Who here is familiar with Pathfinder?  I just bought the Pathfinder Core Rulebook on Sunday and found it to be quite awesome. 

For those who don't know, Pathfinder is referred to as D&D 3.75; it's made by Paizo, not Wizards, using the OGL and is considered by many to be the "final" version of 3rd Edition.  As such, it's compatible with 3.5 - it even sez seaux on the back of the book.

It strikes me as a great system.  I feel that it exemplifies the spirit of D&D by having a decent set of combat rules but also encouraging role-playing, which sort of leads a gaming group into a game that is more balanced, a nice mix of hack-and-slash and character/story-driven gaming.  Of course I realize that that's possible with any system - hell, you could LARP 4e if, for some weird-ass reason, you wanted to - but Pathfinder (I'll admit it, 3rd edition as a whole) really lends itself to this balance.

I particularly like the section on the planes in this book.  They managed to cram a decent bit of information in those couple of pages and it's very easy to understand.  I feel like they hit on the perfect level of abstraction in terms of describing parallel planes and demi-planes.  I also liked that they unabashedly used the names Heaven and Hell for the lawful good and lawful evil Outer Planes, respectively (duh).  One of the things that's always bothered me about TSR/Wizards is that they buckle under pressure from them ree-lijus types.  At any rate, I've always been a big fan of gaming outside the Prime Material plane, and 4th edition just doesn't do it for me.  Although the 3rd edition DM Guide has more information on the planes, I feel like it gives the DM a little too much - read: run your game for you.  The concise descriptions remind me more of the section on the planes in PHB 1E, which explicitly states that they aren't described in full detail because it's supposed to allow the DM to have a totally unique and flexible alternate universe for adventuring.  Maybe I'm just old school.

There are a few other differences from 3/3.5, such as the XP system (three tracks for level advancement: slow, normal, fast), new feats (50% more, apparently, as well as other goodies in the form of abilities and items.  Also, the book is frickin' huge - at 560 pages, it's a PHB and DMG wrapped in one - and gorgeous to boot.  The art is excellent, and even contributes the to the focus on role-playing.  Has anyone noticed that in 4e art most of the characters in the paintings/drawings are just posing?  Either posing or attacking.  It's power gaming all the way.  Pathfinder hits on the old-school style of portraying people actually adventuring.  Remember the cover of the original AD&D Player's Handbook with the guy stealing the giant jewel from the eye of the statue while his homeboys are checking out maps and otherwise interacting with one another?  Shit kicks ass, dude.

At any rate, I find Pathfinder to live up to all the hype.  I know it's been out for over a year, but I feel like something needed to be said.  Cop it!

Hmm...I need to buy a copy from DriveThruRPG (provided they sell it) and check it out. My friends like to play the EverQuest campaign setting, but the 3.0 version of it needs serious rules adjustments. Porting it to "3.75" might be helpful.

That, and I've personally been tinkering with a Final Fantasy Tactics port to d20 for years now, and I've yet to get the system quite right. Maybe these new rules would help me in that side project (that no one would probably play  ;)).

beyonder - I really like your assessment. I am in agreement which almost all you said.

I think there are many innovation in 4.0. Some of the ideas are stuff I would add to a custom system, such as daily, encounter, at-will spells/powers in addition to a power point/mana points and "Vancian" system slots.

(With my additions: Dav if you want to fix my wording, I think it works though. Called "Event Based")
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So I would want pure spell castes to have a mixture of systems, and hybrid casters to have at least 1 or 2.

D&D 4.0 spell system is not represented in the wiki so I am going to try to update later.


There are other good ideas in D&D 4.0, but they will never make up for the fact it plays like world of warcraft, and is no longer a "Fantasy Simulator".

One of my biggest issues with 3.5 is at later levels in the game magic  (or better stated, pure casters) are not just the pinnacle of power (or over power), but control the entire plot and game.

I have come to a few conclusions about high level 3.5 magic. It does not work well (to many rule wholes, abuses, and miss understandings), there is no balance (there could be no balance), living in a world with many high power NPCs is not realistically (for D&D physics) sustainable, and living with few high power NPCs is not realistically sustainable.

