3.5 ever produced are a small minority and 3.5 lacks a single central resource, unlike PF. (You can't find, for example all spells on all sites; there are about 2-3 sites which cannot be linked that I have had to look between when I couldn't be arsed to extract a book to copy/modified a given spell or something.) Especially considering also all the not-really-an-option choices that level grants both systems.

An order of magnitude or so more than any one group of players will probably ever USE in their gaming lifetime, at any rate.



Granted, someone who has bought every single splatbook, Dragon Magazine and campaign sourcebook for 3.5 probably has a fair reason to not want to add More Stuff in later, one feels...

[Twurps]

This is a distressingly common misreading of Monte's point (https://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/2498/roleplaying-games/thought-of-the-day-ivory-tower-design), one I'm convinced will continue to be misquoted even while we're rolling up characters in 7e.

As others have pointed out, there's several good points in that article. I like "The larger fallacy here is the belief that you can allow for meaningful choice in any kind of complex system without having some choices be inferior to other choices."
3.5 has received it's (more than) fair share of critique on how unbalanced it is. And from this some people come to the conclusion that 3.5 writers didn't know what they were doing. It needs a rewrite, playtesters must have been idiots, if playtesting has been done at all, etc.

I however, very much like the vast amount of options. I like the fact that some choices are *better* than others (better at least in a mechanical sense), because I like my choices to matter.
I also like the vast difference in power levels that can be achieved through al of these choices. I know that this has led to bad experiences for some people, with power-imbalance disrupting their joy in the game. For me and my group however, it works great, and gives us the flexibility to play at the power level we like.

I said earlier I hadn't tried Pathfinder because basically it's just one of a million things I could spend my time on, but don't. Reading threads like this though, I also feel very little motivation to do so. Any system after 3.5 seems to focus on (or at least have as one of it's major benefits), that it 'fixes' some issues 3.5 had. As long as I personally don't experience those issues, rather I see them as a big bonus for my game, those Fixes might very well make things worse for me.

That's not to say Pathfinder isn't any good. Just not my 'cup o' tea'.

[Morty]

All of this presupposes that the article wasn't a "we totally meant to do that!" excuse, something I'm less than convinced of.

[Aotrs Commander]

All of this presupposes that the article wasn't a "we totally meant to do that!" excuse, something I'm less than convinced of.

Never subcribe to malice what can be ascribed to ignorance. Like I said, I did it myself, and I think we can probably all agree that I'm among the most... obessive? rules-tinkers on the thread, if not the forum; you see it all the time in a lot of things. It's very easy to forget that what to you is basic and unstated actually needs stating outright.



(Further example from my starship rules; first person who read it cold, and we realised that NONE of the rest of us had twigged that I'd missed the critical line in the ship generation on "choose vessel hull size number;" without that, the chap had assumed it was a messy iteritive process whereby you kept having to recalculate when you added something because it changed the ship hull size. Because it was so obvious to us that you started with "I'mma make a HF 14 ship," it got missed. After that, I became a great deal more thorough.)

[Twurps]

All of this presupposes that the article wasn't a "we totally meant to do that!" excuse, something I'm less than convinced of.

For me, it doesn't matter what the intent was of the article, or what the intent was of the creators of 3.5 as a whole. Psyren's link explains what I like about 3.5 regardless of intent.

equally: It doesn't really matter if our understanding of the ivory-tower design paradigm is correct. as long as the argument that was made using it it still stands. So we're basically all of on a tangent here.

[DrMartin]

Becauses Archives of Nethys is a thing and it has a listing of "all spells" a simple paste of the list into Excel tells me it had 3038 spells.


just wanted to add to this: considering only the Wizard spell list, it's 1922 (3.5) vs 1896 (PF) - quite close

Speaking from personal experience, there's two reasons to keep playing 3.5:

1- more (1st party) variety: pathfinder might offer more options, but 3.5 covers, generally, a wider spectrum, with wackier options to boot. Pathfinder rarely takes risks with its design choices, comparing to 3.5 at least. Which sometimes is good, sometimes is bad. Nobody at Paizo would print the Sarrukh (good), but neither would print something a bit off the template like dragonfire inspiration, and it took 3rd party publishers to implement things that break the mold like Incarnum, Psionics, and ToB (bad).

