Let Me Tell You About My Character: Remastered Edition

Thibdab of the Dragonskull Tribe, with his new riding drake mount, Tyneri.

Following the uproar over Wizards of the Coast's proposed Open Game License 1.1 in January 2023, Paizo has made a herculean (and still ongoing) effort to remove or change any content in Pathfinder Second Edition that could even potentially be claimed as Wizards' intellectual property. This isn't an edition change, but a "Remaster" of the current edition. Players are welcome to continue using any or all 2E "legacy" content in their home games, but the Pathfinder Society organized play campaign is requiring players to update to the new core rules where those rules differ from the original. Some examples of those changes include (but are not limited to):

• For any character option (such as a feat, spell, or item) that is reprinted using the same name, the Remastered version must be used going forward. Options which have not yet been reprinted may continue to be used freely. 
• When a class is released under the Remaster, no new characters of those classes can be built using the old chassis; new PCs must use the Remastered version of the class. Existing characters are not required to change to the new version, except where changes to specific character options are required to use the new text immediately.
• Alignment has been removed from the game. Instead, the concept of edicts and anathema has been expanded, divine characters are sanctified (which may be holy, unholy, or neither, depending on the god), and alignment damage has been replaced with spirit damage (which counts as holy or unholy if its source is). And instead of forbidding evil characters from PFS play, PCS cannot be clerics or champions of gods that require unholy sanctification.
• Schools of magic have been removed from the game. The school-based wizard subclasses have been replaced with actual magical schools built around various themes. Options that depended heavily on the old schools of magic (like the Rune-Lord archetype and school-themed staves) are no longer available for play.

To make the transition less onerous for players, all characters who received XP before November 2023  receive a free, complete rebuild. Players have until the end of December 2024 to use these rebuilds. The dates were chosen because Player Core (containing 8 of the 16 core classes) was released at GenCon 2023 and Player Core 2 (containing the remaining core classes) at GenCon 2024, and players would need some time to update their characters, if they wished to do so.

(NOTE: All of the above is, obviously, a gross oversimplification, because this column is meant to focus on my own characters, not attempt to explain the Remaster as a whole. Full details on how the Pathfinder Remaster affects PFS can be found here.)

I currently have nine active characters in PFS 2E, but I had to wait for Player Core 2 to be released before I could Remaster most of them. Six belonged to classes that appeared in that book, three had ancestries or versatile heritages that appear there, and three had non-multiclass archetypes. (There was also a great deal of overlap between those categories--like my catfolk monk/pirate.) In the end, I chose to rebuild only two before Player Core 2 dropped, because in one case, I decided to ditch their archetype, and the other one belongs to a non-core class that will not be reprinted before the deadline.

Thibdab (goblin champion 10) is a redeemer champion of Sarenrae, and his character choices have largely focused on his animal companion mount and becoming an extremely efficient healer. His last adventure brought him to 10th level, when he could take the Imposing Destrier feat to finally increase his wolf companion's size to Large. (He could--and did--ride it at Medium size, but the Bulk of a goblin in heavy armor encumbered his mount.) However, in the same adventure, he unlocked access to a riding drake companion. As a goblin of the Dragonskull Tribe, he couldn't resist make the switch! The Remaster changed the champion's access to an animal companion to be through a feat (Faithful Steed) rather than a class feature, so I made that change to his feats. 

As a healer, Thibdab has the lay on hands focus spell, Medicine skill at master rank, and nearly every Medicine skill feat available at his level. I changed his background from laborer to combat medic to give him one of those skill feats for free. I didn't know about the Medic archetype for most of his early career, but as part of his rebuild, I decided to give him the dedication feat for the small boost to healing. (Treat Condition and Holistic Care are skill feats, so are likely choices for the future. Doctor's Visitation seems powerful, but not really compatible with mounted combat.)

Thibdab's new mount's mini (shown at the top of this page) is the red Dragon Costume mini with the head replaced with a plain black head. Riding drakes are wingless, so I've replaced that part with the clear part used to add attachment points to the back of a minifigure. I have also changed Thibdab's legs to the short hinged type so that he could be posed while riding.

