Charlie Brooks's page

You know, I never really got the "Paizo/WotC/Chaosium/White Wolf/Etc... will invalidate my game" crowd.

I think this was a bigger problem in the 90s, when campaign settings seemed to exist for their novel lines first and the gaming table second.

I remember running the Forgotten Realms as presented in the 2nd edition boxed set, for example, and getting quite irritated when people assumed the Elminster in my games was the god-banging, fourth-wall breaking character from the novel lines instead of the quasi-senile old man I was familiar with.

Yes, you can simply say, "In my version of this setting, W and X are actually Y and Z," but I find that a lot of people like published settings for the shared experience they provide. There's a certain appeal to being able to say "My group helped lead an army against the city-state of Urik" without having to detail what that really means.

The metaplots of the 90s tended to hit fast and change the setting on a yearly basis, which made finding that common ground a pain. If you wanted to run a Dark Sun campaign, for example, you then had to specify if it was the original set or revised set, both of which had very different tones. And if it was the original set, then there was a question as to how much of the Prism Pentad stuff got let in.

Basically, TSR never invalidated anybody's game, but they warped the language around the game and made it difficult to share common assumptions - and that shared experience is one of the main draws of a published setting.

IMO, Pathfinder has struck a good balance so far. There are definite changes to the canon (i.e., Xin-Shalast is often referred to as a recently rediscovered city these days), but it's easier to ignore a sentence here or a paragraph there than an entire line of supplements.

I've run a homebrew campaign setting for about 20 years now and borrowed liberally from sources I've liked. The current setting has elements of the Forgotten Realms, Golarion, Greyhawk, Dark Sun, and Birthright settings in it, among others.

I've incorporated quite a bit of Pathfinder setting material because it's darned good. In general, places that get marked down on my world map and made more of less permanent get renamed/reskinned into something that fits the setting. NPCs often go in as-is, because as the timeline advances they'll die off or become unrecognizable from their published counterparts. Given time, even stuff stolen from other settings winds up with a flavor unique to the homebrew.

I ran a Vecna Lives-style scenario once for a superhero game to good effect, but it's worth noting that the old PCs were all incapacitated and captured off-screen, so the game began with the PCs knowing they were creating a new team to rescue the old guard. (Also a major difference between this and Vecna Lives - the old PCs were held prisoner, not killed.)

Regardless, what made the session work well was the fact that the PCs didn't have the firepower to beat the big bad, but they clued in on targeting the prison holding the old group. That made for a nice moment of triumph when the two groups joined forces to do what one alone couldn't.

No idea how the old PCs might affect the plot of Return of the Runelords, but I can imagine a lot of groups getting a kick out of creating a Justice League from their old heroes, even if only for a scene or two.

Now that it's confirmed that Return of the Runelords will go all the way to level 20, it will be interesting to revisit this thread in early to mid 2019.

If I had a nickel for every time somebody claimed that a new Paizo product was a secret test bed for Pathfinder 2nd edition, I'd have enough money to buy each of those products.

Whatever lessons get learned from Starfinder will undoubtedly find their way into Pathfinder 2.0 someday, just like the lessons learned from the Advanced Player's Guide, Ultimate Campaign, Pathfinder Unchained, the Beginner Box, and so on will get incorporated.

In terms of using Starfinder as the chassis for a new Pathfinder system, though, I would think it would be wise to at least wait a year or two to see what bugs and issues emerge during widespread play.

2019 will mark the Pathfinder RPG's 10th birthday, so I imagine a 2nd edition will be coming sooner or later. When that day comes, I'm sure it will resemble a lot of the different design elements that Paizo has refined over the past decade.

In my completely subjective view, I see a tonal difference between the Realms and Golarion.

My interpretation of the Realms is that it's supposed to give a feel of wonder. The way the setting gets described in a lot of the material, it feels like PCs are supposed to look with awe upon floating islands, ancient mythal, and other magical wonders. You've got NPCs like Elminster who do a little fourth-wall breaking and wink at the camera, providing some meta humor.

Golarion provides more of a sense of danger to me. While magical wonders still abound, they often serve as a clear and present danger to the mortals of the world. It feels to me like a world where there's a lot more demonic activity and fewer benevolent rulers. You don't really have as much overt humor - even the crazy-funny goblins still eat babies.

Both settings probably have more in common than different, but that's my take on the tone of the two worlds.

