Overall Remaster impression?

[Let's not crowd the compilation thread anymore (sorry ^^)]

Before Paizocon, I was impressed that the devs managed such a large project without disrupting their already bursting schedule. Now that we have more details on the true extent of the changes, all I can say is hot damn. I don't think anyone was expecting this much and we haven't even seen everything - the athletics changes, skill/general feat changes, and skill action changes still lack details, just to name a few. I hope you are at least getting some sleep!

As far as the actual content is concerned, the main idea seems to be pruning everything they can that doesn't really do enough or is purely legacy (spell schools, open trait, bespoke weapon lists, ...etc.) or too connected to the OGL. The overlap is considerable. This is something I'm all for. If something has no good reason to exist, it shouldn't. Similarly, if things are too similar, maybe they shouldn't be separate things - light and dancing lights coming to mind.

Overall, it looks like 2E will come out of this essentially the same, but with some snazzy new outfits and a new haircut. In my eyes, the promise of "this isn't a new edition" has been fulfilled as much as they possibly could. I really appreciate that they didn't just change a couple of names and called it a day, but went a bit deeper and added many QoL improvements as well. Even something as small as renaming "flat-footed" to "off guard" in an effort to make the condition more intuitive is just so neat.

So, what is your overall impression of the announced Remaster changes?

There's a lot of interesting stuff, but it's hard for me to make a solid judgement call without more specific information.

Paizo is very good at making things sound wild and crazy and cool from brief descriptions, but sometimes the practical impacts of those changes are less extreme than the marketing.

Like we know Wizard schools are changing dramatically, but there's no specifics on what that looks like, what focus spells for wizards look like after the fact, how this effects spell slots, whether this ties into feats or come with class features, or anything else like that.

Witches are getting more specific patrons, but is that just a name change or are there gameplay implications there? Are Witches going to have anathema now? How impactful are the new familiar abilities they're getting and how much better/more interesting are their hex options actually?

Without answers to all the specific questions there the most I can say is that it sounds neat.

uhh... rangers getting warden spells baseline sounds pretty cool, too.

I've seen a lot of common sense stuff that should make folks happy, and quite a few moves towards greater flavor and more interesting characters. Alignment going away is nice; a bunch of Ancestries being promoted to Core is nicer. Pretty much every post-OGL change is one I welcome, even as I whine a little about losing Chaos and Law.

Most of what I'm most interested in is gonna be in Player Core 2, which we still know very little about.

I like everything I've heard so far. I think it's going to make an already great game better.

There's a lot of interesting stuff, but it's hard for me to make a solid judgement call without more specific information.[...]

Fair enough, I should have suggested talking about stuff we actually have some solid information on. Because there is a lot of stuff we can base our preliminary conclusions on. Druid losing their metal allergy, bespoke weapon list being retired, the reinforcing shield rune is just a buff, and things like that. Not everything is sunshine and rainbows, the crossbow crit spec for example is more of a nerf than anything. Overall, though, I'm very optimistic.

However, I didn't want to cut off speculation, because I love that stuff ^^.

For example, I think this will be an opportunity to see champions beyond even the "neutral" champions. Behind every cause stands one or several basic concepts - the paladin is a defender of the innocent, the redeemer is a good Samaritan, the liberator is a freedom fighter, the tyrant is the iron-fisted leader, the desecrator is a corruptor/influencer and the antipaladin is just pure destruction. Or something like that. If you deemphasize the whole alignment aspect - which is obviously happening - and instead strengthen the deity and concept, you can do a lot more. A god like Abaddar would be better served by a magistrate/justicar than anything we currently have, just to name an example.

I think the only thing that was a bummer for me personally was rangers having spells in core, but that's specifically because I love the flavour of a non-magical nature survivalist type which PF2e rangers had with the spells being optional instead of core. It's probably better overall to do but nooo my flavuh.

