Announcing Pathfinder Nexus - Unleash Your Hero Digitally!

@Vestofholding: very good points, and they kind of clarify what I would like in contrast to what I see.

This is “the” “official” digital aid for Pathfinder. Solo, and recognised. Yet it isn’t Paizo, which is…unfortunate. And the purchase of assets creates a vast gulf between customers who will be totally on board and those who won’t. So accessibility and functionality become commodified, which AoN nearly circumvents and prevents. And I understand that free market economics and late stage capitalism are so good right now, except that they really are not.

The official digital product is pay walled, adding to players and customer’s budgets. Why would this be good for the community?

@Demiplane: please don’t take this as disrespect - this is Paizo’s forum, where the community of Paizo fans discuss…things. I get that you have a business and a product, and it looks good. But it will succeed on its own merits and whether it can withstand the storms of popular discussion. (Also remember we keep being reminded that posters on Paizo often represent a (very) vocal but (vanishingly) small segment of the customer base. Which is possible, I guess.)

There's a couple of aspects I think will make PF Nexus into a great product in the digital space:

1. New players for PF2E looking for something akin to D&D Beyond will now have an all-in-one solution for a tablet and mobile friendly version of the books, an index and searchable version, and a good character builder. If they didn't have that, they'd have to contend to using Pathbuilder or Wanderer's Guide + AoN or EasyTools Library + navigating the actual .PDFs on their devices. 3 avenues, while I and a lot of us are used to and feel is easy enough, might be just enough trouble for new people not to buy into the game. The power of convenience is stronger than we'd like to think.

2. The shared ease-of-use in home games might prove useful. Only having to use my phone or tablet to look at my character sheet or to browse through my CRB would be way better than carrying the increasingly larger amount of sourcebooks around. That's gonna be a preference thing, of course (paper IS nice to have), but I think that's gonna be a strong aspect to it.

3. Getting the .PDFs for free from the PFN versions is a good price comparison in the future. I wanna get the books as soon as possible, which is why I'm subscribed, but if I wanted to wait for the street date, getting .PDF + a tablet/mobile friendly version with a searchable index, character builder and character sheet would be worth the hardcover price for me going forward. I just couldn't double-down on the subscription hardcover + free PDF from the sub + paying the hardcover price for that convenience.

So there is space for Nexus in that realm. I will say, while AoN and Pathbuilder/Wanderer's Guide are great to keep around and whatnot for those who use the free OGL content, it goes feel like HLO is now really redundant and especially unnecessary. If Nexus' support proves to be even a little well-maintained (which, given the posts from the staff there in this very thread, that's a good assumption to have!), this will blow HLO's lack of support for PF2E out of the water. I just hope that maybe Nexus will offer up a deal for former HLO customers to help them transition over if they want to.

While I was excited at first, my excitement quickly faded when I noticed I would have to buy literally everything again at a rather steep price.

As someone who has bought every PF2e item (the deluxe versions of the core books, all Lost Omens, 2 full AP's, the beginner box, and add-ons like spell cards) from his local game shop, this really stings. Choosing to support my local stores not only means I have to buy everything again, but I would even have to buy it at full price because the discount is only for those who bought their stuff on this website.

I really hope they will offer a subscription formula or don't require you to buy the books to utilize the character options in the character builder.

Right now I fear this app will not be for me. Or most other long time customers for that matter. This seems aimed at new players (for who this will definitely be a good thing).

I know it is wrong to say (and not exactly true), but to me it feels like the current way of how nexus will function pisses on the old customer base.

Edit: A quick calculation tells me I'm 1350+ euro deep in PF2e, I hope it's clear why I feel it stings that people like me are kind of left behind here.

We live in a world where a statement like this is not only a serious statement, but an all-too commonplace one.

"Plus by connecting your Paizo account with Pathfinder Nexus, you get a significant discount on purchasing books you already own!"

ooh, I get to BUY what I already HAVE? Well, lets see.. I have physical books, I have pdfs of physical books, I have them on Hero Lab, I have them on AoN and now I can have them on Nexus?

You see where people are starting to get a little peeved? Oh, you don't see? Well, see ya.

Not really? Paizo isn’t making you use all those options.

