D&D 5e has failed

[tussock]

As I said in the pathfinder threat, there is never going to be a Pathfinder 2nd edition.

Are you aware that people say this before every edition change of everything? People in 1987 were saying there'd never be a 2nd edition of AD&D, because they can just keep hotfixing everything and adding optional rules everywhere that are sort-of-compatible with each other.

People said the same in 1998 about 2nd edition, that there'd never be a 3rd edition, because the options books gave you all the new stuff you could ever need, and it's not like they'd actually fix multiclassing or THAC0 or Exceptional Strength or all the other 20-year-old problems. WotC may have bought it, but they're better supporters of 2nd edition than TSR ever was!

People said the same in 2006 about 3e. Obviously Bo9S and the other openly experimental class-replacement books weren't a warmup for a new edition, not now they've finally fixed Fighters and Monks, not when 3e was still kicking every other game's ass, not when PHB2 was the shiznit.

Fucking 4e fanboys said the same about 4e into the failure of Essentials, that it would obviously make them return to classic 4e rules and stick with it for good.

and I don't own anything for 5E yet because I am not convinced that if I preordered soemthing from them that they would actually produce the final product.

But please forgive my overreaction. You are clearly a level-headed and sane person.

[souran]

Are you aware that people say this before every edition change of everything? People in 1987 were saying there'd never be a 2nd edition of AD&D, because they can just keep hotfixing everything and adding optional rules everywhere that are sort-of-compatible with each other.

Actually everything you said is so full of crap I am not really sure where to start.

There were already multiple incompatible editions of D&D in 1987. These editions were produced by the same company. Nobody said there wouldn't be another edition. Further, every signal by TSR was that they would likely issue a new edition that cleaned up and collected the fixes in a single design document.

All your other arguments are also equally vapid but going through them detracts from teh actual real point of argument:

Pathfinder Won't Ever have a second edition.

Now, before the publication of Pathfinder Unchained I would have said that not only will there be a P2E but it actually must be in development now with plans to be issued in the next couple of years.

The pitch to players for Unchained was "look at what our designers can do if we don't have to maintain the fiction of 3.5 backwards compatibility" which I was not alone in reading as "Here is a bunch of ideas we want out there for P2E and we want the community to tell us which ones are acceptable and which ones would have lots of fan backlash".

Except, Unchained is NOT a P2E test document. Its not even really a book of generic fixes for known broken issues in Pathfinder. Its JUST an attempt to pacify the playbase by acknowledging that the rogue and monk are garbage and that the fighter is still lackluster at fighting. EVERYTHING ELSE in the whole book is random houserule garbage.

You can see this because the only parts of that book that are PFS allowed are the new classes and the stamina feat. The book exists to patch classes without forcing players to use the patched versions.

Further, they accounced more books right after unchained that look like they use none of the Unchained revisions including "Ultimate Intregue" which is all about "skill based" classes and doesn't acknowledge that they just wrote 2 alternate skill systems in the last hard bound book.

Pathfinder is going to go the way of Palladium and have books and content that make older content obsolete, however it will all still be "compatible" and in the same "edition." If you want to play a "core rule book" rogue or monk or fighter go ahead, just don't complain that the guy next to you at the PFS table is playing an "Ultimate Advanced Core Rulebook" fighter.

There will be no Pathfinder 2nd edition. There will be a defacto 2nd edition were playing with the most current group of PFS rules is basically a different game than playing with the core rulebook or older game materials, but it will not be a "new edition".

[Username17]

Except, Unchained is NOT a P2E test document. Its not even really a book of generic fixes for known broken issues in Pathfinder. Its JUST an attempt to pacify the playbase by acknowledging that the rogue and monk are garbage and that the fighter is still lackluster at fighting. EVERYTHING ELSE in the whole book is random houserule garbage.

You could levy the same criticism at Pathfinder or D&D 3.5. Can you honestly say that nerfing a couple of spells, making ride-by-attack nonfunctional, and changing Power Attack math to favor Andy Collins' greataxe dwarf fighter was worth writing an entire new edition of the core books for? Jason was given a list of actual game breaking problems in 3rd edition and he elected to solve basically none of them in Pathfinder. Instead he wanted to try out his CMD fiddlysticks that fixes nothing and nerf the fuck out of the Rogue because he found out that optimized high level Rogue builds were playing the game in a way he didn't like.

