Pathfinder 2E Pathfinder To Get New Core Rulebooks Soon

It's not just D&D that's getting a 'revised' set of core books--Pathfinder is also getting 'remastered' books! The core rulebooks are being replaced by a new set of books, with new names, but like D&D it is being reiterated that this is not a new edition--"With the exception of a few minor variations in terminology and a slightly different mix of monsters, spells, and magic items, the rules remain largely unchanged."

The existing Pathfinder Core Rulebook, Gamemastery Guide, Bestiary, and Advanced Player’s Guide are being replaced with Pathfinder Player Core, Pathfinder GM Core, Pathfinder Monster Core, and Pathfinder Player Core 2.

These books appear to focus on re-organization and consolidation of existing material rather than substantive changes. They also represent Paizo's move away from the Open Gaming License and towards the new Open RPG Creative (ORC) license. Paizo says "This transition will result in a few minor modifications to the Pathfinder Second Edition system, notably the removal of alignment and a small number of nostalgic creatures, spells, and magic items exclusive to the OGL. These elements remain a part of the corpus of Pathfinder Second Edition rules for those who still want them, and are fully compatible with the new remastered rules, but will not appear in future Pathfinder releases."

Pathfinder 2E - Paizo Reveals Wayne Reynolds' Pathfinder Remastered Cover Sketches

While the final colour pieces won't arrive for a few weeks, Paizo's Erik Mona revealed the cover sketches of the upcoming Pathfinder Remastered core rulebooks while at the GAMA industry trade show yesterday. In an unsual move, you will actually be able to buy special 'sketch' editions of the...

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[Retreater]

Not sure this is what you're looking for, but I find Abomination Vaults to be a very straightforward dungeon crawl style adventure. It was appealing to me since I'm new to PF2e and none of my players have played it either so we needed something easy to get our feet wet.

This is probably going to make me sound picky, but Abomination Vaults didn't quite gel with the group I had when I tried to run it. Obviously, multiple factors in play for why it didn't work.
A few issues I had was that the dungeon wasn't spaced out enough, and the rooms were too cramped to maneuver strategically. Playing online made it difficult to change that on the fly. Also, the town being a mile away and no time limit made it easy to fall into the rinse and repeat cycle of "rest and recharge."
And it needed a bit more variety. Some overland travel, change in scenery, more role-playing opportunity, etc.
Again, I know it sounds picky, but I just wanted something different than what AV was offering.

 

[Scribe]

We'll have a Nephilim Thaumaturge slinging Force Bolts against Calamity Dragons.

I was actually thinking about this the other week looking at some of 'those discussions' around the direction of the games (5e and PF).

I am thankful so much material was created for PF1, and that PF1 came out when it did, and just is what it is. I'm not looking for a reinvention of the wheel, I'll play other games in that case.

 

[Teemu]

This is probably going to make me sound picky, but Abomination Vaults didn't quite gel with the group I had when I tried to run it. Obviously, multiple factors in play for why it didn't work.
A few issues I had was that the dungeon wasn't spaced out enough, and the rooms were too cramped to maneuver strategically. Playing online made it difficult to change that on the fly. Also, the town being a mile away and no time limit made it easy to fall into the rinse and repeat cycle of "rest and recharge."
And it needed a bit more variety. Some overland travel, change in scenery, more role-playing opportunity, etc.
Again, I know it sounds picky, but I just wanted something different than what AV was offering.

AV is probably the best overall AP that PF2 currently has but it's not a traditional Paizo Adventure Path and thus it's a tough sell as the flagship adventure. Thing is, PF2 doesn't have a great AP in the vein of Rise of the Runelords or Curse of Strahd or Tomb of Annihilation. They have APs that are similar to those, but they're average and they always include a subsystem gimmick that detracts from the overall quality.

I genuinely don't quite understand why Paizo hasn't produced a level 1-10 classic fantasy AP that doesn't include a poorly implemented subsystem. Just make a regular Pathfinder adventure that's easy to pick up and covers the most played levels, 1 to 10.

