Pathfinder Is Still Bad

[hogarth]

Looks like they're all just name lists. No one has taken the time to compile a list with the entire spell description included. Can't blame them, since it's illegal and all. Plus a shit ton of work.

No, some of the Crystalkeep files also have short descriptions. They're not comprehensive, though; they only added spells from new books sporadically.

[Leress]

Realms help has a lot of spells, I don't know if they have all of them though.

[Emerald]

On the subject of spells, has anyone done up a PDF like the Feat Bible for them? Collected all of the 3.5 spells in one place, I mean.

If you're talking about the StormSeeker Feat Bible PDF, he/she/they also did a Class Bible (base classes, PrCs, racial progressions, and ACFs), an Item Bible (everything from the usual items to obscure things like aboleth glyphs, magical locations, and such), and a Magic Bible (Vancian, psionics, infusions, vestiges, maneuvers, everything), which I discovered while working on my own "collect all of 3.X into one place" project. They have 3.0 material, non-setting-specific 3.5 material, and FR material, but no Eberron or Dragon stuff, though collecting all that stuff isn't too hard if you have all the Eberron and Dragon material. I just wish they had a Creature Bible for races, monsters, and templates as well.

[Daztur]

(first post w00t!)

When did everyone else first realize that something had gone seriously sideways with PF development? For me, I didn't follow the game much until Beta but heard a lot of vague good stuff, but then I stumbled across a comment by James Jacobs:

"most of the later base classes (duskblade etc.) were more powerful than the core class equivalents"

Which was an explanation of why they were buffing the core classes across the board. Thinking that core classes need an across the board buff to compete with splatbook classes is just so flat out wrong that is shocked me that someone doing a big project like that could say something so wrongheaded.

[Maxus]

Along about when they refused methodical playtesting data?

Or when they tacitly encouraged purges of the unfaithful by not reprimanding the flamesquads who went after people they didn't like?

When they couldn't improve the Monk?

[K]

(first post w00t!)

When did everyone else first realize that something had gone seriously sideways with PF development? For me, I didn't follow the game much until Beta but heard a lot of vague good stuff, but then I stumbled across a comment by James Jacobs:

"most of the later base classes (duskblade etc.) were more powerful than the core class equivalents"

Which was an explanation of why they were buffing the core classes across the board. Thinking that core classes need an across the board buff to compete with splatbook classes is just so flat out wrong that is shocked me that someone doing a big project like that could say something so wrongheaded.

During the playtest it was pretty clear because of comments like that they didn't understand the fundamentals of the game. Between that and the group harassment on the boards of anyone actually pointing out problems, it was clear that they couldn't make an improvement on the previous edition. You can't fix problems that you can't even see.

[Lago PARANOIA]

When did everyone else first realize that something had gone seriously sideways with PF development? For me, I didn't follow the game much until Beta but heard a lot of vague good stuff, but then I stumbled across a comment by James Jacobs:

"most of the later base classes (duskblade etc.) were more powerful than the core class equivalents"

To be fair, if Pathfinder was going to work they absolutely needed to beef up their new classes. Because in all seriousness, anyone still playing 3.5E has access to loads and loads of splatbooks. The wizard will seriously not care at all that you took out all of his save-or-dies because he'll just plunder some other splatbook for some. This means that a strategy of 'pretend that the splatbooks don't exist' is just plain not going to work, because you're marketing the game to people who still want to use them!

So either you need to pull an Andy Collins and rewrite all of the other WotC splatbooks (a Herculean task to say the least) or you need to introduce asymmetric buffs for the classes in last place. I haven't really looked at Pathfinder stuff in awhile, but everything I've heard means that they still haven't really gotten rid of Linear Warriors / Quadratic Wizards internal to their own books, let alone in conjunction with other splats.

[Lago PARANOIA]

This is assuming that Pathfinder actually seriously wanted to fix the issue of Linear Warriors Quadratic Wizards. I know more than a few people that are mortally offended by the thought of non-magical people being equal to the magical people.

[Roy]

(first post w00t!)

When did everyone else first realize that something had gone seriously sideways with PF development? For me, I didn't follow the game much until Beta but heard a lot of vague good stuff, but then I stumbled across a comment by James Jacobs:

"most of the later base classes (duskblade etc.) were more powerful than the core class equivalents"

Which was an explanation of why they were buffing the core classes across the board. Thinking that core classes need an across the board buff to compete with splatbook classes is just so flat out wrong that is shocked me that someone doing a big project like that could say something so wrongheaded.

That isn't where it went sideways. Where it went sideways is when they said fuck that, we'll just do a bunch of random stuff, and suck a barrel of caster cocks.

[K]

The thing I don't understand is that there have been lists of broken things about 3e for years. They really are an internet search away, and if you were going to go through all the work of doing a new edition and rewriting almost every spell, then there has been a roadmap literally for years.

