Is Pathfinder really that bad?

[Tshern]

I have a better approach: Gentlemen's agreement. I play with people who know how to be powerful and still refrain from TO. And I can, as can our DMs, respond to even relatively high level rocket tag.

[BowenSilverclaw]

I have a better approach: Gentlemen's agreement. I play with people who know how to be powerful and still refrain from TO. And I can, as can our DMs, respond to even relatively high level rocket tag.

This, it works great as long as everyone is on the same page.
(it might not work in every group, but it has worked pretty well in my experience so far )

[juton]

I have a better approach: Gentlemen's agreement. I play with people who know how to be powerful and still refrain from TO. And I can, as can our DMs, respond to even relatively high level rocket tag.

This, it works great as long as everyone is on the same page.
(it might not work in every group, but it has worked pretty well in my experience so far )

This requires everyone to be gentleman (or lady). That disqualifies my group right out of the gate.

[Unbeliever]

I have a better approach: Gentlemen's agreement. I play with people who know how to be powerful and still refrain from TO. And I can, as can our DMs, respond to even relatively high level rocket tag.

+1

Funnily enough, I use the same term to describe it.  My group uses unmodified polymorph and stuff like that and we don't have problems.

 

This, it works great as long as everyone is on the same page.

+1 again.  If you're curious, I use Druid + Spell Compendium + Natural Spell as my "baseline."  It'd be sort of hard in a normal game to ban something from the PHB, and everyone knows, that gives an awful lot of room to maneuver.

In exchange, though, we allow stuff from pretty much every source, and even allow for some generous rules interpretations (or outright tweaks) to make some ideas work.  It's sort of a bargain between everyone involved. 

This requires everyone to be gentleman (or lady). That disqualifies my group right out of the gate.

I'm attracted to the gentleman's agreement approach is that it's really hard for a DM to close all the loopholes and think of everything.  And, we try not to leave people who aren't hard-core optimizers too far in the dust.  I think it's worth telling people what level of optimization you think is reasonable for a given campaign:  reasonable, high, theoretic.  I think the wide acceptance of the idea of TO indicates that we all do that to some degree.  I also appreciate that it frankly recognizes that the players have a responsibility to make the game work, too. 

Slightly back on topic: 
JaronK's observations are, I think, correct.  But, I don't think anything like strict interclass parity is important.  All that matters to me -- and this is kind of what I was hinting at w/ my little practical optimization comment last night -- is that everyone can contribute meaningfully.  I don't know if that makes sense on its own, so I included an example of what I'm talking about. 

[spoiler]
In 1 game I currently play is at 16th level, and in it I play a pretty powerful wizard -- zhent skymage w/ a bloodfiend mount who has now acquired a few levels of I7FV.  And, I make somewhat regular use of Celerity for extra actions here and there.  One of the other players is a large-sized barbarian/bear warrior now segueing into frenzied berserker (we use an accelerated feat progression).  She's got a spiked chain, knockback, and lots of power attack along w/ a titanic strength. 

Now, in a fight against my wizard she's got pretty much no hope.  I've got enough force cage-type effects and raw damage-dealing to probably crush her, despite her tons of hit points.  But, she certainly feels like she contributes:  she's one of our main damage dealers, takes hits like a champ, shoves even the strongest enemies all over the place, and even has a bunch of mobility options through magic items. 

Similarly, I have played an all-psionics game for a long time (which has necessitated some house-ruling to make it work).  In that one we have a soulknife/master thrower who uses dissolving weapon a lot, and she holds her own pretty well.  Could she take on the kineticist/anarchic initiate/illithid slayer?  Probably not, but she's consistently one of the solid damage dealers (roughly 100-120 every round), has great stealth and scout skills, great mobility (up the walls, insane tumble, etc.), absurd reflex saves + evasion, and will soon have a bit of BF control through tripping off of her barrage of thrown weapons. 

I'd say both those builds "work." 
[/spoiler]

So, my concern about Pathfinder is that it seems to have made it harder to succeed at even doing that.  We're not even at the level of reality-bending or anything, but at the level of making a solid non-caster character that is good at its schtick.  And, predictably, it's really uneven.  Sneak attack hasn't been nerfed, so if you want to deal that kind of damage-dealer you're fine.  But, things like Power Attack were, and for reasons that I haven't yet understood. 

