Should I get Pathfinder?

[sonofzeal]

From what I gather Paizo's fanbase plays at low levels and doesn't optimize highly. So they focused on nerfing low-op, low-level stuff like Glitterdust and Wildshape. A noob isn't going to gate loop using Candle of Invocation; he's just going to see that the fighter got more plusses and the low level wizard can't end the encounter in one spell and call it a balanced day.

Fighters get more features - but PF also generally nerfed feats, at least the ones worth taking for a melee warrior, which is where a Fighter's power generally came from. I'm not sure I'd call that a net gain for the Fighter. And Wizards and Sorcerers suddenly gained better HP and a whole host of useful class features, including potential metamagic reducers... and people expect balance to be improved?

I haven't encountered this problem. Examples?

A lot of 3.5's PrCs rely on modifying class features or spells that PF radically altered.

You know what "not worse" means, when the products aren't identical? It means "almost surely better." At least a little better. It's also free online. So yeah.

If you're starting from scratch, never having learned 3.5, then going with PF is probably a good choice.

If you're familiar and fluent with 3.5, then learning PF is probably harder and less beneficial than simply coming up with your own set of houserules. It would not be at all difficult for me to come up with a series of houserules that {a} are easier to learn than PF's conversion, {b} do more to mitigate balance issues, and {c} are more readily compatible with existing 3.5 material. See the Minimum Intervention Balance Fix in my sig for the way I'd start - and that was cobbled together in maybe an hour or two of actual work, all told.

[Gavinfoxx]

Edit: I'm also gonna lay this out there, since I see lots of people here saying they love ToB: I hate ToB with a passion. It reeks of 4th edition and doesn't fix mundane combat in any way. Instead it adds three more complicated spellcasting classes.

I don't know if this will help... but you know that the best way to model historic european renaissance-era swordsmanship (ie, using greatswords and breastplates and stuff) with D&D rules is by using the Warblade, right? So it is the book that actually ENABLES realism in martial arts far beyond where D&D had managed before?

[Leon]

Core wizard can be GOD.

The can is the important part here - a wizard is like every other class it can be very powerful when well played or it can be a joke if badly played.

Fixing the system should not be the DM's job. It should be the job of the people who designed it. The DM's job is to tell a story with the players, and when one player's class is demigodly in its power and the other is pitiful and weak, it limits the range of stories that can be told within that game.

How a system is "broken" will vary from group to group and how they use the rules provided.

All classes are the same in a ground state of not being played - how a class is played makes it powerful or not, some like the wizard are easier to take to the extremes than others. But that is not inherent in the class.

[Dsurion]

OP, this thread is obviously devolving into yet another "NO U" thread... So I'm going to ask now, do you think you'll be switching to Pathfinder?

[Reverent-One]

If you're familiar and fluent with 3.5, then learning PF is probably harder and less beneficial than simply coming up with your own set of houserules. It would not be at all difficult for me to come up with a series of houserules that {a} are easier to learn than PF's conversion, {b} do more to mitigate balance issues, and {c} are more readily compatible with existing 3.5 material. See the Minimum Intervention Balance Fix in my sig for the way I'd start - and that was cobbled together in maybe an hour or two of actual work, all told.

Not really. I played 3.5 quite a bit before 4e/PF, and the group I play in in RL is as or more experienced with 3.5 as I am and it wasn't a difficult shift at all. A personal set of houserules like you suggest would require greater (probably far greater) debate and more fundamental changes in the rules like the ones in your sig probably wouldn't fly.

EDIT: It's really not a matter of familiarity with 3.5, but you and your group's tendency to tweak 3.5 that would determine how much use PF is. If you already were going around and making a number of fixes to the various class/spells/what have you, PF probably isn't going to go far enough for you. If you mostly played 3.5 by the rules, making a minor tweak for personal preference here and there (like "Str can be used for Intimidate instead of Cha"), and generally just followed the rule of "Don't be a **** and try to break the game", PF has a lot to offer.

[Curious]

The can is the important part here - a wizard is like every other class it can be very powerful when well played or it can be a joke if badly played.