Millicent Velarno (human sorcerer 9) has the hag bloodline, so I would have liked to make her a changeling from the start, but that ancestry boon would have cost me nearly every Achievement Point I had accumulated by then. (She was my second PFS 2E character, built long before everyone was given 80 bonus AcP, and I wanted to keep a reserve in case of a character death or other dire fate.) The rebuilds in the boon store don't allow a change of ancestry or heritage, so I couldn't change that later on, either. But the Remaster rebuild is much more generous, so she's now a changeling (which have since become free), though still human. I kept her Linguist archetype, and made only minor tweaks to her spell list (mostly to clean up the assignment of her signature spells). Visually, the only change is that one of her eyes is now a different color from the other. I have not given her any ancestry feats granting claw attacks, because she has always actively avoided entering melee.

Xathel (elf investigator 7) started as a Thassilonian Delver (one of the Legacy Backgrounds I have access to from having played PFS 1E), and his adventures have included an Azlanti site and multiple visits to ancient dwarf ruins. So it was natural that I gave him the Archaeologist Dedication feat when I rebuilt him. He was originally an ancient elf, which gave him a free multiclass dedication at 1st level; I had taken rogue, for the extra skills. But Archaeologist took up the slack in skills, so I changed him to a whisper elf to make him even better at finding things. Beyond that, I made very few changes. 

I updated Xathel last of my nine PCs, partly because of adding the archetype, and partly because investigators gain skill increases and skill feats at an increased rate, so there were more choices (and math) to double-check.

Grazga (half-orc summoner 3) belongs to a class that will not be Remastered, or at least not anytime soon. That mostly just left her ancestry and heritage to update, since half-orcs are now called "dromaar" and are no longer restricted to being a human heritage. I kept her ancestry as-is, though, because as a Sarkorian god-caller, I felt that she needed to be at least partly human to have a blood-tie to her culture.

Samara Sawleaf (leshy fighter 5) originally had the Mauler archetype, but once she reached 5th level, fighter weapon mastery made the dedication feat pretty much redundant for her chosen weapon group (polearms). After careful comparison of  fighter and mauler feats, I felt that the archetype didn't add enough to justify keeping it. Because of that decision, I was able to rebuild her before acquiring Player Core 2 (where the mauler was reprinted with no changes that I could find).

Samara's new mini uses the Halfling Druid's leaf-like cloak (from the new D&D Minifigures series), which is almost a perfect match for how I drew her cloak in her character portrait. 

Professor Felicity Featherwit (halfling rogue 6) is another character that I could have easily remastered before Player Core 2, but I was waiting to see if her versatile heritage (ganzi) would make the cut first. It did not, and I did not expect her Juggler archetype to appear there either, since it appeared in an Adventure Path. I was very happy with the way I had built her, so I think the biggest change to her is the fact that Remastered rogues are proficient with all martial weapons. That will not have any effect on her weapon choices, though, as she very much prefers finesse weapons (with which she uses Dexterity to calculate damage, being a thief).

Coracle Jibbs (catfolk monk 3) had to wait for Player Core 2 for his ancestry, class, and archetype (Pirate). But other than a couple tweaks to his Lore skills (Pirate now gives a new Lore rather than advancing Sailing Lore, and Catfolk Lore gives Additional Lore), he did not really change.

Veellox (kobold oracle 2) was originally built as a dragonscale kobold who took the Dragon Disciple Dedication feat at 2nd level. That archetype was not reprinted, but the brand-new dragonblood versatile heritage does very much the same thing, just with ancestry feats rather than class feats. So he now has that heritage instead, and will have to wait until 3rd level to get a breath weapon through Ancestral Paragon. He doesn't have any abilities requiring him to choose a draconic exemplar yet, but I've already decided it will be a fortune dragon.

He was also originally a snare crafter, because of a boon from a Adventure Path chronicle that gave access to new snares. But he had yet to deploy any snares in game, because they take time and materials to set up, so don't seem terribly practical for PFS play. I decided to drop that idea, and change his background from Sewer Dragon to Merchant, to play up the "knowledgeable about wealth and trying to acquire more" aspect of being obsessed with dragons, and his chosen exemplar in particular.

The way oracular curses work changed substantially in the Remaster--the benefits of beign cursebound were removed, and in some cases, the drawbacks were simplified. I've seen a number of complaints about these changes online, but Veellox is only 2nd level, so has rarely ever triggered his curse, so I'm not terribly attached to how it works. The original Ancestors curse was one of the most complicated to track, so the new curse is at least simpler to implement (and it has been triggered in both sessions I've played him since Remastering him). If I do decide that I still want to play with the concept of random ancestor spirits giving bonuses in return for obedience to their demands, that has been redone as the Meddling Futures feat. 