So if your table is strictly against 3rd party stuff, 3.5 does offer more variety

2- stick to the devil you know: if it's so similar that everything is compatible, why should I bother? this was said during a discussion when at some point pathfinder was compared to the cool new dog character introduces in that episode of ichty and scratchy to keep the show fresh and interesting. - little more than a marketing decision.

So yeah - can't personally agree with either of those points, and surely someone that does can advocate for either of them better than I can, but those are reasons that people I know have. You also wouldn't get their opinion straight from their keyboards otherwise, as hanging out in internet forums about tabletop rpgs is also above the "effort" (not the right word, but I guess you get the concept...) they put in playing the game.

Personally in my games I play with enough house rules and 3rd party stuff that seeing the base game underneath (pathfinder) is harder than seeing the chair in my bedroom under all the clothes piled on it. I used to have a "3.5 on a case-by-case basis only" policy but nowadays is more like "go nuts" - although I have to say that since we started using SoP and SoM barely anyone had to pick things from other sources. No accounting for taste though, goes in all directions :)

[Aotrs Commander]

Personally in my games I play with enough house rules and 3rd party stuff that seeing the base game underneath (pathfinder) is harder than seeing the chair in my bedroom under all the clothes piled on it. I used to have a "3.5 on a case-by-case basis only" policy but nowadays is more like "go nuts" - although I have to say that since we started using SoP and SoM barely anyone had to pick things from other sources. No accounting for taste though, goes in all directions :)

My approach has always been "is this a good idea? If yes, *yoink*" regardless of which set of rules I'm pinching it from. (3.Aotrs stole the idea of solo monsters as a concept from 4E, and the terminology of Advantage/Disadvantage fro 5E and a good bit of Cantrip/Thuamatergy and Vicious Mockery from 5e...)

(The version of Rolemaster I play is only marginally less modified than 3.P - and only then because I have all the hard-copy books AND we don't play it down the club and thus the need to reduce the load to lug there - and is a hideous mutant hybrid of about four editions the like of which Man Was Not Meant to Know, and the less said about how I ruin BattleTech the better...!)

I have always been of the opinion that a rules-writer can never know what works best at your table better than you do, so there is always going to be some banging into shape in some way at the end-user level in any system.

(Hell, I technically have house-rules for Accelerate and Attack! and I literally wrote those myself!)

[Warmjenkins]

The only - ONLY - statement I disagreed with is "I can't do X in 3.P." That is objectively disprovable. Whether someone is motivated to do X in 3.P or likes to do X in 3.P is was never, ever, part of my disagreement. HTH.

Objectively, you keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.

Case in point, can I open a 3.5 module and run it out of the box without modifying any rules or messing around with a bunch of math every time i want to do say... an opposed grapple check. Because if I was running straight 3.5 I definitely could but it seems whenever pathfinder content gets involved it makes everything messy and a lot more work. The more time I spend converting systems back and forth with each other the less time I have to polish other facets of the campaign.

It is kinda like saying an oven can do everything a microwave can and more because they both heat up food but I'm definitely not gonna try to cook a tv dinner in my oven, even if its technically possible if I put forth enough effort.

[Psyren]

Objectively, you keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.

Case in point, can I open a 3.5 module and run it out of the box without modifying any rules or messing around with a bunch of math every time i want to do say... an opposed grapple check. Because if I was running straight 3.5 I definitely could but it seems whenever pathfinder content gets involved it makes everything messy and a lot more work. The more time I spend converting systems back and forth with each other the less time I have to polish other facets of the campaign.

It is kinda like saying an oven can do everything a microwave can and more because they both heat up food but I'm definitely not gonna try to cook a tv dinner in my oven, even if its technically possible if I put forth enough effort.

