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No. The beak is not a weapon. The beak is also not a one-handed attack- I'm not sure where you got that from.
Ancient elf gives you a multiclass dedication feat, which is pretty slick, but I don't see anything exempting you from the dedication rule; are they just totally shut out from things like avenger or spellshot? Yep. An elf who focused on a particular aspect to the point of having a class archetype would not represent being ancient by having dipped their toes into another class. Ancient Elf is really good, but it does run into conflicts with things like class archetypes or free archetype rules. You can talk to your GM about making it even stronger than it already is, but usually the answer is just "don't take Ancient Elf with those options".
Was hoping the bell got the mental and emotion traits removed at the very least...but this is still all welcome.CaptainTTRPG just dropped a video covering the class with the new changes and they actually DID remove those traits. Awesome! That's great to hear- Bell's effects not stacking with Frightened was one thing, but not being able to apply them to anything immune to Frightened? That was rough.
Was hoping the bell got the mental and emotion traits removed at the very least...but this is still all welcome.CaptainTTRPG just dropped a video covering the class with the new changes and they actually DID remove those traits. Awesome! Ooh, thanks! I don't know if this matters much, but it also looks like Lantern is no longer a once-per-round light-or-extinguish. It does allow for lighting up at the start of your turn and vanishing into the darkness at the end... but darkvision is already better for that, so it's not unreasonable.
If I had to fix the wall-of-thrall problem, I'd either make them difficult terrain or enemy-only difficult terrain. It simplifies things a bit and reduces the GM headache to a manageable level, and actually blocking passage would require a three-thrall wall rather than the tumble-through two.
It sounds like Thaumaturge got a lot of the weaker options improved a bit, something I was personally hoping for. (I'm going off of what folks have reported, so any corrections are appreciated.) Chalice: Since this is the one I played most recently, I was really happy to see the improvements here. Base Chalice's sip option went from "2 + half level" to "level, minimum 3". No longer falling behind what mono-element Wood Kineticist gets for free is nice. Adept now scales at double level, making a reliable source of low bleed a better investment. Sounds like the only upgrades are still circumstantial at this level, so I still probably wouldn't upgrade Chalice if I weren't planning on intentionally triggering the bleed clause. Intensify got significantly improved: you no longer need to hit an enemy (so no more restrictive three-action combo, just a more normal two-action combo), just be within 30 feet. Adds level to the temp HP, or double level to the healing from draining the Chalice. Is turtling up that much worth two actions? Usually not, but I can at least see cases where it's handy. Mirror: The common house-rule is in place- Mirror's Adept ability is now optional, so your reflection only explodes if you want it to. Now a much fairer option to consider, without needing to run it by your GM. Wand: Boosted damage is now only on cooldown for one round, not 1d4 rounds! The reliability of two-or-three times a fight instead of once or twice is big. Additionally, the base damage changed from 1d4 + stat to 3d4. That's +1 average unboosted damage at first level, but it's +3 to the boosted damage since there are more dice to change to d6s. Intensify Vulnerability is better now, adding level to damage instead of just 1 + damage dice. That makes the three action boosted option hit harder than a cantrip. Lantern: Intensify Vulnerability now doubles the area of the bright light (presumably in addition to the old effects?). The Lantern's area of effect is also now treated as an aura, although I don't know if that makes any practical difference. Call Implement Feat: The biggest reason I used to recommend this is now gone! If somebody is holding onto your stuff and you fail to retrieve it, you can just try again after midnight now. Before, this could become a dead feat even in the rare situation it was relevant. Now, you can reliably plan on eventually getting the object back, allowing for active skullduggery like the old "sell you something I can teleport back to me" or "here, take this scrying focus as a gift" routines. Paired Link Feat: A solid glow-up, if I'm understanding this correctly. The old version felt like a mostly dead feat- "share touch spells (and Thaumaturge abilities) with one person up to thirty feet" would be situational on a caster, but on a non-caster... woof. Ranged Chalice, mainly? The new version is no longer limited to touch spells and no longer has a range limit. Letting the party caster ignore range considerations altogether when targeting you with spells is very solid, even if it still probably needs normal line-of-effect. Know-It-All Feat: Reworded for the new Recall Knowledge rules, giving you an extra question. Thaumaturge's Demesne Feat: No longer references rituals, and doesn't give an elemental sentinel. The elemental sentinel was a bit forgettable as an inclusion and was a bit unclear on heightening, so I'm not too concerned on that one. --- All-in-all, I'm happy that the class got improvements to most of the options that I used to caution new players about the usefulness of. Some easing up on swapping to passive implements would have been nice, but it's understandable if they remain effectively action-or-intensify to draw.
