Pathfinder Roleplaying Game: Advanced Race Guide (OGL)

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Pathfinder Roleplaying Game: Advanced Race Guide (OGL)
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Get the most out of your heritage with the Pathfinder RPG Advanced Race Guide! Embrace your inner monster by playing one of 30 iconic races from mythology and gaming history, or build an entirely new race of your own. If classic races are more your style, go beyond the stereotypes for elves, dwarves, and the other core races with new options and equipment to help you stand out from the crowd.

The Pathfinder RPG Advanced Race Guide is a bold new companion to the Pathfinder RPG Core Rulebook. This imaginative tabletop game builds on more than 10 years of system development and an Open Playtest featuring more than 50,000 gamers to create a cutting-edge RPG experience that brings the all-time best-selling set of fantasy rules into the new millennium.

The 256-page Pathfinder RPG Advanced Race Guide includes:

  • New rules and options to help you customize all seven of the classic core races, including new racial traits, racial subtypes, and racial archetypes.
  • 30 exotic races, from mischievous goblins and reptilian kobolds to crow-headed tengus and deadly drow, each with complete rules for use as player characters, plus archetypes, alternate racial traits, and other options for maximum customization.
  • A complete and balanced system for creating an unlimited number of new races, mixing and matching powers and abilities to form characters and cultures specific to your campaign.
  • Tons of new race-specific equipment, feats, spells, and magic items for each of the races detailed!
  • ... and much, much more!

ISBN-13: 978-1-60125-390-3

Errata
Last Updated - 7/29/2015

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Probably one of my favorites...

5/5

All the new races and traits and feats and racial magic items really helped me flesh out my campaign world. The addition of being able to make your own race made me sing soprano. Excellent, excellent book for those who want to play a race that's completely outta the ordinary. Part of the reason I got this book is because in the core rulebook it says something like this: "only for more experienced GMs, having players play odd races can be rewarding and fun, but you have to be careful" etc. but doesn't give you a glimpse of the races or explain how they might effect a campaign world a certain way. Using this book, you can experience what it would be like to play a rare (and really cool) race. Being an Oread is awesome and probably one of the most exciting and fun experiences in my gaming career.

Awesome product, Paizo!


Too campaign-specific

2/5

The book is focused heavily around the PFRPG "host" campaign, with no clear instructions on how to extrapolate for other campaigns (we use the 3.0 Forgotten Realms setting). So in the end, most of this book is filler and not really very useful. Even the second printing tied the book more closely with the "home team" setting.

What little can be gleaned from the book is helpful, but it's not worth the hardcover price if your campaign is something other than the generic one sponsored by Pathfinder. I wonder why it is, that almost every "host" campaign seems like a patchwork quilt of several others, with most of the interesting stuff left out?


The ARG is how the ACG should of been

5/5

The Race Guide is how the Advanced Class Guide should have been set up- with clear rules and customization options to create your own class. Great book for players and GM's ready to venture out into some custom races.


Hit the sweet spot

5/5

I don't quite know what it is but this is one of my favorite Paizo products to date. Maybe it's the way the book is organized with each race with its own section. Maybe it's the swappable racial traits akin to class archetypes. Maybe it's the artwork, showing two to three examples of each race to demonstrate the variety within each species. Maybe it's the archetypes, favored class bonus options, notes on society and appearance, spells, feats. It just felt like icing on the cake to include a race builder at the end.


Exactly What my Campaign Needed

5/5

please excuse any typos.

so you're supposed to start off easy, right? go by the book, go by the campaign setting they give you. just stick to the six core races, and don't go overboard trying to invent stuff, right? well, I didn't exactly do that. I created a whole world from scratch, messed with the core qualities of numerous races, core races or otherwise, and on top of that, invented a pantheon and mythos which is completely incompatible with Golarion's. this is the first game I will ever GM. to be frank, I'm in trouble.

with that context, this book is a godsend, and I'm glad to have the freedom and ease of use this guide gives me. having a game world populated with multiple monstrous races (most of them completely reimagined), I needed to have a way to make sure the stats reflected the people. it breaks immersion to have a race with traits that quite clearly do not make sense for them. something that always bothered me with the core material is how race was treated: I found it restricted, stereotypical. clearly, the Pathfinder race system needs a little diversity, especially if your campaign isn't actually set in Golarion.