The thing is, there is still a disparity; a well played fighter is good at killing things, but that's it. A well played Wizard can literally do whatever he wants.

How a system is "broken" will vary from group to group and how they use the rules provided.

All classes are the same in a ground state of not being played - how a class is played makes it powerful or not, some like the wizard are easier to take to the extremes than others. But that is not inherent in the class.

Uh, what? If the wizard is more capable and powerful when equally optimized, then it very well is inherent in the class.

[Leon]

You're missing the point. A lot of the people who love PF really don't give a crap about the finer points of balance.

I'd say that a lot of people who play 3.5 don't give a crap about it either only the loud minority that end up on forums do. Like many things the people on forums make up a small slice of the overall population of a game and are quite often vocal about what they believe things should be like.

Really? Are you actually arguing this? It has been proven, time and again, that spellcasters are so much more powerful than mundanes that they have shot off the graph and hit the ceiling. Pathfinder does nothing to change this fundamental imbalance, and anyone who says otherwise is either kidding themselves or playing with a very low-op group. Although, granted, judging by the op standards of the Paizo boards, that does seem to be their general player base.

A Spellcaster is no more powerful than a non spellcaster until played that way - yes you can break a game with one, doesn't mean you have to.
You can break the game with other classes aswell its just not as easy.

If you have the classic Fighter, Rogue, Cleric, Wizard party that group is going to be much better off with the caster types supporting with the options available to them (particularly as the cleric is the best party support class) than being a selfish prig and not doing so. If you are playing in a group and are lording your class choice over some one else's then you are a bad player. It is a group game and a group will always do better than a collection of solo players.

[Curious]

A Spellcaster is no more powerful than a non spellcaster until played that way - yes you can break a game with one, doesn't mean you have to.
You can break the game with other classes aswell its just not as easy.

No, you can't. It is literally impossible to do much anything beyond massive amounts of damage without access to spells (or some other form of supernatural ability). And most of the time that is overkill anyways.

If you have the classic Fighter, Rogue, Cleric, Wizard party that group is going to be much better off with the caster types supporting with the options available to them (particularly as the cleric is the best party support class) than being a selfish prig and not doing so. If you are playing in a group and are lording your class choice over some one else's then you are a bad player. It is a group game and a group will always do better than a collection of solo players.

The thing is, the party would be doing even better if you replaced the Fighter and Rogue with, say, another Cleric and a Beguiler, or an Illusion-focused Wizard. Beyond that, if a character requires buffs from other party members to contribute in any meaningful manner, then they are a drain on party resources, and can not really be called members of the party at all. Just hangers-on who get in the way.

[Leon]

The thing is, there is still a disparity; a well played fighter is good at killing things, but that's it. A well played Wizard can literally do whatever he wants.




Uh, what? If the wizard is more capable and powerful when equally optimized, then it very well is inherent in the class.

Optimization is a choice a player makes - it is not inherent in anything.

What makes the Wizard better to do anything he wants than a Fighter?

A well played fighter is going to be more than just a killing machine, indeed any well played character is going to be able to do more than just X that they are commonly known to do - some will just do it in different ways

[sonofzeal]

Not really. I played 3.5 quite a bit before 4e/PF, and the group I play in in RL is as or more experienced with 3.5 as I am and it wasn't a difficult shift at all. A personal set of houserules like you suggest would require greater (probably far greater) debate and more fundamental changes in the rules like the ones in your sig probably wouldn't fly.

PF changed: most core feats, several skills, many spells, all the core races, CMD/CMB, etc.

Even just re-learning what Power Attack does is an investment, given that I'd probably keep expecting it to work the 3.5 way unless I paid special attention. I wouldn't call it extraordinarily difficult... but it would certainly be some time until I really settled down and stopped expecting things to go the 3.5 way. I'd have to continually check my sources on everything for quite a while. Admittedly the PFSRD is a great resource for that, but I'd have to be leaning on it heavily for all sorts of stuff I take for granted in 3.5. How does TWF work now? How do I optimize Trip? Does Protection From Evil still do what I expect it to?

