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Let's have some positivity. We all know Pathfinder has its problems (and how critical those problems are depend on who you ask), but there has to be something that keeps us posting about it. Even those who post to criticize it have to have at least some fondness for it, or for the way it's handled, to spend so much time analyzing its weaknesses. Or maybe they just like analyzing.
The point is, let's take a thread to ditch the arguing* and get GLaD positive.
What are some things you like about this RPG?
I'll go first. I love how Pathfinder tries to incorporate lots of different cultural mythologies and play them straight, instead of just sticking to the two camps of "European" and "flumphs and brain moles and all that weird s~&&". That's not something unique to Pathfinder, but between the classes/iconics/archetypes and the monsters, it really feels like Pathfinder goes the extra mile with it.
Not only does it promote a lot of cultural diversity in the gaming experience, sometimes it leads me to learn about some neat mythologies I never would have heard of otherwise!
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I like that many Paizo staff are active on the boards, and I like how suggestions, ideas, and speculation sometimes result in further development or creation of new product.
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I love how expansive the material is for it. I like the crunchy rulebooks, I like the flavor focused splat books. I like the superb adventures published for pathfinder.
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I like the modules and adventure paths. They are good enough to play as written, but they also give enough extra detail that I can modify them to highlight the strengths of the PCs and respond to their actions.
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Honestly the reason i like pathfinder over many of the others system is exactly the vast amount of material it has today.
Some dislike since that brings forth imbalance , multiple "trap" choices , "poorly" written systems...
Well those things dont really bother me much , i prefer to have the options to not have them and PF at this point just offers a lot if you pull the material together.
I like the game because it is a continuation and expansion of a number of sets of rules that I've enjoyed and toyed with for most of my life. It does what I need it to do.
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I like Pathfinder because it makes my imagination go nuts. It makes me think of dozens of characters and gives ways to create almost all of them.
It's also how I've made a few friends, which, if you know me, is really impressive.
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One word: options!
I love having an abundance of choices and systems already made. It makes it that much easier to customize them into what I want.
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Dude.. it's a very improved D&D! I love everything about pathfinder...
Ask me to play as a house cat and i will glady do it.
The Adventure Paths. It was good to see them develop, evolve, and keep taking care of 3.5 from their time at Dragon. The tone is very modern, mature, and heck, there are some subject matters that actually challenge my values and perspectives. I like it most whenever they go the path less traveled and expand versus simply publishing an adventure in a neglected part of Golarion.
As a runner-up: Archetypes and to an extent: Mythic Progression. Paizo effectively persuaded me from the PRC and consequently pre-requisite heavy builds from 3.5. Sorcerer and Fighter used to be Dip Classes, now they can just as fun played through their progressions.
Thank you Paizo! I actually buy your damn Hardbacks (sorry but Amazon has the best prices unless I happen to find them cheap at places like Half Price Books). Now start publishing hardback omnibus editions of the APs, Chronicles, and Companions so I can happily throw more of my money your way.
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No dead levels.
I play Pathfinder because it's popular.
But it is based on 3.5, so yeah I like it too. Warts and all.
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Oh man! I'm actually really glad to see this thread. I'm a critic at heart (since I like to see things made better) so I don't get many chances to talk about what I think is working great:
I love Archetypes. They are an excellent way to make a class feel fresh and different.
I love the Alchemist Class. It's great and flavorful, with a lot of potential build directions.
I love the Inquisitor Class. Especially the Archetypes. I am going to do something terrible and wonderful with Monster Tactician.
I love Oracles. Their mysteries are thematic, their abilities are interesting, and they fill a role the game needed.
I'm pretty happy with Summoners/Witches/Magi/Investigators/Shamans.
I really really like that Half-Elfs and Half-Orcs are much more playable then in 3.5.
While it is unlikely I will ever participate in it, I like Pathfinder Society. I think having a drop in and play style living campaign helps attract people to the hobby, which is a very good thing. While it's not perfect, it's something I'm very glad exists and gets supported.
Those are the big things.
I like the way paizo has for the most part been able to develop new classes that I keep wanting to play.
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Options.
