For those who enjoy guessing the future of Paizo products...

So instead we should kill off Cheliax's patron deity... again? I mean, if you're going to talk about "but that would be too similar to the fall of Aroden"....

Hear me out-

Cheliax's patron deity dies *again* leading to another civil war, during which time Rahadoum makes overtures across the inner sea to point out "Hey, are you really sure about this whole 'divine patron' thing? It doesn't seem to be working out for you."

Relations between Cheliax and Rahadoum are really an underexplored part of Inner Sea politics, particularly given that the two share the same geographical relationship as Spain and Morocco or Italy and Tunisia.

Sanityfaerie wrote:

So instead we should kill off Cheliax's patron deity... again? I mean, if you're going to talk about "but that would be too similar to the fall of Aroden"....

Hear me out-

Cheliax's patron deity dies *again* leading to another civil war, during which time Rahadoum makes overtures across the inner sea to point out "Hey, are you really sure about this whole 'divine patron' thing? It doesn't seem to be working out for you."

Relations between Cheliax and Rahadoum are really an underexplored part of Inner Sea politics, particularly given that the two share the same geographical relationship as Spain and Morocco or Italy and Tunisia.

Cheliax scoffs. Don't be ridiculous. The civil war churns onward, and eventually Iomedae comes back in at the head of yet another crusade and re-establishes order. She is welcomed by a war-weary populace. It works. For a while.

Then Iomedae dies.

The next time around, when seeking a divine patron, Cheliax cannot find any takers. Once was understandable. It could have happened to anyone. Twice? One could consider it coincidence. Three times, though....

And we don't use a 25-sided die anyway.

Alright, these are the kind of arguments which win conversations. :)

AnimatedPaper wrote:

Wouldn’t this just retread the same path as Aroden’s fall? He was the human equivalent to Torag. Individual worshipers and priests would be shaken up, and I’m certain thing would be messy for a while, but of all ancestries I would think dwarves took a beat to think about how they’d cope after watching humans go off the deep end.

So instead we should kill off Cheliax's patron deity... again? I mean, if you're going to talk about "but that would be too similar to the fall of Aroden"....

I’m a little confused. Why are you expecting me to defend the idea of killing asmodeus? I don’t recall saying anything about him either way. Certainly not in the quoted post.

But, sure, yes. Killing off cheliax patron might seem redundant, agreed

The original methodology for the "Core 20" was that we wanted to have 2 choices for every alignment, but also to try to make sure that we had at least 1 "perfect choice" for all the various character classes we had in the game at the time with the 3.5 SRD. I don't recall the exact reasoning why we chose Lawful Good and Neutral to get the 19th and 20th leftover slots, but I think it probably had something to do with the fact that since paladins in that time were always Lawful Good we needed an extra choice there, and since druids were always Neutral adjacent they needed an extra choice there.

As for why 20? Because it was a fun nod to the fact that it was a d20 game we were creating.

Regardless... a "core 20" is something that we want to keep. It's served the game well by presenting a diverse range of choices for most archetypes of play without being too overwhelming.

I love this kind of behind-the-screen insight into Pathfinder and very much appreciate your openness and willigness to share. Thanks James!

I’m a little confused. Why are you expecting me to defend the idea of killing asmodeus? I don’t recall saying anything about him either way. Certainly not in the quoted post.

But, sure, yes. Killing off cheliax patron might seem redundant, agreed

The conversation went something like this:

- Lots of people: Oh, hey! it would be really awesome if it was Asmodeus! It should obviously be Asmodeus. Let's kill off Asmodeus.

- Me: Or... maybe someone else? What about Cayden Cailean?

- A couple of people: He's not significant enough. They need someone who's going to cause real *impact* when he falls. Cayden Cailean would be a nothingburger.

- Me: Okay. Fine. What about Torag. That would have some impact.

- You: That would be way too much like the fall of Aroden. It's been done.

...and that's why I responded how I did - in response overall at least as much as in response to the specific things you'd just said in particular.

So your overall response was to imply that I, personally, am an idiot for stuff other people said. That makes no sense, but whatever.

Edit: my apologies to all for letting my frustration boil over. I will drop this topic.

So your overall response was to imply that I, personally, am an idiot for stuff other people said. That makes no sense, but whatever.

Edit: my apologies to all for letting my frustration boil over. I will drop this topic.

For the record, I really had not intended it that way. I do not consider you an idiot, and while I had thought that the things that you posted were in the context of the broader discussion, I did not think that they painted you in a particularly poor light. At worst I thought it might have been a perspective you had not considered, and that was only one of a number of potential interpretations.

Michael Sayre has given us a fun hint on his twitter:

The names for each of the new #Pathfinder2e playtest classes are 3 syllables long with three vowels each.

Michael Sayre has given us a fun hint on his twitter:

Quote:

The names for each of the new #Pathfinder2e playtest classes are 3 syllables long with three vowels each.

So... "Weaver" is out, but "Seneschal" is still a distinct possibility.

Actually, I'll toss another mote of possibility on the stack for the idea of Seneschal as a possible class that comes with a troop minion.

