What is the possibility of the CRB getting a technical writing reform, on par with the Beginner Box?
One of the greater obstacles in joining a PF game for the first time is the amount of text and organizational murk in the CRB that Pathfinder inherited. This is NOT Paizo's fault--that they produced Pathfinder on the schedule they did is nothing short of amazing. Heaven knows the toll it took on their staff.
Cleaning up the language, format, and streamlining where rules are located would be a great help. I'm reminded of how d20srd.org became such a mainstay of the 3.0-3.5 days. Many users on the forums have also wished for a "Pathfinder 2.0" to just be a cleaned-up version of the CRB.
Alternately, is there a crowd source for this, or a 3PP?
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The problem is that SO MUCH says, reference grappling page 232 of core rulebook. This functions as a cleric's domain, see page 116 of core rulebook. Etc.
So if they were to change the core rulebook all the other books that reference it would have their references be off. And they wont do that. So you'd need a rules reference book that isn't supposed to replace the core rulebook to have any hope of this being done.
Which is hilarious because in their own advice about referencing things, they explicitly say to avoid page numbers. More broadly, the simply ignore most of their own advice on things.
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The problem is that SO MUCH says, reference grappling page 232 of core rulebook. This functions as a cleric's domain, see page 116 of core rulebook. Etc.
So if they were to change the core rulebook all the other books that reference it would have their references be off. And they wont do that. So you'd need a rules reference book that isn't supposed to replace the core rulebook to have any hope of this being done.
Man, I would be willing to put up with that. A cleric domain is still a domain for example. Specific references would work out fine, but overall the rules would be clearer and better-presented.
The inherited murk is, I imagine, Pathfinder's Achilles' Heel. With the number of times I have heard "I would like Pathfinder 2.0 just to be a streamlined version of Pathfinder," I imagine it to be doubly true. It is not Paizo's fault, to reiterate. The conversion was hell on their staff, and there was just no time to do so.
Yet, it would be wonderful to go in there with a rake. It would make life better for old and especially new, players alike.
And @JN, good to know. Thank you!
For 3PP, it's a requirement of the Pathfinder Compatibility License that we not reference page numbers in books.
This is what is bonkers to me. If Paizo themself will reference page numbers, and they use that as excuse not to do Errata... Why impose this restiction on 3PP? If we're living with the downsides of no-page-#-altering-Errata, then why not allow 3PP to reference page numbers?
Because they might change their mind. Or, Pathfinder 2.0 confirmed! Oh shi-!
yeah, if they change their mind, it better just be Paizo products whose page references are broken, we can't have 3pp in the same boat...
conspiracy theory: this is back-door so that paizo insiders can fork the game and leave paizo's own products broken, while their 3pp projects are optimally positioned/functional... MUAHAHAHA. ahem.