This thread's a pretty great read. Gave me a new perspective on the "edition" wars.If we mostly stick to what is GOOD about each edition, then we should be able to keep it civil and informative.
Or at least understand that when you are talking about the things you don't like that you are giving your subjective opinions on things and YMMV.
In 4E you say - "I want to do my 2d6 power now" (each class describes it differently but it's all the same)
In Pathfinder you say "I wonder what I can do before my party wizard ends the fight" or "before the broken summoner and his eidolon do the same"
They both have flaws. I'd avoid 4E for the simple fact you'd be jumping on a sinking ship as it will be gone soon. I'd say Pathfinder is superior too, but that's just personal opinion and not relevant to the discussion I presume
From what I gather, both games have their ups and downs. Obviously this being a PF forum, people are going to prefer PF to 4e. That being said, it seems people that like D&D like PF as well. There may be imbalance but not too much to completely break the game and make it unplayable. I imagine if it was unplayable, it wouldn't be growing as well as it is lol.
One thing that I would point out. Balance in tabletop isn't as critical as you might think.
In a MMO, the game largely runs without outside interference. Imbalances are grating and glaring because you are forced to live with them.
In a tabletop, you have a DM right there. Once the DM has reached a certain level of system mastery, they will have a good grasp of the imbalances inherent in the game system, and they will design encounters with those imbalances in mind. Because of this, even a horrifically imbalanced system can produce fun games if the guy running the game has a good mastery of the system.
4e. PF would try to simulate it somehow (falling object damage rules for example). 4e tells you to eyeball it and gives a chart and examples.
I would point out that you that you are getting into the nebulous area of DMing style here.
There is a spectrum of DMing style with 2 extremes.
1. If the rules do not specifically allow it, then it is not possible.
2. If the rules do not forbid it, then it is possible.
All DMs fall somewhere in between, but some will be closer to 1 than 2 or vice versa.
Most of the DM I play with gravitate towards 2, so no matter what system we are playing(PF, Shadowrun, 4e, etc), we will try to come up with an on the fly set of rules for whatever crazy idea the player has unless there is something in the rules that says it is flat out impossible.
PF does require a high level of system mastery to improvise well. 4e makes things a bit easier.
In 4E you say - "I want to do my 2d6 power now" (each class describes it differently but it's all the same)
In Pathfinder you say "I wonder what I can do before my party wizard ends the fight" or "before the broken summoner and his eidolon do the same"
They both have flaws. I'd avoid 4E for the simple fact you'd be jumping on a sinking ship as it will be gone soon. I'd say Pathfinder is superior too, but that's just personal opinion and not relevant to the discussion I presume
You know, I have several PF groups. In one, the dwarf group, it’s “I wonder what the rest of the party can do before my Paladin Smites and ends the fight”- but if it’s not Evil, then yes, “before the broken summoner and his eidolon do the same". In the other party, it’s “I wonder what I can do before my party Magus does a FAO and ends the fight" and in the third group it’s I wonder what I can do before my party Fighter does a FAO w/dual wielding scimitars ends the fight"- and we’re now 12th level. In other words, my Sorc considers his primary duty is to buff and get the super-tank that is our Fighter up so he can do a FAO on the BBEG and thus end the fight- and that's at 12th level.
FAR and away our party fighter is the most dangerous PC in any of our group followed by the Magus, the Eidolon and if it's Evil one of the two paladins. Note that neither of the two sorc or the wizard is in their league. Dont get me wrong, if the bad guys are flying (for example) yes, someone has to cast Fly on the Fighter, sure. But that's why D&D is a TEAM game.
Or, if you think spellcasters are taking over, then play one.
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Hello - Pathfinder fan through and through here. I play and have run many Pathfinder games. On top of that I have been RPGing (mostly D&D-ish) since 1979.
Also I did not read this whole thread so I apologize if I am just repeating what has been said already.
Having brought in many new players via Pathfinder I can say that Pathfinder is kind of hard. Not impossible but the learning curve can be steep for inexpereinced players. My wife is one of them. It's taken her a year and she is finally getting some of the basic rules down. Of the 10 or so people I have played with that are new this seems common. Maybe it's just them though but I only know of one "newb" that got it down fast and quick.
Went to my local game store a few weeks ago. They do classes for cosplay and stuff and my 12 year old daughter is into that so me and the wife took her to that class. Also that night was a D&D Encounters night so me and the wife decided to jump on a table and play a 4ed D&D game. Frankly, my first time playing the game and I have never bought a 4ed book. I was handed a wizard and was in an encounter within 10 minutes. I have RPGing expereince so I picked it up instantly. I had zero issues effectively running that 4ed wizard. My wife needed a little bit of coaching but she picked it up by the second encounter.
