My Review of Pathfinder RPG Alpha
My Review of Pathfinder RPG Alpha
Last week I grabbed a copy of the new Pathfinder RPG Alpha PDF.
The premise behind the Pathfinder RPG (as I understand it) is updating D&D SRD 3.5. That is, to create an “update” of D&D 3.5e which will incorporate improvements and fixes without becoming incompatible with D&D 3.5e.
As someone who would like to see some improvements and fixes in D&D 3.5e, who has invested heavily in the 3.5e core books as well as a 3.5e-based campaign world, and who has no intention of adopting D&D 4e within the calendar year 2008, I’m interested.
I’ve already shown my willingness to adapt D&D 3.5e to my own purposes, so my review of the Pathfinder RPG Alpha is from the viewpoint of someone looking for some nice, solid improvements to adopt. Preferably adopt in whole cloth (because that saves me typing). I’m not sure how useful this will be as a review, since a lot of it is going to be notes about what I liked and didn’t like, without a lot of details. If you want to know more about something I mention, you’ll need to get the free PDF from Paizo.
Chapter 1. Races
At first blush, I don’t have much use for this chapter. The Iron Kingdoms campaign has its own collection of player races.
The racial attribute adjustments in RPRG-a have a bit more “flavor” maybe. (Pet Peeve Note: I see gnomes are still saddled with that ridiculous favored class of bard.) Giving half-elfs and humans a choice of a +2 attribute bonus to an attribute they select is almost clever.
So, on second blush, I see nothing from this chapter that moves me. It just seems like a slightly different, very summarized re-hash of the same chapter in the PHB.
Chapter 2. Classes
This is a chapter I expect to pull ideas from.
First off, though, I’d like to say that I’ll just keep using the D&D 3.5e XP advancement chart. Providing alternative charts is a waste of space, guys.
On the positive side of the ledger, I think I like the increased frequency for receiving feats. And I’m developing a shine for the changes to the skill system (more on that in a bit).
The concepts of orisons and domain powers for clerics seems sound, pending further review. And I’m thinking that maybe any change to the cleric’s turning rules would be good. Even if turn/group heal approach means I have to make changes in my IK campaign world. (Pet Peeve Note: Clerics still don’t get the Ride skill as a class skill? Sheesh, people. Clerics wear heavy armor. You expect them to walk everywhere?)
Fighters getting a feat every level seems workable. I like the armor and weapon training abilities and their stacking bonuses to specialization choices. I’m not sure about armor mastery, though. Seems redundant. Weapon mastery, though, shows potential.
The rogue’s sneak attack is redefined away from “vital organs” to “weak points”, making it effective against a wider range of creatures. I like that, actually. Rogue’s hit die was bumped, which seems workable. The rogue talents look fun, especially the minor/major magic talents (though the number of spells known may need to be limited somehow). The master strike ability needs work.
Bumping the wizard’s hit die seems like a good idea. I like the arcane bond. It makes familiars useful–or lets a wizard have a staff in a way that matters. And, like the orisons for clerics, I like the idea of a wizard selecting a limited number of 0-level spells that they can cast at-will throughout the day. The school powers sound cool. I’ll have to ponder those, though.
PRPG-a changes the hit dice for classes so that they correspond with each class’s base attack bonus progression. Slow BAB classes have a d6, moderate BAB classes have a d8, and high BAB classes have a d10. But they let the barbarian class keep their d12, which I disagree with.
I’m disappointed the alpha document doesn’t cover sorcerers. That’s a class I think needs a lot of work.
Chapter 3. Skills
I still think that D&D 3.5e would be best served by dropping the whole concept of “class skills”. Skills are skills. Which is why I adopted that house rule a long time ago. And increased the number of skill points available to classes like fighter, wizard and sorcerer at the same time.
I won’t stop using my house rule in favor of PRPG-a, but I do like some of the concepts they present.
My favorite change is that of getting rid of “skill points” in favor skills that you either have or you don’t. No more messing with skill ranks. And your skill check is based on your character level.
That said, I think the presented skill check formula for a trained skill is retarded (I’m ignoring the cross class skill check formula, of course). The untrained skill check formula is fine. It’s exactly what I would do:
Untrained Skill Check = 1d20 + Ability modifier + Racial modifier
But including an arbitrary +3 bonus in trained skill checks, on top of the character’s level, is stupid. If you think DC’s are too high without that +3, here’s a thought: Reduce the DC. I recommend reducing them by 5. Make skills even easier to use and maybe player’s will use them.
