Pathfinder Second Edition Remaster Project!

So... getting a few more layers of bulletproofing in on that stuff? Yeah, that seems like a real good idea.

WOTC was very clever in going to CC-BY because the community fell for their ploy of look they reversed their decisions we won - but it left Paizo and everyone else making alternate systems in the same place. You cannot actually use CC-BY as a reprint replacement for OGL - lacking share alike and PI/OGC distinctions - something WOTC knew is lost on those not rules lawyers but those companies have decent enough lawyers to know they still needed to move on. So Paizo divorcing that last 1% of creature and spells and terms that could be claimed as copyright curated lists of common things - is a wise move!

Does the remaster mean the spring errata round will be delayed or skipped?

Yes. Finally a question that I would like answered.

That's why call it as some kind of PF 2.5 is probably the most correct unofficial view. .

And, officially, they aren't going to change anything: the covers of the books will still just say "Second Edition".

Staff specifically said that covers won't have "remastered" on them. There won't be any differentiation between the before/after publications.

The changes are so small that they aren't calling it something new, just like they don't call it something knew every time they reprint the CRB with rules tweaks and changes.

Metal bull gorgon is in heroes of might and magic as well, but then again so is Coeurl and mind flayer in Final fantasy :'D Some things got past D&D owners suing them

IIRC Coeurl is IP of the Estate of A.E. Van Vogt

Sanityfaerie wrote:

So... getting a few more layers of bulletproofing in on that stuff? Yeah, that seems like a real good idea.

WOTC was very clever in going to CC-BY because the community fell for their ploy of look they reversed their decisions we won - but it left Paizo and everyone else making alternate systems in the same place. You cannot actually use CC-BY as a reprint replacement for OGL - lacking share alike and PI/OGC distinctions - something WOTC knew is lost on those not rules lawyers but those companies have decent enough lawyers to know they still needed to move on. So Paizo divorcing that last 1% of creature and spells and terms that could be claimed as copyright curated lists of common things - is a wise move!

I'm still confused by this. Agreed, CC-BY is not a good replacement for the OGL, but it's also not share-alike: you can use material released under a CC-BY license in your product provided you attribute it, and then release your product under your own (or no) license. And the 5.1 SRD was released under CC-BY and contains pretty much all the D&D-specific bits of Pathfinder 2E.

Why can't Paizo (e.g.) rerelease the CRB under the ORC license, while acknowledging use of D&D-ish bits of its content (alignment, chromatic dragons, gorgons...) from the SRD 5.1 under its CC-BY license? That seems both logistically simpler and legally safer. What am I missing?

I am about 80% sure that the metal-bull gorgon came from Topsell (a 17th century clergyman who wrote bestiaries).

His gorgon was described as "scaly bull with wings and hands, and a toxic breath", so not an exact match to be sure. It's kind of a mash-up of Greek gorgons, catoblepas and bronze bulls. The inspiration for the d&d variant are most likely LIFE magazines 1951 article titled “Mythical monsters: These Beasts Existed Only in Man’s Imagination.” that has it illustrated much closer to the current d&d one, losing the hands and wings and sporting metalic looking scales and having a breath that causes loss of voice and sense, and causing lethal and deadly convulsions.

That seems both logistically simpler and legally safer. What am I missing?

I can see that you're not a lawyer.

Interpreting (and litigating) a single legal contract is always easier than interpreting (and litigating) multiple legal contracts that were written independently.

The possibilityes of conflicting intersectional clauses and phrases is a nightmare that Paizo neatly sidesteps by publishing their material under a single contract/license.

DavidW wrote:

That seems both logistically simpler and legally safer. What am I missing?

I can see that you're not a lawyer.

[\QUOTE]
No, but I talk to lawyers enough to have a sense of the parameters.

Quote:

The possibilit[i]es of conflicting intersectional clauses and phrases is a nightmare that Paizo neatly sidesteps by publishing their material under a single contract/license.

