Pathfinder Resurrects Two First Edition Classes as Second Edition Archetypes

Pathfinder is bringing back the Bloodrager and the Inquisitor as Archetypes in the upcoming War of the Immortals book. In a blog post on Monday, Paizo announced that the two Pathfinder 1E classes would be returning as new archetypes, which are functionally ways to expand the scope of a class to give it more abilities. With the new archetypes found in the upcoming War of the Immortals rulebook, players will take the archetype at 1st level and then take a specific feat at 2nd level. Typically, archetypes replace some core class function or adjust it in some way, while leaving access to other feats and abilities.

In Pathfinder 1E, the bloodrager mixed together sorcerer and barbarian features, granting the class access to both rage and some spellcasting. For Pathfinder 2E, the bloodrager is a new barbarian class archetype, with access to blood rage, which adds persistent bleed damage to attacks and adds rage damage to spells. The bloodrager also has a Harvest Blood action that allows them to refresh temporary Hit Points and boost saving throws against those they've used the action against.

The vindicator is a revised form of the Inquisitor (Paizo notes that evil deities' vindicators are still called Inquisitors) and serves as a ranger class archetype. The vindicator chooses a deity and is trained in the deity's favored weapon, and they also gain a special hunter's edge and have access to some domain spells. The aim of the vindicator is to utilize the ranger's combat abilities along with the archetype's enhancements to hunt down monsters and target specific prey. Paizo also noted that the change from inquisitor to vindicator was to move away from the real-world negative historical connotations of the inquisitor.

Both archetypes are represented in War of the Immortals with new Iconics, with Imrijka returning from Pathfinder 1E to represent the vindicator and the new character Trzikhun representing the bloodrager. Paizo also introduced a new class archetype - the avenger, a rogue archetype - in the article as well.

War of the Immortals will be released in October 2024 and deals with the fallout of the death of Gorum, the god of war. Two new classes are also being introduced in the book, as well as rules for mythic classes.

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[The-Magic-Sword]

I am so excited for these-- especially if the Avenger Rogue can favored weapon their way into using Sneak Attack with Bastard Sword via a God like Ragathiel, I'd expect it to be balanced via the Hunt Prey mechanic they mentioned, it would gain the important aesthetic notes of 4e's avenger class. Though I suppose the Vindicator is also a very compelling way to do that, since Rangers already have access to that kind of weaponry, and the 'marking someone out for death' mechanic is also very avengery.

Meanwhile, the Bloodrager seems intriguing, though I need to see how they actually handle it's blasting potential vis a vis accuracy, but that seems to be the plan if it can add rage damage to spells--I think getting Barbarian Class DC for their spells would be enough, which is actually strength based, so you'd be a little ahead of a ki blasting monk in terms of accuracy. Still, even just popping Sure Strike castings during Rage would be pretty cool.

 

[payn]

Oh, I am curious how this will play out? Especially, with free archetype variant rule.

 

[comrade raoul]

Okay, hardly an original objection, but: what harm would keeping "inquisitor" have done? Does anyone seriously think that Paizo is implicitly endorsing any of the historical Inquisitions by using the name, or feel personally distressed when they see it?

It's not a big deal, of course, but I'm getting increasingly tired of seeing creators change something specific and thematic into something generic and colorless, all for the sake of a supposed moral imperative to remove any association (however obscure) with historically problematic phenomena from a game almost entirely devoted to making solving problems through violence feel fun.

 

[payn]

Okay, hardly an original objection, but: what harm would keeping "inquisitor" have done? Does anyone seriously think that Paizo is implicitly endorsing any of the historical Inquisitions by using the name, or feel personally distressed when they see it?

It's not a big deal, of course, but I'm getting increasingly tired of seeing creators change something specific and thematic into something generic and colorless, all for the sake of a supposed moral imperative to remove any association (however obscure) with historically problematic phenomena from a game almost entirely devoted to making solving problems through violence feel fun.

Sounds like they are revising the inquisitor into a more specific concept. As a fan of the black guard and prestige classes, I’m cool with it.

 

[SpellObjectEnthusiast]

I really like this as an implementation of the classic pf1 concepts into the new system!

Additionally re: the name change - the inquisitor name evoked a more specific concept than Vindicator does, and excluded itself from some of the more popular and iconic deities, namely shelyn or desna.

 

[Velderan]

Sounds like they are revising the inquisitor into a more specific concept. As a fan of the black guard and prestige classes, I’m cool with it.

Yeah, I don’t read this as them trying to sanitize anything. They have 2 concepts they’re trying to execute and wanted different names for both.

 

[Morrus]

Okay, hardly an original objection, but: what harm would keeping "inquisitor" have done? Does anyone seriously think that Paizo is implicitly endorsing any of the historical Inquisitions by using the name, or feel personally distressed when they see it?

They didn't say they thought people felt distressed. Those are your words, not theirs.

I can't speak for them, but I can talk about a similar situation. When in Level Up we renamed the Paladin to the Herald, a bunch of people shouted at us because apparently they decided we did it because we thought the word 'paladin' was offensive and we hated mounted knights or something like that. I never really did follow it, because it was nonsensical.

No, we didn't think the word 'paladin' was problematic or offensive or distressed anybody. We just thought it was a little limiting. A paladin is a knight of Charlemagne. Which is fine. Play a legendary mounted knight (is Lancelot a knight of Charlemagne?). Not a problem. But we also wanted the class to include Amazonians riding tigers and holy ninja-types and all sorts. So we renamed the class to a broader name without specific stories attached to it.

We did the same with the monk. Not because we hate kung-fu monks in D&D, but because we loved the idea of an unarmed combat class, and the only one being extremely kung-fu themed when we felt we could broaden it to giant red-breaded Irish brawlers and and Greek athletes seemed like an easy win.

Not everything is done because people are 'distressed'. Sometimes it's because the designers see a broader opportunity. The paladin concept is still a subset of Herald, as is the monk concept a subset of Adept. But the range is broader.

 

[comrade raoul]

They didn't say they thought people felt distressed. Those are your words, not theirs.

I can't speak for them, but I can talk about a similar situation. When in Level Up we renamed the Paladin to the Herald, a bunch of people shouted at us because apparently they decided we did it because we thought the word 'paladin' was offensive and we hated mounted knights or something like that. I never really did follow it, because it was nonsensical.

No, we didn't think the word 'paladin' was problematic or offensive or distressed anybody. We just thought it was a little limiting. A paladin is a knight of Charlemagne. Which is fine. Play a legendary mounted knight (is Lancelot a knight of Charlemagne?). Not a problem. But we also wanted the class to include Amazonians riding tigers and holy ninja-types and all sorts. So we renamed the class to a broader name without specific stories attached to it.

We did the same with the monk. Not because we hate kung-fu monks in D&D, but because we loved the idea of an unarmed combat class, and the only one being extremely kung-fu themed when we felt we could broaden it to giant red-breaded Irish brawlers and and Greek athletes seemed like an easy win.

Not everything is done because people are 'distressed'. Sometimes it's because the designers see a broader opportunity. The paladin concept is still a subset of Herald, as is the monk concept a subset of Adept. But the range is broader.

Thanks for the interesting & thoughtful reply. fwiw, I interpreted Paizo's motivation as I did because it was described as an aim to "move away from the real-world negative historical connotations of the inquisitor," rather than just to capture a wider range of concepts. But that might've been uncharitable of me!

(Maybe amusingly, I don't think that anyone in the Song of Roland--or for that matter, anyone in the Matter of Britain other than Galahad and Percival--would meet the traditional D&D definition of a paladin!)