People here actually think that they'll be able to push the "3...

Daily reminder that 3.5 is already dying, 5e is far more popular.

Daily reminder that the only versions of dnd with lasting appeal are 0e, 1e, and 2e being the oldschool crowd with years to come in their life.

Also OP your b8 is stale. Saying 3.pf has "clear and direct language" is just laughably transparent.

>Thinks Veeky Forums is a contrarian cesspit
>Vehemently defends thing on Veeky Forums anyway

The only person you seem to be justifying things to is yourself, user.

And today OP realized that having a good GM is the most important part of the roleplay experience.

Fucking faggot.

>Why is calling a seriously mechanically flawed system contrarian?
Because it's not.
Anyhoo, nice to see you here, but as much as you want to rant about "3.PF is bad because I don't know how to play it, it's too hard, it works against me" all of that is largely just you being dumb.
It's a big system, so there's tons of advice in the books on how you need to exercise caution and what may and may not work well, but if you are ignoring that, that's your own fault. Also, it's at least got clear mechanics Take a look at other systems that take decades to unravel all their mechanical flaws, but are so underplayed that no one has even bothered to look into them.

>Daily reminder that the only versions of dnd with lasting appeal are 0e, 1e, and 2e being the oldschool crowd with years to come in their life.

This is kind of a joke, because the "old school crowd" is so small and insignificant, it's more of an "old school gathering."

3.pf has the exact same appeal as every popular shitty f2p mobile game.

Okay, so your argument is that 3.5 is good because:

a) It's popular
b) It has a lot of supplements

I counter your points by saying I am not interested in either, and as such are left with a flawed base system which I'd rather not use. Perhaps with a good DM its problems could be ameliorated but at that point there's nothing you can say in defense of using 3.5 as opposed to literally any other system

But can you counter the simple, direct example I made? That the challenge rating system, as presented in the core, is an extremely flawed to the point of unusable system with no reliable way of knowing whether an appropriate CR encounter will be pitifully easy or a tpk?

If you're just going to ignore what's written, don't bother replying, because all that needs to be said is "you can't just ignore the arguments in order to try to pretend they're not there."

But that's literally what you're doing, right now? Ignoring arguments to pretend they don't exist, calling literally anyone who disagrees with you contrarian while dismissing their arguments out of hand?

"It's popular" is not an argument on the first place, unless you meant for finding a group, but with roll20 and similar sites you can find a group for fucking anything if you're patient. "It has a lot of supplements" is void if you don't want to sift through them in order to polish the turd that is 3.5

>hating on this

You need to stop.

>it's about whether the system supports or hinders a GM.

Fucking RISUS "supports" the GM just fine, but it's still a shitty game and no one would use it for an actual campaign. Stop acting like one factor is the only thing that determines system quality.

>But can you counter the simple, direct example I made?
Where? I just saw you sort of bitching indistinctly.

>That the challenge rating system, as presented in the core, is an extremely flawed

It presents decent guidelines of what to expect. It's not perfect, but moaning about it being extremely flawed is just splitting hairs. Sure, there might be some outliers, but as a whole it works pretty well within the range of CR 3-14, the levels people most frequently play.

Alright folks, let ol' Wayne sum things up for you all.

Veeky Forums works by having autists of two or more opposite extremes argue points until a third party is there to interpret a mediating viewpoint that is closest to the truth. This post, as one that summarizes everything, receives exactly two types of replies:

1) A "This." Post that adds a personal view and receives no replies.

2) The third or fourth troll, or OP, who bashes this post with nitpicking that ultimately serves to undermine the posting and keep the argument going until it is so far removed from its original context until it turns into an argument about something else entirely, then splinters off into the actual, real discussion of the thread and the constant newcomers to the thread whose posts can be summarized as "You're wrong, here's why."

This is basically how all "Hot-button Veeky Forums issue" threads work. These issues include: Quests, 3.5/PF, Elves/Dwarves, D&D, Edition Wars, Female Space Marines, 1d4chan/Old Memes, Nu-/Old-Veeky Forums, Female Players, All Meta Threads, and /Generals/

The phenomenon has become unavoidable, unbannable, and completely immovable. The only hope is basically to change the subject of the thread to anything else so that the thread doesn't become a perpetual hate-machine that is recreated over the next couple days, dies for a week, then comes back again.

