Alright Veeky Forums

To be honest, I don't really know enough about roleplaying systems to tell which rules I like more. The only thing I can really glean from all the shit I've seen on Veeky Forums is that there's a lot of people that really hate Pathfinder and Pazio.

5e is shit but pathfider is more shit. Run 5e, but don't get used to it.

As soon as you feel comfortable with tabletop rpgs, dump 5e like a sack of hot shit and move on to something better.

Like what?

Magical child as an official archetype is a big example. You can't even pretend it's anything epse when
>the transformation is quite a spectacle, involving loud sounds or music, brilliant colorful energies, and swift motions
is official material.
Also how a lot of eastern versions of weapons or armor just happens to be superior than their counterparts because reasons.

Pathfinder is about as weaboo as you can go without playing definetely weaboo games.

>Even Pathfinder general is telling people to avoid the system

Loving
Every
Laugh

That depends entirely on how your tastes develop. You may find that you prefer games with fewer rules (FATE, Dungeon World) , or you may find that you quite enjoy the mechanical aspects of RPGs (Mutants and Mastermind, Shadowrun).

Some good transitional RPGs are (New) World of Darkness and Fantasy Craft. Also Dark Heresy/Rogue Trader/Black Crusade/etc, if you have any interest in the 40K setting.

People don't like pathfinder because pathfinder is based on DnD 3e, and people REALLY hate DnD 3e.
Personally, I quite like 3e, but even I'll admit that it's a bad game and/or single handedly ruined tabletop gaming for a generation.

More importantly, there's a LOT of learning that you need to do upfront with Pathfinder. I would not recommend it for a new group, especially if you're fairly new to it as a player/GM.
For the simple fact that there's a shitload more content to sift through for Pathfinder and within that are plenty of trap options.

If you want a big disparity in player experience between class choice and wasted feats and whatever imbalance results from what your group tries to build, then go for PF.

If you want a game that's fairly simple to learn, doesn't give you a ton of room to make a completely subpar character, and has fewer variables for you to juggle as the GM, play 5e.

I actually like Pathfinder, but it's only good if the WHOLE GROUP knows what's what in the system and has a good deal of familiarity with it. For example. If you were new to PF as a GM and your players were veterans, you'd likely find that the encounters you cook up would be quickly trivialized. The other way around, you'd at least pity your players for every choice they made, or worse tried to micromanage everything they do to be "good"

I would recommend starting with 5e, but trying to play/pick up pathfinder on the side if it is interesting to you.

look just because pathfinder faggots like that garbage doesn't mean weeaboos do

"everything is shit play my niche garbage instead"

fucking /v/ mindset needs to leave

I agree with you, but that still doesn't mean that pathfinder isn't shit. It's shit I enjoy, mind you, but I still wouldn't recommend it to someone green as grass.

5e is pretty straightforward, and the basic rules can be found on WotC's website for free and are more than adequate to run a one-shot or 2-3 session long mini-campaign to get players introduced to the idea of playing TTRPGs

From my understanding of it is that pathfinder has lot more "..add this plus that times that modifier and the plus tow from that feat and add this.." versus 5e where a lot of stuff boils down to advantage and disadvantage. Just be sure to make up a cheat sheet for the mechanical aspects of status effects, and making sure everyone knows what to add to what rolls. Do that (And have some jot notes on the plot/NPCs) and you'll be golden.

Whichever option you choose, I hope you and your players have a bit of fun with it.

Play 5e, it's better than PF and 3.5

5e is easy to pick up and relatively balanced. It's hard to fuck up your character unless you start dipping into multiclassing, which is discouraged to begin with.

Pathfinder is a bloated mess of a broken, dated system. But it has a whole lot more options. Not necessarily a good thing. There's a lot more room for mistakes, "trap options" for leveling up perks and so forth.

Like pretty much everyone has suggested, go with 5e.

>believing Monte Cook and his Ivory Tower bullshit
Literally "I was just pretending to be retarded," the argument.

