I'm sorry if I didn't make the comment as clear as I should. In your comment that I quoted, you seemed to be suggesting that new players to the game would not have access to 3.5 core books, just as existing player wouldn't that needed to replace their books due to damage or lost. And I can see some truth to that (though the SRD will be availabe until the end of time). The problem with that though is if you have a group of people playing 3.5, and a new player arrives without a book.
Well the PfRPG core books will not solve that problem in any way, shape, or form.
Ah ok, Your point is clearer to me now and I see Your point. Yes, from the standpoint of a new player joining a 3.5 group, the PFRPG book would only be able to teach them "generally" how to play the game. However the nitty-gritty crunch that differs from standard 3.5 would present problems [mostly] during character creation.
Fortunately I've...
...neglected to consider the Mongoose Pocket Books which are esentially formatted and printed versions of the SRD. Currently they have a Pocket PH and DMG, and plan on last time I heard to be cranking out a Pocket Monster Manual as well. Aside from the lack of exp tables, you can't get more "faithful" to 3.5 than that.
I had completely forgotten about the Pocket SRD books. Those would continue to be useful for new 3.5-only player so long as they can find someone to explain XP and the other fine points.
However, this somewhat underscores the point I was trying to make which is somewhat different from Yours.
If I'm a newbie standing in a bookstore or comic shop looking at their RPG offerings, I'm going to see Warhammer, Vampire, 4th Edition, Exalted, and GURPS and maybe a couple others if I'm lucky. In all likelihood though, the only one that I'm pretty much assured to see is 4th Edition. Considering every other web comic I read has had largely favorable press about 4E (most noticably Penny Arcade and PvP who are also doing 4E advertising), most new players are not going to think twice about what to try.
Therefore, I think it's important to the 3.5-based crowd (or at least those who feel that 4E isn't "real" D&D) that we have a compelling retail presence if we're to remain more viable than 2nd or 1st Editions. The OGL SRD at least makes it possible but it can't happen if our community is isolated and living in the past.
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Just like to say that I'm enjoying the suddenly far more civilized and useful discussion on 4e/3.5/PFRPG in these latest threads. The osts have been (with the exception of a few Razz-like anomalies) civil and intelligible, and people have been able to come out and back up their arguments with the thoughts behind them, rather than just yelling something without any reson or context. It's a pleasure to read.
That said, I don't think that there's much issue with a new player going to d20srd.com and making a character, bringing to a PFRPG game and playing. Of course, the first time he goes to make a Listen check the DM is going to lean over and put it right to him (you just need to write this down here), but that isn't any more than deleting Wilderness Lore and Scry from my 3.0 products. Most all of the other changes (new classes, races, etc.) are entirely different, and I can understand how it would be a foreboding task to go through an adventure and completely restat every classed NPC - but you don't have to.
What some people seem to be forgetting (and this without malice, perhaps I just read different things into the alpha ruleset) is that the goal of compatibility is not achieved by having the new be exactly the same as the old(otherwise it's a reprint), but by being able to use the old alongside the new with minimum fuss. I think this is eminently achievable with 3.5 and PFRPG. If at the start of a new campaign a long-time player turns up with a PFRPG wizard and a new guy turns up with a 3.5 wizard, they will both be able to play. Even if some of the 3.5 spells have been revised, you can still use the old versions. Granted, the 3.5 player's character might seems a little "underpowered" as compared to the PFRPG player's, but the same comparison can be made with characters from the later 3.5 books (Tome of Battle anyone?). If the game balance truly becomes an issue, it is a simple matter to rule in some of the pathfinder changes or simply give the 3.5 player an extra feat to compensate. Similarly, if I wanted to I could run a 3.5 adventure for a PFRPG party with few problems. Again, I may want to give the "end villain" an extra magic item or two, especially if it's a classed NPC, but that takes less than 5 minutes and should hardly detract from your enjoyment of a good module.
Most excellently is that, as stated above, the PFRPG classes in many cases offer ranger-like "path" or psionics-type "points" systems. 3.5 players already had ome experience in the second with Wild, Rage, and Divine feats in 1st party books alone (along with Jutsu feats in Dragon), but the greatest asset to a new player is that these systems can all be used to duplicate the 3.5 classes abilitie, a "core" build if you like (arcane sorcerer was used as an example).
