So this discussion started as a joke in my group. We were saying that we wished we could have the character diversity and options of pathfinder (1e)'s character sheet and char.gen. but with the ease of play that 5e has.
But after a little bit of silliness ("Who's gonna stop us?? The DnD police?") we started thinking, "wait... COULD we do this?" and "HOW can we do this"
Things we like from PF1e:
* class archetypes replacing features of the base class
* The WHOLE way skills are handled (Ranks, training, the amount of them and their specificity)
* FEEEEEEAAAAATSSSSS. And the customization that comes with getting feats every other level.
* magic item reliance and abundance.
Things we DON'T like from PF1e
* the ridiculous amount of Static and conditional modifiers
* the sheer amount of modifier sources (Example: If you're doing X you get Bonus A but if the enemy is doing Y, you get penalty B, which is offset by Bonus C obtained by doing Z......blah blah blah....)
What we thinking: Maybe take the PC's, Monsters, Items, spells of pathfinder, and apply them to the ruleset 5e. Such as: ignoring a lot of PF stuff, using 5e's advantage/disadvantage system. I'm ok with SOME static mods, so maybe limit it to ones provided by direct effects of class abilities or spells? Ignore those due to things like exhaustion, flanking, whatever else PF has cause I know its a lot.
What I'm looking for: What are some major problems that would come from this? How would I fix these? What would be your ideas for merging the two systems?
Note:
I'm not doing this because I like PF's systems BETTER than 5e. So what I'm NOT looking for is things like "Well if you like X from pathfinder, Just use Y thats already in 5e" or "Well technically 5e does [thing I like] better than PF so you shouldn't do it". My group has played like 3 full 5e campaigns all the way from 1-20 and at least 3-4 others from lower ranges. We obviously like 5e, we just wanna try something new!
If you get rid of all the modifiers, don’t you also get rid of the need for a lot of the feats? Like the -4 penalty for shooting a ranged weapon into melee, and the feat that removes it, is the first thing that comes to mind. Or the big penalties for two weapon fighting, and the multiple feats to remove them.
And the 5e math will fall apart with other feats. Like, I think it was weapon master that gives a +1 to hit with a specific weapon. A +1 matters a lot more in 5e than it did in 3.x. And that’s to say nothing of greater weapon master giving you another +2.
When I think about 3.x characters, I feel less like I had real choices, and more like I had the illusion of choice. There were tons and tons of feats, but so many of them were objectively bad. And realistically, if you were going to make an archer, for example, there was a single feat tree you were going to take. And pretty much every archer took the same feats in the same order. Between prereqs and level gates, you had very little actual choice if you wanted to be effective. (And an ineffective character 3.x was not comparable to sub-optimized in 5e. In 5e, even the worst character will still be useful, not so in 3.x) So while 5e really only gives you a choice once, when you pick your subclass, I think 3.x really only gave you a choice once, also. Basically when you started down the path of whichever feat tree you were using.
Have you looked at the level up stuff on enworld? I’ve not myself, but I heard the characters there have more choices, bolted on to the 5e chassis. Though I’ve also heard they are way more powerful that the WotC versions of characters.
If you get rid of all the modifiers, don’t you also get rid of the need for a lot of the feats? Like the -4 penalty for shooting a ranged weapon into melee, and the feat that removes it, is the first thing that comes to mind. Or the big penalties for two weapon fighting, and the multiple feats to remove them.
And the 5e math will fall apart with other feats. Like, I think it was weapon master that gives a +1 to hit with a specific weapon. A +1 matters a lot more in 5e than it did in 3.x. And that’s to say nothing of greater weapon master giving you another +2.
