Hopefully you’ve read before, but I played Pathfinder for about six to seven years in its initial form. Towards the end of my time running the rpg system, I began to get extremely burnt-out– and this wasn’t entirely the fault of the game system. I had switched jobs and schedules, we weren’t able to play as often, and life just gets in the way sometimes. But also…the system wasn’t helping anything.
1st edition Pathfinder as a game, was designed around the base of D&D 3.5– an edition of the classic which focused on simulationist play. There were rules for how to do just about anything: What happens when you throw an Alchemist’s Fire at a stone wall (AC, hit points, and hardness all come in to play, as well as the fact that elemental damage is only half as effective against objects most of the time); how far can you fly with a 50’ fly speed into the wind at an upwards angle (Fly checks, difficult terrain, limits on how high you can get per round); how can you escape from the inside of a froghemoth’s gullet (holding your breath, what size weapon can be wielded in this space, how much damage of what kind can cut you out); and the list goes on.
These rules make for excellent consistency– when the players and GM both know the rules pertaining to situations, then they can make plans in character accordingly. If the Bard knows that casting a spell with verbal components while in the stomach of a froghemoth will cause him to lose all remaining air and begin suffocating, he doesn’t need to ask the GM how much longer he can hold his breath after casting, and has the knowledge to fuel tactical decisions– do you cast a spell hoping that it will allow you to escape the monster, but knowing that if it fails you’re likely dead…or do you continue an almost futile attempt to cut a hole through the stomach lining to exit, even though you know it means you need to crit and roll close to max damage in order to live. But hey, at least you can keep trying that for seven more rounds…as long as the stomach acids don’t dissolve you first. Heh heh heh…
However, as empowering as these rules can be for a player and GM who know them front to back, they can also prove to be a stumbling point. Take grappling– grabbing onto a creature and holding them still against their will. As a player in 1st edition Pathfinder, if you wanted to grapple someone, there were literal flowcharts to ease the way through it. When you use your action to grab onto them, first your target gets an Attack of Opportunity on you (unless you have the feat to prevent that of course); then you make a CMB roll versus their CMD (and heaven forbid they’re bigger than you, because then they get a bonus to their CMD); if you succeed you both gain the Grappled condition, which imposes penalties to your dexterity and your attack rolls and CMB rolls, except for ones made to escape the grapple. Oh, and also you’re both immobilized, kinda.
For reference: http://www.pfsprep.com/e107_files/public/1482694608_186_FT297_grappleflowchart_1.0.pdf
It’s a lot, is it not? Still– not the worst thing. Many ttrpg systems have a part or two of their rules that are heavily complicated– D&D 5e’s rules on casting multiple spells in a turn with actions and bonus actions comes to mind as an example (though still not quite as convoluted as grappling can be). However Pathfinder’s simulationist nature extends into more than just normal rule mechanics– it also takes this approach to character building. If anything can be said of 1st edition Pathfinder, it’s that it gives you an absolute glut of options to choose from when building your character. 44 classes, 77 ancestries, 118 prestige classes, 3,443 feats…not to mention that each class has its own list of archetypes that will replace normal class progression with differing effects, often allowing them to operate more like other classes entirely (the White Mage Arcanist gains access to healing spells, while the Animal Speaker Bard can influence animals like a Druid can).
Now extend this glut of choice, and apply the GM mindset and simulationist style, to monster design and creation. Creatures are created with the same mechanical rules systems as PC’s are created– this means their attack bonuses are accounted for by having the proper amount of strength plus magical weapons plus special abilities plus feats; their AC is calculated by adding armor bonus plus dexterity modifier plus magical equipment and spells, etc. Sounds fine, until you realize that if you ever wanted to create a creature, you were going to need to put in at least as much work (if not more) as you would if you were to create a new character. If you give them class levels, you need to pick out feats, figure out if it has special abilities, calculate the base attack bonus when compared to a regular creature of its type.
It’s a lot! Fortunately with over 3,000 monsters to choose from, hey, you probably don’t need to make your own creatures! Except…this enormous amount of choice that players get to sift through, can really reward the highly dedicated. Those who manage to scour the tomes and find class archetypes that combine extremely well with a multiclass build using this obscure magical item to boost up these three feats you take, might find themselves able to game the system enough to take most of the random chance out of the roll– their modifiers to a die roll can be large enough that failure becomes extremely unlikely. When that happens, well, as it turns out it is a very good thing that the rules for monster creation allow for you to do the same thing right back to the players– you can optimize the heck out of your monster so that you can still provide a challenge to the characters. In this case, you’re fairly well matched against each other, and all is happy with the world– if the characters begin to overpower the monsters you have available, you can choose to up the danger of the monsters in order to continue challenging the players– and if they aren’t overpowering the players, then you don’t need to worry about extra challenge!
Except not every group is perfectly aligned with those who have spent time thoroughly researching the system and finding these interesting and niche interactions, or those who have not done such a thing. So far in my somewhat limited experience, it’s almost never a case of all or nothing. My Kingmaker campaign had one player out of four who enjoyed the game for its weird and overpowered build combos that he could pull off with it, and he built his character (and one of the other player’s characters) to reflect this aspect of the game that he enjoyed so much. While I was glad that he was engaged with the game and the system, it caused a tension for me to make the game fun and challenging for all of my players. When half of the PC’s were able to trivialize many encounters and skill checks, but the other half remained constrained to normal game math, I was often faced with the choice of who to design a situation towards. Combat encounters tended to end quickly to a gunslinger who hit like a truck every time they fired, while social encounters could be thwarted by the Bard who maximized skill checks and spell choices.
It’s not an unwinnable situation, and I adapted somewhat– a few times I changed combat encounters around to give multiple goals such as defeating these enemies but also saving these citizens; once I designed a roleplaying mystery for the players to solve which relied more on them talking to the right people and asking the right questions rather than making skill checks. It was a fix, but not one that I could be wholly satisfied by– it required extra effort on my part, something which we established towards the beginning of this post I was running out of a desire to give. I choose to run Paizo Adventure Paths generally for two reasons: The story sounds cool and interesting, and it takes less preparation from me before sessions. I try and read the entire campaign before I start the game, and after that I read the relevant sections as they begin to come up in games. When one criteria, the ease of preparation, begins to fade out, my motivation begins to die.
Long before my Kingmaker campaign came to a close in 2020, I had decided to abandon 1st edition Pathfinder for something else. Despite not enjoying the simplified complexity and limited ruleset and customization of D&D 5e, I found myself wanting to try running in it just to experience an easier, less complicated rules system. At the time of the playtest for second edition Pathfinder, I don’t think I was sold one way or another on it. I certainly was excited to learn about a new system, but that didn’t necessarily translate to love of a system. The love would come…later. The love would come next post!
The Busy Basilisk 