Let me begin this post by saying that the Pathfinder Beginner’s box is probably the best starter set for an rpg ever produced. It strips away all the complex rules from Pathfinder, leaving a wonderful streamlined system that’s fun, fast and simple. It packs the box full of stuff, and then gives you even more online.
Whatever you think of my comments later, please remember, I think the PFBB is an amazing product!
I feel I should introduce myself, since I don't think i've posted at the Paizo forums before. I'm a 32 year old UK gamer, partially sighted, who started with Basic D&D in the late 80's and have played a lot of systems since. I run an annual event here in the UK, the UK D&D Tweetups, where we support D&D by getting some of the best DM's and players together for a day of gaming, and recently ran out 5th major event which involved a lot of 13th Age.
I was heavily into 4e, I love its innovative changes to D&D, it's big darn heroes style of play, and ease of DM'ing. Through the Tweetups, I have been involved in the playtesting of D&D Next for over 2 years now, and recently reviewed 13th Age following my third game of it.
I'm fairly edition neautral, I LOVE GAMING, but whenever I stray to other systems, I always come back to some version of D&D.
In terms of my exposure to Pathfinder... I'm afraid to say its not been positive. I find the games massive vocal fanbase is often aggressive against non players and even amongst its own ranks, and I unfortunately was exposed to several such fans via my FLGS who gave the game such a bad image it would be enough to put me off.
That is, if it wasn't for the quality of product Paizo puts out. They churn out lots of incredibly illustrated and detailed source books. Their iconic characters are cool, their goblins are cool, they have an organised play system, minis, card games, even audio dramas. Put simply, Paizo is a power house.
I pick up pathfinder stuff now and again because of the detail they contain, but I don’t play it, I find the rules, with cmb’s and cmd’s and bab’s and a thousand other acronyms a barrier against entry. And despite all their books being detailed and illustrated, their layout sucks for a partially sighted person like me.
So, when a couple of years ago they put out the beginners set, saying it was pathfinder with the complex rules removed, I jumped at it, got the pdfs and played it. It was ok, but at the time, I was still heavily into 4e. Time has passed and with a work colleague wanting to game, and the tweetup due, I decided to pick the beginners set up in physical form. This is where this product excels, it is a sturdy box, absolutely jam packed, and it has a totally different layout to the core pathfinder books, a layout that for my broken eyes is excellent. It’s world’s apart from the 4e starter sets, and is supported, not only by paizo, but the fans, with people using the ogl nature to make beginners box set versions of all the Pathfinder classes. Given you can get this box for £19 and it has 5 levels of play and so much support, it’s almost a crime to pay so little for it.
I've played the intro adventure again now several times, to remind myself of the Pathfinder rules, for my family, and for my work colleagues family, and every time, the game has gone smoothly and has been really fun to play.
However...
Pathfinder doesn't feel modern. It's now what? 6 years old? with no major changes to the rules, and they themselves are built on stuff thats nearly 15 years old. It’s missing so many little things that other modern rules systems like 4e, Next and 13th Age have, such as in combat healing, extra actions, simple movement, class balance... none of this is essential, it just feels a bit incomplete to me. While the box sets rules are perfect for someone trying to learn pathfinder or rpg's in general, to someone like me, with 20+ years of experience in its rivals, I can see areas which make me pull my hair out and go “why, oh why, that’s so early 2000's”.
In particular...
Healing
Single action per round
Spell choice
Two weapon fighting
Movement
Critical hits
Dying
Fighters
Rogues
12+ stats
Cantrips
So not too much then!
These are how I cam considering tweaking the Pathfinder Beginners Box rules to give it aspects of other modern systems and to make the game work for my style of play:
12+ Stats Bonuses
Let’s start with the 12+ stat bonus. This is often used for granting an additional use of a class feature per day or an extra skill. I actually really like this, it simplifies the extra benefits so much, and I can see how in multiclassing it can help restrict people from gaining too much power/help people gain more power.
All I’m considering here is to up this benefit from a 12+ to a 13+, which brings it more in line with feat prerequisites and will help with some of the stuff I’m going to suggest later...
Movement
The beginners box set still uses the Pathfinder idea of counting diagonals, so the first counts as 5' of movement, the second as 10', the third as 5' and so on. Yawn, old fashioned, and boo, too much hassle. Let’s just simply take the 4e approach of diagonals are 5' of movement.