The best advice though is "Run neither of them"
This is from someone who plays both, PF is a massive clusterfuck of clashing, unbalanced shit. 5e is more balanced but is also boring and uninspired. The entire D20 system is flawed and the only reason you should ever play it is when you have no other options. Seeing as your group is new and therefor not stuck in the "Only play muh D&D" rut, stay free of this.
Play FFG or West Ends Star wars RPGs, Play old or new WoD (But not Chronicles of Darkness, it's shit) Play Mutants and Masterminds, play Shadowrun, play any of the hundreds of good OSR games, play Godlike / Wild Talents. Hell, play Exalted over PF / 3.5 / 5e.

You were misdirected.

How? PF sucks

You are new DM-ing. I say go for 5th edition (all the pdfs are here. Read the dm guide) Its easier to learn and take splayers by the hand. Start with the beginers box story. It limits the players. This is a good thing if you are starting. Thing is, if you start by letting your players choose anything they want, you will waste time by trying to balance the game and they will also waste time by askins too many questions. Jesus Christ the people on Veeky Forums are all so salty.... Baby steps. When you finish the story you can move to the real core book and use other resources. Your players will be either motivated or thined down, you will know their play style and can start asking other dms on advice on how to do X & Y. Pathfinder has more customization for clases (since it has been out for so long) and there are a LOT of campaign books, so maybe after you get some experience you can move to that. D&D has more starting races (they have some that are trademarked ) and some unique monsters (trademarked as well). They are both fun introductions to rpg. I say if you are gonna spend money, buy pathfinder because it has more bang for your buck. The starter brings a double sided mat, pre made characters for a demo, intro book for dm and characters, cut outs if you dont have miniatures and you can follow the story with a free online quest after the beginers box. (Everything can be found free on pdf online, but if you love what you play, try purchasing some of the products) I would tell you to go to reddit for more serious questions or maybe facebook role playing pages. Veeky Forums is just full of angry salty sad man babies who just spend their time waiting for threads like this so they can "show you" how "superior" they are by hating on popular stuff and telling you what is the "best shit out there". It makes their days worth living.

>>the transformation is quite a spectacle, involving loud sounds or music, brilliant colorful energies, and swift motions
Are transformations sequences exclusively a japanese concept.
>Also how a lot of eastern versions of weapons or armor just happens to be superior than their counterparts because reasons.
Armor yes, weapons no. Literally every eastern weapon in the game is weaker than it's western counterpart. But that comes down to fiddly +1's the devs probably didn't understand the full implications of altering.

for a new fellow I would recommend a game called "basic fantasy"or continue with 5e, While they're both not exactly "good games" they're pretty decent games and for a new guy like yourself probably great games to start the hobby with.

I would avoid 3e/3.5/Pathfinder, there really isn't much to enjoy with those systems
They're full of problems, modifier creep/bloating would be just a single example

That being said as far as mechanics go and as you get more experienced you may want something more interesting. I don't recommend making any changes until you complete a campaign/dungeon crawl but when you feel like moving onto or looking into a new system and want to stay within the swords and sorcery theme consider things like Riddle of Steel, Midnight, or Basic/Advanced/2e DnD just to name a few

This is bait.

Make no mistake, when it comes to useful info, Veeky Forums can be a mixed bag where sometimes you get diamonds and sometimes you get clumps of shit-smeared tiger pear cactus.

But, even though there is a fierce fandom rivalry between PF and 5e, there is a legitimate argument to play PF instead if you're completely new to DMing.

Pathfinder is "D&D 3.75", which means that it has a HUGE array of rules, systems, subsystems and sub-subsystems. It can very easily get confusing and overwhelming unless you stick to making very firm statements at the beginning - for example, PHB and DMG only, nothing else until and unless you've got the hang of running that.

Furthermore, as a 3.5 clone, Pathfinder repeats a lot of 3.5's mistakes, which means feats, skills and even whole races & classes can end up crippling you if you take the wrong choices for the wrong kind of campaign you're having.

5e has far fewer options in terms of races and classes. But it also has much, MUCH simpler mechanics and is far easier and more intuitive to grasp. It's not as balanced or even as fun as 4e, but it is incredibly simple to pick up as you go along with and can certainly convey that D&D feel, especially if you're willing to plunder past editions for setting lore & ideas.

Making a decision is ultimately up to you. Pick Pathfinder if you want options overload and aren't afraid of having to really learn a lot on the job. Pick D&D 5e if you want something that's simple to run, easy to pick up on, but doesn't really stray overmuch from the old-school D&D formulas.

