I was playing Dungeons and Dragons sinced Gary Gygax put out 1st Edition, and when wizards abandoned Dungeons and Dragons to put out 4th edition, witch is an entirely new game... I kept all my 3.5 things. When Paizo started publishing Rise of the Runelords and said they were going to keep publishing for 3.5 edition I was extatic. And then they said they would tweek it to make it better and people started calling it 3.75, well it was somewhat different, but backwards compatable and it was still bacically 3.5, and it was D20, and still usable with all my 3.5 things, and it was versatile and fun and I could do a whole lot with it and it was still Dungeons and Dragons and the whole Golarion thing, and the Varisia in wich they had Evil Dark Elves and Evil Goblins etc... kept very in line with the feal of what Mr. Gygax gave us in the Original. I was very happy :) I tried 4th edition, and well, was not happy with the rules, and not happy with the rules for the new Star Wars either wich is bacically the same as 4th edition. Liked the Older Version of Star Wars by WotC :)
I think this might have already been said, but whatever.... I'll post anyway.
My gaming group tried 4E for a while. We couldn't get past the homogenization of mechanics. Every class has the same tyep of mechanics. Which, depending on what you look for in a game, can be a boon or a curse. For us it was a curse. We could come up with a character concept we realy liked, but when it came to playing, we all had our handful of "power cards" and every round felt the same.
I guess it was an immersion/flavor thing ultimately for us. We love how ever class feels somewhat unique in 3E/Pathfinder. The mechanics match our style of play better in general.
Though our DM did mention every once in a while how much less effort went into encounter-building under 4E. So there is that.
I am trying to decide between 4E and pathfinder. i can only invest time and money into one game.
I just want to know why you chose Pathfinder. Not necessarily over 4E but maybe just in general, but you could include reason why you chose PFRPG instead of 4E if you like.
I am not trying to start a 4E vs PFRPG thread. I just want to here some thoughts on PFRPG.
I believe 3rd ed is a solid and robust system for DnD, and PRPG set out to improve on that system while retaining the essential nature. Furthermore, the sense of the improvements were made in the spirit of the roots of DnD, and this is important to me.
"Sometimes" I feel like 4e wasn't made to improve DnD, but to make a really playable game.
Best.
For me it was a number of reasons:
- During the run up, I felt like Wizards merely expected me to go where ever they went. Paizo asked their customers what they wanted to do and went that way.
- Wizards does 3 settings book/year and then they are done with that setting. Paizo delivers the depth of setting I want, publishing roughly a setting book a month (independent of their adventures).
- My 4E character (yes, I did play 4E for a time) felt more like a superhero with fantasy trappings than a fantasy character. My Pathfinder character feels like a character out of fantasy novel.
- My 4E game felt like a minis game with some role playing thrown in. My Pathfinder game feels like a role playing game with significant emphasis on combat, as compared to an indy RPG with significant emphasis on role playing.
- As a publisher, the 4E license is far to risky. The Pathfinder license is much more publisher friendly.
I hope this helps.
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I went with Pathfinder because:
1) Rise of the Runelords was excellent and good adventures matter more than rules.
2) I was disenchanted with the changes 4e made to some of the core ideas of D&D (Alignment, demons/devils/, etc.)
3) I fully support the concept of the OGL - it creates a more robust roleplaying community and offers greater opportunities for those who want to contribute to the game they love in a meaningful way. WotC dropping the OGL was a very, very big turn-off for me.
4) The use of the OGL and the d20 mechanics (backwards compatibility) really opens up the game to a greater variety of playstyles. 4e on the other hand seems fairly restrictive in the playstyles it supports.
5) The Paizo people are accessible and open to ideas from their fans.
For me I got back into gaming D&D after when 4E came out. We bought it and played it. It was fun enough but my players preferred 3E. Since I was lacking 3E books Pathfinder just seemed like the perfect fit. So I have the core books for 4E and haven't touched them since the PF core book came out. Might give 4E a another shot some time as it wasn't a bad game just not the game we wanted at the time.
