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I just recently came across this book, just wondering if anyone from the gamer nation has tried it out.

i've read through some of the book and i must say it looks really good. a lot of people consider it to be d&d 3.75.

just thought it would be good to bring it up and get some input on it.

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"There is a difference between you and me. We both looked into the abyss, but when it looked back at us... you blinked."(Batman)

I picked up the PDF version at GenCon, along with a copy of the actual book for a friend while at GenCon (the later of which I did get reimbursed for).

My initial thoughts based on what I'd seen were Pathfinder = 3.55 or "3.5 with a coat of paint."

After skimming through the PDF... I'd say it's less 3.75 and more 3.6. The underlying math that made 3rd edition break down is still there, the issue of "linear warriors, quadratic wizards" is still there, and while the reliance on magical gear for non casting-classes isn't as great, it's still there. For all the hate it seems to draw, Book of 9 Swords took what I thought were the best steps in avoiding those issues by letting the martial-types get there own version of escalating powers that the divine/arcane casters always got to play with.

However, I did like the revision they made on skills, namely the issue of class vs. non-class skills, something that always bugged folks in 3rd edition. I think their solution is both neat and simple.

One beef I did have with the book is that almost half of it is taken up with what amounts to a re-printing of the OGL spells from the Player's Handbook, with D&D-specific character names removed from those spells that had them. Most of the people that are going to be picking up Pathfinder already have a PHB, and by default the vast majority of the spells contained therein. Now I haven't gone over Pathfinder spells with anything more than a casual glance (I prefer figther-types to clerics or wizards), so there may be a bunch of minute changes that I simply didn't see, especially as I've got much better things to do than sit down and analyze every single spell and compare it to the PHB version (heck, I barely know what most of the 3e PHB spells do).

So I'm not ticked that I'm out 5 bucks (the cost of the PDF), but I'm glad I didn't shell out a bunch of money for a glorified door-stopper.

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"If you've never seen an elephant ski, then you've never been on acid."
- Eddie Izzard

Contributing Author of the GSA
Dono's Gaming & Etc Blog
Follow me on Twitter at @donovan421

I checked it out during its beta test when the book was free. The problem I had with it was that it didn't fix things enough to make it worth switching the 3.5 campaign to it. Yes, the fixes were good, but it was so similar to 3.5 that I would get the book, start reading a section, see something familiar from 3.5 and think "oh, this is the same as it was before", then stop reading. Except there's very minute changes that I would have missed hidden in there. The switch from 3rd to 3.5 did that to me in a few instances, and I still haven't gotten it sorted out. I don't really feel like going through that again. My 3.5 group tried to advocate switching, and I flat out told them it would cost them two players.

I have other feelings about it as well, but Dono's already pretty much summed those up, so I won't repeat them.

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"Keep your friends close and your enemies closer. That way you don't kill your friends with area of effect powers." --thirstywizard

What the above two posters have said is perfectly valid, but let me qualify this. For people that had enough of a problem with 3.5 that they really didn't mind a fairly radical redesign of the d20 system, this product really isn't going to appeal to them.

Paizo's stated goal was to appeal to people that thought 3.5 was a pretty good system, take the relatively few things that they had a problem with during the playtest period, where they solicited people's opinion for a year, and work on those items that people that liked the basic principles of 3.5 wanted fixed.

The primary purpose of the Pathfinder RPG was not to "win back" anyone that enjoyes 4E. Paizo's bread and butter has been its adventure paths and sourcebooks, and while they could continue to make these the way they wanted to under the OGL, it would have been financial suicide to continue to refer back to rulebooks that are 2+ years out of date. In order to keep putting out the product that has been selling very well for them, they needed to have the books in print.

While people with different gaming sensibilities might clearly be glad to be moving on to a new system, for those that liked 3.5 and many of its features, I'd also like to point out that Jason Buhlman, who did most of the work on this book by himself (since Paizo is still a pretty small company) did a lot of work for what seems like minor changes, because, as he pointed out, so many systems in 3.5 are interconnected that he had to be very careful what he changed without causing unexpected changes in the rules.

At any rate, for what it is, and has been described as by Paizo, i.e. a revision to the 3.5 rules, I think it works fine, and I'm very happy with it, and Paizo has done some amazing things to support their own rules, such as putting out the PDF at such a low price as well as establishing the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Reference Document (i.e. all of the rules) online in a quick online reference.

