Veeky Forums, has anyone ever actually compiled a full, exhaustive list about why 3.PF sucks and you shouldn't play it...

Veeky Forums, has anyone ever actually compiled a full, exhaustive list about why 3.PF sucks and you shouldn't play it? I know we have a mostly general consensus that it's terrible, but do we have documentation on it?

I'm asking because my friend recently invited me to a pathfinder session. I declined at first, but then he promised it "wouldn't be like normal pathfinder", and he's expressed interest in running 5th edition, which would be a huge step up. But he keeps making excuses why he can't do that. I think that I can get him to convert fully, but I'd like to make him as sick of Pathfinder as I am.

Thoughts?

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d20pfsrd.com/skills/ride
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Combat is incredibly slow and grid focused, a lot of combat actions are useless

Both 3.X and PF are bloated as fuck

RP isn't as encouraged mechanically as it is in 5e

5e is closer to the roots of tabletop and older editions while PF seems to be going down the path 4e did and becoming more like a video game

>moving from pathfinder to 5e
>moving from explosive diarrhea to plain diarrhea
>yeah it's technically better, i guess

Standard vs. full action is rigged against anyone who wants to engage in melee
Spells can allow a caster to do a martial's job, better
Spells can replace martials
A druid can replace martials
When 1/3rd of your core design philosophy is a dead weight trap then you need to rethink what you're doing with your game
Skill system is absurdly specific and kinda dumb

Right, I'm not asking for the arguments, I mean a detailed analysis of why it's bad.

I don't think we do. A full documented list would be quite helpful though whenever people ask for examples.

If you're just trying to poke holes in the system though, just get a Druid with a Wolf companion and proceed to out martial the martials. Entangle can end any melee enemies from being a threat, and your beast companion is as good as a Fighter with free trip attempts as well.

Alternatively, build the weakest character you can. Make a finesse fighter with focus on Charisma skills. Aim to be a suave swashbuckler and let them watch as the system ruins any chance at you being useful as you struggle to do anything.

Play whichever depending on if the rest of the party seems strong or weak.

Okay, why don't you download a pdf of the manuals and highlight the retarded rules?

Caster supremacy and too-specific skills are the main part. Most of the rest is either forgivable or common enough in other games, or down to taste.

I'm going to use 5e as a contrast here, because I HATE 5e and it still does these better than 3.PF:
3.PF has the Ride skill, which 5e doesn't. Now the thing about having this as a defined skill is that it has defined levels of success. Which means that unless you spend skill ranks in it, your character doesn't have a fucking clue what to do on a horse and will constantly fall off.
Village lends the party horses to travel quickly to the dungeon? ha ha ha fuck off because only person knows how to fucking ride.

Caster supremacy:
THis one is pretty simple.
A level 1 fighter hits things hard and has a decent amount of HP, but since they're likely to be on the frontlines, that HP goes pretty quickly.
A level 1 wizard shuts down one or two encounters in a single round with Sleep and Color Spray, and has low HP. At this one, single level, they are MAYBE balanced.

A level 20 wizard is opening portals through realities, turning foes into slime, turning their allies into angels, and creating castles out of thin air.
A level 20 fighter is still just hitting things hard.

Now, compared to 5e, caster supremacy still exists and is still incredibly fucking annoying since 4e fixed this. But at least the 5e fighter actually keeps up to par in expected damage and survivability per level.
(Still don't play a 5e fighter though, the Paladin is superior in every way).

>we have a mostly general consensus
Veeky Forums having a consensus in anything?

>If you're just trying to poke holes in the system though, just get a Druid with a Wolf companion and proceed to out martial the martials. Entangle can end any melee enemies from being a threat, and your beast companion is as good as a Fighter with free trip attempts as well.
I'm not 100% sure how it is, but I'm fairly certain he houserules it all to hell. Though that Charisma Fighter sounds like it could be an example, I think that the better option would be to have a man-to-man with him and get him to see the issues.

But I'll create that fighter on the backburner just in case.

Why reinvent the wheel if someone already did it for me? That's a very, VERY last ditch effort.

Don't expect reason from those who appeal to majority on an anonymous imageboard, user. Some people just have to feel like they are part of a group.

Ask him why he houserules games instead of just playing a game that's less broken.

Now, that all said, it IS possible to have a balanced-ish time playing Pathfinder.
What you need to do is get a list of class tiers, and then decide which tiers your playing in. If everyone picks a tier 3 or 4 class, the game can be perfectly reasonable. Especially since the SRD is online and free, so anyone can pick anything.