I believe 3rd ed is a solid and robust system for DnD, and PRPG set out to improve on that system while retaining the essential nature. Furthermore, the sense of the improvements were made in the spirit of the roots of DnD, and this is important to me."Sometimes" I feel like 4e wasn't made to improve DnD, but to make a really playable game.
I have to say that this statement captures a lot of what I feel about the two games as well.
Plus the Paizo designers just seem to really understand me and what I want as a gamer. Maybe it's something about midwestern gamer upbringing of a bunch of them had (like me), maybe it's that we're not that different in age, I dunno. It's like we operate on many of the same wavelengths.
Hi Triga,
The good thing with PF is that you can give it a try for FREE. Take a look at the SRD, grab a pdf copy of one of the free adventures and start playing !
Talking of my own reasons, I was an avid Dungeon (paper-version) reader and loved what Paizo did with it. I'm an old-timer with 27 years of D&D behind me and I confess that these Paizo-years were the golden years of D&D to me. I ran Shackled City during four years, I'm still in the middle of PF-upgraded Forgotten Realms version of Savage Tide, and we're having a blast. That leads me to another PF huge advantage over 4E: backwards compatibility. I'm still using my 3.x FR books with almost no conversion work.
Then all the great authors : James Jacobs, Nicolas Logue, Richard Pett, Jason Buhlman, I won't name them all. I'm not playing Golarion (yet) but I'm an Adventure Path subscriber since #1 and it is a great resource for any DM. Even if you don't like the campaign there's always something to cannibalize from: NPCs, places, encounters ideas, maps.
As a customer, I feel respected. I love the open playtests, the fact that your constructive critics will be read and heard. I'm part of PF even if I don't always have time to participate but that's the feeling I have.
I have nothing to say about 4E as I only read the rules but actually never played them. But knowing that a PHB III exists doesn't really encourage me to give it a try.
Bran.
Unfortunately, like many I am a busy person, but ironically for me this means published scenarios like the AP are not for me - it would take me much longer to read an AP than it would to write my own stuff,
This particular point puzzles me -- I'd agree that you can do that with 4E, but 3.5? The extreme time it takes to craft 3.5E encounters (and the practical inability to do so on the fly) is a major reason I don't think I'd DM 3.5 from anything but pre-written material ever again.
(And I like 3.5, but that's one of it's biggest flaws IMHO.)
Wow...where to begin.
OK, I see 4E as the gaming equivalent of the Dawn of the Dead "reimagining" that occurred a few years back. The "new" DotD was a really good movie, but it WASN'T Dawn of the Dead. It was a kick-butt zombie movie that failed to really include all of the touches characteristic of the original. Again, a good movie, but the title is wrong.
D&D 4E is a very good game. In fact, as a miniatures game, it rocks. But. It is NOT D&D, in my opinion. It lacks many of the things that I feel make a game worthy of the brand "Dungeons and Dragons". Regrettably, if you want to keep up with what's supposed to be the latest edition of D&D, thereby keeping your Gaming Geek cred current, you have to go to 4E.
No thanks. If that's what it takes, then go ahead and take away my Gaming Geek cred.
I have a TON of 3.0/3.5 books. Some have barely been cracked open. A co-worker showed me Pathfinder (after his own flirtation with 4E), and I have to say I loved what I saw. It's like someone took 3.5, and, armed with common sense and a blue pencil, made a series of very wise changes to the D&D system and gave it new life. To me Pathfinder is more D&D than D&D 4E is.
So, my going to PF is a result of:
- Severe disappointment with 4E
- Backwards compatibility with 3.5 (hooray, Duskblade and Warlock!)
- Good support of the product line
- Open gaming content of extremely good quality (those last 3 words are important)
Oh, and one last thing. The final nail in my "No 4E for me" coffin was reading up on how the Forgotten Realms, my all-time favorite fantasy setting, was, in my opinion, positively vandalized. In the immortal words of Mister Horse: "No sir, I don't like it". Taking up Pathfinder inspired me to look through my old gaming boxes, dig up my very first home-grown campaign setting (from the mists of 1979), revamp it, convert it to Pathfinder, and spring it on my group. Good stuff.
Because everyone I know was playing it.
