From the CEO:

 

Dear Friends of Paizo:

First of all, I'd like to thank you for your continuing loyalty and support of Paizo Publishing. In the past year, we've successfully transitioned from the magazine publishing business to become one of the most popular roleplaying publishers in the industry. Through this difficult time, you've been supporting us with your purchases, giving us your feedback through our messageboards, and generally doing your best to build us up. Without you, Paizo couldn't and wouldn't exist, and for that, I and my employees thank you.

Today, we have announced our decision to create the Pathfinder RPG, the flagship game system for all of our Pathfinder products. This roleplaying game will be based on the Open Game License (OGL) and the 3.5 SRD released by Wizards of the Coast. We came to this decision by listening to you, our customers, and also listening to our own hearts. Our Pathfinder Chronicles campaign setting was designed around the tropes and values of classic fantasy roleplaying, and the Pathfinder Adventure Path books were designed to provide the best gaming experience using the 3.5 system. After careful evaluation of our options, we believe that the 3.5 core will continue to be the best system to tell the stories we've got planned for Pathfinder.

What's got me really jazzed about the Pathfinder RPG is the fact that, for the first time that I'm aware of in the history of RPGs, there is a fully open playtest available to anyone who wants to get involved! There are no secret playtest groups bound by non-disclosure agreements—anybody who wants to contribute to the process can do so, just by signing up for an account on paizo.com, downloading a FREE PDF of the playtest rules, and telling us—and the rest of the world—what you think. By basing the Pathfinder RPG on the 3.5 SRD, we are taking advantage of the fact that tens of thousands of GMs all over the world have already been playing this game system and have some great ideas about how to improve what we think is already the best rules system in the business. With this kind of brainpower behind the Pathfinder RPG, I know that when we release the finished product in August 2009, it will be the best game that it can be!

We're thrilled to be able to provide continuing support for the most ubiquitous edition of the world's most popular roleplaying game. Paizo will have a steady stream of new products available for 3.5 and the Pathfinder RPG, and this summer, we're even launching an organized play program: The Pathfinder Society, which will be headed up by our good friend Nicolas Logue.

We're sure that lots of roleplayers are going to be thrilled with Wizards of the Coast's upcoming 4th Edition, and we're also looking forward to the 4th Edition products that our partner Necromancer Games will be creating. Paizo may also publish 4th Edition products in the future, but if we do, they won't cross over with our Pathfinder products. We know our fans are a creative bunch, though, so we fully expect to see our community create 4th Edition conversion notes for our Pathfinder products—in fact, some of our fans have already started working on 4E conversions of the Rise of the Runelords Adventure Path, as well as one of our first standalone modules.

I'd like to ask that you continue your support of Paizo by getting involved. Help us playtest the Pathfinder RPG. Plan on joining the Pathfinder Society and helping us develop our new organized play network. Consider subscribing to the Pathfinder product lines that appeal to you. If you patronize a local game store, make sure they know what our plans are, and tell them you're supporting us. One of the very best things you can do is spread the word: if each current Pathfinder fan could find just one new person who might like what we are doing, it would help us tremendously. Finally, please continue to be the best fans in the world.

Again, thanks for all that you have done for us in the past. We look forward to helping you run the best RPG games for years to come. We wouldn't be where we are without you, and we hope our gaming paths will continue to cross long into the future.

—Lisa Stevens
March 18, 2008

From the Publisher:

 

Friends,

Today, Paizo announced the open playtest of the new Pathfinder RPG, a backward-compatible full-service fantasy roleplaying game based on the 3.5 Open Game License. You can download a FREE 65-page Pathfinder RPG Alpha Release PDF right now, to get an idea of our initial thoughts and changes, and we've opened up a new messageboard to collect your ideas, opinions, and suggestions on where the game goes from here.

At this year's Gen Con, we plan to release a print version of the complete Pathfinder RPG Beta Release, which we'll also be giving away as a free PDF download here at paizo.com in August. In the spirit of the Open Gaming movement, the Pathfinder RPG is truly your RPG. We're very interested in your feedback on what in the core 3.5 rules should and shouldn't change, and we'll incorporate many of your suggestions into the finished Pathfinder RPG, which will debut at Gen Con 2009 as a deluxe hardcover book.

