How much playtesting does Paizo perform?

[Radu the Wanderer]

I love your products, Paizo, and I was curious what your playtesting procedure is. How extensive are each of your modules tested before publishing, and what benchmarks do you use to determine how challenging or balanced something is? I know, for example, the adventure paths are intended for a 4 character party using 15 point buy on the medium XP track. Do you run adventures in house with iconics or pre-gens? Do you farm them out to groups?

If any of this information is integral to your business strategy I can totally respect keeping that information confidential. I'm more curious than anything else. Is there a "How Things Work" style story to tell about the birth of a new module or campaign path?

[Mark Moreland]

We run extensive public playtests of large or experimental elements in our hardcover rulebooks, but we generally don't have time to playtest adventures. When one considers that it generally takes months if not years to complete an adventure path, and at least a few long sessions to complete a module, we simply would never have time for anything other than playtesting and then actual development. When we hire a freelancer, part of what they're paid to do is to playtest the adventure they turn in to us.

[TriOmegaZero]

I'd guess the only playtesting they do themselves is the campaigns they run themselves, which obviously can't be of upcoming rules in any final sort of sense.