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While I do remember the statement before 2e release that all the APs would be playable to level 20, I do understand the reasonings behind 3 book Adventure Paths. I genuinely would not be bothered if it wasn't the fact that most of the 3 book Adventure Paths start at level 1.This causes the exact same problem that many people don't like about 5e in that the modules don't go that high. Unlike 5e Paizo took pains to make a playable system up to and at level 20 for a while.
Of the currently 3 book adventure paths released for PF2e 5 of them start at level 1 and only two start at level 11 (Where the others end at usually). I am hearing from my own players how they are getting tired of playing the 'low levels' over and over, plus wanting to keep playing characters to see them grow into high levels. I am not a homebrew DM, I enjoy making stories come alive not making the story itself.
Six book APs becoming more rare wouldn't be an issue if the three book ones were more evenly distributed high and low. And they don't always need to begin at level 1 or 11. One of my biggest pet peeves about Abomination Vaults which is an AP that I feel is the best one yet for PF2e in terms of story and options is that it starts at level 1 all while heavily suggesting you run your players through Troubles in Otari which ends at level 4 (if you don't give them the final level up). There is absolutely no reason that Abomination Vaults could not have started at level 4 even for a group that is bringing fresh characters to the AP.
And as a side note, I'd be more inclined to purchase more of the single book adventures to slide into my campaigns if their level ranges also were more spread out. Currently (not counting 1e remakes into 2e or ones intended for you play 1e modules like Curse of the Crimson Throne first) the book adventures stand at 2 1st level, 1 3rd level, 1 4th level, 1 5th level, 1 at 11th level, and 1 at 16th level starting level. This leaves a lot of them that can't be run sequentially due to competing level ranges. Spreading out future releases starting level ranges would be greatly appreciated with less 6 book APs on the horizon.
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They are starting to experiment a little more on this front - Seasons of Ghosts is a 4-book AP, so doesn't just go for 10 levels, and the new Sandpoint 1-book, double-length AP starts somewhere around level 6, off the top of my head? But I'd be a big fan of a 3-book AP starting at level ~5 or so - I think it lets you explore a lot of interesting stories. You'd end up level ~15 or so - appropriate for a fight with the scariest non-unique enemies; ancient dragons, balors, pit fiends, etc. It also lets you start off at that point where you're regionally known, but not one of the dominant forces in the region like if you were 10th level. I think they'd be a lot of fun! :)
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I am so happy that Paizo is experimenting with the format.
Most players are going to want to start at low levels, if not level 1. so most of the adventure paths should also start at level 1. Those were always there, but let's get real... how many groups actually finish the multi-year commitments that 6-book APs require? So why not just cut the things in half, and you can have a fully satisfying story in a reasonable timeframe?
But there's plenty of players (and DMs) who want to start out at a higher level (or continue the story of a lower-level PC). So there should be entry points for them as well.
and there are those who want the all out, full-on, epic, zero to master of the universe stories 6-book APs which go from 1-20. And those are available as well.
I've only run 6 book APs but I played in AGAINST THE AEON THRONE (the first 3-book AP, which was for starfinder) and we LOVED IT. Short, sweet, just a tight package. When my current Pathfinder and Starfinder APs wrap up, I'm going to suggest to my players that we go to shorter APs for the next cycle.
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I much prefer the long 6-part AP's as well, since they let my groups experience the full breadth of the Pathfinder rules. One thing which always kept me from trying to fully get into Starfinder was their insistence of mostly keeping their adventure paths relatively low-level (with a very few exceptions).
If Paizo insists on not doing more 6 parters, at least the number of high-level 3 parters should be equivalent to the low-level ones. Also, there should be easy connections to run a 1 - 10 with a 10 - 20 AP, so that groups can organically change from one to the other.
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My long-term goal is to do an even split of low-level and high-level Adventure Paths. The time of us starting to experiment with Adventure Path lengths has been going on for a bit, and we'll still have more to learn from experiments like the 4 part Season of Ghosts and the 1 part biggie-sized Seven Dooms for Sandpoint, and there's maybe one or two more "experiments to come after that, but at this point beyond mid-next year, my plans and goals and advice for the Adventure Path line is to settle into a more balanced split between low level and high level offerings.