I think the big question with an adventure path that goes to 20th level would be the why of it. Is there a story reason to go all the way to 20th level, or is it just an arbitrary desire to get there? In my opinion, most adventure paths end at a pretty natural point.

That said, one of the stretch goals of the upcoming Kingmaker computer game that got unlocked is a new chapter that takes PCs up to 20th level. Depending on how popular the game is, it would be really awesome to see that chapter converted to pen and paper format someday.

As to the mythic rules, while I personally love them, they seem to work better at lower tiers. If there was an adventure path that stuck to tier 3 or even tier 5, I think that would be cool and still provide enough XP to hit 20th level. However, once the mythic rules get involved, there seems to be a desire to reach the very top of the game.

Not really news, but thought so, Snyder was getting worse with every movie he made

Not that I think this movie is going to be any good, but how would you judge a movie to be unwatchable while it's still in the midst of post-production?

Also, I'm leery anytime somebody quotes only a single word to prove a point. The link talking about it being "unwatchable" goes to another story that provides that world completely out of context and with no other supporting evidence.

Not counting D&D computer games, I've had one character hit 20th level. Most of my campaigns peter out before that due to the desire to try something different.

My current game has been running for years and was originally intended to hit 20th level, but I added the mythic rules and it feels like things are going to wrap up around 18th level/8th tier instead.

I may be wrong but the majority of the Pathfinder APs seem to be about returning things to the status quo (or some semblance of it) as at the start of the adventure.

There are some adventure paths that fit into that category, but some which also change the status quo by the end. Kingmaker, Jade Regent, Wrath of the Righteous, and Hell's Rebels stand out to me as adventure paths where the world is potentially very different by the end of the campaign.

The trick is that none of the adventure paths' potential endings become mentioned as definite things that happened in later supplements. I imagine an adventure path where you defeat Razmir would be the same - just because he's gone in that campaign doesn't mean he's gone from Golarion.

I hated Lawful Good in the 90s, when I was a teenager and comic books/action movies told me that the badass rebel was better than the straight-laced Boy Scout. It never occurred to me at the time that you could have a Lawful Good character who was also a badass rebel.

Overall, I think people probably see Lawful Good as restrictive or lacking the nuance that a neutral or chaotic alignment has. I don't really agree with that take, but I think it's a tough stigma to eliminate.

I think I'm missing something. How would you have bought the game on mobile in the first place? Isn't it available for free?

I remember downloading the game itself for free, then buying some in-app purchases. With that in mind, it makes sense that in-app purchases would be transferable, but I don't see how downloading a free game on mobile could translate into not having to buy the game on PC.

What am I missing?

And unfortunately, that is now making me question my decision to support the Kingmaker CRPG and other games as well.

I'm not sure that any experience given by Obsidian will reflect on the Kingmaker game. It's a completely different studio, with no connection that I know of to the folks behind the card game app.

Book 1 of Rise of the Runelords could be a self-contained adventure. Books 2, 3, and 4 could also serve as the end of a mini-campaign if you have the big boss at the end of each book serve as the final baddie with no superior to hunt down afterward.

Having now read through this thread, my big takeaway is that I wish people would provide links to back up what they think people said.

There seems to be many cases, both on this forum and others, where people claim that Paizo lied about something and even use quotes to back up their paraphrased version of a statement. It's a pain to track down quotes, but it's way better to see what actually got said than to play a game of telephone.

On Paizo's end, the only way for them to avoid having customers accuse them of lying would be to decrease the amount of interaction they have with their fans, and I personally would prefer not to see that.

Color me cautiously optimistic. I don't know the experience of most of the folks behind it, but Avellone is a really good storyteller. Even his more mediocre efforts, like Neverwinter Nights 2, are well worth playing.

As to the diversity question, I think it's well worth voicing concerns now. Diversity is one of the Pathfinder brand's strengths, and it would be good to have that show through in the first major foray into the video game market.

3.5, you wanted out of your base class; Pathfinder, your capstone is the best brass ring out there.

Is the capstone really that much of a brass ring? I'm doubtful that most players expect their PCs to ever hit 20th level.

edduardco wrote:

Another one for me is Deities, gods should have stats IMO.

With the mythic rules allowing characters to become deities, you can do that. In my current campaign, every deity is stated up via the mythic ruleset.

