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Seems to be little info about this, gathered news/rumours can be read

http://www.enworld.org/forum/content.php?2160-Pathfinder-Roleplaying-Game-Pathfinder-Unchained#.VI8gYtKsVD0

Interesting. While there are a number of issues that can be cleaned up, I’m not sure if this is the best way of dealing with it. Once you start bolting on extra bits and patching up stuff, systems start to get clunky. Plus you need to lug a larger number of books around (assuming you haven’t embraced the digital)

This looks to be a book of developer approved house-rules. While not a bad thing, it adds one more step to the pre-game setup. What books are allowed, what rules are we using, anything restricted, etc.

Not really that interested in this. Pathfinder is already quite bloated and poorly balanced between classes, I doubt this will fix those issues, indeed it seems like it's just bolting more on to a very old system now.

Playing a lot of PF this year, and it's great advantages are the wealth of material available for it (you can use pretty much anything from 3.0 onward with minimal work) and the free rules available online.

The downsides are the complexity, poor balance and sheer volume of splat that has been released. This has lead to me making blanket restrictions on what people can play (basically, Core, Ultimate Equipment and APG are the only books allowed), because my group has upwards of 12 PCs most of the time and I can't keep track of everyone's options otherwise. Plus we have several novice gamers who would likely make mistakes with the sheer amount of crap available.

After years of playing from 3.0 to PF, I think I've become pretty wearied by all the different types of bonuses, special exceptions and general clunkyness of the rules.

 Da Boss wrote:
After years of playing from 3.0 to PF, I think I've become pretty wearied by all the different types of bonuses, special exceptions and general clunkyness of the rules.

This is where I was when I discovered the OSR.

Heh. I would switch, too, but my group are pretty resistant, so I am gonna keep running this for a while yet I'd say. Til my current project is over anyhow!

The new Hackmaster is a nice system as well, but good luck getting people to try new things.

 Da Boss wrote:
Heh. I would switch, too, but my group are pretty resistant, so I am gonna keep running this for a while yet I'd say. Til my current project is over anyhow!

I know you had at least a session with the playtest but have you done anything more with 5E? It is still a "modern" game (terrible term) but it is much less clunky than its predecessors.

Only the playtest so far. I'm waiting for the full kit to come out in bundle form before I dive in. The current project is an open table with a fluid group of players, so the free online rules are a major bonus for PF.

I will definitely be giving 5th a go though. I also want to try Fate.

I am currently playing in a Mass Effect campaign using FATE. It's pretty well-suited to cinematic style.

Don't forget a ton of 5E's rules are also free, just in PDF form rather than a hyperlinked page.

4e is my favorite system if I'm going to be playing Fantasy in a RPG. Sometimes I feel like I'm the only person who thinks that though

 dementedwombat wrote:
4e is my favorite system if I'm going to be playing Fantasy in a RPG. Sometimes I feel like I'm the only person who thinks that though

you have plenty of company, my entire gamegroup!

I feel the situation is only going to be made worse with the addition of yet more content.

I am hopeful however, as they are explicitly stating how weak the rogue is. Now if only they fix the monk....of course they could add on so much that even if these classes are buffed, the game is too different for it to matter. More skill points(and more skills) does nothing for the problems of super high DC's needed to challenge higher level PC's for skills, nor the overuse/nonuse of most skills. If anything it makes it worse.

 Da Boss wrote:

I will definitely be giving 5th a go though. .

5th is amazing. If I am going to teach anybody a pen and paper, its going to be 5th. Character creation is straightforward, no unneeded skills or feats, very simply mechanics and few broken/totally useless builds. There are clear mechanics to reward roleplaying with in game bonuses. I mostly play pathfinder, but 5.0 feels more like a roleplaying game than the pathfinder feel of a rollplaying game.

The ability and enthusiasm the fans of these products lines have for keeping up with the release treadmill never cease to amaze me.

http://tencopper.com/article/2015/05/pathfinder-unchained-interview-jason-bulmahn/

Last week saw the launch of Pathfinder Unchained, Paizo’s ‘anything goes’ book where they gave themselves free reign to tinker with some of the long-standing RPG’s sacred cows.

Unchained brings major changes to classes, skills, and more, and it’s now available for you to grab online or at your friendly local games store. Read more about that here and here.

Paul Houlihan somehow managed to convince Paizo’s lead designer on Pathfinder Jason Bulmahn to sit down for a chat. Here’s what happened.

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Paul Houlihan is the host of The Fourth Player, a fortnightly video gaming podcast featuring some of Australia’s finest gaming journalists, publishers and raconteurs. Check it out here.

 Ahtman wrote:
The new Hackmaster is a nice system as well, but good luck getting people to try new things.

I played Hackmaster 5th edition for the first time this past weekend at Nexus convention near Milwaukee. It was a learn-to-play demo game with pregens.

It was run by a good GM, with a basic dungeon crawl set-up (6 rooms, mostly rats and lizardmen, looking for a lost boy), and 3rd level pregens.

I enjoyed the mechanics, even though we didn't get into where my DR came from, and how the weapons affected your own defense, but all-in-all, it had a lot of what I miss from my HackMaster 4th edition days.

The only drawback was there were 8 people in a learn-to-play game, which is too many.