Until then, our Pathfinder Adventure Path products will continue to be written for the core 3.5 rules. This includes Curse of the Crimson Throne (the current Adventure Path), Second Darkness (which begins this August), and the Adventure Path which launches in February 2009. Beginning in August 2009, our Pathfinder products will be written to take advantage of the enhancements found in the Pathfinder RPG while retaining compatibility with the core 3.5 rules. Backward compatibility is such an important design goal for the Pathfinder RPG that a character in one system will be able to fight a monster in the other without requiring significant conversion work on your part. You will still be able to use your entire library of 3.5 material with minimal (or even no) conversion. Pathfinder Modules, the Pathfinder Companion, and Pathfinder Chronicles supplements will likewise be written for the core 3.5 rules set until August 2009, after which they will be developed with the Pathfinder RPG in mind (which, remember, will be fully compatible with 3.5).

We know that many of our readers are looking forward to 4th Edition. We still plan to release an entire line of 4th Edition products through our partnership with Necromancer Games, including a brand new Tome of Horrors hardcover monster anthology, adventures, and other exciting products. (Much of this support will depend, of course, upon the terms of the still-in-development Game System License from Wizards of the Coast, but we remain hopeful that Paizo will be a major player in the 4th Edition arena as well.) But we believe that the 3.5 rules provide the best core system for our Pathfinder products, best allowing us to tell the kinds of stories you've come to expect from us.

Basing the Pathfinder RPG on 3.5 also allows Paizo more control over our destiny than simply following along with the latest edition and the newest licensing changes. The 3.5 OGL is eternal; it provides us access to a great game loved by Paizo's entire editorial staff and most of its customers, and it allows us to keep moving forward at our current pace. We also know our customers have invested a lot of time and money into the 3.5 system; we believe that the Pathfinder RPG and its open playtest will allow us to make the best RPG even better, and to give new life to the 3.5 products you already own. We feel we've made the responsible choice for our business and for our customers—a balance we've managed consistently since Paizo began more than five years ago.

I hope you'll join us in the months and years to come. Pathfinder has been a tremendous success story in large part because our audience stuck with us after the conclusion of our license to produce Dragon and Dungeon magazines. I've been with Paizo since the very first day we opened, and I can say with authority that right now we're producing better, more exciting products than at any time in our history. This is a great time to be a part of our staff, and I hope you agree that it's a great time to be a Paizo customer.

So, how can you help? First (and most importantly), if our decision appeals to you I strongly urge you to subscribe to the Pathfinder product lines that interest you. Also, keep an eye on paizo.com for exciting new Pathfinder RPG playtest releases and information about our upcoming Pathfinder Society organized play campaign. Finally, tell your local retailer about our decision to continue supporting 3.5, and that we believe 3.5 products from Paizo and other companies will continue to sell well into the future.

We're in this for the long run, and we plan to publish products for the Pathfinder RPG—for your RPG—for years to come. But we can't do it without you.

I hope you'll join us in this exciting new campaign.

—Erik Mona
Publisher
Paizo Publishing, LLC

From the Lead Designer:

 

Introduction

Welcome to the first release of the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game. Let me start by saying thank you for taking a look at these rules. We here at Paizo have been working hard to make this game the fantasy roleplaying game you want to play—a game where dragons live in dungeons, goblins lurk in the forest, and noble knights ride off to undertake perilous quests. It can be all of these things and more, depending on the style of game you want it to be. These rules can be used to run a game of high intrigue set in the court of a dying king or they can be used to chronicle the desperate struggle for survival on the borderlands of an evil empire. It all depends on you and your imagination.

This is the first of a number of Alpha releases to culminate in a standalone rules set. Right now, this release gives you the basics of the system that, when combined with the 3.5 rules, allows you to begin play immediately. In the coming weeks, new releases will contain even more parts of the game, covering all the standard classes, spells, magic items, and everything else you need to have a complete campaign. But I don't want this game to develop in a vacuum. I need your help to make this the best game possible.

