Pathfinder 2E Pathfinder To Get New Core Rulebooks Soon

It's not just D&D that's getting a 'revised' set of core books--Pathfinder is also getting 'remastered' books! The core rulebooks are being replaced by a new set of books, with new names, but like D&D it is being reiterated that this is not a new edition--"With the exception of a few minor variations in terminology and a slightly different mix of monsters, spells, and magic items, the rules remain largely unchanged."

The existing Pathfinder Core Rulebook, Gamemastery Guide, Bestiary, and Advanced Player’s Guide are being replaced with Pathfinder Player Core, Pathfinder GM Core, Pathfinder Monster Core, and Pathfinder Player Core 2.

These books appear to focus on re-organization and consolidation of existing material rather than substantive changes. They also represent Paizo's move away from the Open Gaming License and towards the new Open RPG Creative (ORC) license. Paizo says "This transition will result in a few minor modifications to the Pathfinder Second Edition system, notably the removal of alignment and a small number of nostalgic creatures, spells, and magic items exclusive to the OGL. These elements remain a part of the corpus of Pathfinder Second Edition rules for those who still want them, and are fully compatible with the new remastered rules, but will not appear in future Pathfinder releases."

Pathfinder 2E - Paizo Reveals Wayne Reynolds' Pathfinder Remastered Cover Sketches

While the final colour pieces won't arrive for a few weeks, Paizo's Erik Mona revealed the cover sketches of the upcoming Pathfinder Remastered core rulebooks while at the GAMA industry trade show yesterday. In an unsual move, you will actually be able to buy special 'sketch' editions of the...

www.enworld.org

 

[Rushbolt]

People really need to look at Paizo a little more critically for doing this.

 

[Retreater]

I hope you're right. They will really impress the RPG community if they create a remaster of the entire game in 9 months including printing time

I think the classes that are getting revised have been on the radar for some time. Likely the designers have been playing around with changing them for a couple years already. Designers don't stop thinking about games even after a book is printed.

Especially since players may need to spend over $100 to get all the classes in hardback. Pathfinder players have been soaked enough by this short-sighted company.

There will be cheaper pocket editions and Archives of Nethys (or just use Pathbuilder or the Foundry sheet for character creation). I think of my players, few of them have purchased hardcover books.
But yes, I understand what you're saying. But also I understand that WotC's drastic reversal on the OGL didn't give many companies the benefit of sticking to long-term plans.
Ultimately, it's about choice. We can choose to stop supporting a game or company for any reason. I've hit my limit with WotC, but Paizo has a little more for me.

 

[SteveC]

I hope you're right. They will really impress the RPG community if they create a remaster of the entire game in 9 months including printing time. I hope they thoroughly tested the dozens of changes they are making that will affect thousands of player option combinations. I don't want to see them asking their players that prefer up-to-date rulebooks for more money in a few more years because they have to write a mountain of errata to fix the books coming later this year. Especially since players may need to spend over $100 to get all the classes in hardback. Pathfinder players have been soaked enough by this short-sighted company.

Just a comment on this: I was listening to Steven from Roll for Combat, and he said it is still a six month timeline to get physical books into the distribution change. That is similar to what I've seen in a non rpg book experience I had. So we're really talking three months.

Hope they are able to make that happen.

 

[Rushbolt]

I think the classes that are getting revised have been on the radar for some time. Likely the designers have been playing around with changing them for a couple years already. Designers don't stop thinking about games even after a book is printed.


There will be cheaper pocket editions and Archives of Nethys (or just use Pathbuilder or the Foundry sheet for character creation). I think of my players, few of them have purchased hardcover books.
But yes, I understand what you're saying. But also I understand that WotC's drastic reversal on the OGL didn't give many companies the benefit of sticking to long-term plans.
Ultimately, it's about choice. We can choose to stop supporting a game or company for any reason. I've hit my limit with WotC, but Paizo has a little more for me.

Once again let me reiterate-I have no problem with them printing new books. I have a problem with their misleading statement on January 12 where Paizo inferred they would not need to update the rules. I have a problem when, during a record sales spkie, Paizo did not give new buyers the common courtesy of informing them that a revised set of books are coming soon so the consumers could make an informed decision whether to buy their books now or wait for the revision. Paizo withholding that information was a very profitable decision for those first quarter numbers. Paizo risking the alienation of a huge influx of new players into a game that needs those players to replace people that move on to other systems may end up causing irrepairable damage to the profits in the quarters down the road. This is an especially dangerous strategy considering Tales of the Valiant, D&D 5e '24, and Daggerheart are also on the way.

 

[Justice and Rule]

Once again let me reiterate-I have no problem with them printing new books. I have a problem with their misleading statement on January 12 where Paizo inferred they would not need to update the rules. I have a problem when, during a record sales spkie, Paizo did not give new buyers the common courtesy of informing them that a revised set of books are coming soon so the consumers could make an informed decision whether to buy their books now or wait for the revision. Paizo withholding that information was a very profitable decision for those first quarter numbers. Paizo risking the alienation of a huge influx of new players into a game that needs those players to replace people that move on to other systems may end up causing irrepairable damage to the profits in the quarters down the road. This is an especially dangerous strategy considering Tales of the Valiant, D&D 5e '24, and Daggerheart are also on the way.

I think you have a very rosy idea of how long it takes to make such decisions. Like, you point to a statement that was very early in this whole thing, made before Wizards even took responsibility for the original revised OGL. They may not even have thought they were going revise the books in this manner at that time, let alone this quickly. It's easy to forget that this happened in a matter of weeks, and that Paizo is doing this and shooting for this year alone is kind of a monumental task.