That may or may not come to pass, as there's very real data that suggests lower level Adventure Paths simply sell better than higher level ones... but a part of me wonders if that's a self-fufilling prophecy by not publishing as many high-level Adventure Paths as low-level ones. I suspect that might be a PART of it, but decades of this game and those that came before playing better at low to mid level has certainly infused into the gaming community a wariness about running high level games... and of course, there's plenty of folks who do prefer to play games where they start at 1st level and organically level up into the high level stuff. That also makes for fewer "customers" for high level, since it takes long for groups to get there that way, and the longer it takes, the more likely it is a group will disband for whatever reason.
The best way customers can help us to make the decision to publish more high level adventures or 6 part adventures is always going to be in the one-two punch of "what do people buy" and "what do people enjoy?" We can see the numbers easy enough for the sales side of things, but the only way we know if you enjoy the higher level adventures is by actual feedback, be that in the form of written reviews (either here or elsewhere on the internet), video reviews (on Youtube or Twitch or wherever), and actual plays of folks enjoying high level play (be it things we publish or otherwise). In-person feedback is also valuable, but that's a much more limited venue than the ones I list above.
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Also, there should be easy connections to run a 1 - 10 with a 10 - 20 AP, so that groups can organically change from one to the other.
This isn't as simple as you make it out, but it's something I'm absolutely trying to do with the higher level Adventure Paths I'm working on and have worked on... or for ANY that starts at anything other than 1st level.
"Stolen Fate" does a bit of this, particulalry in the Player's Guide.
"Seven Dooms for Sandpoint" will as well (even though that starts at a much lower 4th level).
An unannounced high-level Adventure Path I'm currently developing leans into the element of how you can tie it to a previous Adventure Path more than anything we've ever published, so I'm eager to see how folks react to that... even though it does put a little more work on the GM and their responsibilities to get things going.
But the fact that the 1st to 10th level Adventure Paths come to a conclusion in a specific area of the world, and that they all have their own curated themes, means that it's never going to be easy to make a higher level Adventure Path be a "perfect fit" to organically go into. Best we can do there is to deliberately do a "sequel" to one, but that would generate a perception among the public that you can't play that Adventure Path without playing the first one, which would ironically make that one sell LESS than others, I suspect.
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The best way customers can help us to make the decision to publish more high level adventures or 6 part adventures is always going to be in the one-two punch of "what do people buy" and "what do people enjoy?" We can see the numbers easy enough for the sales side of things, but the only way we know if you enjoy the higher level adventures is by actual feedback, be that in the form of written reviews (either here or elsewhere on the internet), video reviews (on Youtube or Twitch or wherever), and actual plays of folks enjoying high level play (be it things we publish or otherwise). In-person feedback is also valuable,...
As long as you keep publishing high-level adventure paths, I'll keep buying them. I just got Strength of Thousands (five books off Amazon, the one I couldn't find there from the Paizo website), because it is a full 1 - 20 AP and has excellent reviews.
The only way to get my out of my habit of buying AP's would be to stop publishing high-level content.
But the fact that the 1st to 10th level Adventure Paths come to a conclusion in a specific area of the world, and that they all have their own curated themes, means that it's never going to be easy to make a higher level Adventure Path be a "perfect fit" to organically go into. Best we can do there is to deliberately do a "sequel" to one, but that would generate a perception among the public that you can't play that Adventure Path without playing the first one, which would ironically make that one sell LESS than others, I suspect.
Quite possible. I guess the best way to give easy entry points is to write the start of the high-level AP to be inclusive of "people arriving to solve the situation" from outside.
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An unannounced high-level Adventure Path I'm currently developing leans into the element of how you can tie it to a previous Adventure Path more than anything we've ever published, so I'm eager to see how folks react to that... even though it does put a little more work on the GM and their responsibilities to get things going.
I wonder if it features a certain peacock.
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I wonder if it features a certain peacock.
An unannounced high-level Adventure Path I'm currently developing leans into the element of how you can tie it to a previous Adventure Path more than anything we've ever published, so I'm eager to see how folks react to that... even though it does put a little more work on the GM and their responsibilities to get things going.
It does not. I do have plans for that, but those plans have been pushed into the more distant future as a result of the schedule-shuffling ripple-effects of the OGL event earlier this year.
Just planting the seed for later, but kicking off PF3E with a world shaking AP set in Druma featuring a power hungry publishing house co written/ developed by John and Thursty could be fun.It does not. I do have plans for that, but those plans have been pushed into the more distant future as a result of the schedule-shuffling ripple-effects of the OGL event earlier this year.
