This past weekend, my “Borderlands” campaign ended. (Named after my homebrew campaign setting and not the videogame or the module). And following that I slowly shelved the PCs’ minis, then tucked away the campaign notebook and setting binder. All the stuff that had been within easy reach for years was now being archived. Stored. Joining the other ghosts of campaigns past in a storage box.
The campaign began thirty-four months ago, in September of 2016. While we had a couple 4-month-long breaks where we played mini-campaigns as well as some one-shots, that’s still 25 months of one campaign. As many as 43 five-hour game sessions.
It’s arguably my longest campaign. Yikes!
Looking back, my Dragonlance campaign ran 24 sessions while the subsequent Ravenloft game ran 17. I think when I ran Rise of the Runelords and Skull & Shackles they each roughly took 22 sessions. With 42 sessions, while not twice as long as most campaigns, it’s pretty darn close. I’ve played in games that ran a few months longer, but had fewer sessions overall. And I did two years of Living Greyhawk with my main having 57 sessions/ARs, so that still holds the “record”. But this is my longest campaign behind the screen without the game fizzling out or the group imploding.
I could have kept going but the players wanted to move onto something else and take a break from those characters. There’s so many more campaigns I want to run that ending now felt right. But we might revisit in a year or two (or three). A one-shot or mini-game. Nothing’s impossible in D&D!!!
Following the four month playtest in 2018, Paizo Inc has released a second edition of their Pathfinder Roleplaying Game.
Unlike the playtest for 5th Edition D&D, which was more of a series of concept tests, the Pathfinder 2 playtest was very much about testing the game, and was intended to balance of the new edition. The final product of Pathfinder 2 is very much like the playtest product; while there are numerous changes, the overall foundation of the game and its classes are largely the same. If you didn’t like the playtest, you probably won’t like the final product. And if you loved the playtest product, this is largely the same thing with tighter balance, refined rules, and better presentation.
For the unaware, Pathfinder was initially a very slightly tweaked version of 3rd Edition Dungeons & Dragons, released following the divisive 4th Edition. At the time, Paizo valued backwards compatibility with the wealth of 3e material already on gamer’s shelves, and resisted making many changes to Pathfinder. Despite half a decade of evolving game design, Pathfinder was still 3e.
And now, ten years after Pathfinder 1 and almost twenty years after 3e we have Pathfinder 2.
What It Is
The Pathfinder Core Rulebook is 640-pages, making it almost exactly the same size as the 5th Edition D&D Player’s Handbook and DMG combined.
The book is full colour, with a textured background and big decorative coloured sidebar on the right that tells you what chapter you’re reading.
The book is divided into a 34-page section on Ancestry, 166-pages on classes, 22-pages on skills, 16-pages of generic feats, 26-pages of equipment, 120-pages of spells, 26-pages on “The Age of Lost Omens”—an introduction to the world and setting—which curiously comes right before the section on actually playing the game. Those rules take 40-pages, followed by 48-pages on Game Mastering, and lastly 87-pages of magic items .
Also out for the ruleset is the first Bestiary, and an update of their campaign sourcebook in the Lost Omens World Guide as well as a GM screen and Condition Cards. Coming soon is a Lost Omens Character Guide, which is the first (of likely many) splatbooks, offering three new ancestries, and 10 archetypes (each likely with at *least* half-a-dozen feats) and the Gamemaster’s Guide, with the *rest* of the rules needed to really run the game. Shortly will be a second Bestiary, and the 2e Advanced Player’s Guide will drop at GenCon 2020 with four new classes and 10 new ancestries!
Playtest Note
For this review, I’m going to try and focus on the product itself, and not really bring up the public playtest. While initially outlining this review I would observe things that had changed since the playtest and mark those as “good” or “awesome” based on how much they had improved, not considering if the mechanic itself was good or bad, which isn’t very useful for a review of the product.
Generally speaking, this product is a LOT like the playtest. Small things were changed and tweaked (language in powers, the removal of resonance) but the overall design of classes and the game is largely identical.
The Bar
In my review of the playtest I ranted at length at what I would like to see in a 2nd edition of Pathfinder. Changes from that initial edition that would bring me back to the Pathfinder fold after abandoning it for 5th Edition and other games.
My review and opinion of Pathfinder 2 will largely be shaped by if it includes or does not include:
Lighter rules
Optional Complexity
Optional Magic Items
Focus on Gameplay Outside of Combat
First, an overall reduction of the weight of the ruleset. Too often I felt less like a storyteller and more a puppet of the rules, being forced to conform my ideas to the game system: I wasn’t the game master, I was the rules’ servant. Because there was a rule for everything, system mastery was a powerful tool, allowing my players to “win” via the rules, leading to far more rules lawyering and arguing.
Secondly, the complexity of characters was problematic. While I appreciate some players enjoy building and planning characters, that doesn’t translate to fun at the table. That’s literally something you do between games. And because options equal power creep, and optimized characters destabilized the balance at the table, too much character complexity is detrimental to play. Also, the mandated complexity made creating characters and levelling up a chore to half my players.
Magic items are third, and were a big problem for my 3rd Edition and Pathfinder campaigns. The prevalence of magic items in those editions doesn’t really match any established fantasy fiction, and often reduced what should be wondrous and special items to just another element of the character’s “build”. And common magic items did funky things to the economy of the world, making it difficult to award extra treasure or rewards, and led to absurd elements like ogres with magical greatclubs worth tens of thousands of gold pieces.
