Pathfinder 1e: How well did it do what it set out to do?

[Power]

Synthesist is honestly not good. Using it is a loss of Summon Monster and loss of action economy. Regular Summoners are better.

Also, you can still easily break PF polymorphing with poisons, unusual breath weapons, unusual movement types, size-based tricks, and extreme numbers of natural attacks, among other things, and you're still far better off polymorphing than not. Overall PF has the same balancing factor against polymorph as 3.5: Pray the players aren't clever enough to know how to truly take advantage of it. Bear in mind also that as a special perk of PF polymorphing rules, any special abilities you gain through polymorphing use the polymorph effect's spell DC now, so there are some truly wild things you can do with PF polymorph. A Druid with Ability Focus (Wild Shape) would easily gain +2 to DC for every single ability acquired through Wild Shape, and that's without using things like Power Attack + Cornugon Smash + Cruel Amulet of Mighty Fists silliness, equipping spiked armor on top of your polymorphed form for iterative attacks on top of natural attacks, or the Planar Wild Shape feat for celestial/fiendish templates so you can one-turn kill whatever you want.

[Endarire]

Now I'm wondering how a tabletop rules system would look if optimizers made it.

[zugschef]

Now I'm wondering how a tabletop rules system would look if optimizers made it.

It would probably be a complete shit show as optimization skills have nothing to do with design skills. Skills to exploit a system does not require to be able to design one.

As for PF, it's another set of mostly pointless house rules just like 3.5 was. Maybe a little bit worse than 3.5 in that regard (a net loss instead of even). 3.5 was only better than 3.0 insofar as it had way more material. What PF got going for it, is that the material is available online.

[Eldritch_Lord]

Now I'm wondering how a tabletop rules system would look if optimizers made it.

Like this, I imagine.

[Power]

Really depends on the optimizers in question. System mastery is a very important qualification for system design, however. Destructive testing and Same Game Testing also has its place in balancing. Otherwise you end up with idiots who like to eyeball balance in terms of what is "too strong" in their view while ignoring issues they don't care about, and so end up more concerned with stopping martials from being able to take five foot steps during a cleave action and mundanes from being able to use Quick Draw to full attack with alchemical weapons than whether it is a good idea to create a super Sorcerer which gets a ton of ridiculous power-ups for no apparent reason (like Jason Bulmahn).

IIRC TOME was designed as a better 3.5 by optimizers.

[Stratovarius]

I find myself referencing Power's response frequently when Pathfinder comes up over on my Neverwinter side of things. It's an excellent shorthand as to why Pathfinder had some real drawbacks, and a very handy link. So thanks for that!

[Nanashi]

If PF did one thing right, it's the skill system. It greatly increased customization options and made it way, way easier to keep track of (was the skill cross-class this level?) which far, far outweigh the problem of skill monkeying being easier for everyone. I have no idea why, of all the changes d20 Modern made between 3.0 and 3.5,  the background skills from d20 Modern weren't kept.

[zook1shoe]

skills, definitely.

less reliance on PrCs that 3.x had is another good thing.

the easier combat maneuvers seems better, but isn't great.

[Olive_Branch]

I find myself referencing Power's response frequently when Pathfinder comes up over on my Neverwinter side of things. It's an excellent shorthand as to why Pathfinder had some real drawbacks, and a very handy link. So thanks for that!

Indeed, Power’s post is a great summary of the biggest problems in PF. For me, it mostly just comes down to Feats and Prestige classes being far less interesting. The PF base classes and their archetypes are usually pretty neat by 3.5 standards, but it still ends up feeling like there are less total options and less stand out options for character creation, and that’s a shame.

Feats and PrCs are most of what makes 3.5 character creation so amazing, with spell selection trailing behind them. In PF there are hardly any that give you great new options or intense tradeoffs. Most are very even-handed, unexciting picks. Bonuses are limited, and even the better ones are auto-scaling. This dearth of good leaves me wanting to take flavor feats that let me do something cool instead. Only to find that there are hardly any good flavor feats either?? You have like, possessed hand, a few conduit feats, some bloodlines, and a scattered assortment of specialized feats which are mostly race-restricted. There is no feat like Words of Creation, or Dark Speech, or Mad Alchemist, or even Shock Trooper in Pathfinder, and it shows! Prestige Classes are also an afterthought most of the time, usually not worth losing levels in your main class. Building in this system, and then looking back at the huge library of modular content made for 3.5 with all kinds of amazing odds and ends, it makes one sad.

