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

 

[zztong]

They probably should have provided some pregens.

The DM had a few available, but the Playtest requires you to level up your characters at a couple of points, so we wanted them in Hero Lab Online.

 

[Jer]

I played for the first time last night.

Thanks for the play report - but you missed one question that I'd like to know which is "was it fun for you or not?"

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.

Oh - so like my experiences with most editions of D&D then

From my perspective, I could have been playing PF1.

yeah - just reading through the rules I wondered how much different it would feel at the table vs. during character creation at low levels. I don't have any of the books handy - did you cast any spells that required multiple actions to cast? And if so did that trip things up at all?

 

[Arakasius]

I converted 3 of my players characters over to 2e last night (level four versions from when they were lower levels). I had read the rulebook and did use hero lab online for it. It took about 20 minutes each to remake their characters. The sorc was very easy, the fighter/paladin I remade as paladin with fighter dedication and the hard one was the oracle which I remade into a Angelic Sorcerer. Two races (Samsaran and Sylph) I basically remade as half elves, since the combination of human and elf ancestry feats had similar options to their original races.

Now I’ll have to find some level appropriate monsters for them to fight at level four in a “flashback” session before actually spending time at a table with them helping them remake their level eleven characters. Figure it’s best to let them play the system before doing conversion.

 

[zztong]

Thanks for the play report - but you missed one question that I'd like to know which is "was it fun for you or not?"

Hanging out with friends is always fun. The game? I would say I was just as happy throwing dice and moving pieces as I would have been with any other RPG. I would have been equally happy with D&D 1e, 2e, 3/3.5e, or PF1e. I've only played D&D 5e once, but it would probably fine too.

Oh - so like my experiences with most editions of D&D then

Hehe. Normally my go-to character for a first game is a Ranger. I couldn't make a Ranger concept work well enough in PF2e, plus we needed a Wizard for a balanced party. The PF2e Universalist Wizard seemed close to the PF1e Universalist Wizard.

yeah - just reading through the rules I wondered how much different it would feel at the table vs. during character creation at low levels. I don't have any of the books handy - did you cast any spells that required multiple actions to cast? And if so did that trip things up at all?

I only cast cantrips because I wasn't sure how far the other PCs could go without rest. The cantrips took 2 actions (of 3) to cast. 1 action for verbal, 1 action for somantics. (I hope I got that right.) I could cast and move, which was the same as PF1. I could have not moved and extended the range of a spell by 30 feet, which would have been nice for Color Spray, but I didn't need to cast it. The DM (who played at GenCon) said he had seen Wizzy's casting two spells: an attack and then Shield. I had not put Shield in my spellbook, so I didn't have that option.

I don't recall a point where any of the other players were tripped up by the action system. There were points where there was discussion of options that were different. One noticeable difference was that 1st level characters could attack more than once. Another noticeable difference is that Criticals are much more common and I don't think I like that. Time will tell. We didn't see the dying/death system work, so I don't know how that will affect how people act.

 

[zztong]

I just remembered something else that I thought didn't work right. I suspect its more a matter of DM mistake than a rules problem.

We had entered the first room and folks were looking around. There were bones present, and something about the way the DM described them made me think they had been arranged in a strange way. He asked me what I wanted to do, and I asked if the arrangement of the bones meant anything to me perhaps related to my Occultism knowledge. He asked me to roll. I rolled poorly and got a total of 8.

Combat broke out, and my initiative was 8 because of my Occultism roll.

I don't really care about the 8, nor about using +5 skill instead of my Perception (+1). Another player's initiative was their latest Arcane roll. I don't remember what the other players were doing. They might have used a "Nose Picking" roll for all I know. What was wrong with an Initiative Roll? In that case I think it would have made more sense.

 

[Michael Silverbane]

Maybe you missed that part but I gave out the burner email account provider I used.

So I'm good. And no, I didn't give out any personal data.

I'm here to contest the usage of "free" where strings are attached, that's all.

So... You did get the playtest document. And you did not give them any personal information for it?

So you got it for free. Good job. You have proved that it is free.

 

[CapnZapp]

So... You did get the playtest document. And you did not give them any personal information for it?

So you got it for free. Good job. You have proved that it is free.

If you believe that "proof", I have a bridge I would like to sell to you.

 

[Morrus]

If you believe that "proof", I have a bridge I would like to sell to you.

But if you’re insisting it’s not free, and you didn’t pay the price, then you’ve stolen it by your own logic.

 

[houser2112]

I define it as it was introduced. A requirement to hit the baseline that the game requires. The expertise feats in 4e fit that bill. The game math was off and they corrected via feats, which was a mistake. Having to take feats to be where you should be without them is a feat tax. Pre-requisites are not a tax. They are a cost.

No. It's no different. Sure, you could customize better in PF. That doesn't make these changes a tax. It just means that the rules have changed and the costs are different. I happen to agree with you. I prefer more options outside of the classes. It's one of the reasons that 3e is still my favorite edition of D&D. However, moving the costs around doesn't create a tax. You are not required to take these feats, so no tax exists.

OK, fine. Using your definition, dedication feats and half-level restrictions are not taxes because the system isn't outright broken (that we know of).

Sure, it's a pre-requisite, but it's not a tax. Nobody has to take those feats, especially rangers who have plenty nice ranged feats of their own. Wanting them doesn't make the feats required. I just makes them worth paying for.

There are a few, but hardly "plenty", and those few are high level. If it weren't for the half-level thing, I'd multi into fighter just because I have nothing better to use those early class feats on.

 

[Zardnaar]

OK, fine. Using your definition, dedication feats and half-level restrictions are not taxes because the system isn't outright broken (that we know of).



There are a few, but hardly "plenty", and those few are high level. If it weren't for the half-level thing, I'd multi into fighter just because I have nothing better to use those early class feats on.

All the MC feats seem better than the basic feats. Seems like 4E in that regard assuming you just had the 4E PHB and even in later splats the 4E MC feat lets you pick different paragon paths.