My main hope and desire for the Pathfinder RPG was that when we switched over from 3.5 that I'd be able to still create Adventure Paths with the same feel as we had under 3.5. I'm halfway through Council of Thieves and, as far as I can tell, building adventures is more or less the same. Were Council of Thieves built for 3.5, I would be doing the exact same things I'm doing with it under the Pathfinder RPG.
So from where I'm sitting, there's not been a paradigm shift at all.
Its definitely a clear benchmark if the feel and theme of the adventures being put out don't shift too much. I appreciate you dropping in to put in your point of view James.
Creative Director
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Out of curiosity, when you guys were writing up the Pathfinder Core Book, did you all look solely at 3.0 and 3.5 for inspiration and ideas, or did you guys also look back to what came before, the good old fashioned red box and 1st and 2nd ADnD?
The inspirational parts of BECMI, 1st edition, and 2nd edition certainly did play a part, but since none of those books contains open content it really couldn't go beyond that.
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Creative Director
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But a similar statement could be said of L5R through it's edition changes.
Making adventures for it wouldn't change much, if at all. But there is a distinct paradigm shift between each of the editions.
I'm not THAT familiar with L5R's history. But I do know that after writing, designing, and playing adventures using the Pathfinder RPG rules... it doesn't feel like a different game from the one I've been playing for years. Some of the rules are different, sure, but I'm pretty sure that any of the characters in world won't notice the change. ;-)
Out of curiosity, when you guys were writing up the Pathfinder Core Book, did you all look solely at 3.0 and 3.5 for inspiration and ideas, or did you guys also look back to what came before, the good old fashioned red box and 1st and 2nd ADnD?The inspirational parts of BECMI, 1st edition, and 2nd edition certainly did play a part, but since none of those books contains open content it really couldn't go beyond that.
Cool. And yeah, I realize the lack of open content restricts wording, and content and such, but to me, you guys recaptured alot of what I missed about growing up playing DnD in whatever form with PF =)
Polymorph (again) All of these things were "overdone." 12 changes (arbitrary number) when one or maybe two would have sufficed.
Polymorph didn't bug me much at all, because WOTC already shifted polymorph pretty radically themselves within the confines of 3.5.
For my part, I always thought it a rather strange image to imagine a woodland's warrior in plate armor, who was also casting magic missles. the class always felt like a fighter that had been grated on extra tricks he did not deserve or which properly fit. The changes in 3.x created what the character should have been a nonclanking mobile figure who uses the woods for stealth and protection while sizing up his opposition for a strike.
It wasn't so much the changes as much as the fact that 1E Rangers don't translate well into 2E Rangers due to the drastic changes, and without 3E's easy multiclassing and feats, it wasn't easy to get back what you might have lost in the transition.
I agreed with the changes "in a vacuum" much as I said about the cleric changes. That having been said, two weapon fighting still bugs me, because I don't know what it has to do with a hunter/survivalist type character (other than the obvious inspiration).
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Director of Game Design
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Let me just put it in the record. I tried to keep as much of the feel and texture of 3.5 as possible while achieving my design goals for the Pathfinder RPG. Any derivation from that course was done with a lot of thought and consideration to its impact.
Jason Bulmahn
Lead Designer
Paizo Publishing
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It doesn't. The Ranger was based off of Aragorn from LotR. Aragorn, (completely seperate from being a nomadic woodsman) was also uniquily adapt at fighting with two weapons as a character trait.
However, being a "hunter" was also not really a part of Ranger either, until 3E. They had favored enemies, but it was honestly more a racism. Rangers were woodsman and country paladins, (sort off).
For my part, I always thought it a rather strange image to imagine a woodland's warrior in plate armor, who was also casting magic missles. the class always felt like a fighter that had been grated on extra tricks he did not deserve or which properly fit. The changes in 3.x created what the character should have been a nonclanking mobile figure who uses the woods for stealth and protection while sizing up his opposition for a strike.
It wasn't so much the changes as much as the fact that 1E Rangers don't translate well into 2E Rangers due to the drastic changes, and without 3E's easy multiclassing and feats, it wasn't easy to get back what you might have lost in the transition.
I agreed with the changes "in a vacuum" much as I said about the cleric changes. That having been said, two weapon fighting still bugs me, because I don't know what it has to do with a hunter/survivalist type character (other than the obvious inspiration).
