Bestiary 1 & 2 both have a lot of overlap with Monster Core. The rest of the monsters you can probably get by with AoN if you run an old adventure. Bestiary 3 had a few monsters get promoted to the Monster Core as well, but most of them will be distinct.
Treasure Trove has tons of unique items. Only a few that are intimately tied to the old schools of magic are a problem
Some of Secrets of Magic's lore is out of date. Compatibility Errata for the classes and spells is available on the website.
Dark Archive's classes and spells have also received errata to make them compatible. The lore will probably need less retconning since it wasn't tied to something that got remastered.
The only things that the remaster really broke were stuff intimately tied to the old spell schools. The most important items (the staffs) got updated in GM Core, so the main casualty is the Runelord archetype, which will be remastered... sometime.
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The fluff will probably need less retconning since it wasn't tied to something that got remastered.Because Varsovian is new here:
Paizo has a forum rule that asks us to refer to the flavor text in Paizo materials.
As a reminder, we do not user the terms 'crunch and fluff' to refer to rules and lore on the forums. Rules and lore are the preferred terms. I will be enforcing that, and it will appear in the next update to the Community Guidelines.
I really appreciate that being part of the community guidelines. Crunch and fluff is great for describing the texture of popcorn not great for describing words on a page.
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The fluff will probably need less retconning since it wasn't tied to something that got remastered.Because Varsovian is new here:
Paizo has a forum rule that asks us to refer to the flavor text in Paizo materials.
As a reminder, we do not user the terms 'crunch and fluff' to refer to rules and lore on the forums. Rules and lore are the preferred terms. I will be enforcing that, and it will appear in the next update to the Community Guidelines.
Fixed. Thank you for the heads up- I'm relatively new to actually posting here myself, so I appreciate you being polite about this
Should actually keep in mind Player Core only is "some Core Rulebook content and some Advanced Player's Guide content (also one or two things from some Lost Omens books)", so there's still a lot from those books which haven't been brought over which will come in the Player Core 2.
I'll also bring up that Monster Core is more the "hottest hits" of the 3 bestiaries with some fully original stuff as well (probably about 55% B1, 25% B2, and 10% B3, and 10% originals - keeping in mind this is not some scientific things as much as my vibes), so there is still various bits from all those books with original content.
Finally, the GM Core doesn't include various sections from the Gamemastery Guide to make room for all the items which are now put in there, most notably the NPC Gallery. There's been some vague statements they'll make a return in some future book, but we know nothing concrete. Plus, across all books various options which relied on the OGl are of course not in the Remaster books
That said, with those minor disclaimers, the Core 4 (so including the still unreleased Player Core 2 in this) do cover what you thought it did. The only other stuff which it takes from is the trio of ancestries which appear in the Lost Omens: Character Guide (but nothing else from the book), a couple specific feats from the Lost Omens: Ancestry Guide, and the Gnoll (now Kholo) from the Lost Omens: Mwangi Expanse (and of course, that means everything else in those books are still exclusive to those said books).
There's a lot of books going around, so yeah just get whatever you feel like you'll want. Especially accounting there's lots of different reasons to own a book (for example, lots of Lost Omens books are incredibly light on mechanics, yet that doesn't mean they're not still very popular). Most pre-remaster content also still works fine so shouldn't be an issue there (oh, and Rage of Elements is a rulebook which is already out and using the remaster rules).
As for monster conversions... Not really, but that's in part because for the vast of monsters the only thing which has changed is just that they don't list alignment anymore, and outside that the changes are minor. If something had the old grab ability, you might want to use the new one in which case make sure it had Athletics. Replace good/evil weaknesses with holy/unholy (remove weaknesses to law/chaos entirely + swap out regeneration shut off by that with simple fast healing), give fiend and undead the unholy trait and celestials the holy trait, and finally it seems in general if something did good/evil damage on all their attacks, just remove that damage instead of replacing it with spirit damage (alternatively make the unholy damage from those attacks only hurt people with the holy trait if you really don't want to think too much about balance & keep things as close to their premaster state). That's about it, and unless you're dealing with a fiend/celestial, pretty much only the grab change is the only thing which might affect the creature.
