Without feats, player choice must come in the form of race, background, and classAlso spells, archetypes, combat styles, and it's not "without feats", feats are an actual choice. You have some feats that give you a pip to one of your attributes as well.
There's also attribute choice. I can go high Dex on my fighter, or get a lot of armor and Charisma for healing people with Combat Maneuvers...
I think 5E is better than Pathfinder. If I haven't switched yet, it's due to lack of materials. I appreciate balance.
ALSO: I prefer fewer meaningful choices than a lot of choices than mean nothing. I mean, do you consider your character better because you took Mobility, Combat Expertise and Skill Focus as prerequisites for stuff you actually wanted?
Well first of all, you don't really have a particularly meaningful choice regarding stat increases. You are going to get your main attack stat to 20. That is something you are going to do as it is the fulcrum by which the whole apparatus of your character swings. If you don't then you are a dumb person. This is why I say that a real "build" is only going to have a feat or two over their 20 levels (maybe 3 or 4 for a fighter or rogue). For those two feats there will be obvious best choices. Big sword characters get the big sword feat and archer characters get the archer feat.
Spells are an axis of choice (which I mention) but there is a lower degree of spell selection in 5e as well.
Who said I don't think 2e pathfinder shouldn't take out unnecessary feat requirements and/or useless feats?
Anyways: I don't agree with your opinion that 5e is "better". I do like a lot of things in the game, but the simplification went too far to keep me on board as being my "main" fantasy rpg.
In fact, I would still play Spellbound Kingdoms, Legend (maybe even BOTH Legends), Zweihander, Iron Kingdoms, or Song of Swords as my main game first for various reasons.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
You can't really compare a 7 year old game's level of spell bloat vs. a 7 day old game's.
I do think that 5E has better checks and balances to make all classes balanced.
I can't discuss whether Pathfinder 2E is better or not than 5E because it doesn't exist.
|
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Anyways: I don't agree with your opinion that 5e is "better". I do like a lot of things in the game, but the simplification went too far to keep me on board as being my "main" fantasy rpg.
You would really loathe my favorite game, Swords & Wizardry, as it's quite a lot less complicated than 5e. (I do, however, prefer the most structured of the three flavors of S&W).
|
|
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
You can't really compare a 7 year old game's level of spell bloat vs. a 7 day old game's.
You can, however, compare the actual system's engines against each other. 5e, even if it picks up hundreds of supplements, is always going to play as a more streamlined game than 3.x/Pathfinder. That's not due to bloat, that's due to the differences in the core of the systems.
3.x/Pathfinder has never been what I would call streamlined. 1999 2nd edition with all supplements was less of a hassle than 2000 Core Rules only 3.0.
You can't really compare a 7 year old game's level of spell bloat vs. a 7 day old game's.
I do think that 5E has better checks and balances to make all classes balanced.
I can't discuss whether Pathfinder 2E is better or not than 5E because it doesn't exist.
I think you are missing the point of the thread (read the title please). Along with talking about what I like about 5e, I have a core goal of discussing rules complexity as a core feature of engagement in a hypothetical overarching pathfinder brand. Complexity is what pathfinder is doing that no other game I know does nearly as successfully (casts his eyes over to Anima: Beyond Fantasy).
And there will still only ever really be two feat builds. That is not going to change and that will be an eternal font of justified disappointed.
Perhaps the DMG will have alternate rules that don't make me sad but I kind of doubt it? And even if the rules variant is good, the canonical rules for character customization still disappoint.
Anyways: I don't agree with your opinion that 5e is "better". I do like a lot of things in the game, but the simplification went too far to keep me on board as being my "main" fantasy rpg.You would really loathe my favorite game, Swords & Wizardry, as it's quite a lot less complicated than 5e. (I do, however, prefer the most structured of the three flavors of S&W).
I know S&W. I don't really care for it in particular. I understand and respect its design goals, but it is not for me exactly. I have played it before, but I am not sure I will play it again (as I think 5e kind of scratches that itch for me now).
You know what you might find interesting (and I like it too for a lot of reasons)? Look into the upcoming translation of the Japanese RPG Dragon Egg.
|
|
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I will say again: I hate points 1 and 2. That complexity is near to the sole reason I play pathfinder really. I know where you are coming from, though. I understand that there are people who don't like think about rules.
I am just sitting here shocked that people like you are even playing pathfinder. I see you are an adventure path subscriber, though. Is that the draw for you?
At one point, I was a Superscriber. It's only a 3 month hiatus during Legacy of Fire that prevents my AP subscription from being a Charter one.
