How would you "fix" Pathfinder? What are the problems you would tackle?

Fantasy Craft or Legend (Rule of Cool)
The system is so rotten to the core that nothing short of a complete rewrite would work.

13th Age could work, too.

I think it's bizarre that originally Paizo said they didn't feel the need to have lots of base classes or prestige classes because they intended to use the Archetype system to make interesting choices and options. Then they said they didn't want the massive bloat of 3.5, except that they wanted to keep doing Adventure Paths.

And then did none of that.

Seconding fantasy craft.

This is relatively minor but I remember way back around Pathfinder's release that they didn't wanna get lovecraftian stuff involved. And sure enough they fuckin' stat out Cthulhu

Never trust Paizo

Nah, 13th Age isn't great either. Though its problems are thankfully mostly confined to class design.

I always hated the concept of the "magic item economy." It felt video gamey as hell, and I love that 5e was built around magic items being optional.

This. Paizo's team are some of the most arrogant, egotistical people in tabletop RPG development. It's like there's a company-wide policy that nobody is allowed to ever admit that they made mistakes. Have you seen how they react to caster supremacy complaints?
>it doesn't exist
>okay, it exists, but it's not a problem
>maybe it's a problem at your table, but it's not a problem at mine
>it's just upset jealous martial players
>banned
>reason: mod sass
>date ban will be lifted: never

I love how pathfinder was supposed to be "D&D 3.5, but better" and turned out to be worse. However, solution is playing 5e if you want to play d&d, or play something else. There is simply too much to work on (spell, feats, classes, skill system....)

I'm curious as to what issues you're seeing. I've been running it for several months now, my players are level 6, and it seems fine. It's not terribly unbalanced, everyone has something to contribute, and it's narrative focused class abilities let even simplistic classes like Ranger do well if they have a creative player.

its been done, its called Savage Worlds.
nuf drama.

I am not prepared to spend this much time house ruling a system, I'd rather look at spending my money on something else.

I used to lurk at Paizo's forums and their moderation style has led to an almost cult-like environment. It's very strange how loyal those people are to Pathfinder.

A bunch of people got mad at Starfinder for being different...when if anything it's biggest issue is being too similar to Pathfinder.

>There is simply too much to work on (spell, feats, classes, skill system....)
This. Pathfinder is too mired in legacy and tradition to be fixed with just a couple houserules. It would need to be torn down to its foundations and overhauled completely, to the point where it would be a completely different game. It's the RPG development equivalent of building a house in a swamp, then when that sinks, building another one in the same place in pretty much the same way, then watching that one sink, then going "Maybe if I build it on a raft" instead of NOT BUILDING A HOUSE IN A SWAMP IN THE FIRST FUCKING PLACE.

SPEEEELLS

Yes this . Contrary to the normal mantra: Wizard are fine, and by that I mean the class itself. Even the spell slot SYSTEM itself is (mostly) fine. What is NOT fine is the actual spells themselves, how they are written, what they allow you to do, and how cheaply they allow you to do it.

As already mentioned 5e is doing wonders with it.

A rest system for healing HP is also pretty good. Again, thanks 5e.

Personally I would also take out any class that doesn't have scaling abilities as well.... Which is specifically the fighter (barring a few archtypes).

What's different from the transition from 3.5ed, to 4ed, to 5ed? Isn't Pathfinder meant to be a very blatant 3.8?

I am a convinced 3tard but one can import a lot from 4th.
1) Scaling up. Feats and features should scale.
2) Weapon damage importance
3) MORE IMPORTANT: Modularity. Each class shhould have features, at least part of them, organized in slot to fills. Nice to build, easy to fix fuckups.

From ADnD, more difficult concentration and similar easier way to disrupt the casters. Perhaps better concept oh high level (fortresses and domains) for martials.

From BECMI, weapon mastery, maybe in a way that could be taken in base of the BAB or some shit. Additional effects from weapons without spending 7353745327 feats.

In general:
Spells need reworking. casting times and needed foci/reagents should be implemented. If a fighter has to change weapons to attack ranged, maybe the wizard should do the same, at least for the nastiest shit.
Some spell should be dangerous at least in some context or zone. Like safe and unsafe teleports (that need sort of circles and stones built in cities to work fine).

