So is this a mockup somehow, or does the cover of the new hardcovers actually wrap around the spine
My only problem with the cover is the red dragon's appearance. This is not how they are supposed to look in Pathfinder. I miss the spikes that makes their wings do piercing damage, and they have no horn melee attacks, as they have no horns (playtest).My only problem is that is all wrong. All wing attacks do bludgeoning damage and always have, per the natural attacks universal monster rule (I can't find any dragon specific rule granting piercing on their wings), and the presence or absence of physical body parts is not perfectly correlated with usable natural attacks.
That's why it's an evolution of the game, as indeed the dragons had no such uncommon features in PF1. The playtest brought even more flavor to the rules and that's my favorite part while reading the bestiary entries.
In the playtest, Red chromatic dragons do piercing damage with their wings, as they have spikes covering the back of their body and wings. And you should also see that in the playtest they don't have horn attacks, and it's clear the reason is that red dragons have no horns in Pathfinder. The first time (that I can remember) a "red dragon" was depicted with horns was in the illustration of the wicked dragon god Dahak.
You see, red dragons have their own flavor up to the spikes in their wings, and that's amazing, right? Tha's what makes the game so unique. But I suppose it's ok to use this rather common appearance in the core rulebook, that's meant for everyone - old and new.
So is this a mockup somehow, or does the cover of the new hardcovers actually wrap around the spineIt's a 3D cover - you can actually see Valeros sticking his sword in the dragons behind on the back - that's why it's belching fire so strangely! ;-)
Seriously, this is something they need to do, as a feature tied into the 3d physicality of the book, something more than just the flat image(s) themself convey but "made sense" of by the book itself... That makes you want to actually own the book for just that reason. OK, the "sticking his sword in the dragons behind" part doesn't literally need to be portrayed, but the 3d wrap-around cover part still stands :-)
... also I think all of the characters are facing away from the dragon attacking them? (I noticed this because I'm hoping Merisiel's right leg is in front, rather than her left leg, as otherwise her waist is rather unpleasantly contorted — hard to tell with the position of the book title.)
Yeah, it is odd to me that the PCs seem to be ignoring the dragon and looking at something that we can't see off to the left.
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English. The foreign translations aren’t published by Paizo directly - they license them.
Yeah, it is odd to me that the PCs seem to be ignoring the dragon and looking at something that we can't see off to the left.
... also I think all of the characters are facing away from the dragon attacking them? (I noticed this because I'm hoping Merisiel's right leg is in front, rather than her left leg, as otherwise her waist is rather unpleasantly contorted — hard to tell with the position of the book title.)
The way I see the scene, the group was running away from the dragon and just turned around to fight because they found out an adult red dragon has a ground speed of 50 feet per action.
I have the understanding that 2nd Edition is being planned to have simultaneous release in at least French and German as well as English (not sure of other languages), but non-English translations are handled by other publishers partnered with Paizo: Black Book Editions for French and Ulisses Spiele for German.
I believe Paizo even sells their PDFs on this site, although they don't stock actual product since obviously there is little demand and those publishers have their own distribution in their markets. So you should look wherever you usually buy RPG products in your language. I'm not sure if they are already doing pre-orders of their translated editions.
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You will have to order the German version from Paizo's German licensee Ulisses Spiele, or buy it in a shop once it is released. Ulisses' website mentions a Q3 release, but nothing more specific, and you cannot preorder yet.
Disclosure: I am a member of the Ulisses translation team.
Red Dragon?! Makes me wonder why you guys created all those Pathfinder specific dragons but still mostly use the D&D ones on the covers.
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Red Dragon?! Makes me wonder why you guys created all those Pathfinder specific dragons but still mostly use the D&D ones on the covers.
Because they're iconic, popular and recognisable. The cover isn't aimed at diehard fans who are longing for a purple star and time dragon to grace a cover of the core rulebook, they're aimed at distributors, retailers and run-the-mill customers who expect a classic dragon or a giant or a demon/devil on the cover a very traditional heroic heartbreaker fantasy RPG core book.
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The way I see the scene, the group was running away from the dragon and just turned around to fight because they found out an adult red dragon has a ground speed of 50 feet per action.Yeah, it is odd to me that the PCs seem to be ignoring the dragon and looking at something that we can't see off to the left.
