But seriously, I think the bloat fear comes from the ridonculous amount of crap that WotC produced during the years being they Prestige Classes (unecessary ones), feats (OP ones) and spells and whatnot ... that brought tears to my eyes, seriously...
Bloat is not the real problem - or really a problem - support failure and power increases are.
But seriously, I think the bloat fear comes from the ridonculous amount of crap that WotC produced during the years being they Prestige Classes (unecessary ones), feats (OP ones) and spells and whatnot ... that brought tears to my eyes, seriously...Bloat is not the real problem - or really a problem - support failure and power increases are.
Exactly my point, I don't mind the extra stuff so much, sometimes I don't agree with, but what can I do?
My MAIN concern is balance, if it's balanced, it's cool, and that's the whole beef I had with 3.0 and 3.5, it was uther crap for the most part, and if the DM and players didn't have the decency to try and hold the game together, it would just become a meaningless carnage... and I'm not even gonna talk about the Arms race that started... geez... so sad...
It says 782 results at the bottom, and Excel agreed when I copypastaed it.
Filter duplicates.
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I found another page if it is right, it lists them by book. So for 3.0 DnD they had 227 PrC's. Then 540 PrC's for 3.5, some of them are of course updates for the 3.0 classes. This also doesn't count the Dungeon or Dragon Mag ones, just the ones from the books.
I don't know how accurate the page is, but I imagine fairly close.
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Even if fully half of them are duplicates, it's still utterly ridiculous.It says 782 results at the bottom, and Excel agreed when I copypastaed it.Filter duplicates.
I would say it is a lot less than half, since it didn't look like all of the 3.0 ones got updated and there was already over 500 3.5 ones. So if I had to guess not counting updates I bet there is over 600 PrC's over the life of 3.x DnD. What surprised me was the sheer number for 3.0. I mean wasn't that only like 2 or 2.5 years of time? And to have 227+(not counting mags) is a lot.
I would say it is a lot less than half, since it didn't look like all of the 3.0 ones got updated and there was already over 500 3.5 ones. So if I had to guess not counting updates I bet there is over 600 PrC's over the life of 3.x DnD. What surprised me was the sheer number for 3.0. I mean wasn't that only like 2 or 2.5 years of time? And to have 227+(not counting mags) is a lot.Even if fully half of them are duplicates, it's still utterly ridiculous.It says 782 results at the bottom, and Excel agreed when I copypastaed it.Filter duplicates.
Well they were a RPG company during that time and so they had to put out content to stay in business. Obviously people were buying them, that is why they continued to make them. I mean, what did anyone want them to do? Fire half their staff? Go out of business? Stop the presses? That is irrational talk.
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I would say it is a lot less than half, since it didn't look like all of the 3.0 ones got updated and there was already over 500 3.5 ones. So if I had to guess not counting updates I bet there is over 600 PrC's over the life of 3.x DnD. What surprised me was the sheer number for 3.0. I mean wasn't that only like 2 or 2.5 years of time? And to have 227+(not counting mags) is a lot.Even if fully half of them are duplicates, it's still utterly ridiculous.It says 782 results at the bottom, and Excel agreed when I copypastaed it.Filter duplicates.Well they were a RPG company during that time and so they had to put out content to stay in business. Obviously people were buying them, that is why they continued to make them. I mean, what did anyone want them to do? Fire half their staff? Go out of business? Stop the presses? That is irrational talk.
** spoiler omitted **
Oh I know and yes I read the spoiler. I was just surprised so much had come out for 3.0 I mean i knew a lot of PrC's over the life of 3.x had come out. I was just a bit surprised by how much. I personally wasn't expecting those numbers.
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I'm not going to weigh in on the topic at hand, but I wanted to say that I am shocked sometimes at how vitriolic posters can be towards the creative staff at Paizo.
Now, I understand that this is the internet, and it's a long-standing tradition that people should act with open hostility towards one another without fear of consequences.
