I've played lots of 3.5, but for the past few years I've been running 4E games. I haven't tried Pathfinder yet. We're starting a new campaign and we've decided to take a break from 4E. I've been trying to decide whether to use Pathfinder or True20. I like a lot of the flavour and such in Pathfinder, but I'm a bit hesitant to use the system because on the surface it looks like it would have all the same balance issues that 3.5 had (primarily- magic dominating the game at higher levels and melee characters having few combat options beyond "full attack, again"). For those of you who have played the game past level 9 or so, is this the case or have they managed to make some changes to alleviate that trend?
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It still happens, however the martial classes have a place at higher level now. Also a good amount of the rules and mechanics have been fixed. Why did you use 4e if you were worried about balance btw? It's just as broken as 3.5/pathfinder. The game had players that could nova thousands of damage a couple of times a day, an infinite attack combo, weak spell casters, and unified formats for all classes.
I've played lots of 3.5, but for the past few years I've been running 4E games. I haven't tried Pathfinder yet. We're starting a new campaign and we've decided to take a break from 4E. I've been trying to decide whether to use Pathfinder or True20. I like a lot of the flavour and such in Pathfinder, but I'm a bit hesitant to use the system because on the surface it looks like it would have all the same balance issues that 3.5 had (primarily- magic dominating the game at higher levels and melee characters having few combat options beyond "full attack, again"). For those of you who have played the game past level 9 or so, is this the case or have they managed to make some changes to alleviate that trend?
If you had problems with balance in 3.5, you're still going to have them in Pathfinder. While some small things were done here and there, it's still, for the most part, the same as it was before.
Pathfinder is a good system, and is an improvement on 3.5, but it's probably not going to be your cup of tea, from the sounds of things.
Although, what you might consider doing is using it as the basis for an E6 campaign. That's something your group might have a lot of fun with.
Pathfinder fixes the low-level Melee>Caster problem by adding some 1st level abilities to casters and making cantrips more useful. I've found the early levels to be quite balanced.
At high-level, Pathfinder fixes some of the Caster>Melee problem by modifying some key spell descriptions. "Save or die" spells have been weakened, as have polymorphs. While this hasn't eliminated the problem, I feel it's been pushed back a few levels.
There were definitely some broken things in 4E, but when my players were hitting 16th level, I wasn't finding near as hard to dm and challenge them as I did when I was running 3.5, so for me it was a significantly more balanced system than 3.5. However, it certainly has plenty of things that I don't love about it. Still we had plenty of fun playing it. It's mostly the "gamey" feel to it and the long combats that I'm tired of, but I don't miss the "Everything you can do, I can do better with magic," syndrome that I experienced with 3E. IMO there's some pretty big pros and cons for both games.
It still happens, however the martial classes have a place at higher level now. Also a good amount of the rules and mechanics have been fixed. Why did you use 4e if you were worried about balance btw? It's just as broken as 3.5/pathfinder. The game had players that could nova thousands of damage a couple of times a day, an infinite attack combo, weak spell casters, and unified formats for all classes.
One of my players mentioned E6, but I have no real idea what it is.
I've played lots of 3.5, but for the past few years I've been running 4E games. I haven't tried Pathfinder yet. We're starting a new campaign and we've decided to take a break from 4E. I've been trying to decide whether to use Pathfinder or True20. I like a lot of the flavour and such in Pathfinder, but I'm a bit hesitant to use the system because on the surface it looks like it would have all the same balance issues that 3.5 had (primarily- magic dominating the game at higher levels and melee characters having few combat options beyond "full attack, again"). For those of you who have played the game past level 9 or so, is this the case or have they managed to make some changes to alleviate that trend?If you had problems with balance in 3.5, you're still going to have them in Pathfinder. While some small things were done here and there, it's still, for the most part, the same as it was before.
Pathfinder is a good system, and is an improvement on 3.5, but it's probably not going to be your cup of tea, from the sounds of things.
Although, what you might consider doing is using it as the basis for an E6 campaign. That's something your group might have a lot of fun with.
One of my players mentioned E6, but I have no real idea what it is.