Pathfinder 2 is coming, and it's going to be more modest than you can imagine. You will be absolutely flabbergasted by how little is changed, but it will be a new edition. They've watched WotC throw the baby out with the bathwater like 3 times since 2008, they are so gun shy at this point that even common sense shit like fixing save progressions will get the stink eye from the developers.

-Username17

[8d8]

A friend of mine hated the Profession skill in 3e and hates the way tools are used in 5e, so he posted this at rpg.net.

The tl;dr version, near as I can tell: The tools are either good things that do stuff, or something that should be handled with MTP, because background info doesn't need to have a bonus applied to very narrow uses. All but 5 tools are trap options, and two pairs of those should be combined.

I keep telling him not to post to rpg.net because most of the people who actively post there are so painfully dumb, but there he went anyway. Strawman city.

Just curious if you all noticed any problems with tool proficiencies in 5th edition. Because I see his point that some are certainly better than others, but not that the rest should just be background stuff that you make up yourself without character creation choices granting them.

(should this have been a new thread? IDK whatever)

[souran]

Pathfinder 2 is coming, and it's going to be more modest than you can imagine. You will be absolutely flabbergasted by how little is changed, but it will be a new edition. They've watched WotC throw the baby out with the bathwater like 3 times since 2008, they are so gun shy at this point that even common sense shit like fixing save progressions will get the stink eye from the developers.

-Username17

I actually agree that Pathfinder is hardly an edition change at all from 3.5. However, I think that the same reticense that you discuss in the above quote is even stronger than you are implying.

They are so worried about what a "Pathfinder 2nd Edition" would mean that instead of putting out a second edition they will just update all the classes and make older products obsolete in a way that also lets them say that they have not made any exisitng product obsolete.

Why bother with even modest change when you know all the players really care about is classes and you can just rewrite those endlesslly?

[Username17]

Just curious if you all noticed any problems with tool proficiencies in 5th edition.

Tools are bad and don't do anything right. The bonuses are way too small to actually represent real skill (as bhilbo notes), anyone who has a good stat and a tool proficiency is... still more than not likely to fail at any task that random untrained hobos can't succeed at with trial and error.

The list of tools is of course terrible, but any list of tools would be terrible. Either it covers all the trades of the era, or it doesn't. If it does, that's too many tools to keep track of, and if it doesn't it fails at its only job. And worse, the list of tools is necessarily going to be incomplete. When you introduce new professions to your game world (which you inevitably will because it's a fucking fantasy world and you have Goblins building mini forts on the shells of flailsnails and Desmodu making chemical weapons out of giant bat guano), the list of tools will then inevitably become both too long and incomplete. And horribly unfair, because players will find the solution space of whatever tool proficiencies they possess shrunk proportionately as new content becomes available.

The tasks that characters need to accomplish in the game are generally speaking not career related but task related. If someone wants to chisel a hole in the wall, is that to be done with the tools for carpentry or wheelwrighting or plumbing? The answer of course, is all of them, making the entire set of divisions both pointless conceptually and a source of frustration and disagreement when they do anything at all.

Rules are supposed to resolve conflicts and move the story forward. The tools system creates conflicts and stymies story progress. It's all bad. It's literally worse than not having a rule.

-Username17

[Insomniac]

PF2 is clearly going to be PF1.5, the way that 3.5 was a moderate change to 3.0. They are NOT going to risk a surefire thing with something as radical as 4E was in comparison to 3.5

They still want to maintain the 3.5 compatibility fairy tale and retain people who like Pathfinder now.

[8d8]

What he pointed out is that thieves' tools are good tools because they move the plot, or as you put it, accomplish a task. Also, there are rules for actual use of the things, unlike woodcarver's tools. It really seems like someone said, "But it doesn't make sense that everyone can use this skill without proficiency - you can't luck your way into picking a lock," and thus a tool was born, then expanded.

[GnomeWorks]

Tools are bad and don't do anything right.

Ignoring the bonus problem for a moment, would it then be more reasonable to make toolkits that are task-oriented, then?

So... take plumbing. You'd sit down and figure out three or four tasks that most of the items in a plumber's kit would be capable of (drilling holes, tightening/loosening objects, etc), then say that having the plumber's toolkit gives you bonuses in those situations, rather than (just) on profession (plumber) checks.

