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The purpose of this forum is to discuss changes PF1 fans would like to see in the off chance that Paizo decided to revisit the edition and improve it. Ultimately, this is our chance to tell them what they could do that we'd be willing to spend money on to, say, purchase a set of revised rule books, VTT material, more APs, etc.
For that mater, what changes also would you like to see in PF1 APs?
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I would like consolidation of the rule books into a small series of larger volumes. I would like APs that were much easier to read while players bark out all the things they want to do -- breaking out critical details rather than just running it all together as a continuous stream of paragraphs that can be a page or more for a single encounter. I'd be willing to have minor changes to the rules. I'd want the stat blocks to go unchanged in terms of content but formatted to be much easier to read and understand. I'd like APs that flesh out the optional encounters with maps of locations as a minimum. I'd like APs with more optional encounters.
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If I had my druthers, PF2 would have been more along the lines of Starfinder: keeping the core gameplay of PF1 intact, while streamlining some of the more complicated elements and tinkering a little with the math to avoid extremes. In other words, a true revision as opposed to a whole new game, which is what we're going to get (for better or worse).
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The main change I'd like to see is the Core rulebook completely re-written and re-designed to improve clarity and ease of use.
That would probably increase the page count, especially if they bring in traits, archetypes and favoured-class-bonus-by-race, so they might have to split into a player's book and a GMs book (hardly a novel idea ...)
It's never going to happen, and if it did there's a good chance it would bankrupt the company. There is nothing stopping anyone else doing it - presumably it is all open game content apart from the names of the deities - but it would be a massive undertaking.
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Whoa, nice topic. =)
Well, I agree with what Jhaeman said. I like how Pathfinder can be easily integrated into Starfinder, so I would like to have both of these systems (core mechanics) to be even more direct reflections of each other, just to make transistion between them even less painful... Except for axed skill base (since it is harder to mechanically differentiate your character from others and even harder to create a character that is exceptionally specialized at certain tasks) I would gladly welcome most if not all of the core changes that came with Starfinder.
Other than that I would replace classes with their unchained versions, do a bit of balancing here and there and maybe put all of the optional rules like chases, kingdom building and social encounters into one big book, so it is much easier to reference them and I would call that book the new Pathfinder Unchained.
There, my ideal TTRPG.
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I would:
[list]
Was the gunslinger a mistake? Should it be removed from 1e?
I’ve had problems with anything that reliably targets Touch AC, because many monsters rely so heavily on national armor bonuses. In my next campaign, alchemists and gunslingers will be off-limit.
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The touch mechanic of guns in general is problematic and unbalanced, and Paizo tried to balance it with by adding other problematic mechanics (like misfire). The end result is a mess.
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I'd include Mythic rules in Core.
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Was the gunslinger a mistake? Should it be removed from 1e?
No. Opinions vary. Never had problems running for or playing a gunslinger.
The gunslinger and alchemist should be core as well.
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So there are a few interesting ideas from PF2 that I feel would work well if backported to PF1:
The first and simplest is that all races get a floating +2 bonus to any ability score of their choice, and humans get two floating bonuses. This really opens up some suboptimal race/class combos, and also creates a nice middle-ground between 20 PB and 25 PB. I always felt that 20 PB was about the right power level for PC's, but that 25 PB had better class balance. This meets in the middle nicely.
Skill feats is a neat idea, and I like the idea of getting a regular feat at every odd level and a skill feat at every even level. The progressing effects on Expert/Master/Legendary could kick in at 5/10/15 ranks. Bump all the 2+int skill point classes to 4+int and you've got a very nice baseline for everyone to have some neat options.
I do like the faster crafting rules, and at least in principle I like the common/uncommon/rare classification (although as implemented I feel it was a bit too draconian, but this could be eased off very easily). I also really liked item levels and gave a simple way to classify items, and could potentially allow for new content like "duplicate the effects of any item of 3rd level or lower". Runes for weapons and armor was a nice touch, and could easily be brought back to PF1 to create interesting customization options in that area. With that said, potency runes are a little more iffy since they ended up being a bit too significant and if felt like your main progression was coming from the weapon and not your character.
