A little over a week ago Paizo announced the future of Pathfinder is a new edition. I've been thinking about it since then and wanted to share my thoughts. I confess to being quite surprised initially at the news, but the more I think about it the more it makes sense. Pathfinder was initially based off of 3rd edition D&D, which had been around for about 10 years at that point and now Pathfinder has been around for 10 years itself. They had certainly polished the 3rd edition framework, but there is a limit to how much you can polish something without breaking the basic assumptions. Second, they are making some good arguments on the new changes they've revealed so far. Maybe they are just good at their pitches, but after I've thought the new changes I agree with their changes.
As I evaluate the changes, I've been really judging by making the game easier to play while continuing to offer lots of options and tactical choices. Pathfinder's strength lies in being able to create any kind of fantasy character one would like with the myriad of classes and class options. Now that I'm playing with my kids, I am definitely looking at ways Pathfinder can be easier to play.
I want to start off with the action economy. Gone are the seven different action types down to three, free actions, actions, and reactions. Actions require one or more of your allotted three actions in a round, free actions don't cost any and one gets one reaction that occurs when it's not the player's turn. You can even make more than one attack at first level, albeit at an additional -5 each attack. This allows for more character movement while still attacking. Combined with Paizo toning down attacks of opportunity, the battlefield should open up with more mobility. The days of having two melee characters just wade up to each other and hack at one another until one falls may be in the past. Spells now can take one, two, or three actions, which allows for more versatility when designing and balancing spells. Plus, if you have enough actions and quick enough spells you can even cast more than one in a round, or cast a spell and still attack. Casters now have so many more tactical options in a system that is less complicated than the current system.
Classes are also undergoing a major revamp. There still a good deal unknown about the classes, but judging from the comments so far and the playtests, it looks like all classes will be more feat based by making class feats universal. In 1st edition, both fighter and rogue have some type of class feats, but they are treated and named differently which only adds to the confusion. Now all classes get to customize their class through feats, which should help avoid the cookie cutter class problem. I think this will make class creation easier my unifying some of the mechanisms of creating a character without limiting customizability. I am interested to see if they can pull it off.
In conclusion, I predict a bright future for Pathfinder 2nd edition and am looking forward to seeing the playtest in August. I hope to dig into some more of the details in future posts.
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