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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[payn]

I was in the same boat, and I think I posted the same sentiment earlier in this thread.
And since then I've purchased Battlezoo Ancestries: Dragons and their first Bestiary. And then I picked up Crown of the Kobold King and Kingmaker for 2e. I got a pretty good discount on all of them.
My rationale ... Let's consider a popular alternative rules additions: Free Archetype.
Are there APs, adventures, and creatures that aren't 100% balanced to account for Free Archetype characters? Yes.
Do some of my players want to use Free Archetypes? Yes.
Do I want to keep up with all those changes? No.
So do we use them in my game? No, not at the moment.
I can ignore plenty of alternate rules. And I can make adjustments on the fly to account for minor changes. It's all fine to me.

Free archetype is not the power up you think it is. Its more of a sideways expansion to characters. I wouldn't worry about it.

 

[Retreater]

Free archetype is not the power up you think it is. Its more of a sideways expansion to characters. I wouldn't worry about it.

It might not be significantly more power, but it's more options for players who are already overwhelmed with the number of actions they can do. Until the players can get the handle of basic actions like Demoralize or Aid, I don't want to add extra stuff.

 

[payn]

It might not be significantly more power, but it's more options for players who are already overwhelmed with the number of actions they can do. Until the players can get the handle of basic actions like Demoralize or Aid, I don't want to add extra stuff.

Oh, that makes sense.

 

[Thomas Shey]

My rationale ... Let's consider a popular alternative rules additions: Free Archetype.
Are there APs, adventures, and creatures that aren't 100% balanced to account for Free Archetype characters? Yes.
Do some of my players want to use Free Archetypes? Yes.
Do I want to keep up with all those changes? No.
So do we use them in my game? No, not at the moment.
I can ignore plenty of alternate rules. And I can make adjustments on the fly to account for minor changes. It's all fine to me.

I still think this vastly overstates the typical power balance impact of free archetype. There might be issues with a few cases, but I've been watching a barbarian using the Rogue Dedication for free (and that's probably one of the better synergies from base class and archetype) and it hardly seems notably overpowered.

 

[Thomas Shey]

It might not be significantly more power, but it's more options for players who are already overwhelmed with the number of actions they can do. Until the players can get the handle of basic actions like Demoralize or Aid, I don't want to add extra stuff.

That doesn't seem to relate to your point about APs not balanced for it however. Its an entirely unrelated issue.

 

[payn]

That doesn't seem to relate to your point about APs not balanced for it however. Its an entirely unrelated issue.

That bit threw me off too. Giving PCs more feats in PF2 isnt the power up it was in the past. You really only get better with more levels.

 

[Thomas Shey]

That bit threw me off too. Giving PCs more feats in PF2 isnt the power up it was in the past. You really only get better with more levels.

Yeah. Some of them can virtually disappear into your character without a ripple.

Part of the thing is that I think Paizo was, on the whole, pretty conservative with how they did Archetypes. Partly because they wanted to avoid some of the issues that D&D3e and PF1e had with multiclassing. But the net effect is in an awful lot of Archetypes, the net change is negative if you're sacrificing class feats to do it. The only place I've heard any consistent sign its painless is with Wizards, because apparently the Wizard feats are mostly pretty mediocre.

 

[Retreater]

That doesn't seem to relate to your point about APs not balanced for it however. Its an entirely unrelated issue.

Right. And giving rogues access to martial weapons (that they can't use Sneak Attack with) will largely not upset the balance either. I don't think the changes are going to be big enough to matter in a balance perspective.
It might be a bit to keep up with at first, but I don't think it's changing the balance.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Right. And giving rogues access to martial weapons (that they can't use Sneak Attack with) will largely not upset the balance either. I don't think the changes are going to be big enough to matter in a balance perspective.

Its not like the difference between the weapons a rogue can use (at least the one handed ones) and the fighter are all that dramatic; especially since a lot of the more useful rogue feats constrain it beyond that anyway.

It might be a bit to keep up with at first, but I don't think it's changing the balance.

Honestly, I literally have not noticed the difference for the most part, and I've played games with and without Free Archetype. The only difference was that in the ones where they weren't free, few people seemed to find the Archetypes worth taking. Unlike the case with Hyrbrids/Dual Classing (which isn't as severe as some people think, but its at least visible) its hard to see most parts of the games playing out discernibly different.

 

[Doctor Futurity]

I'm not against the changes. The revised classes won't matter to me - because I'm a Forever GM and don't really look at the player-facing content.
What I really want (and I think I've seen this elsewhere) is for Paizo to take this opportunity to refresh their product line deeper than the rules. Give us a really solid, newbie-friendly AP.
The adventures aren't really there. If you don't like Paizo's style, you're out of luck. 3PPs are also not providing (even on Pathfinder Infinite - it's a desolate wasteland for adventure content). I think there's one AP from Legendary Games (which was clearly converted from another system and doesn't really feel like it belongs as a PF2 adventure). There's another AP from Roll for Combat where you play as parrot people having silly hijinks.
I want a good, old-fashioned, meat & potatoes, epic high adventure campaign - and I don't think Paizo is offering that. I'm a middle-aged guy with a job, teenager, going back to college, etc. I want something easy to run, not an AP that's honestly more work than a Master's course.

I second this! I'd love a more traditional range of adventures for PF2E. I have never been able to dig into and enjoy the prosaic AP style. I'd love to see the methodology of modules such as are being done for OSE right now, but applied to PF2E or even 5E.