I've noticed many new feats, spells, gear, magic items, etc. from Pathfinder's other lines, like their Player's Companion, Chronicles, APs, and Modules.
Why aren't these compiled by them to make it easier to sort through? Also, many of them seem to need clarifications, revisions, or more properly playtested (for example, anyone here think the metamagic feat Threnodic Spell, is a bit imbalanced as is?)
My best, and one and only, site I use for access to such material is found here: Archives of Nethys
Now I appreciate the guy's hard work and his site has been very useful for many people, but I am curious as to why Paizo has 3rd-parties doing their work for them?
Personally, I'd like to see these formatted on Paizo's website and given the playtest, corrections, and stamps of approval necessary to run in Pathfinder games.
|
The core feats, gear, spells and items are presented in the RPG line in the Pathfinder RPG, and APG. Soon to include the Ultimate Magic and Ultimate Combat books as well. These last two books I assume will include new feats, gear, spells and items.
The other lines, Companion, Chronicles, APs and Modules are all game world specific to Golarion. While they can be exported to other settings they are presented in such a way as to be tied to or most relevant to the setting topic being explored by that book.
The RPG line is setting neutral, the other lines are specific to Golarion.
As for having 3rd parties doing their work... Seriously?
There is no ultimatum that anyone compile these at all. We are LUCKY they are not making these feats, spells, gear, and items closed content so that others can even use them at all.
Would you prefer they close the content and then no one at all can compile them and you are forced to buy only Paizo products to gain access to these products?
Would you pay for a couple of extra books each year that do nothing more than compile existing stuff from their other lines? And for just adding to their website, that still takes time which still costs money.
Personally, I do not look for an official Paizo stamp of approval on what I use in my games. I don't like the idea of only using what Big Brother has approved of.
|
Razz, its not Paizo, but have you used/seen d20pfsrd.com? We also compile the sort of material you mention but its formatted differently than on the excellent Archives of Nethys site. It may (or may not) be more to your liking.
I'm not saying Paizo should stop anyone. I'm wondering why Paizo isn't doing this themselves and making sure their material from those lines are more available and up-to-date.
I noticed that material is Golarion-specific, some of it anyway. But you have some really useful material hidden under some obscure Pathfinder book that should receive more coverage, like this one: Piranha Strike (Power Attack with Light Weapons? Why isn't this more available?)
|
1. RPG industry is an industry where you have to swim to survive. Every work hour spend instead of making new stuff that will actually bring profit on compiling open content material ...
2 ... which would be anyway compiled by the community. That's a smart trick of OGL, the publisher can focus on other things because he can be safe that if his product is good, SOMEBODY out there will kick it off. And they did, in at least two places (Nethys and d20pfsrd).
|
Paizo's just a busy company. Relatively small with a lot of popularity these days. Living nearby and with a few of the employees as friends, I can attest to how busy these guys keep at it. It's one of the reasons I love Pathfinder so much, and one of the main reasons I wanted to help out by building the Archives.
By the way, not sure if this is relevant/helpful or not, but you may be interested to know that the Archives are slowly undergoing a major revision that I expect to complete in the next few months. The entire code of the site is being changed to better accommodate new versions of any mechanics, errata, Paizo staff comments, etc. (along with completely new things to the Archives like monsters and NPCs).