Humble Bundle Rolls Into RPGs With Huge Pathfinder Bundle

[Fanghawk]

Humble Bundle Rolls Into RPGs With Huge Pathfinder Bundle

//cdn.themis-media.com/media/global/images/library/deriv/1288/1288251.jpgHumble Bundle and Paizo have partnered to offer an absolutely enormous collection of Pathfinder RPG books.

<a href=http://www.escapistmagazine.com/tag/view/humble%20bundle?os=humble+bundle>Humble Bundle has offered several discounted RPGs over the years, but never any of the tabletop variety. That just changed in a big way thanks to Paizo, who are offering <a href=http://www.escapistmagazine.com/tag/view/pathfinder>an amazing Pathfinder collection to Humble customers. For $15 dollars, you can snatch up over 20 Pathfinder PDFs covering almost the entire line - from the core book, to GM supplements, to adventures.

For those unfamiliar with tabletop RPGs, Pathfinder is one of the biggest fantasy games next to Dungeons & Dragons itself. In fact, Pathfinder started out as a modified D&D ruleset fans could play once the 3.5 edition left print. In the process, it gained a massive following that didn't care for D&D's 4th edition, and quickly became one of the industry's biggest success stories.

If I were to describe every single Pathfinder book in this bundle, it would take multiple paragraphs, so let's stick to broad strokes: The Humble RPG Book Bundle covers just about everything you'd ever need for a Pathfinder campaign. Along with the Core Rulebook, there's a Game Mastery Guide, advanced class and player supplements, adventures, and more. Paizo even threw in guides to Pathfinder's Golarion campaign setting, specialized "Ultimate" books, and two complete Bestiaries of monsters.

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On top of that, Humble Bundle will include a physical Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Beginner Box for anyone who pays $25. (A digital version is included in the base set.) Customers also have the option to donate any portion of their payment to the Extra Life children's hospital charity. Either way, this is an incredible deal for any tabletop RPG fan. Whether you're just learning to play RPGs, or a long-time Pathfinder player, you can't go wrong with this bundle.

Source: <a href=https://www.humblebundle.com/books/paizo-pathfinder-bundle?utm_source=Tumblr&utm_medium=Link&utm_campaign=Humble_RPG_Book_Bundle_Paizo_Pathfinder>Humble Bundle

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[008Zulu_v1legacy]

I always wanted to try Pathfinder. But my usual go to site for RP'ing (Roll20). no one I have spoken with seems to have anything positive to say about it. Is it one of those things you either like or hate? Are their grievances concerning balance justified?

 

[Chimpzy_v1legacy]

I always wanted to try Pathfinder. But my usual go to site for RP'ing (Roll20). no one I have spoken with seems to have anything positive to say about it. Is it one of those things you either like or hate? Are their grievances concerning balance justified?

As you may know, Pathfinder is essentially based on and a continuation of D&D 3.5 rules. It introduces a bunch of fixes to problems with the base game. But, as is often the case, it doesn't solve everything. A lot of balance issues that already existed in 3.5 still exist in Pathfinder and some of the fixes and new rules introduce new problems. And these issues increase as you add more supplemental books to your campaign on top of the core books, as has been the case to at least some degree with every tabletop roleplaying system since forever.

IMO there's only one real solution to this: a good DM.

If something is under/overpowered and making one or more players significantly less/more powerful compared to the rest, then the DM should pick up on that and take steps to reduce or remove that problem. Not to say i'm a good DM (still have much to learn), but I have nerfed/buffed certain abilities, items and such in my campaign, or even outright banned them. Yes, I got some complaints at first, but it eventually led to a smoother and better game, and most of all, happier players.

Assuming he's good at his job, the DM's word is law. Not the books.

 

[nomotog_v1legacy]

I always wanted to try Pathfinder. But my usual go to site for RP'ing (Roll20). no one I have spoken with seems to have anything positive to say about it. Is it one of those things you either like or hate? Are their grievances concerning balance justified?

If you like D&D 3.5 then you should like pathfinder. It's really feels like a throw back. It's super rules heavy with a simulation bent (like D&D 3.5). The adventures are really the big sell to me. They are rather cool almost like splat books themselves only you don't have to make up your own adventure. (I really wish they would do adventures in 5ed.)

Pathfinder is covered under the old SRD, so you can just give the system a look if you want.

 

[the December King]

I always wanted to try Pathfinder. But my usual go to site for RP'ing (Roll20). no one I have spoken with seems to have anything positive to say about it. Is it one of those things you either like or hate? Are their grievances concerning balance justified?