We have Kineticist now... and something that kineticist does that basically no one was able to do before is significant terrain control without spending daily resources. So that's a thing they have a better idea of how to balance now... and the thing that troop-style minions are good at that other minions aren't is basically functioning like a walking chunk of terrain control. So... maybe.

Oh, and the other side of things. One class is rare. It just occurred to me... Book of the Dead was stacked full of Rare character options. So if there was a class that had necromancy and undead control baked right in, it would pretty much have to be Rare.

Now, I'll admit, this is wishful thinking. I know it's wishful thinking. Still... it's plausible.

We also know that shaman and inquisitor are out, at least with those names.

Interestingly the word demigod is still on the table. I believe that was someone's suggestion for a possible class.

My guess for one is Commander

Shapeshifter or Polymorph.

If there is a class that comes with a troop kinion i hope that that is optional, easy to get but optional. Troops are a bit clunky to move around a battlr map beit in person or tabletop, and is a hyper specidic fantasy. And a nebulious amount of soldiers that will probably just fade into the background feels a bit off from the types of games i usually play. If it exists i want it to be great for the people who want that but would be interested in seeing a version of a leader class that can opt into other ideas as well.

Another idea just came to mind for me. If there is the chance of a bunch of dieties dying. Is it possible we may see a class that comes from being the faithful of a dead god? Now this didnt emerge when aroden died, but maybe one diety wasnt enough, maybe whatever happen, and how many dieties die causes something. Perhaps some dieties die in golarion and with access to the divine ichor people can do new types of magic and things of that nature.

Shapeshifter or Polymorph.

Polymorph seems unlikely. There is already a Polymorph trait; it'd invite confusion.

I could also see commander, or perhaps general.

Metamorph

I'm pretty sure that whatever this class is, it's not going to be "beloved PF1 class with the serial numbers filed off".

You have my apologies for the double-post, but it's been more than two horus, and I have had More Thoughts.

So... those new classes?
- Have to be single word of three syllables, three vowels.
- Have to not be a previously existing PF1 class, or anything that's particularly *close* to a pre-existing PF1 class.
- Have to not be anything that would be under the OGL or otherwise WotC-owned.
- Have to fit within the theme of the book.
- One of them is Rare.

Now, we don't know the theme of the book. All we know about it is that it's a rules book, and it's somehow fundamentally tied into an event that will cover a war between gods, wherein one of the gods will die.

Oh, and we know that this is one of the rulebooks that will include classes, so it's probably not one of the rulebooks that introduces an entirely new, complicated subsystem that would call for class-equivalent levels of playtesting.

Now... we don't know the nature of this war. We don't know what set it off. We don't know where it will be fought... and yet...

Bricks build on bricks. We just got Rage of Elements, which did a nice bit of work in expanding our understanding of the Planes in general. It makes quite a lot of sense that a godswar would be fought at least partially between the planes that those gods exist on... and thus that to tell that story properly, we'd have to explore those planes, in the kind of way you'd really need a rulebook for.

The obvious cause of the Rare class being rare is either that it's somehow inherently Eeevil, or that it's built around one or more core capabilities that would be rare spells if they were spells. Either of those could fit in a planar book. Possibly both at once?

I really don't think that we're going to see anything about dead gods in this book, though. At my guess, this book is intended to give classes that might fit well into playing the AP that results in dead gods. Having them be powered by dead gods would be premature.

...and there's those weird, sinister dark tendrils around the outside of the Planes picture in RoE that (to my understanding) never got explained. I wouldn't be at all surprised to find an explanation for that here.

Admittedly, my speculation didn't go where I was initially thinking it would go, but I'm not unhappy with where I ended up.

It would also make for a pretty quick turnaround on the "do we get more elements for the kineticist?" question. if they're not showing up in the Planar book, they're probably not showing up.

The obvious cause of the Rare class being rare is either that it's somehow inherently Eeevil, or that it's built around one or more core capabilities that would be rare spells if they were spells. Either of those could fit in a planar book. Possibly both at once?

I really don't think that we're going to see anything about dead gods in this book, though. At my guess, this book is intended to give classes that might fit well into playing the AP that results in dead gods. Having them be powered by dead gods would be premature.

Eeeevil classes, in fairness, already exist and aren't Rare. Evil clerics, diabolic/demonic sorcerers (they don't have to be evil, but it certainly fits the flavor) and evil champions (those last ones ARE uncommon, so you may have a point) all exist without being Rare. Of course, I would LOVE, LOVE, LOVE to have an actual evil class. But I doubt it's gonna happen. They already have the above classes, and it'd be SOOOO niche. GMs would ban it left and right, and that isn't great marketing.

It makes me extremely sad. But that's the way it goes.

...and there's those weird, sinister dark tendrils around the outside of the Planes picture in RoE that (to my understanding) never got explained. I wouldn't be at all surprised to find an explanation for that here.

Those are the Outer Rifts, formerly known as the Abyss. You can see them on previous maps of the Great Beyond as well. Look at page 92 of Planar Adventures from PF 1e, they're there.

