The Trouble With Pathfinder

The best thing that has come out Dungeons & Dragons Third Edition has undoubtedly been Paizo. I say that they are the best RPG publisher in the business. I can back this up with their run on Dungeon and Dragon magazines, their modules, and their Adventure Paths. These guys are good. Would that they were using better tools to ply their trade, namely 3e. Paizo is now set to publish their version of those rules, Pathfinder.

The main purpose behind this game is to fix 3e’s grapple rule, and by all accounts, it hasn’t even succeed at that.

Okay, that was uncalled for and not true. Well, not entirely true. I stand by my statement, but the real reason is to keep the 3e rules in print.

Okay, that motive doesn’t really make any sense either. I know Paizo wanted to publish under the OGL/D20 SRD and have access to that material. I understand that they wanted nearly complete backward compatibility with their own published 3e adventures. But essentially any change they made was going to disrupt that and cork off a bunch of 3e grognards. Realistically, the entire audience for 3e already owns the core books. In order to make Pathfinder appealing to that group, they had to “fix” things and add new material, and convert their future adventures to the new system. The snake swallows its tail.

I applaud Paizo’s open design process for Pathfinder and candor about their publishing plans. I question the reality of it. To make the system backward compatible, player suggestions couldn’t really change anything. While open playtesting was incorporated into the design, little fundamentally changed with the rules as written.

I realize the finalized game hasn’t been released and that I’ve only read the Alphas and the Betas, without actually playing them. However, I doubt the game is going to change much when put in print, so I’ll comment on the showstoppers.

First and most importantly, the game is impenetrable to newbies. I can say this because it applies to me. I sense D20 is a simple system, but I’m only guessing, because what I’ve read is mess of modifiers, a multitude of confusing options, and any number of rules exceptions and special cases. Jason Bulmahn, the games’ lead designer, posted on the Paizo message board, “I also want the system to have enough complexity to keep advanced players interested, looking for new crannies and corners of the rules to explore.” That goal has been more accomplished. On the other hand, I have to give an Incomplete on the following statement: “We are aiming this at average gamers, both those who have been playing for decades and those who have just started.”

The unforgivable sin of Pathfinder is that they did nothing to fix the perils of playing a high level game. The game allows for high level play, but breaks down in such a predictable manner that even Paizo’s own Adventure Paths don’t support it. Combat, with a huge numbers of bonuses, actions, and options, is simply unplayable but for the most devoted hobbyists. Suitable threats are limited and also unplayable. Perhaps they should have fixed it by dropping it. Release it later as a supplement with a separate, reworked set of rules.

Clerics: Pathfinder and 4e seem united in one goal—Screw the Cleric. Whereas 4e tried to make the class irrelevant with healing surges and the Paladin supplanting the role, Pathfinder just castrated them. The “Channel Energy” ability combines “Turn Undead” and healing into one almost useless activity. It’s not very efficient. And why would you play anything other than a “Good” cleric? The “Evi” ones will end up fratriciding everyone in the party every time they channel negative energy. The people on the Paizo board insist this is all a feature and not a bug.

I’m just going to starting nit picking again.

Pathfinder has attempted to make 3e’s base classes appealing, but done nothing about the weirdness of 3e multi-class characters. You know, 6th fighter/ 3rd thief/ 1st monk/ 3 bedroom/ 2 bath characters. How about some restrictions?

They tried to fix 3e skills in the Alpha version. By making them more complex? Chalk one up for the Paizo board posters for shooting this one down. Unfortunately, the all-at-once inadequate/overburdened skills system was left the same, except for getting rid of “Use Rope” and few other edits. How about getting rid of the separate skills system and integrating it into the characters classes?

Feats: dump. Just get rid of them. Add a selected few as class features with level advancement. Chalk another one up for the Paizo board posters. The Alpha version attempted to give characters literal, button-mashing, video game-like attack combos.

Buffs: I’ve seen gameplay posts on the Paizo forum by very knowledgeable players, and even they can’t keep all the plusses straight. Maybe some drastic limits need to be imposed to make this playable.

Iterative, Hastened, Quickened, Immediate, Swift: WTF! Strange, the more actions a character has, the slower the game gets. I wish I could find the post, but one Paizo employee wrote about his experience about playing with his boss, James Jacobs. “I think James was referring to me about abusing multiple actions. In one game, I called out, ‘I cast Quickened Etherealness.’ He shot back without hesitation, ‘Quickened Etherealness is banned from the game.’” (Now that’s a DM!) I have some more thoughts on this I’ll put in another post.

Others and myself put in several pleas for a “Basic” Pathfinder after the completion of the main volume. This would have ideally been a simplified rules set, more or less compatible with the full version. Disappointingly, there was never any official response.

RPG’s can be made by mere mortals on their own. I’ve done it (though not necessarily well). There’s plenty of free systems available on the Internet. I understand the need for publishing companies to make somewhat complex games with many options, at least in order to justify creating a library of material and to differentiate themselves from home-brews. But an intro version, especially for a complex system, is mandatory if you want to attract new players.

Put this “Pathfinder Basic” game in conjunction with their Pathfinder Society scenarios, and you may have a party game. Something that could be played inside of a couple of hours, give the players a clear goal and a reasonable chance of success, no “shopping at the bazaar” during the adventure, just straight-up adventuring (fighting, parleying, puzzle solving).

The OGL has proven to be extremely flexible. Labyrinth Lord, Swords & Wizardry, Mutant Future, Basic Fantasy, OSRIC, and others all publish under it with a wealth of material to support it. Along with that, I believe the D20 system has not been exploited to its full potential. White Box, Microlite 20, Microlite 74, Green Ronin’s True 20 have shown that it’s flexible and can be easy to learn and play. D20 could be the Rosetta Stone system that FUDGE wanted to be. Paizo, push Pathfinder out the door for the 3e grognards. Then think seriously about making a game for the rest of us.

J.

Links of Interest:

Labyrinth Lord

Swords & Wizardry and White Box

Mutant Future

Basic Fantasy

OSRIC

Microlite 20

Microlite 74

True 20

FUDGE

Pathfinder