[juton]

So, my concern about Pathfinder is that it seems to have made it harder to succeed at even doing that.  We're not even at the level of reality-bending or anything, but at the level of making a solid non-caster character that is good at its schtick.  And, predictably, it's really uneven.  Sneak attack hasn't been nerfed, so if you want to deal that kind of damage-dealer you're fine.  But, things like Power Attack were, and for reasons that I haven't yet understood. 

One of the key things to remember about Paizils is that big stupid fighter, heal-bot cleric and fireball chuckin' wizard works for them. They like it and they don't want to change. So the obvious choices of optimization, like power attack or tripping are nerfed, because that's what they see in their games. They've probably never used Scry or Contact other Plane, so it's not broken in their eyes because it's never been used. The real stinger is the lack of imagination, most don't even try and understand the points that CharOp makes.

[Unbeliever]

One of the key things to remember about Paizils is that big stupid fighter, heal-bot cleric and fireball chuckin' wizard works for them. They like it and they don't want to change. So the obvious choices of optimization, like power attack or tripping are nerfed, because that's what they see in their games. They've probably never used Scry or Contact other Plane, so it's not broken in their eyes because it's never been used. The real stinger is the lack of imagination, most don't even try and understand the points that CharOp makes.

You know, I think you've just articulated something that's been lurking in my mind about this whole thing.  Thanks.  And, moreover, the people at Paizo seem to have made a big value judgment that that is the way the game is supposed to be played, and that more creative approaches to characters are to be discouraged.  That actually makes them a lot closer to 4E than I think they'd want to admit. 

I've played my share of BSFs and fireball wizards (not a huge fan of the healbot, I'll admit), but at this point w/ D&D even if I'm going to do something like that I'm going to want it to do something that is at least neat or interesting. 

[kobo1d]

One of the key things to remember about Paizils is that big stupid fighter, heal-bot cleric and fireball chuckin' wizard works for them. They like it and they don't want to change. So the obvious choices of optimization, like power attack or tripping are nerfed, because that's what they see in their games. They've probably never used Scry or Contact other Plane, so it's not broken in their eyes because it's never been used. The real stinger is the lack of imagination, most don't even try and understand the points that CharOp makes.

You know, I think you've just articulated something that's been lurking in my mind about this whole thing.  Thanks.  And, moreover, the people at Paizo seem to have made a big value judgment that that is the way the game is supposed to be played, and that more creative approaches to characters are to be discouraged.  That actually makes them a lot closer to 4E than I think they'd want to admit. 

I've played my share of BSFs and fireball wizards (not a huge fan of the healbot, I'll admit), but at this point w/ D&D even if I'm going to do something like that I'm going to want it to do something that is at least neat or interesting. 

It's not just 4e, 3.5 did it as well even. Would the 3.5 Druid have been as good if Wizards had seen them as more than just the hippie nature casters?

[Akalsaris]

I think juton has a pretty solid point there actually - they "fixed" some of the things that are strong at a low level of optimization, and didn't do much to change the stuff that is more advanced.  Scry did get a bit of a nerf though, since it no longer gives familiarity for teleport, which in turn hinders scry+die, a fairly advanced tactic  But I agree with the overall sentiment.

I don't think that Paizo is actively trying to discourage more creative builds.  It's easier to make a dex-based fighter with Paizo, or to make a shield-bashing fighter.  Clerics don't need to swap out as many combat spells for healing because channel energy gives them some auto-healing slack.  You could probably build a paladin healer-type more effectively now.  Sorcerer bloodlines can lead to some wacky builds, like an aberrant bloodline sorcerer focused on touch spells.  My barbarian uses the new rage powers to make bull rushing an effective tactic for every combat (theoretically - he needs a few levels before I'll see it in action).  The changes to the PrCs means that you can have a CL 17/BAB +17 gish in a core PF game now, and the duelist makes for a strong skirmisher-style melee fighter now.  This is all off the top of my head, obviously - but I think overall you can have more creative builds, not less, with PF than with core 3.5. 

Unbeliever, I'll try and give my best shot at your concerns a few posts ago.

Martial concepts coming together: I think it depends on the concept, actually.  My ftr/barbarian build comes fully into its main schtick at 6th, and my rogue at 4th.  If you don't use any of the "Split" feats, then you should naturally finish the concept before 3.5 does because of faster feat acquisition (hence the speedy rogue compared to the ftr/barbarian).  If you use 1 split feat, you'll be equal at 7th instead of 6th, and if you use two of the split feats, then it's 11th instead of 9th (before considering bonus feats, etc).  On the other hand, 8 feats at 15th vs. 6 feats at 15th is a solid boost for most characters.  The main part where I think they could have improved is that the critical-based feats are all clustered at BAB +11 to BAB +17 or so, which means that a crit-focused build has few useful feats early on, and then a glut of them all at once.  I would have made critical focus a +4 BAB feat, and maybe some of the weaker ones like sickening critical +6 BAB or so.