Eeeevil classes, in fairness, already exist and aren't Rare. Evil clerics, diabolic/demonic sorcerers (they don't have to be evil, but it certainly fits the flavor) and evil champions (those last ones ARE uncommon, so you may have a point) all exist without being Rare. Of course, I would LOVE, LOVE, LOVE to have an actual evil class. But I doubt it's gonna happen. They already have the above classes, and it'd be SOOOO niche. GMs would ban it left and right, and that isn't great marketing.

It makes me extremely sad. But that's the way it goes.

Fair point on the evil champs only being uncommon. So... "must be evil" is almost certainly not the only thing this class has going on.

Let's look at archetypes, then. What makes an archetype rare?
- Actually turning you into an undead.
- Wellspring Mage, which causes random effects that can hurt your allies
- Runelord, which requries you to embrace a Sin.
- Scions of Domora, which comes out of an AP. Not sure why this one is Rare. Maybe the access to incorporeality?
- Psychic Duelist... possibly because it means that psychic duels are required to be a thing?
- Pactbound Initiate: again... not entirely clear. Possibly because it digs deep into specific bits of the lore that GMs may not want to opt into?
- Living Vessel: I'm guessing that this is the bit where deciding that your character has a demon bound into them that you tap for power from time to time might be out-of-theme for some campaigns. The bit where you might decide to let the Bog Mummy take the wheel is also potentially concerning.
- Crystal Keeper: well, these jsut straight-up *are* rare. Like, there's a guy who can teach you this archetype, sure. It sounds liek that's just one guy in all of Golarion. That might explain a few of the others, too.
- Curse Maelstron
- Clockwork Reanimator
- Chronoskimmer

So yeah. I'm seeing the following drivers.

- Is legit just super-rare. If there are only three people in the world who could teach you this thing, then taking this archetype inherently means that you've convinced one of them to teach you. GM might not want to have to fit that in.

- Is party-unfriendly, or potentially so. If rolling for initiative sometimes comes with randomly-placed fireballs, that might not be something that your fellow players want to deal with.

- Requires interacting with some unusual game system. Your GM might not *want* to have to deal with psychic duels or time shenanigans.

- Makes it hard to walk into town. I think this is actually where the "undead" exception is coming from. If it means that your character cannot necessarily do the things that characters, by default, are expected to be able to do, then that's a potential problem, and GS gets veto.

- Pushes the theme hard. Some GMs just don't want to have to deal with a PC who will be inclined to drink the blood of random villagers.

/************/

Of those, I'm guessing that "legit just super-rare" isn't it (they wouldn't bother to make an entire class for that) and "hard to walk into town" probably isn't either. (They could have adjusted the class to solve that, and I believe they would have.)

no idea between the other three.

My understanding is that the god-killing war is something that will unfolder over the entire product line, not just one rule book. There is going to be lost omen tie-ins as well.

It is probably too late for the remastery, but I really wouldn't mind demons losing the outer rifts entirely to qlippoth and the whole of the plane loosing its ties to divine influence, becoming a cesspit of the worst and most bizarre occult magic. I mean, it just doesn't have the gods factors of other outer planes. People still can still worship elemental lords, so the same would stay true of demon lords, even if the demon lords themselves weren't tied up in the divine any more. That would really shift the scales of the cosmos away from law and chaos and away from potentially fraught waters of keeping hell and the abyss the outer rifts.

That might be too big of a stretch to see in the remastery, I don't know, but I have suspicions the new divine war is going to involve Daemons and the horsemen or Devils and Hell. With the worldwound closed and no major gods to really attached to a future role in the outer rifts, it is a ripe place for doing something really unique and interesting with that can completely change lore that could otherwise be a problem to work with into the future.

Riftian would be a 3 vowel, 3 syllable single word that would be new to the setting, and a way to make conjuration something of its own class without being tied to D&D schools of magic.

This is pure hypothesis, and probably unlikely, but I would hope a divine war is an opportunity to shake up the cosmos without it feeling like a mean trick of an edition change.

I could be wrong but Demons losing the Outer Rifts and Qlippoth taking over would still be Divine because it seems divine magic is heavily tied to it being magic that comes from the Outer Planes and Occult magic is more just "fit the odd one out casters in here"

I could be wrong but Demons losing the Outer Rifts and Qlippoth taking over would still be Divine because it seems divine magic is heavily tied to it being magic that comes from the Outer Planes and Occult magic is more just "fit the odd one out casters in here"

Pretty sure that Divine Magic is "comes from Gods and souls and stuff". Qlippoth are all from before that. Demons are what happens when you debase Qlippoth with human souls and sin. Also, pertinently, while Qlippoth use Religion for their Recall Knowledge check, their innate spells are Occult.

It might also be useful to know that today's blog post suggests Starfinder 2e's core lineup is Soldier, Operative, Mystic, Solarian, Envoy, and Witchwarper. With the two systems angling for interoperability, I think we can expect their class fantasies to not be doubled up on too hard by coming PF2 options - the two teams are speaking the same language now.

The Envoy handles a lot of our Warlord/Commander/Marshal/etc needs, but has historically been a fair bit more fragile than the armored melee combatant some might expect for the role. We've seen the Soldier in the Field Test as a martial heavy weapons expert, roughing folks up with big guns and giant cleavers. That playtest had a time-manipulating Witchwarper in it, so I think that's any "Chronomancer" we can picture scrubbed off the board.

