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Ken L
December 27th, 2016, 16:56
I was wondering if there are going to be any upgrades due to the official roll out of Pathfinder support with the paizo press release.

I'm aware that it draws heavily from the 3.5 ruleset, and Ddavid himself said it's sufficient, but there can be more room to allow for improvements now outside of a theme adjustment.

For myself I've modded the status icons in 3.5 to use 22x22 pixel sets from the noun project where are easier to read than the microscopic square effect icons. There's also the possibility of adding drag/drop class features akin to the D&D5e ruleset.

Given the move to unity, perhaps all we'll get is the theme, but once those vapors coalesce I'm looking forward to seeing a more seamless interface beyond riding on the back of 3.5e.

nickabbey
December 29th, 2016, 15:57
I was going to start a new thread, but this seems a good place to chime in and say that I am also hoping for drag and drop character building akin to what 5e ruleset has.
Nicodemus' race and class mod helps me simplify PC building greatly, but it sure would be nice to be able to drag races and class levels in to character sheets, and then be presented with appropriate dialog boxes for things like alternate racial traits, class features (bloodlines for sorcerers, domains for clerics, combat styles for rangers, etc...), ability score bonuses, etc...

As a GM for a group of relative news to RPGs in general (and none of whom have ever used a vtt before) I find that my choice of pathfinder makes a LOT more work for me at level up time because the players need me to do almost all of it for them.

Bidmaron
December 29th, 2016, 17:47
nick abbey, I don't think we will see that any time soon or perhaps not at all. As has been pointed out, PFRPG has tons of options, including many inherited from 3.5. It is just too complicated at this point, although maybe they could do the basic core characters only with no archetypes. Remember, HeroLab is a piece of software the core mission of which is producing characters, and it really makes little sense for FG to duplicate that effort since you can export the character from HL to FG without a lot of fuss. We would much rather the folks here spend their time focusing on the things FG does well rather than duplicating what other software specializes in.

Personally, I doubt most gamers would ever be satisfied with a character built by drag-and-drop.

Nylanfs
December 29th, 2016, 19:20
<cough>PCGen</cough>

Svandal
January 4th, 2017, 20:41
I would love it if they implement hit points based on ability score.
That way constitution boost and debut works as intended.
Of course with the option of changing what ability Hp is dependent on.
It is one of the few things I miss

Ken L
January 7th, 2017, 03:55
I agree that including drag/drop for PF classes is likely not to be developed any time soon due to the sheer number of them. What I would like is the ability of the ruleset to allow it. Given X class it affects Y abilities supressing/altering Z mechanics for spell DC/CMD/BAB etc... a kind of package manager of sorts for applying 'mods' brought by the class.

Extended classes can be made by the community if the base+APG/UM/UC are included. The framework needs to exist first however.

Talyn
January 7th, 2017, 17:17
The number of classes, items, etc. don't really matter. Simply writing the functionality for one makes it work for all. We'll see. It's one thing when it's a freebie ruleset. It's something else entirely when there's money rolling in from license agreements and users buying that content. Developers tend to notice that and work on enhancements for where the money is.

Trenloe
January 7th, 2017, 17:30
Simply writing the functionality for one makes it work for all.
I'd disagree with this statement. There are simple classes in Pathfinder and there are very complex classes. Writing the functionality that allows, say, a fighter to be drag/dropped into the character sheet is very different from the functionality required for a Kineticist (for example).

Pathfinder has evolved over the years, with the addition of classes and class archetypes that can basically override a lot of the base rules from the Core rulebook. Things that weren't allowed in Core are now allowed due to class archetypes (as an example). To give you an idea of all of the possibilities, to get all of the packages for HeroLab that cover character generation will cost you $240, and HeroLab is constantly having to be developed/changed to allow new content to fit within their framework. And this is for an application that is aimed completely at character generation.

Not at all a case of "simply writing the functionality for one..."

Talyn
January 7th, 2017, 17:38
Gotta start somewhere though. I'm just talking about the basic drag & drop into the character sheet. If we're going to go into Beyond 5E Automation then sure, that'd be a lot more work but that wasn't the impression I was getting.

Bidmaron
January 7th, 2017, 17:46
Talyn, the functionality you are speaking of is already there. You can drag and drop to the character sheet. Anything more than what there is now opens up the can of worms Trenloe is talking about. There is no useful intermediary layer like you are implying. Everything to handle drag and drop is lua scripting if it is not already in the ruleset. You cannot do what you are proposing because a race, for example, could potentially affect almost anything on the character sheet. It might be possible to introduce text parsing like is done for effects now, but a simple search for effects on these forums will demonstrate that it is not very reliable because the discipline of the material writers just isn't there to enforce the strict nomenclature you need to parse reliably.

I wager that in just over a year, you will see 5e start to break down as they introduce their own gestalts, archetypes, substitution levels, or whatever other complexity they will dream up to sell more ruleset material.

As I have said elsewhere many times, please let SW focus on the VTT and do your character generation in HeroLabs.

Trenloe
January 7th, 2017, 17:54
Gotta start somewhere though.
True, but that is not the statement you made.


I'm just talking about the basic drag & drop into the character sheet. If we're going to go into Beyond 5E Automation then sure, that'd be a lot more work but that wasn't the impression I was getting.
I think you're massively underestimating the complexity, even to reach a level of automation similar to 5E. 5E still has a lot of automation when a class is dropped onto a character sheet. It populates HD, skills, feats/abilities, spell levels; presents options for the player to select, etc.. And this is for a system which had a design goal of making it much simpler than previous editions of D&D (Pathfinder is essentially a previous edition of D&D - based heavily on D&D 3.5E), so it is less complex than Pathfinder classes and has a lot less classes/variants than Pathfinder has. Reaching a level of automation that the 5E ruleset has, not even considering going "beyond" is a massive task.

