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Ahoy, fellow Pathfinders!
The goal of this thread is to serve as a central index of sorts for whatever we learn about PF2 between now and the August 1st release date.
As someone pointed out in another thread, it can be tough to keep up because these bits of information are scattered all across the internet: tucked away in threads here, comments on Reddit or Facebook or Twitter, in interviews with various media outlets, etc.
So in the spirit of the excellent "When's the Next Blog?" thread that we had going ahead of the playtest release, I'm hoping that this thread can serve as a central source to link to new information as it comes out.
I'll kick us off with a comment Erik Mona posted on Reddit summarizing some of the big-picture changes since the playtest.
A fair amount of stuff has changed, yes. We've been working hard to address playtest feedback and finish the rules since the day the playtest released.
We released something like nine updates to the rules that give a pretty sprawling view of some of the stuff that has changed, but it's admittedly a bit of a chore to sort through all of that stuff.
We'll be talking a lot more about specific changes in the time between now and the release, so we'll be providing more succinct answers to this over the next few months.
Math has changed so it's not quite so tight. Some elements of proficiency (especially as it relates to the associated bonuses and especially to untrained characters) have changed, in the direction most playtesters wanted.
Biggest class change is the paladin is now the champion, and you can play LG, NG, or CG. The LG champion is called the paladin.
Resonance is completely gone.
Spells are beefed up considerably.
You get more from your ancestry at first level.
There are generally more choices to make for each class, in terms of type (leaf druid/storm druid, etc.) and in terms of class feat selections.
Overall I'd say skill feats are more interesting and impactful.
The book has been completely re-designed to improve cross-referencing and ease of use.
The character sheet is completely different.
Chapter 1, which covers a summary of the rules concepts and character creation, has been completely rewritten and is much more user friendly. Making a character should be considerably easier this time.
Lots and lots and lots of general "quality of life" improvements, mostly as a result of playtester feedback.
It's 210 pages longer, give or take.
Those are just a few of the big changes off the top of my head.
To fill in the "what we know so far" picture of changes since the playtest, check out these two post-playtest discussions with Jason. These provide the most detail that we've seen so far, I'd say.
Jason on Twitch, December 21st. Notes and discussion thread HERE.
Jason on Know Direction, January 16th. Notes and discussion thread HERE.
So if you come across any information, post/link it here!
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Two other interesting bits of information we've seen so far:
Class Archetypes: the Core Rulebook provides the definition for PF1-style class archetypes (archetypes that swap out class features) to enable their future release, even though it doesn't include any such archetypes:
The Core Rulebook defines these kinds of archetype (called "class archetypes"), even though it doesn't include them. They're just too core a concept and too fertile a ground for future rules expansion not to define them well so everyone is ready for them and can find the relevant rules in the CRB. This also has a side effect of making it easier for 3pps to have a framework to write them too.
Monster Creation Rules: Not in the Bestiary, but will be released "swiftly."
There will not be monster creation rules in the Bestiary.
There will be monster creation rules available fairly shortly thereafter.
I can't reveal more than that without spoiling other stuff we haven't announced yet.
Suffice it to say that we know these rules are very important to people and to their campaigns, and will will get them to you swiftly.
Just not in the Bestiary (mostly because we don't want to have to repeat that information every time we do a monster book, and we don't want the first monster book to be substantially more expensive than the others (because we added extra pages) or contain substantially fewer monsters (because we kept the page count the same).
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Pretty anxious for April 4th.
Then we've got May, June, and July to wait thru.
*sigh*
-Mutters like Inigo Montoya-
"I hate waiting..."
I have allot of stuff coming out next few months so the wait should not be too bad
1) Zweihander and Main Gauche Kickstart
2) Torg Eternity Nile Empire Kickstart
3) Savage Worlds Adventure ED Kickstart
John Carter Mars coming 2d20 and Shadowlands for LR5 5th.
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While the work for the design team is winding down, our great editors and graphic designers are still hard at work wrapping up the books for all to enjoy. Just giving a shout out to our amazing team. It's never easy, but they are some of the best pros in the gaming business!
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A few details from Mark's recent posts.
Post #1 reconfirms that, for archetypes, the CRB will include only the multiclass archetypes, and implies that the Cavalier archetype will not be featured in any of the initial release products (surprising me, since I had assumed we'd see it in the World Guide).
Post #2 has some good news for Monks: "Strength/Wis and Strength/Con monks will be happy because there's a new 1st-level stance they can try out that gives more AC and has a max Dex."
And Post #3 suggests that ki blast got some cool/interesting upgrades.