I wonder if pathfinder addresses some of these issues.

I agree 4.o isnt a "fantasy simulator" it is an rpg. Your mileage will vary. Still D&D was never a good fantasy simulator..if I had a nickel for every time a lvl 1 wizard was killed by a housecat I could afford the pathfinder book!

My issue with d&d over the years was each edition had more and more rules for what you could do and each of these subsystem of rules really only made the game less accessible and in my experience limited what your character could do.

Ive had the skill system discussion many times in the past and while some folks really enjoy adding ranks here and there I always thought that this stuff was better off hand waved. ((you mean the Fighter who rp'ed as coming from a fishing village the whole campaign cant pilot a small boat effectively because he has only average intelligence and took rope use?))

The first ed players handbook was art that definitely inspired a whole generation of gamers but for my money the basic set (and then the expert book woo-oh meta gaming on that cover) art of the 1981? issued red book was the most inspiring art. That was the game I wanted to play...fast paced, fighting dragons and exploring the isle of dread.
My 3rd lvl dwarf was different than yours not because of anything on my character sheet he was different because Milane had a personality. No one else could play Milane. it wasnt because they  couldn't move a painted lead dwarf 4 inches on the table next to the plastic dinosaur that was really Fire-broung the dragon but who could things like "My clan will have soup made from your toes!" (I still say he said bones but at least 3 other insist Milane had a thing for feet.)

With the players handbook, the rules said Milane could have been almost anything (even a cleric but not a wizard.) It  changed the game into something more complex though still very fun and I admit I got every book as it came out. Still I missed the early days when it was more about character than characteristics and I think 4th edition while being a modern interpretation is closer to that game than any since.

I think 4th is like the child of basic D&D and chess.
I think 3.5 is like the child of basic D&D  and the Tax code.

Sadly the greatest appeal of 4th edition to me is becoming less and less relevant as the "Tax Code creep" grows and grows with each new "Core Rulebook."

Ah Bartleby, ah humanity. 

Yeah, he-who. I agree with a lot of that. 3rd looks awfully sprawling and bloated now, but 4th will head that way quickly if it keeps selling. I like some aspects of it (it's the easiest RPG ever for teaching new people how to play, because you have a little stack of cards that includes EVERYTHING your character can do this round) and hate other ones (there's no room for creativity, because you have a little stack of cards that includes EVERYTHING your character can do this round).

All in all, I come from most of those games (WoD, UniSystem, System X, MET, etc.) that don't have hit points or levels. There's always an easy argument against those (tidy and comprehensible as they are). To steal from a friend of mine:

"I'm easily a 10th-level graphic artist. My buddy Steve is about a 3rd-level lawyer. Who would win in court? And why should I automatically be able to beat him in a fistfight?"

And wound penalties don't exist with hit points, which means I can carve a hole in your chest cavity, shove an electric hand-mixer into said hole, and set it to turbo without you so much as losing an action or swinging a sword any less enthusiastically just so long as you have 1 hp remaining.

That all being said, skills are an important balancing factor in 3rd. I mean, that's why Bards and Rogues are handy. Yes, it's dumb that Fighters, for instance, can only know how to do like 6 things that don't involve pugilism, but there's a certain increase in fairness when the silk-clad fop of the party (whose contributions to the adventure tend to be limited to singing when he should be fighting and always having a tub of Dapper Dan pomade handy) can actual DO something useful (like understand what the hot French chick is saying, know that the local Duke is a Red-Sox fan, pick a lock, avoid accidentally selling a +6 Dancing Vorpal Letter Opener for anything less than a fortune, etc.).

In 4th, the Bard is more reduced to "the particular way in which *I* zap monsters is by talking or singing at them instead of pointing my finger." Most of the classes have been ironed out into pretty bland things. You know that part of the class description where it says "Type?" They can be things like "Striker," "Leader," etc.? I think those are basically the character classes in 4th.


"What are you playing?"
"Oh, I'm an elf Striker. You?"
"Dwarf Defender."