The Erratas however, are indeed the most heinous part. The one of greatest personal offense to me, was an obscure FAQ ruling that dishes out multiple nerfs to martial builds that are so extensive that they completely decouple the build motivations for natural attackers and certain weapon attackers from what they were in 3.5. The Size Scaling nerfs. They decided, years after the fact, that size bonuses and effective size bonuses do not stack in the way that they had in 3.5 and in PF until that point. Nor do they even use the same table that the old rules did (even though this contradicts many feats, abilities, and stat blocks that more explicitly lay out size increases to damage.)

Instead, they say, the size scaling table progresses in a weaker, more confusing way - AND that each character can only have a maximum of 1 “real” size increase and 1 “effective” size increase over its base size. That is two very significant nerfs to weak archetypes that didn’t need it, and it’s in contradiction to almost everything else, found on some arcane FAQ page. That is just ridiculous. Monks, say goodbye to your dreams of 6d6 punches. Niche specialized natural attackers, good luck getting your favorite ability to do any damage! You want to wield an oversized weapon for extra damage? Why would you ever want to do that?

The bottom line is, you CAN have a great time with either system, but PF1e is never going to be a true successor to 3.5e’s throne. Marrying the two together gives players more options, but it creates all kinds of difficulties due to the different balancing and design strategies employed over the game’s life cycles. Both games are finished now, and they will continue to sit uncomfortably near together in their inequality until one or the other or both fall out of use.

[Power]

I find myself referencing Power's response frequently when Pathfinder comes up over on my Neverwinter side of things. It's an excellent shorthand as to why Pathfinder had some real drawbacks, and a very handy link. So thanks for that!

That's nice to hear. I'm glad my post is being of some use.

If PF did one thing right, it's the skill system. It greatly increased customization options and made it way, way easier to keep track of (was the skill cross-class this level?) which far, far outweigh the problem of skill monkeying being easier for everyone. I have no idea why, of all the changes d20 Modern made between 3.0 and 3.5,  the background skills from d20 Modern weren't kept.

No, that only works because people have effectively given up on skills as a meaningful form of character progression and character identity. The convenience might be much better but it comes at the expense of garbage like everyone being able to abuse UMD (which is a huge problem if you play with people who actually understand how powerful this skill is), Perception being an utter must-have skill, Fly being another must-have skill, and the entire skill system being handled more like an afterthought instead of something that can seriously play into your characters' competencies. There's an argument to be had that the system needed fixing but I'm not convinced this was a good solution.

Indeed, Power’s post is a great summary of the biggest problems in PF. For me, it mostly just comes down to Feats and Prestige classes being far less interesting. The PF base classes and their archetypes are usually pretty neat by 3.5 standards, but it still ends up feeling like there are less total options and less stand out options for character creation, and that’s a shame.

Feats and PrCs are most of what makes 3.5 character creation so amazing, with spell selection trailing behind them. In PF there are hardly any that give you great new options or intense tradeoffs. Most are very even-handed, unexciting picks. Bonuses are limited, and even the better ones are auto-scaling. This dearth of good leaves me wanting to take flavor feats that let me do something cool instead. Only to find that there are hardly any good flavor feats either?? You have like, possessed hand, a few conduit feats, some bloodlines, and a scattered assortment of specialized feats which are mostly race-restricted. There is no feat like Words of Creation, or Dark Speech, or Mad Alchemist, or even Shock Trooper in Pathfinder, and it shows! Prestige Classes are also an afterthought most of the time, usually not worth losing levels in your main class. Building in this system, and then looking back at the huge library of modular content made for 3.5 with all kinds of amazing odds and ends, it makes one sad.

There are plenty of potent and even broken prestige classes and a number of ridiculous feats in PF. It's true that they are treated as an afterthought, but that doesn't mean they don't exist. PF players just don't have the habit of properly looking at what is possible with PrCs.

The Erratas however, are indeed the most heinous part. The one of greatest personal offense to me, was an obscure FAQ ruling that dishes out multiple nerfs to martial builds that are so extensive that they completely decouple the build motivations for natural attackers and certain weapon attackers from what they were in 3.5. The Size Scaling nerfs. They decided, years after the fact, that size bonuses and effective size bonuses do not stack in the way that they had in 3.5 and in PF until that point. Nor do they even use the same table that the old rules did (even though this contradicts many feats, abilities, and stat blocks that more explicitly lay out size increases to damage.)

