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

 

[CapnZapp]

These things help establish a clearer identity for their brand.

Yep. Corporate decisions aren't always smart decisions.

In their dreams people playing in Golarion will accept their new game hook line and sinker.

In reality, why play PFx if they don't provide any advantages over the dozens of other companies not named WotC?

Previously they had one such advantage; custody of 3rd edition (in all but name).

I understand it would hurt the black corporate soul to admit it, but Paizo's success comes from being a WotC symbiote.

I understand the business decision to break free; I just think they overestimate the non WotC market, while ignoring the opportunity window of a crunch add-on to 5E created by WotC, whose complacency means we'll get as little crunch from them as they can get away with.

Any other company would have published a revised Ranger, psionics, the artificer and more by now.

Paizo turning up the heat on WotC would have been a great development. Shame they chose the path to irrelevance instead...

 

[Aldarc]

Yep. Corporate decisions aren't always smart decisions.

And customer criticisms aren't always valid criticisms.

In their dreams people playing in Golarion will accept their new game hook line and sinker.

In reality, why play PFx if they don't provide any advantages over the dozens of other companies not named WotC?

Their APs are apparently their big selling points, and their APs are tied to Golarion. If my Golarion-tied APs were my gravy train, then tying my rules a bit closer to Golarion does not seem that foolish.

Previously they had one such advantage; custody of 3rd edition (in all but name).

Yet going for a crunchier version of 5e would also be abandoning that custody of 3rd edition (in all but name) as well, so...

I understand the business decision to break free; I just think they overestimate the non WotC market, while ignoring the opportunity window of a crunch add-on to 5E created by WotC, whose complacency means we'll get as little crunch from them as they can get away with.

I think that you refuse to give Paizo enough credit and underestimate them.

Also, I would have to double-check, but I don't think that the current licensing agreement for 5e would permit the crunchier version of 5e that you are wistfully daydreaming about here.

Shame they chose the path to irrelevance instead...

Just like WotC did with 4e, and look at them now. Stop being a DebbieDowner and making this out to be the end of the world for Paizo. We are barely into this playtest. Do you even recall how the first iteration of Pathfinder 1 playtest looked like? People were again spelling the doom of Paizo and Pathfinder at its outset just like you are with Pathfinder 2 and Paizo now.

Look.

Don't call something free if you don't hand it out no strings attached. This is very simple.

That the morning cereal you need to eat to not starve to death before visiting Paizo's site costs money is entirely beside this issue, and bringing it up is only your way of trying to squiggle out of owning up this fact.

I believe we're done here.

So did you blow this much hot air about how the "free" D&D Next playtest require that you register your email on the old website? I somehow doubt it.

 

[Zardnaar]

OD&D (1974) is the one true edition of D&D.

I own it

 

[Maxperson]

That the morning cereal you need to eat to not starve to death before visiting Paizo's site costs money is entirely beside this issue, and bringing it up is only your way of trying to squiggle out of owning up this fact.

I never did that, though. When I brought up time, it wasn't to squiggle out of anything. It was to show that your definition of free was uselessly broad by giving you an example of something that was every bit as much of a "cost" as personal information, that quite literally applies to everything. If personal information is a "cost," then so is time. If time is a "cost," there is literally no such thing as free or gratis and the terms are worthless. Hence my statement that you've made the term free worthless with your claim.

The word free relates to direct costs, such as money or barter of goods, neither of which is being required by Paizo. You can stretch and squint sideways at the what free means all you like, but you still won't have stopped the Paizo download from being free. You can Falsely Equate Paizo with Facebook and its ilk all you like, but that still won't make Paizo's collected information worth much.

 

[zztong]

I've made around 15 characters and I play for the first time tonight. I can say from experience that I don't like PF2e character generation, but I really think I'm going to like the action sequence.

I played for the first time last night.

We had a mix of players who had made characters and those who had not. Those who made characters needed 2 hours to complete them using Hero Lab Online and getting advice from those who had already been through it. My first character had taken me over 2 hours to make without any assistance. One player wanted to make an Archer. They got caught in the Fighter or Ranger decision and the nuances of the Class Feats, gave up, and made a Cleric who could use a bow (Elf gave access to it, IIRC.) My personal, snarky-jerk opinion of character generation is that the steps are: 1. Create a character conception. 2. Abandon that conception. 3. Make something from the options available to you and just be happy about your Class and Race, err I mean Ancestry.

This left 2 hours to play. We got through the intro and the first two rooms. The Action Economy (I guess that's the vogue term for it) seemed to work okay. I ended up playing a Wizard. The GM had to "bot" a rogue because nobody chose to play one. Normally, nobody wants to play a Cleric.