That way players wouldn't get screwed out of tool proficiencies as you add more toolkits. It seems sensible that a relatively small-but-reasonable list of common tasks could be devised (I'd probably expect around 10-15), and then every kit has "useful for a specific type of craft or profession" and 2 or 3 of the things from the general list.

You could also do things like cobble together toolkits for a specific purpose by scavenging them from other kits, by saying that if you can get the general task bonuses of a particular kit by combining other ones, you effectively have that kit.

Or are tools in general just a lost cause? That'd be unfortunate.

[erik]

Unless I'm playing Handyman:The Hammering, then task-oriented tool rules are way too much emphasis on tools.

You can get away with a few pages of descriptions and rules for various weapons because those can take up a large role in combat which is a huge piece of the pie for most RPGs. That and weapons are cooler in ways that a 3/8" open socket wrench are not.

I'm fine with how 3.x DnD treated tools as a +2 bonus to their related skill.
I'm okay with leaving it up to DM fiat as to whether skills or tools are applicable in related fields. Profession Plumber to help repair a gnomish hydraulic machine maybe.

[Grek]

In actual play, you just either have the proficiency and can smith during downtime to ignore lifestyle costs or you don't and can't smith things and pay full lifestyle costs. You never roll your Smithing Tools check, except maybe as a knowledge check. In theory being proficient would add to your roll if one is ever called for, but the rules never say to call for one. It would honestly be better if they condensed it down to "Artisan's Tools" and just let you write in what form of crafting you know how to do.

[Username17]

Big Purple will drive you to drink with all its mendacity and stupidity, but one of the posters there does clearly articulate how tools "work" in actual play:

Last session my character (a half-elf fighter proficient with the Lyre), managed to lure the dragon in Thundertree out of its lair and into an ambush, by playing the lyre among the ruins. We had brought a pair ballista along (built by a character proficient with Carpenter’s Tools), and hidden them in two of the ruined houses. When the dragon came to investigate, hoping to find a fair maid to capture, it was double-tapped by a pair of javelins, anchored to the ground with steel chains and imposing the Restrained condition on the dragon, granting us advantage and giving it disadvantage. That was a determining part of the fight.
The fact that I succeeded in my Lyre check imposed disadvantage on the dragon’s Perception check to spot the ambush. Which was a really good thing. I think it rolled 4 and 19 or something like that, so it certainly seemed like my character managed to lure it into a reverie and thus set it up for the ambush.

Earlier in that session my character made a Woodcarver’s Tools-based check to carve a wooden totem, which we traded to a disaffected goblin druid we had met, in return for him luring out a number of the goblins at Cragmaw Hold, while we raided it and killed the leader of the goblin. In this case the GM clearly stated that only if I succeeded the check, would the druid accept the bribe. So in this case we reduced the opposition by, maybe a third or something like that.

Now you might have questions about how you "succeed" at checks that don't have DCs. Or you might have questions about where people get the idea that they can use woodcarving to convince people to be an accessory to multiple homicide or entrance hostile dragons with completely non-magical lyre playing. All good questions!

See, none of those example actions are things that you can actually do in the rules. Because 5e is terrible and people don't have abilities that interact with the world and no tests or difficulties are defined for even common actions. And because 5e is so limited as a game, in actual play people just make shit up. Want extra attacks from your carpentry skill? Why the fuck not! It's not like there are any actual guidelines for you to be exceeding.

5th edition doesn't have basic rules for basic things, so if you want to have a game at all, you're basically playing Munchhausen.

-Username17

[8d8]

Ignoring the bonus problem for a moment, would it then be more reasonable to make toolkits that are task-oriented, then?

That's basically what Bihlbo was advocating - cut out the crap that doesn't accomplish a meaningful task and limit tools to only the things that do. Which he pared down to 3 tools, and added one.

So... take plumbing. You'd sit down and figure out three or four tasks that most of the items in a plumber's kit would be capable of (drilling holes, tightening/loosening objects, etc), then say that having the plumber's toolkit gives you bonuses in those situations, rather than (just) on profession (plumber) checks.

Wow. That rpg.net post is 3 pages of weak, illogical arguments against the premise, and already someone here posts an actual fucking suggestion to fix tools. That "Big Purple" (thanks FT) site is AIDS.

