Yeah I think it's worth considering the intent of the implements here. The implements are intended to be items held in one hand that (for the most part) block you doing things with that hand that aren't called out in your class or its feats. Though weapons are a bit weird with that given free-hand weapons are viable. Hence, things like shield boss + shield or fused tome are probably going against the intent. Now, would it be a problem if your GM let you ignore that, especially with the tome idea (which is a good idea, I like it), probably not. As Quidest said, that's a lot of investment for not much mechanical weight.
I am getting concerned the more I hear about the working conditions. I wonder if it's something we should make a bigger stink about. I'm aware it's a common problem in gaming and similar industries but I'd love the people making one of my fave things to work proper hours.
Yeah +1 to devs not ad hoc correcting things. Go read sage advice for 5e and you'll see why I think that. No disrespect for jeremy crawford but it's very apparent he was firing off rulings with zero forethought. Maybe for real problems like you mentioned but otherwise.
This is something I’ve been wondering, and I’m going to type out a long response, almost as a way of getting my thoughts in order. I’ll break it up into sections.
What level of quality degradation would be a problem?:
This is the key thing to answer for me. What would “decreased quality” look like? I moved over from 5e in 2023, so it makes sense to consider what made me choose pathfinder over 5e. One was the fact WOTC attempted to destroy the industry, which I’ll get back to later. Thinking about it, there’s three major factors. - I can trust the books to not blindside me with something comically overpowered or disruptive. In my mind this would be something like 5e’s hypnotic pattern. A spell that allows a player to completely swing a fight without any real effort. - The books provide adequate guidance, inspiration and new mechanics for GMs to play with, rather than just being more options for players - I don’t need to excessively meddle with the system to get it to do what I want, and any homebrew I do want to make is simple to integrate and balance. So, has that happened yet? Points 2 and 3 still hold true. The only exception would perhaps be the mythic rules, which if you’re playing with certain class combos, you’ll need some GM fiat to get to work. The rest of the system however remains pretty good at eliminating ambiguity (certain options notwithstanding) and will often call out when something needs GM fiat. Uncommon and Rare are still being used appropriately with the possible exception of exemplar dedication, and that puts a lot of control in my hands as a GM, and I appreciate that. Option 1 is perhaps a bit more difficult to answer. Pathfinder does still have swingy options, but it always has. The closest we get to a hypnotic pattern would be spells in the vein of slow or synthesisa, but those aren’t post-remaster. Blister bomb comes close, maybe. But otherwise, there’s nothing I’ve seen that’s player-facing that is screaming at me to disallow. Spells are certainly starting to trend stronger but given how the number 1 complaint about the system is that casters don’t get to be powerful, I’m willing to play ball a little longer and see if this causes problems down the line. After impossible magic, I think I’m going to be able to form a more solid opinion on that, as we’re going to see SOM spell reprints, and seeing how those change will be informative. How have I found the products themselves?:
I am going to count Player Core 2 as the start of the “post remaster” period, as any book published after that will have been written with the entirely of the remastered core in mind. Saying that, here are the books I’ve purchased since then. - War of Immortals - Battlecry! - Tian Xia Character Guide (+World guide but that was before PC2) - Divine Mysteries - Rival Academies The only book I have been disappointed with was WOI, mostly because I think the mythic mechanics missed the mark. The flavour is excellent but I’m not a fan of having the calling system. I would have rathered just pick the destiny at level 1, perhaps with destiny-neutral feats that relate to given skills. If we were to talk about slipping quality control, I think this is an example of something that really needed a playtest, because there’s so many small issues that needed ironing out, and because of how big they are, I don’t know if we’re going to see clean errata for it. Exemplar dedication is also a questionable decision, but I don’t allow exemplar dedication in my games, so I’ve never seen it in play. We’ve also seen playtests be used to great effect. Guardian was a fantastic 180 from its playtest state, and it does keep me optimistic for other class books, as it seems Paizo do listen to feedback enough to fix the biggest issues. Otherwise, I’ve adored every book I’ve bought, and I’m eager to get my hands on draconic codex. Whatever minor mistakes each book has, and there are some, I don’t think it’s anything out of the ordinary. Remember that arcane cascade didn’t work RAW for years. I also haven’t bought any starfinder books yet, but I have no major objections to anything that has been done over on that side. The classes are well done, and the errata was also mostly excellent and fixed some of my personal pain points with the system. Errata, Communication and other mistakes:
