Pathfinder Player and GM Core Are Now Available

The new Remastered core rulebooks will serve as a fresh entry point for Pathfinder 2nd Edition under the ORC license.

Today, November 15th, Paizo released the first two books of their remastered line: Pathfinder Player Core and Pathfinder GM Core. They will continue the line in 2024 with Pathfinder Monster Core and Pathfinder Player Core 2.

These books serve as a fresh entry point into 2nd edition while removing any carried over OGL content and incorporating several years of errata and changes to the game. This comes as a response to the concerns brought about earlier this year with the shifting conditions of the Open Gaming License and the huge influx of new Pathfinder players. This explosion of new players saw Paizo selling out of Pathfinder Core Rulebook in Q1 and triggered an unexpected new and final printing of the book.

Paizo used this opportunity to pull content from many of the previous books, along with errata and feedback from the developers and players, to replace the OGL books as they are phased out of production. They also streamlined the organization of the books to make it easier to navigate for old and new players alike.

The design team also took this opportunity to introduce new rules, heritages, and feats, as well as overhauling spellcasting.

We did a review of both books earlier this month. They are available now in standard hardcover, Special Edition hardcover, and hobby-retailer exclusive Sketch Cover hardcovers.

If you want to find out more about the ORC license, you can find it on Azora’s website.

 

[Reynard]

I am amazed at how little of this thread has to do with Pathfinder 2E Remaster.

 

[Retreater]

Anyways, cool train of thought for some self-reflection...

Do you know why my group had a good time in those days?
1) we didn't have a lot of other competition for entertainment (streaming video, constant social media, immersive video games)
2) we hadn't played RPGs and board games with balanced mechanics designed for long experiences
3) we didn't have full time jobs, families, etc, pulling at our attention and would've been just as happy arguing about nerd culture at Denny's
4) and the old systems worked only because I cheated* as the GM

*rolling behind the screen so monsters missed important rolls, tracking PC hit points so no one ever died, "forgetting" monster position in theater of the mind combats, having a story arc that the PCs couldn't fail.

 

[Jahydin]

I am amazed at how little of this thread has to do with Pathfinder 2E Remaster.

Haha, true. I suspect it's because most of us reading through it right now don't have much to comment on? It seems 95% the same game and all the changes seem to be for the best.

I'm reading through the GM Core first and liking the rules on playing disadvantaged characters. Specifically, if not mitigated, these characters will have penalties.

For instance, rules for blindness:
"A blind character can’t detect anything using vision,
critically fails Perception checks requiring sight, is
immune to visual effects, and can’t be blinded or
dazzled."

One handed PCs:
"A character with a missing hand or arm might need
to spend 2 actions to Interact with an item that requires
two hands, or otherwise compensate. Using a two-handed
weapon is not possible."

And for those that were bothered about the "combat wheelchairs", I think it does a good job describing how normal wheelchairs are not well suited for adventurers, but more advanced (and expensive) chairs that are aided by clockwork or such are.

Mechanically and narratively I think this is a more interesting way of going about it rather than just having zero consequences.

 

[Greg K]

A lot of PF2eR looks interesting. I like the class selection compared to D&D. I am just hesitant of investing in it, because I want to like the PF2eR witch (but don't) and, as with PF2eR, I don't care for the way spell lists are handled (Arcane, Primal, Divine, Occult) for certain clases. My view of some spellcasting classes is that the archetypes from fantasy are "hybrids" whose list should be a mix of spells from different lists as other spells from specific lists are inappropriate.

 

[GreyLord]

The DM is fine for combat but at the most basic level, a fighter gets 1 action in that minute long round to swing the weapon to fell an opponent. This isn’t Errol Flynn’s Robin Hood that swings from a rope to shoot a bow combat style with OSE or BX. Once combat starts, the fighter does only get 1 swing of the sword to injure the bad guy/monster. Doing trips and other shenanigans to injure or Incapacitate the bad guy quickly wears thin since leveling is slower and by 4th level, a person has used ever gadget trick play besides swing the sword for his round.

The chances of that fighter being destroyed is pretty high if they only turn to combat. A ghoul will probably paralyze that fighter pretty quickly (Ghouls are low level creatures overall, but with their attacks and the saves still being relatively high, are a pretty deadly creature for the Figther) and then eat him. Wights or Wraiths will drain levels (and if that isn't scary enough, once they drain all the levels the fighter is zonked). Sure, if you get to high level, you might be able to stand toe to toe with some of them for a while (still, losing levels is something most do not want to have happen, changes a high level character to low level really quickly). If they DO get to higher levels from low levels they probably have learned from this already to avoid fights if possible or find another way to eliminate the enemy.

Avoiding combat and finding other ways to get the treasure is normally adviseable in older forms of D&D just because the Save vs. the many ways to die is such a high number to pass consecutively in it. That opens a LOT of area of what the party should be doing vs. newer versions of D&D where fighting it out is suggested in many instances with their balanced encounter rate and unlimited (aka...HP just keeps going up and getting higher) Hitpoints.

