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Cedrass
2009-05-18, 04:42 PM
I made a thread some time ago asking for help with a Beguiler build for a campaign that will start soon, but now the group is talking about trying Pathfinder instead of "regular" D&D.

Now, I'm not much of a power gamer, I made my share of useless character for the sake of fun, but I'm worried my Beguiler won't be able to keep up with the Pathfinder classes. I can't really know tho, as I've never played a Beguiler (so I know nothing of how powerful it really is) or a Pathfinder game (but I do know the classes seems pretty strong)

I heard some people say Pathfinder is perfectly fine with the Completes series, but really, I can't imagine them being on the same scale when it comes to power...

So have you guys tried it? What's your take on this? Tried Pathfinder? Should we only play with Pathfinder classes/boost the non-Pathfinder ones?

Really, what I want to know is, can we safely mix both systems and not have anyone feel underpowered? If so, should we modify some things?

Zergrusheddie
2009-05-18, 05:01 PM
I've been playing a campaign that mixed the systems. It's worked out well so far. I really like what Pathfinder did with Sorcerers because they feel like a real class now instead of just being "I'm like a Wizard, only less so." I do not like the change to Druid's Wildshape because I don't think they got buffed enough to make up for the lose. We are playing with boosts to the old classes and are using some of their rules like combining Hide and Move Silently into Sneak so Rogues don't have a chance to pull the "Well, I'm quite but I'm on fire basically."

Beguilers are fairly powerful. First thing though: Do not expect to be in the front lines, ever. Don't think of yourself like a Rogue, think of yourself like a Caster. The ability to Feint as a move action is decent, but it requires you to be in melee and you'll be pretty squishie. You will probably have more skill points than a Rogue because Intellect is your casting stat. I've been playing mine and have been doing very well focusing on Illusionary Magic for control purposes (my favorite is Major Image and making 4 wall that are made out of mechanical blades that are shredding everything that touches them). Creatures can only disbelieve the illusion if the go over and touch it, and if your creation is scary enough no one will touch it.
Providing you have a bit on imagination and can stay out of melee, you will do fine with a Beguiler.

Best of luck
-Eddie

DeathQuaker
2009-05-18, 05:58 PM
It's funny, I was thinking about this exact thing earlier.

I recall Jason Buhlman (the main PF writer) remarking that one reason for making core classes more powerful was so that they would be on par with the more powerful "basic" classes that showed up in later 3.5 splats... such as the Beguiler. As zergrusheddie notes, the Beguiler is a pretty powerful class in its own right.

The only change I might do right off is boost the hit dice to d8s (since non-warrior classes in PF all got a hit die upgrade, and Beguilers should have the same hit die as a Bard, since they fill roughly the same role).

If you are still concerned, or find once you start playing that the Beguiler isn't keeping up, then I would go over the class with your GM. One thing Pathfinder did was eliminate "dead levels" so everyone gets a new class ability every level. Beguiler has "dead levels" (or only gets new spells) at levels 4, 9, 12, 13, 16, 17, and 18. Work with your GM (and fellow players if they're interested) to come up with class abilities to fill in those "blanks." I am not a good enough homebrewer to come up with specific, balanced suggestions, but some general possibilities could include
- increase the frequency of the Beguiler's Advanced Learning ability
- adding more free metamagic feats.
- Adding an ability that boosts the Beguiler's possible "party face" role (some boosts to Cha based skills, for example, or something like the Bard's Fascinate ability).
- Adding abilities that improve the Beguiler's perception and willpower--if the Beguiler is a master of illusions and enchantment, then he should be good at resisting such things (one would need to be careful not to overpower this, since the class already has good will saves). And particularly since the Beguiler has trapfinding, other Awareness boosting abilities could help improve this theme (which otherwise feels a little tacked on to the class).

Again, I would try the class first before adding a bunch of new things (that way you can also see where the class is lacking).

Gnorman
2009-05-18, 06:09 PM
Somewhere on the Wizards site they had the dead levels feature - my favorite one was the Swashbuckler's Seduction feature at level 4. I highly recommend this for a Beguiler. It's not too powerful - it's basically just an altered Gather Information, but it's sexy.

AslanCross
2009-05-18, 06:18 PM
I play D&D but swap out some of the core classes for Pathfinder classes instead (most typically I do this with the Rogue, since we always have a Rogue PC). Everybody's done fine so far. No real problems. If anything they feel they're able to do as much as say, Martial Adept or PHB2 classes. I think your Beguiler will do fine.