Agreed. We never went from 1st ed to 2nd because of the ranger in large part, in small part we thought what happened with specialization made the thing even worse since now you could be specialized in multiple weapons.
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Let me just put it in the record. I tried to keep as much of the feel and texture of 3.5 as possible while achieving my design goals for the Pathfinder RPG. Any derivation from that course was done with a lot of thought and consideration to its impact.
Jason Bulmahn
Lead Designer
Paizo Publishing
Despite my (seemingly) opposition, I generally like the PF book. So good job, Jason.
Despite my (seemingly) opposition, I generally like the PF book. So good job, Jason.
I want to agree with this as well. I wasn't happy with a class loosing something, which was against the stated design goals and still bugs me, but at the same time, I'm happy with a lot of the book.
On the other hand, while I didn't think Paizo had started to state that they were okay with moving away from their stated goals, several posters seemed pretty certain they had, and I wanted to see what they had to say that supported this implied trend that they were citing.
For example, if clerics gain the ability to use, say, a spear or a dagger, it doesn't really invalidate a cleric running around with a mace. Similarly, letting dwarves be wizards doesn't mean that an existing dwarf fighter has changed any, or if a gnome has a different favored class that it changes a gnome illusionist any.
After 10 years I'm still not entirely comfortable with clerics using edged weapons and dwarves tossing wizard spells. Just feels icky.
Kinda like a paladin using a ranged weapon, let alone being able to smite with it.
Kinda like a paladin using a ranged weapon, let alone being able to smite with it.
I never had a problem with paladins using ranged weapons, although smiting seemed like an up close thing to do. I felt that 2E paladin information, such as the Complete Paladin's Handbook, just muddied up the code to the point to where people were still getting hung up on weird "add ons" to the code through 3.5 edition.
Despite my (seemingly) opposition, I generally like the PF book. So good job, Jason.
I want to agree with this as well. I wasn't happy with a class loosing something, which was against the stated design goals and still bugs me, but at the same time, I'm happy with a lot of the book.
On the other hand, while I didn't think Paizo had started to state that they were okay with moving away from their stated goals, several posters seemed pretty certain they had, and I wanted to see what they had to say that supported this implied trend that they were citing.
As I said really one class (2 the bard as well) kept us from seriously thinking about going to 2nd ed. On the other hand while 3.0 had the same issues with the ranger we went, because moving feats around to rebuild the class was easy enough.
Pathfinder too is easy to fix in my view. Well not easy, but it can be fixed. Over all I like the book, I think you all did a bang up job on some classes that needed help, the fighter comes foremost to my mind on that topic. But I did expect well more. You deviated from the past hard with the cleric, but were steadfast on the monk's Base Attack and on not raising skill points for any class. Both I saw as needed and simple fixes, both not done to remain true to 3.5. I guess I just don't agree with sticking steadfast in some places and in others not so. All I guess minor changes to some, bigger ones to others.
It's nice to be able to buy new books and over all it was a huge undertaking that seems to have come off well.
Maybe this thread has moved on, but the term "paradigm shift" seems rather overheated to me. Usually, things like Copernican revolutions are taken as cases of paradigm shifts, which PfRPG is clearly not.
I had one player, long time fan of 2nd Edition and disliked learning 3rd, comment that:
a) This was the first time he had ever played a druid, but he loved the changes and how easy everything was to find.
b) He hates doing skills. So much so it was a running joke for 10 years for him to "Do your skills!" He looked at me mid-creation and said "Holy crap, I'm done my skills!" and then "Cool! I get to pick skills for my dinosaur!"
c) He didn't want to play initially, but I bribed him. We played for 3 hours until well past midnight.
Now that's what this is all about. Awesome.
Aragorn, (completely seperate from being a nomadic woodsman) was also uniquily adapt at fighting with two weapons as a character trait.
He was? Can you think of an example?
However, being a "hunter" was also not really a part of Ranger either, until 3E. They had favored enemies, but it was honestly more a racism. Rangers were woodsman and country paladins, (sort off).
The hunter comes in from the tracking I think. He's the only character really adept at hunting things down in 1e.
Despite my (seemingly) opposition, I generally like the PF book. So good job, Jason.
Hopefully he knows this. Despite the fact that we all love talking about the stuff we don't like, the fact that we are all still here should speak volumes about our overall approval of the game. If we didn't like it, we'd be back to 3.5 and probably not on these boards anymore.
