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Radiance House

Pact Magic Unbound, Vol. 1 (PFRPG)

4.40/5 (based on 5 ratings)
RHG022E

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Immerse yourself in the intricate rituals and legends of Goetian magic. Grab thick chalk, inscribe a geometric seal around yourself, and invoke the name of a terrible spirit to aid your quest. Behold! With a final intonation you seal a bargain with the spirit and a quivering surge of power emanates from deep within. Are you ready? Embark on your journey with the spirit of a shivering demon, martyred titan, lost mortal, chastised god, or stranger being still. The vestiges of thirty-two sundered souls lie at your fingertips, yours to command if you dare.

You will discover...

  • An introduction to fantasy pact-making for your campaign.
  • A new base class, the occultist, as well as an occultist archetype.
  • Archetypes for the 11 core classes.
  • Add-ons: a new cleric domain, barbarian rage powers, rogue talents, an oathbound paladin oath, and more!
  • A new type of feat to modify your pact magic, known as occult feats.
  • Binder Secrets, which are special abilities that an occultist can take in place of a feat.
  • Constellation aspects, which are like 0-level spirit powers that allow you to increase the binding DC of a spirit in order to gain an additional granted ability.
  • Most Important! 32 starter spirits from 1st through 9th level. These spirits are favorites drawn from the original Secrets of Pact Magic and Villains of Pact Magic, with 3 brand new spirits.

This 84-page guide opens gateways to perilous and exciting adventures. This is first volume of several to launch you on adventures of dangerous occult power.

For use in your Pathfinder Roleplaying Game. Requires the use of the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Core Rulebook, published by Paizo Publishing LLC.

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Nice Adaptation

4/5 —

I was a real fan of the Pact Magic mechanic when it came out in 3.5 so I was tickled to see it done in PF. Radiance House has done a very nice job with making a good adaptation and making it their own.

There are some differences so be aware.
First, the entities you bind to yourself are no longer called vestiges but spirits. Not sure why. Second, the goetia-based spirits from the original TOM are not to be found here which was the only disappointing thing for me. You have lots of spirits but they are all like they were once living creatures instead of the extreme creepy weirdness from the original TOM. I might have to convert the original vestiges to this system as I really liked them.

Anyway, there is a lot to sink your teeth into here. Volume 2 is worth getting as well as it has options for classes found outside the core book and even utilizes character background rules from the Ultimate Campaign book. I'm looking forward to rolling an occultist (the new binder class) and seeing how they play. Looks like lots of fun!

An Endzeitgeist.com review

4/5 —

The first book converting pact-magic to PFRPG is 86 pages long, 1 page front cover, 2 pages editorial, 1 page ToC, 1 page SRD, 1 page back cover, leaving us with 81 pages of content, so let's check this out, but only after a short glance back:

When I bought the "Tome of Magic" for D&D 3.5, I immediately fell in love with Pact Magic - I loved the concept, the great fluff...but power-wise, it came apart. With the notable exception of some minor supplemental material in certain Dragon-APs by Paizo, I never saw any supplemental material and if you're like me and have a LOT of books, that's a big drawback. And then, when the now deceased Kobold Quarterly magazine featured a pact magic ad, I clicked on it and ordered the books in blind faith. And if there was ONE defining experience that still makes me check out unknown 3pps, it was this one: I got gorgeously-crafted, beautiful hardcover books for a very low price and they've seen a lot of use in my subsequent campaigns.

With PFRPG, we now FINALLY get the update of my favorite magic system and it's more than just a cut-copy-paste-job - in fact, we get a completely new base-class, but for those of you not familiar with the concept, here's the spin: First, binding a spirit requires drawing a seal on a free 5-foot square - depending on the spirit, you'll have to draw the seal e.g. in darkness, with blood, etc. After drawing this symbol, you perform a ceremony, which is unique for each spirit and might range from the weird to the creepy. After witnessing the manifestation of the spirit, the binder barters with it: Each spirit comes with a binding DC that is compared to a binder's binding-check. Said check is d20+ 1/2 binder's level+cha-mod. You enter a pact with the spirit regardless of whether you succeed the check, but it does have consequences: For 24 hours, the binder shares soul and body with the entity and the check determines the amount of influence the spirit exercises over the binder. Successful checks indicate e.g. that the binder can suppress potentially weird physical signs that accompany entering a pact with a spirit. Also, the spirit's personality affects your behavior and you may ignore the spirit's restrictions like "not lying", gold as a top priority, short tempers etc. Now this system thus does not only provide a magic-system, it also provides a GLORIOUS role-playing catalyst.

That out of the way, Pact Magic, fluff-wise, is also a somewhat scorned upon practice that brings out the fanatics in e.g. some clerics and has always carried the allure of the forbidden - after all, the practitioners channel spirits that are beyond mortality and often, the range of the gods. Thus, rules provided for hiding the physical signs etc. are provided. Since the forbidden aspect is partially based on an availability, other classes can wilder in the territory of Pact Magic - especially interesting for paladins, who can now vow oaths against spirits or become Templars of Spirits, who may smite those bound as well as evil and perform exorcisms.

Clerics may become occult priests, take the occult domain and even worship spirits now - though whether sanctioned or as a heresy depends on your world. Oh, detecting heretics is supplemented by 3 new spells. Pactsworn Pagan-druids modify their shape to be more pleasing to the spirit and pay for their binding with diminished spellcasting, while the monks of the empyrean friar blends martial arts with being possessed by spirits and their supernatural abilities - I had a similar character in one of my campaigns once and it rocked, so cool concept! And yes, even fighter may opt to become so-called warshades and benefit from pact magic.
Rangers get a new archetype to gain some limited pact magic-associated abilities, while rogues may select new talents to hide supernatural aspects, improve capabilities of spirits or play an untouchable, who always gets the short end of the stick, bargain-wise, but apply a skill-bonus to a whole attribute's array.

