It’s LAUNCH DAY For The Pathfinder 2 Playtest!

Today’s the day! You can now download the Pathfinder 2nd Edition playtest book!

Today’s the day! You can now download the Pathfinder 2nd Edition playtest book!


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Head on over to Paizo.com to download it for free.

Its tinged with a little sadness for those of us who preordered the hard copy, as issues with Amazon means that our copies have been delayed by an indefinite amount.

’’When Paizo was planning this year's Pathfinder Playtest, we expected to exceed our own ability to fulfill orders on a timely basis, so we decided to use Fulfillment by Amazon. Unfortunately, Amazon's reports indicate that most customers will not be receiving their orders by tomorrow's release date. They shipped 3 orders on July 28, 3 more on July 29, and no orders on July 30 or 31. Today, they have shipped almost 10% of the outstanding orders, and they are continuing to ship through the night and into tomorrow. They have so far been unable to tell us when they will complete shipping.”

However, at least the PDFs are still available for free in the meantime.

Adventure chapters are also available alongside the rule book, with the first being available today. They are as follows:

  1. The Lost Star, Aug 7 - Aug 26 (Also available at Gen Con on Aug 2.)
  2. In Pale Mountain’s Shadow, Aug 7 - Sep 9
  3. Affair At Sombrefell Hall, Sep 10 - Sep 23
  4. The Mirrored Moon, Sep 24 - Oct 8
  5. The Heroes Of Undarin, Oct 9 - Oct 21
  6. Red Flags, Oct 22 - Nov 4
  7. When The Stars Go Dark, Nov 5 - Nov 18
 
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Morrus

Morrus is the owner of EN World and EN Publishing, creator of the ENnies, creator of the What's OLD is NEW (WOIN), Simply6, and Awfully Cheerful Engine game systems, publisher of Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition, and co-host of the weekly Morrus' Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk podcast. He has been a game publisher and RPG community administrator for over 20 years, and has been reporting on TTRPG and D&D news for over two decades. He is also on the socials.

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CapnZapp

CapnZapp

Legend
Several people compare it to "anything to 4E"

Hope you mean in complexity and with no actual implication it'll be anything like the actual 4E.

Either in implementation, gameplay or (lack of) commercial success.
 

CapnZapp

CapnZapp

Legend
Mercurius said:
It does seem like there's a diversity of views, but that the consensus--or at least the median--is something like "more than a little, but not enormous."

Anyhow, the discussion and a skimming of the playtest has gotten me interested in trying PF2 at some point.

One more question: How is it crunch-wise, relative to PF1 (very rules heavy) and, say, 5E (rules medium plus)? It seems a bit less rules-heavy than PF1...or maybe it has just been tightened up and streamlined a bit, sort of like the change from AD&D 1E to 2E.
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I would be very surprised if the answer isn't "bone-crunchingly rules-heavy"

5E is a HUGE improvement over d20 as in "running NPCs in 3E is mind-numbingly dull and killed my interest in ever DMing that edition ever again"

5E single-handedly rescued my ability to DM Dungeons & Dragons in that regard.

Pathfinder is off the charts in this regard. 5E is positively rules light in comparison.

PS: not trying to edition-war. Read my later post below where I confess I would love to play Pathfinder.
 
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CapnZapp

CapnZapp

Legend
Jhaelen said:
I would hope so. PF1 is definitely too complex for my taste (these days). While I can still handle the complexity with some effort (and precious time), neither my DM nor my fellow players are up to it. And that's a really bad thing.
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My players would LOVE the super-crunch of Pathfinder.

And to be honest, so would I.

As a player. As the DM, simplified monster/NPC stats that give up any notion of following the same rules as PCs is a must.

Any game where it takes longer to create a NPC than for the player characters to kill it is right out.

So 5E is a compromise. Which is more important: getting to play that lovely crunchy (and minmaxed to oblivion) character? Or playing at all (at least with me as the gamesmaster)...?
 

CapnZapp

CapnZapp

Legend
Morrus said:
Head on over to Paizo.com to download it for free.
Click to expand...
It wasn't free - they wanted me to sign in and accept marketing emails.

That's not free. If I'm the product it isn't free.

Edit: They even watermark the playtest! Luckily I used maildrop.cc to create a burner email with no connection to my real personal details I will never read or use again.
 
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Z

zztong

Explorer
Schmoe said:
[MENTION=59082]Mercurius[/MENTION], my impression (from following previews) is that this change is more analogous to the shift from D&D 2E -> 3E.
Click to expand...

Everyone's got their own perspectives. Admittedly, I've only been kicking the tires for about 2 hours, but so far it feels like D&D 3.5 => D&D 4.0 to me. My first attempt to make a character resulted in a Ranger that didn't feel like a Ranger. Part of that may be that I'm angling it into some multiclassing. But part of it appears to be that I spend a lot of time agonizing over 4 class feats hoping that if I just kept rereading them that 1 of them would somehow become relevant to my conception.
 

R

Raunalyn

Hero
zztong said:
Everyone's got their own perspectives. Admittedly, I've only been kicking the tires for about 2 hours, but so far it feels like D&D 3.5 => D&D 4.0 to me. My first attempt to make a character resulted in a Ranger that didn't feel like a Ranger. Part of that may be that I'm angling it into some multiclassing. But part of it appears to be that I spend a lot of time agonizing over 4 class feats hoping that if I just kept rereading them that 1 of them would somehow become relevant to my conception.
Click to expand...

I will agree with this as well...it feels closer to the 3.5 to 4e changes. Everything seems to be kind of baked into the classes (which I like), except here, they are class feats. Adds for a lot of customizabilty...which could present its own problems.
 

JeffB

JeffB

Legend
My 2...

I think there are some great ideas in there. But the implementation...In that respect it seems very "4e" ish to me. The way statblocks are arranged, the vast # of player facing character choices and massive character sheets, assigning everything keywords and descriptors so that everything fits in neat little boxes.

The difference is 4e skewed too far from "classic" D&D in some ways , whereas PF2' is staying too true to "classic" PF. I just don't have the mental endurance or patience to read through Paizo's college textbooks anymore.

Hopefully their PF 2 adventures will still be worth a look.
 

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