Drow as they have been in the lore are going away. I'm okay with that, as long as they don't go away completely from a mechanical standpoint. I am totally okay with a rename, a la Kholo or Iruxi. I'd love to see what Paizo can do to make them their own lore-wise. If that means waiting a while, then so be it.
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I feel an AP could happen that will eradicate most subterranean Drows. It could be tied with a reemergence of the Sekmin and some world-shattering event that makes the latter payable.
There would be some Drow survivors but only small enclaves, many of them on the surface. And they might be mostly those who were not aligned with Unholy, so that this breaks the Drow = Evil elves stereotype.
My crackpot theory is that dark elves are just going to become "elves who happen to live underground", with no meaningful biological differences. Sometimes elves are just lilac-colored. it's not a big deal.
With the overall shift away from singular cosmic force responsible for any world-wide game elements, I think the odds of "Underground elves have always been around, but have gotten some bad press in the world due to some small groups/interactions that have defined how a lot of people in the world have looked at them, but those stories are only one of the many stories that exist about these people" will fit with, "some people called some of these underground elves 'Drow,' including some of the underground elves themselves, but that was only part of the picture." So I don't think this is a very crackpot theory at all.
Here's a list of the things PF2 drow have in common with D&D drow:
- Called "drow"
- Underground
- Elves, but with a distinct biology and culture from surface elves
- Live in big cities with complex politics and power structures that can challenge or even conquer other underground societies
- Slavery, torture, hedonism, poison use
- Matriarchal (though notably, surface elves are kind of matriarchal in Pathfinder, too)
- Evil and/or the enemies of surface elves
- Lingering spider theming, connected to driders (driders are definitely boned; here's hoping for a centaur heritage?)
- Demon worship
- White hair and unusually colored skin
Am I missing anything?
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They're also both known for being exceptionally gifted natural mages (above and beyond other elves). It's a big thing in Forgotten Realms and PF1 had the whole "drow noble" thing to give you a bunch of free spells.
Having slept on it, if that news being alluded to is something like “Drow are just underground Elves” or “very classic underground demonic Drow are no longer getting focus,” I could be content with that. One can easily imagine a new term to refer to those Elves below, the same way Vourinoi are desert folk.
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From the stream: the 3 unrevealed Ancestries in the Tian Xia are all new.
A bit unrelated to the upcoming Darklands panel tomorrow, but do you think it's possible Sekmin will be playable in the future? They were a bit stronger than a regular ancestry in 1e, but with the ancestry feat system present in 2e I don't think there's any mechanical limitations to playing one. The hangups would come from their lore mainly, but it's something I'd be excited to one day play.
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From the stream: the 3 unrevealed Ancestries in the Tian Xia are all new.
With that likely meaning we're not getting Locathah in the Tian Xia book, and people asking for stuff like Merfolk in Howl of the Wild, do you think it's possible there might be some kind of "big underwater book" in the vein of Book of the Dead eventually releasing. A shared theme between all those ancestries is of course their swimming speed and minor weakness on land, which would incentivize playing them in a sea travel or underwater campaign. Of course, neither of these are currently well supported in the rules of 2e. Perhaps this is a personal preference, as I don't know how high the demand would be for something like this, but it might be cool if there was a rulebook featuring underwater adventures.
More on ancestries, of those still unknown from Howl of the Wild one is brand new, while the other three are "not Greek". This I'm certain disqualifies Stheno, but what else would you like to see. They've already mentioned some of the push the boundaries of what an ancestry is, something further supported by Minotaur & Centaur both being Large. Leaves room open for some really unique stuff.
Creative Director
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A bit unrelated to the upcoming Darklands panel tomorrow, but do you think it's possible Sekmin will be playable in the future? They were a bit stronger than a regular ancestry in 1e, but with the ancestry feat system present in 2e I don't think there's any mechanical limitations to playing one. The hangups would come from their lore mainly, but it's something I'd be excited to one day play.