>, there is a legitimate argument to play PF instead if you're completely new to DMing.

I'm thinking you meant to say 5e there instead of PF?

But anyway, OP, maybe those people just hate on PF, but this doesn't change the fact that they happen to be right. 5e is a lot better beginner game than PF, hate or no.

Yeah, got that screwed up, unfortunately.

I really don't understand the whole talk of crippled characters, power creep etc with pathfinder.

To me the most important part of role playing is options with character creation. I'd rather be overwhelmed than underwhelmed with choices. It seems pretty meta to me that everyone in this thread seems to talk about the game as if it was some kind of ARPG like Diablo or something. To me it's about sculpting a character out of a massive pallet of themes and motifs. The drama is what's important, to me. My player group feels the same way and the system has always worked well for us. It does take a good deal of reading and time to really get a feel for it, but at the same time you don't have to follow every last crunchy rule. There's so much room to rig any system to your liking, the provided rules are simply a guide line. I've never had a problem balancing encounters for my parties because I often don't go by the book on CR I'll custom tailor creatures to provide unique and difficult challenge more often than not and usually keep things on the more deadly side to keep everyone on their toes. No problems at all. All that matters in the end is if you and the party are having fun.

I've tried 5e and it definitely wasn't bad by any stretch but there were definitely many less options given to you. Still ended up making one of my favorite characters I've ever played in that campaign.

D20Pfsrd is free open source material on pathfinder if you didn't already know, you can look up all the rules there and compare the systems to see what you're more comfortable with.

If you have any particular questions I'll stick around in the thread.

>I've never had a problem balancing encounters for my parties because I often don't go by the book on CR
And this didn't immediately alert you that something is wrong with the CR system?

>The drama is what's important, to me.

Thankfully, you don't need 30 base classes and 10 million archetypes then.

Because there's nothing cool about rolling up a Monk because you want to play Jackie Chan and it's the obvious Jackie Chan class except they're shit at doing everything you'd expect Jackie Chan to do.

There's nothing cool about sword and board fucking you over if you use it above level 2 because the game isn't just biased against AC as a defense, but favors killing enemies to the point where a guy with a two hander killing an enemy in 1 or 2 rounds is going to be less endangered than the sword and board guy trying to grind an enemy down over 3.

I've never used any balance methods given by game rules, I always homebrew and test fights for balance beforehand. So that's pretty irrelevant to me.

I think those options can add to the sense of drama drastically if you write well for your players, the complexity of the classes allows you to express more of their 'spirit' than other rule sets imo. So I humbly disagree.

That could well be the case, I haven't had players interested in monks really, most of my settings kind of discourage it with their themes I guess, that being said, you can always homebrew and buff a class if you think it's lacking.

>I think those options can add to the sense of drama drastically if you write well for your players, the complexity of the classes allows you to express more of their 'spirit' than other rule sets imo. So I humbly disagree.

I think PF classes/archetypes are not mechanically complex and diverse enough for this to be true. The majority of them are "like this other class, BUT a bit like this other class as well" which means multiclassing and refluffing already covers the majority of the concepts. The ones that aren1t are easy enough to port.

In my opinion, people sticking to PF because it has "so much options!" are simply creatively barren, and need a book to tell them what they can come up with.

Alternatively, deep down they really like the optimization/character building puzzle, but often pretend they don't, because that's "rollplaying not roleplaying".

>Snobbery to the level of asking him to leave their thread.
>This combined with the whining weener who said they had to rename the thread Paizosomething General because the company had expanded into other stuff.
How long can it last, really?

Because when many of those options are really bad but a cool concept, you either need to minmax a lot as a player, in which case you do know a lot about the system, or the GM has to either help you through fiat abd deliberately creating many situations to help you shine without risking someone doing your thing better(but some players don't need it since their characters work just fine) or just homebrew content to help things work, in which case, you are fixing the issue with crippled characters that you do know the system has.

I don't exactly have a grudge against pathfinder, but I do think it sucks and you should play 5e instead.

5e is best for people new to TTRPGs in general. It's the "beer and chips" fantasy game.

