Pathfinder 101

[RNightstalker]

I've played 1st/2nd AD&D, 3.0 and 3.x, but there are a lot of people high on Pathfinder on this forum. For example: Segev commented (my paraphrase): "Pathfinder 1e was the fix to 3.whatever". (If I botched that, please forgive me as that's how it came across).

So please educate me on why Pathfinder is so great, dare I say better than 3.x? Honestly, legit curiosity, what's Pathfinder about, playground?

[Kurald Galain]

The main appeal of PF is that it gives more and more flavorful choices to low-level characters, enabling many character concepts earlier and easier (e.g. a concept that in 3E may require level 8+, two prestige classes, and careful planning ahead; could be done in PF by just taking the archetype at L1, and done). 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).

A side effect is that PF solved most of the common issues and complaints in regular gameplay, although it did not solve issues and complaints from high-level high-op forum debate. So it fixes things like "rogues can't sneak attack undead", or "fighters don't have enough skill points" or "out-of-the-box blasting is much weaker than melee" or even "monks need pounce". OTOH, it does not fix anything involving 8th- or 9th- level spells, or optimized forum builds. As corollary to the this point, it is better, but by no means perfectly, balanced.

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.

Oh, and it had a massively popular public campaign with an overarching metaplot spanning ten years. That's surely an appeal for anyone who doesn't want (or doesn't have time) to design his own world. HTH!

[Maat Mons]

I haven't played much Pathfinder. But I've long though it would be fun to try a high-level Sorcerer in that system. A 20th-level human Sorcerer can have 60 spells known, not counting feats and magic items that give extra spells known. And you can ignore spell prerequisites for crafting any items other than spell-completion items, spell-trigger items, and potions. Seems like the high-water mark for Sorcerers across all editions.

I've also wanted to try Arcanist, every since I found out that class exists. Its basically an Int-based Sorcerer that can change its spells known every day... and also multiple times during the day. Only 34 spells known at 20th level, but the shuffling makes up for it. Sounds like a fun way to enjoy the flexibility of a prepared caster without having to deal with all that prepared-spell nonsense.

[Eldonauran]

I've also wanted to try Arcanist, every since I found out that class exists. Its basically an Int-based Sorcerer that can change its spells known every day... and also multiple times during the day. Only 34 spells known at 20th level, but the shuffling makes up for it. Sounds like a fun way to enjoy the flexibility of a prepared caster without having to deal with all that prepared-spell nonsense.
The Arcanist also makes up for the lower spells per day with its own unique abilities (Arcanist Exploits and Consume Spells). I tend to favor spontaneous casters of prepared casters, but the Arcanist hits just the right spot for me.

As to the OP, I've been around since before 3.E was cut off and Wizards jumped to 4E. I made the leap to PF1 out of sheer rebellion to Wizards and, honestly, I've never looked back and thought I made a mistake. Pathfinder is, in my opinion, a complete upgrade and improvement to the d20 3.X system. Especially since you can port just about anything from 3rd edition D&D into it with little effort. I've done it many times, especially with Magic of the Incarnum. You can even backport things to 3.X if you really want to.

I think some of the biggest draws is the simplified skill list, BAB/HD relations, feats every odd level and introduction (and focus) of archetypes to classes, rather than going overboard on prestige classes. You get something new at every level.

[Dimers]

I like the skill system a lot better. Related skills are condensed together (Stealth instead of Hide & Move Silently, Disable Device now includes lockpicking, that sort of thing), so skill points go farther. There's no cross-class penalty, only a flat one-time bonus for taking class skills. And with the Background Skills optional system, you can safely put ranks in character-appropriate skills that are rarely useful for adventuring.

[KillianHawkeye]

The archetypes give every class a lot more variation than in 3.5, and largely preclude the need for prestige classes. The base classes themselves are also better in a lot of ways, IMO. Also, the feats (at least combat feats) are a lot better.

The change to skills, although minor, is helpful. And the favored class system is actually a cool benefit rather than an annoying penalty to be avoided.

Other than that, various rule simplifications help speed up the gameplay a little.

[Psyren]

I can't speak for everyone as to their reasons for playing PF over 3.5, but some of the more common pros I see include:

1) Higher floor / lower ceiling - in PF most classes are at least decent 1-20, and lack the basement lows and game-shattering highs of 3.5 ones. There are almost no dead levels in PF classes either, so there's always something to look forward to, and they get more feats. Lastly, the floor for races is much higher, which lets groups more easily form parties of characters with exotic heritages more easily and not have to worry about wrestling with off-putting level adjustment or multiclass rules.

