Chairman Aeon's page

I'll be bold and say the intro set should include: Humans, Dwarves, Elves and Gnomes with the classes being Cleric, Fighter, Rogue, Wizard ... all to 20th level. Have a trimmed feat and spell list. In fact just cut down on everything to a reasonable level.

See most of the complete classes take up around 4 pages. Play to 3rd level?!? Why waste your money! The game only starts to get interesting at 3rd. 5th or 6th?!? Again you aren't saving much space by limiting the level and if I was going to pick a cut off level I'd pick 10th as after that is where things often go wrong. But why even limit level when you aren't going to save a lot of pages.

So why would I suggest 4 classes with full levels? Because it allows Paizo to make an introductory set that lets people try out the full game. The problem isn't the levels it's the details. By pruning the feats, spells, equipment, etc lists to a more minimal but servicable level you end up with a subset of the real rules. Your character from the intro set is legal in the full rules. The full rules get you more options once you get a hang of things. And if you never want to buy the full rules you still have a complete game.

Now before you say I'm mad, let me remind you that Spycraft Lite was an introductory booklet that included race equivalents (departments), the first level of every class (and those classes were heavily front loaded), skills, feats, combat, equipment and chase rules in 32 pages. Don't believe me, then check it out.

If Paizo could present the rules that lightly and have full classes they could easily do it in under 96 pages if they wanted ... or they could do a digest sized book for easy portability and still not produce something War and Peace sized.

Iain.

Many of the problems Paizo and Golarian face with 4e are the same things that will face WotC and their in house settings. The new races and class and losing races and classes from the PHB affect Forgotten Realms and Eberron just as much or more than Golarion ... icons excepted. (But Warlocks replacing Sorceror seems like a no brainer to me unless you just want a Cha based Wizard.)

Paizo has already reimagined a lot of things in D&D 3.Xe to fit their setting. Paizo would then have to look at what can be explained in fluff or what needs some tweaking or what needs a complete overhaul.

If Paizo decides to stick with 3.Xe then they will have to find a business model that supports a bulk of (D&D) players moving on to another game. Green Ronin seems to have done this before 4e was announced. It becomes a might bit harder when most of the people buying your products are loyal to a brand larger than your own.

I personally would like Paizo to make the jump to 4e. I say this because I enjoy their products and I will be making the jump to 4e. I'm not pretending that they will have an easy time making the jump. I just believe that if in the long term they want to build on the success they've already gotten then biting the 4e bullet is the way.

Iain.

I'm not switching to 4e ... in order to do that I'd have to be playing the current version of D&D, which I'm not. While this 3.5e love in happens, I know a lot of people who stopped plying D&D with the edition change. Many of them are looking at 4e as a new start. Many of us just skipped over 3.5 and don't miss it a bit. (Gave us a chance to try some other cool games wholely disconnected from WotC and D&D.) I love the rules changes in Star Wars Saga Edition and I have long professed that Revised Core SWd20 was the best fantasy game I've ever played. I look forward to the wizard doing something other than magic missile and sleep at low levels then hiding until the fight is over. I'm very happy that the writer of Iron Heroes is basically the mover and shaker of D&D 4e.

If the problem is that Paizo won't have access to the resources it needs (read: D&D 4e SRD) then I can very much sympathize and feel Paizo's trepidation. If the problem is Erik and crews moral outrage that Greyhawk and the Great Wheel (both of which overstayed their welcome by two and a half editions) are getting the boot then I wish them well in their job search after D&D 4e comes out.

The silent majority will follow the current edition. I heard all the garbage when stuff was leaking out of WotC when they were working on 3e. Now you all can't dare part with the thing that was to some going to be the end of D&D and the role-playing industry. See how feats ruined D&D and made it into a videogame. See how changing AC to go in the opposite direction demoted Pluto from a planet to a planetoid. Part of me wonders if all the ill stuff from Paizo isn't a byproduct of not being on the dev team or having the inside scoop on the next edition like they did for 3e and 3e Revised. Right now I think Paizo is swerving back and forth across a line between juvenile and suicidal.

If Paizo really wants to make a system for it's adventures and settings then clear the slate entirely. Something derived from the SRD (whatever version) is still going to be last version D&D and not the Pathfinder RPG. Keep the idea of d20 + modifiers >= to a DC, but do everything new from the ground up ala M&M.

That all said, I'll continue to buy the Pathfinder stuff as long as the high standards are kept for art, writing and support materials. I don't really care whether it's for 3.5e or 4e as I don't use it for D&D at all.

Iain, who is not drinking the Paizo Kool-aid(R).

I'd love to see some minis for the iconics and rare monsters.

Iain.