This is my first adventure path and I am running a group of new characters through this module now. It has seriously bought the gaming table alive and I am getting requests to fit multiple gaming sessions in a week. The way this module takes a seemingly random shipwreck and builds up a campaign the players feel they have a stake in is genius. I cannot wait to get into the next module :)
My home grown campaign is going to culminate in a quick jaunt through Gallowspire. While that is a long way off I still thought I would pick this up for a bit of light reading. This is a great book and sure to inspire anyone designing the great dungeon crawl...
Loved this book. I have a tendency toward the macabre in my self designed campaigns and this book is well worn by now. I love it and has bought a dark light to my home campaign that brings realism to my players in spades. Great work.
Rival adventuring parties set to be recurring thorns in your players sides time and time again. From the downright evil to those that feel like they are helping everyone when really all they are doing is stirring up trouble. A group of rivals for nearly any campaign level :)
No matter what style fantasy RPG you like, you will find a country that matches in this book. I love this book with a passion and I normally create my own worlds. Two big thumbs up :)
These books are brilliant. They give you the flavour that you wish they could fit into the one page creature descriptions which you just know they cannot.
Buy these books, as I have never struck a bad one yet :)
This book, apart from the gunslinger annoyed me. The Ninja is a rogue with an eastern flavour that should have been handled as an archetype build and a samurai is essentially identical to a cavalier. I do really like the gunslinger though my players do not...
I really had high expectations of this book but it failed utterly. A huge amount of this book is dedicated to spells. Um Ultimate Combat = spells? That is what I bought Ultimate Magic for right? The mastering combat section tried to introduce a whole heap of complexity right where it is not needed and the options for classes felt thin. To quote bilbo, like trying to spread too little butter across a piece of toast.
Called shot rules are cool! About four books too late though. Nearly every campaign has their own house rules by now and they actually contain some stuff in it that has to do with hitting items, not just body parts...
So, what I think happened is someone in the Paizo Pathfinder team went "Hey, wouldn't an Ultimate Magic book be cool? We could put stylised duels in, some nifty class builds and some cool spells!" Then someone else went "Well if we do that lets have an Ultimate Combat book too! Not sure what we could do in it but we will figure it out as we go..." This is one book (with the notable exception of the artwork and the Gunslinger) that I wish I had never bought. In fact it is still laying precisely where I put it after finishing reading it and trying to convince my players the gunslinger was cool. It has not been touched since then...
This book appears to have taken a bad rap. I for one quite like this, from the Magus class, through all the options for any class that is even slightly magical. I actually really liked the words of power idea, though I will never use them in any serious way (perhaps a shamanic npc) and I enjoyed the feats and discussion on magic use.
Really gives magic a good feel in the campaign. Mind you, the book is not an essential addition at all. If you want a fully fleshed out magical campaign though it is a great book.
Not as extensive as the first, yet the same price...
I do not mind the creatures in this book, but it does get less use than my other bestiary. However it still has the same problem as the first also. The use of generic rules for a creature type. For an actual hardcover book to be useful in a game (for creatures) you MUST be able to have all rules for the creature on the one page. The use of rules based on a type of creature that you need to leave the creatures page to reference is irritating and a waste of in game time.
Please fix this problem. I understand that constructs all have similarities but I need the rules on each constructs page to reference. Not have to skip to the end of the book to see if they have something relevant when they need it.
This book is excellent. It has a wide variety of creatures to suit all level campaigns and excellent artwork. The only criticism I have of this book is one that is common across all RPG's these days and that is the use of the generic ruling for types of creatures. For example, a creature listed as having Undead Traits FORCES you to look at a separate page for further rules on how to run the creature. To be a perfect creature catalogue you really need all the rules on the one page to save the time. I know this means repetitive printing and information and cost, but I would prefer it that way.
This book is brilliantly presented (which is not all that surprising considering Paizo's track record) and full of great information.
However, this is the book I reach for the absolute least. I am absolutely certain that this book would be invaluable to novice and intermediary GM's but the content in it is stuff that I have been dealing with for years.
I have to admit that some of the advanced topics were good to read through and it is these that I find the most useful in the book, but the whole designing focus is a bit lost on me. So I looked at the review for this book through the eyes of a novice and find that this book would be very useful when you are first embarking on designing some game content. It is full of tips and tricks on how to breathe life into a game.
I normally cringe at books that add heaps of options to a class. When I flicked through this book I think I did cringe a little at the thought of having to familiarise myself with hundreds of different permutations of various classes. But lo and behold this is now one of my favourite (and my players) books.
For me it is the Alchemist (and in no small part the Master Chymist) class that makes this book amongst my favourites. The versatility and flavour that class brings to this game is invaluable. I like many of the other classes but if I ever get to play in a pathfinder game (I am always GM) I will be a doddering alchemist with a side personality called Lasher who is crazy as a scorned Incubus...
The options aforementioned have been used extensively by some of my players and with the proviso that they do the hard work in ensuring they keep me informed of how they work and give it some thought as to why their character is different they work well. Lots of feats (including teamwork feats) new spells, equipment and treasure make this a great book to have.
It is not essential to the main game which is good for those on a limited budget but for me a must have :) It is beautifully presented and meticulously made as per Paizo products through and through that I have dealt with so far.
Now, where did I put that beaker... I have been working on an extract to cause my players to want to GM...
I so love this screen. It is solid, with four panels and visually appealing to the players with good information on the GM side. I cannot tell you how many times I have spent in game looking up how a skill works etc. (because other screens seem to include the least useful information to a GM on them) and then looked at the screen straight after finding the info to see it was staring at me in the face all that time.
To start with, I would have preferred to give this 4.5 stars but the option does not exist. I can not give this game a perfect rating but the drawbacks are very minor...
I had heard nothing of Pathfinder until a friend of mine (who had never played the game) referred me to it after my overwhelming disappointment with DnD 4e. I am a long time gamer (over 25 years) and I generally tend to fringe games rather than core systems. I did play a good deal of AD&D in my time though so I tried DnD at 3e as well and was sorely disappointed then too. I skipped 3.5 as it seemed a money making venture and tried again at 4e to be totally gutted that this is the core system the industry is based on.
So I had just bought a load of 4e stuff when I bought this book and after 6 months those purchases were sold, unread and unopened on ebay after buying Pathfinder Core Rules. This system is SO usable, intuitive and well presented. At its heart is a focus on roleplaying rather than tabletop gaming and it is presented so beautifully.
The system is familiar, improved and well balanced. Information is presented in a cohesive format although the tome is a daunting task with many, many pages of rules.
This book covers the basics and largely all you need to play is one of the bestiary books for a true monster hunt!
The problems are minor but will have an effect on novice players. Firstly, there needs to be a detailed process on building a character. In this book it is spread out and you really need some experience to bring a character to fruition. Many games these days drop the character building tutorial and that sucks for newbies. Secondly, a lot of the important game affecting rules appear in appendices. Things like the way conditions effect, poisons and diseases are all shunted into the appendix. It makes them hard to find when using the index, or even when you make a logical guess at what chapter they should be in.
Love this game though. It is the best fantasy game on the market so GO AND BUY IT!
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