Colossal Monstrous Scorpion vs 12th level fighter or barbarianIn 3.PF, it's not brutes that you can't grapple, but instead it's things with huge natural stats like outsiders and stuff. Try doing a same-level test with demons or devils or something.Sure. Pick one.See if you can figure out why I'm not going to take you up on that.
And what precisely would it prove, anyway? We have already established that there are ungrappleable foes. How is this different in PF?
He did say or something, unless the restriction is only on demons are devils.
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In 3.PF, it's not brutes that you can't grapple, but instead it's things with huge natural stats like outsiders and stuff. Try doing a same-level test with demons or devils or something.For interest's sake, here are three specialized grapplers. All of them have Improved Unarmed Strike, Improved Grapple and Greater Grapple, and the fighter has Weapon Focus (grapple).
Note that much of the question of grapple's potency depends on whether you allow bonuses to unarmed strikes to apply to grapple attempts. There is a compelling case to be made to do so, and the difference is extremely large, particularly with regard to the fighter (who would be keeping up with the barbarian sans Strength Surge); all three would be much better off in an absolute sense, thanks to amulets of mighty fists.
but now the players don't force them on me because they're obvious newbie traps.
Ah. One man's "newbie trap" is another's "munchkin detector".
Everyone gets a bunch of random abilities to fill in "blank" levels, but most of them are more like Resist Nature's Lure than Wild Shape, if you take my meaning.
I get it: The old "if it doesn't turn the character into a munchkin's spank fodder, it's useless" meaning ;-P
Let's see:
A good number of these new feats are old feats split in two, or mutually exclusive.
Those are not the feats I'm talking about
(and some are weaker than the 3.5 version after you have both feats).
Probably for a reason...
There's also some weird fiddling; apparently Power Attack got nerfed (can't figure out why),
Don't need to: They said why: The old one was too open for abuse. That and it apparently bogged down many a game where some stupid power gamers took eternities calculating the perfect amount of PA (and I do mean stupid power gamers - smart power gamers were faster with their calculations or had done the legwork before)
Note that the new one, while not allowing the same scope of penalties/bonuses, does give you back more for your troubles: 1/3 for two-handed fighting (instead of 1/2), or 1/2 for regular wielding (over 1/1 for one-handed weapons before, or impossible for light weapons before), 1/1 for off-hand wielding (which was impossible unless you used non-light weapons, which had extra penalties)
The feats I'm talking about are others, though:
There's a new family of "When you get a critical hit, something happens" feats, which start at 11th level (and the first good ones are at 15th level).
I disagree. I think there are good choices on +11 and +13, too: Bleeding will mean a lot of nice extra damage unless the enemy can heal, Sickening critical will hex the enemy (those -2 penalties can be all it takes to make the enemy fail at something really important). At +13, you get the ability to tire or stagger the enemy, both nasty conditions.
Don't let anyone tell you fighters got a bunch of new and exciting feats.
Don't listen to this guy.
There's two feats to ignore some DR, a feat that gives you +1 AC if you have a shield, a feat that lets you AOO if someone flubs a defensive cast in melee with you, and a feat to apply two of those crit feats instead of just one. That's it.
Ignoring DR is a quite nice. A lot of enemies have DR, and you don't always have the right tool for the job (especially not if you want to concentrate on one weapon).
Extra AC is nice, too. Sometimes, you want more AC. This is a neat way to get it.Getting an AoO for a wasted spell on top of having the guy waste a spell slot and action without effect is great - especially if he cannot step away from you and has a hard time casting defensively in your presence.
And two crit feats mean you're really screwed if that fighter hits you critically. With something like a scimitar or falchion, it's not unlikely that this will happen a lot. Worlds of hurt.
To clarify, here's the complete list of new Fighter feats:
The old ones are still there, too.
They're about as exciting as Greater Weapon Specialization ever was
I disagree. Some of them can be really fun. Make spellcasters really hate you (don't flee, don't succeed on defensive casting, get hit anyway, get extra damage from a crit AND two crippling conditions)
Fighters do more damage and have a little more AC and still completely lack tools for solving level-appropriate challenges that don't involve hitting people who are standing still to be hit
First of all, the lack of fancy supernatural powers is not a problem. It's a fact. It's a frikkin fighter. They fight. Want fancy stuff? Play something else.
