Pathfinder RPG: My player's thoughts... and my own

[rudebones]

Installment 1: Character Creation and Modification
So Sunday night is always game night for us. When I started prepping for tonights session I hopped on paizo.com to see what there was to help get my head in the right place and low and behold I found the alpha for the Pathfinder RPG. Immediately I downloaded it and commenced scanning through it to see what new and wonderful things there were for my group and I. After a couple hours of covering the changes with them, converting the already existing characters, and making on new one, we were unanimous in our support of the changes so far and looking forward to what was to come. So this first post is going to cover just the basic tweaks thus far, as I haven't had the opportunity to test the combat or magic quite yet. Oh, the thoughts are hidden to save some space...

Player 1 - Elven Scout

Spoiler:

He doesn't feel as limited with his character, it allows him to customize the direction that his character will progress. He is a little worried that the increased feats selections will increase the possibility with power gaming, especially with the fighter. He also feels that combining the scout from the Complete Adventurer and the Ranger would make for a good class, but spellcasting should probably be dropped.

Solutions: Readjust the fighter bonus feats to one every three levels while keeping the Armor and Weapon Training class abilities.

Player 2 - Human Cleric

Spoiler:

His main problem is with the feats. While it makes everyone balanced, the fighter turns into a "monster" class. A human fighter at level 20 would end up with 22 feats; the sheer number of feats available to them make them overbalanced.

Solutions: Agrees with player 1, considering a human fighter would end up with 18 feats instead (assuming we did our math right), still ahead of the curve on it.

Player 3 - Halfling Rogue

Spoiler:

So far he likes the fact that they evened out more of the races, makes him more likely to play another race other than human. He does like the condensing of the skills, it allows him to play character more like he want to. So far it seems nice, likes the balancing. Seems like it will be much more pleasurable experience and won't be "pigeon holed" to a specific path. Wish we had realized there was a character available for download. All and all, he is excited to see how it plays out.

Player 4 - Human Rogue

Spoiler:

Very happy with the reduction in the number of skills for the rogue. One of his main problems with the class previously was the fact that in order to be an effective rogue he had to spread himself around very thin to accomplish his role in the party.

Player 5 - Human Fighter

Spoiler:

Is rather pleased with the attribute adjustment for the human and loves the idea of the bonus feats for races and the ability to take additional class skills as he levels. Also, he was very pleased with the specialized class abilities for the fighter.

Player 6 - Human Bard/Rogue

Spoiler:

Is holding thoughts until he sees the bard.

GM (Zer0)-

Spoiler:

Personally I like what I see thus far. The fighter's bonus feats combined with the base feats increase does seem initially to overbalance the class but when you consider that everyone does receive the increase it makes it a little better. Sure, this will increase the power of the game but it also gives the GM more options when making NPCs and villains. Additionally, the increase in feats does allow for further character customization options, and when combined with the ability to select further skills to be treated as class skills makes for unique variants to any class. With that ability, you are not limited to progression, save for class or alignment restrictions. This allows characters to progress to almost any prestige class.

Further, the reduction in redundant or unnecessary skills is quite nice. So many times the skills have limited game play when they were supposed to be enhancing. By removing certain skills it creates a more seamless flow of game, no longer having to track multiple skills. Now, this vastly improved skill system still contains concerns for me. The Theft skill encompasses both the Open Lock and Sleight of Hand skills. These skills serve distinctively separate functions for a character. While both represent the nimbleness of a character, Sleight of Hand is used for more than just thievery. It is used to pass unspoken messages, conceal items, and perform any number of other subtleties. Open Lock on the other hand, simply is used to, well... open locks. If anything, I think it would be wiser to keep Sleight of Hand separate and combine Open Lock and Disable Device, as both are used to defeat a mechanism from simple to complex.

Lastly, the simplified rules for creating encounters and awarding experience is quite nice. It will certainly make creating and running encounters much easier when I don't feel like putting to much thought into it. Well thats it for now, more to come as we try it out.

[SSquirrel]

http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?t=82858&highlight=Dr+Spunj%27s+cl assless

is an interesting thread turning 3.5 into a classless system. It utilized the Arcana Evolved magic system to rebalance out magic and make it so there were only 2 spell progressions, but they found that a fighter was already behind the curve as written in 3.5, esp compared to some classes. This was solved by allowing a fighter a bonus feat EVERY level. It actually worked out well too.

[fliprushman]

Thanks for the report.