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I mean the question says it all. I just ran into what I can only call a difference of opinion, and it got me thinking, What does Pathfinder really mean to the players?
Many of us have poured long hours into the system, crafted personalities and characters we could never be in the real world, some have even made whole worlds on their own and put their heart and soul to make a living, breathing realm in which to tell stories and do glorious battle.
For some we've just told stories from paths created for us, and had fun adding our mark to the world of Galorian. And some have taken it farther and made their own way in that same world.
So the final question really stands as.
What does Pathfinder mean to us?
For me Pathfinder means freedom, freedom to tell the stories I want with the characters I create. It means that my choices will matter, and that the world around will also have choices. People in Pathfinder are unique individuals, all of them have trod different roads to get to where they are now, and will take diffrent roads in the future, the freedom of the game, the choices I make, those are what made Pathfinder for me. And for me, any system they claim to have that title, must first, and foremost, support player choice and freedom to tell stories.
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For me, Pathfinder is so far the best version of D&D that I've ever played. Maybe 2nd best after 13th Age (its close).
As such, it satisfies my High Fantasy gaming desires more than any other game system.
It helps (a lot) that it has a huge amount of support material and a large organized play campaign. And lots of players I can hook up with
Note - That is NOT edition warring in any way. Tastes vary. I personally like Pathfinder more than 5th, 4th, etc.
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A complicated game with lots of subsystems the DM can pick and choose from and lots of character options for the players.
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For me its the level of customization I can get with this game, between Multiclassing that allows me to stop in one class to start up in another (which is now how I build my chars, taking the two classes I want from the beginning and figuring out what levels I want to get them to), Feats every other level, Archetypes that trade out class features for another package of themed features, talents that allow me to customize within my class, & the ability to trade out Racial features for other racial features that may fit better from the beginning (not to mention feats later that work off of those base features).
This gives me Tons of things that allow me to customize my character to my liking, making it so that no one character is ever the same as another. Even if there are cookie cutter builds out there, and options that people consider as duds, it doesn't matter to me as long as those options actually work for my vision of my character. And that's something that the new version is lacking in.... Multiclassing, Class Archetypes, and Talents (now called Class Feats) are all, right now, seemingly based off of the same small pool... Half the options that make this game fun for me, are competing with each other, and that makes it very unfun... x.x
PS: Then there's the fact that races have become pretty bare bones, in order to backload them... Don't even want to get into that.
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Pathfinder used to be a game whose systems and subsystems allowed me to create fun, interesting, and effective characters (and to marvel at the character creations of others). There was almost always a means of creating multiple capacities for efficacy and utility, given even the most bizarre or whimsical of character backgrounds/stories -- a system-supported capability that was affected only minimally by race and primary-class choices. (Indeed, making seemingly inoperable class and/or race choices work was a lot of fun in and of itself.)
Barring a slew of moderate-to-extreme revisions between now and the release of second edition, that capability is gone. Pathfinder 2e is, for me, just a marginally superior alternative to D&D 5e.
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For me Pathfinder means freedom, freedom to tell the stories I want with the characters I create. It means that my choices will matter, and that the world around will also have choices. People in Pathfinder are unique individuals, all of them have trod different roads to get to where they are now, and will take diffrent roads in the future, the freedom of the game, the choices I make, those are what made Pathfinder for me. And for me, any system they claim to have that title, must first, and foremost, support player choice and freedom to tell stories.
This is pretty much what I think of.
And that's something that the new version is lacking in.... Multiclassing, Class Archetypes, and Talents (now called Class Feats) are all, right now, seemingly based off of the same small pool... Half the options that make this game fun for me, are competing with each other, and that makes it very unfun... x.x
PS: Then there's the fact that races have become pretty bare bones, in order to backload them... Don't even want to get into that.
*nods* This is where the new system just doesn't seem to be pathfinder to me: As it stands, it doesn't allow me to play the same type of characters or run the same type of games I did with pathfinder. Be it the extremely meager duration of spells, magic weapons being 95% of your damage, coin flip type percentages the aimed for average, lack of meaningful skill differentiation, 100 loose shortswords as 'unwieldy' as 10 carefully wrapped and bound longswords, or any number of other issues... It's just not filling the same niche in my gaming.
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Hmm I would say Its a medium to portray and continue the stories and games that me and my friends enjoy.
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For me it means the best version of the 3.5 system.
