Pathfinder General /pfg/

Pathfinder has massive content bloat, so given any random character concept, there is probably a way to mechanically reflect what that concept could do in pathfinder, but there are rules systems for /everything/, so there are a lot of things to keep track of if you want to do anything.

5e is much less rules heavy, but has fairly restrictive character options, so any specific aspects of your character will likely be exclusive to roleplay, making your character mechanically dull by comparison

I have two that have children.

The first adopted his squire when he lost his arm, and taught her his sword style. He only did it so she could protect herself, but then she went on to become an adventurer as well. He followed her secretly for months until he finally threw himself in front of her to save her from an Orc spear. After that he was too wounded to carry on, but he gave her his armor to show that he accepted her decision.

The other had two children, and taught them both to hunt and track, but they never became adventurers. He died far from home, without getting to see them grow up.

He might, if he ever has them. Mostly, he adventures so that he can give potential children something better than he has to offer right now.

I'd go with her. I'd go with her so hard.

I don't think that's inherently a sue thing just a mediocre writer/trope thing.

>Why would/should I play Pathfinder over 5th Edition D&D?
If you're asking that question, you probably shouldn't.

I'd go with the bottom, but man do I wish that I could go with the top. Maybe I could help her to reach that point.

My attempts seem to go fairly well, but then, I don't really know what to use as a measuring stick. Attempts to seem cool usually get laughed at, attempts to seem sympathetic don't visibly hit home, and attempts to act naturally usually get overshadowed. I just try and act naturally, but I don't know if that's enough.

Bad writing is usually the cause of mary sue-dom, even if not all bad writers create mary sues. The point still stands.

Here's a good, but not necessarily flawless checklist

Loner?
Tragic Past?
Always wins?
Sits in the corner, away from everyone?
Vague revenge goal?
Is the best of the best, even though they're lvl1?

If three or more are checked, beware

5th edition is a boring, pared down system with barebones mechanics that serve only to facilitate cookie cutter characters. The skill system is a joke. Bounded accuracy is a garbage meme. It's a good system if you don't want to dive too deep, and that makes it ideal for playing with "normies", because you'll never have to explain much. It's stock car racing.

Pathfinder is a giant pile of garbage that you have to sift through, but if you do enough digging you can find something that works for what you want. The skeleton and basic mechanics are good enough that it's still enjoyable, but a lot of the details are fucked up and need some buffing out to make things smooth. It's like a bunch of hillbilly motorheads in the sticks racing wheeled abominations that, despite all logic saying they should just collapse, stay together and drift hard enough to make Initial D start spontaneously playing.

>Tragic Past?
Define tragic past, because I've seen people claim "anything bad happening to the character ever" as tragic.

We already had two threads up, you're a shit for making another. I dont care if you don't fucking like anime OP images, use the thread that was already up and had 100 posts.

Is the writer emotionally invested in the character?
If yes, then it will likely become a Mary Sue because most people are terrible writers.
Just accept it and run with it.

Always winning can be sort of done if you do it like a classical hero. They always win the battle, or defeat the bad guy, but they become humanized by failing somewhere personal. Maybe they can't actually prevent their daughter's death, or their loved one still rejects them, or something.

SHE STUBBED HER TOE ONCE, THE SUE!

I guess you're looking for someone who's past is defined by the tragedy that happened to them. It's the only thing about them you know.

...

We got a guy in our group that, without eve realizing it or trying to, creates ALWAYS a mary sue. Did this in 3 campaigns by now so i 'hope' to be able to give you some guidelines how to not create/play-like a mary sue.

1. Don´t make your char stronger than his actual level via backstory, you´re a level 1 fighter? Well, then you just learned how to use a sword without cutting yourself and probably have a bodycount from 0-1. Remember that cutting up even a little Goblin creates gallons of bloods and guts. Behave like that when you cut one for the first time. Don´t tell your GM "i try to behead him with my last strike". Don´t give away that "i´m awesome" vibe.
2. Don´t play a special snowflake. Chaotic good Drow? Fuck off. 3rd party white necromancer with a god-send mission? Sush.
3. Give him emotions. Even if you play an elf who is very distant, your char still feels stuff. Does it start to rain? Make him remember that he lost a friend in that rain.

And the most important point which i can´t stress enough.