The broad removal of feat taxes is definitely a nice thing. While there still were a few obnoxious feat taxes in PF2 (*cough*point blank shot*cough*) a lot of them don't need to be there taking up valuable space on your character sheet. No tears would be wept in weapon finesse were to vanish.
Some skills could stand to be consolidated; the Climb/Swim consolidation into Athletics and Athletics/Fly being combined into just Athletics makes sense. Perception not being a skill was also a good move.
Now, something I feel might be worth looking at even though it would be very difficult to backport effectively is the 3-action system. It's smooth and better supports actions other than "cast spell" or "make attack". However, it would require a complete rebalance of any class that has a substantial swift action economy, as well as two weapon fighting, pouncing, and pretty much all high-end abilities. This would touch on so many game systems that implementing it would be exceedingly difficult without breaking backwards compatibility with old archetypes and classes.
As much as resonance fell flat on its face, I do feel giving something to charisma would be a positive step. I don't want to derail too far so all I'll say is that carrots are easier to swallow than sticks.
In terms of other changes, bringing some of the expanded content into the core fighter, monk, and rogue would do wonders for those classes. Combat maneuvers and their associated feat chains could be cleaned up a bit, some spells could use a second pass, and a few weapons and armor types could use slight tweaking.
Honestly there's a lot of cool stuff to work with in the PF2 playtest, and I feel you could very easily backport the most compatible rule-changes to create a very solid foundation for a PF1.5
Was the gunslinger a mistake? Should it be removed from 1e?
Yes and yes; I feel gunslinger as a class was poorly conceived, and could have simply been implemented as a collection of archetypes for other classes or a feat chain. I'm not happy with the implementation of firearms in PF1, and I feel that it was a massive mistake to ever use touch AC as an attacking mechanic that continues to scale with level.
I’d probably make a version of automatic bonus progression the default. Make magic items more about the special things they can do than about how much of a number they provide.
I would fix the Shifter, give the Fighter even more feats, and add a small bestiary of super common enemies in the corebook so it would be a complete game in one book. Other than that, if they revived PF1, I would want them to leave it exactly the same.
Did it violate moderation rules or somwthing?
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Was the gunslinger a mistake? Should it be removed from 1e?
Guns are poorly designed in Pathfinder but are not an intrinsically terrible idea for a system that's designed for kitchen sink fantasy. The Gunslinger is, as it's existence ensures that guns are doomed to suck in the hands of anyone else. The Swashbuckler causes a similar problem with 1h weapon playstyles.
Another problem I've noticed is 3rd party material. It might be Pathfinder Compatible, but sometimes it brings in outrageous abilities in the form of classes, spells, magic items, etc.
Seems like the Pathfinder Compatible branding should remain as it is, but I wonder if Paizo could introduce a new brand maybe something like a Pathfinder Approved (Pathfinder Compatible & Approved) brand that says they've reviewed and accepted the material as not, for example, creating a game imbalance?
It would be a chance for Paizo to make more revenue off the branding process and to maintain the integrity of the game. 3rd party would benefit because the new branding would help GMs identify material that was acceptable to play.
For example, checkout this item that a character used in my last game session:
This item, if you spend 10 charges, can restore an unlimited number of hit points to an object.
What if that object is, for example, a fusion reactor that's already taken more than 1,000 hit points of damage? Or a castle?
The description doesn't seem to take all that into account. Creates a game imbalance.
Maybe, I missed something. Maybe, the fusion reactor or castle should be considered structures instead of objects? Not sure if Pathfinder differentiates.
What do you all think?
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There’s a serious “physician, heal thyself” problem with Paizo certifying 3pp as not overpowered.
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The Scavenger's Stone is basically "spend 2k gold to use mending very quickly". We're certainly not looking at Sacred Geometry here (which is also Paizo material).
Putting the onus on Paizo's development team to review the quality of all 3rd party material and give or not give their stamp of approval basically defeats the purpose of 3rd party material. Not to mention that Paizo isn't exactly known for being the gold standard for balance when it comes to Pathfinder content.
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Another problem I've noticed is 3rd party material. It might be Pathfinder Compatible, but sometimes it brings in outrageous abilities in the form of classes, spells, magic items, etc.
