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The PDF version of this product is not available for sale. Any idea why that is?

Took a break from Legacy of Fire and now running (for the fourth time) my old time favorite Frog God Games module: The Lost City of Barakus. Guess I'm a sucker for sandbox modules ;)

Also recently finished Strange Aeons P1 as a player and we are now moving on to Skulls & Shackles, coz we didn't really liked Strange Aeons. Something that was supposed to be kind of scary and very climatic horror adventure, like your regular CoC session, turned into a B-movie type of horror and a dungeon crawl on top of that (grotesque dungeon crawl to be precise). Another reminder for me that D20 systems aren't good for that type of gameplay.

Correct, it was d20 version of the City of Brass. I mean I can go to the other store and buy these, no problem, but I was also wondering if the aforementioned products were taken down deliberately or by accident, and I figured out it probably won't hurt to report this somewhere.

Hey, I was planning to buy PDF version of this book some time ago, I had it on my wishlist, but I was delying my decision thinking at that time that I didn't really need it all that much. Now I have some extra money to throw at Paizo and I can't find that book anywhere in the store.

There are multiple mentions of this product on the forums, so it's not my memory playing tricks on me. It was there, there are even similar products to it listed on the store. So... what happened? Is this an error or is that product gone for good and I have to buy it directly from the authors (I like to keep all my PDFs in one place though)?

While we're at it, I've also noticed that City of Brass is gone as well. Same publisher...

I didn't had time to read the whole thread, and so it's very likely that this has been said before.

The design problem of rogue class in Pathfinder doesn't come out of D&D 3.5. To some degree it is rules bloat, but this only compounds the real issue, and the real issue being how they've literally nerfed rogue to the ground. Not only it's much easier for everyone to specialize in non class skills, and so perception, stealth and disable device are broadly available to just anyone, but also Trapfinding is not as powerful and unique as it was.

This is from 3.5:
"Trapfinding
Rogues (and only rogues) can use the Search skill to locate traps when the task has a Difficulty Class higher than 20.

Finding a nonmagical trap has a DC of at least 20, or higher if it is well hidden. Finding a magic trap has a DC of 25 + the level of the spell used to create it.

Rogues (and only rogues) can use the Disable Device skill to disarm magic traps. A magic trap generally has a DC of 25 + the level of the spell used to create it."

Just to sum this up:
I remember rogues being generally wanted in just about any party in D&D 3.5. It was also one of the most commonly multiclassed classes along with the fighter. Pathfinder took all of this away and gave subpar options in return.

Post-Tasha 5e rogue is my favorite version of this class amongst all editions of D&D and Pathfinder. It's mobile, it's easy to play, and brings a lot of value to the group for how easy it is to build one. This doesn't mean PF1 rogue cannot be an asset, but it takes a lot more effort to create one.

Why not remove the forums altogether just like WotC did in the past? It clearly makes people even more upset with Paizo. Every time I come here I see only toxic behavior on all sides of whatever debate is going on. I know that in Twitter age of the internet no such thing as meaningful conversation exists and people prefer to lock themselves in ghettos of like-minded people instead of dealing with different opinions. This is exactly what attracts trolls that are just waiting to you know... stir the pot.

I beg you; force the Roll20 dev team to release it on the same day this time around because it's an instant buy for me.

It's often the case that the more customer-friendly companies are not so much employee-friendly. Not sure if it's about lower profit margins (after all, Paizo is giving away for free most of their creative effort), but I think that the unionization is a step in the right direction. It is more likely to improve working conditions there, as well as relations (which includes battling transphobic behavior in workplace and similar issues).

I'm European myself, but I was working there a few times in gamedev (video games industry). It occurred to me that the USA is a land of contrasts - you are either diehard communist or as conservative as it gets. There's almost nothing in between or at least that's what politicians and mass media there want people to believe and the people themselves are very vocal about pretty much everything (often regardless of their background and actual knowledge). I can see why unions are not a thing there.

Whichever way they want to go about this problem, I hope that the working conditions will improve there. It will benefit not only the employees, but all of us as well. After all, products are made better by satisfied workers and I hope that Paizo management understands this.

Language - Out of all the deterministic baggage of ancestries - always seemed like the easiest to fix, very few in their right mind would argue that elves are born with an inherent knowledge of Elven and would still know it even if they were abandoned as an infant in a gnomish village. "Tendency towards XYZ behavior" and inherent mental boosts/penalties were always the trickier side of the equation; considering A. The social and moral implication of these mental conditions and B. There's a very narrow mechanical benefit to knowing X language instead of Y and it may never come into effect in a game either way.

