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I would like some more expanse on classes as well, Each class getting specific traits, magic items, spells, exc. on them. Maybe some cool stuff like new archtypes, and maybe a few prestidge classes to help blend them into more generic niches. I'd also like a more detailed fleshing out of the gods, and others similar to that of Forgotten Realms Faiths and Pantheons
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3rd party publishers provide many cheap, high-quality PDFs, quite a few of which are class-specific or other niche topics. And I feel that class-specific products should really remain their domain. Paizo only prints so many books per year; putting out more products faster could cause quality concerns and with what...19(?) classes spending one of their productions focusing on a small set at a time could alienate a portion of their fanbase which has no interest in such a specific topic. By creating broader books, like the APG, there is a bit of something for everyone, so everyone has incentive to own it.
Ultimate Options: Grit and Gunslingers by Super Genius Games and The Secrets of the Gunslinger by Rite Publishing are both supporting material for Gunslingers written by people who write for Paizo books.
Sean K. Reynolds, one of the main Paizo developers of PF, even wrote a foreword for Super Genius Game's compendium of material, greatly recommending it.
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Slow and steady wins the race...
Keep the quality high.
Screw timelines.
Thank you,
JMK
Ehm, yepp.
Been there, done that, seen it all.
The others did that and their job was lacking. Power creep is already in place and turning PF into another rollplaying game does not seem to be at the forefront of Paizo's intention.
So a big NO THANKS from my side.
Also, you might have noticed that Paizo went a different way with classes: it finally (and thankfully) pays to stay with your class throughout lvl20.
Plus: what Ringtail and Cheapy wrote.
Ruyan.
Yeah, I for one do not want to see new class stuff anytime soon--and Ringtail makes a very good point about there being a lot of material available from 3PPs which fills that niche for those who want that kind of product. I would suggest to the OP going through the material at the Paizo store and read user reviews of the 3PP products to find quality material to use.
I also agree with Castilliano that the slower the development time for any book, the better. Even with as high quality as Pathfinder's books are, you can tell in some books what was rushed to get something to print so the book would be available at GenCon or what have you. -- I see no reason to encourage a bad trend and indeed hope it stays minimal.
Finally, my understanding is Paizo's bread and butter is still the Adventure Paths and related material. So first, there always needs to be ample dev time devoted to those. And second, everytime you put out a new class or class option, those things are expected by the fanbase to make appearances in the APs--and any kind of bloat starts to become especially apparent (I hated reading later D&D 3.5 books -- use x class found in y book I didn't have here, and b class found in c book I didn't have there, all over the place, that made me actually want to stop buying Wizards' products than "catch'em all"). This is thoroughly speculation on my part, but I imagine it's probably easier to limit to a degree what classes are going to show up in official material, rather than create an endless stream of material which you then have to back up in your own product--the more there is, the more chances there are for error or someone feeling like X favorite class or archetype was left out in favor of Y. Although that said, I think there are some PrCs and the like in some APs (correct me if I am wrong), so for limited additional class material, usually designed for the type of adventure included, they're actually the best place to look.
Creative Director
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The vast bulk of the class options in the rulebook line will remain the Advanced Player's Guide, Ultimate Magic, and Ultimate Combat. We have no plans of continuing to put out hardcover rulebooks in this exact theme—one of our goals was to get all the class option books out first so that we COULD support them in the following years. You'll certainly see new class options appear now and then, but the focus of rulebooks going forward will be on things other than character classes.
That said, we DO plan on continuing to support the base classes in our Player's Companion, Adventure Path, and Campaign Setting lines!
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Horay! That's actually what I disliked the most about 3rd Ed. D&D splatbooks. This constant addition of more X, more Y, more Z. It makes the whole game appear to revolve so much about character builds, while I think story and making plot descisions should be what it's all about.
Other RPGs always seem so much more laid back with their one rulebook and lots of smaller books full of fine fluff.
Though I wonder if we will see new material in the future that isn't Golarion specific or APs.
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Creative Director
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Though I wonder if we will see new material in the future that isn't Golarion specific or APs.
In the hardcover rulebook line? Yes.
In all our other book lines? Nope. Focusing on one campaign setting is, actually, one of the reasons Golarion's doing so well. Splitting the market by presenting multiple different and mostly incompatible campaign settings does not help.