Before I get into how you can help, it might be best to explain the history and design goals of the Pathfinder RPG. These rules guided me through the design process, and they should help you as you play the game.

 

History & Design Goals

Back in October 2007, I began a small side project. Since 4th Edition had recently been announced, I began to wonder how many people would stick with the 3.5 rules set. Everyone could agree that 3.5 needed some work, but the system itself was mostly sound. I thought that those folks might want some updated rules, since support was beginning to wane. What started out as a simple side project soon turned into an obsession as the rules document got longer every day. When Paizo started looking for alternatives, my side project was a natural fit, leading us to where we are today.

When work first began on the Pathfinder RPG, I set down a number of principles to guide me. Since this game is based off the 3.5 rules set, I wanted to make sure that it stayed true to the original vision of the game. When taking a look at these rules, please keep the following guidelines in mind as they might help you understand the changes that were made.

Improve the Game: The 3.5 rules set is excellent, but it has its flaws. Over the past few years, a number of common problems have seemed to crop up again and again, problems that delay the game or cause no end of arguments (grapple and polymorph, for example). I wanted the Pathfinder RPG to clean up these rules, by streamlining in places and adding options in others. You can still grapple in the Pathfinder RPG, but it is no longer the huge headache that it was. I also worked to even out some of the choices. A number of 3.5 skills are far less valuable than others, making them suboptimal choices. In my experience, few rogues took Forgery, but Spot was an incredibly common choice. These rules work to even out some of these choices. So while you might still take Perception over Linguistics, the latter is now a far more useful choice than it was before.

Add Options: Just before design began, a friend of mine asked me why no one ever seemed to take rogue beyond 2nd level or fighter beyond 4th level. This got me thinking. Far too many of the basic classes lose their luster after just a few levels, leading most players to take a host of other classes or a number of prestige classes. While this option is still available, I wanted to add more to all the classes, to give each one of them a reason to be followed up through 20th level. To this end, I have tried to add options to the game whenever possible. This is a tricky path to walk, though. Too many options and you end up with overly complicated classes. Too few and players get bored of their class. This principle goes beyond class powers, as well. From sundering to magic items, there are now more options and choices to make than ever before, each one opening up whole new avenues of character and adventure design.

Compatibility: Of all the goals I set out with when designing this game, compatibility ranked near the top. I wanted to make sure that any rules we changed were adaptable to the extensive body of work that exists for the 3.5 rules set. In addition to being compatible, I wanted to ensure that any conversion work would be minimal. In most cases, this meant adding to existing rules, instead of subtracting. So, while we changed the way turning undead works, we did not remove turning undead from the game. We added options to the fighter without removing any of them. This design philosophy doesn't always hold true, however. Some skills were combined and a few disappeared altogether (goodbye Use Rope). Whenever I broke this rule, it was because the other guidelines took precedence.

 

What's Next?

That's simple. Play. Incorporate these rules into your existing campaign or start up a whole new campaign using these rules to influence your decisions. We want to know what works and what needs more work, and we can't think of a better way to do that than getting thousands of gamers to help. As we release more rules, incorporate those into your game as well.

Your feedback and playtest reports will be used to help tune these rules. Your experiences will help guide the design from this point forward. By this coming August, we will offer the Beta release of these rules. These rules will hit our website as a free PDF and as a standalone book. While these rules will be approaching their final state, we want to leave the door open for some additional changes and revisions along the way, culminating in the finished Pathfinder RPG, to be released in August 2009. At that point, all Pathfinder products, including Pathfinder, the Pathfinder Companion, the Pathfinder Modules, and Pathfinder Chronicles supplements will convert to these rules. For more information on this process, including how to get involved and where to submit feedback, see the Playtesting chapter at the end of this document.

Once again, thank you for investigating the Pathfinder RPG. We look forward to hearing from you.

—Jason Bulmahn
Lead Designer