The Pathfinder Playtest is going on now.
I am really enjoying everything about it! Unexpectedly so, as well.
http://paizo.com/pathfinderplaytest
I played D&D 3 and 3.5 in their time. When I first heard about Pathfinder several years later, it seemed like a great way to preserve what I knew of D&D at a time when 4th Edition seemed like something different than I wanted.I ended up with a couple of Pathfinder books, then later a digital bundle of supplements.
I don't think I ever used them once. By the time I got over my gaming hiatus, D&D 5th Edition was out and I liked it a lot. There was the influence of Critical Role and lots of local opportunities to run and play games, so I dived into D&D5e.
I recently got a copy of Starfinder. I love the art but I ran the game for about 3 hours total and have no desire to go back. Starfinder has some interesting ideas but ends up very complicated; as a GM, it's more effort than I want to put in when prepping and running a session.
My initial hesitance to look at Pathfinder Playtest came directly from my Starfinder experience. I finally took a look on Friday last week and haven't stopped looking at it.
Pathfinder Playtest has managed to keep the broad character options of Pathfinder, with the selection of Feats to customize characters, while drastically simplifying combat, task resolution and the rulebook in general.
Character creation is has a streamlined approach that gives options but doesn't require a lot of research. You select an ancestry, a background and a class. All provide Feats and give room for customization. I really like the new version of Ability Score generation used in the Playtest. You start with all Abilities at 10, make a number of 2-point Boosts and you may have a 2-point Penalty to subtract. Very simple and it gives a lot of room for character customization.
The Background options are great. They have lots of flavor, play off the Pathfinder specialty of using Feats to customize characters and feel like they have a lot of variety.
The Classes are similar to what you would see in Pathfinder 1 or various D&D editions; one I really like is the spellcaster Counterspell Feat (no more separate spell, just a Feat). It simplifies and directs gameplay. Many things feel like they really determine play style when selected, but there are also concrete rules in the game for changing Feat selections and Class ability selections, which is a really cool addition for a game that may be many peoples' first roleplaying game.
The general way of playing the game is simplified. You have a modifier to Checks, which is typically an Ability + Proficiency, you add a single Bonus and subtract a single Penalty. That's a huge update on Pathfinder modifiers that I love.
There are lots of other gems in the books, which everyone should check out at paizo.com for themselves, but also really like a couple small things:
Overall, I'm really excited about the options in the Pathfinder Playtest. I'm much more likely to play and run this than Pathfinder 1. The direction of the game has a lot of potential.
I am really enjoying everything about it! Unexpectedly so, as well.
http://paizo.com/pathfinderplaytest
I played D&D 3 and 3.5 in their time. When I first heard about Pathfinder several years later, it seemed like a great way to preserve what I knew of D&D at a time when 4th Edition seemed like something different than I wanted.I ended up with a couple of Pathfinder books, then later a digital bundle of supplements.
I don't think I ever used them once. By the time I got over my gaming hiatus, D&D 5th Edition was out and I liked it a lot. There was the influence of Critical Role and lots of local opportunities to run and play games, so I dived into D&D5e.
I recently got a copy of Starfinder. I love the art but I ran the game for about 3 hours total and have no desire to go back. Starfinder has some interesting ideas but ends up very complicated; as a GM, it's more effort than I want to put in when prepping and running a session.
My initial hesitance to look at Pathfinder Playtest came directly from my Starfinder experience. I finally took a look on Friday last week and haven't stopped looking at it.
Pathfinder Playtest has managed to keep the broad character options of Pathfinder, with the selection of Feats to customize characters, while drastically simplifying combat, task resolution and the rulebook in general.
Character creation is has a streamlined approach that gives options but doesn't require a lot of research. You select an ancestry, a background and a class. All provide Feats and give room for customization. I really like the new version of Ability Score generation used in the Playtest. You start with all Abilities at 10, make a number of 2-point Boosts and you may have a 2-point Penalty to subtract. Very simple and it gives a lot of room for character customization.
The Background options are great. They have lots of flavor, play off the Pathfinder specialty of using Feats to customize characters and feel like they have a lot of variety.
The Classes are similar to what you would see in Pathfinder 1 or various D&D editions; one I really like is the spellcaster Counterspell Feat (no more separate spell, just a Feat). It simplifies and directs gameplay. Many things feel like they really determine play style when selected, but there are also concrete rules in the game for changing Feat selections and Class ability selections, which is a really cool addition for a game that may be many peoples' first roleplaying game.
The general way of playing the game is simplified. You have a modifier to Checks, which is typically an Ability + Proficiency, you add a single Bonus and subtract a single Penalty. That's a huge update on Pathfinder modifiers that I love.
There are lots of other gems in the books, which everyone should check out at paizo.com for themselves, but also really like a couple small things:
- The beast rules are in the Bestiary, not the main book. I never like flipping between books and building monsters and encounters belong in the Bestiary. The Environment rules are there as well, which makes less sense to me, but still helps the organization.
- The simple chart used for determining Difficulty Class makes the whole game work. It was my first bookmark on the PDF; I imagine that it will be the most important page in the book.
- Multiclassing uses Archetypes and Feats without taking you out of your main class. I think that's an interesting choice that may play out well.
Overall, I'm really excited about the options in the Pathfinder Playtest. I'm much more likely to play and run this than Pathfinder 1. The direction of the game has a lot of potential.
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