From my perspective, I could have been playing PF1. The 1st level Wizard fired off cantrips and saved his 1st level spells in case they were needed. The DM was surprised I didn't take the Shield spell because he had played in a couple of games at GenCon and the Wizard players he had observed always cast Shield. My AC was 10, and I didn't see a point in casting Shield to make my AC an 11, though 4 points of DR would be like 4 temp hitpoints each round. I used my spare actions to just stay away from the enemy and our screening party members held.

We spent a lot of time parsing the meaning of the Heal spell variations, overcoming confusion with the rules, and trying to understand the layout. I was frustrated by the layout's use of numbers in little colored boxes. We spent five minutes trying to figure out if they always referred to "level" or if in some cases it meant something else, like the number of Spell Points it cost to use.

Folks generally forgot that "Goblins were people too" now. During the intro, NPCs said something about having found a goblin in the dungeon. A PC inquired if the NPCs had already eliminated the goblins. They were reminded there were "good goblins now." Then, in the second room, we were attacked by goblins, which we slaughtered. I figured I would be the only stodgy fellow stuck in a rut believing Gobo should remain monsters. I was surprised to see most people at the table felt the same way. They enjoyed them as lovable, entertaining, incompetent villains. The DM's young kid had made a Gobo Druid, and I wonder how he would have fit in, but he ran off to watch TV before play started.

 

[TwoSix]

Yeah people who call out bs are a pain. Maybe we could spend the next six months about how to make the final game better and provide actual feedback for the playtest or we can just rehash edition wars that everyone is sick of.

Don't joke, we lost good soldiers in the Edition Wars.

 

[Zardnaar]

I played for the first time last night.

We had a mix of players who had made characters and those who had not. Those who made characters needed 2 hours to complete them using Hero Lab Online and getting advice from those who had already been through it. My first character had taken me over 2 hours to make without any assistance. One player wanted to make an Archer. They got caught in the Fighter or Ranger decision and the nuances of the Class Feats, gave up, and made a Cleric who could use a bow (Elf gave access to it, IIRC.) My personal, snarky-jerk opinion of character generation is that the steps are: 1. Create a character conception. 2. Abandon that conception. 3. Make something from the options available to you and just be happy about your Class and Race, err I mean Ancestry.

This left 2 hours to play. We got through the intro and the first two rooms. The Action Economy (I guess that's the vogue term for it) seemed to work okay. I ended up playing a Wizard. The GM had to "bot" a rogue because nobody chose to play one. Normally, nobody wants to play a Cleric.

From my perspective, I could have been playing PF1. The 1st level Wizard fired off cantrips and saved his 1st level spells in case they were needed. The DM was surprised I didn't take the Shield spell because he had played in a couple of games at GenCon and the Wizard players he had observed always cast Shield. My AC was 10, and I didn't see a point in casting Shield to make my AC an 11, though 4 points of DR would be like 4 temp hitpoints each round. I used my spare actions to just stay away from the enemy and our screening party members held.

We spent a lot of time parsing the meaning of the Heal spell variations, overcoming confusion with the rules, and trying to understand the layout. I was frustrated by the layout's use of numbers in little colored boxes. We spent five minutes trying to figure out if they always referred to "level" or if in some cases it meant something else, like the number of Spell Points it cost to use.

Folks generally forgot that "Goblins were people too" now. During the intro, NPCs said something about having found a goblin in the dungeon. A PC inquired if the NPCs had already eliminated the goblins. They were reminded there were "good goblins now." Then, in the second room, we were attacked by goblins, which we slaughtered. I figured I would be the only stodgy fellow stuck in a rut believing Gobo should remain monsters. I was surprised to see most people at the table felt the same way. They enjoyed them as lovable, entertaining, incompetent villains. The DM's young kid had made a Gobo Druid, and I wonder how he would have fit in, but he ran off to watch TV before play started.

Think I would be in the 2 hour camp to create a PC as well. On the Paizo forums there have been reports of 3 hours to make one. 10-30 mins for an edition I am familiar with or maybe an hour for something complicated.

They probably should have provided some pregens.

Played some B/X adventures not to long ago in one of them it took 5 mins, grab semi pregen gen and flesh it out with various packs go. Some of them have better stats than what you could probably roll.

 

[Maxperson]

Don't joke, we lost good soldiers in the Edition Wars.

Yes, but your soldiers sucked and mine were great.

 

[TwoSix]

Yes, but your soldiers sucked and mine were great.

Ha! Your soldiers got lost in the desert when the mountains appeared! Mine never got lost because mountains only appear when the players say so!

 

[Zardnaar]

Yes, but your soldiers sucked and mine were great.

Mine were great as well my small army invaded Thyatis and woe outnumbered 5 or 10 to 1.

Are we using Battlesystem here?