Pathfinder Rules You Don't Like

[Werebat]

For the most part I really like the PF rules as compared to 3.5, but there are a handful of things that just don't sit well with me.

Lycanthropes, for example. I just don't like what they did with them. In 3.5, lycanthropes gained hit dice -- "levels" of animal equal to the hit dice of the animal type of the lycanthrope. For example, a typical werewolf had one hit die of Commoner and two hit dice of Animal, with appropriate skills. Pathfinder ditched the Animal hit dice (presumably to make PC and NPC caster lycanthropes more viable). I think I know WHY they made the change and it isn't horrible by itself, but it doesn't sit well with me -- a weretiger should be naturally more powerful than a wererat, for example. And I never cared much that lycanthropes weren't ideal choices for casters -- I had no problem with their bestial nature tending to steer them towards more combat oriented classes, if they gained class levels. My solution has always been to use the 3.5 lycanthrope rules in Pathfinder (hasn't come up yet, but...).

Exotic weapons in general got the shaft. PF nerfed the spiked chain, but IMO that was the wrong way to go. Spiked chains were popular because they were the only exotic weapon that was really worth spending a feat on. The others just weren't worth it. PF's answer should have been to beef up the other exotic weapons, not nerf the spiked chain. You can still make a chainfighter in PF, by the way -- you just take the Lunge feat instead of XWP: Spiked Chain, and use a heavy flail.

And now grapple, which I can now see some of the reasons for, but feel that some fairly common creatures kind of got shafted by.

And honestly that might be about it. Pretty much everything else about PF was great IMO. People b~@@# about rogues getting nerfed but all they lost was Blink granting sneak attacks -- almost EVERYTHING ELSE about the class got more powerful.

What about you? What are the rules changes from 3.5 to PF that don't quite sit well with you, and why?

[Pan]

At first channel energy was hard for me to accept. Neg channeling was very deadly at early levels against the PCs. Later on it loses its bite. Then positive channeling made people even more paranoid that a cleric is required in every group for the game to function. After some time my players have come around to the fact that a cleric is not required and there other ways to provide healing for the party. Channeling is not so bad anymore. I have a neg channel smite cleric waiting to go sometime if I ever get a chance to play her.

I do wish there was an archetype that swapped channeling for turning/rebuke. I know you can still turn with a feat tax but, id like to avoid that if possible.

[Eragar]

I've not really liked that spell resistance requires a standard action to turn off; it makes characters that have spell resistance (drow, monks, etc.) rather difficult to play when everyone in the party gets hasted except you because you didn't want to lose a round's worth of attacks.

[Elamdri]

I dislike that moving diagonally isn't always 5ft of movement. I houserule that in my games.

I also wish I could have back the HOURS of my life lost waiting for people to calculate their movement using the standard rules for diagonals.

[mplindustries]

I hate the magic item rules in general.

This includes, but is not limited to:

1) Restrictions on who can use what--if I can read a scroll, the spell should cast from it. If I can point a wand and I know the command word, it should work. It should not matter whether or not I am a spellcaster or not.

2) Control of magic items in PC hands--the assumption that PCs can make magic items or that they can basically place custom orders for them.

3) The general ubiquity of magic items (and the extreme wealth PCs are expected to get is related to this and also a problem for me).

[Roberta Yang]

CMD shooting up too fast.

[Marthian]

I dislike the rules that aren't specific enough.

Then again, I probably don't want 15 books just for core rules.

[Atarlost]

The lack of the 3.5 reach template. Taking away diagonal reach makes polearms pretty terrible against smart opponents.

The swift action requirement for way too many things that should be free or non-actions, most notably any two of the Eldritch Knight capstone, arcane armor training, and arcane strike.

Spell Sunder. There are too many ways to boost your sunder check and too few to boost your dispel check. Barbarians should at best be tied with full casters in the dispelling game.

Rage Cycling. It breaks too many powers that are supposed to be limited to allow it before the level 17 early capstone.