Compare with this. It's pretty unapologetic in nerfing awesome classes and buffing weaker ones, but is pretty darn simple with how it goes about it. Feats work like you'd expect. Skills work like you'd expect. Spells work like you'd expect. Races are the same. Classes have hardly changed - just one or two new class features which can be read and learned in a couple minutes.

Making Clerics only uber inside a narrower range of activities is an easy change, and a flavourful one, but helps balance them against Fighters a whole lot better than PF's massive series of changes. It's easier to learn, does more for balance, and is entirely compatible with everything I know of from 3.5. Which is exactly what I claimed.

[SirFredgar]

Optimization is a choice a player makes - it is not inherent in anything.

What makes the Wizard better to do anything he wants than a Fighter?

A well played fighter is going to be more than just a killing machine, indeed any well played character is going to be able to do more than just X that they are commonly known to do - some will just do it in different ways

While I'd like to beleive in an Ideal world this is the case, it is not. If you remove the human condition, that is the player, and look at only raw mechanics the fighter will be leagues behind the wizard.

While the fighter chasis gets a number of feats to improve his in-combat prowess, feats are limited. You will only ever have so many. A wizard doesn't need feats, he gets spells (and can even use certain spells to get fighter feats on the fly). He can learn, and cast any spell ever come up by any other wizard ever, with only the expendature of gold and time.

In fact, and mid-high level play you can build a caster to operate much like a fighter, be just as effective (if not more so), AND have magic to boot.

How can a fighter be called equal under these circumstances? Mechanically speaking they are far behind. Sure, a player can always royally mess up a build, or just not play their character right at all (I have seen teir 1 characters play like teir 3 because of poor players), but taking the player out of the equation should shed some light on the fact that melee (fighter specifically) really has a lot to envy in a spellbook.

[Curious]

What makes the Wizard better to do anything he wants than a Fighter?

A well played fighter is going to be more than just a killing machine, indeed any well played character is going to be able to do more than just X that they are commonly known to do - some will just do it in different ways

Really. How is your fighter going to fly then, with his different ways? How about plane shifting? Or crossing a continent in a day, or anything else that isn't related to hitting things with a big stick?

A wizard is better than a fighter because he [i]can[/] do all these things, plus more. And if he can't, he can learn how to within a few days.

[Leon]

No, you can't. It is literally impossible to do much anything beyond massive amounts of damage without access to spells (or some other form of supernatural ability). And most of the time that is overkill anyways.

The thing is, the party would be doing even better if you replaced the Fighter and Rogue with, say, another Cleric and a Beguiler, or an Illusion-focused Wizard. Beyond that, if a character requires buffs from other party members to contribute in any meaningful manner, then they are a drain on party resources, and can not really be called members of the party at all.
Just hangers-on who get in the way.

Are you absolutely guaranteed that it would? No you'd not think so but it would work just as well with the two melee classes as compared to the two more casters - your personal preference may be that the casters would be better but that is just your personal preference and not that of everyone else.

No character absolutely requires Buffs to work well but those buffs make the whole team work better even with the two classes swapped out for two others.

[LordBlades]

While the fighter chasis gets a number of feats to improve his in-combat prowess, feats are limited. You will only ever have so many. A wizard doesn't need feats, he gets spells (and can even use certain spells to get fighter feats on the fly). He can learn, and cast any spell ever come up by any other wizard ever, with only the expendature of gold and time.

This. Also, as a wizard if you make a mistake in picking your spells, no problem, you'll prepare other spells tomorrow; as a fighter, if you pick the wrong feats you're stuck with them forever, barring DM fiat or retraining.

Keep in mind that the whole tier system is balanced around optimization in the first place. From my experiences with showing Tome of Battle to players who were new to the game, they all came to the conclusion that the classes in their are incredibly overpowered compared to even the wizard, and we all know that isn't true.

That's a common misconception. The tier system works assuming all classes are played at equal level of optimization. Why the most people don't see it work that way is because they play as suggested by the book, which leads to rather different levels of optimization. The 3.5 PHB actually nudges you in the right direction for a decent fighter and especially barbarian (big 2-handed weapon and power attack), whereas for the cleric and wizard, it suggests healbot and blaster respectively, which is a very suboptimal way to play the respective classes.

