We tried out for 4E for about a year. The party made it into the low 20’s (23 if I recall) at which point the fighter was basically un-killable and the ranger was doing 1,000 plus points of damage a round. 4E started to wane though in the teens the party never felt threatened by the monsters, they either died so quickly or did so little damage it sort of became a race to see who steal kill blows or just to dick around in combat. 4E in theory seemed like a good idea but the game mechanics were just poorly designed, the rate player’s gain health out grows the monster’s average damage out in the teens and near catches up again.
We went back to playing 3.5 for a month or so until the retail Pathfinder core book game out and have been playing it since that point.
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We went through some odd transitions:
So during 4e coming out I was sad as I hadn't run all the APs I had wanted. I kept an open mind for 4e, however there were some naggy doubts based on the buzz on the market. Two of my friends felt it was a great game, with one buying everything that came out. He assumed we'd all just follow him and play it because he spent a lot of money.
Some of my friends weren't too excited: They enjoyed 3.5 games and didn't really feel that the marketing campaign was speaking to them specifically.
I had a chance to try it out at a random game night. I played a 5th level cleric (my favourite class) and didn't really feel like I contributed much and was mostly bored. Since I'm the DM, that killed it for our group. Both of the other 4e players grew bored or gave up on it and we kept on playing 3.5.
I then convinced my players to try Pathfinder, they were hooked in an hour and we now plan to convert Age of Worms and Savage Tide to 3.P.
For the love of the game
I like it because there is flexibility with the classes. The other game I was playing built the character for you at every level and it got boring...fast. Pathfinder offered a significant amount options in 3 books that this other game took 15 books to describe.
The detail is also fantastic.
This is my first post on these boards so HI to everybody. :)
Okay...my reasons for coming back to Pathfinder after playing 4e for a while.
First and foremost, allow me to say, I absolutely love combat in 4e. I think it has a more fun combat engine and there's always something to do, and the whole it plays like WoW, not to me. It plays like Final Fantasy Tactics and I love those kinds of games. :)
But that's about the only thing I like abotu 4e more than PF.
Art to me is about the same.
PF has just more versatility to it than me, is just a more solid game engine, and Paizo isn't bloating us to death, and Paizo is sticking with books whereas Wizards is killing D&D (IMO) by going more and more and more digital.
Two years from now, unless D&D gets sold off or gets a 5th edition that totally kicks butt...Pathfinder will be the top dog of roleplaying. :) That's my prediction, I'll stand by it, even if I am wrong.
I love me my PF. 4e is harpy droppings as far as I'm concerned.
This is my first post on these boards so HI to everybody. :)
Welcome aboard!
I never gave 4th ed a fair chance. That said, I still don't like it. Before 4th Ed was even announced though, I was becoming frustrated with 3.5 and thought that many elements could be improved. I started overhauling races, classes, various rules, etc. About the only thing I hadn't started on was spells and spell lists because it seemed like it'd be about as much fun as sticking my hand in a meat grinder.
4th Ed had come out and my brother told me that Paizo was releasing PF. I checked it out and have hated Paizo ever since for letting me waste days of my life trying to overhaul 3.5 :p. I WILL NEVER FORGIVE YOU PAIZO! When's Ultimate Magic getting released again?
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This is my first post on these boards so HI to everybody. :)
Welcome...I am fairly new here also. it is good to see the community gain a new member.
the whole it plays like WoW, not to me. It plays like Final Fantasy Tactics and I love those kinds of games. :)
I always used that comparison also. I have never played WoW but LOVED the 1st FFT game. The comparison between 4e and FFT is not disparaging, it is a compliment.
I love me my PF. 4e is harpy droppings as far as I'm concerned.
Ouch. I like 4e. I am the only supporter of it in my group. That is a big reason why I left it...and the fact the WotC is bad @ customer relations.
I started playing D&D around the time 3.5 was released, and quickly fell in love with the game to the point where I purchased all the 3.5/3.0 books my local store had available.
When I had reached the end of what they had, I had to find something else to satisfy my need for more 3.5 product. I found Dungeon magazine, and "The Whispering Cairn" had me hooked to Paizo for life.
Then, WotC decided to end Paizo's licence to publish Dungeon (and Dragon) magazine. Paizo announced they were going to make a monthly adventure magazine called Pathfinder, which I naturally bought since I had already decided that Paizo was utter quality.