Go further on the anti-magic talents in the game. A fighter should ba able to parry spells at 16+

Skills should feel the class-nonclass division. PF crippled the rogue. If is not a class feature you can put tops half of the points per level.
Like a wiz has 10 acrobatics max at 20, a rogue 20. For higher skill points, implement weird shit tat is possible to pull of.

Magic items toned down in number. No feats, but skill related, and class related. So a wizard is better crafting wands, a warrior shields.|

Trim down the feats, and change some "side" feat in synergic effect that you get if you take 2 base feats (like CE or CR, say).

Pretty much. Pathfinder was like a collection of common houserules people used to try and make 3.5 a little better. I will say it was a LITTLE bit better than 3.5, but because the Paizo devs have an organizational imperative to huff their own farts, they not only made the same mistakes the 3e devs made, they also made several entirely new mistakes of their own. The Paizo devs also have an even worse understanding of math than the 3e devs.

No, is a 3.55.
I am fine with that but let's be honest.

>Personally I would also take out any class that doesn't have scaling abilities as well.... Which is specifically the fighter (barring a few archtypes).
I think that the fighter should get what the barbarian and rogue got.
Slots per level to fill with class talents.
Such talents would scale of course.

>even simplistic classes like Ranger do well if they have a creative player
That is precisely the issue. A creative player can do well with a Fighter in 3.PF, but that doesn't make it balanced.
Sure, 13th Age looks immaculately balanced compared to 3.PF, but everything short of FATAL does. Narrative abilities are just a cop-out for a lack of interesting mechanical ones, unless the mechanics themselves equal narrative and vice versa.

Mundane classes like Fighter and Rogue cap at level 6. You want to play at a higher level, you have to get some magical power source. You don't want to be a spellcaster, stay at level 6.

...

Have a look at higher level Sorcerer/Wizard spells and imagine the shit a creative -Wizard- player could pull.

Pathfinder is 3.5: The Squeakquel. 4e goes in an entirely different direction from 3.5/PF. 5e is a return to 3.5's style while taking some ideas from 4e.

A "fixed" Pathfinder would honestly look a lot like 5e. If anything it's probably better to just play 5e while importing anything you would want from Pathfinder.

In my opinion there are three primary offenders for 3.X's problems, each of which also exaggerate the primacy of spells and other 'tier' considerations.
Feat design and skills too often feel like a barrier rather than something empowering or character-defining. They take investment with minimal returns, and it feels almost as if they were designed for a different sort of game entirely where you want everything to feel hard-earned.
The Wealth-by-Level system is designed to act like a universal pillar of character advancement, but its assumptions don't really match up with the execution of class abilities.

Notably, Fantasy Craft and Legend address these issues and then some, as does True20, but it's also a pain in the but to get people to learn those systems.

Castles & Crusades

Not an argument

...

I am an advocate of the fact that creativity does a lot, but one should help the players as much as one can.

>Slots per level to fill with class talents.
>Such talents would scale of course.
Absolutely agree. The problem is they haven't.

A Fellow DM/Player has suggested once a upon a time to remove most non-magic classes and replace them with the vigilante class- slightly modified to not be so bruce wayne/bat man. The talents allow it to be a customization class that is basically a mix of everything you'd be replacing, and then adding a level of scaling and neat non-combative stuff.

I haven't the experience with the class, but after briefly reading it I don't think it sounds bad off the back.

So, wouldnt it make more sense for any pathfinder 2ed or wathever to be D&D 5ed with houserules and fixed of wathever problems appear?

You can go in may direction.
I can imagine the rogue going a bit supernatural and delve into being a shadowdancer, or even a PF ninja or spellthief.
But one should give the players the option to be "badass normal" in a way, like nondetection, incredible saves, avoidance and so on.
Same the fighters in need of martial skills adapted to a magical world.

In a lot of ways mechanics does equal narrative, especially in relevance to abilities like the Ranger's Terrain Mastery. The mechanics are "the player can make a feasible statement or action in a wilderness terrain (hornet's nest, loose rocks, etc) and gains a benefit. By doing so, they've affected the narrative. Loose rocks that the ranger drops with an arrow might mean difficult terrain there for everyone. It also works in reverse. When you pick your backgrounds, since they're skills as well as backstory. When you give the DM reason that X Background should give a bonus to a skill attempt, you're making a statement about the setting in some way, same with the One Unique Thing system.
I feel more like narrative abilities are just broad options for people who are comfortable with them, and to allow neat tricks and maneuvers without laying out pages and pages of rules of how to drink water (one of the big complaints about 3.PF. To continue with ranger, a ranger who never picks Terrain Mastery is still a competent archer or swordsman, by virtue of critting all day and getting a bunch of attacks.