2) Open Source - Unlike 3.5, the entirety of PF is OGL (minus a few setting details), which makes talking about this or that feat or spell on a forum like this one very easy. It also makes community projects like wikis or SRDs extremely easy to catalog, which is essential for a system with as much material (some would say "bloat") as this one has.

3) Compatibility/Continuation - at the time PF came out, WotC had stopped making 3.5 material to move onto 4e, and when that flopped, they moved on further to 5e. A lot of people had 3e books, characters, and even campaigns that they didn't want to give up then, and while switching to PF could often result in some issues, they tended to be a lot smaller and more manageable than the effort of trying to convert those things over to brand new D&D systems would have been. In addition to that, Paizo was actively publishing new stuff that those groups could leverage - including some rules 3.5 either hadn't touched or hadn't done particularly well, like alchemy rules or rules for alternate wealth systems or chase sequences etc.

4) Third-Party Support - A combination of the last two points, PF's brand name and open source nature attracted valuable attention from some of the more prominent third-party publishers from the tail end of 3.5. These folks used their talent at designing 3.5 content to develop both open-source conversions/expies of popular closed-source 3.5 rules, e.g. Tome of Battle or Pact Magic, as well as developing entirely new and interesting systems from scratch like Spheres of Power. These third-party additions extended PF1's shelf life even further beyond the wildest dreams for how long 3.5 would have lasted.

Combine all those and you get a system that can go toe-to-toe with 3.5, and in the eyes of many players surpass it.

[Gnaeus]

2) Open Source - Unlike 3.5, the entirety of PF is OGL (minus a few setting details), which makes talking about this or that feat or spell on a forum like this one very easy. It also makes community projects like wikis or SRDs extremely easy to catalog, which is essential for a system with as much material (some would say "bloat") as this one has..

Quoted for truth. I’m happy buying product. But when I want to learn spells I want the list in one place, not 20 PDFs. And when I want to cast Sky Swim and I don’t remember what book it is I can Google pfsrd sky swim before I could scroll to it in an open pdf. Even in much smaller, simpler systems, I now find the lack of a searchable function as annoying as that modem ringtone and hour download times in a computer from the 80s. Like “how did I ever put up with this before alternatives existed”. In related note, I don’t need a huge crate to drag my pf stuff around a con like I did with my giant bag of 3.5 books.

[Asmotherion]

I've played 1st/2nd AD&D, 3.0 and 3.x, but there are a lot of people high on Pathfinder on this forum. For example: Segev commented (my paraphrase): "Pathfinder 1e was the fix to 3.whatever". (If I botched that, please forgive me as that's how it came across).

So please educate me on why Pathfinder is so great, dare I say better than 3.x? Honestly, legit curiosity, what's Pathfinder about, playground?

You could say it's 3.6e or a patch to the gamebreaking level of optimisation 3.5 enabled. Other than that, it's 3.5, except that your class has more thematic abilities, and Sorcerers have some awesome abilities instead of being overshadowed by Wizards, because Sorcerer-Hating Monty Cook was not part of the team that designed it.

[RNightstalker]

You could say it's 3.6e or a patch to the gamebreaking level of optimisation 3.5 enabled. Other than that, it's 3.5, except that your class has more thematic abilities, and Sorcerers have some awesome abilities instead of being overshadowed by Wizards, because Sorcerer-Hating Monty Cook was not part of the team that designed it.

That's not the first complaint I've heard about good ole Monte. What else is he guilty of?

[Asmotherion]

That's not the first complaint I've heard about good ole Monte. What else is he guilty of?
It's an inside joke that Monte was personally responsible for nerfing the Sorcerer, because he wanted the Wizard class to domitane to Optimisation Scene. This, together with Skip Williams literally hating implementing the non-vancian Sorcerer into the system and being quoted on it, would explain a lot about why the Sorcerer has a slower spell progression than all other Full Casters. Both have expressed negative feelings for the then "new" Sorcerer Class.

