Quote from: Warboss Squee;1061511I personally want PF to succeed. WotC could use the competition.

I would agree with that. However, PF is not the competition I would like for it. Regardless of the vast differences between TSR/OSR D&D, 3e, 4e, 53, and PF, they are all within the same metaphoric genus (or maybe even just subspecies) of the larger cladogram of TTRPGs. They are level based, class divided, combat engine with tacked on skill system, abstract combat (hp, etc.) kludged together systems. And I love them for it, btw, but the point still stands that there is very little daylight between them, in the grand scheme of things. I would love it if, say, RuneQuest, GURPS or HERO system, Traveller (and the fantasy equivalent that could have appeared in a competitive market), and either a D&D or PF all controlling like 10% of the market each, with the other 50% controlled by everyone else.

I'm not sure if TTRPGs just happened to have stumbled into a hegemonic situation, or that that is a natural economic state for an industry of this size. It would be nice if it were different, though.

Quote from: Rhedyn;1061510You could say the same about 5e.

All 5e did is make sure the game didn't radically change into "Wizard Chess" at high levels, it still breaks into little pieces. Mainly because your wizard is playing "Wizard Checkers" and the MM enemies are playing "Tic Tac Toe"

5e has nothing like the radical non-functionality of double digit PF, which is even worse than 3e I'd say. Though my 19th level 3e game devolved into 100% Wizard PCs. Not seen anything like that in 5e where the Epic Tier PCs have been mostly Barbarians, plus a Druid.

The most one can say about 5e is that the MM monsters are not a threat to high level parties of comparable CR.

Quote from: S'mon;1061483Checking amazon.co.uk:
Pathfinder Roleplaying Game: Core Rulebook 32,725 in Books
Pathfinder Roleplaying Game: Core Rulebook (Pocket Edition)  211,874 in Books
Pathfinder Playtest Rulebook 331,726 in Books

Compare:
Basic Fantasy Role-Playing Game 3rd Edition 183,089 in Books
Dungeons & Dragons Player's Handbook 888 in Books

So I'm not seeing any evidence of Pathfinder growth in the UK, at least. Whereas there is plenty of indication that 5e D&D is doing very well.


I'm sure Pathfinder will get a significant sales bump when the real 2nd edition books release; but I don't think there is any indication it will be within an order of magnitude of 5e D&D's ongoing sales.

I don't think Amazon is a primary source for purchasing Paizo books online. I think most of their sales have always gone through their website. Even in their heyday they were never big sellers on Amazon.

And yes I agree it will not be anything close to 5e. I am not saying it will. I am saying for Paizo, which is a fraction of 5e, they're doing fine.

Quote from: S'mon;1061484I think this is right. Most people didn't like 4e D&D because it didn't feel like D&D - which includes the 4e classes feeling similar in play. They didn't reject it for lack of crunch. At the point of creating a new 1st level PC, 4e is actually MORE crunchy than 3e/PF. 3e/PF has a relatively easy on-ramp; the piled-up insane crunch comes later. 4e has a much shallower curve - starts crunchier and only piles it up at a relatively slower rate, with spikes at the tier breaks.

I do think an 'AD&D 3e' would not have been nearly as successful as the WotC 3e D&D we got, which would likely mean a Paizo continuity version would have been less successful too.

I don't think 3rd ed's success had a lot to do with its charop stuff. The big update in the art from the dated, 1980s-looking stuff, throwing the endless 2e splats in the garbage, massively cleaning up the presentation, clear rules, harmonized d20 approach, and Living Greyhawk were huge. Its sales were initially massive, well before charop culture took over. But all of that could have been done with a more AD&D-like approach of class being largely a statically defined thing with a small number of options. After all, that's how 5e does it, and we all know how that's been a smash hit.

Quote from: Daztur;1061508Hard to judge in retrospect. 2ed had so many supplements that a back to basics approach might've backfired.

D&D 3.0 was a back-to-basics approach. Remember "back to the dungeon?" They didn't start flogging the splat treadmill until the authors of the original system left (weren't they mostly fired?), and a new crew came in and put out 3.5. Before that, the D&D 3 supplements were mostly given the same titles as 1e supplements.

Quote from: Mistwell;1061523I don't think Amazon is a primary source for purchasing Paizo books online. I think most of their sales have always gone through their website. Even in their heyday they were never big sellers on Amazon.

