Pathfinder 1E Paizo Annoucement!

[Puggins]

I can't see how this can be anything but good for the consumer. Competition is always a good thing- whoever Paizo is going to compete against, whether it be 4e or Osric/True20/C&C/whatever, the increased pressure to bring out winning products will cause a general uptick in product quality. As a probable 4e convert, I wish Paizo all the best.

As for the playtest rules, they certainly appealed to the simulationists that are upset at 4e's streamlining.

Class balance needs to be re-assessed. They beefed up the fighter, but they beefed up the wizard and cleric even more, it seems- check out the bonded object rules for the wizard (this practically SCREAMS Gish Weapon) and the 8th level universal school power. If that makes it past alpha 1, no one playtested it. Hello, Quickened Confusion/Black Tentacles at 8th level! It's Divine Metamagic for the wizard- Batman just mugged the cleric and took his stuff.

Anyway, good luck Paizo!

 

[breschau]

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.

No they haven't. And no, we can't.

Sure, we can provide input, but at some point they will have to decide which choice to make. Spend five minutes on this forum or theirs, everyone has a different opinion on what is the best way to proceed, the best choices, the best parts of other OGL games to include in Pathfinder. But when it comes down to it, there has to be one option used in their game, and Paizo makes that choice.

It's like WotC claiming that playtesting will have any real impact on the final product. Not gonna happen.

I wish them luck--I don't think this will work out as well as they hope--but it is disingenuous to claim that the fans will have direct control over the final product.

That would be game design by poll. Now that's a great idea.

 

[Mouseferatu]

But when it comes down to it, there has to be one option used in their game, and Paizo makes that choice.

Yep. But they can still take fan response into account when making that choice.

Now, I think anyone trying to craft Pathfinder into "whatever they want" is fooling themselves, since it's obviously still going to be mostly D&D 3.5 (else it can't be fully backwards compatible). But within that framework, some fan input is certainly possible.

It's like WotC claiming that playtesting will have any real impact on the final product. Not gonna happen.

Uh, what? Why do you think WotC bothers to playtest if they're not going to make changes.

I can tell you just from the various drafts I myself saw of the rules that changes were made due to playtest feedback.

That would be game design by poll. Now that's a great idea.

No, actually, it's not, for the same reasons you initially brought up. Someone has to make the final decision. And that someone has to have a better understanding of game theory and design than the average gamer.

A game that determines some aspects by poll could probably be done. But a game that was 100% design-by-poll? Disaster waiting to happen.

 

[Jack99]

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.

It's fairly simple. 3.5 is, as far as I am concerned, broken beyond repair, it's broken at it's core if you will. So, therefore, building another version of it will still not change that fact.

And if you truly believe you will have a say in how it will be, I have a bridge for sale. No way any DND forum will agree on anything regarding rules, which means, in the end, it will be the Paizo designers who will make the choices. I am sure they will listen, if they can through all the whining, bitching and mud-throwing that will follow.

But, considering that, and even though I realize it is an alpha, I did at least expect to see a handful of original ideas in it, which I didn't. Well, maybe a couple, but nothing that even remotely gives me the hope that Paizo can do this in a way that satisfies people like me, who believe 3.5 doesn't really work.

Cheers

 

[mach1.9pants]

Sure, we can provide input, but at some point they will have to decide which choice to make. Spend five minutes on this forum or theirs, everyone has a different opinion on what is the best way to proceed, the best choices, the best parts of other OGL games to include in Pathfinder. But when it comes down to it, there has to be one option used in their game, and Paizo makes that choice.

This. You can suggest what you like but we all want different things and the end product is totally under the publishers control

That would be game design by poll. Now that's a great idea.

Now that is a recipe for chaos with a side helping of nerd rage!

 

[humble minion]

QFF: Quoted for Falsity.

Unhelpful (c'mon, man, you WORK for Wizards - give us some examples!), but probably true, on a very small scale.

To be honest I think Paizo, regardless of their 'open alpha', will approach the big structural issues in much the same way WotC did - doing it themselves and presenting it all as a fait accompli for the community to maybe tinker at around the edges.

Paizo seem (from the alpha) to not be making any attempt whatsoever to solve magic item dependency or to be modifying significantly how high-level combat works in order to unbreak it. This has to be a conscious choice - doing otherwise would be a major undertaking and would require the sort of back-compatibility-breaking that they've already stated they don't want to do. I fully expect them to take into account outside contributions when it comes to the minutae of spells, monsters, and minor subsystems, but the really big fundamental stuff is staying as it was in 3.5e.

Non-Paizo employees will certainly get a massive amount more input into Pathfinder than non-WotC employees got into 4e (mind you, pretty much ANY input is more than non-WotC employees got into 4e...), but make no mistake, it's hard not to conclude that the fundamentals are already set in stone and the open contributions will be largely limited to bugfixes, spell, feat and monster design and the like. And to be honest if Pathfinder doesn't address the really big issues with 3.x then I'm not sure I can see the point.

 

[billd91]

Paizo seem (from the alpha) to not be making any attempt whatsoever to solve magic item dependency or to be modifying significantly how high-level combat works in order to unbreak it. This has to be a conscious choice - doing otherwise would be a major undertaking and would require the sort of back-compatibility-breaking that they've already stated they don't want to do. I fully expect them to take into account outside contributions when it comes to the minutae of spells, monsters, and minor subsystems, but the really big fundamental stuff is staying as it was in 3.5e.

That's an attraction for some. There are quite a few of us who aren't convinced that there is a magic item dependency problem or that high-level combat is broken.

Non-Paizo employees will certainly get a massive amount more input into Pathfinder than non-WotC employees got into 4e (mind you, pretty much ANY input is more than non-WotC employees got into 4e...), but make no mistake, it's hard not to conclude that the fundamentals are already set in stone and the open contributions will be largely limited to bugfixes, spell, feat and monster design and the like. And to be honest if Pathfinder doesn't address the really big issues with 3.x then I'm not sure I can see the point.

And if there is a segment of the buying public who feel that bug fixes make up the vast bulk of the necessary fixes to 3.5, then the point is that Paizo can serve that community. What other point need there be?

 

[Orcus]

What a day!

 

[Foundry of Decay]

Seeing as I'm solidly in the 'I just want to play' camp, I'll refuse to comment on a great deal of the vitriol I've skipped through to add a hearty 'Good luck, lads' to Paizo!

I've already decided to switch to 4e myself, and from what I've read in the announcements on Paizo's site there seems that there will be 4e products out from both them and Necromancer (I believe there was a fun thread on converting critters to 4e on these boards a while back that was started by someone at Necromancer games, wasn't there?).

If the products are compelling enough, I'll certainly give 'em a chance. I honestly don't care about the system. The system is usually only as good as the DM and players make of it. I simply want to play that once a month. Catharsis knows no 'version' to me.

..Now if only I could get Dragon and Dungeon back into Paizo's hands. I'm one of those silly creatures that still loves the feel of a good weighty book to read. I find I get distracted too much reading modules on a laptop screen. What with all the nude elf lady pictures out there on the net, or those saucy pictures of various garden sheds..

...I've said too much.

So! Judging by this announcement, this should be a pretty damn cool thing! Wind at your backs and all that.

 

[Kunimatyu]

Then go and consume what in the halls of WotC the people think that you will and should like.

OK. I mean, seeing as how I like it and all...

More seriously, the simple fact the Pathfinder will remain somewhat 3.5 compatible is a dealbreaker for me -- I *want* a redesign that eliminates many of the power imbalances between classes, and addresses the math wonkiness of high level play. Pathfinder simply can't deliver on that.