Lastly, I’d like some focus on roleplaying and the personality or values of characters. Modern RPGs tend to have some form of bonus related to that: convictions in Vampire, values in Star Trek, personality traits in D&D, aspects in Fate, icons in 13th Age, duty/ obligation in Star Wars, Tales from the Loop’s Problem, Drive, Pride, Relationships, and Anchor (phew), and so many other examples. Or even plot points, like in so many other narrative games.
The Good
The linchpin of the Pathfinder 2 system is the three action system. This was actually introduced in Pathfinder Unchained back in 2015, and is a relatively small tweak of the existing action economy of Pathfinder. While arguably as complex as PF1’s standard/move/swift system—being just a slight simplification—it potentially makes things faster by theoretically removing option paralysis and confusion. Rather than having to hunt through your character sheet for a minor or swift action, you can just use another action, such as moving a second time or making an additional attack.
At first I was worried that the icons that drive the game’s powers would be hard to read or parse, but they do pop and are easy to distinguish, even in monsters. It’s easy to tell at a glance if a power is a passive ability or an active one that requires an action.
The critical success/ failure system works with natural 20s and 1s. If you succeed by 10+ it’s a critical success, while if you fail by 10+ it’s a critical failure. But a nat-20 bumps the result up to the next degree of success while a natural 1 bumps it down. So even if you would miss on a 20, it’s still a success, or if rolling a 20 still only succeeds by 9 it’s a critical hit. And while you miss on a 1, if you’re skilled enough to just succeeded on a 1 then you don’t critically fail but just fail. (And, theoretically, if you’re so badass that even a 1 would be a critical success, you still only get a success.) It effectively maintains the “1” is a auto-fail while the 20 is an auto-success” but elegantly ties it into the new definition.
The game has lots of decision points for people who crave that sort of game system and enjoy building characters. At first level alone you have six or seven decision points, all with two to four options. And you pick at least one new feat every single level afterwards. For players who don’t enjoy building characters, each class has two or three suggested paths that you can follow for levels 1 to 12 (however you still need to pick your heritage, skill, and general feats). These pre-planned builds—basically PF1 style archetypes baked into the class—are each fairly diverse, and there’s some decent variety of characters that can be created, such as baseline angry barbarian, the animal barbarian that grows claws or fangs, or the giant barbarian that wields and oversized weapon.
Races are now called ancestries, dropping the mid-19th Century racist connotations. There’s an acceptable amount of lore on each ancestry, along with some roleplaying bullet points and common perceptions of those people. Each ancestry also has several subraces, which are called Heritages. These provide a mechanical variance, letting you customize what type of dwarf or elf you want to be. Ancestry feats are a decent idea, allowing you to expand natural talents and inclinations, and continuing to make your choice of ancestry matter after first level. Most of the later feats are reasonably well designed, improving your existing ancestry abilities or refining your skills rather than having you spontaneously develop some new ability.
Both the ancestries and classes have their key text for new characters located in a side column, which makes finding those mechanics easy.
Each class section also begins with a nice page telling you want the class does in each of the three varieties of encounter, letting you know what type of characters you can play with that class and how they can contribute.
The disparity between the power level of linear fighters vs quadratic wizards is largely solved by removing automatic scaling of lower level spells, and fewer spells of each level. Also reining in the power level of spellcasters is the action requirement to sustain spells, which might also limit your ability to cast spells in future rounds. However, spellcasters have also been gifted slightly more effective cantrips that scale with their level, so they can continue to contribute despite fewer full-power spells.
Additionally, the spellcasting classes also have “Focus Spells”, which are spells that use Focus Points rather than spell slots. These recharge after 10 minutes of rest, offering an additional power boost, making up for the fewer spells per day. Completely not coincidentally, there are a number of non-spellcaster feats that also have a once per 10 minute stipulation. These are basically 4th Edition D&D Encounter powers presented without overtly calling out that they’re once per Encounter, maintaining the in-world narrative. Really, they’re Encounter powers done right.
Multiclassing is handled through archetypes. You take a feat that gives you some base features and can then take other feats from that class, letting you pick their powers. Given the classes are basically packages of feats, this isn’t much different than gaining a level in that class. The initial archetype feats also give you a decent array of abilities, so you’re not losing that feat slot as a “feat tax” to build a character you want.
The book has a quick summary of the campaign setting, which includes changes in the setting as the result of the last decade of adventure paths. I like that Paizo is incorporating the effects of their Adventure Paths and letting their world evolve. Also, the world of Golarion is something unique to that publisher, and is what differentiates their game from any other generic fantasy RPG ruleset. It makes sense that they should tie Golarion into the game.
There’s lots of decent art. The ancestors section seems to have a male and female individual of the relevant species in each section. And many of the pieces are full half-page scenes with a background and environment. There are fantastic locations and scenes of adventuring in progress, and significantly fewer images of a generic character standing mid-pose like they were caught in front of a greenscreen.
The Bad
Ancestries have no base powers or features, apart from ability boosts, proficiencies, and vision. Everything else is a choice. There’s no unifying element common to all dwarves. Forge dwarves and rock dwarves might as well be related in name-only. Like walnuts and peanuts. And the Heritages are just a mechanical choice: there’s no flavour or world lore for a Cavern elf or Razortooth goblin. That choice doesn’t tie you to anyplace in the setting or bring with any additional story hooks or background details. Adding to this absence, later in the book we’re given descriptions of different people found across Golarion, including variant goblins, who don’t match the heritages in this book. Why are the PC goblins and the setting’s goblins unrelated?
