D&D 5E Hoard of the Dragon Queen: As it Turns out, it's Pretty Good (so far)

[edhel]

[MENTION=20741]Steel_Wind[/MENTION] To set the record straight about pricing...



In all probability a roughly $24 difference, and that gap closes if a PF DM doesn't have a subscription or a 5e DM gets by without the DMG and just uses DM rules in the Basic PDF.

Or you could order them from Amazon and save a substantial amount. 5e is about 90 USD in total + 45 USD for the adventures.

 

[carmachu]

Objectively, I see the principal marketing problem with 5E is that the game is simply too expensive compared to its competition. Never mind the apologia posted here on ENWorld by some fans of 5E, it's simply a much more expensive game to get in on than the main competition. Similarly, the Tyranny of Dragons AP books are also far more expensive compared to Pathfinder's Adventure Path line.

A big enough price difference to matter? Well, the subjective answer to that that depends who you are asking. To me? No. But objectively, overall? Yes. It will matter.

I'm going to quibble with you and say you're not quite correct that its much more expensive. As a former subscriber to the AP, and players companion, and campaign setting, and........no its NOT more expensive. Not including subscriber discounts or amazon discounts, the AP- all 6 @ 22.99 is $132. Not including campaign setting or players companion books. Assuming Tyranny or Dragons is a trilogy.......@ $29.99 its cheaper then a Pathfinder AP at $99.97.......again not including any discounts anywhere.

So no, they are not more expensive, not even MUCH more expensive when you add them all together.

 

[Steel_Wind]

I bought all the 5e products on Indigo in Canada. It cost me a $170 for the 5 books. The PHB, MM and DMG were like $42 each.

You paid too much then. I bought mine on Indigo as well at the price of $28.50 or so for the pre-order of each of the PHB, MM and DMG. Indigo's online price was actually the cheapest source for the 5E game in either Canada or the USA. That's pretty unusual as Indigo tends to be more expensive and tends to gouge -- but in this case, it was actually the cheapest.

Hoard of the Dragon Queen and The Rise of Tiamat are both $21.94 each at Indigo as well.

The point to take away is not that you cannot save money off of the retail price of these books by buying online. Of course you can. You can also save on the price of Pathfinder in the same (or similar) manner. That is assuming you have a credit card or way of paying for these products online. Not everybody does and it limits your market.

We can all search and find the cheaper price, so that the absolute price disparity between the two does not appear to be as cumulatively large. That doesn't change the fact that 5E is a significantly more expensive product than the competition. Does that price difference matter to me, subjectively? No. Not enough to deter me from buying it.

But I'm not 16 with a part time job. I'm a lawyer in my late 40s. So that's not a fair comparison, either.

 

[carmachu]

. That doesn't change the fact that 5E is a significantly more expensive product than the competition. Does that price difference matter to me, subjectively? No. Not enough to deter me from buying it.

Except its not. Again, 6 books to complete an adventure vs 2 or 3. Individually 1 pathfinder AP is cheaper then 1 5e book.....but you need to buy 3 times that to complete an AP vs 5e. Again, $22.99 vs 29.99 BEFORE we go looking for discounts is NOT siginifcantly more expensive,

 

[rastus_burne]

Look, quit the Fun with Figures in the guise of "setting anybody straight". You aren't fooling anybody with that stuff. That's pure advocacy and spin.

Despite your zeal for objectivity, and your mission to quash 'spin' you have failed to acknowledge the nature of shopping in a digitised society. Sure, you may decide to pay $x Canadian dollars at a retail brick and mortar hobby store. All power to you. But that's just as false in its presentation, as the post you quoted, when one considers the considerable ability for customers to haggle and get discounts these days. There is so much competition, that I'm sorry, paying full retail is plain silly unless you're desperate to get a product instantly OR you want to support a particular store.

As a general rule, you're correct - 5e core game is more expensive than Pathfinder core game. But using Amazon or Book Depository, hunting for discount codes or whatever, and you really don't have to pay the high retail price.

Furthermore while the core game is more expensive for 5e than PF, the adventure paths, as others have noted, are not.

If you are really interested in fairly representing the situation, it goes without saying that both Pathfinder AND 5e are free if an online user accesses the SRD or the Basic PDF!!

You're not 'fooling anybody' either.

 

[GX.Sigma]

Leaving aside the issue of price (seriously, we had a million threads about this back when the prices were first announced)...


Really? It's been underwhelming over here. The production value is surprisingly low, and the text didn't give me much to go with. The whole first episode is basically just a lot of "then they fight X cultists and X kobolds" in a row, with no real interesting choices between them. How did that play out at your table?

 

[Quickleaf]

Look, quit the Fun with Figures in the guise of "setting anybody straight". You aren't fooling anybody with that stuff. That's pure advocacy and spin.