Power attack and combat expertise: I think part of the reason was to speed up gameplay and to reduce metagaming the opponent's AC vs. your optimal # to attack.  And also to nerf them - considering that as a DM I have to roughly double or triple most monster's HPs in my 12th level game because I have 4 decently optimized PCs using Power Attack every round, I certainly understand the idea behind making it weaker.  If I were to implement it in that campaign, it would speed up combat a lot, and the PCs would be admittedly less lethal

CMB: I haven't used it enough in gameplay to have a solid opinion yet, sorry.  From what I've seen, the maneuver-crazy monk in 1 of my groups has done very well by it, since bonuses to attack also apply to CMB, and we tend to have lots of buffs, flanking, etc.  Reduced size bonuses also helps to compensate, since that was one of the things that made it very difficult to use such maneuvers against monster in 3.5 without specific size-bonus based builds like psychic warrior or half-ogre.  

Anyhow, here's most of what I like about PF.  
-As mentioned, I like the setting and the art, as well as their modules.  Not gameplay-specific, but it's a big draw for me, enough that I tend to overlook some of the more annoying mechanics because the non-mechanical parts are compelling.
-Changed favored class from a limit to a free boost if you stay single-class.  I always ran games without FC, but I like this better.
-Skills changes were just about right IMO.  Makes multi-classing much less painful, and it's effectively extra skill points for a lot of classes, which I think the game benefits from
-No more exp losses for crafting or spells.  As a DM, I dislike seeing my PCs advance at different rates, and as a PC I hate losing experience, so this was a bonus IMO.  Adding a feat that allows non-spellcasters to craft was another good idea.
-I like the standardized CMB, since it has sped up fights slightly so far.  Once the other PCs get more accustomed to it, game speed should improve even more.
-I approve of the druid and cleric nerfs, and of boosts to pretty much every other class.  I also like that most classes have solid goodies after 8th, to keep them on par with most PrCs.  In particular, I think the sorcerer bloodlines help to distinguish it from the wizard and give some decent boosts to encourage sorcerers to stay in their class.  Likewise, the new paths for specialist wizards helps to distinguish them more - I especially like the conjurer abilities (though diviner is probably strongest).  Basically, gaining new abilities every level is a good thing for sheer fun, even if the benefits are small.  
-Some of the new PrCs, like the Duelist or the Harrower, are very cool mechanics-wise and pretty strong.
-Most of the spell nerfs were a good idea IMO.  They hit the mid-level spells hard enough that I think most games probably won't start to break until around 15th level, instead of 7th-9th or so in 3.5.  Obviously this depends on groups though, and this is just theory on my part.
-I think a lot of the new feats were a good idea.  Agile maneuvers, Lunge, vital strike, step up, shield slam/master, and a lot of others were well done.

As most people here have pointed out, the game breaks when PCs don't respect each other and the DM enough to refrain from breaking it.  Paizo doesn't really change that, except to maybe push it back a few levels at best.  But most of the changes I've seen have made the game more fun, and the ones that don't really work out are easy enough to house-rule IMO.  If one of my PCs chooses to play a bard, I'll give him Extra Music as a bonus feat, for example, and I'll keep poisons as they were in 3.5.  Almost nobody plays 3.5 without house-rules, so it's pretty silly to think that PF would somehow perfectly fit everyone's styles.  

It's easy enough to dismiss PF as a collection of house-rules, but considering that Pathfinder is going to be the only real source of future modules (and good ones to boot!) and sourcebooks for "3.5", I'd really like to see it succeed, so that it doesn't eventually die off like 2E pretty much has.  I still play in a 2E game, but seriously - there will never be any new material for it other than homebrew. 

[Tshern]

I have a better approach: Gentlemen's agreement. I play with people who know how to be powerful and still refrain from TO. And I can, as can our DMs, respond to even relatively high level rocket tag.

This, it works great as long as everyone is on the same page.
(it might not work in every group, but it has worked pretty well in my experience so far )

This requires everyone to be gentleman (or lady). That disqualifies my group right out of the gate.