Two mythic PCs in my game took divine source and wound up creating their own religion. Unfortunately, a minor holy war broke out between their followers while they were away on an adventure. Fun times.

The only thing off the top of my head that I liked better in D&D than in Pathfinder is that the 3rd edition DM's Guide had rules for playing a multiclass character at 1st level (basically, you were a half-level in both classes). However, that got removed by 3.5, and I don't think it ever made it into any SRD.

I wonder if Starfinder will be to Pathfinder what Star Wars Saga Edition was to 4th Edition--an experiment with new mechanics as prelude to a new edition of the core product.

Every time Pathfinder has come out with something new, the speculation is that it's a playtest for a new edition. Pathfinder Unchained was supposedly a secret playtest, but it's been out for at least a couple of years now.

I'm sure that the lessons they learn from Starfinder will work their way into a future edition, just as with lessons learned from Pathfinder Unchained, the Beginner's Box, and everything else.

I'm playing it and liking it. My only complaint is that it crashes way more often than I would like - like once a session, at least.

Depends on how loose you want to be with the definition of an RPG.

I was 11 when I first played D&D (black box with Escape from Zanzer's Dungeon as the sample adventure).

About a year prior to that, my brothers and I spent a lot of time playing Milton Bradley's HeroQuest, which is technically a board game but which we added enough dialogue and house rules to that it basically served as my first RPG.

Yeah, I hear a lot of people say "Starfinder is obviously just a trial Pathfinder 2.0." Along with "Alternity was just the 3.0 playtest" and "Saga was the 4.0 playtest".

Speaking of Saga, when the Dragonlance Saga card-based RPG came out, there were people (including a columnist for Dragon Magazine) speculating that it was a test bed for 3rd edition AD&D. So this stuff comes up pretty much anytime the maker of a popular game tries something new.

The "Saga was the 4.0 playtest" speculation is probably helped by the fact that one of the 4th edition preview books specifically called Saga out as an inspiration for 4th edition. However, I'm pretty sure the context was that they took lessons from that game and incorporated them into 4th edition rather than designing the game specifically so they could playtest a new version of D&D.

If I recall, Alternity was a fail even by TSR standards...and as WotC so fondly told us, those standards weren't too high in regards to profits vs. losses (or even keeping track of profits vs. money spent already).

Not certain comparing it to Alternity is doing it any favors...comparing it to Spelljammer (which falls solidly into the competing lines of marketing and fans) would however.

OR, Buck Rogers vs. D&D would also be comparable (but probably not any more favorable to consider than Alternity).

That's a shame about Alternity - I didn't realize it was a bomb. Still, I think the point stands that Starfinder will hopefully be an expansion of Paizo's audience rather than a split.

How many times have we heard them blame the fall of TSR on splitting the lines of sale?

TSR split its fanbase by creating multiple competing products in the same genre. They were printing the Forgotten Realms side by side with Mystara and Greyhawk, all of which were targeted toward generally the same audience.

This would be more comparable to TSR's attempt at Alternity, which was about expanding their audience. In theory at least, Starfinder should be an opportunity to bring people who don't want D&D-style fantasy into the fold.

And, if it is a failure, I would imagine that Paizo probably will pull the plug on it rather than commit the other big TSR blunder of continuing to print products that they were taking a loss on.

I usually design my games with a serious bent, but my sessions themselves tend toward the comedic a lot. I set the plot up as though I'm telling a very serious story and let my players turn it into a comedy.

Automatic bonus progression is one of my favorite variant rules, but it's a tricky thing to make the standard.

As it exists, it's a patch on the Pathfinder system for people who want to reduce magic items. But if you were to include it in the core, the more effective way of making its effects the default would be to revise creature math so a CR 10 encounter doesn't expect that you have a +3 resistance bonus to all saves and a +2 deflection bonus to AC.

However, revising the creature math may effect backwards compatibility and makes the Bestiary monsters less usable without some adjustment.

It seems to me that a lot of products have been speculated as Paizo experimenting with a Pathfinder 2.0. I mean, this is a lot of the same stuff that people said about Pathfinder Unchained.

Ultimately, it's partly true - a 2nd edition of Pathfinder probably will draw from lessons learned from Starfinder...but also from everything that came before it, including Pathfinder Unchained, the Advanced Player's Guide, Ultimate Campaign, the adventure paths, the companion line, and so on.