I've played lots of 3.5, but for the past few years I've been running 4E games. I haven't tried Pathfinder yet. We're starting a new campaign and we've decided to take a break from 4E. I've been trying to decide whether to use Pathfinder or True20. I like a lot of the flavour and such in Pathfinder, but I'm a bit hesitant to use the system because on the surface it looks like it would have all the same balance issues that 3.5 had (primarily- magic dominating the game at higher levels and melee characters having few combat options beyond "full attack, again"). For those of you who have played the game past level 9 or so, is this the case or have they managed to make some changes to alleviate that trend?If you had problems with balance in 3.5, you're still going to have them in Pathfinder. While some small things were done here and there, it's still, for the most part, the same as it was before.
Pathfinder is a good system, and is an improvement on 3.5, but it's probably not going to be your cup of tea, from the sounds of things.
Although, what you might consider doing is using it as the basis for an E6 campaign. That's something your group might have a lot of fun with.
Basically, there's only 6 levels. Past that, you get extra feats for every so much XP you gain. It keeps the game firmly in a "gritty fantasy" feel, if you want it to, and it stops level advancement short of where casters can reliably dominate the game and overshadow non-casters.
You can find its origins at ENWorld. Just google "e6 d&d", and it should be the first hit.
I checked it out. I'm not sure if it's really what I'm looking for, but thanks.
I'm leaning more towards True20.
Q: How balanced is Pathfinder?
A: As balanced as the GM that is running it.
I haven't seen many problems with balance in play, however on these boards I see a trend of the imbalance coming from what I consider lop-sided play where a GM is 'handwaving', and the consequence is imbalance.
Similarly, issue occur when the party consistently fights in perfect storm scenarios for one lot of players and the others get outshone.
None of these are the Game itself.
I refused to play 3.X back in the day, but have played various other forms of D&D and several other gaming systems - Pathfinder is one of the more solid ones.
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I checked it out. I'm not sure if it's really what I'm looking for, but thanks.
I'm leaning more towards True20. [/QUOTE
True20 is fine, but limiting. It is much easier to run as a DM, but in my experience much less fun to play. One of our DM's has been trying to get us to play it because he loves the simplicity of it, and well...some of the players just don't like it.
Paizo does a great job with modules and adventure paths (the core business) and so they make it easier to DM by providing great DM resources.
I would strongly recommend grabbing one of the free adventures and running it as a one off. It is close enough to 3.5 it won't take much effort to learn for someone who knows that set, but I think you will find the same experience I had playing it, specifically that most of the "broken" parts of 3.5 got fixed in little ways that add up to a major upgrade.
YMMV.
I don't think the free adventures would really cut it. Running an adventure for 1st level characters isn't going to show the holes in the game. It's more of a thing you notice over time as your campaign progresses. My issue is that at about the same point where your entire campaign is coming to a climax is the same time when the game starts to become most unplayable (I'm referring to my experience with 3.5 since I haven't actually run or played Pathfinder yet).
I checked it out. I'm not sure if it's really what I'm looking for, but thanks.
I'm leaning more towards True20. [/QUOTE
True20 is fine, but limiting. It is much easier to run as a DM, but in my experience much less fun to play. One of our DM's has been trying to get us to play it because he loves the simplicity of it, and well...some of the players just don't like it.
Paizo does a great job with modules and adventure paths (the core business) and so they make it easier to DM by providing great DM resources.
I would strongly recommend grabbing one of the free adventures and running it as a one off. It is close enough to 3.5 it won't take much effort to learn for someone who knows that set, but I think you will find the same experience I had playing it, specifically that most of the "broken" parts of 3.5 got fixed in little ways that add up to a major upgrade.
YMMV.
My issue is that at about the same point where your entire campaign is coming to a climax is the same time when the game starts to become most unplayable (I'm referring to my experience with 3.5 since I haven't actually run or played Pathfinder yet).
not being cute, but if you are just hitting the climax and the end of the game, then what does it matter about playability AFTER that point?
When you play Pathfinder just remember it is PF, and it is NOT 3.5. A big issue I see is people still thinking 3.5 ruleset and assuming things are as they used to be rather than playing things as they now are.
I found it easy to pick up and run PF, but a few 3.5 players keep finding 'surprise differences'.
Starting PF I'd recommend picking up the Core rulebook and playing from that for a while to re-learn. Don't need UC/UM/APG straight up, they are nice, but the Core is pretty robust.
