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D&D 3.5/Pathfinder vs D&D 5 Compare and Contrast
Phillip Willis
Certified PolygameistRPGamer Staff
Now that D&D 5 has been out for a bit, I'd love to hear thoughts from players/GMs experienced in both...to compare and contrast.... and, of course, which you are enjoying more today. Thank you, in advance, for sharing!
P.S. It has been brought to my attention that I might, accidentally, start an "Edition War" here on our forums. LOL. I honestly just want to hear thoughts and opinions...so, please, be an adult about this. Along those lines, I'd like to encourage 1) thoughts only from those people who have played both editions long enough to have an informed opinion. And 2) ask those who are sharing to share only your opinions on the contrasts and comparisons of the game systems...not your opinions on other's opinions :P It's all about respect.
Thank you!!
P.S. It has been brought to my attention that I might, accidentally, start an "Edition War" here on our forums. LOL. I honestly just want to hear thoughts and opinions...so, please, be an adult about this. Along those lines, I'd like to encourage 1) thoughts only from those people who have played both editions long enough to have an informed opinion. And 2) ask those who are sharing to share only your opinions on the contrasts and comparisons of the game systems...not your opinions on other's opinions :P It's all about respect.
Thank you!!
Comments
lol Edition war. I've never seen anyone argue about D&D Editions. Campaign setting wars...now, that's something to argue about.
28 years of gaming and still going strong
and now a mostly annoyed Father with first son. And now a father again to a second son
Winner of the 2015-2016 Fantasy gaming Pool
Well, I've spent the last two days listening and reading over a dozen reviews...with most of them making comparisons to older versions of D&D and/or PF. I've heard a LOT of positive points about D&D 5.0, so this Pathfinder Fanboy (who has dozens of their books and has run PF campaigns for 4 years straight) just bought his first D&D 5.0 rulebooks.
It is a shame that more discussions didn't happen here... I think its a great discussion to have that may help people (like myself) who never really thought to look at one or the other because of pre-conceived notions or lack of time. While I wait for Amazon to deliver my shiny new books, I shall go and play some Fire Emblem
One thing that's probably worth noting though is that it is definitely NOT an old-school system. It very much emphasizes character skills over player skills (with lots of generous skill bonuses, crazy class superpowers etc.), and if you like games where characters are actually at risk of dying then you'll probably need to modify the rest/death mechanics a bit (I think there are some suggestions for this in the DMG). Our DM expresses regular frustration at how easily we tend to steamroll the encounters from published campaigns. If you're an OD&D or AD&D true believer, you'll probably have less incentive to switch than 3.5/Patherfinder fans.
As far as lethality. I have a different impression of PF (from experience) and about D&D5th (From reviews/podcasts). Allow me to explain.
Paizo pre written adventures, especially Pathfinder Society (organized play), tends to be very easy. I imagine this is because they want players to walk away with warm fuzzies...as a lot of this is set up with the new gamer in mind... i.e., you don't really have to have an optimized, balanced party to have a decent chance to win. With that said, with the full blown campaigns they write (which I've ran two dozen books worth), while super easy in 90% of the fights, occasionally throws a curve ball with a monster that's clearly not super balanced for that level of play. Those are fun
On the D&D side, a lot of people say that due to the low magic and the 'bounded accuracy' built into the system, that parties are still pretty squishy and vulnerable for some time. A couple of guys I listened to explained how their 3rd level party had a death against goblins or orcs. One of them commented "When was the last time your third level party in 3.5/PF ever felt threatened by orcs?" ROFL. They painted a picture that death was still very 'alive and well' in 5e.
Of course, with either one, I imagine your mileage will vary based on your GM...especially with homebrew campaign. After all, nothing stops him from tweaking the encounters in pre writtens and the such (I regularly do this in Pathfinder, and award bonus XP to the players accordingly). Thanks to "Bounded accuracy", I have to imagine that its much easier for GMs to create balanced encounters in D&D5 if they wish. After all, it's not hard to predict, within a few points, what your players To Hit, Saves, HPs, etc will be at any given level, since there are few ways to bump those stats, and buffs are limited.
Yeah...I've noted this as well with most of my players, which is why I hope discussions like this are helpful. I think for players of 5.0 looking for more class options, choices, depth, Pathfinder is a great alternative.
On the other hand, as a long time Pathfinder GM, I'll tell you what a simplified system like 5.0 potentially means to me.... it means more chances to focus on other elements of the game outside of character ... such as building keeps, attracting followers, RP'ing intelligent weapons, interesting subsystems such as earned deity favors, etc. Since AD&D, I have always look for ways to add interesting subsystems to further enhance and differentiate each campaign. There's nothing stopping me from doing that with Pathfinder, and I often do. The challenge is that there's SOOOO much going on with the Pathfinder system as written...with so many buffs, debuffs, rules, modifiers, magic items/slots, etc., that when I add something else to the mix, its just too much. So, often times, players forget either a class feature, magic item power, bonus, etc... I can't tell you how many time a player told me, after a high level fight, that they completely forgot their sword's cool power to call down fire, or to use their class feature, etc.
I say "potentially" because I lack experience with it, at the moment. I'll start running a game this Sunday, and give it a shot. It will take a few campaigns to get a good feeling with it, and see if my initial thoughts bear out through actual experience.
Back when I was active, everyone was still learning the D20 system, so nobody saw the need to argue. They were too busy asking questions.
Since I was clearly referring to the more discussion about this particular topic/thread (not in general... I don't really keep tabs on that), I'm not super sure what your point here is...especially since I am asking questions and not asking for an argument.
Bounded accuracy IS good to making low-level monsters still feel like a valid threat though, because even if they can't feasibly kill you they can still knock you out, and a total party knock-out is as good as a total party kill if you're fighting evil opponents who don't take prisoners.