Paizo writers are amazing at telling stories and writing APs. It is easiest to simply run them in the system they are written.
You also have to realize that it's an ebb and flow in life. Some years you have more time to invest in a single game than you do in later years depending on your interests and priorities. There was a time I had no objection to grinding out a single trinket in Warcraft to move up the DPS charts of raiding. There was a time when I had no issue with using HeroLab to try to build the ultimate Paladin/Sorcerer/Oracle multiclass for 5 hours in a night spanning over dozens supplements, working to combine noble scion, sidestep secret and divine grace and who-knows-what-else.
But that was me. I have real-life friends that predate meeting via tabletop gaming as a shared hobby who have no interest in spending 5 hours or more "not actually playing the game" to sort through extensive options. They'd be as happy playing Pathfinder on a Friday as they might be playing Shogun, and certainly wouldn't spend 5 hours on the Wednesday that week looking for rule advantages prior to Friday. They'd rather use the Wednesday golfing, biking, surfing, etc. But we all can still sit down and eke out amazing memories of Jorah the thuggish brute and Tyrion the roguish mastermind tackling an adventure. Pathfinder 1E tends to now have some artificial barriers when mixing the casual players with the hardcore players. The hardcore player is playing a magus, casting a spell, using a swift action, making a concentration check, making two attack rolls, and then adding 6 damage dice when it's their turn. The casual player is maybe playing a core barbarian, deciding to sunder, rolling once and giving the GM a single number. One player takes a 2 minute turn. The other takes a 20 second turn. With cell phones at tables now, it's hard to let 6-10 minutes pass between player turns, especially when they are not cinematic or noteworthy, or feel highly repetitive to the prior turn.
Anyway, 5E does some good things for these kinds of players. Sometimes in my life, I'm the kind of gamer who just wants to "login and play" a game versus cruise forums theorycrafting my DPS/DPR. Other times, I have more free time or are looking for life distractions and can easily fall into the ravine of such pursuits. Pathfinder is really not a trivial commitment for a new player to achieve system mastery, thus it appeals to a very specific type of gamer in its present form.
|
|
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
You can, however, compare the actual system's engines against each other. 5e, even if it picks up hundreds of supplements, is always going to play as a more streamlined game than 3.x/Pathfinder. That's not due to bloat, that's due to the differences in the core of the systems.
3.x/Pathfinder has never been what I would call streamlined. 1999 2nd edition with all supplements was less of a hassle than 2000 Core Rules only 3.0.
This is actually really interesting insight. I fully owned almost every book in 2E and it really didn't have that deep of requirements in "away from the table" effort to build and level characters. At it's most complex, you selected a kit at first level. If you multiclassed, you decided at first level. There was no temptation or angst to dip paladin at level 7 to grab an interesting ability.
3.0 introduced feats, rage powers, skills you invest points into as you level. It introduced considerations of dipping a class or selecting a prestige class. Further derivations added more levers ranging from drawbacks to traits.
Sometimes I think people spend more time with a character away from the table building it than they get a time slice of spotlight actually playing their character in an adventure. In a 4-hour (240 minute) PFS scenario slot with 6 players, if a GM allocates his time equally to each player, he gives them 40 minutes. Once you factor in him describing plot, locales and taking turns for monsters, it's likely that they have 20 minutes per player. For each magus, summoner, animal companion, the pie slides towards the more complex character (who is using their standard, move and swift for decisions and rolls) and away from the simple character (who is maybe moving without a roll and using a standard for 2 rolls). A player could literally end up with a 10-minute (or less) slice while another ends up with a 30-minute (or more) slice. Pile on standalone characters that can "tackle any skill" on a dominant A-type personality, and the players could get marginalized further when they are told their Diplomacy or Knowledge skills can be used to aid/assist or for backup.
I can imagine getting 10 minute slices of time to play your character per adventure, achieving level 5 after 12 adventures - you've played your character for a total of 2 hours. I know a lot of people who spend more than 2 hours researching options and building a single character. Much, much more.
I guess my goal in a game is to spend time with friends, not spend time with rules... I think there are some things lurking under the covers of 5E that can help build a better game for this.
That said, I'm still playing mostly Pathfinder in the near-term... but mark me down as very curious to how 5E develops... it has good bones to solve some of the newer problems that popped up in the 3E-4E era.
Hmmm....you love complexity for it's own sake....
Might I suggest FATAL?
:P
Haha. That old gem. If you are going to be fair with me though, I just s*$+ talked Anima two breaths ago. I do admire that game's ambition,though. It tried to do so very much and I fantasize about the world where that game was not built on such a terrible die system and character creation did not need calculators. I have never read FATAL actually.