Similarly ALL games get wonky at high levels, I've yet to see a game that doesn't.
I've played lots of 3.5, but for the past few years I've been running 4E games. I haven't tried Pathfinder yet. We're starting a new campaign and we've decided to take a break from 4E. I've been trying to decide whether to use Pathfinder or True20. I like a lot of the flavour and such in Pathfinder, but I'm a bit hesitant to use the system because on the surface it looks like it would have all the same balance issues that 3.5 had (primarily- magic dominating the game at higher levels and melee characters having few combat options beyond "full attack, again"). For those of you who have played the game past level 9 or so, is this the case or have they managed to make some changes to alleviate that trend?
As someone who is co-developing a game, I can tell you that balance is very difficult when you have more than 1 class. It's just the way it is. The game I''m co-developing has 30-some classes and no multiclassing because we could do a lot of numerical balancing that way.
Throw in map combat and the ability of some classes to do better with it than others and you've really thrown the game off. That's why higher level Sorc/Wiz spells are powerful: many of them are battlefield control, which takes away from the numerical control that you have prior to that. An old saying in WoW is that a dead Rogue's DPS is zero. The same is true with something grappled by Black Tentacles.
Multiclassing still has a significant impact in Pathfinder, just like in 3.5 or 4E. The bigger impact, however, is shared heritage with 3.5. The "warriors are linear, casters are quadratic" trope plays out because of shared heritage. As most Wizard players will tell you, there is little in the way of power creep with newer releases because all of the truly imbalanced spells are historical core. There may be some particularly good feats or metamagics, but the spells themselves are the real bread and butter.
To balance our game, we had to do away with multiclassing, completely rework buffs and debuffs, change the damage scale, and ignore any verisimilitude brought about by map combat. The one nice thing is that we have some leeway because that's canon to the basis for our system. Pathfinder would not be Pathfinder if it ignored so much of its 3.5 roots to create numerical balance.
Ultimately, as said above, any Pathfinder game is only as balanced as the GM allows it to be. Make of that what you will.
Well in this instance, I was thinking of the Savage Tide campaign, which I ran with 3.5. It started getting tough to dm around level 11-13 (that was about the point where I was starting to have to redesign all the encounters in order to challenge my players), and for the last 8 or so levels of game play it was pretty gruelling to dm, though I really liked the storyline so I saw it through to the end, but threw in the towel after it ended. The final fight against Demogorgon was epic though- (there were something like 9 PC deaths in that fight alone and there were only 5 characters in the party, so I'm sure you get the idea).
I was planning on doing a homebrew game, and I'd likely call it quits around level 13 anyhow, so I guess it might not end up being that big of an issue.
My issue is that at about the same point where your entire campaign is coming to a climax is the same time when the game starts to become most unplayable (I'm referring to my experience with 3.5 since I haven't actually run or played Pathfinder yet).not being cute, but if you are just hitting the climax and the end of the game, then what does it matter about playability AFTER that point?
When you play Pathfinder just remember it is PF, and it is NOT 3.5. A big issue I see is people still thinking 3.5 ruleset and assuming things are as they used to be rather than playing things as they now are.
I found it easy to pick up and run PF, but a few 3.5 players keep finding 'surprise differences'.
Starting PF I'd recommend picking up the Core rulebook and playing from that for a while to re-learn. Don't need UC/UM/APG straight up, they are nice, but the Core is pretty robust.
Similarly ALL games get wonky at high levels, I've yet to see a game that doesn't.
Actually, I think it is more important that they are balanced with eachother. I can adjust encounter difficulties, though that can be a challenge as well, depending on the levels of magic the party has access to, but if some PCs are far better than others I find that to be problem.
Again, thinking back to Savage Tide, we had a couple of party deaths around 11th level, and one of my players brought in a hexblade as a replacement character. It ended up being really gimpy compared to the other PCs. That character didn't last too long, and upon his death he was promptly replaced by a wizard/loremaster that was much more capable- much in part due all his pesky orb spells (ranged touch attack, no save, no spell resistance = overpowered spell) and metamagic feats.
There's a thread here recently that has been detailing the various changes from 3.5, if that'll help you get some idea of what's changed. Go to:
http://paizo.com/paizo/messageboards/paizoPublishing/pathfinder/pathfinderR PG/general/whatAreSomeThingsAboutThePathfinderRulesThatYouThinkMostPeopleDo NotKnow
It's mostly individual blurbs, but some of the posters regularly collate everything posted so far into a big list.
