Pathfinder 1E Elephant in the room/thread Forked Thread: Pathfinder - sell me

[Puggins]

See, that doesn't really strike me as "good" reason to create a 560 page behemoth.

Pathfinder is, for the most part, an idea made out of corporate necessity, not inherent merit. The concept was twofold: 1.) We want to keep the 3e rules in print so that we don't have to convert to 4e, and 2.) we want to make out product sufficiently different from the WotC books to warrant the audience re-buying these rules.

With all due respect- and speaking as a huge fan of 4e who may not even buy the PFRPG- you have at least the first one wrong. Paizo had no choice in the matter- they literally couldn't convert to 4e, because WotC didn't have the GSL to give to them (or they were withholding it, for the more consipatorial among us). It seemed fairly clear to an outside observer that they were initially open and prepared to switch to 4e provided that WotC would cooperate. WotC didn't cooperate, and Paizo had to choose between having a huge, gaping hole in the middle of their schedule or continuing support for 3.5e. Thus we have the current situation.

I still think there would be a large audience for 4e Paizo Adventure Paths, and official statements aside, I think they're inevitable as long as 4e continues to prosper like it has. There's simply too much money on the table to ignore. If PHB3 hits the bestseller lists like PHB2 did, I'm betting we'll see the first Paizo 4e adventure path in late 2010, regardless of the success of Pathfinder.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

The only person trying to make it into 4e vs Pathfinder is you. One could easily tell that judging by your very confrontational posts on the other thread.

So here, let me alter the tread for you:

I'm not a huge fan of 4e, but I like some of the stuff in it, so I've grabbed it and converted it. I wonder if it's going to go the same way. For 4e players, do you think there's anything from Pathfinder you might nick for your own games?

Ok we don't know each other. Let me explain again. I currently run 4e, and white wolf. I play 4e, 3e, Rifts, Gurps and M&M along with a bunch of board games that I calll rp lite. I am not just a D&D fan, but a role playing fan.
Now you say my post are confrontational, maybe they are, but I jumped in to a thread to see the slling points and land right were I hate landing in a edtion war (albe it a small one) and yes I choose a side.
Now I also down loaded BOTH the alpha and beta of Pathfinder, and I found it lacking. I am hopeing threads like this can show me the saving grace. All I see is, well I will let Matthew say it better then I can.

If there was no 4e, there would be no Pathfinder.

Paizo's flagship is not the Pathfinder RPG, it's the Pathfinder Adventure Paths. The RPG exists because Paizo did not want to convert to 4e. They don't want their APs to use a rule set no longer in print, so they decided to print their own book, and while they were at it update a few things.

See I was looking through my conveson book for 3.5 and remember that it lasted all of 1 month before I said #%$@ it and bought the 3.5 books, becuse it is easier then cross refrenceing. I also remember the "evil corp" talk becuse it should have been just a new edtion, or it should be left alone, and eaither way it is way too soon.
Now I look at his and see basicly fighting thoughts...make it back compatable....fix the problems. Well you can't serve 2 masters, and I see them failing at both.

How ever Scribble is better at this then I seam to be:

Umm... I could be reading it wrong, but he seems to have specifically taken 4e out of the equation in this post.

He seems to be asking:

What is it about Pathfinder that makes it worth purchasing. From my point of view it seems to be somewhat at odds with itself. In one case it seems it's supposed to continu support for 3.5... In the other it seems to be about fixing some of the 3.5 knows issues.

1. Is it about being compatible with 3.5? If so then put through his question we seem to get:

What makes this worth buying for someone who already owns the 3e rule books? (Aside from one day yours might wear out.)

2. Is this about fixing issues with 3.5? If so then put through his question we seem to get:

What fixes new features does it enact that make this purchase worth "upgrading" to, rather then sticking with 3.5 (which has lots of source books, some of which cannot be updated in Pathfinder.)

In addition, aside from Pathfinder Vrs 3e, he also seems to just want to know in general, what makes pathfinder better then other RPGs entirely (not D&D or D20 related) that he could spend his money on.

I could be wrong though.

You are not wrong, you hit the nail on the head.

Keep in perspective that gamers jumping into 4e from 3.5e are potentially throwing away dozens of 3.5e books and "rebuying" a whole new set of D&D books for 4e.

or throwing away all the 3.5 books for path finder ones....6 of one half a dozen of the other...

Pathfinder is 3.5e revised. The core classes have been bumped in power level to coincide with the power levels of later released base classes and PrCs. Most of those and the books they are in won't need to be adjusted much or at all. Currently our game group is playing Pathfinder Beta until August release of the game and our DM is running the 3.5e Shackled City Campaign with little or no adjustments.

Inless a PC has and wants to play a warlock, a swordsage, a scout, a hexblade, or a Archivast. See none of those classes are out of balance by the base 3.5 book, but by upping the base book, they are now weaker...and don't even get me started on prestige classes...