Real talk: Drunken Bear Fighter is a minimalist masterpiece with themes built into the rule system.
You can, however, compare the actual system's engines against each other. 5e, even if it picks up hundreds of supplements, is always going to play as a more streamlined game than 3.x/Pathfinder. That's not due to bloat, that's due to the differences in the core of the systems.
3.x/Pathfinder has never been what I would call streamlined. 1999 2nd edition with all supplements was less of a hassle than 2000 Core Rules only 3.0.
This is actually really interesting insight. I fully owned almost every book in 2E and it really didn't have that deep of requirements in "away from the table" effort to build and level characters. At it's most complex, you selected a kit at first level. If you multiclassed, you decided at first level. There was no temptation or angst to dip paladin at level 7 to grab an interesting ability.
3.0 introduced feats, rage powers, skills you invest points into as you level. It introduced considerations of dipping a class or selecting a prestige class. Further derivations added more levers ranging from drawbacks to traits.
Sometimes I think people spend more time with a character away from the table building it than they get a time slice of spotlight actually playing their character in an adventure. In a 4-hour (240 minute) PFS scenario slot with 6 players, if a GM allocates his time equally to each player, he gives them 40 minutes. Once you factor in him describing plot, locales and taking turns for monsters, it's likely that they have 20 minutes per player. For each magus, summoner, animal companion, the pie slides towards the more complex character (who is using their standard, move and swift for decisions and rolls) and away from the simple character (who is maybe moving without a roll and using a standard for 2 rolls). A player could literally end up with a 10-minute (or less) slice while another ends up with a 30-minute (or more) slice. Pile on standalone characters that can "tackle any skill" on a dominant A-type personality, and...
4e didn't have any "problems". It did everything you want in a lot of ways. If you want a fast build then you play essentials and if you wanted to get into builds then you just play the core rules. Oftentimes the essentials characters ended up being mathematically competitive or better than an optimized core rulebook character.
It just bored the hell out of me eventually and I see that happening with 5e as well.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
well...looks like I'm at least buying 5E sooner than I had expected. Amazon has it on sale for $29 and I decided What the hell.
well...looks like I'm at least buying 5E sooner than I had expected. Amazon has it on sale for $29 and I decided What the hell.
Yeah? The player's handbook and not the starter set?
Something I really don't enjoy is having to think about a complete future build when I'm leveling up. I'd like to be able to choose options for the current level that make sense in terms of my character concept and what's been going on in the campaign, without having to worry that five or six levels down the road I'll run into a dead end.
I think that is a really good point. I think there will always be some builds that are "in-optimal" at some levels. The cavalier comes quickly to mind. They get their Greater Tactician ability at level 9 which is one level too early to pick up the excellent coordinated charge teamwork feat to share. So while it would be optimal over 20 levels to have all cavalier levels, at level 10 it is optimal to have 9 levels of cavalier and 1 level of fighter.
That is also true of the warlock/eldritch knight 5e build that I mentioned earlier (though it is still pretty okay even in its "weak" levels 3-7).
I think allowing retraining of feats and class choices go a long way towards fixing this problem, but a lot of people don't like that thematically. The 4e essentials (and to a lesser extent 5e) direction is to make all available choices more or less the same. I sort of find this boring, but you are correct in recognizing that it is another solution.
|
|
Might I suggest FATAL?You might. And then again, you might not. In fact, you probably shouldn't. Somebody might take your advice, and we're all working together for that glorious day when the last copy of FATAL fades from the earth, unplayed, forgotten and unmourned.
Not me, I think it's a brilliant piece of parody. And possibly the most successful trolling ever, certainly the most successful related to tabletop gaming.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Not me, I think it's a brilliant piece of parody. And possibly the most successful trolling ever, certainly the most successful related to tabletop gaming.Might I suggest FATAL?You might. And then again, you might not. In fact, you probably shouldn't. Somebody might take your advice, and we're all working together for that glorious day when the last copy of FATAL fades from the earth, unplayed, forgotten and unmourned.
I would give that to Dungeons: the Dragoning 40,000 7th Edition. I actually think that game is pretty fun to play for a session or two. I also think that it is funny that it uses L5R's roll and keep die system even though that is one of the only games that it is not parodying. It is easy to make a ridiculously terrible game. I more respect a ridiculous fun game.
well...looks like I'm at least buying 5E sooner than I had expected. Amazon has it on sale for $29 and I decided What the hell.Yeah? The player's handbook and not the starter set?
