D&D 3E/3.5 A list of 3e problems and how they were tackled in PF

[jimmifett]

You cite a situation where the fighter is getting four attacks. That means high level. The amount of high level foes that don't have SR is limited in my experience (other than NPCs, and even they can get it). There's your roll to hit for the mage. This is, of course, coupled with a saving throw. Given that almost every spell is now damage with a save, or to hit for damage, that would also ameliorate your issue. There's almost nothing left of the save or die variety. There's still a bit of save or suck, but that's it and a lot of those allow continuous attempts to save.

Fighters got a rather nice feat chain called vital strike. This lets them do significantly higher damage at the expense of iterative attacks.

Here's the top end from the PRD:
Greater Vital Strike (Combat)

You can make a single attack that deals incredible damage.

Prerequisites: Improved Vital Strike, Vital Strike, base attack bonus +16.

Benefit: When you use the attack action, you can make one attack at your highest base attack bonus that deals additional damage. Roll the damage dice for the attack four times and add the results together, but do not multiply damage bonuses from Strength, weapon abilities (such as flaming), or precision-based damage (such as sneak attack). This bonus damage is not multiplied on a critical hit (although other damage bonuses are multiplied normally).

There is also:

Deadly Stroke (Combat)

With a well-placed strike, you can bring a swift and painful end to most foes.

Prerequisites: Dazzling Display, Greater Weapon Focus, Shatter Defenses, Weapon Focus, proficiency with the selected weapon, base attack bonus +11.

Benefit: As a standard action, make a single attack with the weapon for which you have Greater Weapon Focus against a stunned or flat-footed opponent. If you hit, you deal double the normal damage and the target takes 1 point of Constitution bleed (see Conditions). The additional damage and bleed is not multiplied on a critical hit.

Which follows on from another couple feats in the chain which render the target flat footed until the end of your next round.

So these feat chains, coupled with the extra +5 to hit you will be getting at the high end means a serious damage increase for the fighter. There are also feats which put riders on your crits, and allow you to really hash up spellcasters who are trying to cast defensively. Include in the lunge (which increases your reach), and Step Up(which allows you to take a 5' move with your enemy as an immediate action if he does one to step back) and melee people with the right stuff will be playing hell with casters who don't know to keep their distance. No more "I step back 5' and cast".

You can look over the rules yourself since they are available in the PRD

That was an excellent answer. Cookies for you.
I am now going over the PRD and will be adding PF to my shelves.

 

[Imban]

Uhh, I'm not exactly sure how to take that but happy to answer any question you may or may not be asking...?

Wasn't really a question, just a statement that I knew I'd seen the idea of "base magic bonus" somewhere before, namely Unearthed Arcana for 3.5e.

But also just kind of plugging your work there.

 

[Wulf Ratbane]

Wasn't really a question, just a statement that I knew I'd seen the idea of "base magic bonus" somewhere before, namely Unearthed Arcana for 3.5e.

But also just kind of plugging your work there.

Ok, gotcha.

Yes, the magic rating from UA was a piece (although the bard uses 2:3, not 1:1) and the Ready spell concept was Monte's, but (as far as I know) the concept of a Unified Spell Progression, and pulling the casting features of the classes (cleric domains, cleric spontaneous, wizard versatility, and sorcerer spell slots) off into class features-- which IMO is the lynchpin to making multiclassing work-- was created by me "whole cloth."

Just kind of plugging my own work there.

 

[Rechan]

Vital strike is one of my favorite things about what I've seen of Pathfinder. I've always felt those extra attacks with a bonus of +3 at high levels were just a waste of time, unless by chance you managed to crit and confirm with it, which (due to the low bonus), confirming is unlikely.

 

[Imban]

Vital strike is one of my favorite things about what I've seen of Pathfinder. I've always felt those extra attacks with a bonus of +3 at high levels were just a waste of time, unless by chance you managed to crit and confirm with it, which (due to the low bonus), confirming is unlikely.

Uh, Vital Strike isn't actually all that useful. Now, the one in the Pathfinder Beta wasn't, but the new one? Yeah.

See, you're actually fairly likely to hit on your first attack (unless you're just boned) and your attack at -5. The attacks at -10 and -15 are significantly less likely, to the point where that attack at -15 rarely matters at all.

If you hit 2.5 times, you're doing 2.5x the damage of hitting once, both the weapon dice, any bonus dice you might be adding, any fixed damage from Strength, et cetera. If you use Greater Vital Strike, you're hitting once, so 1x damage, plus 3x the weapon dice.

Assuming something relatively decent, like a Large PC, 30 Strength, using an... I dunno, flaming holy greatsword +2, you're dealing 3d6 (weapon) + 15 (Strength) + 2 (+2) + 1d6 fire (flaming) + 2d6 (holy) damage per hit, average 38 damage.

Greater Vital Strike would give you the same, except the first hit would be for 12d6, hence 69.5 average damage. Hitting twice - on your first attack and your -5 attack - would deal 76 average damage.

It's nice if the enemy is managing to stop you from ever getting a full attack in, but if you're not sticking solely with Pathfinder, there are plenty of ways in 3.5e to get Pounce and full attack off of a charge. Alternatively, it's nice if you're using various size cheese to make your weapon damage dice already something crazy like 12d6, since then Greater Vital Strike pushes it up to an absurd 48d6.

(The beta Vital Strike was amazingly strong, because it let you drop the -15 attack for an extra +3d6 damage on your hits that actually have a chance of hitting. So yeah.)