Gun to my head, my current guesses are Animist (something like a real-world shaman but without the baggage of the term or the existing PF1 class, potentially Michael Sayre's pitch for alternate uses of spell slots) and Harrower (the Rare class, for the added complexity caused by some pretty elaborate mechanics tied directly to Harrow cards), but I feel pretty shaky about both right now. It also feels like there's a chance the Rare class will be some kind of necromancer, so tagged for the morality concerns at more traditional tables and also because it's probably doing some shenanigans with minions.

I'm excited to find out next week!

An update: Michael has said on Twitter that he's seen someone guess the name of one of the two, and a "pretty good approximation of the theme in another venue by combining this hint with others we've given." Oh, and he thinks that's neat. ("Neat!" was his exact descriptor)

So I guess we have to start poring our eyeballs here and the PF2 subreddit, unless he'd care to give us a hint as to where to look.

Wild guess: Disciple as a divine offensive class

Mind though, I’d love “Animist” and “Harrower” to be right.

Harrower is already a class in Golarion. Albeit a prestige class but a class nonetheless.

Animist could be argued is a mix of spiritualist, mesmerist, and shaman in theme.

Harrower is already a class in Golarion. Albeit a prestige class but a class nonetheless.

Animist could be argued is a mix of spiritualist, mesmerist, and shaman in theme.

Its latest incarnation is as an archetype in the Stolen Fate Player's Guide. Not saying yes or no to the guess, but am saying we just did this earlier in the year.

Again, "animist" sounds a bit too much like "shaman with the serial numbers filed off" to qualify under the "all-new classes" thing.

Harrower... well, it was a 10-level prestige class rather than a base class, but still.

Also, "was able to guess a pretty good approximation of the theme" sounds like it's something that was pieced together, rather than being a theme we could easily point to from PF1.

Temperans wrote:

Harrower is already a class in Golarion. Albeit a prestige class but a class nonetheless.

Animist could be argued is a mix of spiritualist, mesmerist, and shaman in theme.

Its latest incarnation is as an archetype in the Stolen Fate Player's Guide. Not saying yes or no to the guess, but am saying we just did this earlier in the year.

I'll be honest, I saw that archetype as the PF2 port of it. Just like Stalwart Defender, Duelist, Etc.

Remember that 1 of the classes has James Case on lead development and that Sayre said each class was going to reflect a lot of the personality and energy of each developer. It is not just Sayre working on both.

Animist would be very different from the PF1 shaman in all liklihood. Probably so much so that a name change would in part be necessary to stifle expectations that this new class was that class with anything just "filed off of it."

I don't know if I believe that this is the time for whatever class that turns out to be though. Sayre hasn't had a heavy hand in any casting classes that I know of, so this could be him expressing his inner caster, but I am not sure I believe it. As the new Pathfinder wide theme is going to be war, I think there is a strong chance that some combination of what we have seen with the soldier playtest for starfinder, with something like the Envoy, with much more of a Golarion feel to it seems like a strong possibility, and would really be a class new to Golarion. I am holding firm that it will be called the Seneschal but it could be the commander. Commander just doesn't feel like it has a strong enough fantasy vibes to me compared to Seneschal, which could potentially fill in something close to a royal or judicial guard.

I remember maybe a year ago talking with Sayre on one of these forums about ideas for a martial leaning book that covered things like big battles of Golarion and possibly started to lean into the great military campaigns of Casmaron. At this point, even though it feels like some Casmaron content is comming, I don't think this new thing will really be historical at all, and I am not sure the Casmaron content will be ready by the time this pathfinder-wide storyline drops.

As far as what James Case has been working on, I would be shocked if it wasn't a caster of some kind. At this point, he has taken lead on redesigning the witch, the wizard, and was the lead on the psychic as well. I look forward to seeing something entirely new from him. However, we, the house of Unicorns, is expecting a gift from Lamashtu on or around September 1st, so it seems extremely likely I will be sitting the playtest itself out, or reading about it in a sleep deprived daze. I am still excited to see so many new ideas coming into the game, and am sure we'll end up with excellent content.

Again, "animist" sounds a bit too much like "shaman with the serial numbers filed off" to qualify under the "all-new classes" thing.

Harrower... well, it was a 10-level prestige class rather than a base class, but still.

Also, "was able to guess a pretty good approximation of the theme" sounds like it's something that was pieced together, rather than being a theme we could easily point to from PF1.

I think if it has nothing to do with the PF1 Shaman mechanically (being defined by a single spirit pet), then we're probably in the clear.

Remember that 1 of the classes has James Case on lead development and that Sayre said each class was going to reflect a lot of the personality and energy of each developer. It is not just Sayre working on both.

Animist would be very different from the PF1 shaman in all liklihood. Probably so much so that a name change would in part be necessary to stifle expectations that this new class was that class with anything just "filed off of it."

