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I'm pretty sure someone from Paizo said the remaster (in regards to the wizard) was made with the runelords in mind, yet...we haven't seen a single thing that proves that? I don't have the quote right now but I think it can be assumed Paizo isn't going to just ignore runelords going forward, specially when one of them is in the cover of the new books.
We will get him back one of these days. And that will be when we get the Remastered version of the Runelord archetype too BTW.
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Rules wise, Secrets of Magic is fine since they tweaked arcane cascade. A remaster glow up might be nice for buffing stuff, or making it so eidolons spirit damage work normally instead of the bad "only applies against opposed traits" version the errata gave us. But it certainly isn't necessary.
However, lore is a different story. The biggest problem is each school of magic got an in-depth write up page which is now defunct. Most other lore tweaks are subtle and mostly just renamings. But they have also added some interesting stuff the book could explore, like class specific words of power.
Is the in-depth write up something that can be considered as written by an expert of the Thassilonian classification of magic (with its 8 schools covering all magic spells) who did not realize it was just a theory/model and not the be all, end all truth about magic ?
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Honestly most of Secrets of Magic is unchanged except 8 pages spent on traditional wizard schools.
It doesn't really need remastering just for 8 pages which are essentially removed instead of replaced, like yeah wizards interacted most with spell schools, but all spells belonged to schools previously. So with their removal, there is nothing to replace those pages with. Like I'm sure they could do 8 pages on thassilonian sin schools if they wanted to, but you could also use it for literally anything else as well
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I see absolutely zero downside from Paizos side to just doing a touchup of ALL of the remaining OGL published Classes that didn't get Remastered already (Yes, including Kineticist) and bundling them in PC3.
It would make it way easier for customers to be SURE they have the best and latest version of all the Classes and put it in the same product line as the rest of the Remaster Classes, a very simple and true no-brainer line of books for any new (or old) player/GM to just grab all three in order keep things simple for ensuring content density and value for the games they want to play.
I don't see anything but upsides for the project, lots of people are asking for it, creating it would involve less work and playtesting than making another book with brand new Classes, it will remove and negate all of the weird icky feels related to players using half-fixed via errata content as well as moving them all away from the OGL. Most of all it will give Paizo another eternal best-seller type supplement that people will WANT to buy no matter what kind of flavor they are actually into as it's a great value proposition.
On top of that, it gives an invaluable opportunity to condense the rather sparsely published materials from the OGL era of PF2 into something truly player-digestible (and player-focused) instead of the current model of those being included in a book with only a handful of other mechanical options and a ton of setting material that is mostly useful for GMs instead.
They said if there is demand for it they would do it and from everything I've seen I don't think I'm off base in saying that there certainly is demand for it and at the same time very few voices speaking opinions that range from "No, don't bother" to even just "Meh, take it or leave it" which frankly says a lot.
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I see absolutely zero downside from Paizos side to just doing a touchup of ALL of the remaining OGL published Classes that didn't get Remastered already (Yes, including Kineticist) and bundling them in PC3.
I'm pretty sure the downside is that they didn't want to release Player Core 1 and 2 to begin with, they were just kind of forced to do so due to circumstances beyond their control. But it unquestionably came at the expense of books that people on staff were more excited about making than "the same thing we already did, but updated."
Don't get me wrong, they made the best of a bad situation with the remaster books, but going forward I'm more excited about stuff like War of Immortals, and the Tian Xia Characters Guide, and Battlecry than a hypothetical Player's Core 3.
Like we could have already had several of these things already if they didn't have to remaster the core rules!
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I see absolutely zero downside from Paizos side to just doing a touchup of ALL of the remaining OGL published Classes that didn't get Remastered already (Yes, including Kineticist) and bundling them in PC3.I'm pretty sure the downside is that they didn't want to release Player Core 1 and 2 to begin with, they were just kind of forced to do so due to circumstances beyond their control. But it unquestionably came at the expense of books that people on staff were more excited about making than "the same thing we already did, but updated."
Don't get me wrong, they made the best of a bad situation with the remaster books, but going forward I'm more excited about stuff like War of Immortals, and the Tian Xia Characters Guide, and Battlecry than a hypothetical Player's Core 3.
Like we could have already had several of these things already if they didn't have to remaster the core rules!
I understand that they don't want to, so much so that for a long time they repeated "we will not remaster more than CRB/APG, and GMG and the rest will receive errata", but now for the first time they have changed that answer to "it will depend on the demand".
