Playtest Rules Updates

[Kaelizar]

Not sure If I've missed something in my absence, but I just want some clarifications on rules updates.

Should I only be looking at the latest updates and ignoring the previous ones? [ie. do the most recent updates contain the the entire set of updates that I need to address as a Game Master?]

Additionally I've seen posts regarding updates to Resonance that include a link to a new set of rules, but you must find the post, and download from there instead of from the bundle.

Honestly I would like to see the updates to be address in the Rulebook as they come out, versioning the rulebook downloaded from the homepage of Paizo to stay up to date.

As it currently stands, as a GM I need to download the latest rules updates and distribute those to my players, and then when we meet, I need to check every Ancestry/Class/etc option with them to ensure they have addressed it on their character. What I really want to do is to say, "Go on Paizo, download the Rulebook again, and it will have all the updates in it" currently it's a nightmare to review and ensure I've addressed all the updates into the rules. Especially with Doomsday Dawn, I printed out the updates to the DC's etc, but I completely forgot about them during play.

Can anyone address why the base Rulebook, bestiary, Doomsday Dawn PDFs aren't updated when the Update notes come out? There's bound to be someone at Paizo already doing this to ensure their documents stay up to date. All's I'm asking for is a copy of that.

[rooneg]

They're not updated because it's an enormous amount of work to change the layout of an RPG rulebook PDF. It's one thing to make minor tweaks, it's entirely another to add or remove large chunks of text (if nothing else because it changes what page stuff is on, which means cross references and indices are now wrong).

[Cyouni]

All updates contain all previous updates as well. The most recent document is the only one you need.

[Staffan Johansson]

The most recent main update documents contain the things updated previously as well, with the most recent updates highlighted (so if you've already seen 1.3, you can glance over at 1.4 and see what's new). The exceptions are those things that are getting their own update documents, like the multiclassing rules.

Resonance is a special case. In brief, the devs have said "We hear you, Resonance isn't working out for you. We have an idea for another system, but right now we don't have the resources to figure out how every power and every magic item will work with the new system that may or may not work out. So here's a scenario with pre-generated characters that provide a focused version of this new system - does this seem like the path we should go down or should we start over?"

To be honest, I think this is a good approach, and one I wish they had done with the whole playtest procedure: start small to see if something is working out before committing to it, instead of presenting a complete-ish game. That's how Wizards did their playtest for 5e, and it seems to have worked out well for them.

Adding things to the actual PDF rule book are not feasible, because layout. Changing one number to another is a small matter and easily doable, but as soon as you're adding or subtracting enough text that the pagination would be affected, you basically need to go through the layout process again (at least that's what the TORG devs said regarding feedback on the pre-print version of the game).

[Kaelizar]

Thanks everyone, it's good to know I dont need to go back to 1.1, 1.2, 1.3 to get all the updates. They're all in 1.4

As for PDF layout I understand that completely with references, etc, but Honestly I could care less how "nice" it looked on page, or if there's only 1 paragraph and no images at the end of a section or chapter, I just want all the latest updates and rules in 1 document without having to cross references a very dense 20 page update doc with a 434 page Rule Book.

And since it's all PDFs at this point and any Print material is obsolete, then why not change things like "(See page 312)" to "Reference Terrain" with a link to that section using a bookmark or something within the PDF and if a graphic is obsolete based on rules changes, then remove it.

Sure it wont look polished, but it's a playtest. As someone who's coming into actually running the playtest a bit late, it's a LOT of content to ensure is updated, referenced and remembered.

[Fuzzypaws]

It's not official, but someone did actually put up a version of the Playtest Rulebook online with all errata up to 1.4.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1f3D4y49XbzB_Y7023O3gXJ-hW0k7pswd/view

[Kaelizar]

Fuzzypaws, thank you so much!

This is exactly what I wanted! This is exactly what Paizo should be doing. I'm very happy with this. (I didn't even realize till looking at that PDF that signature skills were scrapped as of 1.2) Shows how well I've been reading :P

[Fuzzypaws]

You are very welcome! <3