One of the best things about 2nd edition is that the rules for PCs and the rules for monsters aren't entwined. We can absolutely do sekmin as a PC ancestry. Will we? Maybe some day. But at the same time, I feel it's valuable to "retain" some ancestries as antagonist roles in adventures, and the sekmin are one of those antagonist roles. It's a good example of an ancestry, if we did it, that would be Rare—not because they're inherently more powerful, but because playing one will clash against the stories we want to tell.
A bit unrelated to the upcoming Darklands panel tomorrow, but do you think it's possible Sekmin will be playable in the future? They were a bit stronger than a regular ancestry in 1e, but with the ancestry feat system present in 2e I don't think there's any mechanical limitations to playing one. The hangups would come from their lore mainly, but it's something I'd be excited to one day play.One of the best things about 2nd edition is that the rules for PCs and the rules for monsters aren't entwined. We can absolutely do sekmin as a PC ancestry. Will we? Maybe some day. But at the same time, I feel it's valuable to "retain" some ancestries as antagonist roles in adventures, and the sekmin are one of those antagonist roles. It's a good example of an ancestry, if we did it, that would be Rare—not because they're inherently more powerful, but because playing one will clash against the stories we want to tell.
Aye, a PC Sekmin would likely clash with their entire history to the point, seeing as most parties are often good/neutral. Definitely an antithetical one. Still, thank you for the clarification! I'd be excited to see them one day, but I understand now why they might never be.
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I’ve been waving my pom-poms for a Sekmin Ancestry for years now. Someday!
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A bit unrelated to the upcoming Darklands panel tomorrow, but do you think it's possible Sekmin will be playable in the future? They were a bit stronger than a regular ancestry in 1e, but with the ancestry feat system present in 2e I don't think there's any mechanical limitations to playing one. The hangups would come from their lore mainly, but it's something I'd be excited to one day play.One of the best things about 2nd edition is that the rules for PCs and the rules for monsters aren't entwined. We can absolutely do sekmin as a PC ancestry. Will we? Maybe some day. But at the same time, I feel it's valuable to "retain" some ancestries as antagonist roles in adventures, and the sekmin are one of those antagonist roles. It's a good example of an ancestry, if we did it, that would be Rare—not because they're inherently more powerful, but because playing one will clash against the stories we want to tell.
While I sometimes feel like a minority here for this view, I 100% agree with you James. I feel there are certain species which really should remain NPC only. To me Sekmin are alien and innately hostile to other species. To me, having a shadowy and ancient threat out there is undermined when suddenly they are part of an adventuring party.
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I've never been huge on Sekmin for my own reasons. Of all the countless reptilian ancestries, they're the one that's sort of... well, I think that ten years from now we may be talking about them the way a lot of people talk about drow now. Which is a shame, because I love their design, and their lore is full of cool creative ideas! I'm really glad nagaji and lizardfolk have come to fill that void so gracefully.
It's my personal preference that Sekmin remain too alien to a human mindset to let them be PCs (since the players are themselves human), but that's not really different than "a GM doesn't allow Poppet characters because they think they're silly."
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It's my personal preference that Sekmin remain too alien to a human mindset to let them be PCs (since the players are themselves human), but that's not really different than "a GM doesn't allow Poppet characters because they think they're silly."
Never really got the argument of an ancestry having "too alien" a mind for human players to get into. Sure, obviously a roleplayer thinking in real time won't be quite the same as far as capturing the weirdness of certain creatures as they are on writing, but I feel like that's too high an expectation and can be applied on pretty much any non-human ancestry. I mean, what do I know of how it'd feel to be an Elf and live to be 400? Anyway, that ship has probably already sailed with 2e, I doubt there's any PC option they could include stranger than the Conrasu. Though of course a GM can restrict player options as they want to better fit the story they're trying to tell, I'm not arguing against that.
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I like the idea of being a psychic mutant weirdo with a unique view of history and a connection to a mostly-dead god. They tick a lot of boxes for me.