Here’s the trained skill check I’d like to see:
Trained Skill Check = 1d20 + Character level + Ability modifier + Racial modifier
That creates a range of DC’s from 0 (nothing easier) to 30 (extremely challenging). Anything with a DC over 30 would be in the “epic” range.
Even if the listed DC’s aren’t changed to accommodate the lack of a +3 modifier, I’m not sure that creates a problem. Performing acrobatics in combat, for example, isn’t easy. With a DC of 15 for moving past an opponent without drawing an AOO, my preferred skill check means that lower level PC’s just won’t be doing that much–which is OK with me.
The changes to the skills themselves seem welcome. A bit of reorganizing, a bit of simplifying. I’m all for it.
Chapter 4. Feats
The combat feats section has some interesting changes. For example, Cleave requires only that your hit your first target. If you do, you get another attack at an adjacent target.
There are a lot of feat sequences, but since PC’s get more feats, that seems workable.
Chapter 5. Combat
The cover rules seem to add complexity. I hate adding complexity.
The combat maneuvers section seems to offer some nice simplifications of actions like bull rush and grapple. And most (maybe all) opposed rolls have been eliminated. Instead, you roll an attack and if you hit a DC of (15+opponents modifiers) you succeed.
Turning is described as a “wave of positive energy”. Undead take damage and suffer damage (and maybe run away) and allies within the radius of the cleric’s turning ability pick up a bit of healing. I think I like it. But maybe I think anything would be an improvement over the travesty that has been turning undead since D&D 3e.
Chapter 6. Spells and Magic
Arcane school powers grant spells that can be cast at will (1st spell level), an increasing number of times per day as you gain levels (2nd spell level) or once per day (3rd and up). Really, the powers are likes spells you don’t have to specifically prepare each day, leaving spell slots open.
Domain powers for clerics work much the same way.
Overall, I think both work pretty well. They take some of the pain and paperwork out of running those characters.
The list of spells were those standard spells that were affected by the changes in other rules, like the grappling rules. Nothing too earthshattering there.
Chapter 7. Running the Pathfinder RPG
The rules for how to build encounters seem more clear (less complicated) than the similar section of the DMG. I never paid attention to that section of the DMG before. Not sure I’ll start now. But there it is.
The explanation for calculating XP based on encounter CR was short. Thankfully. Sheesh.
The notes on conversion are handy, and help underscore that PRPG-a really is pretty close to D&D 3.5e. At least on paper.
The last chapter of the book is about the playtest. If you want to submit feedback, they tell you how to do it. I might. But I expect I’ll just “lift and carry” those parts I like of whatever results.
Conclusions
I’m very interested in the changes to the skill system, and I expect those would be the easiest to “lift and carry”. But I expect I’ll end up modifying the PRPG-a modifications some.
The changes to the classes (and feats and magic) interest me to a certain extent. But moving those changes into Iron Kingdoms wouldn’t be as simple as house-ruling the skills. Still, I’ll consider it.
Finally, the changes to how combat is run strike me as worth tinkering with. I might have to run a few experimental sessions with willing players.
There are new alpha and beta releases of PRPG-a on the way. As I get a chance to review them, I’ll post my thoughts.
-David
DavidRM said,
March 25, 2008 @ 8:21 pm
A thought that came to me today, as I pondered PRPG-a and my Perks & Disads house rule.
With PRPG-a’s increased Feat frequency, it might be worth expanding my house rule a bit to allow further exploitation of Hero within D&D. Something like swapping a feat for 10 Hero points which can be spent on powers. The active points would have to be limited, of course. I think a good limitation would be 5 active points per level of the feat swapped. With the option of spending points to improve a power picked up at a lower level.
Example: Frankie uses a 1st level feat to buy Teleportation 2″ at will (4 active points). That has a real cost of of only 4 points, so he spends the rest of his points on a perk or another power. At 2nd level he uses another feat, gets 10 more points. Now he can increase his Teleportation to have 10 active points, which gives him 5″ of Teleportation.
The idea of a 20th level PC having a 100 active points power, though, gives me pause. Maxing out at 50 active points might solve the problem, but it just seems so arbitrary. I’ll have to give it some more thought. If I do decide to go with something like this, I’d probably have to adjust my Perks & Disads house rule.
Yes, I know. I’m creating one bastard child of an RPG rule set.
-David
DavidRM said,
March 25, 2008 @ 11:22 pm
Thoughts from my reading tonight:
* I don’t mind keeping the skill points, skill ranks, and skill check of 3.5e (with my house rules still active, of course). It works, and it’s simple enough.