5. Don´t force the party to see you as the fucking protagonist. Dramatic 10 minute monologue? No one will listen and find you annoying. You will feel when the group want´s you to be dramatic.

tl;dr: Don´t be a furry/goodly evil race/lvl-1 hero with a birthmark which you got because a god blessed you.

You're a giant faggot.
Actual thread. Use it until it hits bump limit, then come back to this thread if it's not gone.

Pretty well, depending. I've been in scenes that made people cry, which is probably the highlight of my roleplay experience. Other times, I've missed the mark with a character, and had to change the way they behave to fit what the party needs(quiet character becomes driving force of conversation because others aren't talking.) Overall, I think I do alright, but there's always something to work on. I need to improve my smug and condescending roleplay.

Fuck off, troll.

The only character I played with a child didn't know about his son. He knocked up a teenage farm girl when he was in his teens and young and dumb enough not to know how to take precautions, but his daddy was a traveling trader who he was helping with work, and they moved on out of town long before she found out.
Now his son's nearly 18, but the character is engaged to marry the love of his life hundreds of miles away. It would take a miracle for the boy to find his father.

You have shit taste. The only piece of advice worth a shit is 3 and 5.
>l-1 hero with a birthmark which you got because a god blessed you.
This full on describes one character class, multiple archetypes, and I'm pretty sure some traits.

Had an elf dude who's goal was to save his adopted half elf daughter. He actually saved her and retired from the group to continue to raise her while looking after and investing on the party's farmland.

He's still around teaching her his adventuring skills while also teaching her how to be a good farmer and landowner.

The only troll is the person who makes a new thread when we've already got one to use that has 100 posts in it.

For fucks sake I don't care how much foxposting animu OP's trigger you. One. Thread. At. A. Time. We've had generals banned before because people can't not be shitheels about sticking to *a* thread.

I choose pathfinder because more options, and the other anons have mentioned, but also, it's completely free. The SRD is pretty well taken care of.

d20pfsrd.com/

>implying getting /pfg/ banned isn't a noble and worthwhile goal

Ignore his stupid chart. He's just jealous of my vampire Kitsune Paladin/Necromancer who the BBEG is secretly in love with.

1 is actually decent advice. Level 1 characters being the land's greatest knight is fucking garbage. It's exaggerated in that you don't have to have JUST learned to use a sword, but you aren't the hottest shit with 5 titles to your name either. It makes no sense when you get BTFO by a CR 2 scrub after you killed an entire army before showing up in town.

5e has an equivalent website too, you know.

astranauta.github.io/5etools.html

Nah, dawg, the only troll is the asshole who spends his day bumping his shit threads because he gets his rocks off to forcing anime into the OP and then pretends to have the high road when the thread wrestles control of their messaging away from him. Get fucked, you literal pile of shit.

Yeah, I'll give him half of 1. It's just that.
>Don´t tell your GM "i try to behead him with my last strike". Don´t give away that "i´m awesome" vibe.
Seems so absotluely anti-ethical to a game like Pathfinder/modern D&D in general I wonder why the fuck he even plays it instead of a crying into blood, piss, and dirt simulator like Song of Swords and OSR shit.

I´m okay with having a shit taste than i guess.
1. No human being gives a fuck about those story-driven traits since they heavily influence your free writing.
2. Those classes and archetypes actually always got a fluff description why they are not aweseome chad. Oracles for example lose their vision to see more after like, 8 levels or are in constant immense pain because their arms are constantly charred so they can cast free fire spells from them.
You don´t get the point, It´s about not "being awesome just because you´re awesome".

1) The OP image doesn't affect the content of the thread at all, aside from triggering autists
2) Making duplicate threads is by any account a complete shit thing to do
3) I didn't even make the thread
4) Your 'protesting' does nothing aside from piss people off
5) You're a faggot.

Well shit me sideways.
Here I was thinking 5esrd.com/ was the only attempt at that, and it had been largely abandoned halfway through core.

Thanks for showing me that.

Shame 5e's design philosophy means it's probably never going to have more options than PF.

Because it´s a RP about harsh medieval times where you can get nommed by pretty much everything no matter where you are, your Guildleader could be a friggin Medusa or Blue Dragon in disguise. Not Skyrim-on-Paper 3.5.

>ose classes and archetypes actually always got a fluff description why they are not aweseome chad
Please explain to me where Chosen One Paladins, Imperious Bloodline Sorcerers have shit like that.
>because their arms are constantly charred so they can cast free fire spells from them.
Sounds like edgy mary sue bullshit to me. It's not even some kinda green conscript who spent all 20 years of his life fucking potatoes!