Cedrass
2009-05-18, 06:37 PM
So basically, using the Pathfinder Player's Handbook with the Completes books should gives us something balanced-ish? Would we need to augment the monsters, or would they be ok as their are? Cause they don't look like they'll be much of a challenge...

imperialspectre
2009-05-18, 06:45 PM
Beguiler still owns anything in Pathfinder that's not a full caster, except maybe heavily-optimized rogues on their best day. You have nothing to worry about. Pathfinder + Completes is enough to make beatsticks start to become a little bit useful, provided that you don't use Pathfinder's occasional idiotic feat nerfs (like Power Attack) and the casters spend slots buffing beatsticks up.

AslanCross
2009-05-18, 06:48 PM
I haven't really had problems with players walking all over encounters without bleeding so far, at least not those caused directly by weak monster stats. In fact, the Pathfinder Rogue in our party is the guy who has the most trouble killing anything---the Crusader, Psion and Artificer ruin stuff much more efficiently than the Rogue does.

In an older campaign, the Pathfinder Rogue was able to do damage efficiently because she had Swordsage levels. The Bleeding Attack rogue talent was just icing on the cake.

John Campbell
2009-05-19, 12:26 AM
The only change I might do right off is boost the hit dice to d8s (since non-warrior classes in PF all got a hit die upgrade, and Beguilers should have the same hit die as a Bard, since they fill roughly the same role).
Pathfinder links hit die size to BAB. Beguilers are half BAB progression; they get d6es. d8s are for 3/4 BAB classes. Full BAB classes get d10s or d12s.

Sinfire Titan
2009-05-19, 07:16 AM
Contrary to what they say, Pathfinder is not backwards-compatible. The sheer number of changes they've made to feats alone is enough to push their system into a new system in it's own right.

Though they fully try to support cross-system compatibility, they themselves are unaware of this fact.

Epinephrine
2009-05-19, 08:04 AM
I'm running a Pathfinder/3.5 at the moment, and we do have to make some changes to keep balance. Overall though, not too bad.

Some of the things we've done are:

Spells: Balance spells based on the Pathfinder versions. So a second level spell that incapacitates a victim should be based on the power level of the new Hold Person or Glitterdust, rather than the old 3.5 version -granting a save each round to end the effect.

PrCs: Ensure that the abilities aren't broken compared to those granted in Pathfinder, and that the rule changes don't result in brokenness where there wasn't any before.

Feats: Ensure feats are balanced with the Pathfinder system. For example, a player wanted Quickened Turning, but we ended up removing it - with the Pathfinder Channel Energy it was far too powerful, so we're going to homebrew it to some thing like "Quickened Channel Energy: by spending 3 uses of Channel Energy you may channel energy as a swift action. You are still limited to channeling energy once per round."

Domains: This is tricky - we're still trying to figure these out. The new domains don't work as the old ones do, so we are basing the powers attained on total Cleric spell casting advancement (so PrCs will advance domain powers so long as they advance your cleric casting level).

I think the bottom line is that a DM (and his players) must be willing to modify things to make them fit the style of campaign they want. If you and your players like gamebreaking combos and so on that's one thing, but we like a more sedate, sensible system, so we've never played by RAW, and happily tweak rules as we see fit.

Malacode
2009-05-19, 08:35 AM
Don't forget races get an extra +2. Make sure to remember that if you use a race not contained within the pathfinder PDF

Epinephrine
2009-05-19, 09:31 AM
Don't forget races get an extra +2. Make sure to remember that if you use a race not contained within the pathfinder PDF

You can't just add this to other races. It was brought in to make the standard races stronger, compared to some later added races that would otherwise be the dominant option. You don't simply slap an extra +2 on all the others.

Sstoopidtallkid
2009-05-19, 10:14 AM
You can't just add this to other races. It was brought in to make the standard races stronger, compared to some later added races that would otherwise be the dominant option. You don't simply slap an extra +2 on all the others.Which, considering some of the strongest races were core 3.5, is rather dumb. Pathfinder fixed the wrong problems.

Epinephrine
2009-05-19, 10:24 AM
Which, considering some of the strongest races were core 3.5, is rather dumb. Pathfinder fixed the wrong problems.

I suspect that they are referring to races like Whisper Gnomes...

Yes, humans were always strong as a race. Pathfinder may not be perfect, but it sensibly reins in a lot of issues: Polymorph fixes, Wild shape fix, Non-casters getting a nice boost (weapon/armour training, rogue abilities, etc), Low-level spells having a save every round, All special combat options being standard actions (no pounce-grapple-pin-throttle combos)...

You may not like it, but many people do. I find it preferable to 3.5, though it still needs work.

