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I feel like I had to share my thoughts regarding an attitude I've seen expressed around here a lot lately. I've been sensing that people are wondering WHEN pathfinder 2nd edition will launch, skipping the speculation of weather it will exist at all and operating under the assumption that when Pathfinder exhausts its' supply of big shiny things, it will just reboot the whole thing and start the whole process anew.
And really, who can blame people today for taking this mentality for granted? The spider man and the Incredible Hulk "films" got reboots less than ten years after first launch. The Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers my generation grew up with has seen at least five incarnations. Dungeons and dragons is on its' fifth edition, arguably more if you include radical rewrites like 3.5. But I have higher hopes for Pathfinder.
The game I love can probably amount to more than a microcosm for the consumerist/ADD personality traits that have come to define contemporary American culture. In Pahfinder, from the very beggining, players were offered something that seemed like it had every reason to be long lasting: It was an improvement of 3.5, widely regarded to be the greatest RPG rules system ever made. The idea which attracted me to the game was that I could finally play a better version of the rules system I loved that would be in it for the long haul. Pathfinder is so critically linked to 3.5 that a reboot would be antithetical to the basic premise of Pathfinder.
I say it again. A reboot is not inevitable.
I don't think it's inevitable. However, many of the steps by Paizo to add to the system of late would be much better served by a 2nd edition. It's also where the system is being pushed by default whether through gradual evolution or an all-at-once release. There's no sense of permanency to the rules as is with FAQs being used as errata. It makes buying the books a really hollow proposition, and their revenues would tank if everyone just bought PDFs.
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Just saying, there is a lot of leftover stuff from 3.5 that the game could stand to lose. Like the sacred cow of "wizards can do whatever the hell they want as long as they spend their renewable resource, but that guy with a sword wants to climb sheer walls? NEVER!" kind of nonsense that pervades so much of Paizo's class design, for example. Or the fact that iteratives are annoying and turn the game into static slapfights: the animation. Or any of a huge list of things that I would be here for hours mentioning if I tried.
Is a PF2.0 inevitable? Maybe, maybe not. Would a fresh start be something that could be beneficial in the long run? Maybe, maybe not.
If there were a Pathfinder 2, I wonder if it would build on the Unchained variants as core aspects.
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I love Pathfinder but I have 0 interest in a 2nd edition right now. I think this system has a lot of room for new toys and a lot, lot, lot more room for world building/Golarion specific stuff.
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I for one as a long time gamer am sick and tired of system updates that invalidate a ton of books Ive spent money on. I for one don't want a new system. If they want to fix or change anything it would be better suited to small changes and notes that don't require (a costly to gamers) overhaul of the entire system. Of course its a moot point to me because I'm absolutely fine with the game system as is.
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Where's that horse when you need it?
Seriously. =P
A part of maturing is learning that some things shouldnt be responded to.
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I hope for a Pathfinder 2.0. The underlying rules system it is based on has critical flaws in it and it has not held up well when critically examined compared to modern roleplaying systems. It's 15 years old, and it is really showing its age. We've had amazing innovations in RPG design the past decade during a rebirth of roleplaying games. And PF benefited very little from this.
Hopefully Unchained helps a lot, at least for me.
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Where's that horse when you need it?
Dead from the beating that these boards keep giving it.
Apparently people keep spending the money to keep raising it from the dead only to beat it to death again.
Deep pockets this lot has. DEEP POCKETS.
Where's that horse when you need it?
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The entirety of my 3.5 collection has seen zero use since Pathfinder released. I pray the same never happens to my Pathfinder books.
Almost the same for me although I suppose it' easier to use 3.5 stuff in your Pathfinder game from the GM side especially Spells and Monsters. Reskinning stuff from both Fiendish Codexes and The Draconomicon and before I got the Pathfinder versions of the Tome of Horrors book I used the 3.5 versions all the time.
But yeah a lot of my other 3.5 stuff went unused. I had to clear it off of my shelf to make room for the new Pathfinder stuff...
The entirety of my 3.5 collection has seen zero use since Pathfinder released. I pray the same never happens to my Pathfinder books.
I'm still not sold Paizo would leave their current library behind. That doesn't necessitate they hobble a new edition either. If they can normalize damage dice progression, they can write a guide. More complex? Yeah. A lot more thought work would go into a new edition as well.