>No human being gives a fuck about those story-driven traits since they heavily influence your free writing.
Oi fuck you m8, those traits are pretty fucking rad. A free holy symbol you can't get stolen on top of another bonus? That shits great. You should start out as a scrub, but that doesn't mean scrubs never have anything cool that makes them want to look forward into the bright future.

I've seen tragic past work. I think it's how much you emphasize it, and how tragic it is. If it's within reason and it has affected the character, but doesn't DEFINE the character, it's fine. If it makes no sense(needles torture and wanton cruelty that serves only to make the character tragic) or it's all they'll talk about, that's a problem. Knew a character who's family died. He'd shoehorn it into every conversation, and never got over it. Knew a character who killed his wife and fell into a depression for a time. Only found out about it like, 8 sessions in while trying to console another party member by sharing our own tales of hardship. It's about more than "has tragedy" it's about how it affects character development, and how it's presented.

>Because it´s a RP about harsh medieval times
D&D/PF isn't fucking medieval at all. The earlier editions DEBATABLE were, but certainly not 3.X

Options are fucking cancer. Why are there dozens of ways to hit people with swords in a system designed to penalize sword-hitters?
Pathfinder's "options" are a god damn farce

That is a really good metaphor. You sir have a way with words.

Yet somehow, despite 90% of it being trash, it still has a million times more content than 5e

This even ignoring the blatant trash, there is still more meaningful content than 5e ever had or will hope to have.

I guess you overlooked the fuckton of dragons, castles, swords and kings then mate. You pretty much forget that P&P is about taking or creating a Setting and doing what you want with it, ergo making it fun and immersive for your group. They want Dragons and Wizardry, fucking give it to them. Even the paizo main-storyboard writers said "can people stop gobbling down the raw setting?" They retconned pretty much the first year of books. Example: Elfs of Golarion is pretty much 50% non-canon by now.

PoW isn't meaningful just because it strokes your autistic fucking Naruto-watching number-crunching dick.

B-but muh jutsu.

Good answer.

Ah yes, how could I ever forget those late medival period dragons that were in central and eastern Germania

It is. You can not like it for other reasons, but the choices that system provides are actually meaninful.

This also ignoring Legendary Vigilante Content, Psionic Content, and Spheres of Power. Even base pathfinder martials(Slayer, Brawler, Bloodrager, etc) provide more choices and variety than 5e.

Most fantasy settings are late medieval or outright renaissance but with no guns.

PoW at least varies up your turns to be less full attack or charge spam

Kineticist more accurately reflects nardo user. With the gathering energies and jutsu's and being drained by using too much magic.

>5E by virtue of being a newer system has significantly less material so it becomes harder to find crunch to precisely match the character you have in mind

Name five character concepts that can't be folded into a 5e PHB class or multiclass combination, and I'll belittle your taste in characters as a rebuttal

>I'm going to bring in something barely relevant because you said something I didn't like!

1pp Pathfinder alone still has a hundred times the interesting, useable content that 5e can or will have within the next decade. You throwing a fit because the system ALSO has tons of 3pp support is just whining that people like things you don't.

>dragons, castles, swords and kings
Those things don't automatically make things medieval and the rest of your post is pretty much just buzzwords and non-sequitur. 3.X settings as portrayed both by mechanics and what is written have a lot more in common with the mid to late early modern period

>he thinks Naruto is about ninjas
Nigga that shit is just wizards being wizards

Not that user, but how do we weigh the value of choices when we look at decisions like this? Are buffets the best kinds of restaurants because you can tailor your experience from loads of interesting options? Or are they the worst because they make you feel ill afterwards?

Man, this thread sucks.

Psion

Soulknife (Warlocks don't count unless you can show me the text where soulknives make pacts with demon lords to get their mind blades).

Alchemists

Spiritualist

Oracle.

Naruto isn't fucking about ninjas at all. The earlier chapters DEBATABLE were, but certainly not Shippuden

What is 5e's Mystic?

Oh sorry, i wasn´t aware that you need to delete fantasy in a medieval fantasy setting to have a real medieval setting. My bad.

