Pathfinder 1E Monte Cook joins Pathfinder team

[Kristian Serrano]

Anyway, while you're likely right about the potential amount of complaining, you're missing a key point - unlike WotC, which is trying to make a new system for everyone, Paizo is pretty much directly marketing its game to the people who still like 3.5 and don't like 4E.

It's small wonder that, under those circumstances, there's a lot less complaining. It should hardly come as a surprise that people like being catered to.

My point was in the context of IF WotC had not developed 4e, but instead had developed something like the Pathfinder RPG. After all, that's exactly what v3.5 was to 3e.

 

[bento]

Anyway, while you're likely right about the potential amount of complaining, you're missing a key point - unlike WotC, which is trying to make a new system for everyone, Paizo is pretty much directly marketing its game to the people who still like 3.5 and don't like 4E.

I don't think Paizo is marketing its game to people who "don't like 4E" as much as to people who are unsure what 4E's result will be. I haven't seen any Paizo employee's publicly bashing 4E and if you have, please provide a link.

Months ago Paizo made the decision to go with Pathfinder because WoTC wasn't forth coming with 4E and the GSL as they promised and this put Paizo, as well as other publishers, in a corner concerning their publication schedules this year. Paizo has to get product in the pipeline prior to GenCon, and WoTC's choice to sit on the GSL forced a decision. You see other companies like Goodman or Green Ronin use this lull between editions to craft new rules (Eldritch) or revise old ones (True20).

I don't know about others, but I'm not a 4E hater, but a "4E I don't know-er." My invitation to join the 4E party won't arrive until mid-June. I may join or I might not. I have a lot of money invested in 3.5, and switching to 4E just because its "new" doesn't make much sense. In the meantime Paizo has invited me to their party from the very start for free and is asking me what I like and don't like about the rules I'm using in my game today. I kinda like that.

 

[an_idol_mind]

My point was in the context of IF WotC had not developed 4e, but instead had developed something like the Pathfinder RPG. After all, that's exactly what v3.5 was to 3e.

3.5 drew the ire of fans not for the changes it made, but rather for the way it was released. Had WotC followed what was apparently their original plan and waited five years after the release of 3rd edition, I don't think they would have ticked quite so many people off. (And they would have had a couple of extra years to fix some more of the bugs in 3rd edition, to boot.)

 

[Hunter In Darkness]

Well this is good news. Monte has a good eye for rules and it gives jason someone to throw ideals off of.

As for pathfinder backwards compatibility I have run 4 play test now with 3.5 and 3.0 things and I have not had any issue with it. Now ya will need to use the CR chart in pathfinder that works pretty good really. You don't need to convert every NPC in the book eyeball it and go.
Now on the none core classes yall are missing the point. Many of them new classes way out power the PHB ones. Now they do not and many people think they need powered up even more now that there not the super stars anymore. Am I the only one who thinks bringing the core classes up in powers so people want to play one is a bad thing?

 

[BryonD]

I don't think Paizo is marketing its game to people who "don't like 4E" as much as to people who are unsure what 4E's result will be. I haven't seen any Paizo employee's publicly bashing 4E and if you have, please provide a link.

Those two items have nothing to do with each other.
Paizo could think 4E was the best game ever to bless a tabletop and still see a market in people who prefer to stay with 3X.
And I am certain that they will happily sell PF stuff to people who play 4E.
But if there was not a fan base that felt 4E was going in the wrong direction, then there wouldn't be a market to build PF up from.

 

[resistor]

I agree with the view that most people are not extremely picky about backwards compatibility.

Where I draw the line is that I need to be able to run, say, a fight with PF characters and PF NPCs. I don't care that the power levels will differ slightly. I can add an extra mook or three to even it out easily enough.

I don't really understand the concern about the difficulty of restatting characters. I have plans to run 3.5e adventures under PF, and I expect to just add an extra monster or two to the mobs, and maybe give BBEGs an extra bodyguard. No restatting required, just having three orcs-as-statted instead of two!

 

[Zil]

I can tell you from practical experience that it's not that easy when you have a lot of key NPCs. I generally have the main ones follow character creation guidelines like PCs, at least in a general way, but this means re-jiggering them quite a bit.

I also try to keep close to the PC generation rules, but to save time I start taking short cuts. The only cases where I don't take short cuts is if the NPC travels with the players on their adventures. In those cases, I don't cut corners. But for most other NPCs, even big wig spell casting opponents, you can take some shortcuts.

Also, monsters and the 3.0/3.5 CR systems don't work the same with PRPG (and yes, I know that the CR system is/was not perfect). Good players will wipe out a CR appropriate 3.5 encounter when the PCs use PRPG rules.

That was one of my main concerns with the power creep in Pathfinder - if you are using a published adventure for 3.5E, the Pathfinder built players should have an easier time of it. However, I tend to tweak just about all published adventures a little bit anyway that it wasn't such a big deal for me. It might be for someone who was especially pressed for time. In their case, they might be able to consider the Pathfinder built characters a level higher or something. Or they could just add one additional encounter or increase the difficulty a slight bit with the finale. It's not perfcet, but at least it doesn't have to be an awful lot of work.

 

[BryonD]

My point was in the context of IF WotC had not developed 4e, but instead had developed something like the Pathfinder RPG.

In that case WotC would not be coming to the rescue of a market segment that had been abandoned.
Your context changes the great thing that Paizo is doing into a questionable thing that WotC only did in your hypothetical. And yeah, the response between the two would be quite appropriately very different.

 

[Psion]

I don't think Paizo is marketing its game to people who "don't like 4E" as much as to people who are unsure what 4E's result will be. I haven't seen any Paizo employee's publicly bashing 4E and if you have, please provide a link.

I'm not going to dig it up now, but it used to be in my .sig. I don't think it's really important though. I'm just glad that Paizo is making a product that will tend to my preferences, and I think that regardless of personal reasons they might have for making a Pathfinder RPG, I think the GSL fracas should make clear they have business reasons, too.

 

[Piratecat]

This is not the place for people to argue about 3e vs 4e. It's a thread to discuss the great fact that Monte is joining the Pathfinder team as a rules consultant, and what that means. Please keep the thread on topic.