Pathfinder Second Edition Remaster Project!

I'd honestly prefer they would switch to "squares" so we don't have to think about "wait this giant creature is only this sized?" implications xD

Well okay, that wouldn't change ;P But for real main reason I want to that to change is that they are never going to do monte cook book thing of "include both meters and feet" and I don't understand what feets are in real life so they might as well be squares to me x'D

D&D 4e was squares and it really does help with international, especially for those in US with scientific training who think in meters at work but have to use feet at home. That confusion is why a mars probe died! I like paces, I personally use that when I want to approx a room size IRL.

Also it doubles as inclusive ;D All terms referring to feets and stuff always makes me at least feel like "Hmm the writer clearly never expected me to read this terminology that I honestly don't understand" xD

(I'm not kidding at how much of yards and feets and inches are basically like fantasy terminology to me after so many years of playing this game :'D They are terms used because intended audience understands them intuitively, but I'm clearly not part of THAT intended audience xD)

That is pretty alien to me, honestly. Like, in America, we still use "meters" a lot for stuff; they're just a little less focused on in "official" applications. I didn't know "feet" were so completely unused elsewhere, which I'm sure says a lot about me or society or something. I don't love an abstraction, but I think it'd work fine. They can just implement "squares", and tell us somewhere "a square equals 5 feet/1.5 meters", and that works fine.

It's sad that we balked at the metric conversion, as metric is inherently superior.

'Murica!

That said yeah, paizo could just do the monte cook gaming thing of including both as some of the localized pathfinder versions already do it.

Perhaps we should just await a SF2e that uses metric by default because it is more scifi coded.

And also hex grids because those are also more scifi coded.

You use overpriced words for what you’re trying to say.

A square is not a real thing, it’s purely a gameplay meta mechanic, like HP. They can call it whatever, feet, metric, squares, mahs, snickerdoodles, it’s irrelevant as long as it’s concise, coherent, and consistent.

I only have an attachment to “feet” in as much as it goes with the fantasy game, but that is so minor it may as well not even be a nitpick.

You're right about one thing, a square is not a real thing, but measurements like feet and meters are real things. We use those in the real world, most people have a good sense of what they mean, and thus using those measures rather than abstract and ill defined "squares" A) helps immersion and B) helps keep think in-world rather than board game. Thinking about combat like a board game is by far the single worst thing to ever happen to rpgs. No competition.

That is pretty alien to me, honestly. Like, in America, we still use "meters" a lot for stuff; they're just a little less focused on in "official" applications. I didn't know "feet" were so completely unused elsewhere, which I'm sure says a lot about me or society or something. I don't love an abstraction, but I think it'd work fine. They can just implement "squares", and tell us somewhere "a square equals 5 feet/1.5 meters", and that works fine.

This is a good example of how varied America is, I've lived in many states and yet I've never seen metric used except in the bolt sizes foreign cars, and on the internet. The occasional product will come in a metric size but even that's rare anywhere I've been.

I would perfer something like squares. We are terrible at being able to tell distance, so numbers are numbers(weve tried to get better but has led to many a shenengains). Plus idk i really dislike it when mechanics are used as the rules of the universe and not simply a way to engage with the game for ease and fun. When rules are treated as in universe physics or laws of reailty, we get nonsense ideas like needing a magic plague or a god to rewrite reality in between editions. We get nonsense like the commoner rail-gun. And not saying everyone who perfers a rules=laws of universe likes or does those things, but it is something I see quite often.

I honestly didn't know USA uses meters outside of scientific community, I was under impression that USA is only country in the world that uses imperial metrics nowadays(though googling tells me they might also be used in canada and britain? Either way its not used in majority of europe and I've never seen feets used anywhere outside of my trip to usa :'D)

You use overpriced words for what you’re trying to say.

A square is not a real thing, it’s purely a gameplay meta mechanic, like HP. They can call it whatever, feet, metric, squares, mahs, snickerdoodles, it’s irrelevant as long as it’s concise, coherent, and consistent.

