Pathfinder History for the last 8 years


Pathfinder First Edition General Discussion


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Hey guys,

I'm coming back to PRG's after an 8 year hiatus and figured I'd start where I left off.

I left right during the transition of D&D3.5 to 4.0. I bought into pathfinder as a way of riding that 3.5 sweetness without the bloat.

I'm a longtime DM, ran shackled cities, the Runelords adventure path, several D&D games, cthulhu, indie RPGs aplenty.

I'd like to get an oldschool 3.5/pathfinder group going again, but this website is so confusing. Could someone tell me what happened here?

Fill me in on the last 8 years of pathfinder/paizo history.

It looks as if the world has gone the way of world of darkness with sourcebooks aplenty and region books, etc, etc, etc...

Are the rules the same? What's changed? How many 3rd party companies are there now? What's the scoop?
;)

Cheers mates!
Sam


Well there's been one complete adventure path every year, as far as I understand.

There's not actually as many splatbooks as you might think, or maybe there's more than I realize. Grouped by nature and then Roughly in order of release:
Advanced Player's Guide - most widely-recieved splatbook, introduces racial alternate abilities, class archetypes, traits, some additional combat maneuvers, teamwork feats, etc.
Ultimate Magic, Ultimate Combat, Ultimate Intrigue - more typical splatbooks, the main things most players get from these are the 3 new base classes (magus, gunslinger, and investigator), class archetypes (especially in UI), and feats.
Advanced Race Guide - majorly expands on the alternate racial features for all the core races; as well as statting up a couple dozen featured, uncommon, and unusual races. It's generally agreed to avoid the race builder rules, they are not very well done or balanced.
Game Master's Guide, Ultimate Campaign, Pathfinder Unchained - Mostly GM supplements full of optional rules, though Unchained has a lot of stuff for players with the alternate versions of the monk, rogue, barbarian, and summoner. The expanded traits list in UC is very nice for players. The downtime rules from UC can also be fun.
Ultimate Equipment - A long list of all the gear printed up to that point, plus some new stuff. Lots of nice stuff, nothing overpowered, especially after the recent errata.
Mythic Adventures - Pathfinder's version of Epic. Instead of advancing past level 20, you gain mythic tiers (up to 10) as well during your normal advancement. Everything in here is turned up to 11 and generally only meant to be used in a strictly mythic game.
Advanced Class Guide, Occult Adventures - A total of 16 (I think) base classes between them, plus the usual selection of feats and spells. OA introduced psychic magic, which is a new magic type in addition to (and functioning like) arcane and divine. No power points, just the familiar spell slots.

There's also about 5 different bestiaries. 4 ties in with mythic and 5 ties in with Occult Adventures, iirc.

Fortunately pretty much all this is not only optional but also available for free on the PRD. So you can use or ignore nearly any of it.

There's a lot of little softback player companions in addition to occasional things tossed into adventure path modules, you can find the stuff from all those on the PFSRD as well as stuff from 3pp. A lot of GMs will either not use these, or only allow stuff by whitelist. Doesn't stop the theorycrafters on the boards from milking them, though.

I don't know how many 3pp companies there are, but the big one is dreamscarred press and their pathfinder compatible versions of the psionics handbook and 9swords (path of war). 3pp is almost always a "don't even consider it unless the gm has approved the book first". Some of them are very good and in balance with paizo books, others not so much. But that's what you get with the OGL.

Liberty's Edge

Pathfinder Pathfinder Accessories Subscriber; Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber

2 paths per year, one every 6 months


Darigaaz the Igniter wrote:
Ultimate Magic, Ultimate Combat, Ultimate Intrigue - more typical splatbooks, the main things most players get from these are the 3 new base classes (magus, gunslinger, and investigator), class archetypes (especially in UI), and feats.

Magus, gunslinger, and vigilante. :)

The adventure paths (published campaigns) seem to be a widely celebrated thing. I have really enjoyed the two I have played in.


