New Pathfinder Remastered Core Preview Out Now

Paizo has released a new, fuller preview of their Remastered Core for their Pathfinder tabletop role-playing game. These are bigger changes than we’ve seen revealed so far, and Paizo says they’re an effort to streamline the game as well as further cut ties with the Open Gaming License (OGL). The preview will also help provide context for the upcoming supplement titled Rage Of Elements, which will be the first to be based on the Remastered rules, and might be published before the Remastered rulebooks are.

Let’s go over the bigger changes.

Ability Scores Are Gone

The core Ability scores, such as Intelligence, Strength, etc., are gone. Instead, rather than having a score that you convert to a +/- modifier, you’ll only deal with the modifier itself (perhaps similar to the way this works in games like True20). Further, to make the term more specific, they’ll now be called Attribute Modifiers (not Ability Modifiers).

Attribute Modifiers can have Boosts or Flaws applied, which increase or decrease them according to specific rules.

Alignments Are Gone

Classic “moral” alignments are gone now, replaced by Edicts and Anathema, as has been previously announced. These are specific statements of a character’s values, and they’re optional.

The more esoteric/divine qualities of “good” and “evil” are now replaced with Holy and Unholy. To become Holy or Unholy, a character must be Sanctified by deities or other effects.

Changes To Spells

Spell Level Is Now Spell Rank

To reduce confusion, presumably with character levels, spells are now classed at Ranks (not Levels).

Schools Mean Something Different

All the old spell Schools (Abjuration, Conjuration, etc) are gone. Illusion still exists, but is now a spell Trait, which works a little differently than a School.

The term School remains in the game but now refers to the actual type of learning institution a Wizard attended. Schools have spell curriculum, and this defines what spells you can take and slots you can fill.

Other Changes

The document goes into some detail of many specific spell revisions, and changes to Genie and Mephit (now called Scamps) creatures.