I am also pretty impressed with the scope of changes that are being made without disrupting almost all of the existing material. Other than bestiaries, which is an unfortunate word to be losing, secrets of Magic is the only game book that I feel like doesn’t actually fit anymore in the remastered universe. Which is overall pretty impressive.

There are some philosophical/game development shifts that have been slow rolling at Paizo for years now that seem like they are getting seriously institutionalized in the remaster, and most of them are things I am fully behind. Breaking down the cosmological certainty of the game universe and allowing contradictory interpretations for how magic/the game universe works in lore, without jumbling how to interpret rules decisions is not easy, but I think PF2 is mostly getting it right. It is certainly expanding what kind of source material can be used for lore inspiration without forcing that source material to conform to a set cosmology based upon conflicting principles.

I think the only thing that was a bummer for me personally was rangers having spells in core, but that's specifically because I love the flavour of a non-magical nature survivalist type which PF2e rangers had with the spells being optional instead of core. It's probably better overall to do but nooo my flavuh.

Pretty sure they only said the ranger focus spells are now core instead of in a seperate book like the APG. This allows paizo to give them the monk treatment, i.e. scaling their spell DC with their class DC but only if they have a focus spell.

You still have to opt into spells by getting focus spells via feats. So you can absolutely play a non-magic ranger.

Yeah, the warden spells are just going to be more like Ki spells, where they are core option of the class, not a core feature of the class. Having spell DC added to a class in an options book resulted in some awkward and confusing language as a result of class DC/ spell DC which trip up a lot of players. It is not actually a class change at all.

Overall the changes sound like a mixed bag. Until I see the finished project in the Fall though, it's hard to say more than, X sounds great, Y should be nice, and Z is disappointing news.

Yeah, it doesn't sound like Rangers are getting Warden spells "for free." Which is good for folks that preferred a non-magical option. But my biggest problem with the class has been the feat bottleneck, so I'm a little sad. Between Warden spells, combat feats, animal companion feats, and glorified skill feats, it is really hard to leverage all the pieces of the classic ranger identity on one build.

However, it sounds like that may be addressed by some of the overall on philosophy changes, like punching up feats or compressing chains into singular feats. For example, if you need less feats to keep an animal companion maxed or can use skill feats to get things like Swift Tracker, I'll be a happy camper.

My overall impressions are very positive. A lot of the things getting a second pass are things that I've had some frustrations with in the past, and certain classes like Witch getting a glow-up sound well-deserved. There are some things going with OGL that I'll miss - schools of magic is something I have a great fondness for, though the 2E implementation of wizard schools never did much with the concept so there isn't too much to really miss anyway.

There are other changes I'm at least slightly mixed on. The focus point change is something I'm overall pretty positive about - the janky nature of increasing your pool and recharge separately was something I found myself explaining to new players over and over again so I'm glad those are now interlinked. However, I'm a little wary of the specific way this is being implemented as it both seem to place a greater emphasis on GMs making a distinction between 10 and 20 minute rests (something I am not fond of), and something that could potentially make certain character options that grant early focus spells extremely strong. Changes like this also risk leaving classes stuck in the awkward middle of too old but also too recent to be covered by the remaster in the dust (I'm mostly thinking about Psychic).

They are having another attempt at reorganising the rules. This is important because it is currently a barrier to new players. Hopefully it will clean up some of the rules problems.

There is a genuine attempt to clean up some of the things that aren't working and to simplify a few things. They do seem to be buffing some of the less loved features and trying to give people what they asked for within reason.

OGL changes and the overall changes are a lot more than I expected.

I am 90% positive about the changes. It is more than I hoped for. The devil will be in the details.
I was going to call it PF2.1 but this is at least PF2.5

I'm satisfied with most of the changes that I've seen so far. Changes to some of the Witch and Wizard are pretty nice. I'm excited for the new lore being added and cautiously optimistic for the Darklands panel. My only major hangup is losing Law and Chaos, though that would probably be fairly easy to homebrew for my games.