Half-elves and half-orcs as human Heritages feels off. As races don’t get base abilities, half-elves and half-orcs don’t really share anything with humans. They could just as easily have their own section, which would allow for half-elven Heritages based on elven subtype or who raised them. (Or just not have different Heritages: there doesn’t need to be an option and choice…)
Because the rules rely on icons, it’s easy for errors to creep in. For example, both the fighter and the monk have the feat Stance Savant, but it’s a free action for the fighter but a reaction for the monk.
The classes are basically collections of unrelated feats, with most (but not all) having a signature power at level 1. I’ve heard them described as “feat soup”. There’s a handful of small features gained at higher levels, but most of these just increase proficiencies. This design has led to a lot of generic feats just becoming class options options, often for fighters. Attacks of Opportunity is now their signature ability, but they also know Blind-Fight, Combat Reflexes, Lunge, Point-Blank Shot, Power Attack, and even Spring Attack. The fighter doesn’t have any more identity than in Pathfinder 1; instead, other classes just have options taken away. Wanted to update a beloved Spring Attack-ing rogue? Sorry, roll a Dex fighter.
As shown by 4th Edition D&D, this style of class design is also a space hog. Every new “build” of a class needs 1-2 powers at every other level, for 11-22 new feats. And there’s always a demand for filled gaps. For example, there’s only four two-handed melee feats for the fighter, so that’s a pretty basic gap that needs to be filled necessitating at *least* 7 new feats, which is a LOT of mandated design that would easily fill an entire page. With each build filling two pages, a lot of space and design work is needed just to provide minimum support to a new option; even the multiclass archetypes need a full page and their feats are often only a couple lines long.
As non-skill feats are localised to classes, this often means some feats are printed in multiple places. I appreciate they didn’t just rename some options—like Blind-Fight or Quick Draw—giving us two almost identical options. But this is not universal, and there are options that are super similar, like Double Slice, Twin Feint, and Twin Takedown. (And since perfect balance is impossible, that means one of those will be the better choice and the other two nonoptimal.)
Given classes can share feats, it’s odd that all the class feats are located in the classes, rather than being consolidated in a larger feats section with a list of feats for each class, that way they wouldn’t need to reprint or come-up with doubles. Especially as that’s exactly how spells are printed. Making this even more contradictory, there are a number of options and class feats that grant spells, which are included in the spells chapter. Why the paladin-only feats are located in the paladin class section while the paladin-only spells—like lay on hands—are on the far side of the book makes little sense. It’s not like the Focus Spells are included alphabetically in the regular spells.
Speaking of the paladin (now known as “the champion”), this class has become very reactive. It’s a tank class, defending allies and using its former “smite” abilities to hit enemies that strike at its allies. I dislike baked-in roles, and prefer players to have a choice in their party role. If someone wants to play a damage dealing striker paladin then the game shouldn’t tell them they’re wrong. Previously, the class was generally proactive prior, smiting and dealing damage when it wanted, so this is a pretty sharp change to expectations. Plus, with three different subtypes of champion (the paladin, redeemer, and liberator) it would have been easy to have one be proactive, one reactive, and one defensive. Let the player choose their role.
Cantrips are confusing. They’re presented like other heightened spells, so a casual reader might think you need to spend a higher level spell slot to gain the increased benefit. The damage of most cantrips is also still pretty low. Wizards might still better off relying on a crossbow that deals 1d10 damage than using a cantrip that deals 1d4 damage, and only takes one action rather than two.
I praised the inclusion of 10 minute rests earlier as “encounter powers done right”. Which I stand by, as phrasing them as requiring refocusing your mind or a break to muscles is better than calling them out overtly as being tied to Encounters. However, rather that using “Focus Points” they could have probably just said “you know the spell XXX and can cast it once without using a spell slot, and regain the ability to do so after you spend 10 minutes refocusing your mind.” And there are other more awkward examples, like the rogue’s Defensive Roll feat that doesn’t require you to catch your breath for 10 minutes, but just requires 10 minutes to pass. The 10 minute “short rest” just feels like a hidden mechanic, a minor example of expected system mastery in the book, and knowing that most characters will want to stop after every fight for 10 minutes. It feels like Paizo wanted desperately to avoid having overt “short rests” despite that concept being a part of the gamer zeitgeist for a full year before Pathfinder was published,
Backgrounds are exceedingly minor, containing the minimum amount of flavour and additional options possible. They evolved from the traits of Pathfinder 1, but somehow contain even less design. They feel like a reluctantly included element, done out of obligation rather than to add something to the character.
The core rulebook only contains class archetypes for multiclassing. The playtest offered others, but those were omitted. Possibly for space (it’s a big book). But it’s a shame there’s not even a single example of an alternate archetype to use as the baseline for homebrewing or updating existing characters. There’s still a lot of vestigial elements in the rule set. For example, Encounter Mode section still tells players to “Roll Initiative”. But you don’t “roll initiative” as that’s a Perception check now. Every single player’s first combat is going to involve them scouring the character sheet for an absent “initiative” box. Why not just say “Roll Your Perception” or even “Determine Initiative”? Similarly, the game also still has Ability Scores that go from 1-18 (and higher) with related modifiers. Dungeons & Dragons can’t iconic elements like “18 Strength” or “8 Charisma” but Pathfinder can. Its not like “rolling your Ability Scores” is even an optional rule.(Edit: Nevermind. There totally is. But one optional rule isn’t really a good reason to keep a confusing vestigial part of a different game system.) There’s zero reason to maintain the distinction between Ability Scores and Modifiers which just exist to confuse new players. Dump ’em. For a more dramatic change, the designers could have renamed Charisma as “Presence”, making it more clear what it represents. Or dropped Constitution and tied Fortitude saves to Strength, as no one makes Constitution a dump stat and there are no associated skills. (Of the iconic characters, everyone but the cleric has a Con of 12 or 14.)