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A second edition is pretty much inevitable economically. At some point, people will get enough of the constant release of new classes, feats and items into the existing system, not even to mention inconsistencies in the current rules and unwanted synergy effects. Sales will taper off as people turn to other, less convoluted systems. And the Paizo staff will want to keep feeding their families.
A new edition will have some die-hards who will stop buying Paizo products altogether, but if the developers manage to make the system substantially better with their new iteration, enough others will keep playing, return or start playing that it will work out.
Pathfinder Unchained pretty obviously is a way for them to probe what kind of changes the fanbase reacts positively to. The developers can gauge the feedback and use it as a core around which to build a new edition of the game.
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There is a third possibility. Paizo could start releasing material for Pathfinder that is also 5E-compatible. Like the APs. It would only grow the potential audience for their products.
-Matt
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Where's that horse when you need it?
raises up on two legs and whinnies
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Let's be real. Here are the possibilities:
1} Pathfinder 1.x continues forever and ever, until the heat-death of the universe. Likelihood: 0%
2} Paizo goes out of business and never releases a Pathfinder 2.x. Likelihood: > 0%
3} Paizo releases a 2.x. Likelihood: > 0%
You get to pick which of the scenarios you'd like to see.
But seriously, while I have no interest in a new edition, I recognize that Paizo isn't likely to be printing new material for the current edition 80 years from now. Or 40. Or 20. Probably not even 10. So yeah, assuming they don't go out of business, a second edition really is a foregone conclusion. Some day.
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They can still do new rules, but Id rather they make them optional or additions to the existing system that don't mean all your old books become paper weights. As for being forced to make a new system for revenue, Pathfinder still has loads of their world to explore in books and make awesome adventure paths for, heck an entire solar system really. I'm not worried about content drying up anytime soon.
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If people are... loyal enough to buy the same game 3 times over, you may as well assume they'll go ahead and do it a 4th time.
Looks about himself nervously
I really like Dark Souls 2 okay?! So what if I bought it for xbox 360, PC, and the Xbox One definitive edition!
Please gods dont release another. I like having money.
The real advantage of a 2.0 would be to bring innovations developed later in the line to the core rules providing a better and more diverse base to build a game on.
When this kind of thing happens is very uncertain as Pathfinder is still going strong, and things like archetypes do a lot to bring new concepts to older material.
That said without an eventual second edition Pathfinder as a game will eventually be abandoned and die as the product line eventually loses profitability. A 2.0 is a far more preferable answer than no more Pathfinder.
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The real advantage of a 2.0 would be to bring innovations developed later in the line to the core rules providing a better and more diverse base to build a game on.
When this kind of thing happens is very uncertain as Pathfinder is still going strong, and things like archetypes do a lot to bring new concepts to older material.
That said without an eventual second edition Pathfinder as a game will eventually be abandoned and die as the product line eventually loses profitability. A 2.0 is a far more preferable answer than no more Pathfinder.
Except that unless you're positing a "what if", that hypothesis is irrelevant. Paizo, has even as recently as the past few months, said that PFRPG Core Rulebook sales continue to grow. 5e didn't "dent" PF sales according to Eric Mona, so either people chose to buy 5e & PF, or PF fans didn't drop PF in favor of 5e.
Will there, someday, be a revision or new edition? Very likely.
However, at present the PFRPG is around 6 years old as its own thing. Paizo continues to find new creative space with the current rules.
I've been with Pathfinder since RotRL#1. Even back then, there were a lot of predictions that weren't worth carrying around in the plastic bag used to clean up after a dog. Things like:
"If Paizo doesn't jump on the 4e bandwagon and produce 4e content, they're going to go out of business."
"If Paizo thinks people are going to buy another version of 3e, they're wrong."
"How can Paizo think this will work? There's nothing left to design that hasn't been done."... and then we saw things like the Advanced Player's Guide...
More recently, say in the past 2/2.5 years: "they're running out of design space. Really, what's left for them to do?" and then we saw Ultimate Campaign, Advanced Class Guide, and now Pathfinder Unleashed, and this summer Occult Adventures.
Now, if someone wants to say, "I want Paizo to design precisely to my tastes and I know that there's zero chance of that without a new edition" or "4e or 5e does it for me but Paizo makes the best adventures so I need them to get with the program" or "if I post often enough or am disdainful enough, they'll design things the way that I think that they should", I can at least appreciate the honesty of the approach.
As for the doomsayer predictions, you've been consistently wrong for 6+ years. Yes, even the weatherman calls for rain on the right day on occasion - it doesn't make him a prophet.