Can you point to where someone said "it's popular is why it's good"?

"It's popular" is literally a defined logical fallacy. By any definition it is not a meaningful argument.

But Risus doesn't support the GM. It's so rules light it has virtually no support structures at all.

Not at all. You seem pretty hostile and pretty wrong, a bad combination for any discussion.

Nice Reddit-spacing faggot.

It was implied in the OP with
>People are going to enjoy playing that game for years to come thanks to it still being one of the better systems available.
Then followed by, in short, saying that it has a lot of content. There's also a greentexted "but muh balance" and not much else.

>the challenge ratign system that I don't actually understand is bad
Because you don't actually understand it.

PF challenge ratign is based on three things.
1) Hit Dice are equivalent to levels and monster abilities are equivalent to character class powers.
2) A GM who actually reads the book and understands that the CR is only one part of the encounter build system, which also includes an Experince Point-to-Encounter buy, not only CR based information.
3) Knowing that the monsters have roles, and those roles are integral to choosing what monsters would challenge the characters in the party effectively.

This is actually explained in the books that you don't understand user, so suck it up and learn to play a simple game before your head explodes from reading too many words.

I'm Wayne. By default I'm expected to commit the worst sins of posting on Veeky Forums. And be a faggot. Thank you.

AD&D is currently the least popular of all editions of D&D on roll20. It has recently succumbed to Dungeon World in popularity. There are no other reliable stats for system popularity.

>Why is calling a seriously mechanically flawed system contrarian?

Probably because it's nowhere near as bad as you contrarians try to make it out to be?

You guys act like it's the worst game of all time, when it's actually closer to being one of the best.

You might be the kind of guy who played 3.5 in the past and then switched to [unpopular game] and felt like you had a sudden revelation and now had to decry everything that's different between the two games, but as someone who's played close to a hundred different games, Pathfinder is far from the bottom of that list. I'd put it in the top 20 without hesitation.

>5e is far more popular.

This is because of a flood of normies that are entering the hobby on a daily basis, thanks to TV shows like Stranger Things and Big Bang Theory, as well as podcasts like Critical Roll causing a greater social awareness of the game than ever before. As a result, loads of normalfags and roasties are coming to play D&D, and most of them are fucking shit at it.

If you want evidence of this, just take a look at your average gatherings at the FLGS. Take a look at Adventurer's League: a bunch of chads and dudebros, mixed with fat cheeto-dust-coated spergs who have done nothing but play Dark Scrolls and Skyrim in their room for the past ten years, playing meme videos and showing each other "here come dat boi" memes while the DM stutters through the latest 50 dollar published adventure wizards has shit out.

Whereas Pathfinder Society is full of intelligent and cultured people who are passionate about the game, know the rules, and aren't fat disgusting wastes of life for the most part. They also aren't retarded airhead women, because you have to actually be intelligent to play Pathfinder, and few women have that level of cognitive ability. Also Pathfinder has far more character building options and despite 5e having better math and better action / movement rules, it still falls behind in pretty much every other category. It is "simple" but that is a good quality only for casuals who can't be bothered to actually learn the rules.

Face it: Pathfinder isn't bad, you're just not smart enough to play it.

You're hoping to imply a lot of stuff, and still trying to ignore, omit, and condense the rest. In short, you're just being unscrupulous.

Same thing with 4e, though. It supports the DM but it still has dumb shit rules where a bunch of orcs can jump off a 10 foot roof and die instantly because they take a d10 of damage and each only have 1 hp. 4e also has Rule 42 so the infinite treadmill is thoroughly solidified.

>"It's popular" is literally a defined logical fallacy.

Nope. Claiming that a statement is true because it is popular is fallacious. Claiming something is popular at all is not fallacious.