And some class related stuff. I have issues with Monks, Magi, and Summoners. The first for reasons that have been discussed to death already and there are like five current monk threads. The latter two because they don't follow the general class power guidelines in some critical fashion, either eidolon construction, the mass of top level standard action summons, the 3.5 polymorph synthesist, or the blatant action economy violation of spell combat.

[Marthian]

Atarlost wrote:

And some class related stuff. I have issues with Monks, Magi, and Summoners. The first for reasons that have been discussed to death already and there are like five current monk threads. The latter two because they don't follow the general class power guidelines in some critical fashion, either eidolon construction, the mass of top level standard action summons, the 3.5 polymorph synthesist, or the blatant action economy violation of spell combat.

And if those power houses aren't being disposed of first, something's wrong. My magus often goes down due to d8 hit dice.

[Sloanzilla]

1. Exp penalty to crafting
2. Level loss being an actual problem at higher levels
3. Cross class skill penalties resulting in some classes actually not being perceptive
4. The rope from rope trick being hide able instead of defying logic.
5. D4 hit points for arcane casters. Forced a little bit of hesitation- though overall I think Pathfinder balanced casters some.
6. I think some of the CR+1 stuff from 3.5 made some designs easier. Like a Level 1 deep gnome counting as a Level 3 character in terms of exp.
7. Getting to decide how many points I want to spend when I power attack.
8. 32+ str druid polar bears casting, persistent spelled/divine metamagiced clerics and instant win wizard glitterdusts. OK not really on that one.

[mplindustries]

Sloanzilla wrote:

1. Exp penalty to crafting

2. Level loss being an actual problem at higher levels
3. Cross class skill penalties resulting in some classes actually not being perceptive
4. The rope from rope trick being hide able instead of defying logic.
5. D4 hit points for arcane casters. Forced a little bit of hesitation- though overall I think Pathfinder balanced casters some.
6. I think some of the CR+1 stuff from 3.5 made some designs easier. Like a Level 1 deep gnome counting as a Level 3 character in terms of exp.
7. Getting to decide how many points I want to spend when I power attack.
8. 32+ str druid polar bears casting, persistent spelled/divine metamagiced clerics and instant win wizard glitterdusts. OK not really on that one.

Wait, what? None of those things are in Pathfinder...

[Sloanzilla]

there's a shadow "I don't like the lack of...." before each one.

[pauljathome]

Gunslingers. I don't like the flavour (guns don't belong in my faux-medieval fantasy) and I loathe the mechanics (the "primitive" guns have a significantly higher rate of fire than WW1 rifles had).

[TriOmegaZero]

Stabilization checks. Straight Con checks with negative penalties. Talk about a downward spiral.

[CommandoDude]

Charging in a straight line. It makes absolutely no sense from any logical standpoint, especially if the minimum distance required to charge is only 10 feet. It's unnecessarily restrictive and immersion breaking.

You should be able to move and charge like in 4e.

[Are]

While I like most of the big, sweeping changes, every couple of weeks I discover a new minor thing that I dislike. Off the top of my head right now:

- The alter self spell has had its duration reduced from 10 minutes per level to 1 minute per level. That pretty much eliminates its usefulness in a social, diplomatic setting, especially at low-to-mid levels.

- The CMB mechanic should offer greater advantages to larger and naturally-grabby creatures; as is, creatures with grab are frequently better off simply attacking normally than by using the ability.

- I don't understand why the bonus Weapon Finesse feat was removed from Tiny creatures (cats, monkeys, rats, etc). All of these creatures used to have one of the skill-bonus feats in addition to Weapon Finesse, which at least served to differentiate them a little bit more. Now, their feat slot is taken up by a feat they should have had for free.

- I don't like that a high enhancement bonus allows you to overcome DR/material and DR/alignment, and I like smite evil's ability to overcome all DR even less.

That's all I could think of right now :)

[Nelith]

Mandatory party levels. Sometimes a party of very well built characters would easily be able to tackle the "high tier" (4-5 instead of 1-2).

Or the party level on average qualifies for high tier, but would do badly at that tier (no cleric, no tank, a magus in the party, etc).

Every party should be able to choose their own tier within the level range of the adventure.

