Pathfinder Remastered Previews, Starfinder Field Test 2, and More

Catching up on all the Pathfinder Remastered previews, Starfinder Mystic class Field Test, Stream schedule, and Organized Play updates.

Pathfinder Remastered Previews​

Paizo has been giving us all the previews lately on what's going on with the Pathfinder Remastered project. If you want to go even more in depth, check out the Core Preview File. It will talk more about changing "spell level" to "spell rank," the removal of spell schools, and the new spell format.

Spell components have been removed from spells which will allows the classes more freedom to define how they cast spells. You no longer need to track different proficiencies for each tradition of spells you have, it's just the highest proficiency you already have and lets the attributes do the work. Damaging cantrips will now only use the damage dice rather than adding an attribute modifier. Many focus spells with longer casting times have had their casting times reduced so you can use them in the middle of an encounter.

Pathfinder Player Core will include the following ancestries: dwarf, elf, gnome, goblin, halfling, human, leshy, and orc. In order to reflect the diversity of Golarion, it will introduce versatile heritages: extra options of mixed ancestries and extraplanar origins. Characters can only have one heritage and one lineage feat, but that doesn't mean that other bloodlines don't show up in interesting ways in their DNA.

Ranger's are getting a tweak in their spellcasting. Spellcasting progression is now part of the core components of being a ranger. Their feats will also be streamlined to accrue and recategorize their spells. There will also be some new feats like Warden's Reload, which allows the ranger to reload as a free action once per round if they cast a warden spell. Snares are not going to appear in the Player Core, but will be added in Player Core 2 with the Snarecrafter archetype. Crossbows are now their own weapon group, and a martial crossbow has been added.

There was an entire blog outlining the chapters of the GM Core that took you through running published adventures to making your own game, as well as handing out treasure.

Starfinder Mystic Field Test​

The second field test for Starfinder Second Edition is live and it is the first five levels of the mystic class, along with a few Starfinder 2e spells. The mystic relies on its connections and forming bonds with fellow party members. These connections help customize how they use their vitality network, allowing them to be a powerful healer. There will be more chances for mystics to be more directly connected with deities, but they won't be required to worship deities if they don't chose to.

Stream Schedule​

Paizo announced their Twitch Schedule for the month. This includes a Friday the 13th Lost Omens discussion of the upcoming Pathfinder Lost Omens: Tian Xia World Guide and Pathfinder Lost Omens: Tian Xia Character Guide, as well as Pathfinder and Starfinder Society Foundry Showcases.

Organized Play Updates​

The following adventures will be available on October 25, 2023: Pathfinder Society Scenario #5-05: The Island of the Vibrant Dead, Starfinder Society Scenario #6-08: Lost Revelry, and Starfinder Society Scenario #6-09: Ridgerock Rescue.

 

[Staffan]

I mean, don't we acknowledge that 3.5 and PF1 are different games? Or AD&D 1e vs 2nd edition?

It's a spectrum. I could easily run, say, The Sunless Citadel or Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil (3.0 adventures), or Red Hand of Doom (3.5) under Pathfinder 1 rules. The monsters might be a feat or two short, and I'll have to figure out CMB and CMD, but that's fairly seamless. It would be harder to use the 3.5 Eberron Artificer class, because one of the artificer's class features is a pool of virtual XP to spend on making magic items and PF1 doesn't use that mechanic. Bardic performance also works differently in PF1 than it does in 3.5e, so any feat based on that would need re-evaluating. Does that make them different games?

And that seems to be the scale of changes from PF2 to PF2R. Would I be able to use a PF2 adventure under PF2R? Almost certainly. I might have to figure out some spell and/or item translations, but that's a minor issue – and if worst comes to worst, there's nothing about shocking grasp that won't work in PF2R, and the old stuff will still be available at AoN. Will I be able to use player-facing material? Probably, but it depends on whether it's based on something that's gone away in the remaster.

 

[Morrus]

Saying it’s a new game is pretty exaggerated, though I’d agree what we’re receiving is a bit more than an errata.

New edition, update, revision--they're all just marketing labels when it comes to it. Right now both of the larger companies are avoiding the term 'edition'. Personally, from all the previews and playtests, I'm pretty much of the opinion that both this and next year's 5E books (which it's hard to even refer to it a non-clumsy manner!) are X.5 editions. But I don't think we'll hear terminology like that from them again.

 

[Velderan]

New edition, update, revision--they're all just marketing labels when it comes to it. Right now both of the larger companies are avoiding the term 'edition'. Personally, from all the previews and playtests, I'm pretty much of the opinion that both this and next year's 5E books (which it's hard to even refer to it a non-clumsy manner!) are X.5 editions. But I don't think we'll hear terminology like that from them again.

New game to me implies you can pretty much throw out your old books (e.g PF1 to PF2). X.5 to me implies you’ll need to do some work to adjust things (e.g alignment damage is now holy/unholy damage), but you’ll be able to run those old adventures with very minimal effort to convert a couple things which sounds like what both companies are putting out. Some of the remaster changes are already in Foundry and in my current Abomination Vaults game it hasn’t created any issues yet. We’ll see next month when the books come out if any other changes are more significant in terms of gameplay, but nothing I’ve seen in the previews concerns me that the $400 or so I’ve spent on PF2 books won’t all be still usable.

 

[Morrus]

New game to me implies you can pretty much throw out your old books (e.g PF1 to PF2). X.5 to me implies you’ll need to do some work to adjust things (e.g alignment damage is now holy/unholy damage), but you’ll be able to run those old adventures with very minimal effort to convert a couple things which sounds like what both companies are putting out. Some of the remaster changes are already in Foundry and in my current Abomination Vaults game it hasn’t created any issues yet. We’ll see next month when the books come out if any other changes are more significant in terms of gameplay, but nothing I’ve seen in the previews concerns me that the $400 or so I’ve spent on PF2 books won’t all be still usable.