one clear example of the usefulness of this guide for worldbuilding and racial diversity is the Gnome trait "hatred". see, the rules state that the Gnomes have a deep-seated hatred of goblinoid and reptilian races, but in my campaign, Gnomes and Goblins hail from different corners of the universe, and logically, shouldn't even be aware of the other's existence. it simply wouldn't make sense for me to have a gnome character that's trained against a race they've never seen before in their life. thank god this guide has other plausible gnome traits that I can replace that problematic one with one with. not even to mention how the Ifrits, Oreads, Sylphs, and Undines had filled a gaping hole in my mythos. (though I was dissappointed to find that the Kobolds were still utter weaklings)

in another spur of greatness, I can already tell that my players, by now fairly intoxicated on the freedom I've given them, are going to love these new options. I can already see one of them deciding they want to go with one of the very comprehensive and imaginative archetypes, or choosing catfolk or kitsune instead of elf or goblin. the best part is, this book is so easy to figure out, so I am perfectly able to give them this freedom without puzzling over the rules for a month (like I embarrassingly did with the core rulebook).

trust me. if you're the kind of Game Master that doesn't like playing by the rules, and likes to do your own thing lore wise (like create a complete departure from the default setting), then this book is almost a necessity for you. for anyone else who likes the idea of monstrous PCs, you'll love this one.


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Silver Crusade

2 people marked this as a favorite.
Pathfinder Adventure Path Subscriber
Midnight_Angel wrote:

*sigh* Now, with the additional Age and Height/weight rules, a couple of the characters in our group have technically become illegal.

One almost 16-year-old street urchin tiefling rogue (Hey, even Blood of Fiends sported a 'roughly human lifespan' for Tieflings)
Our 5'10" changeling summoner (what happened to 'tall and slender'? 4'2" + 2d4 ain't exactly tall)...

Guess there are times I just have to pretend I didn't read some of the tables...

Or just say "the tables say A, but since the game won't blow up if we do B, everything is fine".

Shadow Lodge Contributor, RPG Superstar 2010 Top 8

Midnight_Angel wrote:

*sigh* Now, with the additional Age and Height/weight rules, a couple of the characters in our group have technically become illegal.

One almost 16-year-old street urchin tiefling rogue (Hey, even Blood of Fiends sported a 'roughly human lifespan' for Tieflings)
Our 5'10" changeling summoner (what happened to 'tall and slender'? 4'2" + 2d4 ain't exactly tall)...

Guess there are times I just have to pretend I didn't read some of the tables...

Well, remember that the ARG is setting neutral, so just say that on Golarion, Changelings are taller and Tieflings have shorter lifespans. :D


Pathfinder Adventure Path, Rulebook, Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

Got it. The two people who want to play Kitsune in my upcoming second Jade Regent campaign should be pretty happy.

Although with all those new options, I fear I suddenly will have a party of solely exotic races running around. Hmmm.

Shadow Lodge Contributor, RPG Superstar 2010 Top 8

magnuskn wrote:

Got it. The two people who want to play Kitsune in my upcoming second Jade Regent campaign should be pretty happy.

Although with all those new options, I fear I suddenly will have a party of solely exotic races running around. Hmmm.

Go with it! It's fun!


Pathfinder Adventure Path, Rulebook, Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

I'd really like to see more of the common races being played ( other than humans, which always seem like the "to-go" race with many. Strange that. ^^ ).

Sczarni

Boo every book store I went to yesterday tells me they won't have any until July 1st at the earliest.

Sneaky but strategically played Paizo.


Now I just have to wait till end of work day... must... support... local busines...


You can always do both, buy the book at your local shop and get a PDF from Paizo.


I have a question

If you want to have standard and Advanced play together in a group, can;t you just put the race on a slower experience track to make it about even with the party?

Example: Play a Standard you get fast, Play an advanced you start at Medium and play a monstrous you start at Monstrous?

A ton of my racial ideas won't work unless something like that would be allowed... unless I bump pretty much every Standard race to advanced.


GM_Artifex wrote:

I have a question

If you want to have standard and Advanced play together in a group, can;t you just put the race on a slower experience track to make it about even with the party?

Example: Play a Standard you get fast, Play an advanced you start at Medium and play a monstrous you start at Monstrous?

A ton of my racial ideas won't work unless something like that would be allowed... unless I bump pretty much every Standard race to advanced.

Sounds good to me.


