Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Dykstrav" data-source="post: 7661437" data-attributes="member: 40522">A little back-of-the-envelope math reveals that Pathfinder doesn't push out nearly the amount of hardcovers that 3E/3.5 did.A quick glance at my own bookshelf reveals ninety-seven 3E/3.5 hardcovers published over approximately eight years and twenty Pathfinder hardcovers published to date. If we assume an eight-year history of publication (not exactly but close) we get over twelve 3e/3.5 hardcovers per year, right at one a month. Pathfinder, with about five and a half years of publication history (again, not exactly but close) works out to a little over three and a half hardcovers per year. 3E/3.5: Approximately one hardcover per month.Pathfinder: Approximately one hardcover every three months.These hasty figures are interesting but subject to opinion. Things would look different if the divide between which splats are  intended for players versus intended for DMs/GMs were addressed, or the fact  that much of Paizo's material covers adventures whereas Wizard of the  Coast published very few of them. (To be truly accurate, I think someone would need to do a page-by-page breakdown of every product, sorting them by core content/optional content/new rules, and getting total page counts for comparison... But we all have lives, unfortunately. <img src="http://www.enworld.org/forum/images/smilies/ponder.png"  class="smilie" loading="lazy" alt=":hmm:" title="Hmmm    :hmm:" data-shortname=":hmm:" />) I think Pathfinder is far more manageable in terms of "system bloat" than 3e/3.5 was, especially since Pathfinder tends to add new options more than new rules.I do think it's telling, however, that Paizo feels that an optimization guide is marketable enough to warrant development and publication. I don't see it as an admission that the rules are too complex because I've never seen an expectation for the game's learning curve stated anywhere... It does indicate that Pathfinder players expect a certain degree of system mastery, however, and expect other players to roughly equal to their ability in that regard.</blockquote>

Verification