Not really? Paizo isn’t making you use all those options.

Yup. And Paizo is not making me buy their books. Which is why I stopped. But see, they'd like me to buy their books. It helps them to stay in business.

So yeah, your dismissive comment is true... to a point. As is the presumed comment of "If you don't want to buy them, why are you making a fuss and commenting here?" The answer to that is equally simple and obvious (to some). And it is this: By having forums, they are implicitly seeking out reactions to their products and services. If all they get is reactions from people who knee-jerk like everything they produce, that's not really helpful or constructive. And since it's statistically unlikely that they will appeal to everyone with every product, listening only to those who agree with everything they do will only result in a smaller and smaller market base. Which, as I've already pointed out, is detrimental to their continued existence as a company.

Paizo used to innovate, not replicate. I miss those days. *shrug* but i guess I'm just the dismissible minority now.

… huh?

Terevalis Unctio of House Mysti wrote:

Is the character builder up yet?

Hi Terevalis - Our character builder and an interactive digital character sheet will be introduced later in Early Access, closer to full launch (Q1 2022). Now that we have opened Early Access, we will be releasing content regularly - you can stay informed about what's coming next as part of our weekly Development Updates on Demiplane's Twitch channel -- twitch.tv/DemiplaneRPG

So I'm kind of hijacking this thread but I would like to put in my vote for a Starfinder version of this product. I had subscribed to the "other" online paid product but found virtually no use for it as a GM and the missing features (starships, starship combat, no GM AP content) just made it not worth it so I dropped my subscription after a few months.

I'll probably get on board for the PF3 version of this. If it comes out at launch.
2 years is too late for those of us who've been buying the material already.

In the future will Nexus support 3rd party pf2 products or ability to add homebrew content?

Will the character manager allow a GM to import monsters and organize npcs and creatures for planned encounters?

I would like to see the character builder (should have been, I think, one of the first things released) before I can commit. I do think that what I have seen is beautiful though and am exciting about it.

That being said, I hope that this is not just a smoke in the mirrors, something new and shiny, let's forget about Paizo's discriminatory practices and doxxing of customers now that we have something new for you to look at.

I don't quite get it behind the marketing glitz. Is this HLO minus the subscription fee plus video chat? Or is there anything more to it?
I haven't really used DnD Beyond so I don't understand what it's about.
I mostly play by post and use AoN, Pathbuilder and Tableplop, all free tools. What will this add for me?

The re-purchasing of content aside, I'm really struggling to see the value of Demiplane for our group, or really any online group. It seems to be touted as a match-matching service with an Adventure Portal where you can load the adventure path and start your adventure with your group.

From that point you have a video chat lobby where you can roll dice, and the only way for the group to actually interact with the adventure itself is via a GM screenshare? Is Demiplane actually expecting players to go through an adventure online via a screen share? According to Demiplane, there is no plans to add a VTT to this system.

All of those features above, minus the match-making, are available through Discord of course. So I'm trying to understand the value add here.

If users of this product utilize the video chat, match making, rules lookup and character building components, for an actual online session they would end up using a VTT like Roll20, FGU etc. even if they remain within Demiplane for the video chat. Why add screenshare at all?

I get that people don't want to re-buy content. But realistically you can't expect that every new service will be free if you got your content elsewhere. That is a guaranteed way to make it fail.

The closest analogy might be a videogame. I have Dark Souls on my playstation. It is also available on PC. But I don't get a free copy on my PC because I have the playstation version. It took time and money to convert, etc.

Looks very interesting. Will be keeping my eye on this.

In the future will Nexus support 3rd party pf2 products or ability to add homebrew content?

Will the character manager allow a GM to import monsters and organize npcs and creatures for planned encounters?

Hello!

Regarding homebrew content, absolutely, customization is a requirement for Pathfinder, and it is essential we support it. For thirdy-party content, we are open to exploring possibilities and will share more details about that as we get a little further down the road.

As for the monster/NPC/encounter management, that wouldn't take place in the character management part of the toolset, but it is absolutely on the roadmap.

Thanks!

Hey BadEye, did you miss the questions about screen reader compatibility?