I only have an attachment to “feet” in as much as it goes with the fantasy game, but that is so minor it may as well not even be a nitpick.

"Square" work well if using grid based maps, DarkLightHitomi kinda has a point with the "board games vs real life" point of view.

Also it doubles as inclusive ;D All terms referring to feets and stuff always makes me at least feel like "Hmm the writer clearly never expected me to read this terminology that I honestly don't understand" xD

(I'm not kidding at how much of yards and feets and inches are basically like fantasy terminology to me after so many years of playing this game :'D They are terms used because intended audience understands them intuitively, but I'm clearly not part of THAT intended audience xD)

That is pretty alien to me, honestly. Like, in America, we still use "meters" a lot for stuff; they're just a little less focused on in "official" applications. I didn't know "feet" were so completely unused elsewhere, which I'm sure says a lot about me or society or something. I don't love an abstraction, but I think it'd work fine. They can just implement "squares", and tell us somewhere "a square equals 5 feet/1.5 meters", and that works fine.

I can kind of get both, while my country officially uses metric, the convertion took long enough that many still use imperial on a regular basis.

Can confirm, Canada is an often confusing hodgepodge of measurements. Some things use metric, like distance and speed, some things use imperial, like height. Sometimes both are listed just to be safe, like grocery store produce prices per weight. Some conversions I can do in my head now (temperature and weight), but mostly it's a crapshoot.

Can confirm, Canada is an often confusing hodgepodge of measurements. Some things use metric, like distance and speed, some things use imperial, like height. Sometimes both are listed just to be safe, like grocery store produce prices per weight. Some conversions I can do in my head now (temperature and weight), but mostly it's a crapshoot.

Confusing, but we kinda like it that way most of the time, but also kinda my point about the imperial to metric convertion taking a while.

I watched the video of Jason and Logan and saw that both Sorcerer and Monk won't be in the Players Core 1 book. Will they still be playable in PFS games before the Players Core 2 book comes out in July? Or will they have to be rebuilt into one of the classes from book 1?

I watched the video of Jason and Logan and saw that both Sorcerer and Monk won't be in the Players Core 1 book. Will they still be playable in PFS games before the Players Core 2 book comes out in July? Or will they have to be rebuilt into one of the classes from book 1?

They'll still be playable. If errata came out for eight classes, you wouldn't worry about classes that weren't errata'd. Same deal here.

Why wouldn't you continue to use the existing class rules until then?

Kobold Catgirl wrote:

The average length of a cat's tail is one foot. The average height of a bantam chicken is a bit over one foot. The average height of a large fowl chicken is a bit over two feet. The average height of thirty baby chicks standing perfectly balanced upon one another's heads is ten feet. The average height of a male golden retriever is two feet. The average length of an adult bull elephant is six feet. The average height of four hummingbirds standing perfectly balanced atop one another's heads is one foot. The average number of feet of a standard PC ancestry is two feet. The average loss from accepting hospitality during a blizzard from an eccentric fan of your novels is one feet. The average number of skill feats a 4th-level rogue will have is five feats.

I hope these standard measurement comparisons make the game easier! :)

I give up. I have to admit defeat.

Not fair: Kobold Catgirl used manoeuvres not mentioned on her charlist!

Also it doubles as inclusive ;D All terms referring to feets and stuff always makes me at least feel like "Hmm the writer clearly never expected me to read this terminology that I honestly don't understand" xD

(I'm not kidding at how much of yards and feets and inches are basically like fantasy terminology to me after so many years of playing this game :'D They are terms used because intended audience understands them intuitively, but I'm clearly not part of THAT intended audience xD)

So true. Though I do mostly remember that a foot is 25 30 cm and 5ft is 1.5 m and yard is 1m after several years playing dnd and pf and even GURPS a bit (which does have conversion table btw).

I honestly didn't know USA uses meters outside of scientific community, I was under impression that USA is only country in the world that uses imperial metrics nowadays(though googling tells me they might also be used in canada and britain? Either way its not used in majority of europe and I've never seen feets used anywhere outside of my trip to usa :'D)

The metric system is the official system of measurement in every country except the United States, Myanmar, and Liberia.

