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Paizo has already said this at the beginning of the remastering process.
The plan is to remaster books as physical stocks run out and they need new printings. At these times, they plan to review and remaster the book in question, reprinting it with the ORC license.
That's why this process may seem a bit irregular (with Treasure Vault being remastered before G&G, for example). But in the long run, unless a book's sales have been so bad that it's stuck in stock for the rest of the system's life, all books should get a remastered version.
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The CRB, APG, GMG and Bestiary 1 have already been remastered. They were left out of this end-of-stock process because the problem that forced the remastering is what people call the OGL Fiasco, which was when WotC/Hasbro tried to sneak in an update to the OGL license using a contractual loophole in order to try to cap "unauthorized VTTs", guarantee control over 3rd party materials made in the OGL and try to block the creation of a new "Pathfinder" similarly to what happened in the fourth edition when both players resisted the new system and third party developers resisted the license of that edition and begin to develop alternatives based on 3rd edition open rules. But that turned into a fiasco when they were publicly denounced by the big third party developers to whom the Hasbro were submitting the new version of the OGL for acceptance. This ended the trust that everyone had in the OGL as a free license to publish content in the shared D20 rules and lore system, and since PF2e had a lot of lore content shared with D&D, Paizo decided to remaster the core books, removing the shared content, changing names, and taking the opportunity to make adjustments to the system for things they thought weren't working very well or that they thought could be improved, resulting in the remaster.
In this process, in addition to the core books changing structure with the CRB, APG, and GMG content being redistributed between PC1, PC2, and GMC, some content, mainly from GMG, was removed, such as the alternative attribute rules, which Paizo considered to be very little used. And realistically, I don't think most of the removed content will return. At most, maybe in a Paizo blog post or a personal post by one of the game designers. In any case, if it's possible for you, they still persist in AoN as legacy content for whoever wants to read and use it.
I honestly think it's hard for them to spread the summoner and magus content into other books.
The most likely scenario is that they'll do something like Divine Mysteries, but maybe without changing the name. With a new "Secret of Magic" with much more new content since part of the lore no longer exists (retcon) and part of the content has already been re-done in other rulebooks.
Anyway, there's nothing announced yet.
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Secrets of magic is clearly one of he most impacted book by the changes with remastering. It will be an interesting call if they try to remaster it or try to work summoners/magus remasters into some new book. One way or the other they likely will need to address it at some point.
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It's very unlikely, classes take up a lot of space in books to just be thrown into random books without warning.
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It depends on how much rules content will be in the Impossible book. We can almost guarantee new archetypes, new spells, and new items. If there are also new variant rules, like Mythic in War of Immortals or Troops in Battlecry!, then there probably won't be room for more classes. If there aren't, then there just might be. Thematically, this book would probably be the book to do it, and lifting parts of the SoM content for other books leans against a Remastered SoM being in the cards aby time soon. We'll just have to wait and see.
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Paizocon or Gencon will tell us if the impossible book includes summoner and magus
While I do enjoy that enthusiasm, I wouldn't pin my hopes THAT high. Books that aren't in the "Core" lineup often have full pages' worth of Golarion-related lore within them that would be remiss if they were replaced with just character options. Not to mention the reason we only get 2 new standard-complexity classes is because we also tend to get lots of content for older classes that fill up a bunch of space as well.
A remastered SoM would have to contend with a lot of the lore implications that changed between its release and the Remaster, which is the biggest hurdle. SoM mentioned, explicitly: positive and negative energy, the seven schools of magic (in depth), aligned energy, and a whole host of implications of those things that any decent Remastering of the book would look to alter to fit the current state of the game.
While I do enjoy that enthusiasm, I wouldn't pin my hopes THAT high. Books that aren't in the "Core" lineup often have full pages' worth of Golarion-related lore within them that would be remiss if they were replaced with just character options. Not to mention the reason we only get 2 new standard-complexity classes is because we also tend to get lots of content for older classes that fill up a bunch of space as well.
A remastered SoM would have to contend with a lot of the lore implications that changed between its release and the Remaster, which is the biggest hurdle. SoM mentioned, explicitly: positive and negative energy, the seven schools of magic (in depth), aligned energy, and a whole host of implications of those things that any decent Remastering of the book would look to alter to fit the current state of the game.
Yup this is exactly why SoM remaster is going to be a challenge. Going forward to get off the OGL they almost would have to for any future printings because some very big parts of that were stuff that had to get changed with the whole OGL mess. The two classes/spells need remaster work but not crazy amounts but a huge chunk of the lore/info in the book is no longer valid. They would probably need to rewrite a quarter of the book just to make sense with the changes to the spell schools.
