Happy August, happy Gen Con, and happy days to have Player Core 2 in hand! While I’m sad not to be in Indianapolis seeing many fine folks and celebrating the Paizo releases and news that you’ll be hearing today (yes I may be aware of some things yet to be announced…), I am so very happy for those that I know will be there celebrating and sharing together. Remember to be awesome to one another, and support those who may need a little help or understanding during the best 4 days in gaming! At the very least, crack open that Player Core 2 and review the new and updated as you take a break. Stay hydrated by grabbing some water, relax at a seat, or excitedly exclaim your joy at Paizo Booth 203!
Meanwhile, since I’m finally up for some air after a busy couple months, I’m going to get into what’s got me so hyped for Player Core 2. Apologies for no articles for a bit. First my team worked with the Wizards of the Coast team to get their new marketplace live, then I was in Chicago for a big Salesforce convention where we got to talk WotC and our project, and then in July we launched the new Hasbro Pulse site. It’s been such a pleasure working with the e-commerce and IT folks on both sides, and I’m really proud of the work my team and their teams have done. And yes, they know I play Pathfinder primarily but all can appreciate good gaming! So I was thrilled that just after the Hasbro launch I got to start digging into Player Core 2 and now, here we are: August 1st and it’s time to share! Let’s go!
Partly not to spoil surprises I might find in the book, but also because of the busy-ness this year I hadn’t gone looking for much detail of what I’d see updated/changed/added. It’s a lovely collection of rules for a core book, with those good changes and additions, as well as art! Like Player Core 1, the cover is from the amazingly talented Wayne Reynolds. I wasn’t quite sure what Fumbus is riding – it’s not a drake as it has front appendage arms and not just wings – but later discovered it’s a conspirator dragon. In fact, it’s Seoni shapechanged as such! A brilliant and beautiful piece. Considering Alchemist and Sorcerer are both covered in Player Core 2, it’s quite fitting. Of course so is the swashbuckler and Jirelle is being carried by Seoni. Art will always inspire so I thank all the artists appearing herein, let alone the Introduction calls out why you might be excited: More Of Everything!
Ancestries and Backgrounds gives us Catfolk, Hobgoblins, Kobolds, Lizardfolk, Ratfolk, Tengu, and the renamed Kholo (former gnolls) as well as the Tripkee (former grippli). There’s a Kholo monk in our Kingmaker game so I’m sure he’ll be excited to dig through the changes. Who doesn’t appreciate 2 pages of feats! He’ll be pleased to see the Kholo Lore update, i.e. getting Additional Lore in Kholo Lore like the other ancestry lore feats now grant. Tripkees I’m glad to see because of the references like in Howl of the Wild. Terrifying Croak is a new 1st level feat for them, allowing them to Demoralize without a shared language. And there’s a new 17th level feat called Unbound Leaper. You can jump 30 feet in the air, or 35 feet up if you have Fantastic Leaps, a level 5 feat available to them. Thrilled to get more versatile heritages too like Dhampir and Duskwalker for Core. However, there’s something I’ve heard from plenty of D&D folks and that they wanted to see a way to play their Dragonborn style characters, and you certainly can now!
Dragonblood! Considering the prevalence of those divine protector dragons over in Tian Xia, I was hoping for a way to do Dragonblooded! I like how based on the lineage you choose that can determine the Exemplar you might have for later feats or for sorcerer if you go Draconic bloodline! As a heritage you can really make up a draconic descended individual, half dragon and maybe go Dragon Disciple as an archetype. I haven’t heard of that being released for Remaster yet, however. You want a natural attack? There’s a feat for that like claws, jaws, or a tail. You want a breath weapon? Also a feat for that? Want resistance to energy damage? Feat. Draconic Sight lets you get low-light vision, or darkvision if you already had low-light. Scaly Hide gives you an item bonus to AC. And of course there’s Dragon Lore, which makes you trained in Diplomacy, Intimidation, and you get Additional Lore for Dragon Lore. All these options, level 1, how could you go wrong? You’ll be begging your GM for Ancestry Paragon as an optional rule! By the time you can take 17th level feats you can take the Form of the Dragon and cast dragon form as an 8th-rank innate spell once per day or Lingering Breath which creates difficult terrain for 1 minute and causes 2d6 persistent damage for any creature who fails their saving throws. Icy spikes of doom sounds fun!
