Worlds Okayest DM's page

Camels - My party chose to ride these all the way to B1, due to a party reached the foothills in about 3.5 days like you said as your worse case scenario due to only succeeding at 1 check for their entire ride(Bad luck).

This is my fear, but I feel as it's a playtest I'll need to allow it. Just seems like it will really dampen the effect of "time pressure" that the adventure is going for.

B1- My players chose to not be stealth for the first hour of their movement through difficult terrain, so they were ambushed by the Hyenas but spotted them. They also chose to stealth after this point, fearing gnoll scouts(passed their knowledge checks).

Can you expand on how you adjudicated this? Did the hyena "ambush" simply mean they used Stealth for initiative?

3) I wouldn't play it like this personally unless there was something the hyenas needed to do before combat broke out. If you were interested, it might be worth considering to allow them to be positioned more favorably(i.e. snuck around behind the party, ect) but I'd probably never let it break down into free attacks.

I GM for a table of...let's call them tactical optimizers. They will hunt for advantages such as an "extra-action" pre-buff at all times, and I've learned it's best to simply turn the tables sometimes. This is perhaps a table-specific call though so YMMV.

2)I had the party roll their stealth against the manticore's perception DC. Since I assumed it was passively looking for things to ambush as it glided around, this seemed to best represent how this worked without an 'easy button'.

This seems fair and I will likely follow suit, although I'm not positive this is what the adventure intends. This section could use some more clear writing in my opinion.

My party and I are a bit behind the playtest due to getting a late start and our bi-weekly schedule. We're scheduled to start Ch. 2, In Pale Mountains Shadow, this upcoming weekend and I have a few questions for the other GM's on here that have already ran this chapter.

*The Camels*
Has a consensus formed around the mechanics of the party riding these creatures? As written in the adventure there is no apparent downside, and even with multiple critical failures the party would still reach B1 in 3.5 days. Much faster than the 5 days the adventure states a "typical party" will take.

B1 - The Gnarled Foothills
The only notes from the adventure state the hyenas find the PCs if they aren't stealthing or if the PC's Stealth checks are less than the hyena's perception DC.

1) Have you ran the "pre-fight" in Encounter Mode, thereby allowing the players to have "meta"-knowledge that a fight is imminent, or did you run everything in Exploration mode?
2) What if they all beat the Perception DC? Does the party simply sneak through with no combat?
3) Do the hyenas get an extra action if the PCs don't detect them (based on the pg. 330 rules on "pre-buffing" before a fight if they "have a drop on their foes")?

B2 - Sand Flats

1) There are no notes in the adventure on whether the party's speed will cause them to walk right into the quicksand. However, pg. 331's text on the "Searching" tactic implies that they likely wouldn't see the hazard in time otherwise. Comments?
2) Has anyone allowed PC's to bypass the entire encounter based on Searching/Stealthing tactics? Would you have the Ankhrav attack if the party attempted to keep a wide berth of the quicksand?

B3 - Gnoll Camp

1) How many parties actually engaged here? It seems like the rules push the party towards fleeing rather than fighting.

B4 - A Treacherous Climb

1) Is the first Survival check free or does it also cost 4 hours (meaning the PCs could simply choose the "hard" path with no check)?
2) As written it appears the party simply bypasses the encounter if they all choose the "Sneaking" tactic. What have people employed to prevent this easy-button from being used?

I haven't seen any posts in the past from people doing something similar, but I wanted to give a shout out to one of the players at my table, who painstakingly recreated Doomsday Dawn Ch. 1: The Lost Star with his 3D printer. The below link is to my google drive where photos can be viewed!

Go to Google Drive

For anyone interested in how these were made, the work was done on a Prusa Research 3D printer. The Fat Dragon Games Dragonlock system were the models used as well as magnetic bases from Devon Jones and Openforge.

The best part is, a lot of this work is very dungeon "generic" and will be able to be used over and over again!

I don't have an answer to this question though I am following the thread to see if anyone else does. I will be running Chapter two a week from today so am hoping there are others out there who have come up with an answer!

Not sure how useful anyone will find this, but I've added a link to a "DM screen" I made for myself. It's 5 pages in PowerPoint and it includes information updated through the 1.3 update.

Google Drive link.

I've found that when printed on a landscape 8 1/2 by 11 sheet, a little trimming on the edges and it fits great on a standard "purchased" DM screen. I keep pg. 5 hidden behind pg. 6 since it's more for "downtime" activities, but YMMV.

