D&D 4E What was Paizo thinking? 3.75 the 4E clone?

[ThirdWizard]

But are they directly competing? If the question was about going for D&D market dominance, then yes Paizo would "lose". But that's not what we're talking about. We're talking about carving out a niche of the market and serving it while that niche is there.

The niche Paizo seems to be going for with the Pathfinder RPG is the strange part. They don't seem to be going for people who want to stick with 3.5, they seem to be going for people who aren't going to 4e but still see the need for a rules upgrade. That seems to be less people than just want to stick with 3.5 to me. So, they kinda-but-not-really-but-sorta are competing with WotC with people who want an upgrade to 3.5.

 

[Zil]

Glad I could help!

Seriously though, All my favorite designers write adventures for Paizo. So for me, it's kind of a no brainer to keep buying Paizo stuff and to play the system that supports their stuff.
If I picked up 4E, it would only due to brand name recognition, because I'm not familiar with the 4E designers previous work, or I've checked out their work and found it not to be to my tastes.
If the opposite holds true for you that's great. I'm glad you have a system coming that you think will be more to your liking than the current one.
I'm also glad that each of us has choice if we want to see our chosen game systems supported.

I am familiar with the work of a number designers on the 4E design team, and I do like their other work. However, even though I may like much of their other work, I don't like what they've produced this time around (Sorry Rob, Mike, Bruce et al). Sure, I'll probably pick up the core 4E books to give it a look, but I doubt I'll ever seriously play the system if it doesn't change significantly by release time (not too likely since it's gone to the printers now). It feels like Heinsoo and company took the D&D minis game as their starting point for this design rather than starting with the actual D&D game - thus it feels more like the minis game (with video game treatments) than the role playing game that I've been playing for the past 28 years (egads, has it really been that long?). Even little things like the language they use to describe the mechanic feel more like something from a miniatures game (sliding opponents for example).

I for one am greatly relieved that someone out in the creative community is going to try and keep a version of D&D alive that still feels like D&D. Thank you Paizo.

 

[Fifth Element]

Now please, tell me again, how their stuff is low quality? I'd love to hear your opinions on every single one of these books as well.

I think we need to take some deep breaths here, before the mods step in. There's a lot of snark on both 'sides'.

 

[billd91]

The niche Paizo seems to be going for with the Pathfinder RPG is the strange part. They don't seem to be going for people who want to stick with 3.5, they seem to be going for people who aren't going to 4e but still see the need for a rules upgrade. That seems to be less people than just want to stick with 3.5 to me. So, they kinda-but-not-really-but-sorta are competing with WotC with people who want an upgrade to 3.5.

I've made this point in another thread but it bears repeating. Sticking with 3.5 doesn't mean freezing the rules as they are. There's been a market for the splatbooks, why wouldn't there be a market for other 3.5 players who want to shift a few other rules around?

From a lot of the comments I've been seeing, it's not that people don't want some rule tweaks here and there in 3.5. We do it all the time with house rules. It's the specific changes and the magnitude of the change, particularly so soon after 3E, that I'm seeing a lot of objection to.

 

[ShinHakkaider]

Take a look at the authors of some of the best WotC 3.5 books.
Quick Amazon Search reveals:

Erik Mona
Expedition to the Ruins of Greyhawk
Fiendish Codex I: Hordes of the Abyss

James Jacobs
Frostburn
Fiendish Codex I: Hordes of the Abyss

Jason Bulmahn
Dungeonscape
Secrets of Xen'drik

Mike McArtor
Complete Scoundrel
Spell Compendium

Now please, tell me again, how their stuff is low quality? I'd love to hear your opinions on every single one of these books as well.

Also I think everyone is forgetting that Mike Mearls didn't start out designing rulesets, didn't he start out writing sourcebooks and adventures? So how is it that the Paizo guys get stones thrown at them for their inability to design a game (a game that already EXISTS by the way so it's not ground up design it's more like fixes or modifications. A game that some of these people have been playing and writing for for years whether it was for WOTC or Dungeon and Dragon.) but Mearls gets a pass? I'm also recalling a time where people here were lighting up Andy Collins for being a "bad" designer. Just to clarify, I'm not calling Mearls and Collins bad designers. I was religiously buying everything that Mearls did up until 4th Edition.

