This Effin’ GM
Hero
Personally I find designing PF2 material a headache. That’s just my opinion though
Pathfinder 2E Why No Big 3PP Support for PF2?
zedturtle
Jacob Rodgers
When I began work on what would become Ashen Frontiers, the OGL kerfuffle was just wrapping up. So (even though I'm known for a long string of award-winning/nominated 5e stuff) doing a Pathfinder version was a no-brainer. Set up the Patreon so you could pay $3/month (the minimum recommended amount) for either 5e or Pathfinder, or $5/month for both, and get folks that wanted to learn Pathfinder take me up at $5 so they could see the same Foe (or Ancestry, or Class, or whatever) in both systems was the plan. I was hoping for a mass response ... again ... Kyle Brinks had just said 'Dark Sun is problematic', and here I am shilling a post-apocalyptic fantasy setting that you don't need to give Ha$bros any money at all to play. I launched the Patreon, expecting little, but wondering if I would be blown away.
Unfortunately, getting the word out, especially on independent projects, is dashed-darn hard. So it was more the 'little' bit, not the 'blown away' bit. But every bit of success builds on the last bit, and now I've got sold-out demos at Gen Con next month, a free setting guide that would be Gold at least if DriveThru still did metals for free stuff, and more on the way.
But there are other challenges too. When I was first learning Pathfinder, I leaned hard on a long-time friend that had gone Pathfinder back in 2008 and only grudgingly playtested my 5e stuff occasionally. I gave him a list of ideas for AF: 'no alignment, proficiency without level, every Background has a way to earn Focus Points, which will have little to do with magic, etc.'. And got major pushback on each of them, to the point of serious 'discussions' whenever certain points came up. But I pressed on. Read the ORC drafts, gave feedback, applied for the Pathfinder Compatibility License, Waited. And nothing.
When the Remaster news came out with the list of changes, my friend's tune changed. He said Remaster seemed to be 'your wishlist'. Gone was the 'Pathfinder players rely on [sticking point]', changed to 'maybe that will work'. There are still things that he had/has trouble grokking. He learned d20 games at his Daddy's knee (almost literally), so my insistence on 'all d20 rolls are Checks. Attacks are just Checks using the Accuracy or Melee Skills, and mystical effects are just Psionics or Spellcasting Checks using a Key Ability' didn't make sense to him. But I enlisted other friends whose memory of learning the game were a few decades more recent, and they agreed 'things can be hard to learn, this is easier'. And there are other changes, like 'Foes' instead of 'Monsters' because explaining to a Newbie that only some Monsters are Monstrosities is too much.
So time went by, and no word from Paizo on the PCL application, even when I asked about it on their forums. I chalked it up to the ORC development, but no word yet. It has been months, and I'm working on a Pathfinder Rules Guide. If I don't hear anything, I'll use ORC/OGL to release it, use it as a rules base, and refer to it for the setting, never asking a Player or Gamemaster to spend money with Paizo at all. I really don't understand why there hasn't been any forward motion on this. I'd love to write 'see Player Core 1, page XXX' but it seems unlikely at this point.
And lastly, Pathfinder players seem to be heavily invested in Lost Omens. For every Pathfinder player that is interested in Ashen Frontiers, there are at least a dozen 5e players. Part of this is culture – sure Ha$bros pushes Forgotten Realms at every opportunity, but acknowledges Dragonlance, Eberron, even Grayhawk and Ravenloft, with occasional releases. So getting a 3PP product to sell in Pathfinder has many, many challenges. I'm still not quite ready to give up, yet, however.
Unfortunately, getting the word out, especially on independent projects, is dashed-darn hard. So it was more the 'little' bit, not the 'blown away' bit. But every bit of success builds on the last bit, and now I've got sold-out demos at Gen Con next month, a free setting guide that would be Gold at least if DriveThru still did metals for free stuff, and more on the way.
But there are other challenges too. When I was first learning Pathfinder, I leaned hard on a long-time friend that had gone Pathfinder back in 2008 and only grudgingly playtested my 5e stuff occasionally. I gave him a list of ideas for AF: 'no alignment, proficiency without level, every Background has a way to earn Focus Points, which will have little to do with magic, etc.'. And got major pushback on each of them, to the point of serious 'discussions' whenever certain points came up. But I pressed on. Read the ORC drafts, gave feedback, applied for the Pathfinder Compatibility License, Waited. And nothing.
When the Remaster news came out with the list of changes, my friend's tune changed. He said Remaster seemed to be 'your wishlist'. Gone was the 'Pathfinder players rely on [sticking point]', changed to 'maybe that will work'. There are still things that he had/has trouble grokking. He learned d20 games at his Daddy's knee (almost literally), so my insistence on 'all d20 rolls are Checks. Attacks are just Checks using the Accuracy or Melee Skills, and mystical effects are just Psionics or Spellcasting Checks using a Key Ability' didn't make sense to him. But I enlisted other friends whose memory of learning the game were a few decades more recent, and they agreed 'things can be hard to learn, this is easier'. And there are other changes, like 'Foes' instead of 'Monsters' because explaining to a Newbie that only some Monsters are Monstrosities is too much.
