Pathfinder

[egreir]

Any players in here? I just created my first tabletop character sheet, getting involved I guess. 

[f0xx]

What is this? Give link or anything?

 

['tarako]

I have before. Clerics that focus on buffing themselves, and using a feat on weapon proficiency falchion, spend the money to make it keen. Now anything 15 or higher is a crit, and you buffed yourself so hard you're one shotting most stuff til mid levels.

[Rygothran]

Pathfinder is a setting based off Dungeons and Dragons 3.5 edition. As D&D moved on to new editions some people kept playing Pathfinder because they enjoyed that system more.

I've never played Pathfinder but I have played a lot of pen and paper settings and systems. The d20 system is a good one imo.

[egreir]

So there’s a character called Magus with a subset called  Bound Blade. Seems kind of like a DK, they have a living weapon that can cast spells while also striking the victim.  

Im told DnD these days is more about the theatrics while Pathfinder is more about strategy and gameplay. That’s what made me choose to wanna try it out over DnD

[mya]

From what I heard pathfinder is ridiculous OP builds on top of OP builds and special snowflakes classes.
D&D 5, appears to me a lot more balanced system.

If you like strategy, the 40K RPG's sound a lot more interesting. Like Dark Heresy 2.0 or Only War.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UTTSfN8wpsE&index=1&list=PL-oTJHKXHicSxBj2DMq_zmJ0QALrhKzVg

If you like story, Pendragon (Arturian England) is completely amazing:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RAslfknQLRc&index=1&list=PL-oTJHKXHicT_mHi48RmRcOjeZ0_RLeLV

@Magick Come here and share your experience.

[Rygothran]

I have tried so many pen and paper systems it is not even funny. Eventually my group just cherry picked the systems we liked and created our own house rules that applied to pretty much any setting.

I haven't actually tried 5th edition but there are some things I have heard that I do not care for. Although, I do hear for the novice it is a good system but it seems to target a certain generation of trophy winners. I'd like to try it some time.

[Pali]

3.5 is my favorite system thus far, largely due to its flexibility.  It's very easy to create house rules/classes/items/etc. that don't break the game, which is pretty much how Pathfinder originated in the first place - it's essentially a mod-pack of house rules for 3.5.  Combat, adventuring, and social situations can be handled by the book, but a good DM will know when to fudge things; for example, in my group's current campaign, one of our characters has started taking up boxing as a hobby, and entered a tournament which went down last session.  Rather than go by the book for each match with combat rounds and attack rolls, which would have left most of us with little/nothing to do as they ran through the matches, he simply had both boxers roll STR checks with various bonuses and RPed out how the fights were going, making everything run much more quickly and smoothly and not leaving the rest of us sitting on our butts for long (due to a pair of perfectly-timed nat 20s, our guy managed to end up tournament champion - which got the attention of the queen, who is a succubus and the session ended on a cliffhanger after she charmed him, so... yay us?).  It's not that hard to just start with 3.5 and house rule in bits of Pathfinder that you like while not bothering with the rest, and the DMG offers guidelines for creating new items/feats/spells while the Monster Manual does the same for creating or altering monsters.  It's an incredibly customizable system.

 

3.5 and Pathfinder combat are very similar, with certain bits somewhat simplified in Pathfinder - Combat Maneuvers cover a variety of actions that are handled individually in 3.5, certain skills from 3.5 were combined into 1 skill for Pathfinder (ex. Listen and Spot became Perception), and characters generally are somewhat more powerful in Pathfinder than 3.5 given the extra feats and other rule changes.  However, that's not really a problem as the DM can always make fights tougher to compensate.  So as both are working with the same basic rules, the differences aren't all that extreme.  Pathfinder character leveling tends to be faster, and while there are more options built into classes for leveling, I feel that this takes a bit of the pressure off when it comes to specialization as it's easier to cover weaknesses or be powerful in multiple ways - I prefer the trade-off 3.5 demands of excelling in a niche or being decent all-around (more precisely, I prefer 3.5's presentation of that trade-off, as it's still present in Pathfinder but to a lesser degree in my estimation).  Neither system has perfectly balanced classes against each other - clerics are OP in both - but both systems have a broad swath of viable combos to play.  In our last campaign one of our players made a sword-swallowing juggling unicycle-riding bard with low CHA work.

