Last time I went over the first six chapters of the Pathfinder Second Edition core rulebook. Since I’m off on Thanksgiving, I am releasing the second half of the review, since this book, like the Thanksgiving feast, is a bit overstuffed.
Chapter 7 is Spells. There are several changes in how spells work. Some of these are just clarifications to terminology. In addition to the nine schools, spells are classified on “the four essences” of Matter, Spirit, Mind and Life. For example, Enchantment and Illusion spells almost entirely deal with Mind. Then you have four magical traditions: Arcane (Wizard, basically), Divine (Cleric, but also anything dealing with the Outer Planes, which actually makes demons and devils divine casters), Primal (Druid) and then Occult. So far, Bards are the only example of Occult casters (‘The practitioners of occult traditions seek to understand the unexplainable, categorize the bizarre, and otherwise access the ephemeral in a systematic way.’) but if they ever bring psionics back into the system, it will most likely be under Occult. As mentioned before, a Sorcerer could follow any of these traditions depending on their bloodline.
They also changed the spell slots so
that most spell levels, even 1st, only get a max of 3
spell slots a day, although some classes get around this.
Specifically, most casters have a focus pool that starts with
1 point that can only be used to cast a specific spell or group of
spells (for instance a Champion uses the focus pool to cast lay on
hands, and specialist Wizards gain a focus pool that can only be
used to cast their specialist school spell.) This focus pool can be
added to but can never go above 3 points. In addition, casters still
have cantrips, basic abilities that don’t use up spell slots.
Characters are also able to cast heightened spells, which
means casting a spell with a slot higher than its base level. For
instance, casting 1st-level heal as a 2nd-level spell
increases the damage it heals by 1 die. The book also states that
cantrips are automatically heightened to half the caster’s level
rounded up, so that the cantrips of a 5th level caster
count as 3rd-level spells.
In terms of actually casting, this is
defined in game terms as the Cast a Spell activity, which takes a
special number of actions based on the spell’s description. Usually
material (or focus), verbal and somatic components are each separate
actions, so a spell that requires three components takes three
actions (of the three allowed in the round).
The spells themselves are either buffed
or nerfed compared to previous editions, depending on how you want to
look at it. For instance magic missile is a 1st-level spell,
that still does 1d4+1 base damage, but this goes up by one missile
for each action taken to Cast the Spell, so a full-round cast can
throw 3 magic missiles. Each 2 levels of heightening means you shoot
one additional missile for each action used. On the other hand, wish
is now an example of a 10th-level spell that can only be cast at the
highest experience levels, and generically speaking it allows a
Wizard to duplicate any other spell of 9th level or lower.
Pathfinder 2 also has ritual
spells, which require some material/gold piece outlay and more than
one caster, taking at least an hour. However, they also have
long-lasting effects. Creating undead, controlling the weather and
consecrating a holy site are examples of rituals.
Chapter 8 is The Age of Lost Omens.
This is a mini-gazeteer reviewing the realms on one continental area
on the planet Golarion. Prior to the events of the previous edition,
the two most important parts of world history started with
“Earthfall”, ten thousand years prior, in which a meteor
swarm destroyed civilization, and the rise and fall of Aroden, a
mortal-turned-god who had lived in the time before Earthfall. Aroden
became known as the patron god of the Human race as well as the god
of prophecy. However, Aroden was killed, and this event also killed
the reliability of prophecy- thus, the time since is called The Age
of Lost Omens.
This chapter deals with the regions of
the “Inner Sea” surrounding Aroden’s former home on the
island city of Absolom. The regions are broadly defined, where for
instance “Old Cheliax” refers to the territories around the
kingdom of Cheliax including the countries that declared independence
from it. It’s mentioned that as time advances in the real world, so
it also advances in the game history, such that the official calendar
as of 2019 AD is 4719 AR (Absolom Reckoning). Chapter 8 discusses
the events that have changed the world since the publication of
original Pathfinder (some of which are described in the previous
Adventure Path modules), such as the old empire of Taldor, after a
period of long decline, entering a reformist era with the rise of its
first female monarch. However the main world-shaking event for
adventuring purposes was the recent return of Tar-Baphon, “the
Whispering Tyrant”, an arch-lich who destroyed the frontier
nation that was set up to guard against his return. Though he was
prevented from immediately conquering the rest of the area, Takofanes
– uh, Tar-Baphon – is now the “Big Bad” of the
Pathfinder setting.
Chapter 9 is Playing the Game.
This goes into greater detail on all the basic concepts that were
briefly described in the Introduction. Again, there are three modes
of play. “The most intricate of the modes is encounter mode.”