Sure, in principle, but against that they have the legal terra incognita of publishing a game that - however much gets stripped out or tweaked - is still clearly, recognizably, derived from D&D, without the cover of a license. As I understand it there is still virtually no case law as to how courts will rule on that issue. I assume they know what they're doing but I'm still really surprised that they think this is the legally less risky move, especially given the amount of OGL material they have to do without.

however much gets stripped out or tweaked - is still clearly, recognizably, derived from D&D, without the cover of a license. As I understand it there is still virtually no case law as to how courts will rule on that issue.

Being 'inspired by' or 'having your roots in' a different product is not legally the same as being a derivative work.

And avoiding that risk of going to court with virtually no case law to base expectations on - by itself has value.

WOTC was very clever in going to CC-BY because the community fell for their ploy of look they reversed their decisions we won - but it left Paizo and everyone else making alternate systems in the same place. You cannot actually use CC-BY as a reprint replacement for OGL - lacking share alike and PI/OGC distinctions - something WOTC knew is lost on those not rules lawyers but those companies have decent enough lawyers to know they still needed to move on. So Paizo divorcing that last 1% of creature and spells and terms that could be claimed as copyright curated lists of common things - is a wise move!

Have they officially, formally, legally released it under CC-BY, or have they just said that they were going to?

I assume they know what they're doing but I'm still really surprised that they think this is the legally less risky move, especially given the amount of OGL material they have to do without.

The ORC is being written by the same lawyer/firm that wrote the first OGL, now with benefit of hindsight on how the OGL has been weaponized by Hasbro.

Paizo has been working with IP lawyers since the day they were founded. And Paizo staff were deeply involved in crafting the OGL. IT's pretty clear that they are getting the best possible legal advice now.

Why do you think your plan is 'less risky' than the one they and their lawyers have devised? What deep IP law knowledge do you have that makes you a better advisor than the law firm that has been advising them all these years?

Have they officially, formally, legally released it under CC-BY, or have they just said that they were going to?

Yes, the 5.1 SRD has been released under CC-BY-4.0, which is all that's required for it to be under that license.

I, for one, am stoked about this whole thing.
Paizo has proved themselves to be a very cagey opponent (for lack of a better word) in this whole thing.
So what, they change magic missile to magic dart. It still plays the same. It's the same game it was, with some tweaks and improvements. And, more importantly, completely divorced from the OGL. Yes, the OGL had its purpose for a while. But they don't need it anymore.
And, for the people who still like alignment, or a creature they had in the old bestiary, that stuff is still 100% valid. So no one loses here.
This is what happens when you have a company run by & for gamers, rather than by businessmen.

DavidW wrote:

however much gets stripped out or tweaked - is still clearly, recognizably, derived from D&D, without the cover of a license. As I understand it there is still virtually no case law as to how courts will rule on that issue.

Being 'inspired by' or 'having your roots in' a different product is not legally the same as being a derivative work.

And avoiding that risk of going to court with virtually no case law to base expectations on - by itself has value.

Monitary value especially. Any legal battles Paizo can sidestep now are ones they don't have to pay to fight down the line. Even if they won it may not matter in the long run if WotC could bleed them in court for long enough, which very much feels like a tactic they'd use.

DavidW wrote:

I assume they know what they're doing but I'm still really surprised that they think this is the legally less risky move, especially given the amount of OGL material they have to do without.

The ORC is being written by the same lawyer/firm that wrote the first OGL, now with benefit of hindsight on how the OGL has been weaponized by Hasbro.

Paizo has been working with IP lawyers since the day they were founded. And Paizo staff were deeply involved in crafting the OGL. IT's pretty clear that they are getting the best possible legal advice now.

Why do you think your plan is 'less risky' than the one they and their lawyers have devised? What deep IP law knowledge do you have that makes you a better advisor than the law firm that has been advising them all these years?

Your quote from me already answers your question. "I assume they know what they are doing", given they do have well-informed lawyers, so I assume this is the legally less risky move, but I'm "really surprised" that it is, and would like to understand why. So far I haven't really seen a good explanation.