But then again, I've never been in a table with a hardline legal positivist fervorous enough to argue in favor of what's written in the book above any and all logic or author's intentions.

Yeah, I mean we can make this assumption for the general population. Luckily this is a TTRPG, not a cRPG, and you can negotiate anything with your game master. I know I wouldn't ban my players from swapping languages given good explanation.

This is why I don't mind languages tied to ancestries, although I understand it can cause some frustrations in PFS games.

DRD1812 wrote:

Certain preconceptions seem to follow APs. The introductory explanation from 1d4chan serves as a good example. There we learn that modules are, “An accessory to games that companies sell for a gamemaster without the time or creativity to make their own adventure.”

Wow, you were expecting a quality take on anything from 1d4chan?

Taking anything from 1d4chan seriously is weird enough. Most of the content there is satirical in one way or another.

Running Legacy of Fire Chapter II: House of the Beast this month.

We had a long break between first chapter and the second one, which we spent on playing D&D 5 and some OSR games, but we all decided to go back to Pathfinder as it fits our group the best. It's not just about character progression or available options, but the fact it continues the legacy of classic fantasy that D&D was known for up until D&D 3.5. Everything past that feels more like World of Warcraft to us, even D&D 5.0 with its streamlined options and demolished class fantasy for the sake of questionable optimization.

Loved: The idea that you can easily make a single-class character work without having to multiclass in order to be on pair with those that do "dip" into other classes.
Wanted: More Prestige Classes that had some nice concept to them and were worth taking.
Hated: Rogues usually being trap class for most new players (I've introduced hundreds of people into this system and standard Rogue class often was causing some issues). Also PrCs too often were a liability, than an actual option worth taking. What I always liked about PrCs in 3.5 is that they felt like an elite version of the class or elite specialization - something you work towards and reach at later levels.
Will Miss: No a single thing. I will keep playing Pathfinder until the end times. Together with 3.5 it is the GREATEST system ever created, even with all its flaws. I guess nothing will ever come close to this level of official and 3PP support.

Whoa, nice topic. =)

Well, I agree with what Jhaeman said. I like how Pathfinder can be easily integrated into Starfinder, so I would like to have both of these systems (core mechanics) to be even more direct reflections of each other, just to make transistion between them even less painful... Except for axed skill base (since it is harder to mechanically differentiate your character from others and even harder to create a character that is exceptionally specialized at certain tasks) I would gladly welcome most if not all of the core changes that came with Starfinder.

Other than that I would replace classes with their unchained versions, do a bit of balancing here and there and maybe put all of the optional rules like chases, kingdom building and social encounters into one big book, so it is much easier to reference them and I would call that book the new Pathfinder Unchained.

There, my ideal TTRPG.

I think a barbarian rogue is the best combo class for breaking the game too.

Get a level 1 barbarian and 1 in rogue. Charge wizard in the party. Do 3d6 plus 7 damage to a 2d6 flatfooted character. Save yourself YEARS of conversations about how he will Gate you to the plane of water and you'll drown when he gets access to Gate.

Oh, you meant "fixing", not breaking.

This little fix also speeds up gameplay as well and makes it more fun for everyone at the table (well, maybe except that little poor wizard). Imagine no more waiting for ~15 minutes until party's wizard makes his mind about which spell to use and moves all his summons! D:

I’m owner of a hobbyist store at the other end of the world, so a lot of different and sometimes weird people come to play here. There was this DM that at first seemed to be very knowledgeable about Pathfinder, but every now and then he seem to misinterpret rules — always in a way that would suit him best. For example; one of his NPCs had improved trip, very high CMB and was using whip with whirlwind attack. He ruled that he can trip people when they provoke AoO while they are standing from prone position (after being tripped). No argument could sway him and that fight was one of the longest and certainly on of the least interesting I’ve seen.

Whenever there was recruitment going on for someone else's campaign and that guy wished to join, his first question always was if he could buy animals (mostly dogs) while they are still cubs (he argued they would cost half price or something like this) and show up on the first session with fully growned, trained dogs or big cats (as if he bought them few years before and trained them all by himself - it might make some sense, but he didn’t account costs of training and upkeep, because he is one ugly munchkin).

