What are the BEST RULEBOOKS for Pathfinder 2e!? - Tier List

howdy my name is nonat and uh you know what no this isn't gonna cut it [Music] oh nothing makes you feel more fresh than some fresh digs and into the am's apparel is bringing it hard they are comfortable they are stylish and they are affordable I mean look at these photos y'all I'm not even photogenic and I look damn good in this clothing if you want to get some into the am apparel of your own which again I can't recommend enough y'all you can get three of their basic teas for just 49.95 but tack off ten percent of that with my code n-o-n-a-t known at checkout and couple that with their Black Friday deal of 30 off site wide that is three basic tees that are comfortable and form-fitting and look amazing all for an incredibly reasonable price do yourself a favor click the link in the description and check out into the am for their Black Friday sale thank you into the am for sponsoring this video for making me look so damn good howdy my name is nonat and Pathfinder 2E has a lot more books than I thought the game's only been around for like two maybe three years now I think a little bit more than three years and how many books are there 23 books not counting Adventure pads now some people may see this as system bloat but what pf2 has done so well is that about two-thirds of these books are lore books they have a little bit of mechanics in them but more often than not they're there to explain the world to you the player while giving you some new stuff to try out in your campaign but which books are actually worth buying and which ones bite the big one I like alliteration so I went with it welcome to the Pathfinder 2 e rulebook tier list where we're going to go through every single major release in the main rulebook line and the lost Omens line put them anywhere from a tier to F tier depending on a how worth it the book is B how required the book feels and three did I go ab3 and 3 and this is the most important one so pay attention how much I like it now I'm not going to go into huge detail with each book in fact I'm only going to give one or two sentences about each to keep this video nice short and concise and help you determine which books you want to buy whether you're just getting into Pathfinder 2E or you're just looking for your next purchase I'm rating all of these books in chronological order according to their release date so we're starting where the entire system began with the core rule book and you know I'm given the core rule book seat here no I'm not kidding look the content in the core rule book is great but the book is a mess honestly the only thing keeping this up at Sea tier is the requirement you know you can't really play the game without the core rule book but it's not a good book you know you've got like races then backgrounds and classes that's fine but some class features are found way later in the book and for spells that's forgivable but things like alchemical items are not found under crafting but rather they're found under treasure and navigating the book especially for a first time player is a nightmare hell a lot of people see the 600 page monstrosity assume it's all important and say no thanks I'll stick to my 200 Page DND I can't blame them the layout is the biggest thing holding the core rule book back the content inside is great most of the Feats and classes in there are still my favorites but I can't stress how bad this book is so let's go up a few tiers with the bestie area it's all the classic monsters they've all been revamped updated to the new system some of them have been balanced some of them are a little bit weaker some of them are a little bit more threatening overall what you see is what you get it's a great bestiary full of 300 plus pages of excellent monsters to inspire any number of encounters a tear the First lost Omens book in this list lost Omens World guide it is a very entry-level Guide to the world of the Inner Sea region what you see is what you get but because how much you need these books is part of the rating system I can't put it any higher than C tier there's a couple like organization related archetypes in there but overall you can kind of skip this one lost omen's character guide is definitely a step up from the world guide it gave us a bunch of new playable ancestries it gave us a lot more lore on the cultures of the world for your character after a lot of new different types of ancestrys that we already had in the core rule book this one gets a solid a tier especially because come on it gave us lizard folk and leshies it gave us leshies gods and Magic another lost Omen supplement that gives you information on deities some expansion on existing core deities a bunch of new deities and a super kind of Mega list of deities that exist and the bare minimum information on them in case you want to worship something like raw it also came with a bunch of new spells but I'll be honest this is the one rule book I have never gone back to sure sometimes a spell will pop up and I'll have to look it up but I just use Archives of nephes