[Daztur]

When did everyone else first realize that something had gone seriously sideways with PF development? For me, I didn't follow the game much until Beta but heard a lot of vague good stuff, but then I stumbled across a comment by James Jacobs:

"most of the later base classes (duskblade etc.) were more powerful than the core class equivalents"

To be fair, if Pathfinder was going to work they absolutely needed to beef up their new classes. Because in all seriousness, anyone still playing 3.5E has access to loads and loads of splatbooks. The wizard will seriously not care at all that you took out all of his save-or-dies because he'll just plunder some other splatbook for some. This means that a strategy of 'pretend that the splatbooks don't exist' is just plain not going to work, because you're marketing the game to people who still want to use them!

So either you need to pull an Andy Collins and rewrite all of the other WotC splatbooks (a Herculean task to say the least) or you need to introduce asymmetric buffs for the classes in last place. I haven't really looked at Pathfinder stuff in awhile, but everything I've heard means that they still haven't really gotten rid of Linear Warriors / Quadratic Wizards internal to their own books, let alone in conjunction with other splats.

I think we're reading the same sentence differently. Of course if you play 3.5ed with just core vs. 3.5ed with all of the splatbooks, you'll get more powerful characters if you use the whole stack of splatbooks since you can cherry pick the most powerful stuff and get more synergies. But for the quote I posted, the Pathfinder dev seems to be saying that there was power creep in 3.5ed because splatbook classes tend to be more powerful than core classes which is, of course, just not true (Druids, Clerics and Wizards are core, with very few exceptions splatbook classes are weaker to or equal to their closest core equivalents).

In this case the Pathfinder dev wasn't talking about caster vs. non-caster (which would've been smart) but core classes vs. splatbook classes (which was stupid). Maybe making core classes generally buffed across the board would make players like their stuff more than WotC splatbooks, but then there goes their claim of backwards compatibility...

When they couldn't improve the Monk?

Hell, in a lot of cases they seem to have used the Monk as their touchstone for class design. Let's throw a bunch of class features at a class, not really caring about how they fit together as long as they look shiny and there's no dead levels.

[K]

When they couldn't improve the Monk?

Hell, in a lot of cases they seem to have used the Monk as their touchstone for class design. Let's throw a bunch of class features at a class, not really caring about how they fit together as long as they look shiny and there's no dead levels.

I think they went for the Elothar Warrior of Bladereach style of class design: lots of fun abilities to play with, but they don't get that it's a joke.

http://www.tgdmb.com/viewtopic.php?t=28547

[Slade]

When they couldn't improve the Monk?

Actually the monk is its own issue.
They knew something was wrong with the monk. They conceded that.
But somehow full bab when not flurry was too much. So they gave it when flurrying only.

So it was an obstration in their eyes. They have the ability to know something is wrong, but they can't see what the mote in their eye is so they just flail around trying to remove the beam in the monk's eye.

And they have some weird preconception about full bab being too strong on the monk chasis. I don't get it.

Best example is both Favored Soul and Monk have best save and D8 hp, but one is stronger than the other (spells, of course, make up for Favored souls' few good class features).

[Psychic Robot]

Because they're idiots. There are two ways that giving the monk full BAB would do disrupt the game.

1. It would be an affront to them tying BAB and HD together, as they still wanted to give the monk a d8 HD. (Stupid.)

2. It would allow early entry into some monk prestige classes. (Who cares?)

[Juton]

The whole Monk-Fail has come up a few times. It's easy for anyone to see they failed to make it a viable class, but why? The Paladin got a huge improvement with its new smite mechanic, the Ranger gets an ability about as good in one of the splats, the same splat which gave the monk 5 new flavours of fail. Paizo is able, on occasion, perhaps through dumb luck to write something worth using, but no love for the monk. Maybe they hate the monk, or maybe it's a cynical assessment of their customers, people who inanely believe everything in 3.5 is balanced by virtue of it being in core would turn away from a worthwhile monk, because compared to the one presented in 3.5 it would look over powered.

[Daztur]

Personally I'm really curious what Pathfinder 2ed will look like, because you know that it will come eventually. The flame wars that will result will be epic

[K]

Personally I'm really curious what Pathfinder 2ed will look like, because you know that it will come eventually. The flame wars that will result will be epic

Nah. They killed off all interest in Paizo as the inheritors of DnD's legacy. The people who bought it just to give it a chance won't be buying the next dose of failure.

At best, they'll keep serving the small numbers of Paizils who have stayed with them.

[Juton]

How big is Paizo's player base? I realize that is going to be a tough question to answer since we don't really know how big 3.5's was, although I from what I've heard it was somewhere in the millions. I don't think Paizo or WotC have received the majority of those gamers, did they just leave the hobby?