For me Pathfinder means freedom, freedom to tell the stories I want with the characters I create. It means that my choices will matter, and that the world around will also have choices. People in Pathfinder are unique individuals, all of them have trod different roads to get to where they are now, and will take diffrent roads in the future, the freedom of the game, the choices I make, those are what made Pathfinder for me. And for me, any system they claim to have that title, must first, and foremost, support player choice and freedom to tell stories.
For me its the level of customization I can get with this game, between Multiclassing that allows me to stop in one class to start up in another (which is now how I build my chars, taking the two classes I want from the beginning and figuring out what levels I want to get them to), Feats every other level, Archetypes that trade out class features for another package of themed features, talents that allow me to customize within my class, & the ability to trade out Racial features for other racial features that may fit better from the beginning (not to mention feats later that work off of those base features).
Pathfinder is the best version of the d20 system I have come across.
For me, Pathfinder is so far the best version of D&D that I've ever played. (snipped)
As such, it satisfies my High Fantasy gaming desires more than any other game system.
It helps (a lot) that it has a huge amount of support material.
All of this, combined with all the excellent adventures and modules one can run and draw inspiration from. The freedom and ability to create your character no matter what the vision is. And frankly, the rules of it just make the most sense for how its world(s) work.
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High fantasy, content-diverse, deep system that's homebrew friendly.
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While this also applies to the d20 engine in general, it's the only roleplaying game rule set I know which...
A) is legally free and safe in the form of OGL (by the way, I do buy the books to show support),
B) has playable and non-playable characters playing on the same exploitable in-game physics,
C) and may advance in-universe from zero to superhero just by training (i.e. leveling up),
...in the order of personal importance.
I do have some other heartbreaker rules, which cannot steal away my #1 favorite rule throne because it fails some of the above criteria...
Endless hours of cooperative storytelling and adventure, from the comfort of my own house, with friends, laughs, and pizza.
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Early on, it was the mostly OK but sometimes idiotic set of rules I have to play with if I want to play d20 adventures without converting them. Paizo does some excellent adventures. Later it became the RGP rules that I could get paid (not a lot) to be published in.
This is my reason for caring about PF2 too; I want the system to be reasonable to such a degree that I can play, write for it, and convert Paizo's adventures without undue effort or frustration.
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My all time favorite RPG in over 3 decades of gaming.
Why do I love it - the sheer freedom and variety it brings, especially to characters and player choice - that one class can be built to do a dozen different things or that one role could be filled from a dozen different classes - it gives near infinite capacity to keep the game fresh no matter how much you play, especially so long as the adventure content keeps coming...
On the pathfinder group yesterday someone asked about how she could make a character that attacked people with flowers. By the answers there were immediately 20+ ways to do it in the written rules before even considering re-fluffing or house-ruling anything. For me that's one of the essences of Pathfinder.
A high fantasy setting where myself and my friends could adventure and be heroes facilitated by a system that let us build almost anything, put simply we liked feeling legendary and being able to customise characters the way we want with rules to go with it all.
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A continuation of 3rd edition D&D. A Game that is inspired by and continued the legacy of D&D when they went so far off base.
Removal of D&D aspects will cause me to not play the next edition.
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one of the better d20-based ttrpgs my group has played, with a deep level of flexibility and granularity to build exactly the character you envision while keeping them mechanically viable (many systems have the problem that flavorful or unorthodox characters are mechanically weak).
you want to play a human fighter who just graduated from fighter college, greatsword in hand? you can do that.
you want to play a merfolk inquisitor with a shotgun who cooks and eats everything he kills (and some things he doesn't)? then godspeed to you, fishman!
it lets you bring wild and fantastical ideas to the table and enjoy them in a fantasy world, and do so with your friends without feeling like you're not contributing to the physical or narrative challenges presented.
which is my biggest issue with 2E--they seem to have largely sucked all the customization and fantasy from the game mechanically, between tight numbers, taking so long for any level of deviation from cookie-cutters, and an overall lowered ceiling in things you can do or attempt. everything just seems less heroic and more grindy.
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I see PF1 as a lesser version of D&D 3.5 that my friends chose because Paizo was supporting it with new content. I guess what PF2 means to me is the end of support for D&D 3.5.
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I see PF1 as a lesser version of D&D 3.5 that my friends chose because Paizo was supporting it with new content. I guess what PF2 means to me is the end of support for D&D 3.5.
Wow. Never heard anyone call it a lesser version. Most people agree PF vastly improved on 3.5.
But the great thing about opinions is opinions are always right.