Every 3.5 book, every feat, every class now must be weighed. Is this ok or does it need to be changed? Is the Binder one of those classes that was too powerful, or was it just right, but now too weak? What about shadowcaster? Warblade??

Whether picking up the Pathfinder core book or not will be entirely up to the individual. If you pick it up and like what you see you can use it along with all the wonderful Paizo support materials (modules, campaign setting, item cards, adventure paths, etc.), all your current 3.5e books and other 3e materials.

Except one problem. If I sit down to play pathfinder and my friend ross says "Can I play a Elan Warblade/Soul Knife" and my friend Bob says "Can I try Magic of Incarnum, but be a Golaith" What do I say?
A) Sure, but I need to rebuild the races, and classes
B) No they didn't update those rules so those 4 books don't count anymore
or c) Um yea, lets just hope there is no funky intermix problems...


And agian...Forget 4e, lets say WotC went out of buisness so no new 3.5 D&D books, but no new edtion eaither...what make this better then playing with what I have, or another system??

 

[Aberzanzorax]

Personally, I haven't been that into or excited about Pathfinder. I don't even frequent the Paizo boards (and I frequent Necromancer, here, WotC, and dabble in others).

BUT, I'm ready to give Paizo full price (even sidestepping the Amazon discount to buy from them directly).

Part of that is my current distaste for WotC's treatment of customers...

...but it's more than that. It's Paizo's good treatment of customers. It's the fact that I really like 3ed compared to 4e for the type of game that I personally like to play. It is that I want to support that market as best as I can...and I hope that there is growth (have you SEEN the publishers lined up to support it? WOW!)


So why will I buy it? It's not because I think it is better than 3e. I likely wouldn't buy it if 3e still was in print. But, I DO think it is better. Is it better enough to buy on its own? I don't know that, and won't know until I see the actual book (everything else is just guessing/conjecture). I'll buy it because it brings the game I love in the direction I want it to go, and because it is from a company that has earned my respect and admiration as well as support.

So, to the OP, is it the end-all-be-all? Not that I'm aware of yet (though I may change my tune upon seeing the rules). Does it keep the game I love alive? Yep. That alone earns my money. The good customer service/response/respect don't hurt none neither.



Hmmm. That was supposed to be the end of the post, but I feel as though there is more that I wanted to say/something I'm leaving out.

I guess it's that Pathfinder WILL be an improvement on the rules. In my mind it is like the difference between 3.0 and 3.5. An important difference, though you can pick up just about any d20 adventure without concern and run it in either.

I expect the same level of change. I didn't really want to buy 3.5...but I did, and so did many of you. Was it world changing? Not really, in my mind, but it WAS better. I expect that from Pathfinder. It'll make the incremental changes that the 3rd edtion needs, without reinventing the game. Paizo has the luxury of developing 3.75 as saviors, whereas if WotC did it, they'd be demonized for another expensive tweak to the system only x years later.

But I'm not saying Paizo should be damned with the WotC PR burden...it is different. The core rulebooks (3.5 DMG and 3.5 PHB) will cost you more on Ebay right now than the Paizo release. And I think I'd prefer Pathfinder, given the choice at even equal costs. Paizo's not just "Taking advantage". They are "stepping up" in my opinion. There is a need/want/gap/desire in the gaming community from those of us (certainly myself included) who aren't done with the 3e mindset/philosophy/system. They fill that gap, and do it so, again-in my opinion, splendidly.


To really answer the OP in a much shorter phrase: Pathfinder is D&D. Mutants and masterminds is a great game that is about superheroes. Pathfinder is a new edition that came after 3.5. For some of us, it is superior to our needs compared to 4e. To others, 4e is better. To each their own. But to me, Pathfinder is the "better D&D" that I had hoped 4e would have been.

So I'm buying.

 

[Dannager]

It seemed fairly clear to an outside observer that they were initially open and prepared to switch to 4e provided that WotC would cooperate. WotC didn't cooperate, and Paizo had to choose between having a huge, gaping hole in the middle of their schedule or continuing support for 3.5e. Thus we have the current situation.

Whether this was originally the case or not, the guys at Paizo have since come forward and said that they're really not interested in 4th Edition anyway. Their complaint is that 4th Edition doesn't let them tell their stories the way they want. I disagree with this rather strongly, as I haven't yet seen an example of Pathfinder storytelling that couldn't be faithfully replicated in 4th Edition.

I still think there would be a large audience for 4e Paizo Adventure Paths, and official statements aside, I think they're inevitable as long as 4e continues to prosper like it has. There's simply too much money on the table to ignore. If PHB3 hits the bestseller lists like PHB2 did, I'm betting we'll see the first Paizo 4e adventure path in late 2010, regardless of the success of Pathfinder.

