The fact that Feats and such are locked behind additional purchases in the character builder is going to kill this app.
Why would anyone pay for this content when we can just use Pathbuilder to create characters for Free, with access to every Feat, Ancestry, etc. that has been released?
Additionally, it’s a pretty dishonest business model to have people purchase the Core Rulebook and APG to get these features considering that the Remasters later this year will be coming out, and surely this will require yet another purchase if you want to get access to those versions.
I don’t see how this product will ever compete if this is the business model going forward.
Hello - thanks for posting. While I don’t share your outlook on the future of these tools, I’ll add some clarification for some of your comments.
The pricing we have in place is based on the standard for all official tools licensed by Paizo. All game mechanics are available for free through the Game Compendium on Pathfinder NEXUS (just as they are on Archives of Nethys), where reading the content and using character options in the tools requires a purchase to unlock past what is freely-available in the Pathfinder Primer.
I can’t speak to the way any unofficial tools work out there.
You are making assumptions here. We haven’t shared what our approach will be regarding the Remaster Project (because we haven’t seen the final content or heard all the final details yet from Paizo), but I can assure you, Demiplane will be taking the most fair / reasonable stance we can take. The books themselves have already been confirmed by Paizo to be separate purchases, so per our license we have to sell them to have available in the digital reader, but - as an example - if you already have the Druid class unlocked because you have the Core Rulebook, then you would be able to access the remastered Druid without any additional purchase in the character tools. We have already stated and confirmed that intent with Paizo.
We are committed to bringing the best character experience to life for Pathfinder and a variety of other games. We’re going to keep forging ahead on that path and always look to make the tools available for the most reasonable cost that we can.
I came here to try out the character builder to recreate one of my players Kitsune. Whoops! Locked. It’s not locked on Archives of Nethys. It’s not locked in Foundry (Official tool? paizo.com - Community / Paizo Blog). It’s also not locked in Pathbuilder.
Perhaps for the “Beta”, unlock everything and paywall characters AFTER you go live if they have used content that needs to be monetized?
If purchasing remasters to get those versions of classes isn’t needed for the character builder then that’s great.
I understand requiring the content to be bought to read it (though it is also my opinion that those with the hardcover and PDF already are unlikely to want to make a third purchase here.) However, I honestly don’t think the product will be successful if there are free tools out there that allow character creation without putting all the options behind a paywall.