Spells are pretty cut and dry as far as I can read (went back just now to try and see what you meant), the only one that jumped out was the Call the Blood sorcerer spell, and its open-ended effect is up to the GM and EXPLICITLY STATES that the benefit you get might (and could/should) mean problems later. Even your outright broke in damage spells like Meteor Swarm are only once per long rest, and 13th Age makes the GM the arbiter of when that is, not the players, by saying a long rest is stopping for a few days to heal and recuperate, not a camp in a dungeon's safe room or wilderness cave. Since players can't pick a spell more than once per long rest, and the bombs are all Dailies, they're only gonna come up once every four to six battles.

Well is a concept close to the generic classes in UA for 3.5. Is in the SRD IIRC.

>suggesting a hack of 3.5 that ultimately has just as many of its own problems
>one of them being its magic supplement still hasn’t been released after YEARS of development
Nah, stop fucking shilling Fantasy Crap. Nobody plays it, and nobody ever will because of how dead it is.

Spell from level 6 to 9 need to go, plain and simple
Or you give fighter/rogues and the like something equivalent, which let's be onest, is kinda retarded considering the power of level 9 spell

Pretty much. And it'd be kinda funny if that's the direction Paizo took with Pathfinder 2e. They would finally make a competent game.

But considering how a lot of their fans complained about Starfinder being too different, I'm not sure if we'll ever see a Pathfinder 2e, or at least one that's meaningfully much different from PF. PF lives off 3.5 faithfulness.

They scaled some numerical bonus in the current PF but the rest is a disaster.
Just imagine taking Vital Strike 3 times (yeah, I know even 1 time is meh).
Same with repeated class talents disconnected but needed to fill up.

Also I wish to add: there is shit that should be automatic for some class. A rogue should get shadowdancer stuff as options, as stated above, and stuff siimlar to the old Darkstalker feat.

>Spell from level 6 to 9 need to go, plain and simple
You can implement casting times, drawbacks and perils in base of the spell and environment.
If you want to remove 6-9 spells, there is a perfect game called 4th edition.
One should discuss how to make playable 3.PF

Yeah, Paizo's in a bad place. If they make anything too different, their flavor-aid drinking cult will flip their shit about it not literally just being a reprint of the Pathfinder Core Rulebook. Plus, their gigantic egos and company-wide policy of never admitting mistakes won't let them admit that a second edition of the game with tightened up and improved and overhauled rules is even a possibility.

OP here

So what I'm seeing most is feat taxes, martial/caster disparity, crafting rules being stupid and, some choices you have to make to be viable.

Is there anything else people would consider bad that needs a rework or overhaul?

Bloat I guess. The use of talents for everybody should remove archetypes.
You should not have more than 5-6 archetypes for class. You cannot have a fighter that is ONLY dedicated to TH.
Maybe an exception for Cavalier and Wizard because of schools/etc

With an increase in choice would archetypes even be needed? What middle ground would be needed to make the archetype different enough to not be talents but close enough to not be a different class

it is not real Pathfinder if you just drastically change everything

Third-party classes only, probably limit feat choices.

See, this is the problem with these closed systems, i.e. classes in DnD and the like.
13th Age defines its 'buttons' in a very dry, mechanics-only manner, in the vein of 4e.

Now, you have a dilemma. Classes are supposed to be balanced, but you can't balance 'buttons' applied semantically, out-of-combat. At the same time, you can't force the players use those 'buttons' only in-combat, that just kills all the fun.

The 'martials vs. casters' problem, the most egregious example of poor balance stems from the fact that martials are conceptually weaker than casters, and that disparity shows its ugly face every time when you apply semantics to 'press a button' out-of-combat.

At least, that is assuming the more traditional understanding of what a martial is: the honest sword-wielding guy type. Sure, you can overbuff them with magical swords or divine blood (Heracles, looking at you), but that kind of defeats the archetype, isn't it?

I'd suggest not sweating it. Have fun.

