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As we get late in the edition, and we're starting to really swim in character options, lore books and APs, I thought it might be fun to start a thread discussing new kinds of products people would be interested in buying (throw feasibility or practicality to the wind!). What would really improve your gaming experience the most at this point? What would be a nice to have if it were possible? What product could you see that targets a really specific pain point for you?
I've pitched ideas before, like a Deep Rock Galactic inspired randomized delve hot-seat GM box set, but here are some things I've been hankering for recently to get the thread started:
1. Pre-written modular NPC relationship webs. Nothing brings a location or scenario to life more than having fleshed out NPCs with quests, motives, relationships, and grudges. This could be presented as a network map for at-a-glance reminders, alongside NPC details including artwork, relevant info for figuring out how they'd react to different events, and background details that are hard to come up with on the spot. It's the kind of thing I was hoping would be present in Strength of Thousands, but all that hard work was instead left up to me, and since I was doing the work anyway, it was much easier to just come up with my own NPCs.
You could have dungeon denizen webs, big city webs, small town webs, or generic webs with tags to make it easy to swap locations. You could have super detailed webs keyed into various Golarion regions, at various political scales. You could have web templates so you can have a framework to quickly slap your own together.
It's like... every NPC from pre-written adventures is missing the social details that make them actually matter, and leaves all that work up to the GM, or hides the info throughout hundreds of pages of adventure content. I want to buy that work from Paizo!
2. Self-Contained, Classic Dungeons. I want to be able to buy classic, video-gamey, isekai anime-esque, nearly static, premade dungeons with multiple floors, traps, secret rooms, treasure, and probably respawning enemies. Spend no effort working it into the wider world, but give it at least some token internal consistency. Give me player maps with secrets cleverly hidden. Throw in some randomizing elements so I can reuse it. Don't worry about making it have satisfying fights and mechanics for every kind of character, just print other dungeons with different mixes they can challenge next. Feel free to make some have mystery elements, some just being jokes, and some having a cool self-contained story.
Swap these out near generic towns with relationship webs that reference [nearby dungeon], and you could have a pretty fun time with next to no prep work.
3. Big Book of Random Tables. I've come to appreciate having some good random tables when the situation calls for it, but I'd love to not have to borrow from other game systems all the time. I'd like to have random encounters for sure, but also loot, Golarion location associations, weather, planar connections, and quests and jobs. The kind of stuff you can pull out when the players go somewhere you didn't expect or ask questions that you weren't prepared for.
An adventure on the Elemental Planes. Specifically either Air or Water.
I would definitely love more elemental planes content in general. However, would you want this adventure to differ from their other APs? I'm looking for ideas that don't fit the mold of their existing product types.
For example: A book dedicated to Hexploring the Plane of Air with randomization elements and no set overarching story.
A massive sandbox AP. No set story, just a few dozen adventure hooks and bones of adventures for each level.
Tools for starting your own homebrew adventure. Hundreds of ideas, tables, setups for people to pull into their own games or get inspired from.
A really massive GMs adventure toolkit kinda thing.
One of my groups were missing some players so the GM ran us through a thought experiment kinda game. Where you are given a set of options to choose one of. Then choose any your group has chosen to add a more specific thing about it. Real story concept idea exercise kinda thing. Really helps spark the imagination.
So having something that gives hundreds of jumping off points for adventures, NPCs, plots, etc could be really helpful.
Creative Director
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Taking notes!
That said... this wish: "2. Self-Contained, Classic Dungeons. I want to be able to buy classic, video-gamey, isekai anime-esque, nearly static, premade dungeons with multiple floors, traps, secret rooms, treasure, and probably respawning enemies. Spend no effort working it into the wider world, but give it at least some token internal consistency. Give me player maps with secrets cleverly hidden. Throw in some randomizing elements so I can reuse it. Don't worry about making it have satisfying fights and mechanics for every kind of character, just print other dungeons with different mixes they can challenge next. Feel free to make some have mystery elements, some just being jokes, and some having a cool self-contained story."