Back to the subject though, granting an additional +2 to the strong races (like whisper gnomes) would seem silly. Also, determining the favoured classes actually makes a difference now - the extra skill point or hit point per level is valuable, so the DM should keep that in mind when assigning the favoured classes for races that don't have them defined yet.

Morty
2009-05-19, 10:26 AM
I think Malacode might have meant Monster Manual races, which suck even harder in comparision to Pathfinder core races than they did in regular 3.5 D&D.

Epinephrine
2009-05-19, 10:29 AM
I think Malacode might have meant Monster Manual races, which suck even harder in comparision to Pathfinder core races than they did in regular 3.5 D&D.

Right-o; DM's should apply common sense as per usual - I was just cautioning against making it an automatic bonus. Some of the newer races were vastly superior to the old core races.

Another_Poet
2009-05-19, 10:36 AM
Contrary to what they say, Pathfinder is not backwards-compatible. The sheer number of changes they've made to feats alone is enough to push their system into a new system in it's own right.
.

*rolls eyes*

So I guess the two campaigns I've now run with Pathfinder characters facing 3.5 monsters in 3.5 dungeons with practically no tweaking, that my players loved, were just me daydreaming and imagining things?

Cedrass, I think you'e gonna love Pathfinder. I'm glad to see more people using it. Welcome to unlimited 0-level spells and extra hit points.

For beguiler, you should be fine. HD is tied to BAB but ask your DM; he/she mgiht be willing to bump you to d8 like the other d6 classes got. But even if you stay d6, yep, Beguiler is very powerful and should fit right in. Just look over your spell lists and compare to the Pathfinder PHB.

As far as monsters, the way it works is all Pathfinder characters are treated as +1 ECL for purposes of encounters. So you'll face CR/EL2 at level1, CR/EL 3 at level 2, etc.

I've found that my current crew of druid1, rogue1, bard1, wizard1 handle EL 2 encounters without difficulty and handle get 3-4 per day and still limp home to rest. I've thrown some EL 3's their way and they chew 'em up but use most of their resources healing afterward. So if your DM follows the guidelines you'll do well.

Good luck! Enjoy!

ap

John Campbell
2009-05-19, 12:19 PM
You can't just add this to other races. It was brought in to make the standard races stronger, compared to some later added races that would otherwise be the dominant option. You don't simply slap an extra +2 on all the others.

And it's not just adding a +2 to all the existing races. Rather, they added whatever was necessary to bring all the core races' net stat bonus to +2. Half-orcs actually got +4 over what they had in 3.5, because they were at a net -2 before.

(Playing a half-orc ranger in an upcoming Pathfinder/3.5 game, and it's so nice to not be getting screwed on my stats just because the game designers had this bizarre notion that the hitting-people stat was somehow more valuable than the casting stats...)

This does make the out-of-core races that were weak before even weaker now, but, frankly, I find it hard to get worked up about their plight.

Nero24200
2009-05-19, 12:25 PM
*rolls eyes*

So I guess the two campaigns I've now run with Pathfinder characters facing 3.5 monsters in 3.5 dungeons with practically no tweaking, that my players loved, were just me daydreaming and imagining things?


Or just your gamming group. PF isn't as backwards compatable as you may think. I know this because I tried running a campaign with it:

First I had to lose have the custom gods of the setting, since they used domains not covered by PF, and PF domains aren't simply spells, so converting them would have been a project on it's own (and if I'm willing to do that, I won't bother with PFRPG, I'll just make my own).

I'm also not a big fan of sorcerer bloodlines, the cleric's channel energy (with the most round-about logic I've ever seen to justify it), or the wizard school powers (though in the case of the wizards schools it's more their excecution than the schools themselves). Besides, if they feel some classes are unblanced and needed nerfing, why did they think bard deserved it best?
The class now needs mutiple perform skills just to get off what they could before (another breach in backwards compatability in my opinion) and few benifits to make up for it.

Just because you're not having problems doesn't mean the game doesn't have them.

EDIT: Sorry if I seem a little tetchy in this post, I've been having to put up with Paizo fans who just..well...can't accept the possibility that the game will have flaws, even though, just by being a roleplaying game, it will.

Morty
2009-05-19, 12:31 PM
This does make the out-of-core races that were weak before even weaker now, but, frankly, I find it hard to get worked up about their plight.

Well, some people like to play Monster Manual races. And in Pathfinder, they're, as you said, even worse than before.

Ravens_cry
2009-05-19, 12:59 PM
I think the core races in Pathfinder are meant to be comparable to a +1 level adjustment. What this means more specifically is that all those +1 races in the Monster Manual can now be played without LA.