I'll even bet that Disenchanter is at home hugging his core rulebook right now. He just won't admit it because it would make him sound less...um...disenchanted. :)
My opinion is that a lot of the "2nd edition feel" that some people have mentioned has more to do with the way Pathfinder supplements are being laid out. 2nd edition was one of the first things I thought about when I read through Classic Monsters Revisited not because of the rules or art, but because it was a book that had a very small percentage of actual game rules. It was fun to read, which is something that early 2nd edition supplements had (up until about the Player's Option books, IMO). Even the rules-heavy stuff for Pathfinder so far has a solid grasp of the setting, from flavor-heavy Companion books to the two-page spreads in the otherwise rules-heavy Core Rulebook. Comparatively, 3rd edition was almost entirely defined by its rules, since WotC put out very few adventures or rules-light supplementary material - stuff like Dungeon Crawl Classics added to the D&D experience, but weren't officially part of the game.
Rules-wise and play-wise, though, I still haven't experienced a great difference between 3rd edition D&D and Pathfinder, except that Pathfinder seems to run a little more smoothly.
Despite my (seemingly) opposition, I generally like the PF book. So good job, Jason.Hopefully he knows this. Despite the fact that we all love talking about the stuff we don't like, the fact that we are all still here should speak volumes about our overall approval of the game. If we didn't like it, we'd be back to 3.5 and probably not on these boards anymore.
I'll even bet that Disenchanter is at home hugging his core rulebook right now. He just won't admit it because it would make him sound less...um...disenchanted. :)
(Emphasis is mine.)
That made me laugh out loud. Hard enough to fear waking my neighbors.
No. I don't spend my time hugging the Core book.
But if it will make everyone feel better, the best games I have ever had - the ones that were most fun - were in systems I absolutely despise.
The system doesn't make the game... It can only make the game easier to enjoy.
That made me laugh out loud. Hard enough to fear waking my neighbors.No. I don't spend my time hugging the Core book.
But if it will make everyone feel better,
We want you to feel better...maybe you'd be less disenchanted if you hugged yours more often. I've been keeping mine on my bedside table...
;)Edit: Demmit, I didn't see the last part of Frogboy's post, who beat me on more than initiative.
My image of the "ranger" has more to do with Elbryan the Nightbird, Perrin Aybara ("the wolfbrother"), and Robinhood.
Aragorn in my mind will always be a fighter/ranger with Numenorian racial levels. Even the legendary and reviled Drizzt, who was consciously based off the Aragornian D&D ranger, strikes me more as a "cunning hunter" who only happens to use two weapons.
I mean, it's not like his DEX isn't high enough to take TWF on his own.
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I love the paradigm shift from 3.5 to PFRPG and I do believe it is a shift that brings the game closer to the AD&D 1st ed roots.
In 1st ed AD&D, the most important choice you made for your character was what combination of race and class you chose at the outset. So many things about your character's career were locked in then due to the multiclass rules (demihumans only) and the way racial mods impacted your ability to qualify for classes (no dwarf magic users, human only paladins). If you wanted a progressive class changing experience, you built up a bard through many many levels of arduous play. Each class had a clear niche, to the point where the most unique thieves and magic users needed stand-alone classes (assassins and illusionists) because they couldn't very well be expressed simply by player role playing.
PFRPG brings back all of that while still holding to 3.5's mandate of 'options not restrictions'. In PFRPG, the race and class you pick at the outset are likely the ones you will keep; the benefits of class-dipping don't compare with the progressively more awesome benefits of single classing (capstone abilities, +1 hp/sp from favored class). Your race choice has real meaning again as each race offers something truly special without feeling suboptimal (a half-orc bard makes real sense when you look at the racial makeup and the ability to trade perform checks for other skills--the half orc drummer who intimidates his way to power; a half-elf is again a playable race that can bridge two classes and two cultures). And best of all, you no longer have classes (sorcerer/fighter) that demand prestige classing at the earliest possible opportunity nor classes (bard) that are simply unplayable because they don't bring enough to the table in a party with fewer than 5 PCs. The paladin and cleric are again clearly differentiated (and yes, I happen to like the armor prof change because of that, and I have played clerics for years and years), whereas in 3.5 you could easily build up a cleric to do all that a paladin can do (except summon a horse from pokemon land) and the wizard and sorcerer distinctions finally remind me of the classic magic-user/illusionist differences of 1st ed (I know the conceptual differences are substantial but the dialogues I have had at my table remind me a lot of those old debates).