and when it says it comes from gods and magic I just go oh that's why I've never heard of it unfortunately gods and Magic just doesn't do anything that special for me so unfortunately I have to give it D another core rule book release the game mastery guide which sounds like it should be super required for a game master right it'll include all the basic rules on how to run a campaign well not exactly most of those rules are actually in the core rule book which again is sort of a player guide and dungeon Masters Guide all in one the game mastery guide rather feels like a book of tips and tricks for a game master it's got a lot of different variant rules it did give us the free archetype variant along with a bunch of others that most people don't use the thing holding the game mastery guide back is just how Niche some of its content is almost everything in that book tends to be optional which of course you can argue it's a ttrpg everything is optional but when the book itself portrays the content as not core it makes people immediately start to write it off it could have saved itself with a really solid NPC Gallery at the end which it has but it feels very limited the NPC levels are very restrictive and there's just not enough variety game mastery guide even though I sounded negative gets a b tier it's still worth picking up those variant rules are awesome and if you haven't checked them out I highly recommend it you might see something that'll change your game in a way you've been looking for bestiary 2 another in the main line rulebook releases it's bestiary one but more the monsters are a little bit more Niche a little bit more creative I'd be doing it a disservice to not also give it an a tier it's just more monsters and while we're at it I'm gonna just slide bestiary 3 in here it's also getting an a tier all three of these bestiaries are 300 plus pages of quality monsters if you want the classics get bestiary one if you want a little bit on the weird side get bestiary 2 if you want to just go full on wild Clockwork dragons get bestiary 3. the Advanced flares guide this came out about a year and a Pathfinder 2e's lifespan paizo listened to what the fans said about the core rulebook and the awkward layout and design and they kept it just to player options they gave us four new classes a bunch of new spells a bunch of Feats for all the core classes so much more of the content we love in a much more digestible manner the advanced player's guide to this day is my favorite Pathfinder 2E book even though it gave us that's odd I don't hate that feed as much as I used to but I still like to keep the meme alive s tier Advanced players guide well done Piezo I would call this book require maybe not for your first campaign or at least your first few months playing the game but if you've got the core rulebook you've played a little bit you want more APG is the next big pickup lost Omens Legends is fine if you want to know more about the prominent NPCs in the world you're gonna love this book but that's about all you're getting it's a book full of important NPCs what they did if they're still alive what they're doing and it's got some great artwork of those NPCs you can use in your campaign but if you're not looking for big name NPCs to add to your campaign you can skip this one lost woman's Legends gets a c tier the Pathfinder Society guide if we're talking about Niche books that are only for a specific subset of tables this is about as niche as you get it's cool it gives you lore on the actual in-world Pathfinder society which is super interesting but most of the book only gives you rules for how to play or run Pathfinder Society sanctioned games how to progress in Pathfinder society which if you're not aware is the organized play run by paizo themselves as well as some freelance uh GMS it does give you a really cool way to play the game that you at home can actually use for a solid advancement kind of skeleton but overall most people are not gonna need this book it is not a bad book by any means but it does get a d tier simply because it's so Niche the Pathfinder 2E beginners box it may not be a standalone book but I would be doing everybody a disservice to not add this release to the list if you buy the Pathfinder beginners box you have enough content to play for months sure you can only get to level three but if you play a slow paced campaign just with the rules they give you the mini players guide and the mini GM's guide as well as the starting Adventure it comes with it comes with so much more it comes with a mini bestiary tokens for all the monsters a bunch of the monsters in that box are not used in the starting Adventure if you're playing low level campaigns and you're the kind of group who levels up very slowly you can squeeze months out of this one purchase and on top of that it's just an amazing introduction the adventure that is brought in by the box is so good for teaching new players the basics of tabletop role-playing games Pathfinder 2 e beginners box gets an S tier it is up there with the APG as one of my favorite releases for the