That said, I assume that if you're spending time here and engaging in these debates it's because you love Pathfinder passionately and enjoy the sense of community that a place like this allows.
I think we're especially blessed that everyone in the company frequents these boards, from the CEO to the individual creators. These are very busy people who have dedicated their lives to creating something that we love. We may not necessarily agree with every creative decision that they make, and as customers I believe we should express our concerns.
However, there are certain things that we should keep in mind. The staff at Paizo are real people who clearly care deeply about their work. As such, I cannot imagine that they do not emotionally respond to hateful attacks from their fan base. Does it really make you feel better knowing that your spiteful comments are likely to worsen the day of the Paizo staff, the very people who created the game you care so deeply about?
A dog can be kicked only so many times before it begins to shy away from its master. Likewise, if we as a community continue to verbally abuse the fine folks at Paizo they will eventually choose to disengage in the open dialogue here that we've come to enjoy.
I don't want to discourage people from giving Paizo feedback on their business decisions. Instead, I'd like to encourage each of you to consider the tone of your post before you hit the submit button. Doesn't the Paizo staff deserve at least that much respect?
I don't want to discourage people from giving Paizo feedback on their business decisions. Instead, I'd like to encourage each of you to consider the tone of your post before you hit the submit button. Doesn't the Paizo staff deserve at least that much respect?
I would suggest this is appropriate when commenting to our fellow posters as well as when commenting to the staff directly.
Frankly, I personally can't remember any staff really being attacked in this thread (being critical of business choices is not the same as being critical of the people), but yes, be respectful of one another.
There were about 150 prestige classes released between Aug 2003 and December 2004. And there were 41 base/alternate classes done(plus the 11 core and the 5 NPC).
So maybe not too much bloat from Paizo.
But seriously, I think the bloat fear comes from the ridonculous amount of crap that WotC produced during the years being they Prestige Classes (unecessary ones), feats (OP ones) and spells and whatnot ... that brought tears to my eyes, seriously...Bloat is not the real problem - or really a problem - support failure and power increases are.Exactly my point, I don't mind the extra stuff so much, sometimes I don't agree with, but what can I do?
My MAIN concern is balance, if it's balanced, it's cool, and that's the whole beef I had with 3.0 and 3.5, it was uther crap for the most part, and if the DM and players didn't have the decency to try and hold the game together, it would just become a meaningless carnage... and I'm not even gonna talk about the Arms race that started... geez... so sad...
I might point out that during the early design phases, the developers made it clear that when "balance" and "fun" butted heads, that "fun" would win out. That doesn't mean they don't care about balance, but I wouldn't hang my evaluation solely on ideas of balance, you might end up being disappointed. Now, maybe the design goals have changed and balance wins out now, I have no idea what their view is now.
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Frankly, I personally can't remember any staff really being attacked in this thread (being critical of business choices is not the same as being critical of the people), but yes, be respectful of one another.
Perhaps I should've been clearer. I meant to suggest that people not only be respectful of the creators, but their work as well. There are more tactful ways to discuss the design decisions of Paizo than what has been shown on this thread and elsewhere on these messageboards. Disagreements, criticisms, and critique all have their place, but I believe we should try to be civil with the creators (and, yes, with each other).
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Tambryn why do you have to act like this when someone says something that you don't agree with? It does boil down to the fact if you do not like it you don't have to buy it. The fact that you are trying to make change for the better in your opinion are wiped out when making comments like the one above. Some people actually DO worry about their own home game and that is the true import to them and them alone. Why is this a problem for you? You alone can not make a change to Paizo and the way they publish or choose to publish their rules and how many classes they think they should release and the timeline as to when they do. As much as you like to think that you can, all you can do is to sway others opinions to your way of thinking. Acting like the above... gets you no where in that regard other then showing the ones who don't believe the way you do that you are not acting very mature and thinking that the internet is a place where a bunch of people come and say what ever they want and hide behind the cloak of anonymity.I agree, that would work, for someone whose only concern was for their home game.
As a side note, a small point of curiosity for me, did you read this thread before posting?