It was a harmless observation for anyone curious about this forum's past.
28 years of gaming and still going strong
and now a mostly annoyed Father with first son. And now a father again to a second son
Winner of the 2015-2016 Fantasy gaming Pool
* D&D is definitely simpler to run, adjudicate and adjust. On one hand, that seems to be a bit of a bummer due to the lack of choices and depth to many of the classes. On the other hand, it gives me a lot more room to customize my games with deeper house rules, items, etc.
* Along the lines of items... in PF, you have items bloat. Each character has about a dozen 'slots,' and due to the fact that they already have numerous class abilities/powers, they tend to forget consumable items outside of a Wand of Cure Wounds. In fact, on my PF players has a legendary sword that shoots jets of flames. They fought an enemy clearly vulnerable to this attack, and he did not use it because he simply forgot about it in the 3 page character sheet. With D&D, these item abilities stick out a lot more since they do not have to compete with 11 other items and pages of class skills.
* Leveling up takes 1/5th the time.
* Combat is a bit too simple for my tastes, coming from Pathfinder...easily addressed with some house rules.
I think, so far, my initial impression is that D&D 5th offers a great foundation. It's a great system out of the box for new players, and for experienced GMs, it offers a LOT of room to houserule and add extra gaming systems (such as kingdom rules, relationships, complex artifacts, etc). Sure, you can do that with PF, but because it's already so deep, I found adding stuff to it was often overload. Furthermore, you cannot simplify PF easily through houserules (I've tried), as you run into all kinds of balancing issues and upset players. However, you can add complexity easily to D&D.
Does that mean I'm suddenly a D&D fanboy after 5+ years of towing the PF line? No... not yet! (LOL). I'm still running and enjoying both systems for the time being. But, yeah, I am starting to see why some are finding 5th to be a breath of fresh air.
This has made me realize just how fiddly Pathfinder really is. I've always found playing Pathfinder to be very driven by the mechanics, and inevitably there is always a stickler for the rules at the table. This game has become much more role playing focused. I find we are generally interacting with the world more, describing our actions more, etc... Pathfinder always played out "I am going to do action abc with roll 123" you succeed you fail.
I'm generally a casual RPG player, I'm just playing to have fun, do a little story building with pals. And of course roll some dice. Subjectively I'm having a much better time with 5e than I ever did with Pathfinder (not that I disliked Pathfinder)
Another situation... my friend loves using things like Fog Cloud to gain tactical advantages over larger numbers of foes. He plays very intelligently. We quickly found out that while PF would have such rules exactly laid out on how to handle Fog Cloud, D&D 5th left a lot more to the GM's discretion. Situations like that make some long term PF players a bit uncomfy. Those types of players prefer the objectiveness of having black and white rules for nearly every conceivable situation (especially in relation to common spells).
Luckily, my friend knew all of this going into 5th. While it made him a bit uncomfortable, he rolled with my ruling on the spot. I made a note to create a house rule handling fog moving forward.
As a GM, I enjoy this new approach, myself. PF's combination of deep class customization, multiple actions per round, increase of feats / level, and rules for everything, ended up making combats at higher levels feel like an absolute slog. And, like most GMs, I always want to add some houserules and campaign specific rules (such as caravan mechanics, kingdom building, ship fights, etc). That only added to the inherent problem with the system. My hope is that 5th ed's simplicity allows me a lot more freedom to add new things / rules / depth specific to each campaign I do, without weighing down an already bloated rules system (PF). So far, after playing 6-7 levels, that has worked out. I'll need a lot more time and games to have a very solid opinion. Right now, my approach of "Add rules where they are needed to build on D&D 5th foundation" seems to be working well enough.
Along those lines... I created a bunch of house rule trick arrows my PF playing friend could create or buy. This allows him more tactical options than the rules as written, giving him some much desired additional depth. I'm working on fog houserules now to bring consistancy to how I judge that spell since he will use it a lot.
My bottom line impression after a year... For those who want all of the depth/rules/etc already written out, PF has it. If you can come up with a character concept, PF has rules that absolutely support that concept and really make you feel like it. A pirate (a rogue archtype) has VERY piratey because he has very specific mechanics. Same for, say, a white witch... who can attack with her hair and cackle (as any witch can) to extend her hexes. The problem is that once the game gets to higher levels, and players learn to really milk the system (and they should), combat at higher levels becomes a slog.
For those who want a much lighter rules experience that allows you to add those rules the way the GM wants, as the party goes along, D&D 5th provides such a framework. GMs will need to work with players who want either a deeper class experience, or more consistency to certain situations, spells, etc. Thankfully, D&D allows *plenty* of room for the GM to do just that. As an added bonus, D&D 5th has a LOT less math, and doesn't require a program to track characters like PF does.
I think you'll find that 5e lets you do what you seek...focus a bit on character concepts. PF gives you more ways to support that concept from a combat standpoint. If you want to play a pirate swashbuckler, you will find specific combat mechanics that support that. You don't HAVE to make optimized builds in PF at all...presuming your DM/GM doesn't push the CRs of the encounters too high. What I found to be a bigger concern was that in every group there were one or more players who totally went all out in making optimized characters, which made others, who simply focused on a concept, feel a bit useless in combat by contrast. Because Savage Worlds and 5e are much more simplified, and deflated a lot of the number crunching, I see a lot less of those OP'd super-awesome builds outshining the casual or concept focused builds. I just wish there were more options for players who want a different flavor of fighter, wizard, etc.
Looks pretty cool. I'm lazy and use Herolabs for the most part. Pathfinder wouldn't even be touchable without it IMHO.