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Hoo Boy, 8 years of pathfinder in one post? (It really has been 8 year hasn't it? Where does the time go?)

So, since you were around for the chaos of the switch from 3.5 to 4 at least we don't have to get into that.

Paizo made a certain choice about their business model. Basically they decided to focus heavily on things that are less renewable. Specifically Adventures, and the setting to support those adventures. We have gotten 3 RPG books a year with (roughly) 1 of them being a book of enemies, one being a book of options and one being a book of something else (again really rough here, some times there were 2 option books).

So yes there are a ton of adventures, and the setting books to support those adventures. IE We get an adnveture in Golarians Asia analogue and thus we get a bunch of setting books on that region around the same time. And by all reports this model has worked rather well. People who buy adventures will in theory always need new ones. And they will want setting material to flesh things out. People who write their own adventures still mine published stuff for ideas, or use the setting. Everyone can make use of maps, minis, pawns, and other supporting materials.

The thing that is important here, is the (relatively speaking) the amount of pure, setting neutral crunchy option stuff that paizo has produced has been significantly less then past iterations of DnD. Granted after 8 years, there is still a ton of it, but again I am speaking relatively. Despite some increases, most players can name all of the base classes without looking them up.

There have been plenty of hick-ups and missteps along the way. But by in large, there has been a fairly consistent level of 'power' to the options produced. By this I mean, that if you take the ratio of options that are weak, average, good, and hugely powerful from the core rulebook, the ratio has been pretty close to even for the last 8 years.

The big thing many groups have run into though, is that at this point, virtually every basic character concept can be made as powerful as the stronger character concepts out of the core rulebook. To abstract it a bit lets say (for the sake of argument) there are 30 fundamental 'types' of characters. Say a strong bashy guy, the quick sneaky guy, the blasty mage, the controller mage, the healbot cleric etc. Lets just say there are 30 of those. Lets also say about 3-5 of those are able to be made 'really good' out of the core rulebook. For example many of the widely accepted 'most powerful' wizard spells are in the core rulebook. The combat druid with a pouncing animal companion is in the core rulebook. These concepts are exceedingly powerful (within the context of defeating adventure challenges) out of the box. But others, like say the sneaking rogue, were far less so.

Each rpg book basically allowed a few more of these base concepts to get better options. So while maintaining a similar ration of the power of all the options in the game, there are after 8 years, powerful options for all 30(again this is a completely arbitrary number, just to illustrate the point) of those basic concepts instead of just the handful that are powerful in game.

The net effect is that tables where less once there might have been one really powerful character or none, there are now mostly powerful characters with less effort required in optimization, since there are more obviously good options for each concept by now.

Whether this means 'bloat' or 'power creep' to you is going to come down to your own perspective. The thing to keep in mind is, that baring a few specific exceptions, the options haven't gotten significantly more powerful at the ceiling, just that more characters are able to reach or get close to that ceiling.

Besides the above one of the big revelations of paizos emphasis on stories and setting instead of rules has been the gap that it left. Some groups will always want endless new options. Paizo while producing a ton of material, wasn't really filling that niche the way Wizards or even TSR did. And with paizo's exceptionally generous open gaming liscence, not the least of which is not only allowing people to publish their rules for all to se (see d20pfsrd) but also doing a lot of it themselves (see the prd), there has been an explosion and even a series of explosions of 3rd party material. Some good, some bad, and some so so. But it has created a thriving community with some 3pp companies being major players in the community, many of the authors freelancing for paizo and at least one really big example of one of the more popular authors taking a key position within paizo itself.

More then any time in the history of gaming, the flagship rpg has been fostering talent in the community, and been certainly responsible for a number of new talents coming a long. Paizo has even found a whole bunch of gems straight out of the community using their annual rpg superstar contest, where everyone (and I do mean everyone) can submit an entry and compete for the chance to write a paizo adventure. Not an insignificant number of finalists from that contest have worked for paizo shortly there after.

