Mythic Adventures Playtest

Wednesday, November 14, 2012

Welcome to the long-awaited playtest of Mythic Adventures. This exciting book, due out in August 2013, gives you the chance to play a hero that is a cut above the ordinary sellsword, more powerful than your average hedge wizard, and able to take on challenges far beyond those of his ordinary contemporaries. Like Hercules and Achilles, these heroes inspire legends with their every deed, facing horrible foes and taking on dangerous quests that most would consider impossible. This playtest is a sample of the rules, giving you all the tools you need to run a mythic game or two right now, as well as the chance to tell us what works and what needs work.

Mythic Adventures is more than an ordinary sourcebook. It offers players and GMs a new way to play the Pathfinder RPG, from the humble beginnings of 1st level, to the lofty realms of power of 20th. You can use these rules to run a campaign where the players are mythic from the first session just as easily as you can use them to run a campaign where they are only mythic for a single game. The mythic rules can be used how you want, at any point in the campaign.

Put simply, the mythic rules allow characters (and monsters) to break some of the fundamental rules of the game. They allow a character to cheat death, to change the outcome of die rolls, and even to act twice in one turn. While mythic characters do get some statistical bonuses to denote their raw potential, much of their power comes from what they can do that others cannot, at least without having quite a few more levels. How many levels is the big question. This is where you come in.

The playtest of these rules is important to help us balance the overall system. These powers and abilities add a lot to the capabilities of characters and monsters, and it’s important to see how much this addition affects the overall power balance of the game. We need you to use these rules in your game, even if for just one or two sessions, and to give us your impression as to how the rules affect the game. While your initial impression from just reading the rules is valuable, actual play experience is by far more useful to our process. When playtesting the rules, please keep the following points in mind.

• All playtest feedback should be posted to the following Mythic Adventures Playtest forums: General Discussion, Player Feedback, GM Feedback, Adventure Feedback.
• Please check the forum for any similar topics before posting, and add to an existing thread whenever possible.
• Please try to read the entire document before posting. You may find that your question is answered in a later section of the rules.
• Remember, we would prefer actual playtest feedback. Use the rules, don’t just imagine how they might work.
• Be civil! Remember that everyone on the forum is here for the same goal, to make a better game. Remember that the experience of others may be different from your own and starting an argument over a differing viewpoint does no service to the playtest. Posters who violate these guidelines will find themselves given a timeout and have offending threads locked.
• Have fun. These rules are designed to add an extra edge of excitement to your game, allowing you to throw over-the-top situations at your characters. Share your stories with us and your fellow playtesters.

Now get out there, grab the document, give it a read, and play! I am looking forward to reading your thoughts, comments, and criticisms about these rules. The playtest will run from now until noon (PST) on Monday, January 14th. See you on the boards.

Jason Bulmahn
Lead Designer

Mike Selinker on the Pathfinder Adventure Card Game

Tuesday, October 30, 2012

So, there is an announcement on the Paizo blog about the Pathfinder Adventure Card Game going into semi-open playtests. The "collaborative deck-building game" (which is neither completely collaborative nor completely deck-building, but work with me) is probably the best game system I've ever designed, and I'd like to tell you a little bit about it.

The basic concept is this: It's a cooperative game for one to six players. Each player has a unique character composed of a deck of cards and a set of stats. Roleplayers will find the stats very familiar—characters have roles and numbers that define their abilities and skills. As you go through adventures, you'll improve your deck by acquiring new items, allies, weapons, and other cool things as you explore and overcome challenges; over time, you'll be customizing your deck to suit your own individual vision of your character. All adventures are composed of infinitely usable cards and decks. There's no Game Master, no recordkeeping, no expository dialogue. It's everything I want to do in a roleplaying game without the workload. It plays in an hour to an hour and a half.

These playtest cards were designed for single-sided, black-and-white printing. In the finished game, card borders will have colors instead of just shades of grey, and the charts that currently overlap the images on "Them Ogres Ain't Right" and "The Rusty Dragon" will move to the back of the card.

How We Got Here

About a year ago, Rian Sand came to me with a theoretical idea of a design space that hadn't yet been explored much: a card game that mimicked many of the behaviors of a traditional RPG, but without a lot of the time and administrative burden. I had also been thinking about some mechanics for a system like that, and Rian's enthusiasm and support made me invest serious design time into it. There were a lot of problems that had to be solved—persistence, goal development, game speed, and so on—and I'm pretty sure we solved them all.

The original game was for a new intellectual property that I'm not prepared to talk about yet. Suffice it to say that it's really cool, and Mike Vaillancourt and Matt Forbeck had a lot to do with making it cool, and you'll see it someday soon. Not sure when, not sure how, but soon.

But as we were doing this, we were thinking about what our first licensed game had to be. Various ideas were tossed around, but for Rian and me, there was only one choice. Rian was a major fan of the Pathfinder RPG, and I... well, I was a major fan of Paizo. Owners Vic Wertz and Lisa Stevens have shown considerable benevolence and respect my way over the past years, leading to such awesome projects as the Harrow Deck, the Kill Doctor Lucky color edition, Yetisburg, and the American version of Key Largo. Lone Shark has done more games for Paizo than for any other company, and if they were interested in following us down this garden path, they were going to get to do so.

It turns out that after a discussion with Paizo's Publisher Erik Mona and Chief Operating Officer Jeff Alvarez at the GAMA Trade Show, they were very interested. Pathfinder Lead Designer Jason Bulmahn saw a version of the system at the first unveiling at Gamestorm, and brought back much appreciated words of praise. I showed it to the Paizo team back in Redmond, including James Jacobs, Sarah Robinson, and Wes Schneider, and we were underway within a few weeks. And over those weeks, we were bombarded with very heavy books and offers to help from everyone on the Paizo staff. It became a project all of Paizo could participate in.

The game continued to grow and change under the Paizo stewardship. My talented developers Chad Brown, Paul Peterson, and Gaby Weidling quickly came to understand the magnitude of the challenge ahead of us. Pathfinder is huge. Paizo had given us the now-classic Rise of the Runelords Adventure Path as a template for our games, which meant we had to adapt an incredibly deep and involving series of stories into the few words and concepts that fit on cards. It was not so easy, but it made us examine and reexamine every aspect of my system to make it work. It's now much tighter and much more fun.

Under the codename "Project Swallowtail," we showed off a very raw version of it at PaizoCon, and a more robust version at Gen Con. And now we're going into a massive playtest with the Pathfinder Society to get the game exactly right. It's got a ways to get there, but it seems pretty good now. Time will tell.

How the Game Plays

You start by creating a party of adventurers. Each of you gets a character card such as Valeros, Seoni, or Merisiel. That card tells you what cards your deck consists of. A wizard might have more spells than weapons, and a fighter will likely have more weapons than spells.

You'll select an Adventure Path, which consists of several adventures, which consist of several scenarios. A typical scenario tells you what villains and henchmen you'll face (if any), and the locations in which you'll face them. Each location has a deck of cards, drawn at random from appropriate stacks, and then shuffled in with a villain or henchman. You won't know where the villain is until you find him.