Tam
I regret that you read that as an attack on Blackerose. I can assure you though, that it was not. Their post had the tone, to me, of someone who had not read the thread and thereby hadn't had the opportunity to notice that the exact same point had been made over thirty* other times. Wanting to know whether I was wrong or not, I asked.
What seems to keep being skipped is that I never once said anything about not buying the book. I will buy the book for a few reasons. I like the classes. I will have a Ninja in my PFS game this weekend and I am looking forward to it. I am eager to see what is in the book besides these three classes. I support Paizo. It would take a serious blunder on their behalf for me to completely write a book off. I also hope that other people that are assuming the worst about the book because of the inclusion of these classes will at least give it a chance.
My concern is not about my gaming group. I, as the GM, have a always had veto ability at my table and this book will not change that. I will allow the classes in my game. One of my players has already expressed his interest in playing a gnome gunslinger, sweet. My concern has nothing to do with whether the classes are cool or not, or necessary. Paizo has not, to date, published a book that I did not want to purchase. My fear is that, if they follow WOTC's example, they might publish such a book in the future.
Most of this is moot now, because I still trust Paizo and Vic and Jason have reverified that that trust is well placed.
My concern is for my hobby and Pathfinder in the future.
Tam
*please note that "thirty" is an estimate. It's probably more.
Chief Creative Officer, Publisher
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Ok, ok, ok. There are obviously a lot of strong feelings on this issue, and I appreciate that most of them have been expressed in a relatively respectful way. We all care deeply about the game or else we wouldn't come here to talk about it with each other (and in the case of myself and the staff, we wouldn't put so much damn work into it).
So one thing I think it's important to remember when conversations about the direction of the game get heated is that we're all essentially in this together. Our job as custodians of the Pathfinder game is to provide enough new and exciting content to keep folks interested, but not so much that the game starts to lose focus and people start dropping it in favor of something else.
The magus, in Ultimate Magic, was intended to be the final "base class" for a good long while. That said, we decided to do Ultimate Combat after Ultimate Magic, and we knew that fans of martial characters might feel a bit ripped off if they did not get a shiny and special new class in "their" book, so we decided to take a look at other core fantasy concepts that we thought deserved a place in the rulebooks (as opposed to sequestered away in a Pathfinder Campaign setting book, or something).
The ninja and the samurai are a great example of this. While at first blush you might say that they belong in an "oriental adventures" style book, I've never been fully comfortable with that. Take him or leave him, the monk has been a part of the core rules of the game since the 1970s, and I for one appreciate his inclusion because it's a nice reminder that the game can be "bigger" than simply Medieval knights in shining armor and wizards patterned off of Merlin or Gandalf. Not that there's anything wrong with those concepts, but I personally appreciate that the "scope" of the core rules allows for some more exotic possibilities.
Frankly, we covered most of those possibilities in the Advanced Players Guide. The cavalier, witch, and alchemist have always been in the "second rung" of classes for the game, going back to Unearthed Arcana or popular third party AD&D supplements like the old "Compleat Adventurer" book or any number of Dragon magazine articles. The witch was done up in Dragon a half-dozen times, it was an example of a "build your own class" in second edition, and snuck in (sort of) to 3rd edition in its own way.
The inquisitor owes its existence largely to Solomon Kane, whom we all really like around here, and it also sort of fits the "bounty hunter" character type. The oracle was created largely to fill a mechanical niche (spontaneous caster), but also allowed us to experiment with some thematic ideas that we felt the game didn't handle too well (pantheistic religions, ancient mystery cults, etc.). The summoner is probably the class most influenced by post-AD&D culture, which is to say modern manga and anime, in particular Pokemon or any type of "I've got a magical buddy" sort of hero from a variety of sources.
So the APG basically left us covered. The fighter/magic-user/basic "elf"/Elric archetype remained a bit of a proud nail, even after the APG. I don't believe that the post-1999 game has ever handled this concept particularly well, as multiclassing usually brings with it enough crippling disadvantages to make the character something short of what you imagined when you sat down to roll him up. So that's how the magus got into Ultimate Magic.
