Pathfinder 1E Is Pathfinder going to slow down?

[Gundark]

Is the monster freely available in the SRD? If so, not sure why it would be a big deal... in fact it would help conserve unnecessary use of space.


Mistwell... I'm curious about this concerning your statement as well... are these things that are available for free or is the needed info from the books you cited only available if one purchases the books?

No idea, like I said I don't pay tons of attention to Pathfinder/Paizo.

It DID direct me to the book which I'm sure that Paizo would want me to purchase (not faulting them, they are a business), and not the free SRD that is somewhere online. So, I think Mistwell's point is still valid to some degree.

 

[Imaro]

No idea, like I said I don't pay tons of attention to Pathfinder/Paizo.

It DID direct me to the book which I'm sure that Paizo would want me to purchase (not faulting them, they are a business), and not the free SRD that is somewhere online. So, I think Mistwell's point is still valid to some degree.

I don't think them directing you to the book instead of the SRD speaks to anything really, yes they want you to buy the books (what business doesn't) but if they only use rules, monsters, etc. that can be found in the SRD then it's not forcing anyone to buy anything new in order to get full usage of the products. It's one of the advanatages of the OGL that WotC never really capitalized on.

 

[delericho]

Their APs are their biggest seller, one would think at some point this has to reach a saturation point as well.

The thing is, Paizo have hit on the way to make it easy to keep up. I can subscribe to their AP line and just get the monthly volume through the door. The price is low enough that I can essentially forget about it, and the volume of content is low enough that I don't get swamped with unread material. I have all their AP volumes right back to volume 1, and yet have never run a single one.

The most recent AP directly references 11 other non-core PF books.

On the one hand, that's mitigated because the required rules material is available online for free. Paizo have been really good in this regard - they know that their money is made with sales of subscriptions to the AP, and everything else is gravy, so they make sure nothing gets in the way of selling those subscriptions.

On the other hand, those references to other products have certainly been growing, and they're certainly reducing my enjoyment of the AP. Because even if the rules material is freely available, I have neither the time nor the inclination to read through it all, let alone master all those rules. Which means that as time goes on, I'm increasingly unlikely ever to use an AP for its intended purpose. (Of course, that's thus far a theoretical concern... but it's a different matter for me to justify spending money on APs that I don't run than on those I feel I can't run.)

 

[callinostros]

Pathfinder will inevitably go the way of D&D. They will continue to put out more and more books until the saturation level prohibits ease of entry into the system for new players. With new players buying the system lessening and older players looking for "something different" they will see a decline of sales. They will release Pathfinder 2 in an attempt to gain new players and this will cause a rift between the "old" and the "new" edition.

Right now Pathfinder is a one-trick pony (fantasy D&D) and that is its strength. They do not have to spend resources on different audiences. They have one single, but large, audience. However, tastes change over time, even if its a case of "wanting something new". Logic (and past history of rpg games) indicates they will peak and then enter a downswing.

 

[billd91]

I don't think them directing you to the book instead of the SRD speaks to anything really, yes they want you to buy the books (what business doesn't) but if they only use rules, monsters, etc. that can be found in the SRD then it's not forcing anyone to buy anything new in order to get full usage of the products. It's one of the advanatages of the OGL that WotC never really capitalized on.

Moreover, if you'd rather have the book than look it up in a disjointed fashion online, Paizo has a very aggressive pricing structure for the electronic versions of main game books. They offer multiple ways for the consumer to get the non-core material referenced in the adventures, something I appreciate.

 

[callinostros]

When I buy an adventure I want to be able to run the adventure without having to download pages online or open up other books in order to run it. I want to be able to only need the core books and the adventure. If I am being forced to get extra materials, especially if I have to pay for any of them no matter how "nominal" the cost is, I will feel cheated.
An adventure needs to include the information a person needs to run it, even if that means putting in an insert of information from another book. Anything less than that is a waste of my money.

 

[darjr]

Yea, I keep forgetting that. $10 for a core book in PDF is awesome!

