[ladyofdragons]

Our group tried 4.0 and in general I'd have to say I do not really like it all that much. It's just a different game, and I'm not fond of the "roles" that pigeonhole the characters. Others in our group actually like the system, especially from the DM's point of view, but from my perspective as a player I think I'd rather skip it.

So I decided to look at Paizo's Pathfinder RPG, which has been touted as the continuation of the D&D I know and love. Since it's a free download for the Beta, I figured what the heck!

I haven't had a complete readthrough yet, but I do like the layout and the artwork. Not sure I like their tall buff elves (too anime for my tastes) but hey, I can work around that.

Anyone else taken the time to look at Pathfinder?

[Cuilean]

I've downloaded the PDF, but haven't started reviewing.

[Dthclaw]

Oooh, nice find there, Lady. I'll have to check this out when I have time (I write this as I download it). If it's half as good as most of the Dungeon / Dragon stuff, I suspect I personally will like it quite a bit.

Edit: Well, our group seems to be well on its way to adopting Pathfinder (barring any catastrophic meltdowns with the revised system we will begin major play with it in ~2-3 weeks). My only major misgivings on it so far are the substantial number of severely unbalanced capstone abilities: save-or-die effects rolled into many classes (even the Bard... c'mon), the auto-confirmation of critical hits by Fighters and some Sorcerers, many 20th-level school powers for Wizards, etc. Thus far, these are the only things I've seen changed in Pathfinder that beg for (and will receive in houserules) a nerf-bat. Also regretting the simple fact that save-or-die mechanics remain, as they are just too darned powerful for any campaign without massive mitigation effects all around.

[super sorcerer]

There are many things I like in that system, but there are also few I don't.
The things I dislike:
1) Monks are even more underpowered than what they used to be. While bards and rangers get death attacks they can use once per day for every creature the only thing the get is a ki pool. The only good thing about monk was their stunning fist, now they don't even have that. Even the 20th level power of the monk is worthless since most cratures of high CR have magical weapons, and those who don't deal enough damage that the DR won't help. Furthermore monks have attack bonus much lower than that of any other melee character. An amulet of mighty fists cost way more than a magic weapon and it can't even have any speacial abilities. Instead of balancing the monk by making him stronger they made him worse while making other classes stronger.
2) Way too many death efects. A bard can use his death effect on every opponent he fight against which makes it : "if you roll 12 or less you die, if you roll 13 or more you easily kill me" too much in a single roll and it make death ward and similar effects much more important. The ranger's ability to kill his favored enemy make him even more unstable (see the next problem)
3) The ranger became even more extrem now that he also add his favored enemy bonus to attack roll. Although againt nonfavored enemies the ranger is still better than monk against a favored enemy the battle will be over too soon becouse not only that he get a huge bonus to damage but also to his attack bonus. While a 20th level NPC ranger who have human as his favored enemy with a +10 bonus againt humans is CR 18 he will no doutly kill most 18th level parties of humans while he won't chalenge too much any 18th level party of nonhuman character. Favored enemy is a nice ability but in this game rangers depend on that ability way too much and a character whitch is good only against one type of creatures in unballanced (In 3.5 the ranger get a bonus only to skills and damage which make him better against his favored enemy but his attack roll is equal againt every foe which make it less extreme).
4) This one is more of personal taste but I dont like the way racial ability scores are distributed (2 bonuses and 1 penalty). On 3.5 most player will not play a half-orc wizard becouse his intelligence is two point below all other wizards and the character will be underpowerfull. For the same reason these players will not play wizard in pathfinder game with any race other than human elf or half-elf becouse wizards from all other races have lower intelligence and therefore they are underpowerfull. I realy like playing dwarven wizards and gmone wizards but in pathfinder they will be at a clear disadvantage against elven/half-elven/human wizards. The same aply for many other classes such as sorcerers who are not human/half-elf/gnome/halfling and many more.

Now to the good things:
1) All melee characters exept for monk became better and this is a good thing since in 3.5 usualy spellcasters are more powerfull.
2) I think it is good that in the Pathfinder game there is no need to spend XP for spell and magic items. On 3.5 crafting too many items could easily place you a few levels lower than the rest of the party (even though you don't craft things only for yourself) and in pathfinder Item creation feats are more atractive.

[The Jackal]

Ultimately, Pathfinder seems to me to be a cynical attempt to co-opt Wizards of the Coast's licensed property for some quick cash, by making some mostly cosmetic changes to the core rules and for all intents reprinting D20 3.5. They turn up the volume on some of the more traditionally underpowered classes, (fighters, mostly, but also rangers and sorcerers), give most everyone an across the board buff, then leave the guts of the game more or less intact.

The only real improvement to be seen is the innovations regarding creating a 'maneuver defense' statistic, or, if you're familiar with the rules, CMB. This is armor class against trips, grapples, and the like, and simply takes the expedient of substituting a flat bonus to the defender in lieu of an opposed roll. This is certainly not an innovation I'd recommend anyone pay $50.00 US to obtain.

Pathfinder does nothing to address the recognized failings of D20 that Wizards themselves acknowledged when they created Fourth Edition D&D. They just put a new coat of paint on the same leaky boat, and are putting it out to sea.

PS: This is not to imply that I'm endorsing 4th Edition. While they ably addressed the imbalance of spells and melee, and neatly rolled up out of combat healing along the way, they apparently forgot to put in rules for anything other than combat. If their aim was to create a game where all you do is bonk monsters, collect treasure and go back to town to train, they should have licensed Warhammer Quest. It does a much better job: http://www.boardgame.../boardgame/1634