Pathfinder 2E Pathfinder To Get New Core Rulebooks Soon

It's not just D&D that's getting a 'revised' set of core books--Pathfinder is also getting 'remastered' books! The core rulebooks are being replaced by a new set of books, with new names, but like D&D it is being reiterated that this is not a new edition--"With the exception of a few minor variations in terminology and a slightly different mix of monsters, spells, and magic items, the rules remain largely unchanged."

The existing Pathfinder Core Rulebook, Gamemastery Guide, Bestiary, and Advanced Player’s Guide are being replaced with Pathfinder Player Core, Pathfinder GM Core, Pathfinder Monster Core, and Pathfinder Player Core 2.

These books appear to focus on re-organization and consolidation of existing material rather than substantive changes. They also represent Paizo's move away from the Open Gaming License and towards the new Open RPG Creative (ORC) license. Paizo says "This transition will result in a few minor modifications to the Pathfinder Second Edition system, notably the removal of alignment and a small number of nostalgic creatures, spells, and magic items exclusive to the OGL. These elements remain a part of the corpus of Pathfinder Second Edition rules for those who still want them, and are fully compatible with the new remastered rules, but will not appear in future Pathfinder releases."

Pathfinder 2E - Paizo Reveals Wayne Reynolds' Pathfinder Remastered Cover Sketches

While the final colour pieces won't arrive for a few weeks, Paizo's Erik Mona revealed the cover sketches of the upcoming Pathfinder Remastered core rulebooks while at the GAMA industry trade show yesterday. In an unsual move, you will actually be able to buy special 'sketch' editions of the...

www.enworld.org

 

[payn]

The reaction isn't unearned, honestly. Asking to re-buy things being met with skepticism is a healthy response. I like PF2e a lot, but I wouldn't fanboy for it so hard that I would buy literally everything despite little added value.

Good news, you dont have to re-buy anything.

That being said, I don't think it's a blatant money grab. They can't just re-print the CRB and other books under the ORC because they are already OGL tied, so something like this had to happen one way or another for Paizo to make good on their promise to move to ORC. The solution they came up with is less than ideal (the names of the books in particular are kind of lame) but not a catastrophe.

Im curious how much outrage there would be if they combined the 4 core into 2 big chunks?

 

[Jadeite]

More like 2.1 I'd say.

$2+\epsilon$

 

[Davies]

More like 2.1 I'd say.

Mmm. Treating the errata-proofed printings of the original rulebooks as 2.1, the minimum I'd be willing to say is that this is 2.2.

 

[sevenbastard]

I am always 100% for a two to three year rules update or reorg to fix and improve a system.

 

[Rushbolt]

Paizo says thanks for buying it's old inventory earlier this year so the company can make it outdated now and make more money. They almost certainly knew they were going to print better books for new players, but Paizo needed to sell out it's old inventory and kept it under wraps because they're jerks.

WotC actually started a playtest for a new set of core rules before they got a ton of new players with their movie that opened at #1. The new players actually got to make an informed decision before buying any of the 2014 product. I think we have a case where WotC showed more integrity than one of their competitors.

 

[StoicElf]

I dislike the name. If a new player, totally new to the hobby, looks at these books. Something like "Player Core" or "DM Core" is very vague and meaningless. Only someone really used to D&D knows what "core rulebooks" actually means.

 

[payn]

I dislike the name. If a new player, totally new to the hobby, looks at these books. Something like "Player Core" or "DM Core" is very vague and meaningless. Only someone really used to D&D knows what "core rulebooks" actually means.

I'd be surprised if new folks are not actually online discovering the game first. I just dont see this as something that will confuse folks in 2023.

 

[Rushbolt]

The reaction isn't unearned, honestly. Asking to re-buy things being met with skepticism is a healthy response. I like PF2e a lot, but I wouldn't fanboy for it so hard that I would buy literally everything despite little added value.

That being said, I don't think it's a blatant money grab. They can't just re-print the CRB and other books under the ORC because they are already OGL tied, so something like this had to happen one way or another for Paizo to make good on their promise to move to ORC. The solution they came up with is less than ideal (the names of the books in particular are kind of lame) but not a catastrophe.

Paizo stated they were going to reprint the Core Rulebook without the OGL then under the ORC during the controversy. No mention of new books. They absolutely claimed on several occasions that 2e was designed in a way that it could be printed without OGL attestation. The problem is with the dishonesty of Paizo as they backtracked on something they promised. Does that sound familiar? I think Linda Codega needs to do some investigating into this bait-and-switch.

 

[W'rkncacnter]

i am curious as to how ability scores -> ability modifiers will interact with ability boosts to scores (or, well, modifiers now) of 18 (+4) or higher, since in regular pf2e they count as a +1 to the score instead of a +2, which means you need 2 boosts to increase the modifier. are you gonna have to mark half-boosted modifiers with a .5 now? that'd be kind of silly.

 

[The-Magic-Sword]

Paizo stated they were going to reprint the Core Rulebook without the OGL then under the ORC during the controversy. No mention of new books. They absolutely claimed on several occasions that 2e was designed in a way that it could be printed without OGL attestation. The problem is with the dishonesty of Paizo as they backtracked on something they promised. Does that sound familiar? I think Linda Codega needs to do some investigating into this bait-and-switch.

Mark Moreland, their director of brand strategy, elaborates on this decision and the spike in interest over the last few months here.