This here
well...looks like I'm at least buying 5E sooner than I had expected. Amazon has it on sale for $29 and I decided What the hell.Yeah? The player's handbook and not the starter set?This here
Damn. That is what I get for buying stuff from brick and mortar stores like a chump.
|
| 5 people marked this as a favorite. |
Well, I've just spent tons of time reading and analyzing 5th Edition, and the only thing I can say right now... Is that it seems like a great game.
I've honestly dropped pathfinder now for a year. There was some cool idea, some great books, but the overall quality just seems to drop. Pathfinder is getting just too complicated, too much books, too much complexity and the real probleme here is the fact that they want to keep their d&d 3.5 compatibility.
3.5 was cool, but it had a lot of default. Pathfinder tried to fix a few, some of it worked really nicely, some of them did not. I really loved the idea of archetypes, but even Paizo is beginning to throw that away by making new classes (most of the classes from the advanced classes guide had a previous equivalent as an archetype!). It had a nice run, but everyone seems to rediscover the limits of the system, yes the improvements made us forget about a good part of it, but it's still there after scratching enough of this new cover.
Now... D&D5, it's eleguant and simple, the options presented (and the one which will be introduced later) really seem like different kind of gameplay. You can play if with different levels of complexity, and that sure seems interesting.
But let's be honest... they saw the virtues of archetypes from pathfinder and they took it. They saw the virtues of traits and remade them as background. And they did a great job making them!
I do not really agree with people saying that the fact that they restricted the spell slots is a bad thing, they are trying to fix a big problem with high level games, and I do like their solution.
There is still a lot of diversity there, the feats are all really cool and yes I know you won't get that many of them, but look at most of pathfinder's, 3.5 and 4th feats... most of them are just tax feat that you have to take for a specific build, and sometimes you try something special and different with them, but it won't always work.
I do find 5th ed. classes more interesting than 3.5 and pathfinder's if I just compare with the Core books. It feels like they will easily be able to build new archetypes for the current classes. And It really feels like the archetypes have been built into the classes instead of thought afterward like in Pathfinder. In 5th ed, it seems like the design is made around that idea. The classes are very simple, and you will get more options from archetypes (pretty much like in pathfinder), which is a simple and elegant way to do things.
I think too many peoples gives importance to feat, when in the end, they are not that important. For some build, your feats are just a tax, for others you almost don't need them at all and you just take them for fun. The 5e system is simple and elegant enough to give you a lot of possibilities, without having to take tons of feat.
Anyway, in some kind of strange ways, it feels to me that d&d 5e is some kind of Pathfinder 2. They have backgrounds, archetype, simplier rules and they put their focus on roleplaying. That is what all RPG should do right now and I personally just can't wait to play it.
The OP said you could only take 2 feats at best, which shows he's not pretty good at optimizing.
You can start with 15 on your main stat, get any race with a +2 racial and then get +2 at level 4, and next feat you can take one of the feats that gives you +1 to your main attribute plus another cool bonus. That's 4 feats.
If you don't go full optibuild and take a race with just +1 to your main stat, you can get +2 and then two feats that give you +1 to your main stat, or another +2. You still pick 3 feats.
If you pick a race with no racial modifiers... Then you don't care about optimizing. Might as well take all the feats.
Anyway, I stand by my statement. Having one million traits, one million feats, one million spells, that don't matter... I'd rather have more meaningful choices, even if they are fewer.
Oh, PF has a million hexes for a Witch to choose? Why do they all get Slumber Hex?
Over 26 classes? Yet three are clearly gimped.
The ability of D&D to grow in a balanced way is its biggest asset. I hope they make new, interesting mistakes, and not the ones made by Paizo.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
More options is generally a good thing. At some point, however, it begins to interfere with world building. It becomes nearly impossible to create a compelling and consistent setting if you have to make room for thousands of possible race and class combinations.
There are over 200 languages on the Earth right now. A few are "dead" languages, but many are still in use. In most fantasy games, extra languages are spoken by other races. True, some might be regional dialects. Let's assume 10% are dead languages that represent ancient civilizations, and another 10% are just regional human dialects. That leaves around 180 different races or racial subgroups that could be expected to exist on Earth if looked at from a typical gaming rules perspective.
How is world building to accommodate a vast variety of races difficult? It seems more natural to me that populations would share some land space, thus making it a simple matter to say "those are among the races found here" than to have four groups of completely heterogeneous racial populations living on a landmass the size of a continent. (i.e. the typical "this is the dwarf kingdom, only dwarves live here, this is the elf forest, only elves live here, so on") Then again, I do tend to view my cities and municipalities as living and evolving things rather than vignettes frozen in amber.