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To me the Alghollthu, and especially the Veiled Masters, are the subterranean shadowy menace that manipulates surface society for its own nefarious goals, complete with alien mindset.
In a way, they feel like a hybrid of pulp fantasy's Deep Ones and Snakemen and have completely taken over the tropes of the latter ones that I know of. And they feel more original to Golarion in this role than the Sekmin.
So, yes, I too look forward to one day, maybe, having a deeper exploration of the Sekmin society and even have them as a playable ancestry.
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To me the Alghollthu, and especially the Veiled Masters, are the subterranean shadowy menace that manipulates surface society for its own nefarious goals, complete with alien mindset.
In a way, they feel like a hybrid of pulp fantasy's Deep Ones and Snakemen and have completely taken over the tropes of the latter ones that I know of. And they feel more original to Golarion in this role than the Sekmin.
So, yes, I too look forward to one day, maybe, having a deeper exploration of the Sekmin society and even have them as a playable ancestry.
Incidentally, I think "Alghollthus well and truly messed you up" would be a really fun flavor for an aberrant Versatile Heritage, which I've wanted for aaages.
...though now that I think about it, will Player Core mean I could just do Mixed Ancestry (Fleshwarp)?
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To me the Alghollthu, and especially the Veiled Masters, are the subterranean shadowy menace that manipulates surface society for its own nefarious goals, complete with alien mindset.
In a way, they feel like a hybrid of pulp fantasy's Deep Ones and Snakemen and have completely taken over the tropes of the latter ones that I know of. And they feel more original to Golarion in this role than the Sekmin.
So, yes, I too look forward to one day, maybe, having a deeper exploration of the Sekmin society and even have them as a playable ancestry.
Incidentally, I think "Alghollthus well and truly messed you up" would be a really fun flavor for an aberrant Versatile Heritage, which I've wanted for aaages.
...though now that I think about it, will Player Core mean I could just do Mixed Ancestry (Fleshwarp)?
That last point is an excellent point.
Really happy that we will have some RAW that helps everyone and anyone create Heritages out of Ancestries.
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Random massive out-there speculative guess on the GenCon rulebook:
Book of the Twisting Flesh: Crammed full of bodymods and body-horror. A bunch of stuff on the algoluthu, a Mutagen Warrior instinct for Barbarians that works in a side-bar of alchemist, a variety of freakish ways to modify your body that function as strange new magical items, possibly with interesting downsides, and the Shifter Class.
...because I realized that Howl of the Wild meant that we weren't likely to get Shifters in through the Beast Door... but that's by no means the only entry point for the class. Also, something I read from the commentary comign out of paizocon suggested to me that whatever the rulebook was for GenCon, there was a good chance that it wasn't any of the things that we thought it likely to be.
D&D releases its next edition in 2024. The last time that happened, we got the Advanced Class Guide. Whatever we get, it's going to be big. I think it's either going to be Mythic or a bunch of new (and now Remaster compatible!) classes.
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D&D releases its next edition in 2024. The last time that happened, we got the Advanced Class Guide. Whatever we get, it's going to be big. I think it's either going to be Mythic or a bunch of new (and now Remaster compatible!) classes.
PF2 is not locked into the D&D cycle. Right now, D&D is trying to recover from self-inflicted wounds and stumble their way through a planned edition change in spite of them. PF2, by contrast, is trying to shed the last of its legal linkages to the OGL, while also integrating the massive influx of new players and keeping both them and existing players happy. By contrast, last time, 5e was a rejuvenation of a generally weak and slowly dying D&D 4e, and Paizo needed to crank up the hype to try to convince people not to jump ship. These days? Paizo has *lots* of internal hype, and absolutely nothing that WotC is suggesting for this new edition is particularly threatening to them. The greatest danger that WotC moves pose for the near future is the degree to which they may be able to atone for their sins and beg people to come back... and the way to defend against *that* is to double down on quality, which they've been doing.
