Pathfinder 1E Pathfinder Campaign Setting Hardcover!!!

[Treebore]

How much do stats really matter for a campaign setting?

People are still soldiering on with Mystara GAZ, which are neither 3E nor 4E. Refusing to buy a mostly fluff product because it will be marginally out of synch with 3E or 4E seems illogical to me.

The only way I see stats really mattering is if they want to create PrC's or classes.

Setting books are usually 90 to 95% system neutral anyways. Look at Goodmans DCC 35 or the Wilderlands boxed sets. I'll be using them no matter what fantasy RPG system I want to use. Heck, I still use 1E GH, even when I was running 3E, and 1E/2E FAerun.

So I wouldn't see a problem with buying this if it ended up being 3.5 and I ended up switching to 4E, or vice versa. Its a setting book, I'm loving what PAizo is doing with it. This setting has more energy and inspiration to it than I have seen since 1E Forgotten Realms.

 

[trancejeremy]

How much do stats really matter for a campaign setting?

People are still soldiering on with Mystara GAZ, which are neither 3E nor 4E. Refusing to buy a mostly fluff product because it will be marginally out of synch with 3E or 4E seems illogical to me.

Well, it's funny you pick Mystara, because I thought the move from D&D to 2e pretty much ruined the whole flavor of the setting, because the rules for AD&D simply didn't fit the setting.

I mean, it's a very epic setting. Players could start at level 1 and work themselves all the way up to 36th level. That's not nearly as impressive in AD&D, 2e where they were cut down to 20th level. Especially since there were rules for becoming Immortals (aka Gods) after reaching 36th level, which opened things up even further.

And the world was epic too, Alphatia was ruled (in part, anyway) by a council of 1000 36th level magic-users. And ruled by a really old empress who lived on longevity potions (as did most of the ruling class). Which would be impossible by the book in AD&D, since longevity potions there eventually caught up to people, or 3e, where they didn't even exist. And things like wishes and raise dead were taken for granted.

Also gone were the rules for running strongholds and dominions, and mass combat, which were part of the core rules. This affects how much of the world the PCs can affect, making the setting more or less static.

You also had the alignment system changed. Formerly it was Law, Neutrality and Chaos, which allowed for quite a bit more grey areas.

The classes were completely different in many cases, so existing characters had to be changed to fit the AD&D classes, often a poor fit. No more flying ships or magical airplanes. No more monster characters.

Since we don't have 4e yet, we don't know how big a shift it will be from 3e. But some changes are big. The classes are different. There are now warlocks in the core rules. How can you handle that in both 3e (where Warlocks are off limits, since they aren't OGL), while in 4e they are? What about say, Gnomes, which aren't in 4e? Or races in 4e that aren't in 3e?

Magic is also an issue. When Kalamar went D&D, there were problems in some of the old modules (also converted) because they didn't account for D&D's magic. Spells like raise dead or speak with dead or stuff like that. In 4e, we know spells from past editions are now gone (Wish, I think for one, possibly polymorth).

Conversely, there are fantasy archetypes simply not represented in D&D, period. Things like witches or alchemists. A straight generic fantasy setting might very well feature those, which would be very hard to convert to D&D terms. (3e could handle them with the Adept and Expert, but I think NPC classes are gone in 4e)

 

[Simia Saturnalia]

My own vote is going to have to be for setting neutral. Much as I like the bulk of 4e news I'm hearing there's always room for it to crash and burn for me, but a 3.5 campaign setting always involves Prestige Classes, which are pretty much always wasted space for me & my group (never seen a player take one, except for my 3.0 Dragon Mountain Singh Rager paladin). A big system neutral setting book from the well-regarded folks at Paizo? I'll drop $50 for it as a coffee table book, let alone getting use out of it.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Well, it's funny you pick Mystara, because I thought the move from D&D to 2e pretty much ruined the whole flavor of the setting, because the rules for AD&D simply didn't fit the setting.

So your concern is that your long relationship with Golarion will be ruined because the ruleset will make it unrecognizable to you?

Even if you've played every single Pathfinder issue and GameMastery module by the time 4E comes out, you'll have barely scratched the surface of more than two or three locations in the world, the equivalent of having two Mystara GAZ and several of the modules.

And other than Joshuan's Almanac (which mostly changed Ierendi in the way it talked around its silliness in a somewhat exasperating way), the 2E Mystara material presented Karameikos and Glantri pretty similarly to how they always had been presented with only minor exceptions in the case of a handful of NPCs. If those changes had taken place in the next Poor Wizard's Almanac, folks would have considered it part of the evolution of the setting. The big changes to Mystara came in WotI.

