The system itself is not responsibile for powergaming; players who are prone to do so in one system will find a way to do so in the other. Both have numerous supplements that provide plenty of opportunity to be taken advantaged of. While both systems reward system mastery, optimization is in the realm of the player- whether you see that as a good thing or a bad thing is up to you, but converting from 3.5 to PF will likely not change that. There are plenty of reasons to make the choice between systems though and they are mostly personal preference.
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Less Powergaming because we don't have all the Complete Books and such.
With only a handful of Classes beyond the Core it really helps. But the REAL key is that, instead of putting out a bazillion PrCs in the extra books they're putting out "Archetypes" instead. Archetypes are alternate Class Features such as, instead of your Ranger getting a Favored Enemy, he gets something else at 1st level.
Because of the nature of Archetypes, it's easy for designers to create new material and still be balanced. It's easy to compare the "power" of Favored Enemy to something else to replace it.
Plus, the Complete Books and other splat books, from BoED to Races of..., to Book of 9 Swords, etc., were all designed in, dare I say, a vacuum where the job was apparently not to try to keep game balance but to out-do what was published last year so more schmucks would buy them (just look at ToB and Incarnum and ToM!) AND apparently no one bothered to compare last year's books with the one they were designing at the time... So 3.5 is GROSSLY broken.
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But yes, ALL the Classes are a little bit stronger in Pathfinder.
But it's considerably more difficult to Break the game and there's FAR less reason to try to Powergame. That DOES NOT mean, however, that it's not done. Maybe cuz we're just used to 3.5 now -- maybe cuz pathfinder is STILL a d20 design and there's no way around it. But whatever the reason, it can still happen.
But there's far less opportunity cuz there's FAR fewer books and the ones that are out there have Archetypes and not PrCs.
Ultimately, though, the choice to Powergame over Roleplay is about the GROUP -- not the game. Like others are saying.
What you are talking about is an issue with the playerbase, not the product.
Powergaming isn't encouraged by there being a new class or options in a book. In fact, those options don't even have to be allowed at the table.
Plenty of these "powergaming" options presented in 3.5 were accompanied by plenty of fluff to accentuate them as roleplaying choices. The fact that a player looks at these choices as nothing more than just numbers to crunch is not an issue with the system itself.
It's an improvement on 3.5, but it still is firmly in the same bloodline as 3.0/3.5. And it inherits most of the same problems.
For me Pathfinder creates more problems than it solves...
Example A: Size factors into not only a character’s armor class (as a bonus) but into their combat maneuver bonus and defence (as a penalty) as well. While normally this doesn’t present much of an issue, occasionally it can mean a world of difference, particularly in regards to creatures smaller than normal size. Let’s look at the humble stirge, a fairly iconic monster. It has a pretty solid touch armor class of 16, in part due to its size. It also has a sad, sad combat maneuver defence of 9 (or 17 vs. trip, huzzah!), in part due to its size. This means that it is 35% easier to grapple a stirge than it is to merely touch a stirge (even more so on the grounds that a stirge doesn’t get to take an attack of oppurtunity on you for attempting to grapple it as it doesn’t threaten outside its square and even though you are trying to grapple it you don’t technically move into its square). I hope I’m not alone in being under the impression that grappling a foe would involve touching them (unless you are a member of the X-Men), but via the Pathfinder rules a wizard can far more easily snag a stirge out of the air and wrestle to the ground, squeezing it to death, than he can slightly graze it with his hand to discharge a shocking grasp. It just feels wrong. There are numerous other creatures that have lower CMDs than their touch AC, including either the imp or the quasit (I don’t remember which specifically off the top of my head, but one of the low level fiends).
In D&D v.3.5 this wasn’t really an issue; you needed to succeed on a touch attack before initiating a grapple. My quick patch thus far has been to to make most maneuvers against combat maneuver defense or touch armor class, whichever is higher (with only initiating a grapple against the higher of the two for that maneuver, maintaining against normal CMD), but it is an awkward fix and seems to be a failing of the system considering that there are quite a few Small-sized or smaller creatures that suffer, especially at the lower levels.
Example B: Combat maneuver checks are considered attack rolls, with CMB in place of normal attack bonus and CMD in place of normal armor class. That seems all fine and simple. Wizards can grab a reach weapon and use true strike and have some fun with what is essentially a 95% chance of success with a handful of combat maneuvers (a fun and solid tactic at low levels). However, attack rolls automatically succeed 5% of the time, and automatically fail 5% of the time. This means that it is virtually impossible of hold someone for 2 minutes or longer with the grapple maneuver (likely even less since the grappler has a chance of rolling a 1 to maintain every turn while the grappled has a chance to roll a 20 and break free every turn).