A crossover sounds kind of "meh" to me, but I haven't been disappointed by any of the Pathfinder comics yet....

The idea of Valeros and Merisiel interacting with Red Sonja tickles my fancy something fierce.

Quote:

Different AC system, Ground vehicles, no decking minigames, starship combat involves everybody, emphasis on science fantasy, not totally realistic physics.

I'm a bit concerned about the different AC system. Namely that would mean that a number of things would stop working unless the AC system just translates differently. If it's a shift like Touch AC doesn't exist' or something like that it would be easy to deal with, but if it's something like Armor as damage reduction then that means I have to start sorting through numbers.

I would think that armor as DR would be against the backwards compatibility angle.

In terms of expectations, the 3.5 --> Pathfinder transition gives us an idea of what Paizo considers backwards compatibility to be. Maybe there will be some more changes due to the genre shift, but I think that gives us a starting point for the guessing game of what stays and what goes.

Considering that I'm nearing the end of a long, mythic storyline involving the PCs taking on a dragon-god that's terrorized my campaign setting for more than 15 years (real time) now, I'm already having visions of flashing forward to a future where said dragon-god has been resurrected as a cyborg and formed an alliance with a sentient planet.

I have no idea why no one is talking about Encounter Codex. That looks like it's going to be absolute heaven and JUST THE PERFECT product for me, someone who likes to DM but never has the time for prep.

Two of my favorite AD&D products were the Decks of Encounters. This book sounds like those, albeit with a higher level of quality control. I'm looking forward to them.

I like the sound of it for a couple reasons:

1) It adds an Aroden-level mystery to the setting which can help drive adventures.

2) It gives Golarion-native characters a Titan AE-style scenario where their world is just gone and nobody really knows why.

From a game perspective, it's probably a good chance to help differentiate the settings a bit. Having Golarion be a prominent part of the game increases the chance that folks see this as just another Pathfinder setting, when it seems like Paizo is trying to make it distinctly different.

RiffWizard wrote:

With Hollow Mountain now wrapped up, and perhaps I just missed the announcement, are there plans for a next series?

According to the Know Direction podcast, the next series will be Pathfinder Worldscape which will be a crossover with Red Sonja, John Carter from Mars, Tarzan, and possibly other Dynamite Fantasy titles. It will have character builds for characters like Red Sonja.

I really hope this is the Gail Simone Red Sonja, which is slightly different from the "classic" Sonja but in my opinion a more enjoyable read.

Well, I don't think it is actually Paizo's calculation that everybody who subscribes to Pathfinder AP will automatically also subscribe to Starfinder APs.

I would bet that the goal is to expand the Paizo audience. Traditional fantasy isn't going away as an RPG staple, but there are still lots of people out there who might love Paizo's commitment to quality but who have been waiting for it to be applied to something other than D&D-style fantasy.

Obviously, this won't stick... But it's still infuriating to see beloved characters go through these gimmicky "story arcs" made for the sake of shock value.

This is as bad as "Death of Superman" and "Knightfall" when it comes to desperate publicity stunts.

While I think this particular gimmick falls flat, it's worth remembering that comics has always been a gimmick-driven industry. Misleading covers and cliffhanger endings have been a staple for well over half a century now.

Sometimes, those gimmicks are terrible. Other times, they turn out to be great. Bringing Bucky Barnes back as a brainwashed super soldier, for example, seems like a terrible gimmick. Under the skilled pen of Ed Brubaker, though, it turned into a really good story.

ShinHakkaider wrote:

It's not like this hasn't been done before...

Or even EARLIER by Jack Kirby HIMSELF HERE

Interesting point. I wonder if those writers gave interviews stating this was the real Cap. Not brainwashing, or a clone, or a shapeshifter, etc.

Marvel also said that Ben Reilly was the real true Spider-Man, that Bruce Banner would never be the Hulk again, that Thor was dead forever as of Ragnarok, and so on.

They also spent a lot of time and money trying to convince people that the Sentry had actually been created by Stan Lee and forgotten about in the 1960s instead of being something that Paul Jenkins pulled out of his butt circa 2000.

Marvel lies to sell comics. A lot. Anybody who buys into something their editorial or marketing department says does so at their own risk.

The art in this issue is really amazing.

I thought this was a bad twist because readers wouldn't buy it as anything more than a cheap bait and switch.

Given the online reaction, especially on social media, it seems that a lot of folks really think Marvel is making this change long-term.