Pathfinder is if you want a TTRPG where making a good character is a side game unto itself. If they find they enjoy the minutia of figuring out how to exactly do some concept to the smallest detail, then PF might be up their alley. (also possibly spending an hour or two researching through all the options to find the perfect ones for what you're doing)

>everything is bait

cancer.

I'm not going to say that Pathfinder doesn't have any good sides, but it's extremely terrible for introducing new people to the hobby. Play literally anything but Pathfinder first, THEN move to Pathfinder when everyone is more experienced if you really want to.

>I think those options can add to the sense of drama drastically if you write well for your players, the complexity of the classes allows you to express more of their 'spirit' than other rule sets imo. So I humbly disagree.
Sorry, but that's just fucking retarded.

Bit of the irony with Pathfinder.

it's horrible to start off as a new player, but by the time you're experienced enough to move onto it, the flaws are blatantly obvious enough to not want to play it.

Pathfinder is really fun, I only stopped playing it once my players started going nuts over all sorts of power gamed characters that could do insane shit in every fight. If you're new and only have a few books it'll be fine and fun. You'll like it. If I have one real suggestion it would be to get a good idea to ask what the players want to do before you start the game and keep the game limited to a few books as opposed to the entire open source paizo network of crazy shit you can find online.

If you like character building it's pretty cool. Anyone can act and add quirks, goals and so on to your character but mechanically, PF is as good as it gets at making your character ideas unique mechanically while trying to actually make them not suck, instead of just rolling the same dice for a different narration of what your character does.

4e does it better while being balanced.

Pathfinder really fucking sucks, and is one of the worst "mainstream" systems to start a newbie off in. The only thing it can do, which is absurdly over-the-top high-flying fantasy adventure, is done infinitely better in other systems that weren't written to be the most obtuse clusterfuck to ever exist.

It's not snobbery. Telling people to get the fuck out and never touch pathfinder is the best advice /pfg/ can give people. I do not play it because I like the system, but because my group plays it and because I like my group.

>seems to talk about the game as if it was some kind of ARPG like Diablo or something

Aside from the game rules being tuned around the fighter having a furious flaming burst +2 longsword of dickslapping at level X and the rogue having some boots of cockmongling at level Y (even though the wizard did those jobs both better 5 levels ago)?

>just homebrew it!
That's not a point in favor of a system, you know? When core materials of the game need to be heavily homebrewed to make it work anywhere close to advertised?

Pathfinder is not beginner friendly. It involves compiling a bunch of +/-1 and +/-2 modifiers from many sources for doing basic to-hit rolls, and the character sheets are dense and ofetn difficult to parse, making for lots of new players staring at a sheet and going 'what do I roll to hit again?' The system is based on the ugly ivory tower/system mastery wank that was 3.5 D&D and the design philosophy carries through, which means your new players can be consigned to be far lesser or far better than their compatriots simply based on character class and to a lesser extent, build choices. On top of all of this, the whole reason it exists is so people who put in the momentous effort of learning 3.5 didn't have to try to put in that effort on another system, ignoring that 3.X D&D is an anomaly in system difficulty, and most other systems are not nearly as hard to pick up.

5e is dead simple, you can make a character quickly, and new players pick it up easily. You could also do microlite d6 or 13th Age or something, but 5e D&D is nice for being very uncomplicated while also having name brand recognition though.

Pathfinder is a very dense, slow and exacting game that asks you to memorize 400+ pages of rules and spend multiple hours per combat encounter (and the game revolves almost exclusively around combat encounters).

If that sounds ideal to you and your friends, by all means, start with Pathfinder. But you will develop a lot of bad habits out of necessity and be lumped into a truly shit community.

>Is this actually the route I should take
Probably, yes, because 5e is much more rookie-friendly.
>or am I being misdirected by people that have a grudge against Pathfinder?
This is also true, though. The Veeky Forums hivemind has perfected hating PF to the point of art.

>To me it's about sculpting a character out of a massive pallet of themes and motifs. The drama is what's important, to me
Can you understand how frustrating it can me to have a cool theme or motif and NOT be able to play it, because it is mechanically shit? I've wanted to make a cool drunken master type monk since 3.0 D&D. Under no edition of 3.PF is a drunken master mechanically sound. It can't mechanically do the thing it's supposed to do. Similarly, trying to play the hypercompetent or just implacable fighter is impossible to do in 3.PF because the wizard does literally everything you do better than you.