You are parroting that 3.5 is "one of the best systems" without ever trying to meaningfully defend it, and completely ignoring or dismissing its specific criticisms whenever they're brought up

Holy shit this whole thread

Please stop

Naw, I'm just telling you that you're a contrarian without bothering to clash opinions with you.

How do I know you are a contrarian? Because popular opinion disagrees with you, and from personal experience I recognize that you are pretty full of shit.

Want an argument? Great, but I'd rather not discuss things with a bull-headed contrarian. And go ahead and tell me I'm running away from this, because running from faggots and trolls is a smart move.

Okay, can you try writing something with meaning this time round?

Can you?

>haha I won't argue with you because you're a contrarian and wrong and I know you are wrong because my opiinion is popular
ok

I have said all I needed about the OP. You haven't said anything back.

>>haha I won't argue with you because you're a contrarian and wrong

I mean, up until this part, yeah. The latter part is just you sort of strawmanning because you want me to discount personal experience and popular opinion and to put your gripes on a pedestal in exchange.

>roasties
Yeah, opinion dropped.

You've done nothing except futilely try to dismiss obvious arguments. I've called you out on that.

So far, that puts the score at you-0.

So is Paizo really losing market share that badly that they've resorted to pushing people from their forums to go to other boards and do damage control?

That's just sad.

there are other games with even worse mechancial issues that are even more popular, user. Seriously, bad mechanics is not one of PFs flaws.

Considering that Pathfinder is still way more popular and better selling than everything other than 5e, it's more likely that all the other companies have shills spending all their time on Veeky Forums to try and decry 3.PF because they are desperate for any players whatsoever.

What do you want me to say. No shit it's popular. Even if it is popular I'd rather play something else. It has a lot of supplements, yes, but using a lot of supplements still won't address the shaky foundations of the system. Yeah a good DM can pull it off but a hypothetical good DM can pull off anything, and there's plenty of systems that don't require as much patching up to get to an optimal condition

No, you're just ignorant of how edition war trolls work.

This post tipped your hand, not that it wasn't an obvious bait thread.
The OP might have tipped me off, were I familiar enough with Pathfinder to pick out errors.

>as much as you want to rant about "3.PF is bad because I don't know how to play it, it's too hard, it works against me" all of that is largely just you being dumb.
That post was not a rant, especially not for Veeky Forums, let alone the rest of Veeky Forums.
Your antagonism is obvious. Either tone it down next time or make some attempt at being amusing.

>It's a big system, so there's tons of advice in the books on how you need to exercise caution and what may and may not work well, but if you are ignoring that, that's your own fault.
They aren't ignoring the advice on the parts of Pathfinder that require caution or don't work well.
They're saying that when discussing Pathfinder, be honest about how important those tons of advice are to run the game.

>it's about being honest when pitching the system to people, making them aware of the work they'll need to put in to have it run smoothly.

As for the game itself, it sounds like it reminds me of a spaceship design from some vidya game I can't remember.
It was slow but tough as hell with shields on top of that.
It was designed to be the Armored Turtle option, only good for lower levels and even then it was too slow to reliably hit anything with anything but the expensive guided missles.
The thing was, it could work.
The armor was top notch, you could get the speed up to almost average, and if you were really good, you could steer the sluggish thing well enough and time your shot to use lasers.
I was unstoppable in that thing until late levels where the top speed was much higher.
It was my favorite ship, but I had to work to get there.

If you can't read, you shouldn't be on this site.

Just to start with the only game more popular than 3.PF is 5e. You're full of shit

I want to touch her planes if you know what I mean

Still not saying anything meaningful. How many times do you want me to rephrase and expand before you're encouraged to make anything but lazy comebacks?

If you don't want to argue and POPULAR OPINION and PERSONAL EXPERIENCE have already come down from the heavens to tell you that 3.PF is a good system, and absolutely nothing would make you think otherwise even if you were going to argue, why did you bother posting this on Veeky Forums?

Telling you that you're basically just flinging empty arguments because you can't bother to read anything without first putting on blinders is pretty meaningful. Maybe in a couple years you'll be mature enough to understand that if your only way to argue is to throw out any shred of shame and to just parade around how little you can comprehend, most people are just going to redirect you to either try reading again or to leave the discussion.