Even if they're "bad," I'll take them anyway if it fits what my character is trying to do. The character creation process has become so modular that you can tweak your character to be juuuuuuust right. Yeah. I like that. Alot.
Also, being able to play the character I have in mind from the get-go is greatly appreciable. No having to wait until level 6+ to -finally- have my character come around with some prestige class that's barely even heard of. Or some horrible blend of multiclassing.
3.5 is full of its problems, but Pathfinder has managed to patch up some things that bothered me. Remember when Favored Class was a bad thing, and Crafting costed XP? Blechk. Some classes I would never touch in 3.5. Pathfinder has convinced me that every class is worth my time in some fashion.
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I love Archetypes. They are an excellent way to make a class feel fresh and different.
This. Archetypes as a concept are amazing, and allow so much flexibility. Some class' archetypes are better and more expansive than others (since several of the Core classes, especially Rogue, Fighter, and Cleric have few really class features, so can't trade them 1:1 like most classes can, or can't have abilities that are better than the base class), but that's in the details.
Feeding into that, the sheer amount of options Pathfinder has is the main reason I keep playing it. These days, I'd say PF is no longer my FAVORITE system (I've really fallen in love with Mutants and Masterminds and Savage Worlds), but it's so crunchy, and I love fiddling with tons of little options and such, and no other game quite captures that same feel.
The Adventure Paths are as a general rule quite good, with very few duds among them (most of which come down to single books in the whole AP, like book 3 of Skull and Shackles doing its best impression of the Biggoron Sword quest from Ocarina of Time for the better part of the book).
I love all the 6 level casters. Unique, interesting, powerful, versatile, but comparatively well balanced...they're everything a class SHOULD be. I can take an Inquisitor or Alchemist and make any character I want. A Rogue-like sort? Spec for stealth and stealth spells, with archetypes that grant Sneak Attack and such. Big 2H using rage monster? Between Judgement/Bane or Mutagen the base classes are already great. With Beastmorph Alchemist or a Rage Domain/Anger Inquisition Inquisitor it just gets better. Archer type? Very well suited.
And so on, and so forth.
I like the background setting. The gods are interesting, some of my favourites are: Pharasma, Asmodeus, Desna, Abadar and Sarenrae to name a few. The geography is interesting as well, far too many noteworthy places to single out a few.
I like that parts of the game remind me of the old first edition advanced dungeon and dragons but with better guidelines (rules) and an interesting steampunk-like feel to it as well. It caters well to both my nostalgia and desire for fresh ideas.
There are many interesting class ideas like: Hell Knight, Gunslinger and Master Spy (again to name a few). I like that there are plenty of interesting archetypes which means that there is no class that is boring to play.
I like that the most powerful classes are in the Core Rulebook rather than buried in some splat book somewhere.
I like that Paizo gives lots of support to their product, which helps to grow the hobby.
I love the incredible versatility of Pathfinder. It feels like the first game system that lets one do all of the things that I tried to do in 1st edition. The enormity of the crunch can be overwhelming at times, but with the help of Hero Lab and these forums, I'm getting a handle on it.
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I really like the community (soppy I know =P )
One of my first experiences on these forums was when I said something incredibly bigoted & stupid ... and I basically got my teeth kicked in by the moderators.
It made me look around and realise what a cesspool the internet can be, and what a gem this place really is.
I like the fact that Paizo staff regularly patrol these forums (and as mentioned by Kobold Cleaver there are plenty of threads criticizing them)... Paizo is not only happy to let us rant, they generally seem to be interested in what we say.
I like the fact that this community can make a thread as innocent and shameless as "what's your favourite bit?", and get nothing but positive responses.
Compare this to some other forums out there, and it's fairly obvious that all of you* are the best thing about this hobby.
^_^
*anyone & everyone reading this
Options
As so many people have already mentioned, I love all the options. Although I definitely have some classes that I'm more interested in than others, I don't think I've looked at any class and flat out said, "Ew no, that doesn't sound fun." It's my goal to eventually at least try a character of every class...though at the rate Paizo keeps releasing new classes, it'll take awhile! :P
Narrowing it down further from just the classes, I love the concept of archetypes and all the little individual nuts and bolts that you can use to further customize your character into what you want them to be. I'm so happy that any class that really wants a familiar can get one now. I love that there's an archetype for an archer paladin. I love that I can be a healer witch if I really want to. The list goes on and on.