 

[Daztur]

My personal thoughts:

1. General caster/melee imbalance.
Pathfinder response: make the problem worse (they nerf power attack, one of the few things that meleers had going for them and buff wizards)

2. Saving throw DC scaling faster than bonuses to saves since its easier to boost one number (the DC) than three numbers (three kinds of saves).
Pathfinder response: make the problem worse (easier to get mental stat bonuses, etc.)

3. Too many little fiddly things to keep track of.
Pathfinder response: make the problem worse (too many round/day effects).

4. The way the multiclassing works certain cool combinations just don't work unless you jump through a whole lot of PrC hoops
Pathfinder response: make the problem worse by nerfing multiclassing in general thereby making fighter/wizards even weaker than before (and I always loved playing them in 2ed ). This one is somewhat forgivable since it would require overhauling 3.5ed multiclassing to fix.

5. 15 minute adventuring days.
Pathfinder response: no change.

6. Magic item Christmas Tree effect.
Pathfinder response: make the problem worse by making magic item creation easier.

7. Lots of classes just don't have enough skill points for things it makes sense for them to do.
Pathfinder response: small improvement because of merging skills and changing how cross class skills worked. But come on, would it have killed you to give the fighter 4 skill points?

8. Druid animal companions can often out melee a lot of melee characters ("my class feature is more powerful than your entire class!")
Pathfinder response: moderate move in the right direction, but the druid is still quite rather overpowered.

9. A lot of the really cool splatbook classes I want to play are a lot weaker than their closest core equivalent (poor swashbuckler and warlocks, I weep for you).
Pathfinder response: make the problem worse by increasing the power of the Core classes so that they overshadow the splatbook classes even more.

10. Combat is often pretty boring with the same one trick ponies using their tricks over and over again.
Pathfinder response: I haven't read the rules enough, but I'm not seeing that big of a change here, that said I can probably forgive this one since this would be hard to do without really overhauling 3.5ed in a big way.

 

[an_idol_mind]

1. General caster/melee imbalance.
Pathfinder response: make the problem worse (they nerf power attack, one of the few things that meleers had going for them and buff wizards)

Except that melee characters now have a ton of extra feats and abilities, while some of the more problematic spells have been scaled back.

2. Saving throw DC scaling faster than bonuses to saves since its easier to boost one number (the DC) than three numbers (three kinds of saves).
Pathfinder response: make the problem worse (easier to get mental stat bonuses, etc.)

Except that monsters are being rescaled and there are new feats and abilities to boost poor saves.

3. Too many little fiddly things to keep track of.
Pathfinder response: make the problem worse (too many round/day effects).

I'll have to see this one in game before I see it as better or worse. I don't see that round per day would be any more difficult to keep track of than uses per day, though.

4. The way the multiclassing works certain cool combinations just don't work unless you jump through a whole lot of PrC hoops
Pathfinder response: make the problem worse by nerfing multiclassing in general thereby making fighter/wizards even weaker than before (and I always loved playing them in 2ed ). This one is somewhat forgivable since it would require overhauling 3.5ed multiclassing to fix.

Eldritch Knights got better from what I'm seeing. I also don't see multiclassing as nerfed. Sticking to one class is rewarded, but there are still a lot of things you can do with multiclassing, too.

5. 15 minute adventuring days.
Pathfinder response: no change.

Except for more healing, several abilities that spellcasters can use many times per day or at-will, and more hit points to allow the adventure day to last longer.

6. Magic item Christmas Tree effect.
Pathfinder response: make the problem worse by making magic item creation easier.

Except that they limited stat-boosting items and shifted the focus more toward oft-neglected magic items.

7. Lots of classes just don't have enough skill points for things it makes sense for them to do.
Pathfinder response: small improvement because of merging skills and changing how cross class skills worked. But come on, would it have killed you to give the fighter 4 skill points?

The merged skill list and favored class bonus is a huge help.

8. Druid animal companions can often out melee a lot of melee characters ("my class feature is more powerful than your entire class!")
Pathfinder response: moderate move in the right direction, but the druid is still quite rather overpowered.

Again, I'd have to see it in play, but it looks like animal companions and wildshape got some nice revisions.

9. A lot of the really cool splatbook classes I want to play are a lot weaker than their closest core equivalent (poor swashbuckler and warlocks, I weep for you).
Pathfinder response: make the problem worse by increasing the power of the Core classes so that they overshadow the splatbook classes even more.

I think it should be Paizo's concern to make their core classes interesting, not to tell people to go buy some out of print books to really enjoy the game.

10. Combat is often pretty boring with the same one trick ponies using their tricks over and over again.
Pathfinder response: I haven't read the rules enough, but I'm not seeing that big of a change here, that said I can probably forgive this one since this would be hard to do without really overhauling 3.5ed in a big way.

New feats give fighting classes more options and make it possible to fight without using full attack every round. paladins, rangers, and monks also have a wider variety of abilities to choose from in a battle.

 

[Mark Chance]

I haven't read the rules enough....

Perhaps you should. Most of the "problems" you say are made "worse" are more related player/DM issues than the game itself.

 

[Twowolves]

It's painfully obvious he hasn't read the rules, nor playtested them. Most of his "Pathfinder made it worse" responses are flat-out wrong, and it smells like troll-bait to me.

 

[ST]

It's painfully obvious he hasn't read the rules, nor playtested them. Most of his "Pathfinder made it worse" responses are flat-out wrong, and it smells like troll-bait to me.

You're entitled to your opinion, but I've heard similar comments from people who explicitly *had* playtested the rules, so I don't really agree with you there.