I think there's a decent chance it's a cool archetype, but at the same time "bringing it back as an archetype/subclass" is still kind of a death sentence to fans of the original. Archetypes just don't have enough power budget for that. As someone who wanted to like the original... the original didn't have the power budget for what I wanted. "Here, have clouds of nanites! Oh, want to fight with them? At sixth level, you can do damage once per ten-minute break!" The class was already required to use a regular gun or punch people, so an archetype makes sense to me. Now you can have your Technomancer pulling tricks with nanites in addition to magic, your Soldier hosting nanites in their body, and your Mechanic using them for repairs (probably).
It's Vancian casting because it's based on what Jack Vance wrote- casters preparing most of a spell in their head, and completing the spell to cast it. Without that prepared part, it's not "Vancian". Now, in practical terms, I think plenty of people lump spontaneous tiered daily casting in with it because of the similarities.
I am not QuidEst, but....LOLWut? The +3 guy literally has a 10% increase in how often it succeeds. Not quite- the "10% chance of making a difference" narrows the range. If our +3 friend succeeds on a 9 or lower, then it starts impacting the crit chance as well. That means the lowest number our +3 stat friend could succeed on would be a 10. That's pretty generous for hitting Will DC anyway, so I went with 13.
While they buffed Thaumaturge in places that anyone was complaining (except of wands) just like they did to rogues. I dunno if that's fair as a comparison- Wand, Chalice, and Mirror's Adept "upgrade" were all things I saw plenty of folks complaining about.
Eh, from what I heard, Psychic had two significant issues fixed.
And yeah, one cantrip's damage went down while it got switched from physical to force damage. It all sounds like normal errata, not the class getting nerfed like some folks are saying. I'd have loved an extra slot, sure, but fixing Unleash Psyche not working with so many damage spells was the boring practical thing I was hoping to have covered. --- As far as Thaumaturge goes, it had some of the weakest options shored up. You can't actually make a stronger Thaumaturge than you could before; you just aren't in quite as much trouble if you pick Wand, and you're not shooting yourself in the foot for "upgrading" Mirror.
Mine also says updated 1/16/2026, and it is the pre-remaster (based on "flat-footed" and references to the Advanced Player's Guide). So sadly, no early leak. (Although I'm sure Paizo's IT is happy to have not accidentally released it early.) Ah, thanks! Well, I know folks will be very curious to hear what changed in the two classes (myself included), even if it's just reports on things that stayed the same. My personal curiosities are whether the Chalice implement got any changes, and if Psychic got any notable improvements like "an extra spell slot". That latter one sounds like at least a "not at first glance".
I am not QuidEst, but....LOLWut? The +3 guy literally has a 10% increase in how often it succeeds. Exactly this. In a more extreme example, if somebody needs exactly a 20 to get a success, getting +2 triples how often they succeed (because they succeed on three numbers instead of one). That's still only ten percent of the rolls becoming a success, but it's very significant because the expected time between successes decreases to a third of what it was. And, if you aren't looking at increases to the critical success rate, that means it's somebody who is succeeding less than half the time. That's pretty normal for demoralizing, since it resolves against Will DC. But it does mean that the +2 shift has a more noticeable difference in things like "how many times do I have to fail before I succeed".
