Pathfinder or 5e?

5e

a lot simpler. like ridiculous cheaper and much much much more beginner friendly.
big playerbase so finding a group shouldn't be hard

PF is basically for people that refuse to move on or for minmaxers. there's also more character options but more trap options also.

Hey is the SRD and a character sheet all I need to make a character?

Yeah pretty much, the srd is less pretty and tactile than a book but don't let the RPG police catch you.

It has all the information I'll need though, right?

thanks

You betcha! Might want to check out the 5e basic rules as they have step by step character creation, but you're not missing out on any content by ignoring them

Pathfinder is more detailed, which is both a strength and its greatest weakness. It has fleshed out rules for things 5e doesn't- for example, the paranormal and fusion classes- but the actual game is slower and less balanced simply because there are so many moving parts to keep track of, and that often don't fit together well.

Use Pathfinder if your game is very narrowly focused in something Pathfinder has rules and classes for- and you like them- otherwise 5e is going to run more smoothly and have fewer Balance issues.

One more for 5e.

>5e is probably better for roleplaying, but Pathfinder is the better RPG.

Found the rollplayer.

5e, without question.

It's much easier to learn and run, the playerbase is large and hasn't been infected by undesireables like the PF fanbase has, and new content keeps coming out that gives the players more and more options.

Depends on what you want out of it, honestly.

Patfhinder's greatest strength is the immensity of options to choose from. Much of the satisfaction is in building the character in a mechanical sense. This can be overbearing and self-sabotaging, though.
5e's strength is that it is easier to learn and execute, more straightforward in general, and it's pretty unlikely someone will accidentally make a character that doesn't contribute meaningfully, outside of perhaps three subclasses. Sometimes it's described as "everybody's second-favorite RPG". Some people, however, find it bland after a few campaigns.
5e is also more recent, and it ultimately has a broader and less metacommentary-entrenched player base. This *might* be a strength or weakness depending on your tastes, but is probably a nonissue.

So basically: Do you derive the bulk of your fun over a campaign from 'system mastery' and technical interactions? Go with PF.
Do you care more about having stable and uncomplicated rules, and mostly create engagement from things outside of the mechanical basis? 5e.

So basically
>PF if all you want is to make characters that you'll never play
>5e if you want to make generic characters that are easy to play.
Right?

>So basically
>>PF if all you want is to make characters that you'll never play
e if you want to make generic characters that are easy to play.
>Right?

That's about what I think. In Pathfinder, half the game is brewing, just like mtg. IN 5e, 10% of the game is brewing.

The SRD is not the base rules anymore, it's more an outline that authors can use to write their own custom shit. if you're making a character, download the free basic rules PDF from WotC, not the SRD. The SRD is missing some crap you will be confused by.

It has all the info you NEED. But use the Basic Rules pdf anyway, it has more options in it. It's free, so there's no reason to use the SRD over the Basic Rules.

5e if you don't already have a group.
Anything else if you already have a group of tabletop friends.

Have you tried not playing DnD?

Ideally neither. Wotc D&D in general is trash except maybe 4e.

Of you have to pick between those 2, 5e. Pathfinder had a lot of options, but 90% of those options are garbage.

Do you want rules and systems, or just generic advice on what to do?

You want rules that you can play with Pathfinder. You want to make up shit to play with 5e. Basically.

You actually want fun generic, go back to earlier systems. AD&D or Basic are good old fun. 2e has the best settings. MERP/Rolemaster has the best rules. GURPS has the best options.

To each, his own.

Just don't expect reasoned explanations from this shit board. But then your question shows that you should fit right in.

>Wotc D&D in general is trash except maybe 4e.
What...what are you?!

"generic fantasy games" is not descriptive enough for me to give you a recommendation either way because for all I fucking know you could be talking about ASoIaF or Slayers, not LotR. Both 5E and PF only work for a specific type of game.

If you have or are a GM who is not too shy to tell you "Thats how we do it, thats our houserule!", then take 5e. It's a bit lighter on the rule side, so some or many things needs to get houseruled, depending on your group. Pathfinder has most things covered, but its unbalanced and at this point basically hellfire-warlock level of broken.

It is not hard to transition. I transitioned from playing 6 years of PF to 5e and never looked back. Also less work as a DM and the rules allow you to just roll with the situation more.

Like FATAL for example. Anything is better than 5e if you have a group. Literally anything.

I can't tell what the point of that post was.

Didn't feel like making a new thread so might as well ask here.

I jumped from PF to Savage Worlds and my players and I love the system.

Because it is a universal system I have mostly run non-Fantasy games with it. However I have recently been itching for a fantasy game and I have considered trying out D&D 5E.

SW and D&D5E seem to have similar philosophies as far as I have understood ("Rule of cool") and both are quite low on crunch compared to PF/3.5.

Which system do you find better for running fantasy? 5E or SW?

spotted the 4e loving abomination

For me it comes down to nostalgia to be honest. I always enjoyed D&D and jumped, like many did, to Pathfinder after 4e failed to hold my interest. Then 5e came and its my favorite fantasy rpg yet again. And its difficult to say which game is objectively better. so I go with my guts: D&D back then, D&D now.