In addition to the previous rules for dice tests, and degrees of
success or failure, there are also certain combat modifiers. There is
a multiple attack penalty, which normally is -5 for a second attack
per turn and -10 for “the third time you attack, and on any
subsequent attacks”. Given that characters only get three
actions in a turn, this would seem to indicate that you can use a
basic Strike action with multiple attacks if you’re willing to take
the penalty. It’s mentioned that you can do this with spell attack
rolls, but given that most spells require at least two actions to
Cast a Spell, it’s doubtful you can use a multi-attack with more than
one spell a round.
Most of the rules for “encounter
mode” (combat) are in fact discussed before describing the
various modes, because they’re rather brief compared with the rules
for what you are able to do in combat and what happens if you get
damaged. In addition to various damage types from weapons (slashing,
bludgeoning, etc.) you have damage types based on magic or the
environment (such as fire or electrical). In some cases a target of
damage may modify it based on immunities, resistances or weaknesses:
Immunity is flat-out immunity to a damage type, resistance is a
category (fire resistance 4 means you reduce any fire damage by 4
points) and weakness is like the opposite of resistance (if you have
weakness 5 to fire, any fire attack does +5 damage).
There are also conditions that
describe other effects of damage or failing to resist a spell. How
many conditions are there? Let’s see, on page 454, there are… …
…43. Yes. This page is simply a summary of a more detailed
glossary of conditions in the back that goes from pages 618 to 623,
for example, Wounded: “You
have been seriously injured. If you lose the dying condition and do
not already have the wounded condition, you become wounded 1. If you
already have the wounded condition when you lose the dying condition,
your wounded condition value increases by 1.
If
you gain the dying condition while wounded, increase your dying
condition value by your wounded value.”
Of course some of these conditions are
actually terms used to describe an NPC’s base opinion of your
character (‘Unfriendly: An NPC with this condition doesn’t like
you.’) but that kind of gets to a big problem I have with Pathfinder
2 compared to the previous version or other games: It is heavily
dependent on gamespeak. And depending on gamespeak to the degree that
it does, in my opinion, causes PF2 to lose its “immersive”
quality in the way that Dungeons & Dragons 4th Edition
did, where your character felt less like a character and more like a
game piece. Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition has its
own large glossary of conditions at the back of the Player’s
Handbook, but the text is about half as long, partially because D&D
5 is more prone to use simple and concise English. More on that
comparison later.
After some length, Chapter 9 actually
gets to the modes of play. Encounter mode (combat) starts with the
roll for initiative, which in PF2 is normally a Perception check,
although the Game Master may have players roll another skill (for
instance a social encounter could use Deception or Diplomacy checks).
Notably if a player’s roll ties with an NPC, the adversary goes
first. In addition to Stride (move up to your Speed score) and
Strike (attack) this section goes over various other actions, which
include Crawl, Drop Prone and Stand (‘You stand up from prone’) which
are all helpfully marked with trait markers like “Move.”
After this there’s a relatively concise explanation of using movement
points (Pathfinder characters are assumed to be moving on a square
grid where each square is 5 feet, so a Small character with a Speed
of 20 moves up to 4 squares per Stride). There are also brief but
effective rules for combat in unusual environments, like underwater,
which leads to rules for drowning or suffocating.
Exploration mode is self-explanatory;
it “lacks the immediate danger of encounter mode, but it offers
its own challenges.” Instead of measuring movement in tactical
5-foot squares, it is measured in feet or miles. The characters’
Speed (which is 20 feet for Small races, 25 for most races and 30 for
Elves) is converted on a table to the number of miles one can travel
per hour or day (a Speed of 25 is 2 1/2 miles per hour). Difficult
terrain reduces the rate. There are certain activities that are only
done in exploration mode (and of course are labeled with the
Exploration trait) and there are also skills that can be used in this
mode, such as using Survival to track creatures. Notably, encounter
mode includes “preparing” after the nightly rest, preparing
including memorized spell slots, and equipping armor and weapons,
including “investing” any magic items.
Finally, there is downtime mode. This
is just the game time between combat or travel scenes. Normally
characters who rest each night recover Hit Point damage at a rate of
1 (or Constitution modifier) times level; long-term rest in downtime
mode doubles that natural healing rate but assumes the character is
resting the entire day. An experienced character can also “retrain”
and swap out certain abilities like feats or skill increases. There
is a brief list of skills that can be used in downtime mode, namely
to earn income or survive off the land, or perform long-term medical
care.
Chapter 10: Game
Mastering is the point at which the corebook becomes the
“Dungeon Master’s Guide” (which is why the Pathfinder game
book is so thick, cause it’s both the ‘player’s handbook’ and GM
manual). It includes a few gaming tips like “drawing a line”
or allowing a player to tap an “X-Card” to limit or edit
descriptions of disturbing or objectionable material. It also
describes the concept of “social splash damage” if the game
is being hosted in a public place; basically have respect for your
hosts or the people nearby. There is also a sidebar for using
disabled characters – even though basic rules don’t describe how
battle injuries could create permanent disabilities. Some of this
advice is politically correct, but still generally useful.