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If someone puts up a notes & discussion thread I'll link it
There's already officially a thread for this, so I posted some notes there.
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There's already officially a thread for this, so I posted some notes there.If someone puts up a notes & discussion thread I'll link it
Great, thanks! That one had gone so off-track talking about the GAMA game I didn't know if it would be helpful to resurrect it to add this.
Guess this is the value of the index-thread approach. This stuff really is scattered and confused!
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And I could see the reason for there inclusion in the playtest, other then being a class, both as another way to test the new animal companion/minion mechanic, and to see the results of allowing traditionally non-animal companion class to have access to a animal companion. {ie what would be the affect both mechanically and RP, if the foe saw a half bull man <barbarian rage, animal totem> riding on top of a horse into battle, ect :p >
You have caught two of the reasons I wanted to test cavalier and pushed to add it to the playtest. Another one I really wanted to know was "what do people think about the cavalier toolkit being a broadly available option for all characters rather than a class?"
(the answer is, people were in favor overwhelmingly for cavalier, and also in favor of this treatment for some other concepts that were classes in PF1 but not as overwhelmingly as for cavalier)
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And I could see the reason for there inclusion in the playtest, other then being a class, both as another way to test the new animal companion/minion mechanic, and to see the results of allowing traditionally non-animal companion class to have access to a animal companion. {ie what would be the affect both mechanically and RP, if the foe saw a half bull man <barbarian rage, animal totem> riding on top of a horse into battle, ect :p >
You have caught two of the reasons I wanted to test cavalier and pushed to add it to the playtest. Another one I really wanted to know was "what do people think about the cavalier toolkit being a broadly available option for all characters rather than a class?"
(the answer is, people were in favor overwhelmingly for cavalier, and also in favor of this treatment for some other concepts that were classes in PF1 but not as overwhelmingly as for cavalier)
For me mounted combat was not the cavalier's appeal. For me its appeal was the Tactician ability, I hope you guys introduce a class that focus on this withou getting derailed by the Charges and other mounted shenanigans
P.S mounted shenanigans are awsome but I rather have that as an archetype than built in in a class
Response about Cavalier:
Tactician might be viable mechanic as an archetype as well, I'm not sure. I'd have to see an example of trying it, to see if it could be worthwhile or not.
I wonder if you could make a base class that is bare bones, but begins with two bonus archetype dedications. Hmm... interesting idea.
Apologizes, after I hit submit, I saw the subject and regretted my response pretty quickly.
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A few details from Mark's recent posts.
Post #1 reconfirms that, for archetypes, the CRB will include only the multiclass archetypes, and implies that the Cavalier archetype will not be featured in any of the initial release products
FWIW I did not read it as the Cavalier archetype not being available early on. Just as it not being in the CRB
Nice...hopefully we'll start to get some previews of the final game before too long. The Beta evolved way too fast for me to keep up.
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Nice...hopefully we'll start to get some previews of the final game before too long. The Beta evolved way too fast for me to keep up.
The Core Rulebook goes to the printer on Friday, and the Bestiary is in sign-offs, so I imagine previews are likely to start in earnest soon.
And if not, then at least the Oblivion Oath streaming game starts next Thursday (though 1hr/wk and starting at lvl1 it might be a while before we get much preview content out of it).
Since they are actually streaming the game AND the rules are finalized though, we might be getting some meatier previews soon after that.
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Even a 1st level game can have rules revelations, too. I mean, if there's some new use for Charisma, it's probably from level 1, just as one possibility.
That's true. I'm mostly concerned with the combination of lvl1 and 1hr/wk, which together mean it will take a long time to see "new" material after we learn what we can learn from the first session or two (after we've extracted whatever lvl1 stuff is immediately obvious)
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Well, right now they're doing the updated Iconic Artwork stuff at one a week, and are four characters down. So I'd expect serious info to start when those have all been posted (possibly sooner, but then at the latest). That'd be in 8 weeks or so, and thus late May, and as stated that's the latest start date I'd expect.
They've said April 4th for previews on a Twitch video that aired a while before they became available for pre-order. I had mistakenly interpretted that to be when pre-orders would be available.
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The Bestiary has 403 monstersAre. There. Linnorms?
There are 202 monsters, excluding variations of Linnorms.
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There are 202 monsters, excluding variations of Linnorms.The Bestiary has 403 monstersAre. There. Linnorms?
Woohoo!
