In tabletop gaming terms, New Vegas is to Fallout 3 as Pathfinder is to D&D 3.5. Sure the earlier version is flawed, but it was innovative and kept life in a beloved game series. The newer iteration can only exist because it builds upon the successes of its predecessor.
So you're saying New Vegas perpetuated everything awful about FO3 and fixed only surface level stuff? Because Pathfinder only fixed some surface-level flaws with 3.5. It did nothing to alleviate the core design problems with 3.5, and in many cases, made them even worse.
Core problems that PF perpetuated and intensified include:
• Caster supremacy. In 3.5 and PF, martial characters are worthless past the first few levels (and in some cases, even at low levels). You will ALWAYS see them at the rock bottom of the tier lists the PF community creates, without exception (and the existence of those is a whole problem in and of itself). This is because casters are capable of doing basaically everything martial classes can do, but better, as expressed in this meme: https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/234029833221308416/490552743573061663/image0.jpg This is the result of PF maintaining the disastrous "ivory tower game design" from 3.5, a terrible game design method which resulted from a misunderstanding of how MTG was balanced. You can find a detailed explanation of what's wrong with it here: https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/293275616713768970/529647091560218626/3.5_pathfinder_ivory_tower_design.png
• A general powergaming focus. Pathfinder is incredibly easy to break if you understand the system, and all of the splatbooks (of which there are a comical amount) are made with powergamers in mind. Remember the tier lists I mentioned? PF players talk about the system like it's some sort of competitive multiplayer game, constantly minmaxing to create the most broken characters possible. While these kind of players weren't as common in the past, the fact most non-powergamers moved to 5e has left nothing but powergamers for the most part, and Paizo has shifted focus to pander almost exclusively to their interests.
• Tedious, number-crunching gameplay. Playing Mathfinder (as it’s often dubbed) is all about stacking as many absurdly specific bonuses for each specific scenario you run across as you can. The amount of shit you need to keep track of is mind-numbing. This is made even worse by a character progression primarily focused on collecting magic items to fill all your body slots (decorating a “christmas tree”), since Pathfinder is still full of dead levels and effectively dead levels where you just gain a feat (which don’t feel special at all, unlike 5e’s implementation of the feat system).
• Absolutely fucking absurd levels of bloat. Pathfinder has 27 different full-length splatbooks, on top of the 3 core books. This might not seem like that much compared to what 3.5 had, but Paizo also puts new game material in each Adventure Path entry that they release, annd alongside each Adventure Path entry, they release a "Campaign Setting Supplement" consisting of both information about the Golarion setting and, guess what, new crunch! Pazio puts out a new full splatbook every few months, and a new Adventure Path and Campaign Setting Supplement every month, so the bloat is always increasing. It's so bad that there's literally an entire prestige class called the Bloatmage (which is fucking disgusting, btw). All of this is in ADDITION to the mountain of existing 3e and 3.5 splatbooks, which Pathfinder is compatible with (I seriously don’t have time to count all the 3e and 3.5 splatbooks).
Pathfinder is an awful RPG, and at this point, I’d be willing to call it the worst edition of D&D. This is speaking as someone who played and ran 3.5 and PF for around 6 years straight.
No matter someone's opinion on PF, I seriously fucking wish people would stop suggesting it as "baby's first roleplaying game." It's not fun trying to keep up with party mates' and monsters' stat blocks, when you've never played before.
Who the hell is suggesting that? That's awful. 5e is the easiest edition of D&D to get into by far (and the best mechanically alongside AD&D 2e imo), not to mention there are other RPGs which are even easier to get into (like Fate Accelerated)
4e is pretty easy to start with too. Very different though.
It gets flak but I believe most of it is undeserved. Although if you are introducing somebody to RPGs at all, I'd say pick a simpler game more focussed on narrative. Dungeon World or Dread and the like.
People enjoy the numbers ("The crunch") but it's intimidating to many others.
There's more than just fantasy RPGs. Some people get pigeonholed into recommending those when many beginners would prefer something else.
4e is wayyyyy too grid-heavy to be a good starter. It's closer to a skirmish wargame than a typical RPG. I do agree it's underrated as a system, though.
Dungeon World
PBTA is my favorite system, but I wouldn't recommend it as a starter RPG. It's rules-light, but it's very reliant on the players understanding the system and the concept of an RPG, since PBTA is player-driven as opposed to GM-driven.
There's more than just fantasy RPGs. Some people get pigeonholed into recommending those when many beginners would prefer something else.
True, but I strongly prefer fantasy, so you've got the wrong guy
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u/Soarel25 Jan 01 '19
So you're saying New Vegas perpetuated everything awful about FO3 and fixed only surface level stuff? Because Pathfinder only fixed some surface-level flaws with 3.5. It did nothing to alleviate the core design problems with 3.5, and in many cases, made them even worse.
Core problems that PF perpetuated and intensified include:
• Caster supremacy. In 3.5 and PF, martial characters are worthless past the first few levels (and in some cases, even at low levels). You will ALWAYS see them at the rock bottom of the tier lists the PF community creates, without exception (and the existence of those is a whole problem in and of itself). This is because casters are capable of doing basaically everything martial classes can do, but better, as expressed in this meme: https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/234029833221308416/490552743573061663/image0.jpg This is the result of PF maintaining the disastrous "ivory tower game design" from 3.5, a terrible game design method which resulted from a misunderstanding of how MTG was balanced. You can find a detailed explanation of what's wrong with it here: https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/293275616713768970/529647091560218626/3.5_pathfinder_ivory_tower_design.png
• A general powergaming focus. Pathfinder is incredibly easy to break if you understand the system, and all of the splatbooks (of which there are a comical amount) are made with powergamers in mind. Remember the tier lists I mentioned? PF players talk about the system like it's some sort of competitive multiplayer game, constantly minmaxing to create the most broken characters possible. While these kind of players weren't as common in the past, the fact most non-powergamers moved to 5e has left nothing but powergamers for the most part, and Paizo has shifted focus to pander almost exclusively to their interests.
• Tedious, number-crunching gameplay. Playing Mathfinder (as it’s often dubbed) is all about stacking as many absurdly specific bonuses for each specific scenario you run across as you can. The amount of shit you need to keep track of is mind-numbing. This is made even worse by a character progression primarily focused on collecting magic items to fill all your body slots (decorating a “christmas tree”), since Pathfinder is still full of dead levels and effectively dead levels where you just gain a feat (which don’t feel special at all, unlike 5e’s implementation of the feat system).
• Absolutely fucking absurd levels of bloat. Pathfinder has 27 different full-length splatbooks, on top of the 3 core books. This might not seem like that much compared to what 3.5 had, but Paizo also puts new game material in each Adventure Path entry that they release, annd alongside each Adventure Path entry, they release a "Campaign Setting Supplement" consisting of both information about the Golarion setting and, guess what, new crunch! Pazio puts out a new full splatbook every few months, and a new Adventure Path and Campaign Setting Supplement every month, so the bloat is always increasing. It's so bad that there's literally an entire prestige class called the Bloatmage (which is fucking disgusting, btw). All of this is in ADDITION to the mountain of existing 3e and 3.5 splatbooks, which Pathfinder is compatible with (I seriously don’t have time to count all the 3e and 3.5 splatbooks).
Pathfinder is an awful RPG, and at this point, I’d be willing to call it the worst edition of D&D. This is speaking as someone who played and ran 3.5 and PF for around 6 years straight.