Pathfinder 1E Pathfinder page count change

[Darrin Drader]

Hopefully those 63 pages satisfy the elusive "How to Fix 3e High-level Play" commitment Paizo, by direct edict of their CEO Ms. Stevens, gave to the gaming community.

Cuz I'll tell ya ladies, I just haven't seen it.

Why would you see it? Fixing what's really broken with 3.5 is their finishing move, and is what will be worth the price of admission. If the beta is all there is, what would be the point of releasing anything further? People would keep using what they already have.

 

[hewligan]

To Jack99 ... was that just a cheap dig?

Pathfinder RPG is a ground up rework of 3.5e, with their aim being to refresh what worked and rework what didn't. If you download the Beta (Free) you can see just how much they have added and fixed. Everything seems to get at least some sort of tweaking, although with core backwards compatibility retained.

It is also beautifully illustrated, and no doubt the final version will be even better.

So no, it is not just 80-90% regurgitation. It is an amazing piece of work for those of us that do still love 3.5e and want to continue playing it in some format for the foreseeable future.

 

[James Jacobs]

We're currently in the high-level play portion of the open playtest of the Pathfinder RPG; while we've been gathering feedback on how best to address the problems with high-level play this whole time, it wasn't until the start of last week that we really opened the issue up for public discussion over at the Paizo messageboards. If anyone's got a particular concern with high level play in 3.5 they'd love to see addressed, by all means head on over to post in our forums. Or post here (although we don't watch these boards as closely as our own). Or even shoot me an email with your concerns (james dot jacobs at paizo dot com). I can't guarantee replies to emails, but I can guarantee they'll be read and taken into account.

As for the page increase; the majority of that material will be from the additional web enhancement PDFs we've put out, including all of the missing spells and magic items, prestige classes, cursed items, artifacts, item creation, and more. The Beta rules are pretty sparse on flavor, for example, and little (but important) rules like taking 10 and taking 20 that haven't changed at all and need no playtest will also comprise a portion of the additional content.

We're trying REALLY hard not to let the price creep past 50 bucks, in any event. It is a pretty high price for an RPG book... but it's also going to be a pretty immense book as well.

 

[Jack99]

I don't think so - they're tinkering quite a bit. Some classes are completely rewritten (others just a tad). Certain spells, feats, and magic items are getting reworked. Grappling & combat maneuvers have changed, and even the way skills are handled has been altered a little.

And, if the font size matches the beta, this will be one packed book.

Fair enough. So my guess was off by quite a bit. Would it be fair to say that perhaps one of the reasons the Pathfinder book is cheaper is that Paizo must at least have saved some money and time on design, since well, Pathfinder is based on 3.5?

To Jack99 ... was that just a cheap dig?

Nope, it was an honest question. I have read the beta's in passing, but I do not follow the process and thus I am unsure how much has actually been changed.

It is also beautifully illustrated, and no doubt the final version will be even better.

I have no doubt. Most of the Paizo stuff I have has rocking art.

So no, it is not just 80-90% regurgitation. It is an amazing piece of work for those of us that do still love 3.5e and want to continue playing it in some format for the foreseeable future.

Let's not put words in my mouth. I never said nor implied anything about regurgitation. For the record, I am quite happy for you that someone has chosen to continue to support your game.

Cheers

 

[JoeGKushner]

I hope they've got the right mix in. For playres, and I'm repeating myself, a buy in of that level, especially since it's a D&D 3.5 replacement, is a huge investment. Especially since it's covering things that players don't really need to know.

On the other hand, a no-frills paperback would eat into the sales of the core book so it's damned if you do, damned if you don't.

 

[DaveMage]

Would it be fair to say that perhaps one of the reasons the Pathfinder book is cheaper is that Paizo must at least have saved some money and time on design, since well, Pathfinder is based on 3.5?

I don't know.

Development costs are probably a lot less due to the 3.5 base. But some of the savings may be due to Paizo's desire to use the book as a means to sell its other products rather than as a significant money maker.

 

[smug]

But some of the savings may be due to Paizo's desire to use the book as a means to sell its other products rather than as a significant money maker.

Yeah, I think that their position is that a continuing in-print ruleset to support their products is critical to the survival of their adventure material, which is their bread and butter. The GSL delay sort of forced them into the position of making an OGL game (and the nature of the GSL when it did come out won't have made them feel they'd made a mistake) but I don't think that it's supposed to be a moneyspinner in and of itself.

 

[Remathilis]

I hope they've got the right mix in. For playres, and I'm repeating myself, a buy in of that level, especially since it's a D&D 3.5 replacement, is a huge investment. Especially since it's covering things that players don't really need to know.

On the other hand, a no-frills paperback would eat into the sales of the core book so it's damned if you do, damned if you don't.

Paizo will have a pdf version, right? How hard is it to print out the parts a PC needs (like class info, for example) and keep one hardback for the table?

Paizo might even go AU and sell individual PDF's: magic items, spells, etc, already set up for printing. (and if they don't, someone else will, its all OGL).

 

[James Jacobs]

I'm not sure of the exact plan regarding PDF versions of the Pathfinder RPG once it's done... but I do know that there WILL be a PDF version of the RPG available. And since the rules themselves are going to be pretty much 100% open content (or 99.99% open... we'll probably not have the deity names in the cleric section be open content, but who knows?), I suspect there'll also be some form of pretty much free version of the rules (sans art and all that fancy stuff) out there somewhere, much in the same way you can get the current SRD online all over the place (d20srd.org being my personal favorite).

The book will be kind of pricey, yes, but the rules themselves should be fairly easy for folks interested in checking them out to get. We'll have more information about how they can go about doing that once we approach release date (AKA Gen Con 2009), of course...

 

[James Jacobs]

I don't know.

Development costs are probably a lot less due to the 3.5 base. But some of the savings may be due to Paizo's desire to use the book as a means to sell its other products rather than as a significant money maker.

Actually, I believe the main reason it's less expensive than the other two is that it's a single book. It's a BIGGER book, for sure, but it's generally less expensive to print and ship a single book than it is to do two books (although more expensive in both counts when compared to a single book). And on top of that, we ARE trying to keep the price as low as possible since it is indeed going to be the primary entry point into what Paizo's publishing pretty soon.

Frankly, after seeing how big this book's going to be, it's easy to see why D&D splits the stuff into two separate volumes traditionally!