While some say the base classes offer more of a 'kit' feel, I have concluded that the options within the core class are primarily designed to keep players from needing to make a fighter/want/rogue just to get the balance of abilities and options they want. Now they use rogue talent (combat feat) and rogue talent (minor/major magic) to get that jack-of-all-trades feel.
For me, the paradigm shift made me feel much more at home. All my D20 DM experience is emininetly useful but I can now again tell 1st ed stories without having to spend all my time figuring out what to call the holy warrior in the party. (In 3.5 he was a fighter/cleric/hospitaler; in PFRPG he is a Paladin)
Thumbs way up for me.
Regarding paradigm shifts and the number attached to the edition, I made the following observation on Facebook and it seems equally applicable here:
Honestly I don't consider Pathfinder to be 3.75 any more than 2nd edition was 1.5. When you look at the total number of changes, it's actually substantial enough to constitute an edition change, in my opinion. Sure, the old 3.x material is compatible, but so too was 1st edition compatible with 2nd edition rules. Things like rage powers, abilities, and ... sorcerer bloodlines kind of push it past the edge of a partial-edition change. Add to that the new 'beyond level 20' rules, the splitting up of polymorph, and the addition of CMB, and the other changes throughout the rules and it's a new edition of the game. It builds on the previous edition rather than tossing it out and inventing a new game, and this is a good thing in my book. I consider it an alternate new edition of D&D.
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This is a fascinating thread and I'd like to thank the members of the Paizo community (and James and Jason) for the thoughtful commentary.
Your welcome. So what is your opinion? It may just be me, but it seems that the people that had anything to do with it really are not offering up any of their views.
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The inspirational parts of BECMI, 1st edition, and 2nd edition certainly did play a part, but since none of those books contains open content it really couldn't go beyond that.
BECMI?
"BECMI" refers to the Frank Mentzer 1983 edition of Basic, Expert, Companion, Masters, and Immortals {that other game}.
I had to Google that, figured I would share.
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Maybe it's late and I'm tired, but while I agree those things were changed a great deal, and they are among many changes, what exactly about them was MMO-style?The MMO style comes in to play when multiple changes were made per item, and that it was done so (overkill style) just to quiet a group of vocal people.
Maybe I'm too much of a cook. You can't "take back" spices, so you never add too much at one time to keep from hurting your dish.
No such thing as too much of a cook =)
And I think WotC MMO styled it more than anyone.
Yeah, Paizo made some changes, but many of the changes were, generally speaking, minor (clerical armor proficiency, spiked chains) that if you prefer it the old way, its terribly hard to rule it back to 3.5.
Some of the changes were less minor, and with anything that isn't a minor change, its impossible to please everyone. Spell changes, a couple complete class overhauls (paladin for example), some combat mechanics, all those are hard to handwave back to the way they were before, but I think (right now) its a bit early to be saying it was too much. After the Bestiary comes out, and you've read it, make your mind up then. Alot of what people seem to be basing all this on is the 3.5 version of the game...and we don't even know what the PFRPG monsters will look like as a whole.
Not saying you have to like it (we can have our opinions, they don't have to be the same), but at least give it a fair shake before saying they went to far.
And don't use 2 cups salt instead of Sugar if you're making cookies...they turn out really bad...
I don't see the parallel of Pathfinder to an MMO, except that it had an Alpha, and a Beta before it went gold pieces.
I've been gaming for 26 years, and this is D&D to me. The adventure paths are wonderful.
(Now, I'm a rule tweaker, so of course I'm going to house-rule that which wasn't changed enough...(I'm looking at you 2+int class skills.) And that whic was changed too much (Halflings losing their throwing weapon bonus). Then I'll put that into a big Cauldron and throw in my own special rules that only I know about (until I publish them next year) and Viola! I have my Game...
Now, I'm a rule tweaker, so of course I'm going to house-rule that which wasn't changed enough...(I'm looking at you 2+int class skills.)
Not trying to threadjack here but I've seen this house rule everywhere. I'm kind of wondering what the logic is behind it and what happens to all of the 4+INT classes like the Druid, Barbarian and Monk. Do they all get the shaft or does everyone bump up +2 SkP?
Just wondering.