In answer to the thread topic: a wealth of options, is what I enjoy about pathfinder. I feel no draw to a "rules-light" system, and if I wanted a more simple game, I feel like that could be accomplished more easily by me simply paring away things from the pf rule set.
To each their own though.
Oh, PF has a million hexes for a Witch to choose? Why do they all get Slumber Hex?
Because they can choose a new hex on 2nd level. Then choose a feat on 3rd level. Then choose another hex on 4th level. Then another feat on 5th level. Etc.
When you get to pick eleven hexes and ten feats in twenty levels, one "obvious" choice at the start doesn't require you to give up very much flexibility. You're still picking twenty things in twenty levels.
Oh, PF has a million hexes for a Witch to choose? Why do they all get Slumber Hex?
Because it's hilariously overpowered.
Oh, PF has a million hexes for a Witch to choose? Why do they all get Slumber Hex?Because it's hilariously overpowered.
That, too.
|
|
Oh, PF has a million hexes for a Witch to choose? Why do they all get Slumber Hex?Because it's hilariously overpowered.
I think that's the point. If you have 200 choices, but a handful of them are overpowered, and most of the rest of them are underpowered, then you don't actually have 200 VIABLE choices.
Oh, PF has a million hexes for a Witch to choose? Why do they all get Slumber Hex?Because they can choose a new hex on 2nd level. Then choose a feat on 3rd level. Then choose another hex on 4th level. Then another feat on 5th level. Etc.
When you get to pick eleven hexes and ten feats in twenty levels, one "obvious" choice at the start doesn't require you to give up very much flexibility. You're still picking twenty things in twenty levels.
What the dude above said.
The OP is talking about personal expression being easier on Pathfinder because of """""COMPLEXITAZ"""""" but I don't see it.
Traits are meaningless pips.
Races are one of the strong points, many holding their own to Humans in terms of viability... until you see the poorly balanced FCB system.
Classes and archetypes are amazing in Pathfinder, lots of things to pick from, but the poor levels of balance makes it so a Bard, who a dozen archetypes in paper, only has few real options among archies. Or are you planning to go Geisha or Celebrity?
Feats are such a mess I don't wanna get into it. You pay a feat tax after the other to do something that can be done with a spell. You have to go MAD to do all you want to do, but casters can just pile up their casting stat and call it: A Day.
I think these are glaring faults for Pathfinder to learn for their next edition.
I'd love better, more balanced systems for all of these things.
A random example is FCBs, which are non option. I mean, some FCBs grant 1/2 skill ranks to two skills. Are they fricking serious? Did they entirely forget what the FCB was meant to replace?
as for the reason there aren't 1001 languages...magic. Gods. The gods probably find it convenient if their worshippers can talk to one another, and so cut down on the language variation via using their churches.
easy to explain. Languages start melting into one another as trade blossoms and societies connect (as English now and Latin in the past were). With magic, societies connect all that much easier despite the lack of technology, and subtle divine pressure would help things line up.
==Aelryinth
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
Sorry, I'm rambling. I'll shut up now.
I do that all the time.
The idea of kits, training packages, feats, and what have you is probably a response to the fighter class.
The Fighter Class is probably the most versatile class when it comes to making and growing a character. In the original game, they didn't address what the Fighter could possibly do. However, the RPG industry is mostly a storytelling response to the Movie Industry, and as more movies came out being set in different eras, they showed fighter characters with fight choreographies that made them all believable.
I think Archetypes was created to respond to the Fighter's need to show off it's versatility as a class by showing how different fighters can specialize in trying to hurt, maim, and kill one another.
However, I think PF 2nd edition should be rules lighter so it's easier to compete. Secondly, you should start with the catch all Fighter. The Core Rules fighter should not have customization options from the get go, let the players figure this out as they play.
Archetypes should come out, like in the Advanced Player's Guide, to give players ideas on how to customize their characters. A generic fighter first, archetypes second. :)
-------------
Lastly, for PF 2, Paizo should look at other RPGs and how they solve the same problems. It should not be a response to D&D 5th-Ed directly. The aim is to get people playing, and to get them playing as quickly as possible so that they can tell shared stories. The rules should not get into the way of this. I heard of games where players flipped a coin for rules resolution. :)
Storytelling is one of the greatest heritages we have as a species. Roleplaying is just an interactive form of the Art. A roleplaying game should focus on Storytelling first, and the rules should only give logical support. And there does come a time when you recognize that your game's rules would get into the way of storytelling, and you go looking for something simpler.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
Archetypes should be feat trees maybe 2-3 feats long.
that's all.
