I also realize, with all my talk about spreadsheets, that I risk making Pathfinder out to be much more unwieldy than it really is. I take entirely too much pleasure in spreadsheeting it up, but the majority of other players in our group don’t. They just write down a lot more notes in the margins of their character sheets. It takes them a few extra moments to complete their turns sometimes, but that’s fine.
Having it on a spreadsheet already figured out is infinitely preferable to the guy who has no idea and spends 10 minutes at the table trying to figure out exactly what he can do on his turn (usually after having paid no attention or yapping constantly during everyone else’s turns).
Where one very specific rule interacts with another very specific rule (and frequently a third or fourth) to produce a result that pretty obviously wasn’t intended by any of the rules, but which produces a crazy result?
I think most games allow stuff like this to a certain extent. I enjoy using CCG card creation software to make “power card” decks for my characters. Whatever scratches your particular itch is good. Pathfinder just happens to have a very, very high ceiling for spreadsheet potential.
I think my problem with it is less the celing and more the floor. Namely, the point at which I start to feel “I really kinda need a spreadsheet to keep track of all this crap.”
Depends on how much you want to use. At its core, Pathfinder is only slightly more complex than 3.5, and it does smooth out some problems. It really is D&D 3.75.
It’s when you get into the extra base classes, the advanced classes, the prestige classes, class archetypes, class options, and so on and on that things get out of hand (at least so far as I’m concerned).
Yup. When I finally do get around to running a campaign, the allowed source books will be;
Players Handbook
Advanced Players Guide
Advanced Race Guide*
- Limited items that fit the campaign setting, with GM permission.
But NO Prestige classes, traits or other stuff not specified in the setting guide.
That’s a fine way to play. Friend of mine runs OD&D games at cons, where it takes about five minutes to make a character if you decide to spend four minutes on a name.
For me, and for my group, we’ve been playing D&D and similar games for a quarter century or longer each. Part of the fun for us is trying out new things–thus our group’s svirfneblin gunslinger, half-djinn bloodrager, homebrew mini-treant warpriest, and a witch and shaman and psychic of races that I can’t even remember except that the psychic is blue.
Yeah, it’s silly; yeah, it’s outre. We own that. It’s part of where we find our fun. In this respect, Pathfinder is a massive success for us.