The Pathfinder RPG
Posted by Mark on Apr 29, 2009 in Pathfinder |
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I’ve been avoiding paying too much attention to Pathfinder, but have steadily grown more interested as I listened to the Tome Show and watched the chatter amongst the blogs. I gave in today and downloaded the Beta Test rules and have begun looking over them. From what I’ve seen so far, it looks fairly innocuous. There isn’t anything that really popped out, but I also don’t have my leather-bound 3.5 PHB in front of me comparing, either (yes, I have the leather-bound PHB, and it is precious to me… precious…).
Are there any big differences I should keep my eye out for? Have any of you played Pathfinder, and is it worth investing time and effort into looking into when I’m perfectly happy with 4e?
If you’re happy with 4e, I don’t see a reason to try Pathfinder. But then again, I never saw a reason to try it over D&D 3.5 proper, since it eschews the Book of Nine Swords style material that 3.5 could have used more of in favor of “staying true to the system.”
I love “Book of 9 Swords”. Adding 4e content to 3.5 was perfect, in my opinion. I would never pick up 4e again if 3e had a little bit of 4e flavored into it.
In my opinion, the Pathfinder system is very much 3.75. If you like a lot of 3e and aren’t quite sold on 4e then I think Pathfinder is the right fit.
It’s a good middle ground, you get some of what 4e does to the game without giving up all of 3e…and most of your 3d material remains much more relevant than it does in 4e.
It simplifies some 3e mechanics…but not as much as 4e does it. It spices up some classes, but not as much as 4e does it. Skills are a good example. It gets rid of a bunch of skills, but not nearly as many as 4e did. It simplifies grapple and turn undead, but not as much as 4e did. There’s a lot of that, while also helping some of the core classes catch up with the 3e power creep that happened over the years.
That all said, I haven’t seen or heard anything about the final version of the Pathfinder RPG which comes out this August.
Oh, one thing I forgot. The most recent Tome Show episode focuses on the Pathfinder setting books. Personally, I’m really interested in looking at the prospect of using those and running a 4e game in the setting. There is a lot about the setting that makes me really curious…of course I’m a giant FR geek, so I don’t know that I could ever give up telling my stories on Toril.
I’ve tried 4e and after playing a few session it just didn’t turn out to be what my gaming group was looking for. 3.75 or 3P was very much a breakdown of weaknesses of 3.5 and revamped major flaws of the system. Furthermore they added some more fluff (Sorcerer Bloodlines, Fighter Skills, basically everyone got a little bit more powerful to make sure there are no “dead levels”). Secondly the combat system was reworked, especially maneuvers (and especially grapple) got a better approach and are quite easy to use now. It’s for sure not perfect but I indeed like the approach over current development of 100% streamlined 4e.
If you give it a try, enjoy it.
We’re starting up a Pathfinder game this Saturday. We really like the mechanics. There are a few changes from standard 3.5 but rather than rehash them all here, you can check out my post on the matter.
http://rpgcentric.com/pathfinder-is-pretty-cool.html
Pathfinder RPG = 3.5 with all the common sense houserules we all use integrated + all of the “cool” bits of 4E cherry picked in.
There. I said it. Add to that a “reboot” of all the classic bits of the franchise – i.e. repurchasing all of the other core books with new artwork and ecologies, and BAM! PFRPG is born.
I understand why they are doing it. I even agree with their “mission” I just don’t like it. But thats me
I looked at both Pathfinder and 4E and ended up choosing to go with 4E for my campaign. The Pathfinder rules just looked like 3.5 with a few tweeks, none of which were as interesting to me as the mechanics released in some of WotC’s later 3.5 books like the Book of Nine Swords. That said, if I feel the urge to play a campaign with the 3X rules, I’d strongly consider using some of the changes that were made for Pathfinder.
The fluff that Paizo produces is pretty good though. I’ve enjoyed reading the Pathfinder campaign setting book and a couple of the adventure path modules. They’re full of good ideas that can be borrowed for any version of D&D.
I haven’t played either 4e or the Pathfinder Beta, only 3.5. But I’ve read both the former books, and I like the idea of Pathfinder a lot more than 4e. I liked how they “spiced up” a bunch of the classes with new features and accounted for the addition in overall power in the “new” rating/XP system. Also, they kept Vancian magic, which is one of the main reasons why I dislike the idea of 4e. Reworking grapples and other moves that are a pain (especially since I’ve never used them that often) was a great idea and I quite like how it turned out. Don’t like the skill limits, but I can see where they’re coming from. I’ll definitely be looking to pick up the final product to see where they went with it. Maybe I’ll even get my DM to adopt it down the road.