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

 

[Lylandra]

1d20+level+proficiency rank+Strength (or Dex where appropriate)+Weapon's item bonus

So basically, like everyone has full BAB, but you factor in how proficient one is with a weapon (-2 for Untrained, +0 for Trained, +1 for Expert, +2 for Master, +3 for Legendary). It might also factor in the weapon's quality, but I can't remember off the top of my head.

weapons can be standard (+0), expert (+1), master (+2) and legendary (+3) and you simply add that bonus to your attack roll.

Magic enhancements DON'T increate your hit, they add weapon dice based on the + bonus.

 

[ronaldsf]

1d20+level+proficiency rank+Strength (or Dex where appropriate)+Weapon's item bonus

So basically, like everyone has full BAB, but you factor in how proficient one is with a weapon (-2 for Untrained, +0 for Trained, +1 for Expert, +2 for Master, +3 for Legendary). It might also factor in the weapon's quality, but I can't remember off the top of my head.

Yes, though the terminology the Rulebook uses is "proficiency modifier" which COMBINES level with proficiency rank... It saves on verbiage throughout the book, but it's pretty opaque to people new to the system.

 

[Retreater]

So far I like most of what I'm reading. I quit playing PF regularly around 2011 when I went to 4e, then later to 5e. I don't see wanting to go back to PF at this point. (I prefer 5e for rules lite play and 4e for the tactical, crunchiness.) I am curious to try the Playtest to see if it could win me over (though the games I played at Origins did not); however, none of my local groups are interested in giving it a try. Maybe I'll give it a whirl on FG...?

 

[Fanaelialae]

Yes. That is exactly what I'm saying.

Paizo's claims about easier NPCs still is a far cry from easy NPCs.

While I agree with you that half the time of 3.x/PF1 NPC creation is too long (for my tastes), I wouldn't be surprised if it could be done much more quickly than that, despite the quote.

We haven't seen the NPC creation rules yet, but from the look of the Bestiary, I'd be surprised if they weren't something akin to what 4e/5e use. That being, essentially a chart of: an X level creature should have this for attack, that for defenses, season to taste with abilities. While many of the creatures in the Bestiary are on the crunchier side, that's simply the default PF rules preference (to the best of my understanding). Something like a Troll has a fairly simple and compact stat block, suggesting that there is certainly room for such in PF2. While the sample NPCs have class abilities and magic items, I'd be surprised if it weren't possible to ignore these and bake the modifications directly into the stat block, like you would for a standard monster. Just my thoughts on the matter.

 

[DaveMage]

Put simply, they've changed the entire texture of combat. Attacks of Opportunity are limited to fighters and five foot step is no longer possible along with a full round action or three action equivalent. I and most of the people I play with like that interaction, so we're all put off by the new edition from the start. It seems like an innocuous change, but to those that prefer it, it is in fact monumental. The edition change is meant to cater to casual gamers. It's just depressing to me. I'm just focusing on collected the best of the third party content out there before it disappears.

As a PF1 fan, I’m not liking what I’m seeing from PF2 either, but I’m not depressed - I’m thrilled i’m not tempted to buy into yet another system.

 

[Kaodi]

I do not understand why some of the Barbarians totems are flat out better than others. Like, statistically better in every way. Bear vs Cat I am looking at you.

 

[Lylandra]

I like what I've read so far, but it does have to be tested in real gameplay. Love the complexity and the incredible modularity.

My gut feeling is that PF2 is not newbie-friendly as I can guess it has a steep learning curve (learning wall?) to get and memorize all the traits, conditions and options.

Paizo also needs to give us tools to organize our stats properly. Which means, we need means to make and play characters without first jumping back and forth through the rulebook and then writing down massive paragraphs of feat description on our sheets.

The trait system already seems to be constructed with search filters in mind, which is a good thing. I do hope we'll get a SRD similar to the already existing one and maybe even an online character creation tool. I don't mind doing the math on my own, but I really don't want to type down all the feats for a high level character.

That being said, I am a bit unsure why they didn't include linked references to their pdf. So many times where I thought "oh what's bolstered?" or "how does bleed work?" or "what does this paladin power do?" only to realize that I'd have to manually scan a 400+ pages pdf.

 

[Staffan]

weapons can be standard (+0), expert (+1), master (+2) and legendary (+3) and you simply add that bonus to your attack roll.

Magic enhancements DON'T increate your hit, they add weapon dice based on the + bonus.

Magic enhancements (potency runes) do provide an item bonus to hit. However, since it's an item bonus it doesn't stack with the bonus for the weapon's quality. So an expert longsword would have +1 to hit and deal 1d8+Str damage, while a +1 expert longsword (generally you'd not write out the quality if it's the minimum for the potency rune's level) would have +1 to hit and deal 2d8+Str damage.

 

[Parmandur]

As a PF1 fan, I’m not liking what I’m seeing from PF2 either, but I’m not depressed - I’m thrilled i’m not tempted to buy into yet another system.

For anybody into Pathfinder 1E, Half-Price Books has a ton of material on Outlet sale right now.

 

[David West]

I'll be honest. Will I run PF2? Maybe not. I like what we have now with PF1, and I have plenty of material to continue to play it especially when I haven't even tapped 3rd party items.
Will I write for PF2? Definitely. I have sat out writing for a long time (my books for Hero Games/ICE got published in 1994) and I am starting to tool up to start writing again. PF2 material will be where I focus because the demand will be there with so many books and items needing added to the system as it is starting out.