What I don't understand is why you think removing material that they're only allowed to use because they've licensed it under the OGL is at all risky.

Paizo designers have said that they considered removing everything covered by the OGL at the time they published PF2. So, around 5 years ago this already seemed like a good idea.

Then Hasbro threatened the livelihood of every company and creator who was using the OGL.

A Creative Commons license is still a license, controlled by the person who owns the IP. You can still sue for copyright infringement if you have licensed your IP via CC (of any flavor) if you believe the user has not followed the rules of that particular license.

In other words, by using Hasbro IP under ANY license Paizo is still at the mercy of irrational Hasbro lawyers.

Going completely "no contact" with Hasbro and Hasbro intellectual property seems to me to be a very rational response to the OGL debacle.

Oh... here's a funny question.

What kind of monster numbers are we looking at between the two books for added/removed/kept?

If the fraction of "kept" is very high, then there's little to no need to replace that book. The stat block modifications are not going to be something you really need.

If the fraction of "kept" is relatively low, then that's reason why having both books is kind of cool - because you get to have both the monsters that were removed and the ones that were added.

One way or the other, it might make things a bit gentler on those who are feeling frustrated by the changeover for monetary reasons.

If the fraction of "kept" is very high, then there's little to no need to replace that book.

Other than the legal reasons. If the 'removed' creatures are still included in the currently published, printed, and distributed book - has it really been 'removed'?

What I don't understand is why you think removing material that they're only allowed to use because they've licensed it under the OGL is at all risky.

Because it is very untested in law exactly which material is copyrighted material that Paizo is only allowed to use under the OGL and which material they can use on the grounds that game mechanics aren't copyrightable. (According to Ryan Dancey et al, one of the main goals of the OGL was to remove exactly these ambiguities and gray areas.)

Paizo could be sued by WotC for failing to follow the terms of the CC-BY license on SRD 5.1. But they could also be sued for WotC for breaching their copyright by using various aspects of D&D with no license at all. (And in either case, the fact that WotC has much deeper pockets makes any lawsuit risky for Paizo even if the law is probably on their side.)

Since Paizo, as you say, works with experienced intellectual-property lawyers, I assume that they have weighed the risks and decided their current plan is less risky. I've no reason to think they're not right - but I would be interested in an expert commentary on just why that is.

The thing about trying to set varipus physiques to stats, is that it is a rsther unrealistic way view bodies and abilities.

There are a wide range of bodies that can new viewed as strong, or particulary hardy. Swimmers, runners, professional football players, gymnasts, professional weightlifters, not only have different common body types, but within each field you can find variation. The way prople carry stuff like weight, muscle and etc are incredibely unique. This is before we even ger into fantasy( and thus is designed for all sorts of people to live vicariously througg) and fantasy ancestries(which can add to even greater variations in the game. Trying to set a look to numbers would be incredibly unhelpful and probably just lead to further misconceptions.

I am not even going to entertain the claim that racism, sexism, intolerance and bigoted are codewords for white, male, straight christian.

Sanityfaerie wrote:

If the fraction of "kept" is very high, then there's little to no need to replace that book.

Other than the legal reasons. If the 'removed' creatures are still included in the currently published, printed, and distributed book - has it really been 'removed'?

It was in the old version of the book. It's not in the new version of the book. That's a reasonable use of "removed" and it's the one I mean in this case. I'm not pretending that they've been removed from PF2 in general, though.

breithauptclan wrote:

Sanityfaerie wrote:

If the fraction of "kept" is very high, then there's little to no need to replace that book.

Other than the legal reasons. If the 'removed' creatures are still included in the currently published, printed, and distributed book - has it really been 'removed'?

It was in the old version of the book. It's not in the new version of the book. That's a reasonable use of "removed" and it's the one I mean in this case. I'm not pretending that they've been removed from PF2 in general, though.

Oh, you are giving advice for customers to decide whether to buy the new Monster Core book or keep their existing Bestiary. Got it. And yeah, the percentage of new creatures makes sense as a balance point.