Myrdin Potter
January 8th, 2017, 01:27
And the automation in 5e essentially only works if you follow the right sequence and do not change your mind and backtrack. I expect it is get harder and harder as more options are added in as well.

I am amazed that a character creator is over $200 just by itself ...

Talyn
January 8th, 2017, 01:32
I suspect most of it licensing, just like here on FG. I was tempted to get at least the tablet version but they only have iOS, no Android so screw 'em! :p PCGen has served me well enough.

Nylanfs
January 8th, 2017, 14:32
Yea!

tlavalle
January 10th, 2017, 15:44
hero lab has a price i cant remember, but really issue is all addons that cost that much i have bought all of them and it does add up pretty close to that.

lostsanityreturned
January 12th, 2017, 17:34
hero lab has a price i cant remember, but really issue is all addons that cost that much i have bought all of them and it does add up pretty close to that.

Yeah, but for someone who sticks to the hardcover releases only it isn't THAT expensive.
Even without taking advantage of their sales

$30 for the core license and program.
$10 for each book after that. ($15 for bestiary 1)

Considering that most players will be happy with a setup like

Core, Advplayers, Advrace, UltComba, Ultmagic, Advanced Class, Advanced Equip

It isn't THAT expensive, and if you have trusted friends you can split the cost with 1 license per person, up to a maximum of 5 licenses (each additional past the first 2 are $10 each)

So that is a maximum of $90 for one person and majority of core content for the game, or $24 each if you have 5 friends.

And that is before their half priced sales.

Heck you could add in UltIntregue, Horror and Occult and it would still be fairly low.

Nylanfs
January 12th, 2017, 18:35
Or PCGen (https://pcgen.org), :)

dellanx
February 15th, 2017, 16:34
Not sure if this belongs here or not, but would love to see a better spell parser so NPCs take less time to load in the combat tracker.

LordEntrails
February 16th, 2017, 20:18
Not sure if this belongs here or not, but would love to see a better spell parser so NPCs take less time to load in the combat tracker.
Moon Wizard has already made improvements to this in the next build. You can see his comments in the build thread for 3.2.4.

Trenloe
February 16th, 2017, 20:41
Moon Wizard has already made improvements to this in the next build. You can see his comments in the build thread for 3.2.4.
Or.... maybe not: https://www.fantasygrounds.com/forums/showthread.php?36552-Test-Release-v3-2-4&p=321850&viewfull=1#post321850 :(

Moon Wizard
February 16th, 2017, 20:50
I only reverted one of the changes. There are several other updates for speed still in place.

Cheers,
JPG

paladinpariah
February 24th, 2017, 22:08
I want to preface this by saying that this post will sound really negative and I'm not trying to be a naysayer. I really want to be convinced to purchase these new products. Seriously, I can't stand 5e and I would love to see a Pathfinder "killer app" that can match what 5e has for FG right now.

Just read this:

https://us13.campaign-archive1.com/?u=70b64c3aab6b463beab9328c9&id=2160ab4be1

I'm wondering what this official Paizo release is going to give us that we don't have already. The 5e stuff is so incredibly robust, the tables and charts auto-generating things instantly is reason enough to own those modules. It seems like this new Pathfinder product for FG will only be a prettier version of stuff we already have. What am I missing? I've only been using FG as a GM for a few months and I know my lack of knowledge is probably limiting my ability to see the advantages these new official products will bring to the table.

I would love it if someone could explain what it will do for FG that we can't do already. I was really excited when I first heard Paizo was going to really get behind FG and produce some official modules. Their production values are already super high and people who program for FG do a bang up job at making great modules. How are these two giant forces coming together to improve my ability to run games?

Thanks.

damned
February 24th, 2017, 22:27
At the most simple level they will provide full searchable copies of the whole rulebooks - not just the SRD or a subset of the SRD. They will contain all the graphics etc as well. There are some other ruleset enhancements as well but at this stage it will not have all of 5E's features.

The modules will be the full module all prepped for you in FG so you dont have to do the prep just read ahead.

None of the existing resources will go away so you wont have to spend more money that you dont want to.

paladinpariah
February 24th, 2017, 22:50
Fully searchable is pretty awesome. I also imagine the graphics will be pretty sick.

Ken L
February 25th, 2017, 18:36
Given most of the paizo ruleset is OGL, the graphical bits will be the most promising as well as the APs. The rulebook conversion however are doubtful as the 'meat' as it were, the rules itself are out there for everyone unless there's some drag support akin to 5e.

Full Bleed
February 25th, 2017, 23:41
Given most of the paizo ruleset is OGL, the graphical bits will be the most promising as well as the APs. The rulebook conversion however are doubtful as the 'meat' as it were, the rules itself are out there for everyone unless there's some drag support akin to 5e.
This is the core of my issue (brought up in another thread) about the lack of functionality/migration of the 5e ruleset features to the Pathfinder ruleset. Given that the Pathfinder Core rules are $50 MSRP (for dead tree), I suspect that's what the FG PF Core ruleset is going to cost (we've been told MSRP is going to be the base price of their releases). Yet, we can all still get the Core PDF from Paizo for $9.99 (fully searchable with lots of hyperlinks) and access the PFSRD for free (I actually use the PFSRD way more than I do the actual rule book). $50 for what I termed a "glorified PDF" seems a pretty steep gateway unless it offered more tangible functionality... and, even then, I think it's a tough sell for a lot of established PF users (which I suspect will be the bulk of PF players at this point).

There is a reason why Paizo offered the Core rulebook PDF for $9.99. And while I understand the need to pay for the FG data-entry, I think PF on FG would do better if it wasn't gated by a $50 ruleset that failed to offer the same functionality as 5e.