All of that having been said, despite the fact that I'm a big fan of Paizo and Pathfinder, I really don't want to discuss it on these forums, mainly to avoid any potential problems. If City of Doors discusses it, I'll post there, but discussing this in the D&D forums or on the forums at all before there is any real impetus for it just makes me concerned that it could cause some tension. D&D 4E is firmly established on these boards, and its quite evident that this is the preferred version of "the world's most popular fantasy roleplaying game." There is nothing wrong with this, but at the same time, I really don't want to get into any old arguments about one version of the game being demonstrably "better" than a different version, especially when the two games are very different in their approach to game design.

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"The things that we love tell us what we are."--Saint Thomas Aquinas

I think a decent conversation could be had here. Tal wasn't trying to start anything, he plays 4th Edition and enjoys it, but our group is probably going to start another 3.5 game sometime within the near future and he probably just stumbled across it while looking up 3.5 material. It sounds to me like a decent system when we have discussed, but I really like playing 4th Edition and going back to 3.5 is going to be a big change. I think this thread is ok as long as we don't start getting into system bashing. This is a predominantly 4th Edition board, but it is just a D&D forum. We should be good, the gamer nation is good about having civil conversations about these kind of things.

I personally don't see how discussing an RPG on the these boards would cause any kind of problems. i have been a member of these boards since pretty close to the beginning and while i haven't been very active for awhile, unless something has changed drastically i don't see any problem with the discussion of Pathfinder.

As someone who loves 3.5, and has played 4e, and was very excited about the game while i played it and loved every second of the campaign, i can honestly say that after the initial wow factor of 4e wore off i understand a bit better what peoples problems with 4e are. i am not saying i agree with them or that they are right, wrong, or otherwise i just think i understand a bit more.

any way, back on topic. from what i have read in the book it seems like one of the main things that has been adjusted is that the core classes can now keep up a bit better with the base classes released in the other books. i really don't know how much different the game can be from 3.5, and i don't really think it is gonna be drastically different. i do hope that maybe it will balance out the classes a bit more and maybe clear a few of the rules up a bit.

when i do begin a pathfinder game i will post what i like and dislike and hopefully produce a decent review for the game.

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"There is a difference between you and me. We both looked into the abyss, but when it looked back at us... you blinked."(Batman)

I didn't mean to imply that anyone would start anything, and I apologize if anyone took my comments as a challenge to their ability to remain objective. I'm just a bit gunshy mixing discussions of 4E and 3.5 Pathfinder after two years or so of seeing said discussions explode into flaming crap, even on boards that were, at other times, quite civil.

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"The things that we love tell us what we are."--Saint Thomas Aquinas

I can understand the trepidation, especially after seeing some of the flame wars that broke out over on ENWorld, which is usually a pretty civil place.

A couple remarks you made that caught my eye were the "not win 4e fans back to 3.5" objective and the "for those that liked 3.5". I can agree with you on the first one, since Paizo's decision to pursue a "3.5 revamp" was due to concerns regarding lack of info and a very restrictive GSL for 4e products. Paizo made what for them was the best business decision under the circumstances. It's pretty clear they love D&D, and would have probably made the transition to 4e, but when crunch time came around, for them it was a valid business decision to part ways and make their own path.

For the "those that liked 3.5," some of the biggest complaints about Pathfinder that I've heard in my area are from the gamers that adore 3.5 and loathe 4e. In fact, it was the very guy that I bought the Pathfinder book for that complained the loudest about the reprinting of spells, since he's got the majority of the 3.5 spell-based books, so he paid a good chunk of money for a book he really only needs about half of. I'm not complaining since I only spent 5 bucks, but it could be a valid point of contention for those 3.5 fans that really just want the updated/changed material, especially given the dislike of WotC re-hashing a lot of material just prior to the changeover to 4e.

Maybe I am a bit jaded, especially after hearing folks sing Paizo's praises for not switching to 4e.

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"If you've never seen an elephant ski, then you've never been on acid."
- Eddie Izzard

Contributing Author of the GSA
Dono's Gaming & Etc Blog
Follow me on Twitter at @donovan421

it seems like the majority of complaints have nothing to do with the game itself, but the fact that instead of just publishing a conversion guide that features all the content that was changed they published a whole new book that costs $50 or so. i understand how this can effect the opinion someone might have about the game itself, it doesn't make the game itself a bad game. it just means that paizo a. wanted to make money (who can blame them) and b. wanted to publish the whole rules set in one source to limit the book juggling at the table (just my opinion and speculation). i do believe that "a" was most likely the biggest reason, but they are a business and they need to make money.

all i wanted to know was if anyone had tried these new rules, and what they thought about them.

i can say that what i have read i like, especially the combat maneuvers. i like that finally there is 1 consistant rule for the off the wall combat situations, sunder, grapple, bull rush, etc.