I assume that PF3E is now 10 years away (given the reset of the timer with the Remaster). So hold that thought! :p
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Tying a high and low 3 book AP together is actually far less of an issue then it might appear. People, especially adventurers are extraordinarily mobile in Golarion compared to the real life time period. All it takes is the GM and players coming up with a plausible reason for the characters to have come to a a different region and that feels good with the players. We have carried characters from Fall of Plaguestone to Enmity Cycle just because one character is from near Thuvia and a new character is an old friend of theirs and wrote to them to come visit.
I suspect the starting at 1 adventures will always sell better just because when you are coming into the community you have to start somewhere. And there are certainly stories such as Quest of the Frozen Flame that really do need to start at 1. Conversely, Abomination Vaults which should have started at 4/5 imho given how Ruins of Gauntlight suggests to do Troubles in Otari first and thus have higher comradery with the town. If you didn't run TiO though starting at level 4 makes sense for a group of adventurers looking for adventure given how the AP just starts you out on the doorstep of Gauntlight by default.
Paizo should look at this as an opportunity to show the wider gaming community that high level play doesn't have to be bad with PF2e. Since the system is designed to not fall apart after 14. I'd even be happy with a 3 to 2 ratio of 1-11 / 11-20. Along with spreading the single books around more. My group is already wising there was something level 6-7 to do with these characters after Enmity Cycle.
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I assume that PF3E is now 10 years away (given the reset of the timer with the Remaster). So hold that thought! :pJust planting the seed for later, but kicking off PF3E with a world shaking AP set in Druma featuring a power hungry publishing house co written/ developed by John and Thursty could be fun.It does not. I do have plans for that, but those plans have been pushed into the more distant future as a result of the schedule-shuffling ripple-effects of the OGL event earlier this year.
More like 7 years according to an old post from Michael Sayre. 10 years is a big exception. Sales usually plummet before this.
More like 7 years according to an old post from Michael Sayre. 10 years is a big exception. Sales usually plummet before this.I assume that PF3E is now 10 years away (given the reset of the timer with the Remaster). So hold that thought! :pJust planting the seed for later, but kicking off PF3E with a world shaking AP set in Druma featuring a power hungry publishing house co written/ developed by John and Thursty could be fun.It does not. I do have plans for that, but those plans have been pushed into the more distant future as a result of the schedule-shuffling ripple-effects of the OGL event earlier this year.
IMHO, Magnuskn is right. Revised should restart that timeline.
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Really and truly, 3-book APs or 6-book APs matter little to me so long as the story is engaging and the gameplay is fun.
My real desire is to never again play levels 1-5 in my gaming career UNLESS those characters are able to reach 20th level. I have been gaming for over a decade, and frankly, I am so absolutely sick of playing characters at low levels and then never picking them up again (because there are so few adventures to play at high levels) to the point where I would rather not play than have to do low levels. Again. For characters that are going to be abandoned because there aren't enough adventures at higher levels.
I do understand that some of the 3-book APs are quite themed, so changing from one to another would be difficult. I certainly wouldn't want to play a very dwarfy dwarfson in Sky King's Tomb and then carry that character over to the Varisian harrow-themed Stolen Fates. Even so, I doubt every shorter AP needs to be incredibly themed. As far as APs go, Age of Ashes and Extinction Curse are very much "just go on an adventure" types. APs could also be written in a clustered location. For example, one set in Molthune and another in Druma; one set in Irrisen and one in the Realm of the Mammoth Lords. This would add variety and make it easy to explain how characters jump from one adventure to the next because the locations are set next to each other even if the plots have utterly nothing to do with one another.
As it stands now, I have a subscription to the Adventure Path and Adventure lines, but if the APs continue to be more heavy-handed towards starting levels, I have no reason to keep it. I've played those levels on repeat and have no interest in continuing to do so.
Tying a high and low 3 book AP together is actually far less of an issue then it might appear. People, especially adventurers are extraordinarily mobile in Golarion compared to the real life time period.