That said, why would you make a character for a D&D game, then choose as your tool option something that lets you accomplish such mundane tasks as drilling holes? Sure, if you have something on your character sheet that says "I can drill holes lol" then you're going to go out of your way to find excuses to drill holes - which just takes table time away from roleplaying and adventuring to fill it up with wankery.

Wouldn't it be better to just write "I'm a plumber" on there instead, and let it matter just as much as having a father who owns a farm, or having a scar, or knowing a plumber who doesn't go adventuring? Maybe no one ever talks about plumbing in the game, and that's okay, just like maybe you never need to hide out in a farm. But you add a tool you can buy, and for which you can have your proficiency bonus apply, granted by a character creation choice (or a painfully long training period), and suddenly it becomes a thing you have to JUSTIFY by creating artificial opportunities to use it.

But all of that only matters if you create new rules for tools. Like Grek said, aside from the few tasks listed, the only thing tools do is replace a portion of the Profession skill from 3e.

5th edition doesn't have basic rules for basic things, so if you want to have a game at all, you're basically playing Munchhausen.

-Username17

It does have basic rules for a very small number of things, like picking locks and what caltrops do. It also has suggestions that include basic rules for a very small number of additional things, like identifying magic items or learning new tool proficiencies. You're overgeneralizing. But I also feel the butthurt.

[Judging__Eagle]

Big Purple will drive you to drink with all its mendacity and stupidity, but one of the posters there does clearly articulate how tools "work" in actual play:

Last session my character (a half-elf fighter proficient with the Lyre), managed to lure the dragon in Thundertree out of its lair and into an ambush, by playing the lyre among the ruins. We had brought a pair ballista along (built by a character proficient with Carpenter’s Tools), and hidden them in two of the ruined houses. When the dragon came to investigate, hoping to find a fair maid to capture, it was double-tapped by a pair of javelins, anchored to the ground with steel chains and imposing the Restrained condition on the dragon, granting us advantage and giving it disadvantage. That was a determining part of the fight.
The fact that I succeeded in my Lyre check imposed disadvantage on the dragon’s Perception check to spot the ambush. Which was a really good thing. I think it rolled 4 and 19 or something like that, so it certainly seemed like my character managed to lure it into a reverie and thus set it up for the ambush.

Earlier in that session my character made a Woodcarver’s Tools-based check to carve a wooden totem, which we traded to a disaffected goblin druid we had met, in return for him luring out a number of the goblins at Cragmaw Hold, while we raided it and killed the leader of the goblin. In this case the GM clearly stated that only if I succeeded the check, would the druid accept the bribe. So in this case we reduced the opposition by, maybe a third or something like that.

Now you might have questions about how you "succeed" at checks that don't have DCs. Or you might have questions about where people get the idea that they can use woodcarving to convince people to be an accessory to multiple homicide or entrance hostile dragons with completely non-magical lyre playing. All good questions!

See, none of those example actions are things that you can actually do in the rules. Because 5e is terrible and people don't have abilities that interact with the world and no tests or difficulties are defined for even common actions. And because 5e is so limited as a game, in actual play people just make shit up. Want extra attacks from your carpentry skill? Why the fuck not! It's not like there are any actual guidelines for you to be exceeding.

5th edition doesn't have basic rules for basic things, so if you want to have a game at all, you're basically playing Munchhausen.

-Username17

Perhaps that's what people actually want? To play Munchhausen?

[Insomniac]

I think some people have a disdain for rules and mechanics and think they "get in the way." Oh, who am I kidding, by some, I mean a majority. a lot of people would read an account of a Fighter playing a mundane lyre to dupe a dragon, a wise and intelligent creature, against a DC that doesn't even exist, for somebody to use Carpenter's tools to get the modern day equivalent of free artillery strikes and go, "Wow, that was really cool! that reminds me of this fun time where me and my bros did something crazy in our magical tea party game!"

[Judging__Eagle]

I guess it has to do with "raw competitiveness". Tournamen/Convention play vs MTP homebrew.

At one end there are tournament and convention style games where rules are enforced by MCs who have to pass a rules examination; and who appreciate players bringing up and explaining rules. At the other end are people playing their invention/MTP of what D&D should/could be.

An example, for me, are the 3.5 grapple rules. I really didn't have any problem with them; and not even the worst players at any of my tables failed to go through the grapple check every necessary round.

