On one hand, the slow release schedule has me waiting to hear news about the next book (whatever it may be).
On the other hand, there is so little news that I start forgetting to pay attention.
I really wish there was some news about a new monster manual. I'm also not a fan of the pile-up of PDF scraps. I hope that gets compiled into a bound Unearthed Arcana at some point.
It seems to me that a lot of time and care went into developing the 5e rules, and it shows. It's very nice. I'm not entirely convinced that WotC is following those nice rules with the proper community and support. But it's only two years in, and apparently it's selling well, so that's all good.
I agree on all counts. Paizo always manage to keep me excited for what I'm getting this month but also looking forward to next month. WotC are a long way from my sweet spot (and PDF expansions, even though they're free, really don't count in my book).
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Also a major criticism of 4e was that the game becomes difficult to keep up with when there are 2 to 3 50+ dollar releases a month.
Which I find strange as a criticism imo. As it's easy to spend about 50$+ a month if one buys all the releases from Paizo. A player companion here, a map pack there. While their are more expensives hobbies. If money is a issue for a gamer he/she really should not be trying to get everything released from a rpg company. 4E has it's issues. The price of books is really not one of them imo. The average price for a product with full color and decent production values is 45$+.
I do agree though that 5E should have more releases. One way or the other. Bloat will happen. Slower or faster the more options released the more bloat can accumulate. I like more options but I think it's a necessary evil depending on the medium.
I find that when I build a PF character, I'm more apt to create a build - including race, class, feats, etc - and find a good story for which to place the character in. I try not to do this, but I often find myself doing this.
When I build a 5e character, I build a personality, a back story, a background, etc.. Then I find a class for which to place this character in. Sometimes a specific class or race will drive the character, but more often than not its the personality.
When looking at a rule book, I like to have it arranged according to how one builds a character. For PF, I feel it should be ability scores, race, class, feats & traits, skills, equipment, spells. For 5e, I feel it should be background, race, class, ability scores, equipment, spells.
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I find that when I build a PF character, I'm more apt to create a build - including race, class, feats, etc - and find a good story for which to place the character in. I try not to do this, but I often find myself doing this.
When I build a 5e character, I build a personality, a back story, a background, etc.. Then I find a class for which to place this character in. Sometimes a specific class or race will drive the character, but more often than not its the personality.
When looking at a rule book, I like to have it arranged according to how one builds a character. For PF, I feel it should be ability scores, race, class, feats & traits, skills, equipment, spells. For 5e, I feel it should be background, race, class, ability scores, equipment, spells.
I find that surprising that the methodology would be so different.
I find that when I build a PF character, I'm more apt to create a build - including race, class, feats, etc - and find a good story for which to place the character in. I try not to do this, but I often find myself doing this.
When I build a 5e character, I build a personality, a back story, a background, etc.. Then I find a class for which to place this character in. Sometimes a specific class or race will drive the character, but more often than not its the personality.
When looking at a rule book, I like to have it arranged according to how one builds a character. For PF, I feel it should be ability scores, race, class, feats & traits, skills, equipment, spells. For 5e, I feel it should be background, race, class, ability scores, equipment, spells.
This is more true than most people want to admit.
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Another point for "Reasons why 5E can be not-a-bad-thing while at the same time being the absolute antithesis of what I want in a tabletop RPG": The build game is half the fun of Pathfinder for me, and I generally have a much better time coming up with good RP characters when I'm starting with the statistics than the other way around. Optimizing a unique build tends to encourage you to go a little off the archetype to get everything you want/need and I find inspiration in that.
I've done it both ways over the years, and I can say that I get more personal fulfillment from characters who have their background and personality developed before their mechanics.
I specifically remember a Pathfinder game I was in several years ago where I was the last person in the group to join the game and create their character, so I picked a vacant role in the party and then proceeded to precisely optimize my character based on mechanical abilities and features I wanted him to have, then going in afterwards and trying to attach the "character" to this "build" I had created. And I later realized that I never fully enjoyed playing the character because of it. I had created this mechanical box and then tried to stuff myself into it rather than creating the persona and then shaping the box around it.
That was the turning point for me when it came to characters and optimization.
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Actually, in 5E any damage a dying PC takes results in an automatic failed Death Save. Any critical hit results in 2 failed saves. If a creature is within 5' of an unconscious character, any hit is automatically a critical.
Oh I did not know that, what page is that on?
(We won't mention how bad the Index of the 5E Players Handbook is...)| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
This is more true than most people want to admit.I find that when I build a PF character, I'm more apt to create a build - including race, class, feats, etc - and find a good story for which to place the character in. I try not to do this, but I often find myself doing this.
When I build a 5e character, I build a personality, a back story, a background, etc.. Then I find a class for which to place this character in. Sometimes a specific class or race will drive the character, but more often than not its the personality.
Be careful, you might start a stormwind.
This has more to do with you than the system. I'm not putting a value in that (neither negative or positive), I'm just saying that Pathfinder doesn't exclude the process that you have in creating characters in 5E. But 5E does exclude the process we have in Pathfinder.
To me, the entire 5E system was a bit too simple to enjoy, we ended up adding a bunch of Pathfinder rules because we felt shackled.
