So, Paizo Publishing has decided to put out a product that will, I suppose, compete with 4th Edition. In a bold and, I think, savvy move, they have released an alpha version of The Pathfinder Roleplaying Game, so that people can read it, play it, and provide them with feedback that they will use to make it better, stronger, funner. I downloaded it last night and gave it a cursory read. I’ll preface this by saying that I was excited going in. I’m generally a fan of Paizo, and I’m generally a fan of free products. Thus, I was happy to give this thing a look and see just how they plan to fix 3.5.

My overall impression, after an admittedly brief look, was a resounding “meh”. I didn’t see anything particularly revolutionary or interesting in the rules. They’ve tried to maximize compatibility with existing products wherever they could, which means that they’re pretty limited in what they can change. They want to fix things like player durability at low levels and slow combat at high levels, but many of the problems the seek to fix are problems inherent to the core of the system, not just subsystems that can be re-written. How can you fix slow play at higher levels without eliminating iterative attacks or doing something about spell bloat for magic users? How can you make lower-level PCs more durable without changing the way experience points are calculated and levels are gained? And if you change that, you’ll have to change things like magic item creation and spells with XP components, because the value of the experience point has suddenly changed.

Pathfinder seems to me more like a band-aid solution than a true repair; too many of the system’s flaws are in the middle of tangled webs of rules subsystems to be fixed while still maximizing compatibility with the basic rules system. You either fix the system, or you make a compatible product, but you have to choose one of the two.

Now, I’ll admit that maybe I’m wrong about this. Maybe future iterations of Pathfinder will provide more solutions to 3.5′s issues, and maybe they’ll be a little bit bolder with their mechanics. My main issue, though, is that I don’t understand who their target audience is. Those who, like me, are kind of tired of the current version of D&D and want something fresh and new that doesn’t get weighed down by its own body of rules will immediately switch to 4th Edition. We’re probably not going to buy Pathfinder. Those who don’t want 4th Edition, who think that the current rule set is fine, may be willing to try Pathfinder, but will they be willing to pay full retail price for an incremental upgrade? In most cases, probably not. The problem is that, while Paizo seeks to solve 3.5′s ills, Pathfinder doesn’t really do anything that new or exciting. It’s the same old 3.5, just a little bit different. Is it better? Hard to tell.

But really, don’t take my word for it. Follow the link at the top of this post, download the alpha (it’s totally free), and read it yourself. If nothing else, the artwork in the book is stellar.

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