Mine also says updated 1/16/2026, and it is the pre-remaster (based on "flat-footed" and references to the Advanced Player's Guide). So sadly, no early leak. (Although I'm sure Paizo's IT is happy to have not accidentally released it early.)
It's just 10%. It's certainly noticeable, but it's not significant. 9/10 times the +1 guy achieves the same results as the +3 guy.One mechanical issue I have with trying to represent abilities mathematically in a system where level is so much more relevant is that ability scores only actually matter in a very specific level rangeThat's just flatly untrue. A +1 vs +3 cha person using intimidate is a significant difference all the way throughout levels 1 to 20. It makes a difference one-in-ten times, sure, but that's probably at least a 33% increase in how often it succeeds.
Whoa, whoa, whoa... I won't stand for this Zon-Shelyn slander! Zon-Kuthon and Shelyn merged because they both sacrificed themselves trying to save the other at the same time. How is that not a redemption of Zon-Kuthon? Certainly, Shelyn embraced part of his portfolio, but he embraced part of hers. Redemption isn't always from a high-handed and lofty position without getting dirty to meet someone where they're at.Zon-Kuthon needed saving? Really? Well, once he sacrificed himself for her, yes, so "at the same time" might not be exactly right.
Those search links are including things that are Greater or Major versions of earlier items, which are not a new formula if you have the lower level version.Ah, fair enough. It's true that I don't see a lot of things there that aren't upgrades to stuff, outside of poisons. Oh man, that's super handy! Thanks; I've been looking for something like that.
Those search links are including things that are Greater or Major versions of earlier items, which are not a new formula if you have the lower level version. Ah, fair enough. It's true that I don't see a lot of things there that aren't upgrades to stuff, outside of poisons. You get 46 free formulae- call that half in various common non-mutagen elixirs, one-action foods, and tools, then a quarter in common bombs, and that last quarter going to poisons and/or mutagens, or being left blank if you don't want to touch either. Since it's about a quarter of the formulae in question, I don't think it makes sense to cut the numbers in half. Getting a slew of common legendary-level (level 15-ish) alchemy items in there to keep high levels fresh would be nice after the change.
I can’t imagine not wanting all the bombs, half a dozen mutagen options, 3/4 of the elixirs, a new poison every couple of levels, and a few foods (e.g.Owl Screech Egg). If your GM allows infused items to make bottled monstrosities without the craft requirements those are also easy picks. There are 27 non-poison, non-bomb, non-mutagen consumable items of common rarity between 16 and 19. There are another 10 uncommon options to check with your GM about getting access to. There are 16 poisons in that level range if you really need to round things out. I know you may have the things you want, but there are a lot of options available for most folks. If you only care about bombs, then you will eventually run out of items, but Paizo isn't designing around that. If you don't want more, that's fine. Paizo doesn't really give much out for somebody deciding they don't need all the versatility at their disposal, so an uncluttered alchemy list will have to be its own reward. Even if they dropped it to one free formula per level, the class wouldn't get something in exchange.
(We don't know when it'll be out, just "later than GenCon" so far. Late 2026 is also possible.)
I would believe you if Zon-Kuthon was redeemed, in the same manner as Nocticula... but that didn't happen. Shelyn didn't purify her brother and atone for his sins; she instead embraced part of his portfolio. Whoa, whoa, whoa... I won't stand for this Zon-Shelyn slander! Zon-Kuthon and Shelyn merged because they both sacrificed themselves trying to save the other at the same time. How is that not a redemption of Zon-Kuthon? Certainly, Shelyn embraced part of his portfolio, but he embraced part of hers. Redemption isn't always from a high-handed and lofty position without getting dirty to meet someone where they're at.
I think the problem there is that it would allow much higher rates of applying the game's nastiest effects- things like Dominate or Slow, where a critical failure means being more or less out of the fight or worse.