Either way, hope to find Pathfinder to be a healthy middle ground.   8-)


/2cents

@Dr. Nemesis

Your comment on 4e character types is totally on point.  The bard I play at our meetups made that apparent.  My character can insult as a ranged attack.  Clever bard!  It's basically Magic Missile.  'Smatterafact, almost all of the at-will ranged attacks in 4e are Magic Missile + slide/push/stun/etc, ad nauseum, with damage types varying from power to power.  To this I say, "Whatevs!"  One must always remember that they also publish Magic: the Gathering (not hatin', just sayin').

On wound penalties:  That's always been a problem with lots of game systems.  It's totally, um, unrealistic...

...which is why I've decided I'm only going to play Battletech from now on.  So many little dots!  I hear the H.E.R.O. system is equally ridiculous.  Anyway, here's my question: who says you carved a hole in my chest cavity, anyway?  You?  If I were DM, I'd tell you to cool thy jets and save the description for the kill.  Otherwise you're basically just replacing combat rules with role-playing.  Sure, it sounds rad, but if your target has any HP left, you probably haven't carved a hole out of its chest cavity.  It's kinda-sorta-almost cheating.  Also: how do you carve a hole out of a cavity?  I digress.

@hewhorocks:

Regarding the class-skill mismatch: I feel it's up to the player to ensure that his or her character really "makes sense."  I rolled a Pathfinder monk the other day and trained in only 1 skill that wasn't a class skill - healing, which I felt was relatively legit.  As much as I wanted to give my character some wacky skills, I just couldn't do it.  It's the player's responsibility to write a character sheet that actually matches the character.  Having said that, a player whose character is from a fishing village should pick skills that reflect he or she having been raised in a fishing village.  I could have picked Ride as a skill for my character because it might come in handy, but the fact is that my character spent most of his life in a monastery in a major city in Eberron.  This is without mentioning the fact that Pathfinder (and, I assume, 3.5) gives players TONS of ranks to pump into their skills; those upset about not having the skills they want are crybabies.  To them I say, "Maybe you should have planned your character better!"  This exemplifies how you can actually turn characteristics into a character.  The two go hand in hand; the characteristics should reflect the character.

On that note, you should never need a skill.  A balanced party should have it covered, and any DM worth his/her salt shouldn't put a party in a situation like that.  But, hey, so you don't have the skills - well, that's part of why RPGs are fun, right?  Sometimes you just have to figure it out.

@ Beyonder

So there is a ‘action’ in which a bard can ‘throw’ and ‘insult’ at someone across the room in order to inflict real damage on a subject?...   That is so extraordinarily unroleplayable that no mental stretch can make it the slightest bit realistic or even sensible (as per my style of roleplaying). And I can take it a step feather, if there was a table (group) which had no problem ignoring that game effect or even enjoyed it!, I would want them to play as far away from me as possible. Thank you from bringing that to my attention Beyonder, now I have a much better tool to describe the stupidness of 4.0.  I.M.O

Beyonder : “On wound penalties:  That's always been a problem with lots of game systems.  It's totally, um, unrealistic...”

So very true. I made a modification to 3.5 which added a sort of wounding. It looks to be difficult at first glance but when used it becomes very quick, and is rather intuitive. People usually shy away at it because it looks to complicated.  The rules sort of fix the hole in the chest issues you stated.

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Beyonder : “As much as I wanted to give my character some wacky skills, I just couldn't do it.  It's the player's responsibility to write a character sheet that actually matches the character.  Having said that, a player whose character is from a fishing village should pick skills that reflect he or she having been raised in a fishing village.”

I parted ways with the skill system in 3.5 in many clear areas, and 4.0 does not really facilitate roleplaying skill customization.  I made another house rule for that as well.

From House rules: “Free Skills: Craft, knowledge (any), performance, profession, and Speak Language are now all values set by role-playing or character history. A character may be an expert craftsmen, blacksmith, Scholar, alchemist, or singer for example at first level. These skills can me modified in game by role-playing the development of such said skills, though this will take time and effort in character. Other skills function as normal.”