In summary, a new player coming to my PFRPG game with a 3.5 character would perhaps learn a few changes in his first session or two (perception checks etc.), and as he progressed up he might perhaps be slipped a feat or a magic item should he feel that he was falling behind the PFRPG characters in power. Some of these feats or magic items could even be PFRPG material (which you can apply to a 3.5 character; see compatibility) which would give him a taste of the new rules. Finally, if he's interested (perhaps after reading through the manuals) he could convert his whole character to PFRPG. He can even take the "arcane sorcerer" option for his class, to keep things as similar as possible to his existing 3.5 PC. But all in all, it's not a huge leap, and he should be able to settle into PFRPG for his future characters quickly and easily.
Hopefully this will provoke some kind of response from the "not-compatible" folks; otherwise, I had fun writing it.
TWB
Hopefully this will provoke some kind of response from the "not-compatible" folks; otherwise, I had fun writing it.
Sorry if I'm not someone who thinks PFRPG isn't backwards compatible. I just wanted to reply and say that Your assessment mirrors my opinion on why they can work together. Thanks.
I also am heartened by the more relevant discussion I've been seeing recently. Frankly, I have to say that I respect Erik Mona's opinion a great deal, and that certainly made me inclined to examine my position.
I've looked hard once again at Pathfinder, and while I was at Origins had some discussions with people involved in some of the major live campaigns out there in order to decide what to do with ours.
While I understand some of the sentiment here that Pathfinder requires "only minimal changes," even though I don't agree, the greatest thing that gives me pause is Jason Buhlman's single comment on this thread: that all of this outcry has let him see where he can push it farther! Has he been listening to the other staff at Paizo? They're saying it'll be toned down, he's saying he'll push the envelope further. Not a good sign.
The way I see it, I can deal with new classes with little difficulty, and even new races. Are you a Pathfinder fighter or a core fighter? No problem. Might even be interesting to multiclass, one might assume that they stack. Want to crit undead? Take a level in Pathfinder rogue. Kind of munchkiny, but it's not like that's unique to Pathfinder. I'm starting to get accustomed to that stuff. It's the (in my mind) gratuitous changes to other things that break compatibility.
Fiddling with skills is not something that a DM is going to do "on the fly". Skills are a pain in the ass, and trying to resolve Perception and Athletics vs. Spot, Listen, Tumble, Jump and so forth is not a trivial endeavor - look at the effect fiddling with these things had on spells - Paizo now has to reprint dozens of spells with nearly imperceptible changes - instead of me looking at a few new spells in the Pathfinder RPG, I'm looking at all of the spells trying to figure out if there's an *actual* difference or if it's just some sort of cosmetic change because Jason decided that having both Jump and Tumble was too complicated.
Changes such as the ones made to core feats like Power Attack and Cleave are also not trivial. Nerfing Power Attack would horribly tie the hands of the 46th level fighter in my campaign. These things are not minor changes, and they have a huge impact. Might as well get rid of iterative attacks while you're at it, after all, they're complicated too, right?
I understand the argument that there "has to be new content or why buy the book". Absolutely. And all of the Complete series had new content. The other splat books had new content. What they did NOT do was say "okay, those classes in the PHB and all those feats? Well, they're invalid now. You have to use the ones from THIS splat book instead." And that is my issue with what is happening with Pathfinder - it's throwing sand in the face of people who want to use material from the PHB and don't want to be *forced* to convert it.
Are the new skills necessary? Absolutely NOT. Jason's a game designer, and game designers like to design things. But every single thing in the Pathfinder RPG could be done in a non-breaking way (okay, perhaps not CMB, but I agree that's a pretty minor thing, kind of like going from the charts in AD&D to THAC0 in AD&D2, big whoop). A decision has been made NOT to do that, and it was in my mind an unnecessary one.
I plan on giving it a shot. I pray that Jason will take back his words from the earlier post and NOT push it further. I have two shelves of 3.5 books and several megabytes of epic monsters that I'd be ecstatic if I could use with Pathfinder without doing mental contortions. Sure, I can do it on-the-fly - slowly and breaking the rhythm of my game. Hell, I could probably run some of the original AD&D adventures on-the-fly. But that doesn't mean it would be any fun for me.
Well, he can push things further... perhaps in a different way.
I seriously doubt that the designing team would be just checking the spelling all year long from beta to final. They'll be testing and perhaps throwing more ideas around for us to test.
Just keep in mind that the 3.P is still in the testing stages and the book that appears this august is still a beta. The designers can push wahtever they want as far as they want as long as it's still in the experimental stage without screwing everything up.
The best thing we can do about it is to give it a try and post some feedback.