As for 'balance', Pathfinder isn't perfectly balanced but that was not its main intent. I think it simulates the world fairly well. It's not terribly important for PCs to be "balanced" against each other as long as they're "balanced" against their opponents - and even that should only be true about two-thirds of the time (at most!)
Again, thinking back to Savage Tide, we had a couple of party deaths around 11th level, and one of my players brought in a hexblade as a replacement character. It ended up being really gimpy compared to the other PCs.
Once again, without being rude, I think it's time to stop with the 3.5 'war stories' and what went wrong with some other game. I don't even know what a Hexblade is, but sounds like one of the bajillion splatbook classes/PRC's which were everything I could see coming in that game and decide not tok play that edition.
Pathfinder =/= 3.5
There were definitely some broken things in 4E, but when my players were hitting 16th level, I wasn't finding near as hard to dm and challenge them as I did when I was running 3.5, so for me it was a significantly more balanced system than 3.5. However, it certainly has plenty of things that I don't love about it. Still we had plenty of fun playing it. It's mostly the "gamey" feel to it and the long combats that I'm tired of, but I don't miss the "Everything you can do, I can do better with magic," syndrome that I experienced with 3E. IMO there's some pretty big pros and cons for both games.
It still happens, however the martial classes have a place at higher level now. Also a good amount of the rules and mechanics have been fixed. Why did you use 4e if you were worried about balance btw? It's just as broken as 3.5/pathfinder. The game had players that could nova thousands of damage a couple of times a day, an infinite attack combo, weak spell casters, and unified formats for all classes.
Have you ever played with a pursuing avenger, a two bladed ranger, A battle medic paladin, a tactical warlord, or perhaps a battlemind at higher levels? Do you remember black cascade not having an attack limit, do you remember blood mages able to one round orcus? Do you remember battleminds able to burst a thousand damage? Do you remember that the game isn't a roleplaying game and rather a war game? Do you remember essentials? Do you remember the cards they are trying to sell as enhancements to the game? 4e is filth, if I wanted to play a video game about powergaming I would of played a mmorpg.
No I don't remember much of that- I never ran a 4E game higher than 17th level and never had any of the experiences that you are talking about. I also have a feeling that you haven't either, and you are just talking based on what you've read on the internet, and not from any significant play experience with the game. However, I have no interest in discussing 4E vs Pathfinder, so let's not go there.
For the poster that asked, there was a high level ranger power called Blade Cascade that would pretty much let you keep attacking until you missed, but it was quickly fixed so that you are now limited to five attacks I believe.
It still happens, however the martial classes have a place at higher level now. Also a good amount of the rules and mechanics have been fixed. Why did you use 4e if you were worried about balance btw? It's just as broken as 3.5/pathfinder. The game had players that could nova thousands of damage a couple of times a day, an infinite attack combo, weak spell casters, and unified formats for all classes.I know it's off topic, but could someone tell me what the "infinite attack combo" is? It's a little surprising if something like that is actually possible. (I promise I won't go on about it in this thread, I just doubted Black_Lantern would read the 4E forum or I would have asked in a new thread).
It still happens, however the martial classes have a place at higher level now. Also a good amount of the rules and mechanics have been fixed. Why did you use 4e if you were worried about balance btw? It's just as broken as 3.5/pathfinder. The game had players that could nova thousands of damage a couple of times a day, an infinite attack combo, weak spell casters, and unified formats for all classes.I know it's off topic, but could someone tell me what the "infinite attack combo" is? It's a little surprising if something like that is actually possible. (I promise I won't go on about it in this thread, I just doubted Black_Lantern would read the 4E forum or I would have asked in a new thread).
I used to play 4e. My last character was a holy pursuing avenger that could burst 200 damage a turn at level 21. Don't get angry at me for making an overpowered character. The game is a wargame not a roleplaying game. There is a reason why they put skill challenges in along side mmorpg formatted powers. Which is pretty weak to be honest in comparsion to a battlemind. Look at builds dealing with the fey charge feat you'll see the exploit. I'm glad though they eventually did fix it.