They're not supposed to be able to do everything. This is a team game.
Plus, heavy hitters are still level-appropriate challenges, and they've become quite good at solving those problems.
And ask any spellcaster what they think about a new fighter standing next to them. Better hope you get your defenses up before the fighter is beside you, and that nobody dispels the most important stuff, because it will be fun getting the stuff back up.
, barbarians still multiclass out of their weak class after 5 or so levels tops
Only if they're played by power gamers.
The game wasn't supposed to pander to power gamers.
, bards are still unfocused and lacking in central concept
They have several strong central concepts. "High damage output" was never supposed to be one of the concepts. If the class isn't munchkinny enough, stay out of it.
The concepts are:
sorcerers are still strictly weaker than wizards
I disagree. They've not only gained in power, they also gained a lot in versatility with the bloodlines. They're quite interesting to play.
rogues still suffer from the fact that spells negate challenges and skills don't
Not true.
I mean. It's still 3e.
Of course. That was the point. Revision instead of new edition. Still, Pathfinder did an awesome job of cleaning up and improving the existing ruleset.
Divine Power was nerfed and clerics lost heavy armor.
That's what I meant with "less monolithically powerful"
Cleric domains now grant two powers comparable to the one power each domain had before
Let's see:
Old Fire: Turn water creatures, rebuke fire creatures. Boohoo. If no such creatures are around, you get nothing. And even if they're around, you might get nothing because they might be too powerful for you to even affect.
New fire: Great backup "spell-weapon" that has touch attacks, resistance to fire (quite useful), and you now get to cast fireball and the big fat elemental polymporph spell (great for melee clerics...)
Old Travel: I agree, some rounds of freedom of movement are nice..
New travel: You're always faster, you can ignore difficult terrain, and you can later dimension hop around a bit, which isn't bad (and can get you out of a pinch, too)
worshiping a god now gives a cleric a bunch of random free abilities
Random? If by that you mean "very appropriate for the concepts the domains embody", you're right!
I'll leave it to you to decide if clerics were nerfed.
I have decided that they have, in a way.
The deific trifecta of divine favour, haste (via boots, armour of speed, or friendly spellcasters) and divine power no longer stacks, which takes a lot of wind out of melee cleric's sails.
To make up for the loss of raw power, a lot of versatility was added.
As for druids, wild shape was nerfed hard
As hard as it needed to be nerfed. Something I welcomed a lot.
animal companions were nerfed fairly hard
And again, as hard as it had to.
These two abilities were prime rutting grounds for munchkins.
I remember when our resident munchking saw what happened to polymporph during transition and promptly abandoned the spell. That showed me that Paizo has done it right.
, and the Summon Nature's Ally chain was nerfed across the board. Unlike clerics and wizards, druids got back basically nothing for this.
KaeYoss wrote:
Lay on Hands was buffed.
Turn-undead-turned-channel-energy also become better. And mercy was added to the mix.
I admit I don't really care enough about bards to have figured out anything about their healing
Telling.
Still, they get more spells/day and more spells/known now, which makes cure spells less expensive, and they later get a rally nice healing performance.
, and since bardic music is now a bookkeeping nightmare I don't think I'm going to start caring.
Huh? "Bookkeeping nightmare"? Ticking off rounds? That's a nightmare?
Talk about ADD. :P
It's been nerfed to oblivion (which is not a bad move IMO)
It's still nice and useful, and it was a great, and very necessary move in my opinion.
. You only get abilities off of a short list, and the stat mods are small and applied to your own base stats.
Which was one of the greatest innovations. No longer can min-maxers hope that by poring through three dozen monster books, they'll find the perfect shape to win the game with.
playing a druid is STILL an exercise in dumpster diving through monster books and doing your taxes.
Only if you're dumpster diving for the best set of attacks. If you're not min-maxing, it takes nothing more than a trip to a single monster entry.
They mostly aren't better than standing there and doing a full attack, though.
Why should they be better?
Familiars are still so weak
It's not always about strength. Well, not for Paizo and your average non-powergaming player. They seem to have a truck with that "roleplay" stuff.