The mechanical play expereince was fine. The other guys at the table? Not so much but that is a social issue and not a game system issue.
So, I'd say play both. 4ed is way easier to get into and as you progress you will pick up Pathfinder too and have fun with both. Bottom line for me has always been "who" as opposed to "what". If you've got good folks at your table you will be fine with either.
.... Bottom line for me has always been "who" as opposed to "what". If you've got good folks at your table you will be fine with either.
Ding, ding, ding. We have a winner here!
I very much agree with this. I have tried a few different gaming systems. I would be willing to play any of them with the right group of folks.
Well, maybe not 5 Rings. I don't like a system that practically forces me to be a racist, misogynistic, egotistical, elitist just to play the game. But the right group might house rule to eliminate all that carp so we could have fun.
Hi, Pathfinder DM here. If I put a trap like a chandalier in the encounter.... well I'd run it like a trap. There's a huge list of them, why bother with trying to reinvent the wheel.
Just my 2 cents.
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if you find yourself wondering what to do in 4E during a fight and you don't want to burn one of your Encounter of Daily powers
Improvise.
Kick over a table and charge people with it. Spit a flask of Wine and light it on fire with your torch.
4E encourages that a lot more than PF does. I find 3E/PF groups can get some caught up in their Feat and ability choices they sometimes forget to wing it and just try something crazy.
Well, the problem with doing that is you'd take a massive penalty to your accuracy because you wouldn't be getting your expertise feat, you wouldn't be getting your weapon proficiency bonus, and you wouldn't be getting your enhancement bonus from your weapon.
So while you CAN improvise attacks in 4E (and the DMG had a chart for determining how much damage that should do at any given level), you'd need to roll an 18 or better to actually hit with the thing, because monster defenses were hard-coded around the assumption you had a +X weapon at each level range.
Some aspects of 4E I really liked; I felt that the system "peaked" around the time MM3, Demonomicom, PH3, and the Dark Sun books came out. Around that point, there was pretty great support from having a DDI subscription, the mechanics were really solid (hell, they even finally got skill challenges working!), and monster design was easy and pretty great.
Note: Incidentally, if you want to make a 4E monster really bad-ass, just give it a couple powers off of the PC power list. The difference that could make was staggering, as the daily powers for PCs are often out-right better than anything an equivalent monster could do. One of the roughest encounters I ran involved a guy with a power off the warlord list that worked as "as long as you have an ally within 2 squares of you, you and every ally within 2 squares rolls twice and takes the better on every attack roll." Which is pretty ridiculous as a power, but that was an actual L22 daily utility power for PC warlords.
And then Essentials happened, and a lot of questionable decisions happened around the same time, like ending support for the excellent downloadable Character Creator and Monster Creator programs and trying to force subscribers to use the significantly inferior versions on the DDI website.
Honestly, if you're DMing 4E, you should get a DDI subscription. The materials that come with that are worth it. And check out the scripts at [url]http://www.asmor.com/scripts.php[/url]. The treasure generator alone is a godsend, but you need the DDI subscription to beneift from it (and by benefit I mean be able to look up the items).
I played a 4E game from 1 to 26, and I DM'd a 4E game from 1 to 30, and enjoyed both, but I was done with WotC by the time my 4E game finished. Cancelled my DDI subscription the same night I finished my campaign. I reached a point where I simply done with 4E.
4E's relatively easy to pick up and play, and it's MUCH easier to design encounters for than Pathfinder is.
I find Pathfinder a lot more fun to play in and to run, though. It's kind of hard to quantify why, but there it is. I'm planning stuff for Pathfinder that I won't even be running for a year or more. I suspect it'll be a long, long time before I'm ever done with Pathfinder.
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Stuff.
I don't disagree, but improvised actions do fall at partly into the realm of DM Style. I have played with one DM who was very much against improvised actions in general. I cannot imagine that going to 4e would suddenly change their attitude or DMing style.
In 4E you say - "I want to do my 2d6 power now" (each class describes it differently but it's all the same)
In Pathfinder you say "I wonder what I can do before my party wizard ends the fight" or "before the broken summoner and his eidolon do the same"
They both have flaws. I'd avoid 4E for the simple fact you'd be jumping on a sinking ship as it will be gone soon. I'd say Pathfinder is superior too, but that's just personal opinion and not relevant to the discussion I presume
Personally I much prefer the wizard or summoner ending the fight. Fights are find but I prefer the story. After a fight we get back to the story.
That's one reason I really disliked 4E. The fights took too long even for minor encounters. That's just my preference though. I know people who like long drawn out tactical combat sessions.