Throughout the game, you'll explore locations, encounter monsters, and find new weapons, items, spells, and the like. But you're racing a clock. The adventure deck is a stack of cards that you'll flip one card off of every turn. If the adventure deck runs out of cards before you find and defeat the villain, you lose. If your character deck runs out of cards, you die.

But if you don't die, then you'll advance your character. You'll get to put new cards in your deck, expand your powers and abilities, and rebuild your deck for new adventures. If you defeat all the scenarios in the game, you'll be a mighty adventurer indeed.

Thanks for reading, and I hope you like the Pathfinder Adventure Card Game. I can't wait to see what you think.

Mike Selinker
Pathfinder Adventure Card Game Designer

Playtest the Pathfinder Adventure Card Game

Friday, October 12, 2012

Paizo is pleased to report that in just a few short weeks, we're expecting to begin the playtest for next year's Pathfinder Adventure Card Game (known to some of you by the code name "Project Swallowtail"). Because playtesting a card game isn't quite as simple as letting everybody download a PDF, it's not going to be quite as open as our RPG playtests have been, but if you'd like to get involved, read on to find out how that might be possible!

First, let me tell you a bit about the Pathfinder Adventure Card Game.

The Pathfinder Adventure Card Game is a cooperative game for 1 to 6 players designed by Mike Selinker and his team at Lone Shark Games, which Paizo intends to release at Gen Con 2013 (if not PaizoCon 2013).

Each player has a unique character comprised of a deck of cards and a set of stats. Roleplayers will find the stats very familiar—characters have classes such as fighter, wizard, and rogue; they have numbers that define their Strength, Dexterity, Intelligence, etc.; they have skills and proficiencies.

As your player adventures, you'll improve your deck by acquiring new items, allies, spells, and weapons as you explore and overcome challenges; over time, you'll be customizing your deck to suit your own individual vision of your character.

The Pathfinder Adventure Card Game product offerings will begin with the Rise of the Runelords Base Set, a big box containing more than 400 cards including the "Burnt Offerings" Adventure Deck. Your party will explore locations such as the Sandpoint Cathedral, the Rusty Dragon, and the Glassworks; you'll meet helpful NPCs like Ameiko Kaijitsu or friendly Aldern Foxglove; you'll visit the Swallowtail Festival, delve into the Catacombs of Wrath, and invade Thistletop. You'll fight goblins, sinspawn, Warchief Ripnugget, and maybe even face the Sandpoint devil, and eventually, become the heroes of Sandpoint! The Base Set supports 1 to 4 players; a 110-card add-on deck will expand the number of players to 5 or 6, as well as adding more character options for any number of players.

We'll follow the Base Set with bimonthly 110-card Adventure Decks presenting the subsequent five chapters of Rise of the Runelords and, if all goes well, we'll adapt other Adventure Paths after that!

The Pathfinder Adventure Game plays in an hour to an hour-and-a-half; it's easy to learn, yet offers a lot of variety in play. Mike Selinker and his team did a stunning job capturing the feel of the Pathfinder Roleplaying game, the Pathfinder campaign setting, and the Rise of the Runelords Adventure Path in a fun card game.

But to make this game is as fun and exciting as possible we're going to need playtesters—lots of playtesters. If you're interested in being one of them, find out how on our messageboards!

Vic Wertz
Chief Technical Officer

Advanced Race Guide Playtest Wrap-Up

Tuesday, October 18, 2011

Illustration by Scott Purdy

Today is the final day of the Advanced Race Guide playtest. If you haven’t posted your comments on the playtest document, get them on the playtest messageboard today.

I want to thank everyone who participated in the playtest and commented on the first iteration of the race builder. Your feedback is going to help us improve the system so that we can make a truly excellent tool for GMs to build races for any Pathfinder game.

So what did we learn from the playtest? A lot of things! Here are some of the highlights.

First off, as we suspected, some of our initial pricing was off. While costing all of the core races at 10 points in the system helped us create a rough baseline for standard races, it also created some problems with individual racial ability and trait costing. Some abilities were too cheap and others were too expensive. Those abilities are being reexamined and the values will be more balanced and intuitive in the final race builder.

Second, we learned that we needed to open up some of the prerequisites and expand the options presented the final race builder. Many people pointed out that the Tiny size option being limited to the fey type was far too restrictive. A number of playtesters had some really interesting ideas that required Tiny creatures of types other than fey. My personal favorite was the idea that many of you had to create a race of toy solider constructs. On a related note, we learned that may of you were very eager to make dragon-type races, not just dragon-themed races using the humanoid or monstrous human type. You can expect to see the ability to create dragon-type races in the final document.

Some of the best feedback from the playtest came in the form of the actual races that the participants built and the suggestions of racial abilities that folks came up with. Reading through those fun and exciting race builds, comments on those builds from other playtesters, and the very long wish list of racial abilities that people wanted to see gave us lot of ideas for expanding the system. We are looking forward to seeing any additions you post today.

Stephen Radney-MacFarland
Designer

Advanced Race Guide Playtest

Tuesday, October 4, 2011

Illustration by Francesco Graziani

For over two years now, we've released a plethora of new classes, feats, spells, and other options for your character, but the one area we've never really explored too deeply is races. The Advanced Race Guide is going to change all that with a bunch of new races explored in detail and new options and tools based specifically on your character's race.

Included in this mighty tome is a system for building your own race, using a simple point-based mechanic. While this won't be legal for Pathfinder Society Organized Play, this system will allow players and GMs to add new and innovative races to their game, as well as to add some of the more monstrous options to the party roster. Building a system like this is not easy, and balancing it is even trickier, which is why we want you to playtest this system early and give us your thoughts, opinions, and suggestions for making it better.

This system is available now. Go grab the document right here and read through it. Build a race or two and introduce them to your game. Post your ideas and feedback to the Advanced Race Guide Playtest Board. Make sure to add your custom races to the New Races thread. This playtest will be open for the next two weeks. We look forward to seeing what you come up with.

Jason Bulmahn
Lead Designer

Stealth Playtest, Round Two

Tuesday, September 20, 2011

Illustration by Christian Pearce

In case you missed it, a few weeks ago the Pathfinder design team previewed some changes we were considering making to the Stealth skill. Like any design endeavor, game design benefits from iteration. After letting all of you playtest the rules and let us know what you thought of the first draft, we went back to the drawing board and made some changes based on that fantastic feedback.
In this round of playtesting, you'll find that we've cleared up some action issues. We have opened up the possibilities for using standard actions with the Stealth skill, as long as those standard actions do not attack creatures. In this way, the Stealth skill mirrors the rules found in the invisibility spell; at least as far as what actions you can attempt while you are hidden without automatically ending that condition.

Speaking of hidden, while we have kept the invisible condition, and have even strengthened the wording on that condition a bit, we have also created a lesser, connected condition called hidden. You gain the hidden condition when you benefit from Stealth, and you gain the invisible condition when you use a spell or effect that makes you visually undetectable, like the invisibility spell. Hidden is the base condition, and invisible is an upgrade of that condition.

Lastly, we have added some small language changes to explain how the hidden condition interacts with some universal monster rules dealing with senses—specifically blindsense, blindsight, scent, and tremorsense.
Just like the last round of playtesting, keep in mind that these changes are not yet official. While you are free to use them in your home game—and we would like you to do so—these changes are not yet ready for Pathfinder Society play. This time around we are going to give you two weeks to playtest and comment on these proposed changes, so tell us what you think sometime before October 3rd. We'll announce the final version in the Design Tuesday blog sometime after the playtest is completed, and make changes to the rules using the Pathfinder RPG FAQ system.

