PaizoCon 2025 Keynote Recap

Welcome to PaizoCon 2025! We got a ton of new information during the Keynote Stream.

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The Keynote Twitch stream kicked off with Erik Mona welcoming us to PaizoCon 2025. Paizo is running a 20% off sale on a single order using the code "PAIZOCON25" for the duration of PaizoCon.

Starfinder​

Jenny Jarzabski, Mike Kimmel, and Dustin Knight came on to discuss all of the new things coming down the pipeline for Starfinder.

Out now is the Galaxy Guide. This a a primer designed for new and experienced players that explores popular types of science fantasy campaigns (galactic exploration, horror, war-torn space opera, etc.). It also introduces several powerful galactic factions as potential friends or foes as well as six new playable alien ancestries and new archetypes. There is also a double-sided map of the Starfinder galaxy and the Pact Worlds system.

Launching at Gen Con will be the Starfinder Player Core. This is the first book in the Starfinder Second Edition. Starfinder GM Core will be coming out at the beginning of September, with Starfinder Alien Core following in November.

If you want to hit the ground running with a deluxe adventure, Murder in Metal City is a deluxe introductory boxed set adventure for four 1st-level Starfinder Second Edition characters containing numerous tools to assist GMs, including player and creature tokens, an immersive poster-sized double-sided battle map, investigation handouts, item cards, NPC cards, and a GM reference sheet and investigation tracker—everything required for a premium adventure experience!

Future adventures will zoom into different worlds, like the October release: Guilt of the GraveWorld which will give more information on Eox. We will also be seeing a Starfinder novel, Era of the Eclipse, and the Infinity Deck.

Pathfinder​

Jason Keeley, Michelle Y. Kim, and Logan Bonner kicked off the Pathfinder segment by talking about Battlecry! This new rulebook covers all aspects of war, including two new character classes: commander and guardian. It will also introduce skirmish encounters that will allow characters to control a troop to have more climactic fights. It will be out at Gen Con.

There will also be a special event at Gen Con called Battle of HellKnight Hill. No word on if it will be available after the convention.

Multiple Adventure Paths will cover the Hellfire Crisis, including Hellbreakers. It’s low level 1-9 ending with the level 10 level up. It’ll document the rise of the Hellbreaker's League organization that you’ll be forming as a rebellion against Cheliax.

Operation Hellmouth is Pathfinder fiction featuring Valeros.

John Compton and James Jacobs came on to talk to us about the remastered version of the Gatewalkers adventure path coming in July.

Now that the War of the Immortals introduced mythic rules, we will be seeing more in the Mythspeaker adventure path, starting with Pathfinder Adventure Path #216: The Acropolis Pyre. This will bring the PCs to the city-states of Iblydos, a land steeped in mythic power. They will be coming to Iblydios to join the funeral games of VIP, there’s an interesting omen that they investigate and gain mythic power, and join the ranks of Iblydios' hero-gods, which haven't been seen since before prophecy was lost over a century ago.

Pathfinder Game Night: Dawn of the Frogs Deluxe Adventure is a new format for adventures, where they include everything you need to play in the box, including pawns, pregens, and a 32 page adventure. There’s 3 one night adventures for you and your friends to play in order to get an overarching plot.

Running from October through December will be the Revenge of the Runelords. This adventure path will either see you saving the world or taking your scissors to your maps of Golarion.

Luis Loza and Eleanor Ferron brought us everything Lost Omens. If you like high fantasy, you will love Lost Omens: Shining Kingdoms. Within the Shining Kingdoms dwell noble knightly orders, proud ancient cultures, and deadly courtly intrigue. Each of the six regions also presents new character options including archetypes, equipment, magic items, spells, animal companions, and more. As a companion to Shining Kingdoms, there will be The Lost Omens Shining Kingdoms Poster Map Archive, a box set of seven maps.

Do you like dragons? Then be prepared for Lost Omens: Draconic Codex! Coming out in November, this book will give you statistics for over 20 types of dragons, including expanding upon the dragons found in Monster Core and Monster Core 2. There will also be statistics for the ferocious archdragons, the oldest and mightiest dragons of their kinds.

Card Game​

Pathfinder Monster Match! allows players to woo and date monsters. This is a card game with dating sim style art for 2-4 players. You can go head-to-head with your friends over one monster or try for one that no one else wants.

Societies​

Most of what was covered during this section, we already covered here. The biggest news is an all ages quest where the players will help a dragon.

We will continue to monitor Paizo's Twitch stream to continue to bring you all of the news coming out of PaizoCon 2025!
 

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Dawn Dalton

Dawn Dalton

I wonder how much actual use they've been given in general. I'm not aware of any currently published adventures or APs that use them so that just leaves homebrewers which I know exist, but it feels like they're the minority of Paizo's fanbase. I could very well be wrong, I guess I see a lot more AP discussion than homebrew discussion.
I think I saw one of the Paizo devs say something to the effect of "With PF1 we made the mistake of releasing a Mythic-based AP (Wrath of the Righteous) nearly concurrently with the actual rules, before we had a good grasp on how those rules interacted with other stuff. This didn't work out so well. So with PF2 we're putting some distance between Mythic rules and an AP using them." So I guess they decided that this was enough distance.
 

