Pathfinder - Pen and Paper RPG Books

Chanur_sl said:

I play in several Pathfinder games currently including a Mythic game. I love the system. If DnD Next is good I could see us playing that also but I don't think our Pathfinder games will go anywhere. Paizo puts out really high quality adventure modules. Several of the games we play are the adventure paths.

Click to expand...

Pathfinder doesn't have a lot of market share, but being free and online really opens the game up to so many people in terms of accessibility. In a group of 6 people, making it free makes it worth investing for the one person in the group that actually can afford to buy the books. If the books weren't free, the other 5 people might just go do something else, and the buyer would never get past buying the core rulebook because his buds aren't going to shell out for books of their own. Nobody to play with? No reason to buy any more books.

Grimsark_sl said:

Are those the subscription based adventure paths?

Is there any fiscal reason to have a subscription, versus just picking them up ad-hock?

Click to expand...

You get 30% off the cover price with a subscription. The cost of 1 volume is normally 22.99, so it's $15.99. I get 4-7 day shipping via USPS for about $6.50. I barely save any money, but you do get the free PDF copy of it too(which is probably $9 or so). I like to read the adventures and have them in case I play or run them someday. It's worth it to me since I just like reading them.

If you're not an enthusiast, I'd read the AP summaries then buy the PDF's or buy the books if you want to have the physical copy. Just about every adventure can pretty much be made into a stand-alone with a few simple changes to the story.

I really wish some of my friends that game with me liked Pathfinder. I've wanted to play it, but they are kinda snobbish towards it, and love their 3.5 broken tiered characters : /

If 3.5, 4e, and D&DN convinced me of anything it's that WotC does not deserve any more of my money. They try to be all things to all people at the same time and end up satisfying no one.

Paizo on the other hand, does one thing and they do it very very well. If I liked 3.5e (which I don't), I'd be all over this game.

Nope, our campaigns tend to end once people start reaching 20-22. It just suffers from escalation bloat and I think the DMs find it too difficult to run games at that point. This is referring to 3.5. We never made the jump to 4.0 because frankly it looks like shit /shrug

I actually prefer 3.5 to 3.0 OTHER than they removed the ability for Sorcerers to "downcast", IE use a higher level slot to cast a lower level spell. Really removed a large part of the versatility of the class for me.

I haven't ran/played epic level in pathfinder yet. We have been playing the same game for a little over 2 years every other Thursday and just hit level 10. So maybe one day we will get there. We did use the power word system, but there is only 2 characters left from the start of the campaign that have them.

Grimsark_sl said:

I admit, the one I ran didn't last long. But what little I did, was hella difficult to keep straight. I had Avatars of Ferunian deities and demi-gods (in the flesh) messing with the PC's... It was a stat nightmare.

Click to expand...

That's just it. I think it's the same problem some authors have when they make genius-level intellect characters, without themselves having that same intellect so... how can you possibly write them? That and trying to keep track of all the million things really powerful beings such as you describe can do - it's sort of the same reason why we rarely ever fight other fully fleshed out class-based parties - it's a nightmare for the GM to run (even though they are really fun to fight against).

I've abandoned Hasbro/Wizards at this point, as 4e is my favorite edition and they decided to shit on it and its fans. D&D Next had a few glimmers of hope in some of the playtests but ultimately got worse with each one, combined with them clearly not wanting me as a customer, I'm all done with them. I will probably look at the book when it comes out if I can do so without giving them money, but I'll need a huge amount of convincing to buy at this point.

Pathfinder is very popular around here and may well be the #1 game. I can play it, but it isn't a good system. It is improved over 3.5 but it doesn't remove the fundamental flaws with the system.I must say however, I have massive, massive respect for Piazo as a business and the great thrashing they have given Wizards in the past few years. I think Pathfinder is an excellentproduct, they give it amazing support and such and I will always give them credit for that. I just think they system is inherently flawed. Not so bad as I won't play, I recently did the first few bits of Rise of the Runelords, quite fun.

Zhaun_sl said:

I've abandoned Hasbro/Wizards at this point, as 4e is my favorite edition and they decided to shit on it and its fans. D&D Next had a few glimmers of hope in some of the playtests but ultimately got worse with each one, combined with them clearly not wanting me as a customer, I'm all done with them. I will probably look at the book when it comes out if I can do so without giving them money, but I'll need a huge amount of convincing to buy at this point.

Pathfinder is very popular around here and may well be the #1 game. I can play it, but it isn't a good system. It is improved over 3.5 but it doesn't remove the fundamental flaws with the system.I must say however, I have massive, massive respect for Piazo as a business and the great thrashing they have given Wizards in the past few years. I think Pathfinder is an excellentproduct, they give it amazing support and such and I will always give them credit for that. I just think they system is inherently flawed. Not so bad as I won't play, I recently did the first few bits of Rise of the Runelords, quite fun.

Click to expand...

Pretty much where I am. The only thing I'm really bitter about is the lack of a DMG 3 for 4E and how awful the 4E campaign settings books were (excluding Dark Sun, Eberron, and Neverwinter). Essentials was a bullshit money grab attempt to bridge older editions and 4E, but ended up fucking over 4E without any success at bringing old blood into the "future". Now the glorious promises of 4E have been shattered by the sniveling complaints of you scumfucking 3.5E and Pathfinder whoresons.

I think the "nerf" the the "versatility" of the spell systems was one of the best things, as to me that was just one of the worst part of earlier editions. Poorly written or designed spells were awful and made for miserable gaming. Not only that is you often had a handful of spells each level far superior to any others, among other problems.

I thought the status effects of 4e were much nicer. Yes, you saw them more often, but they were very specific what they did. Where as in previous editions, each spell could impact you differently with different mechanics, making some useless or others brokenly powerful.

I don't have much concern for noobs. If you don't have or can't be bothered to expend the level of brainpower to work out the At-Will/Encounter system, I'm not interested in you being at my table anyways.

4e wasn't perfect and could have used a revision, but I like it much better than any other edition of D&D.

The spell and combat systems are boring and too simulationist for me, which is why I dislike 3.5 and earlier editions. Pathfinder makes significant improvements.

Biggest problem with 4E (other than shitty / incomplete campaign settings), is the combat got bogged down by tracking combat marks / status effects, and the math stopped working late Paragon or early Epic.

That last flaw could be fixed if they ever published a DMG 3, but nope. Fuck Epic tier. They promised us three different tiers of gaming and delivered one and a half. It's like playing EQ without raiding.

They aren't trying to fix them. Next is specifically dumping most of the good things they did in 4e to chase "nostalgia" of previous editions because there are people out there playing old versions of D&D and liking it.

I look at Next and don't understand who will want to play it. If you like old editions, you have them to play. It isn't an evolution of either 4e or 3e, so it won't interest people who want something new. They're trying to please everyone and looks like they will please no one.

They are too obsessed with "Holy Cows" and "nostalgia" and the "feel of old school D&D" for Next to be a good product, because most of those things are what make the game flawed to begin with.

Also, the guys who hold the leash, Hasbro, has little interest in giving them the resources they need to make a good game and don't understand the industry enough to let a good game flourish. They are the main reason 4e got sunk and bastardized like it did.

Guess it comes down to, why buy from them when you can just play something else if given a choice? I can play Pathfinder for free, Warhammer Fantasy is both more fun and I'm happy to support the company, 13th Age is out, Numininuriania or whatever is out, FATE is pretty popular among people I know, Song of Ice and Fire is terrific, etc.

I see no reason to bother with Next, besides feeling shit on as a customer, I have no faith in them producing a decent product.