Restricting special powers from Archetypes is just a kick in the teeth to the Fighter, since many of them should just be rote fighter abilities, anyways. Taking a class that has all those feats and then introducing a bunch of class features that are often little more then modified feats and classifying them as archetype abilities is just wrong.
Meh!
==Aelryinth
The OP said you could only take 2 feats at best, which shows he's not pretty good at optimizing.
You can start with 15 on your main stat, get any race with a +2 racial and then get +2 at level 4, and next feat you can take one of the feats that gives you +1 to your main attribute plus another cool bonus. That's 4 feats.
If you don't go full optibuild and take a race with just +1 to your main stat, you can get +2 and then two feats that give you +1 to your main stat, or another +2. You still pick 3 feats.
If you pick a race with no racial modifiers... Then you don't care about optimizing. Might as well take all the feats.
Anyway, I stand by my statement. Having one million traits, one million feats, one million spells, that don't matter... I'd rather have more meaningful choices, even if they are fewer.
Oh, PF has a million hexes for a Witch to choose? Why do they all get Slumber Hex?
Over 26 classes? Yet three are clearly gimped.The ability of D&D to grow in a balanced way is its biggest asset. I hope they make new, interesting mistakes, and not the ones made by Paizo.
You will probably want a point or two extra in an "off" stat (intelligence for eldritch knights; con for front line builds; etc.). I am saying that fact will eat up two of your 4 stat increases that most classes have (I think it is a bit of a cheat to think that classes will go to 19 and that will be barred with any multiclassing anyways). That leaves two feats, yah dingus. Sure: you can get one stat increase and then three "half feats" (the feats that give you a +1 here and there), but I did not think that nuance was worth spelling out.
And I already have put forth that 5e has best options. Those best options are getting your attack stat to max and maybe getting the feat tied to your fighting style in the broad sense.
In the very strictest sense: warlock/fighter is the best consistent damage dealing build I see (edritch blast+hex+the invocation that adds cha to eldritch blast damage and the eldritch knight fighter's free attack with a cantrip).
Get on my level, son.
Anyways, that is somewhat besides the point. The real point is that even if "best options" were avoidable by simplifying the game further, I do not think that would be worth it.
Oh, PF has a million hexes for a Witch to choose? Why do they all get Slumber Hex?Because they can choose a new hex on 2nd level. Then choose a feat on 3rd level. Then choose another hex on 4th level. Then another feat on 5th level. Etc.
When you get to pick eleven hexes and ten feats in twenty levels, one "obvious" choice at the start doesn't require you to give up very much flexibility. You're still picking twenty things in twenty levels.
What the dude above said.
The OP is talking about personal expression being easier on Pathfinder because of """""COMPLEXITAZ"""""" but I don't see it.
Traits are meaningless pips.
Races are one of the strong points, many holding their own to Humans in terms of viability... until you see the poorly balanced FCB system.
Classes and archetypes are amazing in Pathfinder, lots of things to pick from, but the poor levels of balance makes it so a Bard, who a dozen archetypes in paper, only has few real options among archies. Or are you planning to go Geisha or Celebrity?
Feats are such a mess I don't wanna get into it. You pay a feat tax after the other to do something that can be done with a spell. You have to go MAD to do all you want to do, but casters can just pile up their casting stat and call it: A Day.I think these are glaring faults for Pathfinder to learn for their next edition.
I'd love better, more balanced systems for all of these things.
A random example is FCBs, which are non option. I mean, some FCBs grant 1/2 skill ranks to two skills. Are they fricking serious? Did they entirely forget what the FCB was meant to replace?
I think feats can be improved and I maybe even like "super feats". The simplification of 5e bores me to tears, though. The "simple" niche is filled. It is filled to death. I have listed a half dozen or so "simple" rpgs in this thread. Check out Spellbound Kingdoms, in fact. That is a game that has THREE "feats" per character and that game is awesome.
But those simple games already exist and Pathfinder should stay complex.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
If you're willing to take a risk, you can start off with stats above 15 before racial mods. Rolling 4d6 drop the lowest gives you almost a 57% chance of getting at least 1 stat of 16 or higher, and a 9% chance of an 18. With a +2 racial, that's a 20 at 1st level. The risk is that there's also a separate 30%...The OP said you could only take 2 feats at best, which shows he's not pretty good at optimizing.
You can start with 15 on your main stat, get any race with a +2 racial and then get +2 at level 4, and next feat you can take one of the feats that gives you +1 to your main attribute plus another cool bonus. That's 4 feats.
If you don't go full optibuild and take a race with just +1 to your main stat, you can get +2 and then two feats that give you +1 to your main stat, or another +2. You still pick 3 feats.