Personally this is because of some of our experiences with the Ontario/Region of Ket, area of the Living Greyhawk campaign's (when it still existed in 3.X's days; perhaps it's gone underground/unofficial still?) local laws regarding killing humans within the region. It was highly illegal; and a death sentence. Merciful weapons were the ideal; and subdual attacks and grappling were de rigueur for PCs vs humans. Elves were monsters you had to kill (but didn't if you didn't want to be Elfbait once you had to go to the woods in any adventure).

Most people just aren't competitive enough to want to play a game whose rules limit their choices.

[souran]

If 5E D&D rules could actually be used to tell the story the player above did repeadetly it would be the best selling edition ever.

The players are in a pretty classic tale. The dragon expects the cowed villagers to offer up 1 choice maiden for a meal every X often. The players decide that they better fill the role of the bait themselves instead using an actual virgin. They bring weapons/tools of the sort needed to prevent the dragon from using its ability that would be most damaging to the group (flight) and even doing so have a tough fight with the dragon.

This is basically EXACTLY the fucking story that D&D wants to tell. Hell the only thing it is missing is an honest to god dungeon from which the virgin would need to be resuced from prior to facing the dragon.

The problem is that 5Es rules cannot actualy replicate this scenario for any other group of players even given the same set of inputs.

[tussock]

Why bother with even modest change when you know all the players really care about is classes and you can just rewrite those endlesslly?

What do you think a new edition is? I admit 4e D&D muddies the water somewhat, because it was a whole new game using the old IP, but every other edition of D&D (including Pathfinder) is just some incremental adjustments to things that annoyed the players plus a coat of paint, where fireball is a 3rd level spell and does 1d6/level damage, but not 3d6, because D&D.

---

Anyway, right now you need to buy, like, 13 books to play Pathfinder. The core rules now include about half content that is out of date and has been superseded, while the vast majority of expansion content since has become useless, out-of-date, garbage. Their new books are forced to either work best with what experienced players are using, or work best with the core, and both of those options suck for new entrants.

Every game needs new blood. They'll have big-spending fans who are moving on from RPGs and need new people to be able to engage without too big of an upfront cost. So they need to drag all the actively played stuff back into the core book, and that is what a new edition is. You collate the popular expansion material, add some house rules to cover over remaining flaws, announce victory, and publish it.

You can generally tell they're doing one because alternate rules for core things start turning up in splatbooks. As compared to ever-more new stuff and feat-taxes for the old problems. UA for 1st edition, Player's Option for 2nd, UA again for 3.0, ToM/Bo9S for 3.5, Essentials for 4e, and Unchained for Pathfinder. Those books don't exist unless the office is spending a lot of time spitballing ideas for fixing core rules problems by changing them.


Oh, and what I said previous about people not believing in the coming of new editions, looking back they're pretty much always a tiny minority. Like, say, one person here. Late 2016 to mid 2017.

[souran]

What do you think a new edition is? I admit 4e D&D muddies the water somewhat, because it was a whole new game using the old IP, but every other edition of D&D (including Pathfinder) is just some incremental adjustments to things that annoyed the players plus a coat of paint, where fireball is a 3rd level spell and does 1d6/level damage, but not 3d6, because D&D.

Tussock, do you just like being wrong? There were signifigant system changes between original D&D and Advanced D&D in major rules areas of combat and exploration, much of this had to be re-written or developed because OD&D assumed you owned a number of 3rd party wargames and board games and could steal parts from those or even just fucking play those games at certain points.

AD&D combat still hides a bunch of rules in the game masters book and uses lots of tables that are basically pulled from gygax's asshole. 2E restructred these so that THACO was formula based but saves were still just a table of whatever felt right. 3E is a bigger change from 2E than 4E is from 3E because 4E is still fundamentally a d20 game which 2E is NOT.

Regardless, Paizo doesn't appear to have anybody working on "fixing" any known broken rules issue anywhere in the game and Unchained and Ultimate Intrigue are the basic proof of that.

Anyway, some of this is symantics: If Paizo prints books that are incompatible with older books, replaces classes with versions revised versions, prints new feats such that nothing in the core rulebook is attractive is that a new edition? If there isn't a book that says Pathfinder 2nd edition on the cover but every rule is replaced either with one from another book or the FAQ? This will let them sit the fence even longer, they can say "everything is playable" and still have "fixed" issues that result in the largest amount of grief from players.