Personally, I think 4 + Int should just be the minimum. Rangers and Babarians don't get any more, just like the Cleric didn't get more HP. Rogue dropping back to 6 + Int is a good idea now, too, I think.
With all the feats that both Rogues and Rangers now get, I can kind of see your point about dropping their skill points back.
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I just increase the 2+int classes, I leave the other classes where they are, I like skills...In my opinion...No amount of skill points can destroy the game balance...but lack of skills can easily destroy a story.
(I'm even going to add more skill points in my games based upon race.)
(Note: I'm also requiring rogues and other precision based classes to Identify the weak points in monsters to get the bonus, OR at least someone to tell them where to strike...this makes bards very nice.)
the loss of the x4 multiplier really damages the amount of skills you have at 1st level. Yes, you catch up a few levels later, but why hamstring the characters at first level when you want them to survive longer. (increasing base HPs)
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I haven't gone through specifically to look, it just seems that most of the skills being merged really benefit the Rogue the most, andway, effectivly bumping the Rogue up to 10 + or 12 + Int anyway. I also prefere them to have to choose between what skills thy focus on than being so good with nearly all the rogueish skills. Pretty much everyone else has to pick carefully.
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I haven't gone through specifically to look, it just seems that most of the skills being merged really benefit the Rogue the most, andway, effectivly bumping the Rogue up to 10 + or 12 + Int anyway. I also prefere them to have to choose between what skills thy focus on than being so good with nearly all the rogueish skills. Pretty much everyone else has to pick carefully.
Even rogues still have to be careful, if they take too many rogue skills they hamstring themselves in other skills, now, making a trap-monkey is easy, that's just perception and disable device. Like I said in my game, they'll want some Knowledge skills as well...need to know where to hit that zombie to get that extra damage, same with a vampire...not every character knows to hit a vampire in the heart with a stake...even though every player does.
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...I love the paradigm shift from 3.5 to PFRPG and I do believe it is a shift that brings the game closer to the AD&D 1st ed roots.
In 1st ed AD&D, the most important choice you made for your character was what combination of race and class you chose at the outset. So many things about your character's career were locked in then due to the multiclass rules (demihumans only) and the way racial mods impacted your ability to qualify for classes (no dwarf magic users, human only paladins). If you wanted a progressive class changing experience, you built up a bard through many many levels of arduous play. Each class had a clear niche, to the point where the most unique thieves and magic users needed stand-alone classes (assassins and illusionists) because they couldn't very well be expressed simply by player role playing.
PFRPG brings back all of that while still holding to 3.5's mandate of 'options not restrictions'. In PFRPG, the race and class you pick at the outset are likely the ones you will keep; the benefits of class-dipping don't compare with the progressively more awesome benefits of single classing (capstone abilities, +1 hp/sp from favored class). Your race choice has real meaning again as each race offers something truly special without feeling suboptimal (a half-orc bard makes real sense when you look at the racial makeup and the ability to trade perform checks for other skills--the half orc drummer who intimidates his way to power; a half-elf is again a playable race that can bridge two classes and two cultures). And best of all, you no longer have classes (sorcerer/fighter) that demand prestige classing at the earliest possible opportunity nor classes (bard) that are simply unplayable because they don't bring enough to the table in a party with fewer than 5 PCs. The paladin and cleric are again clearly differentiated (and yes, I happen to like the armor prof change because of that, and I have played clerics for years and years), whereas in 3.5 you could
+1 even though I disliked many of the elements of AD&D. Pathfinder and Golarion now feel more "grown up".
What exactly is a D&D tradition?
I've played from basis D&D through 1E, 2E, 3E, 4E, and now 3E with Pathfinder. I've also played Dangerous Journeys if any remembers that game from Gary Gygax in the early 90s. I played World of Darkness Dark ages and RoleMaster too. Basically all the game set in the same genre. The only thing D&D to me was the band name. The rules really didn't change the feel of the game. For example we used Role Master in the FR setting felt very D&D like to me but the rules were different. We played DJ in Grey Hawk and again it felt very much like D&D. We also play Pheonix Command in FR for very D&D like feel.
So really it's the settings that make the game feel like D&D not the rules. I mean if you play Dangerous Journeys in the setting of Aerth which is basically earth but medival with lots of magic it didn't really feel like D&D. No real monsters at all. But the same game in FR really did have D&D like feel.
i'll only add on thing to this interesting discussion, abou the 2e feel.