... also I think all of the characters are facing away from the dragon attacking them? (I noticed this because I'm hoping Merisiel's right leg is in front, rather than her left leg, as otherwise her waist is rather unpleasantly contorted — hard to tell with the position of the book title.)
No, no. They were investigating something off stage when the dragon surprised them, but Kyra rolled a proper cleric initiative of 1, so she's still looking that way with her light cast on her holy symbol so she and Valeros can see because they're too cheap to buy darkvision potions.
While I'm sure they're absent for now (as the devs already said so), I do wish the PF2CRB had at least the most primitive of firearms included (don't care about modern ones, but they too are handy for comparison of technological progress).
Other than that, more Cat Fall-esque "worthy" skill feats would be appreciable for my anticipation.
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She's bracing with her left leg, you can see all the weight on it.I hope not. She’s standing behind that block with her other leg,It's Kyra's leg/foot.In the cover art — what is going on with Merisiel?
It's like she has an extra arm and her head is twisted backwards.
It's easier to see here, although it does muddle things a bit that it also looks close to Merisiel's studded armour.
But it's clearly behind Merisiel and you can see some of the oval plates on Kyra's shoes/boots.|
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She's bracing with her left leg, you can see all the weight on it.I hope not. She’s standing behind that block with her other leg,It's Kyra's leg/foot.In the cover art — what is going on with Merisiel?
It's like she has an extra arm and her head is twisted backwards.
It's easier to see here, although it does muddle things a bit that it also looks close to Merisiel's studded armour.
But it's clearly behind Merisiel and you can see some of the oval plates on Kyra's shoes/boots.
Yep-yep.
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No definitive word yet on the pricing.
It’s standard across all their product lines for Paizo to release the PDFs on streetdate (August 1st) so it’s a safe bet that’ll be the case here too.
Does anyone know when the cut off date for the pre-order is?
Any word on whether or not pre-orders will be possible to pick up at Gen Con this year? The street date does coincide with the start of the con. :D
They should definitely have subscription pickups at Gen Con, as they have been doing that for years. If you are going to Gen Con and you want everything that they are putting out on August 1st for a given subscription line, your best bet would be to subscribe to that line before they run the August authorizations. For the subscription that includes the new core rulebook, you would be getting that book plus the new Bestiary.
They seem to be looking into non-subscription pickups, but they have so far made no formal announcements one way or the other about that.
Any word on whether or not pre-orders will be possible to pick up at Gen Con this year? The street date does coincide with the start of the con. :D
They haven’t confirmed it yet.
So if I subscribe or preorder directly from Paizo, will it actually arrive on August 1st? Or is that just the day they'll ship the books? Or is it anyone's guess?
They aim for you to receive it on that day. However, given the volume of orders, it is impossible to achieve that. Most will get it on or around that day. Some will be earlier and some will be later.
If you subscribe and if paizo provide a free pdf to subscribers (not yet confirmed) then the pdf is granted when your subscription ships. Usually, most subscribers get access to the pdf before streetdate (although that isn't true for every case - occassionally ones subscription is last/delayed).
They aim for you to receive it on that day. However, given the volume of orders, it is impossible to achieve that. Most will get it on or around that day. Some will be earlier and some will be later.
If you subscribe and if paizo provide a free pdf to subscribers (not yet confirmed) then the pdf is granted when your subscription ships. Usually, most subscribers get access to the pdf before streetdate (although that isn't true for every case - occassionally ones subscription is last/delayed).
I knew subscribers get their PDF early, I wasn't sure if that would still apply. My gaming group meets on Fridays, and I wanted to know if we'd have the book in hand that Thursday or Friday. PDFs are one thing, but hardcopy is handier at the table.
Things may be a bit different since it is the start of a new edition.
I can't recall whether I got my Starfinder PDFs before their official release date, for example. I do remember that the traffic on the Paizo site was so heavy that it took me a few days before I could actually download the core rulebook PDF.
Starfinder PDFs didn't go live for anyone until the line opened for physical sales at GenCon, or maybe an hour later.
I knew subscribers get their PDF early, I wasn't sure if that would still apply. My gaming group meets on Fridays, and I wanted to know if we'd have the book in hand that Thursday or Friday. PDFs are one thing, but hardcopy is handier at the table.They aim for you to receive it on that day. However, given the volume of orders, it is impossible to achieve that. Most will get it on or around that day. Some will be earlier and some will be later.
