Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General Not a BG3 vs Pathfinder thread

Hello, I’m pretty new to the world of D&D and Pathfinder. I’ve been going through books of both them, and even though at first glance they seem similar. They are VASTLY different. Please correct me on anything I’m getting wrong.

Pathfinder seems to have more races and sub-races then D&D. I particularly like the Idyllkin, but I guess Sorcerers in D&D would have the same affect. They both would be mostly human with bestial aspects.

As far as tech goes. Pathfinder seems to have the edge on D&D going by the “D&D Eberron Rising from the Last War” and “Pathfinder Campaign Setting Technology Guide”. Pathfinder seems to be more Cyberpunk and Shadowrun like in some places whereas D&D seems to be more Megitech FFVI like. Pathfinder seems to also have space and plane travel.

When it comes to power it seems like D&D may have the edge, but I’m not sure. If we take away some of the limits. (IE: You can learn whatever FEATS as long as you meet the requirements, and no level cap, but base stats are max at 20) The Feats in D&D just seems more powerful. Even if you're level is capped at 20 and you can’t train yourself in another class, if you learn all the FEATS you will max all your stats easily. But Pathfinder’s Metamagic can be learned by every magic user and they have MAXIMIZE, and it well max out the power of a spell.

So question for you all: If you got stuck in one of these universes, which one would you prefer and why?

Realistically, I'd be miserable in either because being faced with the existence of giant spiders would render me unable to stop crying.

If I had to choose, I'd go with D&D (unless it's the Ravenloft, Dark Sun, or Planescape setting). Steampunk makes me irrationally angry and PF embraces it wholeheartedly.

On a side note, I'm not certain that D&D's power levels win out. PF feats are much smaller in scope, but you end up with more feats than there are stars in the sky.

D&D also has planar travel and space travel, since the Spelljammer content is offical in older editions and has been shown to be actively embraced again in 5th, evne if we don't have full resources for it just yet.

PF was built out of D&D 3.5, when the system was quite different to today's 5e, but in that sense at least they share the same original roots.

If I had to pick one, I'm not sure. Could I decide to arrive in the transition with a sorcerous legacy? It would suck to drop into such a high magic setting, but be confined to having no actual innate magical capability.

I do not know if I have understood you correctly, but in D&D (if you meant D&D5e since you mention the Eberron book) you have a race, stat, and pre-requirements for many feats, same as in 3.5 or Pathfinder 1e. You have way fewer feats in D&D ( you choose one feat every 4 levels, in PF every 3, and the selection is more limited), and you have to choose between a feat and upgrade a stat.
You can max your stats in 5e with feats at level 12 and above, same as in pf 1e, but in PF you are not forced to pick feats that upgrade your preferred stats, you can pick any feat you want and upgrade your stat. And you can go past 20 in any stat. Heck, depending on what type of stat allocation and race you pick you can even start with 20 in one stat.

I don´t know about the power of the feats. I mean, you need race/class features or a feat at level 4 to charge the enemies, add your str or dex to the damage of your off-hand attacks or bashing with your shield, which is something any character at level 1 could do in pathfinder.

It depends on how you define power. There are some interesting ones, like telekinetic, sentinel, etc but I miss some good caster feats. Besides war caster, elemental adept and some that add a few spells there are not many interesting ones, like the metamagic feats you mention in pathfinder.

D&D5e also has a level cap of 20, like pathfinder 1e and 2e There are no official stats for any class above level 20 besides homebrews. There is not epic levels like in 3.5, at least not still ( and 5e has over 6 years so I do not think it is planned). There are DMs that allow going past that via multiclassing or things like that but that´s not supported by WotC. Over level 20 you do not level-up per se, the DM could give you Epic boons if you want to keep playing your character.

In general, they are different game frames, they only have in common the use of the d20 system.


I am assuming you are comparing D&D5e and pathfinder 1e, if we are talking about Pathfinder 2e, it has more robust and balanced game mechanics. At least for me and my table, it´s vastly superior to the other two.

I'm kind of hoping we get an official 160+ page book of nothing but feats for 5e. Let's find out just how fast a halfling can run.

You know the saying, you can always homebrew whatever you want. Sadly in the videogames you do not have that option =/

Yes, you can pick whatever class and race you want within the context of the rules of the official source material. The only difference is you can learn all the feats you deserve as long as you meet the requirements. Like going to a trainer and saying, "Hey teach me how to do this."

Lol that would be horrifying. Normal people starting out might have to pack a whole bunch of Calm Emotions scrolls to compensate.

I've just started getting into the world D&D and Pathfinder since BG3 early access was launched so I'm not too sure the editions I'm reading. I pretty sure the Player's Handbook is 5e. Not too sure on the Draconomicon though. I also didn't know there was a Pathfinder 2e. I've just been reading the Core Rulebook. The books I've been going through are D&D: Draconomicon, Player's Handbook, and Eberron and Pathfinder: Core Rulebook, and Campaign Setting Technology Guide
I've also been going through the sites D&D Beyond, DND 5th Edition wiki, and d20pfsrd.
Do you have any recommendations for me?

I don't know, I've seen photos of those big camel spiders ... oooh, imagine finding one of those in your back yard!