The Ugly
The book makes regular use of specialized icons, with Paizo having a specialized font for those. Which is available for approved compatible publishers. But NOT the fans. So you can’t use it for homebrew monsters, NPCs, custom feats, or cheat sheets of powers. This is seriously unacceptable. Roleplaying games live and die based on the ease of homebrewing, and almost every GM eventually want to do some custom design. That’s how new game designers are made! I’m opposed to anything that makes it more frustrating for gamers to not only prep but to homebrew, especially since it would be effortless for Paizo to put it into their Community Use package and thus limit commercial use.
Then there’s the size of the book. It’s 640-pages! At the peak of Pathfinder, when it was the best selling RPGG, the 1st Edition Core Rulebook was often called out for being so large it intimidated new players. And then they go and make the next one even larger! While it has been argued this is the same size as the 5th Edition D&D Player’s Handbook and Dungeon Master’s Guide combined this isn’t a fair comparison: Pathfinder 2 doesn’t move beyond player content until page 415 with some setting details. And arguably the “magic item” section is also player content, since Players will be crafting most of their gear. The DMG section of the book is less than 50 pages. And the Pathfinder 2 Gamemastery Guide with the rest of the GMing rules coming in January 2020. Plus… if someone is a player, why do they need those 50 pages of GMing lore at all?
Pathfinder 2 needs to attract new players to be a success, and a giant, expensive, and intimidating tome isn’t a selling feature.
While talking about new players, I want to rant about the fighter for a second. The fighter is often called out as the “newbie class”. The class just for people who want to hit things. But this wasn’t really true in 1st Edition Pathfinder, as the class had a LOT of choices in practice. In PF2 the fighter seems simple, not having the obvious build choice of the other classes. All fighters just get Attack of Opportunity. This is problematic for three reasons. First, what if you don’t want to be a tank? Second, one of the three fighter “builds” is the Archer, which can’t take advantage of its signature ability as it can’t make melee Strikes. Archery is a trap option. Lastly, the real choice of what type of fighter you are is the weapons you focus on. Your fighting style: sword & board, two weapons, finesse weapons, archery, a greatsword, etc. But realizing that takes system mastery as well as reading through ALL the feats to see which you should take. The game should have made the fighter’s choice of weapon their decision point, and had Attack of opportunity limited to specific melee fighters.
Proficiency in Pathfinder 2 is curiously like that in 5th Edition D&D: being trained gives you a +2 while being legendary gives you a +8, so the difference between a master and novice is 2 points higher than in 5e. Which is fine, really. But the game also adds your level to all trained checks, which feels needless. It’s bonuses for the sake of bonuses. Bigger numbers that don’t really do anything since the DCs in the world and in the monsters you face all increase at the same rate. (You don’t even get experience for fighting monsters more than 4 levels lower than you.) The numbers increase, but you don’t really get any better.
This just leads to one of my biggest pet peeves from 3rd Edition D&D and Pathfinder 1: the dwindling effectiveness of poisons and diseases. You need to continually have deadlier and deadlier poisons as old poisons cease to be effective. Rather than a single poison that paralyzes, you need a dozen of various levels. Arsenic is a level 1 poison but only has a DC 18, so the first level pre-gen wizard with his 14 Con has a +5 Fortitude bonus, necessitating a roll of 13 to be unaffected. Reasonable. But that same wizard at fifth level has a +10 bonus and needs to roll an 8 to avoid feeling the effects of a deadly toxin. And at level 10 that could be +15. Meanwhile, the fifth level pre-gen fighter is rocking a +12, and by 10th level they can just sprinkle arsenic on their morning eggs for extra kick. It’s silly.
The game doesn’t even need to have 5th Edition D&D’s flat math to move away from the above wackiness. Page 503-4 has a table of DCs by level, used for things like rituals. Poisons and diseases could always be a Hard difficulty save of the character’s level. Heck, pair this with an expected damage-by-level table and even the damage of poison could scale to always be a threat.
Which leads to another complaint. I could not find an expected damage-by-level table. Which is essential for GMing. I need to know how much damage is appropriate to have a trap or hazard deal to a tenth level PC. The closest is the environmental damage table on page 512, but that’s not set by level.
Pathfinder 2 retains the magic item treadmill of Pathfinder 1. The adventuring party is expected to find no less than four permanent magical items before they reach second level! Over the course of a level 1 to 20 campaign, each character will find thirty-six permanent magical items. That’s a ridiculous amount of magic.
Magic items are also required for the math of the game, and there is no “inherent bonus” system offered. Magic items are very essential for martial characters to maintain their effectiveness; by mid-levels of the game, the majority of their damage will likely come from the extra damage dice of striking runes rather than their skill or ability. It’s not the PC that’s the hero, it’s the weapon. They’re just the tool the weapon uses to move.