Critical Hits
I suggested this on facebook to my friends and got an screenful of ‘it’s overpowered’, ironically from people who AFAIK aren’t pathfinder players and are generally the same people who tell me that 13th Age isn’t D&D. The ones who did however support this idea where the regular pathfinder players.
So what did I suggest? Simple, get rid of confirming critical hits, so a 20 is always a critical hit doing double or triple damage. And I would do this as a literal double like 13th age, i.e. two times the damage die roll plus mod, rather than rolling two damage dice.
It does bring up an issue in that some weapons score criticals on 18 or 19 as well, but I’m actually ok with how deadly this makes the game. It makes weapon choice important, and speeds up play, while adding an element of risk.
Healing
The term healing covers a multitude of issues, and some of these might address themselves at higher levels but at level 1, Pathfinder characters are fragile.
In the beginners box, beyond sleeping it off, the cleric using spells/channels to heal you, and potions, there is no inbuilt way to keep yourself alive. And this is to me where pathfinder shows its age. Next, 4e, 13th Age etc all have rests and self healing. I don’t want to break pathfinder totally, so here are my minor suggestions…
Rests; short, extended and long.
A short rest is a 5 minute breather at the end of combat, you calm your heart rate, bind up wounds, readjust armour, loosen tired muscles. In that 5 minutes, you regain 1 hp, and you don’t break a time sensitive quest.
It’s not much, but remember hp don’t just represent cuts and bruises, they represent exhaustion, being winded, headaches etc. Think of it like carrying a heavy bag of shopping home from the shops, you stop for a minute to change hands, and wiggle your fingers to regain sensation in them, that’s that 1 hp...
An extended rest is what it sounds like, a longer rest, proper binding of wounds, bashing armour back into shape, sharpening swords, praying etc. It requires the characters to hole up somewhere safe for an hour, but let’s them regain 1 + CONS mod hp (minimum of 1). Again, it’s not much, but at level one the 2 or 3 hp regain is easily a quarter of a characters hp, and it puts pressure on time sensitive quests, without breaking them.
Finally, you have long rests, which are several hours long, and in a dungeon require a safe place and a watch. The way I would do this is to differentiate in dungeon resting and at home/tavern resting. In a dungeon, a long rest should let you regain up to half of your maximum hp (and to break tradition, we’ll round that up like Next does), while in a tavern a long rest regains all hp. That way there’s a reason to travel back to their home base.
In Combat Healing; 4e had second wind, 13th Age has rally, Next has [REDACTED]. ;)
Second Wind was a bold move, healing that didn’t need a cleric, in combat, at the expense of an attack, which in the combat focused 4e was a big deal. And dwarves got it as a minor action, and with the right magic items, it could even be a free action.
I like the idea, but I don’t want it to be the be all and end all of healing and make the cleric defunct. So let’s say... all characters have one Recovery Surge action per day. It’s a standard action, and heals 1 + CONS mod hp (minimum of 1) i.e. It’s like taking an extended rest in combat.
But let’s revisit that 12+ change. Since Next was revealed, I always try and get a constitution score of 12, because the extra 1 hp can make a real difference. The pregens the beginners box set comes with have a similar idea, with all of them having at least a 12 cons score. I don’t want too many recovery surges, hence suggesting that it is now a 13+ change.
So let’s say, if a character has a constitution of 13+ they gain an extra Recovery Surge per day. So two 2 to 3 hp heals in a day, not going to break it too much.
Hit Dice: I don’t actually think the beginners box ever calls them hit dice, but we all know that what they are. Each class gains say 1d6 hp per level when they level up. I’ve hated rolling for hp ever since Basic D&D and was pleased when 4e did away with it and Next brought it back with a suggested amount. It’s a very minor change, but let’s copy Next. So the Wizard gains 1d6 (or 4) + CONS mod hp when they level up.
Bloodied: it’s a really simple thing, but I liked that in 4e there was a name for when you were wounded below half your maximum hp. I’m going to re-add it, with no immediate mechanical benefit, but simply because I like putting red elastic bands round minis!
Dying: I know I kept it separate in the original list but truthfully it belongs as part of healing. To be honest, I’ve yet to find a system that does dying well. I think what I’d like to see here is a mix of Pathfinder’s increasing difficulty as you bleed out, and Nexts critical success/fail and massive damage, something along these lines:
At 0 hp, you are disabled. You can still take actions, but at the end of a round in which you take n action, you drop to -1 hp
At -1 hp you are down and dying, and can no longer take actions. Each round you lose 1 hp and must make. DC10 + negative hp amount (so -2 hp is dc12) Fortitude save.
