Pathfinder?

RPGC Community Realm of the Dragons Forum
1

No, not the brand of car. I mean the fantasy RPG. I only learned about it recently and I’m, I admit, quite surprised.

When I first heard about it, I thought, “Meh, another Dungeons & Dragons rip off” and ignored it.The name certainly didn’t help, it sounded so… unexciting.

Then I heard that it was made by some people in response to the 4th edition of D&D, which many fans felt had abandoned its classic style in order to appeal more to the “World of Warcraft” crew. I have to admit it does feel different- not bad, just different- and the addition of[STRIKE] Tauren[/STRIKE] Minotaurs as player characters cannot be a coincidence. (The irony being, Warcraft ripped off D&D to start with, and now THEY are the main Fantasy RPG in popular culture. :stuck_out_tongue: )

Today, as I checked my local Borders (please don’t close down please don’t close down please don’t close down) I found the Pathfinder Player’s Book. Actually, the SECOND player’s book, which tells you something about its success. And you know what, had I not read the name on the cover I would have SWORN that this was a (pre-4th edition) D&D book! Seriously, it’s like they aren’t even trying to hide it!

Is this being done with TSR’s permission? Or maybe they feel that having an older-style alternative for the fans only helps their business and not hurt it (I’d say so, you can easily buy their books and convert many 4th Ed ideas to Pathfinder.) If so, this would be very wise on their part. (Remember that TSR actually made their basic rules system -the D20 system- that d&D had invented freely available so anyone could publish games using it, so they may have that kind of mentality still.)

I wish I could comment more on the book, but I just didn’t have time to read it today. Everything I browsed over looked good, especially the art- I admit I like it better than the one in the D&D books I’ve reviewed recently. However it still has one problem that D&D also suffers from… THE PRICE! $40.00 for a game book? I know the economy is bad these days but sheesh! For that price I can buy a RPG video game and play it by myself for days, no other players or GM needed thank you!

So anyway, other than its striking similarity to D&D (and rumors) I know nothing about this game. Anyone else played it, or know anything more?

2

I prefer Barnes and Nobles much more than Borders, namely because Starbucks is less outright terrible than Seattle’s Best, and because they haven’t horribly gimped their selection or variety of merchandise. Borders used to be awesome when they still had live music every night and drinks that weren’t terrible, but now they’re just a lumbering corpse and they really should shut their doors down.

That said, my younger brother plays Pathfinder and my impression from him is that it is a fun play. Can’t really say anymore until I get some hands on time myself. I just need to find a crew to play with (or anybody really).

3

Oh, great. I just confirmed that yes, my local Borders is among the ones they are closing down (the one in San Juan will remain open, but that’s not a place I can visit regularly.) -_- I doubt very much I can find any other place near here that will include comics and RPG books amongst it offerings. And no, we don’t have Barnes and Nobles around here either. Sigh I guess I’ll have to stick to reading onscreen or print outs. Call me old fashioned, but I really liked just sitting down to read a book.

The only good news is that they’ll be selling off their stock, so I’ll try to see if I can find any books marked down to a fairer price.

4

It’s from Paizo, who used to handle Dragon and Dungeon mags.

As far as the stuff itself, ugh. Its changes run from :hahaha; to :no2: with a lot of recycled ideas that PHB II etc. did better 5+ years ago. The second guide in particular has some really ridiculous metamagic.

5

Pathfinder can basically be summarized as “D&D 3.75”.
It cleans up some of the bigger problems from 3.5 and creates a few new ones, just like 3.5 did with 3.0.

Some of the changes I can think of off the top of my head:
The D4 hit die no longer exist (for PCs), so pretty much everyone has been upgraded a bit in health. Barbarians are still the only one with a D12, though.

While D&D penalized you for dual-classing (unless one was your favored class), Pathfinder rewards you for sticking to one class (you get a bonus of+1 hit point or +1 skill point, pick one, every level you gain in our favored class). Also, you get to choose your favored class instead of it being decided by your race.

Skills are a bit easier to handle. Instead of the x4 bonus to skill points at first level you get a +4 trained bonus to any class skill that you put at least one point in. Cross class skills does not cost twice as much as class skills. (Again, they do not penalize you for mixing in something from outside your class, they reward you for staying in class instead.) This also means that it is much easier to pick up a new skill from scratch later in the game.
They’ve also taken a lot of skills that were pretty much the same thing and mashed them together. (Hide/Move Silently is Stealth, Listen/Spot is Perception, Linguistics replaces Forgery and all the other reading/writing/language related skills… Things like that.)

The core classes now get some major rewards if you stick with them. It’s no longer necessary to jump to a prestige class as soon as possible. Casters are still more powerful than the others, but that’s a problem that requires tearing down the system and rebuilding it from scratch, pretty much. So yeah…
They’ve also made Sorcerers and Barbarians more interesting by giving them some extra abilities. Barbarians get abilities that modify their rage, while Sorcerers get “bloodlines”. The bloodlines are pretty much like the “dragon disciple” prestige class. If your powers come from X, you get some, minor but getting bigger, powers that are related to X.
Rogues also get some things like that, but the changes aren’t as big there.

The Player guide and Dungeon Master’s guide are the same book, so you only need one book to play, instead of two. (Of course, you still want the monster manual, so you’ll still be getting a second book. But that’s better than three.)

Monster races as characters have pretty much been removed. Or, rather, none of us can figure out how the hell it’s supposed to work. (3.x had “play this race, get level adjustment of +X to balance it”. PF has…Something like that. We think.)

Anyway, I could dig out the books and try to summarize them better but it’s D&D 3.75.

6

Pathfinder suffers from a flaw in my eyes. Well, two. Arcane classes like wizards and more exotic derivatives will mop the floor with everything else at higher levels, and your performance in combat can depend a lot on your gear.