Each class’ powers make regular use of “traits.” These are tags that reference bite-sized rule element or restriction. Common ones are in a sidebar at the start of each class, but not every trait is covered like that. Plus, it’s easy to overlook a key tag and not realize how an ability works.
Having critical success and failure dependant on the degree of success inherently slows down gameplay. It’s not enough to know if you succeeded or failed, you need to stop and do the full math to determine the margin of your success to determine if it was a critical success or just a regular success.
The book has a staggering 42 conditions! Pathfinder 1 only had 34, which already felt like a ridiculous number. Some of these conditions are just descriptions of real-world terms like “Helpful” and “Indifferent” without a firm mechanical effect. Or Encumbered, which is really more of a state of being than a condition: encumbered should cause a condition, not be one. I can’t imagine a spell or power causing someone to be “encumbered” rather than just be “slowed”.
The classes are exceedingly focused on combat, with precious few (if any) options relating to out-of-combat activities. And nothing related to exploration or social encounters in classes. This is largely the result if the feat soup design of classes: flavourful options (what Wizard of the Coast designers refer to as “ribbons”) work best as static class features that cannot be exchanged or swapped out. Which are exactly the kind of options Pathfinder 2 removed from classes, because if you’re choosing feats, an option that works only outside of battle is a trap option. It’s an option no one will take as it hinders their expected power level. This means elements like a ranger being able to survive in the wild or calm animals, the monk ceasing to age, or rogues knowing a thieves’ cant have vanished.
There’s also almost no focus on roleplaying, with no system where the player can be rewarded for having some form of personality quirks or flaws that the GM can also employ to prompt roleplaying. The game could easily have tied Hero Points into some kind of Virtue or Aspect system. These kinds of systems have been commonplace in other mainstream RPGs since the 3rd Edition of Fate back in 2007, and predate Pathfinder. It wouldn’t even have been that hard to add a “roleplaying” mechanic. Pathfinder 2 makes use of the “Hero Point” system found in Pathfinder 1, which is tied to abstract “heroic deeds.” (However, the bar for “heroic deeds” is low as the GM is expected to hand out one each hour!) But it could just have easily been roleplaying elements. For example, champions have Tenets while druids and barbarians have Anathemas. Every character could have those, choosing their own, and when the character chooses to conform or act according to their Tenets or Anathemas, that could grant a Hero Point.
The Awesome
The index is also a glossary, which includes several basic actions including their icons as well as a description of traits and conditions. I really like that.
The bulk system for managing equipment is good. Much simpler than counting pounds, making tracking gear less onerous, but also not so simple that you might as well skip encumbrance altogether.
As I mentioned earlier, the paladin class has been renamed the “champion” and now features a variable alignment restriction, with the Lawful Good variant of the champion being the paladin. I love this so much. It retains the concept of the paladin being the champion of virtue, but doesn’t lock people who enjoy that class’ concept into a set alignment and offers some variety. It also means we don’t need three or four variants of the paladin class down the line, as something like the blackguard could just be a champion subclass.
Calling out two other classes, I’m rather impressed by the barbarian and the bard. The barbarian’s rage is a mechanic that D&D-esque games have struggled to get right for several editions. I think they really nail it here: Pathfinder 2 oddly keeps in simple, just allowing you to rage almost at-will, only requiring a 1 minute break following a rage to calm down. Not even the psuedo-short rest of 10 minutes. Meanwhile, the bard is an oddity, being a full caster (as there are no spellcasters in Pathfinder 2 that don’t get 9th level spells… or higher), but they have their own spell list (occult, which is an… adequate fit for the bard if I’m being generous). However, where Pathfinder 2 makes the bard shine is in their Focus Spells. Former class features have been added to this, including Focus Cantrips, like inspire courage or inspire competence. The bard can just do that at-will as a single action. The Pathfinder 2 bard can be a support machine.
While discussing the unconscious condition, the game includes hard rules for when you hear something while sleeping. I’m not a fan of having “a rule for everything” and don’t see the need to codify every situation… but this is something that comes up often enough that having a rule makes sense. I can’t think of a single campaign where there wasn’t a nighttime ambush or encounter.
Basic enchantments for magic items make use of runes, which can be moved from one item to another via a runestone. This is an evocative and neat idea that matches the fiction of magic items in a way that has been missing in D&D since… ever. It also allows you to keep a useful enchantment but upgrade to a different weapon… or potentially upgrade a well-loved weapon like the archetypal “familial longsword”.
You don’t roll initiative in Pathfinder 2. You roll your Perception, which determines when you act. How well you spot the danger determines how quickly you act. However, this can be other skill checks if the GM wishes (in an uncharacteristic display of GM fiat in Pathfinder), such as a Stealth check if you’re hiding or a Diplomacy check during a social encounter. A few class feats imply Survival could also work. It’s a fun idea and a neat twist on Initiative.
Goblins were added as an ancestry. Nice! This addition was hotly debated on the forums, as goblin PCs have the potential for being disruptive. They’re the Pathfinder equivalent of kender or Malkavians, and disruptive players are drawn to them. But Pathfinder’s goblins are so very iconic to that game it makes sense to move them closer to the forefront. (And really, disruptive players are going to disrupt anyway.)