[Fizban]

Well, as someone who doesn't like Pathfinder, the reasons I usually hear or can infer are:

They collapsed a bunch of skills, gave out more skill points, and removed the cross-class rank limits.
They buffed some combat feats and added a bunch that people wanted.
They simplified combat maneuvers and grappling in particular.
Lots of extra class features and/or class features with huge menus.
Lots of alternate class features called "archetypes."
Lots of "hybrid" classes, including hybrids of classes that were already hybrids.
And even a "variant multiclassing" system that lets you hybrid your hybrid hybrids.
And less commonly, it will be pointed out that they did nerf at least few of the more crushing spells at low-mid levels.

Naturally I disagree with nearly all of these: For those who don't like those initial changes, no amount of piling on other stuff will remove the fundamental problem. But for anyone that was calling for one or more of those initial changes as their big gripes, they will naturally refer to PF as a fix/upgrade/etc.


It's an inside joke that Monte was personally responsible for nerfing the Sorcerer, because he wanted the Wizard class to domitane to Optimisation Scene. This, together with Skip Williams literally hating implementing the non-vancian Sorcerer into the system and being quoted on it, would explain a lot about why the Sorcerer has a slower spell progression than all other Full Casters. Both have expressed negative feelings for the then "new" Sorcerer Class.
The funniest part I find about this is that it's so blindingly simple to fix. Oh, the writers have flat-out admitted they screwed the Sorcerer, but the Psion gets exactly the same odd level, two of each at your highest level, bonus feat every five levels progression as the Wizard? Solution seems pretty obvious. It's right there in the Official First Party Content. And yet, I'm pretty dang sure in all the Sorcerer fixes I've read, not one has done it. The tunnel vision is so focused on the problems that it refuses to fix the problems, trying to paper over borked spells known tables with Bloodlines and Class Features and really anything but what should be the most obvious fix.

Of course, I didn't realize it was so obvious myself until fairly recently, so there's that.

It also makes me wonder, if two of the main designers including the one actually writing it hated the class, why was it even there? Who is the mysterious person that forced them to make this radical new class, apparently without or in spite of them stating their opinions?

[Palanan]

Originally Posted by RNightstalker
Honestly, legit curiosity, what's Pathfinder about, playground?

Apart from what’s been mentioned above, Pathfinder has a number of base classes which are simply better versions of concepts that were introduced in 3.5 or even earlier, but which were sometimes very clunky in their execution.

The standout example is the magus, designed to be a flavorful and effective gish without the need for PrCs, and with core abilities that come online much earlier than the duskblade.

Another change I don’t think has been mentioned is the absence of dead levels, which were an annoying side effect of 3.5 progression. Pathfinder makes the effort to give you something at every level.

One thing to be aware of is that, in addition to the major changes, there are countless tiny rules changes that have the potential to trip you up during gameplay if you’re not aware of them. If you’re used to playing 3.5, you may find yourself making little assumptions which aren’t always borne out by Pathfinder rules. These won’t necessarily derail the game, but they do tend to pop up unexpectedly.

But I find Pathfinder enough of an improvement overall that I switched over years ago. There’s something of a learning curve, but well worth it.

[Psyren]

It also makes me wonder, if two of the main designers including the one actually writing it hated the class, why was it even there? Who is the mysterious person that forced them to make this radical new class, apparently without or in spite of them stating their opinions?

*checks PHB*

I guess we have Jonathan Tweet to thank? :smallbiggrin::smalltongue:



Another change I don’t think has been mentioned is the absence of dead levels, which were an annoying side effect of 3.5 progression. Pathfinder makes the effort to give you something at every level.

Second sentence in my spoiler :smallfrown:

[Calthropstu]

The main appeal of PF is that it gives more and more flavorful choices to low-level characters, enabling many character concepts earlier and easier (e.g. a concept that in 3E may require level 8+, two prestige classes, and careful planning ahead; could be done in PF by just taking the archetype at L1, and done). 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).

A side effect is that PF solved most of the common issues and complaints in regular gameplay, although it did not solve issues and complaints from high-level high-op forum debate. So it fixes things like "rogues can't sneak attack undead", or "fighters don't have enough skill points" or "out-of-the-box blasting is much weaker than melee" or even "monks need pounce". OTOH, it does not fix anything involving 8th- or 9th- level spells, or optimized forum builds. As corollary to the this point, it is better, but by no means perfectly, balanced.

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.

Oh, and it had a massively popular public campaign with an overarching metaplot spanning ten years. That's surely an appeal for anyone who doesn't want (or doesn't have time) to design his own world. HTH!