[mplindustries]

Sloanzilla wrote:

there's a shadow "I don't like the lack of...." before each one.

Wow, ok--I guess it's just the fact that I think all of those things are terrible that made me think "he couldn't possibly want those things." To each his own.

[Sloanzilla]

I've come to accept that I generally don't agree with most people here!

Such is life, though I can't help but wonder why you'd find a less restrictive power attack rule to be "terrible"

[Are]

Considering the PF power attack grants a 2:1 return instead of a 1:1 return [3:1 instead of 2:1 for two-handed weapons], I think the rigidness is a fair trade. Plus it avoids time spent to calculate the "optimal" power attack trade-off.

[Roberta Yang]

Sloanzilla wrote:

Such is life, though I can't help but wonder why you'd find a less restrictive power attack rule to be "terrible"

Because it leads to weird metagamey scenarios where players try to determine the monster's exact AC and then slow the game down calculating exactly how much Power Attack to use in order to squeeze out a couple of extra points of DPR.

And it really doesn't add anything to the game except that.

[Humphrey Boggard]

Are wrote:

Considering the PF power attack grants a 2:1 return instead of a 1:1 return [3:1 instead of 2:1 for two-handed weapons], I think the rigidness is a fair trade. Plus it avoids time spent to calculate the "optimal" power attack trade-off.

The smart gamer homebrews a Power Attack bonus to DPR slide rule as a function of AC. Failing that, a table of values and a linear estimate of the scaling law will do in a pinch.

[Sloanzilla]

Shrug, I enjoyed having a little control over it, but never had anyone in my group metagame it. Was more of a "swing really hard" vs. "swing kind of hard" type thing. The Pathfinder system has its advantages, though I'd probably prefer a hybrid where higher levels can opt for the lower level options if they declare it. I like the idea of a highly experienced fighter opting to give up a little bit of precision to hit a bit harder.

[Shuriken Nekogami]

i don't like

1. Flurry=2WF

2. the whole package deal called Archtypes, if you want to actually give alternate class features, make them cherry pickable and allow more freedom. not every ability should be worth a whole package on it's own.

if i merely want the ki pool of the ninja but want to keep trapfinding, that should be an option.

just break up the packages into thier component abilities already

3. the lack of worthwhile non setting specific prestige classes

4. the 5 million deterrents for multiclassing, if a character is actually going to dip, don't penalize them for dipping. favored class is just yet another deterrent.

5. the lack of multiclass assitance

6. the lack of X stat to Y bonus feats, is a drastically less restricted prerequisite light dex to damage feat for non-scimitar users even that bad? i am tired of every magus i see wielding a damn scimitar.

7. the lack of a viable item for enhancing a monk's unarmed strikes that is comparable to other equivalent weapons. your errata has stripped both the gauntlet and the brass knuckles. at least bring them back.

[King Cobra]

I don't like the summoner spell list. They completely ignored the impact on crafting scrolls and wands. Summoners should have been given wizard or sorcerer progression with a limited selection.

I don't like how much they nerfed the polymorph spells. They went overboard and many of them are now useless, especially with the material component requirement.

[Gobo Horde]

Somebody else wrote:

And now grapple, which I can now see some of the reasons for, but feel that some fairly common creatures kind of got shafted by.

CMD shooting up too fast.
The swift action requirement for way too many things that should be free or non-actions... Kirin strike requiring 3 swift actions to boost a single attack anyone?
6. I think some of the CR+1 stuff from 3.5 made some designs easier. Like a Level 1 deep gnome counting as a Level 3 character in terms of exp. I miss level adjustment :( I miss starting as a gargoyle or a troll.
Gunslingers. Mostly gunslinger rules, weapon cords, requiring a second hand, the-two-barreled-shotgun-shooting-a-mile-we-will-call-a-pistol, a rifle shooting obscene amounts of shots at a time, among some ohers
- I don't like that a high enhancement bonus allows you to overcome DR/material and DR/alignment, and I like smite evil's ability to overcome all DR even less. especially this... DR used to be worth more
4. the 5 million deterrents for multiclassing, if a character is actually going to dip, don't penalize them for dipping. I love multiclassing. I love versatility and creativity and being forced to stay in a single class 'just because' just rubs me the wrong way

Now for some of my own.