Does it? I found in the 4E games that happened alot less because there isnt a space for it in the rules, or at least not one that I am aware of it. Kick over table isnt a power, but maybe I missed something?if you find yourself wondering what to do in 4E during a fight and you don't want to burn one of your Encounter of Daily powers
Improvise.
Kick over a table and charge people with it. Spit a flask of Wine and light it on fire with your torch.
4E encourages that a lot more than PF does. I find 3E/PF groups can get some caught up in their Feat and ability choices they sometimes forget to wing it and just try something crazy.
It's a tiny little chart in the DM book takes up maybe half a page. Basically giving rough dice pools and difficulties for improvised moves at different character levels.
4e breaks everything down into a damage dice pool with maybe a status effect attached to it. That's why improvising was supposed to be so easy. I found the good 4E dms had that chart half memorized and encouraged you to wing it. It ended up getting used a lot at the "Weekly D&D" events they used to hold at my local store.
I know some DMs get locked onto the Power Cards but we had a couple of guys who would use the improve chart for their monsters to try and egg the kids playing with them to try the same. Once the players involved figured out they could do attacks that weren't on their power cards just by trying something cool they really got into it.
I guess it's not much different in PF good GM can encourage players to improvise, we just don't have an improve chart. Having a chart or specific rules makes it easier for some people.
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There is so much I wanna post here....
But I will keep it simple.
4E, in my humble opinion (IMHO), was rushed. I see part of the reason in the post from the other web sight above, but the overall push could have been delayed at least another year to differentiate the classes, get the technical side of Insider flush, let licenses lapse with more care and forgiveness and figure out the race abilities that they yanked at the last moment.
What is left is some very good ideas marred with some lackluster development.
PF, though, isn't perfect. PrC's are about the same as they are in the PHB, meaning that they did not get the improvements that the Core classes got in the Core book. Some of the cut and paste from the OGL left holes in the rules (an example is the difference between Enlarge Person and Reduce Person) that wasn't there before, or widened what was there.
I do prefer Pathfinder, but didn't see 4E as horrible as some did. I liked, as mentioned above, the clear cut rules for the monsters, keeping them separate from the Player rules. I like the Skill groupings, having some lesser skills enveloped within the new grouping. (PF did this to an extent) and the Defenses would have been great if it didn't get treated as four types of AC.
I would say it is up to preference, but for me it was a given. My friends just didn't get into it, and jumped to PF, I followed and found that I prefer it, though I really wanted to believe. I did.
Then Essentials.... Essentials.
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One way I would boil down the differences is with the following example:
The PCs encounter a wall, and one character decides to try and climb it. What's the DC?
Pathfinder: It depends on what the wall is made of and how many handholds it has. Here's a small chart with a few examples of various types of walls and the DC to climb each. Figure out which wall matches your wall, and use the corresponding DC. If the wall is wet, don't forget to use that as a modifier to the DC.
4e: What level are the players and how challenging does the DM want the wall to be? Here's a range of DCs based on character level for making the challenge, easy, standard, or hard. Use the level of the PC and the diffculty of the challenge to determine the DC.
The Pathfinder method means that the wall may not be a challenge for some parties and is insurmountable for other parties. The 4e method keeps the challenge consistent no matter what level the party is.
One thing to point out is that actually 4e does have quite a few of the same sort of charts to determine DC as PF does, climbing a wall being a perfect example.
Climb: Part of a move action.
✦ DC: See the table. If you use a climber’s kit, you get a +2 bonus to your Athletics check. If you can brace yourself between two surfaces, you get a +5 bonus to your check.Surface Athletics DC
Ladder 0
Rope 10
Uneven surface (cave wall) 15
Rough surface (brick wall) 20
Slippery surface +5
Unusually smooth surface +5
The good thing about 4e is that, as Sebastian pointed out, you also have DMG p42 that provides guidelines on generating DC that will be a challenge for your particular party (and I do think it is written in mind of challenging the whole party, not just the expert in that area).
E.g. you want your entire 7th level party to be able to sneak into the local baron's castle, and you want it to be fairly easy to do so - the fun will come when they find the princess isn't a prisoner but a willing ally of the baron! So you look at the p42 chart and see that a DC of 8 is Easy.
Whilst the Rogue in the party may simply be unable to fail in this task, the heavily armoured fighter also has a good chance of success without it being guaranteed, d20+4 (+3 for half level, +2 for Dex, -1 for wearing chain mail, untrained in Stealth); a 15% chance of failure.
So you get the best of both worlds - pre-defined DCs if you want to look them up, and guidelines for a DM to eyeball it.
Page 42 can also be useful to get an idea of whether a DC determined by charts will be a challenge for your team.