I don't know if I believe that this is the time for whatever class that turns out to be though. Sayre hasn't had a heavy hand in any casting classes that I know of, so this could be him expressing his inner caster, but I am not sure I believe it. As the new Pathfinder wide theme is going to be war, I think there is a strong chance that some combination of what we have seen with the soldier playtest for starfinder, with something like the Envoy, with much more of a Golarion feel to it seems like a strong possibility, and would really be a class new to Golarion. I am holding firm that it will be called the Seneschal but it could be the commander. Commander just doesn't feel like it has a strong enough fantasy vibes to me compared to Seneschal, which could potentially fill in something close to a royal or judicial guard.

I remember maybe a year ago talking with Sayre on one of these forums about ideas for a martial leaning book that covered things like big battles of Golarion and possibly started to lean into the great military campaigns of Casmaron. At this point, even though it feels like some Casmaron content is comming, I don't think this new thing will really be historical at all, and I am not sure the Casmaron content will be ready by the time this pathfinder-wide storyline drops.

As far as what James Case has been working on, I would be shocked if it wasn't a caster of some kind. At this point, he has taken lead on redesigning the witch, the wizard, and was the lead on the psychic as well. I look forward to seeing something entirely new from him. However,...

Someone can (and will!) correct me if I am wrong, but I thought I saw mention somewhere that the new class won't be something from Starfinder. With those two games becoming interchangeable in the near future, I think its unlikely there will be a class that is going to be very similar in theme or mechanics to a Starfinder class.

I don't think Animist is a good name for a class since, like, you could just be a Fighter from an animist culture. You're an animist but not an Animist.

We already have a problem like this with Barbarians who are not barbarians and barbarians that are not Barbarians, so let's not do it again.

Unicore wrote:

Remember that 1 of the classes has James Case on lead development and that Sayre said each class was going to reflect a lot of the personality and energy of each developer. It is not just Sayre working on both.

Animist would be very different from the PF1 shaman in all liklihood. Probably so much so that a name change would in part be necessary to stifle expectations that this new class was that class with anything just "filed off of it."

I don't know if I believe that this is the time for whatever class that turns out to be though. Sayre hasn't had a heavy hand in any casting classes that I know of, so this could be him expressing his inner caster, but I am not sure I believe it. As the new Pathfinder wide theme is going to be war, I think there is a strong chance that some combination of what we have seen with the soldier playtest for starfinder, with something like the Envoy, with much more of a Golarion feel to it seems like a strong possibility, and would really be a class new to Golarion. I am holding firm that it will be called the Seneschal but it could be the commander. Commander just doesn't feel like it has a strong enough fantasy vibes to me compared to Seneschal, which could potentially fill in something close to a royal or judicial guard.

I remember maybe a year ago talking with Sayre on one of these forums about ideas for a martial leaning book that covered things like big battles of Golarion and possibly started to lean into the great military campaigns of Casmaron. At this point, even though it feels like some Casmaron content is comming, I don't think this new thing will really be historical at all, and I am not sure the Casmaron content will be ready by the time this pathfinder-wide storyline drops.

As far as what James Case has been working on, I would be shocked if it wasn't a caster of some kind. At this point, he has taken lead on redesigning the witch, the wizard, and was the lead on the psychic as well. I look forward to seeing something entirely

...

Sorry for the confusion, I don't think a Seneschal would be like either the soldier or the Envoy. I think it would have certain elements from both, where it would be fairly tanky and able to stand around in the melee, but will probably not be great at attacking a bunch and being a primary damage dealer. Instead, it will have mechanics to get others to fight better or in tandem with the Seneschal, and could possibly have leadership like mechanics built in, which I think would necessitate a rare tag, because Entourage is already rare, and it would be putting work on the GM to decide how they want to handle a character who is likely to have a fair bit of NPC support. I don't see either a Soldier or an Envoy appearing in Golarion and being able to fulfill this role, and Pathfinder 2nd edition is desperate for a defender class that doesn't have to be closely attached to a deity, but could still fit in an army of the faith type situation.

Remember that 1 of the classes has James Case on lead development and that Sayre said each class was going to reflect a lot of the personality and energy of each developer. It is not just Sayre working on both.

Animist would be very different from the PF1 shaman in all liklihood. Probably so much so that a name change would in part be necessary to stifle expectations that this new class was that class with anything just "filed off of it."

I don't know if I believe that this is the time for whatever class that turns out to be though. Sayre hasn't had a heavy hand in any casting classes that I know of, so this could be him expressing his inner caster, but I am not sure I believe it. As the new Pathfinder wide theme is going to be war, I think there is a strong chance that some combination of what we have seen with the soldier playtest for starfinder, with something like the Envoy, with much more of a Golarion feel to it seems like a strong possibility, and would really be a class new to Golarion. I am holding firm that it will be called the Seneschal but it could be the commander. Commander just doesn't feel like it has a strong enough fantasy vibes to me compared to Seneschal, which could potentially fill in something close to a royal or judicial guard.

I remember maybe a year ago talking with Sayre on one of these forums about ideas for a martial leaning book that covered things like big battles of Golarion and possibly started to lean into the great military campaigns of Casmaron. At this point, even though it feels like some Casmaron content is comming, I don't think this new thing will really be historical at all, and I am not sure the Casmaron content will be ready by the time this pathfinder-wide storyline drops.

As far as what James Case has been working on, I would be shocked if it wasn't a caster of some kind. At this point, he has taken lead on redesigning the witch, the wizard, and was the lead on the psychic as well. I look forward to seeing something entirely new from him. However,...