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The Pathfinder stuff seems cool. Battle Cry, Shining Kingdoms, and Draconic Codex all seem to support classic fantasy, which appeals to me more than guns and schools.

I've never used any of the Lost Omens books before, how tied are they to the specific setting/region they're from? If my group is running a game in a different part of the world, or in a homebrew setting, would the content from those books be off-limit or out-of-place?

I actually like the idea of adding archetypes instead of adding new feats for existing classes. It adds a lot of depth to character creation, but it hides all the complexity behind an optional system that new players don't even need to know about. The one issue currently is that archetypes are wildly imbalanced (Dual Weapon Warrior is better than most class feats, and Mindsmith is really cool, but doesn't do basically anything). Hopefully adding new archetypes can fill in the gap.
 

I've never used any of the Lost Omens books before, how tied are they to the specific setting/region they're from? If my group is running a game in a different part of the world, or in a homebrew setting, would the content from those books be off-limit or out-of-place?
Lost Omens are the books that are intended to be setting-specific. That doesn't mean they can't be scavenged for material, but the stuff in them is intended to represent specific in-setting things. Some will be more mechanical than others, but the geography-focused ones are pretty lore-heavy. For example, the Mwangi Expanse is a 312-page book, with 25 pages of new ancestries, 13 pages of new gods, and 20 pages of bestiary, plus the occasional rule element interspersed here and there in the book (e.g. "These people take this oath with these mechanical effects"). There's of course nothing preventing you from using e.g. the Anadi ancestry elsewhere, but if your goal is to mine the book for mechanics there are probably others that will give you more bang for your buck.

On the more mechanical side, you have The Grand Bazaar, which is about 50% various new items and 50% about the places that sell those items. These items can of course easily be repurposed elsewhere.
 

Sometimes you have a Character Guide for Lost Omens (at least for Tian Xia) that is basically the mechanical side of things, focused on classes. Some books are also quite mixed; Dark Archives is full of mechanics and character options but also a bunch of mini-adventures, all built around a central theme. Best to check the Nethys archive for a given book if you want to mine it for rules; you can get a big ol list of what a given book contains by going to Home - Archives of Nethys: Pathfinder 2nd Edition Database > Sidebar on Left > Rules > Sources, which takes you here: Sources - Archives of Nethys: Pathfinder 2nd Edition Database and then you can click on a source in the Name column and see what options are available. For example, Mwangi Expanse is here: The Mwangi Expanse - Sources - Archives of Nethys: Pathfinder 2nd Edition Database and Tian Xia Character Guide is here: Tian Xia Character Guide - Sources - Archives of Nethys: Pathfinder 2nd Edition Database

That all said, the books are all quite pleasant reads; I just had two more arrive today because I am enjoying them that much.
 

Lost Omens are the books that are intended to be setting-specific. That doesn't mean they can't be scavenged for material, but the stuff in them is intended to represent specific in-setting things. Some will be more mechanical than others, but the geography-focused ones are pretty lore-heavy. For example, the Mwangi Expanse is a 312-page book, with 25 pages of new ancestries, 13 pages of new gods, and 20 pages of bestiary, plus the occasional rule element interspersed here and there in the book (e.g. "These people take this oath with these mechanical effects"). There's of course nothing preventing you from using e.g. the Anadi ancestry elsewhere, but if your goal is to mine the book for mechanics there are probably others that will give you more bang for your buck.

On the more mechanical side, you have The Grand Bazaar, which is about 50% various new items and 50% about the places that sell those items. These items can of course easily be repurposed elsewhere.
Grand Bazaar is a wonderful book. My group is playing Stolen Fate, so they've gone to the Grand Bazaar a few times so far and I've mined it for a bunch of details and ideas.
 

Sometimes you have a Character Guide for Lost Omens (at least for Tian Xia) that is basically the mechanical side of things, focused on classes. Some books are also quite mixed; Dark Archives is full of mechanics and character options but also a bunch of mini-adventures, all built around a central theme. Best to check the Nethys archive for a given book if you want to mine it for rules; you can get a big ol list of what a given book contains by going to Home - Archives of Nethys: Pathfinder 2nd Edition Database > Sidebar on Left > Rules > Sources, which takes you here: Sources - Archives of Nethys: Pathfinder 2nd Edition Database and then you can click on a source in the Name column and see what options are available. For example, Mwangi Expanse is here: The Mwangi Expanse - Sources - Archives of Nethys: Pathfinder 2nd Edition Database and Tian Xia Character Guide is here: Tian Xia Character Guide - Sources - Archives of Nethys: Pathfinder 2nd Edition Database

That all said, the books are all quite pleasant reads; I just had two more arrive today because I am enjoying them that much.
Shining Kingdoms just arrived yesterday but my Switch 2 arrived this morning and unfortunately for Shining Kingdoms, Mario Kart will certainly win out for my attention.
 

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