Even at 5th level, stumbling across a flight of dragons in their lair isn't something that is just easily waltzed into. 4 dragons can easily cover most angles of a straight forward attack, and with an average of 30-35 HP done by weaker dragons per blast, can quickly kill that 5th level fighter (or party more likely if they are that foolish) to smithereens.

Not FAIR...you say! Well, it isn't fair per se. It's an open world (before there were open worlds) in a sandbox with many different threats to find and face...and take their treasure.

Or the DM could use the rules to make the combats easier but more dynamic if they want to focus more on combat. They could focus it more on a war campaign where they inspire characters to hire armies of henchmen to do battle.

The ideas are limitless for a DM that has an open mind and some experience on how to run a game with a flexibility that is not spelled out (and many are right, it's NOT spelled out, which is why it takes a more experienced DM in these games sometimes. This is why someone who has first played and learned more about how such a game runs should be the DM than someone who learned only on the WotC versions of the game and never learned how to play fast and loose with creativity).

This is what I mean by the DM. There are many things that may not be said in the book, but it doesn't hand hold fair encounters like later editions do either. It doesn't say...hold back. It doesn't say...balanced. You have 10 HD Red Dragons in the Basic set...nothing says you can't have those 2nd level character suddenly finding one or trying to steal it's treasure. A New DM has nothing to tell him not to do that...but soon enough the players will be wiser on how to deal with something like that than charging in and trying to kill it (and if a fighter only gets one attack per round, the Magic-User starts with ONE SPELL per DAY at that point...the Cleric at first level has NO spells and even less HP than the fighter AND only one attack as well...etc...etc...etc).

TSR D&D can be a deadly game if one lets it. If players are bored with what they have, it's on the DM to use the tools there to make it more exciting. It's their game (the DMs and the Players). Open communication and talking about what your expectations are should enable any decent DM to use the tools provided to make a game that is exciting, quick moving, and adventurous for any group of players.

 

[TrippyHippy]

It's not hidden. Pathfinder Second Edition Remaster Core Preview | Paizo

Well, it isn’t a very good preview. Listing a bunch of changes isn’t a great primer to the uninitiated, and if this is an example of layout, I’m not really enamoured by it.

 

[payn]

A lot of PF2eR looks interesting. I like the class selection compared to D&D. I am just hesitant of investing in it, because I want to like the PF2eR witch (but don't) and, as with PF2eR, I don't care for the way spell lists are handled (Arcane, Primal, Divine, Occult) for certain clases. My view of some spellcasting classes is that the archetypes from fantasy are "hybrids" whose list should be a mix of spells from different lists as other spells from specific lists are inappropriate.

Well, it isn’t a very good preview. Listing a bunch of changes isn’t a great primer to the uninitiated, and if this is an example of layout, I’m not really enamoured by it.

Good news, with Archives of Nethys you wont have to spend a single penny to get the new rules.

 

[Velderan]

A lot of PF2eR looks interesting. I like the class selection compared to D&D. I am just hesitant of investing in it, because I want to like the PF2eR witch (but don't) and, as with PF2eR, I don't care for the way spell lists are handled (Arcane, Primal, Divine, Occult) for certain clases. My view of some spellcasting classes is that the archetypes from fantasy are "hybrids" whose list should be a mix of spells from different lists as other spells from specific lists are inappropriate.

I may be misreading what you’re saying, but the way the types of spells are organized would largely achieve that because some spells belong to multiple spell lists (e.g. heal is both a primal and divine spell).

 

[Velderan]

Haha, true. I suspect it's because most of us reading through it right now don't have much to comment on? It seems 95% the same game and all the changes seem to be for the best.

I'm reading through the GM Core first and liking the rules on playing disadvantaged characters. Specifically, if not mitigated, these characters will have penalties.

For instance, rules for blindness:
"A blind character can’t detect anything using vision,
critically fails Perception checks requiring sight, is
immune to visual effects, and can’t be blinded or
dazzled."

One handed PCs:
"A character with a missing hand or arm might need
to spend 2 actions to Interact with an item that requires
two hands, or otherwise compensate. Using a two-handed
weapon is not possible."

And for those that were bothered about the "combat wheelchairs", I think it does a good job describing how normal wheelchairs are not well suited for adventurers, but more advanced (and expensive) chairs that are aided by clockwork or such are.

Mechanically and narratively I think this is a more interesting way of going about it rather than just having zero consequences.

I’ll have to give that section a read in the GM Core. I saw they moved the material for wheelchairs and such to the Player Core from one of the Lost Omens books (Grand Bazaar?), which seemed like a good move given their push to make the game more inclusive.

 

[Velderan]

Well, it isn’t a very good preview. Listing a bunch of changes isn’t a great primer to the uninitiated, and if this is an example of layout, I’m not really enamoured by it.

I thought I remembered them saying they had planned a couple different ways of promoting the books, both for players new to the system and for players familiar with the system and wanting to know what’s different. It does seem like a missed opportunity if they don’t do that, but maybe that’s planned for promotions leading up to the holidays?