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The game I love can probably amount to more than a microcosm for the consumerist/ADD personality traits that have come to define contemporary American culture. In Pahfinder, from the very beggining, players were offered something that seemed like it had every reason to be long lasting: It was an improvement of 3.5, widely regarded to be the greatest RPG rules system ever made. The idea which attracted me to the game was that I could finally play a better version of the rules system I loved that would be in it for the long haul. Pathfinder is so critically linked to 3.5 that a reboot would be antithetical to the basic premise of Pathfinder.I say it again. A reboot is not inevitable.
Cherish your innocence.
I never said it was going to happen any time soon, just that it is an eventual reality. I am far from being a doomsayer.
There is a limited design space to work with as well. How limited is yet to be seen, but as a fan of a huge variety of genres I'm having trouble seeing very many totally new design spaces without exploring higher tech levels or new settings. The new setting thing is one area they have specifically said they will avoid.
But as I said the advantage of a new edition is not a reset of the design space, but the ability to apply years of lessons learned from writing the Pathfinder to a new core and produce a far better game than we already have.
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Or Paizo keeps releasing unchained books that culminates into pdfs paizo distributes with suggested optional rule stacking that effectively creates a new edition. Paizo will just be sneaky about it.
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There are different types of Pathfinder 2.0 systems that they could potentially put out:
1 A polished republication. This involves a re-organized Core Rulebook with a selection of the many existing classes, clarification of unclear rules, etc.
2 Backwards compatible edition. A new Pathfinder, perhaps using many of the rules from Unchained, but still one you could use to run existing Paizo adventures and fight standard Bestiary monsters.
3 Completely new Pathfinder, rebuilding everything from the ground up.
There is one way I could see a Pathfinder 2.0 coming into existence: Through some horrible mismanagement, Paizo goes out of business. Some other company has the money and interest to buy the rights to Pathfinder and the Golarion setting. What do you imagine would be the first thing they start working on?
Frankly, Paizo seems to be running things well enough that they are more likely to face a different problem: As the years on the Golarion calendar advance in real time, several human NPCs described as "young" will reach the point where they must be at least middle-aged, old, or venerable. I can already guess how the people currently there will address it: "You young-uns who took over for us figure it out. We're retired now!"
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The Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers my generation grew up with has seen at least five incarnations.
...There's only been two "incarnations" of Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers though, and the second one was a slight remaster of the old footage, not a remake.
Unless you're talking about the Power Rangers SERIES as a whole, in which case I'm going to curl up in a ball and cry from laughter until I suffocate at the fact that you think there were only FIVE, since currently they're on EIGHTEEN incarnations.
In the theoretical case where Paizo somehow tries to keep Pathfinder as a single edition alive forever they will face a huge problem with rules being scattered between countless books. Some of these new rules will eventually grow to be quite important as they prove to be highly effective ways to handle different things. Other games have publish new editions specifically because the problem of rules in to many places became to much of an issue to deal with.
The more books that Paizo publishes the higher the buying cost to get involved in Pathfinder. Eventually this will prove to be something of a barrier to entry for new customers limiting potential growth. There is however a way to mitigate this kind of problem. Paizo will have to publish new a new Core Rulebook with consolidated collections of all for the major rules systems that have popped up over the years. It doesn't treat the whole problem and such a book is likely to be very large and expensive, but it would help to prolong the life of Pathfinder as a Single edition game.
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If more books like Unchained come out I can see the Pathfinder RPG line dying out, and maybe eventually the Player Companion line, or at least slow down to a trickle. But I have a hard time seeing the Adventure Path and Campaign Setting books stopping unless something horrible happens.
Personally I've been pretty satisfied with Pathfinder as it is, and books like Pathfinder Unchained and various third party products gives it a lot of longevity by erasing problems I do have with the system. And this is after trying systems like 5th edition, Savage Worlds, Dungeonworld, and various 3.X retroclones. Sure the game is a cumbersome mass of books and rules but I have clear lines as to how much to introduce and handle. New Players get Beginner Box, after that we have the Strategy Guide to grow to Core Only games. When we're doing full long adventures we got the rest of Pathfinder. When we're advanced enough to have problems with the rules as is we can use third party stuff or things from Unchained to kick some things a step up. If we're bored with all this we got third party to do whatever we please from space dinosaurs to motorcycle wizards. I can have as many or as little rules as I want without much transition so long as I'm somewhere within fantasy adventure.