When I think about 3.x characters, I feel less like I had real choices, and more like I had the illusion of choice. There were tons and tons of feats, but do many of them were objectively bad. And realistically, if you were going to make an archer, for example, there was a single feat tree you were going to take. And pretty much every archer took the same feats in the same order. Between prereqs and level gates, you had very little actual choice if you wanted to be effective. (And an ineffective character 3.x was not comparable to sub-optimized in 5e. In 5e, even the worst character will still be useful, not so in 3.x) So while 5e really only gives you a choice once, when you pick your subclass, I think 3.x really only gave you a choice once, also. Basically when you started down the path of whichever feat tree you were using.
Have you looked at the level up stuff on enworld? I’ve not myself, but I heard the characters there have more choices, bolted on to the 5e chassis. Though I’ve also heard they are way more powerful that the WotC versions of characters.
I get what you mean. I played PF from about level 1-9 and because of prerequisites and penalties it DID feel like all my feats were kinda set from the moment I decided to dual wield.
I'm not familiar with the "level up stuff" at all. I know Enworld is another forum? but thats about it.
Enworld is another forum, combined with a 3rd party publisher. They printed what amounts to a different version of the PHB. As I said, it’s supposed to be a bit more rules crunchy, but I haven’t checked it out myself.
When I think about 3.x characters, I feel less like I had real choices, and more like I had the illusion of choice. There were tons and tons of feats, but do many of them were objectively bad. And realistically, if you were going to make an archer, for example, there was a single feat tree you were going to take. And pretty much every archer took the same feats in the same order. Between prereqs and level gates, you had very little actual choice if you wanted to be effective. (And an ineffective character 3.x was not comparable to sub-optimized in 5e. In 5e, even the worst character will still be useful, not so in 3.x) So while 5e really only gives you a choice once, when you pick your subclass, I think 3.x really only gave you a choice once, also. Basically when you started down the path of whichever feat tree you were using.
4e had a similar issue. I think whenever you have a huge pool of options, some of them are just going to float to the top. And when there are enough of those top choices to fill your whole progression, all the other choices feel like traps. Although I wouldn't go so far as to say you only had one choice. You had one clear BEST choice, and then a bunch of others.
What you could do is use D&D5 ruleset, monsters, skills, feats, spells, magic items, exhaustion, obscurement, cover etc and homebrew additional PF1 spells, skills, monsters, feats and class archetype that D&D5 doesn't already cover at L3. Feat acquisition can be augmented easily, so is magic items reliance and abundance. For deeper skillset, you can open up untrained/trained/expertise to everyone. For modifiers, i believe using D&D5 advantage/disadvantage is better, perhaps with smaller +1/2 here and there that you can keep limited to avoid clunking too much. It was designed to specifically avoid that anyways.
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So this discussion started as a joke in my group. We were saying that we wished we could have the character diversity and options of pathfinder (1e)'s character sheet and char.gen. but with the ease of play that 5e has.
But after a little bit of silliness ("Who's gonna stop us?? The DnD police?") we started thinking, "wait... COULD we do this?" and "HOW can we do this"
Things we like from PF1e:
* class archetypes replacing features of the base class
* The WHOLE way skills are handled (Ranks, training, the amount of them and their specificity)
* FEEEEEEAAAAATSSSSS. And the customization that comes with getting feats every other level.
* magic item reliance and abundance.
Things we DON'T like from PF1e
* the ridiculous amount of Static and conditional modifiers
* the sheer amount of modifier sources (Example: If you're doing X you get Bonus A but if the enemy is doing Y, you get penalty B, which is offset by Bonus C obtained by doing Z......blah blah blah....)
What we thinking:
Maybe take the PC's, Monsters, Items, spells of pathfinder, and apply them to the ruleset 5e. Such as: ignoring a lot of PF stuff, using 5e's advantage/disadvantage system. I'm ok with SOME static mods, so maybe limit it to ones provided by direct effects of class abilities or spells? Ignore those due to things like exhaustion, flanking, whatever else PF has cause I know its a lot.
What I'm looking for:
What are some major problems that would come from this? How would I fix these? What would be your ideas for merging the two systems?