Even a 1st level game can have rules revelations, too. I mean, if there's some new use for Charisma, it's probably from level 1, just as one possibility.That's true. I'm mostly concerned with the combination of lvl1 and 1hr/wk, which together mean it will take a long time to see "new" material after we learn what we can learn from the first session or two (after we've extracted whatever lvl1 stuff is immediately obvious)
Well, a level 1 game might be better for dissection. It will certainly be easier to pick out when stuff comes online, which feat does what precisely etc. For example, we can get a much better idea of the Treat Wounds scaling like this than if they just started at high levels. And if they actually walk us through their level up choices, as many actual plays do, all the better.
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Well, a level 1 game might be better for dissection. It will certainly be easier to pick out when stuff comes online, which feat does what precisely etc. For example, we can get a much better idea of the Treat Wounds scaling like this than if they just started at high levels. And if they actually walk us through their level up choices, as many actual plays do, all the better.
To some degree this depends on how quickly they level. They probably need to hit 3rd level in order to see any scaling in Treat Wounds, for example, and even then only if one of the PCs takes it as their sole Expert Skill (okay, technically the Rogue will have two such Skills...but probably not Medicine).
I still think it'll provide useful info, but scaling may not happen too much before the game is out.
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The Bestiary is off to the printer!
HUGE congratulations to the Paizo staff on getting this game done. 1000 pages of rulebooks to launch an RPG! That's one heck of a project. Can't wait to play!
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Seems to have been kind of a stealth product announcement/leak?
By keeping quiet on the official front, they have a little insulation against product disruption this far ahead of the curve. We all remember the debacle with the Strategy Guide (that sucker sure didn't seem to want to be released!).
Paizo also seems to be waiting until the initial products for PF2 are out before making any other product announcements. Smart move overall, but it seems to be clear they want to produce a Beginner Box in 2020. I'm guessing for GenCon release.
Paizo also seems to be waiting until the initial products for PF2 are out before making any other product announcements. Smart move overall, but it seems to be clear they want to produce a Beginner Box in 2020. I'm guessing for GenCon release.
This probably has more to do with distributors not wanting to commit to a new product line without some data that will actually sell.
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Seems to have been kind of a stealth product announcement/leak?
Strike that. The podcaster spoke up to say that the mention of the beginner-box-like product wasn't definitive:
basically while our information did come from a Paizo rep it seems like it was intended to be more speculation than confirmation
Seems odd to release the beginner box after the CRB. WotC did all theirs prior to the full release of the game. Mostly to sell more boxes to veterans who simply wanted to preview new content, I imagine.
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~Something~ has changed with heightening for spontaneous casters, but no indication as to what the new heightening will look like:
Oh, gotcha, you mean heightening for spontaneous casters, rather than heightening in general for everybody. Logan and I had a long chat about this topic, and we think we found a way to do it that gives you a lot more leeway than spontaneous heightening did, without bringing back the analysis paralysis of the time when I first wrote it with free heightening and without causing issues where spontaneous casters have pressure to stock up on only heightenable spells and bloodlines with non-heightenable spells have a problem. Anecdotally, the spontaneous casters seem pretty happy with it. Hopefully for your group too!
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Seems odd to release the beginner box after the CRB. WotC did all theirs prior to the full release of the game. Mostly to sell more boxes to veterans who simply wanted to preview new content, I imagine.
Also they're not the only ones doing beginner products after core books - Mutants & Masterminds 3e: Green Ronin released a beginner's guide only after many supplements had come out for the base game.
Paizo itself followed this process for 1e - first they published the core rules, then, quite a bit after the fact, they started releasing products oriented towards beginners.
More than one way to skin a cat.
Do we have confirmation that neutral aligned Champions will be in the CRB or not? I know it was explicitly stated evil Champions will be in the first/second splatbook, but what about the Arbiters? Also commenting just so I can find this super easily :P
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Do we have confirmation that neutral aligned Champions will be in the CRB or not? I know it was explicitly stated evil Champions will be in the first/second splatbook, but what about the Arbiters? Also commenting just so I can find this super easily :P
Only good champions in the core book. As stated here.
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Do we have confirmation that neutral aligned Champions will be in the CRB or not? I know it was explicitly stated evil Champions will be in the first/second splatbook, but what about the Arbiters? Also commenting just so I can find this super easily :P
This is not true.
While Jason and Erik have indicated that we will see Champions of other alignments at some point, nobody at Paizo has given any indication as to when that might be.
(Unless I missed it of course, but I've been tracking PF2 news closely so I'd be surprised if I missed something like this.)
Do we have confirmation that neutral aligned Champions will be in the CRB or not? I know it was explicitly stated evil Champions will be in the first/second splatbook, but what about the Arbiters? Also commenting just so I can find this super easily :PThis is not true.