If you fail 3 times you are dead dead. If you reach a negative hit point total equal to your cons score, you are dead dead.
If you succeed 3 times you are stabilised. You are unconscious but at 0 hp.
A roll of 1 counts as 2 failures, a roll if 20 is instant 3 successes.
Magical healing stabilises you instantly and heals you from 0hp.
If you exceed a negative hit point total equal to your cons score in a single hit, you are dead dead.
Single Action Per Round
The section title is misleading, because you get a standard action to attack/cast, a move, a swift (in which you can move if you didn’t move) and free actions. But thanks to the games simplicity, it’s very easy to ignore these action choices, especially when you compare it to 4e, where everybody agonised for hours over every action in a round to make sure they maximised their potential.
I actually quite like the choice per round pathfinder gives, but what I feel is missing is that extra push; you hit someone hard and want to follow it up with what you hope is a killing blow. In other words, I want 4e’s action points.
Except I don’t, because to speed up 4e combat I gave everyone an action point per encounter. What I’m suggesting is that everyone gets a new, once per day Action Surge action, which let’s them take an additional standard action that round. And then as per the other features, if your constitution is 13+ plus, you get an extra action surge per day.
Fighters
I always think that fighters should be the best at fighting. They should be proficient with everything, have the most hp, be capable of fighting multiple foes with ease, and capable of delivering devastating blows to deadly beasts.
Pathfinder, with the options in the box actually ticks most of these issues straight away, but... it has some flaws... the wizard can fling his staff with about as much accuracy and damage, the cleric gets funky weapons, and the fighter suffers so much penalty for medium/heavy armour that it ends up being as lightly armoured as a thief.
I therefore propose:
1) Move the fighters armour/movement bonus in medium armour from level 3 to level 1, and instead make that level 3 bonus a heavy armour one.
2) Give the fighter a new ability, a once per day Heavy Strike free action, that deals +1d6 damage on an attack. And then in keeping with other features, if their strength is 13+ they get an extra Heavy Strike per day. It’s not making them uber damage dealers that rogues are, but gives them an option to really hurt something and end combat quickly.
3) To improve its ability to deal with multiple foes, I’d like to suggest that the fighter does not grant enemies a flanking bonus until it’s Bloodied. It gives you a reason to target the fighter and then surround him!
Rogues
Why is it, in every rpg, rogues have a bit if an identity crisis. They are the uber damage dealers, the skill monkeys, the trapfinders... If it wasn’t for an NDA, I could regal you with tales about the number of different rogues I tested in D&D Next, trying to find one with a niche of its own.
My major issue is that a rogue should be sneaky, but to gain the benefit of sneak attack, basically has to flank it’s target.
There is a nice simple tweak. If the rogue is hidden and attacks (melee or ranged), then it can deal sneak attack damage, and if the rogue makes a ranged attack against an enemy flanked by his allies, it can deal sneak attack damage.
Spell Choice
My god, they really did cut down the amount of spells for the beginners bix. Luckily, it’s not too difficult to add more, and using the template for the extra PFBB classes that you can find online, I added some more iconic level one spells that I felt were missing.
Cantrips deserve a mention here. 4e and PFBB took a similar route, you get a very simple list and you get them all. And then 4e essentials came along and made people choose cantrips and added more cantrips to the mix. I like this idea myself, so I’ve added some missing cantrips and now, if you get the cantrips feature, you get to choose 4 out of the available ones.
Feats
I was actually surprised at how many they did include, but there’s some, especially with regards two-weapon fighting that are missing. Again, I’ve added these in.
Two-weapon fighting
Ug, another thing common to rpgs that none of them seem to agree on. In 4e it was a feat that gave +1 damage, and some classes could make a second attack, 13th Age has a funky “it makes no difference unless you roll a 2" rule. In pathfinder proper, it’s a full action, i.e. a standard and move to make two attacks, and you don’t deal your full strength modifier bonus on the second attack.
I actually quite like this, you give up maneuverability to deal more damage, but your less accurate and less powerful. Let’s keep it and add in the feats, with one tiny exception, absolutely no strength mod bonus damage on the second attack without another feat.