I guess Marvel knows their audience a lot better than I do.

Has anyone use the Automatic bonus Progression?

Seems like it would allow more flavourful magical items to be used in the slots that were already taken by items that were needed in those slots.

Belt of Strength +2 is needed (sorta)

Cord of Stubborn Resolve is kinda fun and has cool abilities.

I have tried Automatic Bonus Progression and highly endorse it. It eliminates the need for flavorless magic items like cloaks of resistance, allowing PCs to gather more interesting gear.

It also keeps PCs more or less on a uniform power curve, at least when it comes to stats. That means that somebody who is less experienced in the game and who doesn't know that it's expected to have something that gives you a +X to hit at certain levels isn't penalized for not knowing one of the unspoken assumptions of the game.

Amber is a terrific writer. I'm loving Siege of Dragonspear so far.

I hadn't connected the name back to her Pathfinder works until just barely. I adapted The Worldwound Incursion into my high-level game that is incredibly cluttered with NPCs. Despite the fact that I was looking to reduce the cast, I wound up adding Anevia and Irabeth anyway because they are such great characters.

Every time I have seen her in a forum, she has been very pleasant and generally awesome. No one deserves the harassment she's getting, and especially not her. I hope this all passes as soon as possible.

Kalindlara wrote:

I'm not really happy about this, for personal reasons. I wish they'd waited a few years more. :(

But I'm glad for everyone who's enjoying this news. It's nice to see all the excitement.

I'm actually less than delighted. Why bother buying floppy pieces of paper and glue when waiting a couple of years nets you a revised hardback done in PF rules?

And RotRL Anniversary Ed. was kinda supposed to be a one time thing.

Not gonna hate on it though. I'm sure a lot of people'll want it.

It's not really "a couple of years." It's close to a decade, through an edition change, and at the point where collecting those floppy pieces of paper and glue would cost a few hundred dollars and some time hunting on eBay.

So my son saw me printing out some stuff for a session of Pathfinder and wanted in on it. Prior to the adult game, I broke out the Beginner Box and let my kids have at it. We didn't use character sheets and greatly simplified the rules (basically, everybody did 1d8 damage, and a 10 or higher on 1d20 was enough to succeed at just about anything most of the time).

I knew the Beginner Box was a great product, but I didn't really expect that it would be able to hold the attention of a 2- and 4-year-old for more than an hour. My son played a good zombie, and my daughter played a princess (grabbing the elf wizard figure because it looked the most princess-y). We ran through the entire first adventure, and my son even got creative and decided to make friends with some of the monsters instead of fighting them.

This blog entry goes into a bit more detail on the session. Has anybody else tried the Beginner Box with very young children? If so, how did it go?

The Strategy Guide is included at the "pay higher than average" level. Either that, or Paizo just randomly added it to my downloads...

I would be very resistant to this idea, but A LOT has happened in sci-fi films in the last 20 years that is ripe for satire.

That said, if Rick Moranis isn't going to be in it, I feel very skeptical about the whole thing.

Who knows? Maybe Mel Brooks can rope both Moranis and Gene Wilder into the movie and have a reunion of semi-retired actors.

This seems like one of those things where some people think it's common sense to always take one option but where other people have different opinions.

I was certainly surprised when my group created their first Pathfinder characters and everybody opted for the skill point option.

Cole Deschain wrote:

Indeed, there's a lot of reading intent going on here...

Could the Pathfinder rules be tidied up? Sure.

Could that be done while maintaining backwards compatibility with published material, which is one of the stated reasons why Pathfinder has its own rulebook in the first place? Far more challenging.

One thing I do find interesting with PFRPG right now is that, they are trying to tidy up stuff without a second edition.

For example;

Pathfinder unchained is a book that is 99% attempts to fix bugs in the system.

Occult adventures fixed and revised the possession rules.

Horror adventures having revised mechanics for insanity.

Horror adventures having alternate rules for vampires and werewolves.

Another way to look at it is the possibility that the developers are experimenting with what would work in a new edition...which would be a good idea, in my opinion. It's a lot easier to put out a new monk and see how people like it as opposed to radically changing the monk in a new edition and hoping it doesn't become one of the big complaints of the new edition.

Could that be done while maintaining backwards compatibility with published material, which is one of the stated reasons why Pathfinder has its own rulebook in the first place? Far more challenging.