...is (mostly) coming out later this year! Although it IS worked into the wider world, in that Bastardhall is a location we've had in Ustalav for a long time but, until now, haven't done anything with it
What won't be a part of this from that wish is player maps with hidden secrets, nor will there be any randomizing elements. While those thigns would be rad (I especially love the idea of a "new game plus" type mode, considering this adventure's strong Dark Souls/Castlevania DNA)... this one just didn't have the room for that sort of extra content.
...is (mostly) coming out later this year! Although it IS worked into the wider world, in that Bastardhall is a location we've had in Ustalav for a long time but, until now, haven't done anything with it
I'm definitely keeping an eye on that project! It sounds really cool
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As for other things, I would greatly appriciate a book that is JUST about going back and giving options to older things. This has to be my biggest pain point player-side. There's a lot of things, especially from earlier on in the system's life, that need more attention.
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So, things I'd be thrilled to see -
1. Books focusing on deepening options for existing classes and ancestries
Rival Academies does this quite a lot, and I'd like more along those lines.
There's quite a few classes that have only 2-4 class feats per level to choose from. Same for ancestries.
2. A big expansion of skill feats
Some skills like Intimidation and Medicine have a lot to choose, but others like Arcana don't have much to pick from.
3. A "pathless" sandbox adventure (toolbox)
Adventure Paths are pretty successful, but they're not really sandboxy. You're meant to go from book 1 to 2 to 3-6. A book really focusing on "true sandbox" game design would be interesting. Taking some inspiration from Sine Nomine games, which really make a point of not planning too far ahead.
This could also be full of useful random tables (again, Sine Nomine style, but with PF2 content in them).
Also really useful: ecosystem-based indices for monsters. For example, for the Sky King's Tomb AP I'm currently GMing I'd love to have a nice list of darklands monsters sorted by level.
I did a large hex map homebrew of adventurers hired by a city to explore and survey a river that went most of the way to a large trade partner city. I had a lot of nomadic groups the party encountered along the way, but it was a lot of work to keep tabs on where they were but also how they interacted with each other and had conflicting goals. It would be pretty cool for that to be a mechanic played with in an AP or in a LO book in a region with a lot of nomadic groups.
So something like a down time organization type subsystem that has like 4 major groups of nomadic people in a region that the party builds relationships with and tries to do diplomacy that keeps the peace enough for trade to prosper.
As for other things, I would greatly appriciate a book that is JUST about going back and giving options to older things. This has to be my biggest pain point player-side. There's a lot of things, especially from earlier on in the system's life, that need more attention.
Yeah, this. There's tons of cool things that got released and then nothing since. I don't think Shoony have been reprinted outside Extinction Curse, even.
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With Galactic Ancestries we have seen what a big book of Ancestries can look like. I need Fatastical Ancestries for Pathfinder!!!
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As we get late in the edition, and we're starting to really swim in character options, lore books and APs, I thought it might be fun to start a thread discussing new kinds of products people would be interested in buying (throw feasibility or practicality to the wind!). What would really improve your gaming experience the most at this point? What would be a nice to have if it were possible? What product could you see that targets a really specific pain point for you?
I've pitched ideas before, like a Deep Rock Galactic inspired randomized delve hot-seat GM box set, but here are some things I've been hankering for recently to get the thread started:
1. Pre-written modular NPC relationship webs. Nothing brings a location or scenario to life more than having fleshed out NPCs with quests, motives, relationships, and grudges. This could be presented as a network map for at-a-glance reminders, alongside NPC details including artwork, relevant info for figuring out how they'd react to different events, and background details that are hard to come up with on the spot. It's the kind of thing I was hoping would be present in Strength of Thousands, but all that hard work was instead left up to me, and since I was doing the work anyway, it was much easier to just come up with my own NPCs.