We'll see. In the meanwhile, I've taken to getting a head start on the process. You can find Paizo's first Pathfinder adventure path converted to 4th Edition (up through the third adventure, and still in progress) at Tales from the Rusty Dragon.

 

[JoeGKushner]

The only person trying to make it into 4e vs Pathfinder is you. One could easily tell that judging by your very confrontational posts on the other thread.

So here, let me alter the tread for you:

I'm not a huge fan of 4e, but I like some of the stuff in it, so I've grabbed it and converted it. I wonder if it's going to go the same way. For 4e players, do you think there's anything from Pathfinder you might nick for your own games?

The campaign setting is pretty sweet. The Classic Monsters revisited is pretty sweet as well. I stopped buying the adventure paths after the first two as I didn't run those and was full into 4e at the time but if they keep coming out with strong setting books with a minimum of crunch I would'nt be objected to buying more of them or if someone else was running the game, I wouldn't mind playing and purchasing the core book.

 

[Betote]

Whether this was originally the case or not, the guys at Paizo have since come forward and said that they're really not interested in 4th Edition anyway. Their complaint is that 4th Edition doesn't let them tell their stories the way they want. I disagree with this rather strongly, as I haven't yet seen an example of Pathfinder storytelling that couldn't be faithfully replicated in 4th Edition.

Read the GSL again. I have yet to read a Pathfinder product that could be published with GSL's "content protection". I mean, they usually depict some nasty stuff (specially when Nick Logue's name is on the cover ), and the GSL policy is rather Disney-esque.

When I read that statement, I believed they were saying "the LICENSE of 4e doesn't let us tell the stories we want", rather than "the SYSTEM of 4e doesn't let us tell the stories we want". I know people who're running Pathfinder APs with 4e rules. It can be done; it's just that it can be published.

 

[Betote]

As for the OP's question, I'll say: no, there's no reason why you should buy the PFRPG core book if you already have the D&D 3.5 ones. They're just that, the same rules with a few teaks (and rules for stairs! never forget those!), but the main focus is to keep a 3.5 core book in the shelves, not create the new True20.

As I see it, Paizo want you to buy their Pathfinder APs, and the PFRPG is there to support those sales, not the other way around.

As for the rule changes, well, I've been running 3.5 modules using the Beta, and I haven't had any problems regarding conversion: I just had to get the new CMB from the old Grapple bonus and that's it. And if they say the final product is going to be closer to 3.5 than the Beta, that'll mean you'll be able to use the new PFRPG Paizo adventures with your 3.5 books without any problem.

There's one more reason to believe that: Paizo products rely strongly on 3pp (they often use monsters from the Tome of Horrors of classes from the Book of Fiends, for instance), and making PFRPG to have compatibility problems with all that material would cut off their access to it, crippling them. And nobody want to cripple themselves, do they?

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

Read the GSL again. I have yet to read a Pathfinder product that could be published with GSL's "content protection". I mean, they usually depict some nasty stuff (specially when Nick Logue's name is on the cover ), and the GSL policy is rather Disney-esque.

When I read that statement, I believed they were saying "the LICENSE of 4e doesn't let us tell the stories we want", rather than "the SYSTEM of 4e doesn't let us tell the stories we want". I know people who're running Pathfinder APs with 4e rules. It can be done; it's just that it can be published.

Has anybody ever tried to "test" these GSL limits regarding content so far?
I tend to think they worry to much.

It's almost ironic that their own Pathfinder license contains similar restrictions - not that I blame them for it, there are good reasons to do this if you're licensing out your name. You really don't want to be hurt by crap/questionable material other people put out.

 

[roguerouge]

Also, following up on mearls post here, I see this as addressing one of the big issues with OGL, the iterative improvements. I haven't followed the development of PF all that closely, but it seems to me like we could see this sort of incremental improvement with the smaller audience that PF will have (relative to the size of the 3e WotC market).

I think Mearls is wrong here: What if better means more diversity rather than the same product faster or less error prone? And, if anything, the optimization boards "finds problems faster, fixes problems faster, and spreads those fixes faster." Exploits are only possible by finding flaws of the system. I'd be shocked if the attempts to fix polymorph weren't guided by the web.

 

[Nikosandros]

Has anybody ever tried to "test" these GSL limits regarding content so far?
I tend to think they worry to much.

You're quite likely right. I think that those provisions are there to prevent another Book of Erotic Fantasy, not to prohibit an excess of gore or a tense horror adventure.

It's almost ironic that their own Pathfinder license contains similar restrictions - not that I blame them for it, there are good reasons to do this if you're licensing out your name. You really don't want to be hurt by crap/questionable material other people put out.

However, you can still most of the material from the Pathfinder game without the specific license, since it is released under the OGL.