Stealth

(Dex; Armor Check Penalty) You are skilled at avoiding detection, allowing you to slip past foes or strike from an unseen position. This skill covers hiding and moving silently.

Check: Your Stealth check is opposed by the Perception check of anyone who might notice you. Usually a Stealth check is made at the start of an action when you have some kind of cover (except for soft cover) or concealment. You cannot spend a free action to initiate Stealth, but if you spend a free action while under the effects of Stealth, you must make a new Stealth check to continue its effects. You can always spend a swift action to stay immobile and make a Stealth check. You can move up to half your speed and use Stealth at no penalty. When moving at a speed greater than half your speed and up to your normal speed, you take a –5 penalty on the Stealth check. It's usually impossible to use Stealth while taking an immediate action, a full-round action, or any action to make an attack, unless you are subject to greater invisibility or a similar effect, or you are sniping (see below). When you make your Stealth check, those creatures that didn't succeed at the opposed roll treat you as hidden until the start of your next action or until the end of your turn if you do not end your turn with cover or concealment. You are not hidden from creatures that are observing you (creatures that you didn't have cover or concealment from) or that succeed at the opposed check.
A creature larger or smaller than Medium takes a size bonus or penalty on Stealth checks depending on its size category: Fine +16, Diminutive +12, Tiny +8, Small +4, Large –4, Huge –8, Gargantuan –12, Colossal –16.

Attacking while Hidden: Usually, making an attack against a creature ends the hidden condition. For purposes of Stealth, an attack includes any spell targeting a foe or whose area or effect includes a foe. Actions directed at an unattended object do not end Stealth. Causing harm indirectly is not an attack. If during your last action you were hidden to a creature, you are still considered hidden when you make the first attack of that new action.

Other Perception Checks: If a creature makes a Perception check as a move action to notice a hidden creature, the DC of the Perception check is the hidden creature's last Stealth check. This is also the case if a creature makes a Perception check to notice a hidden creature because the perceiving creature is entering an area where it could possibly notice a hidden creature.

Sniping: If you already are hidden to a target and you are at least 10 feet away from that target, as a standard action, you can make one ranged attack against that target and immediately make an opposed Stealth check to stay hidden. You take a –20 penalty on your Stealth check when attempting to snipe.

Creating a Diversion to Hide: You can use Bluff to allow you to use Stealth. If you do not have cover or concealment, as a swift action, you can attempt a Bluff check opposed by the Sense Motive of opponents that can see you. If you are successful, you are considered to have concealment from those creatures (but you do not gain the percent miss chance from concealment) until the end of your next action, you make an attack (as defined in the Attacking while Hidden section, above), or the end of your turn, whichever happens first.

Action: Usually making a Stealth check is not an action. Using Stealth is part of the action you are taking.

Special: If you are subject to the invisibility or greater invisibility spells or a similar effect, you gain a +40 bonus on Stealth checks while you are immobile, or a +20 bonus on Stealth checks while you're moving. If you have the Stealthy feat, you get a bonus on Stealth checks (see Chapter 5).

Conditions

Hidden: You are difficult to detect but you not invisible. A hidden creature gains a +2 bonus on attack rolls against sighted opponents, and ignores its opponents' Dexterity bonus to AC (if any). You do not have line of sight to a creature or object that is hidden from you.

Invisible: Invisible creatures are visually undetectable. An invisible creature or object gains the benefits of the hidden condition. An invisible object or creature gains total concealment.

Universal Monster Rules

Blindsense (Ex) Using nonvisual senses, such as acute smell or hearing, a creature with blindsense notices things it cannot see. The creature usually does not need to make Perception checks notice hidden creatures or to pinpoint the location of an invisible creature within range of its blindsense ability, provided that it has line of effect to that creature. Any opponent the creature cannot see still has total concealment from the creature with blindsense, and the creature still has the normal miss chance when attacking foes that have concealment. Visibility still affects the movement of a creature with blindsense. A creature with blindsense is still denied its Dexterity bonus to Armor Class against attacks from creatures it cannot see.
Format: blindsense 60 ft.; Location: Senses.

Blindsight (Ex) This ability is similar to blindsense, but is far more discerning. Using nonvisual senses, such as sensitivity to vibrations, keen smell, acute hearing, or echolocation, a creature with blindsight maneuvers and fights as well as a sighted creature. invisibility, darkness, and most kinds of concealment are irrelevant, as is the hidden condition, though the creature must have line of effect to a creature or object to discern that creature or object. The ability's range is specified in the creature's descriptive text. The creature usually does not need to make Perception checks to notice creatures within this range. Unless noted otherwise, blindsight is continuous, and the creature need do nothing to use it. Some forms of blindsight, however, must be triggered as a free action. If so, this is noted in the creature's description. If a creature must trigger its blindsight ability, the creature gains the benefits of blindsight only during its turn.
Format: blindsight 60 ft.; Location: Senses.

Scent (Ex) This special quality allows a creature to detect approaching enemies, sniff out hidden foes, and track by sense of smell. Creatures with the scent ability can identify familiar odors just as humans do familiar sights.
The creature can detect opponents within 30 feet by sense of smell. If the opponent is upwind, the range increases to 60 feet; if downwind, it drops to 15 feet. Strong scents, such as smoke or rotting garbage, can be detected at twice the ranges noted above. Overpowering scents, such as skunk musk or troglodyte stench, can be detected at triple normal range.
When a creature detects a scent, the exact location of the source is not revealed—only its presence somewhere within range. The creature can take a move action to note the direction of the scent. When it is within 5 feet of the source, the creature pinpoints the source's location or notices a hidden creature.
A creature with the scent ability can follow tracks by smell, making a Wisdom (or Survival) check to find or follow a track. The typical DC for a fresh trail is 10 (no matter what kind of surface holds the scent). This DC increases or decreases depending on how strong the quarry's odor is, the number of creatures, and the age of the trail. For each hour that the trail is cold, the DC increases by 2. The ability otherwise follows the rules for the Survival skill. Creatures tracking by scent ignore the effects of surface conditions and poor visibility.
Format: scent; Location: Senses.

Tremorsense (Ex) A creature with tremorsense is sensitive to vibrations in the ground and can automatically notice hidden creatures and objects as well as pinpoint invisible creatures and objects in contact with the ground. Aquatic creatures with tremorsense can also sense the location of creatures moving through water. The ability's range is specified in the creature's descriptive text.
Format: tremorsense 60 ft.; Location: Senses.

Stephen Radney-MacFarland
Designer

Stealth Playtest

Tuesday, August 23, 2011

Illustration by Yngvar Apslund

Here at Paizo, the design team has a host of challenges. Some of the greatest challenges come when dealing with the rules of our game that don't work as well as we would like. For a number of weeks we have been talking about the issues concerning the Stealth skill. Over the course of those conversations we have come up with many ideas to improve this skill and make its use both clearer and more playable.

