The 2nd edition of the Pathfinder RPG has been out for nearly 2 years now and we’ve been spending that time debating on whether to update Riadus. Short answer is: yes we have. The much longer answer is the purpose of this update.
2E isn’t just an update to the rules, but a complete re-imagining of them. While still basically a d20 system, where you roll your d20 and add a modifier and hope the total equals or exceeds a target difficulty class, those modifiers, their sources, and how that DC is calculated has drastically changed. Even more, the rules for races (now ancestries) and classes is extremely different.
Change is hard, and often frightening, but just as often a good thing. The new rules have streamlined the game in a way that couldn’t be accomplished with a simple update, clarification or FAQ. Ancestries now grow with additional feats as you level, classes now have their secondary features as feats which you select as you level, and most classes has a sub-class or built in archetype choice which determines some of your class features. The options traits system from 1st edition has been replaced with a much more robust Background which grants characters some skills and an associated feat. As you level you can select both Skill feats and General feats in addition to your Ancestry and Class feats to further define and specialize your character.
And then there are the Archetype feats which can allow your character to further specialize in a particular aspect of the game, diversify their skills and abilities into those of another class, or even alter some of the standard features of their selected class in similar way that archetypes worked in 1st edition.
Feat selection is essentially what drives character build and development in 2nd edition.
Unfortunately, that huge amount of feats has been a significant deterrent and challenge in updating Riadus to Pathfinder 2nd Edition. Every one of our custom races (soon to be ancestries) such as half-goblin and wulfen need to be defined not by a few ability score adjustment and features you get once at 1st level, but by a selection of heritages which describe variations of the base ancestry and also a dozen or more ancestry feats which allow each ancestry to develop further as the character levels up. Even standard core rulebook ancestries need some attention, as heritages such as tribal humans, tribal and civilized goblins, and effectively all varieties of elf need to be available.
Archetypes should also be brought into the update to represent various factions and organizations. Certain bloodlines for sorcerers should exist based on the ancient history of the world and where magic comes from. A “road druid” is absolutely necessary. And of course each and every deity would need to have defined edicts and anathema and likely a new selection of domains (not to mention some new domains may need to be created to fill some gaps).
This is going to be a long but worthwhile journey and we hope all our players enjoy the results.
Thank you.