I am happy about the buffs to things that needed.

Miffed that bard is getting even stronger when it was already the best class short of fighter.

Angry at the wizard changes and alignment changes.

Overal negative.

I am also pretty impressed with the scope of changes that are being made without disrupting almost all of the existing material. Other than bestiaries, which is an unfortunate word to be losing, secrets of Magic is the only game book that I feel like doesn’t actually fit anymore in the remastered universe. Which is overall pretty impressive.

And even then the SoM doesn't seem like it needs to be aggressively changed, which probably means it can be done in an errata (basically it's removing traits from schools and maybe adding new traits to spells and changing a bit how abilities work from the magus that derive from schools).

Unicore wrote:

I am also pretty impressed with the scope of changes that are being made without disrupting almost all of the existing material. Other than bestiaries, which is an unfortunate word to be losing, secrets of Magic is the only game book that I feel like doesn’t actually fit anymore in the remastered universe. Which is overall pretty impressive.

And even then the SoM doesn't seem like it needs to be aggressively changed, which probably means it can be done in an errata (basically it's removing traits from schools and maybe adding new traits to spells and changing a bit how abilities work from the magus that derive from schools).

It'll be a fairly extensive errata, as the book has a full 8 pages about the spell schools alone. Realistically, we are looking at an extra remaster book here, though I don't know if they want to do that anytime soon.

For example, I think this will be an opportunity to see champions beyond even the "neutral" champions. Behind every cause stands one or several basic concepts - the paladin is a defender of the innocent, the redeemer is a good Samaritan, the liberator is a freedom fighter, the tyrant is the iron-fisted leader, the desecrator is a corruptor/influencer and the antipaladin is just pure destruction. Or something like that. If you deemphasize the whole alignment aspect - which is obviously happening - and instead strengthen the deity and concept, you can do a lot more. A god like Abaddar would be better served by a magistrate/justicar than anything we currently have, just to name an example.

I agree. The champion is given the biggest window for change. As the champion was heavily based on alignment, but this has been removed, it's like an anchor has been removed from it.

Then anything can come out of his remaster now! Because designers know this better than us. They know that the Paladin was the most used for mechanical reasons and they know that without alignment the subclasses linked to lawful, neutrality and chaos no longer have a reason to exist. So, given the degree of modifications presented to us in Core 1, I now have no doubt that we will have major changes to champion subclasses.

YuriP wrote:

Unicore wrote:

I am also pretty impressed with the scope of changes that are being made without disrupting almost all of the existing material. Other than bestiaries, which is an unfortunate word to be losing, secrets of Magic is the only game book that I feel like doesn’t actually fit anymore in the remastered universe. Which is overall pretty impressive.

And even then the SoM doesn't seem like it needs to be aggressively changed, which probably means it can be done in an errata (basically it's removing traits from schools and maybe adding new traits to spells and changing a bit how abilities work from the magus that derive from schools).

It'll be a fairly extensive errata, as the book has a full 8 pages about the spell schools alone. Realistically, we are looking at an extra remaster book here, though I don't know if they want to do that anytime soon.

It depends, mechanically if it's just changing traits of spells, it's something you can do on a page.

Twiggies wrote:

I think the only thing that was a bummer for me personally was rangers having spells in core, but that's specifically because I love the flavour of a non-magical nature survivalist type which PF2e rangers had with the spells being optional instead of core. It's probably better overall to do but nooo my flavuh.

Pretty sure they only said the ranger focus spells are now core instead of in a seperate book like the APG. This allows paizo to give them the monk treatment, i.e. scaling their spell DC with their class DC but only if they have a focus spell.

You still have to opt into spells by getting focus spells via feats. So you can absolutely play a non-magic ranger.

I think that too. They're just taking the core 1 class feats that were split between the CRB and the APG and putting them all together in the class's own feat list. It's logical if you pay attention.