>There's so much room to rig any system to your liking, the provided rules are simply a guide line. I've never had a problem balancing encounters for my parties because I often don't go by the book on CR
Aside from the fact that if you have to mangle the system to get it to work in the first place, it's not a good system, think about the audience OP is asking for.

How much mastery of the system you have to possess to do those tweaks? For a new group? One largely learning from the books? How would they know where the pitfalls are? How would they know that CR is a broken system, or that a class is underpowered, other than to ask the ancient grogs on webforums or in the store? The problem is that the book and rules are what a new player or group is presented with, and they can and will take them at face value. They are not seasoned veterans able to make judgement calls and know what the party can and can't deal with.

It's not that 3.PF can't be run, it's that it's a broken shitty mess out of the box, and new players don't have the experience or tools to fix it, much less try to get it running smoothly.

>D20Pfsrd is free open source material
So is Legend, and it's a way, WAY better take on making 3.5 into a playable, fun system than Pathfinder.

What I annoys me every time I see this?
The fact that it completely misuses what Timmy cards are about.
It's not about bad cards to teach people, it's about having big exciting fancy shit because there are people who like that regardless of how good it is. It can be overcosted, undercosted, exactly perfectly costed and it doesn't matter, it just needs to make someone go WOW THAT'S COOL. And sometimes those cards end up being tournament staples anyways.
And that is what it has always meant.

Monte Cook just doesn't know what he's talking about.

Bad as it sounds, I;'m really glad he eventually left the 5e design team for whatever reason. Reading his articles about 5e, including his famous "I call it "Passive Perception"" thing, made me feel like he had some form of brain damage at times.

>Under no edition of 3.PF is a drunken master mechanically sound.
Beg pardon? What's stopping you from making a monk and fluffing that he drinks all the time?

>mechanically sound

>PF is as good as it gets
Gurps and Mutands & Masterminds do it much better

This is false

>Beg pardon? What's stopping you from making a monk and fluffing that he drinks all the time?
Drinking all the time is the natural state of monks, since they're useless in a party and have to drown their woes somehow.

But without sarcasm: Mechanically, monks are the shittiest class in the game, even more than fighters. They’re MAD as fuck, requiring way too many different stats to use all their various abilities.

Even if tricked out with high Str, Dex, Con, and Wis, they can't hit shit. Their primary ability, the Flurry of Blows, lowers their to-hit on an already shitty 3/4 BAB. If you want to fistfight you have no ability to use weapons, so you can't boost your to-hit via magic/masterwork bonuses either. Their damage scales, but at a rate that's hilariously uncompetitive with other classes. At level 12, a Monk's damage with his fists is an amazing 2d6! The same amount a Fighter can do just by picking up a greatsword at level 1.

On top of that, initiating Flurry is a full-round action. So no charging and using all your attacks. Oh, yeah, hope your opponent holds still on his turn, since you can’t make an attack AND use all that bonus movement you gain.

At 4th level, the Monk get to treat his fists like they're magic! Which means that when everyone else gets their first +1 weapons at L2, the Monk gets to sit around being a shit for two levels unable to punch shadows while the rogue and fighter can swing away.

Monk hands and feet are locked out of multiple classes of weapon upgrades; weapon materials, augment crystals, etc.

Monks get immunity to ordinary diseases at L5, two levels after the Paladin, and the Paladin is ALSO immune to supernatural diseases.

Monks are full BAB in Pathfinder as of a major rework. They're by no means OP, but they're playable.

At L7, when Clerics are handing out buckets of healing d8's, and the Paladin has had Lay on Hands for 5 levels now, THAT'S when the Monk gets his healing. It's shittier than Lay on Hands, and can't be shared with other people. What a steal!

Monk gets Slow Fall multiple times, a shitty ability that lets you treat a fall as less distance than it is if you happen to be next to a wall when you are falling. Feather Fall is a 1st level spell better in every way, affecting more people for a greater distance until you get to L20, where it's still better unless there's a 1201+ ft fall that also happens to be next to a wall.

Monks get to Dimension Door once a day at 8th level. Wizards can Dimension Door 1/day too – at 7th level, and more often after that.