Actually, it fixed MOST of the high level shenanigans. Polymorph was fixed, shapechange given a massive overhaul, wish was altered. Most infinite loops were removed. TO became MUCH more difficult. At least until mythic was made and they released mythic augmented timestop.

I watched these boards try to help a pf psionics player get infinite power points and they failed. I watched them try to break several things in pf and it held up, requiring a gm adjudication in order to even try.

There were a FEW shenanigans they were able to get away with, but for the most part, the system held up.

[Kurald Galain]

Actually, it fixed MOST of the high level shenanigans. Polymorph was fixed, shapechange given a massive overhaul, wish was altered. Most infinite loops were removed. TO became MUCH more difficult. At least until mythic was made and they released mythic augmented timestop.

I watched these boards try to help a pf psionics player get infinite power points and they failed. I watched them try to break several things in pf and it held up, requiring a gm adjudication in order to even try.

There were a FEW shenanigans they were able to get away with, but for the most part, the system held up.

Well, that's refreshing to hear. Thanks!

[Psyren]

PAO is still there though, and as frustratingly vague as ever. Gate was barely touched too.

I like it, but I was really hoping PF2 would have combed out the remaining snags without ripping up the entire carpet.

Also, Polymorph/GP/Shapechange should really have been future-proofed by letting them mimic any "Shape/Form/Anatomy/Physique etc" spell up to their level -1.

[farothel]

I actually like the skill collapse they have done. While I can understand that you can have people with good eyesight who are basically deaf, in a roleplay it's a lot easier just to have a perception check (which is how it is in many other systems). And if you want to make for instance a fighter who can also stand watch during the night without being surprised every single time, you only have to invest in one skill with your limited skill points instead of having two.

Also the fact that you have more feats, so classes other than the fighter can get to the end of a feat tree if they want to.

I'm not the biggest fan of all the extra classes out there as I sometimes find it difficult to find them all back, to choose between them and to learn yet another set of 20lvls of abilities and special rules, and some seem just a small tweak of something else, but I can understand people wanting to have the extra choice.

[Palanan]

Originally Posted by farothel
...as I sometimes find it difficult to find them all back....

Not sure what you mean here. Can you elaborate?

[Asmotherion]

Well, as someone who doesn't like Pathfinder, the reasons I usually hear or can infer are:

They collapsed a bunch of skills, gave out more skill points, and removed the cross-class rank limits.
They buffed some combat feats and added a bunch that people wanted.
They simplified combat maneuvers and grappling in particular.
Lots of extra class features and/or class features with huge menus.
Lots of alternate class features called "archetypes."
Lots of "hybrid" classes, including hybrids of classes that were already hybrids.
And even a "variant multiclassing" system that lets you hybrid your hybrid hybrids.
And less commonly, it will be pointed out that they did nerf at least few of the more crushing spells at low-mid levels.

Naturally I disagree with nearly all of these: For those who don't like those initial changes, no amount of piling on other stuff will remove the fundamental problem. But for anyone that was calling for one or more of those initial changes as their big gripes, they will naturally refer to PF as a fix/upgrade/etc.


The funniest part I find about this is that it's so blindingly simple to fix. Oh, the writers have flat-out admitted they screwed the Sorcerer, but the Psion gets exactly the same odd level, two of each at your highest level, bonus feat every five levels progression as the Wizard? Solution seems pretty obvious. It's right there in the Official First Party Content. And yet, I'm pretty dang sure in all the Sorcerer fixes I've read, not one has done it. The tunnel vision is so focused on the problems that it refuses to fix the problems, trying to paper over borked spells known tables with Bloodlines and Class Features and really anything but what should be the most obvious fix.

Of course, I didn't realize it was so obvious myself until fairly recently, so there's that.

It also makes me wonder, if two of the main designers including the one actually writing it hated the class, why was it even there? Who is the mysterious person that forced them to make this radical new class, apparently without or in spite of them stating their opinions?

I believe Pathfinder has a very nice Sorcerer Class, most people use this as a Fix. Other than that, the Class itself is not nearly as bad, the only thing that hurts is a lot is it's spell level progression.

About that Mysterious Force, Wizards of the Coast had just bought D&D in 1997, with 3.0e coming in 2000.