Which also happens, as much as the designers may dislike this, more than any supplementary book, the Remaster books must be selling very well! In fact, the core books of any successful system always sell very well, and their revisions, when done well, tend to sell even better than many new supplements. And that's normal, it's the nature of this market that players need and like rulebooks, they are also the gateway for new players, and a revised version of any successful system after 5 years will probably sell well, the same probably will occur with the next version of D&D.
Seeing these results, it makes sense for Paizo to consider a revised version of other previous books, especially making a compiled version of the material for players, who are their largest consumer audience (although less constant than GMs), it becomes quite attractive especially after a sales success for a revised edition as is the remaster. With this in mind, you don't need to be a genius to know that a PC-style compilation with the rest of the content for players will sell like a breeze. Furthermore, after 5 years of the system, Paizo knows that new players have difficulty putting together all the material already. produced and that former players typically appreciate revisions that improve the game.
Imagine you, starting now in PF2 and wanting to have all the material at hand to read all the options for ancestries, classes, equipment and spells, then to do so you would have to acquire not only PC1 and PC2, but SoM, GnG, BotD, DA, TV, RoE, AG, GB, as well as all the useful material for players scattered throughout the books on setting parts and APs. It's simply too expensive, a lot of content to read, and a lot of content to carry if the player opts for paper books, apart from the errata to be printed and remembered.
Now put all the options compiled into 3-4 books for players with the last 5 years of the system, and you have something much simpler to read and carry, and that new players will have a lot of feasibility in purchasing and then continuing to follow the releases.
I know someone will probably come here and say "yes, but we have AoN! It takes care of all this" and yes, AoN is fantastic, it's an incredible work that was done by the community with the very welcome support from Paizo . But honestly, it's organized as an excellent query system, where you can quickly search for a rule, an item, a spell or a feat. Filter specific options and operate as reference material. But it's terrible to read from scratch. Anyone who has tried to read an entire class there knows what it's like, it's a hell of links and cross-references, where you have to click on everything to be able to read it all and you still risk skipping some important note that you easily notice in the book, because there it It is not visible, as it is hidden in some link.
AoN is only complementary, no book can replace it efficiently, as it is not a computerized system organized in a way that facilitates your searches and research, nor can it replace a book, as it is not a linearized PDF for you to be the entire content of a series of ancestries, classes, spells and items sequentially.
So now is the perfect time to make a new compiled book, there is a new license to be used, a lot of material that can be condensed over the last few years, a good acceptance for all of this given the events that led to this review being created, in addition to to match the moment that the competing system is receiving a review, preventing this material from being treated as material from an "old system" that was launched 5 years ago.
It may not be the dream of any of the designers, but commercially it is an opportunity that makes sense to seize.
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It may not be the dream of any of the designers, but commercially it is an opportunity that makes sense to seize.
Does it? PC1 appears to have sold well but I'm not really sure how much just reprinting old books is a sustainable business model. The OGL debacle gave Paizo a huge injection of good will but we're already seeing it fade in less friendly corners of the internet.
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It is for people who want new content and not for Paizo to burn another development cycle to just resell content they've already paid for.
Paizo will probably have a better idea which direction is better for them overall, but framing it as some completely free and obviously correct choice is a bit misleading too.
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The downside is that it would take time and effort, which would have to get moved from other projects.
Yes, but the work is far from the same as creating a book from scratch. And that's probably one of the reasons why they were able to remaster at the same time as they were developing War of Immortals, the 2 Tian Xia books, SF2 and now Battlecry.
This will probably hinder and delay projects in parallel, yes, probably, but on the other hand it renews the system as a whole and allows players, especially new ones, to give fresh attention to new content since they already have the old content compiled at hand.
It's a trade-off that I think is worth it for everyone.
Does it? PC1 appears to have sold well but I'm not really sure how much just reprinting old books is a sustainable business model. The OGL debacle gave Paizo a huge injection of good will but we're already seeing it fade in less friendly corners of the internet.It may not be the dream of any of the designers, but commercially it is an opportunity that makes sense to seize.
If it weren't, they wouldn't even consider "depending on demand". Paizo is still a company and as such it needs to make a profit to survive, if the Remaster wasn't worth it, they wouldn't even consider meeting a demand for a revised book, they would just reply straight away "sorry, but we're only going to review the basics because it was necessary, the rest will only come out as an errata and please don't insist, let's move on", because they simply cannot risk losing out and if just bringing more new content is more profitable, then that will be the only path to be followed.