I also played 2e a little less than a lot, and I'll tell that back there it was very fun and interesting and stuff (actually, the portuguese translation had a serious problem that made people think that you gained weapon profs every level, tcs... that was hard...), but back there there were some stupid things in my opinion.
One of them was the cleric. The cleric was nice, and it was a war priest, really christian by the way, but since I always loved mithology, even as a early teen (I was a late child/ early teen when I played it), I always asked myself why in the nine I couldn't be priest of a different god, somethin like a priest of a god of death with a scythe and such things, or some kind of egyptian priest with kopesh... No one never let me play a cleric like this, but one small, little and almost forgotten phrase I found what I thought was great. it was more or less like this: "Priests of different gods may be able to use other weapons, like a priest of the God of the Hunt being able to use a Spear".
That oppened a lot of theorical options that I never got to play. So when I started Dming in 3.0 my very first change was "clerics get medium prof. and can use their god's weapon for free". Pretty much since 3.5 I also declared that they couldn't spont. convert. healing spells, but could convert. spells into their domain spells. Lately, I killed Turn Undead and gave clerics a equivalent special ability based on their gods.
And it was all good.
So, for me, those changes to the cleric, for example, don't seem strange, or even out of the "holy box", because back there at 2e I wanted clerics to be like they are now. And as the years passed I made my cleric be what they are now.
As I grew up I started to be annoyed by other little things, and I still think that the disparity between casters and non-casters is too great. But hey, I can always use my remake of the spellcasting system (won't give details, but jump on me if you want: Spellcasters cast spells at will, but, as a warlock, know very little spells, and instead of 9th circle, they only get to learn up to 7th spell circle, and that's only at 19th level!).
So far so good for me, the changes, and the paradigm, and all those things.
And since I like it so much, I believe my players are going to give me one copy of the core rulebook in my birthday. I hope, at least :D
Note: It's a litte hard for a long timer to swallow the drawings of the magic swords in the core rulebook. They look less like real swords and more like videogame game swords. But I love videogame, and Lineage, and such things. And I did HATE the OLD appearance of AD&D, and, and, and... I'll just swallow this as the Zeitgheist of the gaming world of today...
The cleric proof thread is heading down the road of asking, is the cleric suppose to be a White Mage now? Some of the supporters for the armor change, say yes and this is a good thing. Of course my stance is known and I don't think it is a good thing. But this thread is about is it good or is it bad, it's about is there a Paradigm Shift or not going on.
If the cleric is suppose to be a White Mage, and if that is the road we are on. Then I would have to change my answer to yes there is a Paradigm shift going on. But I am not sure I agree that the cleric is morphing into a White Mage or not.
I guess I have to then answer with a question, is that the goal? To remove the cleric in favor of the white mage we are talking about.
((White Mage means holy, or divine style mage.))
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Director of Game Design
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I do not want to interfere with the discussion here too much, because I find it interesting to see what folks think from outside the office.
That said, I do want to clear something up. The cleric changes were not, in any way, an attempt to move to the "white mage" concept. I like my clerics in armor.. just not heavy.
((And lets not start that discussion again.. ))
Jason Bulmahn
Lead Designer
Paizo Publishing
That said, I do want to clear something up. The cleric changes were not, in any way, an attempt to move to the "white mage" concept.
Maybe not intentionally. By giving Clerics channel energy for healing, you inadvertantly gave them something that most Clerics feel that they can't give up. Now being good in melee is no longer a no brainer. Healing will trump it in most cases now. I'm not mad about the change but you definitely will see more "white mages" than you will battle priests from now on.
That said, I do want to clear something up. The cleric changes were not, in any way, an attempt to move to the "white mage" concept.Maybe not intentionally. By giving Clerics channel energy for healing, you inadvertantly gave them something that most Clerics feel that they can't give up. Now being good in melee is no longer a no brainer. Healing will trump it in most cases now. I'm not mad about the change but you definitely will see more "white mages" than you will battle priests from now on.
Which is part of why I don't want channel energy, the other part is how strong a healer it makes paladins.
OK folks, instead of Channel positive energy, why don't you think about channel negative energy hm?
Really you want a battle cleric nothing quite says I blast through you with damage you can't resist like blasting through something with energy they can't resist. Heck Channel Smite too. Maybe with all those battle buffs you have.