[hogarth]

When did everyone else first realize that something had gone seriously sideways with PF development?

I'm not sure what you mean by "gone sideways". If you mean when did I realise that Pathfinder was going to turn out like 3.5 D&D with a bunch of things randomly shuffled around, that would probably be when the Beta came out.

[Ganbare Gincun]

Personally I'm really curious what Pathfinder 2ed will look like, because you know that it will come eventually. The flame wars that will result will be epic

Nah. They killed off all interest in Paizo as the inheritors of DnD's legacy. The people who bought it just to give it a chance won't be buying the next dose of failure.

At best, they'll keep serving the small numbers of Paizils who have stayed with them.

All of my RL friends are drinking quite deeply of the Paizo Kool-Aid. Mind you, they ignore the rules that they don't like, and they make up their own material while dismissing old 3.5 classes as being "non-core", but they are still buying books. The fact that Pathfinder gives out more HP and allows Clerics to spam healing blasts at lower levels seems to especially appeal to new players. I sincerely hope that your assertion that Paizo's market is dominance is just a phase is accurate.

[K]

Personally I'm really curious what Pathfinder 2ed will look like, because you know that it will come eventually. The flame wars that will result will be epic

Nah. They killed off all interest in Paizo as the inheritors of DnD's legacy. The people who bought it just to give it a chance won't be buying the next dose of failure.

At best, they'll keep serving the small numbers of Paizils who have stayed with them.

All of my RL friends are drinking quite deeply of the Paizo Kool-Aid. Mind you, they ignore the rules that they don't like, and they make up their own material while dismissing old 3.5 classes as being "non-core", but they are still buying books. The fact that Pathfinder gives out more HP and allows Clerics to spam healing blasts at lower levels seems to especially appeal to new players. I sincerely hope that your assertion that Paizo's market is dominance is just a phase is accurate.

I fully expect that some people will stay with Pathfinder. The art is still good and most people don't care if the rules are good as long as they are new.

[Username17]

I honestly didn't expect them to have a working product in their initial alpha releases. It was obvious just from the timing that it was going to be some random house rules from some random dude. They had dragged their feet and checked with legal before even embarking on that road, because they had hoped to continue making supplements for 4th edition as they had made crap for 3rd edition. Only when the GSL proved to be a mine field did they decide to rush their own game document out.

So yeah, when I looked over the initial suggestions, they were crap. This wasn't surprising or interesting. Basically they grabbed some random dude and told him to make suggested changes to every part of the SRD in a month. The result made me roll my eyes, but I wasn't surprised or offended by this fact.

What got me is when people came out and linked up to real problems in 3.5 and started offering to do real playtesting with hard numbers and repeated scenarios and actual benchmarks for success and... they threw a temper tantrum and refused to even read it. No one cares if a brain storming session comes up with stupid ideas, but it's a serious affront if you refuse to actually adapt your ideas to hard data.

-Username17

[Daztur]

When did everyone else first realize that something had gone seriously sideways with PF development?

I'm not sure what you mean by "gone sideways". If you mean when did I realise that Pathfinder was going to turn out like 3.5 D&D with a bunch of things randomly shuffled around, that would probably be when the Beta came out.

I meant what was the single thing that brought you over from "maybe some potential here" to "nope, never want to buy this game." Like I said, the comment about core vs. splat classes made me realized that the problems I had with Beta were never going to be fixed. I assume that it'd be other things for other people, since I didn't look at any of the Alpha stuff or the message board silliness.

As far as Pathfinder failing from a business standpoint, I'm a lot more leery about that. They seem to have good business sense, they can do the fluff stuff and a lot of the random tweaking seems to appeal to the sort of players who think that Warlocks are overpowered (look more shiny class features! so shiny!). Barring a boneheaded business move I think that Paizo will do just fine, crappy rules have never held back game companies that were successful at marketing/not wasting money on stupid shit before. As long as it's product is fun to read, it'll do OK even if it isn't that fun to play.

[Dominicius]

The thing I don't understand is that there have been lists of broken things about 3e for years. They really are an internet search away, and if you were going to go through all the work of doing a new edition and rewriting almost every spell, then there has been a roadmap literally for years.

And how many of those lists are made by people that don't know the first thing about the system? Exactly.

[K]

The thing I don't understand is that there have been lists of broken things about 3e for years. They really are an internet search away, and if you were going to go through all the work of doing a new edition and rewriting almost every spell, then there has been a roadmap literally for years.

And how many of those lists are made by people that don't know the first thing about the system? Exactly.

True, but if they knew anything about the system they'd be able to figure out which of the lists were BS. I mean, when the list says things like "Fighters are too awesome!", then you can toss that one right out.