Pathfinder 2E Take A Look At Pathfinder Remaster's Edicts & Anathema

The new version of Pathfinder coming later this year dispenses with alignment and replaces it with edicts and anathema. Paizo has shared an example of what this looks like in the game with a preview of dwarf beliefs, along with a sneak peak at a brand new 17th-level dwarf feat.

Edicts and anathema appear in ancestry description and classes, with suggestions of 'popular' examples. For the dwarf they shared, the examples were:

• Popular Edicts create art with beauty and utility, hunt the enemies of your people, keep your clan dagger close
• Popular Anathema leave an activity or promise uncompleted, forsake your family

Additionally, the new Stonewall feat looks like this:

Stonewall [reaction] — Feat 17​

Dwarf, Earth, Polymorph​

Frequency once per day​

Trigger An enemy or hazard’s effect hits you or you fail a Fortitude save against one.​

​

The strength of stone overcomes you so strongly that it replaces your stout body. You become petrified until the end of the current turn. You don’t take any damage from the triggering effect or any other ill effects that couldn’t affect stone.​

paizo.com - Community / Paizo Blog

 

[Stone Dog]

Probably less "don't sue us" and more "we'll make our own game with blackjack and hoo" oh, probably that is against forum language rules.

 

[mamba]

I'll never understand the issues with alignment. I've always enjoyed it, both the good and the bad, and to take it away means destroying a legacy for the sake of stupid nonsensical change and nothing else.

meh, I never cared for it, if it had died with 3e I would not have bat an eye

 

[sevenbastard]

Alignment as a straight jacket bad. Alignment as a quick way for me to understand a NPC good.

If you say a Merchant is LE and another Merchant is NE I can quickly use that to run the two NPC with minimal words.

I say take away the mechanical effect but leave it for a 2 letter efficient quick reference for NPC and monsters.

More importantly let's start debating Batmans edicts and anathem.

 

[Doctor Futurity]

Alignment is core to D&D, which operates on implied objective morality universes where there are very real heavens, hells and gods who dictate an axis of morality....but the new Pathfinder is seeking to most definitely not be D&D so I am cool with whatever they decide to implement.

 

[AK81]

I'm actually a bit sad Pathfinder is moving away from DnD. I really liked the shared language and I think it will be more difficult to get into Pathfinder the further they move away from DnD.

I understand why they do it but I'm still a bit sad about it.

 

[Vaalingrade]

It's beautiful. It's like if alignment were competent.

 

[Velderan]

Alignment as a straight jacket bad. Alignment as a quick way for me to understand a NPC good.

If you say a Merchant is LE and another Merchant is NE I can quickly use that to run the two NPC with minimal words.

I say take away the mechanical effect but leave it for a 2 letter efficient quick reference for NPC and monsters.

More importantly let's start debating Batmans edicts and anathem.

The thing is it really doesn't tell you anything meaningful about how to play the NPC. Taking your Lawful Evil example, the merchant will follow the law but frequently tries to twist the meaning of it to their own advantage. Ok.. that really doesn't tell me much about the NPCs actual personality. How does the NPC attempt to use the law to their advantage? Are they a shady manipulator much more comfortable working in the background but it directly confronted would back off to find another approach to their goal or do they largely work in the open challenging others using the rule of law? Both are LE but there's a big difference between the 2 personalities.

We'll see how they actually use the new system on a NPC statblock, but short descriptive words (cowardly, brave, honest, etc) can do so much more to give a GM reading an adventure an idea how to play a NPC than alignment ever did IMO

 

[grimslade]

Really this is Paladin Oaths writ small. Every society has mores and taboos. For most sentient creatures cannibalism is taboo, but lizardfolk and kreen might see not eating the dead as wasteful. Does that make a lizardfolk paladin slightly evil? Edicts and anathemas just fine tune the alignment system into a more granular level. 9 categories was ok as a shorthand but it was really limited information. So not revolutionary (wouldn't expect sea change in a remaster edition), but a nice departure.

 

[payn]

Edicts sound like things you like doing while anathemas are basically your character's pet peeves.


I don't think they discarded the alignment system. I think they made it more personal. The problem with the original alignment system is that you were expected to get your character behind one of the 9 alignments and follow it. That made the system more of a straitjacket.

A player should get to decide their own moral and ethical code.

I find this to be way overstated. There is plenty of room for actions in any given alignment. The straightjacket bit is an unfortunate byproduct of the Paladins crap design in the past. In fact, the alignments being general is their strength because they allow you to do exactly what you advocate; pick your own moral and ethical code within a cultural and deed based framework. Again, outside of the terrible paladin legacy.

Anathema is just a vague replacement that is intended to do what alignment did. However, like 5E's BIFTs, its a level of simple nuance that nobody really cares about because their is no mechanical heft. With each unique identity there is no common framework for folks to manage. On the other hand, its so hands off the game, that it serves as a role play aid for new comers and casuals, so is become a good option in general.

 

[payn]

I may be getting this topic mixed in with them removing ability scores, but I'm fairly sure Logan Bonner and Jason Bulmahn said removing alignment was a serious consideration when they started working on 2e but decided it might be too much of a departure for 1e players switching to the new edition. I guess the de-OGLification gives them reason enough to go back to some of those ideas and implement them.

I don't really have a strong opinion on it one way or the other since my groups have largely ignored it, so I'm not terribly upset it's going away. If I cared enough, the rules for using it in 2e are out there and older editions of games are also out there.

Yeap, I believe that both ability scores and alignment were legacy items in a boat Paizo simply didnt want to rock. Though, I think they are taking adcantage of the absolute turdshow that WotC has made of the OGL to slip these changes in and hope they can deflect the blowback in WotC direction.