It's less about logistics/travel and more about thematic fit, as mentioned above:
But the fact that the 1st to 10th level Adventure Paths come to a conclusion in a specific area of the world, and that they all have their own curated themes, means that it's never going to be easy to make a higher level Adventure Path be a "perfect fit" to organically go into. Best we can do there is to deliberately do a "sequel" to one, but that would generate a perception among the public that you can't play that Adventure Path without playing the first one, which would ironically make that one sell LESS than others, I suspect.
For example, Fists of the Ruby Phoenix can be started after just about any 1st-10th AP with a "fetch quest/macguffin" hook; however, martial arts and arena combat will probably be a sharp departure from what the party has been doing until then. Stolen Fate was made easier to start after a 1st-10th AP, but even then works better with PCs from Abomination Vaults than from Quest for the Frozen Flame or Gatewalkers.
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there's very real data that suggests lower level Adventure Paths simply sell better than higher level ones... but a part of me wonders if that's a self-fufilling prophecy by not publishing as many high-level Adventure Paths as low-level ones.
Sales figures can be misleading, which may be part of what you're alluding to here.
Let's take some isolated hypothetical situations.
1} You publish two 1st-level adventures. You sell 10 copies each.
2} You publish a 1st-level adventure and a 10th-level adventure. You sell 15 copies and 5 copies each.
If you just look at the sales numbers for either scenario, they tell you to publish 1st-level adventures. But the second hypothetical is hiding a (mostly speculative) possibility... that high-level adventures increase low-level adventure sales. Disregarding that high-level material is harder to write than low-level, both of those two scenarios net identical product sales but you'd easily conclude high-level adventures are a bad choice.
I can tell you that my module purchases in the past... I only bought the glut of low-level material because it meshed with the higher-level material. If you hadn't published the level-10-plus stuff you did, I wouldn't have kept my modules and adventure path subscriptions running as I did. I bought 100% of what you offered. But only because it was diverse.
Full disclosure: my groups didn't follow y'all on the PF2 fork in the road. After the first two adventures, we went back to PF1. So I'm not really your target market anymore.
Fuller disclosure: but I bought the Fists of the Ruby Phoenix hardcover. Because it's high-level material. Despite it being for an edition we don't play.
So... real-world experience with me: you've made more money off me by publishing high-level material than low. And I'm telling you that if I was playing PF2, you'd only be selling me low-level material to support high-level material. That's something the sales figure can't ever tell you.
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The sales numbers I’ve seen several different Paizo staff members cite is that the higher-level books of six-book APs consistently sold less. Just by the fickle nature of real gaming, most groups are not completing a 1-2 year arc, and that translates to those products not moving as well.
There’s also the novelty issue. I think a lot about the year we spent on the Isle of Kortos with Extinction Curse/Agents of Edgewatch, which was a twelve month vacation from the AP line for me because it’s not a setting I like. The variable lengths gets away from the chance of being stuck with one flavor for half a year of releases.
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I will continue to voice my support wherever I can for high-level content being as frequently published as low-level content, whether in shorter APs or as part of longer ones.
Unrelated, I'm currently running Gatewalkers into Stolen Fate as my 6th PF2e solo campaign for my fiancée (all have gone from level 1-20) and I think the two go together thematically quite nicely!
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I will continue to voice my support wherever I can for high-level content being as frequently published as low-level content, whether in shorter APs or as part of longer ones.
Unrelated, I'm currently running Gatewalkers into Stolen Fate as my 6th PF2e solo campaign for my fiancée (all have gone from level 1-20) and I think the two go together thematically quite nicely!
To be fair it did not help their sales at all that the first three six book APs had exceedingly high difficulty at the gate and that the APs themselves don't pay any attention to the average 3 encounters per game world day that PF2e is designed around.
And IMHO do to their whirlwind/globetrotting nature really lack the charm of the more localized 1e APs. NPCs are met and forgotten because they will never be met again. All in all I find the APs for 2e to just not be up to the quality of 1e except Abomination Vaults which far exceeds Emerald Spire for a mega dungeon.
Agents of Edgewatch is a train wreck which I cannot be bothered to put in the effort to salvage for a group that is a more immersive be in the world not riding on rails hack and slash table.
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To be fair it did not help their sales at all that the first three six book APs had exceedingly high difficulty at the gate and that the APs themselves don't pay any attention to the average 3 encounters per game world day that PF2e is designed around.I will continue to voice my support wherever I can for high-level content being as frequently published as low-level content, whether in shorter APs or as part of longer ones.