No, bad analogy - a better one for 3.PF would be a combination microwave+ oven, also known as a convection microwave. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microwave_oven#Variants_and_accessories) It can indeed do both (tv dinners and roasting), provided you know what you're doing. Also like convection microwaves, they've gotten better over time as the design has been iterated on.

[Warmjenkins]

No, bad analogy - a better one for 3.PF would be a combination microwave+ oven, also known as a convection microwave. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microwave_oven#Variants_and_accessories) It can indeed do both (tv dinners and roasting), provided you know what you're doing. Also like convection microwaves, they've gotten better over time as the design has been iterated on.

No, I feel my comparison is (objectively) better. Pathfinder cant run out of the box 3.5 material without extra effort the same way an oven can't cook out of the box tv dinners without extra effort. Yes the oven still could if you had the mind to but so could a campfire or a heating plate. It's all a matter of how much extra effort you want to put in. A better analogy might be that with a pen and paper you can do every math problem that a scientific calculator can do and even some that it can't; it will just require more effort. Some people may find it easy to do multiplication without a calculator and therefore not use it for that but still use it for logarithms. Just like some might take just the skill system from pathfinder but not cmd. Others will simply prefer a calculator for even addition problems. This does not however make pen and paper objectively better than a calculator for math. The same way it does not make an oven objectively better than a microwave or even a campfire.

Different people will prefer different ones for different reasons. But none of them are objectively better at all the different things they each can do.

I suppose a better version of your example would be a convection microwave that has overly complex instructions that you have to frequently reprogram every time you want to use it, perhaps that is also stuck in a language that you dont speak. Yes it can cook both, but with a regular microwave I put it in and hit a button. With the other I have to reference multiple books and manuals in order to get the display to come on. Then I have to translate all the text to something I can understand. Then I finally can attempt to cook my food, even though I'd already be done eating with the regular microwave. And to top it all off around half the time I made a mistake and it ends up over or under cooking my food and I'm left wishing I'd never even tried this stupid supposed "upgrade" to a regular microwave when I could have just kept the old one. Then to top it all off all my friends left because they were tired of everything having to stop for long periods of time whenever we just wanted a snack. I mean if I want to cook a roast that's what my oven is for.

[Psyren]

I suppose a better version of your example would be a convection microwave that has overly complex instructions that you have to frequently reprogram every time you want to use it, perhaps that is also stuck in a language that you dont speak.

If it's truly that difficult for you... sorry I guess? I genuinely can't fathom it being that hard, but I at least get where you're coming from now if you see it that way.

[Warmjenkins]

If it's truly that difficult for you... sorry I guess? I genuinely can't fathom it being that hard, but I at least get where you're coming from now if you see it that way.

Oh, its not all that difficult for me. But it also doesn't really add anything meaningful either. And it doesn't mean that it's not difficult for others. The point is there are things that 3.5 can do that 3.p objectively cannot. Whether those things make it better or not is up for debate and will always be very subjective.

I don't see the reason to have to waste time and effort on converting things over for no gain at all just so I can play with an inferior product than the one I already use and am familiar with. I could also hit myself in the head with a book every 10 minutes while I play, it wouldn't be particularly difficult to do so and I could do everything that I can currently do in 3.5 while doing so, but I don't think it would improve my gaming experience. Some people might enjoy getting hit in the head every 10 minutes while playing but it is in no way objectively better.

I didn't use a calculator in math class until logarithms in algebra 2 in high school, but I'm not gonna claim that pen and paper or mental arithmetic were "objectively" better because that would be either ignorant on my part at best or disingenuous at worst. Nowadays I break out the calculator for complicated division and even occasionally multiplication if the numbers are big enough because I feel my time and energy are better spent elsewhere.

[Zanos]

If it's truly that difficult for you... sorry I guess? I genuinely can't fathom it being that hard, but I at least get where you're coming from now if you see it that way.
Converting monsters and such from 3.5<->PF is certainly non trivial, what with the relatively sweeping changes to racial hit dice, CMB, feats, and monster types. It could take at least a few hours to convert a module.