Spell resistance would seem like the one good ability they get, except spell resistance doesn’t discriminate between friend and foe, and if you want to get healed you need to take a standard action to lower your SR and it stays down until your next turn. Just what you want from a mobile melee combatant – make yourself extra vulnerable to let an ally heal you.

At 15th level, a Monk can punch someone and kill them via Quivering Palm once a day. They don’t get more uses. Druids can cast Finger of Death 1/day from 100 feet away at the same level. Wizards do it two levels earlier at L13, and Sorcs can do it three times at L14. They all get more uses as they level. The save DC’s are similar, except the casters are SAD classes and only need to pump their casting stat and can take DC boosting feats, while Monks have to split focus between four stats and likely end up picking up non-spell focused feats.

At L17, a Monk gets an ability to talk to any intelligent creature. An amazing ability that Bard players have had from L3, Sorc and Wiz from L5 and Clerics from L7 via Tongues.

At L19 a Monk can go ethereal for up to 19 rounds a day, or just under two minutes. At L19, a Wizard or Sorc can go Ethereal for up to 57 or 76 minutes a day, and can take six other people with them.

And we haven’t even gotten into the Drunken Master PrC. The Monk is mechanically, definitively, shit. It’s always been shit, all the back to 3.0.

Pathfinder puts a couple of soft patches on it, with ki points and things, but it's still fundamentally built on the same shaky, shitty base, and has many of the same problems.

I dont know why this was so late in the thread
Dont fall into the DnD sinkhole its a waste and then your players go "but we already know DnD rules" because they think every system is as shit as them.
Theres a hundred and one systems out there. Remake the thread as "What system is the best for newbies and has swords and wizards and all that good shit" and it would be a lot more informative.

Are you purposely being obtuse, or have you not actually read what Monks do in pathfinder? Literally everything you just said is wrong.

d20pfsrd.com/classes/unchained-classes/monk-unchained/

>Their primary ability, the Flurry of Blows, lowers their to-hit on an already shitty 3/4 BAB. If you want to fistfight you have no ability to use weapons, so you can't boost your to-hit via magic/masterwork bonuses either.
None of this is true. Monks are full BAB, flurry doesn't lower your to-hit, and it can be used with Monk weapons (or an amulet of mighty fists)

No full attacks can be used without moving, even if you charge. They're not gonna be moving away from you because of attacks of opportunity.

With WBL, most characters get their magic items by about level 4 anyway.

Monk fists now count as adamitine/silver/whatever.

They DO get immunity to supernatural diseases. But, diseases don't matter anyway.

Monk healing can come as early as 4th level.

Everyone uses rings of featherfall; nobody actually casts it.

Abundant Step is a Ki Power now, so it can be used more than once per day. And, it can be used as a move action instead of a standard action, which is HUGE.

Diamond Soul spell resistance is a swift action

Quivering palm is a meme ability and is entirely skippable. It also happens to be a Ki Power, so it can be used more than once per day.

Tongue of the Sun and Moon is a meme ability, and doesn't matter.

Monks can go ethereal as early as level 4. It's also a Ki Ability now, by the way.

Drunken Master isn't a thing anymore (then again, neither or PRCs, really), but you can just fucking play a normal monk and fluff that you drink all the time.

5e is simpler, "more balanced" (there aren't as many tiers/distance between them) and has fewer years of system bloat to deal with. One, two books are all you need. Pathfinder is totally free, admittedly, with a searchable wiki- but literally 90% of it is self-harming garbage or just garbage garbage.

I'd suggest 5e over Pathfinder, but it's not like a bunch of newbs will be able discerning about game design. If you're certain you know pf much better and don't mind helping players with a more complicates system, go for it.

Unchained Monk is still mid-T4 due to remaining a MAD mess, though. With relatively more recent splats, even unarchetyped Fighter is a better class thanks to AWT and ironcasting.

Are there seriously fucking class tiers? Pathfinder really is fucking cancerous.

There were defined tiers in 3.5. What changed in Pathfinder doesn't even close them up at all.

The tier system is bullshit anyway. It only takes into account classes, and not actual builds that can be done with the classes. All it takes is a bit of know-how to make a Monk who can easily carry his weight and support the party with higher tier characters.