As long as you get max hps at first level you'll still have to decide which class to take first anyway.Yep. That's why I house ruled your maxed hit die to be retroactively the largest single die you have.
I like my version better:
You don't get max HP for your first class HD. Instead, you a virtual d8 HD (i.e. 1d8 plus CON hit points, but nothing else a HD would grant you, like BAB or the ability to withstand certain magic) at 1st level.
Both eliminates the first-level significance and makes 1st-level characters a bit sturdier.
Can I complain now that some people should get out of the thread because the topic was "help convince someone to try pathfinder" and not "bash Pathfinder", or is that joker only for 4e-fans? :D
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More than just a bit, that nearly destroys the possibility of OHKOing the wizard before he can color spray you. Oh well though, I'm sure it plays well in your games.As long as you get max hps at first level you'll still have to decide which class to take first anyway.Yep. That's why I house ruled your maxed hit die to be retroactively the largest single die you have.I like my version better:
You don't get max HP for your first class HD. Instead, you a virtual d8 HD (i.e. 1d8 plus CON hit points, but nothing else a HD would grant you, like BAB or the ability to withstand certain magic) at 1st level.
Both eliminates the first-level significance and makes 1st-level characters a bit sturdier.
You're right, so you send two guys and finish off the wizard. I am running second darkness, and I STILL munch the wizard down to near death from time to time. I'm sure he's sick of it by now...
Can I complain now that some people should get out of the thread because the topic was "help convince someone to try pathfinder" and not "bash Pathfinder", or is that joker only for 4e-fans? :D
Well if someone's suggestions are things that OPer's friend is going to blow out of the water because they are deceptive or poorly thought out (I am not suggesting anyone's is), then it could in fact make the person less likely to try pathfinder. Having suggestions, as to what are good selling points, being challenged just makes those suggestions stronger once they pass through the challenges.
"We're playing Pathfinder. You in?"
Seriously, this is the way to do it. I've got a group of thoroughly satisfied players, several of whom had burned money on 4E at release and were skeptical going in to PF.
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As someone who is skeptical of PF, even to the point of realising I was being passive aggressive about it here are a couple of things you might need to deal with re converting 3.5 players - and they have little to do with the PF system.
Losing Familiarity
Your 3.5 players may be particularly familiar with the 3.5 rules, they know what feats do off by heart, they can describe the process of disarming easily, and they can use spells without referring to the book. Playing in a PF game suddently means you need to double check everything to see if it has changed (even if it turns out it hasn't). You have to convince your players that the effort will be worth it.
Losing Game Aids
One of the things I have found I am really missing playing PF over 3.5 is not being able to use all those nice game aids I had purchased or got free - Sovelior Sage is 3.5, and whilst there is a PF PRD and a fan made d20pfsrd I still prefer the Sovelior sage interface and haven't yet been able to get either to work offline yet.
The Creative Mountain Design spells lists that I can print off showing just cleric spells levels 0 to X are great - a lot less page flicking than going through the PHB. However with PF I am back to flipping through the PDF (admittedly it is hyperinked, but it is slow to render).
But worse of all for me is that there is no PF SORD yet (although the creator has said he intends to create one). SORD was the most useful tool for 3.5 that made grappling, sundering, disarming etc all easy.
So, if your players used such game aids in 3.5 you might need to seek out similar ones for PF and or convince them the effort to work without them is worth it.
Lack of backwards compatibility
This is one area that may get me some flak as loads of PF fans will say it is easily backward compatible. However, in regards to feats and particularly classes and prestige classes (i.e. the sort of stuff players will want to use) PF requires some effort to convert. Therefore, to get use out of their 3.5 books may require some investment of time and effort on their and the GM's part. The sheer number of threads in this and other forums on how to convert particular classes (e.g. the Scout, Duskblade, etc) leads me to believe that this could be a problem for some people.
So, in the end my piece of advice is that to convert players you really need to convince them that PF offers something significant that makes the effort of converting worth it - a cost / benefit analysis basically.
