Pathfinder Player and GM Core Are Now Available

The new Remastered core rulebooks will serve as a fresh entry point for Pathfinder 2nd Edition under the ORC license.

Today, November 15th, Paizo released the first two books of their remastered line: Pathfinder Player Core and Pathfinder GM Core. They will continue the line in 2024 with Pathfinder Monster Core and Pathfinder Player Core 2.

These books serve as a fresh entry point into 2nd edition while removing any carried over OGL content and incorporating several years of errata and changes to the game. This comes as a response to the concerns brought about earlier this year with the shifting conditions of the Open Gaming License and the huge influx of new Pathfinder players. This explosion of new players saw Paizo selling out of Pathfinder Core Rulebook in Q1 and triggered an unexpected new and final printing of the book.

Paizo used this opportunity to pull content from many of the previous books, along with errata and feedback from the developers and players, to replace the OGL books as they are phased out of production. They also streamlined the organization of the books to make it easier to navigate for old and new players alike.

The design team also took this opportunity to introduce new rules, heritages, and feats, as well as overhauling spellcasting.

We did a review of both books earlier this month. They are available now in standard hardcover, Special Edition hardcover, and hobby-retailer exclusive Sketch Cover hardcovers.

If you want to find out more about the ORC license, you can find it on Azora’s website.

 

[Retreater]

Of all the bigger mainstream games, it seems like Pathfinder engenders the most irritation with and resitance to change among its fans, to the point that it is hard to tell if they actually are fans sometimes.

I don't consider myself resistant to change. I've enjoyed a lot of the new ancestries and classes they've released - even ones with wildly different mechanics (such as the thaumaturge).
What I don't like is change that wasn't well thought out and rushed to meet an arbitrary publishing deadline based on a reactionary sense of fear. I don't feel like that is the best way to build a product line - which is going to be the flimsy base on which the rest of PF2 is going to be built.

 

[Velderan]

The Pathfinder fanbase is likely more resistant to change, since the core of them has always been people who looked at 4e and said "No thanks, I'll play the 3.5e clone instead."

That’s probably fair. I don’t generally read the Pathfinder subreddit where the 1e fans mostly post and as @payn said they’ve mostly been left behind in Paizo’s current product planning.

 

[Reynard]

That’s probably fair. I don’t generally read the Pathfinder subreddit where the 1e fans mostly post and as @payn said they’ve mostly been left behind in Paizo’s current product planning.

Why would they be surprised? The whole point of a new edition is to serve that edition.

 

[Velderan]

Why would they be surprised? The whole point of a new edition is to serve that edition.

I wonder that every single time someone posts to complain about 5e's direction when they don't even play a WotC edition.

 

[Reynard]

I wonder that every single time someone posts to complain about 5e's direction when they don't even play a WotC edition.

Fair enough.

 

[Thomas Shey]

I have tried to get into PF2E before without a lot of success due to player disinterest. Now I am kind of glad it has taken until the Remaster to do so, so I don't have to worry about "change" baggage. Of all the bigger mainstream games, it seems like Pathfinder engenders the most irritation with and resitance to change among its fans, to the point that it is hard to tell if they actually are fans sometimes.

I had the advantage that I never really got into it before 2e, because Pathfinder 1e just struck me as slightly cleaned up D&D 3e, and after running a campaign of the latter, I decided its vices far outweighed its virtues, especially as a GM (not really being that big of a fan of the whole D&D-sphere approach didn't help, of course).

 

[Thomas Shey]

I don't consider myself resistant to change. I've enjoyed a lot of the new ancestries and classes they've released - even ones with wildly different mechanics (such as the thaumaturge).
What I don't like is change that wasn't well thought out and rushed to meet an arbitrary publishing deadline based on a reactionary sense of fear. I don't feel like that is the best way to build a product line - which is going to be the flimsy base on which the rest of PF2 is going to be built.

The problem with this logic is it assumes that much of the changes presented weren't already works-in-progress anyway. I suspect strongly that's not true, and the WOTC event just jumpstarted them to take the plunge.

 

[Thomas Shey]

That’s probably fair. I don’t generally read the Pathfinder subreddit where the 1e fans mostly post and as @payn said they’ve mostly been left behind in Paizo’s current product planning.

And are, in some cases, super soggy about that, even though its absolutely typical with new editions.

 

[Retreater]

The problem with this logic is it assumes that much of the changes presented weren't already works-in-progress anyway. I suspect strongly that's not true, and the WOTC event just jumpstarted them to take the plunge.

That's fine. But why is there Day One Errata? That's the whole reason I'm salty. The issues are so glaring that the books are basically junk before they're on store shelves. And that makes me leery of the entire project.

 

[SteveC]

There's definitely some people on the PF2e subreddit that seem upset about the changes, which honestly I think it's mostly people like @SteveC who if I'm remembering correctly appreciated that PF2e was basically a reskinned D&D that played better, but shared a lot things in common (and I mean absolutely no offense at this, SteveC. Your explanation just stood out to me as a rational "this kinda sucks and here's why" post.)

Absolutely no offense taken! I really enjoy PF2 as being, as you said, a reskinned D&D. I think they did a lot of things to make it work really well at the table. I prefer it to 5E (but play both). I get where the "we have to change this over the OGL" issue comes from, but I just don't like a lot of the changes. It's a long discussion.

But some of my issues are specific to me (I am one of the 5 people who like alignment), and some (like the feat/spell/condition names) are just things that will take time. There are some issues that I think are legitimately bad (spell school changes) however.

I'm not giving up on Paizo, I just think the Remaster could have been handled a lot better.