Paizo's Pathfinder: The future of d20 3.5 [backlog]

Last week at the bookstore, I stumbled across Pathfinder Chronicles: Classic Monsters Revisited. This book takes 10 of the most common humanoid monsters of D&D--including kobolds, goblins, bugbears, hobgoblins, orcs, trolls, ogres, lizardfolk, gnolls, and minotaurs--and tries to bring a fresh take on each by going back through both D&D's Monstrous Manual history as well as the scraps of original folklore on which these creatures are based. Though I flipped through only casually, I was quite impressed with what I saw. It was all "fluff", rather than "crunch", but very nicely done. I plan to take a closer look next time I'm in, and possibly pick this one up. [Update: And so I did. I didn't agree with all the characterizations, but reading it forced me to clarify my own. And that's the whole point: encounters with different kinds of humanoids should be significantly different, or what's the point of having more 1HD and 2HD humanoid races other than just Orcs?]

I'd never heard of Pathfinder before though. Turns out it's the product of Paizo Publishing, who used to publish the Dragon and Dungeon magazines. They've released a Pathfinder RPG, currently in beta and downloadable as a free PDF (registration required). Pathfinder is based on d20 3.5 OGL rules, so it's basically like playing D&D 3.5. But they've gone through and tweaked a few rules, streamlined others (including some skills), and beefed up some of the standard classes (so you'll think twice about abandoning them for prestige classes). Again, I only skimmed through the PDF, but I liked what I saw. It was like reading through 3.5 when it first came out: mostly small changes from 3.0, but all that tweaked the game to be a little more fun and a little simpler to play.

Some of the things of note that caught my eye were the alternative to having animal companions and familiars; the many bloodlines that characterize sorcerers based on the source of their magic; 0-level spells are now unlimited at-will powers; grapple and other combat maneuvers are simplified; turning undead is more impressive and useful, acting more as a positive energy burst.

Paizo is also releasing a 96-page adventure every month, forming 6-month long campaigns that take characters from 1st to about 15th level.

All-and-all, I got the feeling that Paizo is providing a lot of support and vitality for the 3.5 rules now abandoned by Wizards of the Coast. If you're leery about taking up 4E just yet (or just want to get a little more mileage out of your collection of 3.5 supplements), don't feel like you've been left behind: check out Pathfinder.