If you pick a race with no racial modifiers... Then you don't care about optimizing. Might as well take all the feats.
Anyway, I stand by my statement. Having one million traits, one million feats, one million spells, that don't matter... I'd rather have more meaningful choices, even if they are fewer.
Oh, PF has a million hexes for a Witch to choose? Why do they all get Slumber Hex?
Over 26 classes? Yet three are clearly gimped.The ability of D&D to grow in a balanced way is its biggest asset. I hope they make new, interesting mistakes, and not the ones made by Paizo.
You will probably want a point or two extra in an "off" stat (intelligence for eldritch knights; con for front line builds; etc.). I am saying that fact will eat up two of your 4 stat increases that most classes have (I think it is a bit of a cheat to think that classes will go to 19 and that will be barred with any multiclassing anyways). That leaves two feats, yah dingus. Sure: you can get one stat increase and then three "half feats" (the feats that give you a +1 here and there), but I did not think that nuance was worth spelling out.
The only balanced version of 5e is the one with stat arrays or point buys. Any character that would roll low would be crippled for life. I think the numbers in Pathfinder are too big, but one benefit of that design is that small differences in base attributes can be offset by a trillion other little bits of loot and class abilities. That +5 attribute bonus is too big a slice of the effectiveness pie to let people randomly generate character attributes and still have a reliably balanced game.
That is fine, actually. I just don't discuss it here because I want to give 5e its props for being balanced in its "default" settings. I just don't like it for other reasons.
|
The only balanced version of 5e is the one with stat arrays or point buys. Any character that would roll low would be crippled for life. I think the numbers in Pathfinder are too big, but one benefit of that design is that small differences in base attributes can be offset by a trillion other little bits of loot and class abilities. That +5 attribute bonus is too big a slice of the effectiveness pie to let people randomly generate character attributes and still have a reliably balanced game.
That is fine, actually. I just don't discuss it here because I want to give 5e its props for being balanced in its "default" settings. I just don't like it for other reasons.
I caught that over the weekend as well. 5e pretty much took random stat generation out back and shot it in the head. Which I'm not entirely upset about, we've been using point buy with no dumping for a while in PF anyways to try and keep a certain level of internal party consistency up, but that does take a certain nostalgic part of the game out of the equation.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Its all about the modules and module support (good downloads, maps, notes, etc). That made paizo and could make dnd.
Paizo is loosing themselves in following the board active yet minority players in catering with power creep and complexity (read: ever growing sub-optimal choices).
Yet no matter the complexity having good pre-gen modules will keep even those who want less BS - as designing a (good) adventure is more hassle than keeping up with bloat.
Further imbalance makes games - look at rifts the most plageristic game designed by borderline illiterate litigious egomaniac cretins and probable psychopaths. It was its SOLE grace and was almost enough.
Imbalance is what bored players like to carry on about, but at the end of the day, whether they realise it or not they actually like character imbalance.
Some people get enjoyment from rorting and finding loop holes, some people like playing powerful classes and nothing else, some like weaker classes that can be a challenge to play to really test their game mastery and wit, and some people play a class just because they want to, regardless of game benefits.
The 3.0/3.5 rule set offered this and let anyone play the character they enjoy.
It also offered a myriad of rules and class abilities, that allowed players to accumulate rules knowledge from many sources to put together class combinations and rules tricks that tormented DMs, which is also something that brings players enjoyment, and equally, enjoyment to dms in nazi sticking (well some of the time anyway) and watching players lament!
I think some of the 4e nuts and bolts stuff was good. They just totally stuffed up the class abilities side of things (which is what really made classes unique). Imbalance makes pathfinder breath, modules started its heart.
Mature players get over the above games and system support for bullying and for them modules could start dnd.
Exp. with the influence of by art like planescape or other that captures the simple and enhances the imagining summing...
I think this is a super interesting post.
I am not really sure how much I like game "imbalance" but you really do have a point. I do have friends who like playing "weak" builds in interesting ways. I personally like to play a lot of support jobs like bards or certain specialized cavaliers that are "suboptimal" in that their personal effectiveness is low but they make their companions shine. That stuff is great.
Still, I think there is something to be said for not making things overpowered or weak on purpose. It feels like a cheat, maybe? Or rather, I feel disappointed when an option that seems cool and interesting will actually be a drag on the party. Given time, I may find ways to make it work anyways (which is a great joy!) but sometimes you just end up with a crossbow situation.