Additionally, if revised versions didn't work out, we wouldn't have Starfinder Enhanced.
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Moosher12]You can mix at the table, but you cannot when writing 3rd party content.How is that Paizo's problem/priority?
Additionally, there is a common sentiment in the Video Game industry that a large amount of players players would rather see a game fixed before it is given new content. I think this applies here.
You'd be mistaken.
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So the tiefling feat list will call on prerequisite feats that are no longer included in the tiefling feat list, requiring you to reference the nephilim instead. But I also had to teach them to bookmark the tiefling feat list because the Tiefling Heritage is not searchable in the AoN Remastered version.
Yeah, that's really bad.
The update from yesterday fixed a lot of similar issues, for example the Sorcerer feat list didn't show Metamagic Mastery, Scintillating Spell, or Soulsight, since there was a remastered version (from Wizard & Bard), while the Sorcerer hasn't been remastered yet. The AoN team fixed that now!!!
I also asked whether they can make the traits Nephilim & Aasimar & Tiefling be equal, like they did with Aiuvarin = Half-Elf. Until then I suggest creating your own lists and bookmarking them. Here's a complete list for all Nephilim feats, including Aasimar & Tiefling options.
You also have to bookmark some legacy spells that you might want, like Faerie Fire, because they don't show up in the search either.
How is that Paizo's problem/priority?Because if they did not care about 3rd party developers, then leaving the OGL would be hypocritical if they are just going to perpetuate bad practices. Let them not forget where they came from.
Bad practices being continuing to pay their employees?
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At some point if sales are chugging along nicely, it'll be time for a new print run of Guns & Gears, Secrets of Magic, Book of the Dead and Dark Archive.
At that point, choices are:
- just reprint the OGL version
- remaster the book to ORC version
- make a whole new book for these themes
- leave it out of print
I think remastering to ORC when it's time for a new printing is probably the best value for money for Paizo.
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Count me as someone who would much, much rather broken parts of the system get fixed before releasing new content, especially if the new content continues to jag up against the broken parts of the system. I *get* that new books=sales=employees get paid, but constantly *not* fixing problems and hyping new content feels…really really bad. It feels galling and kinda…jarring as a customer, as a community member and as a thinking, feeling human being. It’s like a pit in my stomach every time the hype train pulls into “Continually not fixed Station”.
I’m not sure if it’s a cultural thing, a capitalist thing or just a game thing, but there needs to be at some point a taking stock and fixing what has clearly, pertinently and obviously become….off, unworkable, and just plain broken. Why make new things to continue to not work with the things that aren’t working? It boggles my febrile mind.
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Well for starters, most of the stuff DOES work, where getting varying definitions of "broken" here.
Secondly, "why make new things" again, to stay in business, they had to disrupt everything to rush out Remaster.
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Printing one book instead of another book is not not paying your employees. Either way they are paid to write or draw, it's just on a different project.Bad practices being continuing to pay their employees?How is that Paizo's problem/priority?Because if they did not care about 3rd party developers, then leaving the OGL would be hypocritical if they are just going to perpetuate bad practices. Let them not forget where they came from.
And if no one buys that book?
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And if no one buys that book?If no one buys the book I think Paizo has a much bigger problem on hand. A Player Core book has more universal value than a highly themed book that caters to a more specific audience. If Paizo can't move that then there is something dangerously wrong happening with their business and writing staff.
You can call it a sample of one if you want, but among my three tables I see players more interested in buying Player Core 2 than Howl of the Wild because Player Core 2 actually affects their current characters, rather than some speculative character they might get to play in a few years. And I hear more conversations about my players hoping the remaining classes would get fixed rather than getting hype for War of Immortals.
PC2 has the rest of the revamped Remaster changes.
A proposed PC3 I've seen thus far is just releasing content under ORC regardless of actual content changes.
In effect, PC2 and Howl are NEW content. The hypothetical PC3 would just be reprints, which the community is not fond of.
hoping the remaining classes would get fixed
Again, people be using VERY varying definitions of broken/fixed. The classes are perfectly playable.
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It is for people who want new content and not for Paizo to burn another development cycle to just resell content they've already paid for.
But PC3 would be mostly about new content. The goal is not to reprint G&G, SoM and DA but to just release the remastered classes and then add a whole bunch of new feats and player-facing options. It would be 1/3 old content 2/3 new content, maybe 50/50 if you reprint the guns as otherwise Gunslinger is unplayable without them.