Races. All the more traditional races are there, but if none of them strike your fancy or if you just want to try something a little different then you can be a catperson, a skinwalker, or even an android!
Now to combine all three. I envision a character with a strong connection to the elements or a specific element. I could accomplish that by their race, making them a sylph, ifrit, etc. Or I could be a kineticist. How about a fire shaman or a waves oracle? How about combining the two, making a sylph aerokineticist? I love that there are, generally, at least two or three different routes that you can take to accomplish a concept.
Setting
Perhaps it's because I'm on a more even footing with my F2F group since we all jumped into Pathfinder at the same time, but I find the setting itself much more interesting than some of the settings for previous game systems we'd played. The lore is fascinating and I love all the details about each nation, each deity, each group of people.
Community
I love that the Paizo staff are a regular presence here on the forums, willing to answer questions, keep the place clean and orderly, and just chat with their customers and fans. I love the friendly atmosphere here on the forums. I love the PbP community that's here and have made some new friends because of it.
Multiple Options for Running a Game
Although I don't actually DM myself, I'm happy that we have modules, APs, and the Pathfinder Society. If you want a big, overarching story with a central theme, then there's probably an AP for you (or will be, given time). Modules if you want or need to keep things short and sweet. PFS if you enjoy connecting with your local (or online) gaming community and playing in a more controlled setting. Once again, a little something for everyone.
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Echoing what many have said - Option and lots of them, the setting, the community.
As a company the customer service is amazing.
The main thing I love sort of falls under options. The support/acknowledgement that is given to 3rd party publishers. I had stopped playing D&D during second edition - when I played D&D before 3rd, I used my house-ruled 1st ed. I liked a lot of what I read in the 3rd ed ruleset in and of itself, but I adored the whole OGL. Ryan Dancy, for all of his questionable situations, was a genius for the OGL. I remember him saying that when the Creature Collection came out before the Monster Manual made him fell like a father with a new baby. His initial concept was to have the core rules adopt what 3rd party did that was better than the original rules. WoTC pretty much completely ignored all the 3PP. Then we had the glut, and a huge amount of bad material.
Without the OGL we wouldn't have Pathfinder, then Paizo noting and recommending 3rd party products in the store blog; calling out some work (such as the "if you want point based psionics, go get DSP's Psionics). The fact that freelancers, and even staff work on their own products, so those products are even closer to the rules. Also being based on the OGL means that older 3.x stuff can be used (with minor adjustments).
The amount of options and ideas that can work withing the game is astounding, and even if the stuff coming from Paizo isn't to my taste (say the stuff for evil characters), there are always 3rd party stuff that I am interested in. Then 3rd party companies doing projects that are multiple companies together, and/or using each other's rules or support. That is what I like about Pathfinder most.
I love the quality of the books in particular the artwork.
I love the adventure paths, even the ones that I haven't played seem incredible. It upsets me greatly that my group had already played Rise of the Runelords before I joined them : (
I love the fact that you can create a character that matches exactly the character and style you want to play, or as close as damn it.
I love the fact that there is a huge community around the rules, publishing their own content, adventures and discussion.
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I like the third party community. as a whole they are pretty good quality and if I say that I accept the game 'warts and all' then third party material is severe acne medication clearing up a ton of blemishes.
I also get the feeling that I get to do whatever I want, even go out of genre, and things actually matter mechanically. I've been playing 5e lately and last week we got to level 9 and it was completely unsatisfying. I feel almost no difference from 3rd level and it's not like I can branch out and do something crazy. In Pathfinder building and leveling actually feel like you're moving up in the world and being a more powerful creature. Plus I can make whatever goofy concept that comes to mind.
I see complaints about crunchyness and trap options but really its a boon to me. Before Pathfinder I was in countless games with more rules light systems and I always felt that some of them didn't really want you to make a choice or weigh options. It was basically the same mechanic for everything, you just pretended they were different because roleplaying. Pathfinder is a system where options matter and do different things.