Unrelated, I'm currently running Gatewalkers into Stolen Fate as my 6th PF2e solo campaign for my fiancée (all have gone from level 1-20) and I think the two go together thematically quite nicely!
Is this a result of designers having to "relearn" how to design adventures?
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The sales numbers I’ve seen several different Paizo staff members cite is that the higher-level books of six-book APs consistently sold less. Just by the fickle nature of real gaming, most groups are not completing a 1-2 year arc, and that translates to those products not moving as well.
Yeah, the thing I'm curious about is if there's a measurable difference in sales between the 4th, 5th, 6th book of a 1-20 AP and the 1st, 2nd, 3rd book of a 11-20 AP. Since a lot of "later books in a 6 book Adventure Path don't sell as well might be attributable to "five months in, the campaign sort of fell apart due to real life stuff."
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Is this a result of designers having to "relearn" how to design adventures?
It is quite a shift from PF 1E.
Some of these APs were published over a year after the initial release. Agents of Edgewatch (The third six book AP) throws level 1-2 characters into 7 encounters 3 which are moderate and one is severe and is expected to be done in one Golarion day.
Many of the Single book adventures still do this. Night of the Gray Death is exceedingly brutal when playing true to the character and without meta knowledge. Expect several instant, no appeal character deaths in that one.
Some of these APs were published over a year after the initial release. Agents of Edgewatch (The third six book AP) throws level 1-2 characters into 7 encounters 3 which are moderate and one is severe and is expected to be done in one Golarion day.Is this a result of designers having to "relearn" how to design adventures?
It is quite a shift from PF 1E.
That would have been considered rough even in Pathfinder 1st. Hmmm ...
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Some of these APs were published over a year after the initial release.Is this a result of designers having to "relearn" how to design adventures?
It is quite a shift from PF 1E.
I'm not certain of the exact turnaround times on the APs, but I think you'd be surprised at how little time most of the authors for the first 3 APs would've had with the final PF2 rules before writing the AP chapter. I also had a look through the authors for the first 3 APs, and of the 18 books, only one was written by someone with previous writing experience for long-form first-party PF2 adventures - Agent's Of Edgewatch's Assault on Hunting Lodge Seven was written by Ron Lundeen, who also wrote Age of Ashes' Tomorrow Must Burn (and was likely writing The Slithering at a similar point in time as the AoE book). I'd suspect that even for Agents of Edgewatch, most authors had never written long-form PF2 adventures, and likely only had their hands on the rules for a matter of months.
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I'm not certain of the exact turnaround times on the APs, but I think you'd be surprised at how little time most of the authors for the first 3 APs would've had with the final PF2 rules before writing the AP chapter. I also had a look through the authors for the first 3 APs, and of the 18 books, only one was written by someone with previous writing experience for long-form first-party PF2 adventures - Agent's Of Edgewatch's Assault on Hunting Lodge Seven was written by Ron Lundeen, who also wrote Age of Ashes' Tomorrow Must Burn (and was likely writing The Slithering at a similar point in time as the AoE book). I'd suspect that even for Agents of Edgewatch, most authors had never written long-form PF2 adventures, and likely only had their hands on the rules for a matter of months.Some of these APs were published over a year after the initial release.Is this a result of designers having to "relearn" how to design adventures?
It is quite a shift from PF 1E.
I believe so too.
For example, the Remastered rules have been around internally for some time (at least for the first books). But they will not be used for APs before AP#201 at the earliest (I do not remember the expected street date for that one right away, sorry).
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I'm not certain of the exact turnaround times on the APs, but I think you'd be surprised at how little time most of the authors for the first 3 APs would've had with the final PF2 rules before writing the AP chapter. I also had a look through the authors for the first 3 APs, and of the 18 books, only one was written by someone with previous writing experience for long-form first-party PF2 adventures - Agent's Of Edgewatch's Assault on Hunting Lodge Seven was written by Ron Lundeen, who also wrote Age of Ashes' Tomorrow Must Burn (and was likely writing The Slithering at a similar point in time as the AoE book). I'd suspect that even for Agents of Edgewatch, most authors had never written long-form PF2 adventures, and likely only had their hands on the rules for a matter of months.Some of these APs were published over a year after the initial release.Is this a result of designers having to "relearn" how to design adventures?
It is quite a shift from PF 1E.