Instead, they say, the size scaling table progresses in a weaker, more confusing way - AND that each character can only have a maximum of 1 “real” size increase and 1 “effective” size increase over its base size. That is two very significant nerfs to weak archetypes that didn’t need it, and it’s in contradiction to almost everything else, found on some arcane FAQ page. That is just ridiculous. Monks, say goodbye to your dreams of 6d6 punches. Niche specialized natural attackers, good luck getting your favorite ability to do any damage! You want to wield an oversized weapon for extra damage? Why would you ever want to do that?

It's paizo. In their book, Wizards aren't overpowered. Martials with actual damage are. So that's a new stunt that fucks a lot of shit. But your Monk still can have large fists. If a level 7 Monk wears a Monk's Robe, gets a size increase to Large size, and receives a Strong Jaw buff, he still gets all the way up to a 6d6 fist. If you play a Nimble Guardian Monk you can Beast Shape II into a cat with Large size and pounce and do unarmed full attacks with your claws and later at level 9 Beast Shape III into something with Huge size and pounce (Warcat of Rull, iirc) and then full attack with unarmed strikes for even bigger damage dice. Throw in Janni Rush (double your unarmed damage dice on jumping charge attacks) and Horns of the Criosphinx (can be your level 6 bonus feat, add 2x str modifier on damage rolls to unarmed attacks on charges) on top of your Strong Jaw and you can do giant piles of doomfist damage. This gets even more degenerate if you get charge as a standard action (ie. Rhino Charge and similar shit) and throw in Monk of the Four Winds so you can use Slow Time to standard action charge people (add a Corset of Delicate moves to convert your move action into a second Slow Time, throw in a Ring of Ki Mastery to fix ki costs, and end up with 5 standard actions in one turn). The level 12 monk would have 5 charge attacks to pounce for full attacks (5 attacks assuming no Haste or burning ki on an extra attack because you already spent your swifts) where each fist does 16d8 damage + 2x your strength with a +6 size bonus to strength to boot (if you want to charge the same target you will have to spend standard actions as move actions to obtain the distance to attack again for more damage). If you have haste and somehow hit with everything charging around you will do 480d8 damage in one turn, not counting bonuses. Works under the FAQ. Enjoy. If you skip the over-the-top Four Winds stunts you just have a really powerful Monk.

I got bored and optimized a Monk once, because they were so shit. Turns out Nimble Guardian Monks are underrated.

The bottom line is, you CAN have a great time with either system, but PF1e is never going to be a true successor to 3.5e’s throne. Marrying the two together gives players more options, but it creates all kinds of difficulties due to the different balancing and design strategies employed over the game’s life cycles. Both games are finished now, and they will continue to sit uncomfortably near together in their inequality until one or the other or both fall out of use.

Well, someone's going to try to make a new PF, Legendary Games iirc.

[Kremlin K.O.A.]

Now I'm wondering how a tabletop rules system would look if optimizers made it.

4e.

Seriously. Look at 4e, it was written, in many respects, as a 'fix' to all the unbalanced stuff optimizers found in 3e and 3.5

[Power]

4E does not appeal to optimizers. It removes a lot of mechanical depth from the game and excessively homogenizes the classes. Balanced power levels doesn't mean similar design and reduced mechanical depth for everyone.

[Zemyla]

4E does not appeal to optimizers. It removes a lot of mechanical depth from the game and excessively homogenizes the classes. Balanced power levels doesn't mean similar design and reduced mechanical depth for everyone.

Excuse me. I am an optimizer of long standing, and 4E appeals to me better than 3.5 does. Its character builder is leagues better in terms of having all the options laid out, the optimization floor is higher for everyone, while the ceiling is still ridiculous and amazing.

As for how PF does, I've played with it. It does nothing to ease the problems of 3.5 except in the most superficial way (more feats, somewhat better skill system). The only good parts of it were the reskins of 3.5 stuff by Dreamscarred Press.

[Power]

To each their own I suppose. I'm just used to 4E as being a "differences are hammered down" type of system that doesn't appeal all that much. It's true that you can optimize some ridiculous stuff, of course. But to me, the main concern is that a balanced system designed by optimizers should allow for a difference of playstyles rather than making everything play in excessively similar ways. I generally find the "make everything the same" approach to balanced game design to be something cooked up by people who don't understand how balance or optimization works that well. The point of balance is to allow for playstyle diversity so that you don't easily become dead weight or the person who renders the rest of the party superfluous depending on your choices, not to hammer everyone down to the same level of performance with regards to everything. This is how balance adds to the fun instead of detracting from it.