I can hear the gasps from all the Pathfinder players out there but I still have to confess, I don't like massive numbers of options in my D&D all that much.
I don't care much for dozens of classes, thousands of prestige classes, complex fiddly skill systems and endless hordes of detailed cruft.
As a DM all that is its far too much to keep track off, sort, balance out and to fit into a game world. Sure I can simply say "no." but I am an old softy and I hate to do that. Its also easier to just have a short list with enough abstract flexibility to make a concept work. Gladiator ? Fighter with lens Knight ? Fighter with lens etc etc ...
As a personal example, my campaign list for "allowed 3x classes" for Midrea, just names, allowed variants and where they are located is nearly 6 pages long. That doesn't cover any prestige classes either, just core classes. Eek!
Frankly thats too much and its not adding to my fun.
Its no better for me as a player either. It just ends up being an exercise in min-maxing and frustration .
Now in defense of 3x/Pathfinder its nothing new , I felt this way about most kits and many rules options back in 2e too.
In my opinion the trick is to have "just enough" and if you'll forgive a bit of a tease my background and lens system does this without adding much complexity ..
Trail of Cthulhu 2e and Broken Empires
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I try not to back funding projects (on Kickstarter and the like) that often
these days. This is because I backed a few in recent years that I now kind
of r...
2 weeks ago
I agree. I started playing in a PF campaign a couple of weeks ago. Point buy, starting at fifth level. I made a couple of characters, min/max'd and all, but frankly haven't seen much happen with all those skills and feats that a simpler OSR game couldn't handle just as easily.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the reply. Don't get me wrong GSV, I like Pathfinder and I am proud to support it. My players LOVE it too.
ReplyDeleteHowever it just isn't more fun in actual play. As I see it, if you'll forgive my paraphrase "the play is the thing"