While there are certainly some 3PP products out there that go blatantly overboard, there are others I feel get a bad wrap for what is essentially a handful of oversights. Path of War is a good example; there is some legitimately OP stuff in there, but the vast majority of it is perfectly fine. Paizo certainly has had its fair share of balance slip-ups too; it's not as obvious with hard-covers since egregious balance issues there get errata'd, but stuff slips through the cracks in player companions all the time. And at the end of the day, the 3.5 foundation that Pathfinder was built on wasn't very well balanced to begin with and there were a lot of structural imbalances built into the core rulebook. This is basically what happened with the Shifter; they balanced it against a Fighter, and ended up being compared unfavorably with the Druid.
It's also worth noting that 3PP don't have the advantage of Paizo's subscription model. Paizo can afford to take a conservative approach to designing content because they don't need to build hype for every new release. As a result a lot of what Paizo puts out is inoffensive filler. 3PP's need to be a bit more ambitious since every product release needs to attract new interest, and this means they can't afford to play it safe. This means they're much more likely to push the envelope and cross boundaries.
I don't think there's a good way of dealing with these issues; this isn't a high profit margin industry, and that means there's very little slack in the business model. I don't think a seal of approval would be feasible; Paizo can't afford to do that kind of vetting, and 3PP's can't afford to meander through a slow and cumbersome vetting process.
For example, checkout this item that a character used in my last game session:
This item, if you spend 10 charges, can restore an unlimited number of hit points to an object.
What if that object is, for example, a fusion reactor that's already taken more than 1,000 hit points of damage? Or a castle?
That's exactly the sort of oversight that can slip through even the most well-meaning author or editor. For most types of objects their HP total wouldn't get high enough for this to be a problem, but if you're dealing with a castle wall that can be hundreds of HP.
For most conventional uses this is somewhere between a wand of mending and wand of make whole in terms of both cost and power so it's actually very reasonable if you're not abusing it with high-HP objects. So I can definitely see what the author was thinking even if they made an oversight by leaving the 10-charge usage uncapped.
Was the gunslinger a mistake? Should it be removed from 1e?Guns are poorly designed in Pathfinder but are not an intrinsically terrible idea for a system that's designed for kitchen sink fantasy. The Gunslinger is, as it's existence ensures that guns are doomed to suck in the hands of anyone else. The Swashbuckler causes a similar problem with 1h weapon playstyles.
Neither of them are a problem if armor is redone entirely to incorporate DR. Various heavy armors are actually somewhat effective against musketballs and other sorts of flintlock-powered roundball soft lead shot. (The Polish Winged Hussers wore such armor IRL versus Turkish firearms.) Something like stone-plate would probably even stop modern bullets, although in would take take damage in the process.
Basically, kite the armor system from GURPS.
Is anything missing from PF1 that should be added? A class, for example?
Or Paizo avoid adding new content and simply improve what's there? Or throw out some problem material?
What about the Profession skill? Seems kind of silly to only get one half your skill check in gold per week. I think some work could be done here to make it a skill worth having.
That's exactly the sort of oversight that can slip through even the most well-meaning author or editor. For most types of objects their HP total wouldn't get high enough for this to be a problem, but if you're dealing with a castle wall that can be hundreds of HP.
Castle walls are usually dealt with in 10' sections when applying damage. I would apply the same philosophy to repairing damage.
Castle walls are usually dealt with in 10' sections when applying damage. I would apply the same philosophy to repairing damage.
A 10' section of castle wall would have at least 450 hit points, so that doesn't solve the problem at all. Reinforced Masonry has 90 HP per foot of thickness for a 10' segment, and 5 ft thick is about the minimum you would ever see from a castle wall. And if that's reinforced masonry now that's 900 hit points.
Stone walls have way more HP than people think. It's actually a bit of a game balance issue since anything with damage balanced to break through stone walls will turn PC's of any level into warm piles of goo.
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If Paizo had made the brilliant and visionary decision to put me in charge of revising PF 1st ed, one thing I would address is Prestige Classes [PrC].
I believe the game developers of PF wanted simple character creation to be a good choice, ie to start with a base class and follow it to level 20. And I think that is a perfectly sensible idea.