Beyonder :  “This is without mentioning the fact that Pathfinder (and, I assume, 3.5) gives players TONS of ranks to pump into their skills;”

It depends on the class. The Fight IMO has a ridiculous low amount of skills for what I think they should have. I think to live and grow up in a fantasy world, most characters should have at least a decent profession, and some knowledge skills for free, AT LEAST. But 3.5 does not really facilitate realistic skills much of the time.


Beyonder :  “On that note, you should never need a skill.  A balanced party should have it covered, and any DM worth his/her salt shouldn't put a party in a situation like that.  But, hey, so you don't have the skills - well, that's part of why RPGs are fun, right?  Sometimes you just have to figure it out.”

Well I like to think that the party often gets themselves in the situation. I like to think of myself as a world builder, and a part of being a good world builder is to give PCs enough information so that they can see (if they are being intelligent) situations they want to steer clear of. I feel it is a bad idea to META DM as well META game, and part of that is for the PCs to know that as a DM you are not sugarcoating (or catering) their situations, and that they are the ones in control of their fate, not me. It just sounded like you think it is the responsibility of the DM to do that, I might of misunderstood.

All that being said, I like it when things don’t go to plan. It is just a good idea never to be sadistic about it.

ooo! OOO! OOOO!! another 3.x vs 4e vs Other Systems discussion! i love these!!

for my two coppers, i started playing d&d by knowing what the game was, but not having books. my brothers and i made up rules, got some dice, and pretended. THAT is what d&d comes down to: pretending and having fun. the rules we used inspired the actions we took, but didn't force us not to untie a rope because we used a big sword and that sort of thing. we eventually upgraded to boardgames like HeroQuest and Dragon Strike, and from there, it has all been an addiction of horrid proportions. my uncle had 1e and 2e books and the original heroes unlimited, and we played both of those. my very first d&d character was an assassin named Fuzz, and my older brother rolled awesomely and made a paladin. needless to say, our party devolved into a heinous social situation in a forest, and that campaign ended. but d&d was awesome!

i ended up growing all the 2e stuff, going into the skills & powers sets, and all that, absorbing the rules and having fun (i do my own taxes with no difficulty, to let you understand my rules/math prowess and joy at the systems). eventually, TSR was gone, then WotC came about with more that Magic (which i started playing in '93) called D&D 3e. and it was good!

all the rules, all the options! it progressed/digressed with each new supplement, depending on how you look at it. when it was stopped for 4e, i embraced the new edition and left the old. so now i play 4e (in addition to occasionally playing GURPS and d20 modern, Star Wars, etc, on the side). is 4e better than 3.x? i like it more, but only because it is as complicated as i want it to be, but not too much so. some folks NEED certain rules to play a character, but the rules only help shape the combat. if you want a painter-character, then your character paints in 4e. in 3.x, you needed skill points to paint. since painting doesn't have anything to do with combat and rarely (if ever) has any skill challenge application, there doesn't need to be rules to cover it. 3e had rules for stuff that didn't need rules; that became the problem after all the supplements came out to cover everything. however, for those that played it for its entire duration, it was canon.

my younger brother loves 3.x and calls 4e "broken." i don't know how he comes to that when, as it was pointed out, a low level fighter always beat a low level wizard, and at level 20+ a wizard said "die" and the fighter died. the rules made it a more broken system to me, though many players and DMs worked around it to make it fun. 4e equalized everything, to keep players on the same level for the most part, making it less broken in that regard, though it also made most characters too similar in power for some players. someone said that the class role was basically the class, and that is almost true. there are some differences, such as a fighter (defender role) being far different from either a paladin or a warden, but in general all three take lots of damage, deal a decent bit back, and keep enemies on them during fights. oh well, i guess it all depends on what you want your character to be in the end that makes you pick differently there: a weapons master; a holy knight; a force of nature.