 

[payn]

AV is probably the best overall AP that PF2 currently has but it's not a traditional Paizo Adventure Path and thus it's a tough sell as the flagship adventure. Thing is, PF2 doesn't have a great AP in the vein of Rise of the Runelords or Curse of Strahd or Tomb of Annihilation. They have APs that are similar to those, but they're average and they always include a subsystem gimmick that detracts from the overall quality.

I genuinely don't quite understand why Paizo hasn't produced a level 1-10 classic fantasy AP that doesn't include a poorly implemented subsystem. Just make a regular Pathfinder adventure that's easy to pick up and covers the most played levels, 1 to 10.

I love the subsystems warts and all. They interact greatly with the material and elevate it above "classic" fantasy which is old hat.

 

[Retreater]

I genuinely don't quite understand why Paizo hasn't produced a level 1-10 classic fantasy AP that doesn't include a poorly implemented subsystem. Just make a regular Pathfinder adventure that's easy to pick up and covers the most played levels, 1 to 10.

Sounds like I should get to work on that for Pathfinder 2. Maybe that's what they need from the 3PP partners.

 

[Nilbog]

I mean I love the changes, I'm getting extra dragons, but I can still use the old ones?

Remakes of new classes, but if I don't like them I can stick with the old one?

And these new changes will be online for free, alongside the current rules? Sounds like a winner to me.

I mean Paizo could have removed the OGL from the core books and simply done another printing, then errata'd the classes they see as problematic a few months later and reprinted the core rulebooks again, but it seems a better idea to me to roll the changes together and while they are at it tidy the books up (organisation for paizo is definitely an Achilles heel) for me having all the abilities for a class not spread across multiple books is worth the price of entry alone.

Could they have handled the overall way of doing things a bit better? Sure, but I'm guessing the OGL situation really put them into battle stations mode and they didn't have the full benefit of being able to plan everything as they would've liked. I genuinely thing they've made the best of a bad situation.

 

[Staffan]

AV is probably the best overall AP that PF2 currently has but it's not a traditional Paizo Adventure Path and thus it's a tough sell as the flagship adventure. Thing is, PF2 doesn't have a great AP in the vein of Rise of the Runelords or Curse of Strahd or Tomb of Annihilation. They have APs that are similar to those, but they're average and they always include a subsystem gimmick that detracts from the overall quality.

I wish they'd do more with subsystems and lean into the AP theme. Extinction Curse would have been much better with more circus and fewer xulgath.

 

[ssvegeta555]

This is exactly how I remember their statement as well. “Oh PF2 doesn’t need the OGL we can just pull it out so buy our books”. And then after a sales spike they suddenly put out a 2.5. This. Is. So. Bad. Behaviors. If WotC did this Reddit would explode.

I had the same impression too from Paizo. I think it was when Erik Mona was on a Roll for Combat stream during the OGL fiasco back in January that I remember him saying something along those lines that PF2 can easily remove OGL should they reprint it without it. PF2 is different enough to exist without it. The OGL was largely kept in the books for 3PP benefit to easily be able to publish 3rd party content for the game. It has been a bit since I watched that steam but that was definitely the impression I got.

But maybe Paizo underestimated how easily they can divorce themselves from the OGL?

 

[The-Magic-Sword]

I had the same impression too from Paizo. I think it was when Erik Mona was on a Roll for Combat stream during the OGL fiasco back in January that I remember him saying something along those lines that PF2 can easily remove OGL should they reprint it without it. PF2 is different enough to exist without it. The OGL was largely kept in the books for 3PP benefit to easily be able to publish 3rd party content for the game. It has been a bit since I watched that steam but that was definitely the impression I got.

But maybe Paizo underestimated how easily they can divorce themselves from the OGL?

Notably, they are reprinting without it, and the game isn't changing much in a fundamental sense-- they seem to be taking the need to reprint the core as an opportunity to respond to some longstanding feedback, and produce a better entry point by reorganizing how the information is presented.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Notably, they are reprinting without it, and the game isn't changing much in a fundamental sense-- they seem to be taking the need to reprint the core as an opportunity to respond to some longstanding feedback, and produce a better entry point by reorganizing how the information is presented.

Yeah, what I've heard so far sounds like kind of a PF2.1 at most; most of the changes are things you could do in errata, and even things like switching directly to modifiers rather the attributes means less than it looks like since attributes per se don't do much in the system.