Pathfinder is pretty cool
I’ve been looking over the Pathfinder beta info lately since I may be running a campaign for my group starting next month. I must admit that I’m impressed by it. I love D&D 3.5 and have the rules pretty much memorized. I knew that Pathfinder was based on 3.5 but changes had been made. I didn’t know what to expect but, after doing some research, I found the following changes (in no particular order):
- DMs can choose how fast to advance the PCs based upon three “XP tracks.” I’m not sure if that’s good or bad; just kind of meh. To me, it’s always been up to the DM as far as telling the players when they go up a level. The only reason it was necessary to really keep track of XP in 3.5 was because players sometimes had to spend XP for spells. Since Pathfinder no longer does that, I see no reason keep track of it. I guess it’s for players who must know exactly how much XP their character has.
- Attributes start at 10 for point buy instead of 8. This I like. I always thought PCs should be above average compared to NPCs. Otherwise, why would they be adventuring?
- Some classes have lists of bonus languages to choose from. I like this, too. It makes sense, for example, that a druid could possibly learn Sylvan.
- Sneak attacks work against everything unless the creature has immunity. No arguments here. I’ve always thought that sneak attacks were more about “hitting the vital area,” i.e. the area that would do the most damage to the enemy, rather than “the area that will cause the enemy to bleed more.”
- You can only have as many ranks in a skill as total hit dice but, if you have ranks in it and it’s a class skill, you get a +3 bonus to a check with that skill. Dunno how I feel about this. On the one hand, it rewards characters who are more skillful types of their class but, on the other hand, I feel it may pigeonhole people into playing more “typical” rogues, clerics, etc, rather than branching out.
- If a prestige class calls for a certain number of ranks in a skill and the skill is a class skill, you can qualify if you have the number of ranks needed minus three. This just seems overly complicated to me.
- If a prestige class calls for a certain number of ranks in a skill and the skill is not a class skill, you can qualify if you have the double the number of ranks needed. This goes back to my fear of pigeonholing players. To me, this tells people that “you can only be a [insert prestige class] if you are also a [insert character class here], otherwise you’re SOL.”
- Armor for Small characters costs half as much as armor for a Medium character. Makes sense to me.
- No more auto-stabilization. This one could be bad. So now, if a character drops below 0, they get a total of one auto-stabilize check instead of one every round. Definitely makes a cleric more useful!
- No more turn undead. Now you channel positive energy. Love it! 30-foot radius burst of positive energy that damages undead and makes them frightened (successful Will by undead negates frighten and halves damage). It also heals every living creature, friend or foe, in the burst. This was definitely one of the cooler changes for me.
- Bull rush, disarm, grapple, overrun, sunder, and trip are now combined into one thing: Combat Maneuvers. Seems cool but I’m not sure about the actual application. You roll a d20 and add your CMB (Combat Maneuver Bonus) against a DC of 15+the enemy’s CMB. I realize that, as you get better, you’ll be able to succeed more often, but I wonder, with such a high DC, if that’s going to dissuade lower level PCs from even trying grapples or bull rushes, etc.
That’s all I’ve found so far. If I’ve missed anything, please let me know. As it stands, I’m really looking forward to playing Pathfinder. 
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ZXenos April 13th, 2009 at 3:26 AM
I’ve been using the PFRPG Beta rules since about the time they came out, and I agree that they are, indeed, full of interesting and fun changes.
On the skill points, however; As Bonemaster said, one point is one rank [i]regardless[/i]. That means cross-class skills are slightly more effective and it’s pretty simple to keep an idea of where your ranks have gone. Of course, you sacrifice some granularity in your skill selection – You can’t just divert a couple of your starting points to Profession (Fishmonger) for RP purposes. I only have limited DMing experience, but my players seem to pick about the same things regardless of which system is used.
The Prestige thing is part of Paizo bending over backwards to keep the system backwards compatible, so to speak. The SP values turn out the same (Let’s say someone wants to enter a Prestige Class that requires 4 ranks of some skill or another; That’s 4 SP in a class skill or 8 SP in a cross class skill (!) in 3.5e, and 1 SP in a class skill or 2 SP in a cross-class skill in Pathfinder.) The fact that, when multi-classing, any skill you put points into that is a class skill becomes [i]always[/i] a class skill can also help there.
Ultimately, you can just stick with 3.5e’s skill system; It’s really a throw-up between having to worry about math with cross-class skills and such or having to worry about prestige class qualification.
The system also has lots of other fun changes, such as the Sorcerer Bloodlines / revamped Wizard Schools and Cleric Domains (though they’re all similar now), the fact that now one gains feats every other level (meaning the Fighter now gets either a feat or a bonus feat [i]at every level[/i]), and various other goodies scattered about here and there. I hope you have as much fun with the system as I’ve been having!