This, I suspect, was the impetus for making this thread. There have been some major stumbles in Errata. Spring 2025 was a major disappointment compared Winter 2024, which was generally excellent and fixed many real problems (Including some massive magus buffs, which I think people have forgotten Paizo did). Then, the lack of any Winter 2025 errata stung, especially since it seems Paizo didn’t feel there were any issues worth fixing. While I am normally on the side of “A lot of these issues are probably not that big a deal”, there are a couple of issues like Oracle Spells that are not so clear cut. The handling of imaginary weapon has also given me pause, because it doesn’t feel very intentionally done. I feel like three fixes were proposed and all three were thrown at the problem, rather than taking the cleanest option of disabling amp cantrip + spellstrike. Communication has also been annoying. Maya has done a great job since she joined the team, but even then xe can’t really tell us what we want to know sometimes. (No disrespect to Maya there, it’s the nature of the job. If Xe spoiled everything, or told us things that are in progress, it’d be a bigger problem), especially in relation to the things we really want to know, such as what’s going on with Tech Core and the Starship playtest, or whether certain pressing errata candidates are being considered. The worst offender for this was rogue saves, which really needed to be cleared up much sooner. The fact that announcements often do not go up on the website until days after Paizo lives is also frustrating. Twitch is not a good medium for scanning for specific bits of information, and as I refuse to use reddit, I’m often out of the loop for a few days. Paizo as a company:
There’s also been a couple things Paizo the institution has done. The CUP scuffle was unnecessary and while it ended okay, I’m still side-eyeing that entire situation. I’m willing to give the benefit of the doubt that it was an OGL-imposed hasty decision, but I do not owe companies my loyalty and it is something I’m going to keep an eye on. I don’t use the store at all, but the second-hand opinion I’ve gained of it is also poor. The Opt-out instead of opt-in for the subscription is bad and doing it before a book people may not want to buy is scummy. I’m also alarmed by the comments I’ve read that Paizo staff are working 11 hour days, and I think that should stop. Businesses need to make money, and I understand that, but this shouldn’t happen, and if it costs us an extra book a year, that’s fine with me. This is probably the thing in this post that would make me quit soonest, as it’s already in an unacceptable, though tragically common, state. So, am I worried? I don’t know. I am genuinely delighted with probably 90% of Paizo’s output, but the concerns remain around that 10% which gives me a lingering sense of doubt. I would be curious to hear from some of the long-time players around here, as I suspect by the standards of the forum, I am quite young, with a tiny TTRPG career. Are these concerns things that have happened before? Not to overshare on a forum, but I'm a very anxious and paranoid person, so I'm very much prone to thinking everything is about to go wrong, but this writeup seems to me to not be the most dammning indicitment. As I said, I'm conflicted.
I don't think its as unlikely as it used to be. We're definetly seeing an increased amount of post-release support for non-core classes in the past few books. Magus, Inventor, Thaumaturge and Summoner have all got stuff in the past year. That's not bad, by paizos standards anyway. (Also non-core ancestries have been thrown bones, that's really good to see). I would urge caution against hoping for new options to fix the class, we'll probably get new stuff eventually but it's not going to solve a lot of people's pain points.
They made it force damage and dropped it one damage die, and it is only one unique cantrip that never worked as a “bread and butter” combat spell (for the psychic). Its adjustment barely affects the psychic at all. If you want to be a blasty psychic you go oscillating wave. Shield is the powerhouse psi cantrip of tangible dream. I don't nessercarily agree with dropping the damage but force damage is just not resisted by 99% of creatures, which is why force options tend to have decreased damage.
I am hopeful that the returing spells will see some pretty liberal revisions. If we're honest, there's a lot of spells in secret of magic that are just... bad... But yeah I'm a little apprhensive about how much of this will be "new" stuff. If Magus and Summoner are reprinted mostly as is (and I'm going to be honest with everyone, I really think that's what's going to happen.*) it's going to sting a little. *Magus and Summoner have both had stuff added in the past year, and I don't know if that's something Paizo would do if they're planning drastic overhauls to the class within the year.
We do already have canon alternate timelines in both Starfinder and Pathfinder. A lot of the time themed spells refer to them. There might be a fun precog character in there. Someone who zooped over from pathfinder to starfinder. "no no no you don't get it, nocticula is a good person now, trust me"
If you do get players, don't be afraid to ask them what they want! It's helped me a lot when it comes to working out how complex to make a subsystem like navigating tunnels.
Also WRT to iruxi necromancer I'm super glad that's what Paizo went with. It's a good way to have a "good" necromancer, since Iruxi have strong traditions about using the bones of their ancestors for good. It's definetly going to help give players inspiration for their own "good" necromancers. I was a bit worried when it was revealed it would end up like certain DnD subclasses that attract ... particular ... players. I have stories about conquest paladins I could tell you all.
I would caution getting too hyped about the next playtest being classes. While we are due this years pathfinder class playtest sooner or later, there is still the starship combat playtest that was mentioned. If Paizo haven't changed their mind (and I really hope they haven't, I'd love them to stick the landing on the rules), that is probably the next playtest.
Yes, that's why I said it wasn't ideal.