And yes I agree it will not be anything close to 5e. I am not saying it will. I am saying for Paizo, which is a fraction of 5e, they're doing fine.

Amazon's cracked down on everybody who was tracking sales ranks, but I remember Starfinder launching in the top 10 in fantasy games, which put it in the top hundreds in all books. It's down in the 12Ks now. PF Core Rulebook peaked in the 400s.

I don't know how much, but some part of 3E's success was the sheer length of time between it and 2E, and the buzz of a new company doing something with it.  That was enough to get people to enthusiastically try it, despite the somewhat difficult to read presentation and more than a few editing and organization problems.  That is, it had enough pent up goodwill to get people to steamroll any problem, and get a game working. That was a benefit that WotC had just by acquiring the license.  Then people had skills and feats to chew on for awhile, and most people didn't play over the low levels for some time.  

PF1 had a similar dynamic on launch (though for different reasons, obviously).  PF2 will mostly stand or fall on its own merits.

Quote from: Mistwell;1061523I don't think Amazon is a primary source for purchasing Paizo books online. I think most of their sales have always gone through their website. Even in their heyday they were never big sellers on Amazon.

Well I think for the UK it is amazon + FLGS. Paizo shipping has a long way to go.

Quote from: fearsomepirate;1061525I don't think 3rd ed's success had a lot to do with its charop stuff. The big update in the art from the dated, 1980s-looking stuff, throwing the endless 2e splats in the garbage, massively cleaning up the presentation, clear rules, harmonized d20 approach, and Living Greyhawk were huge. Its sales were initially massive, well before charop culture took over. But all of that could have been done with a more AD&D-like approach of class being largely a statically defined thing with a small number of options. After all, that's how 5e does it, and we all know how that's been a smash hit.

Sure, that sounds reasonable. I agree the art plus the cleaner looking system were influential.

Quote from: S'mon;10615215e has nothing like the radical non-functionality of double digit PF, which is even worse than 3e I'd say. Though my 19th level 3e game devolved into 100% Wizard PCs. Not seen anything like that in 5e where the Epic Tier PCs have been mostly Barbarians, plus a Druid.

The most one can say about 5e is that the MM monsters are not a threat to high level parties of comparable CR.

And my epic level 3.5 campaign had a Swashbuckler, a Rogue, a Warlock, and a Ranger. That campaign ended in the later 30s of levels and more than a few Divine Ranks. The Wizard survived one round of combat and never showed up again.

Anecdotal evidence is anecdotal. It takes a bit to fully grasp all the new meta in 5e and martials even have a place in meta-comps at higher levels, but once you lock it down, casters are still the primary drivers of success.

But yeah, the MM being useless was biggest frustration in our group.

Quote from: fearsomepirate;1061527Amazon's cracked down on everybody who was tracking sales ranks, but I remember Starfinder launching in the top 10 in fantasy games, which put it in the top hundreds in all books. It's down in the 12Ks now. PF Core Rulebook peaked in the 400s.

I am unaware of any crackdown on that data and camelcamelcamel seems to be working just fine for it. Here you go:

[ATTACH=CONFIG]2980[/ATTACH]

NovelRank got the hammer dropped on them, and I think SalesRankExpress did, too (they seem to be using a different tracker now, and a lot of records are gone).

Quote from: Rhedyn;1061540And my epic level 3.5 campaign had a Swashbuckler, a Rogue, a Warlock, and a Ranger. That campaign ended in the later 30s of levels and more than a few Divine Ranks. The Wizard survived one round of combat and never showed up again.

Anecdotal evidence is anecdotal. It takes a bit to fully grasp all the new meta in 5e and martials even have a place in meta-comps at higher levels, but once you lock it down, casters are still the primary drivers of success.

But yeah, the MM being useless was biggest frustration in our group.

I don't really dispute that in powergamer hands high level 5e casters are stronger. But that is true in all editions. Non casters are viable even without minmaxing and that is very unlike 3e/pf.

Quote from: S'mon;1061555I don't really dispute that in powergamer hands high level 5e casters are stronger. But that is true in all editions. Non casters are viable even without minmaxing and that is very unlike 3e/pf.

Depends on what you mean by viable.