[CapnTthePirateG]

I think the big problem here (as has been pointed out) is that rules and analysis are verboten in the RPG community. I've seen people arguing that you should play Pathfinder because it was made "for gamers by gamers" and not based on any attempts to fix any problems. Heck even half the 4e criticisms were things like "It doesn't feel like D&D" or "it kills my roleplaying" and not "the game rules don't make sense", "the math doesn't actually work," etc.

As these people tend to be pretty vocal in the fanbase, is it any wonder that Mike Mearls' main innovations of "making the numbers smaller to avoid math" and "not writing rules" has been embraced wholeheartedly by the people who despise "munchkins"?

If people aren't willing to discuss or analyze the rules, we are never going to get an actually good edition of D&D.

[tussock]

What do you think a new edition is? I admit 4e D&D muddies the water somewhat, because it was a whole new game using the old IP, but every other edition of D&D (including Pathfinder) is just some incremental adjustments to things that annoyed the players plus a coat of paint, where fireball is a 3rd level spell and does 1d6/level damage, but not 3d6, because D&D.

Tussock, do you just like being wrong?

I'm not afraid of it.

There were signifigant system changes between original D&D and Advanced D&D in major rules areas of combat and exploration, much of this had to be re-written or developed because OD&D assumed you owned a number of 3rd party wargames and board games and could steal parts from those or even just fucking play those games at certain points.

AD&D == OD&D with the alt (Gary's) combat engine + Greyhawk + EW + Gary's modules + bits from The Dragon + tournament stuff - Dave's stuff. Almost none of it was new. There's certainly stuff missing from OD&D, because it was Dave's, like the ship combat and castle encounters and siege rules and the notion of the hostile underworld and so on.

AD&D combat still hides a bunch of rules in the game masters book and uses lots of tables that are basically pulled from gygax's asshole. 2E restructred these so that THACO was formula based but saves were still just a table of whatever felt right.

THAC0 is in the 1st edition DMG, and is formulaic just like the saves. There's even fortitude, reflex, and will power modifiers to your saves.

3E is a bigger change from 2E than 4E is from 3E because 4E is still fundamentally a d20 game which 2E is NOT.

:ROFL:
You need to seriously check the spell lists in the three editions some time, not to mention what counts as "a d20 game" includes shit like d20 Modern and Star-Wars Saga and a bunch of other stuff that also isn't D&D.

Almost all the 3e rules can be found in AD&D, 2nd ed, Mentzer Basic, and scattered through various ancient Dragon articles and expansion books. Plenty of people already used upward-AC because it had been in Dragon mag, the skill system is very similar to the one from Player's Option: Skills & Powers, those are the only things that make it "d20" at all. Obviously Got much better in 3e, but they do all the same stuff as AD&D.

Regardless, Paizo doesn't appear to have anybody working on "fixing" any known broken rules issue anywhere in the game and Unchained and Ultimate Intrigue are the basic proof of that.

Whut? Unchained is...
1: multiple replacements for core classes.
2: multiple replacements for the core skill system.
3: fiddling with core alignment, action economy, hit point system, and their disease rules.
4: new ways to use core spells and magic items.
5: new monster generation methodology (really, what else is that but a preview?).

What the fuck does it look like to you when someone is working on fixing core elements of the game? Because if that isn't it, I'm really confused somewhere.

---

As these people tend to be pretty vocal in the fanbase, is it any wonder that Mike Mearls' main innovations of "making the numbers smaller to avoid math" and "not writing rules" has been embraced wholeheartedly by the people who despise "munchkins"?

I think the reason no one barks on about the math not working is someone showed the math didn't work in 4e about three days after release, with big tables and shit, and you can't actually argue about that. The actual arguments about 5th edition are terrible, and the very small numbers of people embracing it make Paizo look like giants.

The Paizo fanbase, notably, does not like munchkins. Not on their forums at least. Mathhammering shit to show which classes even work is essentially banned.

[souran]

Tussock I can verify you are wrong on most of the things you have said (You can go to page 101 of the 2E players handbook [blue and grey original version]) and see that saves are not formula based. You can open up skills and powers and read about how the skill system presented there is still a roll under system that is nothing like 3E skills.

