If you are a fan of the fantasy genre and D&D in particular but are think that 4^th edition goes too far than I have the system for you. Paizo publishing (that’s right the folks who used to publish Dragon and Dungeon Magazines) has a new game that carries on the legacy of 3^rd edition D&D. The Pathfinder system was designed under the old OGL to keep the spirit of 3.5 alive. It does contain certain revisions and changes but it is done it the spirit of tweaking 3.5 than as a fundamental redesign like 4E. They are currently in a year long Alpha Test Phase where they hope to work any kinks out. To that end they have made available from their website a free pdf of the Pathfinder Alpha rules. I’ve downloaded it and have to say I like a lot of their changes. So much so that I am considering converting my 3.5 campaign to Pathfinder to help test things out.

Let’s take it chapter by chapter.

Races:

All the races are still here and they are mostly the same. They each have a little boost to them getting a secondary stat boost. Elves now get a +2 to Int as well as Dex. (Looks like more people disagree with me and Tolkien.) There are a few other minor changes to all races like Keen Senses (bonuses to certain perception checks) and Weapon Familiarity (race weapons treated as Martial.) Out side of that there is not much else different. There are stylistically very similar to the older versions of their races. A PC who takes his races favored class gets one additional hp/level.

Classes:

They’ve redefined the level structure, but then they’ve redefined the way xp is awarded as well so it is tough to tell at a glance what effect this will have. They do offer a fast, a medium, and a slow progression track.

One thing that stuck out to me, since it was a change I made in my campaign a while ago, is that Feats are now awarded at every odd level. I have not found this unbalancing in my game in any way, shape, or form.

They only included the big four classes in the Alpha pdf. I assume they will release the others as they get the system more hammered out. The classes now have a lot more going on. Clerics and Wizards get powers based on their Domains or Specialization. Fighters get Armor and Weapon bonuses when they don’t get feats and Rogues get talents when they don’t get Sneak Attack dice. So they are pretty much the same classes just with a lot more going on. Clerics now get some orisons that they can cast at will sort of and Wizards get cantrips in much the same way. Sneak Attack can be used against a wider range of foes.

They have a made a small change to the hit points and suggested a couple others to try. Rogues got promoted to d8s and wizards to d6s. They suggest a few first level alternatives as well ranging from a flat first level bonus to a racial bonus to double maximum first level hp.

Skills:

This one of the most radically changed aspects of the game. It looks closer to 4E skill system than 3.5. They did away with skill points and collapsed the number of skills. I haven’t seen the numbers on 4E so I don’t know how close it is but it does feel similar. Don’t take that as a criticism, because it looks like a good system. A lot of people are very attached to their skill points. In my experience the spreading around of skill points is only useful to those with way above average stats. Most characters will choose one or two thing to excel at and forget the rest.

This system gives a lot more skills out. Skills are now either trained or untrained. You start with a number of skills based on your class and Int and then acquire a new one on the even levels. This is huge compared to the old system. A 20^th level human priest with average int would have 3 skills at max level in 3.5; In Pathfinder he would have 13.

Feats:

Some feats remain unchanged others are improved. They also included a few new ones. My favorite is Weapon Swap. It allows you to make all attacks on a 2 Weapon Full Round Attack with the same weapon. I just love fighting with 2 weapons and can rarely find 2 good ones.

Really not much interesting changed with feats. Unless it was in the small print and I missed it.

Combat:

Of course they overhauled the much maligned Grapple system but in addition they overhauled all combat maneuvers to make them much easier to adjudicate.

Characters now have Combat Maneuver Bonus that you use to pull off any of the old tricks like grapple, disarm, Sunder, trip, etc. It’s also no longer an opposed check so only the attacker needs to role anything.

They also added a new descriptor “broken.” If items take too much damage they become broken. This has various negative effects based what the item is. This allows picking on PCs items without destroying them, while also increasing the usefulness of Mending and Make Whole. If this also applies to things like Mordenkinen’s Disjunction then that could make the world a little more PC friendly.

They changed Turning Undead. When a priest turns undead he bursts positive energy. Living creatures gain hp, undead take damage, and undead have to save or flee. This is a great way for a low level party to get some healing. It still requires a cleric but at least he doesn’t have to waste all his spells on patching people up.

Magic & Spells:

This chapter is mostly descriptions of the various Specialization and Domain powers that Wizards & Clerics get. They include a 1^st level ability that is usable at will with higher level powers that are usually spell effects usable 1/ day or 1+1 per 2 levels/ day.

I am a little disappointed at the lack of Orisons and Cantrips. I like the system they came up with for them; the Wiz/Clr memorizes his allotment of cantrips for the day and then can use those as spell like abilities for the rest of the day. Unfortunately the only ones they include is the stabilize orison that replaces cure minor and the Mending spell which I don’t think should be a 0 level spell. It seems to me that they have a cool idea with the whole broken items thing and then they go and make fixing items spammable.

The only other spell descriptions they have are the ones that were directly affected by their rule changes; mostly the ones that used the grapple rules.

The rest of the ‘book’ has advice on encounter design, their new XP system, and information on the playtesting process.

What I find really interesting is that many of the things addressed in the Pathfinder rules are the exact same things addressed by the designers of 4E. They both wanted more healing; Pathfinder gave the Cleric healing that doesn’t impact his sell selection where 4E gave some kind of healing to all classes. They both had a fix for the grapple rules. They both did away with skill points and condensed the skill list. They both addressed the issue of ‘dead levels.’ The Paizo crew really were looking to show that WotC could have addressed all these problems without scrapping a good system. They’ve called this system 3.75, but I think it could be called 4.0 and stand as an equal to 4E. I look forward to the next alpha release to see what they intend for druids. I have no problem recommending this product to anyone disappointed with the direction 4E is going.