and on the thought of a 4e bard insulting someone to damage them: try flavoring the effect rather than reading the book's description. if it is a ranged attack, since a bard is arcane think of it as a magical bolt or ray, or an effect that happens only on the target. it is magic; it doesn't need to follow the rules of physics. maybe the bard hums a tune to touch his arcane energy source, maybe he dances around a tree like an acid-tripping-elf in a forest, but describe it the way you want. the effect and damage are rolled the same as a longsword slowing an enemy, so just describe it better. the game works better if you try to enjoy it more than if you try to read the book aloud and have fun. it just doesn't work that way, to those that need a rule for everything, and everything needs to be as written. and as just mentioned by sombrenote: use houserules to make things work better for you. that's how i started gaming: houserules only, call it d&d, and have fun.

in general, i play 4e because it is the newest version, and most likely to be supported for the next few years. has it got problems? yes. did 3.x? yes. i still play 3.5 every once in a great while online, but rarely, simply because after examining all the rules i've seen more flaws in it that there should be. so, play on with whatever game you like. play a character, not a set of statistics. if your fighter grew in a fishing village, assume he can swim, catch a fish, bait a hook, and all the other stuff one might expect. he just might do it better than the monk that never fished before.

oh, and that leads me to one last thought (finally!): player characters in most games are better-than-average compared to most people. that means that while most people can put a worm on a hook and fish, or tie their shoes, a player character is more likely to catch the bigger fish quicker, and can tie many types of knots that common folks like myself cannot tie. i'm a 10 in stats, heroes are 11+. so if your "hero" doesn't have ranks in knot tying, he can probably tie his shoes and untie many knots, he just isn't a sailor-class knot maker.

i'm sure i might have ruffled some feathers, might have brought up some good points, might have changed some minds, but in the end, i just gave my own thoughts and agreed/disagreed with others. so lets not fight, lets just game on.

and pathfinder actually sounds interesting as a newer 3.5...i never did really try it, but i might now to shake things up. thanks for the review beyonder!

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"and on the thought of a 4e bard insulting someone to damage them: try flavoring the effect rather than reading the book's description. if it is a ranged attack, since a bard is arcane think of it as a magical bolt or ray, or an effect that happens only on the target. it is magic; it doesn't need to follow the rules of physics. maybe the bard hums a tune to touch his arcane energy source, maybe he dances around a tree like an acid-tripping-elf in a forest, but describe it the way you want. the effect and damage are rolled the same as a longsword slowing an enemy, so just describe it better. the game works better if you try to enjoy it more than if you try to read the book aloud and have fun. it just doesn't work that way, to those that need a rule for everything, and everything needs to be as written. and as just mentioned by sombrenote: use houserules to make things work better for you. that's how i started gaming: houserules only, call it d&d, and have fun."

I like your logic and method on this. You have twisted it to be something that can be swallowed easier. But the greater point is that the bard is a tiny piece of a much larger problem. The ridiculousness of how it is written is like spitting in the face of a whole subset of gamers, who enjoy a little bit of maturity. Every single aspect of the game is World of Warcrafted in a extremely contrived manor in order to achieve ridiculously rigid balance. Whats funny is I LIKE balance! I just do not like it as the cost of flavor, physics, and realism.  4.0 is honestly eloquent in its balance. But it is at the cost of it being the bases for all spell/skill/attack design. The entire structure of the game is based around it. I don't feel the grit that I personally have come to love.

This thread is about PATHFINDER! I would love to know what it has gotten right, and what it has gotten wrong. I have only taken quick glance at it, and I would love to hear from you well spoken fellows how you think it falls within the context of our conversation.

if i'm not mistaken, the "insulting bard attack" is actually their at-will power called "vicious mockery." now, many powers have a name that make one instantly think of something, rather than make something up for themselves. one sees that this is the name of an actual power, deals damage, is ranged, and says "wow, i just insulted you and it was a magic missile!" i call this narrow-minded, to some extent. that would be like saying that in the game swinging a hammer and rolling a die for damage is exactly the same as using a rapier and rolling die for damage. no its not! use your noodle, folks, and try to imagine something different.

here is the published flavor text from "vicious mockery:"

You unleash a string of insults at your foe, weaving them with
bardic magic to send the creature into a blind rage.