This one would be great, and would be another clear example of something that the new hardcover AP format can enable far easier than the old format, and it'd really pop off hard for more social and town/region based APs like SoG. Like imagine having a nice definitive Willowshore network diagram, so you're not getting jumpscared by NPCs suddenly having new families, colleagues, etc, popping up mid paragraph half the way through the AP.
Failing this I would also just love an NPC Index table in the backmatter like just a table of Name, pronouns, ancestry, profession (or narrative role), first page introduced.
Regarding a sandbox AP:
I suspect that a "true" sandbox will be more of something for the Lost Omens line (maybe by adding the stat blocks of key NPCs and a few encounter tables for various areas).
However, given the popularity of Kingmaker, I would not be surprised if Paizo released a future AP that again leans more heavily on hex crawling/"sandboxy" elements than most APs. If they have a story that can support that play-style (maybe an Arcadia AP, stabilizing things in the Deadshot Lands?).
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With Galactic Ancestries we have seen what a big book of Ancestries can look like. I need Fatastical Ancestries for Pathfinder!!!
+1 on this product. We could round up the remaining ancestries and versatile heritages needing to be Remastered, maybe even rework the Shoony into a more generic Dogfolk ancestry, and give expansions for the ancestries that need some serious love. And throw in some long-awaited fan favorites people have been waiting for, like the Wyrwoods!
The way that starfinder 2e's galactic ancestries handles standardized ancestry feats is awesome. Its probably too late to get something like that in pathfinder 2e, but that would be amazing. Especially if we got something similar for classes. That being said, yeah more player options are always the thing I look forward to most. A galactic ancestries style pathfinder book to gather up all the pre-remaster pathfinder ancestries in one place would be very welcome.
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Ancestry Guide 2.0, with standardized feats, updated lists for all 50 ancestries for those standardized feats and then more new feats
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Seriously just an Ancestry Guide 2.0 Would be killer and something Paizo should make. Updating all Ancestries would be amazing. Since right now you gotta expect any Ancestry Lore gives Additional Lore -Ancestry- Since some do and that can not be right that only some do.
The weapon feats need standardization too.
Ancestry Guide 2.0, with standardized feats, updated lists for all 50 ancestries for those standardized feats and then more new feats
Maybe! I would recommend buying Galactic Ancestries, since those metrics would help Paizo gauge whether or not to do the same type of book for pf2e.
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Ancestry Guide 2.0, with standardized feats, updated lists for all 50 ancestries for those standardized feats and then more new featsMaybe! I would recommend buying Galactic Ancestries, since those metrics would help Paizo gauge whether or not to do the same type of book for pf2e.
I would if I could!!!!
I'd also like a lot more merch. I want Paizo t shirts that are high quality and understated, not competing with those old anime shirts in volume and embarassment.
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Seriously just an Ancestry Guide 2.0 Would be killer and something Paizo should make. Updating all Ancestries would be amazing. Since right now you gotta expect any Ancestry Lore gives Additional Lore -Ancestry- Since some do and that can not be right that only some do.
The weapon feats need standardization too.
I'd also take some alternate or extra rules to bring back some of P1E's stuff, like "your character gains access to 3 Level 1 feats at Level 0", to replicate skill bonuses and starting weapon proficiencies.
I mean this in the same manner as the Free Archetype rule.
Aquatic Adventures is a big want for me and all the under sea lore.
I would also love an Organizations Book that is lore heavy and Archetype heavy.
I would super enjoy an Ancestry Lore book that did a deep dive on some the Ancestries that have lighter in world lore. I feel like this one is a harder sale though.
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Going to be honest I really don't need any more products from Paizo. I just want higher quality/more content out of the current lines.
I would also like an Arms and Armaments book. Each weapon group and armor type gets its own chapter, and each type of weapon and armor gets its own section. This book would collect a bunch of 1E and 2E magical weapons and armors and expand the lore for each one. Maybe 3ish paragraphs for each magical weapon and armor instead the standard 1 small paragraph. This book would also include 1E and 2E mundane weapons that are not yet under the ORC, and there would be a chapter for Special Materials, there a lots of special materials that have been mentioned in passing but haven't gotten rules.