I was thinking you were talking about Paizo's decision to discontinue Bestiary 1 and replace it with Monster Core. For that, one creature might be enough to warrant it.

The thing about trying to set varipus physiques to stats, is that it is a rsther unrealistic way view bodies and abilities.

Like if you want to play an incredibly strong person who looks like a bodybuilder, that's fine. If you want to play an incredibly strong person who is also sporting a "power gut" that's also great. IF you want to play an incredibly strong person who got a little doughy in retirement but is still very powerful that's also good.

There's no reason these three characters can't have the exact same stats.

Cleaned up some posts and quotes. PLEASE keep the conversation on-topic to the Remaster project. If you are going to disagree, do it respectfully. We are all here to play the game we enjoy.

Since Paizo, as you say, works with experienced intellectual-property lawyers, I assume that they have weighed the risks and decided their current plan is less risky. I've no reason to think they're not right - but I would be interested in an expert commentary on just why that is.

In addition to the legal ramifications of how Hasbro protects D&D IP (either through OGL or through CC-By) there are two other legal "areas of interest". I'm going to spoiler them so only the really nerdy folks have to read them.

Admittedly based on a quick read through, as I've been working a lot lately, but I really like what I'm seeing so far. If removing alignment and adjusting Champion means that Gorum finally gets Champions, then I'm all in. I do hope that it gets replaced with something, rather that's personality traits, allegiances, or anything else that a Role-playing tag. Also cleaning up dragons so they're divided by magical tradition rather than alignment, unless they're linnorms, sovereign dragons, planar dragons, or cataclysm dragons, just seems cleaner and more intuitive

I think they should rename "magic missile" to "force missile", personally. "Dart" feels sort of overused in spell names to me.

Anyways, all these changes sound pretty solid. The ones I don't love are also the ones tackling the toughest hurdles. The ability scores thing feels messy, but there's no clean way to get rid of that old shibboleth. Splitting stuff into two books has problems, but so did having one gigantic book. My big hot take is that PF2 just isn't really meant for pen-and-paper, so physical books are never gonna be a great introduction, but being able to give new players a somewhat smaller book is a good start.

Leshies being a core ancestry makes me happy. So do wizards getting all simple weapons and rogues getting all martial weapons. I personally like alignment and will keep using it for my PCs, but I think everyone getting Anathemas/Edicts is just a lot more fun and provokes better questions in new players than "where are you on this reductive chart"?

I thought I liked "chromatic dragons bad, metallic dragons good", but honestly? I think I prefer all NPC dragons being more likely to be bad than good, and all PC dragons being whatever alignment the player likes. This change will make both circumstances much easier to ensure, so I'm in favor of it!

I think they should rename "magic missile" to "force missile", personally. "Dart" feels sort of overused in spell names to me.

Anyways, all these changes sound pretty solid. The ones I don't love are also the ones tackling the toughest hurdles. The ability scores thing feels messy, but there's no clean way to get rid of that old shibboleth. Splitting stuff into two books has problems, but so did having one gigantic book. My big hot take is that PF2 just isn't really meant for pen-and-paper, so physical books are never gonna be a great introduction, but being able to give new players a somewhat smaller book is a good start.

Leshies being a core ancestry makes me happy. So do wizards getting all simple weapons and rogues getting all martial weapons. I personally like alignment and will keep using it for my PCs, but I think everyone getting Anathemas/Edicts is just a lot more fun and provokes better questions in new players than "where are you on this reductive chart"?

I thought I liked "chromatic dragons bad, metallic dragons good", but honestly? I think I prefer all NPC dragons being more likely to be bad than good, and all PC dragons being whatever alignment the player likes. This change will make both circumstances much easier to ensure, so I'm in favor of it!

PC dragons aren’t official, that’s battlezoo

And imo having equal amounts good and evil dragons is necessary.

Big giant friendly dragon who wants to hug the party like a brass boi is just as important as villainous red dragon who needs to be slain

Sure, PC dragons aren't official, but I'm in a game that uses Battlezoo. Lots of people are. Battlezoo makes good products.