I guess you could get rid of all the contrarian hipsters who can only talk about how bad a system is on Veeky Forums when they don't even play tabletop.

Keep in mind that caster supremacy isn't just the difference in dealing damage, it's about utility.

In Pathfinder, there are hundreds of spells that are as good as and often better than class features, and can render an entire class obsolete. Why bring a rogue trained in stealth and disarm device when you can just bring along a wizard with Invisibility and Knock prepared, which by the way do not require any sort of check or roll? The wizard would probably be more helpful in combat than the rogue, too, since those are just two spells and they can have a asdfgillion more prepared in addition to those.

The point is, non-casters need useful things to do outside of combat, and those things need to not be invalidated by spell selection -- also keep in mind that clerics, druids, wizards, and probably a few other types of casters can swap out their spells when they rest. Wizards may be limited to their spellbooks, but it still means they have an incredible amount of versatility that changes day-by-day (sometimes in only a few minutes with the right feats).

That's what I said in an earlier post: Pathfinder needs such a thorough overhaul that you might as well just build a new game from scratch.

You can keep the base and remodel the house, you shouldn't have to live in a cardboard box because its your cardboard box

Pathfinder was born out of keeping the status quo
People LIKE Pathfinder the way it is, warts and all

Just because people like something with inherent problems, doesn't mean that it shouldn't be improved.

Although mate, I'd just rather play 5e at this point. It's just a better game.

I play PF, I promise you I don't like the warts

I think a bit yes.
For casters, to don't have a caster than knows it all. All wizards, say, barring specialization, can take finger of death, but only Necromancers, Bone Shamans and Death Clerics have a fuck you 9 level spell (just as an example, no need to nitpick).
For melees, is the same. Imagine the fighter.
You could have an archetype that is low/no armor and has shit like the fighter in DotU in 3.5, mobility shit, and even crazier stuff like the iaijustu Master in Oadv 3.5 for "stats to X" to compensate.
Then you have another archetype that is full armor and heavy shit, and has a defense stance like the Defender PrC. You can give them nice things because the defender is not going to abuse any "stat to X" class talent.
Both will have shield feats if they want, but only the defender will make use of the Tower.

This is bullshit. I am a committer 3tard and I see al the things i would change to make life easier to everyone.

My response to that is, what value is there in having it be 'real' Pathfinder for the sake if it being 'real' Pathfinder?

You can even have some overlap.
Like both monk (most at least) and rogues get evasion.
Or situational overlap. Both Rogue and Ranger get HipS, but one in terrain the other in shadow.
Not necessarily symmetrical. The barbarian and the Rogue both have access to full Uncanny Dodge, the Fighter can get it (vs flanking) only while TWF and only the, say, Gladiator archetype.

So? People can discuss it.
Maybe you are not interested in homebrew, others are.
Thank you for being the most useless piece of shit in these boards.

Why is the solution to martial/caster disparity always to gimp casters or make their abilities randomly explode on them, rather than make martials not suck? Is it because you don't want anything "too anime"? Maybe that's where the problem is, it's that people reject things that make martials not suck because their idea is what martials should be sucks.

Were you around when Tome of Battle: The Book of Nine Swords came out? Hoo boy, the anti-weebs kneejerked so hard they broke their computer desks. The very idea of a "mundane martial" is a fucking disease that needs to be purged from tabletop.

It itself

What if at 1st level there was choices for the wizard that focused them into classes like they are now but at 20th level they got a specific 9th level spell but only get the 1? So a universal wizard would get wish while a blaster wizard would get meteor swarm while a summoner would get summon monster 9 etc.?

I would do both honestly.
And not in an hardcore manner. I elaborate.

I would not fuck up magic THAT much. Just some use for some spell. Teleport on the city? Fine, there are waystones.
Teleport for scry&fry? Is an ADnD teleport.
The rest, just situational. THERE, in the bog of Nurghn, you cannot use school X. But is a puzzle like encounter design, to not abuse.
It would be like a flying enemy for a tripper (adjusting for the fact, of course, that in the new system the tripping should need less resources to work).

For the martials, I think one will go after level 12-14 inevitably quite "anime". But since I think the best idea is a modular system, you leave to the people the option to take super jumps and similar shit, or just to take condition resistance/removal stuff and moar damage.
Besides, I advocate an improvement of action economy in general for melees at high level.
Also remember that people have different expectations. Maybe for someone super-jumps are bullshit but they are fine with blocking spells with a shield. Just give to the class slots, write all of this, and let people decide.