But even then its really not all that crunchy or complicated. I've played HERO system. Pathfinder is nowhere near too complicated. Meanwhile with games like FATE I feel like I don't even need to read the actual book. Then there are games where I feel trapped in a bubble. I hear complaints about the very concept of classes being restrictive, but that's nothing compared to more than a few games where 'elf' is an entire class, along with other things that not only break immersion but make no sense other than being a means to put you on a track where you can't do anything. Even if it sucks I can make all kinds of different Fighters or whatever other class in Pathfinder, and even then the range of 'suck' is something I feel is overblown. I can participate as a mediocre fighter in an average party and only run into problems with an optimized party that really knows the game.
I also felt like a lot of previous systems I've played pretty much told you what to do. Like you plug in numbers for your character and you have basically what decisions your character is going to make. You don't even need the player anymore. Think about how many arguments alignment brings up and then imagine if that was the whole game.
As a whole Pathfinder is a medium crunch game where things make enough sense to be immersive and has a large range of options and third party material to the point where I can play Minmax the unwashed Barbarian or Ajax the psionic robot pony from Uranus and I don't need to change systems. I can even mix and match the themes if I wanted to.
I enjoy the insane amount of options presented.
Archetypes while not perfect do a gteat job of opening up otherwise unavailable concepts (outside of homebrew). I find them more agreeable than Prestige Classes.
Alternate racial traits & options help open up stuff too. It is easy to come up with a relatively balanced sub-race without starting from scratch.
The sheer number of spells, feats & traits almost guarantees that you always have an option for any setting or concept.
The scope of Galorian is great in it's variety of cultures and topography.
I enjoy the way skills were simplified from 3.0.
I like CMB & CMD a hell of alot better than 3.5 rules.
I like that Drow got poison use.
I have enjoyed most of the new class concepts introduced, those I don't I have chalked up to not understanding how to build (original Summoner & fighter)
I like how Paizo takes just enough risk within reason to keep the game fresh Unchained offered a great boost fo my group.
I'm sure given time I'd come up with more.
Many, many things. The customer service, the vast abundance of choices for character creation (archetypes and prestige classes as well as base classes), feats, traits, hero points, and on and on. I mostly like the fun my group has playing the game.
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I like the APs a lot, but my favorite thing is Dwarves. I love those guys. The description in the CRB says they're both tough and wise, but also a bit gruff. They've been my main race since I read that.
Yes Pathfinder dwarves (not spelled dwarfs according to autocorrect?) are awesome.
I like the APs a lot, but my favorite thing is Dwarves. I love those guys. The description in the CRB says they're both tough and wise, but also a bit gruff. They've been my main race since I read that.
Seriously. Every time I read about a Dwarf-only thing, I get a little giddy inside. I love how a few of the archetypes for Dwarves totally ditch Charisma-based abilities for something Dwarfy. Stonelord may be my favorite.
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"Dwarfs" generally refers to people with dwarfism. Or, to be precise, "dwarves" is explicitly the fantasy creature, while "dwarfs" is more vague. For Pathfinder, I recommend using "dwarves".
The game plays very differently depending what level you are. Strangely, many modern games intentionally avoid this like the plague despite its importance in keeping a long term campaign from getting stale.
"Dwarfs" generally refers to people with dwarfism. Or, to be precise, "dwarves" is explicitly the fantasy creature, while "dwarfs" is more vague. For Pathfinder, I recommend using "dwarves"."Dwarfs" used to be the standard plural of "dwarf", but Tolkien invented "dwarves" based either on Old English or Old Norse rules (same with elfs and elves). Since then it has been common practice first among fantasy authors and now in the common usage that the high fantasy races are pluralised -"[v]es". I believe the "-[f]s" plural is still technically acceptable.
Yes, that's what I said—both technically work, but one is exclusive to fantasy, and that's the one you're best off using.
"Dwarfs" generally refers to people with dwarfism. Or, to be precise, "dwarves" is explicitly the fantasy creature, while "dwarfs" is more vague. For Pathfinder, I recommend using "dwarves".