entire system the Lost Omens ancestry guide such an easy a tier it gave us a plethora of new playable ancestries it gave us new content for the ancestries added in the advanced players guide this is what a book should do give us something new expand on something old that is what we're looking for paizo a tier lost Omens mawangi expanse this is the first of a set of location-specific books now the fact that all of the lore in that book is specific to that one location instantly makes it more Niche if your campaign is not taking place in that location or even in the world of galerian it's not nearly as useful you can still steal inspiration from every page it is dripping with flavor and the artwork alone is enough to inspire entire stories but the book itself is just a little bit Niche not as niche as the old lost Omens books however because because they've started sneaking in a little bit more mechanical crunch some new ancestries some new archetypes just a little bit more than they had before Malanga expanse gave us glaloma and the anati as well as a few others I believe so it gets a beat here for a lost omen's very specific Niche book that's a high rating I want to stress like I'm just following my own criteria for the rating here if you're making a mawangi expanse campaign this is easy s tier but universally speaking the niche lore does keep it at B tier secrets of magic what's there to say two awesome new classes 60 pages of new spells and yes it might surprise people to hear but I don't actually hate the Summoner people think I despise the Summoner but I don't they're really really cool s tier secrets of magic oh I just love the Magus so much the Summoner is awesome there's so many there's 60 pages of spell guns and gears everything secrets of magic did for spellcasters guns and gears did for martial classes two more classes both Marshalls new weapons new archetypes all the Adventure in the Gunslinger are super cool the Gunslinger is the only other class to ever come in that can match the fighters accuracy sure it's a little more specified but they also get more Feats to back up the specific weapon type and it's so cool sure some of these new archetypes are a little specific but there's 16 of them six teen new archetypes from guns and gears all these books are both bangers s tier s tier lost Omens the Grand Bazaar is right up there with mawangi expanse a lot of mechanical crunch you can use at your table and sure at first glance it might seem like it'll be stuck in B tier because of the location specific Niche but Grand Bazaar presents itself in a way that makes this one of the single most useful books for any game master because the Grand Bazaar is listed as separate shops meaning you can take any of these shops and just out of the Grand Bazaar put it in your city doesn't matter where you are none of these shops have to canonically be in the Grand Bazaar they've added restaurants they've added Pet Shops they've added so many things that you no longer have to come up with on the spot instead you can just look through the Grand Bazaar and go that one there a tier Grand Bazaar my favorite lost Omens line book Monsters of myth this is very similar to Legends except instead of notable NPCs it's notable monsters big scary ones world ending threats even some more low-level mythical ideas that might only be level seven or eight but are strong enough to create rumors and myths around small settlements if you want some inspiration to create your own monsters or just use these as campaign Final Bosses this is a good book for you but I am gonna have to put it in the same place I put Legends which is CT lost Omens Absalom what can I say Piezo brings it with these location specific books you would think one city a book about one city would be so Niche you could never use it or it wouldn't be enough oh then you haven't seen lost Omens Absalom in this one book about one city they give you enough content that you could run literally dozens of campaigns in this one spot sure it's the biggest city in the region but it's still one city and the book is huge this is almost 300 pages of lore just about Absalom and everything in that city is interesting the lowest level threats to the highest level world ending secrets that lurk beneath its streets and also the Beetle and Grim's Gold Edition is one of the most beautiful things I've ever seen it's my prized possession Book of the Dead this is a business is it this is probably my least favorite in the main line of rulebook releases it falls into the issue of being a bit too Niche even for a rule book lots of people love the ability to play as Undead characters but it just ended up feeling too clunky for me since most of these Undead characters need to sacrifice class Feats because things like vampirism being a lich or a mummy were all made as archetypes instead of ancestries I think it was to save space because skeleton was made as An ancestry just fine and I think skeletons were done great it's just unfortunate the rest of these didn't get the same treatment and some of them leave a really sour taste in the