Congrats!

Congrats!

Thank you!

Remember that 1 of the classes has James Case on lead development and that Sayre said each class was going to reflect a lot of the personality and energy of each developer. It is not just Sayre working on both.

Animist would be very different from the PF1 shaman in all liklihood. Probably so much so that a name change would in part be necessary to stifle expectations that this new class was that class with anything just "filed off of it."

I don't know if I believe that this is the time for whatever class that turns out to be though. Sayre hasn't had a heavy hand in any casting classes that I know of, so this could be him expressing his inner caster, but I am not sure I believe it. As the new Pathfinder wide theme is going to be war, I think there is a strong chance that some combination of what we have seen with the soldier playtest for starfinder, with something like the Envoy, with much more of a Golarion feel to it seems like a strong possibility, and would really be a class new to Golarion. I am holding firm that it will be called the Seneschal but it could be the commander. Commander just doesn't feel like it has a strong enough fantasy vibes to me compared to Seneschal, which could potentially fill in something close to a royal or judicial guard.

I remember maybe a year ago talking with Sayre on one of these forums about ideas for a martial leaning book that covered things like big battles of Golarion and possibly started to lean into the great military campaigns of Casmaron. At this point, even though it feels like some Casmaron content is comming, I don't think this new thing will really be historical at all, and I am not sure the Casmaron content will be ready by the time this pathfinder-wide storyline drops.

As far as what James Case has been working on, I would be shocked if it wasn't a caster of some kind. At this point, he has taken lead on redesigning the witch, the wizard, and was the lead on the psychic as well. I look forward to seeing something entirely new from him. However,...

Congratulations!! May your hearth be merry and may you draw the golden ticket of a baby that enjoys its beauty sleep more than early morning bottles!

Yeah, the hints and leaks keep dribbling out, it may not be in the next couple of books that are released since they had to push their whole schedule back by at least half a year with the Remaster project being prioritized but I think it is going to be something sci-fantasy related timed for a release with SF2 dropping.

A return to my favorite region to investigate a conveniently strange phenomenon where at least a dozen or more creatures are transported to Golrion via a rift in time, possibly along with a HEAVILY damaged immense spaceship/starport/space-station that injects a whole bunch of "new" crazy tech, magic, and hybrid magitech from the distant future would easily be more than enough of a setup for a whole AP with a roster of baddie NPCs who take the crash as an opportunity to either "meddle with the timeline" or otherwise simply make the best of their lot and to subjigate the "primitive peoples" of the planet while the OTHER survivors of the crash, having either been flung out and away from the main cohort of bad NPCs or who were seriously hurt and took some number of weeks or months to recover (The SF PCs and most of the allied NPCs who can be "pulled upon" to replace those SF PCs who die) and rally a fight using their own knowledge, expertise, and technical abilities to stop the ne-er-do-wells from taking over the planet.

Another bit of refinement ont eh next two classes that came out of the other thread.

PossibleCabbage wrote:

Other options:

[...]
Wednesday

I'd have gone with a different hint if it was "Wednesday". I've been on the forums long enough to understand what rulings like "sometimes Y" can do to a community.

So... this is pretty much a confirm that "y" is not part of either name.

...and also...

However, we, the house of Unicorns, is expecting a gift from Lamashtu on or around September 1st, so it seems extremely likely I will be sitting the playtest itself out, or reading about it in a sleep deprived daze. I am still excited to see so many new ideas coming into the game, and am sure we'll end up with excellent content.

Well. Blessings be upon you and yours and good luck and whatnot. I'd have advice to offer, but I'm sure you've had more than enough of that inflicted on you already.

Another bit of refinement ont eh next two classes that came out of the other thread.

Michael Sayre wrote:

PossibleCabbage wrote:

Other options:

[...]
Wednesday

I'd have gone with a different hint if it was "Wednesday". I've been on the forums long enough to understand what rulings like "sometimes Y" can do to a community.

So... this is pretty much a confirm that "y" is not part of either name.

...and also...

Unicore wrote:

However, we, the house of Unicorns, is expecting a gift from Lamashtu on or around September 1st, so it seems extremely likely I will be sitting the playtest itself out, or reading about it in a sleep deprived daze. I am still excited to see so many new ideas coming into the game, and am sure we'll end up with excellent content.

Well. Blessings be upon you and yours and good luck and whatnot. I'd have advice to offer, but I'm sure you've had mroe than enough of that inflicted on you already.

I read it as ay ey oy uy iy not being part of the name. Y by itself sounds safe though.

Yes. Many and Merry blessings on the house of Unicorns.

We have a saying in France, the depth of which I experienced when being in your place : It changes your life.

It's 200% true : we had a life before, we have a life after, but it is a completely new and different life. Enjoy :-)

I was wondering about the death of the deity and the omens of war between powers. Do we know if the war is between nations on Golarion or if it is a war in the outer planes ?

I wonder how going to Tian-xia meshes with all this, as well as how it all synergizes (or not) with the book of Nature and the wild we will be getting.

What kind of stories will these books and the 2 new classes allow us to tell that we could not before ?