But in practice people in many countries use a mixture of metric and Imperial units (or British units as they were called when I was young).

I am excited for this new errata formed into the expanded remastered reorganized books. Not quite Unchained, but not a normal reprinting of minor errata changes.

I still think getting rid of Ability Scores is a bit extreme, but it isn't game breaking.

Adopting the metric system would be dope.

Adopting the metric system would be dope.

Fully agreed - or at least include both measurements. Although u admit that for many intents and purposes I consider feet and inches as generic fantasy measurements these days…..

I can live with feet and inches, but the conversion I would most like is temperature as it is a weird non-linear conversion.

I can live with feet and inches, but the conversion I would most like is temperature as it is a weird non-linear conversion.

Generally in games, only a few key temperatures matter: for instance, there are only 10 temps you have to track/change and they are the ones that denote the different temp effect limits.

As a note on this, the book DOES list both for instance, Normal temp effects are 33º F to 94º F (1º C to 34º C) on Table 10-13: Temperature Effects.

Finally got to the current end of the thread.

Proposed changes = good on the whole.

{. . .}

The most difficult thing will be the Chromatic and Metallic dragons. Those are clearly OGL-related. But they are also present in the setting from the beginning with their associated alignments.

Most Reds in Golarion were described as CE, and ditto for all the other colors and metals.

And those cannot just change the color of their scales just because.

I really wonder how Paizo will deal with this.

Maybe calling all Reds Crimson will do the trick, but I doubt that will be Paizo's solution. We'll see.
{. . .}

I'd be up for a bunch of Dragons in Harvard sweaters . . . .

Given that some of the D&D players I met at Harvard liked to write Chaotic Neutral down as their alignment, but play as Chaotic Evil, this isn't as far out to lunch as you might think.

I can live with feet and inches, but the conversion I would most like is temperature as it is a weird non-linear conversion.

Converting `F to `C is aggravating because it includes an offset, but it isn't non-linear (the offset is constant).

As a note on this, the book DOES list both for instance, Normal temp effects are 33º F to 94º F (1º C to 34º C) on Table 10-13: Temperature Effects.

I don't know what book you have, but my Core Rulebook (4th printing PDF) doesn't list any Celsius values.

graystone wrote:

As a note on this, the book DOES list both for instance, Normal temp effects are 33º F to 94º F (1º C to 34º C) on Table 10-13: Temperature Effects.

I don't know what book you have, but my Core Rulebook (4th printing PDF) doesn't list any Celsius values.

Ah, so it's only listed that way on Nethys. I didn't doublecheck the book and just went off the site. Temperature

Adopting the metric system would be dope.

Oh gods no. They want to include both, fine. But I hate metric, like actively hate metric. It has has one good thing, just one, and that's it, nothing else in it's favor. It's cold and unnatural, no beauty, no depth. And no good sizes except the meter itself.

So if they want to include both, sure. But I'll never support getting rid of imperial without something far better than metric to replace it.

But I'll never support getting rid of imperial without something far better than metric to replace it.

For example?

I think this debate is entirely academic anyway, as the chance of any of this affecting the remaster is zero.

Speaking of temperature, the rules on extreme weather and severe weather are extremely confusing in the book. I think they're meant to be hazards, and not meant to have their own separate rules, but I had a lot of trouble understanding that when I was trying to browse through to find what kind of weather an ifrit was actually immune too. I hope that's one of the things they remaster and make easier to understand.

Can confirm, Canada is an often confusing hodgepodge of measurements. Some things use metric, like distance and speed, some things use imperial, like height. Sometimes both are listed just to be safe, like grocery store produce prices per weight. Some conversions I can do in my head now (temperature and weight), but mostly it's a crapshoot.

Its even stranger than that.

First, there is an age component. Older people are more likely to use imperial measurements.