Good point, I will stick with "dwarves" from now on.
I really like Pathfinder gnomes too. In D&D gnomes seem to be portrayed as either boring or goofballs (I'm looking at you tinker gnomes). Pathfinder gnomes with that wild fey influence are way more awesome.
Sheer amount of options, Campaign Settings (Golarion is great!), Adventure Paths, new interesting content, love for their product shown by posting on the boards, etc.
PS: Please come out with an entire book on the kineticist, I will buy ten copies.
The focus on archetypes rather than prestige classes. Was never a fan of playing "whatever-it-takes-till-I-can-start-playing-what-I-actually-wanted-to-play"
I'm a huge fan of crunchy tabletops in general, so Pathfinder works well there, but at the same time Pathfinder isn't too obfuscated by its own complexity, at least from my experience.
Pathfinder also has lots of material. And the OGL which is also awesome.
Despite not being the most adventurous system when it comes to developing new classes, Paizo has managed to push out a ton that I really, really love. I'd make a list, but I realize it's basically everything with 6th level casting (including the alchemist/investigator's not-really-casting) and the kineticist.
Frankly though even among the classes I don't absolutely love, I can't really find one I hate, at least fundamentally.
I love archetypes. They're fun ways to manipulate the flavor and feel of a class without building something entirely new and a lot of them can create some real, tangible variety in options.
I'm also a fan of the communication from Paizo. Sure, I'd like them to do even more and I don't always agree with their conclusions, but even when I don't I at least know why. In a lot of games when I find something bad it's impossible to discern whether I'm missing something or the developers are missing something or if we have different expectations or what. There's just a big wall that lets me do nothing but speculate pointlessly.
I love the third party for this game too. Not quite sure why but I find a lot of really high quality 3pp in Pathfinder when compared to some of the third party I've found for other systems.
My favourite thing is the way the company and staff think about RPG publishing.
Second favourite is the campaign setting.
Third favourite is the adventures.
In terms of actual rules, I like the fact they've begun branching out into stuff other than tactical combat.
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I like the steps taken to consolidate and simplify the overall system compared to 3.X (combining Listen, Search, and Spot into Perception, uniting all combat maneuvers under CMB/CMD, etc) and I hope that trend continues into future iterations of Pathfinder. In my opinion, the only reason RPGs aren't much more popular than they currently are is because a lot of them still alienate new players with complicated systems, endless charts, and bogged-down gameplay where groups have to stop every few minutes to look up the convoluted rules about grappling, damage resistance, or flight maneuverability.
How balanced options are compared to the parent system it started with...
Before we played Pathfinder, we had wildly overpowered/broken characters using 30 different books for rules.
Now we have powerful characters using six books.
Huge improvement. :D
Even though I've become one of PF's most vocal detractors in recent years, and have fully switched to 5E, I used to love Pathfinder quite passionately.
I came to the "Paizo Side" shortly after seeing how terrible 4e was (that is, shortly after it was launched).
And though I had started my RPG experience with 2nd Edn., I learned how to really play and run the game during 3.X.
So, naturally, when Paizo brought my favorite RPG into the new millennium, I latched on for dear life.
And it was a sweet ride.
I bought everything that I could - core, class guide, race guide, ultimate campaign/combat/magic, etc. etc.
As well as tons of 3pp stuff (like Thunderscape core book [which I still highly recommend for everyone]).
And I still dust off the books occasionally.
The artwork is still beautiful.
The rules are still comfortable for the most part.
And Paizo will sometimes publish things that surprise me and draw me back in.
But, I feel like we're now old friends that have grown apart rather than bosom pals.
Lots of fond memories, but we don't really stay in touch.
/poetics
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I have a soft spot for caster/martial hybrids, and Pathfinder has so many options for that type of character. By comparison, 5E is somewhat lacking in that regard, particularly on the arcane side.
I agree. It's my favorite type of class in PF. They let you contribute in all aspects of the game, make for flavorful combos, and the loss of full BAB and spellcasting is usually compensated with fun class features. They also usually end up as the most balanced classes in the game.
And lack of hybrids is one of the many reasons I don't play 5E! :P