Tag Archives: Pathfinder

Pathfinder RPG Free Beta Is Out

Posted on August 14, 2008 | 9 comments

Heard of the new Pathfinder RPG? It’s Dungeons & Dragons Fourth Edition. Well, not really, but it should have been.

While Wizards took D&D in 4e and fundamentally changed it, Paizo took the OGL part of Third Edition and retooled it into what many people call “D&D 3.75e” – an improved version but still mostly 3e-compatible.

Believing strongly in involving the gamer community in the development of the game, they went through a number of public Alpha drafts and have now released their Beta product. This will be playtested by anyone who wants to for a year and then the final “1.0” version will be released this time next year.

You can buy the Beta in hardcover for $50, softcover for $25, or… download the PDF for free!  That’s right, go to Paizo Publishing’s Pathfinder RPG page and get it for free (you have to register, the process to get it is via their online store/shopping cart). Then, you can go and give rules and playtest feedback on their forums.

So far, they’re doing everything I wish Wizards had done with D&D 4e.

  • Continue with open gaming by supporting and releasing content via the OGL? Check.
  • Meaningfully involving the D&D gamer community in the design and development of the game? Check.
  • Developing an awesome campaign setting and adventures to use with it? Check.

Pathfinder RPG Beta – What’s In It

They’ve streamlined and simplified the combat mechanics while making the core classes a bit more bad ass. Races have a bit more put into them, making them more distinctive. The barbarian’s rage powers are very interesting, and there’s more abilities for bards. Fighters get armor and weapon training abilities in addition to their bonus feats so they get something at every level. Sorcerers have “bloodlines” that give them additional powers.

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Pathfinder Society Launches!

Posted on August 13, 2008 | 4 comments

The Pathfinder Society is the new Paizo Publishing-sponsored organized play campaign, similar in concept to the RPGA’s Living campaigns.

What does that mean?  Well, way back in the day, when you went to conventions to play games, all of them were what is now called “classic” format.  You showed up and either they had pregen characters ready for you, or there was a quick chargen as part of the session.

Then, they came up with the idea that for large, recurring stuff it would be cool if you could play the same character, ideally your character, from game to game.  Thus was born the Living City, set in the Forgotten Realms.  You could generate your own character according to slightly-modified 2e rules, and in each session you got XP and treasure you could take to the next game.  This required a little complexity and was only suitable for larger efforts, because you had to split players into level ranges and whatnot.  (Characters couldn’t “port” between home games and the Living campaign for strict fairness – you can only advance them within the campaign.)  And thus was born the “campaign” format of organized play.

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Fifth Runelords “Sins of the Saviors” Session Summary Posted

Posted on July 22, 2008 | Leave a comment

Our intrepid band finishes its total subjugation of the Runeforge in the fifth and final installment of “Sins of the Saviors.” The Iron Cages of Lust and Shimmering Veils of Pride bow down before the Relentless Kickers of Ass!

Next, we must locate and travel to the haunted peak of Mar-Massif, upon which lurks the frozen spires of forgotten Xin-Shalast.  And in it the shade of the former Runelord of Greed, Kharzoug, who seeks to lurch back to ill-formed life. I will destroy him and take his place as a proper Runelord! Mmmwah hah ha ha haaaaaaaaaaa!

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Fourth Runelords “Sins of the Saviors” Session Summary Posted

Posted on July 18, 2008 | Leave a comment

Our intrepid heroes return to tramp through the undead-filled Vaults of Gluttony (one of many dungeons in the Runeforge), and my summoned monsters tear up both “level bosses” in:

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Green Ronin/Paizo Podcast on Open Gaming

Posted on June 1, 2008 | 1 comment

Chris Pramas, Nicole Lindroos, and Erik Mona talk about open gaming – OGL, GSL, 4e, Pathfinder, True20, and more in this podcast! Get a free 1 1/2 hours (maybe from not going to see the new Indiana Jones movie) and listen to it! Yes, Wizards is still sitting on the new GSL, so much is speculation, but it’s a good overview.

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Pathfinder RPG Alpha 3 Available!

