"D&D 5th or Pathfinder?" Topic

I've recently got back into roleplaying with my boys, and they are having a great time.
With the recent acclaim of D&D 5th edition we have started out with that. Upon visiting a store though, I was impressed with the selection of Pathfinder material. The store owner recommended it, so now I'm in a quandary, stick with D&D or switch before we get too far.

Can anyone offer some advice or opinions on the merits of one or the other?
Thanks.

Pathfinder is great but VERY deep. Literally hundreds of options for each character. I like it a lot and the starter box is great, but 5th edition is a lot "cleaner" imo and very playable. How old are your kids?

Thanks Warlock. The boys are 8, 11 and 13.

I think it would probably be better to decide based on play-style preferences. Pathfinder is on the more complex end of the rpg spectrum, being born of the 3e heavy-rules-crunch era and then put on about a decade of steroids. It's a very popular system, and very well supported, but it also has a very definite play style. If you like everything defined and like to work through the details of a situation, and have a preference for battle-mat style play, it would probably fit.

5e is much newer, and probably a bit more flexible in terms of play styles. It's meant to be much lighter and faster, harkening back to TSR D&D, and in general it succeeds pretty well in taking a new era approach to lighter play styles. It isn't quite as light as, say, the old Basic D&D, but it is much more fast and loose than Pathfinder. It doesn't have as much support as Pathfinder yet, however there are several WotC adventure paths published and a number of very good 3rd party adventures starting to be published. You might not see these as a shelf presence in the hobby store yet, given that the store probably has a decade of Pathfinder stock accumulated, but the support is definitely there. If you like your rpg play a bit looser and prefer to describe situations and combats in the old style "theater of the mind" approach, then you might prefer 5e.

None of this is set in stone, but those are the broad strokes. Keep in mind that WotC makes "Basic D&D" free now, as a download from its website. It's just the core of the D&D rules, with the classic classes and races, but it's a fully workable rpg. Reading it or playing a bit might give you a good idea if you like 5e's approach. Both 5e and Pathfinder also have excellent boxed Starter Sets for sale.

Cheers,

Christopher

My preference is for simpler rules than either, but I find that Pathfinder is heavily designed around complex rules for characters and monsters. There is a rule for everything, and that usually means looking things up rather than making a decision on the fly most characters and creatures also end up with tons if modifiers that you have to add/subtract from their rolls It also leans towards supporting Paizo's "Adventure Paths", which are (usually!) very linear, plot-driven adventures that don't really encourage the players to take the initiative or approach things with much other than an "I hit it with my axe!" mentality.

5e is still a bit over complicated for my tastes, but it moves away from the idea of having a specific rule for every situation; instead, it tends towards "make a ruling, that's why you're the DM," which sits better with me (and is faster in play). It also gets rid of almost all modifiers, using "advantage/disadvantage" instead.

The good news is that it's not difficult to convert most Pathfinder material to 5th edition, if you have a reasonable familiarity with both. Adventures, in particular, only require you to replace the Pathfinder monsters with their 5th edition equivalents.

I think either set of rules should be modified to a players tastes. I enjoy both of them but find they add too much into the game for players and DM's. Just building a character takes time, and having to look up rules while playing always slows down the action. So pick either set and use as a guideline and play with what feels right. There seems to be a tendency for some to have to have a rule for everything that happens in the game but I prefer to make some things up on the fly. It is fantasy after all. Have fun!

I don't like the level scaling in Pathfinder. By 4th or 5th level each character will be so advanced in skill levels that what is a moderate challenge for one is impossible for another. For example my 6th level fighter can't spot any bad guys because thier stealth is so high to make it s challenge for our rogue that if I am guarding a flank I will always get ambushed. The scaling in 5th Ed is much better, I think they call it bounded accuracy. Similar goes for AC and To hit.

Mind you I am playing in a Pathfinder campaign, but I prefer the 5th campaign.

Chris

I'm a GURPS gamer myself. It goes from very easy to very complex and is adaptable to almost any genre (though supers is still not a good fit in my opinion). No worrying about advanced rules for each class of character – any character can take any path they want.

Pre-done adventures is where GURPS falls short though.

I played & DMed AD&D 2d exclusively until a year ago when I decided to take the Pathfinder plunge.

In YOUR case, Pathfinder would be fine because the game is limited to you and your boys and you can control the power-creep that Spooner6 in mentioning, because it IS a thing.

PF *seems* to be geared toward specialists and have VAST options for players to create their own special butterfly of a character. You want a kitsune paladin who betrayed their family trust, used to work as a prostitute, and will only use a hand-crossbow? PF has rules that not only allow you do all that, BUT GET BONUSES because of that odd background and choices. You'd think there would be a drawback to being so unique and niche… Nope. You will rule the mid-ranged-combat arena IN SPADES over any "generalized" fighter. Hence, my impression that the mechanics seem to be geared towards specializing instead of being well-rounded as a PC.