If you subscribe and if paizo provide a free pdf to subscribers (not yet confirmed) then the pdf is granted when your subscription ships. Usually, most subscribers get access to the pdf before streetdate (although that isn't true for every case - occassionally ones subscription is last/delayed).
I know what you mean. I rarely download any pdfs.
You should have the hardcopy on or around the first, but there's no guarantee. Plenty of subscribers will receive it 'late' even if the majority get it on time.
Things may be a bit different since it is the start of a new edition.
I can't recall whether I got my Starfinder PDFs before their official release date, for example. I do remember that the traffic on the Paizo site was so heavy that it took me a few days before I could actually download the core rulebook PDF.
Yeah, I wouldn't even bother trying to download them until Thursday evening or Friday morning.
I remain curious and optomistic about this new edition. There are things I liked about the playtest and things I didn't, but I'm given to understand that there have been big changes.
The cover kind of reminds me of the Dungeons and Dragons, Night of No Tomorrow, with Tiamat chasing the kids and Uni through Merlin's castle.
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Yeah, I wouldn't even bother trying to download them until Thursday evening or Friday morning.Things may be a bit different since it is the start of a new edition.
I can't recall whether I got my Starfinder PDFs before their official release date, for example. I do remember that the traffic on the Paizo site was so heavy that it took me a few days before I could actually download the core rulebook PDF.
I think they’ve upgraded their IT capabilities since then (and certainly the playtest downloading went very smoothly compared with previous large-scale releases).
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So I'm sure there's already plans for previews and such on the blog posts leading up to release, but I think it would be interesting for myself and likely others to have a blog post highlighting the design of the 2nd Edition (A behind the scenes "making of" if you will) and what it sets out to do.
I don't think the term "fixes" or "improvements" apply exactly, I don't want to imply that there's anything wrong with 1st edition, but I'd be interested in the thought process that lead to various evolutions of the rules as we modernize them and move towards the new edition.
I think it'd be cool to see what the goals where and some of the cool design choices and changes meant to bring us closer to that vision.
It may help to raise understanding and interest for many as well, in particular those who did not have availability to follow the play test and view all the changes and tweaks during and since.
Just food for thought, but I'd certainly be looking forward to that!
I don't think we'll be getting Second Edition rules previews beyond the "Oblivion Oath" twitch videos for the foreseeable time, but i hope i'm wrong. ;-)
The closer August comes, the more I suspect the changes from the Playtest are mostly cosmetic. If they had months worth of dramatic changes to use as PR excitement, you know they'd be doing it. I suspect it's mostly adjustments to specific numbers, plus more content that wasn't ready for the Playtest, none of which makes for very exciting press releases.
I'm not saying that's bad, just that my understanding was that the book got shipped off to the printers, so mad scramble to finalize is complete, which leaves me looking elsewhere for reasons for the relative silence.
I am sure that they want to time the hype over any changes from playtest to official 2e rules so that the excitement is still going strong come GenCon. They may rightly have concluded that just over 3 months before the release date is still too soon to officially announce such details.
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I don't think we'll be getting Second Edition rules previews beyond the "Oblivion Oath" twitch videos for the foreseeable time, but i hope i'm wrong. ;-)The closer August comes, the more I suspect the changes from the Playtest are mostly cosmetic. If they had months worth of dramatic changes to use as PR excitement, you know they'd be doing it. I suspect it's mostly adjustments to specific numbers, plus more content that wasn't ready for the Playtest, none of which makes for very exciting press releases.
I'm not saying that's bad, just that my understanding was that the book got shipped off to the printers, so mad scramble to finalize is complete, which leaves me looking elsewhere for reasons for the relative silence.
I think they’re focusing on the card game (which relaunches at Paizocon) and that
PF2 previews will roll out after that.I don’t have any insider knowledge, but if I were them, I’d leave it until the last couple of months to release some highlights. You don’t want the whole thing to be public knowledge before launch, I’d think. Start too early and the previews are going to be pretty meagre morsels.
I'm assuming the previews are going to start in PaizoCon and so on. We should get more info about the bestiary and the monsters in it, the AP and the cover of the first volumes, the World Guide and some of the regions covered in it.
Yep-yep.She's bracing with her left leg, you can see all the weight on it.I hope not. She’s standing behind that block with her other leg,It's Kyra's leg/foot.In the cover art — what is going on with Merisiel?