Which brings us to Ultimate Combat. I think the sword-swingers out there might feel a bit cheated if they didn't get something meaty like the magus in "their book," so we decided on the ninja and samurai, two classes people have been asking for since the beginning of the Pathfinder playtest. We didn't want to lock them away in a purely "optional" book like "Asian Adventures," so they seemed a good inclusion here. We've always wanted to put some good design time into firearms (they are, after all, a minor-but-intriguing part of our campaign setting and lots of people's home campaigns), so the gunslinger began to take form as part of that overall process.
But we're conscious about the dangers of class bloat and know a lot of folks are justifiably worried about it, which is why we experimented with making these guys "alternate classes" a la the anti-paladin. These classes are, as you know, currently in playtest, and they will likely change a bit more before they hit their final form.
I appreciate that the 6 new classes in the APG and the 1 new class in Ultimate Magic and the 3 quasi-classes in Ultimate Combat are, for some people, a cause for concern. That's basically 10 new classes in a little more than a year. If we replicate that pace going forward, that's going to result in something like 40 classes in very short order.
Except that we have no intention of doing that.
I can appreciate that it's difficult for some of you to simply take our word for it, but as Vic and James have already said in this thread, we have no current plans for new base classes in the next several hardcover releases. We _do_ have plans for lots of other cool stuff, but we feel that we've covered our bases pretty well up to this point, and we aren't planning to fill 2011-2012 with the same rate of new classes as we released this year.
Again, I know that "trust me" isn't a phrase with a ton of currency on the internet, but I urge you to consider how we have treated prestige classes to date in the Pathfinder system. We frankly haven't done hardly any of them relative to 3.0 or 3.5, and neither Ultimate Magic nor Ultimate Combat contains a single one of them.
One of our core goals with the Pathfinder system was to make all classes playable through all 20 levels of play. A lot of neat character concepts in previous editions were essentially locked into prestige classes, and the wide variety of the things (and the crazy disparity in their rules balance) encouraged a lot of one-level dipping between associated classes simply to gun up power levels. Some of the late-era 3.5 game-destroyer characters I saw or heard about, I couldn't even figure out what the character concept was other than "wring the greatest advantage out of the rules without regard to much of anything else." We very much want to avoid that sort of situation in Pathfinder, and I think we've done a respectable job to date trying to prevent prestige class bloat (largely through the introduction of archetypes and making the base classes themselves more interesting at all levels of play).
That should, in some ways, show you how we plan to handle new base classes. We know too many of them will wreck the game, so we intend to be very careful about how they are introduced.
I'm not going to say that there will _never_ be new base classes for Pathfinder. At some point we will probably do something with psionics, and I could see a book based on that including one or more classes. I'd personally love to see a "mad scientist" type class (although the alchemist frankly comes pretty close to what I'm looking for), but none of this stuff is on the near horizon of our scheduling, so I don't think anyone should get too worried about them, because they've not yet happened and they may never happen.
Which brings us to today. Why load up all of the base classes in the first couple years of the game? The main reason is to avoid "orphan" classes that we publish once and then never, ever support in the future. I've seen that sort of design decision inflict many, many games, and it always leaves the poor bastard playing a class from Book 9 with significantly fewer options and possibilities than the guy playing a character from Book 1 or even Book 3.
We learned a lesson from the APG in that we probably should have included support for the new classes (in the form of archetypes) in the same book in which we presented the classes themselves. Ultimate Magic, as an example, includes not just archetypes and cool new rules options for all of the game's spellcasting classes, but also a couple of archetypes for the magus, introduced elsewhere in the same book. I don't have the outline in front of me at the moment, but I believe the magus also gets a brief treatment in Ultimate Combat, along with most of the other classes in the game with an element of martial ability to them.
