Making sense of rulebooks

Pathfinder 2e came out years ago with the Core Rulebook. This book contained all the player facing and GM facing rules and guidelines.

Last year, they "Remastered" the game. It was partly because of the whole OGL fiasco. There's some contention on this topic, but I'm going to tell you it's like a Pathfinder 2.5e. There were changes to rules, some lore, lots of names, classes got big balancing changes (some more than others), whole damage types were removed, added, or tweaked, yadda yadda.

So, with the Remaster, they broke up what was the Core Rulebook into two books very similar to how WotC does so, that is the Player Core book and the GM Core book.

Player Core is what you need, bare minimum, to play Pathfinder 2.5e. GM Core is incredibly useful though, including magic items which are essentially required for this system. Note, importantly, that neither have had second print runs yet and their first prints are chock full of errors. Some huge ones, too, such as how the entire death and dying rules function. Make sure you read up on errata on their official website.

You can buy Player Core on its own, you don't need to get it from a bundle.

Player Core 2 is an expansion for Pathfinder 2.5e.

Pocket Edition books have all the same content as their namesake, but are smaller and paperback.

Note that all of Pathfinders rules, and anything else game mechanics wise, are available completely for free online from a few websites. Archives of Nethys is a favourite among the community.

Yea you got it pretty much right.

Player Core is the newest edition remastered book for the basic rules of playing the game.

Player Core Pocket Edition is the same, but much smaller and paperback. It's handy as a reference, but honestly the print is too small to read comfortably.

Player Core 2 is basically an expansion, in the same way that Monster Core 2 is an expansion on Monster Core. Notably it features new ancestries, heritages, backgrounds, classes, spells and items.

The Core Rulebook came out before the remaster. The rules are basically the same, but some things are simpler post-remaster and there's a few different options they added/removed between the Core Rulebook and Player Core. It's all 2nd edition, but this would be considered "legacy" content.

You want to peruse https://2e.aonprd.com/

(Which is the "officially blessed fan-made SRD for pathfinder 2e")

Specifically, the "rulebooks" section. Which has every p2e rulebook listed, along with a sortable release date and click-througb links to pazio's online listing.

To run p2e remastered with dead-tree books, you'll want the following four books.

• Player Core
• Player Core 2
• GM Core
• Monster Core

I picked up the "rulebook subscription" back when the remaster launched, which gave both a physical and PDF version at the MSRP.. most of the time, though, i run via nethys.

Pazio does print small-font "pocket" versions, and higher-priced."collector's" editions, but the text inside is all largely the same (subject to erratta, and I'd guess possible layout changes.)

It's also worth noting that "2nd edition remastered" was done to ditch Hasbro's OGL and move to Pazio's own copyleft license. The rules are about 95% identical, to the point where mixing characters or NPCs from either side needs only adjustments from the removal of alignment.

One of my players runs a pre-remaster popper inventor, and meshes fine with everyone else.

If you’re planning on GMing, you’ll definitely want the GM Core, which is the remastered content. When Paizo did the remaster, they split the CRB into GM Core and Player Core, though they reorganised some of the classes. So Player Core is a blend of the CRB and the APG and Player Core 2 covers the rest.

Also, all of the rules and pretty much anything that isn’t specifically lore or settings is available on Archives of Nethys.

Remaster Core

• Player Core
• Player Core 2 (Optional but highly recommended)
• GM Core
• Monster Core
• NPC Core (optional)

Remaster Supplemental (optional. often contains new classes, backgrounds, spells, items)

• Rage of Elements
• Howl of the Wild
• War of Immortals
• Guns and Gears (Remastered)
• Treasure Vault (Remastered)
• Battlecry!