So, here is our crazy idea: We are thinking about just rewriting the skill. This is our first stab at a rewrite, but before we make any definitive change, we want to unleash our crazy ideas to you—the Pathfinder players—to poke holes in, give us input on, and playtest. The following changes to the Stealth rules are by no means final, nowhere near official, and definitely not usable in Pathfinder Society. They're here for you to read, think on, playtest, and then for you to give us feedback. We will be listening for the next week. Have fun!

Stealth

(Dex; Armor Check Penalty)
You are skilled at avoiding detection, allowing you to slip past foes or strike from an unseen position. This skill covers hiding and moving silently.

Check: Your Stealth check is opposed by the Perception check of anyone who might notice you. Usually a Stealth check is made at the start of a free, move, or swift action when you start that action with either some kind of cover (except for soft cover) or concealment. You can always spend a swift action to stay immobile and make a Stealth check. You cannot spend a free action to initiate a Stealth check, but if you spend a free action while under the effects of Stealth, you must make a new Stealth check in order to continue the effects of Stealth. You can move up to half your normal speed and use Stealth at no penalty. When moving at a speed greater than half and up to your normal speed, you take a –5 penalty. It's usually impossible to use Stealth while taking an immediate action, standard action, or a full-round action, unless you are subject to greater invisibility or a similar effect, you are sniping (see below), or you are using a standard action to ready an action. When you make your Stealth check, those creatures that didn't succeed at the opposed roll treat you as invisible until the start of your next action or until the end of your turn if you do not end your turn with cover or concealment. When you use Stealth, creatures that are observing you (creatures that you didn't have cover or concealment from) or that succeed at the opposed check do not treat you as invisible.

A creature larger or smaller than Medium takes a size bonus or penalty on Stealth checks depending on its size category: Fine +16, Diminutive +12, Tiny +8, Small +4, Large –4, Huge –8, Gargantuan –12, Colossal –16.

Attacking from Invisibility: Usually making an attack against a creature ends the invisible condition. If during your last action were invisible to a creature, you are still considered invisible when you make the first attack of that new action.

Other Perception Checks: If a creature makes a Perception check as a move action to notice an invisible creature, the DC of the Perception check is the invisible creature's last Stealth check. This is also the case if a creature makes a Perception check to notice an invisible creature because the perceiving creature is entering an area where it could possibly notice an invisible creature.

Sniping: If you already are invisible to a target and you are 10 feet from that target, as a standard action, you can make one ranged attack against that target and immediately make an opposed Stealth check to stay invisible. You take a –20 penalty on your Stealth check when attempting to snipe.

Creating a Diversion to Hide: If you do not have cover or concealment, as a standard action, you can attempt a Bluff check opposed by the Perception of opponents that can see you. On a success, you become invisible to those creatures and can move up to half your speed. When you do this, you take a –10 penalty on the Bluff check.

Action: Usually making a Stealth check is not an action. Using Stealth is part of the action are taking.

Special: If you are subject to the invisibility or greater invisibility spells or a similar effect, you gain a +40 bonus on Stealth checks while you are immobile, or a +20 bonus on Stealth checks while you're moving. If you have the Stealthy feat, you get a bonus on Stealth checks (see Chapter 5).

Stephen Radney-MacFarland
Designer

Gunslinger Reloaded

Monday, March 7, 2011

Are you ready for some more fun with fantasy firearms? Well, ready or not, we are unleashing the second round of the Ultimate Combat playtest! In this round, we're bringing you the updated version of the gunslinger—a full 1–20 class in its own right, unhinged from the fighter class.

This new version of the gunslinger has more deeds, many of the older deeds have been reshuffled and repriced, and we are providing you with more guns to play with—including advanced firearms for those of you who want to go whole hog into the era where guns dominate the battlefield.

Not only will you get the updated crunchy bits you crave for playtesting, we also have a sidebar to help GMs determine what role (if any) firearms have in their campaign. This sidebar also talks about how firearm and gunslinger rules change with the level of firearms you have in your campaign.

So photocopy some character sheets, grab your dice, load up that pepperbox with alchemical cartridges, and playtest away. We will be listening to your observations and results on the messageboards. Oh, and just in case you are wondering, the new version of the class is Pathfinder Society legal, so if you haven't done so already, find you local group, and start playing!

Stephen Radney-MacFarland
Pathfinder RPG Designer

Ultimate Combat Playtest Away!

Monday, January 24, 2011

Surprise! It's playtest time again.

Today we are unleashing the playtest for Ultimate Combat, a new sourcebook for the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game, due to be released later this year.

In this playtest you'll get a first shot at playing the gunslinger, ninja, and samurai alternative classes.

Each alternative class gives you 20 full levels of blazing barrels, silent death, or relentless resolve, depending on the class. You can find these classes as a free PDF. Once you have downloaded the classes and used them in your game, wander over to the messageboards, where you'll find places to discuss the classes and post your playtest results. We look forward to hearing what you have to say about these three new classes.

This playtest lasts three weeks, until Monday February 14th.

Tune in next week for Part 3 of the Intelligent Magic Item design blog. We figured you wouldn't mind the delay if you got three new classes to chew on.

Stephen Radney-MacFarland
Pathfinder RPG Designer

Illustration by Wayne Reynolds

Ultimate Magus Feedback

Tuesday, December 14, 2010

As you can imagine, life around here is all about Ultimate Magic. So being the new "entity, " I get to write a bit in the blog about the project. I know; it's a rough life.

You rules junkies will already know all about this, but one of the great parts of the book is the new base class—the magus.

If you're anything like me, some days you wake up and ask yourself: How do I kill my enemies today, with steel or spell? Now I don't have to choose. The magus is a slayer dilettante extreme, using both to beat down the bad guys.

I know, I know, you've seen your share of multiclass spell-swords. You're not easily wooed, but the magus is worth checking out, if you haven't already. While it has a respectable spell list that is very wiz-bang and a little bufferish, the key to the class is the arcane pool. While some arcane magic comes from ancient bloodlines or the rigor of magical formulae, magi are among the creatures blessed with a well of arcane energy that they can learn to focus with flair of a swashbuckler, using a spell as dirk. This pool allows the magus to enchant weapons with a touch, mimic the abilities of other arcane classes' spells (like calling a familiar, or using metamagic feats), and even recreate entire spells. It's arcane power mixed with weapon mastery at its most fluid.

With just a little more time left to go, we are working on the finishing touches for the class, and one of the things we have to do is finish the archetypes. We have a good list right now, but we're interesting in hearing what you have to say. What is your dream archetype for the magus? What interesting flavor of magus character are you looking to play?

Talk at me here. And if you are playtesting the magus, and you haven't posted your feedback on this class yet, make sure you post to the Round 3 – Revised Magus: Playtest. You have until December 20th.

Stephen Radney-MacFarland
Pathfinder RPG Designer

Magus Revisited

Monday, December 6, 2010

Today begins the third round of the Ultimate Magic playtest, with another look at the new magus base class. This is a class that many of you have already been playing with since the first playtest round a few months ago. We took a great deal of your feedback and heavily revised a number of elements of this class. While it is not yet perfect, it is a huge step in the right direction.