Honestly, at this point, putting out more than two classes at a time would be a *mistake*.
Also, the remaster project is already a huge chunk of extra work and churn that they've been putting out. I'm pretty sure they don't have the bandwidth to do that and *also* crank out something like and Advanced Class Guide, even if it *weren't* an inherently bad idea.
While I agree with a lot of this, the publication schedule is locked down years in advance. WotC only tripped over its own feet in January. The decisions for the 2024 GenCon book were made when WotC was still on top and fully primed to take advantage of the 50th anniversary of Dungeons & Dragons. A lot of the preliminary work for the 2024 GenCon book was already done or underway by this past January. The fact that we're getting a Remaster that quickly is a minor miracle even considering that a good portion of the work has already been done. (And I am a bit curious as to what got pushed back to accomodate)
I don't expect another 10 class book if that's what we get. It's probably going to be 4, maybe 6 if they were feeling ambitious and thought they could take extra time with the playtests.
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While I agree with a lot of this, the publication schedule is locked down years in advance. WotC only tripped over its own feet in January. The decisions for the 2024 GenCon book were made when WotC was still on top and fully primed to take advantage of the 50th anniversary of Dungeons & Dragons. A lot of the preliminary work for the 2024 GenCon book was already done or underway by this past January. The fact that we're getting a Remaster that quickly is a minor miracle even considering that a good portion of the work has already been done. (And I am a bit curious as to what got pushed back to accomodate)
I don't expect another 10 class book if that's what we get. It's probably going to be 4, maybe 6 if they were feeling ambitious and thought they could take extra time with the playtests.
Anything more than 2 is highly unlikely. Now, are they going to try to go for hype? Sure... But Paizo has positioned itself so that it can get serious hype off of things like the Tian Xia books. You saw them do it.
Trying to go for more than two classes at a time would be pure self-sabotage. Right now, they're winning on quality, and have been for some time. Part of the way they make that happen is by not rushing things. Among other things, they make sure that their classes get a serious playtest run before publication... and they only have so much playtest resource to go around. So we'll get one or two, and they'll get a lot of work on the paizo side to make them good, and then they'll get a serious playtest, and then when we get the actual class or classes next year, they'll work and be awesome. The slow-roll is where the quality is... and the quality is what makes people like me latch on to PF2 and refuse to go back.
Like, I literally do not care what WotC is doing with the new edition. I know for a fact that it won't be as good as what we have right now with PF2, because there's no way that they'll put the kind of effort into the craft of it as Paizo does. Their leadership doesn't get it, and Hasbro will never be willing to let them learn... and Paizo can live just fine on people who feel just like I do.
...and that means that they can... mostly ignore whatever moves WotC is making (once they're done with the remaster, and the legal concerns are fully dead). They can just keep moving along, making their own products over-the-top awesome with ridiculously high quality at the rate that makes sense for them, rather than anything dictate by anyone else's timetable... and keep picking people up slowly as they go, as new gamers find them and decide they never want to leave.
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I think anyone expecting more than 1 Class playtest at the same time they're overhauling the entire set of core rulebooks is bound for disappointment, especially after Paizo said before any of this with the OGL to brace for less classes per year.
My hope is a spirits and spirituality book with a Shaman class and some divine options as the big Gen Con announcement. It fits very well with the trip to Tian Xia, and the non-class options in the book could fill a lot of fan wants.
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I theorized earlier that we would go from Tian Xia to the Saga Lands, then to Arcadia. I also think a Shaman Class is a strong possibility. Especially since it was announced that Spirit Damage is a new damage type being added to the game. What was discussed was largely in the context of spirits associated with the Divine magic tradition. But Primal and Occult are associated with spirits as well.
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I'd love a Shaman class.
They've had books focused on gods, but not a more general "divine" book, not even in PF 1E. It feels like a an obvious niche worth filling, and would be a good place to stick Shaman and Inquisitor.
They've had books focused on gods, but not a more general "divine" book, not even in PF 1E. It feels like a an obvious niche worth filling, and would be a good place to stick Shaman and Inquisitor.
