D&D 5E or Pathfinder?

Pathfinder is built with a lot of deliberate trap options, 5e is more balanced. If you just pick shit that looks cool in 5e you'll likely get a character that's neither broken nor unplayable. It's a lot quicker and cleaner to play, too. So especially for a beginner, I'd pick that.
Downside is there's not as much content and the options are less precise/broader in scope, but you can replicate a good amount of PF stuff in 5e decently

Both starter sets can be bought from Amazon for pretty cheap. I think 5E's may be cheaper.

4e's a pretty decent system, actually, but not very D&D-like.
5e is more like a streamlined, rebalanced 3.5 that takes some of 4e's better points.

Then 5e's your bag.

You might also want to check out the basic rules page, which I've found is an easy run down of what you need to know.
dnd.wizards.com/products/tabletop/players-basic-rules

5e took everything good about 4e and tossed it into the trash.
Then it took everything good about its own playtest and tossed it into the trash.
What you're left with is 3.5 minced and pounded into a more digestible, but flat-tasting porridge, undercooked and served with a cheap soy imitation of narrative mechanics as garnish.

So, no. It has nothing to do with 4e.

Ignore this guy.
To answer your question, OP, 5e is the best starting point. After you're comfortable with the basics, track down other systems and give them a try. You might find something you like better, you might stick with 5e, you might call the Veeky Forums complaints department and play something other than D&D. But 5e is absolutely the "purest" and easiest edition to start with.

> you might call the Veeky Forums complaints department and play something other than D&D.

Dear you.
Fuck you, and fuck your gay unfunny meme.

Then neither Pathfinder (comically broken) nor 5e (dreadfully boring) is for you.

Ryuutama was specifically conceived as a beginner's RPG, going so far as to have what amounts to a tutorial as two sample scenarios.
WARNING: It's feelgood, so no epic adventures. The PCs in this game are more like the NPC material of other fantasy games.

Apocalypse World is a great introduction for improvisational GMing thanks to giving GMs a strict, but useful ruleset to run games by. Anything the players need to know starting out is contained in four pages.
WARNING: It's post-apoc. There is a preview of its second edition, which is more fantasy, but you can't play it without having played AW first. The tone of its writing is apparently off-putting to some people as well.
EXTRA WARNING: Stay away from Dungeon World. It's no good.

Do you want to play a watered-down mediocre system with very little flexibility and where you have to fill out spreadsheets just to create balanced encounters? Then play 5e.

Do you want to play a hideously overcomplicated system where it takes hours to build a single low-level character and which is so unbalanced that half the classes are unable to compete past 10th level? Then play Pathfinder.

Are people really getting this mad about people suggesting not-DnD games?

Duh. This is Veeky Forums.
The only thing edition warriors hate more than other editions of D&D is games that aren't D&D.

I like Pathfinder, honestly, but for new people 5E may be the better option to start. It is simpler and there is less power variance between the good and the bad options.

I would actually say that Pathfinder is workable, especially if some people on the table have experience with it, but 5E does have an advantage when it comes to being easier to pick up. Me,I am spoiled by the tons of options and variants in Pathfinder,so 5E just doesn't appeal to me so much.

I would say find a decent group and go with what they are playing.

In my opinion, the most important consideration should be 'what is the likely collection of groups I may play with using'. Look around, find out what people are playing in your area, get in to that.

Failing that, go D&D 5e

5e, my dude.

Of those two, 5e. If I was going to start a group of complete newbies I'd go with BECMI/Rules Cyclopedia. I can start super simple and add more and more stuff as players want more complexity.

If you're playing pathfinder, you will be worrying more about the rule rather than the game itself.

if you care about ease of learning, ignore everything these faggots tell you, go with 4e, it's designed for beginners, and you can go up from there. If you don't give a fuck about ease of learning, ignore everything these faggots tell you, and try out 2e, it's more complex but you'll get a better experience by playing back before someone thought of the phrase "balance" in the context of a cooperative RPG and started sucking the fun out, which is especially ironic considering 2E manages to be better balanced than 4e and 3.5/PF, with 5e only edging it out because the classes all work nearly identically(although Fighter is STILL worthless in 5e, since the only thing Fighter has had going for it since 2e was that back then it was the only class capable of reaching max skill with a weapon, which gave sizable to hit and damage bonuses)

Although I'll add this about PF- most of these people think PF is unbalanced because casters "get better"" at 5th level or so, but if you're running the game well, that shouldn't happen until 9th level, these dipshits are all just used to playing as optimised wizards and the DM letting them rest after every combat. Fighters, barbarians etc. hold their own by being consistant, while wizards lose out by having a limited number of spells per day, which severely limits their usefulness in all scenarios- sure, they could toast those 20 goblins all at once, but do they WANT to? Maybe they'll need fireball somewhere else, and the fighter DID pick up Great Cleave last level...

Oh, and before you even think about this- what do you want to play? There's more than just D&D and PF, and it's worth considering what experience you truly want. there's RPGs for playing anime, there's RPGs for sci-fi, there's RPGs for horror, there's comedy RPGs, and there's RPGs designed for a group to get together and play off each other as much as the game itself. Decide what you(and your group) wants out of the game before deciding on what game you want

Ignore everything except this faggot's last paragraph. Play Labyrinth Lord. Extra bonus, it's free.

goblinoidgames.com/labyrinthlord.html

>tfw the old editions of LL looked way cooler and then they redid it with this faggoty ass cover and inserts

I should have bought the red leather one when I had a chance.