@Spiral_Ninja

I think so, but I want a few more people to give me their replies. I feel that limiting my races and such from the playtest would suck and honestly I never even go past the advanced for most abilities. Sure, having multiple arms would have been nice on a non monstrous but I can see where the problems would arise.

Sovereign Court RPG Superstar 2009 Top 32, 2010 Top 8

@GM Artifex

The only issue I see is that the monstrous races would dominate the game at low levels. At 100K XP though, a slow character would be almost to 9th level, a medium character almost to 10th, and a fast character almost to 11th. Even at 240K XP, a fast character is at 20th, a medium character at 19th and a slow at 18th. I think the Monstrous would be stronger throughout the campaign.


@Matthew Morris

Well, I don't know how to balance it really. None of my races go into monstrous thank the gods but if I wanted a tiny race to have multiple arms and such I'm screwed I guess. Also, in the supplement I didn't find anything for designing your own racial traits... So I assume if I want to make some homebrew ones I'll have to base the pricing on the book or something similar in pricing in the book at least.


If anyone knows who the freelancers were who wrote the fetchling or undine entry, please PM me!

Liberty's Edge

Pathfinder Battles Case Subscriber; Pathfinder Maps, Pathfinder Accessories Subscriber; Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Charter Superscriber; Starfinder Charter Superscriber
Midnight_Angel wrote:

*sigh* Now, with the additional Age and Height/weight rules, a couple of the characters in our group have technically become illegal.

One almost 16-year-old street urchin tiefling rogue (Hey, even Blood of Fiends sported a 'roughly human lifespan' for Tieflings)

You are correct That chart does not match what is said in Blood of Fiends.

I am assuming you are talking about a PFS character since you said "Legal", I would post your problem in the PFS forums, making it clear this is a PFS issue, asking if you should follow the description giving in Blood of Fiends or the chart in this book. Also I would ask in the errata thread for this book if that is an error in the chart.


Dragnmoon wrote:
I am assuming you are talking about a PFS character since you said "Legal", I would post your problem in the PFS forums, making it clear this is a PFS issue, asking if you should follow the description giving in Blood of Fiends or the chart in this book. Also I would ask in the errata thread for this book if that is an error in the chart.

Never fear; our group is non-PFS :)


P.s. What I meant by the lowering the exp intake was, a NORMAL group of players that know little to nothing about the game or are seriously just trying to have fun, would it be a good thing to do or do I need to add MORE penalties?

Liberty's Edge

Pathfinder Battles Case Subscriber; Pathfinder Maps, Pathfinder Accessories Subscriber; Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Charter Superscriber; Starfinder Charter Superscriber
Midnight_Angel wrote:
Never fear; our group is non-PFS :)

Well that is simple then, just talk to your GM.


GM_Artifex wrote:
P.s. What I meant by the lowering the exp intake was, a NORMAL group of players that know little to nothing about the game or are seriously just trying to have fun, would it be a good thing to do or do I need to add MORE penalties?

If you have a bunch of new players, don't sweat it. The first goal should be fun. You can grant the standard race players some extra boons to make up for the disparities.

I encourage you to post your races to the Homebrew forum if you want to make sure they won't overpower other races too much. Although fair warning, if I look at the races, I'll be ignoring any point costs :)


@Cheapy Can you post a link to there? I will start with my Soquasmanites, which are 10 points on the dot, and then post some of the other ones that would be advanced at worst.


GM_Artifex wrote:

I have a question

If you want to have standard and Advanced play together in a group, can;t you just put the race on a slower experience track to make it about even with the party?

Example: Play a Standard you get fast, Play an advanced you start at Medium and play a monstrous you start at Monstrous?

A ton of my racial ideas won't work unless something like that would be allowed... unless I bump pretty much every Standard race to advanced.

in theory it sounds good, but in reality it will not work,

because of the class power to Race power ratio will get really bad after say 4th level.

if you wanted to correct it, I would instead do as in the bestiary, use the CR as a level adjustment, that fades over time.

or as a GM break the race down into racial levels (with or without racial hitdice, pending on race) and give a racial level every few levels.


That or let the standard races add some abilities from the build your own races section to match the advanced races in cost. Problem solved.


GM_Artifex wrote:
@Cheapy Can you post a link to there? I will start with my Soquasmanites, which are 10 points on the dot, and then post some of the other ones that would be advanced at worst.

Sure thing!

Remember that you can't edit posts that are older than one hour :)

Dark Archive

Does anyone with the book feel like spoiling the Fiendish Vessel for me? Even just a bit about it'd be nice. I'm not going to have hands on a copy until Friday at the soonest, it looks like.