And why is the Tian-xia AP set in the past ? Why not make it happen in Golarion's present ? What is so different that it required this odd departure from Paizo's APs' tradition ?

And why is the Tian-xia AP set in the past ? Why not make it happen in Golarion's present ? What is so different that it required this odd departure from Paizo's APs' tradition ?

I've nothing to say about the other parts of your post, but I can answer this one!

There's a few reasons we're doing this. First, the story I wanted to tell worked better in the nation of Shenmen before the jorogumo rule was well-established. Second, I wanted to try a little bit of an experiment by setting an Adventure Path in the past... not SO far back that it would require fundamental changes to character creation though (since some ancestries, faiths, nations, classes, and more aren't equally available or even exist if you go back in time too far).

But another (and important) reason to do so is the same reason I set the entire Adventure Path in a relatively small and isolated part of Shenmen rather than having the Adventure Path go all over the place—since the Tian Xia world book and character book had to be pushed significantly back from their initial planned publication date to make room for the Remastered rules, it made sense to have this Adventure Path be set in a location and an era where the updated to modern Golarion content coming in those volumes wouldn't be as required—both for myself during development (which was taking place at the start of the year at the same time the whole OGL issue took place), and for those who want to jump in and start playing this Adventure Path when it releases in a few months while the hardcover Tian Xia books aren't yet available.

There's more—that's the compressed and quick version of why I chose to set "Season of Ghosts" over 100 years in the past. Once the Adventure Path is out and folks have had a chance to start looking through the first volume, ask me again and I'll go into further detail.

Seriously, though, I think there's some useful thinking to be done on what the next rulebook is going to be. Leave aside the question of which classes it covers for a moment.

- It's a rulebook that is intended to provide vital rules infrastructure for a godswar.
- It will somehow be building on the books that came before it, probably in multiple ways.
- It has two classes in it, and thus likely will not introduce a new major rules subsystem like "naval combat" or "settlement management". I'd expect those in a book that had no classes, or at most one.
- Those two classes are new. Whatever it is, it needs to be something that has narrative space for two entirely new classes. This is made potentially more complicated/interesting by the fact that one of these classes is Rare for unknown reasons. Whatever it is, it's going to be dealing with something kind of out there.

So... what are we looking at?

- I was thinking Planar book, but it's true that RoE may have brought enough of that to the table on its own without needing further expansion. That one could go either way.

- I've heard people suggesting it might be the Mass Battles book, but I'm guessing not on that, just because of the "major rules subsystem". I also can't really see how they'd have a rare class out of that. Doesn't really fit the material. Also... honestly, "war in the heavens" doesn't necessarily lead to significant numbers of armies marching around on the ground, given how Golarion is set up.

- I'd earlier suggested a boats/aquatic book for various reasons, but that fails the "no major new subsystems" rule and doesn't have a lot to do with Godswar.

- Having a new Divine book would make a lot of sense, but I find I can't credit it, if only because I feel like in a Divine book that prepped for Godswar, the Intercessor would be basically mandatory, and we've been told that both classes are new.

So... I don't really know. I feel like this speaks to the idea that there's something *interesting* about this one - where it's being carried out, or the trigger, or some other Really Big Thing about the nature of the godswar or something else super-important that's going on at the same time, possibly with one driving the other, and that the book is somehow going to be about that.

Though... we *have* seen a lot of churn int eh gods lately, havent' we? Like, RoE brought out some new Elemental Lords and put a spotlight on them. HotW is apparently waking up and activating more gods (or God-tier primordial spirits or something, if there's even a difference). I feel like that's got to tie in somehow, though I've got no real clue as to how that would be.

That's just what I'm seeing, though.

Fake edit: Oh! And Mythic! Because "Godswar" and "Mythic Rules" really do go together quite well, and we've been seeing some Casmaron unlocks drop... but again, that falls afoul of the "would almost certainly be a book with no base classes", except worse than normal, because the idea of "base classes for a book abotu Mythic" doesn't even really make sense.... unless Mythic starts at level 1 under the new system, I guess. I mean, "The class doesn't really make sense unless you're playing Mythic" would kind of qualify as a good reason for a Rare tag, and "Demigod" does technically qualify under the naming rules....

I mean, I still think it fails the "major subsystem plus two full classes is too much to handle" test, but....

The Raven Black wrote:

And why is the Tian-xia AP set in the past ? Why not make it happen in Golarion's present ? What is so different that it required this odd departure from Paizo's APs' tradition ?

I've nothing to say about the other parts of your post, but I can answer this one!

There's a few reasons we're doing this. First, the story I wanted to tell worked better in the nation of Shenmen before the jorogumo rule was well-established. Second, I wanted to try a little bit of an experiment by setting an Adventure Path in the past... not SO far back that it would require fundamental changes to character creation though (since some ancestries, faiths, nations, classes, and more aren't equally available or even exist if you go back in time too far).

But another (and important) reason to do so is the same reason I set the entire Adventure Path in a relatively small and isolated part of Shenmen rather than having the Adventure Path go all over the place—since the Tian Xia world book and character book had to be pushed significantly back from their initial planned publication date to make room for the Remastered rules, it made sense to have this Adventure Path be set in a location and an era where the updated to modern Golarion content coming in those volumes wouldn't be as required—both for myself during development (which was taking place at the start of the year at the same time the whole OGL issue took place), and for those who want to jump in and start playing this Adventure Path when it releases in a few months while the hardcover Tian Xia books aren't yet available.

