Pathfinder - for people that think D&D doesn’t have enough rules!

No, 5e sucks. And it’s most obvious when you play on level 1. DnD is a superhero sim with paper cutouts for humans. When you leave out the super powers, then the characters can’t really do anything. Like… at all.

Combat is DnD’s only fleshed out system. Everything else is just “roll a D20” and sometimes add your proficiency modifier depending almost entirely on your class. Give me 20 different bards and I bet 18 of them will have a 90% overlap in the proficiencies they choose.

During combat, the wizard throws fireballs, the cleric casts spiritual weapon and the barbarian rages. That’s cool, interesting and diverse. During investigations the wizard rolls an investigation check, the cleric rolls an investigation check and the barbarian does nothing because they dumped wisdom. That’s boring.

That’s why DnD sucks!

All you’ve done is permanently write off any opinion you have on a replacement. It’s insanely arrogant to push your own opinion as fact but even more so when the thing you’re shitting on is something people actively enjoy and then expecting anyone will pay attention to a thing you say.

Everything you just said is opinion and subjective.

The only thing that sucks here is you for believing that your opinion is a universal truth and the arrogance of believing that everyone else is wrong.

I’m just straight up tired of this shit on a massive level. It’s pure arrogance and I’m over seeing it.

I don’t find it funny. I find it monumentally irritating to have someone pretend their opinion is fact. I’m just done with it.

I know I straight up refuse to play pathfinder because until this thread I’ve never seen anyone ever recommend Pathfinder without actively shitting on dnd. If I did then maybe I’d have tried it some point in the past few years. Taken up the many offers to play in a pathfinder game. But I hard refuse everytime. If they just said how pathfinder does stuff better, that’d be fine. But it always devolves into what dnd does worse and the endless nitpicking and complaints. No longer is pathfinder the focus. The focus becomes bitching about everyone under the sun that dnd does to the point pathfinder doesn’t even get mentioned anymore. It’s not what it does better. Every convo I’ve seen isn’t about how good pathfinder is but how bad dnd is and that level of negativity being focused on constantly just to recommend you play their game instead has always made my skin crawl. Should stand on its merits, not its competitions failures. If you can’t do that then I’m not sure what the point of it is other than “HAHA DND GET FUCKED”

The only thing subjective here is the very first sentence. Everything else is either fact and enforced by the way DnD is designed or an example to illustrate said fact.

What exactly is subjective about the fact that DnD doesn’t have any depth or variety when it comes to anything besides combat?

Oh, and before you answer. Homebrew and cinematic encounters are not part of DnD as a system and using them in your argument will only strengthen my point.

I consider this a good vs bad DM issue, not necessarily a game system issue. A good DM will offer XP for non-combat situations too even if it’s not in a handbook. I guess I might have a different view on D&D vs other gaming systems because my group started with AD&D and just changed all the shit we didn’t like. It was only D&D by name after a while. We had a mana system (spell mats are the worst), custom classes / races / spells, and a lot of fun. The most important part isn’t the game system, it’s good people to play with.

It’s not on them, though. They didn’t ask if there was a Dragon Age RPG, they asked if they could play Dragon Age in D&D.

Those are different questions.

And here’s the thing. You can’t really tell them “no”, because they know it’s an imagination game where the rules are whatever the table decides upon. They’re not asking if, they are asking how.

Like, there are ways to reditect people, but just ignoring their question to jump straight to their underlying problem when they don’t acknowledge that solution doesn’t open them up to listening. It shuts them down, it makes them defensive, and it ultimatelt makes them hostile to your suggestions.

That’s not “on them”, because that’s a “you’re kind of shit at communicating” problem.

And lose the entire fun in the process…

Spike trap? I have spider climb/fly speed! Enemies sneaking about in the dark? I have darkvision! Resources running low and no safe place to take a rest? I cast Tiny Hut!

DnD takes the entire fun out of dungeon crawling just so that a single person can win the d*ck measuring contest of “I’m the greatest” at any given moment

It’s also fun that critical success and critical fail has the player (or enemy) rolling for a random result from a table.

It was also pretty funny when one of my players cast color spray from the back line, but they cast it to well, so it actually did damage and almost killed a player

Hexxen is pretty amazing. The rules are extremely simple, but maintain enough complexity to still be fun and it knows what it wants to be and focuses on its core goals. Investigation is fun and engaging, combat is fast and dangerous, but not necessarily deadly and there are numerous interesting character classes that you can combine to build exactly the witch hunter you want.

Other than that, I’m working on my own system with a combat experience similar to DnD, but the social complexity and character customisability of The Dark Eye.

Okay but as long as we are complaining about shit we see on RPG forums

“I wish I could do $thing in DnD”

“$otherSystem has a very cool subsystem for $thing”

“Omg how dare you”

Had this conversation enough times to make it a pet peeve of mine

Anyway the only thing about 5e that does suck is Wizards of the Coast. Otherwise it’s fine. It’s just fine. You can have fun with it.

