What would Pathfinder look like from scratch.

[Malwing]

As more Pathfinder things comes out there are a lot of ideas that seem so genius that they should have been in the game from the beginning. However the game inherited some things and locked themselves into a pattern with others.

If time were turned back and Pathfinder were made again using what Paizo knows now, what do you think the game would look like.

This is not how 'you' would remake Pathfinder, or whether or not you would like to see a Pathfinder 2.0 or 1.5, but places where Pathfinder has improved that probably would have been there from the beginning if they had thought of it before, or places where you believed Paizo goofed but are stuck with it now.

For example I think recently one dev admitted that if they could do it again, the Summoner's spell list would not look the way it does now.

or; Considering how much love Monk gets in Ultimate Combat I think that if they could do it again style feats would have been in the core monk's class feature. Especially when it comes to Archetypes that switch out Stunning fist for a high powered offensive feat, like Punishing Kick and Elemental Fist.

[Morain]

About the same, but many Sor/Wiz spells should be stronger. Channel energy should have the ability to both heal and damage at the same time.

[MMCJawa]

more classes with grit pool style mechanics

[ngc7293]

I think in the FAQ section there has been talk about rewriting the Monk but doing slowly. I think hind-sight being 20/20, they would have completely redone the monk from the ground up. It is entirely possible, given all the threads about the Rogue that the Rogue would have been changed too.

[Gherrick]

Probably even more classes getting a point-pool mechanic, as well as a talent list mechanic (Qinggong monks would be the default, not an archetype).

It would have been cool to see some of the existing combat feats be fighter-only to help distinguish it from other martial combat classes (they become "talents", as above).

Certain feats would never have been published. Specifically the ones that arguably allow characters to do things people felt they could do without that feat, but, due to its existence, now question that assumption.

[wraithstrike]

Morain wrote:

About the same, but many Sor/Wiz spells should be stronger. Channel energy should have the ability to both heal and damage at the same time.

It did when it was first(beta version) made, but I think during the playtesting it was not liked. I had it as a houserule once in my games. I can see how some GM's would not like it, with a channel focused build.

[moon glum]

I think that the rogue might be a full BAB class what with their reliance of martial prowess, their single good save, and the fact that they have other limitations that make less good at going toe to toe than a fighter (weapon limitations, armor limitations, no weapon specialization). It actually fits the image of the rogue in fantasy literature fairly well too.

[Majuba]

Honestly, from scratch Pathfinder would look like an ambitious word document on someone's computer, that no one had ever heard of. The 3.5 legacy is important, as a foundation of rules and cultural rules-knowledge, and as a standard for future development.

[CWheezy]

Morain wrote:

About the same, but many Sor/Wiz spells should be stronger.

Hahhahahaha this is the funniest post on the forum, A+ irony

[Blackerose]

...Hire Owen K Stephens to use the Talented Class rules for the classes...

[pennywit]

I think that any rewrite of Pathfinder would significantly streamline the game.

From the core rulebook onward, Pathfinder has introduced four elements to the 3.5 ruleset:

1) Make sure that characters always have something flavor-ey to do. In 3.5, when a spellcaster ran out of spells, he was reduced to shooting things with a crossbow or hitting them with a melee weapon. Something to do, yes, but not very magic-y. By adding reusable abilities and infinite casting of cantrips, Pathfinder made sure spellcasters could keep being spellcasters.

2) De-emphasize multiclassing and prestige classes. By making sure every class gets goodies throughout its progression (including a really sweet and/or flavorful ultimate ability at 20), Pathfinder gives fighters a reason to stay fighters, monks a reason to stay monks, and wizards a reason to stay wizards.

3) Enhance customization. Similar to the "Quintessential" books from Mongoose and kits from D&D 2, Paizo allowed players an intense level of customization. As others have pointed out, this has allowed players to play their dreams from the get-go. The addition of hybrid classes (magus, inquisitor, and the new classes coming in Advanced Class) carried this to an insane degree. If you want to be a spellcasting swashbuckler, you no longer have to wait five levels to take fighter, wizard, rogue, and the special spellcasting swasbuckler prestige class. In Pathfinder, you sign up for the magus class, grab Weapon Finesse, and you're ready to buckle swashes and cast spells from the get-go.

4) The "point pool" mechanic. Whether it's grit for the gunslinger, arcane pool for the magus, or ki for the monk, Pathfinder has expanded on the rather limited point pools in 3.5 to give several classes cool, fun, even cinematic abilities they can break out in a fight.