Tiers were something unofficial made by the 3.5 playerbase as a way of organizing the classes based on their power/potential.

Yes, 6 of them in fact:
T1-Campaign breaking a la a carte. All the 9th level prepared casters go here. Some spontaneous 9th level casters can also reach this level through specific builds or archetypes.
T2-Limited campaign breaking power. Spontaneous 9th level casters go here, plus Summoner and a couple archetypes of 6th level casters.
T3-All rounder competents, or strong in their best area but still not particularly impaired when out of it. 6th level casters, and a couple archetypes for the Paladin and Bloodrager go here.
T4. Great at one thing, severely less competent at the rest. Here go 4th level casters, Fighters when they get enough material, Rangers, Slayers, Unchained Rogue, Unchained Monk, Barbarian, Vigilante, Chained Monk and Rogue if they get some specific archetypes, and, most of the time, Kineticists.
5. Passable at their thing, but shit at the rest. The remaining martials go here, and some kineticist builds. The Adept NPC class also finds its home here.
6. NPC-tier class. Vow of Poverty Monk goes here, arguable Core-only monk as well does.

>and not actual builds that can be done with the classes.
Straight from the tier list thread.
>Also note that with enough optimization, it's generally possible to go up a tier in terms of tier descriptions, and if played poorly you can easily drop a few tiers, but this is a general averaging, assuming that everyone in the party is playing with roughly the same skill and optimization level.

>They're not gonna be moving away from you because of attacks of opportunity.
Yeah, because taking a single hit in a game where a Monk needs like 6+ to down an enemy and where enemies hit hard in fewer attacks than a PC does is incentive to stay right next to them.

The real reason unchained Monk is better is because they get pseudo-Pounce built into the class and they're still not better than a Zen Archer or Sohei.

Exactly. But what it fails to mention is that the higher the tier, the harder it is to play properly. In practice, wizards never achieve the game-breaking potential often attributed to them, even if played by someone who knows the system inside and out. It's very easy to drop a tier even by accident. Conversely, lower-tier classes often need only basic skill with the game to go up a tier in power, and can easily go up two.

In short, the tier system is only useful in optimization, theoretical character building, and other mental masturbation.

>Yeah, because taking a single hit in a game where a Monk needs like 6+ to down an enemy and where enemies hit hard in fewer attacks than a PC does is incentive to stay right next to them.
Nigger that's a free hit. On your next turn, run up to them and attack them. If they move away, that's ANNOTHER free hit.
By moving away from you, they're losing more damage than you are. Keep in mind that most monsters in DnD are designed as glass canons instead of as tanks.

>On your next turn, run up to them and attack them.
Yeah, because this isn't blatantly inferior to being able to full attack or anything.
>glass canons instead of as tanks
docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1E2-s8weiulPoBQjdI05LBzOUToyoZIdSsLKxHAvf8F8/

Nope, you're full of shit.

It's not blatantly inferior, it's equivalent. It's trading DPS for survivability, and rather efficiently at that.

>google doc
conveniently missing very useful information, like average attacks, average damage pre attack, resistances, DR, and a whole bunch of context on supernatural abilities and other statistics that makes combat more than just melee fighting.

ceci n'est pas un argument.

>it's equivalent
Retard detected, no wonder you think Monk is a good class.

Have you ever actually played high level martials, or does all your experience come from Giant in the Playground optimization threads?

Yup, and that's exactly why I know you're stupid. Chasing someone around to do one hit to them, maybe two if they don't have anti-AoO abilities/Tumble is blatantly inferior to full attacking them. Why the hell do you think Pounce, swift action movement, extremely useful standard action attacks, or being ranged are must-haves for a martial?

>Dungeon World

Ah, I see what the issue is. I think there's been a bit of an error in communication.

Allow me to elaborate. Chasing someone (successfully) is superior to full attacking... unless you're alone. In a one on one fight, more damage quicker is always appreciated.

But, as a martial (and a DnD player) you're not alone. You have a wizard and a gish backing you up, and they're responsible for bringing the enemy down while you keep them busy and maybe soften 'em up a bit.