Heck, you could do that from 3.5 to PF1. I ran several 3.x adventures using PF1 pretty seamlessly.

 

[Reynard]

Heck, you could do that from 3.5 to PF1. I ran several 3.x adventures using PF1 pretty seamlessly.

I think it is telling that the Remastered Bestiary is not coming out until later. That suggests that you should be able to run previous PF2 adventures with Remastered without too much effort.

 

[Retreater]

I'm not denying anyone's experiences on here, but for the groups I know every one of them never used a 3.0 product again after the release of 3.5, and likewise never used 3.x with Pathfinder.
Part of the reason is that it was all replaced. All the class options, monsters, etc were updated, and there was no reason to go back and do the work to convert.
The only thing not typically updated were adventures. They were a bit of a headache to convert from 3.0 to 3.5 - spells changed, monsters had different sizing, Damage Resistance worked differently - but it could be done.
3.x to Pathfinder adventures tended to not work because of Pathfinder's power increase. Pathfinder characters could walk through 3.x adventures. So in the end, it became easier to just select one of the many Pathfinder adventures.

 

[Velderan]

It's a spectrum. I could easily run, say, The Sunless Citadel or Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil (3.0 adventures), or Red Hand of Doom (3.5) under Pathfinder 1 rules. The monsters might be a feat or two short, and I'll have to figure out CMB and CMD, but that's fairly seamless. It would be harder to use the 3.5 Eberron Artificer class, because one of the artificer's class features is a pool of virtual XP to spend on making magic items and PF1 doesn't use that mechanic. Bardic performance also works differently in PF1 than it does in 3.5e, so any feat based on that would need re-evaluating. Does that make them different games?

And that seems to be the scale of changes from PF2 to PF2R. Would I be able to use a PF2 adventure under PF2R? Almost certainly. I might have to figure out some spell and/or item translations, but that's a minor issue – and if worst comes to worst, there's nothing about shocking grasp that won't work in PF2R, and the old stuff will still be available at AoN. Will I be able to use player-facing material? Probably, but it depends on whether it's based on something that's gone away in the remaster.

Mechanically, I’m sure player facing stuff will work just fine. It’s further out in the release schedule but if the main difference between a CRB champion and a Player Core 2 champion is alignment based damage vs. sanctified/holy damage and the rest of their abilities are largely the same I don’t think it would be a problem to use either. For new APs that don’t feature alignment in the stat blocks, it wouldn’t be hard to make an on the spot call if a creature is evil and would be affected by a CRB champion’s alignment based abilities.

The only issue I see for player facing content will largely be does a player want to use the old stuff if the new stuff is a buff. Why would a player want to use the CRB witch if the Player Core witch is a buff to address concerns about the class being under tuned? I don’t know any players that would be interested in that.

 

[Velderan]

Heck, you could do that from 3.5 to PF1. I ran several 3.x adventures using PF1 pretty seamlessly.

Back in the AD&D 2e days, I ran plenty of 1e adventures with the only modification being I typically needed to adjust the monster's HP. The rest was largely fine as is. I didn't get to play PF1e/3.x due to my work situation at the time not allowing a consistent scheduled to find a regular group, but my limited exposure to the 3e Dragonlance stuff Weis put out and the stat blocks from the PF1e Bestiary didn't make me think it would be hard to run 3e Dragonlance in PF1e.

 

[Velderan]

I'm not denying anyone's experiences on here, but for the groups I know every one of them never used a 3.0 product again after the release of 3.5, and likewise never used 3.x with Pathfinder.
Part of the reason is that it was all replaced. All the class options, monsters, etc were updated, and there was no reason to go back and do the work to convert.
The only thing not typically updated were adventures. They were a bit of a headache to convert from 3.0 to 3.5 - spells changed, monsters had different sizing, Damage Resistance worked differently - but it could be done.
3.x to Pathfinder adventures tended to not work because of Pathfinder's power increase. Pathfinder characters could walk through 3.x adventures. So in the end, it became easier to just select one of the many Pathfinder adventures.

So here's some examples from "The Summer That Never Was" adventure from the new Season of Ghosts AP Paizo just released this month. It uses stat blocks from GMG, Bestiary 1, 2, and 3 with no issues:

Starting with Rage of Elements, the books they're currently publishing already have changes to reflect the Remaster updates. I don't want to copy/paste stuff that isn't yet in AoN since I don't know what will end up there exactly, but looking over the stat blocks in the new AP for enemies new to the AP seem to be in line with what I'm seeing in the previously released APs I've read (Abomination Vaults, Stolen Fate). I really can't see a reason I couldn't use a new Creature 3 monster from the new AP in Abomination Vaults and cause an issue.

 

[Mercador]

New edition, update, revision--they're all just marketing labels when it comes to it. Right now both of the larger companies are avoiding the term 'edition'. Personally, from all the previews and playtests, I'm pretty much of the opinion that both this and next year's 5E books (which it's hard to even refer to it a non-clumsy manner!) are X.5 editions. But I don't think we'll hear terminology like that from them again.

How it will work without editions? Say, I have books from 2nd, 4th and 5th editions and books from PF1 and Starfinder (1 I guess). If the core rulebooks change, it's a new edition in my book (no pun intended). I cannot use Rise of the Runelords with PF2 without some adjustments, same with Curse of Strahd on 5E, I don't know if I'll be able to run it on DnD One/Next/New version/5.5(?). They want to do a "living" version like as GaaS games ? Can we call them RaaS as Rules as a Service?