In more concrete terms, this chapter
includes the tools for creating an “XP budget” for
encounters. The figures used for XP are relatively small numbers
because the XP system is not based on linear numbers (a creature is
worth X number of experience points and higher level creatures are
worth more XP) bur rather in scale with the party’s average character
level. If for instance the party is a party of four 4th
level characters, a “moderate” encounter would be a budget
of 80 XP with a 4th level creature (or ‘Creature 4’ in the
language of the game) being 40 of that 80 and “lackey”
creatures being 20 each. Parties of greater or larger size have an
adjustment to the XP budget; in the case of the 80 XP budget, each
player more than four adds 20 to the budget and each player fewer
than four subtracts 20. Note that because of the divisor the XP
award to the individual characters doesn’t change- in this case each
PC would get 20 XP for the encounter. All this goes back to the
first chapter of the book: On page 31, “Leveling Up”, each
experience level is exactly 1000 experience points. When characters
reach or exceed 1000 XP, they level up and then subtract 1000 from
their total and carry over any remaining. Thus this system greatly
compresses the “unit economy” for totalling XP and makes
the numbers a lot simpler for the GM.
In this regard, the chapter also goes
over how to award XP if that whole pre-planned encounter was avoided
by player choices. The GM may have to move the encounter to a
different location if it is truly necessary for things to proceed,
otherwise they may award the full XP for the encounter if the party
avoided it because of ingenuity, diplomacy or other deliberate means.
There is also guidance for social encounters that involve
role-playing and skill, such as trying to persuade a mob or a judge
of a person’s innocence. This usually relies on the Society skill
for initiative and requires skill rolls to persuade the opposition.
It’s also mentioned that in exploration
mode, the GM will be making judgment calls on almost everything that
happens. Part of what’s involved is typical D&D type stuff like
marching order and setting watch overnight, and since “rest”
for game purposes means 8 hours, they have a little chart as to how
long a watch period would be depending on how many people are in the
party. The chapter also goes over downtime, and it is possible for
player characters to use downtime mode for several long-term events.
Chapter 10 also has a GM guide for
setting the Difficulty Class (DC) for certain rolls. For instance,
some tasks require a minimum skill level (like Expert) to even
succeed. This is not necessarily known to the player, so they can
still attempt it (‘after all, she needs to have a chance to
critically fail’). Chapter 10 mentions character rewards. Hero
Points (described more thoroughly in Chapter 9) can be used to
re-roll a d20 or save a 0 Hit Point character from dying. The book
recommends handing out 1 Hero Point per each real hour of play after
the first (for instance, 3 for a four-hour session). There are also
guidelines for XP awards for miscellaneous accomplishments other than
victory in combat. The chapter closes with the rules for
environmental conditions, and hazards (including dungeon traps) since
after all, characters can take damage from sources other than
themselves.
Chapter 11, Crafting and Treasure
says: “Characters acquire treasure from the glittering hoards of
their foes, as rewards for defending the innocent, and as favors from
the grand personalities they treat with.” The actual treasure
tables are on page 508 in Chapter 10 (which is another problem I have
with this book: It really isn’t well laid-out) but this chapter
includes not only magic and alchemical items but the rules for using
them. It’s mentioned that some items have to be “invested”
in order to be fully active (similar to attunement in D&D 5th
Edition) and most characters can only invest 10 magic items at a
time, which the book says should not be an issue until characters are
high level. A character can change out which items are invested on a
given day during daily preparations.
The tables that follow list special
items by level, and in addition to alchemical items include other
“consumables” such as magical talismans. Thus the tables
are separated by “Consumables” and “Permanent Items.”
While most of the miscellaneous items are similar to those in
Pathfinder 1 and Dungeons & Dragons, the rules for weapon and
armor enchantment are different. The enchantments on these items are
done through runes; runes for adding straight to a weapon’s
hit bonus or damage are called fundamental runes, and more exotic
runes (like to create a flaming weapon) are called property runes.
Engraving runes uses the Craft skill. Furthermore with fundamental
runes there is a distinction between potency runes (which increase
the base bonus), resiliency runes (which add to a suit of armor’s
bonus to saving throws) and striking runes, which actually add to the
weapon’s damage dice. Potency runes only go up to +3 and also
determine the number of property runes that can be added (resiliency
and striking don’t count against the limit). Thus a +3 weapon could
also have a “major striking rune” causing it to do four
(instead of one) die of the weapon’s normal damage type. This is
interesting for two reasons: One, the use of striking runes means
that a Fighter’s weapons can “scale” with level similar to
how a spellcaster’s combat magic does, and the use of runes as an
element is an interesting setting element that distinguishes
Pathfinder 2 from other D&D-based games where these enchantments
are generic and unexplained.
