As Picayune celebrates Pathfinder turning 10 this year, I wanted to break down the books I have in order of their release. If I don’t have the book, I will have little if any opinion about it to be fair to said book.
After about a year of public input (50,000 comments) and the disappointment of D&D’s 4e, Paizo released their finished Core Rulebook. At $50 and 576 pages, it was a pretty hefty starter book but I think they unified the rules for the players and the GameMaster (GM) because they wanted to give their customers more for their money and avoid violating any understood agreement with WOTC’s tradition; their DungeonMaster and Player books being separate.
So the first 11 chapters of the book (about 80%) is aimed at the players. Rules covering character creation (races, classes, stats), progression, equipment, spells, feats, skills and little details like height, age, etc. The remainder is for the GM: treasures, NPCs, the environment, experience point rewards and how to arbitrate the rules in certain situations like traps. WOTC tended to pad their Dungeon Master’s guide with DM styles, how to deal with a difficult player and different types of adventure flows.
Admittedly, Core‘s size and price does make it less friendly to beginners and aimed at experienced players, especially if they’ve played 3e/3.5e. To me that’s perfectly alright. I’ve argued this before so humor me to say it again. Games like D&D aren’t learned like most board games in which everyone can quickly read the rules on the inside of the box cover. More often D&D is taught by an experienced player to a newcomer, same as Monopoly, Clue or Risk since these are also part of our cultural landscape.
In the last year, Paizo has also re-released Core Rulebook in a smaller, trade paperback format, what they call the pocket edition, for half the price. This helps lower the objections of newer players wanting to drop $50 (never mind new PS4 and Xbox games starting at $60). Being the geeky completist I am, I have both versions with the pocket being my portable on-hand edition I can easily store in my backpack. Paizo does offer Core as a PDF but this format has been rather clumsy on my iPad. There’s also an OGL app yet I remain a luddite who enjoys having a physical copy. Anyway, pocket edition provides significant savings so the newbie can use the spare money for dice, paper and pencils.
As an open letter to my fellow players/GMs, what’s your take on Pathfinder‘s first decade?