There's more—that's the compressed and quick version of why I chose to set "Season of Ghosts" over 100 years in the past. Once the Adventure Path is out and folks have had a chance to start looking through the first volume, ask me again and I'll go into further detail.

Thanks a lot, James. I appreciate your post a lot. Thank you again for all you brought us and all that we'll get thanks to your hard work.

Seriously, though, I think there's some useful thinking to be done on what the next rulebook is going to be. Leave aside the question of which classes it covers for a moment.

- It's a rulebook that is intended to provide vital rules infrastructure for a godswar.
- It will somehow be building on the books that came before it, probably in multiple ways.
- It has two classes in it, and thus likely will *not* introduce a new major rules subsystem like "naval combat" or "settlement management". I'd expect those in a book that had no classes, or at most one.
- Those two classes *are* new. Whatever it is, it needs to be something that has narrative space for two entirely new classes. This is made potentially more complicated/interesting by the fact that one of these classes is Rare for unknown reasons. Whatever it is, it's going to be dealing with something kind of out there.

So... what are we looking at?

- I was thinking Planar book, but it's true that RoE may have brought enough of that to the table on its own without needing further expansion. That one could go either way.

- I've heard people suggesting it might be the Mass Battles book, but I'm guessing not on that, just because of the "major rules subsystem". I also can't really see how they'd have a rare class out of that. Doesn't really fit the material. Also... honestly, "war in the heavens" doesn't necessarily lead to significant numbers of armies marching around on the ground, given how Golarion is set up.

- I'd earlier suggested a boats/aquatic book for various reasons, but that fails the "no major new subsystems" rule and doesn't have a lot to do with Godswar.

- Having a new Divine book would make a lot of sense, but I find I can't credit it, if only because I feel like in a Divine book that prepped for Godswar, the Intercessor would be basically mandatory, and we've been told that both classes are new.

So... I don't really know. I feel like this speaks to the idea that there's something *interesting* about this...

Interesting take on things.

I wonder if a Rare class could be the PF2 incarnation of the Mythic rules. So that hero-gods would actually belong to this class rather than another class with additional Mythic rules. And you could simulate elevated Fighters or Monks or whatever with the class archetype.

Thank you all for the kind words!

As far as rarity goes, the Entourage feat is already rare, so any kind of leadership/heavily NPC narrative class seems likely it too would be rare, since the GM might have to do a far bit of extra work to adjust for a character that is going to be the head of a noble house’s guard, or inherently a leader within a community.

And how are we mechanically going to tell a big war story if the book doesn’t include rules for handling fighting by forces larger than a small group of PCs? I don’t think we’ll get a super fleshed out mass combat system for tons of mini-figs, but perhaps revising and solidifying the mass combat rules from a third party supplement like kingmaker isn’t going t require that much space in the rules focused book. It can just include some example stat blocks and how to make them, while the AP and corresponding lost omens book could deep dive into the various armies that would actually be involved.

Thank you all for the kind words!

As far as rarity goes, the Entourage feat is already rare, so any kind of leadership/heavily NPC narrative class seems likely it too would be rare, since the GM might have to do a far bit of extra work to adjust for a character that is going to be the head of a noble house’s guard, or inherently a leader within a community.

And how are we mechanically going to tell a big war story if the book doesn’t include rules for handling fighting by forces larger than a small group of PCs? I don’t think we’ll get a super fleshed out mass combat system for tons of mini-figs, but perhaps revising and solidifying the mass combat rules from a third party supplement like kingmaker isn’t going t require that much space in the rules focused book. It can just include some example stat blocks and how to make them, while the AP and corresponding lost omens book could deep dive into the various armies that would actually be involved.

Do we have clear confirmation that we're going to have a big war story at all, though? I mean, if we know for a fact that there's going to be serious movement of mortal armies on the mortal plane, then the arguments for "Big Book of War" start looking really compelling, but I wasn't aware of anything saying that that was necessarily going to happen... and wars between the Gods can play out in a lot of very different ways, many of which don't involve mortal armies at all.

Well, my guesses are just guesses and wild speculation as well. I don't think we know very much about how much war this godwar will really involve.

But even if it is going to take place a bunch on other planes, it could need mass combat rules to make the war part feel like more than window dressing for the story arc. And any class that interacted even partially with optional rules like mass combat would make a lot of sense to be rare.

I think I am doing too good of a job of convincing myself that Seneschal is going to the rare class and the god war AP will involve mass combat rules. Now I am hoping that I am wrong and the class will be something more like an animist and we can get more clear definition of how divine magic works that isn't reliant on gods.

I'm not super convinced that we'll be seeing lots of mass combat stuff simply because that's not really the focus of a game like Pathfinder. I'd be more expecting the heroes to go to the place, do the thing, and stop the big bad with the mass combats going on behind them as backdrop, perhaps with fighting a higher than typical number of troops.

Edit: Woot, 1,000th post!