Whenever there was a recruitment rule that players can spend XYZ amount of gold coins on equipment (that was highlighted so it was hard to misinterpret) - he kept coming with self made magic equipment at 50% price reduction. He rarely did pass any recruitment process, but whenever he did, his character was starting overly equipped and with half a dozen of trained dogs and other beasts that he would use to disarm traps (yes, through killing his own pets) and do other silly things with them.

But the most disturbing thing about him was his “fascination” over young girls. There was a slave lord in one of his campaign adventures which had his own harem of little girls, and the talk between them was in very sugestive manner. He also went into very detailed description of the whole scene... I was so appalled when I first heard about it, that I was wondering if I should report this somewhere. In the end I just confronted him and told him that this kind of content is disallowed in our local RPG group. He of course denied it all, but he did change after this little talk.

I have few more stories about this guy as he is a walking D&D meme, but I already made a wall of text, so maybe some other time I’ll post more...

It gets balanced back out by the fact that the DCs are rather high. Max ranks + trained skill made you competent in pathfinder but the math is so tight in starfinder that you almost need a maxed stat and an operative level competence bonus to be relevant with a skill.

Hmm... I hope it really is that way and my mechanic won't get overshadowed by Envoy or Operative in computers and engineering. ;)

I haven't played Starfinder yet (today is my first session), but what struck me pretty quickly was that number of skills got axed (compared to Pathfinder or so it seems - I actually didn't bothered to count them, sorry), while classes retained high number of skill ranks at the same time. You may argue that this is Sci-Fi (or Sci-Fantasy) and nanotechnology makes people more universally capable, but this is also a game. A cooperative game (like all TTRPGs) and what makes cooperative games interesting is when group of different people with different set of skills work together towards common goal.

I'm saying this, because one of the players found out few days ago that his character (let's call him wannabe Han Solo) is not the only pilot in the crew. In fact everyone is almost equally good pilot, with slight differences being set by dexterity mod.

On the other hand my wife is playing as Envoy with high Cha and Int. I've made mechanic and I've noticed that we too share a lot of common skills -- skills that I thought would be more exclusive to mechanic class.

Am I the only one being bothered by this? I know that many people want to play Sci-Fi Super Heroes, just like some people want exactly this (just a fantasy version) in Pathfinder, but I never believed that having more of everything (or being universally good) transists to a better gaming experience in Roleplaying Games. In other words it seems almost impossible to roleplay the best pilot in the galaxy when that phlegmatic diplomat behind you is almost equally good at it.

What are your thoughts about it?

That's an horrible quote, especially if you use it for a game where the bard outfight and outrogue the rogue at the same time.

Again; in the battle game that could matter, but since it is a role playing game and everyone is working towards common goal you can pick rogue and be valuable at the same time. It all depends on team composition.

At the same time in 5e everything that rogue does can be done by virtually any other class. Not even opening locks is this class theme and that is supposed to be cooperative game. Back in AD&D rogue was even worse and people didn’t complain, because without internet no one was concerned about flavor of the month build. Quote is perfect and your reaction to it is perfect example of what role playing community has become.

@Gorbacz

Yeah, pie is getting bigger like it historically did every time new D&D edition came out. Hobby is getting more mainstream, that’s true and just like with video games you’ve mentioned - there is a place for both casual and hardcore gamers. It’s hard to make a game that caters to both aforementioned groups of players, but if Paizo manages to pull that off with PFRPG 2 Ed then good for them. Otherwise they’ll alienate one group over the other and they will end up with maybe slightly bigger market share but nothing really to contest current leader.

Yeah, maybe I’ve got carried away a little under time pressure, but Gorbacz did argue that complexity is the main reason Pathfinder was beaten by D&D 5e. He is ignoring the fact that the game was build on 20 years old chassis, which after all these years some people might get bored of and hence they move on. Also brand recognition and marketing means that instead of going to Runequest, C&C or WFRP 4ed, they’ll go to D&D 5 which is recognized by many as a much better system than 4e.

Also I want to talk a little about so called trap options. I really believe that if any rules system doesn’t present you with bad options then there are no real options to begin with. Let me just quote one blog post I totally agree with (it was about 3E, but it also applies to Pathfinder):

“The biggest issue for many people has been balance between classes. My response to that is simple; if you’re more concerned with every character being equal in a fight, you’re not looking for a roleplaying game; you’re looking for a battle game, and there are plenty of those. Third edition rightly focused on creating interesting characters of diverse talents. If your bard isn’t as good in a fight as a barbarian, guess what? He’s a bard! His time to shine is in social situations, not combat.”