Despite the name, no, it does not require that. Simply, if someone starts pulling off Celerity shenanigans, infinite actions, Pun-Puns, Candles of Invcation or whatever, the DM does the same. Eventually the players realise that they should stop breaking the game.

[Khorus]

We've been playing nothing but pathfinder as of late, and JUST Pathfinder, no 3.5 tie ins. (We call it Pathfinder just so there is a distinction of source material among our group)
Highlights.
I feel that they closed the gap some what between casters and no casters.
Fly checks help the mundane deal with the wizard floating about. 
Polymorph fix. (kinda heavy handed but I see no other way)
Concentration checks are now involve a chance of failure. (3.5 I HAVE CONCENTRATION AS CLASS SKILL NO FAIL FOR ME!)
Would play any class now and feel effective.
More Feats (but feats feel luke warm, see below)
Paladin mount is stronger then druid companion?

Dislike
CMD/CMB (sure it is stream lined, but took away the chance of failing or getting really lucky if you were defending)
The feats they have in the core book. There are a ton of them there but I feel mostly Meh about them.
High level class features like death attack capstones. I feel Paizo skimped on this because they said most play stopped at level 15 any way.
Skill system. Barbarian has spellcraft? NO NO
Rage swimming. (YOU DARE DEFY ME RIVER, I WILL CONQUER YOU WITH MY RAGE!!)
OH and lack of xp  for high level spells and mixed feelings about crafting.
Prestige classes don't really seem worth it any more as class features are so much stronger now.
Paladin mount is stronger then druid companion?

All this only applies though if you keep it "pathfinder core" only. Introduction of any 3.5 source books or splats makes any of the above irrelevent.

[Khorus]

Also I noticed recently that they nerfed the Paladin mount thing where it doesn't specifiy an animal. In new book coming out (preview I saw) they said any companion that would serve as an appropriate mount (dog, wolf, camel). So they went through trouble of listing it out. No more Dire Ape disarming for me .

[JaronK]

Despite the name, no, it does not require that. Simply, if someone starts pulling off Celerity shenanigans, infinite actions, Pun-Puns, Candles of Invcation or whatever, the DM does the same. Eventually the players realise that they should stop breaking the game.

Unfortunately, serious problems arise when different people have different definitions of "breaking the game."  I've had a DM claim that a high hide score broke the game, because his random encounters couldn't see our stealthers and thus we'd see the ambushes before we got hit.  I've likewise had a DM claim that sneak attack was broken because it did a lot of damage, and thus retaliate by having absolutely everything be undead or a golem.  And meanwhile, I've also had games where the DM expected Planar Binding Wish Loops, and made the game accordingly, and if you didn't do that you wouldn't survive.  So, it takes a lot of sitting down and talking to figure out exactly what "break the game" implies.  For too many people, it simply means "being creative."

JaronK

[Bozwevial]

So, it takes a lot of sitting down and talking to figure out exactly what "break the game" implies.  For too many people, it simply means "being creative."

I once had a DM who thought 10-foot poles were broken. Good times.

[Akalsaris]

To be fair, when I started DMing 3.5 in earnest, I thought that Radiant Servant of Pelor and Tattoed Monk were both OP

[juton]

Despite the name, no, it does not require that. Simply, if someone starts pulling off Celerity shenanigans, infinite actions, Pun-Puns, Candles of Invcation or whatever, the DM does the same. Eventually the players realise that they should stop breaking the game.

I've never gotten a clear definition from any DM about what is 'munchy'. Breaking the game is a bit more obvious, but there's still some ambiguity. Which wouldn't be horrible if every player (including DM) didn't have a different secret definition of what being a munchkin is. So we can agree to hold back, but then player A uses celerity, player B spams divination cheese and the DMPC is a 3.5 Druid. My group at least needs a sane consistent rule set to start from because while they can all agree to be gentlemen, no one can agree to what it means to be ungentlemanly.

[Braithwaite]

So, if this isn't hijacking this thread too much -- what do people like about Pathfinder's mechanics?

I like SOME of the class changes. Sorcerer, Rogue, and Paladin especially.

I think that some of the class changes (Monk) have some good ideas, but don't go nearly far enough. (Others, like Wizard or Bard, I don't like for different reasons, and would probably use the 3.5 versions).

I like some of the spell fixes, especially polymorph/wildshape. I hate the shapeshift druid variant, and I like that pathfinder kept more of the utility of Wildshape but reduced the SAD problem and the use of DruidZilla.

I like the favored class rules, not that anyone actually used the 3.5 rules anyway.