But all of these have come at something of a cost: Creating a character can be insanely complicated because players have so many choices. My group is mostly recent immigrants to pathfinder. After one player's character died, she decided to play a swashbuckling rogue as her replacement character. She, another player, and I had long exchanges about the fighter, rogue, and bard classes and their respective archetypes before she settled on rogue (swashbuckler). And let's not even get started on Mythic.

So where does this leave us? I think that if Pathfinder were republished today, taking into account the above (point pool mechanics, customization, and flavor), I think it would look a lot like Star Wars: Saga Edition's core book. Star Wars had suffered something of class bloat in the Revised Rules edition, with two flavors of Jedi, several lawbreaker-type classes, and God knows how many prestige classes. Star Wars Saga condensed a lot of this down to just five classes, with extensive customization possible via talent trees.

I think Pathfinder would do something similar. In lieu of selecting a class and possibly an archetype with abilities that replace or alter existing abilities, the new Pathfinder would repackage these abilities as some form of talent trees. Instead of going I'm a fighter (weapon master) or I'm a fighter (cad), you would have, say, a "weapon master" tree and a "dirty fighting" tree. When a feature comes available at a certain level, you could take an ability from "weapon master" or an ability from "dirty fighter." Each tree would have higher-level abilities that have low-level abilities as prerequisites.

I also think classes would be collapsed from the soon-to-be 20-something into around 5 or 6 core classes based on the original D&D big four, possible with a couple hybrid classes to spice things up. Perhaps:

Fighter
Mage
Priest
Rogue
Polyglot

The first four represent the big four classes, but would have increasingly specialized trees available to them. The polyglot, meanwhile, could take talent trees from up to two classes, but would have some restriction that keeps him from getting to the tippy-top of those trees. The Polyglot could also have a couple of his own unique talent trees that have prerequisites from two different class's trees.

Finally, we get to the points mechanic. For this, we pull a page from D&D 4. Each character specifies what his "power source" is. That is, his "power source" could be divine, arcane, primal, or martial. The "power source" would come into play with the character's "power pool." Ki points, grit points, channel attempts/day, arcane pool points, smite points, all of these would be combined into a single pool that character draws from. All characters would be able to do certain things with their power points -- say, a bonus to die rolls, maybe something class specific.

But the character's power source would open up a suite of abilities unique to source, or perhaps even unique to his source/class combination.

A divine fighter, for example, might be able to channel his divine pool to enhance his weapons' ability to damage foes of his god. Meanwhile, a divine mage could draw inspiration from the gods to gain a Knowledge bonus by spending a divine power point.

At least ... that's what I think would happen if Pathfinder were rewritten today.

[Nathanael Love]

No classes at all. You just get six feats at every level and can spend a feat on BaB, Save progression, Spell progression, or any special ability ever printed with a feat.

[mkenner]

pennywit wrote:

The polyglot, meanwhile, could take talent trees from up to two classes, but would have some restriction that keeps him from getting to the tippy-top of those trees. The Polyglot could also have a couple of his own unique talent trees that have prerequisites from two different class's trees.

I think you mean Polymath (a person with many skills), not Polyglot (a person who speaks many languages).

[pennywit]

Now that I think about it, I wonder if it would make more sense to adopt the classes from D20 Modern. You'd be a smart hero, wise hero, tough hero, strong hero, smart hero, etc., for your class ... and then your Power -- Martial, Divine, Primal, Arcane, or Lucky -- would provide your trees.

[Vincent Takeda]

I hate the point pool mechanic. And the d20 modern classes. I'm so thankful that such things are used sparingly. Of course I'm not a big fan of battle mat, crunch based on battle mat, stuck in one place fighter fu, and feats that were meant to improve a fighters options instead severely limiting them.

I'd like to think if they built it from scratch they'd rethink that stuff.

I love the archetype mechanic though. I'd like to think you could get back to a system where you just chose 'fighter/caster/healer and chose your flavor using archetypes...

[Whale_Cancer]

They wouldn't try to maintain backwards compatibility with 3.5. This wouldn't mean a radical redesign, but rather a few features of classes would be changed, feat structures would be changed (feat taxes), etc.,

[amethal]

Whale_Cancer wrote:

They wouldn't try to maintain backwards compatibility with 3.5. This wouldn't mean a radical redesign, but rather a few features of classes would be changed, feat structures would be changed (feat taxes), etc.,

You mean, they might have given fighters 4 skill points per level !?!

[amethal]

Nathanael Love wrote:

No classes at all. You just get six feats at every level and can spend a feat on BaB, Save progression, Spell progression, or any special ability ever printed with a feat.

I think Paizo actually likes class and level based games. I can't see them ever deciding to make an extreme version of True20.