The magus blends the powers of both a fighter and a wizard, and the revised version cleaves a little closer to that theme, focusing on the ability to make melee attacks and cast spells at the same time. The biggest change comes in the addition of an arcane pool that fuels many of the classes iconic abilities. You can find this revised class as a free PDF at this link. Once you have downloaded the class and updated it in your game, check out the messageboards, where you will find a new board dedicated to this round of the playtest.

This playtest cycle will last two weeks, until Monday, December 20th, and this version will be the last version released until the book itself comes out in April.

So update the magus in your game today. I look forward to seeing your comments and ideas concerning these changes. See you on the boards.

Jason Bulmahn
Lead Designer

Ultimate Magic Playtest

Monday, November 22, 2010

Welcome to the second part of the playtest of Ultimate Magic, a new sourcebook for the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game, due to be released early next year.

We received a great deal of valuable feedback on the new magus class, but now we are going to take a look at something quite a bit different. This section of the playtest takes a look at a new way of using magic in the game with Words of Power. This system allows spellcasters to "build" their own spells, creating variable and versatile effects. Since the system is so different and new, it is not part of the Pathfinder Society organized play program, but you should give it a try in your home game or maybe in a game designed specifically to test these rules.

In this playtest, we are just giving you a small part of a greater system, representing the basic pieces needed to play a sorcerer or wizard using Words of Power. These elements can and will be applied to other classes, and indeed many of the "words" are tagged for classes outside the scope of this playtest, for now we are just focusing on the wizard and sorcerer. Once you've had a chance to play with these rules, you can post your results to the playtest messageboards. If you just want to give some general feedback or ideas, you can also check out the feedback messageboards.

This playtest cycle will last two weeks, until Monday, December 6th. We also hope to release another draft of the magus in the coming days, for a bit of additional playtest based off the feedback from the first round.

So, get a copy of the Words of Power system and use it in your game. We look forward to seeing your constructive feedback and playtest reports. See you on the boards.

Jason Bulmahn
Lead Designer

The Sandpoint Devil: Slain?

Tuesday, November 2, 2010

Reports are coming in of a doughty band of adventurers facing off against the legendary Sandpoint Devil in bloody battle beneath the stones of western Varisia. Could it be true that the infamous beast, cow killer and hermit spooker, has been slain? Tune back in next week for the full report.

Until then, gird your sanity as we page through the journal of that chronicler of terrors and outrages, Styrian Kindler.

Wes Schneider
Managing Editor

Ultimate Magic Playtest

Monday, September 20, 2010

Illustration by Wayne Reynolds

Welcome to the playtest of the Ultimate Magic, a new sourcebook for the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game, due to be released early next year.

The playtest begins with a look at the Magus, a brand-new base class that blends the powers of a wizard with the martial prowess of a fighter. You can find this class as a free PDF in your downloads up at the top of this page or at this link. Once you have downloaded the class and used it in your game, check out the messageboards, where you will find a pair of boards dedicated to this playtest.

This playtest cycle will last two weeks, until Monday, October 4th, and it will be followed shortly thereafter by another cycle containing the Words of Power alternate spellcasting system.

So grab the Magus and use him in your game today. We are looking forward to seeing your feedback and comments concerning this new class. See you on the boards.

Jason Bulmahn
Lead Designer

Illustration by Wayne Reynolds

Prepare to Play with Fire

Friday, September 17, 2010

The open playtest for Ultimate Magic begins Monday.

Wes Schneider
Managing Editor

Exiles of Zirnakaynin, with Special Guest Stars

Thursday, August 26, 2010

After a long hiatus because of convention season, the drow nobles game continued with a hunt for the kidnapped acting matron of the House Azrinae—and split into two groups of PCs when Ylvirixna (Rob McCreary) and Alivora (James Jacobs) decided the matron (decerebrated by mi-go) was no longer in charge and ran off with her body. Confounded by this betrayal, Rackutio (Josh Frost), Phyxafein (Tim Nightengale), and Verandia (Jodi Lane) returned to the drow city of Far Parathra to plan their next move. Or so they thought.

The group couldn't find Zwimessa (Crystal Frasier) when they left to find the matron that morning (Crystal missed that session). Zwimessa, meanwhile, couldn't find any of the others when she woke—their rooms were empty, and the drow commoner prisoner they had taken from their occupied house was dead in one of the rooms. Hiring a diviner in Far Parathra, Zwimessa found that her family members had been kidnapped, and paid the mage to teleport her to where they were held, bringing two mage-called demons (Kelly Marie and Troy Siefker) with her for extra muscle.

Zwimessa, Fumerott (Kelly), and Poograh (Troy) arrived just outside of a strange laboratory where three mi-go had Alivorah, Phyxafein, Rackutio, Verandia, and Ylvirixna strapped to tables, with needles in their skulls connected to strange metal canisters. After routing the mi-go, Zwimessa's team freed the others, though Ylvirixna's brain had been removed and had to be put back in her skull with some powerful healing magic. Retrieving their gear from a nearby nook, the drow followed an escape tunnel (with a comatose Ylvirixna riding Alivorah's snake-like phantom steed).

The tunnel opened up into a cavern with several mi-go crates (each marked with magical runes) and a strange underground lake. While investigating the crates, they spotted movement in the murky water, and something hurled a rock at Zwimessa.

What followed was a furious battle with a pair of giant fish-men and two mutated, skinned ghouls. Fumerott grabbed and hurled one of the ghouls to the shore so Alivorah, Rackutio, and Verandia would have something to fight. Rackutio cast hungry pit on it, pulling in the wounded creature as well as two of the crates, which exploded on impact. OM NOM NOM! On the other side of the battle, the two giant fish-men deal horrendous damage to Poograh, but the stubborn demon continues to fight.

Fumerott and Zwimessa make short work of the remaining mutant ghoul, prompting the demon to eat her fallen enemy. Delicious!

The giant fish-men turned their attention on 20, Rackutio's eidolon, and managed to tear it apart, sending it back to its home plane. As the rest of the group converged on these foes, Rackutio summoned a greater water elemental (represented by a fire elemental in this picture, recolored blue with the magic of photo manipulation) to pound on the slimy things, and Verandia ended the fight with a controlled burst of channeled negative energy. Time to rest and loot... which, in Poograh's case, included eating the dead fish-men!

Tip: If you have players who are new to the Pathfinder RPG (as Kelly and Troy were) or gaming in general, all the choices for a classed character can be overwhelming. Sometimes it's easier to have them play an allied monster, which has fewer options for the player to learn. In this case, I copied the stats for a hezrou demon onto a character sheet, removed references to rules they didn't need to know about (like Improved Initiative, which is built into the stat block), summarized other complex abilities (like greater teleport), and didn't include other abilities they wouldn't need (like summon). This let them focus on playing their monster characters and dealing with dice rolls for attacks, damage, skills, and saves. Because these players are only present for this one high-level session, using conjured monsters allows them to play without devising a complex in-game story for why these two characters would show up and leave after a short time.

Sean K Reynolds
Developer

Best Free Product

Fri, Aug 6, 2010 at 06:01 PM Pacific

Gold for APG Playtest!

We were rooting for Wayfinder!