Sorcerors may chose the Ergon bloodline that has tumor-like, eye-resembling growths spawn on the body and work as eyes as well as the power to devour magic and transcend into a half-construct as per the ARG. The second bloodline, the ravaged, is closer to a more conventional pact magic/sorceror blending. Wizards may opt to take the new soul weaver archetype, who have their spellcasting prowess diminished and forsake 3 schools, but may in turn fuse pact magic and regular magic by e.g. sacrificing prepared spells into granted abilities for more flexibility. Barbarians may become totemic sages (and also get 2 rage powers) and bards soul muses. Bards also benefit from a new masterpiece to daze foes.

You may have noticed some confusing terms here, so let me elaborate: A spirit's write-up takes up at least 1 page and not for no reason - each spirit has totems, mementos that remind him/her/it of its former life that grant the binding character a +2 insight bonus on binding checks when present, +4 when all are present - researching these can, again, be a great roleplaying opportunity.

The aforementioned ceremonies can be rushed, but that makes the result be more prone to being unfavorable for the binder. Binding spirits has multiple benefits: First of which would be minor benefits - and plural is appropriate indeed - for each spirit has at least a couple of these benefits. They range from permanent boons while being bound to the spirit to abilities that can be used 1/character level to some that have a cool-down of a couple of rounds, but no other restriction. Major abilities are simply the stronger ones granted by the spirit. Beyond these, each spirit has a capstone empowerment, which only becomes available to the binder if he/she succeeds at the binding check by 10 or more, making even low-level spirits bring something new to the table. All spirits also are aligned to one of 13 eldritch constellations and almost all of aforementioned archetypes are limited in their constellation choices. Each spirit has a favored enemy and ally constellation (sometimes multiple) that can be further enhanced by feats and makes binding spirits to allied races easier/harder, respectively. Furthermore, each constellation has 4 different potential constellation benefits. Now, the binders may also opt to forego a minor ability to instead gain the service of a so-called vestigial companion (after vestiges, the name originally applied to the spirits). The spirits also are grouped by levels from 1st to 9th, following in that regard the traditional presentation.

Now, it should come as no surprise that we also get a full binding class, the Occultist, who gets 3/4 BAB-progression, d8, 4+Int skills per level, and bind multiple aspects and squeeze augmentation bonuses out of their spirits.

But what are these spirits? Well, for example, you could bind Cave Mother, she who discovered fire, General Hessant, the Patron of Lost Soldiers, a tall story come to life by enough people believing in it, N'alyia, the First Vampire, the first of the otyughs, a living curse, Loh'Moi the geometer that sought to think 4-dimensional by teleporting into his brain, ultimately to turn back time, famed Dagon (Yes, mythos-aficionados - one constellation is called Dark beyond...), a psychotic elven princess turned black unicorn, a king betrayed by any and all as well as the sworn enemy of time. And no, that were not all contained herein.

A total of 20 feats are also part of the deal to expand the options of your pact magic-casters. Interesting is also that multiple models of spirits-known are presented for the DM, putting control essentially in your hands while featuring guidelines that help maintaining balance easy.

Conclusion:
Editing and formatting are very good, though I noticed some minor typo-style glitches, I encountered very few and far-between, so nothing to truly complain about here. Layout adheres to a b/w-2-column standard with many of the artworks of the 3.5-version and one artwork for each seal. The pdf comes fully bookmarked, but sans nested bookmarks.

Pact Magic Unbound Vol.1 is a great streamlined version of the Pact Magic-rules I've come to love and enjoy in my home-games. The thing is... I have both 3.5 hardcovers, which are now out of stock everywhere I look. And I realize these two probably have been produced at a loss - at least that would explain the stitch-binding and top-quality paper. In direct comparison, this one still just feels so...incomplete to me. While there are quite a bunch of cool spirits in here, there's a factor that made me LOVE, ADORE the original book, which is only partially present herein:

In the original, EVERY spirit had a legend, an expertly-written, sometimes, creepy, sometimes tragic, sometimes philosophic, but never boring history spanning a whole page as well as a cliff-notes version for the DM. While multiple of the spirits have retained their legends in this book, there also are several that have been omitted - for example the disturbing legend of evening star. The PFRPG-mechanics are awesome (and I hope, we'll get APG, UM and UC-support in Vol. II), the omission of the legends/cutting them down to mere paragraphs may conserve page-count, but it also detracts from what made pact magic stand out in my mind - not necessarily the mechanics, but the storytelling. The AWESOME flavor that made Pact Magic feel much more magical than regular magic.
Don't get me wrong - this is still a great offering. Its crunch is actually better, getting rid of alignment-changes etc. On the fluff-side, though, it just isn't as brilliant, as mind-boggling in its fluff as its previous incarnation and I really hope Vol. II will come with ALL legends - for more than anything else, more than the solid mechanics, it's always been the stories that, for me, defined Pact Magic.

Due to this factor, I will settle for a final verdict of 4 stars + seal of approval, for the rules are awesome - but the cut legends and the useful cliff-notes make this pdf suffer a bit. If you can, somehow hunt down the 3.5-books as well - they are worth every cent and having legends for ALL spirits makes them so much cooler.

Endzeitgeist out.

My thoughts on this!

4/5 —

Yasha gave a more fully detailed review outlining what's in this book, and I generally agree with it.

