The Last Dice Master

Pathfinder: A Retrospective

With the upcoming release of Paizo's Starfinder, I thought it would be an opportune time to look at the future of Pathfinder games. And to consider of course whether its vision has been perhaps flawed or shrewd.

For a game-line grown out of Dungeons and Dragons's tragic conflict of identity, would it be so wrong to consider that perhaps Paizo's Pathfinder could eventually outlive its purpose: that being purportedly to preserve a legacy of much-loved D&D mechanics from a bygone age.

It's quite clear that for many the answer is no. Pathfinder, even after waning popularity with the release of D&D 5th edition in 2014, still enjoys strong sales and represents nearly 15% of all active games on the popular online platform Roll20. That might not seem like much but in comparison, on the same platform, the nearest non-D&D title enjoys somewhere around 2% activity.

But none of this would've been possible if not for Paizo's bold maneuvering and insightful decisions nearly 10 years ago. Those risks led to the creation of their strongest flagship product: Pathfinder.

The Edition Wars

The state of in-fighting amongst D&D fans across online forums

But to understand why Pathfinder remains relevant and perhaps why it might still have a future, it's important for us to go back to where it all started: the Edition Wars.

a Dungeons and Dragons "civil war of creative differences"

Many people aren't even sure if "the wars" actually happened and the lack of a Wikipedia article on the subject only seems to support the idea that it could've all been imagined. But for those of us who were around back then, and...

In a game that takes pride in being able to invoke perilous pits in the imagination of would-be adventurers, D&D needs some serious alone time with - Falling Damage.

Falling Damage: The Neglected Woe

For far too long, rules have allowed Falling Damage in D&D to be rendered nearly irrelevant amongst the scope of other existing arcane and monstrous threats.

Probably 9 out of 10 heroes would far more fear the consequences of a Fireball than that of being shoved off a roof.

They're not wrong, they can clearly expect to survive one ("so what's that? 40ft?! Okay, so 4d6, oh that's nothing.") whereas the other could seriously complicate their lives.

"A fall from a great height is one of the most common hazards facing an adventurer." - Player's Handbook, 5th edition, p.183

But how about all those epic scenes of heroes struggling up mountain faces, the ubiquitous hand grab over the ledge as one person holds on for all dear life? None of these moments are re-creatable in D&D without severely re-defining what we've come to understand as Falling Damage. So let's try.

Enhanced Falling Damage
⚫ A falling creature risks great injury, taking 3d10 bludgeoning for every 10 feet it falls.
At first glance 3d10 might seem like too much, and it might be, but remember, we're not talking about gracefully leaping down a ledge. We're essentially determining what happens when you belly flop from that height to a bed of jagged rocks or stone.

So yes, I suppose you could scale it down to 2d10 but you'll be doing a disservice to the threat as D&D is more than adept at ballooning character Hit Points than you might think.

But falling damage could be about so much more than just well, damage.

Enhanced Falling Damage & Injury
⚫ A great fall from a great height is expected to bring death or lingering injury to a person.
⚫ For every 10 feet a creature falls, it takes 2d10 damage. It must also make a Constitution Save DC 15 or suffer the Crippled...

The cat has pretty much clawed his way out of the bag. D&D Next is floating around everywhere and causing a lot of fuss. I know it's stuffing hairballs all over the blog world so I'll do my best to make
this worth your while. Especially since I'm a little rusty after a not so successful Kickstarter run.

Next Me One More Time

Ok, so Wizard's goal seems pretty clear I think: unify the rift between players and appease as many interests with one product as possible. I'd like to think that I'm not naive though. That somewhere in there a new version of Dungeons and Dragons is also about reclaiming the consumer base. Sales plummeted (compared to what Hasbro was used to) after 4th Edition whether you liked it or not. Money talks and our designers have been cued to listen.

If you're not convinced that money matters for big gaming publishers, look at what happened to White Wolf. They cashed in their chips, left a few consolation projects no one hears about and their parent company has thrown everything into MMOs.

I'm not trying to vilify Mike Mearls and his team. I just think we have to look at the big picture to understand D&D Next and formulate the right expectations. They are real people who care about this game but it probably doesn't help that they have a massive parent company that they have to appease. And I'm sure they don't want what the downsizing that happened to White Wolf to happen to them.

Does Roleplaying really fit into D&D?

Short answer: I think it does. I believe it did so in the past but that in the last few years we have seen it trickle away. Maybe it wasn't intentional but how can it be addressed now? It seems a legitimate concern that people want a roleplaying game from D&D and not a boardgame or something that plays like a boardgame.

The rift between consumers of D&D and its designers doesn't seem to have started yesterday either. I would like to think it started when D&D attempted to become a product with less abstraction and more concrete rules.

Whether this is 2nd edition, 3rd, or 4th is entirely up to interpretation. Each version has sidelined stragglers. Logic would suggest that it's been part of a gradual progression. Maybe we just didn't notice or didn't have the foresight to see where it was going.

If that's true then I think we all share bit of the blame for this "mistake" and we have to come together as a community if we decide we want to correct it.