While Jason and Erik have indicated that we will see Champions of other alignments at some point, nobody at Paizo has given any indication as to when that might be.
(Unless I missed it of course, but I've been tracking PF2 news closely so I'd be surprised if I missed something like this.)
It was during the playtest when Champions first became a thing and we got the NG/CG paladins, they said that the evil ones would definitely be in the first batch of books. They also said they MIGHT try and work the neutral ones into the CRB, but they probably won't (and didn't) make it
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Joe, thanks for the hard work.
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It was during the playtest when Champions first became a thing and we got the NG/CG paladins, they said that the evil ones would definitely be in the first batch of books. They also said they MIGHT try and work the neutral ones into the CRB, but they probably won't (and didn't) make itDo we have confirmation that neutral aligned Champions will be in the CRB or not? I know it was explicitly stated evil Champions will be in the first/second splatbook, but what about the Arbiters? Also commenting just so I can find this super easily :PThis is not true.
While Jason and Erik have indicated that we will see Champions of other alignments at some point, nobody at Paizo has given any indication as to when that might be.
(Unless I missed it of course, but I've been tracking PF2 news closely so I'd be surprised if I missed something like this.)
I've reviewed the twitch stream that first announced the champion differentiation, and forum posts from the couple weeks following, and have not been able to find any comment to the effect that additional champion alignments would be added "in the first/second splatbook", or even to the effect that additional champion alignments would be added soon after the release of the Core rules.
The closest I could find are a couple of posts from Mark talking about the possibility of expanding to other alignments in the future or saying that the class was restricted to the good alignments "... for now ;)".
I continue to believe that no such comments were made, based on my best recollection and this initial search. So I'll leave off searching for a comment I don't believe exists.
But I could have missed it! So if you're able (or if anyone else is able) to find such comments and point us to them, that would be really helpful!
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It was during the playtest when Champions first became a thing and we got the NG/CG paladins, they said that the evil ones would definitely be in the first batch of books. They also said they MIGHT try and work the neutral ones into the CRB, but they probably won't (and didn't) make itDo we have confirmation that neutral aligned Champions will be in the CRB or not? I know it was explicitly stated evil Champions will be in the first/second splatbook, but what about the Arbiters? Also commenting just so I can find this super easily :PThis is not true.
While Jason and Erik have indicated that we will see Champions of other alignments at some point, nobody at Paizo has given any indication as to when that might be.
(Unless I missed it of course, but I've been tracking PF2 news closely so I'd be surprised if I missed something like this.)
First "batch" of books doesn't necessarily mean "first/second splatbook." It might just mean everything in their first planning batch, which could be half a dozen releases or more covering up to a year.
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It was during the playtest when Champions first became a thing and we got the NG/CG paladins, they said that the evil ones would definitely be in the first batch of books. They also said they MIGHT try and work the neutral ones into the CRB, but they probably won't (and didn't) make itDo we have confirmation that neutral aligned Champions will be in the CRB or not? I know it was explicitly stated evil Champions will be in the first/second splatbook, but what about the Arbiters? Also commenting just so I can find this super easily :PThis is not true.
While Jason and Erik have indicated that we will see Champions of other alignments at some point, nobody at Paizo has given any indication as to when that might be.
(Unless I missed it of course, but I've been tracking PF2 news closely so I'd be surprised if I missed something like this.)
I've reviewed the twitch stream that first announced the champion differentiation, and forum posts from the couple weeks following, and have not been able to find any comment to the effect that additional champion alignments would be added "in the first/second splatbook", or even to the effect that additional champion alignments would be added soon after the release of the Core rules.
The closest I could find are a couple of posts from Mark talking about the possibility of expanding to other alignments in the future or saying that the class was restricted to the good alignments "... for now ;)".
I continue to believe that no such comments were made, based on my best recollection and this initial search. So I'll leave off searching for a comment I don't believe exists.
But I could have missed it! So if you're able (or if anyone else is able) to find such comments and point us to them, that would be...
While I haven't watched every stream and have been wrong before, I am almost certain that Joe is correct. Or at least, this isn't true of what I consider the "first batch of books" (the launch products, in my opinion, are pretty batch-worthy, and they will not include those rules).
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While I haven't watched every stream and have been wrong before, I am almost certain that Joe is correct. Or at least, this isn't true of what I consider the "first batch of books" (the launch products, in my opinion, are pretty batch-worthy, and they will not include those rules).
Thank you Mark. Saving the day as always!