so, some might say this cements the attack into being an insulting magic missile, but really, it is just flavor text. look at some fighter powers, and they say things like "You constantly swing your weapon about, slashing and cutting into nearby enemies." or whatever. that doesn't mean you must be using a sword to have that power. it is flavor, a little snippet of a way you could describe the power while you are using it in-game at the table.

anyhow, there are many people that live inside the lines of a square, and can't image other shapes in their world. that's fine; RPGs aren't for them, perhaps. as for  making 4e like World of Warcraft: i've never played that MMORPG and never will, because it has about ZERO actual roleplaying. as i understand it, you simply kill things until you are high level, brag to your friends about being high level, then start over. that sounds like a stupid time to me, but then again, i like to think and use my brain for more than watching flashing colors on a computer screen. then again, i did play both diablo games WAY too much, but at least that was free...

i haven't done meth though, and i hear that is almost as addictive, so one point for me!

and just to relate this to pathfinder: if in pathfinder a class description says you might be a "heavily armored mace-wielder, a longsword and chainmail fighter, or a talented rapier master"to describe a fighter, does that mean you can't use a whip, axe, or quarterstaff, or that you can't wear hide armor? i mean, if it isn't written out then how can i pretend it correctly?  ;D

Hit points for those of you who might not be familiar with their function is not simply a measure of damage you can take before having to respawn.

Hit points are a measure of luck, skill, focus endurance and yes durability.
ex: an archer rolls a critical hit against a foe doing 20 points of damage.

Against level one wizard the story is "the arrow hits him in square in the chest" he collapses coughing blood.

Against a level 4 fighter the story is "the arrow hits you in the arm causing you to wince from pain. you break the arrow off and cast it aside"

Against a level 10 fighter "The arrow fly directly at your head you duck just in time and draw your sword preparing to charge."

In each case the arrow ruleswise hit and did 20 hit points of damage. The story of the psychic damage of the barge follows much the same path.

"New-nin" the bard shouts and the level one minion slips and falls on an heretofore unseen rock.

"New-nin" the bard shouts and the Orc flies into a rage obviously distracted.

"New-nin" the bard shouts and the dragon merely smiles and says "be the ball" as he unleashes his breath weapon on the bard. (Bard takes 30 points of damage + continuing 5)
"The dragon unleashes a torrent of fire from its mouth you are able to dive for cover behind the ruined statue you avoid the dire blast but it appears you cloak is aflame.

In each case there is damage done rules wise but the damage may or may not be done story wise.

The rules are there to facilitate the story. There is no hole in the chest problem. If you plunge a dagger though your heart your dead...next topic.

Still back to Pathfinder....

Its pretty, but man is that book expensive or what? It might represent a good value but I'm not sure something that big will hold up to "gamer style" use.

Yeah, but the mixer-in-the-chest illustration clearly said that, if you had at least 1hp left, you suffered literally no deleterious effects from the damage you'd taken.

We all get math and scaling. But a 100hp fighter who takes 99hp in damage is 99% dead, yet he functions just like he did at 0% dead. Wound penalties are the issue I was bringing up, not hp being unrealistic inherently.


And the Vicious Mockery thing totally proves what I was saying earlier. Bards aren't different from, say, Sorcerers except in the flavor text. They've ironed-out the differences between classes and essentially have left us with these "class types" in their place.

You have your guy who does "ranged attack thingies," for example, and he's only slightly different from one class to the next. In one, his wand and nimble fingers are zotting people from across the room; in the other, it's his magical "yo-mama" jokes. I mean, look at the EverQuest campaign setting or even Pathfinder (you know, the topic at hand?  ;)) and see how the Bard is very different and unique in so many respects.

4th isn't necessarily worse than 3rd (though I'm beginning to suspect Pathfinder may be better than 3rd), but it does have certain weaknesses. The uniformity of it devestates the more creative aspects of such a game.


Of course, that's just my opinion--I could be wrong  8-)

hewhorocks wrote on Mar 25^th, 2010 at 5:29pm:

Hit points are a measure of luck, skill, focus endurance and yes durability.

