Has anyone compared pathfinder and 5e creatures (bestiary entries)? Are they at all inter-compatible?
Well I have the starter and you'd have to do some converting. AC, hit bonus, saves, skills, are all different sort of. One thing that I see is that they seem more like 4e elites so that one oger is a challenge for the standard 4.
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Has anyone compared pathfinder and 5e creatures (bestiary entries)? Are they at all inter-compatible?
Mechanically speaking, the likelihood of them being interchangable is extremely low as the two systems are already looking to be quite different.
From a fluff perspective, bringing / converting almost anything to the d20 system is not only doable but often pretty painless. However, if the monsters are at all similar to 4E monsters in their design paradigms, you will need to round out a lot o the monsters or else they will feel very boring and lackluster by comparison to other creatures in the bestiaries.
What I mean by this is, in the 4E design structure, the monsters exist only to be killed. As a result, they rarely if ever had anything that you could use to develop them as NPCs, or include from an ecological perspective.
For example, in D&D 3.x/PF, a bone devil has a few different things that it can contribute not only to combat but to the overall narrative. Their abilities like invisibility, greater teleport, and quickened invisibility make them great options for spies and assassins, while dimensional anchor and wall of ice make them useful for providing support for more powerful fiends.
In a similar vein, Imps have commune periodically as a SLA, which is purely a sort of story-forwarding divination ability.
You're almost guaranteed to stumble across undead fiends and creatures in a pit fiend's lair because of their create undead SLA which has little in-combat application. Likewise, their ability to trap and trade souls like currency (backed by their mechanics) in itself is a strong element that you could add to various adventures.
Further, most well designed 3.x monsters are more well rounded than they were in the 4E paradigm, often capable of changing their strategies up, with two or three different means of being an obstacle to the party (erinyes for example can provide martial offense, or blast the snot out of you with SLAs, in both cases usually as hit and run or skirmish tactics), which usually leads to more dynamic combat potential* than the default creatures in by 4E MM.
*: I say potential because not all GMs will run their NPCs to their potential. If a GM just has an erinyes stand around and shoot, or try to whack someone with their sword, and/or not take advantage of their abilities then the encounter will still be just as "meh" as it would have been if they only had 1 special ability.
However, a well designed monster is a character in its own right and when placed in the hands of a GM who will make use of its potential is leaps and bounds beyond what 4E-style monsters had in potential, though the 4E monsters were simpler.
Well I have the starter and you'd have to do some converting. AC, hit bonus, saves, skills, are all different sort of. One thing that I see is that they seem more like 4e elites so that one oger is a challenge for the standard 4.
I'm gonna agree with this. I also picked up the PDF and beginners box for 5e. Much of the stuff will be some what compatible, but due to new mechanics some work will be involved. As an example, resistances have been changed a bit. Things are either immune, resistant (1/2 damage), or vulnerable (2x damage). And that is used for both magic and weapon calculations, ie immune to fire and vulnerable to slashing.
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Has anyone compared pathfinder and 5e creatures (bestiary entries)? Are they at all inter-compatible?
They're not directly compatible, but I have been tinkering with some homebrew conversion.
5E attack bonuses, saves, and skill difficulty checks are on a different scale than PF/3X. Low-level stuff is close, but the disparity rises the higher things get in level. The highest base attack bonus in 5E is +6 compared to +20 in PF/3X. For Saves, it's +6 in 5E compared to +12 in PF/3X. And skill difficulty checks range somewhat higher in PF/3X than in 5E.
After looking at it and crunching some numbers, I think it'd be easier to convert 3E/PF to 5E than the other direction. That said, I'm waiting to see the 5E Core Rulebooks before doing to much conversion.
Ultimately, I expect our group will convert to 5E for rules but stay with homebrewed conversions of a lot of PF/3X material. Mostly because of the "flatter" math underlying the 5E engine and the fact that we've already have so much PF/3X material.
5E attack bonuses, saves, and skill difficulty checks are on a different scale than PF/3X. Low-level stuff is close, but the disparity rises the higher things get in level. The highest base attack bonus in 5E is +6 compared to +20 in PF/3X. For Saves, it's +6 in 5E compared to +12 in PF/3X. And skill difficulty checks range somewhat higher in PF/3X than in 5E.
Huh. Would you say that 5E in any way resembles E6 (or P6)?
If you are looking for conversions, wouldn't it be simpler to just dig up a 3.5 monster manual and convert any non SRD creatures from that to Pathfinder?
ah okay...for some reason I was reading this in reverse (converting 5E monsters to Pathfinder)
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I guess the question is, with Pathfinder, why would you want to play 5E at all?
With 5e, why would you want to play Pathfinder at all?