Hope this helps some of you!

Not sure how useful anyone will find this, but I've added a link to a "DM screen" I made for myself. It's 5 pages in PowerPoint and it includes information updated through the 1.3 update.

Google Drive link.

I've found that when printed on a landscape 8 1/2 by 11 sheet, a little trimming on the edges and it fits great on a standard "purchased" DM screen. I keep pg. 5 hidden behind pg. 6 since it's more for "downtime" activities, but YMMV.

Hope this helps some of you!

Welcome to the forum. :) There's some interesting points.

Worlds Okayest DM wrote:

While I’m no industry insider and have no

access to sales numbers, the fact that an edition change to
their core product was announced barely 6 months after the
creation of a brand new IP leads me to believe the new revenue
stream StarFinder was supposed to create has not materialized.

I think the opposite is also possible: Starfinder did well, and gave them another revenue stream giving them the cushion necessary to go through a year where PF1e is basically marked for obsolesce but they don't have 2e to sell yet.

For the Star Wars issue... I don't think you need Star Wars to articulate it, although TLJ certainly was divisive. The term you want is "Edition Wars".

This isn't new. When D&D 3.0 came out, lots of people hated it. People newer to the hobby might not remember that because the 3.x line was so successful. PF 1e is based on 3.5 and a lot of it's success is due to 3.5 players hating D&D 4e. Paizo was well positioned to say "we're supporting the edition you like!" and here we are.

There's people still playing 3.5 today. There's people still playing AD&D 2e today. There will be people playing PF 1e for years, maybe decades after 2e is out. That hasn't really changed with how popular D&D 5e is (and it's wildly popular). People get attached to editions, like how the game plays, and don't want it drastically changed. They get very passionate about it.

It's as old as the hobby itself. There is no real avoiding it if you change the system in any major way (1e is still recognizable as an updated 3.5 and largely avoided it). That's part of what makes this hard: the original pitch for PF1e is that it let you avoid a major system change... and now they're selling a major system change.

There is no way Paizo can avoid some people hating it. That's just reality.

I was aware of Pathfinder 1.0's place in the 3.x timeline, and your point is well taken. I wanted to avoid generalizing the overall Pathfinder community, but I think it's fair for Paizo to assume that a market, at least initially, built from players that didn't want to change editions is going to be tougher to maintain through another edition change.

Danbala wrote:

There are certainly some payers that HATE the new rules and they have made their opinions clear. But it seems to me that they are in the minority.

I would say that those bothering to try to voice their opinion HERE are in the minority. But I think you are vastly overstating the number of people currently playing PF1 that intend to make the shift to PF2. Paizo WILL lose customers, but they are banking on picking up more than they lose.

Furthermore, IMO, they started work on PF2 long before Starfinder, and the latter was intended as a testing ground for some PF2 ideas and as a funding bridge during the "dead year" between releasing the playtest and releasing the final product. They did sell a ton at GenCon 50, but I don't know anything beyond that. My gut feeling (based on my own reading of the SF material) is that SF isn't that popular in the greater RPG community, and may not be meeting the goal set as the lifeboat between editions. But I have nothing to back that up other than my own feelings, so take that for what it's worth.

To back that up, Starfinder is a distant 11th on Roll20 in terms of games and players. while Roll20 is by no means the breadth of the market, I'm willing to guess that tracks fairly well with the overall TTRPG market.

As a first-time poster I feel a bit of background on myself is in order. I’m a long time D&D 5e GM that was introduced to the TTRPG hobby by Matt Mercer’s Critical Role. My fellow table members have convinced me to make the move to PF2 due to the expanded “complexity” and “customization” options the Pathfinder system offers when compared to 5e. I believe that makes my group and I Paizo’s “target market” for PF2, but I’ll get to that in a moment.

As a long time GM, I enjoy browsing various forums, web sites, and YouTube videos to learn more about the system I’m playing (which, again, until now has been 5e) and the response from longtime Pathfinder players to PF2 has been…interesting to say the least. It’s led me to a bit of a “theory” on the future of PF2 and Paizo that I thought would be, at the very least, fun to share and discuss. Here are the critical assumptions my theory relies on:

1) Paizo wants to move away from PF1 for financial reasons.

