Pathfinder 1E Paizo Annoucement!

[dm4hire]

Despite supporting 4e at the present moment I’d like to say, “Bravo Erik and everyone at Paizo! Welcome to the RPG world!”

I am truly glad to see you stand up and take the path few have traveled and I believe you’ve taken the correct one. Anyone who believes WotC will allow anything more than campaign settings and modules is sadly mistaken. I fully expect the new GSL to include the provision that any company entering the agreement must abandon the OGL completely. I expect to see Green Ronin, Mongoose, White Wolf, and maybe others to abandon the GSL because of it. The OGL was created to free D&D from its bonds and encourage its evolvement into a higher form. The GSL will be written to ensure that WotC and therefore Hasbro gets the majority benefit from the deal, thus stifling the remainder of the industry. Without the various contributions from other companies there would be no 4e, at least not like it is turning out.

What a lot of people aren’t seeing is how between beta testing to evolve 3.x under the OGL will make it a better game to exceed 4e. Not to mention, as 4e gets the run through the ringer there will arise complaints, about what should have been done differently, those pieces can be picked up. As long as you don’t pick up the actual pieces of 4e (only grabbing what is missing) then you have a working model to work with between 3.x and 4e which will be free range territory. If anything it will become a race to see which game will pick up the pieces first. Pathfinder has the opportunity to become the game everyone wants because it will have the most input. The worse I see happening is it will carve its own niche within the community to which I will most likely buy the final resulting core book to place on my shelf for source material.

Regardless of how it goes I agree the next year or so will be interesting for the entire industry. I wish Paizo the best on this adventure.

 

[Festivus]

Um, for those reading the alpha set and criticizing it, please understand IT'S A DRAFT!

They are inviting you to comment on it, and even influence changes in it!

Does it to too much? To little? YOU CAN HELP GET IT CHANGED!


Also, for those upset that there will not be a 4E adventure path, you really, REALLY should keep an eye on Necromancer Games (published through Paizo). Clark is about as geeked as one can be about the series of adventures he's got planned.


This REALLY is the best of both worlds in that both 3.5 AND 4E fans can have something to look forward to.

*Win!*

Go Tegel!

I really hope they release their Tome of Horrors for 4E, that's such a great resource.

For Pathfinder, I hold out judgement yet, it is alpha... and I cna't compare to 4E because I haven't seen all of 4e. That said, I am a bit disappointed. I was hoping for some uniforminty, WoTC 4E rules and Paizo adventures. 3.5 breaks down as Merric said, due to the mathematics at higher levels. I want a faster game at the higher levels... I just wish we could get examples of high level play from WoTC.

 

[occam]

The announcement does make me reconsider Jason Bulmahn's thoughts on playing 4E.

No kidding, it certainly puts his comments in a different context.

I can't help but think that this will lead to dwindling support for Pathfinder products over time, as the 3.5+ rules are perceived as increasingly creaky and out-of-date. I suppose there's a small chance that this keeps a critical mass of customers from otherwise moving to 4e, which I think would be detrimental to the industry as a whole to the extent that it hurts D&D.

As for the new rules, I haven't read through them all yet, but so far, this seems as compatible with 3.5 as 3.5 was with 3.0. Remember all that talk about using 3.0 materials with 3.5, no (or minimal) changes necessary? Remember how well that worked? If anything, the Pathfinder rules look like even more of a departure from 3.5, without making the clean break that 4e does, which seems like a recipe for confusion. If Paizo is sticking with 3.5, why not stick with 3.5?

 

[see]

The 15 minute adventuring day cannot be solved by simply giving the cleric more healing.

The "15 minute adventuring day" is a failure on the part of DMs, not the rules. The whole "blow all resources then camp to renew" style of play was solved years before 3e was published. If the adventurers stop to rest, roll dice and hit them with an encounter during the rest period. If they turn around from the dungeon to go home, roll dice and hit them with an encounter on the way home. Once the characters start living in a world where the unexpected can hurt them if they are spendthrift with their resources, the players will adjust their play style accordingly.