Lisa Stevens
CEO

Zirnakaynin Toolkit

Thursday, April 29, 2010

As you may have seen in recent blogs, I like miniatures and props when running a game. As my office is on the ground floor of the Paizo office and my Exiles of Zirnakaynin game is held in our large conference room upstairs, I have to carry this stuff upstairs for every game, and down again afterward. An interest in efficiency and expediency has resulted in me building a set of compartmentalized, easy to carry "units" of game materials. From back to front, the picture shows:

• A cardboard box containing five large cavern terrain pieces created out of extruded polystyrene foam (painted brown, drybrushed light brown to show details, with patches painted green and glow-in-the-dark to represent phosphorescent fungi).
• A craft kit containing cheap plastic minis, wooden tokens representing camping gear and building furnishings, various tokens from Litko Aerosystems, colored magnetic bases for miniatures, cheap plastic animals and bugs for summons, and miscellaneous map scenery like cages, barrels, and skull piles.
• A large plastic storage bin holding my Pathfinder RPG Core Rulebook, Bestiary, five foam miniatures trays (containing the PC minis, various NPC minis, monster minis, and common summonable creature minis such as elementals), two GameMastery Flip-Mats, a Pathfinder RPG GM Screen with binder clips to hold stat block pages, dry-erase markers, pens, and more Litko Aerosystems tokens, topped with four smaller foam terrain pieces (the ovoid brownie-looking things) and five larger dinosaur toys for summon monster spells.

Sean K Reynolds
Developer, Pathfinder Chronicles

Things I Learned Running a High-Level Drow Game

Friday, April 23, 2010

Wednesday night we finished session #3 of Exiles of Zirnakaynin, my high-level, all-evil, all-drow-noble campaign. This session started with getting James Jacobs and Rob McCreary caught up to the rest of the group, as they missed session #2 due to bad cases of the sicky sickies. Once sisters Alivorah (James) and Ylvirixna (Rob) reached the pleasure-haven drow city of Far Parathra, they were attacked by mysterious creatures that crawled out of the angles formed by the walls and floors of their hotel rooms. Similar creatures attacked the rest of the PCs at the end of session #2, and most of Wednesday's game involved six individual, simultaneous battles against these creatures, as all the PCs had split up for the night.

Things I learned in last night's session include:

• Even a creature of the Mythos can succumb to a baleful polymorph if you try enough times (ook ook!).
• Remembering you have Combat Casting can be the difference between successfully casting a ground-zero flame strike and eye-rolling failure.
• 14th-level fighters and inquisitors can deal a horrendous amount of damage in one round.
• Fast zombies make fine litter-bearers but poor obstacles against CR 9 opponents.
• Letting a demon possess a PC sometimes means the PC goes crazy and destroys her sister's undead lackeys.

All photos copyright Joshua Frost Photography © 2010

Sean K Reynolds
Developer, Pathfinder Chronicles

Darklands Plus Black Light Equals....

Thursday, March 25, 2010

In a fit of madness, I decided to run a high-level playtest so we could have an ongoing idea of how high-level play works in the Pathfinder RPG. In a fit of double-madness, I decided it would be an "evil" game. Triple-madness means everyone is playing a drow noble from House Azrinae in the Darklands. The result is Exiles of Zirnakaynin.

As I'm a miniatures geek, this meant painting up a bunch of dark elf PCs and NPCs, plus other Darklands monsters and underground terrain. As I'm a science geek, I painted many of these things with fluorescent paint highlights, glow-in-the-dark paint, or glow-in-the-dark varnish so they react to a black light.

This photograph is from our first session, where the PCs (and associated undead and eidolon minions) and soldiers of House Azrinae line up on the eastern wall and tower of the House grounds (with the riding-lizard stable in the foreground) to defend against an attacking force of half-fiend minotaurs, enemy drow soldiers, some treant-like fungus creatures, and a few other surprises not yet on the map.

Sean K Reynolds
Developer, Pathfinder Chronicles

Advanced Player’s Guide Playtest, Bonus Round!

Tuesday, February 2, 2010

Although the playtest of the six base classes set to appear in the Pathfinder RPG Advanced Player's Guide was scheduled to be over yesterday, we have decided to extend it by two weeks to give you a chance to review and playtest the changes from the previous three rounds. We took all of your feedback and ideas and implemented a number of changes to the classes, combining them into one handy reference PDF. You can find the PDF right here.

You have two weeks to playtest and comment on these revisions in the Final Playtest messageboard forum. Make sure to post your feedback on in the correct forum, because we might miss it if you place it in one of the older forums. On February 15th, all of the forums will be closed.

As with previous playtests, this process has been a huge benefit to the development of these classes. I hope that you have enjoyed participating in the process. Look for previews of the final book to start appearing in June, ramping up to the final release in August.

See you on the boards.

Jason Bulmahn
Lead Designer

Advanced Player's Guide Playtest, Round 3!

Monday, December 14, 2009

Illustration by Wayne Reynolds

Illustration by Wayne Reynolds

The playtest of the Pathfinder RPG Advanced Player's Guide is well underway, with the release of the final two classes slated to appear in the book, due out in August. In this round, we are looking at the alchemist and the inquisitor. The alchemist is all about using potions and arcane alchemy to increase your abilities. This works a bit like spellcasting, but offers some interesting advantages. In addition, the alchemist is quite skilled at lobbing bombs that burn, freeze, and electrify foes (among a host of other possibilities). The inquisitor works as a monster hunter for the faith, rooting out its enemies, no matter where they hide. The inquisitor is a master of adaptation, moving her abilities around to better fight her 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.

Over the past month, we have released the other four classes due to appear in the book, including the cavalier, the oracle, the summoner, and the witch. While we are focusing on the alchemist and the inquistor for the next two weeks, the playtest itself will remain open until the end of January 2010. Time permitting, we hope to release some updates to some of the classes in mid January.

As with the Core Rulebook playtest last year, there are a number of forums set up for playtest feedback and commentary. The first is a general forum, for discussing larger issues and announcements. Following this is a trio of forums for discussing each round of the playtest. Discussion on the alchemist and the inquisitor should go in the round 2 forum.

The playtest has been a huge success up to this point. I have been receiving a mountain of play reports and comments on the classes and I want to encourage folks to continue working with these classes. As with the previous rounds, actual play reports are more useful to the process than untested observations. So, give these last two classes a try. Make a whole party of characters using only these six classes or have the PCs face off against them as villains. When you are done, post up the results. I look forward to seeing them.

See you on the boards.

Jason Bulmahn
Lead Designer

Illustration by Tyler Clark

Goblins Terrorize Bathhouse: Cunning Plan Revealed As Many Local Hunting Dogs Found Dead

Friday, December 11, 2009

Earlier this year, fellow intern Matt and I were invited to begin playing in a Pathfinder RPG game run by local resident Crystal Frasier. We accepted, and Matt, Ross Byers (later to leave us for reasons involving Will saves and girl-cooties), and I began our quest to become... The Stuff of Legends. Deciding to make my life difficult, I made Klar, the burly and buff bluffing bard, Matt rolled up Zirithanis the hobo druid and Destroyer-of-Worlds-Fetcher-of-Dreams-Maxwell, his longtime friend and goblin-hating murderous dog of war, while Ross Byers began his quest as the excessive sorcerer, Aurelis. Our team assembled, The Stuff of Legends' first dabble into adventuring follows.

