Paizo To Make Kingmaker Bestiary... For D&D 5E!

Kingmaker's 10th anniversary is approaching. Paizo has announced on their blog that, along with a Pathfinder 2E hardcover Kingmaker compilation, they will be creating a hardcover Kingmaker Bestiary for D&D 5E.

The blog announcement says "[FONT=&amp]Finally, we'll add a hardcover Kingmaker Bestiary for 5E, developed in conjunction with industry leaders in third-party 5E publishing, allowing players of the current edition of the world's oldest RPG the chance to experience the rich and detailed storylines that have made the Kingmaker Adventure Path a fan favorite for a decade."[/FONT]

It is being produced "with industry leaders in third-party 5E publishing" and refers to "add-ons and unlocks" which "will be revealed as the campaign progresses". They're partnering with crowdfunding site Game On Tabletop.

They'll be revealing the details on Tuesday May 7th at noon Pacific time over at KingmakerCampaign.com.

Also in line is a Companion Guide for the PF2 Kingmaker campaign.

 

[Inchoroi]

I'd love to be involved in the 5e Bestiary, personally...

 

[Azzy]

I'd throw money at a 5e Age of Worms hardcover.

That, Savage Tides, the other Dungeon AP, and some of the early PF APs.

 

[coyote6]

I would love a 5e bestiary for Skull & Shackles.

Even better, WotC and Paizo can collaborate to release 5e Greyhawk, with Age of Worms and/or Savage Tides as part of that.

 

[Remathilis]

They BETTER not release a Savage Tides 5e conversion after I've spent so much time converting it myself!!

 

[lyle.spade]

That was the first AP I ran using PF rules, after we dumped 4e. It's actually the only AP I ever ran as completely as our group wanted (we excluded the last book because we took the story in a different direction after the big war in book 5). I've toyed with running it again, using 5e and now....well, this makes it that much easier.

Perhaps after a few months of Conan this will be on deck.

Very cool.

 

[Staffan]

The message I was replying to, though, was wishing for Paizo and Wiz to cooperate to get some old Dungeon stuff republished. AoW seems like an obvious first choice for that, though I have to admit I'd be leery of working directly with Wizards again if I were Paizo.

My impression from reading the retrospective blog posts they made a few years back is that Paizo and Wizards parted on good terms, and Wizards even extended a fair bit of extra good will toward Paizo (e.g. extending the licenses a few months longer so they could finish the adventure path). Here's what Lisa Stevens had to say about it:

I have to give Wizards of the Coast a lot of praise for how they handled the end of the license. Contractually, they only needed to deliver notice of non-renewal by the end of December 2006; without the extra seven months' notice they chose to give us, I'm not sure that Paizo could have survived. Wizards also granted our request to extend the license through August 2007 so that we could finish up the Savage Tide adventure path. This gave us quite a bit of time to figure out how we were going to cope with the end of the magazines. It would have been very easy for WotC to have handled this in a way which would have effectively left Paizo for dead—all they would have had to do was follow the letter of the contract. Instead, they treated us like the valued partner we had been, giving us the ability to both plan and execute a strategy for survival. For that, I will always be thankful.

I mean, losing the licenses was still a blow for Paizo, but I don't think there was any malice there - Wizards was just going in another direction.

 

[M.T. Black]

There is easy money on the table for Paizo, converting some of their classic APs to 5e. It would self-fund via crowdfunding and they could contract out the actual work to Kobold etc.

I suspect the only thing stopping them is that their existing fan base would revolt, possibly seeing it as the beginning of the end for PF. But I suspect it is inevitable...

 

[Jester David]

From Stolen Lands, we get the Carbuncle, Drekavac, Elk, River Elk, Megaloceros, Taztlwrym, Thawn, Thylacine, Brush Thylacine.
From Rivers Run Red, we get Ceratiodi, The Grim White Stag, Hodag, Rorkoun, Trollhound.
From The Varnhold Vanishing, we get Blodeuwedd, Clawbat, Great Cyclops, Peluda, Stygira.
From Blood for Blood, we get Ahuizotl, Bog Strider, Calathgar, Fungus Leshy, Nuckelavee.
From War of the River Kings, we get First Blade, Irlgaunt, Verdurous Ooze, Greater Verdurous Ooze, Warsworn.
From Sound of a Thousand Screams, we get Ankou, Dweomercub, Dweomercat, Grodair, Skrik Nettle, Zomok.

It should be noted that both the Grim White Stag and the First Blade are the semi-divine heralds of the Pathfinder gods Erastil and Gorum respectively, so hopefully there's some context of the deities they serve.

If the wandering monster encounter tables feature some monsters that are in Pathfinder but not yet in 5e, they could work on converting those too.

Plus all the NPCs. And likely anything from Bestiary 2 or Tomb or Horrors Complete that were included.

 

[Jester David]

I discussed this a lot in a thread in the Pathfinder sub forum, where I was discussing 5e conversions and monsters books for Pathfinder.

I loved the idea, as Pathfinder’s APs are significantly stronger than WotC’s adventures.
BUT
As someone pointed out on that thread, the time to do so would have been 2-3 years ago, when people were hungry for more adventures and monsters. Now we have lots of both for 5e alread: we have eight official adventure and two monsters splatbooks, plus four or five excellent third party monster books.
They should have done this for Curse of the Crimson Throne back in 2016.

This will still likely sell very, very well and potentially boost sales of Kingmaker if it allows you to completely run the adventure. (Such as giving all the necassary monsters and including a conversion of the kingdom building rules.)

developed in conjunction with industry leaders in third-party 5E publishing

Have they announced who that is? I wonder why they didn’t name names...

Kobold Press would be my guess, as that company has a great relationship with both Paizo and WotC.
But Goodman Games is another option. Heck, Nord Games would also turn out a solid product.

 

[Mistwell]

If the answers on the Paizo forum are anything to go by, 2E is very divisive. Lots of 'no interest in 2E no sale' and 'can't believe they're supporting 5E before their own 1E' posts. More negative than positive. But, I guess, most of the Paizo forum peeps are the most invested in 1E.

Yes I've seen those. But I also assume the people happy with things tend to not post about it, they're just quietly happy with them. I have a hard time believing 2e won't do well. But...I am not positive. And this tentative 5e support makes me at least raise the question.