Whilst I can agree that some PF changes are better than 3.5 (e.g. combining Move Silently and Hide, skill point allocation etc) to me personally PF doesn't offer me enough benefits to outweight the costs. So whilst I am playing in two PF games, I would prefer to be using 3.5 and when I GM I will run 3.5 (especially as my chosen setting is Eberron which is 3.5).
So although I play PF I wouldn't consider myself a convert. So be prepared that your 3.5 players may never "convert" even if they agree to play in your PF game. If you can be happy with this situation, then great, have fun.
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As someone who is skeptical of PF, even to the point of realising I was being passive aggressive about it here are a couple of things you might need to deal with re converting 3.5 players - and they have little to do with the PF system.
Losing Familiarity
Your 3.5 players may be particularly familiar with the 3.5 rules, they know what feats do off by heart, they can describe the process of disarming easily, and they can use spells without referring to the book. Playing in a PF game suddently means you need to double check everything to see if it has changed (even if it turns out it hasn't). You have to convince your players that the effort will be worth it.Losing Game Aids
One of the things I have found I am really missing playing PF over 3.5 is not being able to use all those nice game aids I had purchased or got free - Sovelior Sage is 3.5, and whilst there is a PF PRD and a fan made d20pfsrd I still prefer the Sovelior sage interface and haven't yet been able to get either to work offline yet.The Creative Mountain Design spells lists that I can print off showing just cleric spells levels 0 to X are great - a lot less page flicking than going through the PHB. However with PF I am back to flipping through the PDF (admittedly it is hyperinked, but it is slow to render).
But worse of all for me is that there is no PF SORD yet (although the creator has said he intends to create one). SORD was the most useful tool for 3.5 that made grappling, sundering, disarming etc all easy.
So, if your players used such game aids in 3.5 you might need to seek out similar ones for PF and or convince them the effort to work without them is worth it.
Lack of backwards compatibility
This is one area that may get me some flak as loads of PF fans will say it is easily backward compatible. However, in regards to feats and particularly classes and prestige classes (i.e. the sort of stuff players will want to use) PF requires some effort to convert. Therefore, to get use out of their 3.5 books...
Honest question, is it the ease of which you can find tools to help with 3.5 rule sets alone that makes it difficult? Or is it the fact you need to convert AND find new tools that make this a non-conversion? The amount of detail you put into that seems to tell me a lot about how you seem to keep coming back to this point.
I can see some of the sentiments that began with 3.0 - 3.5 conversions creeping up. Then again the system was almost entirely the same, much like here. It was the nuances that changed things.
Taken from URL:
Really, people (and companies) should be promoting what is great about their system, and not continuously rag on other systems.
This is a wise man ;) , in fact you should look at the entire paragraph.
Really, people (and companies) should be promoting what is great about their system, and not continuously rag on other systems. Of course there are going to be comparisons made, that is only reasonable, but in the end of the day, if you have said more about why the other system sucks than you have about why your system rocks, I feel you've failed in the discussion.
Of course this is entirely different conversation and I don't think anyone is really interested in hearing selling points of 3.5 (or even 4e), so we are limited in a discussion to the pro's of pathfinder and if those pro's are legitimate (which is not necessarily the same as a discussion of the pros and cons of pathfinder).
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http://www.d20pfsrd.com/extras/downloads
I use the text only turbo PRD myself
Yeah, that site was what I was referring to when I said "fan made d20pfsrd". I haven't been able to get it working offline. I too have started using the turbo PDF as the Pathfinder PDF was rendering so slowly on my Eee PC (sort of makes me regret buying the PDF, but I guess I will get some use out of it still).
converting to Pathfinder has smoothed out some of the kinks in my games, and it's been a bit more fun using PF than 3.5.
For me, I haven't played enough 3.5 to find some of the issues that others have found, but even with the 3.5 issues I have found, there are some changes PF made which I dislike as much. In the end I wish they had departed more from the 3.5 rules to make something different enough to warrant my time reading it (for example I was happy learning the M&M rules as it offers something D&D3.5 didn't, despite being d20 based).
Edit: What exactly is "SORD"?
http://rpg.drivethrustuff.com/product_info.php?products_id=56883
It is a nice little reference book that enables quick lookup of common rules. A Pathfinder Beta version was put together, but as of yet there is no final Pathfinder version.