$150 (5E) retail vs $90 (PF) for the basic rulebooks for each RPG is a significant price disparity for those respective game systems. If you want to jam you head in the sand with a glurk and pretend otherwise and start playing games with what you count up and don't count? Go ahead. You aren't fooling anybody. That is pure advocacy you just engaged in. I do that every day in a courtroom and I know when the other guy is in spin mode. It doesn't escape me.

If you cast your eyes north of the border, the comparative retail cost is even worse. The cost of the PF Core Rulebook and Bestiary in Canada is the same for Pathfinder $49 and $39 for the Core Rulebook and Bestiary, respectively. For 5Es books, it's far worse though. The retail cost of those books in Canada (where I live) is $58.00 each. Add in HST at 13% and the retail math is:

($49.99 + $39.99) x 1.13% = $101.68
($58.00 + $58.00 + $58.00) x 1.13% = $196.62

That's the difference in the retail price of the two basic games game in Canada where I live. Is that a significant disparity in price for these games? Of course it is. Stop it, ok?

To compare the price of 6 x 96 page APs for Paizo at $22.99 retail price each to the 2 x 96 page books by WotC at $29.99 each and pretend they are equivalent products which provide equivalent play experiences and length of enjoyment/pride of ownership is also a plainly false comparison.

When you are the one doing the buying, my guess is when you bought six books in one case and only two of them in the other case? I'm guessing you noticed. When every book is 96 pages in length, and the interior contents of all of them are practically identical in layout and art style using the same map artists -- this isn't something you are going to fail to notice, either.

They aren't the same total number of products; one of them has six books and the other has two. Inside, they look the same. One has 3 times as many pages as the other; 3 times as many books.

If you want to like 5E, like it. If you want to buy it - buy it. I bought both. I'm not making that choice. I'm not asking anybody to do so.

But I am not going to pretend that there is not a significant marketing issue with new gamers when it comes to the cost of admission to 5E. And I'm not going to let you do that either under the guise of "setting me straight".

Whoa. Easy amigo! It is true I am more interested in 5e right now, but I like both systems for different reasons.

I have two more thoughts about pricing:

Advdnture Path price comparison
I didn't realize the PF adventure paths were each 96 pages, I thought they were significantly shorter. So, in the spirit of my original post (clarity, not obfuscation), I worked out the price per page for a full PF adventure path and the current 5e adventure path, and it turns out 5e is nearly twice as costly.

5e adventure path price per page: 31¢

PF adventure path price per page: 17¢

So, you were right about a PF adventure path being the better deal and I stand corrected. I should have included price/page data when I first responded.

Basic Rules price comparison
My numbers were from the U.S. prices, non-discounted. What I didn't realize is that the 5e books are so costly in Canada whereas the PF book are about the same as U.S. prices. I guess if I lived in Canada that would make me more favorably inclined toward PF for the pricing alone!

Whatever numbers represent your location and buying method of preference, there is a bit of a difference in between the two sets of basic rules. That difference is the 5e DMG is supposed to be like a traditional DMG and Unearthed Arcana combined, so part of the higher 5e price accounts for that extra content.

 

[RangerWickett]

How did that play out at your table?

If I can second this opinion, please let us have more discussion of the adventure's content and less of its economics. What is the story of the game?

 

[Steel_Wind]

Whoa. Easy amigo! It is true I am more interested in 5e right now, but I like both systems for different reasons.

5e adventure path price per page: 31¢

PF adventure path price per page: 17¢

So, you were right about a PF adventure path being the better deal and I stand corrected.

I don't know if it's all THAT much better a deal. While I'm not down with comparing the cost of 6 PF AP books vs 2 5e AP books and calling them equivalent "APs", I'm also not signing on to the idea that a price point difference of $7 more (at USD retail) is all THAT much of a significant difference, either. If it is, it's not one that is likely to matter to most people when viewed in isolation.

The cost on the game systems themselves? I'm a little more concerned about that. Experienced gamers are A) Older; and B) more prone to seek out better online deals if they can and; C) Less Price sensitive in the first place. Those aren't the markets to be all that worried about.

Casual new gamers aged 15-25? Different story. They are more price sensitive, less familiar with savings available from online sources and less able to purchase online with credit cards even if they are aware of the savings. That's where the price impact will be felt greatest.

Whatever the case, the costs of 5E is a far cry from the roll-out cost of $20 bucks a book with the debut of 3E. Mind you, the market is also very different now, too.

 

[Vaeron]

As interesting as all the pricing discussion is, it doesn't seem to have much to do with whether or not Hoard of the Dragon Queen is a good adventure.

I'm not convinced it is. A number of the encounters seem far too deadly, as if the encounter math wasn't worked out at the time of production.

For example, at one point a party of Level 1 characters is faced with a wave of 13 CR1/8, 2 CR1/2 (only 425 XP, but the Budget multiplier of times 5!! for groups of 15 or more makes this (2,125 XP) quintuple a deadly-level encounter (400 xp for a group of 4). edit: It's actually x4 for a horde, but I think the main point still stands!