Generally books will only get errata into PDFs when a new print run of the physical book is published The flip side of that is that Paizo stocking up on the books in the initial print run (before tariffs hit) means they probably didn't have to adjust prices to reflect the additional costs yet. How soon stuff sells out depends on how fast folks are buying, so it's not something that's entirely in Paizo's control.
And that's fair. and I appreciate you engaging with all this. I will also add that this isn't a situation where there's nothing you can do. Removing a bad example will do less to make people think than providing a good example, so if you want, you can put together a homebrew for the core deities to provide a more neutral version. Maybe include some setting implications of that as well for folks that want to apply it to Golarion. Folks are more likely to consider it if you present what an alternative looks like.
Based on what I saw posted elsewhere, not until the street date, but that's second-hand. (Although subscribers will probably answer the most burning questions before then.)
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.You will see!!!!! Just wanted to let Paizo know that it's okay to go ahead and release the playtest today. I am ready to see.
Hey, I certainly can understand that sentiment. There are folks whose interest in the good vs. evil dichotomy is a bit much for me, even if my line is at a different place. But, I am someone who enjoys playing an evil character more than playing a good one, so the evil deities are occasionally useful for me as they are. I think it's an excellent thing to cover in a recruitment and/or session zero. I'd be happy to play in a game that takes some of the evil deities and applies that same "de-propaganda" treatment that's so useful in understanding the deities of historical cultures. Unfortunately, I think it's hard to ever get away from needing the preface of, "And in my version of the setting..." when talking about it on the forums, though.
I think it's not too hard to see from what some people ask for that there is a demand for some amount of straight-up cosmic good-vs.-evil conflict. Even with the removal of formal alignment, Holy and Unholy stuck around because so many people want that. Once you have that, your amount of nuance has a bit of a cap. Now, what I do want is that if gods are shown as having followers, that there be a good reason for that. And, generally, I think that's handled decently well. Take the core 6 evil deities.
Curious, was this ever confirmed? I know many speculated that Pharasma et al might be chill with thralls, and that this may well be a reason why (I was in the trenches myself at the time) but to my knowledge it remains purely in the field of speculation. Besides which, given that existing fully-formed skeletons barely have enough of a connection to a soul to bother mentioning, I would hardly disqualify thralls on that basis, either. Oh yeah, I would have been weirded out too if the class description itself had included "But don't worry, it's only Pharasma-approved imitation undead".
That's how things used to be done, but it took too long for errata to get released that way. Paizo then announced quarterly errata... Just before the OGL crisis meant they needed to shift to doing remasters. For the moment, we have occasional errata, with PDFs getting updated on reprints/remasters.
Do we know when some of the information or teasers of the Dark Archive Remaster class changes will be coming out? Or will there be nothing until the book is out? Subscribers get it on the 20th, and I imagine the PDFs will probably update then too? If there were anything big enough to mention in a preview announcement, I think we would've gotten that already.
Hmm. When I think about what you can reflavor the class to, I do think necromancer is among the stronger flavors for the mechanics. If you're summoning angels, you need more explanation for why you keep casually detonating them, as well as why there are so many weak things on the field. You can do it, but that's more necromancer or construct-master than angel-caller. I don't really care too much if PFS rulings are made to justify playing it in a party. It's even easier to reflavor "summon" as "raise" and carry a bundle of bones. But yeah, it can definitely be reworked to other disposable summons flavors in a straightforward manner. I just don't think that would be different if it were unholy-only and did cause Pharasmins to throw hands? I mean, I guess I can think of some necromancer things that would be harder to rework- mostly stuff dealing with dead enemies. That's all "win more" stuff that gets shut down against bosses, though, so I don't really want much of that. But even a permanent undead minion is easily replaced with an earth or air elemental. Edit: Well, in fairness, it did feel like it was missing something for that necromancer feel to me, which was being able to order thralls about to do minor tasks. At least for me, that's something I'm addressing with Undead Master, a ritual, or a bit of GM flavor permission. But "Pharasma wouldn't hate this" makes just as much sense as an issue, even if it's not an issue affecting me.