It would be a good place for more gods (and their edicts and anathemas), and a good place to look at the outer planes like how RoE will look at the elemental planes. It would also be a good place to discuss any changes resulting from the Remaster.
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Random massive out-there speculative guess on the GenCon rulebook:
Book of the Twisting Flesh: Crammed full of bodymods and body-horror. A bunch of stuff on the algoluthu, a Mutagen Warrior instinct for Barbarians that works in a side-bar of alchemist, a variety of freakish ways to modify your body that function as strange new magical items, possibly with interesting downsides, and the Shifter Class.
...because I realized that Howl of the Wild meant that we weren't likely to get Shifters in through the Beast Door... but that's by no means the only entry point for the class. Also, something I read from the commentary comign out of paizocon suggested to me that whatever the rulebook was for GenCon, there was a good chance that it wasn't any of the things that we thought it likely to be.
I would LOVE this.
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They've had books focused on gods, but not a more general "divine" book, not even in PF 1E. It feels like a an obvious niche worth filling, and would be a good place to stick Shaman and Inquisitor.It would be a good place for more gods (and their edicts and anathemas), and a good place to look at the outer planes like how RoE will look at the elemental planes. It would also be a good place to discuss any changes resulting from the Remaster.
Because of the timetable you described above, such a book could hardly include anything Remastered.
And this is the kind of book that would REALLY need to take into account the consequences of Remastered.
Lest we get Chaotic Neutral and Lawful Neutral Champions just before losing them.
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They've had books focused on gods, but not a more general "divine" book, not even in PF 1E. It feels like a an obvious niche worth filling, and would be a good place to stick Shaman and Inquisitor.It would be a good place for more gods (and their edicts and anathemas), and a good place to look at the outer planes like how RoE will look at the elemental planes. It would also be a good place to discuss any changes resulting from the Remaster.Because of the timetable you described above, such a book could hardly include anything Remastered.
And this is the kind of book that would REALLY need to take into account the consequences of Remastered.
Lest we get Chaotic Neutral and Lawful Neutral Champions just before losing them.
The actual writing and editing for a book coming out next July would be starting around now though. Note, there’s generally a 10-11 month lead time from “playtest” to publish, so we can safely assume they can still take into account stuff written 9 months out, like Player Core and DM core.
If RoE was brought within compliance to Remaster, I think a book coming out a year later certainly could be.
(And I am a bit curious as to what got pushed back to accomodate)
As far as I can tell, 2 lost omen titles and Michael Sayre’s sleep schedule.
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They've had books focused on gods, but not a more general "divine" book, not even in PF 1E. It feels like a an obvious niche worth filling, and would be a good place to stick Shaman and Inquisitor.It would be a good place for more gods (and their edicts and anathemas), and a good place to look at the outer planes like how RoE will look at the elemental planes. It would also be a good place to discuss any changes resulting from the Remaster.Because of the timetable you described above, such a book could hardly include anything Remastered.
And this is the kind of book that would REALLY need to take into account the consequences of Remastered.
Lest we get Chaotic Neutral and Lawful Neutral Champions just before losing them.
The actual writing and editing for a book coming out next July would be starting around now though. Note, there’s generally a 10-11 month lead time from “playtest” to publish, so we can safely assume they can still take into account stuff written 9 months out, like Player Core and DM core.
If RoE was brought within compliance to Remaster, I think a book coming out a year later certainly could be.
(And I am a bit curious as to what got pushed back to accomodate)As far as I can tell, 2 lost omen titles and Michael Sayre’s sleep schedule.
Then the timing would indeed be great for a Divine book. Thanks.
An incredible book right now would be PF2R Modern.
I seem to remember James Jacobs, early in PF2's life, saying something to the effect that there were too many classes in PF1, and Paizo did not intend to have nearly as many in PF2. I don't know if that's changed, or how close to the limit we are now.
