I was driven away by the Pathfinder 2 remaster. When I started to learn the game, they announced the remaster, and I wasted all this money on an edition I couldn't use. It cut my enthusiasm in half, so I moved on to learn 5E, which was a mistake.
5E is a sea of Kickstarter grifts, false promises, and Wizards cutting the legs from under you since they own the game and platform. Nothing works well together. The exploits are legendary. You don't have a choice since there is always the best one. You can buy six shelves of books of 5E and never be happy; the more you buy, the less happy you will be. You can't use most 3rd-party books since D&D Beyond doesn't support them. You are always excited about that next book, then let down, and you shift those hopes to the next thing.
5E is predatory consumerism to the nth degree.
And those hopes always get shifted to the next thing. Or maybe someone else writing 5E. Or this book that makes it hardcore. Or maybe...
I broke free of the 5E book addiction, so I know, oh, do I know.
To its credit, Pathfinder 2 also supports the old editions, and only five books were invalidated: the player's guide, the GM book, the first bestiary book, the Advanced Players Guide, and (more recently) Guns & Gears. The last is more of an errata reprint than a remaster in the first four books, and people who purchased it will get the updated PDF for free (from what I read).
Getting the remaster books in the Humble Bundle changed my mind about the game, and it helped me see some of the problems I had when I tried to learn it.
Part of my problem learning the game was that there was too much to it. The first book had to "do it all" and suffered greatly. Do we have magic items and treasure lists (88 pages)? GM Information (48 pages)? Information on the world (26 pages)? Twelve classes? The book was a "first release," so people needed to be able to play and have everything they needed, but the days of 642-page rulebooks have come and gone. I appreciate the enthusiasm, but this book felt like an impossible mountain to climb.
The remaster player core strips out almost all that and presents eight classes in a more complete and focused format. The book is 466 pages, 176 pages shorter than the first book, and a lot easier to use and reference at the table. The GM information was moved to the GM book, including all the treasures, magic items, GM advice, traps, hazards, starting world info, and anything else for the GM.
And having eight classes is excellent. I am not trying to juggle learning twelve in this book. I can understand these and then move on to others. Each of those eight classes has a good amount of customization, too! Less is more.
The remaster GM Core book is 338 pages, compared to the old one's 258 pages, an increase of 80 pages. The new GM book has traps and treasure tables, which makes it far more helpful to me as a GM. The only thing we lost is the NPC gallery (48 pages), but we can still use the old one, and an NPC-focused book is coming, which will be a better use of a book and that page count. NPCs are so important they deserve an entire book, just like a bestiary. Those extra 48 pages lost by the NPC information were used well, and the information moved over feels right where it should be, just like the classic DMG's content.
The remaster books were "rebalanced" and made more useful to players and GMs. Now, I can open that GM book and use it instead of flipping through a nearly 700-page player book to find a magic item or trap. Thank you for making playing, learning, and managing the game easier.
Also, moving the world information out of the player book made the remastered game much more friendly to homebrewed worlds. These 40 pages now resemble more of an "example world" in the GM book than a "setting you must use" in the player book. This is a massive tonal shift, and moving this information out of the remaster player book "opens the door" to homebrew worlds since player expectations now come from a neutral starting point.
The remaster is much less the "Golarion Roleplaying Game" than it felt like it was. I could convert the classic TSR settings to the remastered rules, which would be much more straightforward. I like the classic world the best, and this also opens the door to playing in the classic world with the new rule books much easier than having to retcon a part of the player book every time I start a session.
Less is "nailed down" in the remastered books, which is good when you use the book outside of the Lost Omens content. I would also like to see a "Lost Omens Legends" line of remastered books that convert over the old adventures, present the original world as was, and be an alt-setting that could be used alongside the current timeline. This would compete with the 1E books but also move them forward and save all that content in case of a "Wizards flip out" again when they are eventually sold or bought by someone who wants to revoke the OGL entirely and control the market.
Don't laugh. We live in a stupid timeline where stupid things happen.
We lost four classes in the player book remaster, but those would be better served by being in the Player Core 2 book, where they would be given room to breathe and have all their options fleshed out. We have eight more classes in this volume. Eight is the perfect number of character classes for an expansion hardcover, and it allows the book to have room to focus on each without cramming too much in or feeling too sparse.
Do I wish the champion class was in the first book? Yes, that is what I am used to, but thematically, let the cleric be the first book's "holy warrior," while Player Core 2 presents the champion class as an alternate option. I can see why the witch was moved to the first book since the class is popular and unique to the game, almost a defining part of the Pathfinder experience.
Plus, moving the alchemist to a book where you can include all the supporting information on alchemy is also a good choice since this will be the book I reach for if that class is used at a table. Similarly, other classes that rely on a lot of supporting information are in Player Core 2, like the monk, sorcerer, and investigator. Classes that are straightforward and well understood should be in the first book, while others that need more space to properly present should be in expansions.
You don't see this reorganization and focus on "book flow" in 5E. Controlling page count while balancing that with presenting the best options and no filler makes the remaster books so good. The first Pathfinder 2E book under the OGL was good for a one-book game that only needed a bestiary, but we have moved on from needing that anymore. I would rather have better-organized books at this time that are each highly useful and focused.
Bigger isn't better.
Better is better.
I like that philosophy.
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