Gbonehead,
I get that you want to play 3.5. Period. You don't want any (or very many?) changes. But no one is producing 3.5 anymore. So, you've got for the most part, two choices: you've got a company that's put out a new edition that's gone in an entirely different direction from 3.5; and you've got a company that's trying to make a successor to 3.5 that addresses some of the biggest problems with the old ruleset--possibly in ways that you don't like--and that's willing to involve you in the process. Those may not be your favorite alternatives, but given the choices, I don't see why you or anyone else who've posted goodbye threads would choose anything but PF. You may not think PF is as close to 3.5 as some people do, but if PF is 25% percent different from 3.5, the alternatives are 90% different. So, my suggestion is to participate in the process and advocate against changes you don't like. You'll have to make some changes in the end, but maybe it won't be as drastic as you think at this early stage.
I also think that James Jacobs has taken pains throughout his posts on all these threads to communicate that, while there's lots of fixes he'd like to try, the end product is probably going to be a lot closer than where we're at now, even if he still has some other solutions he'd like to try. I also suspect that even if he is the lead designer, if everyone else on the staff thinks something's gone too far, he'll probably take their recommendations into consideration.
As you might have noticed by now, there are wildly diverging opinions on what exactly needs to be fixed and how drastic to make those fixes. We're all going to have to compromise, because PF is not going to be exactly what any one of us thinks is best, but that certainly isn't a reason to jump ship, because it's going to be a helluva lot better than any available alternative.
So sit back, pop a mountain dew and some cheetos, and let's work on Beta.
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When I saw that PF was staying with 3.X rules I couldn't be happier. When I started seeing the changes in the alpha version I was as exited as when I first read through D&D 3rd Ed. And no matter the way the final PFRPG end up I'll be sticking to it. I'll take what I like, and change to my own way the rules I don't like. As simple as that.
That pretty much sums it up. Bottom line, even with some major class changes PFRPG will still at it's core be 3.5 and use the same system. Most of the monsters are probably not going to change so much so really it comes down to what you want to end up using for the PC classes and how PFRPG makes changes that actually fix some of the issues with 3.5. If they (Paizo) offer up a few alternatives-which btw they have in many sections of the alpha release - then you may find more than one workaround to fix what ails 3.5 without having to use all the PFRPG material.
Paizo is on the right track with this and even if they do end up deviating they are of the right mind (which is more important).
I love the alternate/reasoning sections they have presented so far with the new material. Just the xp chart alone made me think of how I could use it to make my game more like 2nd ed (if you think rogues are the weakest class - have them use a fast progression chart, and if wizards are too powerful have them use the slow progression chart) the thing is that they know. They have the right heart in this.....
And Hugo I agree with the rest of your post 100%. One other thing that is sadly missing now with the death of Dungeon and Dragon mags is the lack of information with regard to new gaming products, I know alot of people hated the advertisements but I wasn't offended by them, I liked the non wotc previews, the list of gaming items, shirts, junk, whatever. The loss of the mags must have really hurt the niche gaming companies (Dwarven Forge, etc).
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Hopefully this will provoke some kind of response from the "not-compatible" folks; otherwise, I had fun writing it.Sorry if I'm not someone who thinks PFRPG isn't backwards compatible. I just wanted to reply and say that Your assessment mirrors my opinion on why they can work together. Thanks.
I am just curious how you can say PfRPG is not backward compatable? No one has even seen the book yet. The actual book isn't due out for another year.
I assume you must be saying you have the ability to see into the future and have already seen it and played.
Cause, I hate to break it to you, Alpha was NOT PfRPG. It was a test of ideas. Beta will be closer, but again, not actually the real deal. So...um... you can leave, no problem, but you sure are going to look silly in a year from now.
Cause, I hate to break it to you, Alpha was NOT PfRPG. It was a test of ideas. Beta will be closer, but again, not actually the real deal. So...um... you can leave, no problem, but you sure are going to look silly in a year from now.
Ditto this. The point of an Alpha test is to ...well... test things. Does this work or doesn't it? Does the fanbase think the new Barbarian is too overpowered and has to much resource management? Are the skills to difficult to convert on the fly? Is critting undead "bad"? These are questions an alpha test is designed to answer. Take your most radical ideas and test them.
The Beta test is where you take all the feedback and make one cohesive game to test how those things interact with each other. But the Beta test is still... a test. It will have things in it that need tested.
If you don't like something or think something is to much of a departure from 3.5, SAY SO. Don't just say, "I don't like it" and walk away. Say what you feel they can do to make it better.
