After eight years, Wizards of the Coast (WOTC) decided to release D&D’s Fourth Edition (4e); probably on orders from Hasbro. There were hopes 4e would correct some of the issues Third Edition/3.5 (3e/3.5e) were having, namely grappling, campaign-busting spells and suffering from what’s coined “the fifteen-minute dungeon” since PCs use up a good amount of their resources in just one or two encounters.
I personally didn’t like the direction 4e was taking the game. I had seen previews through the last edition of Star Wars WOTC printed (the Saga Edition) and a play test with a friend. It wasn’t all bad. Wizards had a spell/power they could use at will or per encounter to compensate for this class often being the primary victim of running out of resources. However, I hated the changes because it transformed D&D into table-top World of Warcraft through the emphasis on fights, out-of-the-blue healing (labelled second winds) and a huge amount of reductionism. What do I mean by the latter? Monsters were re-classified as “blasters,” “soldiers” or “brutes,” in short, they were less interesting. Now in 4e’s defense, the current 3.5e rules were guilty of bogging down the game. WOTC had published a couple dozen sourcebooks that resulted in an surplus of options; so many, it could get difficult to keep track. One huge complaint I had regarding these books was the Warlock class from Complete Arcane and its “pew pew” ability at will. To me, if you want to do that, play Gauntlet due to the Warlock having no other practical function, aka, no magic to solve problems, help others, wide-area of attack, etc.
Thus WOTC’s decision to just pitch a set of rules after a mere five-to-eight years was frustrating. They didn’t pass a law saying you must convert to 4e because I’ve encountered people clinging to the original, clumsy AD&D from the early Eighties or Second Edition from 1989. Back in the late Eighties and early Nineties, I played RoleMaster while converting D&D stuff for it. So the choice WOTC/Hasbro was really offering was to continue with them through the changes or join the smaller, fractured ranks of D&D “luddites.”
Paizo’s Pathfinder came to the rescue by utilizing the Open-Gaming License (OGL) from 3e’s launch in 2000 and it encompassed 3.5e. What brought hope was their previous experience publishing WOTC’s two magazines for five years, Dragon and Dungeon (my favorite!). I suspect Paizo’s staff made lists of home rules/fixes to 3.5e via all the adventures they wrote, their play testing and reading about others’ suggestions through forums on the Internet. What they had in mind was available for free online as a PDF or you could purchase a physical beta copy through your hobby store of choice. I bought the physical copy to show my support to Paizo and Rogues Gallery.
Pathfinder‘s changes were mostly positive and/or ones I agreed to implement:
- Wizards/Sorcerers get d6 for hit points over d4.
- Rogues/Bards get d8 for hit points over d6.
- Fighters get additional powers with weapons and armor as they advance. This gives people an incentive to stay with the class over multi-classing or choosing the more specialized warrior core classes.
- Clerics/Druids received extra powers via their spell Domains at additional levels.
- Sorcerers were made even more different from Wizards by the addition of Bloodlines which explained the origination of their Arcane powers.
- Wizards gained spell abilities if they chose to specialize while the non-specialized types receive a boost too.
- All zero-level spells are cast at will instead of once per day.
- Skills were no longer allocated by points with class-based ones gaining one level per point while non-class-based were two points per level. Class skills just received a +3 modifier plus points allocated, non-class were straight points.
- The skills Balance, Jump and Tumble were lumped together into Acrobatics.
- The skills Listen, Search and Spot were lumped together into Perception.
- The skills Hide and Move Silently were lumped together into Stealth.
- Grappling was now easier with CMD (defense) and CMB (attack) attributes.
There were a few I didn’t agree with and to this day I don’t use since they didn’t solve any real problem:
- When Clerics Turn/Bolsters the Undead, there’s a burst of energy that either deals damage or heals the Undead. Meanwhile, the opposite happens to the living within 30 feet of the Cleric. This makes Clerics and Paladins even weaker against some of the toughest category of monsters around.
- Rangers can choose Undead as a Favored Enemy. That’s too big of an umbrella and implausible. On the former, they vary from automatons to spirits, and with the latter, none (ghouls being the exception) have any discernible anatomy to critically injure.
- They changed the hit dice and base attacks for the Undead from d12 to d8 and +1/2 to +3/4 respectively.
- They kept the stupid weapon-size rule. No thanks. A short sword is short for humans and for gnomes/halflings, it’s a sword.
The bigger thrill was getting to continue utilizing my 3.5e rule books to fill in the gaps Pathfinder didn’t cover. This could be done with little conversion effort. I had the entire collection of Complete books, three specializing on a category of monsters (Dragons, Aberrations and Undead) and the some others I loved.
Sadly, I didn’t get to test out the changes for a while since I chose to ouster myself from the gaming group I helped start. We’re all friends again, I just needed to take some time off from being the DM. I throw so much of myself into running the game, it can be exhausting and on par with having a part-time job. Table-top D&D is up against online and video games so I believe you gotta’ make the original, analog version special.
I did keep reading, making mental notes and buying stuff (minis, adventures) for the game thinking one day I would either return (slim chance) or become part of another group. I know I ran it a couple times with my nephews before they moved away to Qatar (damn it!). My new debut got rolling September 2013 with my current group. The original plan was Matt would be the DM yet I was asked to run instead thanks to my dumb stories regarding my brief employment at GDW. Somehow, I guess it meant I had credibility? It turned out for the best. I am a good player which translates to being cooperative, polite (I wait for my turn) and I don’t play the other game called Stump The DM. However, being a long-term DM, I can get restless and the DM in me can leak out, usually in offering to help the current DM make a decision.
In closing, I’m throwing out an open letter to my fellow DMs/Players to pitch in their two cents (maybe it’s a nickel or dime thanks to inflation) on their impressions of Pathfinder after a decade.
Next up, the Core Rulebook.