[Real Sorceror]

I don't know if this will help... but you know that the best way to model historic european renaissance-era swordsmanship (ie, using greatswords and breastplates and stuff) with D&D rules is by using the Warblade, right? So it is the book that actually ENABLES realism in martial arts far beyond where D&D had managed before?

No. No it doesn't. Even the "mundane" styles like Iron Heart or White Raven quickly become pseudo magical really fast, and become pretty much impossible for a mundane person near the end. Tome of Battle is Spells for Warriors. Its "solution" to balancing the system is giving everyone spellcasting, which frankly looks suspiciously like 4e.

If I really wanted to emulate IRL combat, I'd probably use some kind of parry and active AC system. But since the Fighters in my group seem pleased as punch with how Fighters work, I don't think I'll bother.

[MukkTB]

The tier system exists. The tier system is real. Even without the Schrodinger Wizard the normal wizard is better by far than the other lower tier classes. The same for the cleric and druid. Rogue/Fighter/cleric/wizard is strictly worse than beguiler/druid/cleric/wizard. Casting magic >>> not casting magic. Fighters can hit things hard. Wizards can rearrange the cosmos. Lets talk about things a magic user can do that a fighter can't unless they buy an item made by a magic user.
See the future.
See far away places.
Teleport hundreds of miles.
Travel in time for short periods with wish.
Travel to other dimensions.
Fly.
Save or die spells.
Create illusions.
Control other peoples minds totally.
Become nearly invulnerable.
Create weapons of mass destruction.
Summon monsters.
Turn people into animals.
Turn into a giant monster.
Resurrect people from the dead.
Heal wounds and cause regeneration.
Create undead.
...

Fighters cannot do these things.

[LordBlades]

No. No it doesn't. Even the "mundane" styles like Iron Heart or White Raven quickly become pseudo magical really fast, and become pretty much impossible for a mundane person near the end. Tome of Battle is Spells for Warriors. Its "solution" to balancing the system is giving everyone spellcasting, which frankly looks suspiciously like 4e.
.

Well, high level people are already mostly superhuman. Even the 20th level fighter. He can attack roughly 4 times as fast as the average guy (level 1), can survive 20-30 sec submerged into lava(20d6/round is average 12 damage/sec) among other things etc. If you want things 'normal people' in a fantasy world could do I'd stop around level 4-5.

[sonofzeal]

No. No it doesn't. Even the "mundane" styles like Iron Heart or White Raven quickly become pseudo magical really fast, and become pretty much impossible for a mundane person near the end. Tome of Battle is Spells for Warriors. Its "solution" to balancing the system is giving everyone spellcasting, which frankly looks suspiciously like 4e.

If I really wanted to emulate IRL combat, I'd probably use some kind of parry and active AC system. But since the Fighters in my group seem pleased as punch with how Fighters work, I don't think I'll bother.

ToB does a great job of modelling "larger than life" heroes like Conan, Xena, Hercules, Riddick, etc. These characters are rather superhuman, like any high level character should be, but aren't magical.

As LordBlades said, if you want real-world analogues, stick to low-level no-magic - or play another game entirely. GURPS might fit you better. D&D is always going to be a bit "Action Heroic", even with Fighter20.

[MukkTB]

E6 is pretty good for 'normal people.' I quite like E6. In E6 a scrappy fighter with some luck can kill a spell caster.

[Allanimal]

PF changed: most core feats, several skills, many spells, all the core races, CMD/CMB, etc.

Has anybody done a side-by-side comparison of the changes between 3.5 and pathfinder? I hear many comments (power attack is different) but haven't yet seen the specifics.
Before I start looking for differences in the PFSRD, I'm guessing someone has already made a table (or similar)

[sonofzeal]

Has anybody done a side-by-side comparison of the changes between 3.5 and pathfinder? I hear many comments (power attack is different) but haven't yet seen the specifics.
Before I start looking for differences in the PFSRD, I'm guessing someone has already made a table (or similar)

Problem is, it's too many to count. Pretty much everything was re-written, although sometimes the only change is the wording. For example...