A weak build may be 1/1000th as effective as the same race/class with a better build in 3.5.

In 5e it caps out more at 1/10th. That is still pretty irrelevant in a 6 man party. But on the other hand, 5e can't handle powergamers like 3e could so you can more reasonably expect the players to just not do that or the DM just has write up custom foes for any encounter to matter (not too easy or too impossible)

Quote from: Rhedyn;1061556Depends on what you mean by viable.

A weak build may be 1/1000th as effective as the same race/class with a better build in 3.5.

In 5e it caps out more at 1/10th. That is still pretty irrelevant in a 6 man party. But on the other hand, 5e can't handle powergamers like 3e could so you can more reasonably expect the players to just not do that or the DM just has write up custom foes for any encounter to matter (not too easy or too impossible)

How does 3e successfully handle powergamers?

And it is very hard on the 3e GM to create custom foes, whereas it is easy in 5e. Look at 5e Tome of Beasts - I tended to use that when I wanted to challenge high level 5e PCs. But I can also easily tweak a 5e MM monster to make it threatening. A rules-compliant rebuild of a 3e/PF monster is usually a big undertaking IME.

Ancedotally for my high level recent games, I have seen PF groups where the Summoner is around x100 the power of the Cleric. In 5e I guess the summoning/animating-focused Wizard was about twice or three times as powerful as the non-minmaxed Cleric, but they could still have fun in the same group.

I do agree that the plausible 3e/PF min-max difference is about 100 times the 5e difference, but I disagree that that doesn't affect the play experience. I've GM'd a lot of high level 3e/PF in multiple campaigns, different players, it always has huge problems. I've GM'd a lot of high level 5e in several campaigns so far and there are some bugs but it's 100 times less so than 3e/PF. You *could* get 5e PCs where one is 10 times as powerful as another, but (a) it doesn't happen much in practice and (b) the kind of player who creates a 1/10 power PC tends not to notice their lack of contribution. At 1/1000 they definitely DO notice when their 3e Fighter is being torn apart in every battle and the party casters are having to spend so much resources on them they're a net drag on the party, worse than useless.

Quote from: S'mon;1061557How does 3e successfully handle powergamers?

And it is very hard on the 3e GM to create custom foes, whereas it is easy in 5e. Look at 5e Tome of Beasts - I tended to use that when I wanted to challenge high level 5e PCs. But I can also easily tweak a 5e MM monster to make it threatening. A rules-compliant rebuild of a 3e/PF monster is usually a big undertaking IME.

Ancedotally for my high level recent games, I have seen PF groups where the Summoner is around x100 the power of the Cleric. In 5e I guess the summoning/animating-focused Wizard was about twice or three times as powerful as the non-minmaxed Cleric, but they could still have fun in the same group.

I do agree that the plausible 3e/PF min-max difference is about 100 times the 5e difference, but I disagree that that doesn't affect the play experience. I've GM'd a lot of high level 3e/PF in multiple campaigns, different players, it always has huge problems. I've GM'd a lot of high level 5e in several campaigns so far and there are some bugs but it's 100 times less so than 3e/PF. You *could* get 5e PCs where one is 10 times as powerful as another, but (a) it doesn't happen much in practice and (b) the kind of player who creates a 1/10 power PC tends not to notice their lack of contribution. At 1/1000 they definitely DO notice when their 3e Fighter is being torn apart in every battle and the party casters are having to spend so much resources on them they're a net drag on the party, worse than useless.

APL+4  CR encounters (remembering to increase apl depending on party size). That ends up being "normal" fights for our group. The final boss for one of our campaigns was that we (7) were level 20 vs a single CR25 MT10 red dragon with some added legendary actions. It worked fine enough. The fighter was contributing just fine after much effort and buying of potions with his wbl. Most of us died, but it was the final fight.

If we were more optimized, you just keep increasing that CR number. The variance within a CR is what varies fight difficulty. Now running these monsters can be some effort.

As for making monsters, the custom charts for PF make it as easy as 5e to custom craft a monster, the 5e charts for it our just a stolen good idea resume for their system. The only issue is that CR doesn't mean anything in 5e.

For me, I see 1/10th a pretty similar problem to 1/1000th, but it is certainly playable. PCs always bring HP to a fight and regenerate like Wolverine, so they help out.