Here’s my thoughts on volume 1, hopefully to guide your thoughts on volume 2:

I would love to give it 5/5, but I can’t. I can’t give it 3/5, either; that would be too mean IMO, so it gets a 4/5 from me.

I should note that I thought the introduction of binders in 3.5 TOM was great. However, that had its flaws, which I’ll get to in a minute.

Things missing from volume 1:
No index.
No feat table.
No table providing a summary of what each spirit does.
Considering that there were four blank pages at the back, I thought it a shame that the above weren’t there! Such items would have been very useful!

The thing I loathed about the 3.5 TOM binder was the class fluff. The TOM introduced this amazing class, but the fluff said “everyone hates you”. Which I thought was total B.S. What makes binders so bad that everyone hates them? An evil binder is no worse than an evil sorcerer, evil cleric, and so on. A good binder isn’t evil, yet people still hated them. I loathed that fluff.
To a large extent, PMU volume 1 got rid of that rubbish, but not entirely. :-( For instance, there is no way I’d ever allow the paladin archetype, and the rogue archetype is pretty questionable to me, too.
Later on in volume 1, it talks about the level of availability of pact magic, but even at the “Pact Magic is Prominent” level, it still has the “everyone hates you” crap. What I would have preferred is that the binders (occultist etc) are treated just like any other class. You could then have had a sidebar saying something along the lines of “Pact magic is based on a theory developed in the real world Renaissance, and as such the Catholic Church was strongly against it. If you wish to introduce a flavour that binders, sorcerers, witches, etc are hunted by strong churches in particular lands, then feel free to do so. [These archetypes] are recommended if you want to use such a background, otherwise it is recommended that you do not use them if will not enhance the fun of the game.” Or better yet, Radiance House releases a compiled hardback, please have a chapter with the “everyone hates you” stuff that is optional, and take the view that the rest of the stuff is just treated normally!

The spirits. My favourites are Tyrant Cromwell, Ubro, and Serapith. It’d be good if the spirits in future books have just as much “oomph” as those. Some of the spirits just seem a bit random!!
It occurs to me, that with nine levels of spirits and thirteen constellations, there should eventually be at least 117 spirits. I’m sure it’ll be a while before we see that many, though!

Overall, I really like this book- don’t think otherwise. I just wanted to make the above points and hope that you’ll take them into consideration!

This book is well worth buying!

Pact Magic done properly

5/5 —

Alright, Pact Magic! Being a longtime fan of the Binder from the Tome of Magic, I decided to bite the bullet and buy the Print/PDF Bundle. Here goes.
Lets start with the "Binder" class, the Occultist. The Occultist is a solid conversion and update of the ToM Binder Class. There are a few small gripes though. It has lost the Soul Guardian tree of abilities, likely that Occultists can bind a variety of Spirits in order to get similar abilities instead. While I understand while those abilities didn't make it into the finished class, I still miss them.
The ultimate and penultimate abilities of the class are new, interesting and have a lot of potential for fun usage. All while being totally unique to the Occultist.
One thing that did strike me as odd is this; the level at which you max out the number of spirits you can bind. It seems arbitrary, it also essentially spells out that Occultists of level 21+ don't gain any additional spirits either. While I understand most folks don't play much past 15th level, I find this limits options a bit (especially since I am running an epic game right now).

The archetypes: interesting and a good way to introduce spirit binding into your campaign. One that does seem a bit unclear and I imagine will cause some confusion is that the Bind Spirit features don't specifically mention if the number of spirits you can bind increases or not. If it doesn't (as I read it) thats good and will keep these archetypes balanced against others. If it does (which the lack of Bind Additional Spirits as a class feature makes me think it doesn't), then these archetypes are looking overpowered. Clarity on this will likely stop arguments at the table. If the archetypes work the way I think they do, then they would be a welcome addition to the repertoire of the various PFRPG classes, at least at my table.

Constellations: This is an interesting little mechanic. Think of them as Occultist cantrips. They are customizable (always good) on which ones you select, there is a wide range of choices, and with multiple spirits bound you could end up with a wide range of little abilities that help out. Also, its optional to even try for a constellation ability while binding a spirit, so its up to the player whether to worry about it or not (also good).

Feats: The feats seem nice and balanced (nothing randomly OP) and fit with the flavor of the class. Reminiscent of the ToM feats but also some totally new and good stuff in there too.

Chapter Fiction: There is a reason this is a section! I like having chapter fiction/samples of characters like this. Its a little short story that lets you hear a narrative about a character like the one you are likely creating. Oddly though the "Pact Magic in Action" one lists someone using Spirits that aren't in the book at all. After reading it, I wanted to look those spirits up. Hopefully they make the next volume.

Spirits: I still need to look at them more in depth, but my general impression is of a job well done. They seem more comparable to other vestiges of the same level than the ToM ones did. At any given level, its more situation and circumstance that will determine which vestiges are best, not one just being flat out better. Great job on this section folks! I really like that you can increase the binding DC to get an empowerment on the main ability of the vestige. It actually will encourage players to try for them and hopefully make bad pacts (which is fun). I only saw one spirit that really gave much in the way of resistances or immunities though, and it is 9th level. Overall there are a lot of attack abilities and what seems like fewer defensive ones. I'd have to really give various selections of spirits trials in game to give a better opinion, that is just my initial impression.

Final Impression: Overall (despite a few little gripes), I love this book. Obviously, the developers knew what they were doing and actually liked the old ToM Binder class. They did the spirit of the class justice and brought it into the PFRPG system with style.

The Standard for Pact Magic and/or Binders

5/5 —

Back around the time the Pathfinder RPG first came out, I saw some posts about a 3rd party version of Wizards of the Coast's Binder from Tome of Magic. I'd seen a number of people say that the Binder had some good ideas, but had some mechanical problems. The general consensus was that this 3rd party publication "Secrets of Pact Magic" was 'the binder, done right'.