 

[Desdichado]

I don't think this was Paizo's intention, but it did occur to me that if someone were to try and take the OGL/SRD and incorporate as many "4e-like" changes as they could, they could create completely open, OGL compliant stuff that's functionally, albeit not technically compatible with 4e.

Interesting...

 

[ShinHakkaider]

I don't think this was Paizo's intention, but it did occur to me that if someone were to try and take the OGL/SRD and incorporate as many "4e-like" changes as they could, they could create completely open, OGL compliant stuff that's functionally, albeit not technically compatible with 4e.

Interesting...

D00d, I was thinking just that very thing.

As more info has come out about 4E and the changes there have been a few things that I liked and have been figuring out ways to incorporate them into my 3.5 game. The hardest thing for me has been my feelings about at-will/encounter/daily abilities. Part of me does see the need for these sort of things but incorporating them with out them being overly powerful or weak is not something I feel comfortable doing myself. However with Monte Cook's Book of experimental Might and now Pathfinder I have two templates as to how these elements CAN work in 3.5. Will I still wind up using them? I dunno but now they are an option that wasnt there before.

 

[Ourph]

Interesting that some see Pathfinder Alpha as incompatible when I see it as 99% compatible. If you decide to play Pathfinder, and pick up an old 3.0 or 3.5 edition module, you should be able to run the adventure with few to zero changes. Likewise, if you stick with WotC 3.5, and you pick up a new Pathfinder module, you should be able to run the adventure with few to zero changes. Pick a spell, monster, prestige class, magic item from either system and you should be able to use them either way with few to zero changes.

Part of the reason the Pathfinder Adventure Paths are so useful is that all of the work of statting up high level adversaries is already done for you. A 10th level D&D 3.5 RAW party is not going to be balanced against a group of 10th level Pathfinder RPG adversaries if those adversaries are getting a Feat every level, a big bonus to HP at 1st level and other powercreep add-ons. You'd either have to make major modifications to the NPCs (lots of work) or re-stat them from the ground up (lots of work). You'd have to do essentially the same thing with a 4e adventure or an AD&D adventure or a Conan adventure. Is it doable? Yeah. But having to do those conversions removes one of the major incentives for purchasing the Pathfinder APs in the first place and moves them into the same category as all of those other products (i.e. - convertible adventures, not compatible adventures).

 

[kennew142]

Heck, look at some of the original D&D variants that are still around. BRP for instance, is the backbone of CoC and most Chaosium games, not to mention Runequest, but it's almost entirely lifted from OD&D at its core. (Same 6 stats, only with a d100 skill system).

Not to be pedantic, but BRP has seven ability scores (8 in CoC), no character classes, no experience points, no class levels, armor as DR, etc.... Other than the fact that the idea of RP games can be traced to Gygax and Arneson, BRP has nothing in common with OD&D.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

Also I think everyone is forgetting that Mike Mearls didn't start out designing rulesets, didn't he start out writing sourcebooks and adventures? So how is it that the Paizo guys get stones thrown at them for their inability to design a game (a game that already EXISTS by the way so it's not ground up design it's more like fixes or modifications. A game that some of these people have been playing and writing for for years whether it was for WOTC or Dungeon and Dragon.) but Mearls gets a pass? I'm also recalling a time where people here were lighting up Andy Collins for being a "bad" designer. Just to clarify, I'm not calling Mearls and Collins bad designers. I was religiously buying everything that Mearls did up until 4th Edition.

You might be right. I certainly... "forgot" that Mike also created adventures. I am not sure I ever used on of his (but then, I might be the only one in my group that's still runing his own adventures). But I sure played his Iron Heroes, and I liked it. And I also liked what he did for Arcana Evolved, which was mostly rules-related.

But note that I said that I don't know if WotC creates good or bad adventures. I just know that I like their game design work. And that I can point to example of Paizo adventure writers showing me stuff that might indicate that their game design skills are not as good as their adventure writing skills. Maybe these are rare events, and it might be selective perception, since, I might never notice well-designed monsters, but I surely notice badly designed monsters.
On the other hand, I definitely know that I enjoyed the Adventure Paths so far, and that they made up a major part of our past campaigns. So their adventure writing skills are definitely top-notch.

And I firmly believe that with practive, whatever the current state of quality of Paizos game designing skills is, it will improve. But I still believe that WotC is better at game design then they are. (And on top of individual qualities of designers, WotC also has the better resources.)