I have just recently started playing PF and for me the system brought back the feeling of having a multitude of options to choose from, from which only a handful will be viable in a specific setting (this a positive, not the best, thing in my view).
I think paizo is shaping the next step in the realm of complex TTRPGs with this second edition that other companies will reflect upon, rather than just improve and expand another system.
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It means choices and options, it means freedom for all the participants in telling the stories we cooperatively want to tell and it means being the true inheritor of the 3.x system that we fell in love with 18 years ago. All of this, paired with quality Adventure Paths as support.
Aside from the APs, PF2 sadly will be nothing of this. It will just be another TTRPG
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I would have preferred an update to the core 3rd edition system than a whole new one. To be completely honest.
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A fun game that can be played for free with a lot of character options. Needs a color coded guide and a few hours of research to build a effective character in. Usually houseruled to be streamlined or de-cluttered and a lot of edge cases that need GM fiat to bring into line.
Also the best support and campaign setting in the business. I started with Pathfinder and I just assumed tons of contents for free and rich kitchen sink settings with hours and hours of fully realized published adventures were the standard for all ttrpg games. Lol.
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I would have preferred an update to the core 3rd edition system than a whole new one. To be completely honest.
Me too. I actually did a lot of updating myself, so my current P1 system is basically itself a new edition, but it doesn't look like a hybrid with 5th edition D&D.
A new edition should bring updates, betterments and corrections to the old material, not an entirely new set of material, otherwise it's like publishing the first edition of something else. And that was exactly the reason why Pathfinder RPG was so successful when it came out: it was the old, beloved game with lots of updates, betterments and corrections, not a new game.
That's why I'm having mixed opinions about what I read in the playtest material. Much of it seems like wasted effort to me.
My favorite fantasy setting RPG, primarily because of the stories told, secondarily because of the variety of characters from crunch heavy splat book thingamagigs, to core classes.
And also my second favorite d20 system because starfinder is a thing, a thing that 'fixed' all my complaints about 3.5, on top of being a sci fi setting, and therefore my preference.
For me Pathfinder means freedom, freedom to tell the stories I want with the characters I create. It means that my choices will matter, and that the world around will also have choices. People in Pathfinder are unique individuals, all of them have trod different roads to get to where they are now, and will take diffrent roads in the future, the freedom of the game, the choices I make, those are what made Pathfinder for me. And for me, any system they claim to have that title, must first, and foremost, support player choice and freedom to tell stories.For me its the level of customization I can get with this game, between Multiclassing that allows me to stop in one class to start up in another (which is now how I build my chars, taking the two classes I want from the beginning and figuring out what levels I want to get them to), Feats every other level, Archetypes that trade out class features for another package of themed features, talents that allow me to customize within my class, & the ability to trade out Racial features for other racial features that may fit better from the beginning (not to mention feats later that work off of those base features).Pathfinder is the best version of the d20 system I have come across.All of this, combined with all the excellent adventures and modules one can run and draw inspiration from. The freedom and ability to create your character no matter what the vision is. And frankly, the rules of it just make the most sense for how its world(s) work.For me, Pathfinder is so far the best version of D&D that I've ever played. (snipped)
As such, it satisfies my High Fantasy gaming desires more than any other game system.
It helps (a lot) that it has a huge amount of support material.
All of this.
Character creation sweet spot. Combat not so much.
That's why I love the playtest so much. Even though character creation has obviously been limited since it's only the core rulebook (which this core rulebook has a lot more viable character builds than the PF1 core rulebook so that's a great sign). When PF2 is a few years into it's life, I just can't see myself wanting to play more PF1. It'll feel too dumbed down.
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Dire Ursus I like how you say that the character creation has been limited because core rulebook, when in the PF1 CRB, I can Multiclass between classes and still get more of my Feats & Rogue Talents, or just feats for my Fighter, than I can from the Playtest CRB.
I also get more out of my Sorcerer Bloodline(not to mention more Bloodline Options), than I do in PF2. Most might not be Multiclassing (unless going with the Prestige Class Dragon Disciple which is very much an option In the CRB) for chance of losing Spells, but I know I would, because I honestly don't care about spells, those powers though... Some of them I might Love to have for a build.
