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Claxon wrote:

So the tyrannical ruler who lays claim to literally every mortal soul, and who will violently and lethally attack fleeing petitioners, is the same entity responsible for setting the determination as to what counts as "devoted enough" to the Laws of Mortality to be granted the completely hollow privilege of rotting in her prison.

Gotcha.

Yup, in that case, it earns Phar's system a total of zero "is just" points.

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Again, I think that bizarre attempt to downplay Phar's tyranny both has no real "teeth" to the "gracious allowance" the rule would provide, while causing waaay too many problems/contradictions with the existing lore to actually function/exist in the Boneyard we know.

Don't want your soul to go to the abyss after all that impulsive cannibalism? Just spurn the help of the gods and commit all those heinous acts of violence yourself! Who knew avoiding damnation was that easy, wow.

Pharasma lays claim to ZERO souls, save those that do end up permanant residents of the boneyard, she just makes sure they go where they're meant to. People die and their souls move on, theoretically to an afterlife matching their actions, but evil folk would try to dodge punishment. Death is the only justice, you don't get to escape the consequences of your actions in life, which is what fleeing would be. Not letting those evil souls run free is for the best.

And she doesn't allow anyone to just nope out, she lets you petition that your judgement was unfair, but you have to prove it. I'm an atheist so you can't punish me isn't a valid defense, just like you can't get out of a speeding ticket by saying, well I think the speed limit is too low. The place that atheists rest in the boneyard (I know it has a name that is escaping me at the moment) is realistically for atheists who were decent in life, and the evil ones can go complain to Asmodeus or something, I'm sure he'd be willing to cut them a deal.... for their eternal devotion

It might seem bad, from the perspective of the atheists, but hey, I'm no fan of gravity ether, but it is beyond my power to refuse it. The gods are similar, The War of Immortals showed that there are rippling effects across reality when a god dies. Despite what some Rahadoumi might have you believe (or not believe, I suppose, given the atheism) the gods aren't JUST powerful beings, they are tied to the very laws of how reality works, you can dislike them, and refuse to follow whatever doctrines they set forth, but their influence is physically unavoidable.

if I understand correctly, the gods don't really do the soul taking thing, souls just leave the mortal plane after death, gods or no, and join the river of souls. What would happen without someone in Pharasma's position is an interesting question, but the answer is probably nothing good

If I may throw in an idea, of the first edition classes (full 20 level classes, not prestige classes, just to be clear) those that currently do not have a second edition analog are: Bloodrager-barring multiclassing and a couple instincts that can fake it well enough, Inquisitor-which was largely based on teamwork feats which don't really exist in 2e and would have trouble doing so and is otherwise mostly just a cleric, Mesmerist-but psychic can cover that if you squint, Samurai-which feels like an archetype waiting to happen, and Shifter.

For clarity-Cavalier and Medium exist as archetypes, Hunter is just a ranger who invested really hard into their companion, Shaman is one of the primal witches, and Slayer is a rogue/ranger mash up.

All that is to say that I personally feel as though Paizo's current plan is to finish up establishing all the base classes the want to first, primarily by translating necessary classes from first, only adding things like Inventor to fill gaps. Then they can expand to some of the options yet to be covered, to avoid one of the big issues a class based rule set can have, namely early classes getting a ton of support, and later classes never being able to catch up. This also helps to mitigate the chances of future classes/archetypes/paths/whatever from stepping on each other's toes, I recall during the intial reveal period of 2e the writers talking about how they wanted to focus on each classes's "identity". Once they have that all established then they can go in any direction they feel they want to.

Despite being almost three years old 2e is still a relatively new system, 10 rulebooks, of which three are bestiaries, one is the gm's guide, and one is the corebook, and GnG, BotD, DA, SoM all cover a comparatively small chunk of fantasy staples and 11 setting books, which tend to be more lore heavy. Which is to say the space they have had for new rules content has been tight.

All this is to say, 2e is still being established, and has an eye towards future proofing, but I feel like the era of new class after new class is starting to wrap up, and I generally agree with the strategy of setting out the basics there before putting out any major support for any of them.