Now, the authors of Secrets of Pact Magic have updated their book to the Pathfinder RPG. This isn't just a quick and dirty conversion, the authors have taken advantage of the innovations introduced by PFRPG to make their Pact Magic book blend seamlessly with the overall system. It's a very elegant and professionally put together system and there is something in here for pretty much every game whether or not you decide to use the new class added by this book or if you want to use an archetype for an existing class.

Bottom line, this comes highly recommended and I hope to see more such material from Radiance House.

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I was about to post and ask much the same, so thank you for the post AlexAug. I will see what Liz says before making my choice.
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I've set the product to backorder, so you can order the product...which means we've burned through our print stock already. :D
Contributor
Liz Courts wrote:
I've set the product to backorder, so you can order the product...which means we've burned through our print stock already. :D

Awesome! I have alerted Dario, and either he or I will update here as we take steps to get more print copies into Paizo's warehouse!

Got myself a PDF copy of it and am finding it very interesting. A nice upgrade on the mechanics from the old 3.5 Binder.

so in all selfishness I must ask

How long till Volume 2

and 3
Contributor
Greylurker wrote:

Got myself a PDF copy of it and am finding it very interesting. A nice upgrade on the mechanics from the old 3.5 Binder.

so in all selfishness I must ask

How long till Volume 2

and 3

I finished writing the bare-bones draft of Volume 2 last Thursday. I'm hoping we'll see it ready to go for Christmas at the absolute latest.

Dario and I haven't talked much about Volume 3, though I have no shortage of ideas for a third book! (or fourth, or fifth ...)

Unboxing and overview of contents on YouTube!
Contributor
Twin Dragons wrote:
Unboxing and overview of contents on YouTube!

Hey! You said my last name right! *high fives*

If you're still on the fence about whether or not you want this, definitely check out Twin Dragon's review. I'm looking forward to his in-depth review in two weeks as well!

I've had the book for a bit now and I can say my love of binding is in-tact. I miss some of the old spirits (the Crow, *sigh*) and those that made the cut aren't quite as powerful as I remember, but since the spirits are adding to the power of existing classes the balance is there...if that sort of thing is important to you... :)

I'm definitely looking forward to the next volume with archetypes for the other classes, spirits to balance out the constellation choices and more feats (hopefully one that encourages multi-classing like Practiced Binder or something).
Contributor
giltharian wrote:

I've had the book for a bit now and I can say my love of binding is in-tact. I miss some of the old spirits (the Crow, *sigh*) and those that made the cut aren't quite as powerful as I remember, but since the spirits are adding to the power of existing classes the balance is there...if that sort of thing is important to you... :)

I'm definitely looking forward to the next volume with archetypes for the other classes, spirits to balance out the constellation choices and more feats (hopefully one that encourages multi-classing like Practiced Binder or something).

Dario and I hear you on the subject of favorite spirits that didn't make it into Volume One; we're working on it! Volume 2 is set to double the number of spirits you have access to; Volume 2 brings the total to 63. (Which is actually 1 spirit off of being perfectly double. Drats!)

This is certainly true about class balance. The spirits are designed to allow the Core Classes to be more versatile and to allow the Occultist to specialize in specific aspects of the game by combining the powers of multiple spirits together. And anyone who was with us in the Playtest Month will assure you that class balance is incredibly important to me; when you're a 3PP, you strive for balance because there are people who won't bother with your product if you eschew balance. Its better to create a product that is flavorful and well-balanced. Fortunately that was VERY easy to do with Pact Magic!

Volume Two doesn't have a whole lot of multiclassing options because Pact Magic as a whole is very supportive of Multiclassing (see the multiclassing section of Chapter Three). Future pact magic prestige classes will either A) involve new organizations to help GMs place pact magic in their world or B) help to define a binder's role in the game. So you'll see Prestige Classes that make the binder better at surviving blows and compelling hostility towards themselves or making a binder a better healer, but you're not going to see "mystic theurge" type classes.

Glad you're enjoying the product so far! I'm hoping to get some reviews in the (near) future.
Contributor

Just as a side note, Dario just contacted me today and let me know that he just sent out a batch of books to Paizo's warehouse. If fortune smiles upon you, we're expecting the warehouse to receive them before the end of the week.
Contributor
giltharian wrote:
I'm definitely looking forward to the next volume with archetypes for the other classes, spirits to balance out the constellation choices and more feats (hopefully one that encourages multi-classing like Practiced Binder or something).

Just went through my notes of what I'm sending to Dario today to function as the manuscript for Pact Magic Unbound, Vol. 2. I did update the Practiced Binder feat, so looks like I was wrong earlier! Sometimes its hard to keep track of all the stuff you've written. :-P

Here is a question, any suggestions (save the obvious, like vestigal companion and such) on converting the ToM vestiges to the scaling used for the vestiges in this book? I could just fly by night, but I'm curious if anyone has already done conversions, aside from one or two by Master Arminas?

More vestiges just expands options, IMO.
Yasha wrote:

Here is a question, any suggestions (save the obvious, like vestigal companion and such) on converting the ToM vestiges to the scaling used for the vestiges in this book? I could just fly by night, but I'm curious if anyone has already done conversions, aside from one or two by Master Arminas?

More vestiges just expands options, IMO.

Couldn't you just use the Vestiges as written from ToM?? or do you think they are too powerful compared to the ones in this book??

