Taking 20 Podcast - Ep 233 - Review of PF2e Player Core 2

Episode Date: August 4, 2024

The Pathfinder 2e Player Core 2 book released August 1st.  There’s a lot of information  contained within these 322 pages but, is the information useful?  Should you go out and buy it?  Tune in to find out.   #pf2e #Pathfinder #gmtips #PlayerCore2   Resources: The Rules Lawyer:  https://www.youtube.com/@TheRulesLawyerRPG Bad Luck Gamer:  https://www.youtube.com/@theebadluckgamer 

This week on The Taking Twenty Podcast. Now the curses truly feel like curses and all I see are negative effects on the character. This weakens the character a bit, but not overly so. After all, it's supposed to be a curse. You are paying a price for the power that you wield. wheeled. Thank you for listening to the Taking 20 Podcast, episode 233, an episode dedicated to my review of Player Core 2 published by Paizo. I want to thank this week's sponsor, The Flu.

I wasn't sure if The Flu had enough jokes about it to warrant being a sponsor, but I went for it anyway. Hey, it's worth a shot. Do you have any ideas for topics for me? If so, send them to me at feedback at taking20podcast.com or direct message on social media of your choice. If you're a long time listener, you know I normally don't do product reviews as an entire episode, but I received my copy

and as I began to read I realized just how much content there was in this book to discuss. I realized that I would need a good chunk of an episode to discuss everything I wanted to that's in the book, so this one gets its own episode. As I'm a big believer in transparency, you should know that Paizo did provide me a PDF copy of the book in advance of the release date, but to be clear, receiving a free copy doesn't influence my opinion. I'll be giving you honest thoughts on the book from both Pathfinder 2e player and GM perspectives. Oh sure, I mean come on, I can be bought but single book isn't gonna get it. I mean what about miniatures, dice, snacks,

long- term subscriptions? These episodes are always the hardest to produce because I want to give you a good preview, but boiling down so much content in 20 minutes is a crap ton of work. What's the old quote? If I'm to speak a few minutes on something, I need weeks of preparation, but if I'm to speak all day, yeah, okay, I'm ready now. It'd be easy to vomit a bunch of information, but I want to try to keep it to the high points of the book. To give you a good review, I need to cover some background though. For those of you who don't soak

in Paizo, the company who publishes Pathfinder, let me tell you about the remaster. Back in 2019, when the world was young, pre-COVID, and a lot of things, Paizo released the second edition of their Pathfinder game system calling it Pathfinder 2e. It revamped a lot on the mechanics that had been pretty complicated in Pathfinder first edition and generally streamlined a lot of the game taking some of the cruft out that was left over from D&D 3.0 and 3.5 days. Then Wizards of the Coast got all shitty with the open gaming license planning to release a new version of it, threatening to remove the previous license, and generally trying to stick it to third-party content producers

who may have used some of the concepts from D&D, like mind flayers, alignment, and some of the mechanics from the games we knew and loved at the time, including Pathfinder. So, Paizo being the smart cookies that they are, decided they would do a soft reboot of the Pathfinder 2e system, significantly overhauling some of the core rules, maintaining backward compatibility with other pre-published Pathfinder 2e materials, further streamlining the game, and importantly removing connections to the OGL, such as alignment and certain races and monsters. They released the Player Core, the GM Core books in November of 2023, breaking up that one massive rulebook they had previously published into two separate ones better focused on as

you can probably figure out, players and GMs. And then they released the Monster Core, the first remastered bestiary in March of 2024. It's important to note, and I do not have time to go into all the changes, but many classes did not receive a full overhaul in the original Player Core when it was released. But there were promises to overhaul many others in a Player Core 2 book that was supposed to come down the line sometime. Well, August 1st of this year was down the line sometime. Well, August 1st of this year was down the line sometime. Pathfinder Player Core 2, published by Paizo, is a supplement for the Pathfinder second edition tabletop role-playing game. It's not a standalone game system

rule book on its own, but it's an expansion for existing books. It contains a huge number of options for characters that you may want to make. As a reminder, keep my episodes up 20 minutes or so, so there's no way I can cover everything in this 322 page book unless I want to review it over 16 to 20 episodes. No, I'm not gonna do that. I love you guys too much. So I'll include links in the description to my fellow creators who are doing lengthy deep dives on aspects of the book. So if you really want to know more, you can check them out as well. Let's