The other new addition to the game is the alchemist. This is an odd choice and I imagine many Pathfinder players all had their own preferred base class that needed to be “promoted”. The gunslinger or summoner maybe… perhaps even the bloodrager or investigator. I don’t mind the alchemist, and quite like the implementation. Specifically, I like how this alchemist actually makes and throws the same alchemical items other players can buy, rather than their alchemical items being entirely different to all other alchemical items in the game. There’s some nice design work there.
The game has four set spell lists all the classes use: arcane, primal, divine, and occult. It’s nice and simple. The names are odd, given they could just as easily be called the wizard, druid, cleric, and bard spell lists. But I imagine this leaves room for the inevitable additional of new classes. (*sigh*)
In a related comment, I love how the sorcerer isn’t tied to arcane spells. Instead, their bloodline determines the spells they have access to. That’s amazing and really makes the sorcerer far more interesting that just being the wizard with an alternate spellcasting system, while also negating the need for a “spontaneous cleric” or “sorcererous druid”.
The resurrection ritual can fumble. Oh. My. God. Gamemasters live for the kind of shenanigans that can arise from an evil spirit taking over the dead body of a PC.
Final Thoughts
Pathfinder 2nd Edition is almost retro. If there was a term for 3e OSR style play, Pathfinder 2 would be that style of game. It’s Labyrinth Lord for d20. (d20SR?) It streamlines and cleans up the rules while improving balance but doesn’t really innovate much.
Pathfinder 2 reduces the number of skills while removing skill ranks; it adds Encounter powers; classes are designed around lengthy chains of feats/ powers; powers with keywords and tags; monsters that don’t follow PC rules; bonuses that increase based on your level; treasure is awarded by handing out magic items of set levels. To say nothing of the heavy combat focus and tactical play that requires a battlemap. It’s all very 4th Edition… but 4e arguably done in a way that retains a lot of classic elements and curiously kills fewer sacred cows than 4e despite being far more able to make hamburger.
The game is a direct evolution of 3rd Edition and Pathfinder. But it evolves the d20 game system in a lot of the same directions as 4th Edition and Star Wars Saga Edition. Games that ironically predate Pathfinder 2e. It’s an evolution of the game, but an evolution that could have taken place almost a decade ago. It feels designed in a vacuum, ignoring innovations of its competitors and rivals. Which would be problematic at the best of times, but is even more curious at a time when 5th Edition D&D has become the best selling RPG ever.
It’s also a dense system that requires a lot of system mastery. You need to know what keywords do, and memorize conditions, and keep track of specific jargon like “Step” and “Stride”, which are different things despite starting with “S” and relating to movement. This is not an easy game to learn. While arguably simpler (or at least more streamlined) than Pathfinder 1, it’s still one of the more complicated RPG rulesets currently being published. If not the most complicated in-print RPG. We’re currently in a time when most other roleplaying games have been moving towards narrative play (or even the emotional play of Nordic RPGs), when theatre-of-the-mind gameplay is a major focus as it enables & supports the live stream games that have become so essential for new player acquisition.
All of the above is a pretty big feature/ bug. If you like complexity, everything I just said is probably a selling point. If you don’t, then Pathfinder 2 is probably not your jam. And that’s okay. Because so many other games are drifting towards the narrative end of the spectrum, it’s probably a good thing to have a big name game providing an alternative.
Pathfinder 2 evolves Pathfinder in a direction I have very little interest in playing. It doesn’t fix or resolve any of the issues that caused me to burn out hard and drove me away from the game. It’s still complex with a lot of work to build character and ridiculous amounts of magical items without even an optional inherent bonuses system. And it encourages roleplaying and acting in character largely as much as Battletech or Warhammer 40k. In a world where 5e didn’t exist, I could probably hammer Pathfinder 2 into something playable with a barrage of house rules… but 5e does exist, so I don’t need to do all that work.
But that’s just me. I’m sure there are lots of people who want a heavier game than 5th Edition and are unsatisfied with its character building. It should also appeal to D&D fans who are unhappy with 5e’s “rulings not rules” attitude and want a game with less arbitration and firmer rules. It should also appeal to many fans of 4th Edition who might be in the market for a new game. To say nothing of Pathfinder 1 fans who just want a little more balance, or desire a version of the rules that has a clean slate and far less bloat (at least for a year or so). Pathfinder 2 might easily appeal to all the above. And it’s certainly the go-to game I will recommend to people who want that kind of experience.
Shameless Plugs
If you liked this review, you can support me and encourage future reviews.
Additionally, the revision of my book, Jester David’s How-To Guide to Fantasy Worldbuilding is on DriveThurRPG, available for purchase as a PDF or Print on Demand! (Now in colour!) The book is a compilation of my worldbuilding blog series, but all the entries have been updated, edited, and expanded to almost two-hundred pages of advice on making your own fantasy world.
Plus, I have T-shirts available for sale over on TeePublic!
Paradox Press/ White Wolf is slowly putting out accessories for the fifth edition of Vampire: the Masquerade (with some help from Onyx Path and Modiphius Entertainment). The first two supplements for the game were released in the winter of 2018 and designed to complement the core rulebook, even being sold as a special slipcase edition along with the core rules (which had been released a few months prior).
These two books focused each focused on one of the key sects in the game: the Camarilla and the Anarchs.
What They Are
Both books are 201-pages, with mostly white pages (apart from a few solid black pages for contrast) and coloured art. Like the Core Rulebook, the illustrations are a mixture of abstract and realistic art, and photographs of individuals in costume.