My point is that removing the idea of "these dragons are all objectively Good, and these dragons are all objectively Evil" allows both for making dragons more hostile, alien, and hard to reason with (for NPCs) and for making dragons more ambiguous and varied (for PCs). By removing objective morality from dragonkind, you give GMs leeway to interpret a gold dragon as evil or a blue dragon as good, or to leave it up for the players to decide! The players can decide whether the gold dragon is right to run a eugenics island without alignment muddling it with some objective "true answer".

I do like alignment, and I think alignment allowed for a lot of nuance and complexity, but it wasn't intuitive for a lot of people that "just because someone's Evil doesn't mean they're in the wrong on everything". This new system of Edicts and Anathemas just feels better.

If a green dragon's anathema is "I will not let those under my domain be harmed", but its Edict is "I will not allow any in my domain to disrespect me", what does that say about the green dragon? It's up to the players now, and to the GM who chooses to frame that green dragon a certain way.

I think what I like is that unless I am something like a cleric or a champion, edicts and anathemas won't be mandatory.

The thing about trying to set varipus physiques to stats, is that it is a rsther unrealistic way view bodies and abilities.

If they wanted to really throw some more sacred hamburgers on the grill, they could do away with ability scores entirely. It works fine in the Troubleshooters, where Strength, Agility, Endurance, and Willpower are skills just like Security, Red Tape, Melee, or Vehicles. Completely gets rid of all the "cheats" both Pathfinder and D&D needs to deal with classes that are supposed to both fight and do other stuff (e.g. Finesse weapons, Devise a Stratagem). You want to fight well? Get a good Melee skill. Want to bench-press a motorcycle? Get a good Strength skill. The two are not connected.

Slamy Mcbiteo wrote:

When does all of the other published content lines move to the new rule set? Society? APs? Cards? All that stuff will need to get updated. Is Rage of Elements the last core book? Is Stolen Fate the last AP?

... Whoa there, you seem to be massively overestimating the impact of these changes.

We already know the AP after Stolen Fate, so no, I can promise it's not the last AP. None of the existing content needs to be updated to move to the new rule set; people can deal with old books saying "spell level" instead of "spell rank" or listing alignments. Nothing about the Thaumaturge needs to change to accommodate these changes.

Right but a some point all the new published material will start using the new changes...alignment will stop being added to printed material. Adventures and APs will stop using the old monster stats and start using the core stats. Society play will convert to the new rule set. Just wondering when that will be

pixierose wrote:

The thing about trying to set varipus physiques to stats, is that it is a rsther unrealistic way view bodies and abilities.

If they wanted to really throw some more sacred hamburgers on the grill, they could do away with ability scores entirely. It works fine in the Troubleshooters, where Strength, Agility, Endurance, and Willpower are skills just like Security, Red Tape, Melee, or Vehicles. Completely gets rid of all the "cheats" both Pathfinder and D&D needs to deal with classes that are supposed to both fight and do other stuff (e.g. Finesse weapons, Devise a Stratagem). You want to fight well? Get a good Melee skill. Want to bench-press a motorcycle? Get a good Strength skill. The two are not connected.

That’s just moving the stat input and investment rather than removing it though.

Right but a some point all the new published material will start using the new changes...

Just wondering when that will be

Yes. And that will be happening sooner rather than later. The release of Rage of Elements will be under the Remastered Core rules - even though none of the Remastered Core rulebooks will be printed yet.

alignment will stop being added to printed material.

Yes. Starting with Monster Core. Those creatures won't have the traditional alignment tags. They will have whatever replacement guidance is being developed.

Adventures and APs will stop using the old monster stats and start using the core stats.

The stats are the same.

But yes, new APs will be referencing monsters in Monster Core or Bestiary 2/3 instead of Bestiary 1.

Society play will convert to the new rule set.

The only difference there would be the errata'd classes of Champion, Witch, Oracle, and whatever the fourth one is... Alchemist?