... Huh? Rolling closer to 11 every time makes every +1 matter more (for failure vs. success), not less. In the extreme case where you only roll 11, every +1 is the only thing that matters. If you want every plus one to matter less for success vs. failure, you need to opposite of a normal distribution, where extremes are more likely than in a flat distribution, so that success is more like a coin flip ignoring modifiers, and each +1 only occasionally makes a difference, tipping the scale only on unlikely middle results. (Or I guess that's a normal distribution shifted to have its peak around the wraparound of 20 and 1?) But PF2's rules would mean that +1s still matter at those extremes, determining regular result vs. crit. You could also have a swingier die, something more than a d20. I might be missing a nuance of the probability, but I don't think shifting the distribution around does much with PF2 caring about high, low, and middle numbers for different circumstances.
Will the Necromancer class feature options similar to the Hallowed Necromancer archetype (aka focusing more on eradicating undead and manipulating both positive and negative energies instead of having the ability to create undead)?"Manipulating both positive and negative energies", "eradicating undead"- sure. The playtest Necromancer has the "Mastery of Life and Death" feature, which allows the Necromancer to harm undead with void damage and harm the living with vital damage. Sure. I wouldn't be surprised for at least a small tweak there from playtest feedback, since that was a popular point of discussion. I still expect the GM to need to houserule targeting issues because spells and abilities were poorly future-proofed. It's also probably good to keep in mind that "Necromancy" isn't a school of magic anymore, it's just necromancy in the more common sense of the word. "Hallowed Necromancer" probably wouldn't be called that anymore, because its premise that Necromancy being a broad school that contains more than raising undead isn't true anymore. If something is called necromancer now, it's likely going to be raising undead.Except of course the Necromancer class doesn't "raise undead". It conjures pseudo-undead out of thin air. It has to do that because actually raising undead would make it highly problematic in a lot of adventuring parties, but the idea that we can't have a "hallowed Necromancer" class archetype version due to the Necromancer being too focused on raising undead doesn't really fly when the Necromancer itself isn't raising anything and the undead it is conjuring don't count as undead in the eyes of the Gods for things like Edicts and Anathema. I mean, sure, it's creating undead rather than literally raising undead. That's a very standard compromise that we see in plenty of games, because actually tracking bodies and having permanent minions tends to bog things down. But you can see how it's still playing to the cultural theme of "necromancer" in a way that Hallowed Necromancer isn't, right? Hallowed Necromancer is very intentionally using the D&D definition of "Necromancer", as in, somebody who practices the Necromancy school of magic. With regards to a class archetype, my point is not that the Necromancer class is too focused on literally "raising" things that couldn't be anything other than "undead" to ever be good, it is that the class is too focused on making and using thralls to have a class archetype that doesn't involve making and using something on the map. (The original question said "instead of making undead".) A class archetype that makes elementals instead? Sure, although it'd be more reflavoring than I would expect a class archetype in PF2 to do, and I wouldn't expect any such archetype to be focused on eradicating undead.
Will the Necromancer class feature options similar to the Hallowed Necromancer archetype (aka focusing more on eradicating undead and manipulating both positive and negative energies instead of having the ability to create undead)? "Manipulating both positive and negative energies", "eradicating undead"- sure. The playtest Necromancer has the "Mastery of Life and Death" feature, which allows the Necromancer to harm undead with void damage and harm the living with vital damage. "Similar to the Hallowed Necromancer archetype", "instead of having the ability to create undead"- no. It's the Necromancer class, and not only is its primary feature creating undead thralls, but all of its focus spells either create thralls or rely on thralls. If you want to fight undead, this class is going to do it by making their own undead and then detonating them in a burst of bone, flesh, and/or void energy. That puts it out of the range for what even a dedicated class archetype could retool into an anti-Necromancer. I know you're a player interested in playing holy characters and fighting evil (without raising undead). That's probably going to be better served by the Runesmith class. You can certainly homebrew Necromancer to the point where it does what you want, but I think it's initially aimed at players like me who are keen to hit enemies with skeletons and then blow up those skeletons. It's also probably good to keep in mind that "Necromancy" isn't a school of magic anymore, it's just necromancy in the more common sense of the word. "Hallowed Necromancer" probably wouldn't be called that anymore, because its premise that Necromancy being a broad school that contains more than raising undead isn't true anymore. If something is called necromancer now, it's likely going to be raising undead.
