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If PFRPG does well, then that's the direction 3.5 goes forward (and also True20
I am puzzled by you including True20 in there - I am not overly familiar with it, but it seems different enough from 3.5 that the success or failure of PF won't have any impact on the direction it takes (though its popularity may be affected somewhat).
Personally, I'm happy to ditch the 3.5 splatbooks altogether. Most of them were rubbish with a few pearls thrown in here and there. Barring financial calamity, I'll buy the Pathfinder rules and probably try to convince my group to switch over. Since I've no interest in 4e, I look at this a good "system reboot" of 3.5 OGL.
Skeld read my mind!
(are you following me?)
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If PFRPG does well, then that's the direction 3.5 goes forward (and also True20I am puzzled by you including True20 in there - I am not overly familiar with it, but it seems different enough from 3.5 that the success or failure of PF won't have any impact on the direction it takes (though its popularity may be affected somewhat).
I just mean that live systems will win out over dead ones, in the end.
I'll admit that I almost never looked at Paizo products before the announcement of the Pathfinder RPG. I had ordered something from Paizo once (to get the freebie huge black with sorcerer for subscribing to Dragon...), but aside from Dragon issues periodically, I didn't really purchase anything from them. When I got the email announcing the Pathfinder RPG, I was overjoyed, because it really did appeal to me - an update to 3.5, in a much more timely manner than the far-too-soon release of 4.0, listening to player input, et al... I was very intrigued.
I've got a copy of the BETA, and I printed up copies of Alpha 2 and 3 as well. We did one playtest of Alpha 3 before we got too busy to return to it, and we had grappling that didn't have me pulling my hair out all over the place - I loved that very much. I never liked 3.5's grapple, and the CMB system is just a much smarter idea overall. I've liked much of the PRPG revisions - half-orcs being more attractive as a race, rogues getting some new toys (though I'm not sure they needed it specifically), fighters getting a few nice things, rangers getting favored terrains, etc. I don't feel much issue letting players have access to my favorite 3.5 supplementary books and rules (scouts, Tome of Battle, incarnum, magic item compendium, etc) with the Beta rule set.
Admittedly, there are a few things that the revision has done that I don't like at all (I'm looking at you Spellcraft-instead-of-Concentration), and some of the changes are unexpected and perhaps not as close to 3.5 as I might have expected coming in... But my wife is currently running Second Darkness and we're playing Pathfinder characters with one of us still using 3.5 feats a bit, and it's been working reasonably well. I've suggested that NPCs need a few extra HP, since they're dying pretty quick, but I don't think that's from our increased power level, really - we've just been pretty fortunate with dice rolls against them so far. I like the new Druid Animal Companion rules that allow me to finally have a great cat at first level (though I'll admit I'd rather see the companions get a bit closer to parity in the final version of the rules), and our Barbarian still hasn't even bothered with her rage since she just murders things with her greatsword without it... but it's pretty much level one characters in overall feel, only with a few extra HP for survivability.
Frankly, I don't understand the statements of "If I have to learn new rules, I might as well just go with 4.0. Perhaps the learning of new rules for either set would be similar, but the feel and overall style of the Pathfinder rules is inherently more appropriate and fun for me than 4.0. Sure, if I'm going to have to learn new rules, I've got lots of choices - but Pathfinder feels like the game I've been playing for years and lends itself to the game style that I'd like. 4.0 feels like a boardgame or Memorperger to me, and the flavor and style of the game is incredibly wrong for how I envision my fantasy games. It also limits and prohibits many of the things I like to see in games. So, if I'm going to have to learn new rules to be able to continue playing anyway, I might as well learn Pathfinder, since it's closer to the game I like to play, I have minor amounts of work to use my existing books and mechanics, and I don't have to read pages upon pages of boring mechanics and illogical rules just to make a game work a certain way that doesn't fit my conception of D&D. So, I guess the opposite is true for me.
Not that I [u]have[/u] to switch to rules that aren't 3.5, but Pathfinder really has me excited about some of its changes, and has me testing out ideas that were proposed by players on the boards that will potentially become houserules for my home campaign.
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Well, I went to the Conception convention in the UK at the end of January, and whilst there I ran 3 Pathfinder Soceity Scenarios (Slave Pits of Absalom, Eye of the Crocodile King and The Third Riddle) and I have to say I had a blast! Previously I had run Silent Tide at IndieCon as well.
I really liked the fact that I was part of a living campaign again.
I missed the boat with Living Greyhawk and so struggled to get a table that would play with a low level character, and the idea of GMing it at the time was not for me (I hadn't run any 3.5 then).
Mark of Heroes (the Eberron living campaign) never really happened - it wasn't as popular in the UK, and the forced level jumps meant I wouldn't have been earning my levels playing only a few scenarios a year.
