Pathfinder 1E is a big Pathfinder surge on the way?

[JoeGKushner]

I think a more interesting question is what will Paizo do to protect their niche when 5e comes? Will they lose customers to the new shiny? What are they going to do to fight against that?

At this point, I don't think Paizo has to worry about it.

Their core book is on something like a 4th printing.

Their starter boxed set seems to be doing well.

They have numerous support books already printed and more in the pipeline.

Their adventure path program shows no sign of slowing down.

They are expanding into comics, miniatures and online gaming.

To 'fight' the shinny, I suspect they'll have stuff like the omnibus edition of Rise of the Runelords, along with the new miniatures to go with it, along with new books, adventures, and various other bits.

Not to mention anything 3rd parties do with the OGL in full support of Pathfinder.

 

[Deadboy]

is the Advanced Players Guide real that cool? That's the 2nd or 3rd time around here I've heard people mention it as a game changing book.

foolish_mortals

Yeah, it is. And I speak as a 4e-player who strenuously dislikes 3.5 for numerous reasons and would rather be clubbed to death with a flounder than play 3.5 or Pathfinder... I've paged through the APG a number of times and was very, very impressed. Not impressed enough to want to play the game, but impressed enough to recognize that it was a pretty spiffy bit of game design. If PF books were more affordable I probably would have bought it to steal ideas from.

I also agree that the more interesting question than whether PF will get more sales now is whether 5e can meet its heavily implied goal of taking back Pathfinder's market share.

 

[Argyle King]

Objectively, I would say that it is more likely that 4e would suffer a decline than Pathfinder experiencing a surge.

That sounds about right to me.

Honestly, if people were searching for a new rpg to hold them over until 5th Edition, I expect more people will use the lame duck session of 4th Edition as an opportunity to try a different system entirely (even if just for a little while) than people will switch over to Pathfinder.

 

[foolish_mortals]

I've been using the thinking that there are X amount of 4ers and Y amount of PFInders. Some amount of X will go over to Y and result in a surge in games being played and books being sold.

I think you guys are saying that X will just shrink.

One person seemed to say that both X and Y will shrink.

foolish_mortals

 

[SlyDoubt]

I think a more interesting question is what will Paizo do to protect their niche when 5e comes? Will they lose customers to the new shiny? What are they going to do to fight against that?

They won't lose me but I will buy 5E stuff when it comes around. I will be very curious to see how things are done. Just like with 4E which I gave a shot and bought the core books for. Also bought essentials and the dark sun books because I had always wanted to do a dark sun game back when I was playing 3E. The Dungeon/Dragon dark sun issues were amazingly cool to me back then.

But it's not going to stop me supporting pathfinder. I grew up playing 3e, that's what D&D is to me. Pathfinder is basically just a better constructed and supported (not by splatbooks but by adventure paths and useful new rules (archetypes)) version of the game I loved playing for many years.

 

[foolish_mortals]

I don't see Paizo losing a whole lot of players when 5e comes out. I'm not sure what WOTC is going to compete with them on. I keep on reading reviews about how high quality and creative their releases are. You can't marketeer away people who are experiencing that on a regular basis.

So what really needs to happen is Paizo to start turning out junk product that turns off their ever growing base of players. Maybe success will go to their head it'll happen. I don't run the place so I can't see what's going in there.

foolish_mortals

 

[Jawsh]

Before WotC's official announcement of 5E, there was still momentum of people going over from 4E to Pathfinder. People haven't made up their mind, and they're still going over. It's a pretty slow process, slower than I would have thought.

But think about this: it takes WotC 1-2 years to complete a ruleset, and they're professional game designers working full time at it. How much longer is it going to take the average gamer to absorb and truly understand the ruleset enough to make a judgment on whether or not it's good for them. I admit I haven't read any of my D&D books from cover to cover, and even if I did, I wouldn't truly grok every piece. The only reason I understand 3E as well as I do is because of constant visits to forums over the years.

 

[Oldtimer]

I've been using the thinking that there are X amount of 4ers and Y amount of PFInders. Some amount of X will go over to Y...

Why on earth will they do that just because 5e has been announced? I see no logic in that.

 

[Zulithe]

All of the marketing and articles about dndnext seem to be saying "we are working on a new edition of D&D that will let you play all of the old editions at the same time, cool hu?"

And while I DO think that sounds cool, and i'm really interested in how they are going to accomplish this, from a marketing POV I think they may have a bit of a problem with existing players... because they are more or less directly telling us that they are going to be reselling us the same rules we already know, and probably already own (in various incarnations), just in a bit of a new package. There isn't a lot to get excited about based on this information alone.

I can see how this would drive people on the fence to just go with Pathfinder, at least in the short term. It's traditional yet fresh and is currently being heavily supported both by paizo and 3PPs. It's hard to go wrong with it.

Then you also have to factor in that anytime a new edition is announced, the current edition books instantly become less desirable (at least until the new edition is actually out and half of us start reminiscing and complaining about the current Ed's suckage).

 

[Charwoman Gene]

Girls, girls. You're both beautiful.

Shem, you are a male poster with a femininish username ripped off of a female NPC. You really shouldn't use "girls" in that sexist kinda manner.

People really need to consider what wacky confusion their name makes for.