3.5:

Armor Proficiency (Light) [General]
Benefit
When you wear a type of armor with which you are proficient, the armor check penalty for that armor applies only to Balance, Climb, Escape Artist, Hide, Jump, Move Silently, Sleight of Hand, and Tumble checks.

Normal
A character who is wearing armor with which she is not proficient applies its armor check penalty to attack rolls and to all skill checks that involve moving, including Ride.

Special
All characters except wizards, sorcerers, and monks automatically have Armor Proficiency (light) as a bonus feat. They need not select it.

Pathfinder:

Armor Proficiency, Light (Combat)
You are skilled at wearing light armors.

Benefit: When you wear light armor, the armor check penalty for that armor applies only to Dexterity- and Strength-based skill checks.

Normal: A character who is wearing armor with which he is not proficient applies its armor check penalty to attack rolls and to all skill checks that involve moving.

Special: All characters except monks, sorcerers, and wizards automatically have Light Armor Proficiency as a bonus feat. They need not select it.

It does basically the same thing, except PF makes it affect Disable Device / Open Lock, which have been rolled into a single skill, whereas neither was affected before. That isn't necessarily a bad thing... but it's different, and I only just found it now because I went out looking for two feats that had exactly the same function, and instead found slight differences between the two.


(Edit) On second reading, and verification here... apparently in Pathfinder, riding horses in heavy armor sucks? So sorry Paladin, apparently Knights in Shining Armor fall off their horses a lot. I was willing to give PF the benefit of the doubt on Disable Device, but I strongly disagree with this. Mounted Combat doesn't see that much use anyway, and making it significantly worse for the characters most likely to use it, and simultaneously undermining one of the classic archetypes of medieval fantasy, seems very much the wrong direction to go in.

[Yora]

It's not that bad. Full plate has a penalty of -6. Masterwork reduces it to 5 and as an 11th level fighter, you'd be down to -3. At 11th level, 3 points does barely make a dent into skill checks in which you have invested.

[Wings of Peace]

If you're looking for it to be so radically different that it will feel like a new system then no, don't get Pathfinder.

[sonofzeal]

It's not that bad. Full plate has a penalty of -6. Masterwork reduces it to 5 and as an 11th level fighter, you'd be down to -3. At 11th level, 3 points does barely make a dent into skill checks in which you have invested.

Yeah, but what's a typical lvl 5 Paladin looking at. And more importantly.... why was this change made?


This is what I dislike about PF - they changed just about everything, and half of it seems to be purely for the sake of changing it. I can see some logic here, in that they streamlined it to all Dex- and Str- based skills rather than listing a series of specifics, but the change doesn't make the game better, and quite probably makes it worse. Not because it's a nerf, sometimes nerfs are necessary, but because it's nerfing some of the weaker classes in the game, and renders one of the single most distinctive fantasy archetypes even more awkward to pull off.

So thanks but no thanks. I'm comfortable with 3.5, and I see no reason to go through the effort of re-teaching myself every little detail just because Paizo felt the need to fix what wasn't broken - especially since they didn't fix what was broken.

[Tyndmyr]

I repeatedly hear some people on this board treat the pathfinder devs (and players) as clueless pubbies. "We are so much much better then those idiots." Not an appealing sentiment to me. However there is some evidence that the PF devs made some mistakes.

In seriousness, they not only missed the core wish loop, when playtesters pointed it out to them, they responded not by fixing the problem, but by banning folks involved. It's hard to describe this in a way that isn't quite negative. "Clueless" is probably fair. I could have fixed more issues with 3.5 if I was drunk the entire time.

Edit: To analyze a bit deeper...they appear to have been fairly fixated on lower levels, with an emphasis on melee. There appears to be a great deal of worrying about balancing melee options against each other. There is...some improvement on this front, though the range of value of various options is still pretty wide.

Caster "nerfs" were very limited. The vast majority of spells are identical to their previous incarnations. Many of the changed spells are not strictly nerfed, either. For instance, grease got boosted from round/level to minutes/level. While you can make the case that the changes to the spell were more bad that good...it's very marginal, and it still ends up being a great spell. Overall change to caster power as a result of spell changes is EXTREMELY limited.

