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I don't think the scenarios seem overly harsh to require a cleric.
[...]
Paizocon UK 2010 (Season 1 PF rules) didn't appear to require clerics either.
This is good news! So it does seem like some of my worries may be unfounded.
For Paizocon UK 2009 (Season 0 3.5 rules), it wasn't until my third game that we had any kind of healer, yet we all survived (barely, being dropped to -9hp in the first slot).
Were you at that Con? If so, which one were you?
I was there, though only for the Saturday morning and afternoon games. I played Grelow Harnson, Half Orc Druid with his dog Barrow :)
"Spending the time" in this regard equals applying the advanced simple template from the Bestiary on the fly: an extra +2 to all rolls and +2 hp/HD.
This sounds excellent and very similar to D&D4e for levelling monsters (which is one thing I love about 4e). Thanks!
After 4E was released (and I played that for a while with one group) and 3.5 was no longer supported/realms were nuked etc, my friday group started trying to find a new system to play.
I am curious, what made you want to look for another system when presumably you could have just continued playing with the 3.5 material and setting you had? Were you burned out on 3.5 and the announcement of 4e was just the trigger for making you abandon it? Or is the fact that a system is currently supported a massive issue to you?
I don't like the fact that you can no longer choose how much of these to use. I also get the impression that Power Attack may be too powerful now for my liking with a two handed weapon you take a -4 to get a +12 damage! That is 50% more than what you would get in 3.5. Perhaps Power attack was under powered in 3.5?
FWIW, in my opinion PF's version of Power Attack is actually dramatically weaker than 3.5's. You get a better ratio of -hit to +dam, but most of the power melee builds I saw in play in 3.5 were set up to Power Attack for a lot more -hit than PF's Power Attack makes possible. I played a character in Living Greyhawk for a while that PA'd for his full base attack with literally every attack he ever took -- he accrued bonuses to hit from other sources fast enough to keep up with enemy ACs.
I haven't decided if I like PF's take on Power Attack yet, but one of the upsides is that a wider variety of fighterish builds seems playable. In 3.5, if player treasure in your campaign is remotely close to wealth-by-level guidelines, two-hand-weapon power-attacking dude was the only really viable choice, because 3.5 Power Attack gave it the option of giving up on bypassing an enemy's DR and just punching through with brute force, which in turn freed up a lot of character wealth for shoring up the character in many other respects.
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FWIW, in my opinion PF's version of Power Attack is actually dramatically weaker than 3.5's.
Interesting, so you believe the limitation of only being able to ever take -6 attack for +18 damage (and then at level 20 with a one or two handed weapon used in two hands) makes it weaker despite the higher damage? I.e. you could get a +18 damage at only level 9 in 3.5 using a weapon in two hands (albeit at the expense of -9 to attack).
two-hand-weapon power-attacking dude was the only really viable choice,
I wouldn't necessarily consider that the only "viable" choice, just one that is best for optimisation, but I guess yes, in context of my original concern that was about balance and being overpowered it would be the a valid comment.
Thanks for your input!
I wouldn't necessarily consider that the only "viable" choice, just one that is best for optimisation, but I guess yes, in context of my original concern that was about balance and being overpowered it would be the a valid comment.
Well, let me qualify that, and to be fair, a big chunk of my 3.5 years were spent playing Living Greyhawk or other organized games, which have a different dynamic than most home games. In this respect specifically, players can expect to fight a wide variety of high DR monsters early.
What happened as a result was that, often, two-weapon builds (for example) would find themselves fighting enemies that they just could not hurt, either literally or practically (e.g., if your 10th level fighter full attacks the huge earth elemental and ends up doing 6
damage total, I'd say you're pretty much useless, since pouring out melee damage is the one thing you're supposed to be good at and in this case, you're not.)
To me, for a character to be viable, he doesn't have to be optimized, but he does have to be able to contribute roughly on the level of the rest of the party.
I guess I am looking for advice, experience and help to reassure me that PF RPG is a game that is worth pursuing and doing so won't make me feel I have wasted my time and money on 3.5, and indeed it would be a worthwhile addition to pursue alongside 3.5.
Can't help. I much prefer 3.5.
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Most of my friends who have been in similar situations. Basically Grayhawk is the world they grew up with, and there is a thought that power creeping occurs in PF.
The first is tough. Grayhawk was a good world, and while they had them the regional modules were interesting and driven. It made travel a lot of fun; just because module dynamics changed so mich from region to region.
To this my only answer is that Golarian is a great world as well, and if you give it a chance it will grow on you very fast. Factions add a new dynamic to a living campaign. Always keep Grayhawk godly in your memories, but Gygax is no longer with us, and the DND folk have no desire to help you support it anymore. I see it as a fond old memory now, but it's not as hard to move on as you may think.
To the second, I'd tell you this is true... For melée classes, and only if you ignored 3.5 splat books. The characters eventually got out-of-hand in 3.5 (and I've heard now in 4.0) because of those books; for the most part, Paizo did a fantastic job of making certain the APG offered cool alternatives without overwhelming the core book.
Most of the rest is good; the combat maneuvers are truly more simple (to the very end we argued the grapple holes) and while straight casters are still the best, there is much less of a gap. Characters are usually one class, rather than weird "cherry picked" prestige hybreeds; they may have gone too far, but I do prefer this to the way they were. And the average PFS module is far better written, IMHO, than the average LGR module (notable exceptions like Shades of Gray do exist).
So join our fun community, once you embrace it with an open heart you'll find it really does correct all of the nuiances of 3.5 quite nicely :).