>when having good taste is considered an abonimation

I honestly prefer SW with some tweaks.

Leave this place at once, demon! Don't contaminate the good people in this thread. Leave in peace and we shall grant you safe passage.

So at what age did you find out you were retarded?

Oh, but I have so much to offer!

Tactically interesting combat!
A world where martials are allowed to scale along with the casters in more than just DPR!
Modifiers that are actually meaningful compared to the range of the d20!
Multiclassing that works!
Rules-like language, so no longer do you have to divine what the fuck the designer meant from sage advice!

Come, join me, it'll be __fun__!

Any tweaking suggestions? I know SW has bunch of Fantasy settings like Shaintar and Hellfrost. So those would be good place to start mining ideas.

Writing abonimation instead of abomination isn't the high point of my career, but that's still a bit harsh.

Real talk: Best thing 4e did was creating the minion system for encounters and the Warlord class. The rest I strongly dislike, but those two were good things. I use minions in my 5e campaign.

Use Savage Armory, and find a spell system that works for you.

Personal houserules:
-Fuse strength and vigor (call it Body). All damage bonuses (ranged or melee) run off of that. All to-hit bonuses run off of Agility.

Body has a defensive and an offensive use (damage and toughness), just like agility (to-hit and dodge)

- Ranged weapons' to-hit gets modified by target's dodge.

-homebrew spell system that1s a bit too complicated but is mostly like FFTA2's mana system.

>Patfhinder's greatest strength is the immensity of options to choose from.

I really like that comment, because it shows how D&D evolved from the age.

oD&D and AD&D where primary games made to play. You made character in ten minutes, you were in the game, he was probably killed soon after, or not, you gain levels, you start to specialize him, everybody's happy. Core old school D&D gameplay here.

Nobody plays 3.5 or pathfinder. It's a game for number crunchers, autism addled maniacs which really like the fact that you should think for several days before creating your characters. Playing the game? Less interesting than reading the 800+ rulebooks and finding the broken feat to perfect your character you'll never play anyway.

5e is a return to the old school idea of a RPG you actually play with friends. It's great.

>Nobody plays 3.5 or pathfinder. It's a game for number crunchers, autism addled maniacs which really like the fact that you should think for several days before creating your characters. Playing the game? Less interesting than reading the 800+ rulebooks and finding the broken feat to perfect your character you'll never play anyway.
This.
The /pfg/ on this board is proof that people are more concerned about finding "concepts" than playing the game, usually because they have no one to play with.

Thats what Pathfinder has been for me the last few years: I flip through Pathfinder books and use them as sources for character ideas, then I think how to recreate them as easy as possible using 5e, so that I am not stuck with the Pathfinder ruleset. The game is nothing more than a collection of inspirational sourcebooks now in my games.

I really wanna play 5e but I look at the books out and get so disappointed in my options. Every time I play PF the system frustrates me, but every supplement gets me interested. A lot harder to play a paladin archer shooting laser arrows in 5e, you know?

Unearthed Arcana: Arcane Archer, released by WotC. In case you dont know unearthed arcana: WotC releases documents with new classes or sublasses and whatever that are mainly for playtesting for future books, but many are used regularly in campaigns today.

I'm aware of them but I have trouble understanding them since I've never played 5e. The idea of playing with incomplete material is strange to me.

PF is busted though, so I guess nothing Wizards prereleases could be worse.

Try 4e maybe? Paladins are pretty kickass in that. IIRC divine classes even get bow support in exchange for a feat.

Understandable. Though I'd argue that using 3.5 for inspiration is often better.

I have found 3.5 books to be better written and more coherent, in general, than pathfinder rulebooks. Pathfinder rulebooks are often a hodgepodge of everything, most of it of very low quality, and are often not that well written, or incoherent, or something equally disappointing. Look at Occult Adventure. Nothing to save from this one, save maybe that pretty cool monk power.

Even the worst 3.5 books are somewhat interesting to read and with plentiful ideas. Pathfinder has nothing but worst rulebooks.

But to each their own, I guess. If Pathfinder works as inspiration for you, that's fine.

The material isnt incomplete, the classes and sublasses are with one exception (the mystic who only goes up to level 10) completely finished. Some of them are already released in official sourcbooks with basically no real changes from the unearthed arcana version. Unearthed Arcana is like the very late multiplayer beta of a videogame a week before release: 99% done, just a few tweaks neccessary before it gets released.

5e.

The only real advantage pathfinder has is going to be lost as 5e gets more and more content.

>. Stat modifiers are maximum +5, minum, -1,
If you are a point-buy peasant

You have a mega for 5e stuff, why do you torture yourself by using some abbreviation I don't even know how to decipher

>le taste meme

>point buy peasant

The only other valid option is 3d6 roll in order.

Thenonly valid option is to do whatever the fuck you want