The sooner we get the main classes of the game into the rulebooks, the easier it will be for us to consider those classes when we make more books in the future. I don't want to leave any of the classes behind. That's really tricky if a given class comes out 6 years after all of the books that include general class support material. So we've included them in the APG and the two Ultimate books we've announced so far.
So yeah, the pace has been a bit strong up front (though arguably far less aggressive than in previous versions of the game from other publishers), and that has been by design to get all of the important conceptual stuff out and in the hands of players so that we can support those classes as we move forward with the game.
There is still time to influence the design of the ninja, samurai, and gunslinger via posting to the playtest forums. And if you're still concerned about class bloat, we get it. We share your concern and are doing what we can to make sure it doesn't happen, or that its impact is not destructive to your campaigns (or, frankly, to the Pathfinder game itself).
Everyone's going to have a slightly different line in terms of how much is too much, but we're going to do our best to satisfy the largest number of gamers we can as carefully as we can.
So far I think our track record is pretty good, and while I understand some of the trepidation posted here, I don't see a lot of reason to be worried about further escalation in the products we have planned for the immediate future. Once these books are published and out there in your hands, I hope (and, to a large degree, trust) that you will feel the same.
Thanks,
Erik Mona
Publisher
Paizo Publishing
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Many comforting things.
Thank you Erik. There are a few reasons why I love you guys and support you as much as I do. The main reason though is exemplified in your post. I honestly feel that you guys are the greatest gaming company ever and I look forward to supporting you and enjoying your products for many years to come.
Tam
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Those of you that think the core rulebook and bestiary are the only books you should need to run a game, why are you on the forums? Why log on to the Paizo website? You have what you need already.
This "bloat" crap is stupid. Use it or don't. Just because you're terrified of some perceived overflow of content doesn't mean it's going to be put on hold indefinitely just because you want it to.
I am so enamored with Paizo's methods of introducing new material, I wouldn't give a damn if they released a Circus Performer base class in my long-awaited "Laser Swords and Starships" supplement. I can ignore that crap and get on with the material that I do want (namely the laser swords and NOT-force powers).
Grow a pair and tell your players "No, this book's classes are off-limits because I don't like them." I told my players they couldn't be wizards unless they wanted to be brain-washed automatons, and that if they chose to be sorcerers, they'd be hunted down or watched eternally by epic-level scryers who wanted to dissect them and use them for experiments. They didn't like that at first. "But it's the CORE RULEBOOK! ...! This is blasphemy!" But guess what, I'm the DM, and that's part of my setting. Now, they're fine with it.
Seeing this playtest has at least half of my players on board for an Asian inspired campaign, and I didn't even propose the idea. New rules in the books opened that up to them.
Every time a playtest has come up on this forum since I started haunting the place, there are people that come out and tell Paizo just how crazy they are for coming up with [this thing] and [that thing] doesn't fit what I think it should be. "Shut down the presses because you're wrong, Paizo." There is one sane person for every five that cry out "broken" or "Paizo's going down the crapper."
And then the book is released. A month later we're writing about advice on builds, and everything is quasi-normal. Nobody is complaining "I have TOO MANY OPTIONS! I quit!"
Someone, for the love of all that is fun...
WELL SAID!!!!!!!
Interesting and informative stuff...
Thanks Erik,
That's a very nice glimpse into the decision. I don't mind new classes, as long as they get support. I think the decision to 'front load' as many classes as possible to maximize support is a genius idea.
Erik, thanks.
<good stuff>
This reemphasizes the point distinguishing WotC and Paizo. While I wasn't on the D&D boards over there, I did spend a lot of time on the MtG boards. I can confidently say that over the 3 years that I was on those boards, not once did WotC staff get involved in a conversation like this. While we really have nothing more than their word to judge upon, we have heard from at least 2 different (that I remember seeing) Paizo people that they do not have intentions of continuing pumping out base classes. Quite frankly anyone who counts the corebook towards class bloat is being fundamentally dishonest because there needs to at least be a few distinct classes.