There was a high level ranger power that would pretty much let you keep attacking until you missed, but it was quickly fixed so that you are now limited to five attacks I believe.
I think a nova that lets you do a thousand points of damage is a huge exaggeration. I've never seen a PC much more than 80 damage in a round and that was a paragon tier ranger that landed a couple of crits.
It still happens, however the martial classes have a place at higher level now. Also a good amount of the rules and mechanics have been fixed. Why did you use 4e if you were worried about balance btw? It's just as broken as 3.5/pathfinder. The game had players that could nova thousands of damage a couple of times a day, an infinite attack combo, weak spell casters, and unified formats for all classes.I know it's off topic, but could someone tell me what the "infinite attack combo" is? It's a little surprising if something like that is actually possible. (I promise I won't go on about it in this thread, I just doubted Black_Lantern would read the 4E forum or I would have asked in a new thread).
Cheers. I deleted my query actually - it seemed likely it was some unintended interpretation and I'd presumed it would have been erratad by now.
I used to play 4e. My last character was a holy pursuing avenger that could burst 200 damage a turn at level 21. Don't get angry at me for making an overpowered character. The game is a wargame not a roleplaying game. There is a reason why they put skill challenges in along side mmorpg formatted powers. Which is pretty weak to be honest in comparsion to a battlemind. Look at builds dealing with the fey charge feat you'll see the exploit. I'm glad though they eventually did fix it.It still happens, however the martial classes have a place at higher level now. Also a good amount of the rules and mechanics have been fixed. Why did you use 4e if you were worried about balance btw? It's just as broken as 3.5/pathfinder. The game had players that could nova thousands of damage a couple of times a day, an infinite attack combo, weak spell casters, and unified formats for all classes.I know it's off topic, but could someone tell me what the "infinite attack combo" is? It's a little surprising if something like that is actually possible. (I promise I won't go on about it in this thread, I just doubted Black_Lantern would read the 4E forum or I would have asked in a new thread).
I'm not angry at you. I hope you've found a game you like.
I could say I'm curious about how you pulled that off, but I'm not, so I won't. I admit there is plenty of broken stuff available in 4E. Like I said, I got a little sick of it, so I'm looking for something else.
I used to play 4e. My last character was a holy pursuing avenger that could burst 200 damage a turn at level 21. Don't get angry at me for making an overpowered character. The game is a wargame not a roleplaying game. There is a reason why they put skill challenges in along side mmorpg formatted powers. Which is pretty weak to be honest in comparsion to a battlemind. Look at builds dealing with the fey charge feat you'll see the exploit. I'm glad though they eventually did fix it.It still happens, however the martial classes have a place at higher level now. Also a good amount of the rules and mechanics have been fixed. Why did you use 4e if you were worried about balance btw? It's just as broken as 3.5/pathfinder. The game had players that could nova thousands of damage a couple of times a day, an infinite attack combo, weak spell casters, and unified formats for all classes.I know it's off topic, but could someone tell me what the "infinite attack combo" is? It's a little surprising if something like that is actually possible. (I promise I won't go on about it in this thread, I just doubted Black_Lantern would read the 4E forum or I would have asked in a new thread).
If you play Pathfinder/3.5e, my advice would be to stick with levels 5-10. Between there the game works pretty well. Casters aren't too uber yet, but not complete weaksauce like at lower levels.
Also, rogues aren't totally sucky yet, and can still keep up with the other martial characters.
I used to play 4e. My last character was a holy pursuing avenger that could burst 200 damage a turn at level 21. Don't get angry at me for making an overpowered character. The game is a wargame not a roleplaying game. There is a reason why they put skill challenges in along side mmorpg formatted powers. Which is pretty weak to be honest in comparsion to a battlemind. Look at builds dealing with the fey charge feat you'll see the exploit. I'm glad though they eventually did fix it.
D&D 4e is still a roleplaying game. My group switched from 3.5e to 4e and it didn't suddenly turn into Warhammer.
Also, bursting for 200 damage at level 21 is decent, but not broken. Monsters have a lot of HP. Plus, an encounter nova from a striker like the Avenger should be able to take down an average monster in a turn.
I don't understand why there's so much angst on these forums. When I read the WotC forums I don't see constant raging towards Pathfinder or Paizo...