player's mouth like vampire and Lich for balance reasons are made incredibly weak compared to their actual canonical power and it's kind of unfortunate Book of the Dead still gets a beat here because it's still Piezo quality writing and all the mechanics are very useful there's a whole mini bestie area at the back it's fantastic it's still worth buying I'm just not a fan of what they released with this book The Knights of last wall I will be the first to admit that I am probably doing this book a disservice but I just did not enjoy it all of the mechanics they released in this book feel so situational with no reward to compensate that situational aspect which is sad because this was a lost omen's lore book that felt like it was being published as a mechanics book and I thought that was awesome they're going with more mechanics with this lore book to sort of tell the story through character options unfortunately most of those character options were useless unless you were specifically fighting Undead and even then they were just on par with existing Universal options there's always the defense of well the Knights of last wall are an anti-un-dead Brigade and I understand that but then they should be better at fighting the undead not equal to someone with a universal ability Knights of last wall unfortunately gets a d tier from me the dark archive this is another Banger of a Mainline rule book however it does fall a bit short when compared to its older brother and sister of guns and gears and secrets of magic dark archives two new classes are awesome I love the thamaturg the psychic is really really cool my main issue with this book comes from the layout they did something risky and creative rather than having it just be you know ancestrys then classes then this then this instead the entire book is laid out in lore focused chapters like Cryptids and Cults and doppelgangers and stuff like that and unfortunately the new mechanics introduced by the book are in the chapters about that mechanic meaning if you want to find the mirror duplicate versatile Heritage you need to figure out which chapter that's in and it's easy enough you know you say oh it's in the mirrors chapter so you flip to the mirrors chapter and then you find it within the mirrors chapter but it's just a kind of a clunky layout you know I'm the kind of person who prefers all my classes in one place all my Feats in one place all my spells in one place and especially when the Spells are spread out among all the different chapters and there's no just spells section it doesn't feel great there is a spell list but it just gives a one sentence description and then you gotta flip back through the book to the right page number to see the actual spell itself dark archive is great the content inside is absolutely worth it but the layout dips it just back down to an a tier book and finally the most recent release is The Impossible lands The Impossible lands has some really cool lore over one of the most mysterious sections of the Inner Sea region The Impossible lands you get to learn about the mutations of the ran aways the wild west Alcon star and the mechanics are cool too you know there's a new Gunslinger subclass there's some new archetypes and equipment but let me tell you why the impossible lands gets an st everyone is so damn hot and there you have it my tier list for every single book released for Pathfinder second edition I want to hear from you what books do you like do you disagree with anything I'm sure I'm gonna get some some Knights of last wall defenders in the comment defending the last wall which is fitting uh does that make me tarbathon cool but yeah I love hearing from y'all thank you so much to my YouTube members and patrons for supporting the channel if you would also like to support the channel there's a join button right below this video where you can join for as little as 99 cents per month it's very very helpful if you haven't already click the link in the description to check out my second Channel Nona where we are doing a playthrough of King maker and tainted Grail Conquest I'm sure one of those games is going to pique your interest I would really appreciate you going over there checking it out and maybe subscribing if you're interested we're uploading five new videos a week every day on that channel not five videos a day but five videos Monday through Friday I could have explained that better but I'm tired I hope you all have a wonderful rest of your day and until next time known at once

Channel: Nonat1s

Views: 33,427

Keywords: Pathfinder, Pathfinder 2e, Pathfinder Second Edition, Advanced Player's Guide, Pathfinder 2e APG, Nonat1s, Pathfinder 2e Nonat1s, Pathfinder 2e Level 1, Pathfinder 2e new features, Pathfinder 2e New Ancestries, Pathfinder 2e Gamemastery Guide, Pathfinder 2e Rulebooks, Pathfinder Rulebooks, Pathfinder 2e Rulebook Tier List, Pathfinder Impossible Lands, Pathfinder Dark Archive, Pathfinder Roleplaying Game, Pathfinder 2e Treasure Vault, Pathfinder 2e New Books

Id: iQHX_zvLk7s

Length: 21min 51sec (1311 seconds)

Published: Fri Nov 18 2022