Posted on May 21, 2008 | Leave a comment

Paizo Publishing continues their open playtest of the Pathfinder RPG rules, a “fixed” version of D&D 3.5e, with the release of Alpha 3, the last version before the printed beta.  More than 17,000 people have downloaded it, dwarfing the D&D 4e playtester base.

If you’re trying to figure out how to download the darn thing, they are doing it through their store.  You go to http://paizo.com/pathfinderRPG, scroll down to see the “Alpha Release” PDF (free), click on it, click on “Click here to get the PDF” to add it to your cart, then you personalize, download, and unzip.  A bit of a hassle but what the heck.  Note that if you’ve gotten earlier alphas this one supersedes them even though all the text etc. just says “Alpha” not “Alpha 1,” “2,” etc.  Re-download, it’s the new one.

Also look at the links above the icons – there’s a character sheet for download!

More once I have a shot at reading it…

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Pimpin’ Pathfinder News

Posted on May 12, 2008 | Leave a comment

As the Pathfinder RPG, Paizo Publishing‘s open gaming 3.5e based D&D variant, nears its open beta stage after a lively open alpha, some awesome news appears.  Monte Cook has joined the team as a “rules consultant!” Monte’s been innovating great stuff with 3e-based mechanics well after 3.5e went into the weeds.  This is great news and a real feather in Paizo’s cap.   All indications are that the Pathfinder RPG is going to rock on ice!

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Pathfinder Alpha 2 Out!

Posted on April 22, 2008 | Leave a comment

Paizo Publishing has put out “Alpha Release 2” of their Pathfinder RPG today.  For those of you who don’t know Paizo, they were the company that was producing Dragon Magazine and Dungeon Magazine for the last many years under license from Wizards.  During that time they took the two magazines to their highest point ever, and their “Adventure Paths” in Dungeon were some of the best D&D adventures to ever see print.

And if you don’t know about Pathfinder, it’s an open game based on the open content from D&D 3.5e.  Their goal is to take the game forward while maintaining back compatibility (D&D 4e is fundamentally different from 3.5e in many ways – no old rules content of any sort will port forward without substantial modification).  It will be a fully open game, and they are conducting a fully open year-long playtest; the final Pathfinder will premiere at Gen Con 2009.

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A Rare Bit of Wisdom

Posted on April 15, 2008 | Leave a comment

Paizo Publishing decided that they shouldn’t trademark the term “Adventure Path” and instead let it be a common-use term.  And also they have enough claim to it that they can almost certainly prevent anyone else from trademarking it.  Look, you don’t have to be a proprietary ass to be a game company!  They explain on their forums in this thread.  Good job guys!

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The Good Old Days (?)

Posted on March 25, 2008 | Leave a comment
Thanks to Grogtard for this – someone on the ENWorld forums found this little gem about the WOTC purchase of TSR.  It’s Ryan Dancey talking about what he found and the new tack of Wizards of the Coast – “listening to the customer.”  It’s ironic in that the new Hasbro WotC seems to be falling back into the error tht caused TSR to fail.  Everyone keeps saying “Oh, it’s D&D, the 900 pound gorilla – they’ll always dominate the market.”  These people must be less than 14 years old, because D&D nearly hit the shitter once before, and could do it again.
Dancey commented on 4e last year – his comments about a open variant of 4e seem to predict the Pathfinder RPG – note he even assumes it would “crush” the official pretender. 

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Paizo Forks D&D!

Posted on March 18, 2008 | 1 comment

It’s official!  Paizo Publishing is the gaming company that was publishing Dragon Magazine and Dungeon Magazine for  years until WotC pulled their license.  Since then they’ve been publishing the best D&D adventures on the market (and Dragon and Dungeon are languishing in low-content electronic-only hell on wizards.com). 

Well, Wizards screwed around and screwed around; even after announcing that they’d get the license and rules to third party publishers (for $5k a head) they never executed on it.  So now Paizo has decided to fork D&D by creating a RPG called the Pathfinder RPG based on 3.5e via the OGL.  The “alpha” version of it is freely available – in fact, they say once they start selling the beta sometime around Gen Con it’ll still be available freely as a PDF.  The beta will be an open beta for a year and the “final” version will launch in August of 2009.  They are also launching the Pathfinder Society, which sounds like a competitor to the RPGA.

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