Paizo To Make Kingmaker Bestiary... For D&D 5E!

Jester David · May 3, 2019

M.T. Black said:
There is easy money on the table for Paizo, converting some of their classic APs to 5e. It would self-fund via crowdfunding and they could contract out the actual work to Kobold etc.

I suspect the only thing stopping them is that their existing fan base would revolt, possibly seeing it as the beginning of the end for PF. But I suspect it is inevitable...

Paizo’s fans are loyal, but they also listen and engage with the company.
If Paizo’s staff is honest and comes out and says “we don’t support Edition wars, because we’re all gamers, and these products aren’t coming at the expense of Pathfinder products” or even “the fans have been asking for 5e support, so we’re giving that audience what they want” it will quickly end any revolt.

Especially as there are two or three Paizo alumni working for WotC now.

Mistwell · May 3, 2019

Remathilis said:
They BETTER not release a Savage Tides 5e conversion after I've spent so much time converting it myself!!

Oh come on. I did that too, and it wasn't so bad.

I mean, after I was done I have not converted anything since. And my eye twitches every time I consider converting another adventure path. But not so bad.

turkeygiant · May 4, 2019

Honestly the Pathfinder forums are a terrible place to look if you want to judge how 2.0 is going to be received, the only people commenting on there are the people who hate it, its just a fact of the internet that people rarely invest time to saying they like something. As a former Pathfinder player and a current 5e player Pathfinder 2.0 is really quite appealing to me, I like almost everything about it except for its still bloated bonus progression which I guess was too much of a sacred cow to completely cut (even if I think it would have made the game so much better).

turkeygiant · May 4, 2019

kenmarable said:
I believe all along Paizo has tried to position themselves as the sort of Advanced D&D to D&D in terms of complexity (not quality or anything like that, it's not a jab at D&D). They know their RPG is more complex than 5e (and 4e before that) and lean into that as a selling feature for those who prefer a more complex RPG experience.

With 5e massively growing the number of gamers, some of them will eventually want games that are more involved with far more knobs and buttons for tweaking, and Paizo is smart to position themselves as that alternative. Their biggest problem, however, has probably been that they haven't had a lot of connection to the 5e community. They mostly (in my opinion) have relied on the massive momentum of gamers who loved 3.x but hated 4e to keep themselves going. With the crossover book as well as the new streaming game with Oblivion Oath, they can hopefully make some connections to the newer 5e fans.

I think the one place where Pathfinder 2.0 is going to fail as a crunchier upgrade from 5e is in it's bonus progression. At least in my experience that transition to bounded accuracy in 5e was kinda a revelation, its not something I would easily go back on even if the other elements of more complex crunch in Pathfinder 2.0 do appeal to me.

turkeygiant · May 4, 2019

Wrathamon said:
That would be a good conversion for Wotc to make. Not sure if Paizo owns the rights to that.

Paizo is in a tough spot. Sales of pathfinder have plummeted. A lot of fans that went to pathfinder because they didn't like 4e have come back for 5e. PF 2e isn't sitting well with a % of their fans. Starfinder is the only signing spot and it's good to see them throwing more support towards it. But, to be honest an Advanced 5e Starfinder would be a huge hit imo and I would prefer it over the older d20 chassis version.

I was so ready for Stafinder, it sounded so good and their credo that they would put what was good for Starfinder ahead of backwards compatibility sounded like a great development decision, but in the end it was just too much Pathfinder and not enough of its own beast. I grabbed the pdf and my gaming group looked it over but we pretty much unanimously agreed that it just wasn't what we were looking for in sci-fi. There was just too much in the base of the game that reminded us of what made pathfinder such a slog to play years ago before we bailed for 5e.

GreyLord · May 4, 2019

Well, with this announcement it may be enough for me to want to buy the Kingmaker Hardcover and the 5e bestiary that comes with it.

robus · May 4, 2019

turkeygiant said:
I was so ready for Stafinder, it sounded so good and their credo that they would put what was good for Starfinder ahead of backwards compatibility sounded like a great development decision, but in the end it was just too much Pathfinder and not enough of its own beast. I grabbed the pdf and my gaming group looked it over but we pretty much unanimously agreed that it just wasn't what we were looking for in sci-fi. There was just too much in the base of the game that reminded us of what made pathfinder such a slog to play years ago before we bailed for 5e.

Have you checked out Esper Genesis? https://alligatoralleyentertainment.com/espergenesis/

MNblockhead · May 4, 2019

Jer said:
I admit I'm surprised - this is Paizo signalling that they're willing to give up on having their own game line and go back to being a D&D 3rd party publisher. If they're going to do that why bother with a major revision for second edition PF at all? Why not just clean up Pathfinder into a 1.5 edition and dual-stat their books for Pathfinder and 5e?

Well, I don't think they'll give up on the their own game line just yet, but they do seem to be hedging their bets. Starfinder is their own system so that's another hedge.

MNblockhead · May 4, 2019

turkeygiant said:
I was so ready for Stafinder, it sounded so good and their credo that they would put what was good for Starfinder ahead of backwards compatibility sounded like a great development decision, but in the end it was just too much Pathfinder and not enough of its own beast. I grabbed the pdf and my gaming group looked it over but we pretty much unanimously agreed that it just wasn't what we were looking for in sci-fi. There was just too much in the base of the game that reminded us of what made pathfinder such a slog to play years ago before we bailed for 5e.

Same here. Really just felt like D&D in space. And, really, didn't feel like it was in space much at all. Would have been better to either go the spelljammer route and assume a fantasical version of reality with crystal spheres, etc. or play up the space concept a bit more seriously. To be fair, my experience has only been a few Convention games, but it just didn't grab me.

I like playing the PF 2 playtest more than I did Starfinder, but it wasn't a different enough system from 5e to make me want to invest my time and money into it.

There has been a glut of excellent new games and settings and adventures in the bast few years and I'm losing my appetite. Something needs to be very compelling to get me to open my wallet these days.

Now, if Paizo would have put out 5e material 3-4 years ago, I expect my shelves would be full of their material instead of Kobold Press and Frog God Games.