Going through the Classes in chapter 2 there’s a bit of excitement for everyone. I’ve a friend named Kyle playing an Alchemist in one game, and he was thrilled to hear that the Bomber now gets intelligence modifier damage to splash at 5th level rather than needing a feat. Of course, everyone gets those Versatile Vials which you can replenish by 2 every 10 minutes of exploration, no matter what you’re doing. Never run out of those vials! And they get better over your character career, up to 4d6 damage at 18th level. There’s an item bonus to attacking with them too, +3 at 18th level. Of course, based upon your research field (and feats) they might do more. Bombers can change their energy damage instead of doing acid. Chirurgeons can heal with them! Mutagenists turn them into elixirs and help them suppress mutagenic drawbacks. And the toxicologists? They become poisons you get to add to your weapons. Great opportunity, expanded versatility, and really some much needed oomph to the alchemist. He also has an Investigator and they got updates to pursue a lead and devise a stratagem. Pursue a lead now isn’t so much about the clue you found, but whatever evidence you’re tracking which could be due to a recall knowledge or sense motive check! Meanwhile devise a stratagem could be used for skills, though that means you aren’t attacking your target. That’s great for skill encounters! Also, it’s a free action when you’re using it on a target you know will help answer a question for an investigation you currently have! That’s tremendous for the heroes’ action economy, which I know my buddy was always challenged with in combat.
The Barbarians can now use a free action to fly into their rage as initiative is rolled. Champions of course aren’t restricted by alignment, but there are some options that are specifically holy (Grandeur, Redemption) and unholy (Desecration, Inquiry). That leaves Justice, Liberation, and Obedience for those of any predilection. I’ve a friend (also Rob) building up a Champion and was looking at Liberator so that’ll still work for a holy option. It’ll be excited to see that play out. That kholo monk I mentioned won’t see much in the way of change; I’ve read that critical specialization is something they get now for free, which is good. That brings it to alignment with other martials.
Oracle, Sorcerer, and Swashbuckler meanwhile all got some interesting additions. Oracle’s curse now just gets bad as it goes up, but you can refocus to bring it down to nothing. Thing is you’ll take feats and use focus powers that are so good, it’s worth the curse getting bad for a bit. Meanwhile the Sorcerer is now more powerful with Sorcerous Potency! Your spells that do damage or healing do more equal to the spell’s rank, only once to an individual creature but it can apply to multiple creatures! This is wonderful and a sorcerer in my brother’s game will very much appreciate this, especially when healing as he already had taken the Dangerous Sorcery feat. Moreover, some feats give additional Blood Magic options like Propelling Sorcery at 2nd level that lets you Step as a free action or move a target 5 feet. You actually can take a 1st level feat now called Blood Rising. As a reaction you can trigger a blood magic effect when you are targeted by a spell of the same tradition of your bloodline. You truly resonate with that magical power. It could be very beneficial if the blood magic effect boosts your AC or saving throw against whatever’s triggering it. The 14th level Reflect Harm let’s you flip the damage back on the person who hit you for example! And finally, the Swashbuckler now gets panache from actions that show Bravado. It’s a new trait and your actions will get it based upon the Swashbuckler’s Style you choose, but also the GM could just say hey you know what, that’s bad ass so you get panache too! Numerous feats can grant you panache or leverage it as well, like Charmed Life the reaction that gives you a bonus to a saving throw. Succeed with panache! Switcheroo is a new feat at level 10, but it requires you already have panache. Basically you can swap places with an enemy target as a reaction when you are targeted by a ranged attack, and the enemy becomes the target of it! I love the hilarity and usefulness of this.
There’s numerous Archetypes listed and I’ve been reading through. I went immediately to Assassin first as I was planning one up. I don’t know how I feel about the changes to Mark for Death. It used to give weapons backstabber and deadly and now it gives you sneak attack, but if you already have sneak attack it just increases it by 1 point of precision damage or 2 at level 6. There’s no more Sneak Attacker feat because of such, leaving you with only “additional feat” options at 6th level like Poison Weapon. However, you no longer need to have Alchemical Crafting and be trained in Crafting to take the Assassin Dedication. It’s not bad for a single action feat, and it’s nice to be able to be an assassin without poison making, but there’s certainly an impact to damage. However, late, the Assassinate feat at 12th level no longer has the incapacitation trait. The target can still survive if it critically fails the save if their level is higher than yours, but at least now if they are higher level and fail, it doesn’t get treated as a success. I also took a look at Beastmaster, because my brother is doing that archetype in our Kingmaker game. The real news is the 6th level free action Swift Guardian, allowing you to switch out what animal ally you have with you. A very nice move from your travel or search-based companion while in exploration mode to your fighting ally when you roll for initiative! Additionally, look at Blessed One for a similar reason. There’s far less additional feats, but that might be because the Champion doesn’t have class feats for what those feats were. Hoping we’ll see more in a future book and I won’t restrict or undo something from legacy one of my players would want to take. However, other GMs might, so definitely check with them!