It was only natural for me to continue to purchase Paizo's products after WotC stopped producing 3.5 material, while Paizo was continuing development on the system with the Pathfinder RPG.
So, that's my story of choosing Pathfinder :)
Hm, a lot of things made me switch to PF. I was a big enthusiast of 4e, and I got to play it a lot. My mind changed when I actually read PF. Then 4e stopped making sense to me.
I fail to understand how EVERY SINGLE ATTRIBUTE can influence my ATTACK rolls. I mean, having a really good wisdom does NOT make me any proficient at shooting rays at people.
I fail to see why a mage has got to be as mundane as a fighter. DAMMIT, he IS NOT! Dude, he uses magic, magic is not supposed to be something common!
All classes in 4e are essencially the same! All you change is: the name of the powers, some of it's effect (which, frankly, end up on either push, pull, negs ou ongoing.), range and targets. Otherwise, a fighter is slightly different than a paladin, so much that I would just pick the strongest one!
Weak, oh the weak fluff.
I don't like WotC's attitude. They have a bad business model, the ruthlessly cancel products and don't even give the costumers any satisfaction.
And their board's members attitude. When I come here all I see is a bunch of PF fans exchanging ideas, experiences and, overall, satisfied with Paizo. It's a pleasant sommunity, with a lot of helpful people in love with their game. Well, there all I see if people fighting, complaining about the company, etc. Also, there are a couple of ass-kissers there that I just can't stand! All WotC does is plain awesome to them!
PF designers actually post on the boards, they give a damn about the costumers and are just plain awesome.
The books are marvelous, from the art to the layout, everything has a fantasy feeling. 4e books are white with thing written in it and some horrific art (I'm looking at you, dragonborns and PHB2 Barbarian!). Although I do think PF books are more frail.
I just switched to PF, and I'll DM Rise of the Runelords this weekend. I'll try to earn as much experience as I can, but I'm already terrified about the long prep work eveyone talks about. I just hope to be able to find my way into a simpler way to prepare my games (I don't know if it'll really be a problem, because me players are really simple minded, NOT powergamers at all...)
EDIT: OH YES. Hasbro. I hate Hasbro behind it all. They cancelled the minis, for which they should die a horrible death. Thanks to that I was introduced to Games Workshop, much better products, but take a time I just don't have!
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I have experience in all version of d&d 1st thru 4e systems. I personally think that one good thing out of 4e is the action cards. this is the best thing they ever come up with in 4e system. But the rest of the 4e is really bad; D&d needs diversity badly which 4e does not have.
1st ed and 2nd ed, have the same build, but 2nd ed has to offer more than 1st. Now 1st was better cause a lot of people had better feel of role-playing and creativity in imagination versus 2nd ed.
3.0, 3.5, and then pathfinder is far more better than the 3.0 and 3.5 put together. Pathfinder has everything you need. well built system in my view point.
Why did you choose Pathfinder, huh?
- I started playing D&D for real with the 3e.
- I bought a truckload of books.
- I got downright pissed off at 4e's announcement, since I had to buy another truckload of books.
- I checked the books before buying them.
- I got mad at several changes in 4e, like:
* Removal of the gnomes as core races... for no reason whatsoever, until later.
* Removal of some classes... until later.
* The whole "once per encounter" is possibly the WORST limit I've ever heard of, because it screws you more than it helps you.
* The scaling has been screwed up beyond actual acknowledgement of any sense of progression.
* The monsters have been buffed to ridiculous levels, like a CR 13 having 250 HP... when in Pathfinder, it's around 150 HP.
- I have heard of Pathfinder which is continuing the equivalent of 3.5
- I have heard that Pathfinder books could be bought online at 3 to 4 times cheaper than the actual books.
- I picked up Pathfinder and managed to convert my campaign gradually.
- I sold my D&D books.
- Oh, and the clerk at the local game shop recently became a real jerk, so I'm not returning there.
The combat system just killed D&D (not Pathfinder) for me. I could make a party with a fighter, a cleric, a rogue and a wizard with the Pathfinder rules, pit it against a party with a fighter, a cleric, a rogue and a wizard with the 4e rules... and the Pathfinder party STEAMROLLS the 4e party.