Second, there is a context component. Go to a pub and you'll buy beer in pints (which may or may not be ACTUAL pints) while buying wine in glasses or 1/2 litres or 700 ml bottles.

Third, small things tend to be imperial and large things metric. So, I'm 6'2" tall but live about 8 kms from downtown. I cook by measuring in cups but buy milk by the litre.

And to compound things we use Imperial measurements for things like pints and NOT the US ones.

It all kinda works but is really hard to explain to furriners :-)

I can live with feet and inches, but the conversion I would most like is temperature as it is a weird non-linear conversion.

The conversions between Celsius and Fahrenheit are linear.

°F = 9/5°C + 32

So if you graph Fahrenheit as a function of Celsius, you get a line with a slope of 9/5 and a y-intercept of 32.

°C = (5/9)(°F – 32) = (5/9)(°F) – (160/9)

So if you graph Celsius as a function of Fahrenheit, you get a line with a slope of 5/9 and a y-intercept of 160/9.

What makes these different from conversions of length, weight, etc. is that the linear functions for temperature have those constant terms of 32 and 160/9 whereas the other conversion formulas that people are familiar with lack constant terms.

0 meters = 0 feet. 0 Newtons = 0 pounds. So those are simple linear conversions.

But 0 °C = 32 °F and 0 °F = 160/9 °C so they are slightly more complicated linear conversions.

Sorry for the side-track. 30 years of teaching math and physics does things to your brain. :)

I lost weight when I started measuring myself in kilograms.

I think Golarion should have its own units of measurement just like it has its own calendar. :P

As messy as the real-world measurements are, I do think they're better at conveying actual meaning to people. Maybe tactical movement should be hexes squares, and other measurements should list both metric and imperial. We already make this compromise with weight--an ancestry will tell you the average weight of a character in pounds, but a PC's weight is measured in Bulk.

This could also allow us to standardize weird elevation issues--every PC's height is measured tactically as one square for the purposes of reaching above their heads.

Mind you, I do miss 3.5's adorable little height chart with the cat and the purple worm.

Another thread about imperial versus metric? Lovely.

I don't think anyone's arguing that imperial is better, so no, not really. We're talking about whether the game should switch to an abstracted distance measurement system.

Imperial has its own nice benefits, like the extremely handy "foot" unit and the intuitive one-to-one-hundred temperature measurement scale, but it loses by a landslide due to sheer lack of universality. America is the "guy who uses Linux" of countries.

On a slightly different subject (brought on by me thinking about dragons), are we likely to see a lot of fiends change in Monster Core as well? Not generic ones, but things like the glabrezu, pit fiend, and the like.

I don't object to it, I'm mostly curious.

I don't think anyone's arguing that imperial is better

Well, in carpentry a base 12 system (a number that is easily divided into halves, thirds, fourths, and sixths) is a lot better than a base 10 system.

They can't just call it "Pathfinder Second Edition". This is an edition change from everything discussed in the live stream. It might retain backwards compatibility, but it is an edition change. It's not just errata and formatting changes.

They can call their product anything they want. After looking at it all, it doesn’t appear to be significant rules changes, just term changes. I do tend to agree with you a bit, however. Perhaps an Edition 2.1 with the changes. But I don't really care what they call it, as long as the game continues to improve over time.

No more alignment? At long freaking last!!! Huzzah and hurray!!!

Multiple devs have stated that alignment is still a thing, but it will be dealt with as it should be dealt with, not the stark binary-type system used in the past. Which is fine by me. I've always wanted an evil "paladin" or a rogue who worshipped an assassin go that could benefit from divine abilities and spells. It's pretty clear the 9-factor alignment will still be a thing, especially for lore purposes (cosmic organization). If I'm incorrect, please point this out. I do believe there is a widespread fundamental misunderstanding of how alignment works as a mechanic and I think Paizo has and will get this right, especially regarding the whole ambiguity of good/evil.

Ability Scores are out. Modifiers only.