Overall the changes sound like a mixed bag. Until I see the finished project in the Fall though, it's hard to say more than, X sounds great, Y should be nice, and Z is disappointing news.

Normal. But all in all I'm much more excited about what we've heard than disappointed.

I like many of the changes. But I am worried that Champion might become the Holy/Unholy class only, just like there are currently only Good and Evil Champions. And that Hellknights might just fade into the background. These fears stem from the removal of the Chaos vs Law axis at PC level.

I have yet to hear of a change that really frustrates me, and a lot of changes are huge improvements.

The problem with talking about Edition 2.5 and Edition 2.25 is that "errata", as we know it today, simply couldn't really exist back in the days of 3.5. There was no real option to rewrite the rules without reprinting new books, so any major rewrites had to be handled like new editions--and marketed like new editions. Nowadays, with the great ease of new erratas coming out every year, I think our measure is going to have to be a bit stricter.

Most classes are coming out of this with what we can comfortably call normal errata. The druid can wear metal armor now. The warpriest is better at weapons now. Wizards and champions are getting bigger changes, by necessity, but we don't know how big they'll actually be in practice yet.

Is this 2.5? I think that's kind of hard to say. The conditions under which 3.5 was labeled a new edition don't really exist anymore.

TBH the more I think about it, the more the words "new edition" feel like just a marketing tool to me.

TBH the more I think about it, the more the words "new edition" feel like just a marketing tool to me.

I mean, Erik outright said they would most likely sell significantly more remaster books if they said it was a new edition. And I honestly think he's right.

When Paizo is ready to make a new edition, they are going to give it a lot more time to develop than the “changes we legally have to make + errata we were probably doing anyway before we had to make a ton of legal changes.”

All the monsters remain entirely compatible, the ancestries are largely untouched (except being expanded), and most of the classes are just getting very very minor touch-ups like "rogue gets all martial weapons instead of a handful of them".

The biggest changes to classes are going to the wizard and witch, followed likely by the champion. The witch is getting some new abilities, new feats, and new flavor guidance for her patrons, while the wizard is getting a rewrite of his schools of magic. That is a significant change, although we don't know how much it will truly change him mechanically yet. The champion will probably just be getting some tweaks to accommodate the new alignment rules.

Other than all that, the only "engine change" here appears to be to alignment, which, if we're honest, was never a particularly core part of the game's mechanical engine to begin with. It was mostly flavor, with some mechanical implications if you were playing certain classes. Ignoring it was arguably the most common house rule in the entire game, and that's including Free Archetype.

I might be missing something, but I think that the most significant changes so far are to wizard schools, witch patrons and alignment. Everything else is mostly just tweaks. Skills are unchanged, feats are unchanged, the action economy is unchanged, equipment and WBL are unchanged, encounter design and monsters are unchanged.

I can't speak for 3.0 to 3.5, because I came in just as 3.0 was on its way out, so my only recollection of it is from how we had the 3.0 DMG for a while without realizing it.

The switch from 3.5 to PF1, though--often dubbed "3.75"--included a complete overhaul of how XP worked, an overhaul of how many maneuvers worked (well, grappling, at least), completely modifying several monster types to the extent that those monsters simply had to be rewritten, flat buffs across the board to every class and every ancestry that irreparably changed the power level of any adventuring party, changes to the poison and disease rules, a complete rewrite of how animal companions worked, a huge restructuring of how shapeshifting worked, a redesign of SOD spells and cantrips, new skills and merged skills, and a gradual but brutal indirect nerf to 85% of prestige classes that would basically remove them from play eventually. That's not even getting into archetypes, which were barely a variant rule in 3.5.

I get why people want to call this a new edition, but in my opinion, what we're getting is what we were told we're getting: A Remaster. It might be a bit bigger than a typical errata, but it's a lot smaller than any edition change I remember.

I would add the change in refocusing and schools as a change in core rules as well. These changes to refocus lead to significant differences in classes that depend on focus points, the changes in schools affect the traits of all spells and consequently everything that depends on them, not just wizards.