So yeah, picking rogue might not be the best idea if you picture yourself as Altair from Assassin’s Creed, but it is a class of many talents and it can shine in many situations.

Oh, you've just made a circular argument, tee hee. PF1 could beat 4e *despite* WotC brand recognition and marketing but PF2 will *never* beat 5e *because* WotC brand recognition and marketing?

It won't beat 5e, because WotC did much better job this time. This + brand recognition and marketing. I thought it was pretty obvious.

Let's savage apart *cough* politely address your second post while at it because you're wrestling with a pig in the mud and only now finding out that I like it.

Don't worry, this feeling is mutual, Mr. Gorbacz.

O hai "my game is more sophisticated than yours" elitism. That'll get you far.

There is room for "more sophisticated games" and elitism. Look up Games Workshop or even MtG. Same thing with TTRPGs - AD&D was way more complicated than Red Box, it didn't sell as well, but it did had huge impact and was successful.

"Needs at least one experienced player in order to fully enjoy the game" is a rather crap entry bar these days.

What kind of entry bar? D20 had been played for almost 20 years by now.

You could at least make up your mind as to what you think about 4e.

Let me get it straight. It's a pretty good game, but terrible Dungeons & Dragons. It was so terrible for WotC that this "more sophesticated" game for "elitist" players called Pathfinder had become more popular and remember that Pathfinder never was an easy game, even back when it was just CRB. 90% of its complexity lies within core rules, not splatbooks.

Also AFAIK Pathfinder was outselling D&D 4e in 2011, so it was like 3 years after release and I believe they've stopped their product cycle in 2012 or not long after that, because they were already working on new edition.

Aaand yet Pathfinder outsold a game called Dungeons & Dragons for a couple of years. Seems like you need to make up your mind regarding how important brand recognition is, because in one place you say that you could take a random game, call it D&D and outsell PF while in fact PF did outsell a game called D&D.

You probably have no idea what Castles & Crusades is. It was a game that Gygax said it would be AD&D 3e if he was still in charge. Nevertheless the game is waaaaaaay less popular than both Pathfinder and Dungeons & Dragons 4e. The reason is simple - it was made by small, privately owned company that had a small, but loyal fanbase. Funny thing is; C&C is very similar to D&C 5e with its lightweight design. Go look it up, you'll be suprised how familiar this game will be to you after playing Pathfinder and D&D 5e.

Pathfinder was successful, because people were disappointed with 4e. It was compatible with 3.5, which was still hugely popular back then, so people that invested money into 3.5 rolled with it.

Seems to me like you're trying very hard to build the argument without admitting that 5e is a solid game. Face it cowboy, it is a very solid game. It's superior to PF1, because the areas where PF1 is better (more player-side options, better adventure/setting support) are outweighed by PF1's crippling weaknesses compared to 5e, namely the entry bar, the bloat, the quagmire of trap options and the mind-numbing awkwardness of simulationist areas of the ruleset.

Yes, it is a very thought-out game. It caters to a lot of tastes and the community around it is huge. It's "everyone's second favorite edition" for a reason. It's like pop music; a game made for crowds. But like I've said; far from excellent, at least from my point of view.

And how is PF2 going to win back first spot, I have no idea. Please enlighten me, because going right into 5e's territory is a suicidal mission, especially when the new design kinda... dishearten some of Pathfinder's loyal fans.

For starters, if that was true, there would be a sound RPG industry because people wouldn't play anything besides D&D. Yet there is a whole slew of successful RPGs that ain't D&D. Heck, there are dozens of successful fantasy heartbreaker RPGs that ain't D&D. Warhammer. DSA. Runequest. Conan. Exalted.

At least 50% of the market is owned by WotC and Paizo.

I've runed all of the games you've mentioned and many more. Some of them (like the newest Runequest) are exceptionally good, yet their market-share pales in comparsion to D&D. Most people start with D&D and most of them stay with D&D, this might not be the case in every country, but that's how it is in most of the so called Western World. Yes, there are plenty of players playing other games (and most of them played D&D at one point), but that doesn't change the fact that WotC has almost monopoly on fantasy gaming in TTRPGs.

Yep, I get it, you don't like 5e and are trying very hard to say that it's a game that's all about marketing and brand recognition and Paizo should just keep on trucking because 5e's quality doesn't matter. Except, it does, and it's just good enough to blow PF1 apart.

I actually DM 5e alongside Pathfinder. It's not my favorite edition, but it is good enough. I'm just saying that going into 5e's territory is a suicidal mission and I don't feel convinced by your arguments.