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Honest question, is it the ease of which you can find tools to help with 3.5 rule sets alone that makes it difficult?
I am not quite sure what "it" you are referring to when you say "makes it difficult". If game aids like I described above were available for PF it may make it easier to play the game, and thus may have made it more likely for me to convert to PF, however other factors make me personally not want to convert (as opposed to it being too difficult to convert).
Or is it the fact you need to convert AND find new tools that make this a non-conversion? The amount of detail you put into that seems to tell me a lot about how you seem to keep coming back to this point.
I guess it is the conversion aspect which puts me off most (that and the fact that I can't be arsed to read the PF RPG rulebook when I have other books unread).
If I was into Golarion as my preferred setting and Paizo released a Pathfinder compatible Campaign Guide, then I would likely take the plunge and convert to PF. However I have all the Eberron books as that is my chosen setting - and as it was written for 3.5 it is easier to run it in 3.5. And because I was sticking with 3.5 for Eberron I am picking up more 3.5 books (I bought all the Complete books off my GM who converted to PF).
I can see some of the sentiments that began with 3.0 - 3.5 conversions creeping up. Then again the system was almost entirely the same, much like here. It was the nuances that changed things.
Luckily for me, the first edition of D&D I bought into was 3.5 so I missed the 3.0 to 3.5 move :)
Anyway, the point I was making was that as well as asking for the benefits of converting to PF, the OP may be well served by identifying what the costs of converting to PF for his players are as well. I was using myself to provide examples of some of the costs that his players may have.
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I don't think Pathfinder's design intent was EVER to be something completely different. I think the design intent was more to create an update to DnD 3.5 and help fix problems that wizard's purposefully neglected, when they decided to move to 4th edition. So on that front I disagree with the point that Pathfinder should have been something different. I think its working fine as intended.
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I don't think Pathfinder's design intent was EVER to be something completely different.
I wasn't suggesting that, I was merely stating that it was my wish* that it had been more different to offer me something truly new that would make the effort of coverting worthwhile. I know not everyone shares that wish however.
*Actually, originally I was hoping PF wouldn't depart at all from 3.5, it would effectively be a direct continuation, then there wouldn't be any conversion issues and the player base wouldn't be split, we'd all be one happy 3.5 playing family. But when I saw that wasn't going to happen I hoped that PF would diverge enough to warrant my effort to re-learn a rules system, just as M&M and D&D4e are different enough that I thought it worthwhile to invest my time and money into those systems.
Oh well though, I'm sure it plays well in your games.
Did someone kick you in the balls and steal your lunch money? Or why are you being condescending to someone who cannot come over and punch you in the face?
KaeYoss has a lot of breathless 3.PF hype here, with lots of gainsaying. Be careful of it. Most of these new "features" have little impact on the game.
What are you, a lawyer?
We get it, you don't care about anything that doesn't give you another one thousand attack power. Pathfinder isn't about that sort of play. Not exclusively. Your objections that something is useless because it doesn't pander to your play style doesn't mean other people won't like them.
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ManInBlack's summary was correct - his nitpicking was a bit mean.
Pathfinder is better than 3.5. A lot of little issues with 3.5 have been fixed. No big issues have been fixed.
If your players like 3.5, they will like Pathfinder, a lot. I don't know anybody who saw the changes from 3.5 -> 3.p and thought that in the whole they were worse.
If your players are dissatisfied with 3.5, they probably won't like Pathfinder. None of the things that I consider big problems with 3.5 were addressed, because a lot of people consider them important features of the game. Shocking, I know, that what some people like, others don't.
This is perhaps the best answer to the question ?
You like 3.5 ? Yes ? All of it ? Yes ? OK, you will love PF.
You like 3.5 ? Yes ? All of it ? No ? OK, what you didn't like ? Is it a) "well I wish Listen, Spot and Search were rolled together, and my Paladin was slightly more useful" or is it b) "my Fighter sucks because the Wizard can cast amazing spells and I can't do anything as cool".
In case of a) - OK, you will love PF. In case of b) - No, you likely won't enjoy it.
You like 3.5 ? No ? Why ? Iterative attacks, fighter drools, hit points are a stupid idea ? Well ... I guess you're not looking in the right place.
