Maybe I'm alone in this but I was thinking of starting or at lest revamping a new game using Pathfinder, so I've dug out a lot of books to look and see about using them in my game. What I began to notice was very odd. 98% of my OGL suff is playable enough, but Pathfinder Classes over power other classes. But they do just fine with Wizards classes that came out in splat books and PHB II.
Examples:
Knight from R&R Excalibur
Archer from 3 Arrows for the King
Mystic from Dragonlance
Wicth from Wicthes Handbook
Shaman from Kingdoms of Kalamar
Partly this is due to the fact that 3PP resoruces can only come from core rules but I was wondering if anyone else noticed this and what a good solution would be as I doubt if these fine works will be updated to Pathfinder, or maybe even exist as PDF's in 2009. I guess I have 3 questions.
1. Was Power Creep a Wizards only thing?
2. Would it make more sense to power down Pathfinder classes or Power up othe classes?
3. What have others done so far in this regards, if anyting?
1. Was Power Creep a Wizards only thing?
2. Would it make more sense to power down Pathfinder classes or Power up othe classes?
3. What have others done so far in this regards, if anyting?
1. Power creep is inherent in any game that releases supplements for various reasons including a natural conservativism right after a new set of rules comes out that makes designers very wary to push the envelope, but recedes with time, and marketing. Also, many gamers seem to perceive anything that works a bit differently as power creep even if it does not turn out in play to be more powerful than usual. They also catch some stuff that actually is more powerful than the old baseline too. Nobody's wrong all the time. :)
2. My plan is to more or less leave the Pathfinder classes as they are in Pathfinder. They're likely to cover 80% or more of my group's likely character concepts. If they turn out to be markedly weaker, I'll do something to bring them up a bit.
3. I haven't implemented any of this yet. One of my current games is long-running, up there in levels, and benefits from many house rules and so is unlikely to be converted wholesale. The other is lower-level and has fewer entrenched house rules so it might get converted.
I think the power-up is the right way: I think that there's more people using wizards' classes than there's people using those other classes. So powering them up to work better with Duskblades and so on means that less people will have to work on updates.
Plus, the wizards classes are strictly off-limit for Paizo, but many, probably even most, of the other classes are open content, so theoretically, they could update them and put them in books.
Finally, wizards will never support Pathfinder (or 3e again), but it's not out of the question for the other companies to go ahead and do Pathfinder versions of their classes. And I think it's a lot more likely that the companies will do such a conversion for Pathfinder than for 4e, due to the GSL.
Finally, wizards will never support Pathfinder (or 3e again), but it's not out of the question for the other companies to go ahead and do Pathfinder versions of their classes. And I think it's a lot more likely that the companies will do such a conversion for Pathfinder than for 4e, due to the GSL.
I'd like to think so KaeYoss but I have my doubts. Not that I think Pathfinder won't be a hit, but my gut tells me that most of the other companies while not supporting 4th, unless they are insane, they will go for there own home systems, whatever else that means I don't think they will re-trace old steps. Moreover as I understand it Wizards is trying to end even the PDF sales of some of the old books. I understand Mongoose for example is thinking of setting something up where you can get the books for free becasue its too expensive to remove the D20 logo on the PDF files. Thats really nice of them and shows some good heart form a good company, but realistically I can't other companies doing that.
But hey maybe you'll be right.
BTW do you or anyone else know why its so expensive to remove the D20 logo from a PDF program. Isn't it just a little bit more complicated then simply hitting delete?
I'd like to think so KaeYoss but I have my doubts. Not that I think Pathfinder won't be a hit, but my gut tells me that most of the other companies while not supporting 4th, unless they are insane, they will go for there own home systems, whatever else that means I don't think they will re-trace old steps.
I don't think so. Unless they want to go away from 3e as it is played as 3e (i.e. do something like True20 or Arcana Evolved with big differences in very basic parts of the game like HP, classes, or ability scores), going for their own 3.75-like system would take time and effort, only to go against Paizo's Pathfinder with their product (and unless they already started, they'd probably lag behind Pathfinder RPG by months).
On the other hand, if they go with Pathfinder, they can just keep using 3.5 and later PF, without the need to make their own system and compete with other 3e inheritors, and can concentrate their efforts on the stuff they're known and loved for by their customers.
Plus, I don't think having many 3e variants (like Pathfinder; True20 and the like doesn't count since they're supposed to provide a different experience from 3e, while Pathfinder wants to improve on the experience) would be good for anyone. It would probably confuse customers too much and further break apart the market.
By uniting under Paizo's banner, they can strengthten their product lines. And Paizo's banner is a good one to unite under, since they won't release a cutthroat license like the GSL, so there's no fear of one day finding out that you can throw away all the stuff you've done in the last couple of years. The worst that can happen is Paizo stopping Pathfinder in its current incarnation before the rest was ready to move on.
And I don't think that will happen. I do think that somewhere down the road, when 3e(-like Pathfinder) has reached the end of its life-cycle, and they have their own shot at a 4th-edition, and since we're talking about Paizo here, I think it will be one that feels like D&D and respect the game's tradition and history.
Moreover as I understand it Wizards is trying to end even the PDF sales of some of the old books. I understand Mongoose for example is thinking of setting something up where you can get the books for free becasue its too expensive to remove the D20 logo on the PDF files.
The d20 license will run out, so everything that adhered to it cannot be sold any more, unless it's converted to OGL.
BTW do you or anyone else know why its so expensive to remove the D20 logo from a PDF program. Isn't it just a little bit more complicated then simply hitting delete?
It's not just getting rid of the logo and replacing the license text with the OGL text. I think that you have to go through the book and change some things there, too. I'm not an expert about the d20 and OGL licenses, but I guess there's some differnces, and the books have to be searched for parts that have to be changed.