I like most of the skill changes (except for fly skill), although again many people had already gone there with houserules.

I like removing xp costs from spells/crafting.

[JaronK]

I once had a DM who thought 10-foot poles were broken. Good times.

That's a perfect example.  Players shouldn't be punished for creative solutions... heck, that's exactly what a lot of us play for.  But a lot of DMs will freak out if you throw something creative at them (like triggering their impossible to find trap via a 12 foot pole with a chicken attached to the end via string).  And yes, I have had "chicken tied to 12 foot pole" referred to as munchkining and broken.  Hey, if you're going to make all your traps impossible to find and only set off by living things, don't get mad when I start stocking up on chickens!

JaronK

[Unbeliever]

Despite the name, no, it does not require that. Simply, if someone starts pulling off Celerity shenanigans, infinite actions, Pun-Puns, Candles of Invcation or whatever, the DM does the same. Eventually the players realise that they should stop breaking the game.

I've never gotten a clear definition from any DM about what is 'munchy'. Breaking the game is a bit more obvious, but there's still some ambiguity. Which wouldn't be horrible if every player (including DM) didn't have a different secret definition of what being a munchkin is. So we can agree to hold back, but then player A uses celerity, player B spams divination cheese and the DMPC is a 3.5 Druid. My group at least needs a sane consistent rule set to start from because while they can all agree to be gentlemen, no one can agree to what it means to be ungentlemanly.

I am horribly swamped by work (btw, you guys are my break ... what does that say about me?), but I wanted to say briefly that I've had the same problem to some extent.  I mean, just talk about what is a reasonable standard, and that way we can move on!  As I mentioned in a previous post, the standard my group uses is roughly a druid w/ spell compendium and natural spell -- so a pretty solid, but not very creative druid.  That opens up tons of options, I've found, as it is one of the most powerful classes out there, but still stymies stuff we can't stand.

One possibility Juton, might be not to so much ban things on their own (unless they're truly broken) but combos.  Alternatively, you could come up w/ guidelines, which is more or less what we do for polymorph.  We also always stat them up in advance b/c that's a huge pain. 

@JaronK
That's not really a rules issue.  I mean, there aren't a whole lot of mechanics around 12' poles and chickens.  There the DM could have a reasonable complaint, something along the lines of "that's sort of silly and not really heroic or in the theme of the game I (and hopefully the rest of you) want to run/play."  To this, you have a perfectly reasonable response:  "well, then, stop throwing traps against us that we have no way of finding, dumbass." 

I personally played an epic rogue (I thought that was nicer than playing an epic spellcaster ...) that had a Hide check of +101.  Most people couldn't find me, about 20-30% of them could.  In part, that was b/c of some houserules that the DM and I agreed upon, e.g., creatures w/ stuff like blindsight couldn't automatically see me, but they got a big bonus, +20 or +30 I think, so they had a shot.  Saved me the effort of the darkstalker feat and made the character more balanced.  I also said they could do things like Wish to know where I was and stuff (for a couple of rounds), which also made me happy b/c it forced them to use their actions and their really powerful abilities and made him happy b/c they could swing at me every so often. 

I might just be lucky that we've been able to negotiate around things pretty easily, though it is fair to note that involves importing some house rules. 

Of course, that's all a far cry from the creative solutions that JaronK is referring to. 

[Akalsaris]

Honestly, I think you're very lucky to have a DM who was reasonable enough to go through the mechanics with you to make the epic rogue concept work in a game   And likewise, the DM was lucky that you'd be willing to play an epic rogue instead of a spellcaster, so it goes both ways.

I'm fortunate that the PCs in my highest level campaign have all discovered the lower threshold of optimization; so there's a charger build, a DMM: Persist melee cleric, a crusader/wiz/abjurant champion gish, and a  ftr/rogue/assassin who relies on stat dmg.  It means that they are all roughly on par and they each do a ton of damage per round, but it's pretty easy to anticipate their tactics and to balance encounters accordingly.  The risk, of course, is that most challenging encounters are often pretty close to "rocket tag", which is unfortunate. 

Actually, that brings up a PF change I'll house-rule into my 3.5 games, which is that you die at your negative con score, so if you have a con of 23 then you die at -23, and stabilizing is a DC 10 con check, +1 DC per failure.  I enjoy knocking PCs out of the fight much more than killing them, so hopefully those changes will help accomplish that

[HCL]

I liked that Sorcerers actually got some class features. But otherwise it was meh