Pathfinder 1E What is Paizo going to do when 5E comes out?

Starfox · Sep 20, 2012

Are Paizo going to carry on with pathfinder if 5E comes out?

If 5E is successful?

What ought they do?

I suppose it is kind of a stupid question - they have their own game now and I suppose they will stick to it come rain or come shine. But someone out here might have something more than speculation - or at least some interesting speculation.

Dannyalcatraz · Sep 20, 2012

I suspect that they'll keep producing Pathfinder until its numbers inevitably start to decline permanently, at which point there will be P2.

Munktar · Sep 20, 2012

Or they will launch a new version of the game with collectable power card that you must buy in boosterpacks

ahayford · Sep 20, 2012

I suspect, as long as Pathfinder is still successful, they will do nothing.

Crothian · Sep 20, 2012

A successful company doesn't need to change anything in response to what their competition is doing. What they'll want to do is just ride out the first few months because they will see some of the their fans go try 5e. They just will want most of them to come back to Pathfinder.

BobROE · Sep 20, 2012

Crothian said:
A successful company doesn't need to change anything in response to what their competition is doing. What they'll want to do is just ride out the first few months because they will see some of the their fans go try 5e. They just will want most of them to come back to Pathfinder.

And depending on how easy/hard it is to convert from PF to 5E, even if people don't come back they may keep buying the non-rules PF books.

Scrivener of Doom · Sep 20, 2012

They will continue selling adventures to WotC customers who like the official D&D rules but realised all the good adventure writers work at Paizo.

In other words, nothing will change.

Kinak · Sep 20, 2012

I've heard a couple of different Paizo folks talk about this and they're not really planning to do anything different. Pathfinder is still early in its lifecycle and they don't plan to drop it or launch Pathfinder 2 anytime soon.

A large part of the reason that Pathfinder (the game) and Golarion (the world) exist is so that Paizo isn't tied to the whims and fortunes of another company. The 5e switch is a perfect example of that situation, so I wouldn't expect them to do anything surprising.

I'm sure they have plans to deal with a short term drop or spike in demand, but that's more on the business side then the consumer side. They'll need to be flexible for a few months before and after the 5e release, but I trust Lisa Stevens has that well in hand.

As far as my personal predictions, I'd expect Paizo to see a small short-term drop in orders. A lot of people will at least try 5e and that will strain some budgets. I don't foresee WotC converting that many Pathfinder players, although some have always followed both systems and that number might increase.

Over the long-term, if 5e does well, I'd expect Pathfinder to grow slightly. If 5e succeeds, I expect it to do so by gathering new players. That doesn't hurt Pathfinder at all and some of them will inevitably try out Pathfinder as well.

If 5e does poorly in the long term, it's probably a wash for Paizo but bad for the hobby as a whole. Until Pathfinder becomes the household name rather than D&D, we'd get fewer new roleplayers.

Cheers!
Kinak

Jester David · Sep 22, 2012

I can see them doing one of three things:

1) Carry on as if nothing had happened. This works as long as 5e isn't a runaway success or WotC doesn't try and build bridges.

2) Segue into publishing 5e content, or having mixed rules, possibly via web enhancements. This might be the case if 5e is a runaway success or WotC partners with them to unite the fanbase.
(If WotC had let Paizo in on early playtesting of 4e and had the GSL ready sooner we likely wouldn't have seen Pathfinder as its own game.)

3) Release a revision of the PF rules, really focusing on the strengths of the edition and what sets it apart from 5e/Next. By revision I really mean a reprinting of the Core rulebook with tighter formatting, updated errata, a couple small revisions, and incorporation of archetypes from the start.

Evenglare · Sep 22, 2012

I made a topic about them reproducing their Core book with the new layouts of their recent products . It would be a good time to do that I think... possibly...