Example C: Combat maneuvers don’t take into account being used on friendly characters that want the effect to occur. Do I still need to make a check to bull rush, reposition, drag, or grapple my ally? If I do do they still add their full BAB, Dexterity modifier, and Strength modifier to their CMD, making it near impossible to use one of these on a better BAB progression class than yourself? It seems so. And if you wouldn’t need to make a check because your ally is willing to allow such an event to occur, since the magnitude of success is determined by how many increments of 5 you succeed on your check, just how much should you get to affect your ally. Having played in a party with a low mobility gnome paladin it was a common wish to bull rush him into beneficial positions, but deciding upon a resolution usually left at least one person wanting to slam their head against a brick wall.
Having seen all of the above come up on multiple occasions I’m rather disheartened with the CMB vs. CMD system in generally; it just feels like a whole step back and an oversimplification.
A 1st level human cleric in D&D v.3.5 with a 10 Intelligence (fairly average) would have 12 skill ranks. The same cleric built in Pathfinder would have just 3 skill ranks. While those 3 skill ranks in Pathfinder, when put into different skills yield the same bonus (+12 total split up amongst various skills), I’m forced to focus on only a few skills, often times making a modifier larger than I need to no gain. I like to diversify, putting only a couple of ranks into a whole lot of skills and opening up many trained only skills at 1st levels so that my character could attempt everything that I would expect him to be able to attempt (whether or not he will often succeed). If I expected my character to have at least rudimentary knowledge of various religions (Knowledge (religion)), magic (Knowledge (arcana)), the outer planes (Knowledge (the planes)) as well as know how to bind a wound (Heal) and quell a squabble (Diplomacy), while at the same time have a good intuition to detect liars (Sense Motive) I could sink a few ranks into each right at the start in D&D v.3.5, but if I’m playing Pathfinder I’m forced to either have a greater Intelligence score and possibly surpass the level of intelligence I saw for my character and likely have to concede points on other abilities, or put a rank into a couple and wait on the rest, being inept in fields I’d expect a priest to understand the basics of while being much greater skilled in areas I only saw him as being mildly schooled in.
To me, it just hurts customization.
Greetings. I'm a 3.5 player, but after seeing a few of the changes in Pathfinder, I'm thinking about converting. My question is, how does Pathfinder compare to 3.5 in terms of Powergaming? I've seen that there's been some much-needed balancing of classes and races, but at the same time, it looks like the power-level of characters in general has risen. One thing I don't like about 3.5 are all the splatbooks which encourage min/maxing and optimizing at the expense of roleplaying. In your opinions, is the Pathfinder system less prone to 'overdoing it' than 3.5? Thanks for the replies.
As others mentioned above, power gaming is a mindset, not a quality of rules (with certain comical exceptions).
In general, you could describe Pathfinder's character options as more open — the archetypes, for instance, give a great deal more flexibility than do prestige classes. This means less fiddling to get the concept you want, which cuts down on some of the most egregious number-crunching offenses (in my opinion).
But... this is a small difference. In general, PF is still the most crunchy, deck-building system that I play. For many, that is what makes it a clear successor to 3.5 . If those are the qualities of the system you wish to escape, you should look elsewhere.
That said, good communication between players and GM can fix any problem. Choosing the right system makes it easier to get everyone on the same page, but you can power-game in FUDGE and you can characterize in Hackmaster.
In 3.5, everyone and their uncle were multiclass, because singleclass was bad/pointless. Everyone were damage-dealers/spell-casters and there was no point in playing a non-caster.
In PF, you are rewarded for sticking with a class, and you are in most cases better able to contribute to the party.
Also, each and every class is now more FUN to play, and there is a real difference between the martial classes, where they used to be "Angry fighter" "feat fighter" "tracking fighter" and "crap/failed cleric fighter".
Yes there is when those options are clearly superior to the standard table... when those options bring in new classes, new spells, new races aimed at players because the books they're in are sold as player supplements. When players buy those supplements, there's more pressure to use them.
You aren't competing with other tables in terms of character power. If you are, then that's a flaw in how you play. Not the system.
Also, -1 for "we should allow players to play whatever, even if it doesn't fit in with the world and game's intended power level.". The type of GMing that brought about 4.0's "balance".
To be quite honest overpowered characters are mainly derived from bloat and a certain type of approach to the game. Regardless of what game you're playing you will find people that want to win the game and there is no way of avoiding that other than putting your own foot down and/or encouraging them to focus more on the other aspect of the game.