Having characters be defined on a good/evil axis in addition to being defined on a law/chaos axis didn't suddenly make good/evil more important at all. Glantri was still run by a ton of capricious and immoral wizards; they were suddenly mostly Chaotic Evil and Chaotic Neutral instead of just Chaotic. The three alignment system had used Chaotic to stand in for Evil more than half the time anyway.

Alphatia was never statted up in 2E, so we'll never know what was to come. (IIRC, it wasn't even one of the kingdoms mentioned in the listing in the Karameikos boxed set and was only mentioned in Glantri.) I think we can take it as read that it was ruled by top level wizards with new magics at their disposal, just like a fair portion of the Glantri boxed set was new spells for that group of wizards.

Serraine wasn't statted up, either, because they hadn't gotten around to it. Flying cities and machines weren't grounded in 2E, they just were left in the hands of DMs.

And 2E had a mass combat system, albeit one less well liked than the BD&D one.

The changes to classes hurt no one. Suddenly elves didn't automatically have an even split between fighter and wizard. So what? More detail -- which is effectively what they got -- does not constitute "ruining" them.

Prince Kol of Glantri is about the only character affected by a lack of monster characters -- which weren't standard in BD&D, either -- and special humanoids had been presented with class levels for over a decade at that point. If the authors wanted Kol to remain a kobold, he could have. That change wasn't one forced upon Mystara by a ruleset, it was a (bad) decision by an author.

 

[catsclaw227]

People keep saying that. It may be HIGHLY probable, but that's not "reality".

It is possible that many will stick to 3.5 at least for some time, mainly because there wasn't an OGL for previous editions of the game. I for one have TONS of 3.X books in my RPG library. IF 4E doesn't allow me to recycle these products with a minimum of efforts, then there is a very strong chance I'm going to stick to 3.5 for a LONG time.

I cannot imagine that I'm the only one in this situation.

I agree with this.

I am planning on adopting 4e for my games once it is out and my AoW campaign is over. But I also have a ton of 3.x books. I will try to snatch ideas from them for my 4e games (and may do a conversion of an existing AP for my first 4e game), but I am not really worried about the problems associated with it. I imagine that the first 6 months or so of 4e will be spent by DMs learning the newer adventure design paradigms for encounters, leveling guidelines, how to balance encounters, etc.

I will take all this information from the experiences of ENW community and convert a lot of the 3.x adventures I have -- and I have a LOT.

 

[Kae'Yoss]

Great. I'll be able to buy a nice campaign setting next year after all!

This sounds fantastic! Please make it 3.5 so I can use it with my Pathfinder subscription.

I'm quite sure it will be the same edition as Pathfinder will be sooner or later: If Pathfinder switches to 4e, this book will be 4e. If they don't switch, the book will not be 4e.

Yeah, I think basing your decision on whether to buy Pathfinder based on edition is not the right way to go.

I do it the other way around: If Pathfinder stays 3e, I won't use 4e.

 

[Zaukrie]

Put me in the 4.0=yes, 3.5 = no column. I own plenty of 3.5 material, and am unlikely to buy any more any time soon.

You guys create great, great stuff, looking foward to this.

 

[Dragonhelm]

I do it the other way around: If Pathfinder stays 3e, I won't use 4e.

I could see that. Go with the edition that goes with your setting.

What I don't get, though, is when people base the purchase of a setting on what rules system it uses. I say either go with the rules system that matches the setting you like, or buy the setting and use the rules you want.

No reason not to buy it just because of what rules system it uses. If you dislike the setting, that's one thing. But don't give up on a setting just because it doesn't use the exact same rules you do.

 

[catsclaw227]

I could see that. Go with the edition that goes with your setting.

What I don't get, though, is when people base the purchase of a setting on what rules system it uses. I say either go with the rules system that matches the setting you like, or buy the setting and use the rules you want.

No reason not to buy it just because of what rules system it uses. If you dislike the setting, that's one thing. But don't give up on a setting just because it doesn't use the exact same rules you do.

Here's my purchase percentages (note that I am a Pathfinder/Gamemastery subscriber):

Pathfinder Chronicles Hardcover

3.5e: 35%
4e: 100%
systemless: 90%

I am buying all the way up through PF2:Curse of the Crimson Throne, but might hold off on PF3 if its not 4e. I already have a lot of 3.5e APs to run already.

I really hope many of the gazetteers (Darkmoon vale, especially) are systemless.

 

[Kristian Serrano]

I vote for system neutral. Freeport went that route as has some of the recent Eberron books (or at least the Eberron books have had few mechanics), and I think it's a smart decision for the longevity of the setting.