You must also think about new players, all those brought back by the OGL crisis. These ones don't have G&G, SoM and DA and have very few incentive in buying them as they don't care about the GM-oriented content and don't want pre-remaster player-oriented content.
Finally, a lot of players are asking for more options for their classes. And a PC3 book would be the ideal place to put them instead of scattering them in setting oriented books.
Overall, I'm pretty sure a PC3 would sell more than any other book.
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Gunslingers need guns and gun rules. Inventors need their gadgets, and their gadget and gear rules.
That would require a whole book on its own! How do you propose you fit all that in a book along with the magus, summoner, psychic, and thaumaturge?
If you limited the scope to just the classes and none of their associated rules, then you'd essentially be either releasing watered-down versions of what we already have, or asking people to buy Guns and Gears AND the new book.
Why on Earth or Golarion would anyone go for that when we already have G&G and the other books? It would also confuse the heck out of new arrivals to the hobby. We have enough of that with the Remaster; we needn't obfuscate things further.
It would feel bad for consumers and would be poor marketing for Paizo.
A far more sensible and practical course of action would be to simply release limited errata for the current books, then print that as a Remaster product under ORC once the current print run, runs out.
I think we need to remaster the six other classes. Inventor is funky and Summoner's eidolon is missing usage for stats like Int and Con.
You keep saying things like this and it keeps not making sense to me. Inventor's funk or lack thereof is subjective and vague, so I won't touch that. But the summoner thing doesn't track at all. The eidolon already has usage for those stats. It doesn't get additional skills trained, but having a high intelligence on both the summoner and eidolon is basically advantage on all intelligence checks. Con adds to the eidolons fort save, which is one of only two things con does for any class not named kineticist.
Also, adding additional ability score stuff falls outside the scope of what we've seen for literally every remastered class. It feels like you don't totally get what the remaster is.
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I feel the result would be Neutral at worst and right at best. But I certainly do not think it would be a bad result.It is for people who want new content and not for Paizo to burn another development cycle to just resell content they've already paid for.
Paizo will probably have a better idea which direction is better for them overall, but framing it as some completely free and obviously correct choice is a bit misleading too.
Neutral in your mind seems to mean not making new content, which is bad for Paizo's collective creative fulfillment, and not having new content to sell, which is bad for them staying in business in a field with super thin margins.
HAVING remastered books in vacuum would be neutral to good. But it isn't a vacuum. Spending the time and money remastering stuff comes at the cost of new stuff.
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Gunslinger need guns and gun rules. Inventors need their gadgets, their gadget and gear rules.
Inventors don't need anything. Gadgets are just 3 feats you can scratch out of the remastered class (people with G&G could still grab them as they are valid).
And 6 classes + guns and gun rules hardly make a full book. It's not even half of a book, you have plenty of room for new content.
As a side note, Gunslinger works with crossbows (but I agree that would be really bad to not release guns) and you don't have to release all the guns from G&G, things like Combination Weapons can be put aside if you don't want to clutter the PC3.
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Without those supporting rules, many of the classes would not be worth having. Sure you could leave a lot of it in the old books, but in that case, why wouldn't you just errata the old books? Errata is more consumer friendly and doesn't eat into Paizo's productivity schedule or profit margins as much (especially since they were already planning to dedicate resources towards more regular errata anyways).
Paizo wasting time losing money just so consumers can pay more for less of what they already have just isn't the least bit practical.
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To me at least, only making the existing books into ORC books seems like a good idea. If that is even possible without major changes like PC1/2, but just normal errata. It accomplishes the goal of making the classes moddable under ORC and clearly signals to new players that this is indeed up-to-date. Hopefully while also not taking up major resources on Paizo's part.
Just taking the classes, some necessary content,and then add a lot of new stuff is, to me, nothing but a half-measure. Yes, classes are usually the most important parts of such books, but leaving hundreds of pages of content "unremastered" would only muddy the waters even further. Once the books get reprinted with errata, you can tell someone just to get them, they are still valid. Having to instead tell them which parts of which books represent the current state is not helpful.
Paizo have also clearly stated that they don't want to make APG-style books anymore, which such a version of PC3 would be.
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I feel the difference in point of view comes from how many books people have. If you are more of a forever GM and/or a subscriber, PC3 looks like a bunch of rehashed content.
If you are mostly a player, then PC3 is one of the books you're supposed to have.
Considering the higher number of players than GMs, I think PC3 would meet much more success than most other books.