I think it depends on what you're trying to clean up.

Are you going to be able to turn fighters into a class that dwarfs wizards in terms of power? Probably not. But if you want to add the stamina pool from Pathfinder Unchained to fighters, that can be done without wrecking previous adventures. A 5th-level fighter in the old edition would still be about the same as a new 5th-level fighter; you'd just have to figure out what the character's stamina pool is when running it in a new game.

My take on backwards compatibility is thus:

Not too long ago, I ran the AD&D 2nd edition Night Below campaign as a Pathfinder game. I was able to keep the same story and swap out monsters when they had a Bestiary equivalent, but I wouldn't consider it to be backwards compatible. For any major villain or unique monster, I had to rewrite the stats in order to make them fit in the game.

By contrast, I can run the original Rise of the Runelords, a D&D 3rd edition campaign, with very little problem in the Pathfinder system. Some of the numbers are different than they would have been if it was written in Pathfinder, but the language is pretty much the same. Looking at the stat block for an ogre fighter, for example, tells me what the critical multiplier on its weapon is, that it has the Power Attack feat, that its composite longbow has a +7 Strength bonus, and so on. Sure, I have to do a bit of conversion to find its Combat Maneuver Bonus and I have to remember that its Listen skill is now Perception, but that takes 30 seconds tops.

My preference for future editions of Pathfinder would be to make it more like the 3.5 --> Pathfinder model rather than the AD&D ---> D&D 3rd edition model. You can change what individual parts of the system, such as what certain feats, spells, and abilities do, while still keeping the scale and the language roughly the same.

If it gets to the point that I have to do lots of work to convert old adventures over, then I don't consider that backwards compatible and the old material starts to lose value to me. I ran a very successful Night Below campaign, but it took extra work above and beyond what I normally do for a game and I'm less likely to use AD&D modules in the future unless they're really good. By contrast, the entire vast library of 3.0 and 3.5 material still remains something that I can use with little to no extra work, even though certain mechanics have gone through 15 years of changes and improvements.

I realized something that has been bugging me about the movie yesterday (in addition to the things I've previously listed). One of the big reasons that the threat of Kylo Ren seems diminished is that he was beaten pretty handily at multiple points in the movie. Ren turned his force mind probe back at him, Chewbaca bowcasts him, and then he's beaten in the climactic lightsaber duel and is only saved by GM fiat (crevasse opening between him and Rey).

In comparison, Darth Vader is never beaten until the end of RotJ, and every time he appears the good guys are in serious trouble. Even when his TIE fighter is hit at the end of ANH, he's sent off away from the battle, but he's clearly out there and not injured or beaten.

They've said that Kylo Ren will grow into a more serious villian, but at the same time, Rey and company will be growing in skill and experience as well.

While he's on the Dark Side and wear a mask, I wouldn't put Kylo Ren on the same level of Vader. He's presented as a more sympathetic character right in the first movie, and I don't think he'll be as much of a big bad as the series goes on.

Vader was a guy firmly on the Dark Side who had a tiny spark of light in him. Kylo is much more conflicted and seems to be more of a hostage of the Dark Side than anything else. I think that will play a big role in future movies, and I welcome the shift - it would be a shame just to copy the story beats of the first trilogy, after all.

That's the catch 22 that Paizo faces. Release a rehashed edition and possibly face a lose in sales. Do the same with a new edition and the same happens. Though out of the two the second gives fans a incentive to reinvest the first not so much. At the very least if they do go with a rehash it needs to be decently priced imo.

That's kind of the situation they face with any release. Any book takes a lot of investment (granted, with even more risk when a new edition comes out). Unlike us, though, Paizo has comprehensive sales data and measurables they can look at.

That information isn't always accurate, but it gives them a chance to make an educated assessment of the risks and rewards of any release. We fans really have nothing to go on but our gut feelings.

Well when the core is about 90-95% rehash with 5-10% new material it's a rehash. Of a rpg that was already rehashed. To me at least a core needs 50%+ new material to be consider a new product. I still enjoy playing and running it.

I don't really think I agree with that assessment. True, in terms of word count Pathfinder is probably not 50% new material. However, when I switched my games over I noticed an immediate change in the way it played. In my opinion, the game became much more fun. If a 2nd edition only changes 10% of the actual text but manages to make the game markedly more fun than before, I would consider it a smashing success.