I just don't like being limited and feeling weak without any sense of actual augmentation. A dragonborn isn't getting better with a breath weapon once per encounter that deals 1d6 points of damage only to become "stronger" at 11th level with 2d6 points of damage and again at 21st with 3d6 points of damage; it is getting stronger with a breath weapon that deals 1d6 points of damage per 2 levels that can be used once every 1d8 rounds, once every 1d6 rounds at 11th level and once every 1d4 rounds at 21st level.
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Why resurrect a 2+ year old thread? Why not start a new, more relevant one?
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- I got downright pissed off at 4e's announcement, since I had to buy another truckload of books.
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- I have heard that Pathfinder books could be bought online at 3 to 4 times cheaper than the actual books.
- I picked up Pathfinder and managed to convert my campaign gradually.
- I sold my D&D books.
This is something I have heard more than a few times and it just bewilders me. No one ever "has" to buy into a new edition, you could stick with the edition you play as long as you have people willing to play*.
But why, if you are so pissed off at the prospect of having to buy new books that you are happy to buy Pathfinder books - effectively a new set of books? Seriously, what makes one unacceptable but the other not?
*I will admit a new edition can reduce that pool of players available as others do move on. I had the very same worry about 4e myself, i.e. that it would mean very few people wanting to play 3.5. But with 4e it was so polarising that actually this didn't seem to be the case - which was great news to me.
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When 3.5 went away, we tried 4e. One of our 3 GMs at the time really liked the easy prep, but the other two GMs and the players didn't like how the customization seemed more like renaming than actually being different.
We stuck with 3.5 until I found Pathfinder and slowly convinced the group that it wasn't just a 3pp conversion, and that it was high quality and frankly better policed than most of the splat WoTC was putting out at the end of 3.5.
At this point we generally play pathfinder, with a mix of 3.5 and random experiments with things like Mutants and Masterminds, etc...
#1 4E is a neat board game, but the modules written for it are, quite frankly, terrible.
#2 Pursuant to #1, the Pathfinder APs, modules, and overall campaign setting support are superior in every way.
#3 Combat in 4E after level 7 or so becomes a brutal slog against increasingly obnoxiously designed monsters using poorly designed powers that don't scale well with level. Combat was taking an average of 2 hours per for a single crap encounter. It was terrible!
#4 Character creation was really bland and flavorless. Select a power every level. Also: the whole concept of powers is very game-y and doesn't fluff well at all
Overall, Pathfinder is a more 'mature' system which fixed many problems from 3E, and added an enormous slew of awesome campaign support, as well as tons of character options that are both interesting and flavorful.
My advice would be to find a Meetup somewhere and try both if you can.
Barring that, you can get 4E books for really cheap right now, what with 5E coming out soon and 4E being not so good, so you could actually buy couple 4E books for real cheap and try it that way. Then, all the rules for Pathfinder are online at the PRD and you can try Pathfinder that way. Then you can decide for yourself, if you stand unconvinced.
- I got downright pissed off at 4e's announcement, since I had to buy another truckload of books.
[...]
- I have heard that Pathfinder books could be bought online at 3 to 4 times cheaper than the actual books.
- I picked up Pathfinder and managed to convert my campaign gradually.
- I sold my D&D books.
This is something I have heard more than a few times and it just bewilders me. No one ever "has" to buy into a new edition, you could stick with the edition you play as long as you have people willing to play*.
But why, if you are so pissed off at the prospect of having to buy new books that you are happy to buy Pathfinder books - effectively a new set of books? Seriously, what makes one unacceptable but the other not?
*I will admit a new edition can reduce that pool of players available as others do move on. I had the very same worry about 4e myself, i.e. that it would mean very few people wanting to play 3.5. But with 4e it was so polarising that actually this didn't seem to be the case - which was great news to me.
I would still play 2E if I could find a decent group that didn't homebrew the game to hell.
As for changing...there's always a cadre of players that have to have the new thing...same personality type that needs the new phone, or the new game, or what have you, right away. Everyone else follows them to keep the community together, more or less.
Basically all the crunchy material of Pathfinder is in the SRD and with the OGL I can use all of it even if I create something that I offer for download.
And with the Compatibility License, I can even call it a Pathfinder compatible product.
And since I enjoy building and exploring worlds the most about RPGs and generally don't bother with tiny differences in the mechanics of different systems, simply going with Pathfinder is the easiest choice.
But why, if you are so pissed off at the prospect of having to buy new books that you are happy to buy Pathfinder books - effectively a new set of books? Seriously, what makes one unacceptable but the other not?