Many comforting things.Thank you Erik. There are a few reasons why I love you guys and support you as much as I do. The main reason though is exemplified in your post. I honestly feel that you guys are the greatest gaming company ever and I look forward to supporting you and enjoying your products for many years to come.
Tam
+1 to this. Thank you, Erik.
Erik:
Thanks for your thoughtful and substantial message. It's funny, because it occurred to me that I hadn't seen you post as much recently, and lo I find this. It's reassuring to have the big picture laid out like this.
Keep up the good work,
M.
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Erik, let me add to the appreciative thanks for putting the concerns of so many of us to rest. I personally wouldn't mind seeing a few more prestige classes here and there, but nowhere near what WotC put out, and I have full faith that Paizo will keep things in proper check for the foreseeable future.
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Chief Creative Officer, Publisher
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We're not necessarily allergic to prestige classes, but a bunch of us have come to the following conclusions about them:
1) After running Dragon for as long as we did and making our own contributions to prestige class bloat, I'll bet we're more sick of them than most of you are.
2) Previous editions of the game had way, way, way too many of them.
3) Archetypes allow players to scratch the "conceptual niche" itch much easier (and often much earlier) than prestige classes do.
4) Many of the best prestige classes are tied to specific organizations and in-world elements, and thus might be better placed within the context of the Pathfinder campaign setting.
So, while I know we will do more of them eventually, there's a decent chance they'll be in Pathfinder Campaign Setting or Pathfinder Player Companion books rather than in the (relatively) flavor-light rulebook line.
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We're not necessarily allergic to prestige classes, but a bunch of us have come to the following conclusions about them:
1) After running Dragon for as long as we did and making our own contributions to prestige class bloat, I'll bet we're more sick of them than most of you are.
2) Previous editions of the game had way, way, way too many of them.
3) Archetypes allow players to scratch the "conceptual niche" itch much easier (and often much earlier) than prestige classes do.
4) Many of the best prestige classes are tied to specific organizations and in-world elements, and thus might be better placed within the context of the Pathfinder campaign setting.
So, while I know we will do more of them eventually, there's a decent chance they'll be in Pathfinder Campaign Setting or Pathfinder Player Companion books rather than in the (relatively) flavor-light rulebook line.
I'd just like to have seen a handful in Ultimate Magic and Ultimate Combat, and by that I mean literally a handful - no more than could be counted on one hand, maybe two. So like no more than 12 total PrCs between the two books, and ideally more like 6 or 8, but hey, I can live with just the archetypes. I just kinda get bummed when I find two archetypes I really like that end up modifying entirely different abilities... except for one, so you can't use them together.
Edit: And I'd really prefer to see some Paizo PrCs. There's just a difference in terms of flavor, if nothing else. It's kind of jarring, from my experience, to use 3.5 prestige classes with Pathfinder core classes. Not nearly as bad as, say, a black and white scene spliced into a color movie, but along those lines.
This reemphasizes the point distinguishing WotC and Paizo. While I wasn't on the D&D boards over there, I did spend a lot of time on the MtG boards. I can confidently say that over the 3 years that I was on those boards, not once did WotC staff get involved in a conversation like this.
I'm not sure that means a whole lot. It was a larger company with a lot more customers visiting its site, that kind of interact wasn't really very possible.
Also there is a danger with this level of interaction, it can lead to less than "profession" interactions with customers. A customer saying something rude and a professional representative of a company responding in kind. The problem is, that makes the company look less polished. Which may be fine for a small time operation that prides itself on being a rebel, but for larger more professional companies, that isn't exactly the kind of interaction you want to see in your staff.
For myself, I didn't mind the lack of direct interaction over on the WotC boards when I was there. I could slam a product without someone coming in and saying, "Don't be mean about the product because the designer will get their feelings hurt." There was a level of (brutal) honesty, that frankly on a board like this isn't going to happen just because of the social pressures involved. That doesn't mean there aren't better pay offs for getting the kind of interaction you get here that outweigh the negatives, but there are downsides on both approaches.