Meeting with the mayor, we understood that we were to stop mysterious sabotage attempts on a hopeful resort town in the Varisian Gulf. Naturally, our business powwow was interrupted by screams: Goblins had invaded the bathhouse! Having studied Goblinoid languages in a Chelish Opera College, I tried to negotiate with them, but their crude language and dubious use of the honorifics "dog-lover" and "ugly-face," made communication difficult. While I eventually gained their trust, my inquiries into why they would invade a bathhouse were met with confusion over failed translations of the words "bath," "clean," "soap," and "hot water." They began to suspect that I wanted to cook them, eventually leading us to armed conflict.

After Maxwell the Dog dispatched two of the goblins (Aurelis proved his worth as an electric stove, cooking one with shocking grasp), we entered the bathhouse, only to be ambushed again! Two stirges and a goblin sniper were difficult foes, yet, with the ever-suspect "oh, are you still singing?" of bardsong, Maxwell destroyed all opposition. Afterward, finding the public bath infested with vipers, we left them for the town's pest control. When we later realized that was Zirithanis' job, we went back and he charmed them into a wicker basket and left them at the edge of town. When we later heard a picnicker was killed by vipers, we blamed Zirithanis.

However, being playtest time, an unexpected enemy followed us into town: the Goblin Oracle! She was one of the most feared enemies we have ever fought, especially since we lacked Aurelis's help (he was sleeping off breakfast in his 100-gp suite on the coast). Perhaps it was her big hat, or maybe the threat of goblin rash from her two mangy rat-dogs, or maybe her fury over the sacked child she took hostage that was greased out of her hands, but the strength of her unusually fearsome blows felled both Zirithanis and me at different points. Our leapfrog healing tactics took her by surprise, however, keeping us both in the fight. In the end, Maxwell the Dog killed her, jumping over a mountain, stopping a flood by barking, and then arriving home in time to snap her neck and take the glory for himself. Next: Maxwell Defeats Giant Wheeled Eidolon and Eats It.

Tyler Clark
Editorial Intern

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

Welcome to the Playtest

Friday, November 13, 2009

Illustration by Wayne Reynolds

Illustration by Wayne Reynolds

The playtest of the Pathfinder RPG Advanced Player's Guide begins today with the launch of two of the six new base classes set to appear in the book. The cavalier is a martial character. Like his name would suggest, he is at home fighting from horseback, but he is by no means crippled when his mount cannot be used. The cavalier gains a number of bonus abilities tied to his order, the oaths that he swears, and the challenges he makes. Next up in this playtest is the oracle. This spontaneous divine caster draws her power from the gods that support her focus, granting her special revelations as she goes up in level. 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.

In the coming weeks, we will be releasing the other four classes, two each week. During these periods, we will be focusing discussion on the most recent classes, but the playtest itself will remain open until the end of January 2010. The release dates are as follows.

Group 1 (11/13–11/29): Cavalier and Oracle
Group 2 (11/30–12/13): Summoner and Witch
Group 3 (12/14–12/27): Alchemist and Inquisitor

Just like the Core Rulebook playtest last year, there are a pair of forums waiting for your feedback and comments. The first is a general forum, for discussing larger issues and announcements. The second forum is specifically for cavalier and oracle feedback. We will add an additional forum every two weeks as the new classes are released.

I want to take a moment to discuss what we are looking for out of this playtest. Since these are new classes, actual playtesting is of great importance. While comments and observations are still valuable, we need playtesters to actually use these classes in play and provide reports of their experiences. This sort of feedback will really help us ensure that these classes become a balanced and fun part of the game.

See you on the boards.

Jason Bulmahn
Lead Designer

The Playtest is Coming!

Monday, November 9, 2009

It is almost here! The playtest of the six new base classes set to appear in the Pathfinder RPG Advanced Player's Guide will begin on Friday, November 13th. These classes will be presented as free PDF's that you can download starting Friday morning. Every two weeks we will release two of the classes, until all six have been playtested.

Each pair of classes will be spotlighted for two weeks, but feedback will be accepted through the end of January 2010. Special messageboards will be posted to paizo.com to allow playtesters to submit feedback, ask questions, and talk to other participants. The schedule of the playtest is as follows.

Illustration by Wayne Reynolds

• Group 1 (11/13–11/29): Cavalier and Oracle
• Group 2 (11/30–12/13): Summoner and Witch
• Group 3 (12/14–12/27): Alchemist and Inquisitor

Getting involved is easy. Simply download the files and use them in your games. Create characters and villains using the new classes and give them a try. Then, come back here to post feedback and your play experiences in the playtest messageboards. If you are looking for more opportunities to play, these playtest classes will be available for use in Pathfinder Society events. Look for rules allowing these classes in an upcoming update to the Guide to Pathfinder Society Organized Play.

The playtest of the core rules was a fantastic success and I look forward to working with the community to make the Advanced Player's Guide playtest just as successful.

Jason Bulmahn
Lead Designer

Leather-Bound Pathfinder Beta

Thursday, April 30, 2009

So our fans are apparently crazy... crazy awesome. Check out this leather-bound copy of the Pathfinder RPG Beta sent to our office by Sean, who posts on the messageboards as yellowdingo. The lovingly made book was well used by Sean and his fellow Beta playtesters, and includes all of the web enhancements for the Beta, as well as his personal notes from the playtest. It's really quite amazing!

David Eitelbach
Editorial Intern

The Shadow Under Sandpoint Campaign Begins!

Monday, April 6, 2009

Last Thursday an unlikely group of strangers gathered on the docks of Sandpoint, beginning what will doubtlessly be one of the most unfortunate misadventures in the usually peaceful town's history. This marks the beginning of the Paizo editorial pit's new biweekly Pathfinder RPG Campaign: James Jacobs's The Shadow Under Sandpoint! Watch the calamity unfold with ongoing character reports, missives, comments, journal entries, and sketches on the Shadow Under Sandpoint thread here.

And wish good luck to the people of Sandpoint—they're going to need it.

F. Wesley Schneider
Managing Editor

Bastards of Erebus—Final Playtest

Wednesday, March 25, 2009

And thus, the Bastards of Erebus playtest comes to a close, and we, the brave and foolhardy adventurers, are victorious. Highlights of the night: my half-orc dropping to negative 1 but holding out for one more round (thanks to orc ferocity) and dealing max damage before finally dropping; David's rogue once again getting hoodwinked by some sort of fear effect/spell and running terrified into the dark; one of the villains, down to about 1 hit point, turning to the main antagonist and pleading for help, only to have the villain reply, "Your sacrifice will be remembered!" and then torching him—along with us—with burning hands; our dwarf fighter running after said antagonist while he fled, pulling out his throwing axe and ending his movement just in range, and then hurling it into the back of his skull, just as he was about to vanish out the door, slaying him and thus concluding the adventure.

All in all, a fun adventure. It was also a lot of fun playtesting the latest version of the Pathfinder rules, which I really enjoyed. I'm not sure if we'll get to participate in the playtests for the rest of the AP, but I can say I'm really excited to find out what happens next...

♪We are the champions, my friends...♪

Hank Woon
Editorial Intern

Bastards of Erebus—Playtest Five

Tuesday, March 17, 2009

Woe unto three.