#1 in bold, underlined, in flashy colours with fireworks going off in the background... I miss the old horizon walker... I miss having DD as a method of traveling and having a character that ported everywhere instead of walking just because he could. Sniff.
2 I love the new grappling rules but dont like how sometimes they just dont work, as a balancing method to prevent trippers tripping EVERYTHING.
3 I miss the old epic rules. I miss the legendary dreadnought the most, but things like undead mastery, fast healing, legendary commander ^-^, epic golems, the living vault 8O and titans among other things. It just brought such wondrous ideas to the imagination and was what drew me to the game in the first place.
4 I miss all the variant rules the old system had. We now got archetypes and alternate traits and racial specific things like feats and classes, but I miss the old bloodlines (especially titan!!!) and jungle goblins and flaws and spell touched feats.

Theres more, I guess, but all in all, pathfinder is just a different game. Sniff this brings back memories...

[Gobo Horde]

Jungle Goblins wrote:

If monkeys were evil and could speak, they'd be a lot like jungle goblins. Jungle goblins are territorial, tree-dwelling savages with a sadistic streak a mile wide. Their skills at climbing and moving from tree to tree, combined with their cunning and vicious nature, cause even other goblinoids to respect them.

Man I miss this!!!

I'm a savage evil monkey with a sadistic streak a mile wide! ^-^ >8D ^o^

[martryn]

I've got some issues with the cover and concealment rules, and how they apply (or don't apply) to targeting with spells.

I think the TWF feats could be re-tooled to look more like the ranged attack feats (point blank shot, rapid shot, etc) to make TWF viable again.

Dervish Dance. If feats could be kicked in the balls...

[Midnight_Angel]

Are wrote:

- The alter self spell has had its duration reduced from 10 minutes per level to 1 minute per level. That pretty much eliminates its usefulness in a social, diplomatic setting, especially at low-to-mid levels.

Indeed. This spell has pretty much been changed into yet another buffing effect.

Bonus points for granting +2 to a stat if you change 'into someone of my own race'.

Are wrote:

- The CMB mechanic should offer greater advantages to larger and naturally-grabby creatures; as is, creatures with grab are frequently better off simply attacking normally than by using the ability.

On the other end, CMD is pretty much b0rken in several cases.

So, being big makes it that much more difficult to move past you, huh?
And, while it is dang hard to even touch a zig-zagging Atomie, just grabbing her out of the air is no problem at all...

Are wrote:

- I don't understand why the bonus Weapon Finesse feat was removed from Tiny creatures (cats, monkeys, rats, etc). All of these creatures used to have one of the skill-bonus feats in addition to Weapon Finesse, which at least served to differentiate them a little bit more. Now, their feat slot is taken up by a feat they should have had for free.

Frankly, I wouldn't even require the feat. A simple rule of Tiny (or smaller) creatures using Dex instead of Str (as they already do for Swimming and Climbing) would both lift the Feat tax, and allow Tiny vermin to actually employ their Dex for attacks.

As is, lil' spidey cannot use Dex in any case, being mindless, and thus, featless.

Are wrote:

- I don't like that a high enhancement bonus allows you to overcome DR/material and DR/alignment, and I like smite evil's ability to overcome all DR even less.

Amen, on both parts.

I'd make the Pally's smites count as lawful, good, and magic. We can talk about epic if the Pally is epi... ahem, mythic. But DR/evil? DR/vorpal? Puh-leese, give me a break!

[Scott Wilhelm]

I always hated that you can't Bullrush, Trip, or Grapple things that are 2 or more sizes bigger than you. It's a stupid rule for stupid stupidheads.

For starters, it's redundant: you already get bonuses and penalties based on your size.

Imposing a size limit on what you can grapple, trip or bull rush goes against the Spirit of the Game. Never mind realism! Fantasy characters are NOT human, even the human ones aren't human!