I'm sure you're aware of this but you're coming off as condescending.

[Aotrs Commander]

Converting monsters and such from 3.5<->PF is certainly non trivial, what with the relatively sweeping changes to racial hit dice, CMB, feats, and monster types. It could take at least a few hours to convert a module.


That is true, and one of the reasons I switched over to PF-style monsters (as all future APs I will run will be PF-era, not 3.5-era) was so that I didn't have to do much when it came to that. (Though the facelift actually did a lot of monsters a lot of good (cf Succubus, for one).)

Now all I have to do is some slight skill-juggling and cast an eye over the feats.

(And a slight adjustment to CMD, since I didn't like big monsters getting to double-dip on their size and stat bonuses and small creatures being double penalised on it (and an ogre should not have an easier time Stealing an object from a pixie than vice-versa...), so I changed CMD to just Touch AC+BAB+Str.)



You COULD, I suppose, technically straight use the stats from either edition's monsters in either addition without tweaking if you really wanted to or in an emergancy pinch (where, if you needed it, CMB = grapple anyway, basicially, and CMD = 10+grapple), provided you were willing to handwave the stats being different from standard and the monster being easier or harder (it's not like they are fundementally incompatible numbers or anything), but that's a level of jankiness I would strongly not like.

[Warmjenkins]

For the record I don't actually dislike pathfinder or think it's a bad system. I do still personally like 3.5 better but I'm mostly exaggerating things to make a point. I'll play pathfinder if that is what the group wants or if we are looking to run a pathfinder module. The same way I will play 3.5 if we run a 3.5 module or 2nd if we run a module from that edition.

I've converted monsters from 2nd and 5th to 3.5 before too so the argument that all content from 3.5 works in pathfinder actually holds true for every edition of d&d to every other edition, it is just usually far to much work. However whenever I build my own custom campaign settings for my playgroup I only build and run them in 3.5 because it is the system I prefer most.

[Psyren]

Oh, its not all that difficult for me. But it also doesn't really add anything meaningful either.

"Meaningful" is subjective too so there's no point in debating that. I find plenty of meaningful material when combining PF and 3.5 material, but if you don't then that's fine.


Converting monsters and such from 3.5<->PF is certainly non trivial, what with the relatively sweeping changes to racial hit dice, CMB, feats, and monster types. It could take at least a few hours to convert a module.

Even if it does take hours(?), it's a module - it's not like you have to do that during the game. Again though, if you do find that onerous, that's a personal viewpoint that I won't argue.

[Warmjenkins]

"Meaningful" is subjective too so there's no point in debating that. I find plenty of meaningful material when combining PF and 3.5 material, but if you don't then that's fine.



Even if it does take hours(?), it's a module - it's not like you have to do that during the game. Again though, if you do find that onerous, that's a personal viewpoint that I won't argue.

Yes!! My point exactly! It is all subjective. Subjective and objective are antonyms. The word you kept using, it did not mean what you thought it meant.

Don't feel bad about it though, words like that get thrown around a lot on the internet. I can certainly see how you may have thought it meant something else given how many people misuse it so frequently.

Also hours wasted converting stats and rules over then double checking to make sure it doesn't cause any unforeseen balance issues that could potentially ruin an adventure that a group of people are already greatly invested in is all time that could be better spent polishing up potential dialogue or adding custom content to help make it more personal for the players involved, or in many cases actually playing the game.

If you're not able to add more quality to the game on your own than converting things back and forth from different rules systems will add then I suppose you may get more mileage out of it than I do. Personally I've found that fleshing out interesting and memorable characters and locations in the world or making encounters more dynamic and engaging always adds more enjoyment for my group of friends than adding pathfinder content but I would never try to tell anyone they are doing it wrong if they prefer things differently.

[Psyren]

Yes!! My point exactly! It is all subjective. Subjective and objective are antonyms. The word you kept using, it did not mean what you thought it meant.