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The Lost Omens books are primarily setting books, not rule books. So they don't lose a lot of relevance with rule updates.
Rage of Elements is 99.99% remaster rules.
Secrets of Magic: the main impact here is on two bits: runelords and magi.
- Runelords focused heavily on schools of magic. Since runelords are big deal for Paizo I expect them to get a remaster version at some point. Probably turning their schools into curriculums.
- Magi had a bit of interaction with spell schools for arcane cascade, and are affected by their being fewer cantrips with spell attacks. They're still playable with some light modification, but could do with an update.
Dark Archive: main impact is on the psychich whose gimmick of extra focus points is a bit snowed under by everyone else also being better at recovering extra focus points. Still playable, but could use an update to make the psychic shinier again.
Guns & Gears: not really impacted all that much.
Gods & Magic: technically a Lost Omens setting book but with a lot more mechanical crunch in it than most. This one is impacted heavily by alignment changes as well as the upcoming divinity war stuff.
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The Lost Omens books are primarily setting books, not rule books. So they don't lose a lot of relevance with rule updates.
Gods & Magic: technically a Lost Omens setting book but with a lot more mechanical crunch in it than most. This one is impacted heavily by alignment changes as well as the upcoming divinity war stuff.
It is also due to be overhauled as Divine Mysteries later this year to account for the Remaster and as part of the War of the Immortals upcoming, so would definitely hold off on buying this.
So, overall, your advice would be to buy the pre-Remaster books or not?
It is a good idea to have and use them them - whether the actual books or the online rules reference. There are a lot of good things in those expansion books. Aside from the four books listed (Core Rulebook, Advanced Player Guide, Gamemastery Guide, and Bestiary 1) none of the other books are announced to get a full Remaster - just errata.
Also, is there some sort of conversion guide, i.e. how to rework the pre-Remaster monsters into current rules?
Most of the needed changes are in terminology. Those terminology changes are documented here. The math and numbers, action economy, and other such things haven't changed.
The only thing that is likely to cause difficulties is anything related to alignment damage. If a creature deals extra Evil damage or has a weakness to Lawful damage or something like that. With those rare cases, you will just have to use your best judgement.
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Gods and Magic is the one book I'd be hesitant to pick up, as War of the Immortals and Divine Mysteries are set to upend a lot of the lore in it, and a lot of the deities will likely get revised in the aforementioned books.
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I really appreciate that being part of the community guidelines. Crunch and fluff is great for describing the texture of popcorn not great for describing words on a page.The fluff will probably need less retconning since it wasn't tied to something that got remastered.Because Varsovian is new here:
Paizo has a forum rule that asks us to refer to the flavor text in Paizo materials.
As a reminder, we do not user the terms 'crunch and fluff' to refer to rules and lore on the forums. Rules and lore are the preferred terms. I will be enforcing that, and it will appear in the next update to the Community Guidelines.
Doubleplusgood I dare say! /snark
Doubleplusgood I dare say! /snarkI really appreciate that being part of the community guidelines. Crunch and fluff is great for describing the texture of popcorn not great for describing words on a page.The fluff will probably need less retconning since it wasn't tied to something that got remastered.Because Varsovian is new here:
Paizo has a forum rule that asks us to refer to the flavor text in Paizo materials.
As a reminder, we do not user the terms 'crunch and fluff' to refer to rules and lore on the forums. Rules and lore are the preferred terms. I will be enforcing that, and it will appear in the next update to the Community Guidelines.
I try
1) Treasure Vault has a lot of fun magic items. The only items that will require reworks to be used in a remaster game can be found on this page, which lists the items that PFS banned for incompatibility.
2) The rest of Dark Archive is a series of mini-adventures tied to the paranormal that include unique monsters, archetypes, spells, etc. This does make it a little fristrating for players if the GM wants to run the adventures.