E.g. a rain slicked brick wall has a climb DC of 25, on the chart that is a hard DC for the average 16th level character who may not be trained in Athletics and only have a +2 Strength modifier resulting in a roll of d20+10 vs DC 25 (i.e. a 70% chance of failure).
Of course a strong athletics-focussed 16th level character may find it much easier, but still not a guaranteed success, d20+20(+8 for half level, +4 Strength Bonus, +5 Trained in Athletics, +3 for Skill Focus: Athletics) vs DC 25; only a 20% chance of failure
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Does it? I found in the 4E games that happened alot less because there isnt a space for it in the rules, or at least not one that I am aware of it. Kick over table isnt a power, but maybe I missed something?This was my experience as well. People got even more locked into what was directly written on the sheet. Nobody even believed they COULD improvise.
I must admit when I GMed 4e my players did become focussed on their powers and forgot to think of things that didn't involve powers, e.g. Bull Rush, Grab, never mind improvising stuff.
But there really is space for improvising in the rules - DMG p42, one of the really good things about 4e that IMHO 3.x systems could do with.
Maybe the problem is that it is in the DMG and written with the idea that the players would ask to do something not covered by the other rules and the DM would interpret that and determine the mechanics to use to resolve it. Because of this players maybe aren't as aware of improvising as an option - combine with the decision paralysis that can be brought on by the sheer number of powers player characters can have, and you may find improvising doesn't happen.
This is why I write up a short document for players that includes the following:
Alternatives to Power Use (PH p287–292, DMG p42)
In addition to the use of powers there are several options available that may be of use including:
• Aid Another – can be used to help an ally attack or defend against a target.
• Bull Rush – move a target by Pushing them, this can even be done whilst you Grab them.
• Grab – immobilise a foe by grabbing them, you can then attempt to Pull them.
• Total Defence – gain a bonus to all defences.
In addition, feel free to try things the rules do not cover, these can be adjudicated using the ubiquitous Page 42 of the Dungeon Master’s Guide.
For example pull down a tapestry on a line of guards, this is a Close Wall 4 attack, Strength vs Reflex, Hit: no damage but all targets are Blinded and Immobilised, Save Ends.
Have fun! I have found the hobby to be well worth the cost.
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Does it? I found in the 4E games that happened alot less because there isnt a space for it in the rules, or at least not one that I am aware of it. Kick over table isnt a power, but maybe I missed something?It's a tiny little chart in the DM book takes up maybe half a page. Basically giving rough dice pools and difficulties for improvised moves at different character levels.
4e breaks everything down into a damage dice pool with maybe a status effect attached to it. That's why improvising was supposed to be so easy. I found the good 4E dms had that chart half memorized and encouraged you to wing it. It ended up getting used a lot at the "Weekly D&D" events they used to hold at my local store.
I know some DMs get locked onto the Power Cards but we had a couple of guys who would use the improve chart for their monsters to try and egg the kids playing with them to try the same. Once the players involved figured out they could do attacks that weren't on their power cards just by trying something cool they really got into it.
I guess it's not much different in PF good GM can encourage players to improvise, we just don't have an improve chart. Having a chart or specific rules makes it easier for some people.
Yes, I have to admit that the 4e attempt to incorporate a regular improvised move structure was one of the game's real strengths as a general RPG. It has its flaws, however, because the rest of the game's encouragement of dumping half your stats and overall mathematics means that your powers are usually better than the special maneuvers anyway. The important thing is it was a start on a good idea and I hope that the next version of D&D makes use of it too (and with it's more constrained modifiers in the play test, there's a good chance it will work better than in 4e too).
Have fun! I have found the hobby to be well worth the cost.I'm sure it will be! I'll be able to post for PF and D&D 4e on Meetup.com now. I'm sure people will come :D.
You are bound to get a few takers. Good luck and happy gaming regardless of which game you end up sticking with.
If I remember right the beginner box runs from 1st to 5th level, which is basically somewhere between 50 and 100 encounters for a party of 4. If you're planning on running games, that should keep you going for plenty long enough to get the cash for the core rules, and possibly one or two other books.
To play, I'd suggest CRB, APG, and then UC and UM after. If you're looking to GM, slot Bestiary 1 after CRB, and squeeze the GMG in somewhere, too, with an eye to getting the other Bestaries when you can.
This thread wound up being a good read, and it is also unintentionally hilarious.
It feels kind of like someone bringing up a family divorce over Thanksgiving. You can practically sense people tensing up and waiting to pounce if they believe a line is crossed.
True, but it's not so much *WE* are waiting to pounce, it's just that "edition wars" are banned here on these message boards. As long as we focus on the positive, it won;t turn into "that thread" and be locked. It's been a good useful thread, the Op has gotten his game, so far we're good.