I don’t have much to say for Celebrity, but I love the Shensen art as seen above! I’m always a fan of Shensen and now with the start of the Curtain Call adventure path, back in Kintargo, I’m happy to see her even more! Marshal is my friend Mike’s archetype in my brother’s game, and a notable change is the aura is always 15 feet. Dread Marshal Stance can’t increase it; there’s no Critical Success detail. I can appreciate having a standard size from now on, though it seems odd to have a critical failure option but no chance for a greater success. Medic is important to a number of people, and I don’t think it changed, but if it did please let me know. Ritualist doesn’t seem very different, but I noted that the Speedy Rituals benefits are not rolled into Efficient Rituals in that at 14th level, you can cast rituals that require days in hours instead! Also the Enterprising Ritualist 14th level is a new replacement. You can replace expensive components with your acumen, making spells like resurrect far cheaper! A great addition! Finally, also in the spirit of Kintargo again, Vigilante is included in Player Core 2. That same friend, Kyle, has Vigilante as the free archetype for his Investigator. A lot of changes came for his characters out of this book. Right at the end of the dedication feat there’s now a way to spend 1 week of downtime to create a new social identity if you lose the benefits from your identity being found out. Vigilante gets two pages so there’s plenty to read through, but otherwise all feats are updated appropriately to remove alignment and with proper traits.
First Feat I checked was Bon Mot as my Cleric uses it, but it didn’t change. Next up was Risky Surgery and no change there as well! Robust Health is 3rd level and General that many will take. It grants a circumstance bonus to Hit Points regained equal to your level when someone Treats your Wounds or uses Battle Medicine. Also, you’re only immune to Battle Medicine for an hour instead of 1 day. An extremely valuable feat! I thought Supertaster was new, but no. You can lick or taste something to help your Recall Knowledge; that was not something I realized you could actually do. I let No Quest for the Wicked know after Dain kept talking about such at the Starfinder game at PAX U. Definitely look for them at Gen Con!
There’s plenty of Spells brought up to Remaster standards. The one to really discuss is a new cantrip called Live Wire. It’s arcane and primal, doing electricity damage as well as slashing damage. If you critically hit the target’s AC, you also do persistent electricity damage. Great for one target, though Electric Arc is still great for two targets. Apparently that there’s still some damage on the fail, even though it’s a targeted attack roll is really driving the players who learned of it to discussion. It’s only the electricity damage of 1d4 (per rank of spell) but still, that’s better than other attack roll based cantrips! There’s also numerous items in Treasure Trove, particularly alchemical with more oils, potions, talismans too. Snares has quite a few pages, more into the crafting of alchemist and investigator I think. You’ll find some worn and held magic items as well. Nothing has jumped out at me as new and amazing, but that might be because there’s so much presented. I do always check Staves and Staff of the Tempest is new. It’s very primal, weather, storms so perfect for some kinds of oracles, sorcerers, clerics, or druids!
There’s really a lot of what you already love here, updated under the ORC. Definitely take time and invest in Player Core 2! I’ll also encourage you to check out some other great coverage of Player Core 2 like from Nonat or BadLuckGamer. I’ll also encourage you to find B. Dave Walters, Christian Navarro, Jesse Jerdak and more playing the Marvel Multiverse Role-playing Game. Also Jasmine Bhullar, Johnny Stanton, Jay Foster, and more for SINK (see below)! That is to say check them out because I wish I could! Have a great Gen Con or enjoy all the joy of Player Core 2!
Missed our show at SDCC?
Lucky for you we’re running it back with an amazing new cast this Friday at @Gen_Con!
9pm EST in ICC 500 on the Main Stage.
Tickets can be purchased at https://t.co/SDKhCmOji9 and stream will be available at https://t.co/zH1011GXTS pic.twitter.com/JddHKqnHny— Johnny Stanton is SINK!ing about GenCon (@johnnystantoniv) July 29, 2024
Investing In:
I wasn’t quite sure what to name my article series when I first started but the idea of showcasing or discussing things that make me excited, that I find new and interesting, or maybe I’m otherwise passionate about seemed to fit with the idea of Investing In something like the Pathfinder 2E mechanic. To use some magic items you have to give that little bit of yourself, which helps make these things even better. I like the metaphor of the community growing and being strengthened in the same way!
I also want to hear what you’re Investing In! Leave me a comment below about what games, modules, systems, products, people, live streams, etc you enjoy! You can also hit me up on social media as silentinfinity. I want to hear what excites you and what you’re passionate about. There’s so much wonderful content, people, groups (I could go on) in this community of ours that the more we invest in and share, the better it becomes!
Sources
Banner – Player Core 2 cover, Paizo, art by Wayne Reynolds
- Introduction banner, Player Core 2, Paizo
- Arcane Dragonblood, Player Core 2, Paizo
- Analyst Investigator, Player Core 2, Paizo
- Shensen from Celebrity, Player Core 2, Paizo
- Consult the Spirits feat banner, Player Core 2, Paizo