Also, in PFS you are supposed to own the books of the content you use. Right now, it just doesn't work if you are mostly a player. Buying a book just for one class is crazy expensive. A compilation of classes would work much better.
Assuming a 270 pages limit, there is plenty of room for all 6 classes, a sizeable equipment chapter that can mix important legacy items from DA, SoM, and G&G with new items, and a sizeable spell chapter that can mix important legacy spells with new spells.
I would not put neither equipment nor spells, besides Firearms as they are mandatory for Gunslingers. If you are a player, you don't care about equipment (it's mostly in the GM Core, clearly indicating that it's for GMs) and for spells there are no full spellcasters in the 6 classes so you should live with the "limited" content of PC1 and 2.
So it goes down to a hundred of pages of rehashed content, leaving 2/3rd of the book for new content (and rehashed content is still updated content, so it may be partly "new").| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
3rd parties can still publish content that utilizes material from paizo owned OGL content, especially on Pathfinder infinite, but you can then only sell that material there and it pretty much feels like you need to consult a lawyer if you are going to be trying to make enough money selling content to risk getting the attention of other publishers who might have claim to that OGL content. The licensing situation has definitely gotten more complicated than it was back in the day, but I don't think it is particularly fair to fault Paizo for this situation.
The thing about republishing old content that used to be OGL under ORC licensing is that Paizo has to be certain that the specific terms for everything in the material is actually there own content and not a hand-me down from a different system originally. It is a process that requires a lot of pretty expensive eyes to fine-tooth comb the old material, because those eyes have to be intimately familiar with the history of that content. Stuff made just for PF2 is going to be pretty easy: Thaumaturge, Inventor, etc. But stuff made for PF1 takes a more careful look, a look that I am certain I am not qualified to personally to make. Maybe it will eventually be worth doing for Paizo, but it is definitely more work to remaster classes with lore and mechanics that go back to before PF2 using OGL content than it is just making new stuff up. Paizo have been pretty good with PF2 of avoiding a lot of those pit falls, but I am not sure how easy it would be to say any of the that content is free of outside OGL sources or not, or can easily be published as ORC if it is too close to something else that was already published under the OGL.
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The thing about the Magus is that having the Player Core 1 and Secrets of Magic books don't actually make for that many playable Magi. They pretty much require legacy material from the CRB to function, so you do have a bit of an awkward dilemma for players coming in completely new to the game asking what material is necessary to own in order to build a functional magus.
Archives of Nethys totally works to get around that for most home games, but it takes digging to get to content that works with your spellstrike ability. For cantrips (from player core 1 and Secrets of Magic only) you have Gouging Claw, Ignition, Tangle Vine, and Telekinetic Projectile. Those are usable spells, but you essentially only get 1 not-weapon damage type out of it and you don't even have 5 spells you can cast. If you add in rage of elements, you can get Slashing Gust and Needle Darts, but you are still basically running with no energy damage types that you can use with spell strike, which is what really makes the class work, and what makes arcane cascade work.
What is more awkward about it though is that the old CRB cantrips are unpublishable as ORC content, hence why both the form of the spells (attacking AC) and the names changed so much coming over to Player Core 1. New energy-based AC-targeting cantrips pretty much need to be reinvented from the ground up, and I think there is no certainty that any of the developers want spells that use energy to target AC, as conceptually, the Remaster has gone a long way towards making AC a defense that interacts with physical attacks, with the one exception being fire stuff (ignition and blazing bolt). Non-magus people also generally hate spell attack roll spells because they are not nearly as good for most casters without doing a fair bit to play the debuff AC and then you end up with casters that are pretty much playing the same strategy game as martial characters instead of playing the "target the lowest defense" game that it seems like casters are supposed to be playing in PF2.
So the Magus works just fine using old stuff, but keeping the class the same, and having to make all new content to make it work feels like it might be more work that I think a lot of players realize.
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Sure you could leave a lot of it in the old books, but in that case, why wouldn't you just errata the old books? Errata is more consumer friendly and doesn't eat into Paizo's productivity schedule or profit margins as much (especially since they were already planning to dedicate resources towards more regular errata anyways).
That makes no sense, worse you're contradicting yourself: "Consumer-friendly" is the very opposite of "not eating into profit margins".
And it's contradictory in more than one way: For if Paizo were to rework those classes as is necessary for complete Errata, then where's the difference between these extensive errata and putting them into a new book? In terms of work, there is no difference. But in terms of money? They could sell the new book, but not the errata.
Also, errata doesn't address the licensing issue: Errata for OGL remains OGL content.