IIRC PF1 had some 44 base classes, and something like 115 Prestige Classes.
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There was mention around the time of the Kineticist playtest that the rate of new Classes per year would slow down, and Luis Loza has also consistently said that a book with important enough mechanics might occupy the “playtest slot” of a new Class for a year. A book with four new Classes is not happening for PF2 again.
I think an aberration ‘bestiary’ (with player options and world lore, like BotD) was likely before this Darklands news and even more plausible now. Paizo loves their gross alien beasties, and this is a way to explore them, the new Darklands, and Vudra all without a huge Lost Omens release for each. This can also be where any post-Remaster Fleshwarp love goes!
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Why does this bring to mind a large neon sign that says "Welcome to the new and improved Darklands!"?
We aren't talking feats -- at least I'm not.
There are archetypes that map to PF2 or PF1 classes; there are archetypes that map to PF1 Prestige Classes. There are archetypes that are pretty much new. Anyway, I'm not surprised at the numbers, in spite of what I remember JJ saying. But the main point, for me, is that PF1 had 44 base classes, and to date PF2 has 22, with one more coming.
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IIRC from PF1 classes still missing, people are mostly clamoring for the Seeker (my new name for the Inquisitor), the Shaman, the Shifter and the Bloodrager. This is based on the threads I saw in the past months.
IIRC it maps pretty well to what I saw since the beginning of PF2, excluding those we already got.
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Hm. "Seeker" invokes in me a different image to "Inquisitor". <shrug>
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Dunno how reliable this is, given the same source previously misinterpreted the Howl of the Wild description into thinking they were including a naturalist class, but Dicebreaker released a new article and they're using a picture they source to Paizo. While they don't talk about it in the article, there's what appears to be a Merfolk riding the Centaur guy from the reveal. There's also some fish guy which might be a Locathah, some kind of honey badger (I think that's what that is), and some insectoid engineer. Take it with a grain of salt though.
Dunno how reliable this is, given the same source previously misinterpreted the Howl of the Wild description into thinking they were including a naturalist class, but Dicebreaker released a new article and they're using a picture they source to Paizo. While they don't talk about it in the article, there's what appears to be a Merfolk riding the Centaur guy from the reveal. There's also some fish guy which might be a Locathah, some kind of honey badger (I think that's what that is), and some insectoid engineer. Take it with a grain of salt though.
I saw that as well. The picture was credited to Paizo, so I tend to think it's legit. They made a mistake with the naturalist, but I doubt they'd have made that mistake.
I think anyone expecting more than 1 Class playtest at the same time they're overhauling the entire set of core rulebooks is bound for disappointment, especially after Paizo said before any of this with the OGL to brace for less classes per year.
Okay. Fair. It does seem unlikely that we'd get more than one this year.
I just... I get greedy sometimes, okay?
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Dunno how reliable this is, given the same source previously misinterpreted the Howl of the Wild description into thinking they were including a naturalist class, but Dicebreaker released a new article and they're using a picture they source to Paizo. While they don't talk about it in the article, there's what appears to be a Merfolk riding the Centaur guy from the reveal. There's also some fish guy which might be a Locathah, some kind of honey badger (I think that's what that is), and some insectoid engineer. Take it with a grain of salt though.
Merfolk would make me so happy, they're the ancestry I was hoping for most from this book. The insect one makes me think of the Klinkois that were mentioned in Guns and Gears who live in Arcadia. And I don't think that's a honey badger, looks more like an american badger to me.
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Just checked out the picture, yeah that could be our remaining 4 ancestries, but also could be some Beastkin for the insectoid/badger. Pretty likely we're getting merfolk and locathah though. Gonna be a great book
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Just checked out the picture, yeah that could be our remaining 4 ancestries, but also could be some Beastkin for the insectoid/badger. Pretty likely we're getting merfolk and locathah though. Gonna be a great book
All six members of the crew besides Baranthet are supposed to be the six new ancestries, so those two wouldn't just be beastkin.