We generally are working on Adventure Paths a year or more before they release. For example, I'm currently developing one that will publish mid 2024 and am hiring authors for one in early 2025 this week. The complexity of Adventure Paths means that their schedule tends to be the furthest out for our projects, and whenever we do an edition change, we DO try to make the adventures mesh with the new rules as best we can but those rules aren't available for the writers of the first 2 or 3 that come out and it's down to the wire for development for the first 2. We do our best, and fortunately, there's a lot of great feedback from GMs and folks who have played them for people to work with to polish off the rough edges.
We went through the same growing pains with Council of Thieves, Kingmaker, and Serpent's Skull back in the day as we were shifting over from 3.5 to Pathfinder. I don't expect this to impact remastered Adventure Paths much at all though, since it's not an edition change and the way things are built isn't changing.
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I'm not certain of the exact turnaround times on the APs, but I think you'd be surprised at how little time most of the authors for the first 3 APs would've had with the final PF2 rules before writing the AP chapter. I also had a look through the authors for the first 3 APs, and of the 18 books, only one was written by someone with previous writing experience for long-form first-party PF2 adventures - Agent's Of Edgewatch's Assault on Hunting Lodge Seven was written by Ron Lundeen, who also wrote Age of Ashes' Tomorrow Must Burn (and was likely writing The Slithering at a similar point in time as the AoE book). I'd suspect that even for Agents of Edgewatch, most authors had never written long-form PF2 adventures, and likely only had their hands on the rules for a matter of months.Some of these APs were published over a year after the initial release.Is this a result of designers having to "relearn" how to design adventures?
It is quite a shift from PF 1E.I believe so too.
For example, the Remastered rules have been around internally for some time (at least for the first books). But they will not be used for APs before AP#201 at the earliest (I do not remember the expected street date for that one right away, sorry).
None of the adventures we've announced yet for either the Adventure Path or standalone adventure line are remastered adventures. We'll make sure folks know when we do!
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I know that the business model has been built on monthly AP releases, but I wonder sometimes if the higher level adventures would sell better if they were released as part of a one book compilation adventure, rather than the tail end of a monthly adventure series. As mentioned before, a lot of adventures fizzle out at relatively low levels, or never get off the ground.
A rookie GM with a new group of players will likely buy the first book of the AP to see if they like the adventure. A lot of tables never get off the ground, and a lot more die to scheduling issues if it stretches on much more than a year or so. It takes a group of committed players to make it through a full 6 part AP, and why would the GM buy the last few books if the group is disbanded?
The story driven nature of most APs also works against this to an extent. If you're sitting down with Bob, Mary, Sue and Joe to play, they make up characters and get invested in the story, then Joe has to leave, it just doesn't feel the same when Sean sits down to play...especially if Joe might be back later. I know several campaigns that were put on an indefinite hiatus when a person went away to college and never got picked back up.
I'm not privy to the business numbers, but I wonder if releasing the APs less often as hardcovers would alleviate some of this. The GMs get a single book per adventure, with both low and high level content. No more high level books sitting on the shelf never getting sold, higher initial price point and hopefully more profit per book. Looking at it, this appears to be the tack of the Starfinder AP line, so I guess in a relatively short time we should have an answer as to if it works.
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I think many potential GMs will buy the first book of an AP, and maybe the 2nd too sometimes to be sure, to check if it is worth for them to buy the whole AP.
I have several players that are on the subscription and then buy everything purely to support Paizo. Thus myself I don't buy much at all anymore. Though I may have to as a number of them aren't exactly thrilled with the increased prices and having to buy 'core' books again so soon after we all switched and invested into PF2e.
However, I have learned from bad experience as a GM you read the entire Adventure Path before launching it. Agents of Edgewatch is an example of something I'd have given a hard pass on to my players after reading all the books. It starts well and then just keeps falling down the stairs after the second book.
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It “starts well” with illegal anti-labor violence? :p
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I think many potential GMs will buy the first book of an AP, and maybe the 2nd too sometimes to be sure, to check if it is worth for them to buy the whole AP.I have several players that are on the subscription and then buy everything purely to support Paizo. Thus myself I don't buy much at all anymore. Though I may have to as a number of them aren't exactly thrilled with the increased prices and having to buy 'core' books again so soon after we all switched and invested into PF2e.
The updated rules will be available for free on Archives of Nethys, just as the current ones are.
