Just a quick recap, for anyone reading this who's not familiar with Pathfinder's genealogy. In the beginning, there was Dungeons & Dragons, and it was good. But it wasn't perfect! In fact, over the years, it went through a number of variations and editions. When I got back into the game a couple of years ago (after a long hiatus), the current version of the game was called "3.5" -- i.e., it was different from the 3rd edition, but apparently not different enough to be considered its own new edition. Whatever.
Anyway, last year, D&D's publisher (now Wizards of the Coast) put out an entirely new edition. This event went largely unnoticed by the internet. You will have to dig long and hard to find any online commentary regarding D&D's new (4th) edition. Particularly rare are any expressions of opinion regarding the relative merits of 3.5 and 4th. Should you stumble across a blog or message board posting actually expressing a preference for one over the other, know that you are beholding the most delicate of fancies. When you have caught your breath, count yourself blessed.
From what fragmentary information I have been able to piece together, however, apparently some D&D players are less than enthralled by 4th. In my own opinion, the new edition has a radically different "feel" from any previous version of the game. Without a doubt, it does some things right. But, in most areas where it differs from 3.5 (and there are a lot of them), I prefer 3.5, plain and simple.
Bottom line: not a fan of 4th.
But, all is not lost for people like me. Enter Paizo Publishing. Paizo has a long and illustrious history of publishing products for/relating to D&D. This past August, they released their alternative to 4th edition, the aforementioned Pathfinder RPG. Unlike the approach that Wizards took with 4th, Pathfinder extended and polished the existing 3.5 framework. As a result, Pathfinder now feels (to me!) infinitely more like D&D than the current "official" version of D&D does. I've heard Pathfinder referred to as "3.75," and I think that's perfectly apt.
Back to my gaming group: We'd been playing 3.5 for a while when 4th came out. We briefly gave 4th a whirl, and the experience frankly fell pretty flat for us. I'm not saying it bombed; nobody was hospitalized or anything, it just didn't work out. So, we enthusiastically embraced Pathfinder when it was released.
My initial reaction to the game is extremely positive. Mechanically, the game is very similar to 3.5. I've made it clear that I was a big fan of 3.5, so obviously, I mean that previous statement as praise. It seems to me right now that the biggest changes are in the character class descriptions. As a general observation, they seem to have fixed some of the problems that some classes had in 3.5, without completely changing the feel of playing those classes. Many of the classes are "jazzed up" a bit too. I think that's a good thing.
Just to throw out one specific example of a case where Pathfinder made a simple change that amounted to a big improvement: In 3.5, one of the features of the druid class was the "animal companion" -- a pet/body guard that got more powerful as the druid gained levels. Rangers got animal companions too -- but, their companions improved at exactly half the rate of druids' companions (i.e., a ranger's "effective druid level," used for determining the strength of the animal companion, was defined has half his ranger level).
This, in a word, sucked.
I get that you don't want a ranger's animal companion to be as good as a druid's -- I really do. It's one of the druid's defining features. I have no problem with the idea that the ranger's pet has to be weaker than the druid's. But here's the thing: because the ranger's pet improved so slowly, the class feature scaled horribly. What I mean is that while it starts out as a pretty neat feature,* its real value in game terms rapidly approaches zero as the ranger levels up. That's just bad game design, plain and simple.
[* Some might argue even this point. I feel, however, that a 2HD companion at 4th level is pretty cool. Goes downhill real quickly from there, though.]
Pathfinder made a minor change to the way this works. Now, the ranger's "effective druid level" is equal to his ranger level minus 3 (rather than times 0.5, as before). The pet is still weaker than a druid's, but that simple change now allows the feature to scale infinitely better than in 3.5. I can see a ranger's pet remaining viable, as a speed bump/body guard if nothing else, all the way into the higher levels. That's good game design.
My praise for the Pathfinder RPG is not, however, unlimited. I have a few issues, most of which are pretty minor.
- Some of the problems (as I saw them) from 3.5 survive fully intact in PRG. The first example I noticed was in two-weapon fighting (that's "dual wielding" to you MMO players). I've done a lot of math on this subject, and I've convinced myself that two-weapon fighting was essentially broken in 3.5. It is completely unchanged in PRG. On the other hand, I've never seen much complaining on this subject, so maybe it's just me.
- I'm not completely crazy about every change PRG made to 3.5. I don't think Jump should have been lumped into Acrobatics. I miss synergy bonuses. I'm not entirely sold on the way Pathfinder handles "favored classes" and the removal of all multi-classing experience penalties.
- This point is still very much a "first impression," but I'm not wild about some changes to feats in particular (or some of the new feats). Combat Expertise had its effectiveness eviscerated, it seems to me, and I don't understand why -- it didn't seem overpowered to begin with. On the other hand, the new feat Catch Off Guard seems way too powerful (think sneak attack).
- I'm not convinced that I'm completely getting the Combat Maneuver rules (this is the one major addition to the way combat works in the game). I think I would have benefitted from a little more depth in that section of the rule book, such as some discussion of how specific feats (e.g. Combat Finesse) interact with the combat maneuver roll. Some more time spent with the material might drive it home for me -- again, this is something that could just be me.
Overall, though, I want to stress that I couldn't be much happier about Pathfinder. I'm delighted the game simply exists, given the direction that Wizards has taken its parent. I feel, without reservation, that the game is a big improvement over 3.5, which I was pretty happy with anyway.
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