Maybe not so drastic, but yeah. Assuming everyone gets something viable.
Again, the slot-like system (already existant for spells) would make fixes easy to implement.

What are you going to remove?

Change more than remove.
In the thread there are many examples.

Changing is removing
You cannot change something without removing the old

And the problem with that is....?

Nobody wants to learn new rules

Scrap the entire thing. There's nothing worthwhile to be saved. This applies equally to the players.

If you don't want, does not mean is valid for everyone.
Depend from the rules. Maybe they are good enough to attract people, or change just what was perceived as non-essential.

If that were true Pathfinder wouldn't have any supplements.

Nobody uses those new systems

I wasn't paying attention to what people were saying online, but I loved book of nine swords. That people reject it and wonder why martials are so much weaker than casters explains a lot. It's like a person that wants to loose weight, but refuse to exercise and insist on eating a gallon of ice cream everyday; the circle of what can be done to fix martials is entirely within the circle of stuff they are unwilling to do.

This martial caster disparity shit is complete fault of GM for trying to make too fancy scenarios
No resting
Only tunnel dungeons
Only classic traps
Only classic monsters
There, no disparity

Yeah, is just a huge conspiracy mate.
5th edition too. All those manuals were bought by Mearls.

ToB can make martials more interesting for someone and helps immensely some aspect.
But if the fighter is 1, the warblade is 2 and the wizard is 10.
Say that ToB is a fix to that is ridiculous.

Or spells, or classes, or creatures? Past core? At all?

You can't fix it without losing the target audience.
The best "fix" is to make a new, unrelated game targeted at a completely different audience. Keep it small so the Pathfinder fans don't feel threatened by it.

This is unsubstantiated bullshit.
You are just a butthurt faggot with a (justifiable) axe to grind at paizo because it did not change the system enough.
For many PF was a nice new spin, but we were aware that not enough was done.
A well executed true improvement would have been gone a long way.

It's not a fix, but a step in the right direction. If that's too much for some people, then there's no helping them.

>we could discuss actual elements in order to at least help people homebrew
>no, better shit on the fanbase and transform the thread in a trainwreck

But many just want better scaled and generic feats, more skill points and a better action economy.
One can appreciate the intent but dislike the format. Is perfectly legitimate.

>Fighters, rangers, paladins, monks get 3/4ths BAB.
>wizards sorcerers rogues clerics get 1/2 BAB
>wizard stays at d4 hit die, commoner keeps d6 hit die
>redo feat taxes, stop making point blank shot the pre-req, have a long-range and short-range archery feat tree with interesting options
>remove ranger spellcasting, add it back as an archetype, give ranger sneak attack and a quarry feature
>full-attack as a standard action
>change the way reach and AoOs work so that ogres don't get 20 AoOs before you can hit them in melee
>DOUBLE the AC and attack penalties of large creatures.
>make Deadly Agility a core feat.

>that ogres don't get 20 AoOs
user, I...

You can't "fix" pathfinder because it's goal is not to be a good or even an improved system. It's goal is to be 3e.

If you tried to fix pathfinder, it would be less like 3e, and it would be worse at what it's trying to do.

Mainly because it's difficult to narratively justify a non-magic Fighter stopping time itself or bringing someone who's been dead for a hundred years back to life

Bloat. The game's almost 10 years old and it has an absolute shit ton of content that'd be a nightmare for new players to sort through.

If I were to do an organized Pathfinder fix, I'd take all the classes, and only present like 5 of the most interesting archetypes for each of them.

It's not even necessarily an issue of trap options. Stonelord Paladin isn't very good but it's cool as hell. But shit like "Druid, but they focus on X animal kinda" is just boring and reeks of padding.

You have an arbitrary idea of what 3.X is.
I would consider scaling feats and modified spells still 3.X.

I wouldn't. The way I see it, pathfinder keeps a certain type of person out of other games.

You can't, and even if you did you'd have lost all of PFs flighty, change fearing, autistic fan base

>REEEEE Muh shelf! Muh compatibility! REEEE!

5e is the edition that attracts Critical Role fans, not Pathfinder.