I think The Beginner Box would be a great place to start. It's good value, clear and easy-to-follow and limited to fifth level.
The biggest difference I think you'll find from 'the old days' is that rules now are much more complicated and nuanced. The beginner box is less of a culture shock, in my view, than jumping straight into the Core Rulebook.
I agree with Steve. I am about to start a youngling campaign with my son and my groups kids. (all between 8 and 10) and the beginners box seems like the perfect place to start.
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Most of the classes can be overbearingly powerful at high levels it just depends on what you want. If you want min/maxed characters with feat trees specifically tailored to make you uber god like your characters can border on insane. My group and myself started early in 2nd edition and I have found that we like really unique and cool characters more than super characters.
So to answer your question the 1-2nd edition wizard was overpowered at high levels but I always felt that was your reward for surviving the low levels... remember 1d4+2 max HP... ouch. So yes wizard is powerful in PF also but no more powerful than he was before.
I am an old 1st edition guy who stopped playing many years ago but is trying to get back in to play with my kids. Basically, I need to decide what to buy. I think Pathfinder is the right choice but, I have one concern that I was hoping people on this forum would address:
Basically tons of people on the internet seem to think that around 15th level I will discover that 3rd edition/Pathfinder has (uniquely among ALL editions) made wizards so insanely powerful and versatile that all other classes are useless.
I'm sure this is an old topic to you, but I have yet to hear anyone defend Pathfinder on this point so I would appreciate some thoughts.
Thanks!
The thing about a Wizard is that yes, he is very powerful, but he is also very fragile; at least, much more so than the melee classes. Think Glass Cannon. He may hit hard, and have quite a bit of versatility more than the other classes, but if he's caught with his pants down, he's not going to recover (easily). At the same time, if done right, he can two-shot characters of equal level with the proper gear and set-up, or he can be impossible to kill. But it is very difficult, if even possible, to balance this stuff out evenly, on a level where both extremities occur.
Ultimately, I find that the Wizard Class is indeed a very powerful, almost practically broken class in the right hands. But isn't every class that way?
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Y0u can check out the rules for free on the PRD that Paizo has posted up as well. All the rules except the descriptive text (to make things sound cool) is there to be read.
If after giving that a once over you are interested I strongly recommend checking out the Pathfinder basic boxed set they offer. It uses the same rules just has some of the options reset so it is quicker and easier to get right into playing. Plus it helps teach players and GM's how to run/play the game. One of the best starter sets for any game I have seen.
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As far as what to buy, you definitely need to start with the Beginner Box. I've been running a Beginner Box campaign for my kids and they are having an absolute blast. Once they hit 5th, we'll switch to the full rules.
As for overpowered wizards at 15th level. I personally prefer things to go up to about 12th level (use the slow progression XP table to savor getting there). After 12th, every class is insanely powerful. And the balance of fighter or rogues vs. spell casters was even worse in 1st edition AD&D in my opinion.
nudj12, since you are new here, you need to be made aware ...
If after giving that a once over you are interested I strongly recommend checking out the Pathfinder basic boxed set they offer. It uses the same rules just has some of the options reset so it is quicker and easier to get right into playing. Plus it helps teach players and GM's how to run/play the game. One of the best starter sets for any game I have seen.
Obeying the Dark Mistress is ALWAYS a good idea.
The biggest difference I think you'll find from 'the old days' is that rules now are much more complicated and nuanced. The beginner box is less of a culture shock, in my view, than jumping straight into the Core Rulebook.Well I GM'd some GURPS, so I think I can handle the complexity!
That may have come out wrong. I didnt mean you wouldnt be able to handle it, merely that things have changed 'since we were kids'. :p
At high levels casters have a large pool of resources to choose from.
Wizards in particular are well suited to most situations.
They have their balances though. You need to prepare your spells in advance. If something happens that you are not ready for you have limited options.
The other thing to remember is that they completely rely on magic. Many high level monsters have spell resistance. It would not be out of the question for these tough baddies to have minions they would throw at player's in order to use up their resources.