Also, you should flat out refuse to play if the Path of War isn't allowed.

After reading the actual description of the skill, Ride is specifically for performing feats of skill on a horse. Attacking while ordering the horse to attack too, or standing up so you can use your longbow while on horseback, or what have you. A standard ride is easy and therefore it doesn't require a skill check.

I find a lot of the issues with Pathfinder are things that need errata that will definitely never get them. Caster supremacy will always cause me much suffering, but finding feats that don't do anything, can't be taken because their prereqs don't exist, or do strange things because of odd wording is something that comes up a lot.

Did you know that Shield Master, though it says it adds your enhancement bonus from your shield to attack and damage rolls with the shield, doesn't ACTUALLY do that?

Also you get rules that just don't make sense. Houserules should mostly be used to tweak a system that works pretty well. Kinda like mods in a video game. They should not be necessary to make the game function in a sensible fashion.

Did you know that being immune to fire does not mean you're immune to heat? Creatures in the plane of fire would actually take nonlethal damage from the extreme heat and eventually die. As nonsensical as that is, I had a GM actually accept RAW, after I pointed out that it made no sense and fire resistance should provide some level of heat resistance.

That being said, I do play Pathfinder while my wife's son is at soccer practice, but I'd rather others not follow in my footsteps.

skills aren't dreadful, though mundane crafting vs. magical crafting is a fucking wash, and certain spells can completely negate the usefulness of a skill.

Bluff has a DC for telling an impossible lie, which... I mean, if it's impossible, nobody should believe you. There shouldn't be a DC.

There is no reason to play 3.PF when Fantasy Craft exists, except for maybe number of players.
Talk them into doing that instead.

>Bluff has a DC for telling an impossible lie, which... I mean, if it's impossible, nobody should believe you. There shouldn't be a DC.

Remember that the 3.5 skill system isn't meant to solely replicate what real-life humans can do, but also what the superhuman beings of D&D can do. Telling an impossible lie and getting people to believe it anyway isn't any weirder, in that context, then passing a Balance check to stand on water.

When some of us run "Pathfinder" we really mean "d20 game that makes use of many Pathfinder character options and monsters"

My d20 I no longer call Pathfinder, but i changed enough stuff that it was time to start rewriting the core rules.

Last time i played with Pathfinder books + houserules, the houserules are up to 195 pages of rewrites.

Why not just play another system? Saying that what you're doing is an over-exertion of effort would be an understatement, when you need 195 pages of homerules to make the game functional and fun for your group.

We like the core mechanic even if we don't like many of the specifics, I like having a game compatible with all the 3.x adventures and monster manuals so I can crib stuff or run from a book of I don't have time to plan a campaign for another game like gurps or shadowrun, and it started as only a handful of houserules back in 2008 and just grew substantial over time.

I've got inherent bonuses, custom races, converted Faerun stuff, a different xp system, skills more like shadowrun with active and background skills that have different point pools and a smaller list, lower skill rank caps but you add 1/3 level to skills, a black list of shitty feats that don't exist, custom /imported feats from other d20 games, several new feats that replace /combine others, some feats are now just stuff anyone can do. Shit that accumulated over 8 years.

At this point I've recently started just homebrewing a new game that draws from all that and stuff I like in other systems, designed to be still compatible with 3.x monsters and adventures, and offer character power and versatility comparable to Pathfinder tier 2/3 (with the gm being able to say "tier 2 options are allowed" and then all "playable classes" will have a bunch of t2 options to pick from .

I won't gm a d20 game while I'm working on this side project (but i will play in one of that's what the gm wants to run).

As for why homebrew instead of playing something else? We like mid to high (8-20) level caster & 2/3 caster gameplay in Pathfinder, and I've yet to find another game that satisfies that niche in a way i like.

When I want something else, I do just bust out a different game. I particularly like rq4/5/6/mythras, gurps, shadowrun 4/5, and cinematic unisystem, d20 Conan is a lot of fun, so it's fantasy craft. The new Conan rpg looks neat from the kickstarter and the new witcher rpg i have high hopes for but no expectations.

Try Exalted

Have ypu ever checked out Fantasy Craft? I spent a lot of time in homebrewed 3.5 before I found it, and it fixed pretty much everything we considered to be bad in 3.5. Not as much content, especially magic-wise, but everything from 3.PF is easily converted.

