Iron Tavern has some thought provoking articles now and then, and I was inspired by the article I saw today: The Thing I Hate about Pathfinder. It turns out the pet peeve in question pointed out by Iron is the rules bloat that comes with feats. Every feat rewrites the rules slightly.
Underlying this problem, I think ultimately in Pathfinder, is a bigger problem that comes with the stack of legacy underneath the Pathfinder rules. In many cases, folks GMing Pathfinder haven't really played it. They played D&D 3 or 3.5 and have transplanted themselves into Pathfinder thinking its just the same. And quite frankly, the problem is that you can't GM Pathfinder well if you haven't played it a lot.
Feats are a good example of that. Certain combinations of feats work really well with classes and other things to basically rewrite the rules for characters. Knowing the feats, when they are useful, and how they are used is a big challenge for a player. For example, I am currently playing a Magus, and I find myself going back again and again to the Magus guide to understand which feats and spells really pack the bang for the buck. A magus, if played well is awesome, and if played like a different spellcasting class, really sucks a lot.
This becomes a big problem for a GM. A GM that hasn't played every class and combination of things doesn't know when and how feats, classes, archetypes, and all the other subtleties of the game are supposed to tie together.
Unfortunately, the problem doesn't just stop with understanding the rules for feats and classes and such. Hand us an NPC, and how are we supposed to know all of the subtle strategies that are supposed to be used? The best bet, if we have time, is to read the expert guide on that class and see what we can learn. That is some serious time investment if we have a lot of NPCs.
The worst part, though, is monsters. Every new creatures has some new ability that we probably don't know how to use, or, worse yet, that we forget about during play. My guess is that at least 40% of my encounters are underpowered because I forget or misuse a special ability. It is sad, but very true.
So, coming full circle back to Iron's comments, the real problem is rules bloat. At some point the GM has to become superhuman to be able to really play all of the variations of things easily. That, in my humble opinion, is probably the biggest problem with Pathfinder.
Underlying this problem, I think ultimately in Pathfinder, is a bigger problem that comes with the stack of legacy underneath the Pathfinder rules. In many cases, folks GMing Pathfinder haven't really played it. They played D&D 3 or 3.5 and have transplanted themselves into Pathfinder thinking its just the same. And quite frankly, the problem is that you can't GM Pathfinder well if you haven't played it a lot.
Feats are a good example of that. Certain combinations of feats work really well with classes and other things to basically rewrite the rules for characters. Knowing the feats, when they are useful, and how they are used is a big challenge for a player. For example, I am currently playing a Magus, and I find myself going back again and again to the Magus guide to understand which feats and spells really pack the bang for the buck. A magus, if played well is awesome, and if played like a different spellcasting class, really sucks a lot.
This becomes a big problem for a GM. A GM that hasn't played every class and combination of things doesn't know when and how feats, classes, archetypes, and all the other subtleties of the game are supposed to tie together.
Unfortunately, the problem doesn't just stop with understanding the rules for feats and classes and such. Hand us an NPC, and how are we supposed to know all of the subtle strategies that are supposed to be used? The best bet, if we have time, is to read the expert guide on that class and see what we can learn. That is some serious time investment if we have a lot of NPCs.
The worst part, though, is monsters. Every new creatures has some new ability that we probably don't know how to use, or, worse yet, that we forget about during play. My guess is that at least 40% of my encounters are underpowered because I forget or misuse a special ability. It is sad, but very true.
So, coming full circle back to Iron's comments, the real problem is rules bloat. At some point the GM has to become superhuman to be able to really play all of the variations of things easily. That, in my humble opinion, is probably the biggest problem with Pathfinder.
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