Want to sell it? Firstly, I wouldn't "Just play it", they need to know what they're playing. Explain what you like about it, but also be open as well - Paizo could be the best game in the world, or the worst, but in both cases it is still going to have people that like it and hate it.
Don't just go "Wow, these changes are great! I'm going to use them" since your group might not feel the same way. On the other hand, if you explain the significant changes and what you like, it's possible they will incorporate those things, allowing your group to enjoy the best of both systems. Or, if they really like paizo, they might end up just slowly converting to the system anyway.
Half-orcs still suck, hah.
No, the humans Pathfinder wants us to think are half-orcs suck.
KaeYoss has a lot of breathless 3.PF hype here, with lots of gainsaying. Be careful of it. Most of these new "features" have little impact on the game.What are you, a lawyer?
We get it, you don't care about anything that doesn't give you another one thousand attack power. Pathfinder isn't about that sort of play. Not exclusively. Your objections that something is useless because it doesn't pander to your play style doesn't mean other people won't like them.
Pathfinder is for Roleplayers not rollplayers (yuck!), m'kay?
Half-orcs still suck, hah.No, the humans Pathfinder wants us to think are half-orcs suck.
On the contrary, I find myself rather liking the PF half-orc. And though I played them from time to time in 3e, I always considered them deficient in flavorful abilities compared to their 1e counterparts and 3e peers. Not any more.
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You like 3.5 ? Yes ? All of it ? Yes ? OK, you will love PF.
I think this needs an addedum...
You like 3.5 ? Yes
All of it ? Yes
You are willing to put in the effort to learn the PF rules? Yes
You are willing to convert 3.5 material to use in PF? Yes
OK, you will love PF.
Seriously, this is the point that I was making, if your players love 3.5 (especially if they like all of it) then you may find the biggest barrier to getting them to convert is to answer their question of "Why should we bother?"
Irrespective of the rules changes learning a new system takes effort - if they're happy with 3.5 they may have an attitude of "If it ain't broke don't fix it"
So make sure to address these concerns as well as just describing all the great changes PF makes.
You like 3.5 ? Yes ? All of it ? Yes ? OK, you will love PF.I think this needs an addedum...
You like 3.5 ? Yes
All of it ? Yes
You are willing to put in the effort to learn the PF rules? Yes
You are willing to convert 3.5 material to use in PF? Yes
OK, you will love PF.Seriously, this is the point that I was making, if your players love 3.5 (especially if they like all of it) then you may find the biggest barrier to getting them to convert is to answer their question of "Why should we bother?"
Irrespective of the rules changes learning a new system takes effort - if they're happy with 3.5 they may have an attitude of "If it ain't broke don't fix it"
So make sure to address these concerns as well as just describing all the great changes PF makes.
What is funny is my group has been playing 3.5 for 6 years and only played 3e for something like a year, and yet occassionally a rare rule change between the two will sneak up on someone. I can only imagine the effect of going to PF would have.
Another tangent:
Pathfinder is for Roleplayers not rollplayers (yuck!), m'kay?D&D3e is for rollplayers too. It's a rigorously balanced tactical wargame. While it's far from perfectly balanced, it fairly unique among role-playing in that you can tell four people to make absolutely the best characters they can by the RAW/RAI, and then you can sit down and play a game with those players. More than that, it's roughly the same game that the players who do not go to such efforts are playing.
There aren't many games like that.
That was 3e, this ... is ... PathFinder!
Totally different game philosphy. In PF, you are to make choices for totally flavor reasons, even if those choices shoot yourself in the foot. Take the spiked chain for example, it is worse than the heavy flail now and yet still costs an extra feat to use. Why? Because it is about "roleplaying" not "rollplaying". Gimping yourself for flavor reasons isn't the odd thing to do in PF, but is the standard thing. That is why people like our lovable clown go nuts when people talk about power issues, because in PF, you are suppose to go for weakness, not power. Totally different philosphy.
D&D3e is for rollplayers too. It's a rigorously balanced tactical wargame.
No, it's not.
What is funny is my group has been playing 3.5 for 6 years and only played 3e for something like a year, and yet occassionally a rare rule change between the two will sneak up on someone. I can only imagine the effect of going to PF would have.