True, there is a competition between TTRPGs to some extend, but not every fantasy TTRPG caters to the same group of people that D&D 5e does. PFRPG in some way does that, because it grew out on D&D roots, but Pathfinder niche is/was complex rule system that has more to do with simulationist nature of gameplay rather than narrationist -- something that 5E tries to balance and it does that well. I'm not entirely sure if Paizo wants to keep it that way (that is - keeping its niche), although after reading some of the designers' posts I'm pretty sure they don't want to go into D&D 5's territory (which is a good thing) and this is what I mean by direct competition. They simply can't win, no matter what they do. They won't win back most of the players that they've lost, because many of these players were casual to begin with and D&D 5e is heaven for all types of casuals and they don't really need any new edition or rule system -- they'll stay with 5e for as long as it is supported and some even longer.

Look, the reason why Pathfinder took over D&D 4 was very simple. WotC didn't listen to their customers, they've made big marketting failure by advertising that system as a direct update over D&D 3.5, which it had very little to do with. Although the rules weren't bad, they've presented them in a way that the game seemed as if it had very little to do with Role Playing part of RPG and when they did fix this with DMG 2 it was already too late. WotC after 4e had such a bad opinion that when they've announced 5e and public tests many were reluctant to even look at them.

5e is far from excellent. In fact I know many Fantasy TTRPGs that are better than both Pathfinder or D&D 5e. Hell, you could even take Castles & Crusades, rebrand it as Dungeons & Dragons and it would out-sell Pathfinder. Dungeons & Dragons is a brand that has been most popular TTRPG for almost all of its 45 years of existance and it has influenced computer games, books and pop culture so much that as long as they will listien to their fans they will continue to be TOP 1. Pathfinder was TOP 1 TTRPG for a short time and it is just an exception to the rule. It says more about how bad 4e is rather than how good Pathfinder is.

This is the reason why I don't buy arguments like -- let's do what 5e did, give it some Pathfinder flavour and we will Make Pathfinder Great Again!

A game that requires a group of new players to spend X hours researching trap options AND doesn't even tell them that - is a bad backbone of your business if your biggest competition is a game which you can pick up and make your character without worrying about shooting yourself in the foot with stuff like setting out to play a or a multiclass Monk/Druid/Rogue.

New players won't even look at Pathfinder regardless of how easy or complicated it is. To most TTRPG == D&D. It has been entry point to the hobby for generations now and it will continue to be. The best thing Paizo can do is to make sure that players that grow tired of D&D 5 will come to them. Hopefully PFRPG 2e will meet their needs.

Daw wrote:

You all do recognize that what is a "trap" feat or what is a "must have" feat can vary a lot by playstyle, right? Having imperfect characters is often not the end of the world, and retraining exists when something doesn't suit. Throwing this all on the GMs shoulders as a judgement against them is hardly fair or even realistic. In my experience different tables tend to focus on different things, and pretty much ignore well over half of the content, and the game supports thi fairly well. As. Long. As. Everyone. Is. On. The. Same. Page.

If you want to minimize severe variations in playstyle, pathfinder may have gotten too big for you, if not, maybe not. Whatever your preference, you are just talking preference. At this point you aren't going to be finding your preference become obsolete anytime soon.

You don't have to be right, you aren't going to lose anything.

A Rogue with Power Attack is not a playstyle. That's an error (except for some corner cases of hyper specialised builds). The game doesn't tell you that it's an error.

A Rogue/Monk or a Druid/Sorcerer mutliclass *should* have been a playstyle ... but it's a trap. You're not "being imperfect", you're a dead weight and a liability for other people at the table.

Retraining is not part of core rules. So there's that.

The game should be standardised to a point where you can pick the core rulebook and build a viable character without having, perfectly plausible, multiclass Rogue/Monk/Sorcerer (a student at a monastery of magical arts turned temple thief) incredibly BAD at pretty much anything compared to a perfectly plausible archer Ranger come level 5 or so.

It has been almost two decades since 3E came out, that laid foundation for 3.5 and Pathfinder. After all this time any Pathfinder group you point at will have at least one experienced player that will be able to help others build their characters. Pathfinder was successful because 3.5 was successful, without it and OGL Paizo wouldn’t be top dog on the market that it is today. Also, Pathfinder was always considered advanced game system for d20 veterans, not so inclusive like some rules-light games out there, but nonetheless successful. And there is nothing bad about it; there are games and hobbies out there that cater to people with more sophisticated tastes and those people play Pathfinder. It’s not the best game for fresh RPG groups or people that last time played 30 or 40 years ago, but it is a good game for experienced D&D players that are looking for more - more of everything.