I think more then any other rpg or gaming company I know of, paizo has engaged with its fans in a way that has fostered a very positive relationship. Heck, they offer their rules up for free on their own website for everyone to see, they offer pdfs of all their hardcover books for a very lower price. And yet, their books still sell out, multiple times. I am not even sure what printing we are on at this point with the core rulebook, but even recent(ish) rpg book releases have had very fast sellouts.

Its actually been sort of amazing to watch in Hindsight. Paizo is the kind of company I WANT to give money to. I don't feel any regret for handing money to them because they make every effort to do right by me, their other customers, and their employees.

So anyway, a little off the trip down memory lane and a bit more into the practical. Its going to be a huge amount to take in for a group not familiar with it.

If I had to offer some advice on how to get started, start by looking at the Core rulebook and the Advanced players guide. Those 2 books together with the bestiary (for me) form the core of the game. The APG is where paizo made pathfinder more then just DnD 3.75 and put their own stamp on it. Play a couple shortish adventures with your group using just that.

After that depending on your groups tastes consider expanding the scope. My own personal rules for a game is that the core and apg are free game for making a character, and anything else they have to run by me and explain what they are going for. Less for permission and more for the fact that its hard for me to know 'every' rule available for pathfinder, but I really only actually have to know the rules associated with their choices. If a monk takes tiger style feats, I don't need to know all the style feats. Just the ones he or she plans to choose.

I allow and use a significant number of 3rd party materials, but that's mostly because many of them give me the kind of route through the rules I really like most. I am personally partial to reaching character concepts mostly through base class choices with minor variations. You will find people have wide opinions on 3rd party material, but personally, particularly if I stick to the better known stuff, it is no better or worse the paizo material. Its just a matter of if it does what I want it to do. In many cases the same people wrote both (either with freelancing, or with paizo staffers also being 3pp authors) so personally I find it silly to arbitrarily dismiss all 3pp material.

Personally I am more wary of options from setting books then I am of some 3pp authors. The reason being is that in general the settings primary focus is to support the setting, and to create balanced rules second. They have historically bypassed important limitations the rpg rule set has maintained for the sake of the setting. This isn't universally a bad thing, but it bears additional consideration.

I honestly don't know how to wrap up this massive ramble. I haven't got a conclusion, other then is been quite enjoyable to really sit down and think back over the last 8 years or so.


To expand a bit on the 3rd party publishers, or at least a handful of them since I sincerely doubt that anyone has a complete list at this point (there really are a lot by now, I believe even more than we had back in the early 2000's when everyone and their grandmother were doing some d20 knockoff), let me list a couple of them and the materials they have released. Like I said, just a handful to get you started.

Dreamscarred Press
This publisher brought Psionics to Pathfinder, and was so successful that we not only a "core rulebook" (Psionics Unleashed) and an "advanced player's guide" (Psionics Expanded: Advanced Psionics Guide), but also a compilation of the above, inclusing add-ons and errata, culminating in Ultimate Psionics. These rules are widely regarded as being at least as good as Pathfinder's official stuff, if not better. By now Pathfinder has its own version of psionic themes, introduced with Occult Adventures, but the so-called psychic magic is different from psionics so it's up to you. Dreamscarred Press' psionics are probably closer to the psionics from older editions of D&D. The pusblisher has also released a Pathfinder version of the somewhat famous 3.5 supplement "Book of the 9 Swords" (called "Path of War" now) and is also bringing 3.5's Incarnum magic to Pathfinder (staggered releases with single classes right now, but I'm sure a compilation is coming as well).