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Black Knight,
Well perhaps if i explain a little of my story, that might explain some of the angst about 4.0 D&D.
At first I was angry with WoTC because they decided not to renew Paizo's license to publish Dungeon and Dragon magazine, and they brought about the end of these magazines in print. Those magazines had been my "friends" for a very long time. There were times when I was madly playing as much D&D as I could, and other times when my girlfriend decided we didn't need those role playing books in our apartment after all. And through those times where for whatever reason I couldn't play, I could always pick up a dragon or dungeon magazine and read it and still feel a little connected to the D&D community. Also I felt that WotC had really treated Paizo meanly. Paizo if I remember (now I may be wrong) was spun off of WotC, with WotC staff to publish Dungeon and Dragon magazine. To yank Paizo's bread and butter product like that seemed viscous to me, especially since Paizo was spun off by Wotc to print Dungeon and Dragon magazines.
The Pre 4th edition publicity campaign irked me as well. I realized I was no longer the target audience for Wotc. In the preview products, they kept proclaiming how much more fun we would have with the new edition. I also felt that not enough time time had elapsed between 3.5 and the release of 4.0 D&D.
I did buy the core rule books, and my group and I played and I Gmed off and on for about five months I think. Each game was an exercise in frustraition. Our fun wasn’t being “increased”. Now perhaps we were simply new to the system. There were so many new things in the new game. With previoius games, even though there were plenty of changes between editions, you could always trace the evolution from table to thaco to BAB for example. To me 4.0 D&D seemed to be an almost entirely new game.
While I did find the intro cartoons to 4.0 quite funny, I think the red dragon one summed it up with the Troll bent over the computer typing and complaining, while the dragon flew over him and shat on him.
Me and my gaming group found 4.0 D&D not to our liking, so we turned back to 3.5. there was still lots of materiel we had not touched yet. Then Paizo’s adventure paths Rise of the Rune lord came out, we ran it, and well we never looked back. That took us into Pathfinder which we like. I am sure my story is not unique.
I gues now I have moved on and I no longer care about the “edition wars”. I have what I want. I have a good game to enjoy with my friends, that has excellent production values, in terms of nice artwork, and excellent writing and a robust rules system, yes it has its flaws, but its pretty solid. Also, Paozo has done a brilliant job with their play testing. We get to chew on and test the materiel they plan to put out.. It gives me a sence of investment and a feeling of personal involvement with the prducts Paizo puts out, that I never had with WoTCCs and TSRs stuff before that.
Also I can post an often silly question on the Paizo boards, and sometimes the creative director, or publisher, or an editor or writer will answer my post, or coment on it. Now that’s customer relations. More then anything else, being able to play test the matieriel and then I end up feeling invested in the products, and interacting positively with the staff on the message boards, has helped grow a sense of loyalty to Paizo. While I may not like everything they do, at least I can trust that they will do their best to put together a quality product.
Now I am sure 4.0 has grown into an excellent game that plenty of people like and enjoy. Besides at the end of the day, what does the system matter? As long as you are having a good time with your friends who are enjoying themselves there isn’t really any point in saying one game is better then the other.
I hope this helps to explain some of the angst Black knight.
The inter-class balance is still there. It's extremely hard to balance 20-some base classes against each other AND meet the expectations players have about that class due to tradition or cultural ideas. Example: wizards can stop time cuz that's awesome and magical, warriors can't because that's insane he's just a dude with a sword.
I personally think it's fine. I think it's kind of a bad idea to examine a game on those grounds, or at least to ultimately judge one on them. RPGs are played by parties and, by and large, I think that PF is much more balanced as far as party dynamics and giving players the tools to overcome challenges without making such challenges trivial.
A bad DM or a bad player can break any game in someone's eyes. If the game is played as intended (RAW) and with a good DM or running one of the published APs I think it's pretty balanced.
I find it more rewarding as an optimizer when the classes aren't perfectly even in social/martial/plot power across the board. Makes me feel good to be able to be effective in a class people look down on. For example I'm finding the Barbarian to be much better than expected, largely due to new abilities in the APG and Ultimate Combat.
Compared to 3.5 WotC material I think that feats and spells and archetypes in PF tend to be MUCH better balanced and of better overall quality. Seemed like every WotC book had like 2 or 3 broken things and 193 pages of junk. PF has a whole lot of useful but not game-changing stuff, which is where I'd like things to be. There are, of course, exceptions (Antagonize).