This particular point puzzles me -- I'd agree that you can do that with 4E, but 3.5? The extreme time it takes to craft 3.5E encounters (and the practical inability to do so on the fly) is a major reason I don't think I'd DM 3.5 from anything but pre-written material ever again.
I can DM 3.5 on the fly. I don't spend more than 90 minutes prep time a week for my campaign. Consequently, I've never understood how/why it takes others so much more time. Regardless, prep-time is less a system issue and much more a playstyle issue.
I can DM 3.5 on the fly. I don't spend more than 90 minutes prep time a week for my campaign. Consequently, I've never understood how/why it takes others so much more time. Regardless, prep-time is less a system issue and much more a playstyle issue.
Do you ever use NPCs with any kind of class levels?
The only way I could ever see to make that work is that every encounter comes straight out of the Monster Manual untweaked, which wouldn't challenge the people I play with unless I just decided to throw CR = 2x APL or something all the time.
Do you ever use NPCs with any kind of class levels?
Almost every session. For example, a couple of sessions ago, my players went up against a devil-bound mite cleric 4 and a mite ranger 4. It couldn't have taken me more than a half hour to do both stat blocks.
Everything I have to say has been said in one way or another but here goes:
I have been playing for 22 years and 3.0-3.5 were the best versions pre-PF. I bought thousands of dollars worth of product.
With 4E, that huge investment would be obsolete and they were taking away two things that I loved about the game (Dragon and Dungeon magazine) and changing them into something else. My first love was Greyhawk, and these magazines treated it well.
THe new system was just too different and too watered down for me. As others have said, it was too much like a video game.
I also didn't like the FR being revamped ( again, due to the investiture of dozens of books).
PF game mechanics were familiar enough to learn quickly and streamlined enough to improves aspects of play.
I visit the website daily and buy 1000s of dollars worth of product from them and their 3rd party publishers each year.
As long as things continue the way they are, they will have me as a loyal supporter.
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This particular point puzzles me -- I'd agree that you can do that with 4E, but 3.5? The extreme time it takes to craft 3.5E encounters (and the practical inability to do so on the fly) is a major reason I don't think I'd DM 3.5 from anything but pre-written material ever again.
Well, I must admit I haven't done a whole campaign for 3.5, just written a trilogy of Eberron scenarios that I run at conventions. But even so, I am a slow reader and so to read a 96 page AP book it would take me quite a while and in that time I feel I could probably stat up some 3.5 encounters.
I have a spreadsheet with an index of NPCs from a lot of WotC 3.5 books (someone else put the list together, I just put it in a spreadsheet to filter on the books I own) so that would help avoid haveing to stat up every NPC from scratch.
E.g. need a guard?
Watch Guards (human, warrior 2, LN, Eberron Campaign Setting p310)
Elite Guard (half-orc, warrior 2, LE, Sharn: City of Towers p143)
Air Skiff Guards (human warrior 4, N Grasp of the Emerald Claw p15)
City Guard (human warrior 3, N Races of Destiny p180)
etc
I may eat my words when I try to run a 3.5 campaign on a weekly basis, but at least for 4e I am managing it :)
I am trying to decide between 4E and pathfinder. i can only invest time and money into one game.
I just want to know why you chose Pathfinder. Not necessarily over 4E but maybe just in general, but you could include reason why you chose PFRPG instead of 4E if you like.
I am not trying to start a 4E vs PFRPG thread. I just want to here some thoughts on PFRPG.
For me it was the art direction. I liked the look of pathfinder, the parchment paper, the illustration, the layout, much better than 4E. 4E has got some good stuff going for it (the end of the 15 minute adventuring day, for example), but IMHO its just not quite as pretty.
For me it was a number of reasons:
[list]
During the run up, I felt like Wizards merely expected me to go where ever they went. Paizo asked their customers what they wanted to do and went that way.
Wizards does 3 settings book/year and then they are done with that setting. Paizo delivers the depth of setting I want, publishing roughly a setting book a month (independent of their adventures).
As a publisher, the 4E license is far to risky. The Pathfinder license is much more publisher friendly.