Does anyone know if they intend to make it screen reader friendly? Tried looking on the Demiplane website to find contact info but couldn't find it - never a good sign.

I'm sorry I missed this on my first pass - signals coming from all over yesterday and it was a challenge to keep up!

Yes, Pathfinder Nexus will be compatible with screen readers. Accessibility is very important to us, and in my former gig I was able to see the positive impact that prioritizing accessibility can bring to the game.

I will ask for some patience as we learn and optimize on that accessibility mission. We are working with consultants and are making development decisions based on accessibility, but we still need all the help we can get to validate it is the meeting needs of the community. We welcome feedback all along the way - thanks!

Hey BadEye, did you miss the questions about screen reader compatibility?

I certainly did - thanks for calling it out!

I was hopeful that it was just missed and not ignored. Happy to see that that was the case. :)

Tues, Oct 26, 1:30 pm

Does anyone know if they intend to make it screen reader friendly? Tried looking on the Demiplane website to find contact info but couldn't find it - never a good sign.

Tuesday, Oct 26, 3:30 pm

Laarafel wrote:

Does anyone know if they intend to make it screen reader friendly? Tried looking on the Demiplane website to find contact info but couldn't find it - never a good sign.

This was posted nearly 3 hours ago. In that time, the spokesperson for Demiplane has posted twice, once just 30 minutes ago.

Are you ignoring the issue or do you simply not know whether your product is ADA compliant?

Wednesday, Oct 27, 1 pm

Hey BadEye, did you miss the questions about screen reader compatibility?

Thank you Cori Marie. Third time's a charm.

Tues, Oct 26, 1:30 pm

Laarafel wrote:

Does anyone know if they intend to make it screen reader friendly? Tried looking on the Demiplane website to find contact info but couldn't find it - never a good sign.

Tuesday, Oct 26, 3:30 pm

Dancing Wind wrote:

Laarafel wrote:

Does anyone know if they intend to make it screen reader friendly? Tried looking on the Demiplane website to find contact info but couldn't find it - never a good sign.

This was posted nearly 3 hours ago. In that time, the spokesperson for Demiplane has posted twice, once just 30 minutes ago.

Are you ignoring the issue or do you simply not know whether your product is ADA compliant?

Wednesday, Oct 27, 1 pm

Cori Marie wrote:

Hey BadEye, did you miss the questions about screen reader compatibility?

Thank you Cori Marie. Third time's a charm.

It was certainly an honest mistake with no slight intended. Not offered as excuse but rather explanation, we have a very small team working though dozens of question/feedback platforms.

I realize that perhaps trust hasn't been earned yet, but I'll still ask that everyone give us the benefit of the doubt that we are not ignoring any questions or feigning any ignorance - over time you'll see that I won't shy away from being transparent and willing to answer most anything.

If you still have questions that you don't feel are answered here between Demiplane or Paizo staff, feel free to reiterate it and I'll get to them as soon as I can.

Thanks!

@BadEye: you are doing an awesome job under somewhat trying conditions!

@BadEye: you are doing an awesome job under somewhat trying conditions!

Thanks for the kindness - we are stoked to be making this happen for Pathfinder and to be working with Paizo!

I get that people don't want to re-buy content. But realistically you can't expect that every new service will be free if you got your content elsewhere. That is a guaranteed way to make it fail.

The closest analogy might be a videogame. I have Dark Souls on my playstation. It is also available on PC. But I don't get a free copy on my PC because I have the playstation version. It took time and money to convert, etc.

But in that same vein, why would I want to repurchase the same PC I've already paid for on Playstation?

CaffeinatedNinja wrote:

I get that people don't want to re-buy content. But realistically you can't expect that every new service will be free if you got your content elsewhere. That is a guaranteed way to make it fail.

The closest analogy might be a videogame. I have Dark Souls on my playstation. It is also available on PC. But I don't get a free copy on my PC because I have the playstation version. It took time and money to convert, etc.

But in that same vein, why would I want to repurchase the same PC I've already paid for on Playstation?

Are you telling me you only own 1 version of Skyrim?

Unikatze wrote:

CaffeinatedNinja wrote:

I get that people don't want to re-buy content. But realistically you can't expect that every new service will be free if you got your content elsewhere. That is a guaranteed way to make it fail.

