Pathfinder thread

[clockworkjoe]

RJ ran the first game of his pathfinder mini campaign - we are level 10 dudes, and all of us are divine casters except for Jason. 2 druids, 2 clerics, a ranger and a rogue.

So far, it's been fun but

1. Character creation is such a pain in the ass at higher levels. Too much shit to pick and stat out, skills, feats, spells, animal companions, magic items. Probably wouldn't have been as bad if we had more than 1 book and 1 laptop with a PDF of the book but pathfinder has changed just enough that the d20srd.org isn't useful.

2. I really wish there was a pathfinder chargen program. DDI has spoiled me.

[Vega Baby]

First off, there is a Pathfinder SRD. Check it out:

http://www.d20pfsrd.com/

I've just recently started playing in a Pathfinder game myself.  It's not that different from 3.5, but most of the differences are improvements, in my opinion.

[Kroack]

I'm considering getting pathfinder cuz my group doesn't want to play 4E. But, is it actually worth it shelling out the $50 in order to buy it when really it's just 3.75? I mean are the differences really THAT gigantic? 

[Tadanori Oyama]

I'm considering getting pathfinder cuz my group doesn't want to play 4E. But, is it actually worth it shelling out the $50 in order to buy it when really it's just 3.75? I mean are the differences really THAT gigantic?  

No. Save your money. Most of the changes I notice are small ones to individual classes. Class balance hasn't changed noticably as far as I can tell.

The difference in the skill system is that you don't mutiply by 4 to get Ranks at 1st level, you get a +3 Class Bonus to any class skills you put ranks into.

I like alot of the details put into alot of the classes. It's nothing new really. And, funny enough, the spellcasting classes got alot of attention when it comes to little extras. Because the spellcasters really needed that extra boost. Ha!

I haven't been able to drum up anybody willing to play Pathfinder. But I haven't tried too hard. I want to play it. I foresee the same sorts of problems Ross had above.

[Kroack]

You know, perhaps we should regress to 1st Ed, where nothing made sense, combat was complicated, and thieves could not build fortresses.

But it is just so goddamn fun.

[Bronnen]

The thing I love most about Pathfinder is Perception.

No more of this having Spot, Seach and Listen in different skills. It's all in one now.

Also, there are quite a few minor changes that add up to a whole shitload. If you liked 3.5 and don't find 4th ed to be your cup of tea, chances are you'll really like Pathfinder.

[Dogfish]

Well I would say that the Pathfinder book is absolutely fantastic looking. I also think it has just enough changes from 3.5 to at least consider buying it. If you don't buy the main book then you should at least buy the beastiary because monster creation rules are, like the main book, subtly different but just enough that you would need to do some re-tooling between 3.5 and Pathfinder.

I've started a campaign a fortnight ago. I love 3.5 because of the scope of things you can do if you are smart about it. Pathfinder does some things to streamline it and I can't find any new complaints but a lot of pluses. I have one little caveat in putting ranks in skills that I'm choosing to ignore. They say you can only put 1 rank per hit-dice. This is just a stupid idea so I'm using 3.5 level +3 (or whatever it was) system.

An example of things you can do compared to 4th ed.; one of my players (a bard) poured a few flask of oil on a rope, animated it to entangle a stationary plant monster (yellow musk creeper) and then lit the end beside him. While the rest of the party killed the few animal musk zombies the biggest threat BBQ'd.

[malyss]

RJ ran the first game of his pathfinder mini campaign - we are level 10 dudes, and all of us are divine casters except for Jason. 2 druids, 2 clerics, a ranger and a rogue.

So far, it's been fun but

1. Character creation is such a pain in the ass at higher levels. Too much shit to pick and stat out, skills, feats, spells, animal companions, magic items. Probably wouldn't have been as bad if we had more than 1 book and 1 laptop with a PDF of the book but pathfinder has changed just enough that the d20srd.org isn't useful.

2. I really wish there was a pathfinder chargen program. DDI has spoiled me.

1. http://paizo.com/pathfinderRPG/prd/

But unfortunately, it would still have been bad. I love Pathfinder. But chargen in 4e is soooo much more streamlined. This is a trade off. You get some added level of detail, but that also always comes with some added level of effort. I do think it is worth it though.

2. Hero Lab. (and yes, DDI has spoiled me too... that is why I coughed up the cash for hero lab...)

[malyss]

If you are going to play Pathfinder, play it in the world they have created. It is a great setting, and makes me think of Eberron and what Forgotten Realms was in the beginning, before everyone was epic...

Also, take a look at their adventure paths. You might like the newest one, Kingmaker.

You can download the players' guides to all of their adventure paths - they are worth a read.

[Tadanori Oyama]

The Pathfinder adventure paths are quite fun. I like the low level ones alot.

[baphometaten]

My group has been playing Pathfinder for a few months now, and we love it.  We played 4e on release day at our local shop, and the 7 of us walked away feeling pretty much violated.

[Tadanori Oyama]

My group has been playing Pathfinder for a few months now, and we love it.  We played 4e on release day at our local shop, and the 7 of us walked away feeling pretty much violated.

That's nice. What do you enjoy about the system as opposed to D&D 3.5?

[Sean-o-tron]

Apparently I'll be playing in a Pathfinder game tonight.  I'll report back post-game with initial thoughts, and maybe throw the recording onto the community AP site.

Update: Pathfinder was fun.  It feels tweaked enough to make more sense mechanics-wise, but not so much that it becomes its own creature entirely.  Character creation still is and always will be a pain in the ass for 3.5, though.  It was definitely a struggle to make it a one-shot without pre-gens.  We ended up breaking the game up into 2 days (not necessarily blaming this on character generation since we were catching up since we last saw each other during the process).  I think it's a pretty good middle ground if you want a more streamlined D&D experience [spoiler]but are too much of a grognard to try 4E.[/spoiler]

My recording is utter shit, though, so no AP.

[baphometaten]

That's nice. What do you enjoy about the system as opposed to D&D 3.5?

Well for starters I really like the additions to the spell casting classes.  The inclusion of the Sorcerer bloodlines makes it so that you dont have to prestige out to do anything really cool with this class.

I really like the new Clerical Domains.

The addition of Favored Terrain for the ranger and you get to choose either bond with animal companion or party bond is neat.

They got rid of XP costs for spells and item creation.

There really is to much to say about how much I really like the pathfinder system.  Plus I think that Paizo's subscription model's for the Pathfinder products are genius.  As much as I try and support my local game store, they don't stock the books that I want, so I order straight from paizo and get PDF copies of the books free along side of them.

At the very least check it out.  There are some good free resources on the Paizo website.  http://paizo.com/pathfinderRPG/prd/
and there are a ton of other sites out there that review the Pathfinder material.  Another good resource for it is http://35privatesanctuary.com.  If you go into his links section there are pathfinder and 3.5 resources together.

All that aside I apologize for the brief bash on 4th ed.  My main gripes with 4th ed are that it just seems to overly balanced to me, to the point that character customization is pointless, and my group is probably one of the few groups that really like long drawn out overly detailed battle's, 4th ed battle system is to fast.  Probably why our current campaign is going on its 5th year of every saturday night play.

[malyss]

4e battles are not too fast. It just seems that way because it is very streamlined.

You can have some very epic battles with both systems, but I think 4E handles large scale combat better.

I do find 4E a bit more like chess though, and less like a wargame on the battlemat. I think it is a personal choice as to which you prefer. I play both 4E and pathfinder regularly, and I like them both for different reasons. I haven't tried running the same adventure with both systems, but it is on my list of things to do.