That aside: I suppose at the end of the day, I do like late cycle "bloat" in the rules. I find it really fun and interesting to suddenly be able to approach the rules system I know in a new way. I really like the late cycle 3.5 D&D books that Frank Brunner worked on. Are people complaining much about the new technology guide, yet? I have not touched that yet but I think I am going to like it. I may even write an alien invasion story into my personal setting (which already features a secret government space program by way of interplanetary teleport).
I like the this game has so much room to expand and grow. That is what keeps me with pathfinder as someone who does not play any rules modules. Otherwise, I would just run or play a new game or two every 4 months. As it stands I tend to either run or play in a pathfinder game and then maybe play or run something else on the side less frequently.
Paizo, once I realized the direction they were taking, as well as the myriad of options they released which were poorly designed, did create a mini-game for me, which I thank them for.
While I've quit purchasing new Paizo products, I now compare the authors of products they release which have extremely poorly designed or exploitable content with other books that have similar issues.
While they don't credit each entry so one can see exactly who was primary on an area, it is fascinating how often certain authors show up in the credits of these specific books.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
I am not really sure how much I like game "imbalance" but you really do have a point. I do have friends who like playing "weak" builds in interesting ways. I personally like to play a lot of support jobs like bards or certain specialized cavaliers that are "suboptimal" in that their personal effectiveness is low but they make their companions shine. That stuff is great.
I think a lot of things are getting confused with each other.
1. Capacity for optimization does not mean imbalance. Imbalance means that, even if equally optimized, class X will always outperform class Y in every aspect. For example, a Vivisectionist Alchemist absolutely outshines a Rogue. Similarly, imbalance also means that, considering equal optimization, class X will provide a notably higher value to a game than class Y. For example, there is little reason to bring a Fighter when a Barbarian could be brought.
2. Support builds are not suboptimized. For someone so versed in optimization as you say you are, you should know that support builds are not optimized in terms of personal output but team output. For example, a Bard that takes the Celebrity archetype is not going to provide as much team value as one that goes Arcane Duelist into Cavalier into Battle Herald.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
I've seen snippets about spell/class bloat and I wonder how much of a problem this actually is. I keep two large third party spell books and several hardcover books with spells in them as well as over two dozen classes from said products and I haven't felt bloated out.
Although I will say that I hope for more products like Pathfinder Unchained because I do think that 3rde is kind of holding Pathfinder back in places. For example, I think that if they started from scratch and archetypes were a thing from the beginning archetypes would probably work out more like they do in 5e. Notice that Eldritch Knight is a Fighter Archetype? Could have been easily done if Archetypes were in the game from day one. At least in the Reddit AMA one thing that was regretted was that iterative attacks were a part of 3e. The Race Builder doesn't exactly work because they built a system around what already exists as if it were balanced. Most of the balance is under the balance assumptions 3e had.
|
|
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
I think a lot of things are getting confused with each other.1. Capacity for optimization does not mean imbalance. Imbalance means that, even if equally optimized, class X will always outperform class Y in every aspect. For example, a Vivisectionist Alchemist absolutely outshines a Rogue. Similarly, imbalance also means that, considering equal optimization, class X will provide a notably higher value to a game than class Y. For example, there is little reason to bring a Fighter when a Barbarian could be brought.
2. Support builds are not suboptimized. For someone so versed in optimization as you say you are, you should know that support builds are not optimized in terms of personal output but team output. For example, a Bard that takes the Celebrity archetype is not going to provide as much team value as one that goes Arcane Duelist into Cavalier into Battle Herald.
Very well put.
I especially like point 2, which underscores something I was telling a friend the other day: "Teamwork feats are for real optimizers".
When I was doing the Path of War playtest, people kept going on about how much damage they could crank out with the single target heavy-hitter Warlord builds. I ended up putting together a mathematical structure for the buffer/leader build of the Warlord where every attack that a party member couldn't have made without him directly facilitating it, 25% of every hit that would have missed without his buffs, and every point of bonus damage his buffs applied to successful hits was credited back to him and then compared both builds with a standardized party of iconics running through a published module. While the damage being directly dealt by the buffer was much less than the direct damage build, over the course of the adventure he actually accounted for 250% more damage under the structure I was using. Obviously that would have gone down substantially in a party lacking other melee capable characters, but in a party with the iconic Rogue, Cleric, and Sorcerer it worked very well, and that, to me, is a group fairly representative of most tables.
So, in addition to putting the lie to the idea that support builds are under-optimized, that also shows how you can have potent builds that are not cookie cutters. If class A contributes by avoiding encounters socially or stealthily, class B contributes by blowing them up, class C contributes by cutting them down, and class D contributes by making A-C better at what they do, you can have 4 balanced classes that don't suffer from the cookie-cutter 4e effect.