I don't know how I feel about this. It's been long coming over the years and hinted at. I do like the fact that, as a GM, I can look at something's ability scores and immediately gain knowledge about that creature, but also know I can gain the same thing from the modifiers. Ability scores themselves are such a solid feature of RPGs it's hard to imagine them being gone. I used to love ADnD 2e's books that broke down abilities into further sub-abilities, though, so I can see a lot of potential for design space.

Within the last month, I spent over $1000 on books to switch my group over to Pathfinder. This feels like a slap in the face.

It does seem like awful timing for Paizo to be trying to capture DnD players after the fiasco, but this would have had to have been planned far in advance and I suspect that Paizo is working furiously to get this done in good time to capture those DnD players and create their ORC environment. I can fully understand that people feel bait and switched, and I hope Paizo can help ease this- especially when many people buy into the community in general, not just the physical product. I would tell those who have made the switch and purchased their PF2 books that the lore contained in the books is still 100% valid. I don't see major changes in relation to GMing or combat, but some of the class stuff will be different; I'm certain Paizo will put out a cheat sheet to reconfigure old stuff- at least that's my hope.

The difference is that instead of a 12/4 class split with the latter book having options for the previous 12, it well now be an 8/8 split with all the options for the class in it's book

Until another book comes out with additional options for the classes, haha. But this is fine with me, I don't mind this.

I heard Rogues were getting martial weapons...this should have been done at the outset.

I've played/run RPGs without alignment. I don't like them. As teenage boys playing fantasy games where there is no guideline as to how your character's morality would actually influence their actions makes it easy for a "Good" character to slaughter baby deer, just because. You, as the GM, cannot tell them it's against their character's morality, because the player will find ways to justify otherwise abhorrent actions. If Alignment becomes an "Optional" aspect, it will always be used at my table. That's my pair of coppers, do with them as you wish.

Oh come on, you shouldn't be playing with people like this. If they want to run their character as they wish, then let them do so. Now, of course, if they want divine power from a good-aligned deity who loves nature, too, then they would not qualify for that power or they would have their power be stricken from them.

Remember folks, alignment only really matters with PCs if they are utilizing that alignment for gain. If they do something counter, they lose those gains. It's quite simple.

I'm running a Pathfinder 2e game now. Everyone is just getting used to how the system works. Now Paizo goes and changes stuff. I hate change. I don't see why they need to change it.

What? This came out in 2019…

Donald wrote:

Will the chromatic and metallic dragons be nixed and redone?

Probably. They did namedrop about 5 new dragon types in the livestream when they were talking about how they are not going to be in families based on mettalic or color, but grouped more by the magical tradition themes.

I love dragons and only hope the base metallic and chromatic dragons hold their breath weapon types and, in general, their *alignments.* I do love the occasional “evil” gold dragon, though!

OK let's start speculating!

I was always a stickler for the Vancian casting system and the slotted caster v. prepared caster, but this is a difficult teach for new players and hard for some people to wrap their mind around. As a guy who loves spellcasters, I understand the key difference between this, but also wish my wizard could cast like a slotted caster. So if there were changes to this in the remaster with “ranks” I wouldn’t be opposed. Especially since casters were *nerfed ;p

To @YurriP’s point, what “remaster” changes could also be made, you think?

I’m also a bit unclear on the “nephilim” versatile ancestry/heritage change. Can anyone clarify?

It certainly appears that many player’s gripes about lack of options will be addressed with the remaster, in that options are being extended and restrictions removed. It sounds like nephilim is going this route. Hopefully those who want to be able to create any type of character with many options can finally see their ideas come to fruition and concerns addressed without house rules.

I’m also a bit unclear on the “nephilim” versatile ancestry/heritage change. Can anyone clarify?

Basically, WotC owns the terminology for tiefling and aasimar, so nephilim is being made and sort of fusing those two versatile heritages together. Their lineages will remain distinct and separate (like Shackleborn), but they'd also be saving page space since tieflings and aasimar share a lot of the same feats, so they'd be able to add new, unique feats to the heritage. And you'd also be able to play a half-and-half angel/devil combo, too.