3) Secrets of Magic has a fair number of spells and magic items, a significant majority* of which didn't make the jump to the Player Core. There's also a lot of optional magic system alterations that I don't know much about because I play mostly in Pathfinder Society where those rules aren't used, but I imagine they're still compatible if you choose to use them. Only remaster-oncompatible rules besides the runelord are eight magic items you can find on the site I linked to above.
4) Rage of Elements also includes new spells, monsters, and magic items tied to the elemental planes.
5) Book of the dead is one of the weirder releases. It's very themed around undead. 99% of it should be compatible, but whether or not it's for you depends on how much you like undead (as enemies or as allies/PCs). A lot of the lore here also comes straight from Geb's mouth, and he's not exactly an unbiased source, so bare that in mind.
6) Player Core 1 borrowed some content from the Ancestry Guide to give Orcs and Leshies a similar number of heritages to what the original core ancestries got between the Core Rulebook and Advanced Player's Guide. I suspect Player Core 2 will do the same for the ancestries and heritages there. There are still plenty of ancestry feats for these ancestries that won't be in the Player Cores as well as quite a few ancestries that won't have made the jump. There's also lots of demographic and cultural information about these ancestries that doesn't fit on the two page spread they got in the Player Core.
*The only spell I know of that made it into Player Core is the gouging claw cantrip, but people were more likely to ask about that because it is a very popular Magus cantrip.
As far as what to purchase, I reccomend focusing on what you as a player/GM want to use.
I would second Squark on this.
The only additions that I have is that Secrets of Magic has a bunch of various things for most spellcasters. Additional elemental-themed Druid orders like Flame Order and Wave Order. Personal Staff rules. Spellhearts and Fulu. A bunch of archetypes including a couple of Class Archetypes.
Nearly all of that should be usable with nothing more than the naming changes needed. I think only the Thassilonian Rune Magic that is based heavily in spell schools would be a problem.
In general, player core 1 and 2, the GM core, and Monster Core are enough to have a strong foundation to game on. They also contain most of thr rules, and learning rules for the first time is where physical books really shine over Archive of Nethys.
Beyond that, most mechanics can be referenced pretty easily on Archive of Nethys. I find it less pleasant to browse than a physical book, but as good or better than a PDF. The main reason to purchase anything past the core line is if you're thematically interested in it. Most of the Pathfinder books outside of the core set blend mechanics and flavor pretty heavily.
Creative Director
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If you're planning on running adventures we publish, keep in mind that we'll continue to periodically use short stat blocks for monsters from OGL products if those creatures don't include any OGL-only content (such as using OGL-only spells as their stats), so having Bestiary 1, 2, and 3 handy will help there if you're not using something like Archives of Nethys for those stats. Also included here are any other rulebooks that have monsters in them, such as Book of the Dead or Rage of Elements.
We'll also often use gear and magic items that are equally free of OGL entanglements from books like Treasure Trove, Secrets of Magic, and Guns & Gears as treasure or equipment carried by NPCs in adventures.
And of course, while we can't publish OGL content in a Remastered adventure, you can use any of that content you want as additives to a published adventure in your home game.
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I'd recommend getting Rage Of Elements, if only for the lore stuff; I read all the MECHANICS stuff on AoN, and it was cool, but there were just these tantalizing GLIMPSES of what had happened in the world. (I only started going on the forums like a month or two ago.) When I got it, not only was there cool art and lore I hadn't seen on AoN, but there were STORIES about the planes, in-'verse narrators, it was wonderful.
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Just want to point out that there are PF2E options/elements that will never be reprinted in ORC because they are OGL specific, BUT that these are still part of PF2E. If you want to use those options/elements of PF2E, you'll need to either refer to AON or buy the pre-remaster books.
ALSO, there are pre-remaster options/elements that remain legal for Pathfinder Society play, BUT if you want to use them in Pathfinder Society, you need to have the book (PDF or hardcopy) to use them.