No errata went so far as to change core game mechanics. However, as I said before, this does not break the game's backwards compatibility. A GM will hardly need to make any adjustments to an AP other than changing alignment damage.

I would add the change in refocusing and schools as a change in core rules as well. These changes to refocus lead to significant differences in classes that depend on focus points, the changes in schools affect the traits of all spells and consequently everything that depends on them, not just wizards.

No errata went so far as to change core game mechanics. However, as I said before, this does not break the game's backwards compatibility. A GM will hardly need to make any adjustments to an AP other than changing alignment damage.

But the players had to really try to make schools relevant to their character, even for wizards in PF2. They were mostly vestigial, meaningless traits for 90% of characters. Staves based on them were usually bad, just because they would include spells on multiple lists that very few characters could use all of. There were a couple of archetypes that played with it but those are going to be pretty easy to move to a different, more relevant trait. The biggest problem with schools of magic for wizards is that many players came to the game expecting them to matter much more than the game itself clearly ever intended for them to matter. It was creating a disconnect for players more than it was helping them create characters that they were happy with.

I did mention the changes in schools. Outside of wizards, it will affect a small number of feats and abilities that offered resistance to "enchantment" effects and things like that (they'll probably just change to "mental" effects or the like). It's not a huge mechanic.

Alignment is a game mechanic, but as far as game mechanics go, it's hard to think of a more minor one. It has no bearing on the game's math. I'm not sure I'd even call it a core game mechanic. Actually, it's a lot like spell schools--relevant for a few niche abilities and one or two classes, but otherwise mostly ignorable. In fact, its effects are arguably even more subtle, since aside from having to write two letters on a champion's or cleric's character sheet, it really only affected their class mechanics if the GM wanted it to. A paladin's anathema and edicts already included most of the guidelines the alignment requirement was there to impose.

I speak purely in terms of mechanics, to be clear.

I am very excited and like most of the changes. The changes are bigger than I initially expected, the basic math of the game has not changed but it does feel like enough is changing that if someone were to call this a 2.5 I would not disagree. Since pathfinder rules are free and the current state of things is not really Paizos fault, + all the old stuff should work if people want to use it, I don't see the issue.

I did mention the changes in schools. It will affect a small number of feats and abilities that offered resistance to "enchantment" effects and things like that (they'll probably just change to "mental" effects or the like)

Alignment is a game mechanic, but as far as game mechanics go, it's hard to think of a more minor one. It has no bearing on the game's math. I'm not sure I'd even call it a core game mechanic. Actually, it's a lot like spell schools--relevant for a few niche abilities and one or two classes, but otherwise mostly ignorable. In fact, its effects are arguably even more subtle, since aside from having to write two letters on a champion's or cleric's character sheet, it really only affected their class mechanics if the GM wanted it to. A paladin's anathema and edicts already included most of the guidelines the alignment requirement was there to impose.

I speak purely in terms of mechanics, to be clear.

I'd say alignment has a lot more impact than spell schools. Alignment damage specifically. You are right that its impact is modest, but there are two entire classes being substantially defined by it and entire monster families interacting with it in form of damage, weakness and such. It has the potential to be incredibly important, but only if you are running a game with at least one of those elements in it.

However, the mechanical parts of alignment also seem to be less affected. Some alignment damage still exists in the form of spirit damage plus sanctification.

It seems like a nice 2.5e.

I wouldn't call it a full edition change until there's major math changes, the death of Vancian casting, no "Big 6" ability scores, etc.

I am concerned that the changes won't be ironed out to full elegance due to time constraints, and that there might be some weird rules artifacts that crop up.

Curious about the specifics, but it really doesn't seem like much of a big deal to me in terms of practical effects on games I'm involved in.

I'm excited by the changes. I'm looking forward to when the books come out and I'm fully expecting to keep reflexively grognard-ing and being confused for a while every time I run into one of these rules, but enjoying them more in the end. That's been my reaction to each change I've read about so far, and I don't see why that trend wouldn't continue.