However while most of these items only
matter once characters are high-level enough to get them (assuming
the GM is properly generous), some of them are tools actually created
by characters on a regular basis. Specifically, the crafting of
consumable items is the whole schtick of the Alchemist class, and
Rangers also have the ability to create snares (which of course are
their own category of item with the ‘snare’ trait). So while
spellcasters have to flip from Chapter 3 to Chapter 7 to look up
spells, Alchemists have to flip from Chapter 3 all the way to Chapter
11. Which is another issue with layout: if you got this book as a
PDF off the back of a virtual turnip truck, you could just use Ctrl+F
to flip to the right page, but I assume that Paizo, like most
publishers, wants to make its sales off hardcopy books. And not only
is this book expensive as I’d said before, it’s friggin’ BIG.
CONCLUSIONS
If all this makes it seem like I am ambivalent about Pathfinder Second Edition, well, I am. Every thing they do to radically simplify the system (combat action economy, encumbrance, the experience system) is outweighed by something that over-complicates things compared to previous Pathfinder (almost everything else).
At this point, since we’re dealing with
a comparison of Pathfinder 2 to the first edition, and this in turn
leads to a comparison of the Dungeons & Dragons 3rd
Edition (which inspired Pathfinder) and the D&D that came after
it, I need to bring up a concept from the latest edition of D&D:
bounded accuracy.
https://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/Understanding_Bounded_Accuracy_(5e_Guideline)
See, in D&D 3rd Edition
(and therefore, Pathfinder 1st Edition), most abilities
progressed equal to level. Level cap in most products is 20. A 20th
level Fighter in D&D3/PF1 has a Base Attack Bonus of +20 before
counting any other modifiers at all, which means that any opponent
has to have an equally ridiculous Armor Class difficulty to not get
hit routinely. D&D 4th Edition curbed this somewhat
with the concept of the “level modifier” – where all
characters got a modifier of half their level, rounded down. Thus, a
10th level Fighter only has a +5 to hit. The newest
version, Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition, refines the
concept even further. The term “bounded accuracy” isn’t in
the rule books, but it is in the various online discussions,
including some from Wizards of the Coast designers. In player
character terms, it comes down to most abilities being based on a
proficiency bonus that starts at +2 at 1st level and peaks
at +6. This mechanic applies to even class abilities; a Fighter and
a Wizard of the same level have the same proficiency bonus, but a
Fighter has that bonus with most weapons, and a Wizard only gets it
with the limited number of weapons he is proficient with. However
the Wizard (and other spellcasters) apply the bonus to attacks made
with spells as well as the difficulty numbers to save against
(resist) those spells.
There’s also a separate mechanic in D&D
5 that further compresses the number crunching. It’s called
advantage vs. disadvantage. Simply, if you have advantage on a d20
roll (for instance, flanking an opponent) you get to roll the d20
twice and apply the better of two rolls. However if you have
disadvantage (for example, a Dark Elf forced to fight in sunlight),
you have to roll the d20 twice and take the worse of the two rolls.
Most of the little situational modifiers that were used in previous
editions of D&D (and some other non-d20 games) are replaced with
this mechanic.
There are various reasons why the
Wizards developers went with these methods (discussed in the link)
but from the player perspective it is simply a matter of not having
as many numbers and modifiers to deal with. This makes D&D 5th
a relatively simple game to learn and teach to others.
Pathfinder 2, by contrast, goes in the opposite direction, taking the level-scale approach of prior Pathfinder and turning the amp up to 11. It’s specified that if you have Trained proficiency with weapons or non-combat skills, the proficiency modifier includes your level in addition to the bonuses you get for Trained, Expert, Master or Legendary level of skill. This would mean that a 20th level Fighter who has Legendary skill with weapons is now at +28 to hit. Before other modifiers.
Generally, I think Pathfinder 2 takes
the same wrong turn that Wizards of the Coast took with D&D 4th
Edition and that Hero Games took with HERO System 6th
Edition – throwing in a whole bunch of new elements that veterans
of the previous edition do not need and that will not make the game
easier for new players. Even if the actual core of the game is quite
simple, there’s so much “cruft” that it’s hard to see.
I could be wrong, because again, this
game does a lot to clean up the basics of play, and there seems to be
positive buzz so far. This just isn’t the direction I would go, and
if I did want to do a root-to-stem rewrite of Pathfinder, it would
probably look more like Starfinder than this game does.