A thought passed through my mind when I heard 4e announced last year.
Are they making changes to the game to sell new books or are they selling new books in order to institute needed changes?
Based on some of the comments on this thread and others like it by people strongly interested in the future PfRPG, the same thought has crossed my mind again.
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A thought passed through my mind when I heard 4e announced last year.
Are they making changes to the game to sell new books or are they selling new books in order to institute needed changes?
Based on some of the comments on this thread and others like it by people strongly interested in the future PfRPG, the same thought has crossed my mind again.
Pathfinder's happening because there are no more 3.5 books being printed, period. The fixes are going in now because, well, when else are they going to be able to try and fix 3e's faults without massive* amounts of pissed off fans? "Uhh, yeah, we know we printed Polymorph as doiung X, Y, and Z, but Z is broken and X doesn't work the way we really want it to, in hindsight and factoring in playtesting. Sorry. Just white that line out and use this version, which is what we'll use from now on."
*Note: "massive," as opposed to the merely "large" amount of pissed off fans Pathfinder is causing.
Well just to try to be as clear as possible, the thought hit me again, when I started seeing comments from people interested in PfRPG making comments that sounded like, "Of course they HAVE to make changes, how else are they going to get people who already own books to buy them?" I hope you could see how such a comment could give someone the impression that changes could be made only to motivate sales and not because they are essentially needed.
Now I am not saying this is how it is with PfRPG, just that some comments that have been made have caused that thought to pass through my mind.
I have difficulty with comments regarding backwards compatibility. You see, if I saw one single module with two flavours of goblin in it (one Core 3.5 and one Pathfinder) I wouldn't blink twice. I'd just DM it. If two players turned up to my session - one with a Core 3.5 barbarian and one a Pathfinder barbarian - again, I wouldn't blink twice. Almost *all* of the changes I've seen in these areas are just no-brainers, they don't require any work on the behalf of the DM *at all* as far as I can see.
That's not true when we talk about actual mechanics - the favourites being skills, feats and spells. With skills I just don't see the problem - it's the same mechanic. I choose a DC (or roll my dice), and you try to beat it - you roll Listen, Spot or Perception? Who cares? The game's more important than that - I'm in control, if I need you to know, you will.
Feats are possibly a problem, but only if Pathfinder has changed something that is genuinely broken but then, if it was genuinely broken then I've probably already changed it or banned it. The same goes for spells.
But at the end of the day we *are* still in Alpha, not even Beta yet, so now is the time to make your concerns heard - but only actual specifics will help. It's no good saying 'I don't like the way Pathfinder is going' and not providing any kind of examples. I'm a software developer so I can relate to the design philosophy - if you don't get feedback then you just have to guess. Which isn't always going to hit the mark.
I hope not too many changes are rolled back, as I like most of them and feel it remains compatible enough with 3.5E. In fact, I would like to see more changes in some areas. Letting excessive fear of compatibility breakdown hamper positive changes to the game would diminish the value of the Pathfinder RPG to me, as opposed to just sticking with 3.5E rules and introducing changes through my house-rules instead.
While I understand some of the sentiment here that Pathfinder requires "only minimal changes," even though I don't agree, the greatest thing that gives me pause is Jason Buhlman's single comment on this thread: that all of this outcry has let him see where he can push it farther! Has he been listening to the other staff at Paizo? They're saying it'll be toned down, he's saying he'll push the envelope further. Not a good sign.
You're taking his comment way out of context.
Jason mentioned that several things in the Alpha were pushed pretty far to see what the community's reaction was to them, and he now knows the boundaries of what some people will accept for some things, and that others (not everything) can probably be pushed a little further from 3.5.
I can't say for certain (I'm not a Paizo employee, or privy to any "inside" information *sigh*), but I think the Combat Feat idea is one of the "pushed too far" mechanics, one that has been definitively stated to be going away, so I doubt Jason is sitting in a cold, dank, tower room cackling madly while imagining more ways in which to make PRPG deviate from 3.5 and alienate the very customers they're trying to keep and attract more of.
Well that is your choice, but it has been mentioned before, sweet spot is a delusion. It does not exist. It only exists for Dungeon Romp adventures.
But before lvl 5 and after lvl 12-13 your adventures should not be dungeon romps. These levels are meant for other kind of adventures.
The biggest problem with the so called sweet spot comes from playing official adventures for high levels which are crap. They cannot give you a Sandbox game that is needed for high levels.