2. A big expansion of skill feats
Some skills like Intimidation and Medicine have a lot to choose, but others like Arcana don't have much to pick from.
I want to second this. By the time you hit upper levels (12+) you are running pretty thin on skill feats. Lots of skills have only 1 or 2 Master level feats. Even fewer have legendary feats. It just feels bad taking a level 2 feat at level 18 because there isn't anything left.
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2. Self-Contained, Classic Dungeons.
This and more tbh-
I think a set of like ... cheap mostly modular micro adventures could be really fun and sold as things you could slot into an existing campaign or run as a short one shot without a lot of baggage. I know there have been one shots but they've been tailor made around specific stories and something in the opposite direction that's just kind of a thing you can throw anywhere or dredge ideas from would be cool.
Though for my personal tastes they don't necessarily have to be dungeons per se, a small semi-randomizable murder mystery would be cool, or like, a town festival with events build into it... dungeons are cool too though.
... As a permanently online GM a version of this that's like, a cheap pdf pamphlet with some map PNGs I can throw into my tabletop simulator of choice or maybe like a quick and simple foundry package with maps and npcs and a tiny journal would be really neat.
$5-7 micro adventure, shorter and without the pregens so they're cheaper to develop than the pathfinder one shots (which are $10)... and then like, after a season of them you can bundle them like 5 for 20-30 dollars instead.
Could also be a good way to experiment with unconventional mechanical or theme directions because they're a lot less committal as a product.
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Also as I type it out, are PFS scenarios at all like this? I haven't really read any, but from what little I've heard they sound similar.Not at all. They are fully another way around: totally on rails (sometimes with choosing the order or some other inessential variability like this), extremely formulaic (like, 3 encounters plus 1 skill challenge) and you must do (almost) everything to get full reward. And when you also don't have enough time they completely devolve into hectic dice-rolling: -faster!- encounter -even faster!- one more encounter -don't slow down, we are not on time!- skill challenge...
Actually, starting with the current season, scenarios are written to be 2 to 3 hours, rather than 4+, so, in general, much less hectic combats. Also, the ratio of combats to skill challenges is more like 2:2. There are exceptions of course. Lately, more often than not, we've been finishing scenarios an hour or so before the store closes. ;-)
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Fwiw, there are third party publishers who've done micro dungeon compilations for PF2. The main one I'm aware of is Mini-Dungeon Tome 1 and 2 from AAW Games.
I think it's worth pointing out that while I do like the idea of having micro-dungeons as well, what I'm personally hoping for is a sizeable dungeon that's all set up for me that could take many sessions and maybe 3+ character level ups. I want the focus to be on moment to moment gameplay and fun, rather than telling a story.
I'm hoping that they don't key into an existing overarching story, or if they do, they could be swapped out between others easily. I want them to be easily adaptable to casual beer and pretzels gaming, or used as a set piece in a bigger custom world and setting that I have tailored to my group's needs.
I've seen plenty of micro-dungeons, as well as cumbersome mega dungeons, and APs with dungeons that are wholly beholden to the book's plot and encourage short-circuiting or circumventing to satisfy story goals and aren't as mechanically fun as they could be if that were prioritized.
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As someone who loves the way that lore books and rulebooks tend to be mixed with Paizo products, I'm pretty satisfied with things on that front. Lost Omen books are rules-light (but not free), and Rulebooks are lore-light (but not free), meaning there's still a little bit in every book for people like me.
But I will say I concur with the want for an Ancestry Core in the style of Galaxy Guide! And books that add options for already-established classes, and archetypes, and general feats and skills! Even if they were nearly lore-agnostic, I'd still want them. Mostly Ancestries and classes, since the others can be more organically layered into the current way books are handled.
While I do love new content and understand why marketing books with it (especially new classes) is much more successful on average, I think with PF2e there's a dearth of content that goes back and actually adds to what's already there.