The changes from 3.5 to PF are more significant. In 3E, a barbarian had rages per day, and the same in 3.5, but in PF the main mechanic of the barbarian is different. Skill points are different. Favoured Clases and multiclassing are differnt. Cleric domains work differently. Specialist schools work more different than the 3E to 3.5 Transition.
Actually bothering to learn the rules can be off-putting, especially when a fair portion of groups will already have their own list of fixes, which would work better since it'll suit their own personal playing style.
Totally different game philosphy. In PF, you are to make choices for totally flavor reasons, even if those choices shoot yourself in the foot.
What was to stop you doing that in 3.5?
Take the spiked chain for example, it is worse than the heavy flail now and yet still costs an extra feat to use. Why? Because it is about "roleplaying" not "rollplaying"....
And the spike chain was one of the few exotic weapons worth a feat in 3.5. Just because it got hit with a nerf doesn't make it a "roleplaying choice", it just makes it a poor "Rollplaying choice".
Are you saying that in 3.5 I couldn't have a roleplay focused character who used spike chains, but simply because I'm using PF the character has more roleplay potential? That's pretty poor reasoning. There are still weak options, and as long as options exist there are always going to be weak ones (even if you balanced out all feats for instance, skill focus (spellcraft) would still be pointless for a fighter), taking them doesn't make your character "Better for roleplay", it just makes them weaker.
Some of my most powerful characters have had abilities which I've only taken because it suited them (in fact, some of those abilities even looked really poor on paper, yet they still turned out quite powerful).
"Going for weakness" doesn't make your character more interesting. A poweful character can have as much RP potential as a poorer one.
And like it or not, PF, just like D'n'D, is very combat focused. Every class, regardless of their theme, have combat orientated abilities. The bard, for instance, a class choice for silver-tongue characters gains, at 1st level, an abilitiy to boost weapon attacks. And last I checked, the "How combat works" section happens to be quite a large portion of the book, in fact it certainly takes up more space than the description of intellegence and charisma based skills. Conveintlly again, many of the skills have listed combat uses (such as tumbling or feinting).
The changes from 3.5 to PF are more significant.
I will not argue with that, merely that there are still alot of things that are the same or similar. And so I can see people getting mixed up. Heck, I've seen people confuse house-rules that they have used with actual rules, despite being quite different. More different the entire system is the easier it is to compartmentalize the two.
What was to stop you doing that in 3.5?
Nothing for an individual player, but it wasn't really a game philosphy of 3.5. PF's game designers have said when the choice is power, balance, or flavor, that flavor wins out for them, and their design choices make that clear.
And the spike chain was one of the few exotic weapons worth a feat in 3.5. Just because it got hit with a nerf doesn't make it a "roleplaying choice", it just makes it a poor "Rollplaying choice".
Well, when you can pick up a more effective heavy flail for a lot lower cost, then it becomes a roleplaying choice only. I imagine, that people that give even a passing care to effectiveness will avoid the spiked chain and instead take the heavy flail and reflavor it as a heavy chain.
Are you saying that in 3.5 I couldn't have a roleplay focused character who used spike chains, but simply because I'm using PF the character has more roleplay potential? That's pretty poor reasoning.
Indeed it is, it is the false dilemma fallacy (or the Stormwind fallacy if you prefer). I am not saying I believe such, but some do, some who design game systems to reflect that belief.
EDIT: Back on topic, I will just restate I think the best selling point for PF, and that is you can get most of the rules for free from the PRD.
(edited, tidied up)
Umm, a fighter still might find Spellcraft useful so he knows what spells the casters are throwing around, and if the high level NPC priest really did just cast a beneficial spell on the party rogue, or sneaked on a dominate monster.
Granted a fighter with Spellcraft might not otherwise see much use of the skill though.
My point was that it's still an underpowering option, no matter how balanced the feat actually is. The more options and variable playing styles a game has, the harder it will be to acheive "perfect" balance. That's why in 4th Edition the majority of classes work with a similar system (at will powers, encounter powers, utility powers etc), only in a method were the classes are as similar as that can you really, 100% balance a game.