And the casters got bucketloads of class features that mostly patched up their weak points. What's the one thing that theoretically balanced arcanists in 3.5? Squishiness! Now sure, we all know that optimizers can stack buffs and things to mitigate that(and they still can in PF), but your low op players probably didn't do that excessively, and hp damage is still a legit concern in low op games. Higher hd, favored class hp bonuses and greater availability of secondary stats means that your caster is averaging 2-3 hp more a level and squishiness has mostly ceased to be a problem. This DOES affect balance, even at a fairly low op level.

[LordBlades]

In seriousness, they not only missed the core wish loop, when playtesters pointed it out to them, they responded not by fixing the problem, but by banning folks involved. It's hard to describe this in a way that isn't quite negative. "Clueless" is probably fair. I could have fixed more issues with 3.5 if I was drunk the entire time.

Also, more recently, when they introduced the PF version of the Vow of Poverty somebody on another forum pointed me to a thread where in response to people complaining the feat was too weak, the designer replayed something like 'I don't care it's too weak, people should pick stuff based on RP reasons, not power level'

[Tyndmyr]

Also, more recently, when they introduced the PF version of the Vow of Poverty somebody on another forum pointed me to a thread where in response to people complaining the feat was too weak, the designer replayed something like 'I don't care it's too weak, people should pick stuff based on RP reasons, not power level'

Eh, yeah, that's a horrible attitude. IMO, an ideal system will result in people who pick things for RP reasons having a competent char, and people who pick things for power reasons having a roleplayable char. You want everyone to meet in the middle, not promote one over the other.

[LordBlades]

Eh, yeah, that's a horrible attitude. IMO, an ideal system will result in people who pick things for RP reasons having a competent char, and people who pick things for power reasons having a roleplayable char. You want everyone to meet in the middle, not promote one over the other.

Exactly, and if you put out a feat that enables a certain archetype (the ascetic, 'I don't need material wealth type') it would be nice to make sure nobody gets punished for actually wanting to RP that archetype.

[sonofzeal]

I repeatedly hear some people on this board treat the pathfinder devs (and players) as clueless pubbies. "We are so much much better then those idiots." Not an appealing sentiment to me. However there is some evidence that the PF devs made some mistakes.

Sean K Reynolds was one of the bigger names working with them - I believe he even wrote the forward to the main Pathfinder book. Here's his thoughts on the relative value of various Core feats. Note that Natural Spell is cheaper than Toughness. Extend Spell is cheaper than Mobility. Skill Focus: Concentration is cheaper than Combat Casting. Spirited Charge is cheaper than Athletic. And every single other feat is cheaper than Two Weapon Fighting.

Now, that's not to say the same logic went into the creation of Pathfinder... but when we hear comments from the Devs like how it's "broken" to allow Monks to take Improved Natural Attack, it's hard to believe otherwise. Two Weapon Fighting, which is horribly suboptimal on a number of levels* in 3.5 barring sources of precision damage, doesn't get improved at all. The "Two Weapon Warrior" archetype for Fighter only slightly mitigates this - but then Twohanded weapons get their own Archetype and improve even more relatively.

So no, I really don't think the Devs knew what they were doing, and I don't see anything wrong with saying so.



* 1) it costs feats, 2) it gives a penalty to hit, 3) str on mainhand plus 0.5*str on offhand merely breaks even with 1.5*str for twohanding, 4) you have to pay to enchant twice, 5) you can take a hand off or on a twohanded weapon as a free action, 6) Power Attack is less favourable, 7) you have to invest massively in Dex to qualify for the feats, and 8) your Standard Action attack is worse while your Full Attack only breaks even with max feat investment. You have to invest heavily to make it work, and in return you get the same damage with lower accuracy and less flexibility. From what I can see PF fixed exactly one of those, and only for 9th lvl Fighters who chose to specialize in that path. Hoooray.

[Yora]

So what? When I look at all the garbage that WotC has produced over the years, the PF-Books still seem to have a very high amount of quality work inside them.