Twiggies wrote:

I think the only thing that was a bummer for me personally was rangers having spells in core, but that's specifically because I love the flavour of a non-magical nature survivalist type which PF2e rangers had with the spells being optional instead of core. It's probably better overall to do but nooo my flavuh.

Pretty sure they only said the ranger focus spells are now core instead of in a seperate book like the APG. This allows paizo to give them the monk treatment, i.e. scaling their spell DC with their class DC but only if they have a focus spell.

You still have to opt into spells by getting focus spells via feats. So you can absolutely play a non-magic ranger.

Oh excellent! Yippee

Remastered,despite what Paizo are saying, is a 2.5 version of the game.
From what I understand, future products will not be marketed as Paizo Remastered,correct?

All the monsters remain entirely compatible, the ancestries are largely untouched (except being expanded), and most of the classes are just getting very very minor touch-ups like "rogue gets all martial weapons instead of a handful of them".

The biggest changes to classes are going to the wizard and witch, followed likely by the champion. The witch is getting some new abilities, new feats, and new flavor guidance for her patrons, while the wizard is getting a rewrite of his schools of magic. That is a significant change, although we don't know how much it will truly change him mechanically yet. The champion will probably just be getting some tweaks to accommodate the new alignment rules.

Other than all that, the only "engine change" here appears to be to alignment, which, if we're honest, was never a particularly core part of the game's mechanical engine to begin with. It was mostly flavor, with some mechanical implications if you were playing certain classes. Ignoring it was arguably the most common house rule in the entire game, and that's including Free Archetype.

I might be missing something, but I think that the most significant changes so far are to wizard schools, witch patrons and alignment. Everything else is mostly just tweaks. Skills are unchanged, feats are unchanged, the action economy is unchanged, equipment and WBL are unchanged, encounter design and monsters are unchanged.

I can't speak for 3.0 to 3.5, because I came in just as 3.0 was on its way out, so my only recollection of it is from how we had the 3.0 DMG for a while without realizing it.

The switch from 3.5 to PF1, though--often dubbed "3.75"--included a complete overhaul of how XP worked, an overhaul of how many maneuvers worked (well, grappling, at least), completely modifying several monster types to the extent that those monsters simply had to be rewritten, flat buffs across the board to every class and every ancestry that irreparably changed the power level of any adventuring party, changes to the poison and...

Spells seem to be pretty heavily reworked too. And I have a feeling magic and alchemical items might not remain just like they currently are either. I would also not be surprised by getting clarifications on Illusions and Polymorph spells, and maybe even RK (who knows).

Remastered,despite what Paizo are saying, is a 2.5 version of the game.

From what I understand, future products will not be marketed as Paizo Remastered,correct?

I doubt they will mark future books as remastered, since even the new Core books are marked as such.

I like many of the changes. But I am worried that Champion might become the Holy/Unholy class only, just like there are currently only Good and Evil Champions. And that Hellknights might just fade into the background. These fears stem from the removal of the Chaos vs Law axis at PC level.

It'd be very surprised if, after all this effort to open up story potential for classes, they made the mistake of writing themselves right back into the very hole they've been unhappy with for years. Just to an even greater degree, because sanctification is even less nuanced than alignment. It's good and evil and that's it. The tenets of good and evil are probably staying in some form, but I cannot imagine they are anything but optional at this point. Except if your deity expects you to be sanctified, ofc, but then you have a dog in that fight anyway.

As for the Hellknights? Not sure, but it's not like the mechanical underpinnings were doing much in that regard. Which is why they were removed. The story weight and ideological conflict is still all there. They are certainly popular and afaik all Paizo, so shouldn't be cut in the OGL cleanup.

Do we have any idea if/when any of the archetypes in the various Lost Omens books, especially the first 2, will be remastered?