But in my opinion the Paizo design team take it to excess. If you care about the power of your character you will avoid prestige classes like the plague. You may as well take 98% of the prestige classes printed and use the paper as kindling for fires to warm the playing area. What is the point of printing them in the first place? And it is wrong to call Prestige Classes that, Trap Class, Stigma Class or Useless Garbage is a more correct description.
Some prestige classes hark back to earlier editions of D&D. Mystic Theurge was a prestige class in 3.5 but is also very like a Magic User / Cleric from Advanced Dungeons and Dragons which was around back in 1979 when I started playing. Likewise a Arcane Trickster is a Magic User / Thief and an Eldritch Knight is very like a Fighter / Magic User.
There are a fair number of players who want to revisit their favourite types of characters from earlier years. For a time the Mystic Theurge was rendered quite playable by a FAQ whereby you could use racial SLAs to qualify for the class. This was later reversed and caused some serious resentment by players who wanted to play a Mystic Theurge. I am sure that most of all of these people want to revisit their favoured character types from earlier D & D.
In summary I would trim out most of the existing PrCs and print a smaller number which I would make decent from a power perspective.
And I would include in the new improved PrCs classes like Mystic Theurge and Arcane Trickster that some players especially want to play.
These people are paying money to play PF and I can see no reason the game can't be re-designed slightly to allow them what they want.
Castle walls are usually dealt with in 10' sections when applying damage. I would apply the same philosophy to repairing damage.A 10' section of castle wall would have at least 450 hit points, so that doesn't solve the problem at all.
What problem? A 2000gp item for repairing one damaged wall section instantly is so niche that you'd probably never end up using it. It's only overpowered in incredibly rare circumstances.
Creating walls (or illusory walls, or pits, or other obstacles) is one of the commonest types of spell in the game, and that's useful a lot more often than an item that merely repairs damaged walls.
I'd try to make the game less reliant on specific labels. Abilities like bane weapons or favored enemy and spells that rely on targeting a specific type of creature, all make the game slightly more erratic than it aught to be. By using less label specific definitions on these abilities, it should be harder for a player to cripple themselves by over focusing on a certain enemy type and it would decrease the need for these abilities to be comparatively potent to make up for the inability to use them frequently.
This would solve many problems with certain abilities being expensive flavor text as well.
An example for the sake of clarity. Instead of having an undead bane heavy mace, you may have a mace that does additional damage against things with no constitution score. It still serves the intended purpose, but it could also have uses in a campaign without undead in it. Similarly, a spell like dominate animal could be restricted to creatures with intelligence scores below a certain level to maintain some use if animals aren't a regular threat.
And I would include in the new improved PrCs classes like Mystic Theurge and Arcane Trickster that some players especially want to play.
I'd make Mystic Theurge and Arcane Trickster hybrid classes that you can play from level 1. That way you're playing your character concept immediately, and it's simpler to balance, because you're not trying to account for various possible paths to achieve the requirements.
Mystic Theurge:
Like a Wizard who can cast from two spell lists; uses Wisdom when casting Divine spells, and Intelligence when casting Arcane spells. Must get half their spells per day from Divine list and half from Arcane list. Should be no more overpowered than Wizards. MADder than Wizards, doesn't get more spells per day overall than Wizards, restricted in how many spells they can learn compared to Wizards, no Wizard school powers (or domain powers). Eventually gets some "cast two lower level spells in a round" abilities.
Arcane Trickster:
Rogue with less skill points, slightly slower sneak damage progression, fewer Tricks, and the ability to cast Arcane spells (but much fewer than a Wizard). Some special sneaky-casting abilities later on.
I don't disagree with you Matthew. I don't care a lot about the means to the end, but people who want to play certain classes [of which I am not really one] get to do what they want.
There is actually a 3rd party class called Theurge that essentially does what you suggest for Mystic Theurge. And does it pretty well from memory. Magus is a kind of base class Eldritch Knight. And the eldritch scoundrel archetype of a rogue is pretty much the Arcane Trickster you describe.
So I guess we are fairly close to my preferred goal with PF1 as is, if your GM will let you play a Theurge.
