Friends, my game group is changing directions and we're looking to take a more traditional RPG (moving from The One Ring). Pathfinder is in the running, but so is D&D 5. The main thing we're looking for is something to help strike a balance between the players who want to have a lot of options for character customization (min-maxing) and those who are just there to have fun.

Pathfinder is in the lead because there is, apparently, a nigh-infinite number of ways to customize one's characters, but I understand that the rules for 5E are a little easier to follow.

Can any of you please speak to character advancement options in 5E versus Pathfinder? Are there a lot of options or are the classes pretty narrow? Thanks!

In Pathfinder, you make tons of choices when making a character, with each choice having a relatively minor effect but with the sum of them adding up. This is particularly true if you're using Traits from the Advanced Player's Guide (which is pretty much assumed in all the adventure paths), and when using classes like the rogue or barbarian who get to choose new stuff every level or two (the newer classes in various sourcebooks tend to use this model). In 5e you instead make fewer choices, but each choice has more impact.

An additional feature of Pathfinder that adds more choices is the magic item system. I believe it was one of the original 3e designers (or possibly Ryan Dancey) who describe the magic item economy as being a point-based system bolted on top of the class-based D&D system, and whomever said it wasn't wrong. In PF, there's a table specifying how much money you're supposed to have at each level, and the default assumption is that you can either buy or have someone make magic items to spec, according to a great big list of items in the Core rulebook. On one hand, this gives many possibilities for PCs to gear up as they desire and to use magic items to shore up deficiencies ("We sure seem to fight a lot of airborne foes, so maybe I should buy a pair of winged boots so I can get to them"), but on the other hand it creates expectations as to what items you're supposed to have (generally a magic weapon, a suit of armor, a belt or headband increasing your primary stat, a ring of protection, a cloak of resistance, and an amulet of natural armor - also known as the Big Six). 5e, by comparison, doesn't have a magic item economy - gold, beyond a relatively low amount, generally does not translate into more personal power. The DMG has some guidelines on what sort of items you might start with at a higher level, but there's not really an expectation of having a certain amount of buff items.

So, let's compare two 8th level monks in both systems and see how many choices they have had to make. Monks are on the low end of customizability in both systems.

Pathfinder: Race, possibly exchanging some racial features for others, class, optionally an archetype (a way to trade in some class features for others in order to reflect a particular version of the class), two background traits, a total of 32 + 8* Int modifier skill ranks to be spent (no more than 8 in any one skill), 8 instances of choosing favored class bonus (+1 hp or +1 skill rank), a total of 7 feats (3 of which have to be taken from a limited list based on your class), 2 stat increases of +1 to any one stat, 33,000 gp to be spent.

5e: Race, subrace, Class, subclass, Background, 2 skills, ~700 gp worth of stuff, two instances of getting either +2 to one stat, +1 to two stats, or one feat.

In both cases, some options lead to more choices being made - for example, a 5e monk who has chosen the Way of the Four Elements will also get to choose two elemental disciplines.

Another thing to consider is that not only do Pathfinder characters make more choices, they also have more options for what they can choose. For example, in the 5e PHB there are about 40 different feats - in Pathfinder there are about 150 (with many, many more in various expansions). Of course, not all feats are available or desirable to all characters, but the figures demonstrate the wealth of options available.

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