Pathfinder 1E Is Pathfinder Sustainable in the Long-Term?

[JoeGKushner]

We asked the listings for Pathfinder to be turned on the day the announcement went live. Unfortunately, it takes some time. You should see Pathfinder up in the next couple of days at the most.

Thumbs up! I'm probably just used to WoTC and others putting their stuff up MONTHS and MONTHS ahead of time and it probably just wasn't possible here for legal reasons. (Heck, even WoTC items have been bumped.... where's my softcover DMG!)

Will the other Game Mastery items be available through Amazon.com too?

 

[Pyrex]

Plus, there aren't a ton of monsters in the SRD document to begin with; repeated use in multiple 1-20 level APs may make them wear thin. What other monster sources are available for an OGL-based AP I'm not sure, but I'll bet such sources aren't as widely distributed as the WotC monster books.

I'm assuming that's a large part of the motivation for half of each issue being new crunch (new monsters, spells, etc).

 

[JoshuaFrost]

Thumbs up! I'm probably just used to WoTC and others putting their stuff up MONTHS and MONTHS ahead of time and it probably just wasn't possible here for legal reasons. (Heck, even WoTC items have been bumped.... where's my softcover DMG!)

Will the other Game Mastery items be available through Amazon.com too?

We're working with our book channel clients and customers to make that happen. Heck, we're talking to some of those very buyers next month at BEA in New York. I hope to see every GameMastery product on Amazon. It takes time--time we've been spending and time we'll continue to spend to make this happen.

 

[Nlogue]

The other element of Pathfinder that makes me question somewhat its ability to survive long-term is that it'll be OGL and not have the official D&D license to prop it up. No Monster Manuals 2-5, no Fiend Folio, none of the spells and PrCs from the Complete series or Spell Compendium, etc. Those brought a lot of spice and variety to past adventure paths. It looks like the goblins from the first Pathfinder AP are an interesting twist on the little critters, but it might take just one ill-conceived heavily-featured monster in an AP to sour customers on them as a whole.

Plus, there aren't a ton of monsters in the SRD document to begin with; repeated use in multiple 1-20 level APs may make them wear thin. What other monster sources are available for an OGL-based AP I'm not sure, but I'll bet such sources aren't as widely distributed as the WotC monster books.

Green Ronin's Advanced Bestiary, Necromancer Games' Tome of Horror and much much more. Great material all around to tell the truth, and don't forget that James Jacobs and the Paizo staff are masters of making their own killer monsters. Couple that with the fact that every issue of Pathfinder will contain at MINIMUM six new monsters and you've got yourself a plethora of devious and deadly creature-critters to wreak havoc with. Check out yesterday's blog entry for some details on Pathfinder #1's new monsters...I've seen the full version of one or two of these and they are tasty in the extreme.

 

[Erik Mona]

Next, I don't see it at Amazon.com. I keep hearing about the wonderful relationship they have with book vendors but if it ain't at Amazon.com for preorders... heck, I don't see a lot of Paizo stuff there.

Funny story.

Pathfinder was on Amazon about three weeks ago. We entered all of the relevant info into Diamond's (our book distributor) database, and Amazon sucked it out and magically put it online months before the relevant catalog even went to press.

Obviously, we freaked and had them remove the pages. If you search hard enough, you can find the old sites on google caches. We asked them to remove the pages and put them back up after the announcement. It's apparently taken them a few days to do so, but the pages will be up very soon.

In fact, they're up already, they're just hidden.

The GameMastery Modules are all on Amazon, and we solicited them at the same time.

--Erik

 

[David E]

An interesting thing to watch will be looking at the way Pathfinder competes with the monthly parade of source books from WOTC. For my money, with a few exceptions, I've gotten far more from the adventure path adventures and articles than I have from the stacks of source books I've bought. And even if I don't use all of the APs they publish, the same way I haven't used anything close to all of the adventures printed in Dungeon, I'm still going to get a lot more use and enjoyment out of reading those adventures than I have from many of the splatbooks.

Frankly, I'm really looking forward to Pathfinder -- and it's odd to be as excited as I am about the prospect of it, given that it's rising from the ashes of Dragon and Dungeon.

-rg

I couldn't have said it better myself. Although I have to admit I really did enjoy some of the more imaginative rulebooks, like Lords of Madness and Tome of Magic.

 

[sam500]

The price is outrageous.
Check out this thread for a breakdown of the increase. It's more than 66% per page of content.

http://paizo.com/paizo/messageboard...sition/pathfinderPriceBreakdwon&page=1#179917

 

[Infernal Teddy]

I'm probably a bit of an odditiy - I was more of a Dragon reader, Dungeon never appealed to me much, as I create my own adventures. I'm afraid that, judging from what we know at the moment, Pathfinder won't offer me much

However, I DO wish Paizo well, and hope that Pathfinder is a blazing success....

 

[Olaf the Stout]

There isn't a PDF-only subscription. If you subscribe, you get the PDF as a freebie.

I realise that subscribers get PDF's of each of the issues as a freebie. However, if you aren't a subscriber you can buy PDF's of each issue for $13.99. If you wanted to be super frugal you could just buy PDF's of each issue. That would be the cheapest way to get the content.

Olaf the Stout

 

[Agamon]

Funny story.

Pathfinder was on Amazon about three weeks ago. We entered all of the relevant info into Diamond's (our book distributor) database, and Amazon sucked it out and magically put it online months before the relevant catalog even went to press.

Obviously, we freaked and had them remove the pages. If you search hard enough, you can find the old sites on google caches. We asked them to remove the pages and put them back up after the announcement. It's apparently taken them a few days to do so, but the pages will be up very soon.

In fact, they're up already, they're just hidden.

The GameMastery Modules are all on Amazon, and we solicited them at the same time.

--Erik

And you guys stopped putting sub cards in the mags a couple months ago. If only I had more ranks in Spot and Investigate...