One thing I've argued before was if the Beginner Box rules had more adventures or evolved into a PF-Lite system I'd sell away my 5th edition books because it would become my go-to for a 'simpler, easier, fairer' system, which is the only reason why I have 5th edition books.
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If anything happens, it won't be "Pathfinder 2nd Edition"
It'll be Core Rulebook: 20XX Edition, and it'll likely be just codifying the most-popular rules from Unchained into the system that work seamlessly with already-published books.
I'd imagine Stamina is as much here to stay as Archetypes and Retraining are, so expect Stamina to be in there.
The Unchained Rogue is just a straight-up replacement for the original Rogue, so bye-bye Old Rogue.
I don't have the book yet, so those are the only things I'm familiar with, but I'm pretty confidant they're going to be a permanent fixture of the game from here-on out.
The Unchained Monk won't be, because basically NONE of the Archetypes that exist work with it.
Anyway, Paizo has said again and again that it does not ever plan to make published books obsolete - Edition Obsolescence was a major issue for 3rd Ed D&D following from 2nd Edition, and again from 3rd to 3.5 (to say nothing of 3.5 to 4E which just wasn't possible in the slightest).
While there were some gameplay snarls from 1st to 2nd ed, the basic game design wasn't too substantially different; the radical changes made between 2nd and 3rd Edition, however, created a lot of issues when converting (oddly enough, Magic Items created for 1st Edition are still perfectly usable today, with little to no conversions needed).
And many key books & classes from 3rd Ed had to be reprinted in 3.5 just to make the game work, meaning the first year to 18 months or so of 3.5 was just reprinting old things into 3.5, and annoyed a lot of people who had bought 3rd Ed books, only to need to RE-buy them 4 years later in order to get the update rules.
Pathfinder doesn't want to follow that trend; while several classes are Ersatz Updates of 3.5 classes (the Magus is the Duskblade & the Hexcrafter Archetype is the Hexblade, Cavalier is the Marshal, Skirmisher & other Ranger archetypes are the Scout, etc.) they are mechanically distinct (more relying on role and theme than direct mechanics in most cases), and the same 3 books that introduced those classes are also plenty of unique classes entirely: Gunslinger, Summoner, Alchemist, Inquisitor, etc.
Given enough time, the Core Rulebook and PFU may be the SOLE exceptions to the "no obsolete books" clause, and ONLY because they'd work as a consolidation and recodifying of rules.
I could see Paizo coming out with a Pathfinder Core Rulebook: 10th Anniversary Edition like that, because after 4-5 years, it would be safe to assume that many, many players will already own or be familiar with Pathfinder Unchained and its commonly-used rules, and thus combining Unchained with the CRB wouldn't be a problem - veterans will probably have the CRB and PFU already, so they'll have all those rules anyway, while new players can just buy a single book and skip over Unchained if they so please.
And that's still a big IF - Paizo may stick to their guns and never obsolete even the CRB or PFU. After all, other games have gone for VERY long periods of time without changing: GURPS went 15 years before 4th Edition came out, and Palladium is STILL using the rules it had back when the Robotech Roleplaying Game Core Rulebook came out.
Even Advanced Dungeons & Dragons 1st Edition lasted from 1977 to 1989, and BECMI D&D lasted from 1977 to 1999.
As long as Pathfinder continues to be a solid system for action-adventure play, it'll stick around.
No single rules-set will operate profitably for eternity. 3.x in its newer incarnation as PFRPG is doing great. But, there will be a twilight to it as well. That is inevitable.
Will Paizo make another rules-set? Probably. I don't know. They're innovative. Maybe they will take tabletop-game-publishing in a whole new direction. Maybe tabletop gaming will massively lose popularity to the point that it is not a profitable publishing vehicle and Paizo will do something completely different.
I still remember how happy I was with the CRB. How it had eliminated so many of 3.5's problems. But, then we found/invented new problems and now we want a new fix.
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One thing I've argued before was if the Beginner Box rules had more adventures or evolved into a PF-Lite system I'd sell away my 5th edition books because it would become my go-to for a 'simpler, easier, fairer' system, which is the only reason why I have 5th edition books.
In some regards, I could see this, but in other ways it could end up hurting both Pathfinder AND 5th Edition.
As it is, 5th Edition's Adventures are ALREADY so rules-fluid that they can be used for 1st, 2nd, Pathfinder, and 5th Edition.