Also a number of the options from the Playtest are from Non PF1 CRB, so comparing CRB to CRB is a bad idea. The Barbarian's Totems & Class Feats are based off of Rage Powers which came in the APG, same as the entire Alchemist Class (Which I personally want more of the Thematic Odd Bodyshaping options of the Alchemist's Discoveries). Hell some of the things in the Playtest are based on Class Features from the ACG's Hybrid Classes, like the Ranger's new Hunt Target is based off the Slayer, or the Fighter's Combat Flexibility being based off the Brawler. So yeah, it's much better to compare the Playtest to more than just the 1E CRB, its not an equivalency because they learned from years of making PF1... Now if they just could have kept the Customizability of 1E instead of throwing so many options into one kettle, and bare boning the Races (Dwarves get it the worst, who thought untying their Slow Speed [20 ft when smaller races are 25, really?!?] from their Unburdened was a good idea).
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The people who say they wanted just an update to this core system.
I sort of agree. Not 100%, but sort of.
I would've loved to see some of the stuff implemented, to make it truly a new edition of the game, instead of what feels like just an entirely new game.
They could've given us the 3 Action economy, the Reaction, and scaling cantrips.
But not completely redesigned the classes, like taking Smite away from paladins.
I think a mix of the two approaches would've worked better for me.
But, hey. We'll see what comes of it.
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To me, Pathfinder means in-depth character customization while still within the d20/D&D frame. It also means to me capping out most of my adventures within 10 levels because the wheels start coming off at higher speeds. Those are the two things I keep coming back to whenever I run Pathfinder.
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In order of priority:
1. A system with which you can make almost any character concept that you can think of within the rules, without the need for significant GM favors.
2. The successor to D&D with all the right sacred cows still present and accounted for. (Ability scores, levels, d20, bags of holding, magic loot, alignment system, gods, spellcasting, critical hits, key spells, etc)
3. A system with sufficient mechanical depth, which includes having rules for various in-game things like falling damage and crafting, as well as opportunity for optimization.
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PF1: Playing good old fantasy RPGs is great, from simply exploring a good old dungeon, to raiding a dragons treasure, it is with this stories that i spent most of my time playing RPGs. PF1 is the continuation of 3.5, PF1 has a multitude of options, a multitude of PCs that can be carefully crafted and played. PF1 is just that great.
PF2: PF2 to me means the end of an era. Time to move ones tent and look for a new place to set it.
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1. A system with which you can make almost any character concept that you can think of within the rules, without the need for significant GM favors.
Lots of people seem to be enthusing about this point or something very similar to it, and it feels unbalanced to me.
I am absolutely opposed to any game that operates from a basis of "players must be able to make any concept they like without consulting with the DM" as a fundamental axiom, because that undercuts getting a set of tonally consistent characters in a tonally consistent story, and the collaborative aspect of that, between players and DM both is most of what I am there for as player or DM. Strongly defined classes feel to me like a strongpoint of PF1.0, because they give a DM something to assess for any given story.
I think you're misunderstanding something. Every GM should talk with their players about what they want to build, but every player shouldn't have to beg their GM to make custom rules to accommodate a build concept that the rules don't cover. Session 0 should always include some communication about what the party is going to look like so the GM can prepare.
You also get to a point where general, community-wide expectations about the game allow you to theorycraft characters with some expectation that they'd be acceptable at the majority of tables, or at least at tables running under a specific style.
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What it meant to me (yes, past tense) was a continuation of the game system I really enjoyed (3.5), but with the addition of a setting I quickly grew to love as much as my old favorite setting (Dragonlance).
What Paizo has accomplished with Pathfinder has been extremely enjoyable for me over the last ten years, and I'm glad to know I can keep enjoying it for many years to come.
I have a great deal of nostalgic sadness that it's over....but realistically, I have enough adventures still to be explored that everything will be fine.
It's still like morning the loss of a friend in a way though :P
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A continuation of 3rd edition D&D. A Game that is inspired by and continued the legacy of D&D when they went so far off base.
Removal of D&D aspects will cause me to not play the next edition.
This. "Pathfinder" means "3.5 compatibility" to me, and without that, I will not purchase or play the new system.
Rather than GURPS, I would play Cypher System! That's such an elegant system.
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this is one reason why things like the mention of more Golarion-specific content in bestiaries and so forth strike me as a very good thing, in reinforcing Pathfinder's distinct identity.
For me, I've had more games of pathfinder that had absolutely nothing to do with Golarion than those that did. As such, infusing Golarion into the rules as a default actually makes it harder for me to tell and play in the pathfinder games I have enjoyed in the past. For me, Golarion doesn't equal pathfinder: it's just a single setting on the pathfinder spectrum.