"How balanced is Pathfinder?"
Not very.
To me, it does.
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I used to play 4e. My last character was a holy pursuing avenger that could burst 200 damage a turn at level 21. Don't get angry at me for making an overpowered character. The game is a wargame not a roleplaying game. There is a reason why they put skill challenges in along side mmorpg formatted powers. Which is pretty weak to be honest in comparsion to a battlemind. Look at builds dealing with the fey charge feat you'll see the exploit. I'm glad though they eventually did fix it.D&D 4e is still a roleplaying game. My group switched from 3.5e to 4e and it didn't suddenly turn into Warhammer.
Also, bursting for 200 damage at level 21 is decent, but not broken. Monsters have a lot of HP. Plus, an encounter nova from a striker like the Avenger should be able to take down an average monster in a turn.
I don't understand why there's so much angst on these forums. When I read the WotC forums I don't see constant raging towards Pathfinder or Paizo...
Reply to bold...
There is no forum there (The WotC site) devoted to PF...but go to the WotC 4e section and mention PF and 4e in the title of a topic...it will start nice (hopefully) but will quickly denigrate into something nasty.
"How balanced is Pathfinder?"
Not very.
I put it to you that your game and playstyle is unbalanced, but the system isn't.
Pathfinder (taken in and of itself and without importing non-Pathfinder material) is the most balanced version of 3.X yet to be published... but that's only saying so much.
Its design clearly prioritized relative backward compatability over taking a big hacksaw to some things that have never been right and that its designers knew had never been right. Depending on what you want out of the game that's either a good choice or it isn't.
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I'm finding Pathfinder to be noticeably less balanced than most of the 4e stuff I've ran/played. This includes the balance between player classes (ie how much each class contributes to different parts of the game). Everyone usually gets a more equal share of face time across many different tasks. The balance between the party and the monsters they fight (a lot of the new 4e material have been rather brutal) is a bit better too. It does get a little wonky at paragon and epic tiers. Takes some adjustment.
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I'm finding Pathfinder to be noticeably less balanced than most of the 4e stuff I've ran/played. This includes the balance between player classes (ie how much each class contributes to different parts of the game). Everyone usually gets a more equal share of face time across many different tasks. The balance between the party and the monsters they fight (a lot of the new 4e material have been rather brutal) is a bit better too. It does get a little wonky at paragon and epic tiers. Takes some adjustment.
I have notices the 4e I ran/played to be more bland in the way that everyone needs to get a gold star for participation rather than have some excel at certain times.
No.
Pathfinder feels like it was "balanced" by people who didn't actually know what any of 3e's engine flaws were and tried to patch up the imbalances that they heard from a guy who read about it on a place on the internet rather then look into the system themselves.
Case in point, the fighter. What were the fighter's strengths? Well, if specced a certain way, it could do a lot of damage in a charge. What were the fighter's weaknesses? All it could do was that one move, it had no skills, little to no out of combat utility, no class abilities, no ways of emulating actual historic heroes, and no IN combat utility.
The warblade was WotC's response to this. It didn't do more damage - in fact, pound for pound, it could do less damage then a core fighter who focused entirely on their one schtick. But it had more skills, more in and out of combat utility, more class abilities, and more ways of emulating historical and fictional heroes.
The Pathfinder fighter was Paizo's response to this. He...still has no skills. Still has little to no out of combat utility. Still has little to no in combat utility. Still has no class abilities, still can't emulate historic or fictional heroes.
But, he does more damage.
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I'm finding Pathfinder to be noticeably less balanced than most of the 4e stuff I've ran/played. This includes the balance between player classes (ie how much each class contributes to different parts of the game). Everyone usually gets a more equal share of face time across many different tasks. The balance between the party and the monsters they fight (a lot of the new 4e material have been rather brutal) is a bit better too. It does get a little wonky at paragon and epic tiers. Takes some adjustment.I have notices the 4e I ran/played to be more bland in the way that everyone needs to get a gold star for participation rather than have some excel at certain times.
Good for you? Do you want a gold star for posting?
4e is much better about making sure characters contribute to all aspects of the game in their own way. They can still fail. Horribly so.