On a side note, has anyone come up with any good builds for an Occulist ( from this book )??
Contributor
Yasha wrote:

Here is a question, any suggestions (save the obvious, like vestigal companion and such) on converting the ToM vestiges to the scaling used for the vestiges in this book? I could just fly by night, but I'm curious if anyone has already done conversions, aside from one or two by Master Arminas?

More vestiges just expands options, IMO.

Its not too bad to convert ToM vestiges into spirits; here are some pointers:

1) We (PMU,v1) use a 9-level progression for our spirits. ToM uses an 8-level. You need to go through the spirits and re-allocate them to their appropriate levels. The reason we went with a 9-level system was so that we could line up spirits next to Clerics, Wizards, and the other full casters. As a general rule of thumb:


  • If the spirit mimics a scaling class feature (i.e. Sneak Attack), it progresses as a character of 1/2 that class's level. See Vandrae and Gulguthriana for examples.
  • Spirits NEVER get access to a spell before a wizard or cleric does; this is an excellent way to judge a spirit's power. As an exception to the rule, a spirit CAN gain early access to such an ability if the ability has contingencies built into it. (For example, I just recently wrote a 1st spirit that forces you to reincarnate when you die, but you have to come back as a Child gillman and you become permanently addicted to that spirit.)
  • Typically speaking, a spirit's abilities uses [TIME UNITE] per day, where the unit can be rounds, minutes, or hours; based on the ability. Typically we use the same unit that the spell uses; for example haste lasts for rounds/day so a haste ability on a 3rd level spirit would be usable for rounds/day. These units typically have to be spent in a full-unit (for example, if you can use an ability for minutes per day, you must spent uses of the ability in 1 minute increments) but you do not need to spend the units consecutively. There are a LOT of spirits I could point to for this.
  • Abilities that are personal can typically last for 24 hours.
  • With one exception, polymorph effects have very specific bonuses they provide. See Dagon as an example; Fey Barradu is the exception.

2) We can (and often do) power up some spells and abilities. For example, bumping up the time unit (rounds to minutes or minutes to hours) is the most common. You can typically get away by bumping up the spirit level to equal the spell's level +1.

3) When making new abilities, we tend to heavily follow the guidelines for creating new spells that you see in Ultimate Magic. Why? Because most of our granted abilities are balanced around the power of a spell.

4) We give all spirits one major granted ability and four minor granted abilities to balance them out. Unless the spirit itself is skill-focused, we typically make sure to have at least one Minor Granted ability to have a skill-bonus or similar small-time effect. For example, a constant Endure Elements effect granted by a 2nd-level spirit is not game-ending.

5) Sometimes we will take away from the utility of a spell in order to lower the level of a spirit. For example, Water Breating is a 3rd level spell, but it becomes noticeably less useful if your spirit only provides water breathing for yourself (even if its constant).

I'll be more than happy to comment on specific abilities if you have questions, but those are some things I'd keep in mind when converting the Tome of Magic spirits.
Contributor
Grollub wrote:
Yasha wrote:

Here is a question, any suggestions (save the obvious, like vestigal companion and such) on converting the ToM vestiges to the scaling used for the vestiges in this book? I could just fly by night, but I'm curious if anyone has already done conversions, aside from one or two by Master Arminas?

More vestiges just expands options, IMO.

Couldn't you just use the Vestiges as written from ToM?? or do you think they are too powerful compared to the ones in this book??

On a side note, has anyone come up with any good builds for an Occulist ( from this book )??

It gets kinda tricky the higher-leveled you go since our system caps out one level higher than ToM's binder class. It means that some spirits are going to be skewed all over the place; too strong at some levels and definitely too weak at others since all of our our spirits scale with your binder level.

We had a couple players who had a few good builds for an occultist in our Playtest Thread in the 3PP Threads on this site, but as far as I've seen there hasn't been a whole lot of occultist theorycraft. Don't know if it'll need some time or just some more buzz to get to that point. Might want to try opening your own thread somewhere on the forums and see what happens!

That was my next step. Thanks for some guideline suggestions Alexander. I'll likely start a thread in a day or two.
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Yasha wrote:
That was my next step. Thanks for some guideline suggestions Alexander. I'll likely start a thread in a day or two.

Excellent! Glad to be of service. :D

I'm surprised there are no reviews yet!

Indeed...that is fairly peculiar.

I will be reviewing it shortly. Once I finish an in depth read through.
Contributor
Yasha wrote:
I will be reviewing it shortly. Once I finish an in depth read through.

Awesome! I've been hoping for some reviews. We're working on Volume 2 now it would be nice to know what people think about the first one.

Thanks for the response. There are a few ToM vestiges and such that I really like, so was hoping they could be ported forward. Most notably: Zceryll, "The Star Spawn" , and Naberius ( my two favs )
Contributor
Grollub wrote:
Thanks for the response. There are a few ToM vestiges and such that I really like, so was hoping they could be ported forward. Most notably: Zceryll, "The Star Spawn" , and Naberius ( my two favs )

From a mechanical standpoint, Naberius is very similar to Lady Jarah. If you were willing to change the fluff in your game, its not a very hard sell at all.

I don't know where Zceryll is; I don't see him in my ToM book. Is he from another source?

I think it's very doubtful that Radiance House could use TOM vestiges, as that is all WotC's IP. However, someone could probably post their own conversions elsewhere.
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That is entirely my intent Ericthecleric.

Here is the thread I just started today.

Tome of Magic Vestige Conversions

If I recall correctly, Alexander, Zceryll was from a web article on Vestiges in the Forgotten Realms or something of the sort.

Overall, I'm not sure which Vestiges I'll be starting with, but I think I might be starting with some of the more esoteric ones from the various Dragon magazine and Dungeon articles. I don't think a lot of folks who never subscribes to the magazines ever saw or even heard of them, so I'll be trying some of those first to give folks those options as well.