Oops, definitely didn't read your full post before responding.

Haha. Yeah, you definitely didn't.

I like fantasycraft.

When I'm inclined to play something pathfinder, the reasons are either the large quantity immediately compatible monsters and adventures, or for that higher level t2/3 gameplay.

I actually hated exalted. But thanks for the suggestion.

>passing a Balance check to stand on water
is that a thing you can do in 3.5?

DC 90. Also includes anything that couldn't support your weight, like a fragile tree branch or a piece of paper.

> I know we have a mostly general consensus that it's terrible

A few angry trolls isn't a consensus.

But, you'd know that if you weren't an angry troll.

I like pathfinder, and I don't heavily houserule it beyond the general houserule that everyone should use for every system: if you encounter a thing that is dumb or inappropriate or broken, then make up something that fits better and use that instead. The whole point of sourcebooks is a basic mechanic and theme. Beyond that, use what works and don't get mad. :)

>a few
Stage 1: Denial.

How do you pass a DC 90 check in the first place?

So you're literally not even playing pathfinder then. Because you must have houseruled almost every single rule in that book. Good to know.

Theoretically, you're not supposed to until epic levels, but there's no doubt in my mind that someone can figure out how to do it before hitting level 16. The fact that it has a number to begin with shows how stupid the system is in its need to quantify everything.

>trying to be useless
>playing a swash buckler.
there's better ways to do litterally nothing.

>Village lends the party horses to travel quickly to the dungeon? ha ha ha fuck off because only person knows how to fucking ride.
you have no idea how that skill even works do you?
d20pfsrd.com/skills/ride
Paizo legitimately has tons of flaws, so why is it that most people who criticize it have no fucking idea what theyre talking about.

Less than 30 trolls is considerably less than 10,000+.

>Paizo legitimately has tons of flaws, so why is it that most people who criticize it have no fucking idea what theyre talking about.

As a Dungeon World fan, I feel your pain, dude.

nothing wrong with 3.5 if your DM isn't spineless and tells you to fuck off when you start abusing things.

oh and you have to ban the martial classes from anything but ToB.

Is there a system out there that does low-magic/Dark Fantasy, but with loads of character options(like 3.pf). Trying to get my group to try out new systems.

>Did you know that Shield Master, though it says it adds your enhancement bonus from your shield to attack and damage rolls with the shield, doesn't ACTUALLY do that?
Wait, really? I looked up the feat and it seems straightforward to me, how does it not let you do that? Keep in mind I know almost nothing about Pathfinder.

And you have to ban the caster classes from anything but XPH and MoI.

Fantasy Craft.
Technically The Dark Eye, but FC is better.

Burning Wheel and Warhams Fantasy both immediately come to mind

It seems like a lot of the complaints come from people who didn't bother to actually read and understand the material.

Rolled 40 (1d43)

THE SCORPION WHIP DOES 1d43 DAMAGE

Ban everything but TOB and XPH. Solid game.

The Blade Master class gives ridiculous wuxia-tier bonuses to acrobatic checks so that's a good start.

>Which means that unless you spend skill ranks in it, your character doesn't have a fucking clue what to do on a horse and will constantly fall off.
People complaining about 3.pf confirmed for still not actually knowing how the game works.

The enhancement bonus from your shield, and your enhancement bonus from your weapon don't stack. With the exception of dodge bonuses, bonuses with the same name never stack. So, if you have a +1 sword, and a +1 shield, and this feat, you're getting a total +1. Because they don't stack.

MoI is fine, too.

How is your enchantment with your sword relevant?
If you're attacking with your shield you're not attacking with your sword. Your attack with the shield is going from +0 to +1

Now this is still dumb, but the cause is that attacks with shields are considered separate things and thus always shit.

>no one falling for this low level bait

I'm so fucking proud of Veeky Forums right now.

>You do not suffer any penalties on attack rolls made with a shield while you are wielding another weapon. Add your shield’s enhancement bonus to attack and damage rolls made with the shield as if it were a weapon enhancement bonus.

Yeah, I'm with this guy. Learn to fucking read. Nowhere does it says that you add your shield's enchantment bonus to your MAIN WEAPON rolls.

Granted, the feat is shit, shields are shit and PF are shit - the very thing that this effect needs a feat is proof enough. But god man at least try to learn the subject-matter you're talking about.