No, d20 games certainly don't suffer from a lack of available campaign settings.
But can you tell us something about plans for the "hardcover line"? With the ultimates done, what else do you have in mind in addition to one or two more bestiaries?
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Creative Director
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No, d20 games certainly don't suffer from a lack of available campaign settings.
But can you tell us something about plans for the "hardcover line"? With the ultimates done, what else do you have in mind in addition to one or two more bestiaries?
Beyond what we've already announced, I can't say much more about our plans for the hardcover line.
I'd prefer to see the Dragon Empires line get more love, specifically a full blown hardcover for the continent. ;)
I believe the Epic rules are referred to as Mythic.
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From a GM perspective, Sakuri, there's a reason so many prefer to stick to the official material. I'm just coming back to D&D after a 5 year hiatus, specifically because the power creep in both the games I had been playing in and the ones I had been running caused so much frustration at the table that our players referred to D20 as the 'collectible book game' and just got sick of seeing anything related to D&D.
I love Pathfinder so far; just coming back to the hobby, it's familiar but also has a breath of fresh perspective that is welcoming. And part of that love is because we're not swamped with so much optional crap that we feel either overwhelmed or paranoid that the munchkins will find a game-breaking combo every time we turn around.
To be bluntly honest; to me any supplement book that does not at least include one new class (I give exceptions to Beastiaries and will give a free pass to the upcoming Race book since that will have a myriad of player races to make up for it) is completely worthless, both as a GM and a player.
<snip>
So again, even if it's just one 'official' class per book; it goes a long way towards helping convince me to shell out the money to buy it.
I feel the exact opposite. It's not that I'll be upset if Paizo releases more classes, but I wouldn't be upset if they never did. We have 17 different classes right now (disregarding, I think, prestige classes and things like Anti-Paladin), and each of those has numerous archetypes and modifications, just within the official hardcover books. That's a lot to keep track of and merge seamlessly within a single play environment. It's a lot of rules that already borders on cumbersome during character creation and gameplay. At the end of the day, a Fighter isn't always a Fighter and a Monk isn't always a Monk, so to speak.
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For me I'm fine with the APG and two Ultimate books as the only class-related books I'll need. I have some 3rd party books to add to the oracle and witch, but that's about all. Actually, I'm very glad not to have to buy a huge stack of class books. The GM for the 3.5 game I play in always has to lug in masses of those extra books. I'm more interested in the adventure paths (subscriber!) and more country books (Irrisen, World Wound, Jalmeray, Distant Worlds, etc.) than more class-related stuff.
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To be bluntly honest; to me any supplement book that does not at least include one new class (I give exceptions to Beastiaries and will give a free pass to the upcoming Race book since that will have a myriad of player races to make up for it) is completely worthless, both as a GM and a player.
Considering how long it takes between books adding in new classes, even if only at the rate of one per book goes a long way towards keeping the game fresh. You can throw as many 'variants' as you want but at the end of the day a Fighter is a Fighter, a Monk is a Monk. Sometimes you want to play something different.
Yes, there are always the class-brimming 3.5 books. Yes, there is always homebrew. Yes, there is always 3rd party material. But for every "Yes, there is a -----" there is always a "No, I do not allow non-official material GM". People underestimate the sheer number of GMs that actually prefer to never even consider 3rd party material, homebrew is even considered a dirtier word in my experience. Not so sure what the general sentiment is on the backwards compatibility aspect of the game though as that's rather unique to PF-3.5 in my area.
So again, even if it's just one 'official' class per book; it goes a long way towards helping convince me to shell out the money to buy it.
There is nothing wrong with a GM not allowing a 3pp class. I certainly do not unless I own the book from which the class was printed. If a player in the game store asks if he can play class X from 3pp book Y my answer will always be no unless I have bought the book and I am familiar with the class.
Really with archetypes, I do not see the need for more classes in a book. The archetype development was brilliant and a fantastic tweaking of the class substitution levels. Gunslinger and Magus filled a need (but I do not include gunslinger as a playable option in my game), Samurai and Ninja added flavor, and there is very little one can't do with the available archetypes.
Options are good, but I feel there is a point where options becomes supersaturated like crystal solution. There is creativity in figuring out a character concept with the options available.
Mike Mearls in the escapist article D&D Future writes about how too many options can cause the common language of people who play the game to get distorted. I fully agree with that sentiment.