Indeed lets keep the Prestige classes to a minimum and as Erik says connected more to specific places or organisations.
I for one would like to see some for the Aspis consortium..oh and a dedicated undead slayer would be nice.
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For myself, I didn't mind the lack of direct interaction over on the WotC boards when I was there. I could slam a product without someone coming in and saying, "Don't be mean about the product because the designer will get their feelings hurt." There was a level of (brutal) honesty, that frankly on a board like this isn't going to happen just because of the social pressures involved. That doesn't mean there aren't better pay offs for getting the kind of interaction you get here that outweigh the negatives, but there are downsides on both approaches.
We can argue all day about the actual value of what some consider "brutal honesty", but it would almost certainly be a waste of time.
I am actually very glad that there are social pressures on this community that encourage a small amount of decorum in its members. If it discourages people from lashing out without any sense of tact and without lending constructive criticism to a conversation, product, class or what have you, I am all for it. A little respect goes a long way. It goes so far that if it cost me a few bucks each month so that Paizo could pay a full-time moderator, I would pay it. Then again, as long as people moderate themselves this will never be necessary.
Tam
Words.
Not what I asked for, but with a much better result. Ah, the infinite wisdom of the Paizo Staffers (who are 99.99999% likely to be way older than me and thus more learned in PR-fu). ;D
Define "way older".
...very carefully...
8th Dwarf you made my day and so very true imo.
A very funny poem imo
The real Poem is much much better and one of my favourites.
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Cartigan, you are a conundrum. Half the time you say things which completely infuriate me, the other half you have valuable insight or excellent points. Thank you for always keeping me on my toes. :)
And just to make up for my previous post (which was nonsense)-
+1 to this...
...while I expect Cartigan to be a naysayer there is always method to any madness that arises from Cartigan's posts, and often it takes a "devil's advocate" in order to point out horrible imbalances that the #1 fan isn't going to perceive.
"Thank you" from me as well, my toes are strong.
An example would be to say something like if you don't have UC with a Samurai use a Fighter with the Bastard Sword specialization tree from the core rules (and maybe list the feats to be used).We do also have the free PRD as an option to solve that sort of thing. (Need the witch? Look no further.)
Thanks. How very nice!
Many comforting things.Thank you Erik. There are a few reasons why I love you guys and support you as much as I do. The main reason though is exemplified in your post. I honestly feel that you guys are the greatest gaming company ever and I look forward to supporting you and enjoying your products for many years to come.
Tam
+1
edit:
....Still, I do agree with Cartigan.
Right now Bloat is not the real problem - or really a problem - support failure is.
Lack of errata and the FAQ...well let's just say I'm not to happy with the FAQ.
Power increases may also be a problem, but I'm not sure I'm the best judge on that.
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If anyone feels like counting them feel free. WotC has a page listing all their DnD PrC's and what books they came from. It was last updated in early 2007. I stopped counting at 200 and I was still in the F's.
The sad thing is, somewhere in my WotC book collection (which is currently scattered over different family members' and friends' houses but the bulk of it is in my immediate possession) I probably have every single one of the books listed on that page. I bought every splatbook and monster book and demon book and devil book and drow book and magic book and race book that came out because I wanted to have all "official" options available to me as a player and a DM (...when I played 3.5; now I play Pathfinder and instead I am a player and a GM, the obvious difference being that GMs are masters of games whereas DMs are masters of places best left unvisited...) because I am really into my favorite hobby.
The biggest difference between 3.5 and Pathfinder so far for me, a fairly Hardcore RPG gamer and consumer, has been the "bang for your buck".
During my most active moments playing 3.5 I would probably buy between 1 and 3 $40-$50 official sourcebooks per month depending on my entertainment budget and the number of books released in a given month (there were usually quite a lot, more than I thought I could keep up with; and this doesn't include books specific to alternate campaign settings such as FR or Eberron, these sourcebooks were all for the 3.5 game itself).
