Pathfinder 1E Pathfinder Adventure Path: How Successful?

[Dannager]

If I perceived the AP's to be 4e-friendly, I would reconsider my decision to not buy them. Right now, based on their fan-base, I am not interested in them because I assume the products are not 4e-friendly.

I do use some 4E monsters in my 3.5 games, and overall it works well, but not always. Some monsters are wildly different power levels from what they used to be, and you have to know the rules very well to balance encounters.

I will most likely continue to purchase the Paizo adventure paths, chronicles and companion background setting products for my ongoing 4E game.

I started buying the first Pathfinder AP and the various Gamemastery adventures, but stopped both purchases at the time Issue 6 came out. I switched to 4e and felt that I didn't need anymore 3.5e products (I already had more than enough to last me for years).

I really like what Paizo is doing not only with the AP series but with the entire Pathfinder Chronicles line. Their material is at least as well produced as WotC's. However, I'm very much on the fence about which edition to continue with.

As far as 4E is concerned, I'll be damned if it doesn't look appealing. Something about the streamlined feel of the rules makes it appear a lot more fun than the rules bloat of the past.

Online 4e conversion notes for AP's that go out of print (hardcopy obviously.) Full conversions with the 3e material removed and replaced as appropriate with changes in the maps where warranted with level appropriate foes and situational modifiers used for the environments that users are fighting in.

Be a quick way to get me to sub again.

A few note here. Paizo has said a few times 4e conversions will not happen. Mostly do to lack of knowledge of the rules and lack of manpower. What your asking would task almost doubling of staff size or dropping a few monthly/bi-monthly products to just pull off

Fan-created online 4th Edition conversion notes for Paizo's Rise of the Runelords adventure path (in full PDF form) can be found at Tales from the Rusty Dragon. The first two adventures are complete (Burnt Offerings/Player's Guide PDF; The Skinsaw Murders PDF), and most of the third adventure is done as well.

Another fan-created 4th Edition conversion is being done on the Legacy of Fire adventure path, though not by me. It's just recently begun, and you can find it at Blog Under a Wanderin' Star.

If you see 4th Edition as your game of choice, and Pathfinder as your preferred line of adventures, you don't have to choose one over the other.

 

[Starglim]

I've bought several instalments on their own, but haven't subscribed.

 

[James Jacobs]

Paizo seems like the "We're anti-4e" company. Whether that perception is justified or not, it sure seems to be positioned that way by many people who support Paizo.

If I perceived the AP's to be 4e-friendly, I would reconsider my decision to not buy them. Right now, based on their fan-base, I am not interested in them because I assume the products are not 4e-friendly.

This perception is probably the part about working in the industry that distresses and saddens me the most, because Paizo is not anti-4E, any more than we are anti-GURPS or anti-Chess or anti-Hide and Seek. I admit that there's a pretty strong anti-4E or anti-WotC sentiment among a lot of Paizo supporters, and I do what I can to try to coax them away from that mindset, but the Internet outnumbers me. There's certainly enough room in the industry for both game systems (Pathfinder RPG AND D&D 4E) to flourish.

Our products are as 4E-friendly as Wizards of the Coast's 3rd edition products were, in any event.

 

[BryonD]

Paizo seems like the "We're anti-4e" company. Whether that perception is justified or not, it sure seems to be positioned that way by many people who support Paizo.

If I perceived the AP's to be 4e-friendly, I would reconsider my decision to not buy them. Right now, based on their fan-base, I am not interested in them because I assume the products are not 4e-friendly.

As one of the "anti-4E" people, I'd say the 4E crowd is at the very least as rabidly anti-3E / PF. I get tagged as a H4ter, and yet I never go into 4E threads and only post about things where I find 3E to be preferable. (I admit I don't hold back) But it seems finding any aspect of 3E better than any aspect of 4E in any way, even completely as a personal preference, is hating...

As to the actual companies, I can't recall Paizo ever flaming 4E.
WotC, on the other hand, without any question said plenty of crap about 3E during their 4E spin-up.

 

[ShinHakkaider]

Paizo is as anti-4E as WOTC is anti-EVERYONE else.

WOTC wants people to spend money on and support their game.
Paizo wants people to spend money and support their game.

It just turns out that for those of us who still want to support the 3x ruleset or some derivative thereof Paizo is really our only real option. Fortunately Paizo doesn't need WOTC fan base numbers to survive and thrive they just need enough people who

A) want to keep supporting their preferred ruleset.

or

B) want great source material and adventures

Or

A & B

I havent given WOTC a dime since the I bought the 4E core ruleset gift box. I had been looking at getting the Planescape PDF set from Paizo until WOTC pulled them. It's a little weird going from a relative TSR / WOTC fan to NOT.
4E is the first edition that I'm not supporting since I started playing red box when I was 12 -13 years old.