I was worried Paizo was adding to many options. But they have kept the line pretty solid. I find most of their options to be useful, and not just filler. I find too many of their archetypes to be UNDERPOWERED however.
Words of Power was a nice addition I would never use, but was a worthwhile part of Ultimate Magic. When WOTC added soul magic I think it was INCARNUM they had a whole book about it. I did not buy that book and know very little about the option. Words of Power took up a nice chapter, I am aware of it, and for instance if I ever wanted to run a SKYRIM campaign it would be very useful. I am glad they did not dedicate a book to it. The Ultimate Guides have provided needed options without causing saturation. It seems Pathfinder has learned from the mistakes of its predecessor.
I was worried Paizo was adding to many options. But they have kept the line pretty solid. I find most of their options to be useful, and not just filler. I find too many of their archetypes to be UNDERPOWERED however.
No two things which are different will ever be exactly the same level of power and, if it has to go one way or another, I'd rather the archetypes be less powerful than their traditional counterparts (so that introducing them slows the rate of power creep.) I'll admit some of them are extremely underwhelming, but they should all be a tiny notch below the standard classes -- the price you pay for the flexibility available.
I was worried Paizo was adding to many options. But they have kept the line pretty solid. I find most of their options to be useful, and not just filler. I find too many of their archetypes to be UNDERPOWERED however.No two things which are different will ever be exactly the same level of power and, if it has to go one way or another, I'd rather the archetypes be less powerful than their traditional counterparts (so that introducing them slows the rate of power creep.) I'll admit some of them are extremely underwhelming, but they should all be a tiny notch below the standard classes -- the price you pay for the flexibility available.
Agreed
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I would love hardcovers for all the continets and at least one hardcover for the other planets.
While there other classes I would like to see like Psions, Shapechangers(no spells and fighter HD/BA), Tarzan/Jungle girl(Fighter HD/BA fort/ref good saves, monk like AC but uses Cha instead of wis, 4-6skills points/level) there other things that would be cool to see. The races and equipment books sound very interesting as well and one day having Psionics would be nice. I can wait for epic/mythic since the highest character I have ever had was 15lv but it I would still like to see one day.
There are a lot of things I would like to see for class options one day and maybe one day that will happen but for now I will just wait and see what is in the works.
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...and one day having Psionics would be nice.
Paizo could do a lot worse than to enter into an agreement with Dreamscarred to publish the forthcoming Psionics Unleashed + Expanded book as an official Pathfinder product. The overwhelming majority of people that are using psionics under Pathfinder are using it anyway.
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...and one day having Psionics would be nice.Paizo could do a lot worse than to enter into an agreement with Dreamscarred to publish the forthcoming Psionics Unleashed + Expanded book as an official Pathfinder product. The overwhelming majority of people that are using psionics under Pathfinder are using it anyway.
Considering how James and Erik have several times expressed that they are Not Really Interested in a power point system, I don't see that happening.
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Considering how James and Erik have several times expressed that they are Not Really Interested in a power point system, I don't see that happening....and one day having Psionics would be nice.Paizo could do a lot worse than to enter into an agreement with Dreamscarred to publish the forthcoming Psionics Unleashed + Expanded book as an official Pathfinder product. The overwhelming majority of people that are using psionics under Pathfinder are using it anyway.
Psionics is one area where I could potentially see the 3PP supplement beating out the official supplement (assuming Paizo ever actually gets one put together), simply because of the delay. People who want to use psionics haven't gotten anything from Paizo, so they're probably using Dreamscarred's stuff. By the time Paizo gets anything on psionics out, people may be comfortable enough with Psionics Unleashed that they just give the Paizo system a pass.
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There is nothing wrong with a GM not allowing a 3pp class. I certainly do not unless I own the book from which the class was printed. If a player in the game store asks if he can play class X from 3pp book Y my answer will always be no unless I have bought the book and I am familiar with the class.
I even don't allow core classes, when it fits the campaign. When we play a stone age game, there won't be paladins or wizards, easy as that.
