Pathfinder 1E Are people still playing Pathfinder 1e?

[jdrakeh]

Well, I've never spent a lot of time at the Paizo boards, even when I was publishing for PF 1 mostly. You cannot post images on their boards, and if you know me as a 3D illustrator and cartographer, I have to post images for many of my posts. And while I do sell some products at the Paizo Store, when I got stuff on DrivethruRPG and the Paizo Store, in 3 months, I'll get a check from Paizo for $30, and every month DrivethruRPG I have hundreds of dollars in sales. And the crowd over there is very "pro 1st party" and "not so pro 3PP", so I've never had a great experience there... it's always been tumbleweeds for me there.

And on top of all that, their forum software is pretty... uh... not good.

 

[payn]

Well, I've never spent a lot of time at the Paizo boards, even when I was publishing for PF 1 mostly. You cannot post images on their boards, and if you know me as a 3D illustrator and cartographer, I have to post images for many of my posts. And while I do sell some products at the Paizo Store, when I got stuff on DrivethruRPG and the Paizo Store, in 3 months, I'll get a check from Paizo for $30, and every month DrivethruRPG I have hundreds of dollars in sales. And the crowd over there is very "pro 1st party" and "not so pro 3PP", so I've never had a great experience there... it's always been tumbleweeds for me there.

You have a unique perspective. As just a plain ol gamer the Paizo boards were full of life back in 09 up until a few years ago. Tons of discussion about core rules and supplements and a real gold mine of AP sub-forums. You could always count on good advice and warnings of pitfalls in the adventure writing. Good folks too, a shame its not lively anymore but thats the nature of things as folks flock to social media.

 

[gamerprinter]

Yeah. It wasn't supplement bloat or power creep that ultimately turned me off (although that was an issue). The core systems of 3.5 and PF1e are just too unwieldy for me as a GM past level 11 or so. As @Thomas Shey said, there were just too many moving parts to keep track of.

While players don't want restrictions, and kindly GMs will always accommodate the players. For my Kaidan setting of Japanese Horror (PFRPG), it had some of it's own feats, spells, class archetypes, and such. Ideally, the best way to play Kaidan, IMO, is use the Core rules, the Advanced Players Guide, and any other supplements with Asian flavored class archetypes, and then only Kaidan materials and nothing else except bestiaries for game play - for the power players, they need all books to build their master builds, but then that can make game play unwieldy. If you limit your books allowed for a given AP or table, the game seems to play a lot more smoothly and effectively - at least in my experience.

 

[gamerprinter]

You have a unique perspective. As just a plain ol gamer the Paizo boards were full of life back in 09 up until a few years ago. Tons of discussion about core rules and supplements and a real gold mine of AP sub-forums. You could always count on good advice and warnings of pitfalls in the adventure writing. Good folks too, a shame its not lively anymore but thats the nature of things as folks flock to social media.

There were good threads now and again, but the overall experience, for me at least, didn't seem the best. I hardly ever go there, because of it.

 

[jdrakeh]

While players don't want restrictions, and kindly GMs will always accommodate the players. For my Kaidan setting of Japanese Horror (PFRPG), it had some of it's own feats, spells, class archetypes, and such. Ideally, the best way to play Kaidan, IMO, is use the Core rules, the Advanced Players Guide, and any other supplements with Asian flavored class archetypes, and then only Kaidan materials and nothing else except bestiaries for game play - for the power players, they need all books to build their master builds, but then that can make game play unwieldy. If you limit your books allowed for a given AP or table, the game seems to play a lot more smoothly and effectively - at least in my experience.

Again, supplements weren't really the issue for me. The core games - as played out of the core books only - were simply unwieldy, for me as a GM, once PCs reached a certain level and I had to build opponents to challenge them. Things just got nuts. Certainly, adding more sourcebooks exacerbated this issue, but my point (that I feel a couple of folks seem to be missing) is that the games (3.5 and PF1e) were unmanageable at their very core for me past certain levels.

 

[DrunkonDuty]

I can't speak specifically about PF1e, but my reading doesn't suggest it is significantly different from 3.5 here, and the issue I had with the latter wasn't about power creep; it was about managing opposition with too many moving parts. I remember this being starkly obvious to me in an encounter I set up with a 16th level wizard and his 15th level fighter bodyguard. Simply keeping in mind all the spells, feats and magic items available was next to impossible, and they didn't even have all the extra special abilities you could get with dragons or demons.

Again, supplements weren't really the issue for me. The core games - as played out of the core books only - were simply unwieldy, for me as a GM, once PCs reached a certain level and I had to build opponents to challenge them. Things just got nuts. Certainly, adding more sourcebooks exacerbated this issue, but my point (that I feel a couple of folks seem to be missing) is that the games (3.5 and PF1e) were unmanageable at their very core for me past certain levels.

Yeah, this. ^^

There's nothing wrong with powerful PCs. But in PF1 the work needed to stat up convincing and interesting challenges for high level becomes overwhelming. Even if you buy an adventure the work required in learning how to run a high level NPC can be as time consuming as drawing one up yourself. Rasputin from the Reign of Winter AP is a good example; he was even more work than the eventual BBEG.

I saw James Jacobs post somewhere that he wanted less of those and to have more of the ones they have be large amounts of tiny enemies instead of one big bastard of a monster. Sounds like a good idea to me, my players like bonking legions of small enemies more than throwing 40% chance to hit rolls at one monster over and over again.

I've been an advocate of having more, lower powered enemies for a while. A few years ago I indulged in a short period of ranting against what I was calling One Big Monster syndrome here on the boards.

Having a range of lower power enemies allows for more interesting tactics and battles. And this applies regardless of game system.

 

[Retreater]

Having a range of lower power enemies allows for more interesting tactics and battles. And this applies regardless of game system.

It does ... unless the lower power enemies can't reasonably damage the characters and the characters don't feel threatened. Unless they can all be blasted by a single fireball spell.
Then it's not interesting tactics - it's just giving the heroes the opportunity to flex.

 

[DrunkonDuty]

Giving the heroes the chance to flex is a good outcome.

 

[Retreater]

Giving the heroes the chance to flex is a good outcome.

Only on occasion. You don't want it all the time - the same as you don't want every fight to be a "down to the wire, high stress" situation. Presenting a reasonable challenge most of the time, then the rest of the time to be a little too easy or a little too hard seems to be a sweet spot for me.

 

[DrunkonDuty]

Yep, in total agreement.