While $80 is a lot, the fact that this has 550 reference cards (and I presume of the same quality as the pre-remastered versions) makes it worth it for me. I may have a skewed view on this though as I've been watching how much money my son shovels into his Warhammer 40K obsession so I don't feel so bad about money I spend on Pathfinder anymore!
Removing alignment without at least providing an alternative descriptor process is a bad idea. For my two cents, not that I think this has a chance, but if this remaster make the "Proficiency without Level" rules from the Gamemastery Guide the default, then I'm 100% in on this. Pipe dream, sure, and I'm probably in a minority of people who think that is what the game really needs to do, but just getting that thought out there.
You know what, I'd love to see a PDF-only subscription plan as well. I can't maintain a print subscription since I may not want all print product, but PDFs? Heck yeah.
While I am sad to see these price increases, they are still considerably better than WotC's approach. Not as great as Modiphius, Kobold Press, or Free League, all of whom I consider equivalent in size and scope to Paizo (actual operations may vary in size but those publishers all pump out product with equivalent speed and quality), and all of them do bundle PDFs at no cost. But....for the model of "PDF as a separate purchase," Paizo is pretty affordable. Contrast with Steve Jackson Games, WotC's D&D Beyond model, Green Ronin, and probably one or two others I have forgotten about.
I don't use the Adventure Paths (I may part them out, though), and mostly run my own modules. What I've found is that it's best to stick to the CL-4 to CL+2 range and I don't even both with CL+3 or CL+4 unless it's established as a "campaign ending threat" in terms of the story. If I use something CL-4 those can be just as much a nuisance, and anything that for story purposes needs to be there but is CL-5 or greater they either just run or I simply ask my players to describe how horribly they decimate them and don't even bother going in to combat. I get the OP's point though, and the fine-tuning of the numbers in PF2E mean that I need to stick hard to the "safe range" of the challenge levels or things get too wonky. Also, for the most enjoyment it works best when combats fall between CL-2 and CL+1, anything outside of that window is either trivial or brutal, and needs to have a useful reason for me to subject the players to it. Worth noting that my players are (for the most part) not hardcore optimizers, so I have to plan accordingly. If I run an encounter like it's intended for tactically focused optimizers, the group will almost certainly go down in flames.
I might be missing context here, but I don't think I've run into anyone who would construe current events in Egypt with settings and adventures taking place in an ancient Egyptian-derived setting. There's...a lot...a giant gap, really....between ancient Third Dynasty Egypt, for example, and the politics of today. Worlds apart, almost literally.
I'm in the homebrew world camp myself. I have spent too much time with my own settings and just can't motivate myself to dig in to the lore of a published universe when I could spend that time evolving my own world instead. But that said, I do like many of the themes and locations in Golarion, and have collected material for some of the locations I like to poach ideas from (especially Osirion, which provides some useful ideas for my predominantly ancient Egyptian-themed PF2E world).
I can't speak for the modules, but as a GM who designs his own scenarios for play I have also noticed I have to be exceptionally careful, enough so that I avoid anything over Challenge +2 or -2 if I can help it, since a CL+3 or greater can lead to a party wipe at lower levels unexpectedly, and I even had something similar happen twice when my first campaign hit Level 18 and again at level 20. My players were getting genuinely frazzled at their repeated bad luck (we use Roll20), and starting to blame me for provoking extreme encounters (@thenobledrake I am taking your advice on GM overtuning to heart, as I may have been guilty of that!) Meanwhile I was trying to balance out a range of encounters by the book religiously, and would find ways in-game to actively broadcast if a fight would be near lethal (CL+3 or +4) or impossible (+5 or greater; we do sandbox and on rare occasion they run into things). In the end, we took a break about two months ago, went back to 3.5 for a bit, while I mulled over what I was doing wrong with the math. Challenges too low feel too trivial (-3 or greater feel like time wasters), and +3 or higher dramatically increases the risk. The +10/-10 crit mechanic, which we all like, does feel like a contributing factor....it dramatically shifts the difficulty in both directions. I'm planning a new long term campaign to start soon, and keeping this experience in mind as a plan out future encounters, but in contrast with PF1E/3.5 or even 5E the threat range in PF2E is rather narrow due to how quickly difficulty ramps up (or drops off).
I'm about to run the new adventure path and am looking forward to AA4 given it is referenced already in "We're no Heroes" for the Khulan. Pathfinder 2E has really spoiled me (as has Starfinder). I'm running D&D 5E on Saturdays at the moment but having just finished a 1-20 campaign in Pathfinder 2E I am eager to get back to it already. Meanwhile I've got Starfinder going and a bi-weekly PF2E side gig, but once you have seen the PF2E action point and +/-10 crit/fumble system in play it cannot be unseen and makes everything else look a little less interesting as a result. Even in Starfinder we catch ourselves wishing it was closer to PF2E's design.
My group is now four sessions in on Roll20 with our regular Pathfinder 2nd Edition campaigns, and it works great!
I just wanted to comment that I initially (and for quite a while) had issues with the way equipment works in Starfinder, and wondered why the forced level mechanic wasn't instead simplified, and the "damage" regulated to class advancement instead. I eventually realized that the Starfinder equipment system has a certain amount of brilliance in it, as the system covers the following ideas (and you can use them as in-game reasons) exceedingly well: Artificial or Forced Scarcity - this is a universe where combat, adventurers, mercenaries and explorers are the norm; an industry around specialized, advanced and prestige level weapons will rapidly form to take advantage of that and milk the space-mercs for their hard won cash. Industrial but also Curated and Unique - there is little to suggest that many of these weapons aren't being meticulously hand-crafted and individually modified at some level down the road; spells are enforcing and making weapons more effective, even if the weapons themselves aren't exclusively magic items. The technical side of industrialization probably makes tons of cheap weaponry for lower levels, but the really good stuff takes care and art to produce. An Economy Driven by Adventurers - similar to the first item above, this is an economy driven largely by people who won't spend much on a fancy dress, but they will totally splurge on a very efficient plasma cannon. Starfinder's universe is not our world; it's a place where much of the cash circulating in the economy comes from plunder, looting and hitting it big; it's a Wild West anything goes Gold Rush combined with a sci fi Gig Economy, and prestige weapons and armor feed right in to it. Legality - this really does apply at a certain level in our own world, and it's the reason that most of us, in the US at least, might be able to afford a handgun but we can't get ahold of a light machine gun. Starfinder's trade markets are on the civilized worlds and they probably have laws in place to insure that the really deadly stuff doesn't fall into the wrong (e.g. inexperienced or criminal) hands. Fate - the great thing about Starfinder is it's a universe with magic and gods. When players grouse that the NPCs never seem to drop high level gear (always coincidentally within 1-2 levels of their CR appropriate loads) it is worth pointing out that such is the will of the gods that the PCs never seem to get lucky and drop a skittermander with a set of level 15 storm polarity gauntlets.
The problem is the OP is implying a lot of preconceptions without providing useful feedback to explain why she feels that PF 2.0 (or the original) doesn't perform as expected. The result is a rhetorical question with no useful content.
My group is obsessed with this: DM: "You enter the room. Across the way you see a door that is ajar." My players: "Well which is it? A door or a jar?!?!?" Groans |