But you're right, I'm just leading you by the nose, because honestly no one would ever want to enter a discussion with someone as meaningless as you.

RIFTS and Shadowrun says you're an ignorant retard who doesn't actually know any systems at all.

To point out that you're a dumb contrarian no one wants to argue with? What? Is English your second language or something?

>RIFTS
>shadowrun
>more popular than fucking pathfinder

I think the issue is that you're not here to discuss the game, you're here to be a contrarian. I love discussing games, both their merits and their flaws, but only when I'm talking to someone who's actually hoping to have a discussion.

You're clearly just here for the system war drama. Is there really any reason to discuss anything with you? Is there anything anyone could possibly say to sway your opinion?

I doubt it. That's why I'm off to do better things than deal with an angry contrarian.

Okay, vague buzzwords and personal insults, but this time you wrote a couple sentences so we're making progress

>I came here to argue with a dumb contrarian no one wants to argue with

What made me quite Pathfinder was building a character that the system presented as a viable option, and then watching as I got outdone at every turn by an animal companion.

For a new player, Pathfinder seems hellish in retrospect. Every single upside you listed? Terrible for someone starting out

>sub-systems for everything, so you have to look them up every time something happens
>huge monster list, which is going to have a lot of things a new player won't even get
>giant spell list, so a new player who plays a caster is overwhelmed and a new player who plays a martial doesn't get nearly as many options
>really varied character options, which makes it easy to make something terrible
>mechanics like combat maneuvers or certain spells that seem fun, but don't actually do much unless you have the system knowledge to make them work
>an item list with lots of things, but no indication that encounters are built off the assumption that you have magical weapons and armor to match your level

The last one is the only one that's actually beneficial, and even then I'm taking your word on quality there.

So yeah, if a system is this bad for new players (unless you have an incredible DM willing to explain everything and prevent anyone from making a mistake), then it can't be all that great. And once you're experienced enough at pathfinder to know and understand all of these options and systems and how everything works? You probably would have gotten to the point of any other system where you know everything and can start homebrewing and altering it to suit your tastes and give you more options and sub-systems and things of that nature.

So, you love discussing games and that's why you began this thread by trying to label all criticism to pathfinder as contrarianism, irrelevant or both, and you have better things to do, which is why you've consistently kept replying up to this point and probably will keep doing so

Pointing out that someone is a dumb contrarian is not really arguing with them.
Unless you think me calling you an idiot is a cue for you to try and pretend otherwise?

Didn't you just say were going off, you lazy troll?

I think you're confusing me with someone else.
Are you the dumb contrarian still hoping to rope someone into an argument?

>Subsystems for everything.
maybe, but good luck on the research project needed to find some of them goddamn. You know there're class and PrC combos that make the skill-based ecconomist not only viable but downright disconcertingly wealthy by comparison of the party? One of these days they might hire a higher level group of adventurers if I'm not careful with what I make available as loot.
>monster list.
Can't outright disagree but I'd imagine a lot of that is "X creature, but with a slight flavor difference". Not all, but, well, Dragons.
>Spell List.
You bet your ass there's some repeat offenders in there. Scintillating Sphere and Fireball as an easy example.
>mechanics with evident results.
Kiai strike focused Samurai yo.
>Huge item list
Hope the players look for it instead of more +x stat boosts again.
>Great settings.
Kinda moot; you can use most systems to any setting unless there's some Really specific disparity between the system and the setting.

>Great Art
>laughingElfMeme.cpu
>easy math mechanics.
Easy Math is a Cantrip, and Sacred Geometry is a curse word.
>Fantasy Versitility
Yeah alright.
>Basics in an hour
I can't support this universally. Yeah, the basic dice, MAYBE but this whole mess takes several sessions to get the basics down for real and Years to actually master unless you've dipped Autistic Nerd for at least two levels.
Even then you've got at most 5 levels to figure out how to boost your int else your Charop Techniques will be capped out at like, 4th.
>You can do anything.
The question of "can you do it well" is important too, nevermind how crippling some of the penalties are for it, resulting in, "you can do it well inside of a 3-level/ECL window for the party average.