Some of us believe 5e is easier to play, and we like that. Some of us like the lower numbers of 5e during play, letting monsters stay relevant longer, and letting us actually stand a chance when fighting monsters much more powerful than the characters.
Some people like the ability score cap, and don't like halflings capable of bench pressing tanks running around.
Some people don't like having to determine where each individual skill point goes.
Some people like the idea that magic items can be entirely optional.
Some people like the idea that feats are entirely optional.
Some people like the idea that there are no multitude of + or -2 modifiers thrown around everywhere, and like the idea of the Advantage/Disadvantage system.
Some people like the idea of wizards running around casting spells in full plate (assuming they are proficient with it) with no penalty.
Some like the idea of combat cantrips that stay relevant throughout your adventuring career, instead of being stuck with a pitiful 1d4 damage for 20 levels.
Asking someone why 5e when Pathfinder is available is like asking why someones favorite color is blue when red exists, or why someones favorite flavor of icecream is strawberry when chocolate exists. There is no right or wrong answer. The system you want to use is just personal preference. Some prefer Pathfinder, some prefer 5e.
Personally, I just don't like the 3.X/PF rules system. Modifiers to rolls get way too high. I don't like how magic items are pretty much required, or that the game assumes a combat grid is being used. I don't like how the numbers break down at middle and higher levels. I don't like how long it takes to make a character, especially a higher level one, having to spend all of those skill points and choose those feats.
While 5e does still have its problems, I just like it more than Pathfinder or 3.5 D&D. But the systems are close enough I can convert what I do like from Pathfinder to 5e easily enough.
I guess the question is, with Pathfinder, why would you want to play 5E at all?With 5e, why would you want to play Pathfinder at all?
Some of us believe 5e is easier to play, and we like that. Some of us like the lower numbers of 5e during play, letting monsters stay relevant longer, and letting us actually stand a chance when fighting monsters much more powerful than the characters.
Some people like the ability score cap, and don't like halflings capable of bench pressing tanks running around.
Some people don't like having to determine where each individual skill point goes.
Some people like the idea that magic items can be entirely optional.
Some people like the idea that feats are entirely optional.
Some people like the idea that there are no multitude of + or -2 modifiers thrown around everywhere, and like the idea of the Advantage/Disadvantage system.
Some people like the idea of wizards running around casting spells in full plate (assuming they are proficient with it) with no penalty.
Some like the idea of combat cantrips that stay relevant throughout your adventuring career, instead of being stuck with a pitiful 1d4 damage for 20 levels.Asking someone why 5e when Pathfinder is available is like asking why someones favorite color is blue when red exists, or why someones favorite flavor of icecream is strawberry when chocolate exists. There is no right or wrong answer. The system you want to use is just personal preference. Some prefer Pathfinder, some prefer 5e.
Personally, I just don't like the 3.X/PF rules system. Modifiers to rolls get way too high. I don't like how magic items are pretty much required, or that the game assumes a combat grid is being used. I don't like how the numbers break down at middle and higher levels. I don't like how long it takes to make a character, especially a higher level one, having to spend all of those skill points and choose those feats.
While 5e does still have its problems, I just like it more than...
Just about exactly this. The only thing that keeps my hopes from getting too high is knowing WotC is behind it.
I guess the question is, with Pathfinder, why would you want to play 5E at all?
I'm trying to see how easy it would be to borrow combat rules from 5e to use against unmodified PF monsters, supplementing or replacing the relevant PF rule.
(original poster)
Huh. Would you say that 5E in any way resembles E6 (or P6)?
5E attack bonuses, saves, and skill difficulty checks are on a different scale than PF/3X. Low-level stuff is close, but the disparity rises the higher things get in level. The highest base attack bonus in 5E is +6 compared to +20 in PF/3X. For Saves, it's +6 in 5E compared to +12 in PF/3X. And skill difficulty checks range somewhat higher in PF/3X than in 5E.
Yes and no.
5E math is closer to what you'd see in E6/P6 (orP7). But, 5E still goes to level 20 and still has spells from 4th to 9th level. But, the ones that some may consider problematic aren't present in 5E Basic (no telling about Core, yet). Also, spell buffs are limited to one at a time, if my understanding is correct.
Magic items are limited, too. The default is that they're extremely rare (can't be bought or sold). Also, the better ones require a character to be "attuned" to them in order to get their benefits. A character can only be "attuned" to a max of three items.
I'm a fan of E6 and have been for years. For me, there are similarities between 5E and E6, but they aren't the same game. 5E still assumes there are four tiers of play, while E6 concentrates on the first two tiers. But, 3X tiers aren't necessarily the same as 5X tiers.
http://www.wizards.com/dnd/Article.aspx?x=dnd/4ll/20130401
Mathematically, I'd say that 5E extends the "sweet-spot" found in E6 all the way to 20th level. And, that's a huge plus, for me.