As I am probably more involved with Pathfinder now than I was with 3.5 back then, I have a subscription to the Pathfinder RPG and get a hold of the new Pathfinder RPG "core" books as soon as I can, and since the Core Rulebook came out I have purchased all of the PFRPG rulebooks released up to this point, and there are 5 (PFRPG Core Rulebook, Bestiary, Gamemastery Guide, Advanced Players Guide, Bestiary 2; and they look so cool on a bookshelf next to one another!) which I've purchased over the past 18-or-so months.
So theoretically we'll take a random 2-month chunk from the peak of my personal 3.5 era and compare it to an equally random 2-month chunk taken from the 18 months of my present personal Pathfinder era: back in my 3.5 times I would have purchased about 1 book the 1st month and about 3 books the 2nd month for a total of 4 per 2 months at a cost of $40-$50 each during those 2 months, so that's an average of $180 spent for the 2 month 3.5 chunk / PFRPG time from about 18 months ago til today; averaging one $40-$50 purchase every 3.6 months, or $12.50 per month, so spending an average of $25 for the Pathfinder 2 month chunk (and given the product schedule from the past 18 months probably not spending anything during those 2 months while waiting for the next release).
To further make me want to kick myself for buying every new-fangled 3.5 book that came out each month, I have an extensive collection of these books that I spent my hard-earned pennies on, and the ironic thing is that I haven't had the need or opportunity to use anything at all from most of them, and the ones I did use material from, it's usually just one feat from one book, a different spell from another, etc., such that the majority of content from those books has never seen play in any games that I ran or played in.
I have used almost all of the content (with the exception of some of the APG spells and most of the new monsters from the Bestiary 2, but soon they shall burn away souls and taste mortal blood, respectively) from the 5 PFRPG books at least once, and re-used so much of the material provided over and over again, that comparing the percentage of purchased written material for the Pathfinder RPG actually used in my games nowadays with the percentage of the written game material from all those 3.5 books I bought that saw any actual use in those games is an exercise in futility.
Now, I'm not blaming anyone else for what I spend my money on. I knew exactly what I was buying all the time.
The major point of this post is that my experience with the actual in-game real value of the Pathfinder RPG material available to us today, compared to the actual in-game value of the majority of all 3.5 material available when that specific edition was at its peak, boggles my mind because I get so much more from the 5 books that Paizo has released for their game so far than I probably ever will for all the shelves of niche supplements with the newest shiny rules that I had to gobble up like a DM suffering from Pac-Man fever.
With Pathfinder I get way more bang for my buck, and I am pretty darn happy about that.
(Disclaimer: I am aware that I may be subjecting myself to repeat history as I will soon be starting subscriptions for the Pathfinder Campaign Setting and Player Companion lines, as well as Adventure Paths when Carrion Crown starts, but for the previous exercise I was speaking of material strictly unrelated to any specific campaign setting.)
Many comforting things.Thank you Erik. There are a few reasons why I love you guys and support you as much as I do. The main reason though is exemplified in your post. I honestly feel that you guys are the greatest gaming company ever and I look forward to supporting you and enjoying your products for many years to come.
Tam
+1
edit:
....Still, I do agree with Cartigan.
Right now Bloat is not the real problem - or really a problem - support failure is.
Lack of errata and the FAQ...well let's just say I'm not to happy with the FAQ.Power increases may also be a problem, but I'm not sure I'm the best judge on that.
To be clear - I was not talking about Pathfinder; I was talking about 3.5 and then in general. Class bloat is a misnomer and misplaced focus. The real problem is lack of support for any new classes or mechanics introduced.
My critique of Paizo and Pathfinder concerns the use of "alternate" classes as a "replacement" for new base classes.
OK. Sorry for missreading you. I still think the FAQ is far from OK.
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OK. Sorry for missreading you. I still think the FAQ is far from OK.
The FAQ, if you do not care for it.. start using the FAQ button more then to make it better for you and what you in particular want to see for threads and individual postings that you in particular care for and enjoy. That is what Paizo put it there for though.