So long as the Adventures for 5th Edition are the majority of/only books that 5th Edition puts out, I can see there being a fairly symbiotic relationship between Pathfinder and 5th Ed - PF provides the rules for players, 5th Ed provides a second set of Adventures, and everyone's fairly happy.
5th Edition vs Pathfinder is a return to the old BECMI vs AD&D dynamic (5th Ed being BECMI, Pathfinder beind AD&D), though this time it's between competing companies, instead of inter-company infighting.
If Pathfinder put too much emphasis into the Beginner's Boxes, they run the risk of creating a 3rd wheel that could cut into both D&Ds and Pathfinder-proper's dealings. It'd be a real fine-line to walk, and may be more effort than it's worth.
I'd be happy buying 5th Edition Adventures for use with Beginner's Box versions of classes, and retaining PF Modules & Adventure Paths for use with Pathfinder.
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What I WOULD like to see, though, is 3 version of the Beginner's Box:
Beginner's Box: Red Box Version/Blue Box Version/Green Box Version
Red Box would be what we already have, with the Core 11. Blue Box could be the 8 Base Classes plus Ninja and Brawler; Green Box could be the 10 Hybrid Classes (minus Brawler), plus Samurai.
Basically, take the most-common races and all the main 31 classes, and put them into Beginner's Box form, so that players could have Beginner's version of their favorite classes and go from there.
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If anything happens, it won't be "Pathfinder 2nd Edition"
It'll be Core Rulebook: 20XX Edition, and it'll likely be just codifying the most-popular rules from Unchained into the system that work seamlessly with already-published books.
I'm inclined to agree with this. A full edition change would go against a lot of promises Paizo made, but I could definitely see them pulling a "Pathfinder 1.25" or "Revised Core Rulebook" or some such.
There are a lot of annoying little issues that could really benefit from the chance to fully redo the CRB. There's terminology that could be made clearer (attack vs. attack action) and rules issues that FAQ-ratta has proven to be insufficient for addressing. Since Paizo has to bend over backwards to avoid changing a single letter of the written text, they have to resort to solutions like the "unwritten rules."
Basically, it'd be less about massively altering the nature of the game, and more about codifying optional rules that 90% of tables are using anyway and doing some general housekeeping.
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Think of this another way.
Let's take the average Paizo customer - in terms of quantity of products purchased and revenue they've contributed to Paizo's coffers over the past 4 year.
Some folks here will above average and some will below average.
Core 50
Bestiary 40
APG 40
Bestiary II 40
UM 40
UC 40
Bestiary III 40
ARG 40
UE 40
NPC Codex 40
Bestiary Iv 40
ACG 40
Unchained 40
Adventures (assume 3x APs is average over 4 years): 20 x 3 x 6 = 180
Misc Setting/Player's Guides: 20 x 8 = 160
TOTAL: $860
I suspect their "power users" are spending roughly $1000/year.
6AP x $23 x 2 = $276
2 Core Books = $80
12 Campaign Setting = $160
12 Player Companion = $160
Modules/PFS Scenarios = $100
Miniatures = $200
Map Packs/Flip Mats = $200
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Total $1176, then discounted for subscribers
So roughly, perhaps Paizo is expecting their yearly ARPU to be about $250 (or whatever it really is).
Paizo really is counting on this. They need this $250 from you in 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020 and so on. In fact, ideally they want to get more from you each year, because their employees' costs of living will go up, folks will want raises, etc. Printing costs will continue to rise (but presumably they will preserve their margin by just raising prices).
So given that you're in for Pathfinder for the next 4 years and Paizo would like you to sign your initials next to a $1000 commitment - the question ends up being do they get more commitments from folks to buy "Lesser Island Chains of Garund"/"Advanced Class Guide III" in 2019 or do they end up with more from a new edition? At some point, the shelves at game stores will look extremely intimidating to a new player when they see a $2000+ investment in books to own the majority of core rule materials.
Ultimately, I think you'd measure the likeliness of 2.0 making financial, business sense by the rate of core book line sales. Will first year sales and ARPU contributions of Occult Adventures, Unchained, Strategy Guide and Bestiary 4 compare with first year sales of APG, UM, UC and Bestiary 2 (adjusted for the perceived size of the player base)? Assuming they are still Pathfinder 1.0, how will the 4 core books in 2016-2017 compare?