But I wasn't talking about meaning, or goodness, or anything qualitative. I was talking about sheer objective ability to do a thing, regardless of desire or enjoyment - which you even acknowledged in your own post:



I suppose a better version of your example would be a convection microwave that has overly complex instructions that you have to frequently reprogram every time you want to use it, perhaps that is also stuck in a language that you dont speak. Yes it can cook both, but with a regular microwave I put it in and hit a button.

"Yes it can cook both" is all the admission I cared about.

[Warmjenkins]

But I wasn't talking about meaning, or goodness, or anything qualitative. I was talking about sheer objective ability to do a thing, regardless of desire or enjoyment - which you even acknowledged in your own post:



"Yes it can cook both" is all the admission I cared about.

Did you really not understand what I said at all or did you simply not read the post?

I provided a concrete example of something that 3.5 could do that pathfinder could not. You appeared to accept and understand that in your very next post when you said it wasn't that much extra work, yet still extra work and therefore still unable to accomplish what 3.5 could do.

Yes pathfinder could, in theory and with enough effort, run a 3.5 module. Just like 2nd or 5th or any edition of any roleplaying game could. Yes a campfire could cook a tv dinner with enough effort. That was not the proposed question though it was what proved you objectively wrong.

I said can path run a 3.5 module out of the box with no rule changes, extra effort, or extra math. Quite obviously it cannot, 3.5 quite obviously can. Objectively and irrefutably pathfinder cannot do everything 3.5 can.

I can run, Usain Bolt can also run. That doesn't mean I can break the world record in the 100 meter dash. I can run, the same way pathfinder or 5th edition can run 3.5 modules. I cannot run 100 meters in under 10 seconds the same way pathfinder cannot run a 3.5 module without forcing extra effort on and wasting the time of the person trying to run it. Usain bolt can run 100 meters in under 10 seconds, 3.5 can run a 3.5 module without forcing extra effort or wasting time of the person running it.

I'm giving you the benefit of the doubt here and assuming you are truly just not grasping the concept and not acting out of malice or in an attempt to deceive. However I'm not sure how to explain it any more simply than that.

Edit: I will also add that at no point did you attempt to present evidence to prove my example wrong or actually even address my example of one thing 3.5 can do that path cannot nor did you provide any evidence at all that your claim was in any way valid.

[T.G. Oskar]

Comparing PF to 5e here is interesting, since I think a lot of "issues" 5e fixed were either sidegrades instead of upgrades or not actually novel, and a lot of the content is new and exciting but doesn't inherently let you do more than the old set, just like with PF.

True: some of the stuff that 5e took was from previous editions, but IMO, it was an upgrade, as it relies on my experience playing, and since I started on 3.x, that's my reference point. However, my comparison was more to the point that the rules are easier to understand. For one, there's no distinction between ability checks and skill checks in principle - "skill checks" are just adding a number (proficiency bonus) to an ability check. Now, that also happened on 3.5/PF, but the number was larger and a bit more difficult to measure. In fact, it was easier to measure the skill level and add the ability score modifier as a bonus (i.e., prioritizing the skill check over the ability check) and then add all the bonuses afterwards (synergy, etc.), instead of just saying "make an ability check; add proficiency bonus if you're proficient on the skill"), which emphasizes more the ability check and basically works as a toggle (if TRUE = add bonus and roll dice; if FALSE = roll dice).

I also agree that there's a lot that you could do in previous editions that you can't now (i.e. Binders, Shadowcasters, Truenamers, Incarnum - heck, WotC is unsure on how to deal with Psionics for the first time in any edition, and that sucks), but their class design philosophy is pretty solid. Taking some previous classes and turning them into subclasses if they better fit some existing class (i.e. Divine Soul Sorcerer for Favored Soul, Swashbuckler, Hexblade, Samurai, Cavalier, etc.) is pretty good, since it forces to reevaluate what comprises a class and what doesn't. It does make it difficult to gauge how to deal with new systems (hence, why the problem with Psionics, as the one class they wanted to do was far too encompassing, and why they're resolving to subclasses). Their focus on subclasses over prestige classes and the way ASIs are set also discourages multiclassing, but doesn't really penalize it - the capstones aren't that great, to be honest, so you have a 2-level playing field. (Hence, why Hexblade is so favorable - you can dip one level, get a ton of goodies, without losing much.)