You might well argue that for all his prowess, if Alexander Karelin--the greatest Greco-Roman wrestler in history--ever tried to wrestle a Kodiak bear, he would get his back broken in 5 seconds instead of 3 like the rest of us. Alexander Karelin cannot grapple a bear, but Beowulf could.

You might argue that Morei Ueshiba--the founder of the martial art Aikido--could not trip an elephant, but Xena the Warrior Princess Could.

You might argue that Akebono--the world's first non-Japanese Yakazuna Sumo wrestler--could not Bull rush a rhinoceros, but Ram Man from the He-Man cartoons could.

Pathfinder characters are not like Karelin, Ueshiba, nor Akebono: they are like Conan, Xena, and Ram Man, maybe just lower level. If some gnome-barbarian PC is badass enough to overcome a penalty or stupid enough to think he can then why not let him try to trip a rhinocerous with his hooked hammer? It would only make the game awesomer.

[c873788]

I hate any rules that are confusing, vague, open to interpretation, or just generally poorly explained. That includes such rules as HIPS and the whole Flurry of Blows conundrum.

I wish Paizo would make more of an effort in fixing up all these rules as I believe it is their only shortfall in looking after their customer base, us players.

[Umbranus]

I don't like the rule that forbids personal spells to be made into potions.
Nobody wants to memorize read magic for example.

When I noticed this rule I asked my GM to be allowed to switch it out for something useful.
The only potions I had brewed so far had been read magic, expeditous retreat and one of clw.

Another rule I don't like is that you provoke two times for casting a ray spell.

[gourry187]

I am not a fan of the rule allowing one to use 2 hands to attack with a one handed or light weapon for the extra strop bonus to damage. It detracts from people actually using 2handed weapons. I am coolwith exotics like bastard and katana swords that allownfor both as they require a feat.

[Icyshadow]

Alignment restrictions on Monk and Barbarian.

Yes, I went there. Oh, Always Evil Assassin I also don't agree with.

[Roberta Yang]

Alignments.

[Gorbacz]

Counterspelling.

[Midnight_Angel]

Gorbacz wrote:

Counterspelling.

Please elaborate.

[Gorbacz]

In my games, counterspelling is an immediate (not readied) action which makes you lose a standard action during your next turn. If you have Improved Counterspell, you don't lose the action.

Before I introduced that, I've never seen a counterspell attempt in any 3.5/PF game. Inefficient mechanic since day 1.

Also, this somewhat mitigates save-or-cry situations, because every caster worth his/her salt has dispel magic ready in case the party gets hit with something really fugly.

[Midnight_Angel]

Gorbacz wrote:

In my games, counterspelling is an immediate action which makes you lose a standard action during your next turn. If you have Improved Counterspell, you don't lose the action.

Before I introduced that, I've never seen a counterspell attempt in any 3.5/PF game. Inefficient mechanic since day 1.

.

Looks like a great Houserule. Seems we are on the same wave length here...
Hmm... next turn? Or next standard action (if you haven't acted yet)?

[voska66]

I don't like that combat feats can't be used together or can't be used with special actions. Like Cleave and Vital Strike and charge and vital strike.

[Gorbacz]

Midnight_Angel wrote:

Gorbacz wrote:

In my games, counterspelling is an immediate action which makes you lose a standard action during your next turn. If you have Improved Counterspell, you don't lose the action.

Before I introduced that, I've never seen a counterspell attempt in any 3.5/PF game. Inefficient mechanic since day 1.

.

Looks like a great Houserule. Seems we are on the same wave length here...
Hmm... next turn? Or next standard action (if you haven't acted yet)?

Yeah, it's the next standard action, mental shortcut there.

[hogarth]

Scott Wilhelm wrote:

I always hated that you can't Bullrush, Trip, or Grapple things that are 2 or more sizes bigger than you.

There's no restriction on the size of creatures that you can grapple in Pathfinder.

My two cents:

I prefer 3.5 grappling (warts and all) to Pathfinder grappling.

I dislike some of the recent "clarifications" to the Pathfinder monk class.