Not that user, just spotted and singled out something stupid.
Feel free to carry on like a smoke detector arguing with a car alarm.

I can't help but wonder if PF would have succeeded as well as it did if WotC hadn't completely fucked up and dropped the ball with nearly everything regarding 4e.

>The question of "can you do it well" is important too, nevermind how crippling some of the penalties are for it, resulting in, "you can do it well inside of a 3-level/ECL window for the party average.

I think part of that involves a lot of "You can do anything, but you really shouldn't". Best example are creatures with innate teleportation at will, which is useful for monsters but extremely powerful for PCs, and can basically undermine the entire game by trivializing a lot of what makes the game challenging (physical obstacles, positioning, escape not always guaranteed, etc.). Any monster with teleport-at-will basically has a prohibitive ECL that's already in excess of the already prohibitive ECL, making it a choice only in the sense that it's there, even if it's mechanically disastrous to take it.

Basically, it's "You can do anything!*"

*as long as you're playing some weird cock-eyed Frankenstein of a campaign and your DM is holding your hand to make sure everything doesn't catch fire

You need to work on your basic comprehension. A response continuing the thought of another doesn't require repeated clauses to please the pedantic, "it's good because it is popular" is the implied argument in the conversation.

You're the only one implying that that is the implied argument.

All the normies flocked to 5e, the literal only reason 3.PF even still exists is pure nostalgia.

>Pathfinder isn't bad

>so you have to look them up every time something happens
Not really. They're optional rules and just there for inspiration and to serve as guidelines. You don't have to find a rule if you'd rather just make a ruling yourself.
>which is going to have a lot of things a new player won't even get
And a lot of things they will.
>so a new player who plays a caster is overwhelmed
There's not that many level 0 and 1 spells.
> which makes it easy to make something terrible
Which is ultimately relative.
>that seem fun, but don't actually do much unless you have the system knowledge to make them work
That's not necessarily a bad thing.
>but no indication that encounters are built off the assumption that you have magical weapons and armor to match your level
Aside from all the stuff in the DMG about that.

>sub-systems for everything from resolving combat in a subjective-gravity plane to getting addicted to drugs
See, this is misleading at best, and part of the reason I moved on from pathfinder.
The game really only does one thing well, high fantasy dungeon crawling. There are rules and subsystems for other things sure, but they are quite clearly something stapled on top of a game never really meant for them. Take the recent intrigue book for instance. Have you ever tried playing a social focused character in the game? Despite what the book would lead you to believe, it's not really something you can do without heavy GM intervention. All the colorful options and flavors in the game, all the classes and archetypes and hundreds of class features and so on, they're all just so many different ways to fight monsters in a dungeon. Now I could stick around and try to make the best of it. I could try to jimmy the system and squeeze it into forms it wasn't meant for, or I could just pick up some other book that was meant for things like that.

your a tard.
why do you come to Veeky Forums if you don't want to argue about shit?
this is the yo momma of the internet, all posts are troll posts.

>Brag about how great the system depth is if you have system mastery
>Point out how a new player will be hindered by that depth due to a lack of mastery
>I-It's actually not that much depth...

So which is it? Is it a robust system with hundreds of options and rules for everything, or is it a simple system where a new player won't be overwhelmed with a mix of good and bad options with no easy way to discern them?

>The game really only does one thing well, high fantasy dungeon crawling.

Why keep trying with this same bullshit myth? You'd first have to somehow eliminate all the evidence that refutes you, ie. the better part of two decades of material.

> Despite what the book would lead you to believe, it's not really something you can do without heavy GM intervention.

The fuck? Why is it always idiots who come up with their own and entirely wrong interpretation of a book's message always so fervent in complaining about being mislead? If you did more reading, less bitching, you'd see the error falls in your interpretation of the "message".

Why are you so quick to misinterpret things just to set up strawmen? Is your goal to convince everyone that you are just flat out incapable of facing an argument head on?