start with ancestries, what used to be called races. There are eight new ancestries in chapter one of the book. Catfolk, Hobgoblin, Kolo, Kobold, Lizard Folk, Rat Folk, Tingu, and Tripki. There's a lot of, and I'm not going to say this word right, anthropomorphization of animal heritages. Catfolk, Lizardfolk, Ratfolk, Tingu, which are based on birds, and Tripki, which are based on frogs. The Hobgoblin and Kobold are traditional RPG ancestries that have been around for years and then the Kolo are too, but they used to be known as gnolls, but they're not anymore because of the OGL shenanigans I mentioned

earlier. Besides the eight ancestries there are three remastered versatile heritages. Versatile heritages are something characters of any ancestry can take and if I give you a list of them, it's more obvious Why there's the damp here or half vampire if you will the dragon blood which are descendants of dragons Which means somebody way in your past must have had a very interesting relationship Because some of the features of that dragon have shown up in you and then there's the duskwalker They are my favorite. I could probably do then there's the duskwalker. They are my favorite. I could probably do an entire episode on duskwalkers. Let's just say

that it's souls that understand the balance of reincarnation versus the river of souls and the normal turnover of souls going to their final resting place. Anyway, chapter one also has 24 backgrounds, two-thirds of them being common and one-third of them being rare. In general you should always coordinate your builds with your game master but it's especially true of rare backgrounds, heritages, etc because they tend to be very specific or come from a well, rare set of circumstances. Duskwalkers, like I mentioned earlier, there are always a fixed number of them in the world.

For one to be created, another had to have been destroyed. So let's move on to classes. The Pathfinder Core 2 remasters 8 classes from Pathfinder 2e, including the Alchemist, the Barbarian, the Champion, Investigator, Monk, Oracle, Sorcerer, and Swashbuckler. It updates these classes to remove OGL content and to include more options under the remaster rules. All of the classes have new and revamped feats and spells and alchemical items and that kind of thing and it gives you a wider variety of character customization. Now very briefly over the various classes

that I just mentioned, the Alchemist got buffed a little bit. It gave it more formula progressions that scale up as you level up. They now have two separate pools of formulas. One that says how many formulas they can prepare every morning and now a completely separate pool of how many versatile vials you can prepare and potentially replenish after 10 minutes. Effectively those versatile vials act as like focus spells now just under a different name. But that means that there is now almost zero chance of your alchemist being caught without anything to throw or drink or share or spray or however your vials work.

You can be creating vials during any 10 minute downtime activity and they can do different types of damage or even heal. Barbarians, now you can rage as a free action which great for the action economy because it used to be you had to waste up an action whenever combat starts. I would like to rage please. Nope. Now you can rage for free when you roll initiative Also that rage lasts the entire combat until the encounter completely ends or you fall unconscious one of the two I mentioned it used to take an action at the start of combat to rage and if you ran out of Enemies to tear in half with your bare hands and you don't see any anymore

Your rage ended. Also, you can now rage multiple times in combat. I haven't played a lot of barbarians, but this feels like this class got significantly buffed with a remaster. Champions are still warriors in the name of a deity and like clerics you'll have to make sure you don't act in any way that's an anathema to the deity that you worship. Depending on your deity, you can also be made holy or unholy, neither, but never both. This feature also determines what traits you can take for this character.

As a note, unholy is rarely allowed in games because you really become a right bastard. Depending on your deity's profile, by the way, you can also select a cause that will add to your edicts and anathema. Examples are like grandeur and liberation and justice and iniquity, desecration, that type of thing. Champions, by the way, also get a devotion focus spell. Investigators are still built around pursue a lead where you can find a clue and possibly open an investigation. However, now pursue a lead explicitly says you can start with a wider variety of potential source checks like recalling knowledge, sensing motive, gathering information, etc. Also, it doesn't take 10 minutes

anymore and now the GM will tell you when a lead isn't worth pursuing, so you're not chasing a dead end. Also, investigations can now be defined as a question at the heart of a mystery, where previously it was just a single creature. You can still devise a stratagem, but now it could be multiple creatures involved in an investigation, like people who are trying to cover up evidence of the crime, or people who are helping the perpetrator of a crime