Even for Core options, we rarely get more than a sprinkling of single feats here and there when it's relevant in a Lost Omens book. There's lots of ancestries that haven't even been reprinted since the Remaster project (Lookin' at you, most of LO:AG!), and many don't even have enough feats to take with the Ancestral Paragon optional rule! Since Galaxy Guide shows us we can save page space for ancestries with Standardized Ancestry Feats, there's no reason we can't follow that template moving forward and make an Ancestry Core to shore up everything we already have! Maybe even going back and turning a lot of repeating class feats into Standardized Class Feats, like Reactive Strike?
I kinda liked their creature type-specific booklets, so I'd like to see more.
The Remastered edition is a clean slate, so... they could go all out with it.
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It feels like everyone always gets super hyped by mythic rules and adventures and then super let down by the implementation.
I wonder if anyone else would be into an anti mythic book, where proficiency without level as a variant rule was really dialed up to tackle the issue of some levels feeling very dead for some classes (especially martials), and maybe magic as a whole (for the PCs in particular) was dialed down to create a more sword and sorcery, plucky hero’s face terrible enemies vibe.
I am guessing the sales would be low for it, since the feats and additional features would be designed around lowering the overall power level of PCs while still giving them as many new things each level as is accomplished with adding level to proficiency, but it does seem like people are often interested in Pw/oL but not as many are interested in doing the work to set up a full campaign that runs that way. So maybe mostly a bestiary or full adventure with a chunky section on what variant rules to use to replace the level bonus (like maybe a variant FA that gives feats at 3/5/7/etc. and then a way to dial down spells or make their casting more like instant rituals that have potential failure effects, to make magic feel more dangerous
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It feels like everyone always gets super hyped by mythic rules and adventures and then super let down by the implementation.
I wonder if anyone else would be into an anti mythic book, where proficiency without level as a variant rule was really dialed up to tackle the issue of some levels feeling very dead for some classes (especially martials), and maybe magic as a whole (for the PCs in particular) was dialed down to create a more sword and sorcery, plucky hero’s face terrible enemies vibe.
I am guessing the sales would be low for it, since the feats and additional features would be designed around lowering the overall power level of PCs while still giving them as many new things each level as is accomplished with adding level to proficiency, but it does seem like people are often interested in Pw/oL but not as many are interested in doing the work to set up a full campaign that runs that way. So maybe mostly a bestiary or full adventure with a chunky section on what variant rules to use to replace the level bonus (like maybe a variant FA that gives feats at 3/5/7/etc. and then a way to dial down spells or make their casting more like instant rituals that have potential failure effects, to make magic feel more dangerous
I would totally like this Gritfinder incarnation of the game.
It feels like everyone always gets super hyped by mythic rules and adventures and then super let down by the implementation.
I wonder if anyone else would be into an anti mythic book, where proficiency without level as a variant rule was really dialed up to tackle the issue of some levels feeling very dead for some classes (especially martials), and maybe magic as a whole (for the PCs in particular) was dialed down to create a more sword and sorcery, plucky hero’s face terrible enemies vibe.
I am guessing the sales would be low for it, since the feats and additional features would be designed around lowering the overall power level of PCs while still giving them as many new things each level as is accomplished with adding level to proficiency, but it does seem like people are often interested in Pw/oL but not as many are interested in doing the work to set up a full campaign that runs that way. So maybe mostly a bestiary or full adventure with a chunky section on what variant rules to use to replace the level bonus (like maybe a variant FA that gives feats at 3/5/7/etc. and then a way to dial down spells or make their casting more like instant rituals that have potential failure effects, to make magic feel more dangerous
Sounds like something that would be better done as 3pp, frankly. People generally want Paizo stuff to work with other Paizo stuff and this is going to fall into the case of "nothing that comes out after this acknowledges its existance" pretty quickly due to how many core Pathfinder assumptions don't hold in a game like this.