2024 is a big year for Paizo. Pathfinder, Pathfinder Second Edition Remaster has begun in earnest, with a massive year-long meta-event Battle of the Immortals, And new player options and adventures will be released throughout the year. One of the biggest news coming out of Gen Con was Player Core 2, A new book for players that expands on the PC lore and classes in the world of Golarion. Learn more about the big changes happening in the world of Golarion. Pathfinder, We interviewed Narrative Creative Director James Jacobs. Pathfinder.
So I’m curious to know what goals Player Core 2 had from the get-go.
Original Pathfinder Player Core It really lays out the foundations of the game, “how to play the game.” This reveals the basics: Humans, Dwarves, Elves, Warriors, Wizards, and Thieves. Player Core 2 This is meant to push this into a bit more specialized territory. This is where we have eight new ancestry; kobolds, catfolk, and a new dragon bloodline that basically lets you be half-dragon with any type of ancestry. We also have eight new classes, including monk, barbarian, alchemist, sorcerer, and so on. So what that means is that once we have that baseline locked down, we can expand this into different areas.
Here again we see the resurgence of archetypes. Pathfinder If you want your character to be a pirate, a fighter, or even a doctor, this is the engine that lets you figure out how to do that. Player Core 2In fact, now that the remaster has laid such a solid foundation, this feels like a huge expansion of options.
So I’m curious how you narrowed down your choices from First Edition. Pathfinder?
The “Core 4” goals (EN: Player core, GM core, Monster Core, and Player Core 2)The aim was to recreate, so to speak, the four major releases prior to the Legacy Edition. Player Core 2 It’s in many ways our version of Advanced Player GuideThe mix is a bit different though. Some things, like the Lizardfolk, who became a bit more popular in the game, were originally Character Guide, But they’re pretty central to the setting, so we wanted to make sure we included them in the core book, too, and it’s a very accessible idea.
So Player Core 2There’s still the core of the setting – things that are a bit off. Even if you get the basics down, there are still books like: Howl of the Wildwhere you can play as a Minotaur or a Centaur. Tenka Character Guideplaces a strong emphasis on ancestry and class options in the Asian-inspired parts of our setting. Player Core 2 What’s really important is delivering on the end of the core release that could potentially be incorporated into any game.
Do you have anything ready for the new edition? Pathfinderperhaps for the first time, has it changed significantly?
Some of our classes Pathfinder The remaster not only moves them from the OGL to their own ORC license, but also updates them to make some pretty big changes to classes in some cases – for example, there are no more alignments. champion There are a variety of reasons that impact gameplay, such as justice and grandiosity, and we think this is a really fun way to extend the class. Here’s what we did: Wrath of the ElementsIn Core, we introduced a metal tier and a wood tier in addition to the standard elements of fire, earth, wind, and water. These are now the elemental bloodline options for sorcerers. Even in Core, we’re not just reprinting Barbarian as it was before. We’re taking these changes into the canon and updates and building them into the base. This way, we have a good foundation to go to in the future for the more specialized stuff I was talking about. Battle of the Undead For example, in a few months we’ll be killing gods and introducing some new classes on top of that.
Is there anything that you personally think was really great to bring into this project?
I worked on a remaster of the Oracle. This is the big class that I did. In addition to simplifying some of the curse mechanics, I wanted the Oracle to be more creepy and out of control of her powers. So the Oracle has a pretty strong vibe of being a harbinger of disasters that are going to strike all around her. The Oracle has one feat that I really like. I added it not for design reasons, but just because I wanted to add it. It’s called “Revelation at the Crossroads,” and it can only be used when you’re unconscious and near death. So this ability can only be used when you’re dying and have a near-death vision. You see omens of the future, you get up with a ton of HP healed. I like that idea. Maybe if I’m an Oracle and I’m close to the border between life and death, I get a vision of the future from there. This is just something I added because I thought it was fun.
There are many very special classes PathfinderOracle is one, the others are Investigator and Alchemist, which are other classes that build on items and skills and the parts of the game that are more focused on exploration, so that’s another reason why I wanted to include these classes in the book, because they allow you to play these play styles.
You mentioned Battle of the Undead I was just asking you about this really big, all-encompassing project that you guys worked on, and I’m curious. I think this is the most cohesive event that you’ve ever done. How did you go about it?
We were really thinking about comic book events. We thought, if we’re going to kill Gollum, it’s not going to be a one-and-done thing. It’s going to leave ripples. We thought, Pathfinder Liam Hassil’s novel is coming out. It’s our first return to fiction in a long time and it’s full of adventures and adventure paths, and even sequels that we haven’t said much about yet.
“Not only does this give us the opportunity to explore some of these very grand, very mythical folklore tropes. It also brings two new classes: the Animist, who is a very flexible caster who channels a multitude of spirits, and the Executor, who is a divine martial artist who is like a very folk hero. There are relics that you can throw at enemies to deal extra damage and defeat them. There are a bunch of mythical destinies that grant you some form of immortality. I think it’s going to be pretty fun.”
One of the things we really wanted with Mythic was not just to make all the numbers 40 bigger. We wanted to lean into sort of a very different folklore story trope. Don’t get me wrong, there are very high-level mythical monsters in the book, but there are also monsters that are not strong, but are larger than life. There are low-level spirits that create things, and they create things that are very beautiful, so they cause problems in nearby cities, or they cause conflict between people. Of course, the monsters are not strong in a combat sense, but the stories are larger than life.
Writing the components was a little bit of a challenge when we thought of them as parts of this larger cohesive event. There are certainly a lot of pieces that work together, but I think it’s especially helped all of our teams become more cohesive and work together. The rules and lore team used to be separate teams, but now they’re integrated as one big unit. The narrative team has been working really in lockstep with us, coming up with these stories that work with this death of a god. I think it’s a testament to what we can do when everyone is really in sync.
You can order Player Core 2 from now Paizo, Amazon, Half Planeor FLGS, where a physical copy will cost $59.99 and the PDF will cost $19.99.
Image courtesy of Paizo
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