Dale said it more eloquently than I. The difference in attitude between Paizo and Wizards was a big factor for me. Although I am not a publisher, philosophically I liked the OGL much better than Wizards new straight jacket.
Also, sheer inertia. PF didn't require scrapping accumulated materials and learning a wholly new rule set.
Lots of reasons:
1. It was less of a departure from classic D&D than 4E
2. I really like the creative team at Paizo, which includes some of the best designers/authors in the biz
3. I also love their customer service attitude, including their willingness to get involved on these boards
4. I hated the fact WoTC/Hasbro killed Dungeon and Dragon magazines
5. I loved the 3.0/3.5 OGL, which I think strengthened and grew the hobby, and hated the fact WoTC/Hasbro walked away from it
6. As an outgrowth of 3.5, it required less work to learn
7. I loved the adventure paths Paizo put out for 3.5, and was confident they would do the same strong job for PF
8. I liked their stated intention to put out less splat books (which in my opinion are less play-tested and more likely to cause game balance problems)
9. Finally, my group of grognards absolutely refused to have anything to do with 4E based on what they read about it in pre-release publicity, but they thought PF sounded interesting. Probably related to reason 1
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See, I'm one of those people who didn't really enjoy 4E, but had planned to stick with 3.5
What changed my and my players minds were:
1. The Adventure paths went that way, which got us into the system, and learning about the changes. When I ran the intro adventure, my players were so amazed they HAD to convince others to play it.
2. 3.5 was and still is fun, but 3.p fixed a lot of things my group had issues with. Our games actually run faster, and some classes we felt weren't fun (fighter) or dumb (bard) were revitalized.
3. The revisions got rid of the mentality that you needed a PrC or some "cool" race. There is 1 person in my Curse of the Crimson throne game with a PrC or something cooky, where as the other 4 are pure base classes. There are no "odd" player races. Compare that to my Rise game (2 players were pure base classes, but one was a lizardfolk and the other a tibbit).
4. The APG is one of the greatest books. Ever.
Pathfinder is published by Paizo, Paizo's CEO is a gamer...
4e is published by a publicly held company, I can see the effect of micromanagement...
Those were my choices, I also was turned off that Wizards lied at GenCon about 4e saying they wouldn't be working on it until 2009...then they rushed out a bunch of 3.5 books before the release of 4e.
I helped Beta test Pathfinder...it's part mine
YMMV.
EDIT: As per my reivew of the APG, I agree with Modera, it is one of the best books published for gaming, ever.
Actually I think it's a very much return to basic D+D where you were one class and that's what you stayed at. But yes it's definitely a departure from D+D if you defined D+D as 3.x., But I don't consider 3.x "Classic".Lots of reasons:
1. It was less of a departure from classic D&D than 4E
Nope, by Classic I meant all the way back to 1st edition. I have to caveat by saying that I don't own 4E and haven't read the rules. My judgment is based solely on what I read on WoTC's website (pre-release, I haven't been back there in a long time) and the observations of others who have played it. Both what I read and what I have heard from other people led me to believe 4E was a far greater digression from the old game than PF. I could be wrong, though. It's just an impression. Nonetheless, that impression led me to try PF, instead, which is what this thread asked.
Almost every session. For example, a couple of sessions ago, my players went up against a devil-bound mite cleric 4 and a mite ranger 4. It couldn't have taken me more than a half hour to do both stat blocks.
I'm glad it works for you, even if it never did for me. However, I'll point out:
1) You're talking about two level 4 characters; it gets worse as you get higher level. 15th level cloud giant sorcerer? Uggh.
2) Even half an hour is too much time to dedicate at the table -- you really need to have those stat blocks prepared ahead of time, which led me to
3) The sheer time investment of custom stat blocks encouraged me to railroad my players more than I liked. If I buy a module, it really doesn't bother me if my players end up inadvertantly beelining through a dungeon to the BBEG and miss 2/3 of the encounters in the dungeon. An encounter I'd put even half an hour of my own time into, though? I'm sure going to try like the dickens to make you run into that level 4 jackalwere ranger one way or another.
I realize to some degree that last is a personal failing and not an inherent flaw of the system, but, there it is.