The closest analogy might be a videogame. I have Dark Souls on my playstation. It is also available on PC. But I don't get a free copy on my PC because I have the playstation version. It took time and money to convert, etc.

But in that same vein, why would I want to repurchase the same PC I've already paid for on Playstation?

Are you telling me you only own 1 version of Skyrim?

Yup. For PC.

H2Osw wrote:

Unikatze wrote:

CaffeinatedNinja wrote:

I get that people don't want to re-buy content. But realistically you can't expect that every new service will be free if you got your content elsewhere. That is a guaranteed way to make it fail.

The closest analogy might be a videogame. I have Dark Souls on my playstation. It is also available on PC. But I don't get a free copy on my PC because I have the playstation version. It took time and money to convert, etc.

But in that same vein, why would I want to repurchase the same PC I've already paid for on Playstation?

Are you telling me you only own 1 version of Skyrim?

Yup. For PC.

Well, I can certainly agree with Unikatze's take on this. :)

This is great! Appears to fix PF2’s biggest pain points. I’m sold!

And I have no problem giving my money for the labor/service provided by Demiplane. That some people do puzzles me. I mean If they don’t want it then don’t buy it. No need to be critical of what appears to be a fair cost structure. And the topic of hard bound books is a long one with no good solution. So, back to the celebration…

This appears to be the tool my group has been waiting for!!

Question: Will you be able to save your character sheets to PDF?

Rude_ wrote:

In the future will Nexus support 3rd party pf2 products or ability to add homebrew content?

Will the character manager allow a GM to import monsters and organize npcs and creatures for planned encounters?

Hello!

Regarding homebrew content, absolutely, customization is a requirement for Pathfinder, and it is essential we support it. For thirdy-party content, we are open to exploring possibilities and will share more details about that as we get a little further down the road.

As for the monster/NPC/encounter management, that wouldn't take place in the character management part of the toolset, but it is absolutely on the roadmap.

Thanks!

Sounds great, thanks for the info. It's refreshing to have a company whos product we're interested in actually answer questions and speak to the features they plan on implementing

With future playtests of classes, is that something Nexus would support?

This is great! Appears to fix PF2’s biggest pain points. I’m sold!

And I have no problem giving my money for the labor/service provided by Demiplane. That some people do puzzles me. I mean If they don’t want it then don’t buy it. No need to be critical of what appears to be a fair cost structure. And the topic of hard bound books is a long one with no good solution. So, back to the celebration…

This appears to be the tool my group has been waiting for!!

Question: Will you be able to save your character sheets to PDF?

Yes - PDF export for character sheets is a requirement. Thanks!

With future playtests of classes, is that something Nexus would support?

That is the plan! We are in the early stages of exploring character management, but we have discussed with Paizo and are aligned on how useful playtesting classes would be on PFN.

Will private information be safe from doxxing. That is not always true with Paizo executives.

@pwrup @BadEye

Hi Peter and Adam!

My comments are as follows...

Starfinder? Starfinder! starfinder starfinder starfinder! STARFINDER! StArFiNdEr? STARfinder! starFINDER?
5742f1nd32
5742|=1|V[)32
$'|'/-\/2|=!|\||)[-/2
01010011 01110100 01100001 01110010 01100110 01101001 01101110 01100100 01100101 01110010

Needless to say, I hope to hear a launch announcement at some point in the future regarding Starfinder!

I just want to comment here and say you are awesome!

Since there are representatives of Paizo AND Demiplane on here I wanted to touch on something that really would help making Nexus even more interesting.

Translations:

If there was one shop where I have my books and charaters in both englisch and german (or french, or any other language Pathfinder is offered in) it would greatly help Gamemasters to manage their games. In my groups players use both languages and it is sometimes hard to find the right feats or talents. If I had one place where I could search for both and switch between languages it would be very helpfull.

I'm certain that is not something with a very high priority, but as a software developer myself I know it is best to know such requests beforehand so you can plan accordingly.

Will Nexus have the ability to plan out a character somehow? So far I think only Pathbuilder has this type of feature. With other builders you have to level up and save various versions of that character

Since there are representatives of Paizo AND Demiplane on here I wanted to touch on something that really would help making Nexus even more interesting.