A blend of the systems sounds like it could be a cool experience. What did you import?
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I feel like if 5e gave a feat at 1st, 5th, and every 5 levels thereafter, and made the ability score bumps static, that would open up the system a bit more for interesting characters.
I also like that really important magic isn't restricted to full spellcasters (via the Ritual Caster feat), but I still feel like the base game is very rudimentary. I haven't seen any of their splatbooks yet, but I imagine that one or two of those would have the game set pretty nicely for character options.
I feel like if 5e gave a feat at 1st, 5th, and every 5 levels thereafter, and made the ability score bumps static, that would open up the system a bit more for interesting characters.
I also like that really important magic isn't restricted to full spellcasters (via the Ritual Caster feat), but I still feel like the base game is very rudimentary. I haven't seen any of their splatbooks yet, but I imagine that one or two of those would have the game set pretty nicely for character options.
I've seen a house rule that gave everyone a feat at 1st level, and then redesigned the humans so they were screwed. It could work.
The problem with automatic stat boosts is that most feats also give stat boosts, and the stats cap out at 20 (with few exceptions). So you'd end up with almost every character maxing out their stats. Maybe. It would get pretty high.
Let's see, if you got two +1 every four levels (that's pretty common but some classes, like the fighter, give it more often), that's a total of +10. Then if you get a feat every 5th level and level 1, and most feats give a +1 to a stat, that's another +5 in ability scores. More for fighters.
With a standard array, you could max out three stats and gain the extra benefits of feats, instead of maxing out 1-2 stats or gaining feats. Ok, so it's not as bad as I initially thought. It could work for some games if everyone likes it, and I don't see it as game breaking. Powerful, yes, but not game breaking.
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I can't really remember, we did it on the fly mid game when we noticed that the Players Handbook didn't cover things we wanted to do (it may also be that we just didn't find it). I think we adopted the 5ft step to free up mobility, what provokes AoO and also a few other minor combat rules. We probably ran most of the skills like in PF as well, I also think we added a few that we thought where missing (can't remember which at the moment).
That makes sense. For assistance:
There's no 5' step anymore, because moving around an opponent doesn't provoke. Only when you leave the threatened area. Casting a spell or firing a range weapon also do not provoke, but firing a ranges weapon is at disadvantage if you're threatened.
Skills are much more free flowing, so that makes the most sense for importing ready-made rules. I just have my players describe what they want to do and make up a DC on the spot - with the intention of letting them do it if it doesn't seem unreasonable. Remember, a lot of skill uses may be auto success or auto failure if the DC would be set very low (less than 6-7) or very higher (higher than 25 unless you're in high level play, then maybe higher than 30-35).
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Snip about 5e having more backstory stuff
This certainly makes a degree of sense, though I personally think there is a decent amount of stuff to get you thinking about your characters backstory with the racial fluff, class fluff, and the sections on alignment (I sincerely am not sure how people pick alignment without thinking about their character's backstory, so I think I'm missing a detail in that case), plus I don't think I can recall a single RPG where it didn't say the first step to creating a character is a concept.
If you want to see examples of folks who are critical of 5e without being insulting, read through Milo v3's or Arachnofiend's posts.
Yay, non-insulting edition war :P
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He wasn't talking about the way other people play. He was talking about how having less options doesn't magically make 5e allow for better backstories or magically have you think of backstory first before mechanics and that PF magically has everyone make their characters mechanics then backstory.Calling the way other people play RPGs lame and stupid. Do you think that's going to help?
Different people like different things. It doesn't make your preferences any less important just because someone else happens to have different ones.
Of coarse not, personally characters I make nowadays are always concept first, mechanics second, even in Pathfinder. But are you denying that the culture surrounding Pathfinder is mechanics heavy?
And just so I'm being fully transparent here, I am currently playing in both a Pathfinder and 5E game. And there are things I definitely love about 5E, I love its rules-mediumness, I love its flavor, I love the way they did races, backgrounds, feats, and multiple attacks. But Pathfinder is still my preferred system overall, as I really dislike the changes to spellcasting, the general swingyness of everything (skill has much less impact than pure luck), that BAB is rolled into proficiency and the same for everyone, and the way resting/healing works.
Oh, and Gebby, quit trolling, no one needs that nonsense here.
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I really love the Golarion setting, and I hope that Paizo ends up writing some 5.0 Adventure Paths set in Golarion.
I doubt that they'd write AP's for a competitor.
They could if they had the permission and resources to spare.
They Could, but I doubt that they Would.
I just noticed an error in my copy of the 5e PHB. It lists Trap the Soul as an 8th level wizard spell but there is no description for that spell. Does anyone know how the spell works?
Back on topic, I prefer 5e to Pathfinder because it takes less brain power to play it. With Pathfinder I sometimes get so caught up in the mechanics I forget about the role playing aspect.
I just noticed an error in my copy of the 5e PHB. It lists Trap the Soul as an 8th level wizard spell but there is no description for that spell. Does anyone know how the spell works?
It doesn't exist (it's been taken out of the spell list in the errata'd printing). There's a couple of paladin spells which were similarly included in the playtest/draft rules and then not included in the final rules.
Thanks for letting me know!
