Pathfinder: Opinions?

[Anastasia]

Have any of you looked at or played with Pathfinder at all? What do you guys think of it? I'm fishing for opinions since I've been reading over it and a lot of it grows on me.

[Dracos]

I've never looked at it really.  I'd be curious at doing so if you feel like sending later. :)

I remember hearing a lot of 'bah-humbug' on it earlier though. 

[Anastasia]

http://www.d20pfsrd.com/ - I've been reading this to get the gist of the changes.

[Carthrat]

Like I said, it's more of the same and none of the changes are earth-shattering. There were a few new interesting feats and class abilities but the difference is really negligible, and whether someone runs pathfinder or 3.5 is a non-issue when deciding if I want to play in any given game.

[Brian]

D&D 3.5 has evolved!

D&D 3.5 becomes Pathfinder!

Pathfinder uses Is More Fun on 4.0.  It's SUPER EFFECTIVE!


...yeah.  Really, I feel Pathfinder does enough right that it's worth it to favor over 3.5 -- and absolutely over 4.0, considering the antipathy for that system in my meatspace groups.  In fact, the only complaint I've heard for Pathfinder was the grapple rules -- someone complaining about the fact that multilimbed enemies can grapple and keep limbs free to attack at enemies.  I actually ran one of those monsters in an encounter against the players ... and it didn't really seem imbalanced at all.

[Dracos]

Also, grapple focus tends to be jerkish anyway.  It doesn't let others benefit from your awesome talent. :P

[Dracos]

Observation: This is the topic of posting kings.  Nobody without 5 stars has even said a word.  Clearly Pathfinder: The Game of Kings?

...

Yeah, no got nothing.

I would like to play pathfinder someday, but I chase games more than systems.

[Brian]

Once I move local to you, I'll run a game and make you attend.

Imagine, Phil, a meatspace tabletop game!

But, yeah, grapple is a Does Not Play Well With Others mechanic, usually.

[Carthrat]

Really? 'cos I always thought 'you hold him, I'll hit him' was a time-honored strategy throughout the ages.

[Brian]

Well, sure ... but in what gaming system?

Pretty much any grapple involves putting yourself at risk of being hit instead of the actual target....  At least, as D&D and most other systems model it, being a good grappler means you tend not to be really impressive in most other ways (probably because you're a monk), so in order to be effective at all, you have to auto-win against enemies by converting a grapple to a pin and then using your strength bonus every round until they're subdued.

So, when there's a boss fight, and the grappler goes out, what does the rest of the party do?

Bah. </super bitter about that one campaign>

But, is that really a problem?

[Carthrat]

Dooooooooooes D&D actually model it? I actually can't remember, and my cursory SRD inspection yielded no results. I've always thought it actually makes both the grappler and the grapplee super vulnerable to outside attacks. Indeed, the only people I think it dicks over are ranged attackers who don't have precise shot... who should

1) take that feat
2) would be dicked over merely by you being in melee anyway

The auto-win this is something of an issue, given that grapple-spec'd dudes against non-grapple spec'd dudes tend to have an overwhelming advantage once they get into range, unlike how most people have a reasonable defence against most attacks.

[Carthrat]

To keep it relevant, I checked the PF srd! Where bull-rushing, at least, no longer entails a chance of AoO's hitting the wrong guy. Is this a victory for heroic action?

[Corwin]

No. Bullrushing always fails.  :(

[Jon]

Awwww. I likes 4E. I likes it a lot.

I guess my view on pathfinder is if you're gonna play 3.5E, you should be able to use all the crazy classes WotC came up with, and all the crazy ways they're broken. Pathfinder is like a GM who doesn't try to houserule the broken bits, he just bans the most broken ones so you have to try to work around it.

[Brian]

Dooooooooooes D&D actually model it? I actually can't remember, and my cursory SRD inspection yielded no results. I've always thought it actually makes both the grappler and the grapplee super vulnerable to outside attacks. Indeed, the only people I think it dicks over are ranged attackers who don't have precise shot... who should

1) take that feat
2) would be dicked over merely by you being in melee anyway

Well, hold on.  Being in melee imposes a -4 penalty to hit on ranged attackers firing into the melee.  You miss by four, you hit the wrong guy.

Attacking into a grapple as ranged OR melee?  Flip a coin, and if you win the call, you hit the right target.  I don't know of any feat to overcome this.

Shifting from a grapple to a pin means that the guy who lost has to win a contested strength roll just to bring the pin back into being a grapple -- but the exact same attack modifiers apply for pinning as grappling.

The auto-win this is something of an issue, given that grapple-spec'd dudes against non-grapple spec'd dudes tend to have an overwhelming advantage once they get into range, unlike how most people have a reasonable defence against most attacks.

Reaping Mauler was just a bad idea....