Dr. Nemesis wrote on Mar 25^th, 2010 at 11:48pm:

We all get math and scaling. But a 100hp fighter who takes 99hp in damage is 99% dead, yet he functions just like he did at 0% dead. Wound penalties are the issue I was bringing up, not hp being unrealistic inherently.

I think the first quote answers the second: it isn't 99% dead, it is that if the dice say you get hit again, your luck runs out, and the hit takes you down. hewhorocks' examples show this, in that a character can take 20 damage and you don't have to say he was hit in the gut with a sword each time; it just means that eventually his chances to live run out in the fight.

think of two mid-to-high level rogues fighting with daggers, doing 1d4 damage each hit. neither are benefiting from sneak attacks or anything, just 1d4 damage for the sake of this example. now, if each combatant has 40 hit points (an arbitrary number, don't think about it too much), it will take between 10 and 40 hits to fell an opponent. imagine getting stabbed with a dagger. now, would you take that 10 times in a fight, no matter now long you've been adventuring? probably not. it is up to the storytellers (players and DMs) to describe the situation as perhaps slight nicks and cuts, maybe energy spent in dodging, or whatever. when one combatant hits 0 hp though, it signifies that either the combatant took a lethal stab, or at least one that dropped him from the fight like a gut-shot, or otherwise had to end the fight in a loss (though most rules call 0 unconscious, at least).

it takes me back to "using the imagination" which isn't necessarily a rule written in the books, but it makes the rules for any game system that much easier to swallow.

i like wound rules, such as a certain percentage of HP gone giving penalties, or crits giving penalties, and that sort of thing. i embrace it when it is a houserule, but i don't use it often when i run a game. i also liked the differences between piercing, bludgeoning, and slashing weapons versus some things, such as a spear being less effective on skeletons and chainmail but more so on large creatures and leather armor. its a fun addition to the rules to make it work better, but not necessary if nobody wants it.

i'm actually getting more interested in pathfinder and i think i'm gonna look for a copy of the book to see if i find it worth buying. 560 pages or whatever sounds nice to me, leaving less to question one would hope. we'll see.

and even though this thread dropped a good bit from the original purpose, i'm enjoying seeing other perspectives and people with good thoughts on the issues discussed.

i was looking into it online, and paizo sells the book for $50, but also sells the PDF for only $10. so, if you are a technophile and/or use a laptop that can go gaming with you, then you can get the basic book for only $10. they sell all sorts of PDFs too, such as paper minis, books, posters, etc. it looks like they've got their act together on this, if anyone is interested.

here is a link to the basic book's slot on their site, with info and pricing and the like, and you can navigate more from there.

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Hit points!

There has been of philosophy about what are hit points. Unfortunately games do not even agree as to what system they are using. D&D 3.5 is very conflicting about what hit points are. Reading the description in the books, and seeing all the different ways they can be impacted might confuse many.

My taste preference has always been one of grit and realism.


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i like wound rules, such as a certain percentage of HP gone giving penalties, or crits giving penalties, and that sort of thing. i embrace it when it is a houserule, but i don't use it often when i run a game. i also liked the differences between piercing, bludgeoning, and slashing weapons versus some things, such as a spear being less effective on skeletons and chainmail but more so on large creatures and leather armor. its a fun addition to the rules to make it work better, but not necessary if nobody wants it.

I like Davids ideas, and as a DM is usually take physical effects as he suggests, it is just to hard to write them down most of the time.

One of things I hate about 3.5 is the lack of realism in respect taking damage and wounds. I can't stand that people who get hit with with a huge hit or get dropped, are not "hurt" in some way. Like when you go negative and are falling, it is hard for me to believe a 1 level pally can walk over and lay on hands and now you are all right. That is why I use  the rules posted above. Chicks dig scars, and D&D is not offering them any.


I believe the best system would allow for decreased fighting performance due to damage taken. I just do know how to make such a system streamline and easy to use in a d20ish model. It is to hard to make to many calculations. One easier way would be to say you have 100% to 75% to 50% to 25% to 0% levels. Every tick is another -1 to all your bonus. Same thing would go for the baddies. This seems harsh, but as a DM you would be able to tone it down so that your players would be able to deal constructively, and also care more about their characters health.