 

[Spatula]

Paizo may or may not be making a good business decision and only time will tell. I certainly hope that they based their decision on solid market data and not on some poll on their website. I may title my first published RPG "Snakes on An Airship" if they it turns out they used the latter.

Yes, I'm sure they based the livelihood of a dozen people (? or whatever # of employees Pazio has) on a website poll.

One thing I do find interesting is that Lisa's letter effectively states "Pathfinder is sticking with 3.5 because it's the best system!!" and not "Pathfinder will start switching to 4E when we start a new Adventure Path and have a copy of the GSL and the rules." There's a bit of a difference there, in that the first is a bit more hostile to 4E than the other.

Someone having a different playstyle than you is hostile now?

 

[dm4hire]

I would love to see a merge with Monte's Experimental Magic rules. If really going to make a system based off 3.x that is better then taking the best of all of it and streamlining it would be the way to go.

They should merge the skill list to make it smaller also. They can get away with doing that as Green Ronin did it with True20 before WotC did it with Star Wars Saga.

 

[sunmaster]

I think many people here don't get what the Pathfinder RPG really means.

Look, with 4E what you get is what the people (designers, developers, writers) of WotC
think that you will like. They make a product in their cubicles and sell it to you and you can buy or
don't buy it. You have no chance to form it. All the threads here and on Gleemax didn't change
4E one tidbit. It is a closed product to consume or not - more chances you don't have -.

BUT with Pathfinder RPG this product is YOURS. YOU make this product like you want.
The document is open for all for more than one year from now. And with all members of the Paizo
community you can now design the end product like you and your community comrades want.
They opened up your path to your product. Now, is your chance to build it. If you just sit on
your hands and complain about the printed product in one year that it has not the features you want,
it is only your loose.
AND with Pathfinder RPG you don't loose all your purchased 3.5 products.
AND you can open up developments based on PRPG : For example a (inter)national organised play
on the world of Pathfinder. It will be something like YOUR RPGA - just think about it-.

This - the Pathfinder RPG - is now the Open RPG - open for the designers, writers, developers AND
the fans - as the 4E should have been.

@Paizo: Kudos, for this great move. Kudos for opening the path again for an Open RPG. Don't listen
to all the naysayers here and on your boards. They didn't think through what this really means, yet.

As much as I like 4E - and I will go for 4E with 4E-FR, that is for sure- the one thing what I find is a backstep
is the closed again license. With OGL they made a great development for all the RPG business but with closing it up
again to the biz and to the fans they damaged it somewhat.

It will be a exciting summer this year. Great, great...

 

[Jack99]

I'm grading on a curve.

Re-read them mate, it looks more or less like a collection of house-rules - there is nothing original in it (from a first 10-minute read-through), at least nothing I haven't seen before, on a interweb-page.

This is really a pity, now I need to head off and cancel my PF and GM subscriptions.

 

[inkmonkeys]

All the threads here and on Gleemax didn't change 4E one tidbit.

QFF: Quoted for Falsity.

 

[sunmaster]

Re-read them mate, it looks more or less like a collection of house-rules - there is nothing original in it (from a first 10-minute read-through), at least nothing I haven't seen before, on a interweb-page.

This is really a pity, now I need to head off and cancel my PF and GM subscriptions.

Excuse me, Sir, but because of my bad English : What a .

They open up a brand new development line, so that you can get your wished features
in it and you go and cancel your subscription.

I don't say anything about your freedom to cancel or not cancel what you want.

But you didn't get that this new RPG is at the beginning of its development.
Seriously, how do you think the first 4E doc looked like?
I can very well imagine that it was only a copy of 3.5SRD with much Tables and Segments
added to it in which you could find the first thoughts of the writers and developers.

Now you can have YOUR 4E if YOU _WANT_.
Ahh, you don't want to design your own product?
Then go and consume what in the halls of WotC the people think that you will and should like.