However, when I compared it, I wanted to mention just how easy it is to grok the system. Explaining 5e's fiddly bits isn't as hard as explaining 3.x's or PF's fiddly bits. But then again - that's personal experience.


The 5e classes have a lot more fiddly bits with their subclasses and such, but the option space is basically the same (the much-vaunted "casty fighter" and "casty rogue" subclasses are named directly after the 3e PrCs they mimic, for instance, and they pale in comparison to e.g. the Duskblade and Spellthief). Free movement between actions is definitely nicer than full attacks sticking you in place, but the yo-yo effect near chokepoints, the removal of "mobile skirmisher" as a distinct combat style, the trivialization of certain movement impediments, and other things make it different from 3e but not necessarily better. All attacks on a turn being made with a full bonus isn't new (AD&D did it, after all), with iteratives being added for a reason (it smoothed out expected damage over the level range rather than having levels where you got an additional attack be big jumpy breakpoints) rather than being random arbitrary penalties, and having extra attacks being a Big Deal rather than incremental improvements is a matter of taste.

Curious that you mention that. I've heard that 5e is too "simple" and "dumbed down" from some detractors - the "option space" is one of them. Curious to mention the Eldritch Knight as being worse than the Duskblade, when the Duskblade is mentioned as being worse than the Magus. The Eldritch Knight doesn't exactly have a lot of magic, but it has a pretty defined playstyle - it's more of a warrior mage than a warrior mage/ The Bladesinger is more of a warrior mage, having full spellcasting and a limited form of fighting. As for the Arcane Tricskter, well...the Spellthief is pretty cool, but its main trick was to steal spells, and the Arcane Trickster has some form of doing it. The Arcane Trickster just adds spellcasting (minimal) and some nice goodies (stealing spells, using Mage Hand as essentially a swift action to distract opponents, therefore allowing you to do unimpeded Sneak Attack) to a very solid chassis (seriously, the Rogue is GOOD, what with all it packs; it also has one of the better capstones). So saying they're worse than the Duskblade and Spellthief are a matter of opinion - I do miss Channel Spell (All attacks), to have a Vampiric Touch on every single attack during a turn, and I miss Duskblades using really powerful spells like Polar Ray, and the feel of it, but Eldritch Knights have their own tricks, and in terms of "gish", they're not half bad. Alternatively, Arcane Tricksters were never meant to be Spellthieves, but Rogues with some magic trickled in, which happens to have stolen the best part of the Spellthief without adding some of the other cool nifty goodies (Steal Spell Like Ability, Steal Energy Resistance, and so forth).

It's also fair to compare Divine Soul Sorcerer vs. Favored Soul vs. Sorcerer archetypes that grant divine spellcasting in PF. In 5e, the Divine Soul Sorcerer has access to a HUGE list, but they have so few slots, the game is on figuring out what's best for each. A Favored Soul/Sorcerer/Mystic Theurge had to leap hurdles to get what the Divine Soul Sorcerer gets, but has far more spells to play with. Meanwhile, Angelic Bloodline and perhaps one Archetype could give a PF Sorcerer access to Cleric spells (or Oracle spells?) and many more goodies, with less spell slots and spells known than 3.5, but more choice than 5e. They're very different monsters.

