Pathfinder Second Edition

Blog post about elves and dwarves

Hmm. Interesting. I'm kind of excited that they seem to want to give you diversity in the racial backgrounds through feat selection. It seems like you COULD take the option to pick up the dwarven weapons, but you may not.

One of my biggest pet peeves with Pathfinder and D&D was that, no matter what your background was, certain races just KNEW how to use certain weapons and armor.

I'm glad they're making this change

Exactly! I mean, sure, making it available makes sense (yes, elves would make longswords/longbows available to all), but clearly not all of them would pick them up and study them.

Put this one in the pro column. :)

A little bit about the Alchemist, which is now a base class in Pathfinder 2e!

A post about spells in Pathfinder 2e

Interesting changes to spells. I really like the automatic scaling of cantrips, and the multi-action economy.

Free spells at your highest casting level means the ridiculous imbalance between full-casters and non-casters will be virtually intolerable unless they also focused on increasing the utility and options of non-casters. No one can compete with a full-caster that is creative with spells.

Limiting it with component rarity, cost, and spell slots helped keep it within reason (though the imbalance still existed). Cantrips were brought in to give them a low-power option to use freely. If that low-power option is now just a normal-power option that's also free, then I hope it's because they saw a reverse imbalance in playtesting. I hope it wasn't because their full-caster playtesters whined louder than non-caster playtesters.

I love the action improvement kind of method. Gets a little bit away from Vancian magic (not a huge bit away, just a slim tiny bit). I really enjoyed the Heal example (Strong close heal if you just use your hands, long range heal if you start babbling, weaker area-wide heal if you use some materials). And the ability to heighten for impact is a welcome change as well.

Some of the changes are pretty similar to the 5e changes (cantrip scaling as one example, though they handled it a different way, heightening adding extra effect, etc).

Cantrip scaling is something that D&D 5e does as well, and I've found that it does not overpower the casters at all. It really depends on what they do with the other spellcasting rules that will determine if it makes them that much more powerful than the martial classes.

I would assume they aren't as powerful as spells that have a cost at all, just that they improve with levels. A possible example:

Level 1 spell does 2d6 damage to a single target - Uses a spell slot
Cantrip at level 1 does 1d6 damage to a single target - Is free

Level 3 spell does 5d6 damage in a radius - Uses a spell slot
Cantrip at level 5 (when you get level 3 spells) does 3d6 damage to a single target - Is free

I imagine that this is the sort of scaling that we will see in the game. Something to make casters better when they don't want to use a spell slot, but not enough to come anywhere near overshadowing a real spell. Obviously I don't have all of the details, but I think it's a good guess, at least as far as design philosophy is concerned.

Yeah, I'm a big fan of the multi-action method that they're using as well! It seems like a really cool way to do it

I also noticed that a LOT of this is similar to 5e, but that's fine with me. 5e made a LOT of good, much-needed changes to the way the game works and I think that following their lead on some things is a good move.

I think your instincts are correct, or at least I agree that it's the most likely thing we'll see. My issue is that they worded it specifically as scales to your highest spell slot and not "damage scales appropriately for level" or something like that. As I mentioned, it's the creative full-casters that are incredibly imbalanced. Full-casters that focus solely or even primarily on damage are not the problem. For example, using a cantrip to dispell magical darkness is imbalanced. That should cost a spell slot.

I agree that it's odd to allow a cantrip to dispel something that has a cost, but there may be more to it than that (I hope). I remain hopefully optimistic :)

More alchemy stuff!

Cleric preview

Cleric Domains

These are interesting. The domain powers should be relevant, and free skill in the gods favored skill adds deep, recognizable flavor to the clergy.

But mostly, I think the anathema and edicts are really important. Not sure if there is a gameplay mechanic attached or just RP flavor.

Weapons in Pathfinder 2e

The weapon design is a concept I haven't seen before. Seems like it could be difficult to balance, but if they manage to do so then it'll be a really great way to make martial characters feel different just by going different weapon routes.

Armor and other gear in Pathfinder 2e