D&D 5E Could Paizo go 5e?

[Morlock]

I haven't thought this through beyond the 5 minutes it took to type this, but...

Yeah, seriously, what if Paizo goes 5e? It's not as crazy as it sounds. How many more non-AP books does Pathfinder have in it? If Paizo goes 5e:

1. 5e customers can use new Paizo products with 5e, which is now by far the current D&D favorite. All those 5e players who want to buy a bunch of books like they did for 3e and/or 4e? Now they're your customers. They'll buy your APs and your system books. You're also tapping into a potential boom in 5e content coming from 5e SRD and Guild.

2. 5e rules are more elegant than Pathfinder rules. More designed to be house-ruled. They're the perfect way to roll out Pathfinder 2, or whatever.

3. You can publish errata-ed, enhanced, and otherwise improved and revised hardcover versions of your old PF APs.

4. Similar to #2, if you're already looking to re-boot and start over with a fresh line, 5e is the perfect excuse. It would be much easier to sell existing PF customers on switching to 5e than to sell them on D&D 3.8 or whatever.

Cons

1. A lot of Paizo fans are going to oppose this, obviously. (but a PF fan opposed is countered by a 5e fan who would buy in)
2. It won't be 3e any more. Some people like all that crunch.

I guess it all hinges on 4: if you're already looking to re-boot. Put another way, it may not be time to do that now, or maybe Paizo never plans on doing a re-boot, but if they ever do, doing it 5e would make a lot of sense.

 

[I'm A Banana]

I don't think it would be impossible. If they made a Pathfinder 2e, they'd probably make it 5e-compatible. PF is a system that is pretty creaky around the edges, and they've got more than enough original content with Golarion and the APs and the classes and monsters and suchlike that it would be nice.

I mean, I'm not much of a PF fan, but if they put out some OGL stuff that is compatible with 5e, I'd probably take a good look!

 

[Morlock]

If their psionics book was 5e I'd own it already. Would've been tempted by a lot of other products, too.

To revise con #2, I'd add that Paizo could put as much crunch into a 5e version of PF as they wanted to.

 

[Mouseferatu]

Paizo already has a loyal fanbase, and they've pretty much said that they'll never again put themselves in a position where their own products depend on another company. I don't see it ever, ever happening. At most, I can see them possibly doing a small line of 5E material or conversions alongside Pathfinder, but going full-on (or even mostly, or even a significant minority) 5E? I think not much earlier than the heat death of the universe.

 

[darjr]

I've come to the conclusion recently that someone very canny is running things at WotC D&D at the moment. I wouldn't put past any options. For instance I recently would have put the two most reluctant companies to work with WotC on a 5e thing in a significant way at 1) Paizo and 2) Green Ronin. And I could have been convinced that the order was the other way round.

But then Green Ronin went and did something wonderful with WotC.


The question to ask is, what would get someone at Paizo to want to do something with Wizards? Anything come to mind? Has anyone over at Paizo been very busy on something not talked about?

I know nothing, but I think interesting answers to the above questions might lead to interesting things.

 

[steppedonad4]

And alienate their die-hard, fanatical, religiously-zealous, "PF is the One True Way!" audience?

 

[darjr]

I think that's a disservice to Paizo's diehard fans. Say Paizo does something, some one thing, with wizards and uses that idea to double down on Pathfinder and their own game lines at the same time? Do you think their fans would be terribly upset if it gets them great things too?

 

[mach1.9pants]

Could they? Yes. Will they? Not for the forseeable future. If PF RPG sales start tanking and people cross in droves to 5E, then they'll probably have to. The core Paizo/PF fan base is pretty large, satisfied and well services by Paizo & 3P Publishers. I think we'll see a PFRPG 2nd Edition first.

 

[Jan van Leyden]

The only thing I can imagine is that the Paizo people at some point publish PF 2 which is aligned to D&D 5. Maybe PF 2 could be some heavily crunchified D&D. Still a distinct game with a lot of similarities like in the PF 3.5 days.

But as the OP put it, #4 is probably the decisive factor.

 

[CasvalRemDeikun]

Ultimately, it all depends on money. Is their current system making them enough money to remain profitable? If not, they may explore other options like the New OGL.