Edit: Also, the Half-Elf Wild Caller archetype, if anyone is feeling particularly generous. My main question there is how it interacts with the Half-Elf alternate Favored Class benefit.


@Azure_Zero None of the races I have designed have HD... I may just throw an extra racial thing to each standard race to bump them up to advanced races, that way advanced is the standard.

Dreamscarred Press

5 people marked this as a favorite.

Got it and loving it.


GM_Artifex wrote:
@Azure_Zero None of the races I have designed have HD... I may just throw an extra racial thing to each standard race to bump them up to advanced races, that way advanced is the standard.

I've made races with no HD and still made racial levels for them

Me wrote:
or as a GM break the race down into racial levels (with or without racial hitdice, pending on race) and give a racial level every few levels.

I used the Half-dragon racial class in Races of the Dragon (page 70-71) as a template in building the racial classes for most of my custom races that are advanced, or monsterous


@Cheapy

http://paizo.com/forums/dmtz5y1k?Help-with-Races#2


@Azure_Zero

I'm not quite sure how to do the level thing... but if I did, would they gain racial stuff at ?th level AND what they would get class wise? If so, that sounds oddly familiar to the Dream Worlds system my friend is designing using OGL except you advance in your racial class and your trained class as you level.

Grand Lodge

Dragnmoon wrote:
Midnight_Angel wrote:

*sigh* Now, with the additional Age and Height/weight rules, a couple of the characters in our group have technically become illegal.

One almost 16-year-old street urchin tiefling rogue (Hey, even Blood of Fiends sported a 'roughly human lifespan' for Tieflings)

You are correct That chart does not match what is said in Blood of Fiends.

I am assuming you are talking about a PFS character since you said "Legal", I would post your problem in the PFS forums, making it clear this is a PFS issue, asking if you should follow the description giving in Blood of Fiends or the chart in this book. Also I would ask in the errata thread for this book if that is an error in the chart.

This should be brought up to them regardless of who does it. This way PFS can update what they allow.


The race builder has some peculiarities about it.

A "static feat" is a standard trait and only costs 2 RP. Weapon finesse and improved initiative meet the requirements of a static feat and both cost 2 RP (nimble attacks and quick reactions), but for some reason they are "advanced" traits...

Claws are also "advanced" (while probably a really popular trait to take, I think I'd have just upped the cost a bit and made these "standard").

Given this, I don't know how much stock I'll take in the dividers between traits. Definitely a "guideline" is what I'm thinking.


@Foghammer

As the gm, could I get away with using any of the traits from advanced and monstrous as long as I have the points? If so, I my just make all races advanced and be able to pick from monstrous and standard.


GM_Artifex wrote:

@Azure_Zero

I'm not quite sure how to do the level thing... but if I did, would they gain racial stuff at ?th level AND what they would get class wise? If so, that sounds oddly familiar to the Dream Worlds system my friend is designing using OGL except you advance in your racial class and your trained class as you level.

Sample from RoD

The spacing of the levels depends on the CR value,
and they take the level with their class level.

Liberty's Edge

Are free pdfs not offered with buying a hard copy anymore? I ordered a book that is now shipping but am not seeing the download.

Silver Crusade

Pathfinder Adventure Path Subscriber
The_Hanged_Man wrote:
Are free pdfs not offered with buying a hard copy anymore? I ordered a book that is now shipping but am not seeing the download.

They never were. Free PDFs are for subscribers only.

Liberty's Edge

Gorbacz wrote:
The_Hanged_Man wrote:
Are free pdfs not offered with buying a hard copy anymore? I ordered a book that is now shipping but am not seeing the download.
They never were. Free PDFs are for subscribers only.

That's my bad then. I have Amazon Prime so I guess I'll stick with ordering from them from now on.


GM_Artifex wrote:

@Foghammer

As the gm, could I get away with using any of the traits from advanced and monstrous as long as I have the points? If so, I my just make all races advanced and be able to pick from monstrous and standard.

No, there are still some abilities that aren't priced for standard traits. There would be judgment calls on your part as a DM as to whether or not a trait would fit on a playable race. I just wouldn't get too hung up on the dividers.


The_Hanged_Man wrote:
I have Amazon Prime so I guess I'll stick with ordering from them from now on.

Careful with that. If I read some of the threads on this boards correctly, Amazon has quite a history of cancelling pre-ordered Paizo books.