As you may know, Pathfinder is essentially based on and a continuation of D&D 3.5 rules. It introduces a bunch of fixes to problems with the base game. But, as is often the case, it doesn't solve everything. A lot of balance issues that already existed in 3.5 still exist in Pathfinder and some of the fixes and new rules introduce new problems. And these issues increase as you add more supplemental books to your campaign on top of the core books, as has been the case to at least some degree with every tabletop roleplaying system since forever.

IMO there's only one real solution to this: a good DM.

If something is under/overpowered and making one or more players significantly less/more powerful compared to the rest, then the DM should pick up on that and take steps to reduce or remove that problem. Not to say i'm a good DM (still have much to learn), but I have nerfed/buffed certain abilities, items and such in my campaign, or even outright banned them. Yes, I got some complaints at first, but it eventually led to a smoother and better game, and most of all, happier players.

Assuming he's good at his job, the DM's word is law. Not the books.

Well said. It's really down to the flow of the story, and being able to make it enjoyable for all players- or at least accessible.

On the other hand, my group jumped to Pathfinder when we found out that there was no clean and direct converting of characters from 3.5 to 4th edition D&D. There were a lot of unique builds and collections of items and equipment... it became harder to accept, and most of us didn't want to leave our favorite characters behind. Pathfinder offered us a way to continue developing the characters in a familiar manner while offering cleaner rules and some acceptable slap-dash conversions to continue using the more unique elements from 3.5. We still tried 4th ed. out, and had some fun, even though I personally thought that the video game approach basically just homogenized the character balance of power. The concept of minions was a smart idea, though.

 

[Mikeybb]

Everything been said here regarding a good DM is accurate.

A good DM can overcome a 'broken' system, a bad DM can 'break' a perfect system.
Not that a perfect system exists...

I just wanted to add that this is a damn good deal, especially if you wanted to try the system out.
Even an option for some physical product to go with the downloads.
That's very nice indeed.

Thanks for letting us know about this one.

 

[aceman67]

I bit the bullet and bought the whole bundle, then was tottally shocked to find that the shipping price for the beginners box was $45 USD.

That's obscene. Especially when I can get the Beginners box at my local game store where I usually play Magic and Table Top games for less than that.

It does not cost that much to ship something from the States to Canada. Hell, it doesn't even cost that much to ship something from Canada to the UK. There's no reason for it to cost that much.

I would be more inclined to have paid more on the humble bundle itself, if the shipping was included in the original price then to be shocked when it came to paying for the shipping.

 

[Something Amyss]

I bit the bullet and bought the whole bundle, then was tottally shocked to find that the shipping price for the beginners box was $45 USD.

That's obscene. Especially when I can get the Beginners box at my local game store where I usually play Magic and Table Top games for less than that.

It does not cost that much to ship something from the States to Canada. Hell, it doesn't even cost that much to ship something from Canada to the UK. There's no reason for it to cost that much.

I would be more inclined to have paid more on the humble bundle itself, if the shipping was included in the original price then to be shocked when it came to paying for the shipping.

Really? Wow. The estimate on the HB page was 10-20 bucks, which I figured I could easily absorb. 45 really is ridiculous.

 

[aceman67]

Really? Wow. The estimate on the HB page was 10-20 bucks, which I figured I could easily absorb. 45 really is ridiculous.

I'm guessing that's just for shipping to Canada, I shudder to think what people who live outside of the North America have to pay.

 

[Something Amyss]

Really? Wow. The estimate on the HB page was 10-20 bucks, which I figured I could easily absorb. 45 really is ridiculous.

I'm guessing that's just for shipping to Canada, I shudder to think what people who live outside of the North America have to pay.

Oh. When you said USD, I brain cramped and assumed US. the price is still exorbitantly high, though.

EDIT: for clarity, it was 13 bucks when I just redeemed mine. I hadn't actually set up the shipping yet. I mean, it's not a horrible price for domestic shipping, but it is kinda high. Just not as bad as the 45 for Canadian shipping.

 

[Something Amyss]

Everything been said here regarding a good DM is accurate.

A good DM can overcome a 'broken' system, a bad DM can 'break' a perfect system.
Not that a perfect system exists...

I just wanted to add that this is a damn good deal, especially if you wanted to try the system out.
Even an option for some physical product to go with the downloads.
That's very nice indeed.

Thanks for letting us know about this one.

Yeah, considering the price, I sprung for the box set bundle. I've always wanted to try Pathfinder, and this seems like an awesome way to get an intro going.

 

[dohnut king]

Great deal. Thanks for the heads up Escapist.

While not perfect, Pathfinder gives you as many or more options for characters than any other system, and is by far the best supported one aw well. In addition to the excellent Paizo products, there is active 3rd party support for Pathfinder, and most 3.0/3.5 materials convert to Pathfinder pretty easily.