These books were the subject of some controversy upon release, which resulted in the dissolution of (the recently reformed) White Wolf, as well as the re-editing of the books. I won’t be touching on the excised content much, apart from agreeing it was in poor taste, and instead reviewing the books for the content they still have. In case anyone is wondering, it doesn’t appear that any content was added to Camarilla in place of the excised text, nor did the page count change. Content was simple spread out while smaller images were enlarged to fill half a page or a full page.
Each book focuses on the eight core clan of the game, detailing their place in the sect, along with one additional clan in each book. The majority of the text is written as in-world excerpts, articles, emails, and transcripts, with many being formatted as such. Variant fonts are common.
Each book focuses primarily on one sect of vampires. The Camarilla as the older sect, being the organized group with a clear hierarchy and focus on status and power. The Camarilla has been the default sect since the beginning of the game, and the “masquerade” that gives the game its name is a key part of that organization. This book also included details on the Banu Haqim; formerly known as the aasimites, who have been renamed and refocused to try and draw attention away from some of the more racist elements—which made them potentially unflattering caricatures—without having to “reinvent the wheel” or invalidating too much lore.
The Anarchs were a lesser part of the game prior to 5th Edition, being dismissed and forgotten for the first two editions and only receiving a book late in 2nd Edition Revised. In V5 they’re a much larger part of the game (largely taking the place of the Sabbat as the opposition/ alternative to the Camarilla). Like the name implies, the Anarchs are more rebellious and individualistic. Their book also includes details on The Ministry, the renamed Followers of Set/ Settities, focusing away from the “cult” aspect and racist tropes the clan had developed.
(Vampire had a lot of problems with race and representation….)
As a Canadian white dude, it’s not my place to say authoritatively if this rebranding and refocusing is sufficient. But, for purposes of quick review, to me it feels like the Ministry is sufficient removed from its past, while the Banu Haqim still has some aspects of ” the Other” at work, with a dash or Orientalism; while it’d be easy to create a Banu Haqim that feels like a member of the clan but doesn’t conform to the stereotypes, there are few examples in the text.
The Good
The books are full of flavour. They’re just an enjoyable read. Even if you have every previous White Wolf and Onyx Path book ever published for the World of Darkness, there will be something new here. Because the majority of both books are written in-character and with a first person perspective, there’s just a lot of new takes and details. Furthermore, the many sub-topics and different subjects means that if one part fails to capture your interest, you don’t have long before the next entirely different section comes. There’s also lots of different characters, both new and old, offering many different takes on vampires and members of each clan and sect.
Also, because of the point-of-view tone, it’s easy to ignore or re-write sections of the book, dismissing them as authorial bias or misinformation. It’s easy to drop whole chapters as an “unreliable narrative” or even propaganda.
I found Camarilla to be the better of the two books in regards to usable information. It struck a better balance between presenting information and being entertaining, and is by far the more usable book for newcomers. (Conversely, if you already have one or two Camarilla-focused books, this one will be more redundant.)
Among the more consistent framing devices in Camarilla was the thoughts of Victoria Ash, who ostensibly writes the introduction to the book and key sidebars or chapter introductions throughout. Ms. Ash is almost the “signature Camarilla” character for the book. I liked the inclusion of a regular voice, which added some consistency to the otherwise disparate narratives. So many characters in Vampire are, well, assholes. Not just monsters, but selfish and generally unlikable. So it helps to have a somewhat personable figure in the book.
The Bad
The books still have a problem with trying to be “edgy”. Desperately fumbling to be mature but only managing to be “inappropriate for children.” Camarilla wasn’t that bad, but I definitely rolled my eyes in a few places while reading Anarch (but maybe after reading Anarch I simply became numbed to needless provocation before reading Camarilla). The most prominent example was the extended section about how vampires don’t need to feed only upon those individuals society says are conventionally attractive, and they should feed on whomever catches their interest. Pretty common sense. But the example was a porn shoot, contrasting socially desirable “blonde porn girls” with the stagehand who towels off the talent. It could have just as easily been a concert with a pop star being the expected subject of desire contrasted with a sweaty roadie. That works just fine. But the book went for “World’s Biggest Gangbang.” Because that’s more ‘adult.’
Like the Core Rulebook, the books alternate between a one-column, two-column, and a weird three-column layout. These books tend to use a two or one-and-a-half columns more often than the core book, making then somewhat more readable. But there’s still a lot of three-column pages, which I found awkward to read on my tablet. It’s not a big deal, and it does make the books look distinct and unlike other games without necessitating fancy borders or distracting trade dress.
Because so much of the text is written “in character” the books aren’t always that informative on their subject. They’re not comprehensive. I found this to be a much larger problem with Anarch, which had to cover a lot of topics while also detailing a less well-explored sect. There were quite a few topics where, after two or three pages, I only had a limited idea what the heck it was trying to say about the subject. Places where my limited lore failed me and I came out of a section no wiser or more informed. There were quite a few spreads and sections that seemed like filler: these were clearly trying to show the diversity and variety of Anarchs across the world and their very different lifestyles, but took multiple pages to get its point across. It was very space inefficient. To do some armchair book design, Anarch would probably have been better served by limiting the side perspectives to excerpts from articles that gave the key highlights while having longer informative articles on key aspects of the sect (like the Salvador Garcia psuedo-manifesto 40 pages in, where it finally explains terms like “baron”).