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I went with Pathfinder because:
1) Rise of the Runelords was excellent and good adventures matter more than rules.
2) I was disenchanted with the changes 4e made to some of the core ideas of D&D (Alignment, demons/devils/, etc.)
3) I fully support the concept of the OGL - it creates a more robust roleplaying community and offers greater opportunities for those who want to contribute to the game they love in a meaningful way. WotC dropping the OGL was a very, very big turn-off for me.
4) The use of the OGL and the d20 mechanics (backwards compatibility) really opens up the game to a greater variety of playstyles. 4e on the other hand seems fairly restrictive in the playstyles it supports.
5) The Paizo people are accessible and open to ideas from their fans.
+1 it's good when people say your thoughts and you don't have to formulate them.
Almost every session. For example, a couple of sessions ago, my players went up against a devil-bound mite cleric 4 and a mite ranger 4. It couldn't have taken me more than a half hour to do both stat blocks.
I'm glad it works for you, even if it never did for me. However, I'll point out:
1) You're talking about two level 4 characters; it gets worse as you get higher level. 15th level cloud giant sorcerer? Uggh.
2) Even half an hour is too much time to dedicate at the table -- you really need to have those stat blocks prepared ahead of time, which led me to
3) The sheer time investment of custom stat blocks encouraged me to railroad my players more than I liked. If I buy a module, it really doesn't bother me if my players end up inadvertantly beelining through a dungeon to the BBEG and miss 2/3 of the encounters in the dungeon. An encounter I'd put even half an hour of my own time into, though? I'm sure going to try like the dickens to make you run into that level 4 jackalwere ranger one way or another.
I realize to some degree that last is a personal failing and not an inherent flaw of the system, but, there it is.
The Gamemastery Guide acknowledges that problem and recommends you save and recycle all the encounters your characters beelined past. Maybe they didn't encounter that jackalwere ranger this week, but much like Schrodinger's Cat, that means he may never have even existed.
So save the stats and he can pop up in another session or two. Custom making NPCs is never time wasted.
Another trick, that I especially like, relies on the fact that your PCs don't ever get to see the statblocks of your villains. Take a baddy you've already used and recycle him, refluffing and replacing a thing or two to make him feel fresh. The stats are running in the background; you can recycle a bit so long as you make the cosmetic and mechanical tweaks you choose matter.
1) You're talking about two level 4 characters; it gets worse as you get higher level. 15th level cloud giant sorcerer? Uggh.
Wouldn't take me too long, but, yes, higher level play does take more work. That's true of any game with levels.
2) Even half an hour is too much time to dedicate at the table -- you really need to have those stat blocks prepared ahead of time, which led me to
I've misled you. That's not a half-hour at the table. That's a half-hour or so prep work before the game. Custom stat blocks eat up the larger portion of the 90 or so minutes of prep time I do a week.
3) The sheer time investment of custom stat blocks encouraged me to railroad my players more than I liked. ...
I realize to some degree that last is a personal failing and not an inherent flaw of the system, but, there it is.
To the maximum degree, that's a personal foible. :)
IME, many of the problems people had with 3.5 relate more to playstyle than anything else. Prep-time is largely a playstyle issue. I prefer to not spend a lot of time on prep, so I don't. (Although there have been times I have.) The so-called 15-Minute Adventuring Day is also, IME, mostly a playstyle issue related to DMs giving players too much leeway to set the pacing.
Of course, I've also eliminated a lot of 3.5-esque problems by eliminating high-level play. I don't like high-level play, either as a DM or a player, at least using the d20 System.
Of course, YMMV, and that's okay. :)
I've misled you. That's not a half-hour at the table. That's a half-hour or so prep work before the game. Custom stat blocks eat up the larger portion of the 90 or so minutes of prep time I do a week.
Well, right. I'm saying that the system doesn't really allow putting together an encounter like that on the fly -- you have to plan ahead for it.
In a sense it's a huge strength of 3.X that you even could make a half-clay-golem troll barbarian/ranger/fighter/occult slayer, but at some point with the kind of players I had, stuff like that became mandatory if we wanted to push them at all.