I am not really a fan of the steampunk stuff in a classic fantasy setting. Why would a Dragon use a toaster oven?

Oh yeah, the Pathfinder 2e came about two years ago. 1e has much more content, that one lasted for +10 years (until 2018 or so). The new one has a few books and an advanced class manual. Paizo will publish 2e from now on, so we could expect more content.

It has different mechanics and settings, lore, races...from D&D and the first edition, but still uses the traditional d20 dice.

About D&D, if you need more knowledge about the ruleset (because you want to DM or try new things) the Dm´s guide, the Tasha´s cauldron and the Xanathar´s guide are a must. If you are more into lore and stuff, try the Van richten (its about the Ravenloft setting) Volo´s guide of monsters, the Sword coast guide or GGO of Ravnika. Many people like the ones of Theros or Wyldemount.

OP, I guess you are speaking of the settings of these two systems and not quite the systems themselves. FYI, Pathfinder was derived from D&D 3.5 edition, and is sometimes referred to as D&D 3.75 edition.

As for the settings, comparing the Pathfinder setting of Golarion to the D&D 5th edition default setting of the Forgotten Realms, it is hands down Forgotten Realms for me. In fact FR is my #1 fantasy setting of all time by a wide margin, across not only RPGs but also movies and TV shows and novels. But having now played in the Golarion setting, it is beginning to grow on me.

My initial impression of Pathfinder was that it was meant as the PnP home for everyone who kind of hated the Eberron game setting and 4E's attempt to make D&D more steampunk WW1, more video gamey or board/card gamey, and generally more MMO-like in the late aughts. Exemplified by like the D&D Insider plan and then D&DO which put Eberron rather than the Realms as it's main setting up front.

But then D&D did a straight u-turn, like a really hard course correct, abandoning just about everything they tried to do with 4E. Such that now I guess Pathfinder seems like the ruleset with the more video gamey bent, and the more steampunkish vibe by comparison, since the pendulum swung so hard in the other direction with 5E? lol

For the rules Pathfinder 1E is just D&D prior to the 4th edition divide with some minor adjustments here and there. Golarion is pretty much a Faerun knock off, with a little name substitution, that tried to keep the generic flavor of the Realms under a 3rd edition theme ruleset, but when D&D was way too busy trying to master the Internet and be all new wave hehe.

Doubtless the suits at Wizards were probably pissed that Blizzard was enjoying so much success with WOW, and wondering why they weren't making the big cheese with D&D? Like Renton vs Irvine, who's going to cash in on these orcs! But 4e was like roundly rejected when it launched. Not to knock Ebberon too hard, it's not that the setting was bad, more how it was presented. Along with all the other big changes that came too fast and were originating with the designers desires to make it "new" in a top down sort of way, rather building on or codifying what players were already doing, which is how the prior editions AD&D, 2e, 3e and 3.5 all worked.

A few designers had to fall on their swords I guess, but it was a big group effort that collectively missed the mark and lost too much money and too much marketshare to ignore. Instead of making up lost ground, they just ceaded even more of it, as many players switched to Pathfinder at the time. Pathfinder was like comfort food compared to the food truck fusion fair D&D was trying to serve up before 2010. Now the situation is rather different. Mearls esp probably learned a lot from what didn't work in 4e when they were building out the next ed, because the popularity and general vibe of 5e has brought many people home again in the intervening period.

I'd still take the Realms over Golarion no contest, since the Forgotten Realms is the 'original' knock-off fantasy game setting lol, it's just hard to compete on the lore front there. I suppose D&D is giving us Gith these days, and soon Faeries and Rabbitpeople and other things like that to distinguish itself from Pathfinder in more ways. Though Golarion has been getting more interesting as its been fleshed out more too. I sometimes wonder, if 4e didn't try to change both the rules and the principle setting at the same go, or if Eberron had been introduced without an attendant massive rules overhaul, if either might have been received better? But what happened happened I guess, and now we got a split. I think there is some merit to the idea that PnP and video games might benefit from having slightly different core systems more adapted to suite the medium, but I think they kind of learned the lesson that making PnP more videogame like was rather less popular than they imagined.

Just a quick follow on, but the way I understood it, what D&D wanted to achieve was essentially to create a general online hub for all things D&D and to move their source material online, but keeping it proprietary, like with a paywall or monthly subscription type model.

Meanwhile Pathfinder was just cranking out old school campaigns and publishing a gang of traditional hardcovers under the previous ruleset. Such that if you walked into a random bookstore, Pathfinder probably had more shelf space than Dungeons and Dragons. It had the backwards compatibility too that the 4E materials lacked and also captured that segment of the D&D audience who had a strong open source linux-like sensibility.

Most of the 3e and 3.5 modules and material are still compatible with the Pathfinder ruleset, whereas porting that stuff into 5e requires some heavy lifting in the adaptation. So part of Pathfinders appeal is that it still works with a lot of the old official D&D stuff, whereas new D&D often doesn't. At the same time D&D still gets to mine the setting, since Paizo can't publish stuff that is specifically FR. It all has to be scrubbed first.

I'd have a hard time choosing on a desert island hehe