There is no contradiction. Without steed form, you get 2 actions, as you're riding a sapient creature. Steed form overrides this and gives you 3 actions.
You have got to stop taking this so personally. Xenocrat's explaination is far more likely in that if it's so easily fixable then it's not really high priority. I disagree, if that is Paizo's perspective, but we're talking about slight texual mistakes here, not entire books being printed blank. None of this is ideal but this isn't being done out of spite or malicous neglect. Also, I don't think there's as many problems with the PFS-adjusted stuff as you've noted because a lot of these are things like "Runelord players should keep in mind PFS values" or explaining how something works in PFS because it doesn't quite work the same was as a regular campaign.
We don't "know" for certain but it being the gencon release is so likely I'd be shocked if it's anything else.
This will break the game wide open and your players will never ever fail a check in that sill. Since you're coming from first it's really important to note the numbers in pf2e are much more tightly controlled, and even a +1 will have a big impact on whatever you're doing. This isn't to say you can't meddle with the rules or numbers, but with Pf2e it's a really good idea to have a feel for the system first before you do so. Also what Finoan said is vital for meeting the system where it is. I've seen too many people try to brute force their way through combats with triple attacks and it always ends badly.
Yeah the whole point of the errata was so we don't have ad-hoc rules clarifications which, for the record, I support, Sage Advice in dnd proved to me you cannot have one guy just answering random questions when he feels like it. (Apparently you can't twinspell disintegrate because it can target objects). That being said if they're not going to give regular errata I am fine with this one exception because of it's simplicity and because of how fundemental an error it is. We have live with mythic being jank because that's not going to be solved in one go, but oracle having so much amibuguity over a fundemental part of the class is a really big problem. I am "Fine" with almost every other minor error because most of the time it is easy to intuit what is actually supposed to be, but this isn't that. IMO if the president gets set that paizo might answer a rules question when it is a) fundemental to the option affected and b) solvable with a yes/no then I don't think that's going to be detrimental, especially if paizo make it clear this is for exceptional circumstances.
Nope, no balance issues at all. Guns aren't balanced to be any stronger than the next weapon of their tier. Also, simple and martial profiencies already give profiency in those firearms. There's no seperate firearm profiency. So to make firearms more common it is as simple as telling your players to treat any firearm as though they are common!
We have a lot of things planned, including a playtest straight off!! So, we hope you all have a good year with us too ^_^ :0 Starship time, perhaps? Time to engage thrus- uh I mean, waiting
If the choice is between errata and people getting paid a better wage, I'm not going to go to miss the errata lmao. Also you yourself said Paizo have always had a problem with putting out conistent useful errata, so i'm not sure how you're connecting the dots between a union forming four years ago and this.
I think of it the same way we see grifters claiming magic powers in the real world. Some believe their own hype, fully.
Agreed. I try to normally avoid saying things are entirely bad because I think it can get hyperbolic quickly, but this one is pretty bad.
Thanks for the response Maya, but (and I'm speaking to everyone here, not just you or the paizo team) but I'm a little concerned that there isn't an errata for certain issues. The ambiguity over things like Oracle spells really does feel like something that needs addressing. Re: Gaulin
No it does look like an oversight. I suspect it was assumed that martial artist already had the reuglar monastic weapontry feat, and so it wasn't printed for martial artist. For a homerule fix, giving it to martial artist as a second level feat is probably fine enough.
I think "absurdly unprofessional" is a bit much. Calling them rare just sounds like an oversight. They're not doing this to spite us, as annoying as the lack of "weapon" runes for spell attack rolls is sometimes.
I'm a fan of the idea of a modular-point based system. Eg you select a die size and hands, and then you pick a number of traits out up to the points that choice gives you. There can then be sample weapons printed for quick-selection purposes, and new books can add new traits alongside sample weapons for those traits. This then keeps the amount of repeats down because the new "weapons" would be more for illustration purposes. Higher profiency tiers could then give you more points for the same catagory which is all martial and advanced do anyway. I think this then strikes a balance between picking weapons for aesthetics and keeping mechanical weight, because at least personally, I struggle to just call something one thing if it doesn't plausably sell itself as that. You could give me a 1d4 B weapon and tell me that actually it's a greatsword but I'm never going to feel like it is. There's obviously limits to this, but I've been kicking this idea around since my 5e days, because it's always been clear there's some kind of internal system for assinging damage dice and traits. EG a 1 handed (martial) weapon with reach will always be 1d4.
For the love of all that is holy do not use LLMs to tell you how a system works. They're prone to just lying at the best of times, much less parsing specific information about a system with similar names and mechanics to other systems. I'm not going to comment on the size thing because this is clearly just going to come down to personal prefrence, but the rules are easily accessible online and you're more than capable of reading them on your own.
We'll get you that arcadia book one day. I'm currently attempting hypnosis on paizo staff but it doesn't seem to work
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