Guns in Golarion are just enough to arm 5% of the population. 4% of those are ONLY in the mana wastes. So you got on 95% of the planet 1% of all guns. If you´re talking about those laser-rifle and bot/clockwerk stuff. You know that you don´t have to use it ever if you don´t want to. That´s what i meant by stop eating the raw setting.

The reason paizo made so much content and not 20 lands with the same setting but 1 land with medieval stuff, 1 with lazerrifles, 1 with pharaos, 1 with vikings, 1 with russian mythology etc etc etc, is so you can choose what the hell you want to play in.

>Or are they the worst because they make you feel ill afterwards?
I don't feel ill afterwards. I personally would rather enjoy a mediocre meal of stuff I love than a well done meal of stuff I dislike/am incredibly ambivalent towards. It ultimately comes down to what you value.

That's almost a decent analogy. You could look at something like 5E as being a family style restaurant, where you get something simple and easy to make, but that can still satisfy if you've never been to or had an interest in gourmet cuisine.

Pathfinder is like a buffet, where you can load your plate with whatever you like, but some of it isn't as good because how could it be? They have to present all these choices so they don't have time to make sure they're all high standard. But some people don't mind loading up on rolls and mashed potatoes because they're staples and they get the job done.

user was clever. They picked classes that Wizards admitted they were missing by putting them in UAs; the Mystic and Artificer do cover all of those (except oracle, which was a joke suggestion and a background at best,) but Mystic and Artificer expressly are not core 5e

Mounted knight, with a mount that doesn't get slaughtered at higher levels.

What did he mean by this?

Fuck off, Kawase

What do you think they meant?

Guns is not what defines a renaissance setting. Renaissance settings feature bigger cities, stronger kings, standing armies etc. Guns is an element of the renaissance but not the only nor the most important one.

Not a PHB class. And honestly a lot less fun and well designed than what the Psion/Psionics as a whole was
That's not being clever that's literally doing as asked. But okay, we can go deeper.
>Aegis
>Summoner(with Eiodolan)
>Monster Cowboy
>Ungermaw
>Savage Technologist Barbarian
>Techslinger Gunslinger
>Corpse Puppeteer Kineticist
>Symbiotic Slayer Vigilante

I just wanna play a cute game with my bread and potato friends...

..."Hey guise look imma gurl lookit mah boobs"?

Those are all atrocious and you know it

>get told
>well they're bad!
Enjoy your Lord of the Rings rip off game, because that's all 5e can handle adequately. Luckily it handles it well.

I secretly wrote a campaign where you take an Elf child from one side of the world to another to meet her family, and for the most part it revolves around protecting her and nurturing her, and when you get to the end she wants to stay with you and cries if you don't let her and uses all the adventuring skill she learned by watching you to escape her home, track you, rejoin the group, and ask you to be her family. It's in a lockbox and nobody will ever read it but it made me feel good to make

How the fuck can either of those classes emulate a spiritualist.

>spiritualist
>even remotely a valuable or worthwhile concept
Holy shit nigga what? Make your case, because I ain't seeing it

Marry me user

I've never played a game that even came close to the Lord of the Rings and now that I think about it, it really upsets me.

I'm not because at this point we'er getting into what we think makes good fantasy witch is purely opinion based. And it's not like your going to be open to anything I say in the first place, so why fucking bother?

5e does not let me emulate concepts and shit I care about beyond super basic bitch martial types. That may not be the case for you, if so, good.

>he doesn't know what that shirt is
Newfags need to go

>Vigilante, in the actual "dual identity" sense and totally ignoring the radical amount of modularity of the class
>Occultist, mechanically
>Unchained Monk, in the "I am not just a shitty fighter with a 3/day stun" sense
>Iron Caster Fighter
>Do I seriously have to pick only five, because Alchemist has at least a dozen ways to build it factoring archetypes that are all perfectly functional

>elf
It's shit right off the bat. The rest is shit too, the concept was damned from the beginning.

Fuck you, that story sounds great

>>Vigilante, in the actual "dual identity" sense and totally ignoring the radical amount of modularity of the class
To be fair, fluff wise Vigilante is something EVERYONE with a disguise check should be able to do if so inclined. Let's be real.
>Occultist
Fluff wise too strictly speaking.
>uncahined monk
Base 5e monk.
>Iron Caster Fighter
We both know that isn't really a concept, just an esoteric build.

I agree with you overall though.

Why are you listing classes instead of character concepts?