Hello and happy adventuring my fellow fans of the Golem! It’s time once again for your favorite blurb and mine – that’s right, it’s time for a new edition of the PAIZO NEWS UPDATE! August is the next big month on our calendar, and boy oh boy is there all sorts of goodness coming then. The biggest news, obviously, is Pathfinder 2E! Or, whatever it is the official name is.
Yes, you read that right, the second edition of our favorite TTRPG is finally available for you to throw your hard-earned cash at: the
Pathfinder Core Rulebook is (technically) everything you need to start playing your new and improved adventures. Clocking in at spine-crushing 640 pages, the
Core Rulebook is 206 pages longer than the playtest document and even 65 pages longer than PF1E’s Core Rulebook! What changes lie therein will have to wait until a proper review unveils them, but already there are some tidbits for eagle-eyed watchers: apparently the paladin class has been renamed the “champion”, allowing for alignments other than LG to enjoy the benefits of martial and divine power!
As you might expect with a flagship launch like this, the
Core Rulebook is also available in Fancy. The
Pathfinder Core Rulebook Deluxe Cover does not include any content beyond what is available in the
Core Rulebook, but it does come in a swank faux leather binding, a shiny metallic deboss cover decoration, and even a ribbon bookmark. Make your resident wizard or goblin proud with a tome anyone could covet!
And what would a tabletop roleplaying game be without a book of baddies to bash? The
Pathfinder Bestiary is a whopping 360 pages and features over 400 monsters, monster rules, lore, and treasure tables! Together with the
Core Rulebook, that means Pathfinder 2E starts at an even 1,000 pages! And people say this hobby is too complicated to get into. It also appears that the good folks at Paizo keep finding new depths to their Scrabble-tile-bag, because in addition to staples like orcs and dragons, Pathfinder 2E characters can expect to go toe-to-toe with creatures such as a nilith and a mukradi, which I definitely did not read as “mudcrabby” at first glance.
Just like the
Core Rulebook, the
Bestiary also comes in Fancy, once again featuring a sumptuous faux-leather cover and metallic deboss accents for the
Pathfinder Bestiary Deluxe Hardcover. A single ribbon bookmark seems like a bit of an oversight to me, however; if I know GMs (and I do, because I am one), they’re going to be referencing four or more monsters at the same time. Ah, well. More work for your friendly neighborhood bookbinder!
A friendly word of reminder for all you out there salivating over the Deluxe Hardcovers: the design is still in the conceptual stage and could change before the official release. I doubt they’ll mess much with what they’ve got now, and doubt very much they’d back down on the faux leather and metallic accents, but it’s something to keep in mind.
That about does it for this edition of the PAIZO NEWS UPDATE! There’s so much more coming in August, however. Old adventures still wrapping up the fate of 1E, new adventures coming out for 2E – heck, the crazy kids over at Paizo have both an Adventure Path and a full standalone adventure all set and ready for Second Edition! All that and more to come – we haven’t even talked about the World Guide and Character Guide for the updated 2E setting, in part because there isn’t even official art for those yet! Till next time, my Paizo fans!
This article was contributed by Ben Reece (LongGoneWriter) as part of EN World's Columnist (ENWC) program. If you enjoy the daily news and articles from EN World, please consider contributing to our Patreon!