I do agree that I see this as something that Paizo will probably have to overcome or deal with at some point. But if I were a betting man I'd put my money on them making their customers happy and figuring out something cool.

 

[N'raac]

I was flipping through an adventure from one of their APs and noticed that there was this fight where it didn't have stats for the creature, only stated "See monster book X pg XX". If I were a Paizo customer this would irk me significantly

When I buy an adventure I want to be able to run the adventure without having to download pages online or open up other books in order to run it. I want to be able to only need the core books and the adventure. If I am being forced to get extra materials, especially if I have to pay for any of them no matter how "nominal" the cost is, I will feel cheated.

An adventure needs to include the information a person needs to run it, even if that means putting in an insert of information from another book. Anything less than that is a waste of my money.

This, to me, is a very tough issue. If the AP line only uses the core rule book and, say, the first monster book, I feel ripped off that I bought all these other books, and they never come into play in the AP's. All that content is out there - use some of it. If the AP uses these materials and does not reprint extracts of the other books (should that include full spells for the Lich reprinted from the core rules? should it also include the Wizard class that the Lich has levels in? should it reprint the full Lich entry from the monster book?), then Gundark and callinostros are unhappy. But if they spend 8 pages of that AP reprinting extracts from books I bought, why am I paying for those reprints, instead of getting 8 more pages of new content? I think a reasonable approach is to select some set of books that the AP will primarily draw from, and highlight this (just like most books will indicate you need the core rules, as this book is not a complete game), possibly draw the occasional element from another book (perhaps a spell, archetype or creature which is especially appropriate), and consider indicating a different option from the book(s) cited as primary sources that can be used by someone who does not have access to this other source material.

 

[seankreynolds]

When I buy an adventure I want to be able to run the adventure without having to download pages online or open up other books in order to run it. I want to be able to only need the core books and the adventure. If I am being forced to get extra materials, especially if I have to pay for any of them no matter how "nominal" the cost is, I will feel cheated.
An adventure needs to include the information a person needs to run it, even if that means putting in an insert of information from another book. Anything less than that is a waste of my money.

(Full disclosure: I am a Paizo employee.)

1) If Paizo only uses "core books and the adventure" for its APs, then (a) that's a lot of really cool classes, spells, magic items, and monsters from other sources that are off-limits for use in an adventure, and (b) people who own those other sources will feel ripped off that all the cool stuff in the other books they bought aren't being used/supported.

2) If Paizo reprints information from other books (such as a spell, monster, or magic item), that's less new adventure content you're getting with your adventure. For example, the hippopotamus appears in Bestiary 2. If an AP has an encounter with a hippo, and Paizo includes the hippo's stat block in the adventure, that's half a page spent on a hippo stat block—half a page that could have been spent giving more background on the adventure, describing the motivations of a villain, or statting out a new magic item found in the AP.

3) As others have pointed out, the rules from Paizo's core books are online for free at Paizo's PRD. And all other OGL rules content appears on fan-created websites. So if you don't have Bestiary 2, or Mythic Monsters Revisited, or whatever, you still have easy (and legal) access to that supplementary content. Which means Paizo can include a three-line pointer to that content and get on with the new material for the AP.

Food for thought.

 

[Gundark]

On the other hand, those references to other products have certainly been growing, and they're certainly reducing my enjoyment of the AP. Because even if the rules material is freely available, I have neither the time nor the inclination to read through it all, let alone master all those rules. Which means that as time goes on, I'm increasingly unlikely ever to use an AP for its intended purpose. (Of course, that's thus far a theoretical concern... but it's a different matter for me to justify spending money on APs that I don't run than on those I feel I can't run.)

Yeah, so maybe Paizo has slowed the saturation more than what WotC put out, but clearly it's happening. I remember the days playing 3e and 4e and feeling overwhelmed by errata, optional rules, new magic items, classes, races, spells . The few times I've played their living Pathfinder I've opted to just play a pre-gen fighter as I don't want to be bothered to pour through these tomes to create some variation of a guy who swings his sword.