And anyone who wants to jump on the thread and convert a vestige or two, go right ahead.

Master Arminas already did a few rewrites (though only updates to PFRPG not necessarily to PMUv1 rules) on the Binder thread I linked in my new thread. I'll ask to port those over as well.
Contributor
ericthecleric wrote:
I think it's very doubtful that Radiance House could use TOM vestiges, as that is all WotC's IP. However, someone could probably post their own conversions elsewhere.

100% correct. We could never publish something like that, though there are several spirits that are something like "spiritual successors" to several of my favorite ToM spirits. Marat, from Volume 2, is one such spirit.

I'll pop into your thread from time to time and help out as I am able, Yasha. Give some advice and my opinions and whatnot. I probably won't build too many spirits myself, though; I have about 40 more to finish for Volume 3 still ....

I understand that completely Alexander. Don't fret and get that next book out when you can!

Review posted, by the way. I was brutally honest.
Contributor

Special thanks to Caedwyr and Yasha for reviewing Pact Magic Unbound, Volume 1! Hooray!

Now, to answer some of your concerns, Yasha: (By the way, don't edit your review because of my responses.)


  • I *think* I decided on making Soul Guardian a Binder Secret in Volume 2. I'll double check to make sure. If I didn't Dario tells me that we have some extra space I need to fill; if there's room, I'll get it in.

  • Honestly, I'm not super experienced with the 3rd Edition epic rules. I'm okay with letting more savvy players update the Occultist to epic as they see fit. I'm waiting for Mythic Rules and I'll definitely make some Occult stuff to match it.

  • You're 100% correct. The ability to bind more than one Spirit at a time is completely unique to the Occultist and requires Occultist levels. As you point out, its a separate class feature and not part of the bind spirits ability. Check under the Multiclass Binders section of Page 40; "Binder levels from multiple class levels stack; however, a character's binder level does not grant him or her benefits such as new class abilities (such as the occultist's additional spirits ability or the wizard's reweave granted ability), bonuses to base attack bonuses or saving throws, or an increase to spells per day and spells known."

  • One of the downsides of having to split up the conversion of two massive books into several smaller ones is that sometimes the stories don't all line up. Think of those references as teasers for Volume 2 and 3 at worse and promises that there will be more books at beast! Now, looking at the section, Ethaniel is in Volume 2, Pavatu and Kaiya will be in Volume 3. Dario will be thrilled that people are enjoying his fiction, however! I'm also going to see if I can write some legends for the newer spirits in Volume 3 (maybe 2, maybe. I REALLY want to write a legend for Al'kra, the Operated ....)

  • Its funny, because everyone thinks there aren't enough spirits that do what they love best! For example, one of the big comments in the Playtest was that there aren't enough "magical" spirits, as in spirits that let you pretend you're a sorcerer a bit better. We hit many more spots and roles with the spirits in Volume 2 and I'm trying to make sure we do the same in Volume 3. Attacks are much easier to make interesting than defenses, sad to say, but you will see some very good defensive spirits in Volume 2. Marat, Guardian of Shields and Humble Ohbai, Servant of the Elements come directly to my mind when I think about defense.

Thanks so much to both of you for your kind words and Dario and I both hope that everyone is enjoying Pact Magic just as much as we both do! We're both working hard to make sure that you guys get Pact Magic Unbound, Volume 2 before the holidays! As I have more information, I'll bring it to Paizo.

The fact you already addressed my issues in a post only a short while later is awesome. Just being able to talk to the developer of this kind of product is one of things I've always loved about Paizo and I am glad that Radiance House is taking some cues in that fashion.

Besides, I think everyone knows that writing is one heck of a process. Overall you guys did an amazing job (are there just the two of you?). Considering I don't typically buy much in the way of 3PP products, but I bought yours without much real agonizing should say something.

Observing with curiosity. Might go for buying this, I loved the Binder back in 3.5e
Contributor
Yasha wrote:
The fact you already addressed my issues in a post only a short while later is awesome. Just being able to talk to the developer of this kind of product is one of things I've always loved about Paizo and I am glad that Radiance House is taking some cues in that fashion.

Well shucks, that's what I'm here for! Its something that I've valued too from game developers that I've played; Paizo and Blizzard are the big two from whom I get you work ethic, I suppose you could say.

Quote:
Besides, I think everyone knows that writing is one heck of a process. Overall you guys did an amazing job (are there just the two of you?). Considering I don't typically buy much in the way of 3PP products, but I bought yours without much real agonizing should say something.

In the Pact Magic line, its just Dario and me. As I mentioned earlier, he writes and formats the Radiance RPG line basically by himself, and he's just brought on a third fellow that we're trying out for a new project we're starting for the future. That project's not related to me, but it is loosely related to the Pact Magic line, so stay tuned.

We also commission artists and editors and the like as we need them, but they're not really affiliated with Radiance House. When it comes to the Pact Magic line, being the face is the least I can do since Dario does so much already for both this line and for his own game, Radiance RPG.

Quote:
Observing with curiosity. Might go for buying this, I loved the Binder back in 3.5e

Welcome aboard! We've got a couple reviews now, so hopefully they'll sway you into diving into the Pact Magic madness with us!

Alexander Augunas wrote:
Grollub wrote:
Thanks for the response. There are a few ToM vestiges and such that I really like, so was hoping they could be ported forward. Most notably: Zceryll, "The Star Spawn" , and Naberius ( my two favs )

From a mechanical standpoint, Naberius is very similar to Lady Jarah. If you were willing to change the fluff in your game, its not a very hard sell at all.