You don't have to give up anything that you wouldn't have given up in 3.5. Your choices are the same. The only difference is the fact that when facing a lich you can actually use your channel energy to hurt him instead of doing nothing.
Channel Energy is good, but it's better with feats. Just like a fighty Cleric is better with feats. Depending on what you do with your feat choices, Channel Energy can be the Best Thing That You Do or just Something That You Can Do.
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Maybe not intentionally. By giving Clerics channel energy for healing, you inadvertantly gave them something that most Clerics feel that they can't give up. Now being good in melee is no longer a no brainer. Healing will trump it in most cases now. I'm not mad about the change but you definitely will see more "white mages" than you will battle priests from now on.
The fighter in the current D&D ruleset lost proficiency in plate armor. Has to take a feat. Is the D&D fighter, what? A swashbuckler?
Some things that I feel have shifted in pathfinder are races.
Half orc, Half elf and Human all have the same stat adjustments and that feels wierd to me. Half elf even more so since they seem to be even more versatile than humans are.
Gnomes always felt more like "half dwarf half elf" creatures to me and now they... I don't know just don't come across like gnomes in the past, and elves feel more alien than mystic to me now. I was actually hoping that Halflings would end up closer to being Hobbits again but I think I understand why that didn't happen.
Dwarves however feel like dwarves to me.
I do hope that Paizo does more in the future to help make the races feel different and unique like they have for the classes. Right now I see more people defining their characters more by class than by race. I would like it to be both race and class that play a major part of the character's identity.
OK folks, instead of Channel positive energy, why don't you think about channel negative energy hm?
My current character (whom I start playing tomorrow) is a negative channeling specialist. He's not a battle priest though.
Maybe not intentionally. By giving Clerics channel energy for healing, you inadvertantly gave them something that most Clerics feel that they can't give up. Now being good in melee is no longer a no brainer. Healing will trump it in most cases now. I'm not mad about the change but you definitely will see more "white mages" than you will battle priests from now on.The fighter in the current D&D ruleset lost proficiency in plate armor. Has to take a feat. Is the D&D fighter, what? A swashbuckler?
I don't understand what you are getting at here. My above statement would've been exactly the same even if Clerics retained their heavy armor proficiency. Clerics are one of the classes that need a lot of good stats. Most Clerics will either give up battle prowess (low STR and CON) to focus more on healing or give up the focus on healing (low CHA and INT) in favor of being a better up front fighter.
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I don't understand what you are getting at here. My above statement would've been exactly the same even if Clerics retained their heavy armor proficiency. Clerics are one of the classes that need a lot of good stats. Most Clerics will either give up battle prowess (low STR and CON) to focus more on healing or give up the focus on healing (low CHA and INT) in favor of being a better up front fighter.
From what I've seen in the RPGA and more optimizer folks, it's more a spell selection (hello Divine Power) than stats especially at later levels. The most optimized ones tend to stay in the back, buff and healing folks, then later move forward when their spells allow them to outpower the fighter.
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Creative Director
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So... MY RANT!
The concept of "optimizing character builds" is at great odds to providing character choices. The goal of optimization is to build the most perfect build for a class, at which point the notion of not playing that particular build is a "poor choice." I disagree with that on every level of my role-playing being. I've seen many times a player come up with a cool concept for a character that an optimizer then picks apart and "tries to help" by making it more number crunched and "correct." Invariably, the result is an embarrassed roleplayer who comes away from the experience thinking he made an error in building his character. In fact, his only error was to listen to the optimizer.
RANT OVER.
So... MY RANT!
The concept of "optimizing character builds" is at great odds to providing character choices. The goal of optimization is to build the most perfect build for a class, at which point the notion of not playing that particular build is a "poor choice." I disagree with that on every level of my role-playing being. I've seen many times a player come up with a cool concept for a character that an optimizer then picks apart and "tries to help" by making it more number crunched and "correct." Invariably, the result is an embarrassed roleplayer who comes away from the experience thinking he made an error in building his character. In fact, his only error was to listen to the optimizer.
RANT OVER.
Heh...nice rant =)
I like optimization, I also like roleplaying. Optimization is great for when I DM, helps me judge whats going to be a good challenge for my group, but nothing beats roleplaying in a roleplaying game. I think to many optimizers get caught up with the concept of uber builds, and focus less on making a cool concept viable in a game (which for some concepts, does take some optimization, for example, a wizard who likes to mix it up with touch spells, without multiclassing)