We already have a free Remaster Core Preview pdf document available on these boards that covers some key changes.
Rebuying the Core books is not required at all.
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The best analogy of "do you need to rebuy the remaster books?" is "if you bought a physical copy of a book that received a lot of errata, do you need to buy a new printing?" I can stay, from experience that the answer is "probably not."
Since I bought the PF1 ACG that received like 20 pages of errata, and I never felt obligated to buy a second copy. If i wanted to know what the "actual text" of a feat, ability, etc. was I would just look it up on one of the online resources that collate the rules (AoN is the official one).
Now it may be that the remaster changes so much stuff that having to constantly refer to AoN is a bummer, but we don't know that yet until we've seen the books. I think the most tricky bits are just going to be "remembering the new names of spells etc." which buying a new book isn't going to help with since "Magic Missile" and "Shocking Grasp" have been part of my life since the 80s.
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It “starts well” with illegal anti-labor violence? :p
is it illegal in Absalom?
cuz... kinda thinking the labor agitation is what's illegal...
lemme just say, if I ever run Agents... and one of my players wants to do it next... we'll be much more inspired by The Shield than Law & Order
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I think many potential GMs will buy the first book of an AP, and maybe the 2nd too sometimes to be sure, to check if it is worth for them to buy the whole AP.I have several players that are on the subscription and then buy everything purely to support Paizo. Thus myself I don't buy much at all anymore. Though I may have to as a number of them aren't exactly thrilled with the increased prices and having to buy 'core' books again so soon after we all switched and invested into PF2e.The updated rules will be available for free on Archives of Nethys, just as the current ones are.
We already have a free Remaster Core Preview pdf document available on these boards that covers some key changes.
Rebuying the Core books is not required at all.
Lots of people like playing with books.
There's a huge TTRPG community of people who don't participate on boards, forums, online anything. They just show up to game night with their books, pencils, dice, and pretzels.
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It “starts well” with illegal anti-labor violence? :pis it illegal in Absalom?
cuz... kinda thinking the labor agitation is what's illegal...
lemme just say, if I ever run Agents... and one of my players wants to do it next... we'll be much more inspired by The Shield than Law & Order
The kobolds are protesting what is textually their illegal treatment. Their employers pay the Agents under the table for handling it for them.
Y’know, the whole reason the author of that volume donated all of their profits from it, the thing we got a big public apology for?
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I think many potential GMs will buy the first book of an AP, and maybe the 2nd too sometimes to be sure, to check if it is worth for them to buy the whole AP.I have several players that are on the subscription and then buy everything purely to support Paizo. Thus myself I don't buy much at all anymore. Though I may have to as a number of them aren't exactly thrilled with the increased prices and having to buy 'core' books again so soon after we all switched and invested into PF2e.The updated rules will be available for free on Archives of Nethys, just as the current ones are.
We already have a free Remaster Core Preview pdf document available on these boards that covers some key changes.
Rebuying the Core books is not required at all.
Lots of people like playing with books.
There's a huge TTRPG community of people who don't participate on boards, forums, online anything. They just show up to game night with their books, pencils, dice, and pretzels.
The free online rules are still free for them too.
Even before that, the only people I saw bringing books to the table were GMs and GMs wannabes or rules lawyers.
Anyway, anyone participating on these boards can easily check Archives of Nethys for any rule they wish. For free.
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cuz... kinda thinking the labor agitation is what's illegal...
Absalom is not Korvosa (which absolutely does have Combination Acts, and which absolutely does brutalize organized workers when it roots out their secret organizations). It's Pinkertoning is done under the table, not on the statute book.
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To be honest I felt the last 3 ap's could have each done being a book or two longer (Gate walkers and stolen fate while I really like them felt rushed in a few places and the Dwarf one could possibly have done with ending at a higher lvl.)
Respectfully disagree, although I haven't read through Stolen Fate, I liked the speed and thoughtfulness in both Gatewalkers and Sky King's Tomb.
They both had really good "Continuing the Adventure" sections for DMs to work in some higher-level homebrew.
Personally, I'm looking at running one or the other when we finish our current AP. I like that they are both "contained" and tell a full storyline in a 'compact' package.
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I wish Paizo had done this sooner. A couple of 1st Edition APs would have been greatly improved by being shorter and more focused (Serpent's Skull and Jade Regent for instance).
