Identifying Problems before discussing alternatives

[Zinegata]

After reading the first Design Focus thread, it made me wonder: Shouldn't we first identify the biggest problems we'd like solved before discussing the alternatives?

Just a thought and a suggestion - maybe the next Design Focus thread should focus on asking people what they liked or didn't like about the previous edition, rather than jumping the gun and immediately asking people what alternative they'd prefer :)

[Bradford Ferguson]

Seems like you are assuming that the crowd of Paizo fans is in control of this process when in reality it is Paizo that is in control of the process. I DO agree that somehow they need to figure out if a vast majority LIKES something (but just isn't vocal enough of their extreme like) before getting rid of it.

One of Paizo's overriding goals is for 3.5 compatibility. I think they realize that the turning on and off of combat feats and the big difference in learned skills... these things would cause issues with compatibility, so they are changing them. It's good to see that Paizo is agile in this process.

The change to make the core classes have the power of a character with prestige classes and have more consistent power through the life of the character (more power earlier and more power later which is needed by the system). So for compatibility, I think people would be urged to be single class Pathfinder, or use characters with a reasonable PrC build for non-Pathfinder characters.