Silver Crusade

Pathfinder Adventure Path Subscriber

Either cancelling preorders, or having them horribly delayed, or having the books suddenly vanish from inventory and require a prod from Vic to get them back up, or having books unavailable for a month because Joe Doe got a book with 2 missing pages and Amazon launched an investigation to check if that's a problem with every book...

Paizo Employee CEO

2 people marked this as a favorite.
ossian666 wrote:

Boo every book store I went to yesterday tells me they won't have any until July 1st at the earliest.

Sneaky but strategically played Paizo.

That wasn't us. The release date has always been June 20th. Not sure why the book stores are saying the 1st of July, but it is worth looking into from our end. But there is no cunning strategic plan on our part—I really wish the bookstores were selling it TODAY. But alas, when you deal with distribution chains where things are taken out of your hands, you get situations like this. Which, trust me, don't benefit us in the least. I would rather that EVERYBODY was releasing the book on the same exact day. That is what we are shooting for.

-Lisa

RPG Superstar 2015 Top 8

On the other hand, all of the ordering/release date problems created by distributors make me really glad I subscribed again. I got my pdf last week and my physical book on Monday morning, an early birthday present as it were. Plus everything was packaged with care with corner protectors and everything. I didn't save as much (the one real boon Amazon grants is free shipping over a certain amount), but between the pre-release issue, good packaging (look, I used to work in book retail, I appreciate stuff like this), and absolute guarantee of getting the book, it's more than worth it.

I sound like a freaking ad, I realize, but that's the case.


I am happy that I should have one of my hardcopies today or tomorrow.

Owner - House of Books and Games LLC

DeathQuaker wrote:
On the other hand, all of the ordering/release date problems created by distributors make me really glad I subscribed again.

Yeah, same here. Well, I've always been a subscriber, but you know what I mean. Then again, I have no freakin' clue how I'm going to survive August. Urgh :(


Got it and love it. Lots of interesting race variants, archetypes, feats, spells, magical items and very beautiful artwork. My grievances can be counted with the fingers of a human hand and most can be easily fixed.

1) Some of the feats and archetypes don't really fit into race restrictions. Feral Child for example is a great Tarzan/Mowgli druid variant, but it's not like humans are the only people who abandon small children in woods. In fact the class would perfectly fit some monstrous half-breeds. It's similar with the Redeemer Paladin for the half-orcs. It also perfectly fits tieflings and dhampirs. But that's easily fixed.

2) Aasimar can only come from human stock? I hope that will be ignored in Blood of Angels just like the "regardless where tieflings come from they can at best become as old as humans" from Blood of Fiends was ignored in the Advanced Race Guide. I'm going to ignore it when using the Race Builder.

3) Constructs and Undead can't be resurrected? There really should have been traits/spells for that, the way it is now those races are barely worth playing.

4) The breath weapon trait is way too weak. 1d6 damage 1/day is pitiful, heck it would be pitiful at level 5 if it were at will. Upgrading it gets expensive very quickly and leaves you with the same problem as the 3.5 half-dragon template. You get something that is too powerful for low levels and too weak for high levels. The damage really should scale with character level.

Silver Crusade

Pathfinder Adventure Path Subscriber

That's way the book says "this stuff is for race X, but GM can allow it for others".

ARG is a setting-neutral book, BoF/BoA is Golarion-specific, hence the differences.


Construct and undead races are hardmode.


So..The ogre costs less than the deep gnome..time to push me playing an ogre on my DMs.

Grand Lodge

Hmm, the alternate classes didn't get much love:

- Antipaladin: Got some spells, but no racial archetypes and only 1 favored class reward for the drow.

- Ninja: No racial archetypes or favored class rewards. Only mentioned in passing throughout the book.

- Samurai: Searching for the word "samurai" brings in 0 results.

Silver Crusade

Pathfinder Adventure Path Subscriber

Since all three are archetypes, they don't get racial favored options or archetypes.


magnuskn wrote:
I'd really like to see more of the common races being played ( other than humans, which always seem like the "to-go" race with many. Strange that. ^^ ).

Too many adventuring groups these days resemble the Tattooine Cantina at chucking-out time...

The ARG wasn't the cheese-fest I feared it would be, but it still feels like 'Pathfinder: Furries Edition!'...

And still nothing to replace Multi-Talented for a single-class half-elf (unless he's an arcane caster)?

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