Rite Publishing
This is a publisher that released a bit of everything: adventures, feats, spells, magic items, monsters, you name it. They have a line of "101 spells", where you get 101 spells of a certain level or a certain theme, which contains a lot of cool new options to play with (not all of them particularly balanced though, but that's half the fun), they also have a "#30" line where you get 30 items of a certain kind or of a certain theme (ioun stones, cursed treasures, mercenary companies, ...), which can be a great help if this is something you as a GM are struggling with or simply don't have the time to come up with on your own. A special shout-out goes to the series Faces of the Tarnished Souk, which in my opinion is the coolest assortment of NPCs ever done for Pathfinder. They were originally intended for the high-level dreamscape adventure Coliseum Morpheuon, but since every NPCs comes with an extensive backstory and three different writeups (each at a different power level, generally between 7th and 20th level) they're easy to plug into your own campaign. If you're looking for NPCs that go a bit further than "Xerxes, fallen paladin and bane of the north", this will be right up your alley.

Frog God Games
Ah, the frogs. This company used to be Necromancer Games and you're probably familiar with some of their products like the d20 version of Wilderlands of High Fantasy, the megadungeon Rappan Athuk, Bard's Gate or some of the smaller adventures like The Vault of Larin Karr. Frog God Games has brought a lot of d20 classics to Pathfinder, the latest project being a Bard's Gate Kickstarter (IIRC it's still running) for an updated version of that city sourcebook. Rappan Athuk has been converted and also received a lot of add-ons, there's a new pirate setting called Razor Coast that has awesome caribbean flair, and lots of other cool products. All in all, Frog God Games focuses on adventures and on huge releases, most of their major books have a pagecount of 500 and more, giving you hours upon hours of play value.

Rogue Genius Games
This used to be Super Genius Games, and like Rite Publishing you get a bit of everything here, but mostly small releases and mostly crunchy things for player characters like feats or classes. They have a line called "The Genius Guide to the Talented XXX" where they remodel existing Pathfinder classes to increase the flexibility of the class by making a lot of class features options you can take - or not. Some of them, like the Talented Witch, have been received very positively, so I think RGG is one to something here. They also have a line called Mythic Options with new toys for mythic characters, or a Monster Menagerie that is all about increasing a GM's options for certain monsters (they have in fact several product lines for that), and a lot of other things. Like Rite Publishing, this is a publisher you might want to look at if you're unsatisfied with a particular aspect of the original Pathfinder game, or if you like experimenting with new options. Nothing is a must-have, but there are some really cool ideas to be found here.

Alluria Publishing
Not a really famous 3rd party publisher, and I'm not sure if they're still producing content, but they made the campaign setting Cerulean Seas and that's enough to be mentioned here. Cerulean Seas is an underwater campaign setting, with new races, classes and options for Pathfinder games that might never see dry land at all. The setting itself is not fleshed out in the way that the official Golarion setting or older D&D settings like Planescape or the Forgotten Realms are, it just gives you enough information to start a game but leaves wiggle room to make it your own thing. What makes Cerulean Seas especially noteworthy is how it tackles the problem of a 3D environment where up and down don't necessarily have the same meaning as in your typical dungeoncrawling game, and also how it handles water pressure and adventuring in such an environment. There are a couple of expansions like a bestiary and a book for arctic waters, and from what I've heard they are about as good as the main setting book.

Legendary Games
This is something of a rockstar publisher, with all of the authors being former participants (or winners) of the RPG SuperStar contest or employees of Paizo or other 3rd party companies. They are famous for a line of plug-ins for Paizo Adventure Paths, giving a GM additional NPCs, magic items and adventures to gap "holes" in a given Adventure Path or simply expand it somewhat. They've also released a massive amount of options for Mythic Adventures, a "sword and planet" adventure path in the vein of pulp stories like John Carter, and rules for ruling and managing kingdoms and such. Legendary Games makes pretty stellar stuff in my opinion.

---

And there are more, hundreds of them. If you look at the Messageboard overview, there are two Product Discussion areas (one for both Paizo and 3rd party products and one for 3rd party products only) where you can find tons of 3rd party product announcements, reviews and discussions. I'd also look at other RPG messageboards out there if you are interested in Pathfinder 3rd party products, like Giant in the Playground or EN World.


Thanks guys, this is really helpful.