That said, in a way, it's good and bad that they dumbed down the tactical approach to the game. You really can't keep enemies locked effectively (there's the Sentinel feat's benefit, which is essentially Stand Still + more goodies), but you don't have to worry about flanking except if the enemy has the Pack Tactics feature, which flat out beats flanking out of the water anyways. "Yo-yo" tactics really depend on whether you have a way to Disengage from the opponent (a feature that exists in 3.x (https://www.d20srd.org/srd/combat/actionsInCombat.htm#withdraw), but it wasn't used as it requires a full action - opposite 5e, which requires only the equivalent of a standard action but can be reduced to the equivalent of a swift) or flat-out ignore AoOs (the Mobile feat, the Swashbuckler), or a monster that can pull that off, or an opponent that works as a sacrificial lamb in order to allow the rest to escape. And yeah, it's pretty hard to create chokepoints. However, for new people, making them delve into that can be pretty overwhelming; heck, even for a vet, it can be overwhelming. (Grapple, for one. And I rarely see the worth of PF's Drag and Reposition rules, when a hard stop such as Stand Still or Trip are far more effective, and they effectively cost an action from you.)


So really, I don't see much difference between 3e vs. PF and 3e vs. 5e in terms of reasons to stick with the one or switch to the other, though if one switch works for you and the other doesn't, more power to you.

Agree. As I said; I don't mind playing PF1e, but it won't be something I'll probably enjoy. I do have some builds for it (particularly an Inquisitor - I love that class), but I don't feel comfortable playing my favorite class (Paladin) on that system, so the enjoyment will be the same. So I get when you mention that you'd play 5e but under duress and probably not enjoy it - then again, opinions are always in flux.

[Psyren]

Did you really not understand what I said at all or did you simply not read the post?

I provided a concrete example of something that 3.5 could do that pathfinder could not.


No, bad analogy - a better one for 3.PF would be a combination microwave+ oven, also known as a convection microwave. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microwave_oven#Variants_and_accessories)

I was talking about 3.PF the whole time (as per the above quote), not pure Pathfinder.

[Warmjenkins]

I was talking about 3.PF the whole time (as per the above quote), not pure Pathfinder.

As I already pointed out, that doesn't make any difference whatsoever to the points made. You can substitute 2nd or 5th or any other edition that you want. The only thing that may change is the specific details of what one can do but the other not. You could run a monstrous amalgamation of every RPG system ever designed that contains every single homebrew rule that ever existed and it will still never be objectively able to do all the same things as 3.5 because time, size, and ease use are factors in what something can do.

[Psyren]

As I already pointed out, that doesn't make any difference whatsoever to the points made. You can substitute 2nd or 5th or any other edition that you want. The only thing that may change is the specific details of what one can do but the other not. You could run a monstrous amalgamation of every RPG system ever designed that contains every single homebrew rule that ever existed and it will still never be objectively able to do all the same things as 3.5 because time, size, and ease use are factors in what something can do.

And that's where I disagree, because those are only factors/obstacles to what you (subjective you) can do, not what the system can do.

I suspect we won't ever see eye to eye on that though, so best to leave it there.

[Warmjenkins]

And that's where I disagree, because those are only factors/obstacles to what you (subjective you) can do, not what the system can do.

I suspect we won't ever see eye to eye on that though, so best to leave it there.

Objectively false, individual ability could effect exactly how big of a difference it makes but even the simple fact of having to read and memorize one extra word will always make a quantifiable difference. Even if you had a supercomputer built to run the system the more rules you add the more time, however minuscule, it will take for various decisions. I could easily many other examples of how 3.pf cannot do everything that 3.5 can and would have had you ever actually addressed my original statement.

I agree that we will likely never see eye to eye on this one, you seem far to set in your ways from the beginning and I never expected to sway you. If this were not a public forum I never would have brought anything up either. However, since others are likely reading this very thread I felt I should point out you misuse of the word objectively to at least help prevent it's misuse from spreading. Also I hope that perhaps someone reading our discussion might find it in some way helpful to themselves, or at the very least entertaining.

[Asmotherion]

I personally like and play both.

3.5 has a major Nostalgia Factor for me, as it was the first system I ever played. Also, it's a mutual understanding that, when we play 3.5 everything is fair game.

PF is much more balanced. It's fun. But I prefear playing a setting designed for 3.5 in 3.5 over PF for example.

Also, 3.5 is possibly one of the most vast and complex systems, and I've devoted a fair amount of time mastering it, so I like puting this effort to good use XD.

Right now, my favorite system is PF2 though.