where previously it was just one creature, the person who committed the crime. Plus you can use it outside of combat if I read the description right. That makes devise a stratagem a lot more versatile and is a significant buff to that class as well. Okay, let's move on to no one's favorite class, monk. Let's move on to the next's favorite class, Monk. Let's move on to the next

class in the book, Monks. Sorry, there's a little bit of snark left over from Pathfinder 1e where the Monk ability Flurry of Blows was called Flurry of Misses or Blurry of Flows around our table. Monks didn't change much. They still can use Monk weapons and stances and that kind of thing, but you know one difference is they now Explicitly say you can dismiss a stance that wasn't clear before and some DMs ruled that once you entered a monk stance You had to stay in that stance until combat was over you dropped unconscious or entered a different stance At fifth level monks can automatically give an opponent the slowed one condition when they critically hit

At 5th level, monks can automatically give an opponent the slowed 1 condition when they critically hit. They also reduce the feet tax by giving some things for free that previously required the character to take a feat. So it looks initially like this class has gotten a slight buff. Yep, still someone who can say, I know Kung Fu and really freaking mean it. Oracles. All oracles are afflicted with a curse and that's always been true. Pre-Remaster though, the curses were all over the map. Sometimes they had negative effects the character had to deal with, which sounds like a curse. Sometimes the curse, in air quotes, had positive effects on the character and sometimes it was a bit of both.

Now the curses truly feel like curses and all I see are negative effects on the character. This weakens the character a bit but not overly so. After all it's supposed to be a curse not a blessing. You are paying a price for the power that you wield. One way this is accomplished is with the curse bound trait that now affects feats instead of focus spells. Sometimes this trait will let the character take actions without spending one of their three for the round, like a free knowledge check or something similar. Now curses feel more like what I think

they should have been all along. You might not want them to happen to you, but by allowing them to manifest in more powerful and potentially more dangerous ways, you have more power that you can tap into. Also, you can now refocus during a short rest and get rid of that penalty that you built up during combat. They've added some customization options also to really flavor your Oracle the way you like it and dramatically added to the number of domains that the Oracle

can select from. Sorcerers, it really feels like they embrace the blood of domains that the oracle can select from. Sorcerers. It really feels like they embrace the blood of bloodlines, which were always core to the sorcerer by the way, but they've really leaned into them pretty hard. They have a number of bloodlines that will change the sorceress gifts or spells that you get from the aberrant and demonic to angelic and the classics like elemental and draconic bloodlines. By the way, you can always take a draconic bloodlines. By the way, you

can always take a draconic bloodline associated with one of the four traditions of magic and that's fine. Buuuut they also now include what they called draconic exemplars to give you slightly different sorceress gifts. These exemplars align with the different types of dragons to be found in the Monster Corps from adamantine all the way through omen dragons. You'll need to work with your GM to customize these gifts though if you want to go this route. By the way, I think the dangerous sorcerer feat is now core to the class and it makes all sorcerers strong spellcasters overall. Gives them a distinct feeling though compared to the other spellcasting classes.

By the way, there's a first level feat that I'm in love with and I want to try that lets you change up some of the skill checks. Using religion to reposition a target, or using arcana to recall knowledge instead of another lore skill, or to use nature to demoralize a target. I'm still really not sure how that one would work. Do you feel that weakness in your neck? Yeah, that's the inevitable destruction that your body will undergo as it's reclaimed by nature and used to feed the next generation of plants and animals that will thrive wherever

your corpse happens to fall. How you like them apples? Okay, sorry. One last change I'm in love with. They've gotten rid of the melee, draconic, and demonic bloodline abilities and made them ranged attacks now. You don't have to wander up as a sorcerer in no armor. Go up to the front of the party to deliver a damaging touch spell and then get your face

caved in by the troll that happens to be there. Now you can do it from 30 feet away. Much much better. Moving on to swashbucklers. More options to get panache besides tumbling through enemy squares is glorious. There are now actions with the bravado trait which grant you panache if you succeed, but still give you temporary panache if you fail. That's a huge change, since panache is what you use to deliver a lot of your cool finishing move abilities like making opponents off guard or easier to disarm. One feat caught my eye as I was twirling through the pages.

