Pathfinder Player Companion: Blood of Fiends (PFRPG) (based on
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Paizo Publishing, LLC
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Born of mortal and fiendish blood intertwined, tieflings are tainted individuals thrust
into a world that has learned to both fear and despise them. Whether they openly
display their freakish ancestry in settlements known for their tiefling populations
or hide such shameful attributes through either mundane or magical methods, all
tieflings know that they are different.
Blood of Fiends presents a player-friendly overview of the tieflings of the
Pathfinder campaign setting, as well as new rules and information to help
players customize their own fiendish characters.
Inside this book, you’ll find:
Detailed information on the origins, physiology, traditions, social
interactions, and beliefs of tieflings—the accursed descendants of
mortals and fiends.
A table of 100 variant tiefling abilities to further customize your
fiendish characters.
An expansive look at the 10 most common types of tiefling heritages,
each of which provides tiefling characters with alternate ability score
modifiers, skills, and spell-like abilities.
New feats for battle-hardened tiefling characters.
New curses and inquisitions for fiendish oracles and inquisitors.
New subdomains for tiefling clerics, each reflective of a different
fiendish realm.
New masterpieces for tiefling bards and a bloodline for daemontainted
sorcerers.
Dozens of new traits to flesh out your tormented character and
bodily features to help distinguish your tiefling.
This Pathfinder Player Companion is intended for use with the
Pathfinder Roleplaying Game, but can easily be incorporated into
any fantasy world.
Written by Hal Maclean and Colin McComb
Each bimonthly 32-page Pathfinder Player Companion contains several player-focused articles exploring the volume’s theme as well as short articles with innovative new rules for social, magic, religious, and combat-focused characters, as well as traits to better anchor the player to the campaign.
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This is definitely my favorite player companion so far. It gives you more new rules than any other player companion, and it somehow manages to do that without getting rid of the flavor. The new tiefling heritages are great, and there are plenty of feats, traits, and other goodies to customize your tiefling characters. Well done, Paizo!
As the title suggests, the Pathfinder Player Companion: Book of Fiends is a book for the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game, it is intended for players, and it is meant to give more options and ideas on how to play a character of the tiefling race. That is, someone descended from fiends of the Lower Planes (devils, demons, and whatnot). The book succeeds admirably in this, providing an overview of what a tiefling's family life and upbringing will probably be like which is to say unpleasant, and their likely views on everything from the gods to violence to society.
It also provides new subdomains for tiefling divine spellcasters, ten variants on the base tiefling depending on who and what your fiendish ancestor was, new spells, new feats, and a raft of traits that give minor bonuses while helping to both connect your tiefling to the campaign setting and to establish their character, and much more. This is an amazing piece of work for the price listed and a very worthy addition to any Pathfinder player's library, especially for fans who want to try something different from the usual elves and dwarves and halflings.
Blood of Fiends is an invaluable resource for anyone playing tiefling characters. It expands on the tiefling article featured in Council of Thieves #1: Bastards of Erebus, providing no less than 12½ pages of fluff that brings great detail to tieflings in Golarion as opposed to the 3 pages of fluff presented in the aforementioned article (not counting the article's Random Features table which is also present in Blood of Fiends).
In addition to the expanded fluff, the book features a bunch of game mechanics, some of which were included in the Council of Thieves article as well. The variant tiefling heritages are more detailed in this book, providing descriptive text and awesome portraits showcasing a sample version of each heritage. One of the feats presented in the Council of Thieves article, Fiendish Heritage, has been ommitted from Blood of Fiends. So if you want a variant heritage for your tiefling character, just choose one. Don't bother with the feat.
Overall this is a great player resource with lots of useful fluff AND crunch. Some of the material has been presented before, sure, but that was as an article in a primarily GM-focused product. Blood of Fiends presents all the information players need to play tiefling characters without having to borrow their GM's book. Artwork is, for the most part, phenomenal.
The book is the definitive guide for tieflings in Golarion, each heritage has two heritage specific traits (in addition to several more general tiefling traits) and a fair amount of flavor content to it. The versatility of Tieflings is improved with the addition of two charts from the Council of thieves Adventure path dealing with Alternative Spell-like abilities, and random cosmetic mutations for GMs to customize their Tiefling NPCs.
There are several Tiefling-centric feats (all but one of them requires the character be a Tiefling) all of which seem fairly well balanced. The Daemon Bloodline for sorcerors provides new and interesting powers with several not found anywhere else. The new Bard Masterpieces all look pretty fun to use, and with three new oracle curses and an equal number of inquisitions each aligned with one of the evil planes the book is fairly comprehensive.
The flavor articles are robust, and well grounded in what little we already know about Tieflings in Golarion with subsets for where certain heritages are most commonly found and sections for Tieflings from most countries in both the inner sea and Tian-Xia. In addition to general overviews and bits about what makes each variant of tiefling unique from a flavor perspective.
My only issues with the book are that it doesn't modify Tieflings so that their Fiendish sorcery works for the Daemon Bloodline. And that the feat which allows it to work for other bloodlines doesn't include Daemon either.
My other issue is that if you Have the Council of thieves adventure path, this new book makes no mention whatsoever of the Fiendish Heritage feat, so it can be confusing as to how that feat fits into the use of Tieflings.
Overall, a fairly solid, well balanced and flavorful book.