So if your boys have a weird and unique idea for a character, 90% chance not only does PF allow for it, but have BONUSES for that uniqueness.

Had I waited and if I could find 5e players locally, I would have went 5e. But I am all-in with PF and deal with the power/scale creep as best I can.

LOL Mardaddy, yes they have many weird ideas for their characters!

Thanks for the opinions everyone. Keeping it a little more free and easy is the way to go I think, so I shall stick with 5e.

The sight of all those hardbound Pathfinder manuals nearly sucked me in right then and there. Glad I (very rarely for me) resisted. Maybe I'll revisit them when the boys are a bit older.

D&D 5

what about some of the Osric games like Labyrinth Lord?

link

I would personally hesitate buying into Pathfinder because of its almost obsessive need to have a manual for everything

PF is based on D&D 3.0/3.5, despite some streamlining, these systems were quite clunky with a huge amount of complexity and lots of level creep. Very "nuts and bolts" approach to rules.

D&D 5 is not without flaws, but it redresses some of the imbalances by reducing the number and amount of bonuses your character can stack.

I prefer 5e for it's greater simplicity, streamlined rules and a stronger sense of connection with older editions.

Get the old red and blue books. Best version of D&D true roleplaying. We tried the others then went back to what works. All the other versions and Pathfinder are for accountants and micromanagers.

You can get them as pdfs if not mistaken. I have the print versions.

Another vote for 5e here. Similar reasons to above. Seems to have a simple playable core but allow many of the options and customizations of 3.x/PathFinder/4e.

However the PathFinder players that sat in with our 5e group have generally expressed distaste and exited the group, claiming they can't play exactly the character they want. Mardaddy's example above of the kitsune paladin etc is useful in describing the philosophical difference. We who prefer 5e feel background should be roleplaying to complement what the rules already allow, but those players who prefer PathFinder seem to feel background should augment the character with additional rules.

Note also I'm running the D&D 5e starter box (Lost Mine of Phandelver) and seriously considering one of the campaign books (Princes of the Apocalypse). Both adventures are full of opportunities for players to disguise themselves, talk their way out of conflict, etc. And in the starter box, all of the dungeons allow the players to find a hidden entrance and start with the boss encounter. This is about as non-forced linear as fantasy RPG campaigns get.

One last comment. Several years ago you could make the joke "to build a character in D&D 3.x (or PathFinder) you have to be a tax accountant" and get a laugh. Nowadays you get a shrug and an admission that everyone downloads a custom spreadsheet from the Internet to minmax and track their character. And PathFinder DMs make sure to have enough powerstrips on their game tables because every player uses a tablet or laptop.

Whereas in our 5e group, there are electronic devices, but there are also paper character sheets.

I started playing Basic D&D, then 1st Ed. AD&D. We progressed to 2nd Ed. AD&D. I've been playing 2nd Ed. AD&D since 1989. Basic, as well as 1st Ed. through 4th Ed. materials, are available in PDF format (DnD Classics). All of the modules, from all of the various versions, can be easily adapted to whichever version of rules you decide to play -- you will not lack for published adventures!

Having said that, I did a high school class project involving an overview of 1st Ed. AD&D game play, for a photography class, circa 1981, and that is when I realized just how complex RPG's were! It was a badge of honor to be able to comprehend 1st Ed. AD&D rules… It was not for the timid, but it also inspired us to pursue studies of history, and ancient technology. It also inspired some study of mathematics. It really gave us more reasons to study in high school. I even witnessed a friend go from C's and D's, in high school, to all A's, because he became inspired to learn.

Whichever version you choose, it may well inspire your children to push themselves, to study things like ancient, and medieval history, and technology. It may give them an interest in mathematics, even. But realize that at their present ages, every RPG rules set will be daunting for them to comprehend, at first. You may need to dumb down whichever rules set you choose, until they mature enough to handle all of the rules, as printed. Cheers!

I lead a D&D program for teens at our local library (I work part time as a teen librarian, which is a cool job). I used my old "Basic" D&D Rules Cyclopedia, also known as the Mentzer BECMI rules, and modified them with a few 5e elements (advantage/disadvantage & cantrips) and even a dash of Swords & Wizardry (available for free online). My goal was to both get the kids playing and demonstrate that in the end, the rules don't matter; it's the imagination that counts.
I ran three adventures, and the kids have now gone off on their own, kicking off with 5e, and having a blast. They're even modding their characters to the new system, and their teen DM told me he plans to use an evil (and annoying) insane goblin wizard NPC I had created as a humorous foil in their last adventure as the big baddie for their current campaign!* Which tells you just how flexible 5e can be.

*(I'm so proud. My little gobbo has all grown up. *sniff* )

Thanks guys. I really appreciate all the comments. My boys are so excited about this!