I hear you man. I had the black and gold foil DCC at my FLGS and passed it up only to really discover that I liked the system later.

Because Summoner doesn't exist, amirite?

Depends on what you're looking for

PF has waaaaaaaay more options and you can literally build whatever you can imagine. It's also more of a superheroes in high fantasy system. But is imbalanced as fuck.

5e is simple as fuck with very few options, system is dirty farmer to rusty knife tier. But is pretty balanced, easy to learn and fast.

Pathfinder takes much more time and effort to learn well than 5e does.

My experience in trying to teach newbies:

>Pathdiner
>Player wants to be a wizard, we get into the big list of spells, all the rules of casting, and that's just in addition to all the concepts associated with class and race, bonuses, saves and things like that, try to come up with list of equipment
>He acts awkward and unsure throughout the first session
>Player never comes back

>5e
>Player wants to be a wizard
>Explain the ability scores and skills, the idea of proficiency, and take some stuff from the Quick Build section
>Have a grand ol' time

I know this is just anecdotal evidence and therefore not definitive, but it's my two cents.

In regards of your PF comment, I'll only say this as counterargument: Druids and Summoners, what now?

>Pathdiner

Pathfinder has more of a difficulty curve in character building, but more variety and the options are all super easy to find online. There are guides that explain it to you though, any what is a good/bad option and why.

5e has less difficulty curve in building, but less variety in character concepts and characters can do less stuff. Also, no decent online tools.

I sat in on a 3.5 session, and when I eventually joined the game had stumbled through and awkwardly made it through my first few games; but the challenge of learning the mechanics and rules are what excited me about it. Its not for everyone, someone might never come back, for others what you mentioned is exactly why we come back or move on to pathfinder. I liked that there were piles of rules to show the differences in having a custom and unique character whether good or bad. 4e i couldnt make a character that felt special to me or have the mechanics reflect what i was trying to do properly, and dropped it after a few games. Still havent played 5th ed

Yeah, I heard a story about how a guy went back to GURPS because other systems just don't have good enough rules for everything. A rule for digging holes was a huge plus for him in GURP's flavor. I don't know if I will ever understand you guys.

Summoner is a shit class for twats though. Not because it's bad, the fluff is just garbage and I hate it.

5E

Pathfinder is bad, it has a terrible ratio of complexity to stuff actually happening. You'll end up looking through pages and pages of rules and the result will be the same as if you played some rules lite OSR clone.

Ntgb summoner is my favorite class.

I like point-buy design a characters.
I like pet classes.
I like summoners.
I like transforming characters.

Only thing i dont like is being locked into the outsider type for the pet, and no option for a pet that never goes away.

Pf does have a lot of trap options to Wade through.

5e and most osr games simply have very few options or opportunities for customization, period.

I'd rather play Pathfinder than 5e or an osr game.

But a curated "pathfinder goodstuff t2/3 edition" that simply cuts out all the shitty options so you don't even have to look at them would be the best d20.

Take that as a starting point, and gradually add new power level appropriate options that keep up with what you kept, to fill any missing niches.

Why not GURPS? More options than Pathfinder.

I like gurps, but you have to admit, if you want to run something other than dungeon fantasy or monster hunters, there is a ton of work to do in selecting options and building templates.

And while I'd definitely consider using gurps for something up to street level supers power level, I'm hesitant to try it for what i typically want from a non AP Pathfinder campaign, which is something equivalent to level 8-17 tier 2/3 or 1/2 gameplay.

The other thing i go to Pathfinder for, gurps can't do at all: pickup and run out of the box adventures, IE, APs.

5e can do the prebuilt adventures part but lacks options and flexibility on the player side because they have published next to no additional character options since the initial release.

My gurps comment is about "before you can start planning the campaign or tell your players to start building characters."

Having played a good chunk of both:
>5e is the better starting point.
BUT
>I like Pathfinder better

5e is a good starting point for the same reasons as 4e in that it makes everything stupidly simple. The one real issue I could see with starting with that sort of game is that depending on your group you may accidentally set a stupidity cap for them.

Essentially, what I've seen from some players is that the first system, maybe two, sets their expectation of how much work a roleplaying game should ever be. Systems above this level are above their "stupidity cap", which isn't so much a measure of how smart they are, just a measure of how much brain power they're willing to devote to having fun. Because of this, certain players who start on 5e might not ever want to upgrade to pathfinder, while some players who just can't hang with a pathfinder game could play 5e.

This creates a weird issue where some games might be too high skill cap to be a good starting point but low skill cap games might mean you'll never get them to play anything more complicated. It's sorta a crapshoot and I don't know what to tell you. My best suggestion would be to start them on DnD 5e and then shortly afterward see if you can get them to play something else. While I'm definitely NOT going to join in with the "Never play DnD!" crowd this could also be a time to try a non-DnD system. Basically, while their brains are still malleable make them play something a little harder or they very well might decide they never want to learn for another rpg ever again.

It should also be mentioned that some people also develop a stupidity cap for boardgames. Just a friendly reminder

>I like gurps, but you have to admit, if you want to run something other than dungeon fantasy or monster hunters, there is a ton of work to do in selecting options and building templates.
I will admit no such thing.

For the most part because I've never run GURPS, just played it.