[Xervous]

At this point in time if you have the choice of learning one or the other, PF1 has more tables active and is marginally easier to onboard new players for. From what I gather they’ve done a fine job of patching this or that (sometimes by just releasing new versions of previously lackluster classes).

You still have stumbling blocks such as fighter lacking any defining plot/exploration/social levers to pull and its concept not scaling nicely up through double digit levels. But again there’s other classes somewhere that do the same thing but better/relevant. Mainly depends on how long you want to sift through minutely different options.

I’d love to play PF at some point if I had a GM I could trust to do it justice. Maybe then I’d put in time to memorize the content like I did for 3.5.

[icefractal]

For me, the biggest selling points are:
* Open Content. There's a legal SRD which contains almost all content (not just core like 3.5). If I want to talk about a Pathfinder feat I can just link it right here, if I want to search for "all feats that mention crossbows" I can easily do that. Most importantly, if I need to prep for a game, I can search through all monsters, find a suitable one, copy-paste it, modify the stats as applicable, done.
* Good 3PP Content. Pathfinder has Psionics, not-ToB, not-Incarnum, Spheres, and several other well supported, generally solid third-party systems.
* Easier Player Access. Both in that more people are familiar with PF1, and that when introducing some part of the system to a new player I can link them directly to what I'm talking about.

System-wise, I like the condensation of skills, the use of CMB/CMD, and some of the spell/feat changes (not all). Also some of the new classes are pretty nice - the Oracle beats the pants off the Favored Soul, for example. Alchemist, Inquisitor, Gunslinger, Summoner, and Witch are all fun.

While originally it was rather sparse compared to 3.5's abundance of content, at this point there is a lot there.

The balance ... it's a bit better than 3.5, but not massively different. There's still a significant gap between the low and the high end, and the very high end is still more than you want for most campaigns, but there's less casually-broken stuff.

[Palanan]

Originally Posted by icefractal
Also some of the new classes are pretty nice - the Oracle beats the pants off the Favored Soul, for example.

Oracle is fantastic. And the magus is a sixpack of gish: just pop it open and chug away.

And while it’s not spectacular, I enjoy the slayer as well.

[TotallyNotEvil]

Those 6/9 classes seem to hit a very sweet spot indeed.

I love how, very often, if you think of a particular gimmick or style, there's an archetype to simply and straightforwardly do that.

I feel it offers nearly all of the good of 3.5, and little of the bad. Like my character can be meaningfully, seriously different from everyone else's, and yet everyone can still be roughly as competitive for most of the game.

I believe that, with just a little more cleaning up and consolidation of the clunky bits, it could have put up a real against 5E for marketshare, but PF 2 kind of went in another direction.

[Ramza00]

More consistency for people who do not have system mastery.

Higher floor / lower ceiling as others have said, discouraging multiclassing and prestige’s yet have archetypes trying to recreate this flavor of options.

Plus OGL Content online makes it easier for both new players but also looking things up on the fly much easier.

[gijoemike]

snip*
So it fixes things like "rogues can't sneak attack undead", or "fighters don't have enough skill points" or "out-of-the-box blasting is much weaker than melee" or even "monks need pounce". OTOH, it does not fix anything involving 8th- or 9th- level spells, or optimized forum builds. As corollary to the this point, it is better, but by no means perfectly, balanced.

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.

snip*

So many tiny shifts in precision damage was quite nice from PF1 standpoint. But I want to expand on what Kurald Galain mentions about prestige classes.

Note: I pick on Hospitaler quite a bit on these boards because I like the simple concept and revile the execution of this class.

In 3.X if you had a simple concept for a character, say a traveling healer. One may come upon the Hospitaler PgClasswhich is a traveling healer on a horse devoted to protecting the weak. In order to get into this class, one must take mounted combat, ride by attack, and be able to cast lvl 1 divine spells and have a base attack bonus of 5. The quick way to enter the class is to be paladin 5 applying both your level 1 and 3 feats. And at lvl 6 you can go into Hospitaler. You had to plan out the first 6 levels of this concept and devote 100% of your feats just to get there. The class then proceeds to hurt your caster level, making you a worse healer for disease. Then it turns around and gives you a spell like ability to remove disease to make up for the fact it took your spell caster level away. The final lvl 10 abiliy of this class is NOTHING. Oh, and this classes doesn't make your mount any better at all.