 

[Rushbolt]

I think you have a very rosy idea of how long it takes to make such decisions. Like, you point to a statement that was very early in this whole thing, made before Wizards even took responsibility for the original revised OGL. They may not even have thought they were going revise the books in this manner at that time, let alone this quickly. It's easy to forget that this happened in a matter of weeks, and that Paizo is doing this and shooting for this year alone is kind of a monumental task.

Erik Mona stated on a Roll for Combat stream on April 26 that Paizo announced Pathfinder Remastered work began a few months ago. The accepted time frame for the phrase "a few months" is 3-5 months. With that wording they may have actually been working on it during December or November of last year when Wizards announced there would be changes to the OGL but had not produced the OGL 1.1 yet. Knowing how long it takes to get books to press makes me feel like that is more the case.

I believe Paizo is being intentionally vague on their dates for a reason. How about they show some transparency and actually state the exact date PF 2e Remastered was given the green light? They should even post the exact email that gave it the green light since this was such a momentous occasion for the RPG industry. Make it historic. Then all the people who bought their PF 2e books after the date of that email without knowing new rulebooks are coming can be furious just like they should be. Let's do it right and alienate those people properly.

 

[Justice and Rule]

Erik Mona stated on a Roll for Combat stream on April 26 that Paizo announced Pathfinder Remastered work began a few months ago. The accepted time frame for the phrase "a few months" is 3-5 months. With that wording they may have actually been working on it during December or November of last year when Wizards announced there would be changes to the OGL but had not produced the OGL 1.1 yet. Knowing how long it takes to get books to press makes me feel like that is more the case.

I don't know where you get 3-5, because it can definitely mean as low as 2. And working on something doesn't necessarily mean that it's coming out "soon", it may have been a backburner project that was meant to come out in the future but they pushed it up after the whole OGL incident.

I believe Paizo is being intentionally vague on their dates for a reason. How about they show some transparency and actually state the exact date PF 2e Remastered was given the green light? They should even post the exact email that gave it the green light since this was such a momentous occasion for the RPG industry. Make it historic. Then all the people who bought their PF 2e books after the date of that email without knowing new rulebooks are coming can be furious just like they should be. Let's do it right and alienate those people properly.

This feels exceedingly conspiratorial and unnecessary. It seems pretty obvious that they are taking out a bunch of OGL stuff and using this moment to try and take care of everything at once (inserting errata, doing a balance patch on a few classes, removing OGL components for future-proofing) in as expedient manner as possible.

 

[Retreater]

Erik Mona stated on a Roll for Combat stream on April 26 that Paizo announced Pathfinder Remastered work began a few months ago. The accepted time frame for the phrase "a few months" is 3-5 months. With that wording they may have actually been working on it during December or November of last year when Wizards announced there would be changes to the OGL but had not produced the OGL 1.1 yet. Knowing how long it takes to get books to press makes me feel like that is more the case.

I believe Paizo is being intentionally vague on their dates for a reason. How about they show some transparency and actually state the exact date PF 2e Remastered was given the green light? They should even post the exact email that gave it the green light since this was such a momentous occasion for the RPG industry. Make it historic. Then all the people who bought their PF 2e books after the date of that email without knowing new rulebooks are coming can be furious just like they should be. Let's do it right and alienate those people properly.

Mona also said during that same interview a couple of things that might make these changes better accepted by the fans...

• They'd like to put together a document of the bigger changes to help those using the older books.
• They plan to release heavily discounted PDFs through Humble Bundles in the future.

But if people are just wanting reasons to rage against a company, they shouldn't require any help.

 

[The-Magic-Sword]

Once again let me reiterate-I have no problem with them printing new books. I have a problem with their misleading statement on January 12 where Paizo inferred they would not need to update the rules. I have a problem when, during a record sales spkie, Paizo did not give new buyers the common courtesy of informing them that a revised set of books are coming soon so the consumers could make an informed decision whether to buy their books now or wait for the revision. Paizo withholding that information was a very profitable decision for those first quarter numbers. Paizo risking the alienation of a huge influx of new players into a game that needs those players to replace people that move on to other systems may end up causing irrepairable damage to the profits in the quarters down the road. This is an especially dangerous strategy considering Tales of the Valiant, D&D 5e '24, and Daggerheart are also on the way.

Ok, I understand where you're getting a bit lost:

They aren't doing this to "avoid the copyrighted game expression of any mechanics" which that statement concerned the system itself, it's the product identity that's the problem-- Pathfinder 2e does not use any copy-written mechanics of any edition of DND, literally it does not use the text of any game system that Wizards has ever put out (in contrast to first edition, or say Old School Essentials or something) their Chromatic Dragons have their own rules, the problem is that they're called Chromatic Dragons in the book at all and that means they have to scrub the product of that identity. Magic Missile has to become Force Missile because calling it Magic Missile is the problem, not because it was designed in a way that required the OGL. But because they realized they need new base products to sell on an ongoing basis and reference back to, those products need to be scrubbed of identity even if they had no rules changes, but they realized that if they had to go that far, it makes more sense to update the core of the system, from a design standpoint, of the things they've learned about it from the first four years and provide the product as an entry point of for new players and a "that time they 'fixed' alignment, the Witch, and added my new favorite the Diabolic Dragon, to the game." They've brought up that it was the sales during those early days of OGL tomfoolery that led to them having the resources to flip everything around and do this, which means that their plans to do so were being formed simultaneously to the big spike in sales.

 

[Rushbolt]

Mona also said during that same interview a couple of things that might make these changes better accepted by the fans...

• They'd like to put together a document of the bigger changes to help those using the older books.
• They plan to release heavily discounted PDFs through Humble Bundles in the future.

But if people are just wanting reasons to rage against a company, they shouldn't require any help.

They should rage when any underhanded techniques used by any company.