AFAIK there's a playtest coming up, and those are almost always new classes. So I think we can expect a couple more classes. I can name plenty of cool ideas and things I'd like, but it'd be surprising to be right. Guessing what classes Paizo is going to put out is tricky at this point, and "concepts that they did before that still feel missing" is the best odds you're going to get.
Sounds like it might be a good time to start looking into third-party material, if you have a regular group you can talk with about it. There's plenty of additional material for existing classes, and it doesn't need to hold itself to some of the cool-moment-limiting decisions Paizo has committed itself to.
Given that Animist is particularly based on real-world beliefs, I think there's especial reason to not go with a "sillier" ancestry.
Do we have a necromancer iconic yet? They're on the cover of Impossible Magic! An iruxi, which also means we'll be getting some cool non-human skeleton art.
They put the store page up around the same time, which has a lot more information than the Paizo Live included.
Really. I'm happy to see non-core iconics, and if that means not artificially rushing a leshy iconic, that seems okay. That doesn't mean leshy is unpopular - we regularly get shown them in NPC art for adventures or books. The last three Paizo Lives have featured new leshy art.
It's pretty early, and we don't have a dedicated SF2 setting book yet. My uninformed guess is that it's just not covered yet, since it's an easy thing to drop when space constraints rear their head.
Squark, I submit that the phase you highlighted applies specifically to 'a photocopy of relevant pages' It does not. There would need to be no comma after "pages" for your interpretation.
The Shirren Eye Rifle can't glitch. and what are the relative costs of the two? Assassin Rifle is also analog, and only 20 credits more.
The Space Pirate archetype is "italic and conditional" in a way PF2e is.
How is this debatable? Assuming the Fatal die is at least as high as the deadly die surely the fatal is always at least as good? No. If the Fatal die is the same as the Deadly die, Deadly eventually adds two and even three dice instead of the one that Fatal caps at. Normally, Fatal makes up for that by boosting the weapon's base damage dice two steps, but in this case, it's only one step and it's only boosting the base dice to d10, which is what the other weapon normally has.
Shirren-Eye Rifle was pretty similar to Assassin Rifle before the errata, but now it's been dropped a die size and Deadly d12 swapped for Fatal d10. Assassin Rifle had Fatal d12 swapped for Deadly d10, while keeping the damage die. If I wanted to deal d10 damage, I'd just use Assassin Rifle, especially since Deadly adds more dice. Is Shirren-Eye Rifle meant to be Fatal d12, a crit-fishing sniper rifle that does lower base damage but more on a crit at certain levels? Or is it just a worse weapon?
Is there any idea on which book they will be included in? Perhaps a Book of the Dead Remaster? They're new classes, so it probably won't be a direct remaster of an existing book. This might be easier to answer on Friday, though, after Paizo Live discusses a new book.
Reminder to wait to buy weapon/armor upgrades until you're one level past the item level. Buying them on-level means being permanently broke. I generally like to load up on flavorful first and second level permanent magic items as soon as it's feasible, and then you can swap them out for more useful upgrades. The level 2 Battlecry! items are a good choice, a Cloak of Feline Rest, and a Purifying Spoon. Those mostly aren't ones that make an impact on combat, but they do help a character feel like a proper adventurer.
So long as we get Synthesist, I don't mind if Synergist stays in 1e. Eidolon abilities are much better suited to a player character than familiar abilities. |