Are we sure that Nephilim doesn't also include the other outer planar scions of ganzi and aphorites?

Are we sure that Nephilim doesn't also include the other outer planar scions of ganzi and aphorites?

They might! So far from all the comments from the devs, it's either been vague (outer planar scions) or just mentioning tieflings and aasimar together. As far as I know, ganzi and aphorites aren't OGL terms, so they might be safe?

That's probably gonna be another question I ask at PaizoCon.

I think combining ganzi/aphorites with the nephilim would make sense, but mechanically, it'd be messy--you'd wind up with a super feat-stuffed heritage, making one of the most popular heritages in the game, the tiefling, extra-stressful for new players. Plus, ganzi have their own unique base ability that I think we're all quite attached to. I'm curious to see what they'll do.

I've said it elsewhere, but my fingers are seriously crossed for Core 1 to add an "if you already have darkvision, you get x" line to the nephilim and similar VHs, as long as we're consolidating. I want tiefling goblins and aphorite kobolds!

EDIT: I also think it would be cool if they finally just scrapped the weird fey feats that every ancestry gets and put them in a Fey heritage already, but I'm sure there are good reasons they didn't do that to start with.

I don't know what to expect from nephilim. Maybe it have some sub-heritage to filter what feat it can get maybe it can use some tax feat like Lineage feats or maybe it will be an amalgam of different outsiders characteristics in same individual.

To @YurriP’s point, what “remaster” changes could also be made, you think?

Being honest. After James Jacobs said that core parts won't change (with exception of alignment and maybe something in focus/refocus that's already announced) the maximum that I can expect is that they put Flexible Spellcaster into PC1 but the most probably is that we don't have other spontaneous spellcasters than bards in PC1 at all.

I don't know what to expect from nephilim. Maybe it have some sub-heritage to filter what feat it can get maybe it can use some tax feat like Lineage feats or maybe it will be an amalgam of different outsiders characteristics in same individual.

no good scallywag wrote:

To @YurriP’s point, what “remaster” changes could also be made, you think?

Being honest. After James Jacobs said that core parts won't change (with exception of alignment and maybe something in focus/refocus that's already announced) the maximum that I can expect is that they put Flexible Spellcaster into PC1 but the most probably is that we don't have other spontaneous spellcasters than bards in PC1 at all.

That's sort of taking my words out of context. The idea is that the remastered rules will play the same as 2nd edition, in the same way each round of errata we've brought to the rules play the same as the previous edition. With changes from the errata, of course.

So some core parts ARE changing, in the same way any errata does.

The context was in answering someone who was hoping for the remaster to turn a lot of things in 2nd edition back toward 1st edition stuff, which isn't happening.

Oh sorry. I wasn't trying to turn your words out of context. So it was a misunderstand of my part.

The average loss from accepting hospitality during a blizzard from an eccentric fan of your novels is one feet.

Misery? That accurately describes this never-ending metric imperial discussion.

Metric seems to be an inevitability. Perhaps not with a Remaster. But eventually. Using squares instead of a traditional distance measurement seems like a lateral move. It adds an extra step of converting back to length if you just wanted to know that part and does not seem to add clarity. Making combat more of an abstraction might be beneficial. All this talk just reminds me of certain tabletop miniatures games switching their distance measurements to obtuse symbols. Example: stars and circles and triangles instead of actual numbers. I really want to avoid that here.

I would be willing to call the Remaster project "Pathfinder 2.5" only as long as we acknowledge that we are currently running "Pathfinder 2.4" since we are on the 4th printing right now.

°C = (5/9)(°F – 32) = (5/9)(°F) – (160/9)

So if you graph Celsius as a function of Fahrenheit, you get a line with a slope of 5/9 and a y-intercept of 160/9.

But 0 °C = 32 °F and 0 °F = 160/9 °C so they are slightly more complicated linear conversions.

Aside from reminding me that I suck at trigonometry, what?

read needlessly complicated and/or this is the "new math" I heard about.