The Paizo age of Dungeon was the only time that I'd ever subscribed to either magazine in my life and it was well worth it. I subscribed to Pathfinder Adventure Paths since the beginning and have kept my subscription until the present and will keep supporting them as long as they keep producing product I want. Right now, to me, Paizo IS my company of choice. It's pretty much the only company that's getting my gaming dollars right now (Bad Axe Games will be the 2nd when Trailblazer is released & I'm forgetting the occasional M&M purchase from Green Ronin...).

Also, you can be a 4E fan and still find much to like about Paizo's products. There's a poster on the Paizo boards who is a die hard 4E guy who converts Paizo adventures into 4E, in fact he's the same guy who has posted upthread. Now while I don't particularly care for HIM, his conversion work is EXCELLENT. I totally respect his work. My point is when the crap jumps off in the 4E threads on the Paizo boards, he's in the thick of it taking on all comers AND HE STILL SUPPORTS PAIZO because he likes the product. I gotta think that it's not blind loyalty, that he honestly likes and sees value in the product.

 

[mhacdebhandia]

My subscription ran over a little, if I recall correctly, but after reading through the first adventure path (Rise of the Runelords), I cancelled my subscription shortly after the first volume of the next adventure path (Curse of the Crimson Throne) shipped.

I had grown disenchanted with the way Paizo writes adventures and with their Golarion setting anyway, but the announcement that they were going with their own d20 RPG instead of adopting Fourth Edition D&D sealed the deal for me. Maybe Curse of the Crimson Throne or Second Darkness would have suited me, but I'm not inclined to find out.

Currently I am a satisfied subscriber to D&D Insider, and beginning to run the Scales of War adventure path.

 

[mhacdebhandia]

Paizo knows 3.5, and their Pathfinder series, but I am not sure how well they know 4E. Certainly on a player or DM level, but on a designer and developer level?

I don't know there's much reason to believe that the Paizo guys "know 4E" on a player or DM level. They're pretty open about a) their disinterest and b) their lack of time, what with working on all of the various Pathfinder products. I doubt any of them have been playing Fourth Edition in the last six months, nor would I expect them to.

 

[James Jacobs]

I don't know there's much reason to believe that the Paizo guys "know 4E" on a player or DM level. They're pretty open about a) their disinterest and b) their lack of time, what with working on all of the various Pathfinder products. I doubt any of them have been playing Fourth Edition in the last six months, nor would I expect them to.

I own the three core books, played 4E once for about 2 hours (after becoming frustrated that I couldn't create a cleric of the Raven Queen that didn't feel like a sun worshiper or battle cleric or anti-undead cleric), and that's about it. Some others at Paizo are more familiar with the game than I am, somer are less familiar, but no one on the editing staff, at the very least, is anything close to an expert in the system. We don't have time to become experts in the system, frankly, since that time is focused on the PF RPG.

That's basically the 2nd reason Paizo isn't going to do 4E content. (The 1st reason being that we're 100% devoted to our own ruleset now, and the 3rd probably being that the GSL isn't to our liking.)

 

[mhacdebhandia]

We don't have time to become experts in the system, frankly, since that time is focused on the PF RPG.

Yep. Eminently reasonable.

I know that guys from White Wolf have played or do play Fourth Edition but a) many of the people I'm thinking of may be freelancers and/or b) they're probably a little less personally burdened than are the people at Paizo, who seem to have been working very punishing schedules to do everything they want to do.

 

[Mistwell]

As one of the "anti-4E" people, I'd say the 4E crowd is at the very least as rabidly anti-3E / PF. I get tagged as a H4ter, and yet I never go into 4E threads and only post about things where I find 3E to be preferable. (I admit I don't hold back) But it seems finding any aspect of 3E better than any aspect of 4E in any way, even completely as a personal preference, is hating...

As to the actual companies, I can't recall Paizo ever flaming 4E.
WotC, on the other hand, without any question said plenty of crap about 3E during their 4E spin-up.

Honestly, the fact that you felt the need to respond as you responded kinda proves my point. Nobody mentioned hate. But you took it as an accusation, felt the need to go on the defensive, and bashed 4e fans and WOTC. Paizo fans seem to react like you reacted on a disproportionate basis. It's definitely not all of them, but it's too many of them for my tastes. It creates an inherent barrier to buying the game products.

Why would I want to buy a product which is often (but not always) supported by people who apparently automatically and instinctively feel the need to bash others? Why would I want to walk that mine field?