I’m more of a Pathfinder 2e guy tho.

(And pf2 is basically a more advanced take on what 5e was doing so…)

5e is fantastic. It presents the standard combat-centric D&D rules, and provides a lot of freedom for players and DMs to fill in whatever rules they find most enjoyable.

Levels 1-3 are designed for the express purpose of onboarding new players, so complaining that it doesn’t fully represent D&D, is pretty silly - it’s supposed to be simplified.

I will agree with the facts behind your comments on the skill system, if not the exaggerations. I would prefer a looser system, akin to those from Fate, Cypher or Daggerheart, to allow for more creative freedom.

D&D doesn’t suck - it’s a combat centric system, as it always has been.

During investigations the wizard rolls an investigation check, the cleric rolls an investigation check and the barbarian does nothing because they dumped wisdom

You might be playing it wrong.

During investigations Wizard checks the books in the library, references his own notes, chats up local researcher community. Creates and sends Arcane Eye, spreads his familiars, tries Clairvoyance.

Cleric visits a local church, talks to the priests and churchgoers, prays to the Divine, maybe convinces the town to join her in the crusade against the target and lits the town on fire, while villages attack the nobleman mansion looking for the culprit and plunder.

Barbarian goes to the local tavern to drink with the local guards. Helps local elder find his kitten. Maybe talks to a local hunter and they bond over a bear hunt they just finished, maybe about the beauty of wilderness… One thing leads to another, a secret touch, a hidden look, a moment of courage, a stolen kiss… What I was talking about?

5e needs a better way to balance encounters than Challenge Rating. It also has important rules for players in the DM book. Both of which are problems you can work around.

Yeah, it’s basically fine. It got a lot of new people interested in RPGs (and Critical Role certainly helped, too). If they’re all now looking for other systems to play, that’s fine, too.

Nope. You play what you want. I, however, will not play any game from a company that demonstrably dislikes its customers. So far, wizards of the Coast and games workshop are on my list. In the electronic space, EA, Microsoft, and Sony.

Yes, that’s called roleplaying. And there’s nothing, not a single line in any book that supports any of this! Just imagine if DnD combat only consisted of one melee attack skill and one ranged attack skill. You could still roleplay that your ranged attack is a fireball, but it would still get boring real fast!

Everything about this scenario works pretty much exactly the same if the Barbarian goes to the library and references his notes, the wizard visits the local church and convinces the town to to join their crusade and the cleric goes to the tavern, sves the kitten, drinks with the guards, etc. Every character does everything exactly the same.

Let me give you a counter example in a system that actually does this well. In The Dark Eye, the wizard goes to the local library because they have several talents and skills that help them find and organize information in books, the cleric talks to the local clergy who respect him du to his “social standing” value and “clergical vow” skill. The barbarian actually put some points into “carousing” which makes them a solid drinker and their “local contact” skill may give them a pointer towards the old lady with the cat problem.

Dunno. In my 5e game the Sentinel, Guardian, and Consular get force powers.

In another 5e game the group piloted techs and fought giant monsters (Pacific Rim).

In a few months we will be running Return of the Living Dead 5e.

You just sound burnt out on the fantasy trope, not 5e.

It’s hard to extoll the virtues of my chosen system (Pathfinder2e) without comparing it to the issues of where I find 5e lacking.

That said, what I love about 2e is the great encounter balance, almost every single “build” for a class is viable, and when you say “I’m playing a rogue” there are like 4 major types of rogues that all feel like they play differently instead of just some tacked on homebrew class. Adding free archetype rules (supported by the system creators themselves in their books) adds even more customizability.

One of my favorite things is that PF2e makes it feel like it makes encounter design fun again; martials actually have more options than just walk up and attack repeatedly, spacing matters, defenses matter. Most classes have some sort of gimmick that makes them play differently. Been working with my girlfriend to make a swashbuckler for the game I am DMing, and the panache/bravado/finisher mechanics really excite us from a roleplay and gameplay standpoint.

The three action system is way more flexible than the action/bonus action system. You can spend all 3 actions on a huge spell and burn your entire turn. You can move away from enemies to force them to burn an action or flank them to gain bonuses to attack for yourself and allies. You can apply debuffs using your main stats with actions like Demoralize, and still attack or move on your turn.

You constantly gain feats, and they are what defines your character so much. No longer do you get a “choice” of an ASI or feat. You get ones every level. There are ancestry tests from your race, class feats, skill feats, archetype feats. They don’t just make you stronger, they instead give you more possible actions, give you unique traits, like being able to fight while climbing or use deception to detect when someone is lying instead of perception.

Also, you can find every rule for free online @ Archives of Nethys. No more being gated by purchases outside of adventure paths.

I could keep going, and I really want to extoll how awesome Golarion is, and the pantheon of gods, and everything. But I will stop here. Would happily answer anyone’s questions about the system, I love it. It gave me true passion for tabletop RPGs while DnD5e made me feel really mildly about it.