Hey, it's me, Josh. I have not posted here in forever. So here is a really long infodumpy post that I have no clue how to format more properly.
So, last year, I got into this tabletop game called Pathfinder, something that I had my eyes on since about 2021. You may know it as Dungeon and Dragon's largest competition, and how Paizo's sales increased after the OGL controversy from early last year, which is also part of the reason why I decided to start playing Pathfinder, as I couldn't trust Wizards of the Coast as somebody interested in making money off of my own TTRPG content, along with being generally interested in playing a non-D&D TTRPG, largely due to D&D burnout. I have started a few Pathfinder 2nd Edition homebrew projects of my own, including two classes: Arcane Chef and Sanguinist, 3 ancestries, and a bunch of spells and feats.
Pathfinder 2E seems intimidating at first, but it is actually easier to learn than many might realize. Honestly the, "mathfinder" and "incredibly complex" assumptions about Pathfinder come from Pathfinder 1e (I do have one PF1E sourcebook, horror adventures. I don't know what to do with it since I have only played PF2E). In fact, it is way more simple than Pathfinder 1e, and although there is a little more of a learning curve compared to Dungeons and Dragons 5e, it is more of a learning bump than anything else. I find that creating distinct and unique characters due to the feat system, as well as the ancestry, background, class system. Have you considered playing Pathfinder and don't know where to start? Do you want to not buy any more table top rpg books? Do you have an intense sunk cost fallacy from spending a lot on D&D 5e? Well, there is this site called Archives of Nethys, which has all Pathfinder (and Starfinder) rules (except adventure paths). The best part is that Paizo approves of the site, so it isn't piracy. Paizo wants you to play Pathfinder.
As my experience of my player, I have been a player through 2 adventure paths so far, the first being Abomination Vaults. Abomination Vaults (AV) is a classic dungeon crawl adventure with a more simple plot line. You play as heroes fighting through a dungeon, going floor by floor, getting more powerful and leveling up as you go. The max level for the adventure path is technically level 11, although the maximum level is advertised as 10. It is a bit difficult (3 of my characters died), and by the end we ended up with a party of 4 goblins that absolutely destroyed the big bad evil girl, Belcorra. The other adventure path, the one I am playing through right now, is called Kingmaker (also a crpg video game that I own). My current character is a duskwalker human Magus. Basically, I am a guy that can cast spells through my weapon using the class's spell strike mechanic. Usually they can only do this using melee weapons, but my subclass, Starlit Span, lets me do it using ranged weapons, in other words, using his bow.
Now onto the remaster of Pathfinder 2nd Edition, which came out November 2023. I have Player Core 1, which I got for Christmas. It changes a lot of things, namely name changes and the removal of certain things (such as drow) to move away from the OGL license and towards Paizo's new ORC license. This is largely to both further Pathfinder's unique identity as a ttrpg separate from d&d as well as avoid legal issues with wizards of the coast. A lot of spells have been changed. For example, Produce Flame becomes Ignition, and Magic Missile becomes Force Barrage (a way cooler name). There is also how they changed the aasimar and tiefling versatile heritages to be combined into the Nephilim versatile heritage, with lineage feats dictating what exact kind of nephilim (either fiendish or celestial) a nephilim character is, if they do opt for a specific lineage. There's also minor rules updates, such as rewording things and changing how certain class and ancestry abilities work. I am pretty sure I can tell about the class and ancestry changes another time though. It'd take a while and would definitely be it's own post.
My group didn't start using the remaster until after starting to play Kingmaker because, well, it was released right at the end of our Abomination Vaults campaign and we didn't want to do all the additional housekeeping of making sure all of our spells and feats are the updated remaster versions. Even with us playing online with Foundry VTT, it would have been slightly inconvenient.
Anyways, that was my infodump completed.
So, last year, I got into this tabletop game called Pathfinder, something that I had my eyes on since about 2021. You may know it as Dungeon and Dragon's largest competition, and how Paizo's sales increased after the OGL controversy from early last year, which is also part of the reason why I decided to start playing Pathfinder, as I couldn't trust Wizards of the Coast as somebody interested in making money off of my own TTRPG content, along with being generally interested in playing a non-D&D TTRPG, largely due to D&D burnout. I have started a few Pathfinder 2nd Edition homebrew projects of my own, including two classes: Arcane Chef and Sanguinist, 3 ancestries, and a bunch of spells and feats.
Pathfinder 2E seems intimidating at first, but it is actually easier to learn than many might realize. Honestly the, "mathfinder" and "incredibly complex" assumptions about Pathfinder come from Pathfinder 1e (I do have one PF1E sourcebook, horror adventures. I don't know what to do with it since I have only played PF2E). In fact, it is way more simple than Pathfinder 1e, and although there is a little more of a learning curve compared to Dungeons and Dragons 5e, it is more of a learning bump than anything else. I find that creating distinct and unique characters due to the feat system, as well as the ancestry, background, class system. Have you considered playing Pathfinder and don't know where to start? Do you want to not buy any more table top rpg books? Do you have an intense sunk cost fallacy from spending a lot on D&D 5e? Well, there is this site called Archives of Nethys, which has all Pathfinder (and Starfinder) rules (except adventure paths). The best part is that Paizo approves of the site, so it isn't piracy. Paizo wants you to play Pathfinder.
As my experience of my player, I have been a player through 2 adventure paths so far, the first being Abomination Vaults. Abomination Vaults (AV) is a classic dungeon crawl adventure with a more simple plot line. You play as heroes fighting through a dungeon, going floor by floor, getting more powerful and leveling up as you go. The max level for the adventure path is technically level 11, although the maximum level is advertised as 10. It is a bit difficult (3 of my characters died), and by the end we ended up with a party of 4 goblins that absolutely destroyed the big bad evil girl, Belcorra. The other adventure path, the one I am playing through right now, is called Kingmaker (also a crpg video game that I own). My current character is a duskwalker human Magus. Basically, I am a guy that can cast spells through my weapon using the class's spell strike mechanic. Usually they can only do this using melee weapons, but my subclass, Starlit Span, lets me do it using ranged weapons, in other words, using his bow.
Now onto the remaster of Pathfinder 2nd Edition, which came out November 2023. I have Player Core 1, which I got for Christmas. It changes a lot of things, namely name changes and the removal of certain things (such as drow) to move away from the OGL license and towards Paizo's new ORC license. This is largely to both further Pathfinder's unique identity as a ttrpg separate from d&d as well as avoid legal issues with wizards of the coast. A lot of spells have been changed. For example, Produce Flame becomes Ignition, and Magic Missile becomes Force Barrage (a way cooler name). There is also how they changed the aasimar and tiefling versatile heritages to be combined into the Nephilim versatile heritage, with lineage feats dictating what exact kind of nephilim (either fiendish or celestial) a nephilim character is, if they do opt for a specific lineage. There's also minor rules updates, such as rewording things and changing how certain class and ancestry abilities work. I am pretty sure I can tell about the class and ancestry changes another time though. It'd take a while and would definitely be it's own post.
My group didn't start using the remaster until after starting to play Kingmaker because, well, it was released right at the end of our Abomination Vaults campaign and we didn't want to do all the additional housekeeping of making sure all of our spells and feats are the updated remaster versions. Even with us playing online with Foundry VTT, it would have been slightly inconvenient.
Anyways, that was my infodump completed.
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