I would like to see the number of underpowered PrC reduced. I would like to see a smaller number of PrC which are decent and fulfill particular roles.
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In summary I would trim out most of the existing PrCs and print a smaller number which I would make decent from a power perspective.
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And I would include in the new improved PrCs classes like Mystic Theurge and Arcane Trickster that some players especially want to play.
These people are paying money to play PF and I can see no reason the game can't be re-designed slightly to allow them what they want.
I would concur; the core PRC's in D&D 3.5 weren't particularly great to begin with, and when Paizo buffed the base classes so that a 1-20 build became the norm these PRC's were just left in the dust. It's a shame because it wouldn't have taken much to fix them. Just lower their prerequisites and add a few useful class features.
I've actually written what I think the Eldritch Knight should have been like; I never bothered doing much, with the idea, I just wanted to write a proof of concept as to how I think PRC's should have been handled in Pathfinder, because I think this really addresses all the key complaints about PRC's while highlighting the advantages they have over archetypes.
What problem? A 2000gp item for repairing one damaged wall section instantly is so niche that you'd probably never end up using it. It's only overpowered in incredibly rare circumstances.
As I said, it's not going to be a problem in conventional circumstances. In most campaigns you'll never be in a situation where you need to keep an object with a large number of HP from breaking in the middle of a combat encounter. It's just not something that comes up. That doesn't mean it can't come up, though. A military siege is a perfectly valid kind of scenario to run, and in that context 2000 gp is actually insanely underpriced for what this thing is doing. That's only 5% of the WBL of a 5th level party (2.5% if you craft it), and it gives essentially five standard action full restores of any damaged wall segment or other defensive structure. That's completely game-breaking if you are playing that kind of scenario.
Yes, this item won't see the light of day in most conventional campaigns. That doesn't mean it can't break unconventional campaigns.
I'd make Mystic Theurge and Arcane Trickster hybrid classes that you can play from level 1. That way you're playing your character concept immediately, and it's simpler to balance, because you're not trying to account for various possible paths to achieve the requirements.
The advantage of the prestige class model is that it lets you mix and match base classes and their archetypes, giving more freedom and flexibility. The problem with the PRC's we have is that the prerequisites were made too onerous so you need to trudge through a substantial adventurer career before you've even gotten through the front doors - and even then you often had to wait for the payoff.
I feel a lot of this can be solved with lowered prerequisites. Using the example of Eldritch Knight, I feel BAB +3, proficiency with martial weapons, and ability to cast 1st level spells is about right. This not only lets you enter earlier, but it also opens up build possibilities such that any naive form of entry (Fighter 3 / Wizard 1, Fighter 2 / Wizard 2, or Fighter 1 / Wizard 4) are all viable. You could do something similar with Mystic Theurge and Arcane Trickster.
Arcane Trickster:
Rogue with less skill points, slightly slower sneak damage progression, fewer Tricks, and the ability to cast Arcane spells (but much fewer than a Wizard). Some special sneaky-casting abilities later on.
I would just go with the Eldritch Scoundrel or make it a wizard archetype with diminished spellcasting.
Would anyone be interested in revised printed books or PDFs for 1e, provided it was a significant revision with lots of our issues addressed?
I, personally, like to own and have posession of Pathfinder 1e material -- main reason being that you can always take down a website BUT you can't take away my books.
Or should they punt on the issue and everyone use the websites and Paizo should just focus on better APs?
If the APs were improved in several ways (I have some suggestions I made earlier in this thread), would it be worth paying extra money?
I also really like modules. They are great for sticking into the middle of an AP for those times when the players seem to need a little change pace.
Any way to improve PF1 modules?
As I've said, what's most meaningful to me is breaking out critical pieces of text so it's easier to refer to at a glace and doing a better job of separating material intended to be presented to players from the stuff that only GMs should know (at least at the beginning of the encounter).
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If I had my druthers, PF2 would have been more along the lines of Starfinder: keeping the core gameplay of PF1 intact, while streamlining some of the more complicated elements and tinkering a little with the math to avoid extremes. In other words, a true revision as opposed to a whole new game, which is what we're going to get (for better or worse).
Pretty much this. I could go into more details, but unless there's an actual chance of that happening, why bother. :p