Barring the very few Prestige classes built on this same system, PF1 instead uses an archtype system where you can swap a list of abilities from your class progression and you are that theme from lvl 1 and you grow into it over the course of several levels. Sometimes you can pair up 2 archtypes to become something different than both. No planning out 13 levels and 4 feats involved.

I have always used this example 5 lvl 1 male human fighters in 3.X would almost be clones. Given 5 lvl 1 male human fighters in PF, you may not be able to even tell that they are are same class.



Now casters still reign supreme and the cheese is strong. It is just a different variety.

[Fizban]

Tangent Engaged

Note: I pick on Hospitaler quite a bit on these boards because I like the simple concept and revile the execution of this class.

In 3.X if you had a simple concept for a character, say a traveling healer. One may come upon the Hospitaler PgClasswhich is a traveling healer on a horse devoted to protecting the weak. In order to get into this class, one must take mounted combat, ride by attack, and be able to cast lvl 1 divine spells and have a base attack bonus of 5. The quick way to enter the class is to be paladin 5 applying both your level 1 and 3 feats. And at lvl 6 you can go into Hospitaler. You had to plan out the first 6 levels of this concept and devote 100% of your feats just to get there. The class then proceeds to hurt your caster level, making you a worse healer for disease. Then it turns around and gives you a spell like ability to remove disease to make up for the fact it took your spell caster level away. The final lvl 10 abiliy of this class is NOTHING. Oh, and this classes doesn't make your mount any better at all.
The Hospitaler is a poorly named class, because it's not about healing- it's about having full BAB, 3 Fighter Bonus Feats, and 7/10 casting. A Paladin can take it if they would rather have bonus feats than Special Mount, and they get to keep progressing Lay on Hands and Remove Disease.

But the intended entry is actually Cleric: 5 cross-class ranks means 7th level, +5 BAB is 7th level Cleric A Cleric takes it for basically the same reason: they want some Fighter feats, and they want to feel more Paladin-like with Lay on Hands and Remove Disease, which for whatever reason seem to be considered Iconic healer abilities.

Investigating its origin quickly confirms this- it was originally from Defenders of the Faith, where it is simply an uber class for Clerics. Full BAB, full spellcasting, Turn undead with a penalty like a Paladin, and four bonus feats. Or rather, it was supposed to be for warriors to make themselves into a sort of Paladin, granting Cleric casting or progressing Paladin, but that just meant Clerics lost nothing. Complete Divine nerfed the class, as it deserved.


The main mechanical problem is simply that it has nothing to do with mounted combat at all despite the only major entry requirements all being mount stuff, in both iterations. But there really aren't any feats or other mechanics you can use to actually define your character as a "knight." They're based on a real-life knightly order concept, and real-life knights don't have any special powers, they're just people with a title, who happen to be known for fighting on horseback by the simple fact that they can usually afford to. How do you prove mechanically that your character fits on a horse? Horse feats and horse skills.

But the overall problem with the Hospitaler is that it doesn't have anything that requires a Prestige class. A Paladin can heal, and also smite and gets a magic horse. A Cleric can heal, and ride a horse. Heck, nothing about "protecting travelers on pilgrimage" even requires you to be on a horse! In real life, "knightly orders" did tons of different things, more like trade guilds with church backing, while being able to fight was just something people did and well-funded groups would naturally have their people armed and armored so as to protect that investment. But the fantasy concept of "knightly orders" is already focused on the honorable/protecting/healing/etc thing that hospitalers do. It's not that Hospitaler fails to make good healers, or that it fails to give extra mounted combat powers: it's that the concept is already a core part of two core base classes. It belongs in expanded fluff sections for those classes.


I have always used this example 5 lvl 1 male human fighters in 3.X would almost be clones. Given 5 lvl 1 male human fighters in PF, you may not be able to even tell that they are are same class.
I mean, considering the optimization variance, I would expect you could tell five people of different op levels to make five level 1 human fighters that do X, and still get five different responses, some of which would be quite unrecognizable in comparison. Honestly, if you've got so many class features at 1st level that switching them around makes things unrecognizable, I think you've got too many features at 1st. And if your ACFs change so much that the class becomes unrecognizable, what you've actually done is write a bunch of new classes that all happen to have an exclusion clause preventing you from multiclassing them.

[Bavarian itP]

Lay on Hands and Remove Disease, which for whatever reason seem to be considered Iconic healer abilities.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_touch