[Blue Star]

pauljathome wrote:

Gunslingers. I don't like the flavour (guns don't belong in my faux-medieval fantasy) and I loathe the mechanics (the "primitive" guns have a significantly higher rate of fire than WW1 rifles had).

Firearms predate Fullplate in the real world. Actual guns came around the same time frame. I'll accept that it's -YOUR- faux-medeival fantasy, but I want you to understand that in the world without magic, they showed up a lot earlier than where that faux-medeival fantasy world is more or less set, and we -DON'T- have access to brain-enhancing magic.

That said: I don't like that guns are so prone to breaking. Especially properly-maintained guns, like what you'd expect an adventurer to have.

[Animation]

I dislike:

Swift actions required for Eldritch Knight capstone and arcane armor feats. Should be free.

Magic items shops, assumed wealth & magic, and assumptions of magic item availability.

Bonded item penalty if you lose it. Arcane bonds generally ... You should be able to swap it for a feat.

Domain spells cant go in non domain slots. Hate that.

Gunslinger mechanics (I am fine with guns).

Weapon crit ranges and damage values still make weird weapons common and normal weapins rare. Would love to see all weapons get crit ranges bumped up to match scimitar.

I hate that humans get an extra feat. Ropes me into being human way too often. Would rather all races get 2 feats at level one. Extra skill points for being human is still enough to make humans desirable.

Polymorph spells suck now, and too many spells have reduced duration.

[PhelanArcetus]

Roberta Yang wrote:

Sloanzilla wrote:

Such is life, though I can't help but wonder why you'd find a less restrictive power attack rule to be "terrible"

Because it leads to weird metagamey scenarios where players try to determine the monster's exact AC and then slow the game down calculating exactly how much Power Attack to use in order to squeeze out a couple of extra points of DPR.

And it really doesn't add anything to the game except that.

I actually wrote a calculator for that.

I found a few problems in using it, though:

• I normally begin attacking with little to no AC information, so for that round I just take a power attack value that gives me an attack bonus that's a round number.
  
• Often by the time hits & misses add up to an exact AC value, or even a small range, the fight is over.
  
• A lot of the monsters the DM in that game throws at us have enough AC and DR that the calculator keeps spitting out values like 1 or 2. And that's not a bug in the calculator, that's a function of his monsters.
  
• My weapon is wounding, which requires an estimate of the target's HD to guess the value.
  

While I like that I was able to use my programming skills for 3.5 power attack... I don't like the feel that I needed them for it.

[alientude]

gourry187 wrote:

I am not a fan of the rule allowing one to use 2 hands to attack with a one handed or light weapon for the extra strop bonus to damage. It detracts from people actually using 2handed weapons. I am coolwith exotics like bastard and katana swords that allownfor both as they require a feat.

Light weapons do not get extra damage from being 2-handed.

[DigitalMage]

This is just in relation to changes from 3.5, and are just the ones to sprint to mind...

I dislike the fact that you can trip with any weapon, rather than just weapons with the Trip property.

I dislike the Grapple rules - too much extra complication, recalculation of stats, and unintuitive results.

I dislike channelling for healing (despite initially liking the idea).

I dislike the exception to the rule re fright conditions not stacking that had to be added because PF changes the way Intimidate works (allowing demoralise to make a character Shaken for more than a turn).

I dislike the vagueness that has been added when there previously was none (I think the Sunder thread epitomises this).

Having said that, there are loads of rules changes I really like, unfortunately the above niggles (and others like it) make me not want to use PF in place of 3.5.

[Blue Star]

I think that some of the feat chains are utterly needless. Two-weapon fighting and vital strike in particular. Two weapon fighting should just be a -2 hit when using it. Vital Strike should just be a single feat.

[The Saltmarsh 6]

Firearms I've never liked them in fantasy games i mean who would want carry several lbs of something that explodes when it comes into contact with fire

[Shamisen]

The Saltmarsh 6 wrote:

Firearms I've never liked them in fantasy games i mean who would want carry several lbs of something that explodes when it comes into contact with fire

There's always that guy who wants to carry around a lot of alchemist's fire.