The primary criticism of Pathfinder is that spell casters gain more power as they level up than martials, and that the wealth of options rewards (or enables) power gamers. While both are true to a degree, it is not as bad in practice as presented on the message boards. And it is nothing a good GM and a good group can't handle.

 

[aceman67]

Oh. When you said USD, I brain cramped and assumed US. the price is still exorbitantly high, though.

EDIT: for clarity, it was 13 bucks when I just redeemed mine. I hadn't actually set up the shipping yet. I mean, it's not a horrible price for domestic shipping, but it is kinda high. Just not as bad as the 45 for Canadian shipping.

When converted to Canadian Rupees, the shipping would be ~$61 CAD. I just got back from my local gaming store where I just purchased the Beginners Box for $44.

This Humble Bundle is not worth buying the top tier if you live outside the US. But then again, if you're buying the top tier just to donate to charity, that's perfectly fine.

Another point to make is that Paizo totally shat the bed with this deal, they should have expected the large influx of traffic they would have gotten and prepared for it, but site functions that should take 10 seconds (personalizing a PDF for download) takes hours.

 

[Something Amyss]

When converted to Canadian Rupees, the shipping would be ~$61 CAD. I just got back from my local gaming store where I just purchased the Beginners Box for $44.

This Humble Bundle is not worth buying the top tier if you live outside the US. But then again, if you're buying the top tier just to donate to charity, that's perfectly fine.

Another point to make is that Paizo totally shat the bed with this deal, they should have expected the large influx of traffic they would have gotten and prepared for it, but site functions that should take 10 seconds (personalizing a PDF for download) takes hours.

Yeah, they really did screw up the digital end.

The Beginner's Box is something worth questioning the value of even if you're an American, for the record. It apparently runs 25 bucks most places. Part of why I shelled out for it, though, is I saw it as an upgrade to my existing deal, and did specifically think an extra several bucks to charity was better than shopping for a good deal. I'd be fine with the PDFs at a lower cost.

...of course, I could have just given the eight bucks directly to charity and not had to pay shipping...I'm a monster.

 

[aceman67]

*snip*

I was actually impressed with what came in it, it has enough for someone like myself, who's never been able to do a table-top game like this before, to learn the basics. On top of that, my FLGS (Friendly Local Gaming Store) has a thriving Pathfinder Society that will be starting its next campaign in a week or two.

Personally, I can't wait till I can get the Advanced Class book downloaded and start building the Gnome Druid that I want.

 

[LordMonty]

I own alot of roleplay stuff and play pathfinder with my RP group weekly although we'll be switching to Iron Kingdoms in a couple of months for a break. I paid $1 into the bundle on a whim as i own pretty much everything on offer but hey my core book is battered as its nice to have a digital copy totally worth picking up this lot if you want to get into pathfinder but it can be a tad clunky as systems go but is good fun if your GM is good at heavy rule loads.

But in regaurd to when people get upset about pathfinder and calling it bad it comes down to balance and the backwards compatibility betrayal. Some of this may seem a little confusing to a non pathfinder or 3.5 player but bare with me.

Both of these things contradicts sadly but people love there old books and suffer good old days issues of thinking that somwehow you can balance every 3.5 book and keep adding fresh content and keeping it balanced, I own 80% of all the D&D 3.5 books and some of the stuff in there is insane and would need reworking entirely to have it in patherfinder... from the Craven feat too that necromancer build with 100HD of undead followers and many more.

Thus they reworked it all into new books as a much easier way that allows new gamers to come in without having to own all of 3.5 and then iron out 'some of' the kinks and flaws. They didn't entirely fix the caster vs martial issues, general rules and skills can and are clunky at times but it was a net improvement.

But to point out their greatest sucess they do fix the problems that arise with a hefty errata fixing issues with for example the scarred witch doctor which could use Con instead of Int as a caster stat(this was mindbogglingly good) also feats like Divine Protection(http://www.d20pfsrd.com/feats/general-feats/divine-protection), this might have been over nerfed but it was insane to get a powerful paladin ability for a single feat.

To conclude Pathfinder is only really cursed with its sucess with a lot of books and many classes, feats, archetypes and options that leave you able to make many strong and strange builds. The same as 3.5 was in the end. But Pazio work hard to reign in as much as they can when things slip through and become over powered they errata it in the next print. Every roleplay game I have ever played struggles with some issue or another none have ever felt perfect be it complexcity, simplicity, too many books, too few books, THACO, a good setting or a lack of that magic something. In the end its a game that you can tell stories with and like many others its just a matter how you use the tools it gives you to tell that story that matters in the end. Pathfinder has got a wonderful array of choice and complexcity for me and I love the world they've made with Golarion I hope if you try it you can also find the same joy I do.