Do we have any idea if/when any of the archetypes in the various Lost Omens books, especially the first 2, will be remastered?

They probabaly won't. Why would they? Are there any in particular that would need a remaster?

We'll most likely get an errata for stuff that's REALLY integrated with the changed systems, like runelords and their ties to the old magic schools. But most content will work perfectly fine with the remaster.

Do we have any idea if/when any of the archetypes in the various Lost Omens books, especially the first 2, will be remastered?

As far as we know, the current remastered books are it. Some rulebooks will also receive some more errata but not to the extent of the current batch. Secrets of Magic might be the exception, as it gets affected pretty heavily, but we have no solid info on that front.

Terevalis Unctio of House Mysti wrote:

Do we have any idea if/when any of the archetypes in the various Lost Omens books, especially the first 2, will be remastered?

They probabaly won't. Why would they? Are there any in particular that would need a remaster?

We'll most likely get an errata for stuff that's REALLY integrated with the changed systems, like runelords and their ties to the old magic schools. But most content will work perfectly fine with the remaster.

Possibly Magic Warrior if battleform spells get changed at all, and also the Red Mantis Assassin, though that's a super minor change. It requires you to be LE aligned, but that's not going to be around. Honestly I think they could just leave that out and say that you must worship Achaekek and be fine.

Maaaaaaaaybe the Living Monolith, too? At minimum it's requirements for entry are a tad wonky.

I'd like Hellknight Armiger to have a rework to not require heavy armor prof, because it's super restricting, but that feels more in the realm of regular ol' erata and not specifically tied to the remaster.

My biggest take-away from PaizoCon is that the remaster is turning out to quite similar in scope and extent to the D&D 3E -> 3.5 change.

I'm less interested in arguing about whether this constitutes a new edition, as that largely depends upon one's chosen definition. I also think that the "edition" conversation is really trying to get to motivation, which in this case was clearly WotC's OGL nonsense -- something obviously beyond Paizo's control. Under the circumstances, I can't begrudge them releasing new books.

As to the changes themselves, for the most part I like them. I don't think I'll miss ability scores, and anything that cuts down on the various meanings of "level" is good for new folks. Dropping the "middle man" of spell components and going directly with tags feels more consistent. Lastly, I have come to prefer the player/GM book split, and so I'm glad to see Paizo adopt it.

There are a few things I'm less enthused about. For instance, while I won't be sad to see class-specific weapon proficiency lists go away, that change feels unnecessary. Likewise, I wonder if things like merging and/or altering spells -- as opposed to simply renaming them for OGL purposes -- might needlessly introduce bumps in backward compatibility with pre-remaster material. It won't be as simple as a 1:1 translation for NPC spells lists, for example.

Overall I look forward to picking up Player Core 1, but I do think they have a bit of a tightrope to walk to avoid some splitting of the player base. Happily, they seem aware of this.

Possibly Magic Warrior if battleform spells get changed at all, and also the Red Mantis Assassin, though that's a super minor change. It requires you to be LE aligned, but that's not going to be around. Honestly I think they could just leave that out and say that you must worship Achaekek and be fine.

Maaaaaaaaybe the Living Monolith, too? At minimum it's requirements for entry are a tad wonky.

I'd like Hellknight Armiger to have a rework to not require heavy armor prof, because it's super restricting, but that feels more in the realm of regular ol' erata and not specifically tied to the remaster.

The bigger issue for Red Mantis (and a few other options scattered throughout books) is that their spellcasting feat gives you spells based on their school. That's some pretty clear errata bait.

Maybe Paizo has received some feedback on their earlier 2E Lost Omens work that they might want to take the opportunity to fix?

I think a lot of folks were thinking the remaster was going to be about taking PF2 as is and just scraping off serial numbers and painting over things that probably didn't belong to paizo, when it turns out they are being way more ethical and actually taking out the bits that didn't feel distinctly pathfinder to their core, to the developers, and are being replaced with things that are.