So time went by, and no word from Paizo on the PCL application, even when I asked about it on their forums. I chalked it up to the ORC development, but no word yet. It has been months, and I'm working on a Pathfinder Rules Guide. If I don't hear anything, I'll use ORC/OGL to release it, use it as a rules base, and refer to it for the setting, never asking a Player or Gamemaster to spend money with Paizo at all. I really don't understand why there hasn't been any forward motion on this. I'd love to write 'see Player Core 1, page XXX' but it seems unlikely at this point.
And lastly, Pathfinder players seem to be heavily invested in Lost Omens. For every Pathfinder player that is interested in Ashen Frontiers, there are at least a dozen 5e players. Part of this is culture – sure Ha$bros pushes Forgotten Realms at every opportunity, but acknowledges Dragonlance, Eberron, even Grayhawk and Ravenloft, with occasional releases. So getting a 3PP product to sell in Pathfinder has many, many challenges. I'm still not quite ready to give up, yet, however.
Thomas Shey
Legend
I won't comment about why Paizo is not responding, but regarding the Lost Omens loyalty, I suspect that the issue is that the setting is so sprawling and varied, they just assume they can find anything they want within it. Honestly, by all evidence I have its far more varied than Realms and as such there are less people who aren't going to find what they want there.
Me, I'm naturally prone to doing my own thing, which makes most setting material moot to me; if I have any issues with running PF2e its that some of the structures of ancestries are specific enough that I'd have to decide if I wanted to port them over to a homegrown to just take the assumptions present, or try to do new Ancestry feats and the like and hope I didn't screw it up.
Me, I'm naturally prone to doing my own thing, which makes most setting material moot to me; if I have any issues with running PF2e its that some of the structures of ancestries are specific enough that I'd have to decide if I wanted to port them over to a homegrown to just take the assumptions present, or try to do new Ancestry feats and the like and hope I didn't screw it up.
zedturtle
Jacob Rodgers
Golarion (Lost Omens) is just about the perfect Kitchen Sink Setting, this is true.
I get it. I bounced off Forgotten Realms in 1e and spent all of 2e in a setting that me and my friends made together, with maps, ancient lore, conflict, war, peace, and more. About a decade of gaming until life (college, military, job opportunities) tore us apart.
So I get the 'I will make my own setting, with Blackjack and Hookers!' thing. I'm just hoping for enough people to say 'Insectile people that don't sleep, but don't restore wounds until they moult and must spend time grooming themselves to avoid parasites every evening? Sounds cool, I am in!' but know that it's a percent-of-a-percent-of-a-percent-of-a-percent kind of thing.
I do enjoy reading the Lost Omens stuff even if I am unlikely to use the material in it. It reminds me of the AD&D 2e days of having more lore material than I'd ever know what to do with, which does usually end up giving me bits to steal and use somewhere else.
I'm still months away from having to decide since we still have a ways to go with Abomination Vaults but part of me wants to run something homebrew but I'm not yet confident enough in my understanding of the system that I wouldn't risk making something horribly unbalanced. We'll see, I probably have 4 months before I need to start thinking about what I'll run next.
Thomas Shey
Legend
Yeah. I mean you can find sections that look like somewhat different fantasy sub-genres if you wander around some. So I can see why some people just don't feel a need to wander completely outside of it, rather than just running in the sections that serve their needs.
Don't get me wrong; I'm not hostile to settings done by someone else, and I suspect they serve a lot of good purposes. I'm just really old school in some ways (I got my start in 1975) albeit not mechanically, so I just go to "make up my own thing with outside influences" as a default.
Thomas Shey
Legend
Kind of same. And sometimes they'll do something I fancy that I wouldn't probably think of myself (the material regarding the irixi, say).
Honestly, I'm not sure there's much balance risk regarding a homebrew, unless you're either going to try and do classes from the ground up (that'd be right daunting, and that's from someone who's an old rules hack) or, to a lesser degree, new Ancestries that don't stick to extent materials as I mentioned. If you're not actually changing anything rule-wise, its hard to see a problem coming up.
I wouldn't be looking at homebrewing an ancestry or class. It's more being able to homebrew my own monster stat blocks properly without screwing it up, especially creating challenging boss fights. It's probably easier than I think, I just haven't done it yet so there's always that hesitation I guess.
Parmandur
Book-Friend
How long have you been running the system...?
3 months, so in the grand scheme of things not that long.