Another_Poet
2009-05-19, 01:08 PM
Or just your gamming group.

Sinfire's original claim was that Pathfiner "is not backwards compatible." My group is a counterexample. My second group, a PbP using Pathfinder + Gestalt + E6 + D&D world/monsters + Greek gods, is a second counterexample. If those were the only such examples I'd be silly to speak up, but considering how many other people are starting to enjoy Pathfinder mix-n-match I'd say Sinfire's statement is far too broad and absolute to be remotely accurate.

I never said groups won't have problems. But let's look at your group's specific problems, as you explained them.



First I had to lose have the custom gods of the setting, since they used domains not covered by PF,

I agree that PF is not compatible with gods you made up on your own. That is not a problem with being D&D-compatible.

That said, since you already have the gods and their domains in front of you, making a homebrew fix for PF would be much less work then homebrewing them was in the first place.



I'm also not a big fan of sorcerer bloodlines,

This is easy to work with. Use 3.5 sorcerer virtually as-is (same spells known and spells per day, etc). Don't offer bloodlines. Give d6 HD and offer a bonded magic item instead of a familiar as per PF wizard, if they so choose. Done! And you don't even have to homebrew anything 'cuz it's all already there.


the cleric's channel energy...
or the wizard school powers...

It sounds like you simply don't like the class options in Pathfinder. Which is fine, everyone has their preferences. But it's a little disingenuous to claim that this makes PF less "backwards compatible." It's not that you're having a hard time mixing PF and 3.5, which is easy; it's just that you don't want to mix them because you disagree with PF's classes and rules. That's fine, but call it what it is.

edit: On a helpful note Nero, I will add one thing...
Compatibility doesn't have to mean PF characters in 3.5 dungeons, though that's what I do. Since you like your 3.5 classes with their custom gods you could easily run 3.5 characters in Pathfinder RPG adventure modules and have a blast. If your PCs are, say, 5th level just buy a 4th level adventure (and remember to lower all the Perception DC's by 2 or so). You're good to go.

I think this is something a lot of people overlook in evaluating PF. Sure, you might not want to use their new takes on the 3.5 classes. But it's easy to keep using the other products they put out, and the dungeons are likely to continue to be the same high quality stuff we saw in Dungeon magazine when it existed.

Even if you never want to touch the PF core rulebook, supporting PF is a good way to keep a steady stream of new modules for your 3.5 group. All the NPCs will have their abilities summarised in their stat block so you shouldn't need to do much cross-referencing.

ap

Ravens_cry
2009-05-19, 01:14 PM
I think the core races in Pathfinder are meant to be comparable to a +1 level adjustment. What this means more specifically is that all those +1 races in the Monster Manual can now be played without LA.

Sinfire Titan
2009-05-19, 01:22 PM
Allow me to narrow my breadth then. PF isn't compatible with classes/alternate casting systems released post-XPH. The Bo9S, MoI, and ToM manage to rape even the PF Rogue, and the changes only make it very obvious. The full casters still dominate those three books, but the XPH can now come close to beating a straight-up Wizard in areas other than damage (Metamagic is still the Wizard's ballpark though, as the Universal specialist is broken 6 ways to Sunday).


The fact is, they nerfed the Fighter's best combat options into the unplayable zone. PA is now either too restrictive to use (if you optimize your Str), or not worth the investment (if your Str is a secondary stat). HP is also still a problem (PF nerfed everyone's HP slightly, which means the unmodified books like the Bo9S are able to dominate them in terms of endurance).


And that's just PF's changes to melee. Their caster changes really hurt PrCs (Generalist Wizards now have no reason to multiclass, as their base is broken, Druid can't even make use of it's Wild Shape if it multiclasses into some druid PrCs, like Master of Many Forms, and the Cleric's domains are so wonky that they don't work with a good number of PrCs). While they did nerf casters, it's arguable that they did a lot more damage than they fixed. Hold Person? Always allowed a save each turn, they only made that more obvious. Glitterdust? They nerfed it the wrong way. Wish? Untouched. Candle of Invocation? Still there, and still broken.

They hit on a few topics, but what they hit with the nerf bat had a 70% chance of being balanced. And a good portion of Core broken is still broken (some of it more-so).




Backwards compatible? A little. If you like nerfing the classes that needed a boost instead of nerfing the casters the right way.

Epinephrine
2009-05-19, 01:35 PM
The fact is, they nerfed the Fighter's best combat options into the unplayable zone. PA is now either too restrictive to use (if you optimize your Str), or not worth the investment (if your Str is a secondary stat).