Note:
I'm not doing this because I like PF's systems BETTER than 5e. So what I'm NOT looking for is things like "Well if you like X from pathfinder, Just use Y thats already in 5e" or "Well technically 5e does [thing I like] better than PF so you shouldn't do it". My group has played like 3 full 5e campaigns all the way from 1-20 and at least 3-4 others from lower ranges. We obviously like 5e, we just wanna try something new!
When you think that PF is D&D 3.75 many of the things you are thinking could be implemented
1. Homebrew any modifications that you would like in the character classes/subclasses. This is doable in the current character set up.
2. Add the bonuses (ranks) to the current skills. Add new skills to the list. This is doable in the current character set up.
3.Add feats whenever appropriate to the character progression. Homebrew feats as you like.This is doable in the current character set up.
4. Change this as you like. This is doable in the current character set up.
If you get rid of all the modifiers, don’t you also get rid of the need for a lot of the feats? Like the -4 penalty for shooting a ranged weapon into melee, and the feat that removes it, is the first thing that comes to mind. Or the big penalties for two weapon fighting, and the multiple feats to remove them.
And the 5e math will fall apart with other feats. Like, I think it was weapon master that gives a +1 to hit with a specific weapon. A +1 matters a lot more in 5e than it did in 3.x. And that’s to say nothing of greater weapon master giving you another +2.
When I think about 3.x characters, I feel less like I had real choices, and more like I had the illusion of choice. There were tons and tons of feats, but so many of them were objectively bad. And realistically, if you were going to make an archer, for example, there was a single feat tree you were going to take. And pretty much every archer took the same feats in the same order. Between prereqs and level gates, you had very little actual choice if you wanted to be effective. (And an ineffective character 3.x was not comparable to sub-optimized in 5e. In 5e, even the worst character will still be useful, not so in 3.x) So while 5e really only gives you a choice once, when you pick your subclass, I think 3.x really only gave you a choice once, also. Basically when you started down the path of whichever feat tree you were using.
Have you looked at the level up stuff on enworld? I’ve not myself, but I heard the characters there have more choices, bolted on to the 5e chassis. Though I’ve also heard they are way more powerful that the WotC versions of characters.
I get what you mean. I played PF from about level 1-9 and because of prerequisites and penalties it DID feel like all my feats were kinda set from the moment I decided to dual wield.
I'm not familiar with the "level up stuff" at all. I know Enworld is another forum? but thats about it.
Enworld is another forum, combined with a 3rd party publisher. They printed what amounts to a different version of the PHB. As I said, it’s supposed to be a bit more rules crunchy, but I haven’t checked it out myself.
4e had a similar issue. I think whenever you have a huge pool of options, some of them are just going to float to the top. And when there are enough of those top choices to fill your whole progression, all the other choices feel like traps. Although I wouldn't go so far as to say you only had one choice. You had one clear BEST choice, and then a bunch of others.
My homebrew subclasses (full list here)
(Artificer) Swordmage | Glasswright | (Barbarian) Path of the Savage Embrace
(Bard) College of Dance | (Fighter) Warlord | Cannoneer
(Monk) Way of the Elements | (Ranger) Blade Dancer
(Rogue) DaggerMaster | Inquisitor | (Sorcerer) Riftwalker | Spellfist
(Warlock) The Swarm
What you could do is use D&D5 ruleset, monsters, skills, feats, spells, magic items, exhaustion, obscurement, cover etc and homebrew additional PF1 spells, skills, monsters, feats and class archetype that D&D5 doesn't already cover at L3. Feat acquisition can be augmented easily, so is magic items reliance and abundance. For deeper skillset, you can open up untrained/trained/expertise to everyone. For modifiers, i believe using D&D5 advantage/disadvantage is better, perhaps with smaller +1/2 here and there that you can keep limited to avoid clunking too much. It was designed to specifically avoid that anyways.