If anything happens, it won't be "Pathfinder 2nd Edition"
It'll be Core Rulebook: 20XX Edition, and it'll likely be just codifying the most-popular rules from Unchained into the system that work seamlessly with already-published books.
This is actually the one thing that I cannot imagine them doing. First, it's a compilation of already published material, so many people won't need to buy it. Second, it's based on integrating the most widely used alternate rules. Most widely used means most popular means mostly already in use by players. If they're already using it, they're not buying it. Lastly, you risk dividing your customer base between Core and Core20XX which makes any future publications that much less profitable.
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I would love to see a book that is nothing but classes, reprints of old classes, alternate versions such as unchained, and some new ones of course. No feats, archetypes, or anything else just a place to have every class in pathfinder in one book. Though this would be years from now when there are 50+ classes to fill a book.
A revised player's guide would be cool or PG 1.25 or 2.0 would be interesting as well.
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Personally, I think the Golarion setting has a lot more room to grow. (especially since they just make a new country anytime they want a new theme) I'd love to see them open up more of the Kelish Empire and the Impossible Kingdoms of Vudra, and Tien could definitely use more literary exploration/support.
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I'd like a "Pathfinder Deconstructed" - where they strip the system down to its basic components, and do away with "classes" and allow you to build your own.
Everything can become "unchained" because they can keep coming up with alternative rules for you to mix-and-match according to your group and play style.
I'd like a "Pathfinder Deconstructed" - where they strip the system down to its basic components, and do away with "classes" and allow you to build your own.
Everything can become "unchained" because they can keep coming up with alternative rules for you to mix-and-match according to your group and play style.
That's a cute idea that's been tried to death in d20, and it never, ever works.
It's kinda like saying "I want to flap my arms and fly, and if I do it hard enough, I will" - yes, in theory you can actually do that, because the force of your downward swing would push you upwards and if you do it fast enough you'll basically be jumping on air, and this is actually EXACTLY how a butterfly flies; but we're not butterflies, so we don't have the muscles OR the properly-shaped appendages to do that, and Pathfinder cannot be "stripped down" to create a "classless system" without the whole thing falling to unbalanced hell.
Classless systems really don't work in d20 due to balancing, effects of abilities, etc. BESM d20 is a perfect example of how flagrantly a Classless system can fail (it was still FUN, but by no means balanced in the slightest).
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I do think I'd like to see something where SPELLS as they stand are eliminated, and instead they can be learned just like Feats (so that ANYONE can learn a spell or two if they want)
Basically, much like how a Fighter gains extra Combat Feats, it'd be neat to see a "Mage" class that learns Magic Feats every other level using the same design (but being physically weaker and gaining bonuses to Caster Level checks, etc.)
But, that's impossible for Pathfinder. That would have to be an entirely-different d20 subsystem, and lord knows if it'd work at all, really. It's more just a thought-experiment on my part than anything.
I'm pretty sure you just described spheres of power.
Spheres of power+the talented line from Genius games is more or less how I'd handle a classless pathfinder.
Really? HA! That's pretty neat, actually.
What I WOULD like to see, though, is 3 version of the Beginner's Box:
Beginner's Box: Red Box Version/Blue Box Version/Green Box Version
Red Box would be what we already have, with the Core 11. Blue Box could be the 8 Base Classes plus Ninja and Brawler; Green Box could be the 10 Hybrid Classes (minus Brawler), plus Samurai.
On the list of things that will never happen, this one is pretty close to the top.
I don't think it's inevitable. However, many of the steps by Paizo to add to the system of late would be much better served by a 2nd edition. It's also where the system is being pushed by default whether through gradual evolution or an all-at-once release. There's no sense of permanency to the rules as is with FAQs being used as errata. It makes buying the books a really hollow proposition, and their revenues would tank if everyone just bought PDFs.it seems false that having only PDF sales would hurt their revenue. PDF files have like, zero overhead compared to books.
They have ALL the developmental overhead. The only cost they save is the actual printing. Which for a 256 page book, is about $4-5. So, do you think they make more on a $10 pdf or a $40 print book?
(Note, they are probably selling it to their distributors for about $10-12, but I'm talking about subscriber and web store sales.)
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Pathfinder 2.0 somewhat implies a deeper remake, old gone and new replacing it. It does not really need that.
But what it needs what could be more likely called rewording. Pathfinder's core ruleset can stay the same, in a way that it does not conflict with "content material", but everything is more lean. Leaner rules, cleaner rules.
Call it Pathfinder Remix