Granted, I'd rather play in a varible, unbalanced game than one like that, it doesn't change the fact that underpowering and overpowering options are always going to exist. If an option fits your character you should be able to take it without being called a "Rollplayer", even if the option is slightly more powerful.
The spiked chain was always a rather dumb weapon flavorwise, since nobody in the history of anything nor in any fiction I can think of has ever wielded a length of chain as a weapon the way a spiked chain is supposed to work.
The spiked chain was always a rather dumb weapon flavorwise, since nobody in the history of anything nor in any fiction I can think of has ever wielded a length of chain as a weapon the way a spiked chain is supposed to work.Rope Dart?
Yep. Also, someone has apparently never seen Kill Bill.
But that all refers to the 3.x spiked chain. The PF version is much simpler and can be seen in any number of '70s and '80s biker/street gang movie scenes, though theirs didn't have barbed wire built in.
PF removed the signature quality of those weapons in real life: the reach. As for beating someone with a length of chain, what do you think a flail is? And since when is a weapon used by bikers and angry mobs exotic?
No argument on any point, here. That's why I don't use the PF spiked chain as printed. :)
Bottom line on this subject, though: insignificant tangent. Yeah, spiked chain got nerfed way too hard and like many others I've house ruled it. There are so many excellent changes, a few flaws don't bug me. The overall verdict from my group is 100% positive, nobody feels like it was a bad purchase.
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In 3.PF, it's not brutes that you can't grapple, but instead it's things with huge natural stats like outsiders and stuff. Try doing a same-level test with demons or devils or something.For interest's sake, here are three specialized grapplers. All of them have Improved Unarmed Strike, Improved Grapple and Greater Grapple, and the fighter has Weapon Focus (grapple).
Some of the monster numbers in the analysis I did changed when the Bestiary came out. I'm putting an updated version below.
==========For interest's sake, here are three specialized grapplers. All of them have Improved Unarmed Strike, Improved Grapple and Greater Grapple, and the fighter has Weapon Focus (grapple).
Barbarian (base Str 18 at level 1)
Level 9: CMB +22 (+9 BAB, +9 Str when raging with belt of Str +4, +4 feats), +31 w/ Strength Surge
Level 10: CMB +23, +33 w/ Strength Surge
Level 11: CMB +25 (+10 Str when raging), +36 w/ Strength Surge
Level 12: CMB +27 (+11 Str when raging with belt of Str +6), +39 w/ Strength Surge
Level 13: CMB +28, +41 w/ Strength Surge
Level 14: CMB +29, +43 w/ Strength Surge
Fighter (or monk, if you prefer, with base 18 Str at level 1)
Level 9: CMB +21 (+9 BAB, +7 Str with belt of Str +4, +5 feats)
Level 10: CMB +22
Level 11: CMB +23
Level 12: CMB +25 (+8 Str with belt of Str +6)
Level 13: CMB +26
Level 14: CMB +27
Druid (with base 14 Str at level 1)
Level 9: CMB +21 (+6 BAB, +6 Str in tiger form with belt of Str +4, +4 feats, +1 size, +4 grab)
Level 10: CMB +22
Level 11: CMB +23
Level 12: CMB +27 (+8 Str in giant flytrap form, +2 size)
Level 13: CMB +27
Level 14: CMB +28
Demons/Devils
CR 9: Bone Devil (CMD 31), Vrock (CMD 27)
CR 10:
CR 11: Barbed Devil (CMD 34), Hezrou (CMD 29)
CR 12:
CR 13: Ice Devil (CMD 36), Glabrezu (CMD 34)
CR 14: Nalfeshnee (CMD 42)
Results: The hardest to grapple is the Nalfeshnee -- the fighter's CMB of +27 vs. the CMD of 42 means he has only a 30% chance of succeeding, the druid has a 35% chance, and the raging barbarian has a 40% chance (rising to 95% if he uses Strength Surge, however). The easiest to grapple is the Vrock -- the fighter and the druid have a 75% chance of succeeding and the raging barbarian has an 80% chance of succeeding.
Note that any short-term or conditional bonuses like flanking, Haste, Enlarge Person, bardsong, etc. are not included in these numbers.
Any good reason to dig this topic back from oblivion?