However, being wrong on versions of D&D that nobody gives a shit about anymore is merely a footnote to the larger topic. Lets look at your list of stuff about pathfinder and see why it doesn't support your position at all.

1: multiple replacements for core classes.
2: multiple replacements for the core skill system.
3: fiddling with core alignment, action economy, hit point system, and their disease rules.
4: new ways to use core spells and magic items.
5: new monster generation methodology (really, what else is that but a preview?).

1) The replaced classes are not compatible with older versions. They are also some of the only unchained material that is pathfinder society allowed. However, they also made it really clear that if you want to keep playing your current barb, monk, or rogue you can (only summoners got the nerf bat).

2) You don't print multiple half finished versions of replacement systems if you think you have a real fix to the system. Additionally, Ultimate Intregue is the ANNOUNCED next hard back, its about "skill based" characters and it DOESN'T ACKNOWLEDGE THAT THEY WROTE EITHER OF THESE SYSTEMS. You don't write a replacement system and then treat it like it never fucking existed when you talk about characters who rely on their "skills". Also its not PFS.

3) Hey, remember when Paizo produced Mythic Adventures and then the very next adventure path was "wrath of the righteous" which used those rules? Or remember when they released ultimate campaign and did the same thing with the adventure path "kingmaker"? Hey remember when the next adventure path after "Unchained" doesn't use a fucking thing from unchained? All those rules revisions are the fucking house rules of their fucking staff writers and got put into unchained where they can be quitely forgotten as being a thing.

4) Once again a bunch of rules that can't be used in PFS society and are not acknowledged in future products.

5) This one is even better. They also announced another bestiary it doesn't use the new monster generation system. This is something they could have done and it wouldn't have mattered on the player side but they couldn't be fucking bothered.

Now until I read through Unchained and then saw their press releases (and release videos) about what they are doing after unchained I also thought that P2E must not only be coming but coming soon. Now I don't think so. Every signal says they are not thinking about a 2E.

[Username17]

You don't print multiple half finished versions of replacement systems if you think you have a real fix to the system.

You do if you're WotC. Remember that Tome of Battle and Tome of Magic were both made from half-finished subsystems that had been scrapped while they were working on 4e.

See, we think that what people should be doing is to put out books with things they might do in the next edition and get public feedback on them. That would make sense! But historically what they have actually done is to release books that contained things they already decided to not do. We think they should be focus grouping their new edition, but they are just deciding between throwing dead-end design work away or selling it for real money.

The truth is that Paizo probably can't get meaningful feedback from their message board. It took like five years before you could really openly admit that the Pathfinder Rogue was shitty without getting drowned in a sea of butthurt that the mods would openly encourage. Putting up previews of next edition mechanics in books wouldn't get them the kind of crowdsourced mathhammering that it could - because they burned that bridge a long ass time ago.

So really, if Paizo releases a bunch of half finished ideas, what that means is that some developer made the call that it was time to stop working on those ideas. And of course, once things stop getting worked on, they might as well be published, because it's that or leave money on the table.

-Username17

[maglag]

You don't print multiple half finished versions of replacement systems if you think you have a real fix to the system.

You do if you're WotC. Remember that Tome of Battle and Tome of Magic were both made from half-finished subsystems that had been scrapped while they were working on 4e.

But didn't 4e integrate multiple ideas from Tome of Battle? In particular the focus on standard and swift action maneuvers/powers that you eventually start forgetting to make room for new higher-level ones, along a few 1/day abilities?


I even remember the ToB devs mentioning they didn't really like the classes having recovery mechanics and maneuvers should've been 1/encounter, which is also closer to what 4e ended up doing.

[Username17]

You don't print multiple half finished versions of replacement systems if you think you have a real fix to the system.

You do if you're WotC. Remember that Tome of Battle and Tome of Magic were both made from half-finished subsystems that had been scrapped while they were working on 4e.

But didn't 4e integrate multiple ideas from Tome of Battle? In particular the focus on standard and swift action maneuvers/powers that you eventually start forgetting to make room for new higher-level ones, along a few 1/day abilities?


I even remember the ToB devs mentioning they didn't really like the classes having recovery mechanics and maneuvers should've been 1/encounter, which is also closer to what 4e ended up doing.

No.

Literally every single thing you just said is backwards and wrong.

-Username17