This is, of course, assuming that it's not the other way around, with the wizard keeping the enemy busy and you being the one to finish the job. But, seeing as the enemy is still moving, I think its safe to say that the wizard doesn't know what he's doing and/or the martial is stuck with the heavy lifting in this case.

I don disagree with you funnily enough. Dungeon World is an abortion of a game with fans that should have been aborted. But, it was the only other rules lite RPG I could think of that's actually an RPG, and not a combat simulator like Savage Worlds.

>Chasing someone (successfully) is superior to full attacking...
No, no it is not. A full attack should be either killing them or leaving them very close to death. That is outright superior to doing next to nothing to limit an enemy's actions.

Again, who gives a shit about 2 low damage attacks a round from the class whose thing is volume of attacks to make up for their inferior per-hit damage when a Zen Archer or Sohei can arrow their ass to death with impunity or an unchained Monk could flying kick in and actually full attack them?

>This is false

It's true though. Hybrids alone replace the need for the 20 million archetypes, while fulfilling essentially the same function. Classes have more abilities to choose from to begin with, and you don't have to sacrifice advancement in your "main" class for a PrC or multiclass equivalent (PPs, HDs, multiclass feats). There's also a lot less trap options.

Character building in 4e is way better than in 3.PF, and the game is way more balanced. Even better, the characters are set up so that their abilities interact, so even if you feel like you "solved the puzzle", there's still the question of optimizing on a party level (an especially fun task for leader types).

The difference between optimizing a shitload in 3.PF and optimizing a shitload in 4E is that in 4E, optimizing classes I like(and ones I don't) doesn't fuck the game in the ass and leave the rest of the party in the dust. Sure, I can optimize a Warblade or PsyWar to the gills in 3.5 and not make the rest of the party wonder why they even came along, but that's not true for Druids.

>Again, who gives a shit about 2 low damage attacks a round from the class whose thing is volume of attacks to make up for their inferior per-hit damage when a Zen Archer or Sohei can arrow their ass to death with impunity or an unchained Monk could flying kick in and actually full attack them?
The casters and other human artillery who are very happy for the breathing room, wind-up time, and chip damage.

But they're not happy. That doesn't do shit to stop them from getting to the casters.

Also note that neither the charge, nor the AoO benefits from 3.PF monk's buff to flurry of blows, so they are made at 3/4th BAB.

So the higher level they go, the less accurate they will be.

Different fractional stat advancement is one of the more retarded parts of 3rd edition that they never bothered to fix overall (but credit where it's due, kudos to PF for fixing it with skills).

I have 1.5 gigabytes of RPG material and 12 years worth of experience that tells me otherwise, but whatever. I've already spent far too much of my life debating the virtues and flaws of 4e, so I'll concede the point.

I always considered this to be one of the hidden strengths/silver-linings about 3.X. Lots of suboptimal options are as fun and interesting as optimal ones, and the ability to optimize and understand the system only makes these options all the more enticing. Your system mastery ends up being directly proportional to the number of options available, since shitty options suddenly become playable and 'balanced.'
This is especially true if you're playing with less skilled players. Hell, one of the best campaigns I ever played was as a fairly optimized Binder that ended up fitting perfectly with a group of inexperienced players. I've also had similar experiences with optimized an Truenamer and an optimized Vow of Poverty Lycanthrope Monk.

>That doesn't do shit to stop them from getting to the casters
If they're moving every turn, the casters are in no danger. Like you said, all they have to worry about is one measly attack per turn.

Better hope the enemy isn't one of those with Pounce, SLAs, or does most of their damage in one or two hits.

If they have Pounce, have the casters group up so it can't get a charging bonus between them. Then you just need to move it and you can full attack it down, since it won'd be able to play AoT tag with you anymore.

If it deals most of its damage in a few hits, it's very rare, and is either low level or it's swallowing you whole. Sharp pointy things are a good solution to both of these problems :^)

If it has a lot of SLAs, chances are its something like a Pit Fiend or an Angel or a Dragon, and therefore has wings, in which case this whole thing is a moot point because pounce wouldn't be that useful either.

>If it deals most of its damage in a few hits, it's very rare,

There's quite a few on every level of play. Most "big dumb thing" stuff is this. See, Rhino, T-rex, etc.

This is why crane wing got nerfed.