The padding and page-filler makes the lack of new game content all the more irritating. There’s one new clan in each book. Anarch has a single power while Camarilla has two Blood Sorcery rituals. Despite only 7 of the 13 core clans being covered in the core rulebook (not counting the myriad bloodlines and fallen clans) each book here only introduces one new addition. Less than two pages of new mechanical content. A casual reader might mistake this as alternative history fiction rather than a roleplaying game supplement. We’ll presumably need to pick-up four or five new books over the next three or four years to “get ’em all”.
Similarly, there’s still no additional adversaries for Storytellers to use against their players or sample characters to help populate a city. Given some clans are regularly presented as antagonists, the absence of powers for the Lasombra and Tzimisce (plus whatever the Giovanni is called now) is irritating, making it difficult to use such foes. With several sections of Camarilla devoted to the “Ghenna War” against the Sabbat, it’s frustrating that you can’t actually tell those stories.
Adding insult to injury, just a single book later, the Lasombra are potentially leaving the Sabbat for the Camarilla (as detailed in Chicago By Night). Which Camarilla even hints at, so this wasn’t a spur of the moment decision for a later sourcebook! Content specifically relevant to the topic of that book was omitted to make a later book more appealing of a purchase. I dislike that. And it makes Camarilla out-of-date after just a year.
The clan chapters each begin with Victoria Ash’s opinions regarding romancing members of each of the clans, which feels somewhat shallow. It’s an interesting perspective, and differentiates the stereotypes of the clans, but it makes Victoria Ash come across as overly preoccupied with romantic affairs. Having looked her up on a World of Darkness Wiki since, it does sound like her focus on romance is a “humanizing” element she uses to keep the Beast at bay, so it’s not out of character. But it comes off as only partially relevant.
If you don’t know of “Victoria Ash” or her place in the lore of Vampire: the Masquerade, then seeing her name dropped so often can make the books somewhat problematic. This is not limited to her: both make frequent use of proper names. Some are long standing characters with rich backstories in the setting who have been the focus of entire novels, while others are brand new to these books, and it’s often not explained which is which or whom is whom. You’re just meant to know.
The Ugly
Both books are very focused on the “current era” of Vampire the Masquerade. Despite being about immortal beings just as capable of being the centerpiece of chronicles set in the 1920s, 60s, 80s, or 2000s the books are rooted (entrenched even) in the late 2010s. There’s no way to play a Tremere before the fall of the Pyramid or advice on a Camarilla game in the early ’90s when the Brujah and Gangrels were members.
Each clan gets a section explaining their role in the Camarilla or Anarchs, but Anarchs is really awkward when describing the place Noferatu and Malkavians fit in the sect. It repeatedly says Malkavians aren’t in the Anarchs but doesn’t ever satisfactorily explain why. It spends three pages dancing around the issue. Which is extra frustrating for two reasons. First, there are canon Malks among the Anarchs, including Jeanette Voerman, the famous baron from the Bloodlines videogame. Second, players in an Anarch chronicle might want to play a Malkavian, and it’s the game’s goddamn job to tell players how that works and give them the tools to play what they want and not tell them they’re doing it wrong.
The Awesome
Like the Core Rulebook, I rather like the elegant way Vampire 5e has updated the setting. It’s shifted the focus away from the games of elders to younger fledglings (aka new player characters) while also making the setting more active and prone to change and upheaval. But it’s doing so in a way that seems to still respect the past and acknowledge a lot of what was previously published. It doesn’t invalidate the lore people took care to memorize and absorb during prior editions.
Final Thoughts
It’s nice to see roleplaying books that don’t forget that lore is important as rules, and that you need to make gamemasters excited about the world to interest them in using the rules at all. Vampire the Masquerade has always been an industry leader in focusing on the setting and incorporating in-world text.
But…
I think they went a little far in Camarilla and Anarch, focusing too heavily on presenting in-world text and realia text. The books focused more on being “in character” that presenting information needed to run or play the game. And new mechanical content for the new edition—the content that could only be found in these books—was exceedingly small.
It’s hard to recommend these books over past books, which are often easily found in used book stores, available as cheap PDFs, or even print-on-demand. Heck, it’s almost hard to recommend these books over the World of Darkness wiki While I feel much more comfortable with my Vampire lore having read these books, a fair amount of that was also likely absorbed from said wiki while looking up name-dropped characters and rando proper nouns. Like the Ashirra.
These were enjoyable to read and informative. They got me in the mood to play a vampire game, and entertained me enough that I feel they more than worth the cost of the PDFs. And they certainly offered a lot of inspiration for types of vampires and different ways of presenting the Kindred. But they were not “slipcase with the core rulebook” good, and certainly not essential. And they’re probably not even the definitive books on their subject matter. If you played Vampire before (either tabletop, the card game, or Bloodlines) then these books probably contain enough information to nicely expand on the core rulebook and get you playing or running the game. If you’re a novice who is unfamiliar with the tropes and terms then snagging some Vampire 20th Anniversary or 2nd Edition revised products might be more enlightening.
Shameless Plugs
If you liked this review, you can support me and encourage future reviews.
Additionally, the revision of my book, Jester David’s How-To Guide to Fantasy Worldbuilding is on DriveThurRPG, available for purchase as a PDF or Print on Demand! (Now in colour!) The book is a compilation of my worldbuilding blog series, but all the entries have been updated, edited, and expanded to almost two-hundred pages of advice on making your own fantasy world.
Plus, I have T-shirts available for sale over on TeePublic!