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Psionics is one area where I could potentially see the 3PP supplement beating out the official supplement (assuming Paizo ever actually gets one put together), simply because of the delay. People who want to use psionics haven't gotten anything from Paizo, so they're probably using Dreamscarred's stuff. By the time Paizo gets anything on psionics out, people may be comfortable enough with Psionics Unleashed that they just give the Paizo system a pass.Considering how James and Erik have several times expressed that they are Not Really Interested in a power point system, I don't see that happening....and one day having Psionics would be nice.Paizo could do a lot worse than to enter into an agreement with Dreamscarred to publish the forthcoming Psionics Unleashed + Expanded book as an official Pathfinder product. The overwhelming majority of people that are using psionics under Pathfinder are using it anyway.
The first 3PP supplement with new base classes for PF arrived at the same time as Core Rulebook, yet one year later APG was by all indications a massive hit. Eariler =! better. Also, Paizo psionics would likely become PFS legal to some degree, and that's also something to take into account.
Man, that book was written before the final rules of PF were finalized. That was a 3.WTF? book through and through.
One thing you really don't do as an author-publisher... which is take someone else's work and simply slap your own label on it... even if you do it honestly and fork over the big bucks. Especially if you don't feel that psionics is an appropriate addition to the game. From what I understand Paizo itself is not really settled on that last question....and one day having Psionics would be nice.Paizo could do a lot worse than to enter into an agreement with Dreamscarred to publish the forthcoming Psionics Unleashed + Expanded book as an official Pathfinder product. The overwhelming majority of people that are using psionics under Pathfinder are using it anyway.
OGL?
I didn't say that you can't do it. You don't do it because it marks you as a lazy publishing thief, even if it's legal to do so.
The Dreamscarred stuff is out there. Nothing preventing you from using it because it doesn't have a Paizo label on it.
However, Dreamscarred could put a new cover on the next printing which calls it a Pathfinder book instead of being pathfinder compatible and change the page layout to that from paizos books, and if it's done in cooperation with paizo, it would then be an official pathfinder book. And they could still get all the money from the sales (except for the commission the shops get anyway).
I think he doesn't want to understand the OGL. Because even the simplest look at the Section 15 of any of the core pathfinder books will show that it takes liberally from other books. Just check out the Bestiary to see that it takes a ton from the Tome of Horrors.
That's the whole POINT of the OGL. You are not a lazy publisher thief. That's just one more massively ignorant statement.
I think he doesn't want to understand the OGL. Because even the simplest look at the Section 15 of any of the core pathfinder books will show that it takes liberally from other books. Just check out the Bestiary to see that it takes a ton from the Tome of Horrors.
That's the whole POINT of the OGL. You are not a lazy publisher thief. That's just one more massively ignorant statement.
If Paizo were to take Dreamascarred's work and just publish it themselves lock stock and barrel, it WOULD be a scummy thing to do considering that the previous company had done all the work in putting it together.
If I were Dreamscarred and Paizo pulled something like that out of the blue, I'd be pretty steamed about it. Even if it was legal.
I think people are suggesting (though I am not) that Paizo BUY the property from Dreamscarred. If they offered those folks a bundle for their ruleset I would have no problem with Paizo putting their label on it.
I do not think the good folks at Paizo would 'steal' the work.
Psionics is one area where I could potentially see the 3PP supplement beating out the official supplement (assuming Paizo ever actually gets one put together), simply because of the delay. People who want to use psionics haven't gotten anything from Paizo, so they're probably using Dreamscarred's stuff. By the time Paizo gets anything on psionics out, people may be comfortable enough with Psionics Unleashed that they just give the Paizo system a pass.
Not necessarily true.
There are a lot of people out there (myself included) who will onlyu use official material with rare exceptions (for me there's two: Tome of Horrors and Advanced Bestiary).
For those people there is currently no option for psionics.
Psionics is one area where I could potentially see the 3PP supplement beating out the official supplement (assuming Paizo ever actually gets one put together), simply because of the delay. People who want to use psionics haven't gotten anything from Paizo, so they're probably using Dreamscarred's stuff. By the time Paizo gets anything on psionics out, people may be comfortable enough with Psionics Unleashed that they just give the Paizo system a pass.Not necessarily true.
There are a lot of people out there (myself included) who will onlyu use official material with rare exceptions (for me there's two: Tome of Horrors and Advanced Bestiary).
For those people there is currently no option for psionics.
There is an option (3pp). Its just that you choose not to exercise that option.
That's very different from saying that there is no option.
actually he's aware of that. If you choose to only use paizo material then there is No option. That statement still stands as truth.