There would then be a direct 1 to 1 with hitpoints. You take damage to your physical body..  your bodies is no longer able to function as well. Coupled with wounding and dropping blows, massive attacks, and save or die softening,  I think it is a really down to earth hit point system.

At lower levels the rules could be softened a bit, I mean if you only have 4 hit points you are going to go threw your percents fast. But then again, so will your enemies. And I am all for making house cats weaker..

more on actual pathfinder....

i like the new "combat maneuvers" and "combat maneuver defense" system, adding more depth and complexity to battles than simply attacking and either beating or not beating the target's ac. it makes some classes better in combat than they were previously, so that the fighter and barbarian in the party aren't the only ones hitting in a battle. some of the new feats are good too, expanding the feat trees in positive areas that seemed either too mundane or useless in 3.0 and 3.5.

i'm liking the changes, and of course knowing that if you understand the basics of the d20 system and 3.5 in particular you are good to go is a plus. then again, if you've been playing world of darkness or GURPS, it is a completely new and strange system still. but i guess that is how all game systems are if you don't play them: new and strange.

the PDF is nice too in that some items (like ability scores, feats, bull rush, etc) have the internal link that takes you to information on them. i was reading about monks and didn't know what the CMD was, and clicked the linked text, and it took me to the combat section where i learned about combat maneuvers. that really simplified learning, though it does lack the good old "feel" of a big, heavy hardcover book. invest however you will, but if you play any version of 3.x, it is a good addition to the book shelf for you, i say.

and come on! house cats have it rough enough as it is, let them kill low-level wizards so the kobolds can double-up on fighters and paladins! don't be hatin' on the bad guys or their cats!

Alignment in Pathfinder

It seems that the alignment section is far better written then the section in 3.5. It does a much better job to immunized DMs from the mistakes of straight jacking characters to alignments.

But people who are not fans of alignment get no love. There is no discernible change in the rules of alignment, just improved explanations. There could conceivably be differences in the availability of spells, just skimming spells, I see none.

Well, it's really still just 3.5 with some new features and a couple of rules added in. But it works really well for me thus far (haven't finished reading it all). I do like the classes basically getting something or other each level, which makes playing up to high levels a lot more fun.

I have read through all the classes, and I am about to start skills. Lets just just say that if everything skills and on are not better then 3.5, I will still play pathfinder over 3.5 any day.

The classes KICK ASS! They are written and far better designed, and balanced. I am never going to use 3.5 base classes again.

i found a fillable PDF pathfinder character sheet. here is the link:

Multimedia File Viewing and Clickable Links are available for Registered Members only!!  You need to or

you don't have to sign up for anything, and all you need to view it is acrobat. you can save it to you system and then replicate it as you make characters, and all that stuff that one most likely already understands. anyhow, i figured this would help out in some regard for folks.

A funny thing about the pathfinder system, you can now code the skills to auto calc based on class and race.

In 3.5 you can't because skill gain is so much more complex.

Great find david.

Heroforge did something:
Multimedia File Viewing and Clickable Links are available for Registered Members only!!  You need to or

I haven't tried it yet.  I know originally they did Pathfinder changes to the 3.5 version but I think the newer files are Pathfinder character generators.

And the web seems to think this is the best one:
Multimedia File Viewing and Clickable Links are available for Registered Members only!!  You need to or
It might just be that it was the first one.

And HeroLab has a pathfinder module.

And this one:
Multimedia File Viewing and Clickable Links are available for Registered Members only!!  You need to or

And PCGen is supposed to do pathfinder now:
Multimedia File Viewing and Clickable Links are available for Registered Members only!!  You need to or

Wow. I've read most of the nuts & bolts in the main book, and I'm pretty sure I have zero complaints! For me, that's a miracle--I'm a critical sort.

Okay, I admit I am weirded out by them making gnomes taller than halflings for some unknown reason. Beyond that, however, I'm pretty sure this is 100% better and in no way worse than 3.5. And it wouldn't take much work at all to convert a given 3.5 game to Pathfinder's rules!

*hint, hint*