Translations:

If there was one shop where I have my books and charaters in both englisch and german (or french, or any other language Pathfinder is offered in) it would greatly help Gamemasters to manage their games. In my groups players use both languages and it is sometimes hard to find the right feats or talents. If I had one place where I could search for both and switch between languages it would be very helpfull.

I'm certain that is not something with a very high priority, but as a software developer myself I know it is best to know such requests beforehand so you can plan accordingly.

I can share that we are considering the possibility of translations from the start, but I will also admit that doesn't make localization any less of a challenge. We would love to be able to do it at some point, but there's nothing we can confirm at this stage.

Thanks!

Will Nexus have the ability to plan out a character somehow? So far I think only Pathbuilder has this type of feature. With other builders you have to level up and save various versions of that character

This is a planned feature for sure...we have talked about it a good bit actually. I can't say that it will be available when character management is initially released, but it is on the roadmap for sure. Thanks!

Good on you for bringing this product to place for the digital world. I'm not 100% sold on it yet as I like the options currently out there already and was not a huge fan of D&D Beyond honestly.

That said, sounds like if I want to switch to Nexus, I should cancel my subscription for Paizo products to avoid paying twice for the same product. That's unfortunate (but I won't belabor the point given it was already discussed in this forum).

Choices...choices...

For all the people that, rightfully, feel this isn’t for them, I’ll add that this will be HUGE for my group of friends. Not all of them are particularly tech savvy and we use D&D Beyond for our 5e games. Path builder is great and I’ve paid for the upgrade for it but if I’m able to share my books with everyone, it’ll make it that much comfortable and familiar feeling when we switch over to PF2e soon. I get that double paying isn’t ideal but for me, the benefits are worth it.

I'd be fine if only the character creator can be shared for my PCs to create a campaign specific character using books I purchased.

Maybe add a fee for them to do so or allow sharing from the main GM account for x users for a fee

If you buy a product on Pathfinder Nexus you will get the PDF for free.

Will this PDF be in your Paizo account Digital Downloads? Or is it delivered some other way?

I'm asking because I want to be sure that any PDF I buy from Paizo Nexus has the same upgrade/errata/corrections status as my other Paizo PDFs.

Aaron Shanks wrote:

If you buy a product on Pathfinder Nexus you will get the PDF for free.

Will this PDF be in your Paizo account Digital Downloads? Or is it delivered some other way?

I'm asking because I want to be sure that any PDF I buy from Paizo Nexus has the same upgrade/errata/corrections status as my other Paizo PDFs.

Yes, if you unlock the digital book content on Pathfinder Nexus, the PDF will be added to the digital downloads on your Paizo account on Paizo.com.

Hey, how will your interface differ from that of herolab?

Mark or Aaron do you think Paizo will ever offer a subsrcibtion bundle that will include both the hardcover and Nexus availablity? I already have all of the books in hardcover and if I decided to give Nexus a try I don't want to have to cancel my subsribtions to Paizo just to maximize my savings.

This is the point at which you should probably clarify exactly how the price structure works and incorporate that detailed explanation in the FAQ because some people don't seem to understand that the combined cost of the packages for Nexus products + the PDF rights is going to be higher than just the PDF alone.

Using the term discount is not doing any favors in this case I think.

This is the point at which you should probably clarify exactly how the price structure works and incorporate that detailed explanation in the FAQ because some people don't seem to understand that the combined cost of the packages for Nexus products + the PDF rights is going to be higher than just the PDF alone.

Using the term discount is not doing any favors in this case I think.

We appreciate the feedback - we have that information in the FAQ now, but perhaps it's buried too deep.

We'll see what we can do to highlight it more. Thanks!

Hey, how will your interface differ from that of herolab?

It is a bit too early to talk about this one, but we'll share more details (and you'll be able to see for yourself with the free content) later in Early Access. Thanks!

Does this mean Paizo will discontinue its practice of providing content, etc. for Roll20 users?

I believe that Paizo has stated this does not change or impact any of their current relationships with other partners. Hence, as long as Roll20 continues to produce the content, it should be there.