I guess the question is, with Pathfinder, why would you want to play 5E at all?I'm trying to see how easy it would be to borrow combat rules from 5e to use against unmodified PF monsters, supplementing or replacing the relevant PF rule.
(original poster)
I don't think it'd be all that hard. In fact, I think it'd be very easy to do.
Advantage/Disadvantage is easy to substitute for various situational modifiers.
Relaxing AoO rules to 5E standards is easy enough.
Allowing arcane casters to cast when wearing armor they are proficient with is easy.
Eliminating confirmation rolls on crit threats is easy (but, may result in too many crits with default PF threat ranges and threat range increasers).
The 5E Death and Dying rules would be easy to import.
I think much of the 5E engine could be used unchanged with 3X characters and monsters.
Eh... 5E's basic rules have some pretty dramatic issues. They include really poor layout and writing (like the character creation section telling you to do things out of order, like record hitpoints before you even know how to determine them or what your Con score is), stale characters (one-true-race classes, there's no reason to have a fighter that isn't a mountain dwarf, a cleric that isn't a hill dwarf, a wizard that isn't a high elf, or a rogue that isn't a stout halfling, unless you're a human), and glaring design flaws (Evocation wizards can maximize the damage on a spell by taking d12s of damage per spell level... but cantrips are 0 level spells and embarrass fighters in damage output once that comes online).
I can't really judge it with finality until the full player's handbook comes out, but things look really, really grim for 5e. Especially with the bestiary previews that include hobgoblins that straight up oneshot low level PCs on average hits and hp that scales up way faster than damage (it takes an ogre like 3 rounds to beat a 3rd level wizard to death, and eons to kill a fighter).
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The point is the balance side. Yeah, you can choose something else for flavor, but the issue is that you have to be a certain race if you want to have a +3 modifier in your primary ability score[s] at first level, which is quite a bit more important for not dying at low levels due to the whole bounded accuracy debacle.
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It has a different feel, that's for sure. However they have adjusted some things nicely.
Fighters can move and use all of their attacks now. In fact, they can move, attack, move again and attack a different target now too. I like this mechanic and think I'll incorporate it into my pathfinder games if my friends are up for it.
Certain abilities like sneak attack now work as long as there is someone next to your opponent, not necessarily flanking. What's more, stealth seems easier.
People seem to think casters are OP, but in playing through the introductory campaign from the starter box that isn't happening. The fighters are dealing extra damage with their bonus attacks and can replenish hp during fights with second wind. Casters burn through spell slots pretty fast, and only get to replenish those with extended rests. This regularly left them with only can trips, so it's important those cantrips can actually do decent damage.
As for converting monsters, there is a guide for out there somewhere. I found it on a website when googled dnd next. Can't remember it right now, but if I find it again I'll drop a link in here.
Cheers
5E math is closer to what you'd see in E6/P6 (orP7). But, 5E still goes to level 20 and still has spells from 4th to 9th level. But, the ones that some may consider problematic aren't present in 5E Basic (no telling about Core, yet). Also, spell buffs are limited to one at a time, if my understanding is correct.Magic items are limited, too. The default is that they're extremely rare (can't be bought or sold). Also, the better ones require a character to be "attuned" to them in order to get their benefits. A character can only be "attuned" to a max of three items.
I'm a fan of E6 and have been for years. For me, there are similarities between 5E and E6, but they aren't the same game. 5E still assumes there are four tiers of play, while E6 concentrates on the first two tiers. But, 3X tiers aren't necessarily the same as 5X tiers.
http://www.wizards.com/dnd/Article.aspx?x=dnd/4ll/20130401
Mathematically, I'd say that 5E extends the "sweet-spot" found in E6 all the way to 20th level. And, that's a huge plus, for me.
Thanks for the info. This all comes at a time when my players are feeling burned out on E6/8 (even though I really like it) -- in part, I think, because of the phenomenon of there always being "cool stuff" in the book that they know they'll never get their hands on.
We've also all gotten rather tired of the magic item system in PF, what with players being able to buy, sell, and craft to their hearts' content. Players have gone from grousing that they don't get the cool expensive items to realizing that even if they did get them they would just sell them and craft cheaper, more optimized stuff. Which is cool in a way and not cool in another way, because characters tend to end up being fairly cookie cutter when it comes to magic items owned.
Another advantage to early adoption of 5th Edition might be that we could get in before power creep sets in. Pathfinder, I think, is starting to groan under the strain of its own cheese at this point, and with a new class book just around the corner...