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Also the fact another big chapter, Runelords, is reprinted in another book already
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They could certainly stuff most of the class content of Secrets of Magic, Dark Archive and Book of the Dead into a single 'Complete Mage' style book (at least, the ones not already remastered, I'm expecting Impossible to eat a lot of BotD content) - certainly, SoM and BotD both need it about equally, what with the heavy reliance on schools of magic they had (OK, just the one for BotD, but you know what I mean). Doing so would likely be a not-insignificant endeavour of rejiggling the pages to work, though. The effort would on par with a new book, which means it'd need to sell like a new book to be worth it.
They could also just remaster DA separately, it needs the least change and can be sold like GnG, and instead poach many other archetypes made defunct by the spell school changes to fill the space - Captivator stands out, but many AP specific archetypes could be borrowed like Eldritch Researcher/Spirit Hunter from AV. Then add some new archetypes to replicate the old schools that's missing and maybe there's enough content to sell a new book?
I am personally hoping for "impossible" to eat up some of the BOTD content for the sole fact that I want the reanimator feats to officially be usable on Necromancer, without taking the dedication. Most of them won't even work with thralls I just really like necromancer's visage.
Yup this is exactly why SoM remaster is going to be a challenge. Going forward to get off the OGL they almost would have to for any future printings because some very big parts of that were stuff that had to get changed with the whole OGL mess. The two classes/spells need remaster work but not crazy amounts but a huge chunk of the lore/info in the book is no longer valid. They would probably need to rewrite a quarter of the book just to make sense with the changes to the spell schools.That's a very interesting and important lore, but this huge chunk is just 22 pages. From which 8 pages are schools of magic which don't exist anymore, and what does exist was described thoroughly in Academies I suppose. So 16 pages. That's not a huge volume.
The funny thing is that this leaves the question of what they're going to put in its place, since Rival Academies took that content (besides the rune lord archetype).
Are they just going to shorten the book? I hope they put some additional content like new archetypes and more variant rules in a SoM remastered instead like more variant rules or more class archetypes (I've always wanted an official MP system or a rechargeable magic system with cooldowns similar to breath weapons and the ability to summon the Demilich, do you think the designers will ever do something like that?). I don't really care about lore in rulebooks like SoM because I think they make more sense within Lost Omens.
It may be, they did it with Elemental Spells in RoE. But it's important to note that they did it because they added new content, which in this case were 2 new elements.
It's not typical of PF2e to simply reprint the same rules in different books, without significant changes in a short period of time. I think it's very unlikely that the Runelord will appear again in a SoM remaster.
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Most of the reprints tend to be taking things from adventure paths or lost omens books, and then putting them into "mainline" products. For example, weapons that appear in an adventure path showing up in treasure vault.
To my knowledge, we are yet to see reprints from one "mainline" book end up in another.* Even ROE didn't reprint the elemental spells sectiom, it just added to what was in SOM.
*Remastered versions of books excluded.
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Yup this is exactly why SoM remaster is going to be a challenge. Going forward to get off the OGL they almost would have to for any future printings because some very big parts of that were stuff that had to get changed with the whole OGL mess. The two classes/spells need remaster work but not crazy amounts but a huge chunk of the lore/info in the book is no longer valid. They would probably need to rewrite a quarter of the book just to make sense with the changes to the spell schools.That's a very interesting and important lore, but this huge chunk is just 22 pages. From which 8 pages are schools of magic which don't exist anymore, and what does exist was described thoroughly in Academies I suppose. So 16 pages. That's not a huge volume.
That is a big chunk but the runelord stuff was also totally revamped in the new magic school book. It is not a guns and gears thing where they can just do a few tweakes and changes to put things up to remaster. Major sections of the book are simply no longer valid.
Most of the reprints tend to be taking things from adventure paths or lost omens books, and then putting them into "mainline" products. For example, weapons that appear in an adventure path showing up in treasure vault.
To my knowledge, we are yet to see reprints from one "mainline" book end up in another.* Even ROE didn't reprint the elemental spells sectiom, it just added to what was in SOM.
*Remastered versions of books excluded.
Yes, but they are usually small pieces of content that have been revised, as is the case with Energy Mutagen and Stone Body Mutagen which lost their uncommon trait and received adjustments.
In addition, this is done much more with adventure content than with Lost Omens; in fact, I don't remember any Lost Omens rules being reprinted for the books in PF2e, because the rules printed in the adventures are much less tested and balanced (although they hardly ever break anything) than those released in Lost Omens and rulebooks.
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Most of the reprints tend to be taking things from adventure paths or lost omens books, and then putting them into "mainline" products. For example, weapons that appear in an adventure path showing up in treasure vault.