 

5th Edition is the "current" D&D system, and while it does some things I like (ex. short rests), it does a lot I don't - it goes much further down Pathfinder's route of streamlining systems, and while Pathfinder I think gives too many options for character building, 5e I think gives too few as it severely punishes multiclassing and curtails customization.  Combat feels more video gamey than in 3.5/Pathfinder, social interactions are simplified, and classes are too strongly pushed to follow specific development paths, all of which does indeed cut down on strategy a fair bit.  It's still a lot of fun to play, but I'd take 3.5 or Pathfinder over it any day.

[Fool_Hardy]

3 hours ago, Pali said:

but a good DM will know when to fudge things;

Well put, and welcome home.

[Venom]

I've only played Pathfinder Kingmaker, related to Pathfinder gameboard, best game I've played from that kind of RPG. Even baldur's gate or icewind dale are nothing comapred to this one. 

[egreir]

57 minutes ago, Venom said:

I've only played Pathfinder Kingmaker, related to Pathfinder gameboard, best game I've played from that kind of RPG. Even baldur's gate or icewind dale are nothing comapred to this one. 

Those are strong words 

[Venom]

Yes, I've played only this game whole two months I think from September, when it came out until November with different party setups. To finish this game you need at least 15-20 days playing quite a bit each day, so it is a big one. The best for me is that you have 14 classes (15 with DLC) all of them with 3 Archetypes of each class. Additionally you have 6 prestige classes, so quite a bit of choice there. I simply love the skills/spells of each class and the first time I finish the game I was with persons that the game provides, but after that I've created all 6 classes I've wanted to experience, so even trying it two or three times it is still very very interesting. I've started it anew in January with another party and still playing it. Simply love that game.

[egreir]

going to my first DnD game tonight at a place in town....what should I expect? What should I do in order to not cause the other players/DM much grief? bad answers only

[Magick]

For the players: Leroy Jenkins everything. 

For the DM: Challenge every decision they make. 

 

Seriously though. Just relax and enjoy. You're there to have fun. 

[Pali]

4 hours ago, egreir said:

going to my first DnD game tonight at a place in town....what should I expect? What should I do in order to not cause the other players/DM much grief? bad answers only

Do your best to hide your die rolls from the rest of the group - but don't actually lie about roll results at all.  Just get them all paranoid that you might be lying.

[egreir]

Just got a reply about a weekly pathfinder game, too.  Sweet.

[Magick]

Just now, egreir said:

Just got a reply about a weekly pathfinder game, too.  Sweet.

Now you've got to cancel 20 minutes before every session.

[egreir]

any suggestions on a character I should make?  im reading about eldritch blade fighter that sounds neat.....being completely green though, maybe I should go with a pre generated character for starters

[Magick]

If you were completely green to RPGs in general, I might lean with a pregen.  You're not, so I might recommend against it.  A green player can learn a lot during the process of creating a character.

Focus on base class rather trying to min/max though multiclassing.  An exception might be with prestiges classes.  Use this like one of your throw-away alts.  Pick something that looks fun but will allow you to learn the rules.  Taking a spell casting class would require you to spend more time learning what spells you can cast at what levels, so may not be the best for a very first character, but it's up to you.

If you were to go with a caster, I'd probably recommend sorcerer.  Spontaneous caster will allow you to cast any of your spells at any time, provided you've got the slots for them whereas a wizard/cleric need to pick and choose what and how many of each you prepare.  For example, if you need to cast Cure Serious Wounds three times but only have it prepared twice, you're SOL after the second casting until you can re-memorize.

Though surprisingly enough, Eldritch Blades seem like they could be a decent balance between fighters and mages for the first time D&D/PF player.

If you're happy to jump in at the deep end, by all means.  Go for it.

[egreir]

In PF i was gonna do a bound blade magus but doesn't seem to be a direct comparison in dnd.  I was seeing how you could have only so many casts per day and had to have prepared spells, etc.

[Magick]

18 minutes ago, egreir said:

In PF i was gonna do a bound blade magus but doesn't seem to be a direct comparison in dnd.

Closest I can find is probably the spellsword while 5e has the hexblade.

[Twinblades713]

Hex Warlocks in 5e are siiiick. 

[egreir]

Hmm. So mistake 1 apparently was not having my own book.  Mistake 2, not having a pencil. 

 

 

[Magick]

The first is understandable.  As a player or GM, I wouldn't expect a new player, much less a green one to have their own source books.

The second is heresy and you should be flogged.

[egreir]

Well it never happened. No one showed up but me to this game store for new player adventurer league night guess they suck at advertising lol