* I do want to consolidate skills as presented in PRPG-a. Listen + Spot = Perception, and so on.
* I like the idea of removing the max skill rank. Maybe set a maximum of 20 ranks in a skill for character levels 1-20. Epic characters (like that will ever happen) can have ranks as high as their character level.
Zac said,
March 26, 2008 @ 8:12 am
-I saw you mention teleportation above. Does that mean you’ll actually *allow* teleportation in your IK games?
Ya know, gimped Horizon Walker here…just askin’…
I do think this can get out of hand pretty darn fast. If you want to play Hero, play Hero. DnD bad guys are not designed to face PCs with the advantages you have been, are, and are considering introducing. The fear of defeat may slowly dwindle away and if a combo-system player ever has to go toe-to-toe with anything on a social or intrigue level, they’ve got a much bigger base of skills and abilities to draw from.
I think there are ways to accomplish what you are driving at but yet retain balance (HA!) and the DnD system in general. The first option would be to scale down the DnD-given abilities initially but increase the length of character life they have them. Since you mentioned it first, let’s go with Teleportation.
Horizon Walker Prestige Class gets Dimension Door once every 1d4+1 rounds (something like that) after 5 levels of progressing in that PrC. This is to mimic the Horizon Walker’s experience in traversing the multiverse and their newfound-knowledge of otherworldly travel. It’s basically a short-distance teleport. But what if you scaled it to level?
Say the Horizon Walker PrC is actually a close-knit group of travelers that hold their art secret, only initiating those that have promise. They teach them some beginning skills, say, Dimension Door once per day with a 15 ft. distance limitation. Gives the initiate something to practice with and sharpen the skill in using in and out of combat. As the initiate grows in level, the distance and frequency of use of the skill increases to approximate their learning curve in using this newly-taught ability.
In fact, you could use this with any ability, spell, etc. if you took the time to scale it over X levels. Name a Hero ability you feel DnD doesn’t have and i bet we can do it with a bit of scaling of a spell, spell-like ability, etc and make it work in the story of the character.
The second thing i think that can accomplish what you are driving at for expanse of abilities is to allow splats in your games. I know, i know, heresy, but the splats offer the group *options* and new abilities not in the IK books or SRD. Yes, the majority of splat books suck. I agree there. But if that is a true statement there are still benefits to at least looking at them. Spells, for instance (cue Garnoth’s theme music).
The spell choices can give you ideas on giving the players a “power” that is instead a spell-like ability both tying into their backstory and scaled for level to reach it’s wonderful full power at whatever level you want. You don’t have to include yet another book or set of rules, and players get to use 3.5 material instead of cross-pollination of systems. And the bad guys in DnD already have defenses in place to spell-like abilities so there’s no tweaking on that end required either.
Yer the GM for my gaming, so i’m stuck with whatever way you interpret the rules. But i think, like most things, that there is truly more than one way to skin a cat. And i hope my wife isn’t reading that last sentence there…..Zac
DavidRM said,
March 26, 2008 @ 1:57 pm
First…teleportation was a bad example. I just grabbed something simple. Oops.
Teleporting in IK is bad. BAD! Though, of course, the dark voice in your head whispers, it doesn’t *have* to be bad…for a price…
Second…odds are, after I ponder the bastard child a bit more, I doubt I’ll bother. I prefer simple, elegant changes for specific benefits over large scale changes that are hard to gauge properly in advance.
Which means that I will likely adopt few, if any, of the Pathfinder RPG changes. I’m not after a totally new system. I just want a slightly improved D&D 3.5e.
And I think most of those “slight improvements” will be the *removal* of rules, not the addition of new rules. Like my house rule making all skills “class skills”. [*]
-David
[*] Speaking of which: I read a lot of discussion about the skill system in the Pafthfinder RPG forums last night. Some people were suggesting the all-skills-are-class-skills change. At first there was resistance to the idea, but as people started understanding how much that very simple change streamlined the skill system, it was like watching a light come on.
FIREBALL FRIDAYS 4.18.08 « The Vomiting Dragon, said,
April 18, 2008 @ 1:58 pm
[...] review of the new Pathfinder RPG Alpha book that came out, on RM’s rpg [...]
RM’s RPG Blog » My Review of Pathfinder RPG Alpha (Updated for Alpha 2) said,
April 24, 2008 @ 10:05 pm
[...] under General My Review of Pathfinder RPG Alpha (Updated for Alpha 2) Last month I gave my review of the Pathfinder RPG Alpha. This week, Paizo released it’s 2nd update of the alpha. I [...]