>it's not really something you can do without heavy GM intervention
Like 99% of roleplaying period.

>It's impossible for something to be capable of fulfilling more than one aspect of gaming user!
>Impossible, I tell you!

> Is it a robust system with hundreds of options and rules for everything, or is it a simple system where a new player won't be overwhelmed

Man, how crazy would it be if the system was staggered with things like levels so as to not overwhelm new players while still providing depth.
You'd look like a moron if that was the case.

As opposed to taking each of my points and saying 'this isn't an actual problem', despite me just pointing out how everything OP boasted about wouldn't be good for a new player?

You say that all those sub-systems are optional and you can make something up instead, but the system doesn't encourage that in the rules. A new player is going to assume that if there's a table for something, they need to use that table.

If a new player only recognizes some of the monsters, then having a really vast monster manual isn't an advantage anymore. A lot of those are just going to be confusing clutter that a novice DM would scratch their head at while building encounters.

Right, not that many spells. There's at least 100 of them listed here: d20pfsrd.com/magic/spell-lists-and-domains/spell-lists-sorcerer-and-wizard/#TOC-1st-Level-Sorcerer-Wizard-Spells

And you expect a new player to pick through all of those and find what's actually good? And then if you assume they limit themselves to just core, you're removing one of the 'advantages' the OP listed

Yes, making a terrible character is relative, but I speak from experience when I say it can happen all too easily. Yeah, if all the noobs luck out and make something terrible, then they'll just be having a difficult time with encounter guidelines. If you end up with a grapple monk with no strength, a finnesse fighter, and a druid though, guess who gets a class feature that's better than the other two party members?

How is it not a bad thing when your system presents combat maneuvers and spells as fun tactical options, but a player who tries to build around them gets screwed over when they try to make a character based around Overrrun to knock people over, but doesn't take enough things they need to actually have it be reliable?

And a new player isn't going to be reading the DMG, so if the DM just dumps gold on them someone who decides to buy trinkets instead of weapons is out of luck.

>Trying this hard to reject the idea that Pathfinder isn't friendly to new players

Sad really.

>but the system doesn't encourage that in the rules

It says so explicitly.
The rest of your post is equally stupid.
You really need to be TRYING to be stupid in order to be so wrong, because otherwise all your arguments fall apart.

>And then if you assume they limit themselves to just core, you're removing one of the 'advantages' the OP listed

How does limiting what you're using eliminate the existence and advantage of more options and material? Quit trying to be stupid here.

>If a new player only recognizes some of the monsters, then having a really vast monster manual isn't an advantage anymore.

What? That makes zero sense. Half the fun of new monsters is being surprised and learning about them.

>And a new player isn't going to be reading the DMG, so if the DM just dumps gold on them someone who decides to buy trinkets instead of weapons is out of luck.

Why is the DM present when dumping gold, but absent when providing what can be purchased and also advising the players? Quit being stupid.

What the fuck is wrong with you? Are you literally just stupid?

The fact they took those out in the version of the game everyone considers definitive.

It provides clear rules and a strong starting foundation that works better than most rule-lite systems for introducing roleplaying systems because it gives obvious guidelines and direction. It's not the best, but it's hardly "unfriendly", especially when you look at stuff like adventures designed specifically for new players.

Blame hip-hating SJWs.

OP, people still play the older editions too. D&D 3.5 isn't good, (it's also not terrible, despite having some major flaws, I had a lot of fun with it) it's just well-entrenched and there's a lot of stuff to use, so it's going to take the truly devoted fan a long time to fully grow tired of its material.

>getting wrecked so hard you need to take a step back to avoid the direct refutation you just suffered

Sad, really.

>Like 99% of roleplaying period.
This might surprise you but no. There are games that are built around making things easy to actually do. Shocking I know.

Those other companies don't have the money to shill.

I honestly suspect it was just part of an attempt to unify the artistic direction of the core. DiTerlizzi's and Elmore's artstyles look like something out of a different era, because they are.

This desu. PF rulebooks and supplements are abominably written and create a plethora of inconsistencies that make it a chore to process even for me - and I lived through 5 years of law schools.