My friend had no luck scoring me a copy at this year’s GenCon. It was so popular that Paizo was sold out immediately. Or maybe they didn’t have enough made for the convention. Past experience from my brief stint “in the biz” says it was probably a mixture of both.
The great guys at Rogues Gallery knew how much I wanted this so they made sure there was a copy in my file as soon as I walked through the door‚ right after I spent five bucks at kinko’s (now to be called FedEx-something) having my printed-out PDF bound into a spiral book. I plan to keep both around. The nice, color, perfect-bound edition to use at our (semi-)weekly game and the photocopied version to mark up which rules we won’t be using in my campaign, also known as my DM Fiat; a little legal joke from the two lawyers in the group.
It’s not radically different from the three Alpha releases, just more of the OGL materials are in place: weapons, armor, age, etc. Many of the big departures from 3.5 were already presented in Alpha: more hit points for the “weaker” classes, 0-level spells at will, the CMB option to simplify Grappling (a constant show stopper), so on.
The big deal about this rulebook’s appearance is that I can finally start doing my Pathfinder v. D&D 4e comparison. One site I used to enjoy and respect (enworld.org) has become a complete mouthpiece for 4e…I seriously suspect their objectivity. Then again, I readily admit to have a negative bias toward 4e due to my rather disappointing experiences playing Star Wars SE which I don’t blame Flynn for. I’m the first person to say Flynn’s GM skills are great! He shares my love of acting, voices and interaction. He’s proof of what my gaming sensei Lester taught me, any (roleplaying) game can rock (or suck) with the right GameMaster.
We’ll probably cannibalize some things from Wizard’s 4e because it isn’t completely awful. I am hoping to enlist the opinions of a couple other DMs and aficionados too.
Now to read this, highlight what needs to be tweaked and amend the Fiat.