Pathfinder 2E Pathfinder 2E vs Pathfinder 1E vs D&D 3.5E vs D&D 3.0

[Erekose]

I’ve read some of the details about Pathfinder 2E and it made me wonder whether there’ll be a split between 2E and 1E? While Pathfinder has always been consider a way to keep the D&D 3E ruleset “alive”, it’ll be interesting to see if the new edition is seen as a further outgrowth of 3E or “new” in the sense that 4E and 5E are new versions of D&D.

My sense is that the 3E ruleset fan base is fragmented between 3E, 3.5E, and Pathfinder with the latter making up the larger group (not that they are mutually exclusive) but I imagine Pathfinder 2E will have to walk a fine line to bring as many 1E players with them as possible while opening up the game to new players.

As an aside, I also remember Paizo releasing Pathfinder because they couldn’t wait for D&D 4E to arrive, with the subtext that it was the campaign setting and adventures that they wanted to sell rather than a new game system. Clearly that has changed overtime with the plethora of rule books available.

 

[Morrus]

I would think they’ll lose some (not a vast percentage) but make up for it because new and returning players have an easier “Issue 1” onboard ramp. For me, it’s an opportunity to return to Pathfinder and check it out.

 

[Charlaquin]

I definitely think there will be some players who stick with Pathfinder 1e, and how many will depend on how PF2 changes things. In my experience, Pathfinder fans love extreme granularity in their rules, so if PF2’s streamlining produces a less granular system than PF1, they’ll leave a chunk of their playerbase behind.

I think this is really where the comparisons to 5e are coming from, particularly regarding the proficiency system. It’s gerring lost in all the talk of Bounded Accuracy, but the core of the issue is that PF1 players like having the freedom to assign their skill ranks, having some skills they max out, and others they just put a few points into here or there, as opposed to a binary “trained” or “untrained.” What the actual benefit of being trained is doesn’t really matter, the important thing is that there be granular degrees of training instead of catch-all Proficiency.

Honestly though, even if a lot of players stick with PF1 (and it’s still much too early to tell if that will happen or not), I don’t think it’s going to fracture the fan base. PF2 will probably still “feel like Pathfinder,” whether or not it delivers the same degree of granularity the hardcore PF1 fans crave. There will be cross pollination between all but the most diehard fans of either edition, and groups will pick and choose which edition they want to use for which campaign.

 

[Henry]

As an aside, I also remember Paizo releasing Pathfinder because they couldn’t wait for D&D 4E to arrive, with the subtext that it was the campaign setting and adventures that they wanted to sell rather than a new game system. Clearly that has changed overtime with the plethora of rule books available.

It hasn’t changed that much — the Adventure Path is STILL their #1 bread and butter money, but the main reason they are changing it (in my opinion) is because its current structure has begun to hamper the kinds of stories and adventures they want to tell, and as more professional designers from ten years of doing Pathfinder, they feel they can do a better job of it.

Will there be a schism? There always is. Will it be a large schism? August 2018 and August 2019 will tell us. Given my local PF group’s reaction, there might be a problem from all of one person; the majority have loved what they hear.