It’s LAUNCH DAY For The Pathfinder 2 Playtest!

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

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

 

[MoonSong]

I won't claim something is free just because you don't pay with money.

The synonym of "free" we're looking for here is "for nothing". Having to give up personal details is not nothing.

So it isn't free. Very simple.

If you go by that, then well, next to nothing is truly free. "Not such a thing as a free meal" and stuff. (In my case, well they already had that by virtue of me buying from them in the past)

 

[TwoSix]

And I'm not saying you aren't.

But I think most people turned to Pathfinder because WotC stopped releasing stuff for their beloved 3rd edition.

Now that there exists a good official Dungeons & Dragons, that in addition is way less cluttery than before, I'm worried Paizo is chasing a shrinking market.

I freely admit that's quite possible. I'm not really sure what the optimal volume of crunch is for PF2, honestly, I think that's one of the ideas they should be crowdsourcing to find out.

 

[Reynard]

Lol.

Talk about irony.

You do know how Pathfinder started out right? (Yes, a remade 3e)

Except 5e ia a currently supported version of the game. Pathfinder exists at all because WotC's policies on Open Gaming in the 4E era necessitated it in order for Paizo to continue to operate the way it was doing so at the time. Pathfinder appealed to 3.5 players, for sure, but had 4e been as open as d20 ig probably would have benefited from broad 3rd party support (many companies did support it under the much stricter GSL) including Paizo. It's even reasonable to postulate that Paizo support might have made 4e more successful and thereby changed what D&D currently looks like. In any case, the lines diverged significantly enough it doesn't make any sense to suggest Paizo is trying to chase 5e players with its Pathfinder 2e or that it would be successful in doing so. If Paizo wanted 5e dollars all they would have had to do was abandon PF in favor of 5e when that game came out and completely dominated the 5e 3PP market with their APs.

 

[MoonSong]

Except 5e ia a currently supported version of the game. Pathfinder exists at all because WotC's policies on Open Gaming in the 4E era necessitated it in order for Paizo to continue to operate the way it was doing so at the time. Pathfinder appealed to 3.5 players, for sure, but had 4e been as open as d20 ig probably would have benefited from broad 3rd party support (many companies did support it under the much stricter GSL) including Paizo. It's even reasonable to postulate that Paizo support might have made 4e more successful and thereby changed what D&D currently looks like. In any case, the lines diverged significantly enough it doesn't make any sense to suggest Paizo is trying to chase 5e players with its Pathfinder 2e or that it would be successful in doing so. If Paizo wanted 5e dollars all they would have had to do was abandon PF in favor of 5e when that game came out and completely dominated the 5e 3PP market with their APs.

It's more complex than that, the restrictive license was a big deal, but not by itself the dealbreaker. The loss of the magazines and that they didn't get a wide enough preview of 4e were more important. There is a lot of writing about that time.

 

[Maxperson]

Zero need? Did you miss where longbows have the "Volley 50" property, which means you take a -2 penalty to attack targets within 50 feet (most encounters take place within this distance, and it's a rare encounter that allows the opportunity to really use the full range of a longbow). This would be unacceptable in PF1, and even more so in PF2 with how important hit margin is when calculating critical hits. Point-Blank Shot seems to be the only way to mitigate that penalty, and the minimum to just do my job even without getting fancy with multishots. Perhaps fancy tricks like Double Shot and Triple Shot should be Fighter feats, that can be debated I suppose. Point-Blank Shot to achieve basic proficiency should not.

Let's imagine a different scenario, you want a Fighter good with a crossbow (for some reason). Point-Blank Shot is nice with a crossbow, but Assisting Shot seems rather lame. After that, we have Double Shot, which we can't use with a crossbow, and Triple Shot which is a modification of Double Shot. We have to wait until 8th level to get another ranged feat we can use (Incredible Aim and Slippery Shooter). The big drawback to crossbows is that reload speed. There's a feat to mitigate that, but it's a Ranger feat...

Yes. Zero need. Rangers have some pretty nice ranged feats, including favored aim which negates that -2 penalty. That's also combined with Hunt Target which reduces the penalty for your extra attacks, also compensating for that -2 penalty. And that's if you want to use a longbow instead of something else and just enjoy the bonuses.

Rangers need to be good at ranged, and they are. Fighters are the masters of weapons, so they also need to be good at ranged, and they are. You want to have it all and are complaining that you have to spend some feats to get it all. Each class needs to have unique ranged feats, and Pathfinder 2 has set it up so that each one has unique feats with ranged weapons.

There is no feat tax. If you want to have it all, pay the COST to get it all.

 

[Maxperson]

I won't claim something is free just because you don't pay with money.

The synonym of "free" we're looking for here is "for nothing". Having to give up personal details is not nothing.

So it isn't free. Very simple.

Your definition of "free" is utterly useless. Time is worth as much or more to people than some personal details. It's a resource that will never be recovered. So by your incredibly broad painting of "free," nothing can ever be free.

I'm going to stick with the definition that requires that money or items to actually barter be required before something isn't free. Having to make an account before downloading the playtest is not a cost. Heck, you made an account here and you aren't even getting as much to download and play from this place as you are from Paizo.

If it really bothers you, though, tell them your name is Ben Kingsly, born on February 15th, 1994. Then make a quick, free, throw away email account somewhere and presto, you've gotten the playtest without giving up those precious details.

 

[Maxperson]

I freely admit that's quite possible. I'm not really sure what the optimal volume of crunch is for PF2, honestly, I think that's one of the ideas they should be crowdsourcing to find out.

No! You can't freely admit anything! It cost you time!

 

[Parmandur]

Except 5e ia a currently supported version of the game. Pathfinder exists at all because WotC's policies on Open Gaming in the 4E era necessitated it in order for Paizo to continue to operate the way it was doing so at the time. Pathfinder appealed to 3.5 players, for sure, but had 4e been as open as d20 ig probably would have benefited from broad 3rd party support (many companies did support it under the much stricter GSL) including Paizo. It's even reasonable to postulate that Paizo support might have made 4e more successful and thereby changed what D&D currently looks like. In any case, the lines diverged significantly enough it doesn't make any sense to suggest Paizo is trying to chase 5e players with its Pathfinder 2e or that it would be successful in doing so. If Paizo wanted 5e dollars all they would have had to do was abandon PF in favor of 5e when that game came out and completely dominated the 5e 3PP market with their APs.

That last sentence seems like a pretty good idea, from a business viewpoint. 5E is OGL material.

 

[Reynard]

That last sentence seems like a pretty good idea, from a business viewpoint. 5E is OGL material.

Except that it requires resources to do so and has associated non-material costs. If Paizo thought they could produce 5e APs, even 5e conversions of older APs, and make a net profit, I have no doubt they would. Whether it is wanting to focus on PF or not grow too big or whatever, they have decided that sticking with PF (and adding Starfinder) is better for them than supporting 5e. Who am i to second guess that?

 

[Shasarak]

I won't claim something is free just because you don't pay with money.

The synonym of "free" we're looking for here is "for nothing". Having to give up personal details is not nothing.

So it isn't free. Very simple.

Of course it is not free, you still have to pay for the electricity to run your computer and your internet connection.

It just uses the "free" tag so that you can tell that you do not have to pay money for it as opposed to the other meanings of free.