And the changes to Society play haven't been determined yet. It may be that you could use the older versions of the classes if you really felt like it.

But yes, new APs will be referencing monsters in Monster Core or Bestiary 2/3 instead of Bestiary 1.

OMG, no more people complaining that Bestiary 6 doesn't exist.

QuidEst wrote:

Slamy Mcbiteo wrote:

When does all of the other published content lines move to the new rule set? Society? APs? Cards? All that stuff will need to get updated. Is Rage of Elements the last core book? Is Stolen Fate the last AP?

... Whoa there, you seem to be massively overestimating the impact of these changes.

We already know the AP after Stolen Fate, so no, I can promise it's not the last AP. None of the existing content needs to be updated to move to the new rule set; people can deal with old books saying "spell level" instead of "spell rank" or listing alignments. Nothing about the Thaumaturge needs to change to accommodate these changes.

Right but a some point all the new published material will start using the new changes...alignment will stop being added to printed material. Adventures and APs will stop using the old monster stats and start using the core stats. Society play will convert to the new rule set. Just wondering when that will be

On thinking about this for a minute more, it still feels like you are posting under the assumption that this is an edition change with a breaking change to the rules - that PF2 Remastered is somehow drastically different and incompatible with the current PF2 rules.

It isn't. It is the same PF2 we have been playing for years. With an errata pass, a shuffling around of which book to find the rules in, and the removal of the last vestiges of OGL content such as alignment and a bunch of monster creatures.

. Society play will convert to the new rule set. Just wondering when that will be

Society play 'converts to the new ruleset' every time errata are issued. This is no different.

When CRP (4th printing) removed Ancestry flaws from how you build characters, PFS adjusted at exactly the same time. When Player Core and GM Core remove alignment, PFS will adjust at exactly the same time.

But.... you will still be able to build and play characters with alignments, just like you can still build and play characters with Ancestry flaws.

They aren't even changing the signage on the covers: It will still say "Pathfinder Second Edition" in the top right corner. This isn't "a new rule set", any more than CRB (3rd printing) or CRB (4th printing) was a new ruleset.

Yes, there were some noticeable changes in some of the rules. But just like you could use CRB (3rd printing) after CRB (4th printing) was released, you'll still be able to use CRB (3rd printing) after Player Core is released.

Yeah, the biggest actual change I've seen--as in, requiring you to modify something in your game directly to be compatible--is the proficiencies of rogues and wizards. That's not a nothing change, but it sure isn't a new edition.

Have they officially, formally, legally released it under CC-BY, or have they just said that they were going to?

They did it the day they said they was doing it in Jan. It was very much intended to be a boom we was just kidding before, please resub to D&D Beyond ploy that based on the creator summit months later did not really work. All the major D&D creators are off making their new system or supporting other systems, and the few that remain are hoping they do not get canceled for supporting WOTC.

WOTC did this so fast they literally just copy pasted the OGL version subtracting the OGL page not realizing that meant vampires names strahd are now CC. It if the very reason they promised SRD for 3.5 to also be CC but realized they opened a can of worms they should not have in promising that, (because of this very lack of PI/OGC split) because now they have to very carefully scrub the 3.5SRD and issue a 3.6 version for CC. I think it will remain in they are too busy with D&D2024 to get to it bucket, and be then everyone moves on to ORC and something else and there will be no demand for it.

But that is the very reason even if the lawyers liked the idea of dealing with the legal nightmare of crossing contract license frameworks and having ORC site CC somehow - there is not a 3.5SRD to base the work on - and that is what PF1/PF2/SF requires. Which is why Paizo decided with their lawyers the best thing to do is go all ORC and remaster anything they might think would be in court if OGL was pulled yet again.

even if the lawyers liked the idea of dealing with the legal nightmare of crossing contract license frameworks and having ORC site CC somehow

even if the lawyers liked the idea of dealing with the legal nightmare of crossing contract license frameworks and having ORC cite CC somehow

Don't usally fix things, but this one actually made a difference in meaning.