Living Forgotten Realms is 4th edition which I am still getting to grips with (but looks good, and still seems to be as much an RPG as 3.5 was, plus it has for me a better magic system than 3.5) but the Realms just don't grab me. Reading the 3.0 FR Campaign book was a hard slog that soured me on it and I'll be damned if I am buying the 4th ed version just to play in a living campaign.
I haven't yet had a chance to play in any PFS scenarios, but hopefully if people get to know me as a GM, I will know enough players to make my entry as a player easier.
And then I got to thinking about PFS Season 1 - and the fact that it would switch to the Pathfinder RPG...
I had pretty much decided that PFRPG was not for me (see my posts up thread if you're interested) but I have to say the idea of continuing to GM / play in the PFS living campaign may just be the one thing that makes me change my mind.
I doubt I will use PFRPG to run any 3.5 settings I own (Eberron, Freeport) and I will still pursue 4th ed, but if it means I can play in PFS season 1+ I may just find it within myself to buy the book and read it.
I am sure that will come as a great relief to me home GM who intends to run PFRPG for us as well.
The only thing that might get me to change my mind is if I can find another living campaign that I like - maybe I don't need to know anything about the 4th ed FR to play in LFR and enjoy it? Maybe WOTC will launch an Eberron 4th ed campaign? But until I get to hear about those I am keeping an open mind about PF RPG now.
The Pathfinder Society living campaign is the one thing that has got me excited about Pathfinder RPG again - maybe I shoudl have posted this in the "Still excited about..." thread :)
>I view Pathfinder as a big set of houserules
I find that opinion a bit odd. The vast majority of PFRPG is a restating of the 3.5 OGL rules with some fixes such as :
d6 hit dice for Sorcerers and Wizards. This makes the low level survivability for those classes much better without giving an overwhelming advantage at higher levels.
Sorcerer bloodlines: Fantastic. Once again, it makes a low level character vastly more playable and it gives us more background information for role playing those characters.
Channeling energy: I see this as a nice compromise making a cleric more than the "heal me" guy without resorting to the overwhelmingly bad 4E healing surges mechanic.
CMB: A better and easier mechanic than the 3.5 grapple and we all know that the basic CMB mechanic may change between the beta and the release. I'm using a DC of 12 + CMB instead of 15 + CMB and that seems to work fairly well.
But there is one major reason why I'm still quite happy and interested in Pathfinder:
3.5 is no longer supported at Wizards. I'm not interested in playing 4E where 1st level wizards can cast a spell every single round of combat (no daily spell limits). Casting spells is suppose to be hard. It's suppose to take a lot out of you physically and mentally. In 4E a spell is just a gun with unlimited ammo.
I don't like the 4E healing surges where even a fighter can cast a heal spell on himself. That really changes the dynamic of the game and it completely changes the role playing of the game. The 4E guys will tell you that a healing surge represents a rest. But can you normally heal 1/4 of your hit points simply by resting? And if it's a rest then what's happening when you use a healing surge in combat? A 1/4 of your total hit point heal up in a 6 second round? Sounds like a spell to me.
In 4E saving throws are now just a timer telling you when an effect ends. The whole role playing aspect of a saving throw is gone. The stress of "Am I poisoned?" is gone. Now it's just "How long am I poisoned for? Still poisoned this round? Oh well, better luck next round".
4E just doesn't feel like D&D to me. It's a good system, but it's so different that it's not the system I want to play. I started with the blue box basic set and played most of my games with 1st edition AD&D rules. 3.5 feels like the same game, just more complete and generally easier to play.
So if you want to play a 3.5 OGL game then what are your options? Well, you can buy the increasingly difficult to find 3.5 core rule books. I had a heck of a time finding a 3.5 PHB on EBay and I still don't have a hard cover version. And as time goes by those books will only get more expensive and harder to find. As we try to bring new players into our game the lack of newly printed 3.5 books will become a greater problem.
But with Pathfinder we have a system that is alive and well. We'll have a single book with all the info in it for GMs and players (Wonderful! Try to find info for a critical hit in 3.5. Some of it is in the PHB, some of it is in the DMG on one page and the rest of it in the DMG in a sidebar) AND we have a company producing very high quality modules in that system. As far as I can tell there are far more PFRPG modules available than 4E modules.
So while it's certainly possible to still play a 3.5 game using the original rule books, if you want a living, dynamic, well supported 3.5 game then Pathfinder is your game.
I'm still excited.
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I won't reply to your comments re 4e so as to try to keep this thread on track other than to say I like 4e from what I have seen and once I shifted my paradigm about what hit points mean, I am happy with the healing surges etc and don't consider them spells.
So while it's certainly possible to still play a 3.5 game using the original rule books, if you want a living, dynamic, well supported 3.5 game then Pathfinder is your game.
My only problem with this last statement is your use of the term "well supported 3.5 game" - PF RPG is not 3.5, it is 3.75 or an alternate 4th edition, and that fact makes a hell of a difference to a lot of people.