Pathfinder's Playtest Teases the Future of the Roleplaying Game

Pathfinder is getting ready to launch a public playtest for its highly anticipated Second Edition, which looks to streamline the popular roleplaying game while bringing new innovations in gameplay.

Earlier this month, ComicBook.com had the opportunity to try out the Pathfinder Playtest at the Origins Game Fair in Columbus, Ohio. Paizo announced earlier this year that it would be hosting several of these public playtest sessions ahead of the release of a full set of Pathfinder Playtest rules later this month.

For those unfamiliar with Pathfinder, the game started as a refined version of D&D's 3.5 edition and was launched in 2009 as an alternative to D&D's 4th edition - which was divisive to many fans. Pathfinder was the top-selling RPG for several years, but D&D's more simplified and elegant 5th edition has outpaced Pathfinder in recent years.

While Pathfinder offers a lot more options and potential builds than D&D's 5th edition, it also suffers from several problems, including a ton of different rules. A lot of classes are only useful with specific builds and many of the best feats require several pre-requisites...which players refer to as a "feat tax." Basically, Pathfinder is a really fun game, but not exactly new user friendly and not great for casual players.

The Pathfinder Playtest serves as a public beta of sorts for its upcoming Second Edition, which will give fans a chance to acquaint themselves with the new rules and give feedback on some of the new mechanics.

The Playtest session we sat down with had six players, led by a trained Game Master from the Pathfinder Society Organized Play group. This was a first level adventure, but the characters all had a lot more hit points, a result of a change to how characters are built. First level characters' base hit points now come from their class's hit dice along with their ancestry (what most RPG players know as "race"). So, a half-orc sorcerer would have more HP than a gnome sorcerer...which makes a lot of sense from a practical standpoint.

Most of our playtest focused on combat gameplay, which is where some of the biggest changes in the game takes place. Players now have three actions per turn, which they can use to move, attack, cast spells, use items, or a dozen other options. Players also get one reaction per round, which can be used in response to attacks made against them or one of their allies (or in other scenarios not covered in our little one hour game.)

For martial classes, players will probably spend a lot of their time making two move actions followed by an attack. Movement speed was reduced slightly for most character builds (my fighter's speed was only 20 feet instead of 30) but it's balanced out by having that extra action per turn. I did get a chance to launch a few extra attacks per turn, which is a handy option at low levels and largely follow the "full round attack" option that players had in the original Pathfinder game.

Spellcasters also have a lot more options. Spells require a certain number of actions to cast - so a wizard or sorcerer can take a move action but lose access to some of their most powerful spells that turn. Some spells' output can also be increased by dedicating more actions to it. For instance, a cleric's heal feature (which combines spontaneous healing and channel energy) can either be used to heal a player by touching them, from a distance, or by healing everyone in a 30 foot radius depending on how many actions a cleric puts into it.

Another big change to the game is how the game calculates critical hits. A Natural 20 will always be a critical (Pathfinder's first edition requires players to "confirm" a critical by rolling a d20 a second time) and players who exceed a check by 10 will also get a critical success. So, if a creature's AC is 12 and your roll plus bonuses comes out to a 22, you'll get a critical success. On the flip side, monsters are also affected by the same rules...which means that spellcasters will probably want to find a way to increase their AC or risk getting rocked by major damage during combat.

Probably the most controversial feature at our table was the use of resonance points - which limits the amount of magic items a player can use per day. Potions, magic armor, and magic weapons all expend resonance points, which is determined by a player's level plus their charisma modifier. Once a player uses up their resonance points for the day, they have to start making checks to see if using that magic item succeeds or fails.

Resonance points came up during our playtest when our paladin went down due to a critical hit and our alchemist (which is now a core class) went to heal them. We learned that the alchemist jamming one of his elixirs of life down the paladin's throat would actually expend one of the paladin's resonance points. That wasn't much of an issue in our game - but we did feel like that hurt the alchemist's role as a utility healer/support class if they couldn't heal a player when they needed it the most.

From what we were told at the table, resonance is definitely a work in progress. It's meant to prevent wand spamming (something that my Pathfinder group is SUPER guilty of) and loading up with low-level magic items. I think it's a good mechanic, it just needs a little work...which is the entire point of the Playtest.

We also got glimpses of changes to attacks of opportunity (only certain classes and monsters can make them, which makes moving around the battlefield a lot easier) and changes to how initiative is determined. Players make their initiative roll based on the action they take when combat breaks out. For most players, this is a Perception roll (which has also been shifted away from a skill check that players can dump points into) but players might also make a Stealth check or a Diplomacy check depending on the situation.

In the end, the Pathfinder Playtest gave our table a nice tease of the future of the game. It seems that Paizo is trying to find a balance between simplicity (something that D&D's Fifth Edition does quite well) and giving players plenty of options and complex builds. We can't wait to get our hands on the full Pathfinder Playtest at Gen Con later this summer and see what other big changes are in store for the game.