I really think that in a year, it is not going to feel like as big of a change as it feels like it is now. I think that PF2 was headed farther away from a lot of that stuff than people realized, because it was so entrenched in PF1 that people just assumed that it was coming over eventually, when in fact, it had already been retired.

Was there any news on when Herolab would have the Remaster available?

I am sure that this is a Herolab question, but how much work would it be to update a character with the changes?

How will these changes impact PFS?

How will these changes impact PFS?

I've been wondering that myself, but if that has been addressed to this point, I've missed it.

I can say that as a PFS GM, I focus on knowing the core rules and providing a fun, inclusive experience. I already leave most of a character's operation to the player, as I will never be as familiar with their character as they are (not to mention that I can't keep up with all of the mechanical content). Now if something seems too good to be true, I might stop and ask the player to explain, but for the most part I leave the player-facing complexity player-facing. Think "trust but verify."

All of this is to say that they may not have to do much at all: perhaps it would be sufficient to simply offer a free, one-time rebuild of all characters created prior to the release of the remaster for those interested. Meanwhile, those who aren't interested can keep playing their character as is.

I like some of what I'm hearing.

How much I enjoy will depend on the final product. If they clear up a bunch of unclear rules with hardness, wild shape, battle forms, and other unclear areas, I'll be happy.

If the wizard and witch are fun to build and play, that will be great.

If in this push for this remaster, they leave a ton of unclear rules in the game providing very little clarity leaving people to fight over this stuff, I won't be so pleased. This is a perfect chance to make things much more clear on items they've been asked about since release. I hope they are making sure to get this part done on top of the other changes.

So, what is your overall impression of the announced Remaster changes?

I have yet to see a change I don't like.

My concern at this point is that if Pathfinder moves too far from 'd20' at what point is it no longer one of the choices people ready to leave D&D consider.

Not too many people will leave D&D for GURPS or Hero System for example. You have to want a complete radical different kind of gaming experience to do that. But at present Pathfinder is a perfect choice if you're upset with some key things about D&D but like the style of gaming it offered. It's the perfect place to begin branching out and exploring more gaming.

I don't think we're there yet though. But...

My biggest concern is something I don't think anyone else is worried about. Losing the 3-18 stats for just bonuses. They are a "feel" thing, they evoke nostalgia from older gamers like me. They've been nearly pointless almost since AD&D itself... but they just "feel" like I'm sitting down for this kind of fantasy gaming when I see them on a sheet.

And I feel that when you show a new player those stats on a sheet, they instantly know that it's a game they can relate to, even when actual play starts to differ from what they were doing before.

Otherwise... as far as for Pathfinder itself, all of the changes seem great. It's a lot of system cleanup.

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Hmmm... let me note one more thing I'm worried about. I feel they SHOULD called this PF2.5E . Now that we see these changes, I feel it's folly to NOT call it a partial edition change. The changes here are vastly greater than what happened between 3.0 and 3.5 D&D (that was mostly about some rando flavor text and an excuse to sell more books - little actually changed in the game).

The changes here are possibly even greater than the difference between AD&D 1E and AD&D 2E.

They are notably more severe than the differences one would see in different editions of GURPS or Hero or BESM or Chaosium...

Not calling it a partial edition bump is something I feel will actually just confuse players in the future. You will end up with people buying the 'old books' on eBay or Amazon and showing up at tables where the class they picked works completely differently, the stats they wrote down no longer exist, they alignment they picked doesn't exist, half their spell list has a different name, and the rules they're playing in work subtly differently.

This scenario will also likely play out in reverse as well. You join a new game and discover the GM has decided to not accept anything from the remaster. There are always people that refuse change for various reasons. Without a callout of "2.5" people won't be able to spot where they stand as easily, and you'll get the kind of small scale drama that breaks up newly forming gaming tables.

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Other than my feeling on attributes I feel these are all the right changes, but it needs to be called out more.