I personally believe you are overly obsessed with 5e. You mention this system in every argument, almost every post, but Pathfinder was never made to compate with 5e. It did compete with 4e and it has won that battle, but after 11 years (20 years if you are like me here since 3E) it starts to show its age. This and the fact that Paizo officially stopped supporting 1E (in a way that they won’t produce any new material) means that the sales are now much lower. On top of that all rules are free to use due to OGL and no one needs to pay Paizo anything in order to play this game.

I can also tell you that no matter what they do, PFRPG 2ed will be less successful than D&D 5, even if it is better game by all degrees. Reason for that is simple; it’s called marketing and brand recognition. Paizo knows this and they don’t want to compete with D&D 5 as they’ve said on numerous occasions. Pathfinder 2 will be to D&D 5 what AD&D was to Basic D&D - less popular, but more advanced game system for people with more sophisticated tastes.

You also mention often splatbook release schedule, saying that 5e’s way of doing is so much better than PF’s and this reflects on system’s popularity (or so I understand it that way). You somehow forget that there are hundreds of RPG systems out there, both complex and rules light with release schedules similar to 5e, but not a single one of them is even half as popular as D&D is. WotC can do this, because they have tremendous (on industry scale) amount of money that they can pump into marketing and they already have brand recognition on top of that. If Paizo was following same release scheme then they would probably earn less and it wouldn’t make their game more popular or better in any way.

But hey... of all top 3 RPG titles out there two belong to Paizo and that’s quite impressive if you ask me. Also both run on almost 20 years old engine that had been broken by thousands of players in the past. ;)

While I still prefer a game a (houseruled pathfinder) to 5e, I have the feeling that the rate of first time players that felt disappointed with their characters is way lower in 5e than in PF.

True, but it is also true that the more you play RPGs the more "demanding" you become. In 5e it is so hard to make underpowered character that there are almost no bad choices, beside some obvious stuff like dumping all your phisical attributes for martial classes etc. It has gone to the point that a group of newcomers to 5e can beat the crap out of encounters that would normally pose a threat to even experienced players in Pathfinder.

I often run games for newcomers; both Pathfinder and 5e. D&D is easy to DM and easy to get into for new players, while PF at the same time is significatly harder, but people grasp basic rules fairly easily too. I've noticed that on average Pathfinder is waaaay more deadly than 5e across almost all ALL levels, unless you have some seriously optimized characters in Pathfinder, which is usually not the case with new players. You can still make more impactful characters in Pathfinder, but that often requires some level of system mastery.

Quiet recently I had a pretty good comparsion between two groups playing the same adventure in two different systems (PFRPG & D&D 5e). At level three both groups of five players decided to engage Aboleth in its lair without getting any outside help. 5e group was made of paladin (ancient oath), monk, wizard (diviner), thief and fighter(arcane archer), while Pathfinder group was made of two fighters (one was 2h-weapon fighter that often kept critting for over 50 damage, the other one was build around combat maneouvers and reach fighting), wizard (conjurer <- very experienced PF player), warpriest and inquisitor (made to be flying archer).

Result? 5e group managed to kill aboleth with their paladin seriously wounded, while PF group had to evacuate in order to save themselves from TPK. One guy died in that group (2h-weapon user), the other was seriously injured. Aboleth almost died as well, but when he retreated into the water then they couldn't really reach him, while he still could engage them with his spells and abilities. Funny thing is that in 5e Aboleth is CR10 and he had access to legendary and lair abilities, while in PF it is only CR7. That being said, I have to admit that 5e group had more luck on dices, especially when it came to saving throws.

So yeah... This is how I see 5e. Competetive heroes from very beginning to the point that beyond level 1 it is no more a game from zero to hero. Almost every choice is optimal (some less, some more) to the point that there is no fun in leveling for me, as I don't really see a challenge in building your dream character. Some people like it this simple, but I don't. 5e to me is like POP music; it may be unimaginitive, but most people seem to enjoy it.

Given how big and loyal Pathfinder 1ed’s playerbase is, there will be more quality 3PP materials produced even after Paizo stops supporting their most successful tabletop RPG. I hope that Frog God Games will still make awesome adventures for Pathfinder 1 ed. They have some of the best sandbox adventures I’ve seen and I have DMed most (if not all) of the legendary D&D modules that are famous for their sandbox gameplay.