Pathfinder 2E Paizo Update: Pathfinder 2E Core and Bestiary in Regular and Deluxe Editions

LongGoneWriter · Jun 20, 2019

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.

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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!

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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!

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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.

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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!

EthanSental · Jun 20, 2019

All those classes will come out eventually if paizo produces even half speed of their 1e rElias’s schedule

No idea on the Dragonborn

Staffan · Jun 20, 2019

They've said that some of the old classes will get full class treatment, while others can be handled via dedication class feats (like multi-classing). It depends on how much the class brings to the table - I think they've said that the Cavalier is a strong candidate for the dedication route, for example.

ikos · Jun 20, 2019

Many of them will appear as archetypes rather than full classes, owed to the modularity of the base classes. At least this seems to be the word on their boards.

Mournblade94 · Jun 20, 2019

Things have to move on, but I wonder how this will fare now that they moved on from being the last official d20 game. Im not switchng but I have plenty of material to work with for Pathfinder, and I will still be buying their digest size games. But With 5e being so good, I am not sure the 2e pathfinder is the best move. It will be interesting to see.

rknop · Jun 20, 2019

I'm still waiting to see which third-party publisher becomes a first-party publisher by creating a "3.75 Thrives!" game that is Pathfinder (only not under that name) with some of the issues patched. Unless the playtest was a major red herring, Paizo has chosen to make a new system that's as different from 3.5 as D&D 5e is.

It will depend on what the actual system is. If it's much like the playtest, I won't be terribly interested in it myself, and I have a hard time seeing how it will bring in enough new players to offset the longtime Pathfinder fans who find it not to their taste. If another company takes the obvious opportunity (and manages to catch on, however that happens) of continuing support for people who want something that's upgraded-3.5e, Pathfinder 2e could quickly become an also-ran.

Paizo's strength has always been their adventures. Their modules, their adventure paths, their organized play scenarios. Anecdotally, I know some folks say that's the reason they stick with Pathfinder. The stories tend to be quite good, and they come out at a rate that keeps up with all but the most vigorous RPG groups. I would really like to see them focus on this and less on more and more rules expansion; the rules bloat of 1e became egregious a few years ago, and only continued to get worse. This is what might really keep some folks attached to Pathfinder 2e, even if the system is as irritating as the playtest suggests it might be.

jmucchiello · Jun 20, 2019

It is unlikely any company of substantial size will take up the PF1 banner and try to create PF1.1 as their flagship RPG. The circumstances in which Paizo created PF1 where they had a large 3.5 investment and did not want to "move on" just doesn't exist. Sure there are customers who are so invested but what RPG company is as invested and has as large a fan base as Paizo had when 4e was announced? Paizo was a company that made adventures for a game that was going out of print. They needed a flagship RPG. Who is in that position now and as large as Paizo was then?

The other problem of course is this unnamed up and comer isn't just taking up a fight against D&D4, which was not very well received by some. They are pushing their rock up the hill of D&D5 and PF2. Whether or not PF2 is well received, D&D5 is a powerhouse.

And although PF2 will never have a d20 logo on the book, it is still going to be OGL. Having a big publisher pushing an OGL game line has not gone away.

Inchoroi · Jun 20, 2019

Mournblade94 said:
Things have to move on, but I wonder how this will fare now that they moved on from being the last official d20 game. Im not switchng but I have plenty of material to work with for Pathfinder, and I will still be buying their digest size games. But With 5e being so good, I am not sure the 2e pathfinder is the best move. It will be interesting to see.

As a 5e DM, I unfortunately still buy a lot of the PF books, because the majority of the adventures, setting material, and especially campaigns are very good.

As my current campaign is coming to a close, I pitched Rise of the Runelords-Shattered Star-Return of the Runelords (as a huge 3x 1-20 thing), Mummy's Mask, or Skull & Shackles for my next campaign. The overwhelming response was:

"Yes."

I have an extensive list of books that I have to buy now, though.