Ultimate Campaign Art Preview!

Tuesday, May 7, 2013

The release of Pathfinder Roleplaying Game: Ultimate Campaign is getting ever closer. Whether it's kingdom-building or leading an army, starting a business or crafting magic items, Ultimate Campaign is for all of the adventures that take place outside of the dungeon. The pages of the newest Pathfinder Roleplaying Game hardcover provide all kinds of useful information for your campaign, but many fantastic illustrations are contained within! Check some of them out!

Being a ruler has many responsibilities, but also many rewards.

Eidolons and other companion creatures are more fun when treated as a separate character rather than an obedient stat block.

Retraining rules allow you to replace a feat, change an ability score increase, or improve your hit points.

The quest to find a missing family member is a driving force for many heroes.

The section on marriage talks about how a spouse (or any relationship) can be an ally or an adversary.

Illustrations by Sam Burley, Eric Belisle, Lydia Schuchmann, and Maichol Quinto

Kingdom-building rules allow PCs to control their own country—or be the power behind the throne.

Followers, apprentices, and similar companions can be positive or negative plot hooks for a PC.

A character's lineage is a chain of characters linking a PC to the history of the campaign setting.

Illustrations by Denman Rooke, Jim Nelson, and Grafit Studio

Ultimate Campaign releases this May, preorder your copy today!

Sarah Robinson
Senior Art Director

Illustration by Matt Dixon. Widescreen version here.

Happy Holidays!

December 24, 2010

None of us are in the office today, we're hither and yon, fording rivers and traveling through woods, celebrating the holiday weekend with family and friends. However, we hope you enjoy this week's wallpaper and that you have a wonderful holiday, eat as much great food as you can, and have the chance to decorate your home with the finest crystals available.

From all of us, to all of you, may you have a joyous crystalhue!

Hyrum.
Marketing and Organized Play Manager

Webmaster's Note: Due to popular demand, we are also providing a widescreen version of last Friday's wallpaper. Thanks, Crystal!

Rummy-Tug-Tugger Contest Results!

Friday, April 9, 2010

Illustration by Silvia Gonzalez

So! After taking a week to make the agonizing choice, Rob McCreary has selected the winner of the Rummy-Tug-Tugger illustration contest! The winning illustration was done by Silvia Gonzalez; we’ll be autographing a copy of the NPC Guide and sending it out to Silvia as thanks for the great illustration!

Illustration by Mikael Sebag	Illustration by Duane Lacher

Actually, there were a lot of great illustrations. We took time last week to sit in the editorial pit and look them all over, and Rob had a tough time making the final choice. And so he wanted to show a few honorable mentions as well; one by Mikael Sebag (who sent in a super-rotund and kind of cute version) and another by Duane Lacher (who sent in a much scarier version). Thank you to everyone who participated in the contest; it was great seeing what you all came up with. And that makes me wonder... would folks like to see us do more art contests like this? Let us know in the comments to this post!

James Jacobs
Creative Director

Introducing Rummy-Tum-Tugger!

Monday, March 22, 2010

Every other Thursday evening, I run my "Shadow Under Sandpoint" campaign for the editorial folks. I started the game several months ago for three reasons—as a team-building exercise, as a way for we editors to get more familiar with the game we created, and because it sounded fun. Several of the PCs from this campaign appear in the recently released NPC Guide, in fact... but not all of them.

When Rob McCreary joined the Paizo editorial team, I invited him to join the game (which brought our total number of players up to a staggering total of nine!). After a false start with a half-orc (who soon left the party to seek fame and glory as our iconic inquisitor), Rob settled on a gnome summoner inspired by another of our new iconic characters. Yet unlike the iconic summoner, who has some sort of weird chicklizatrice type monster as an eidolon, Rob went for a different critter entirely.

His character is named Balazar, and his eidolon is named Rummy-Tum-Tugger (no relation to a certain similarly named feline superstar). When Rummy-Tum-Tugger first showed up, I asked Rob to describe him, but that didn't really help. It seems that every session, something new comes up and folks have to revise what they think Rummy-Tum-Tugger looks like. "Wait, his teeth shoot ice?" "Huh? He has six limbs?" "He's PURPLE?"

There's only one solution. A contest!

Break out your pencils, pens, paints, and Photoshops, because whoever draws Rob the best and most accurate depiction of Rummy-Tum-Tugger not only gets the satisfaction of helping my poor group of PCs visualize what their newest member actually looks like, but I'll sweeten the deal by sending that person a copy of the NPC Guide, signed by the entire Paizo editorial staff!

To enter, simply email your illustration to me at james.jacobs@paizo.com as a .jpg attachment by the end of the month—keep the file small (600 KB or less). Rob will then pick his favorite picture of them all and that'll be the winner, and we'll show it off in a blog post at the start of April.

And now, the details! Rummy-Tum-Tugger is a Medium-sized eidolon. He's got the quadruped base form, and looks vaguely like a purple badger with six legs, each leg tipped with scary sharp claws. His jaws are filled with BIG sharp teeth that are caked with even sharper razor-sharp ice. Oh, he also has a gore attack. Some sort of horns or spikes or something. Did I mention he's purple? He also wears an amulet of mighty fists. And he can talk. And he likes cheese, but since he's lactose intolerant poor Balazar has to constantly watch Rummy-Tum-Tugger's cheese intake.

James Jacobs
Creative Director

Advanced Player's Guide Playtest, Round 2!

Monday, November 30, 2009

Illustration by Wayne Reynolds

Illustration by Wayne Reynolds

The playtest of the Pathfinder RPG Advanced Player's Guide continues today with the launch of two more classes slated to appear in the book, due out in August. Round 2 focuses on the summoner and the witch. The summoner is an arcane caster that forms a close bond with a powerful outsider, known as an eidolon. The eidolon works a lot like an animal companion, but its form and abilities are decided by the summoner and they can change as the summoner goes up in level. The witch is a class that utilizes a wide variety of spells from both the arcane and divine spell lists. She draws her power from a mysterious force, which she communes with through her familiar. To top it off, she has a wide variety of hex powers to draw on, that both help her allies and hinder foes. This is your chance to take a look at these classes before they hit shelves in August. You can download the free PDF containing both of these classes here.

Two weeks ago, we released the cavalier and the oracle, and the playtest for those classes is well underway. In two weeks, we will release the final two classes set to appear in the book. While we are focusing on the classes as they release, the playtest itself will remain open until the end of January 2010.

Just like the Core Rulebook playtest last year, there are a number of forums waiting for your feedback and comments. The first is a general forum, for discussing larger issues and announcements. Following this is a pair of forums for discussing each round of the playtest. Discussion on the summoner and the witch should go in the round 2 forum.

Feedback on the first round has been immensely helpful, but I want to stress the usefulness of actual playtest feedback. Observations and general concerns are useful, but we are getting the most information from players who have actually given the classes a try. So take the summoner and the witch out for a spin and let us know what you think.

See you on the boards.

Jason Bulmahn
Lead Designer