Up until now, I've used a reptilian humanoid D&D mini to represent Veellox, largely due to a limited supply of suitable LEGO heads. But with the new D&D Minifigures series, I now have a dragonkin head to spare, and gold is one of the two colors in his scales (the other being green).

Aikhaheni (kitsune barbarian 2) is a duskwalker barbarian with the spirit instinct. His bonus damage while raging is now spirit damage rather than positive or negative, which fits nicely with his devotion to Pharasma. Apart from that he did not change at all, even in his minor gear. His ancestry did not appear in Player Core or Player Core 2, so will continue to follow the rules in the Ancestry Guide. 

LEGO Minifigures: Dungeons & Dragons

(See Tim's LEGO Reviews for my reviews of past LEGO Minifigures series.)

Ironically, Hasbro licensing the LEGO Group to produce "official" D&D-branded minifigures and sets coincided with my family and many of our gaming friends losing interest in D&D following the Open Game License 1.1 fiasco in January 2023. So I initially had very mixed feelings about the announcement of a D&D Minifigures series. However, the characters and parts chosen for this series, and a huge dose of nostalgia, persuaded me to collect a full set. 

This set of 12 includes a mix of four named characters from D&D lore (like Strahd and Tasha), one classic D&D monster (mind flayer), and seven characters defined by their race and class.  Most of these unnamed adventurers come with two double-faced heads--one male and one female (or at least presenting that way)--and each hero has been given a different skin tone as well. With WotC and other game publishers increasing their efforts to be more inclusive and representative, this is a very welcome addition to the Minifigures theme. (The LEGO Group has been making similar changes in other themes as well, most notably the Friends theme, which has always provided a wide variety of skin tones, and has recently introduced some characters--and even pets--with disabilities.) Very few of these characters disappoint on their level of detail, often incorporating two-color molding, printing on the sides of arms and legs, and distinctive accessories.

Aarakocra Ranger: Aarakocra* are avian humanoids who excel at aerial combat. Many are rangers, though somewhat surprisingly, this one has chosen a landbound companion, a small gray dog. This hero has the same digitigrade legs used for the Faun (Series 15) and Harpy (Series 25), in a new color and print. The head and wings are new molds; the wings are a single, fixed-position piece, but have a more natural curve than past options. I am not certain if the bow is a new mold (I think it is to my collection), but the tan color certainly is. 

* Aarokocra first appeared in the AD&D 1E Fiend Folio. For their 5E stats, see the Elemental Evil Player's Companion.

Dragonborn Paladin: The dragon head profile on this paladin's shield shows allegiance to Bahamut, the god of good dragons. They wear full plate (minus helm) with huge pauldrons. The torso is printed front and back underneath the cuirass, as well as on the sides of the arms and legs. The paladin's weapon is a mace with a large, translucent crystal head and a gold tassel on the shaft. The head is also a nice sculpt and print job, which has appeared in other themes (and, I believe, in the huge initial D&D set), but is in gold here for the first time.

Dwarf Barbarian: This is one of the five character with two double-sided heads; this one is brown, with an orange beard printed on the male head. (The heads alone are welcome additions to any collection, just for more diversity in available dark-skinned heads.) The dwarf wields a torch and a battleaxe that (AFAIK) is a new mold. A tan fur collar covers the shoulders of a torso printed front and back, and on the arms. The axe pendant (front) and hunting horn (back) are nice details.

The legs are the mid-length, jointed legs that debuted in Harry Potter sets a few years back. These, however, lack any printing at all, which has both pros and cons. They're kind of dull compared to the other legs in this series, but this leg length is still fairly uncommon, so having a unprinted set to use for other characters may be useful to some builders.

Elf Bard: This character's skin is a pale caramel, basically a shade yellower than the peachy-pink default for licensed "white" characters. (It's close enough that the elf-ears hairpiece could be used with either and not look bad.) Naturally, both heads come with a "singing" side. The costume consists of a raspberry scarf (and hands), a teal vest with white arms, and two-tone brown (dual injection) legs. Fittingly for a bard, the most detailed piece is their lute. 

Gith Warlock: The githzerai* and githyanki* are closely related races that dwell in Limbo and the Astral Plane, respectively. Long relegated to adversarial roles only, they became a playable race in 5E and are currently more popular than ever thanks to the latest Balder's Gate game. This one has the facial markings typical of both races (more pronounced on the "male" head), and the classic LEGO yellow is a decent match for gith skin tones. The hairpiece is black dreads or braids gathered into a topknot, and would work well with elves and similar races, too. For the warlock, the body is printed with an amulet, potion bottles, and pouches, and subtle black spirals on the dark blue base. The legs are dual-injected to give brown boots, which match the hands/gloves and spiky shoulder pads. The gith wields a unique dagger (that seems to evoke the gthyanki's distinctive swords in miniature) and a staff topped by a large eyeball.