I don't know where Zceryll is; I don't see him in my ToM book. Is he from another source?

Thanks for the Lady Jorah suggestion she seems to do alot that Naberius could do..

As for Zceryll..

Link:
http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/frcc/20070718

I'll see what I can do Grollub, I might just be able to put Zceryll next on my conversion thread.

I should probably do this!

Tome of Magic Vestige conversion thread

Wow, I linkified that on my kindle!

One difficulty of doing Zceryll will be the lack of an OGL template similar to the Pseudonatural.
Contributor

Ericthecleric originally sent me his impressions of Pact Magic Unbound, Volume 1 as a PM. I asked him to post it as a review because I feel that critical reviews are just as important as glowing ones because it helps curious customers make up their mind to see both positive and negative feedback. So far all three of our reviewers have done a great job with that and I deeply thank each of you!

I had originally commented on a bunch of Eric's points because playing the Face is half my job when it comes to the Pact Magic line. He asked if I would post those comments here too, so here you go!

1) I agree on the Feat Table and the Index. I don't think we'll be able to add an Index to Volume 1 now that its already out, but I'll see if I can't get it in there for Volume 2. It was kind of an oversight on our part that we didn't have one; indexes are fun and useful!

Maybe I'll see if I can get a quickie one made up as a downloadable PDF that you can print. I'll talk to Dario about it.

2) In regards to the Spirit Table, I'm not quite sure why I decided to not put a summary of the spirits' powers in Book One. I don't know if I am going to have room to make something like this happen for Volume Two. (Believe me when I say that Volume Two is HUGE; I think its 40 pages larger than Volume One!) Volume Three is going to be our last installment in the Occult Spirits line, and one of things I wanted to have was a massive Appendix in the back telling you where you could find all the spirits, their powers, etc. So I feel you on that one, but the table would have been unwieldy and we had to be a little conservative for our first Pathfinder book.

3) Not that this is a particularly good excuse, but this is both Dario and my first time working with the publisher that we got for PMU,v1. Neither of us knew that there would be four blank pages in the back! I don't really like it either and hopefully we'll be a little bit closer to our mark next time! (Though admittedly it made a REALLY good place for me to write a letter to my grandmother when I gave her a copy, hahaha!)

4) I can't speak for Dario, but to me, the idea that "Normal people hate and fear you" is a staple for the direction that we chose to go with Pact Magic. Admittedly, its an extremely safe theme, and we hint a LOT in the book that the gods don't really have much control over the Occult, which is why they don't particularly like it. As such their servants don't like it in the future.

I will say that I've learned my lesson from the paladin; people want options for everything. Admitted, if I had known this I still would have made the choice to make Paladins completely anti-pact magic; it fits better with how we're presenting occult spirits. I will say that in Volume 2, both archetypes that have a "We hate Pact Magic!" option also have a "We love Pact Magic!" option. Furthermore, I'm planing some Paladin love Prestige Class wise in Volume 3 and a book after Volume 3 will introduce Pact Magic that isn't occult in nature, which is where the Paladin will get some more much-needed love.

5) That's a good list of favorites! As of this writing, mine are Al'kra, the Operated; Vishgurv, Aberrant of Time Eternal, and Marat, Guardian of Shields. And yes, its completely not-fair that NONE of these spirits are in Volume One! I'm glad you like Serapith; that's one of the three all-new spirits that I designed specifically for this book. Most of the spirits come from Dario's work and while he lets me be as liberal as I choose, I try to stay fairly close to his original designs when I can.

Maybe someday we'll do something like a "Pact Magic in the World" bit with some suggestions on how we can alter things for your own games. I would certainly like to do something like that, but I wouldn't expect it before Volume 3. I also plan to have all 117 Occult spirits published by Volume 3; I want to move onto topics like Bestiaries, Living Spirits, and Nature Spirits after that.
Contributor

If you are a Facebook user, Dario and I have a Pact Magic group page that you might be interested in joining. I've been doing previews of the new book, Pact Magic Unbound, Volume 2 every day for about a month or so and today I just posted a big document about where I envision the Pact Magic Unbound series going over the next year or so. Anyone can view it, but I recommend requesting permission to join the group if only because I take the feedback gathered from Facebook very seriously!

Here's the Link.

This is good stuff. The spirits are unique and I like how they have their own story to tell (I especially enjoyed Istago's.).

There are somethings I don't quite get though. Other than aspect options and the occasional feat, does a spirit's constellation have any influence on binding? Let's say you can bind three spirits at once, each with a different constellation. Spirit A has a constellation that is opposed to spirit B's, but spirit C's is an ally to A's. Would that affect the DC of the binding check if you tried to bind all those spirits? I'm guessing not, since I've yet to find anything that says otherwise, but didn't want to assume.
Contributor
TheDisgaean wrote:

This is good stuff. The spirits are unique and I like how they have their own story to tell (I especially enjoyed Istago's.).

There are somethings I don't quite get though. Other than aspect options and the occasional feat, does a spirit's constellation have any influence on binding? Let's say you can bind three spirits at once, each with a different constellation. Spirit A has a constellation that is opposed to spirit B's, but spirit C's is an ally to A's. Would that affect the DC of the binding check if you tried to bind all those spirits? I'm guessing not, since I've yet to find anything that says otherwise, but didn't want to assume.

Wow! I totally missed this comment. Sorry for being, like, two months late to responding to you. 0_0

Regardless, the answer is no. A spirit's constellation has absolutely no impact on binding spirits in the core rules. It does, however, impact many class features and feats, which in turn go on to influence binding. The main reason for this is twofold; A) it allowed us to restrict or benefit individual classes on a base-by-base level; it was another knob to turn when balancing archetypes against their core classes. B) it allowed us to keep rules relevant to specific classes in those classes' entries instead of hiding everything within a giant seal of text at the start of Chapter 3.