It's like she has an extra arm and her head is twisted backwards.
It's easier to see here, although it does muddle things a bit that it also looks close to Merisiel's studded armour.
But it's clearly behind Merisiel and you can see some of the oval plates on Kyra's shoes/boots.
I *think* the mystery triangle is some sort of quiver or sheathe on Merisiel's back.
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I don't think we'll be getting Second Edition rules previews beyond the "Oblivion Oath" twitch videos for the foreseeable time, but i hope i'm wrong. ;-)The closer August comes, the more I suspect the changes from the Playtest are mostly cosmetic. If they had months worth of dramatic changes to use as PR excitement, you know they'd be doing it. I suspect it's mostly adjustments to specific numbers, plus more content that wasn't ready for the Playtest, none of which makes for very exciting press releases.
I'm not saying that's bad, just that my understanding was that the book got shipped off to the printers, so mad scramble to finalize is complete, which leaves me looking elsewhere for reasons for the relative silence.
You want to build up and maintain the hype so it reaches its peak right when the game is released, to maximize sales. And yes, to some degree a lot of major elements are already established: we know the races and classes and their rough workings, as well as major features. I don't know if there is enough excitement inducing reveals to start now and still maintain a continual and increasing degree of hype.
I'm assuming the previews are going to start in PaizoCon and so on. We should get more info about the bestiary and the monsters in it, the AP and the cover of the first volumes, the World Guide and some of the regions covered in it.
Of course -- I should have remembered that PaizoCon is exactly when they will want to step up the hype for PF2. It will, obviously, be the main theme of the banquet.
I wonder if I can make a character for each class whose entire class feats, chosen each time from the highest level checklist possible, have absolutely no prerequisites other than their class level.
Playtest druids, for comparison, had all their capstone feats have a prerequisite (which was automatically met at their 1st level choice, though the thing is technically still there).
I wonder if I can make a character for each class whose entire class feats, chosen each time from the highest level checklist possible, have absolutely no prerequisites other than their class level.
Playtest druids, for comparison, had all their capstone feats have a prerequisite (which was automatically met at their 1st level choice, though the thing is technically still there).
Probably not, because in some cases there will be different capstones according to the "subclass" choice made at first level. For example, there might be different capstones for each of the individual druid orders, for each champion type, or for each sorcerer bloodline, and so on. These will obviously have that 1st-level choice as their prerequisite.
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From the Paizocon reveal:
Jason Buhlman comes up next to discuss 2e. He’s Director of Game Design.
August 1st, 640 Core Rulebook. It’s huge. J says that they didnt’ feel they could cut much.
Introduction: First rule: THIS GAME IS YOURS. Make the game your own.
How to build a character in 2e:
1) Pick an ancestry. Then pick a heritage.
2) Pick a background. 45 of backgrounds (miner, blacksmith, etc.)
3) Pick a class. Barbarian is a class. Amiri looks fierce on her chapter. There will be 12 classes.
Barb, Sorc has bloodlines (abyssal, infernal, angelic and a few more, hag, undead, demon blood).
Gluttonous Bite spell and image, look pretty awesome.
Also archetypes - bard can have the champion archetype.
JB shows skills next. Section has been re-organized.
Feats: underwater maurader - valeros fighting underwater - sweet art.
Lots of ways to get feats...from class, from ancestry, from heritage, lots of ways to build your character.
Equipment: lots of basic equipment, alchemy, etc.
Spells:
Dinosaur form is a spell. Also JB says there will be a dinosaur fort spell coming soon.
Golarion specific story stuff. Eye of Dread; Golden Road, etc.
How to play Pathfinder chapter. New rules for death and dying.
Gamemastering chapter: how to give XP.
Magic Items: Robe of Eyes, Wayfinder, etc.
Vial of the First Lie: contains a bit of the whisper of the first lie ever told: unbeatable lie.
Gamemastery Guide: Winter 2019.
Thanks to Painlord!
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Is there any word as to whether or not there will be free pdf with subscription?
I can't locate it at the moment, but I do recall seeing a second hand quote from Lisa Stevens saying that every existing subscription line that included a free PDF before will continue to do so after Pathfinder 2E releases -- and the Core Rulebook is indeed part of an existing subscription line that includes free PDFs.
The main uncertainty seems to be what subscription or combination of subscriptions gives us access to Paizo Advantage.