Paizo published a quick peek of the swashbuckler feat called Twirling Throw. It's a fourth level feat. One action finisher feat with the prerequisite of flying blade which is a first level feat. The description is as follows. Your thrown weapons seem to defy physics as they soar through the air and spin back to you after a strike. Make a thrown weapon attack ignoring the penalty for making ranged attacks within the second and third range increment. The weapon returns to your hand after the attack unless you critically fail on the attack roll. Does that mean that Captain America was a shield fighting swashbuckler?

I may try that build out just for gets and shiggles just to see how it plays. One of the criticisms about swashbucklers was that they were great against swarms of lower level creatures, but against bosses where their maneuvers probably wouldn't work, they became just a shittier version of a fighter. Now with gaining panache even on some failed rolls, this makes them much more interesting and effective in those higher level encounters. version of a fighter. Now with gaining panache even on some failed roles this makes them much more interesting and effective in those higher level encounters. Moving on to chapter 3 of the book that contains a number of new

archetypes. If you're not familiar with archetypes they're kind of a way to multiclass in Pathfinder 2e. Archetypes are a way that you can further customize your character from the base class with a majority of them being class archetypes that can be taken in place of class feats. Let's say you're a cleric of Shalen, the goddess of art and beauty, love and music. At second level, instead of taking another cleric feat, you could take the bard archetype and gain some of the abilities of the bard class, like occult spells and now you're trained in a performance skill of some sort. You have a muse just like the bard would and you could be the singing cleric from Breach Hill

spreading music and healing wherever you go. In previous games for Pathfinder 2e you might have been a cleric level 3 bard level 2 but now done with archetypes. Some archetypes do have the multi-class trait which allow characters to diversify training into another class's specialities. PlayerCore 2 contains a number of archetype options for every class available in the game, but there are also skill archetypes that can be taken in place of skill feats. These archetypes and dedications allow you, for example, take a dip and gain abilities missing from the party. There's no rogue, but someone takes the rogue archetype by taking the rogue dedication feat

and suddenly poof you have a trap finder in your party. There are 43 different archetypes to find from acrobat to cavalier to linguist, pirate, ritualist, poisonous, viking, wrestler. Want to be a Jackie Chan type fighter? How about a monk with a weapon improviser archetype? Or something modeled after Wyatt Earp or his brother Virgil? How about a gunslinger with a martial dedication? Or battlefield medic? How about a fighter with medic dedication? At this point I am 18 minutes in and I haven't even talked about the 12 pages of feats, 36

pages of updated spells, and 40 pages of updated items and treasure, plus familiars. Want a tiny little dragon or a living doll called a poppet for a familiar? This book has you covered. Finally, one thing that Paizo books are known for is their artwork and this book does not disappoint. It seems like every other page has a beautifully drawn piece of art to marvel at including a beautiful picture on page 272 that I'm looking at right now that could easily be one of my parties. They're so distracted by piles of gold

around them that they don't see the danger staring at them from above. Their drawings of classes and items, treasure tables. There really is something here for both players and GMs alike. The Player Core 2 book released August 1st in print and PDF format. The print version is available for $59.99 at Paizo.com, your local gaming store, or your bookseller of choice. It is also available in PDF from Paizo.com for $19.99. I really did enjoy this book. I really think it is a quality addition to the books that Paizo has put out, and I would encourage you to take a look at it if you're at all interested.

Steal some ideas from it, build some characters from it. And if you do, I'd be willing to bet that you and your players would have fun doing it. We have a Ko K.O. dash F.I. dot com slash taking 20 podcast. Please consider a small donation, even a one time donation. I would greatly appreciate it. Tune in next week when I'm going to talk about player abilities compared to character abilities.

I talked about this previously just a little bit about metagaming, but I want to talk about this specifically how it relates to puzzles and traps. But before I go, I want to thank this week's sponsor, The Flu. I have one more joke about The Flu, but I hope you don't get it. This has been episode 233, a review of the Player Core 2 for Pathfinder 2e, published by Paizo. My name is Jeremy Shelley, and I hope that your next game is your best game. The Taking 20 podcast is a Publishing Cube media production.

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