To my knowledge, we are yet to see reprints from one "mainline" book end up in another.* Even ROE didn't reprint the elemental spells sectiom, it just added to what was in SOM.
*Remastered versions of books excluded.
Yes, but they are usually small pieces of content that have been revised, as is the case with Energy Mutagen and Stone Body Mutagen which lost their uncommon trait and received adjustments.
In addition, this is done much more with adventure content than with Lost Omens; in fact, I don't remember any Lost Omens rules being reprinted for the books in PF2e, because the rules printed in the adventures are much less tested and balanced (although they hardly ever break anything) than those released in Lost Omens and rulebooks.
A few things like bladed scarf or polytool made the jump from gods and magic to treasure vault.
Agreed that 'what are they putting there' is a huge issue with 'reprinting' SoM, same as Gods and Magic. Everything regarding schools, out, and that's not just the school primer alone but also the opening where they point you to the school primer. Both headliner archetypes, out. Just the existing Magus errata alone will likely cause a page jump, so more to do. And what do you do with the school-mentioning items like grimoires?
That is a big chunk but the runelord stuff was also totally revamped in the new magic school book. It is not a guns and gears thing where they can just do a few tweakes and changes to put things up to remaster. Major sections of the book are simply no longer valid.
I think they'd handle grimoires the way they handled the Runelords. To wit, switching out mentions of schools with thematically appropriate spell descriptions.
It's a matter of personal taste really. Because PF2e's slot system also boils down to your TOP 3 spell ranks, below that, with specific exceptions like Synesthesia, low-level ranks are simply ignored by most players, as they are usually not even worth the cost in actions. That's why I would like to see a variant rule.
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It's a matter of personal taste really. Because PF2e's slot system also boils down to your TOP 3 spell ranks, below that, with specific exceptions like Synesthesia, low-level ranks are simply ignored by most players, as they are usually not even worth the cost in actions. That's why I would like to see a variant rule.
I don't think this is true at all. While you aren't using your low level slots for damaging or incapacitate spells, the change in spells DCs make non-damage spell great even at high levels.
Bless is just as useful at level 19 as at level 1. Invisibility (R2) is still a strong option. Rank 6 Slow is great for a group, but Rank 3 is still just as effective against a single target. Rank 1 and 3 Fear is almost a must prepare for any spellcaster. Rank 2 tailwind (aka longstrider).
One of my favorite spells in the game is Goblin Pox. Rank 1 and gives sickened 1 on a success. That's arguably better than a failure, since they have to use an action to retch instead of a free save next round.
The worst part is that it's not that relevant.
At level 19, which you mentioned, for example, Goblin Pox is good, but Divine Wrath does practically the same thing but in AoE, causing damage, with a much greater range and still causing damage.
Invisibility is good, of course, but it's also something that at high levels anyone can do with a potion or by tricking a magic item into using a scroll that is considered very cheap compared to the rewards of this level.
Slow in AoE is good, but there are a lot of things that cause Slow in AoE (starting with Divine Wrath above in case of critical hits), Arctic Rift causes Slow and a lot of damage in a line in case the targets fail, Freezing Rain also causes less damage, but it is sustained, allowing you to move the rain with an action (which can be free at level 16) reapplying the effect.
Fear is not worth it even at rank 1, as it takes 2 actions and a spell slot to make fear 1 or 2 in most cases, and is immediately outclassed by Blistering Invective and especially Cutting Insult, which already leave frightened and cause damage at the same time. Fear only becomes really interesting at rank 3 when it starts affecting multiple targets. At rank 4, Phantasmal Killer Vision of Death outdates all single target spells that cause frightened. Invoke Spirits creates an AoE version of frightened that is sustained with an action and also causes fleeing, making it practically a sustained incapacitating spell without the incapacitation trait. Mask of Terror is a passive Fear lasting 1 minute that forces targets to test every round they attempt hostile actions against the target creature. At high-level AoE, even primal spells like Summon Stampede already cause damage and frightened in a huge area, but if you're from another tradition, Tempest of Shades causes an even greater frightened in conjunction with a drained spell.
Tailwind is something that all my players ended up getting via wand.
In short, what happens is that at high levels, low-rank spells are outclassed by higher-rank spells and/or become so cheap and accessible that having a spell slot for them becomes trivial.
I also had this feeling that low-level spells, especially debuffs, were still relevant, but the truth is that in practice the caster learns that these spells become very weak compared to what you can do during the game with the higher-rank spell slots, which are unlikely to end easily.
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as well as the Lost Omens books that have a large number of character options like Character Guide, Ancestry Guide and PFS Guide.
