3.5 or Pathfinder - which do you like best ?

[mephnick]

I'll say I prefer Pathfinder, but honestly there's so little difference between them I'm not sure why anyone argues about it either way.

[Psyren]

CMB/CMD is largely patched by adding in enhancement and insight bonuses from gear or buffs, which they have done.

You can complain all you want, but it won't make 3.5 any worse of a system, or PF any better.

Er, not complaining, making an observation.

The question of the thread is which system you like best, though, so it is relevant to the discussion. It isn't relevant to the current tangent of relevant levels of balance, though,

Indeed.

[Ssalarn]

Pretty sure it's just that it's d20+BAB+str+size vs 10+BAB+str+dex+size. The extra modifier makes it a killer to ever land a maneuver against a martially competent foe. Size is a problem simply because most PCs are going to be small or medium and as you level up you run into increasingly more huge, gargantuan and colossal enemies. Then add on top of that a lot of enemies getting some free bonuses to CMD and it's just a major headache.

Size also leads to some rather goofy rules, i.e. a giant can almost never accurately hit a pixie thanks to the latter's size bonuses to AC, but can trivially remove the pixie's toothpick sized weapon from her person because of the huge CMB/D differential.

Yeah, size is the primary culprit both in CMB not scaling well compared to CMD, and in weird scenarios like the pixie/giant one. Adventurers (by and large) tend to stay the same size while their adversaries (typically) keep getting bigger and bigger. That means that you've got this very substantial scaling bonus building on the monster's defenses with no answering counter on the hero's side.

We made a quick table of maneuvers with columns for the maneuver, CMB, and CMD, and then used a kind of common sense approach and check marks for which ones should have size bonuses applied to CMB, CMD, and/or both. For example, Disarm at our table currently does not get size bonuses to either CMB or CMD, since the whole giant disarming a pixie he can't otherwise touch makes no sense, and fingers on giants tend to be primo targets.

A simpler way of making CMB/CMD scale well is to just remove size bonuses from maneuvers all together on both sides. Suddenly everything works really well and tends to be about as logically consistent as anything else in the game is. When you think about it, they probably never should have used size bonuses in the formula in the first place. Larger creatures are generally getting proportional strength boosts and quadrapedal creatures already get a bonus on a lot of checks, so critters have kind of been double-dipping their size in the core system.

CMB/CMD is largely patched by adding in enhancement and insight bonuses from gear or buffs, which they have done.

Just to reiterate/summarize, for people who don't like using spells and/or magic items to patch up system issues, just remove size bonuses from the equation entirely. Everything works much better.

[Snowbluff]

Sorry, I meant that availability wasn't relevant to relative balance levels of the two systems. That was unclear.

Er, not complaining, making an observation.

Yeah, don't misconstrue. When I say "complain," I'm saying it's not whining. I just agree with Squark. That being said, I don't think either system is really worth playing without a healthy amount of material.

CMB/CMD is largely patched by adding in enhancement and insight bonuses from gear or buffs, which they have done.

I can't help but imagine this causes other issues. Would that mean the bonus on a weapon not being used to trip? How the hell are you getting insight bonuses?

Again, it's outside of my expertise because of the other issues with using maneuvers.

[Psyren]

I can't help but imagine this causes other issues. Would that mean the bonus on a weapon not being used to trip? How the hell are you getting insight bonuses?

Trip, Disarm and Sunder were the first, by letting you add the enhancement on your weapon. Most of the others get to join the fun with items like a Brawling weapon, Gauntlets/Belt of maneuvers, dusty rose wayfinder, thorny ioun stone etc.

[Doctor Awkward]

And as GM I shouldn't have to know every single spell in existence to make sure that my monsters aren't nullified by it. Sometimes I want to run combats or encounters/challenges that aren't mired with contingencies. I shouldn't have to play amateur game designer because the professionals let yet another one slip by the cracks.

Don't be absurd. At no point are you ever required to know every spell in existence. You only have to know about the one's on your player character's and their allies spell list. If you can't be bothered to do that much, then you aren't doing your job as a DM.

This means that the GM either needs to rewrite a large swath of spells, put many contingencies in his encounters or be required to ban a large number of spells due to potential borkedness.

Blaming badly written spells that can break encounters on Tim who just wants to run an elfgame for John, Bill and Steve every Thursday is being rather irresponsible. 3rd ed Glitterdust seem like a fun spell on paper but at low levels it can absolutely wreck house due to how blindness works.

How is this Tim's fault?

No, this just means you plan your encounters around your players. There are plenty of low CR critters that have senses that rely on things other than sight (go ahead and count the number of spiders with tremorsense) if Glitterdust is really ruining your entire campaign.
Or give more of your NPC's Iron Will. The options for monster customization are there for a reason, and if a large prep work bothers you then 3.5E is probably not the right system for you. Which is fine, but the fault lies with you, not the system. It certainly doesn't make it any kind of unplayable broken.