I thought they added some nice stuff, actually. The fighter's Weapon Training (progressing to a +4 over time), full BAB, and other bonuses can still let it hit with power attack, and they added some nice feats like Vital Strike to convert a low probability hit from a weak iterative attack into stronger initial attacks (double the base weapon damage on all remaining attacks?). Works really well with Haste and a big base damage weapon. The Vital Strike feats work REALLY well with monks, since they have more attacks in a flurry of blows, and they also get nice high base weapon damage.

The Barbarian's use of Rage points is great, and reminds me a lot of Maneuvers - Barbarians aren't just uberchargers anymore, they can do all sorts of cinematic stuff via rage points.

Really, the PA change hurts monsters far more than players - many enemies will have much of their "to hit" bonus dervied from their strength, making it pretty hopeless when they PA (think Earth Elementals, for example). Players often have solid BABs and varied bonuses (enhancement, weapon focus, morale, insight, flanking, ...) and can manage to make their hits count.

John Campbell
2009-05-19, 02:14 PM
Well, some people like to play Monster Manual races. And in Pathfinder, they're, as you said, even worse than before.

Point. Yeah, having the "monster" races weakened relative to the standard PC races is a problem - especially since they tended to be weaker in the first place - and I hope Paizo fixes it whenever they come out with their own monster book.

I was thinking about races like aasimars and genasi and catgirls and whatever random munchkin variants of the core races are in this week, which can die in a fire for all I care.

Sstoopidtallkid
2009-05-19, 02:26 PM
I was thinking about races like aasimars and genasi and catgirls and whatever random munchkin variants of the core races are in this week, which can die in a fire for all I care.The most common races I see mentioned in terms of power IMHO:
Human(PHB)
Dwarf(PHB)
Grey Elf(MM1)
Kobold(MM1)
Lesser Aasimar(something or other Faerun)
Whisper Gnome(RoS)
Half-Giant(XPH)
Anthromorphic Bat(SS)
That stupid MMII fey thing with a wis bonus

This is of course ignoring templates and similar and I'm sure I'm forgetting some, but the trend is clear. Core doesn't need a boost.

Another_Poet
2009-05-19, 03:23 PM
Allow me to narrow my breadth then. PF isn't compatible with classes/alternate casting systems released post-XPH.

Thank you for explaining, Sinfire.

I think your point is very valid. The Pathfinder core material - their beta player's guide - is not fully compatible with the 3.5 non-core material. I agree with you there and I think that is an issue of timing, not game design.

I suspect that within a year there will be several PF supplements that give support to the wider array of non-core mechanics. It will always be a little wonky because they can't just re-release a PF version of all the 3.5 splat books (there's no market for it) but if they invent their own splat material it will never work perfectly with all the 3.5 stuff. So there is a part of their job that is difficult to accomplish and I'm sure it will never be perfect. Hopefully they will pull the best of the best 3.5 splat and support that in their ruleset over just 2 or 3 supplements.

However the rest of your gripes aren't issues of compatibility. They're opinions on the power balance within Pathfinder. You're saying that many PF choices leave many spells or classes that were broken in 3.5 (too strong, too weak) still broken in PF. I imagine that, if anything, that helps with compatibility :smallwink:

Frankly the only major mistake Paizo has made so far with Pathfinder is to make it sound like they would rebalance everything. They rebalanced some things, but that is really not the main selling point of the system. The main selling point is, or should be, "We love 3.5 in all its complex, uneven, power-spiraling awesomeness. If you enjoyed the last ten years of gaming come get some goodies for free and then try out our modules. 'Cuz we ain't done yet."

3.5 isn't about power balance. Some classes are good at low levels, some at high levels, some aren't good at all. But if you like jumping into that crazy wave pool of high fantasy then PF is a pile of good options that are no worse, and often better, than anything WotC put in print.

So if you don't like the internal power balance of Pathfinder, that's fine. If you're waiting for more support to non-core material, that's fine too. I just wish people would stop knocking a 3.5 spinoff for preserving the flawed-but-fun power tradeoff that basically defines 3.5e.

...

Plus it's fun. :smallsmile:

ap

arguskos
2009-05-19, 03:52 PM
3.5 isn't about power balance. Some classes are good at low levels, some at high levels, some aren't good at all. But if you like jumping into that crazy wave pool of high fantasy then PF is a pile of good options that are no worse, and often better, than anything WotC put in print.
Sir, thank you. I love Pathfinder and 3.5 for exactly that reason: because balance is often overrated and because fun rules over all.