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"There is a difference between you and me. We both looked into the abyss, but when it looked back at us... you blinked."(Batman)

I love the CMB system, and in the games we've used it in (we playtested the Alpha and the Beta versions of the rules), it has increased people using combat maneuvers. The skill consolidation makes it much, much easier to create characters as a GM, and they make sense from a GM point of view as well. The Sorcerer bloodlines make the sorcerer much more interesting, and the at will cantrips are fun to use as a tool.

I'm not as happy with some of the nerfing of the spells. Some I can see being clarified or changed (polymorph, especially), but other (like save or die) just seem to loose a lot of their character by changing them to massive hp damage spells. I would have rather "non lethal" would have changed save or die spells to -1 instead of dead-dead, and that would have fixed a lot of the problems, at least to my thinking.

Overall, the things I don't like are a lot fewer than the things that I do like. Since I run a lot of Pathfinder Society games, I can't really houserule anything that I don't like, but at the same time, the things I don't like don't come up that often and aren't major headaches, just minor regrets.

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"The things that we love tell us what we are."--Saint Thomas Aquinas

I actually did buy Pathfinder (the physical book), along with the Campaign Guide, the Cheliax book and the first Council Of Thieves adventure a few weeks back, although I haven't used it yet. I was starting to have problems with 4E - combat was turning into a boardgame and skill challenges were making everything too sterile and mechanical, and I looked at this as an alternative.

Reading through the book, I like what they've done with the character classes and their design ethic regarding "You always gain something when you advance a level". I pretty much agree with everything KnightErrantJR mentioned above. The Pathfinder campaign world is also quite a decent setting.

Then, of course, Dungeon Masters Guide 2 came out, and that sort of swayed me back towards 4E again, so now I'm sort of stuck on the fence, somewhere between a Pathfinder Campaign (using Council of Thieves) and 4E Eberron!

I had a flip through the book. There were a couple moments when I was tempted to go back to it because of the few things I feel 3.5 did vastly better than 4E... the largest of which being that 4E basically gives no guidelines on how your class powers function/recharge out of combat, which hurts the believability of the world for me.

Ultimately, it doesn't seem like enough has changed for me to want to embrace it.

Plus.... after pre-ordering the Hero System 6th Ed bundle, I don't really have the cash. XD

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Jedi Master Tir-Jin Meteos, The Order of 66
PC GAMER - T.J. Hafer

Paizo released a free Conversion Guide PDF. It didn't go into every word that was switched but was pretty generous for a free document. Combine it with the official Pathfinder reference document and you can play the game for free. If you buy the Core Rulebook, for $50 you get five pounds of sourcebook. Every person I've seen pick it up (in the physical sense) has the same "whoa" reaction to the weight.

Pathfinder is loyal to 3.5 D&D in rules and atmosphere. If you've never played 3.5 before and have to choose between the 3.5 PH and DMG or the Pathfinder Core Rulebook, go Pathfinder. It's ironed out wrinkles and was shaped intuitively and interactively. If you're already a 3.5 player, you'll find the switched details the hardest part of the conversion. I wonder if any 3.5 veteran will every truly play pure Pathfinder or if they'll always have a 3.5/Pathfinder hybrid, probably unknowingly.

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We lost a lot of good hit points that day.

I've picked up the PDF of the main Pathfinder book, and so far, I'm liking it a lot. As someone who hasn't embraced 4E, but also not rejected it (it's just an alternate system, it's perfectly possible to enjoy both 3.5 and 4E ), I'd expected to be playing 3.5 D&D for as long as I'll be interested in doing fantasy roleplaying. Now, I'm thinking that Pathfinder looks like the way to go for me, I love what they've done to more or less all the classes and races, and I know I won't mind having all the spells taking up a large part of the book. After all, if this is supposed to work as both a PHB and a DMG for Pathfinder, I'd really rather not have to also bring along a copy of my 3.5 PHB when playing spellcasters, especially since I'd need a document telling me which spells had been changed and which hadn't.

Unfortunately, it doesn't look like I'll be able to buy an actual, physical copy of the rulebook anytime soon - at least not unless I want to be paying the equivalent of $85 for it, not even including shipping and handling. . .

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I kind of feel bad we're actually getting some good responses and i haven't read anymore of the book.

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"There is a difference between you and me. We both looked into the abyss, but when it looked back at us... you blinked."(Batman)