Pathfinder 1E Stop thinking of Pathfinder as magazine issues

[James Jacobs]

Also, I stopped my subscription to dungeon because of three reasons

1. No official electronic version with cut and paste features
2. There was a serious lack of mystery/intrigue adventures. Out of the 2 years worth of subscriptions I could only find 3 adventures that did not end in a dungeon crawl.
3. The official WOTC format was just not informative enough for me, especially when concerning real NPCS.

1: We'll be releasing PDF versions of Pathfinder concurrent with the print release. If you subscribe to Pathfnider, you get the PDFs for free.

2: Mystery/intrigue adventures work poorly at mid or high level due to the assumed presence of divination magic, resurrection magic, etc. That said, mystery/intrigue adventures are a popular genre. There'll be a fair bit of it in Pathfinder adventures, but it's such a wide-ranging genre I'm not really sure what exactly it is you're looking for when it comes to the genre. Can you list those 3 adventures in Dungeon that you mentioned?

3: Pathfinder's adventure format will be an evolution of the Dungeon format. We'll have a lot more room for each adventure though, which means more info. Key NPCs will have a lot more info indeed, likely with the key ones having 2-page presentations.

 

[Croesus]

I'd say that it's not that little use:

You get two big adventure paths, which should be enough to occupy your party for the whole year, and you also get new monsters, spells, feats, and stuff like that.

You'll get it in what I consider one of the best possible forms of distribution: You get both the print book and the PDF version, so you can do full text searches, or assemble your own monster compendium out of the stuff.

KY, you just summed up all the reasons I want Pathfinder. Unfortunately, I'm lucky if my group games twice a month for 3-4 hours per session. RL, kids, etc. just take up too much time. With all the material in each issue of PF, how much can I use in 6-8 hours? Add in that I DM less than half the time, and the amount of unused material grows.

Don't get me wrong - I'm rooting for the product and the company. I expect PF to be outstanding. I'm just having trouble coming up with a justification for getting it based on value/use. I'd like to buy a new car every six months too, but the costs outweigh the benefits. Same thing here.

Of course, part of the reason I'm reading this thread is I'm hoping someone will come up with a reason that changes my mind...

 

[KingCrab]

This make be slightly off topic, but all this talk about Pathfinder being a replacement for both magazines makes me want to ask: does anyone know why WotC decided not to renew the contract with Paizo? Are they planning or taking control again? It doesn't really make sense to me.

 

[Glyfair]

This make be slightly off topic, but all this talk about Pathfinder being a replacement for both magazines makes me want to ask: does anyone know why WotC decided not to renew the contract with Paizo?

Anyone who knows isn't talking (which would be pretty much the involved parties at WotC & Paizo). Some have speculated that WotC wants to use the brand names for their Digital Initiative. However, since Paizo has known for quite a while (since at least last year sometime) and the Digital Initiative is quite a ways off (early next year?), I think that's not the whole story.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

*thinks of Pathfinder as a magazine, just to be contrary*

 

[Wik]

You know, I subscribed to Pathfinder the day after the "unpleasantness", and now that the date is fast approaching, I sometimes wonder if it's worth it.

But then I think about our current sessions, and how thanks to STAP, we're in a game that everyone's loving and that's been running weekly for six months now. I'm looking forward to either running Runelords, or handing it off on someone else and actually playing through an AP (and a shorter one! Don't get me wrong, I love STAP, but I wish it was a bit shorter).

Ultimately, what I want to see in Pathfinder is:

1) A way to convert the paths to "stand-alone" adventures. Easy enough, really.
2) New critters. Love the new monsters found in STAP (the Rhagodessa kills!)
3) At least one AP coming up in the future that's relatively short (maybe four episodes)

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

The thing I like about APs in general is that they can sit on your shelf until you need them, kind of like MIRVs or MREs.

I mainly use homebrewed adventures, but once in a while, I go to the wall of 30 years of accumulated RPG material, take something down, and run it as is or convert it as needed. And anyone else can do so as well.

Example: I bought the RttToEE when it came out. I never used it, so it just sat around gathering dust. A buddy of mine wanted to run a campaign, but didn't have time to do all the design work he'd usually put in. He went to my shelves, picked up RttToEE, read it, and is currently running it.

So really, I don't care if I don't run a Pathfinder AP in the next decade- I'll have them on hand, ready to use.

This is not to say I'm sold on it, of course. I converted my leftover Dungeon and Dragon subs to Pathfinder to give it a look-see. If it works for me, I'll continue it after that period lapses.

Given what I saw with previous stuff in the mags & Shackled City, I'll probably wind up writing Paizo a check in a few months.

 

[Emryys]

Slightly OT, but...

I am interested in the Pathfinder series as well as other Paizo products, so when are they going to get Paypal...?

Edit: Just found some threads at Paizo about this issue... Hmmm, will have to find a way

 

[w_earle_wheeler]

I keep hearing people complaining about how expensive Pathfinder is, "who is going to pay $20 bucks for a magazine?", guys, it's not a magazine it's an adventure book, much like: Red Hand of Doom (128 pages / $24.95), or Shattered Gates of Slaughterdale (160 pages / $19.95), Night of Disolution (96 pages / $19.99), Crypt of the Devil Lich (96 pages / $24.95), The Scaly God (80 pages at $18.99). The prices are in the same ballpark as other publishers, and people don't complain about them.

Actually, people do complain about those prices.

Luckily, most of the products above can be purchased from Amazon.com at a discount, and (in the States at least) they have free shipping if you order $25 of stuff at once. If Pathfinder ends up for sale on Amazon.com at a discount, then the price points would be comparable.

I'm not saying Pathfinder isn't worth $20, or that people won't buy it. But many people are turned off by the high prices of RPG books and supplements.

Making Pathfinder a durable book product with a theoretically infinite shelf life (as opposed to a model in which 45% of the print run is pulped a month after it comes out) seemed the best option.

I'm certainly interested in seeing how this turns out. I have confidence that the quality will be very high (I was very pleased with Dungeon magazine over the past six years or so).

 

[Kae'Yoss]

This make be slightly off topic, but all this talk about Pathfinder being a replacement for both magazines makes me want to ask: does anyone know why WotC decided not to renew the contract with Paizo? Are they planning or taking control again? It doesn't really make sense to me.

My best guess is that Paizo's become too good and noone would have bothered with Wizards' digital initiative if they could get Paizo-made magazines instead, so instead of improving their own quality, Wizards just got rid of the competition.