To the maximum degree, that's a personal foible. :)
Well, I don't know if not wanting to waste a stat block you spent two hours working up is exactly what I'd call a personal foible, but, fair enough.
Recycling unused stat blocks was an idea that, in practice, never worked out all that great for me, even if sometimes I did manage it -- too often by the time I had a chance to get a "missed" NPC back it, it wouldn't fit the theme of what was going on, or the party would have levelled past it being an interesting fight, or (and this, too, is more of a 3.5 with its plethora of splat problem) if I tried to keep it for the next campaign, enough new stuff would have come out that I'd feel the need to rebuild it to keep up with the arms' race.
IME, many of the problems people had with 3.5 relate more to playstyle than anything else. Prep-time is largely a playstyle issue. I prefer to not spend a lot of time on prep, so I don't.
That, too, is fair; for me to run the kind of 3.5 campaign I aspired to run, I had to put in a lot of prep time. On average, I'd spend 2 hours on prep for every 1 hour of playtime. That was my choice and while I've come to think of it as universal, it didn't have to be.
And, to be fair, it turned out great, and my players still talk about the campaigns I did that way, but it gets harder and harder to find that kind of time. At this stage in my life, I'm really enjoying the idea of the Adventure Paths and knowing there are more great options for games than I'll ever find time to run, and that for each I can spend as much or as little time restatting things or adding custom bits as I have available that week.
It's a great option to have and it's a big selling point of PF for me; for people who don't want or need that crutch at this stage of their gaming life, I think that's great, too.
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Aaaaand I'm royally fine with this! What I'm not so fine with is double standards. And while I agree that Pathfinder art could look "cartoony" (because it's really, really different from gritty realism, or realism at all) and I agree that everyone has different tastes in different things (I love diversity, really!) calling Pathfinder art "cartoony" and then claiming that 4E art is any way different in style... Well, that is the type of argument I find biased.
I think the difference is not so much in style but in quality. The only artworks I like from 4E are, guess what, Reynold's.
I apologise if you feel I have double standards, I just expressed how I felt about the artwork of the two game lines.
For me, 4e wins out here. Whilst it has some Wayne Reynolds art, it also has a lot of other stuff which just evokes more atmosphere for me. The PF art (Reynolds mainly) I have seen seems too comic book like for me.
PF art seems to me to be synonymous with Wayne Reynolds (as I indicated in my quote) and I guess although some of it can be cool, I don't like it as much as the art I see in 4e (obviously not refering to the 4e art he also does). Reynolds art for me reminds me of manga, big eyes small mouth, which for me is "cartoon" or "comic book" like.
There is probably a fair bit of PF I like, but when I think PF I think Reynolds.
4e on the other hand doesn't seem overly associated with any one artist and as such, despite Reynolds doing some covers, I don't think it comic book like. The art I like are the chapter opening pics, some evoke a mystery of exploration, others a dark vibe (reminding me of 40k).
I didn't pretend that 4e had no comic book like art, I just don't think of that type of art when I think 4e - I do with PF. And I do claim that 4e art is different in style. That is my opinion, sorry if that offends :)
I happened to stumble upon Rise of the Runelords two years ago. I was instantly won over by Burnt Offerings, but the Skinsaw Murders sealed the deal for me. Since then I had kept tabs on Paizo and their going ons. I had then learned they were coming out with PFRPG, and being very roleplay starved from 4E, I kept pushing for our group to try it. After about six months of not playing any kind of RPG, we decided to give it a go with Legacy of Fire. We haven't looked back since.
I chose Pathfinder for the following reasons. I became aware that WoTC was making the change to 4th ed. Someone told me that Star Wars Saga Edition was a preview of what 4th ed was going to be like. So, I checked it out and it didn't seem that much different than 3.5 which made me excited about 4th ed. Then 4th came out and I was like, "What the #&^%?" But I was willing to give it a try because I liked 3.x so I decided to give it a go. At the time, I was running a different game system and somebody else was going to run a game after that. When the FR setting came I out I was about done with it as I didn't like the fluff changes to the setting to make it fit the new system. That made me think they no longer cared about the setting and were more concerned with making the settings fit the rules than the other way around. The thing that pushed me over the edge in terms of being anti-4th ed was the power cards. I use miniatures during my games as it makes combat easier to manage (I invested heavily into DnD Miniatures) so I was ok with that. But now they were adding a card game to the mix, or it was how it felt. If I wanted to play a card game I would play one. Also, I agree with others that the game was too similar to World of Warcraft and I usually used DnD to get away from World of Warcraft.