Between us, the number three must have come up at least a dozen times. Still, it's higher than 1, so I guess that means we're getting better. Plus it was fun to watch Sean bang his head repeatedly against the dry erase board after the tenth 3 popped up.

David forgot his dice again, I think that's what did us in (not only did he forget his dice, but when he first sat down he had forgotten his character and pencil, too!). Later his rogue was hoodwinked into attacking Beaky, which kept us out of the fight for several rounds (me because my druid was busy chasing after him, trying to prevent him from killing my eagle).

I think the adventure is getting close to wrapping up, though. Sean said that if it weren't for the astoundingly poor rolls session after session, we surely would have been finished by now. He left us at a cliffhanger: right as my character burst through a door (that's her new gig, bursting through doors before the rest of the party is ready), he set up the room and called it a night, with a newly revealed NPC calling out his chilling promises of death and ruin; unless it was Sean saying it out of character to us, I'm not quite sure...

Hank Woon
Editorial Intern

Bastards of Erebus—Playtest Four

Wednesday, March 11, 2009

I love it when a plan comes together. We had pressed forward with our arrangement, but suddenly discovered a new element that had to be overcome—a lone guard. We decided to do the only smart and reasonable thing... kill him. After we feathered our foe, Sean sketched a quick depiction of the quite-deader-than-dead fella, and then we continued on our merry way, straight into an encounter fest. We only made it a short way in before Sean called it a night, and right now we're chasing down a cowardly fiend who just locked himself behind a door.

Much to our surprise, not only did nobody die this time, but we actually did really well. I think it's because I finally remembered my dice.

One thing I'd like to mention is how I've never had a GM so cunningly use (or insist upon) the rules for light radius. (And, apparently, neither have my 3 companions, since I'm the only one who bought any torches during character creation.) Anyway, I've decided that I like it. It's been adding a whole new dimension to our tactics, which is always fun. In fact, in one of the earlier sessions (I believe the first), our dwarf and some of the "enemy" got into this fun little game of tossing torches back and forth in attempts to grant visibility to one's side while denying it for the other. In this last session, our rogue, who had languished behind for a round to recover his crossbow, was literally left in the dark, which greatly affected his options.

So, during the next episode of "Bastards of Erebus," will our heroes continue on to victory? Will the players finally remember to bring their dice? Will their characters remember to buy some sort of illuminating device? Tune it next time to find out!

Hank Woon
Editorial Intern

Bastards of Erebus Playtest Three

Wednesday, March 4, 2009

"Forget the dwarf! Tumble past the bad guys, get the bird, and let's get the heck out of here!"

Things were not going well for us. David started calling these playtesting sessions "The Misadventures of Erebus." But still, it was fun. The interesting thing about this playtest was all of the planning and options involved. For this encounter, we had to choose from a number of stratagems. After finally deciding upon one, we launched into action. I again cast entangle (Sean has taken to calling my druid "The Entangler"), summoned an owl, cast magic fang on my eagle, then sent the two avian avengers to flank one of the baddies. We were also using some new rules of Jason's for animal companions, and because of a typo my eagle and summoned ally got severely nerfed. The actual rules are nicely balanced, but my tactic ended up being of little help because of the misunderstanding, and Sean quickly (and gleefully, I might add) turned them into feathery piñatas.

After my eagle, Beaky, and our dwarf fighter dropped, and my summoned ally vanished, I called out the line of the night to David, who refused to either run away or pick up my eagle. I warned him, though, that if he dropped too, I was only picking up my animal companion. Well, to make a long story short, we're going to be refighting this battle next session. ;)

So we continued with the story, and we were soon presented with more stratagem planning. I really like this about the adventure. So far with the 3 parts we have played through, there have always been a number of choices, each with its own interesting tactical advantages and disadvantages. This always ends up with a lot of debating, but I've long been a fan of this sort of thing because it keeps the players engaged. Of course, we always have the standard rush-forward-and-kick-down-the-door option, but unlike many modules out there, this isn't funneling us down a path where our only real options are which door we want to open next.

We had just settled upon our tactic for the third part of the adventure when Sean called it a night. Now we have to wait another week before we get to see if our carefully laid plans will lead to glorious victory or to humiliating defeat... May Shelyn protect us!

Hank Woon
Editorial Intern

Bastards of Erebus—Playtest Two

Wednesday, February 25, 2009

David is pretty busy with his appendix posts, so I'm doing the second playtest blog. It began with Sean having us reset and trying our fateful battle over. Pre-battle, we toyed around with some new ideas, but ultimately decided that our last tactic was working pretty well (that is, until we died), and so decided to go with that.

The encounter actually started off a lot better than last time. We took out our first opponent rather speedily... and right about then things started to go against us. First my eagle got taken out. Then our dice betrayed us. Now, I know everyone has had bad dice nights, but this was incredulously, astronomically, and hilariously terrible. Even Sean shook his head in dismay, chalking it up as a first in his book.

That's when we began dropping like flies. The dwarf fighter and my druid were dealing the most damage, but of course this meant that we were the first to drop (meanwhile my eagle stabilized at –9). This left the gnome sorcerer and David's rogue. The gnome, after having a series of unfortunate rolls (like all of us), finally managed to hit one of the baddies while also providing a flanking bonus for the rogue... and then dropped. That left David and the final baddie, mano a mano. It went something like this (and by something, I mean exactly):

Sean: (Rolls a d20) 1.
David: (Rolls a d20) 1.
Sean: (Rolls a d20) 1.
David: (Rolls a d20) 1.

Two rounds in a row! Meanwhile, the gnome, the dwarf, and my druid are slowly bleeding to death. The gnome stabilized at I think –8, the dwarf at –9, and I just kept dying. But then, with a mighty strike with his rapier for 1 point of damage, David dropped the last foe and Sean declared (because he's a nice guy), that David managed to save me—right at –9.

Afterward, we leveled up (woohoo!) and moved on to the next phase of the adventure, which involves some careful planning on our part...

Hank Woon
Editorial Intern

The Bastards of Erebus—First Playtest

Thursday, February 19, 2009

Much to our delight, David and I were invited by Sean K Reynolds to participate in the playtesting of his latest Pathfinder Adventure Path adventure, The Bastards of Erebus.

We really enjoyed the adventure (well, the part we got through before suffering from a TPK). In addition to a gnome sorcerer and dwarven cleric, our party contained a half-orc druid (me) and a human rogue (David). David's character was the only native Chelaxian, which actually proved pretty helpful a few times.

I can't really go into too much detail, but I will say that there was a lot of suspense, which provoked a lot of debating over which course of action to take (I always love that!). The battle that did us in was actually already pretty balanced, but we had some extraordinarily poor rolls, while the enemy enjoyed just the opposite.

My druid was kicking butt with her entangle spell, but alas, the spell's effect only reduces Dex mods instead of denying, so it was of little help to the rogue, and the defensive way in which I had cast the spell prevented easy flanking for not only them, but also ourselves.

Sean estimates that the playtest will take about 4 sessions to complete, and David and I are going to take turns blogging about it. Maybe his first blog will be better news than a TPK, but either way I know it will be a blast! Stay tuned.

Hank Woon
Editorial Intern