Uphill battle vs pathbuilder

Pathfinder Nexus & Character Tools
1

My first impression with the character builder was disappointment, but understanding, that the races were locked behind paid content. But, I was willing to give it a shot with the core races. Then, I realized the feats are also locked behind paid content. I stopped there.

I get you’re a business, and you have to make money, but from my point of view here’s how it looks. I can wait to use your character builder until I can afford to purchase all of the books, or I could just use Pathbuilder and have ALL of the options, and use Nethys to access rules and just slowly purchase physical or pdf copies as I go.

Right now it seems like your target audience is the people who have already purchased most of the books from you. The character builder could be a great way to bring in new customers that haven’t already made a significant investment with you, but might if given a good reason.

Perhaps, if all of the content were unlocked during beta, and I was blown away by the character builder, I would see a point in purchasing said content from Demiplane, but since I can’t build a character with as many options as I can with pathbuilder, I have no incentive to test the product for you which is less likely to result in sales for you.

Actual feedback about the character builder: it’s too linearly designed for my tastes. Too much back and forth to accomplish the same thing that can be done more easily on a spreadsheet or (sorry, but…) Pathbuilder.

2

Hi Sebarlex,

Just a couple of cents from fellow user’s perspective… :slightly_smiling_face:

I am the GM in our local rpg-group, we have been playing Pathfinder2E since 2018 and have been using Hero Lab Online (competitive paid online service) for our digital character-management needs.

We have spent a lot of money already on that service, where you also need to buy all the books in order to unlock ancestries, feats, spells etc.

That being said, we cannot wait to jump onto Pathfinder Nexus, when it is ready to solve our needs. The reason why, is primary the central character management-platform, besides building and using characters in game, of course.

A central place where the GM can see, and if the need arises, edit player characters between sessions, add homebrew stuff like special gear, custom feats, custom spells etc. to the campaign, where it will be available to all the players to choose from, in one central location.

Right now, Pathfinder Nexus are not there yet, but they have communicated that this is part of the goal, and we are thrilled for that.

We are tired of the shortcomings with Hero Lab Online, especially regarding the inability to use homebrew stuff. Pathbuilder is not an option for us, as it only lets you create individual characters with no central GM-management features. Furthermore, it is primary geared towards Android users on mobile devices, which our group is not.

I am not saying that I have no problem with paying for everything a third time, we already bought the books/PDFs from Paizo, bought them again on Hero Lab, and now we have to do it again if we want to use this platform.

However, Demiplane is a buisness and they cannot just give away the books, they have to pay Paizo to license the content, furthermore they have to pay for servers, IT-services and manpower, in order to keep things going, which all adds up.

On DnD Beyond you also had to buy all your content again and they have a lot of customers today, if Demiplane can make something similar or hopefully even better, not just for Pathfinder, but also Starfinder, Vampire, Aliens and all the others games they will support. I think they will have very strong business case in the future…

That is my two cents…

Kind regards

Zeepee

3

Pathbuilder works from any desktop browser and that’s good enough for me. For me, it’s a simple equation: cost of pathfinder nexus is the cost of all the books from Demiplane and the time it takes to be able to afford all of those to be able to use them. With pathbuilder my cost is $6 now to get access to everything and I can buy the books at my pace.

Demiplane needs a reason for me to choose them over Pathbuilder, and opening up access to everything except the races might allow me to find that reason, but right now I’m struggling to find a reason to even keep looking for a reason.

4

Maybe wait until it is finished and not in development. They’ve stated multiple times that they are working to be the best of the best, but that takes time and development.

I use pathbuilder and I have all the rule books here on Demiplane. Once they are finished with all the features I need I will move to this platform exclusively because I support the goals, as well as the direct partnership with Paizo, who I also want to support by buying the products they work to make. Additionally, Demiplane will eventually offer the same tools for multiple RPGs, not just Pathfinder. Pathbuilder will never be able to do that.

5

Those are great reasons, for you. If I already had all the books here, it wouldn’t be a question. I’m looking for a reason to pay more for the same product here vs just buying directly from Paizo or my local game store. In that case I’m getting the same product, supporting Paizo and a local small business, and saving money in the long run since Pathbuilder is a low, one time cost.

In order to convince me to change my mind and spend more money to buy into Demiplane, their character tools would need to blow me away, but if I can’t even access all of the options to check it out, how can that happen?

6

Your argument that you need to have access to all the content to test this out makes absolutely no sense. The character builder and sheet work the same for Fighters and Wizards as they do for Swashbucklers and Oracles. I do wish that there was maybe a smaller pay wall to use all of the options in the character builder but not have access to the actual books, like maybe a $9.99 subscription level or something like that, because considering all the features Demiplane will offer but hasn’t released yet, it’s going to absolutely blow Pathbuilder out of the water for users willing to buy into it. Just because they’re not out yet doesn’t mean they’re not coming. I’ll list them below.
More game systems than Pathfinder! This is already out for buying sources but the character tools are in progress.
Encounter management. To my understanding, also not an option on Pathbuilder
Direct compatibility with other VTTs. I know you can export a character sheet from Pathbuilder and import it into some VTTs, but as I understand it, you will eventually be able to just use the Demiplane character sheet in your Foundary or Roll20 game. Much better than exporting and importing a new sheet every time you level up.
And much, much more Automation. I’m not sure how exactly what else they’re going to do, but I suggest you take a peak at DND Beyond for some potential ideas since Adam was lead over there in its early days. Fifth edition players had nothing like DND Beyond before it came out, and it’s been hugely successful. We have Pathbuilder, and it’s ok. Personally I’ll probably keep using it until I can get up to date on my sourcebook purchasing, then I’m coming over here full time if they ever finish work on accessibility.
Add to all these the features you’ve already been told about in this thread, it’s worth it in the longterm. I’ll add one more that hasn’t been mentioned. Unlike Pathbuilder, you actually end up owning all the books! This gives you all the lore and adventures, which you absolutely do not and will never get from Pathbuilder. Furthermore, you get them in Demiplane’s enhanced reader which gives you features like links that can pop up additionalso context on things that’s written elsewhere in the book, or even written in another book. For adventures, this is an amazing premise. You can be running the adventure path and pop out the stat block for the monster the party’s fighting, and then also go to a spell that monster has to see how it works. Beats the crap out of a PDF or a paperback. Admittedly, I’m again advocating for a feature I can’t test for accessibility reasons, but as long as you have vision it’s fantastic.

7

Except that fighters and wizards can’t use swashbuckler or oracle feats. Beta tests are for finding bugs and problems, right now the only people with access to test everything are people who have already bought into the system and are therefore more likely to have positive impressions. Maybe that’s the point.

I’m not even arguing for everything to be unlocked, just feats. Then at least non-paying (yet) testers can still fully test the core classes.