Various reports I’ve read peg Pathfinder at around $10M in
market share as of 1Q18, with the total TTRPG market sitting
roughly around $35M. Just under 30% of market seems great as
it puts Pathfinder in a clear 2nd place to only 5e. However,
I’m unsure this tells the whole story. As the forum
unfortunately doesn't allow graphical posts I can only
reference the following figures:

Amazon Sales Rank (1Q18):
5th Edition Players Handbook - #63
Pathfinder Core Rulebook - #12,675

Roll20
(4Q14):
D&D 5e - 1,500 Games
Pathfinder - 6,100 Games

(1Q18):
D&D 5e - 77,000 Games
Pathfinder - 12,500 Games

Both of these tell essentially the same story. 5e is vastly
expanding the market as a whole, and Paizo would probably like
like to cut into their ever-expanding piece. While the
halcyon days of early 2015, when Pathfinder was arguably the
market leader, are perhaps an unrealistic goal; increasing
market share to the $15M - $18M range perhaps isn’t. This
speaks to my guess about what Paizo’s “target market” is:
Players and GMs currently playing 5e that are looking for a
more complex and robust rules system.

2) Paizo NEEDS to move to PF2 for financial reasons.

This sounds the same as the 1st point, but it is likely a bit
more controversial. Paizo released StarFinder at GenCon in
2017. While it was a raging success at the Con, which I can
remember anecdotally as I believe everything sold out
Thursday, it may not have had the staying power needed for
financial success. While I’m no industry insider and have no
access to sales numbers, the fact that an edition change to
their core product was announced barely 6 months after the
creation of a brand new IP leads me to believe the new revenue
stream StarFinder was supposed to create has not materialized.

Now regarding point #2, I personally don't believe that the start-up cost of Starfinder has put Paizo in financial peril in the short-term.
What I believe it does mean, however, is that the risk of failure on PF2 could cause that financial peril. This leads to my theory:

In their attempt to expand market share with PF2, Paizo has inadvertently created a rift between the market they want to capture and the market they already own. This is the Star Wars Problem.

As I’m sure there is plenty of fan overlap between Pathfinder and Star Wars this likely needs little explanation. As a quick synopsis though, Disney's Star Wars problem occurred with the release of Last Jedi: Some fans, mainly those who were fans of the Original Trilogy first, are opposed to changes made to the lore and characters in the New/Disney Trilogy. Disney has, by and large, branded these complaints as misogynistic and petty, which has quite obviously done nothing to allay the concerns/complaints of those fans. Opinions are split as to whether this impacted the box office returns for their latest movie Solo , which performed far below original expectations and resulted in a financial loss for Disney.

What is the connection to Paizo and Pathfinder you might ask? Well, based on what I’ve read on this forum, reddit, GitP, and various YouTube channels the overwhelming majority (I'd anecdotally peg it at around 75%) of CURRENT Pathfinder players DO NOT approve of many of the changes being made in PF2. Some don’t like Resonance, others are focused on the +Class Level mechanic, still others on the % success ratios, and on and on. overall, PF2 should be an “easier” system to play than PF1 but still a more complex system than 5e (again speaking to that “target market” from earlier). It is thereby likely achieving it's design goal of threading the needle of being complex enough to be close to PF1, while easy enough to digest for current 5e / non-PF1 players. What happens, though, if threading the needle of appeasing the current PF1 players and capturing ex-5e players fails?

I believe Paizo’s biggest design failure was not recognizing the contraction risk PF2 presented. Current players that choose to skip PF2 entirely and stick with PF1 aren’t going to maintain market share, as the intention is to stop production of PF1 material. Thus, there is a real risk of a shrinking footprint for Pathfinder and Paizo. This would only be further exacerbated if another company pulled off what Paizo did in 2007 when another company we all know and love failed to keep their current customers happy with the launch of a new edition…

I most certainly hope I'm wrong on all counts. Perhaps Starfinder is printing money for Paizo, rendering point #2 moot. Or perhaps the voices online are a "loud minority" that is not a true reflection of the overall Pathfinder community. I for one rather like PF2 and, as my game tables "always DM", I rather like some of the limiting factors the game has put in place to limit potential for PC abuse. my opinion does feel like a minority one unfortunately.

I’d be curious what others think of the theory (although I hope I haven’t inadvertently created a Star Wars flame war), especially those of you who have been around the Pathfinder community for longer than the month I’ve been here.

TL;DR – In an effort to expand market share into non-PF players with a new ruleset, Paizo may have inadvertently poisoned the well with current players, and long-term financial distress could be a real risk for the company.

Thanks for Reading!