* Githzerai and githyanki first appeared in the AD&D 1E Fiend Folio. For their 5E stats, see Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes.

Halfling Druid: The druid's two heads are caramel-colored, and the male head sports the muttonchops common to many 5E halflings. The torso is printed front and back, but the legs (being short) are dual-injected but unprinted. The cape is dagged to resemble a leaf, and is reversible, with brown and green sides. The latter side matches the hood, which is a very nice piece, dual-injected with hard rubber tan antlers. The remaining accessories are a staff topped with a flower and leaves, and a small, dark tan sparrow.

The Lady of Pain: The mysterious Lady of Pain rules the many-portaled city of Sigil in the Planescape setting. Her robes are orange with printing on front and back, and she wears an orange cloth cape that is split into four streamers below the shoulders. She wears her distinct many-bladed helmet over a plain black minifigure head. She carries a cubic gate made from a 1x1 plate and a printed 1x1 tile, and levitates on a clear 2x2 cylinder brick. This minifig of my two least favorites in this series, mostly because I have never delved much into Planescape lore, and the parts could be challenging to use in another context. 

Mind Flayer: The mind flayer, or illithid, is one of the most classic of D&D monsters (and is, in fact, one of the ten monsters from the 3E Monster Manual that were never released as Open Game Content, as I discussed here). The pale purple, squid-like head is very nicely sculpted, and is set off well by the relatively simple body (black robes with printed shoulder plates on the torso and arms). It comes with an intellect devourer, a monster created by the illithids (and featured in the Honor Among Thieves movie). The 'devourer is designed to fit over the head of its minifigure victim, which is a lovely macabre touch.

Szass Tam: This lich is one of the rulers of the magocratic nation of Thay (which is not one of the regions of the Forgotten Realms setting that I know much about). His red robe is printed on front and back, and he wears a two-piece dark red cape. His head and hands are bone-colored , and the facial print includes some small details that elevate it above most LEGO skeletons. He makes a very distinctive lich enemy for any campaign, but I was underwhelmed by his accessories, which consist of a transparent orange flame projectile and a transparent red skull. The skull's classic LEGO skeleton face is printed in plain black, so is hard to see on the head.  

Strahd von Zarovich: Strahd is the most famous vampire in all of D&D, having been the signature villain of the Ravenloft setting ever since the debut of the module of the same name in AD&D 1E. His torso and legs are elaborately printed, including on the arms, and the legs are dual-injected to give him dark brown boots. His head has two faces: one with a smug smirk (well known to anyone whose character has met him) and one with fangs bared for killing. He holds a clear crystal goblet (for holding blood, of course) and a longsword (one of the longer knight's sword models). He comes with a large, red-eyed black rat.

Tasha the Witch Queen: Tasha (also known as Iggwilv) is the one witch who could ever rival her mother, Baba Yaga. This minifigure is clearly based on her portrait on the cover of Tasha's Cauldron of Everything--even to the windblown red hair. Her legs are dual-injected, and arms are printed with buckled straps like the ones on her torso. She comes with a cauldron with a transparent purple flame, and an arcane-looking book with a printed cover and a printed 1x2 tile for the page inside. 

Tiefling Sorcerer: The final adventurer provided with two heads, the tiefling has orange skin, which matches their tail. Black hair is tied into a bun behind brown horns. The torso is printed on front, back, and arms, and the legs are dual-injected to provide black boots. The sorcerer's accessories are an energy effect in transparent pink, almost certainly meant to be magic missile, and a small red dragon  The dragon would be perfect for small draconic familiars, such as a pseudodragon (though those have tail stingers, and this one does not), or for a wyrmling red dragon (though in 5E, those would be Medium-sized). 

The tiefling sorcerer is probably my favorite character for this series, for several reasons: 1. I'm fond of tieflings in general, so more variety is better; 2. The hairpiece lacks ears so can be used with just about any other LEGO head; 3. The magic missiles are simple but dramatic, and 4. The dragon is, simply, the best dragon LEGO has ever produced at this scale. My next favorites are the mind flayer and the dragonborn paladin, then probably the halfling druid (whose hood and cloak I already plan to steal for building existing player characters of my own).