Sure, PC dragons aren't official, but I'm in a game that uses Battlezoo. Lots of people are. Battlezoo makes good products.

My point is that removing the idea of "these dragons are all objectively Good, and these dragons are all objectively Evil" allows both for making dragons more hostile, alien, and hard to reason with (for NPCs) and for making dragons more ambiguous and varied (for PCs). By removing objective morality from dragonkind, you give GMs leeway to interpret a gold dragon as evil or a blue dragon as good, or to leave it up for the players to decide! The players can decide whether the gold dragon is right to run a eugenics island without alignment muddling it with some objective "true answer".

I do like alignment, and I think alignment allowed for a lot of nuance and complexity, but it wasn't intuitive for a lot of people that "just because someone's Evil doesn't mean they're in the wrong on everything". This new system of Edicts and Anathemas just feels better.

If a green dragon's anathema is "I will not let those under my domain be harmed", but its Edict is "I will not allow any in my domain to disrespect me", what does that say about the green dragon? It's up to the players now, and to the GM who chooses to frame that green dragon a certain way.

I can maybe agree with not having dragon type not define good or evil

But you said you wanted ALL npc dragons to be evil, and I didn’t agree with that. Id argue that’s worse than making chromatic evil and metallics good because then we would still have the options for friendly dragon NPCs. Especially as someone who wants to thrown in friendly dragon NPCs, not just evil ones in my campaigns. And I also want to incorporate good dragons into my character’s backstories. An evil dragon isn’t going to adopt and orphan and then give her life to protect said orphan.

Also, lucky

I have yet to find a PbP or WM/living world that allows battlezoo: dragons, the only way I can play right now

But you said you wanted ALL npc dragons to be evil,

She did not say that, stop misquoting people.

Which is why Paizo decided with their lawyers the best thing to do is go all ORC and remaster anything they might think would be in court if OGL was pulled yet again.

Curious whether this is personal knowledge of the conversations between Paizo and their lawyers or just your best guess about why the decision was made.

Right but a some point all the new published material will start using the new changes...alignment will stop being added to printed material. Adventures and APs will stop using the old monster stats and start using the core stats. Society play will convert to the new rule set. Just wondering when that will be

Ah, I misunderstood; thank you for clarifying! I thought you meant that all the old contents in all the lines would have to be republished. Now that I reread what you wrote, I can see the intention more clearly.

Rage of Elements is the first core line rulebook to use the remastered rules (coming out a little before them with a guide to help with that gap), and we don't know when APs will start printing creature entries under the new format.

I think future adventures and APs can still reference bestiary-version monsters when they need to, for things that can't be reprinted under ORC but are still available under OGL.

Thanks, Rysky!

But you said you wanted ALL npc dragons to be evil, and I didn’t agree with that.

Oh, to be clear, I was talking about my own games, and I certainly didn't use the word "evil". Personally, I like dragons being vast, monstrous beings, ancient primal forces to be reckoned with with great caution. Removing alignment makes it easier to run them that way, since instead of having to ignore the alignments completely, I can color within the lines. But yeah, that's for my own games. In general, I like that removing alignment opens up options, period.

An evil dragon isn’t going to adopt and orphan and then give her life to protect said orphan.

I always saw alignment differently, personally, but maybe that's why alignment needs to go the way of the dodo. It just sort of encourages a simplistic reading. An "evil" dragon might not, but a dragon with a morally questionable Edict/Anathema might.

I really hope monsters get "sample Edicts/Anathemas" as prompts. I would love to just browse through them.

Also, lucky

I have yet to find a PbP or WM/living world that allows battlezoo: dragons, the only way I can play right now

That's a shame! They're pretty darn balanced. But yeah, it's tricky to find a PF2 PbP at all.

Not thrilled with Alignment, and Champions, Sorcerors and several other classes dissappearing. Ill admit I am old school, and loved the champion/ holy warrior idea. Ill reserve judgement till I see what they end up with.