Occasionally on the Paizo boards a thread pops up questioning whether or not Paizo should make a second edition of Pathfinder. Usually the answer is a resounding no for logistical reasons with groups of posters either agreeing that a revised core rulebook would be more practical or wanting to change some things whole clot to make the barrier of entry easier for new players. Regardless of what's whether or not a second edition or revised edition of Pathfinder is healthy for the game there is a practical reason for people like myself to be resistant to any kind of major rules change that is probably the same reason why Pathfinder started. I'd like to call this reason the 'Buy-In Dilemma'. Its a simple idea that has probably plagued players across editions of Dungeons and Dragons; Basically, I have enough material for Pathfinder that anything that makes them in any way less compatible it becomes a huge pain in my butt because it means that I either have to make considerations for rule changes or reject anything new. But it goes a bit deeper and more complex than that because I collect a lot of third party material, and usually because of the very reasons why a new or revised edition would be called for. Here I'll go over some of the top reasons I think a second edition could be necessary and address how those reasons affect me as a frequent consumer of third party products.
Reason #1: Fix Balance
This one is actually another article waiting to happen. In fact I have several articles planned talking about 3pp and balance. But the general gist is that I don't need it fixed. I have enough material dealing with perceived balance between just about anything. Think a certain base class is too weak, well I have some new options for it. Think that item is too useless, well have you looked at this item book that gives more options to that item? You can't do X? Well I have an entire book about doing X. Third party products for Pathfinder is like an app store from the future. There's a book for nearly everything to fix whatever you need fixing. Of course different groups and different people have their own sense of how the game is balanced but luckily the kinds of material goes in all kinds of directions so you can find something that will tweak things to the direction you want.
Reason #2: Fix Bloat
You would think that 3pp would do the opposite of handling bloat, but there is something that winds up happening when you start collecting to solve Reason#1, which is that you start collecting things that streamline a process. For example I've picked up and talked about Spheres of Power constantly. Although I've gotten other alternate casting systems this year as well something about Spheres of Power clicks with people enough where it's slowly becoming THE casting system of my table. Its mostly because it's pretty easy to wield, track, and understand but also a lot of niches and themes can be used because of it. I hate to say it but after having it in action a bit I became more reluctant to purchase anything that had any kind of magic class. No matter how well the crunch is a product has to compete with whether or not I can replicate the same flavor using Spheres of Power. If you have a lot of imagination you can easily forego Psionics, Truenaming, and pretty much all of Paizo's classes without feeling like you're missing out on concepts. Not to say that those things are badly designed, far from it, its just that with all these things at my disposal I can make a campaign as complicated as I want or as simple as I want and on the simple end of the spectrum I can just replace all magic with one book and the game is instantly hundreds of pages less bloaty and manifests more concepts than before.
Reason #3: Clean up bad rules
This one is the second biggest reason why I collect third party material. In the macrocosm of Pathfinder material hitting home and Pathfinder Society tables I can understand most of the rules as they are. Between continued backwards compatibility and reigning in PFS difficulties Paizo does it's best to make the rules function while keeping things open enough to be creative. But if Pathfinder Unchained proved one thing it is that they are very much aware that the microcosm of individual tables have very different needs that the main game can't have and remain consistent. Since the dawn of Dungeons and Dragons people have made houserules and additional creations to help smooth over concepts or fix rules to better fit their own table. With third party material these same people test, share and streamline their fixes and adjustment allowing for a lot of things to just work at individual tables.
Reason #4: Make simpler.
You got me here. While on the player's end of the table the game can be simpler. Fewer books can be used, between third party material and Pathfinder Unchained the game can rival 5th edition in ease of use. But there are two things that having less by adding more doesn't help with. Its still a chore for the GM that has to be conscious not just about how the game works but how her players work in order to make proper adjustments. It's also not easier for the new player that wants to read the rules without direction because no matter what you adjust because all these rules and rule adjustments aren't in one book. For me this is kind of moot point. I generally have an idea of what adjustments I need for a particular campaign and I'm not a new GM so I'm more bought in as a result. Also when it comes to new players I tend to use less Paizo material, let alone third party material. I generally start with the Beginner Box, then add to it using fabulous third party conversions of each class (up to the ACG) to expand upon it. Then it's on to Core Rulebook only playing fast and loose with the rules, and then to the rest of the game with third party material.
So the bottom line is that I've collected enough 3pp products to handle most of the difficulties of Pathfinder to the point where switching genres doesn't even mean that I have to switch systems. There's enough variety where I can keep busy with Pathfinder for years before I see every class actually used by my players. I have Pathfinder pretty much just the way that I want it, even if I want something different each campaign. So any major edition change would probably cause me to stick with Pathfinder as it is. meanwhile due to modularity being a key drawing point for collecting third party material a backwards compatible revised ruleset probably wouldn't hurt me because at this point I only touch the Core Rulebook when I have players new to the game, which is infrequent enough to cause them to gather a few spider webs. And despite getting into a game with a lot of little crunchy rules I've never really held too close to the rules, often making guesses when we don't have time to look everything up, and those guesses become house rules.
So is this bad? For me, not really. If a new and better edition comes out that's incompatible I'll probably miss out, but I'm not really unhappy with the edition I have so I guess I wouldn't notice. Getting players on board for 'old' Pathfinder would probably be the biggest obstacle so I'd still be resistant to an incompatible second edition even if I wouldn't use it. Also with buying into third party products for a lot of reasons to have a new edition I'll become more reluctant to even play a new incompatible new edition because I'd have to start over with fixes and adjustments that are inevitable. It will only get bad when I get bored with Pathfinder as I have it now and that's a long ways away. I currently have 170 classes on my shelf and enough material ranging from playing as cavemen to Transformers, so I'm good for another 20 years. Is this bad for Paizo? I would say it's pretty good since I'm now a locked in customer and presumably anyone else in the same situation. Then there's the history of their business model to look at as well. The 3.5 era of rpgs was pretty full of d20 games, so something about the backbone of the system works.
In the end I still call it a 'dilemma' because at some point I have to admit that I locked myself in the game in some way. I have a lot of friends migrating to Dungeons and Dragons 5th edition and I can play with them with minimal effort because the barrier of entry is almost nonexistent. But I still have noir pulp fantasy, steampunk, space ranger and superhero cyberpunk games to play with Pathfinder plus some Ponyfinder so I'm still less incensed to hop in wholesale into 5th edition. It also automatically makes me resistant to large scale changes that aren't part of alternate rule books like Pathfinder Unchained. Its more than about the amount of books I have that would become unused or the third party material I have yet to use outside of playtesting. The game is a different beast than it was when it was just the core rulebook and it grew multiple heads when 3pp material is involved along with books like Ultimate Campaign and Pathfinder Unchained, and it's a beast that I'm unable to escape because at the very least I'm compelled to lop off the heads I've got before trying to move on with a simpler and probably less satisfying beast.
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