Just to address this part specifically - Lost Omens books have typically not gotten reprints in the same quantity that core books do, if they get one at all. Quite a few of them aren't impacted that much as world setting stuff isn't really impacted by the remaster and most of them aren't rules heavy.
For the ones that are, Gods & Magic is the only one that has gotten this treatment that I'm aware of, in that it was replaced by Divine Mysteries. Character & Ancestry guides would be the two most likely to be, unless their rules content is just moved elsewhere at some point.
But I don't think its that likely you'll ever see a remaster update of something like the PFS Guide as getting enough sales to warrant reprinting it might be a challenge.
With that said, heres the kicker: Spellcasting does mental damage to the caster, proportional to the Force of the spell. The damage can be somewhat mitigated by choosing lower level versions of the spells, but sometimes you just get unlucky. So there is often a big, meaningful choice as to what Force you want to cast your spell at. Go big and hope you don't knock yourself out or even kill yourself? Or go small and hope it's enough to be effective?
Remembers me a bit the FP system of GURPS that make the character fatigue when are running out FP and remembers that stories where the when the character runs out mana this character also becomes weaker and tired instead of the magic reserves being only a mana fuel tank only that only prevents the character to cast when its over.
as well as the Lost Omens books that have a large number of character options like Character Guide, Ancestry Guide and PFS Guide.Just to address this part specifically - Lost Omens books have typically not gotten reprints in the same quantity that core books do, if they get one at all. Quite a few of them aren't impacted that much as world setting stuff isn't really impacted by the remaster and most of them aren't rules heavy.
For the ones that are, Gods & Magic is the only one that has gotten this treatment that I'm aware of, in that it was replaced by Divine Mysteries. Character & Ancestry guides would be the two most likely to be, unless their rules content is just moved elsewhere at some point.
But I don't think its that likely you'll ever see a remaster update of something like the PFS Guide as getting enough sales to warrant reprinting it might be a challenge.
Yeah, non-rule content endures without revision unless the setting changes, and PFS rules are largely separate from game rules. Which is good, especially with PDFs being readily available. It can be a bit rough for special edition collectors who are late to the system, but that's a bit niche.
The one book that might get scuffed is SoM because of how much would need to be scrapped and filled in with new content, so it's being spread about in new books.
What I hope is that all of its content will get the treatment, including lore and classes.
I'd say It's less an indication that the book cannot be reprinted G&G style as such (writing an 8-page treaty on new magic is not THAT difficult a prompt for an experienced writer. It's just a matter of making new lore and fitting it in the old lore's space. Additionally, the Earplug appears in two different books as a fringe case).
Paizo can do whatever they want. They can repost material if they wish to within the same license. But I fear I'm growing pedantic.
It's not text, it's formatting, typesetting and art. You aren't just writing 8 pages, it's 8 pages that occupy the exact same number of lines with the exact same font and the exact page width (variable), that make sense with the fancy background they gave those 8 pages, and which can be summarised in a paragraph that (again) occupies the exact correct number of lines in the first page, plus double-check if the new text will cause the index to misalign.
Oh, and then you need to make a new class archetype with the exact same number of feats and features as the Runelord, whose feats in level order occupy the same about of space as existing Runelord feats, and so on. And then do the same to elementalist which has a spell list, isn't that nice?
If at any point the number of pages increase or decrease for any single element, it's no longer doable like GnG, you're basically making a new book from scratch, asset-wise.
That's why I think it's more likely that they'll do something like Divine Mysteries. Basically a new book on the same subject as Gods & Magic an book that incorporates another book.
If Secrets of Magic gets an errata it'll be pretty sizeable given the amount of OGL content to scrap and stuff that was already moved to Core 1/2, Rival Academies and Howl of the Wild.
But maybe it'd be good to give more room to add things and write new lore, even if it'd be a hassle to keep the page count.
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There's still references to Bestiary 2 and 3 in several different Remastered books, so I would be hesitant to use older book references as indications of Paizo's Remastering plans.
So... since nobody has mentioned this:
Rival Academies references Dark Archive and Impossible Lands, so I'm guessing those two are planned to be Remastered, since it seems odd otherwise to use them as references.
They're probably relevant so they use them. If they do get remastered the page numbers don't tend to change since the layouts of the books don't really change outside of something more drastic like Player Core, which Dark Archive wouldn't be getting.
Impossible Lands is a Lost Omens book and most of it wouldn't change even if it was remastered.
Hell, Extinction Curse referenced Absalom: City of Lost Omens, which came out over a year after Extinction Curse did. And as mentioned, books like Bestiary 2 and 3 are referenced in new stuff. I don't think this means anything: it's just a reference to where things currently exist that are relevant.