Point is that the 4e books are slightly more expensive than the 3.5 books, that Paizo at least has the decency to offer PDF files that are 10$ while physical books are 40$ and that the Pathfinder books feel like complete packages instead of incomplete ones like the 4e books.
Yes, I had to buy a whole new set of books, but 4 times cheaper than the physical books. I use my computer now to DM my games, so Paizo's method really appealed to me.
The Paizo store is accessible once you have a free account; the WotC store isn't accessible: my existing account before they made the switch got voided, so I can't access it anymore, let alone even know if there's an online store for the D&D books. Oh, and the account costs something now, while before 4e the account was free.
I've heard of people pirating the 3.5 WotC books because they became expensive, using file-sharing softwares to download PDF files made from people that literally take the time to scan the entire book.
I never pirated a single D&D book or a single Pathfinder book nor will I ever pirate a Pathfinder book. I actually take the time and money to BUY the PDF files off the Paizo store, be from paizo themselves or from 3rd-party publishers.
The 4e books feel incomplete. Why races and classes are spreaded across 3 Player's Handbooks? Why are abilities spread across 5 or even 6 books? Look, Pathfinder took all 7 core races and 11 core classes and put them in a single book. They added new classes in an optional book and "new" races in another optional book (Advanced Race's Guide made some rather unexplored races playable to the same degree as the core races).
4e removed the gnomes... for no reason whatsoever. They removed the monk... for no reason whatsoever. They got added later on... but come on, take 1 more year to polish them; it's not like D&D was screaming for a new edition, like video games are screaming for new consoles and games at certain time periods.
I like both Pathfinder and 4E, but Pathfinder has one big advantage for me -- stability. Pathfinder evolves and grows, but we very seldom see radical rewrites of the rules that drastically change how you play the game or how you would build your characters. Systems added after the core rulebook have been small enough that we could fold them in with little trouble.
4E, on the other hand, has changed direction rather frequently during the time it was out -- and the introduction of a new edition is just a more extreme example of what 4E was already doing. I would actually favor 4E over Pathfinder if 4E did not keep changing in such erratic ways.
I cut my tabletop rpg teeth on 3.5 and Pathfinder was the extension of that. Like a lot of the others are saying, each book feels more complete rather than half an idea stretched to fill an entire hardcover like the 3.5 splatflood was becoming.
4th edition to me started feeling too repetitive. That may have some cause from the fact that the only experience I had with it was the DnD encounters, but every single character and most of the tactics used by them felt the exact same. Not to mention, there was barely any need to buy all the books, the character builder updated with everything automatically. Most of the classes and options had only superficial resemblance to the 3.5 options which shared their names. The blandness of the attack/ac increase which gave the same benefit to the wizards as the fighters, and the weird saves -> defenses mechanic just rubbed me the wrong way. Then when essentials/4.5 came out and took all the cool powers away from the martial classes and reverted them to "i attack' every turn, well that just struck a sour note.
tl;dr Pathfinder is more of the stuff I am familiar/comfortable with, 4th ed turned all the classes into the same thing with slight tweaks, then took all the cool toys away from the martials.
I had a bit of burnout on 3.5 when 4E came out - and I gave it a try. But the underlying basic design to the game gave me a type of play I don't like - more narrative than immerse - and I play for total immersion. I tend to play solo games with published modules, and with it's stress on roles and balance it was very hard to play 4E solo without lots of characters - whereas I had already figured an easy way to do it under 3.5.
So I stopped playing D&D. My weekly group is a HERO only group, so that wasn't horrible. But that D&D itch hit me, and then Next was announced and I tried out the first playtest, and liked some of what I saw, but not the whole thing, and I was thinking "This could be my D&D with modifications" then it dawned on my that 3.5 was much closer. I was aware of Pathfinder, but really hadn't looked at it.
I did.
Much of the changes made to the game mirrored my own house-rules, and I love the setting. I've never wanted to play in a published fantasy world before (and the only published setting I really wanted to play was Spelljammer - not a standard fantasy world). I was hooked.
The quality of the 3PP material is really high, and the fact that pathfinder has a great community, fans and publishers was really nice. HERO had the guy the wrote the rules on the boards, answered rules questions daily, and the other people in the company interacted with the fans. I saw that here, as well.
So I stayed. :D
Note - I have been gaming since before the Players Handbook for 1st Ed D&D was released. Pathfinder is the single best iteration of the rules yet.