Then someone told me about Pathfinder. I went out and bought the playtest, which I didn't realize at the time was free on the internets. As many people have said, Pathfinder looked like the game I had grown to love and they made significant changes involving things that kind of irritated me about 3.5, like dead levels, etc. I have recently started a game which goes off of a long running FR game I've been running for years. I then noticed the APs and after I read one I am in favor of using them over coming up with my own stuff as I do not have the time to come up with stuff like I used to.
And the backwards compatibility is nice too. Some people might disagree with that but its not like I have to completely recreate a NPC from the get-go.
I have no problems with 4th ed, it's just not the game for me.
I like other peoples' loot a lot. Also, The court battles after my numerous sword killings got very costly. So my lawyer introduced me to Pathfinder, or as I like to call it, "pretend evisceration"...
No but seriously, I have been playing since 2nd edition and loved the customization of 3.5. I hated how they came out with too many prestige classes, feats, and magic items. After trying 4th and becoming angered when in numerous combats I was unable to even hit one time as a melee combatant, I decided to try Pathfinder. Love it thus far!
Matt
Actually I think it's a very much return to basic D+D where you were one class and that's what you stayed at. But yes it's definitely a departure from D+D if you defined D+D as 3.x., But I don't consider 3.x "Classic".Lots of reasons:
1. It was less of a departure from classic D&D than 4E
If you sit down and do things like direct comparison of spell descriptions, class lists, races, monster descriptions, etc, it's incredibly obvious that Pathfinder is an evolution of 3.x which was an evolution of AD&D 2nd which was an evolution of AD&D 1st which was an evolution of OD&D. Pathfinder is not the same game as was published in the three little booklets, but it is part of a continuous tradition from them.
It is simultaneously obvious, as of at least the initial 4e release, that it was a completely different game. The race list was different, the class list was different, spells were radically changed, monsters transformed . . . 4e was a game inspired by classic D&D, not a direct evolution of it.
Adventure support
Unfortunately, like many I am a busy person, but ironically for me this means published scenarios like the AP are not for me - it would take me much longer to read an AP than it would to write my own stuff, so I would prefer to spend the time reading material I will use again and again.
You can write 90 pages of RPG content faster than you can read 90 pages of RPG content?
I find this very difficult to believe.
I am trying to decide between 4E and pathfinder.
When I heard about 4th edition I was bummed because I had just finished purchasing the core rulebooks a year previous. I then got excited in a similar way to how I get when wizards releases spoilers for Magic cards.
I scoured the internets for any scrap of information from the new edition (All under the assumption that the rules were similar to 3.5.)When It finally came out I was unable to buy a copy of the players handbook but I did play a session with friends at a local game store. The entire session was combat-combat-combat.
At collage I played in a campaign. Once again most session were basically combat-combat-combat. The little roleplaying that there was was only there as a stepping stone to the next combat.
My conclusion was that the 4th edition rules rewarded players for choosing in combat ability's. Because players can't do anything "fun" out of combat they rush to the next encounter. This seems like playing a Wargame but with a story line thrown in.
This left me with an empty place in my soul. I secretly wanted a new edition of D&D but I wasn't satisfied with 4th edition. All hope was lost and I continued to pursue 3.5 edition.
One day I was talking to a friend who was starting his first session as DM and I asked him what what version he was using. He said Pathfinder.
Now I am very suspicious of anything published by any company that isn't Wizards. Most of the time the new classes, races and ability's are not balanced (IMO.)
After I did some research and found out that pathfinder was being made by the same company that published the Dungeon and Dragon Magazines and read about all the play testing done on it... I ... well I did something crazy and i bought the core rulebook.
The only complaint that I've had is that they removed the lovely complicated experience system I knew and loved. Luckily for me (and my lower leveled players) there doesn't seem to be any problem using the old system.