Your question about multiple spirits will be more prudent in Volume 2, however, when we start getting occultist archetypes who align with constellations and bar others.
Contributor

Since I'm already necro-ing this thread to answer questions, apparently, this seems like a good opportunity to mention that we're now on the d20 Pathfinder System Reference Document!

In addition to what I've linked here, you can find basically all of our rules information through this web resource; look under Barbarian stuff for the Totemic Sage archetype, Fighter stuff for the Warshade archetype, and so forth.

Thanks for being awesome fans, and we hope to have some new stuff for you soon. :)
The Exchange

@Alexander: When directing normal users to the site can you be sure to use the d20pfsrd.com url? So that link above would instead be:

http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/3rd-party-classes/radiance-house

or, it's linked version.

The sites.google.com url should only (generally) be used by site editors or for people who can't access the d20pfsrd.com url for some reason. When accessing the site via the sites.google.com path the user experience might not always be as nice as when using the d20pfsrd.com url.

No biggie either way though.

Edit Corrected Alecander --> Alexander :D
Contributor

Sure thing; I guess I was still in editor mode when I grabbed the url. Either way its fixed.

And now it looks like we're even for my spelling blunder in the 3.5 Publisher Thread!

Hehehehe, "Alecander." Hehehehe.
The Exchange

heh WHOOPS!

My bad and nice catch.. Correcting...

So... any eta on Vol 2?
Contributor
Kcinlive wrote:
So... any eta on Vol 2?

Dario and I are sending it to the editor before the end of the week. Beyond that, who can say? A lot can go wrong when it comes to getting stuff printed. But I'm trying to stay optimistic, and it would please me to no end if we could get it out by PaizoCon.

Alexander Augunas wrote:
Dario and I are sending it to the editor before the end of the week. Beyond that, who can say? A lot can go wrong when it comes to getting stuff printed. But I'm trying to stay optimistic, and it would please me to no end if we could get it out by PaizoCon.

Great! I look forward to it.

Awesome!

Reviewed first and fully linkified on Endzeitgeist.com (if you want the old books as well), then submitted to NErdtrek and GMS magazine and posted here and on d20pfsrd.com. Couldn't post it on OBS, since I bought it here.
Contributor
Endzeitgeist wrote:
Reviewed first and fully linkified on Endzeitgeist.com (if you want the old books as well), then submitted to NErdtrek and GMS magazine and posted here and on d20pfsrd.com. Couldn't post it on OBS, since I bought it here.

Oh man, I got a kick out of this review! I really wish we had made Mare Loviatha's title, "Psychotic Elven Princess" now!

Thanks for the excellent review, Endzeitgeist!

To give some insight on the lack of expanded legends in Pact Magic Unbound, Vol. 1 (and probably subsequent volumes), when we planned out the book we originally wanted to have all of Dario's fiction in the book. The problem was that doing so was threatening to drastically increase the cost of the book for the consumer, and while we were confident that Pact Magic Unbound was going to do relatively well, we were afraid that an even higher price from a 3PP that most people had never heard of or had forgotten about would dissuade people from taking a risk on us. Pathfinder was (and still is) new waters for us. At the end of production, it came down to cutting a spirit per level or adding more legends, and we ultimately went with more crunch over more flavor. Was it the right choice? That's up to the consumer.

Coincidentally, one of the ideas Dario and I threw around at the start was a spirit anthology that had the fiction from all of his spirits, plus some of the newer ones written by yours truly, but that was another case of, "Would anyone actually be interested in this?"

You're welcome! took me long enough! Btw.: LOVE that you got rid of the alignment-changes and how many of the abilities have been streamlined when compared to 3.X!

Well...not sure if that's feasible on a monetary side, but you know what would make me bump this immediately up to 5 + seal? A web-enhancement with the missing pieces of fiction for the other spirits. Just a thought - I know that my players absolutely LOVE discovering these background stories!
Contributor
Endzeitgeist wrote:

You're welcome! took me long enough! Btw.: LOVE that you got rid of the alignment-changes and how many of the abilities have been streamlined when compared to 3.X!

Well...not sure if that's feasible on a monetary side, but you know what would make me bump this immediately up to 5 + seal? A web-enhancement with the missing pieces of fiction for the other spirits. Just a thought - I know that my players absolutely LOVE discovering these background stories!

Yeah, the removal of a lot of the restrictions was mostly my doing; totems were created in order to keep that feeling that the spirits noticed you and things as simple as your race, your gender, what kind of family you were born into, and so on were all things that the spirits noticed and may take into account when deciding your fate. However, we knew Volume 1 wasn't going to have room for all of Dario's spirits in a single volume, let alone any new spirits I wanted to write myself. So the readjustment of "requirements" into "totems" happened largely in part of that limitation in our product line.

As a secondary reason, I hadn't forgotten how overjoyed I was when Paizo removed the race restrictions from the Arcane Archer and the Stalwart Defender, which was a big clue-in to me personally that players don't really care for racially-restricted options unless it really makes sense; the option I always point to when I mention this is the Drow Sniper fighter archetype from the Advanced Race Guide. A racial archetype that builds on the race's innate powers? I can get behind that. But an option that you could easily see a member of any race discovering? That's a little frustrating to me, personally.

Anyway, ranting aside I'll pass along your note to Dario. Its honestly something we want to do anyway, but the big question is "When can we make it happen?" because the work would have to be 99% on Dario's end. There's only so much I could do when working with his babies, after all!
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