I think my plan for re-entry will be

CORE book only (or maybe even beginner box only [Is that possible?]) for an introductory campaign (6 sessions).

I'm planning on bringing in some new players and I'm restarting, so will go as simple as possible to begin with.

Any suggestions for self contained adventures that fit the bill in length and fun? I like well written, interesting NPC's.

Following that campaign, I'll probably open up the advanced players HB and start an adventure path (most likely rise of the runelords since it's so well supported).

I like the NPC book suggestion from Rite Publishing. Anything that adds spice easily for GM's is a good thing. I also like using old PC characters as antagonists... hence the initial campaign... ;)


samstephenson500 wrote:

Thanks guys, this is really helpful.

I think my plan for re-entry will be

CORE book only (or maybe even beginner box only [Is that possible?]) for an introductory campaign (6 sessions).

I'm planning on bringing in some new players and I'm restarting, so will go as simple as possible to begin with.

Any suggestions for self contained adventures that fit the bill in length and fun? I like well written, interesting NPC's.

Following that campaign, I'll probably open up the advanced players HB and start an adventure path (most likely rise of the runelords since it's so well supported).

I like the NPC book suggestion from Rite Publishing. Anything that adds spice easily for GM's is a good thing. I also like using old PC characters as antagonists... hence the initial campaign... ;)

Beginner box only is a decent way to go for a fresh start. The product is a lighter version of the core rules, and contains an adventure that takes the characters within to level 6, including simplified level-up choices.

Likewise, graduating to new characters in runelords with core only or core+apg is a good idea. Runelords is a classic, and doesn't require mastery over any of the new mechanics.


I don't think you really need the Beginner Box, since you're just a bit out of date and not a total beginner. I mean, the BB is a great product but I'm sure you could just grab the CRB and get a standard game going with your new group. Of course, you know best, but that's my impression.

As for self-contained adventures, Paizo has released quite a lot of those, and many of them are good or at least ok. If however you're hesitant to spend a lot of money upfront and want to test the waters first, there are a number of totally free adventures to grab.

First, there is a free introduction series from Pathfinder Society called "Pathfinder Society Scenario Intro", in three parts. The first part is called In Service to Lore, you'll find the other two after that. Pathfinder Society assumed that all players are members (or aspirants) of the adventuring organization called Pathfinder Society, which makes your job as the GM a lot easier (no lengthy introduction about where and why everyone is traveling together). There are a few other free PFS adventures as well, but you'd have to read the reviews since I've never played them.

Second, every year when we have Free RPG Day, Paizo releases a small adventure. Some are single affairs and self-contained, others form a quasi-series - like the goblin adventures. These modules are pretty short but are a great way to get your tows wet and see how this all works, or to expand an existing adventure. Note that Hollow's Last Hope and Revenge of the Kobold King are older modules and technically still 3.5, but you can run them with Pathfinder almost on the fly. Hollow's Last Hope is the first of several (older) adventures that take place in Darkmoon Vale, and not a bad way to start a short-zo-medium adventure series.

Third, browse the Messageboards for past RPG Superstar events, because in the final round the remaining four participants all submit an adventure proposal, one of which then gets released as an official Paizo module. But the rough drafts are all still there on the forums, for you and every GM to read and work into your own game. Here for example are the four adventures from last year's round. The RPG SuperStar events are a goldmine, since you can also browse a huge amount of monsters, magic items and encounters, some of which are really something not seen in standard fantasy fare.

In addition, there are dozens of private blogs and websites where people made Pathfinder adventures or encounters, so it's not hard to find something free to start with.


The Strategy Guide is helpful for building new characters of the eleven core classes.


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Welcome back, samstephenson500!

Silver Crusade

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I'd start with the Core Rulebook, Advanced Players Guide, and Bestiaries (at least use the first 3 from the free online PRD). Those are the books that define Pathfinder as a game.

As for adventures, I honestly believe that's what Paizo does best. Look over the adventure path themes and see what appeals to you. You said you already did Runelords, so take a look at some of the others.

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