+1 it's good when people say your thoughts and you don't have to formulate them.I went with Pathfinder because:
1) Rise of the Runelords was excellent and good adventures matter more than rules.
2) I was disenchanted with the changes 4e made to some of the core ideas of D&D (Alignment, demons/devils/, etc.)
3) I fully support the concept of the OGL - it creates a more robust roleplaying community and offers greater opportunities for those who want to contribute to the game they love in a meaningful way. WotC dropping the OGL was a very, very big turn-off for me.
4) The use of the OGL and the d20 mechanics (backwards compatibility) really opens up the game to a greater variety of playstyles. 4e on the other hand seems fairly restrictive in the playstyles it supports.
5) The Paizo people are accessible and open to ideas from their fans.
+2 Yes-
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You can write 90 pages of RPG content faster than you can read 90 pages of RPG content?
I find this very difficult to believe.
So would I! :) I don't write 90 pages of content for a campaign, my current 4e Eberron campaign notes are a grand total of 5 pages, and that should cover about 20 sessions of gaming.
The notes start off as a framework, and before each session I may flesh out things a bit more (NPC names etc) and after a session note down anything of note that happened that I feel may be important later. The framework started out as 3 pages, so after 8 sessions I have added another couple of pages.
NPC stats so far have been taken from the MM (apart from my first NPC I created for tonights session). I have the MM PDF so I just copy the stat blocks into a word document and print them off. Leveling an NPC up or down is easy in 4e so I just overwrite the printed numbers.
So in all, I feel I can create my own campaigns easier than reading and prepping a published campaign. The other good thing about creating my own campaign is I can write it around the characters - we collaboratively create the campaign concept, then come character concepts and then I write the campaign around them. I can also use monsters and locations for which I have the miniatures and dungeon tiles :)
Having said all that I do still want to have another crack at running the Freeport Trilogy for 3.5 - I have read it already and it is just so good :) I started running it as a monthly game but after about 5 sessions it fizzled out (scheduling issues).
Why Pathfinder?
Paizo.
A company run by fans of the game, for fans of the game.
A company that doesn't just sell product to customers, it creates cool stuff through dialogue.
A company that gets where the game came from and honors its tradition.
It's why I'm a charter superscriber.
In a nutshell: magic.
In 3.5 and Pathfinder, magic is varied, powerful, and very obvious. You have spells like invisibility that have durations more than a few rounds. You have spells like dominate person which last days. Spells that change your appearance, spells that create walls of stone/ice/fire/force, spells that heat armor, spells that create illusions.
In 4e you basically have a flat, balanced system where every ability is quantified. That necessitated removing the flashy, tricky spells. Now every class has abilities that are basically identical (if themed). It's not horrible, it's just not as varied and fantastic. Almost everything has become a variant of "you deal damage, you impose a condition and you slide the target X squares".
I'm not claiming one is better. I'm just answering why we prefer PF.
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In a nutshell: magic.
In 3.5 and Pathfinder, magic is varied, powerful, and very obvious. You have spells like invisibility that have durations more than a few rounds.
Yes, this is one of my big issues with 4e, powers are built assuming use in Combat and so durations are measured in rounds, it makes those powers less useful outside of combat (e.g. Save Ends for Sleep spell).
I really wish they had used the Sustained option more, for example sustaining a Sleep spell as a Standard action. Even mix and match, so once you stop sustaining it the effects continue until Save Ends (sort of like M&M's Concentration (Lasting) duration).
Even stuff designed for combat use have been severely nerfed, for example Keen Oil in 3.5 lasts 10 minutes per level like the spell, but in 4e it only lasts until the end of your next turn, so at most you can et 3 uses out of it (and that requires an Action point to get an exta Standard action for attacking).
This is one of the things that makes 4e an okay game rather than a great game.
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3.x was my favorite edition of D&D and when 4e first came out my group and I just didn't like the feel of the game. So when PF was announced the playtest began we got on board. It kept everything we liked about 3.x and fixed most of the problems we had, so we stuck with it. There are still a few issues but over all we have no regrets.