In the end it comes down to the GM and knowing how to handle players.
I would definitely recommend that you get the beginner box and jump right in. Don't give the "martial-caster disparity" a second thought at this point.
You don't have to ever play past 15th level unless you want to, and if you do, you can cross that bridge when you get there.
I agree with Pan, that is a great point he made.
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I don't think I've ever had a campaign break 15th level. Back in 1st edition AD&D, I think the highest we got was somewhere around 12-14. In Pathfinder, our group is currently up to 12, hoping to play through to 13 before the group pretty much disbands in a month, as at least two of us are moving away in a month or two.
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Pathfinder made significant progress in easing that disparity, to the point where it's really the bother of those who theorycraft more than they play, or of GM's who are overly lax with spellcasters.
As others have said, the disparity is only an issue if you make it one.
It tends to come up in our group because a couple of the players enjoy playing wizards and are experienced enough to identify how to get the most out of the class (without being full on optimisers). However, our party's extremely optimised hungry ghost monk is an untouchable killing machine at the moment, so is (almost) holding his own.
Having said that, I think that if anything Pathfinder has made the disparity greater. In my opinion, the benefits wizards get (such as +2 to casting stat (unless for some reason you choose not to play a human, elf, half orc or half elf), increased hit die, extra class features, relaxation on barred schools, concentration no longer being a skill) are better than the new benefits that (say) fighters get.
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Meh. It's all just nonsense really. Yes casters are slightly better than martial classes. Yes rogues are slightly underpowered compared to all the other classes. Does it make a huge difference? In my experience not at all.
Fighters can still kick out big damage, archers can still put dozens of arrows in the air. Everyone likes the contribution of Bards. etc. etc.
Reading the internet you would think that the game falls apart at high levels. This just isn't the case. This whole thing is massively exaggerated and the evidence is generally anecdotal.
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I think if one of your kids wants to be the guy that hits things with his sword, he won't mind that his sister never gets hurt because she can fly and turn invisible. You know what I mean?
I am an old 1st edition guy who stopped playing many years ago but is trying to get back in to play with my kids. Basically, I need to decide what to buy. I think Pathfinder is the right choice but, I have one concern that I was hoping people on this forum would address:
Basically tons of people on the internet seem to think that around 15th level I will discover that 3rd edition/Pathfinder has (uniquely among ALL editions) made wizards so insanely powerful and versatile that all other classes are useless.
I'm sure this is an old topic to you, but I have yet to hear anyone defend Pathfinder on this point so I would appreciate some thoughts.
Thanks!
This is exactly what I did a couple months ago. I played 1e, I have a daughter who is 9 and a son who is 8. I got the Beginner's Box, and it looks like PF is going to be a mainstay. The BB is a super excellent value imho, lots of goodies to get you playing in minutes that you can reuse as your campaign unfolds. Also, the BB leaves out some of the complexity (i.e. like combat maneuvers, etc.) that I can add in a little at a time both as I learn it and as they can handle it. So that's cool. I got out a bunch of old modules that I grab ideas from and roll it all into an epic adventure. We did parts of T1, B1, B2, and now X2, and having a ball. My daughter earned money to by her own golden sparkly dice (of which the d20 seems to roll high, so we always grab it when we need to). Good times. Good luck.
Darksol the painbringer is right when he calls mages "glass cannons" I'm playing a sorcerer in a 3.5 dragonlance game .
I can dish out loads of damage every round but all it take is a failed save or lucky hit and I'm toast (in one case against a pyro hydra quite literally)
My character has just hit 16th lvl (again) I'm lagging almost 2 lvls behind the fighters and the cleric I totally out damage them but they have AC's good or better and almost 3 times my hp they can take a beating
(On 2 separate occasions now my character has failed his reflex save and gone from full hits to -10 or worse in one hit)
So as they say it's swings and roundabouts
Honestly, playing the adventure paths, you'll not spend a lot of time at high levels anyways. I've never campaigned past level 12 for any considerable length of time. This is almost a non-issue.