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Puppetmaster (PFRPG)

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Puppetmaster (PFRPG)

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Meet the puppetmaster!

Featuring a complex and highly customizable character creation system, this sorcerous manipulator affords you more control than any other base class. Choose to focus on an imaginative construct that serves as your companion, direct manipulation of other creatures through marionettes or intriguing puppet shows that create powerful but specific effects. The puppetmaster demands guileful play, but is unique among controllers in that he adds to the table's net fun as opposed to detracting from it.

This class is immensely fun for every player at the table and has been thoroughly playtested.

Design Goals:

  • Create a controller that adds to net fun as opposed to detracting from it.
  • Enable players to customize their role with a free yet balanced class economy.
  • Introduce a system for acting directly through other creatures.
  • Provide immersive guidelines for puppet creation that stimulate imagination.

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Are there errors or omissions in this product information? Got corrections? Let us know at store@paizo.com.

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An Endzeitgeist.com review

5/5 —

This pdf is 26 pages long, 1 page front cover, 1 page editorial, 1 page SRD, ~11/2 a page blank, leaving us with 21 1/2 pages of content for this new base-class, so let's take a look!

Mechanically, Puppetmasters get d8, 6+Int skills per level, proficiency with blowgun, bolas, daggers, handaxes, nets, whips, light and heavy crossbows and light armor, not incurring any spell failure chance while wearing it. They get 1/2 BAB-progression, ggod ref and will-saves as well as access to arcane spells of up to 6th level, cast spontaneously via Cha. Puppetmaster gain a VERY interesting roleplaying ability - doublespeak allows them to speak class-level minutes per day and have different creatures hear different things, choosing between the two layers his language carries for each creature, allowing him e.g. to parlay with foes while discussing preventive-strike strategies with his allies. He also starts game with a workshop that greatly increases his prowess when creating dolls and puppets when he's in it. Puppetmasters are also excellent manipulators, gaining bonuses that improve on Bluff, Perform (Puppetry) and other puppet-related skills. The defining characteristic of the Puppetmaster, though, would be his Font of Wonder, a pool that starts off at 6 and goes up to a whopping 215 at 20th level.

These points can be used to specialize in one of three different broad areas of expertise: Animisn, Marionettes, Rod Puppets as well as into miscellaneous areas. Puppetmasters gain access to one of these basic traditions at first level and may later pay 10 wonder point to gain the base access to one of the other areas, with further abilities/specializations costing additional wonder points. Each level, they may reassign one of their powers, though unwise choices may have unpleasant consequences, prerequisites no longer met resulting in a permanent negative level, making careful planning of these points of tantamount importance.

Let's start with Animism: Upon choosing this path, the Puppetmaster gains int-mod wonder points to be spent exclusively in this category, but more importantly, they gain a doll-companion - Pinoccio gone bad if you will. And yes, that means they could create dolls that could serve as a mount. If such an animated doll is destroyed, it can 1/day be restored to half hit points via the Craft (Puppet)-skill at 5 x level HP per day, with each HP requiring 1 round of repairs. Furthermore, unlike traditional companions, they require investment of more wonder points to level up, but if you invest up to 118 wonder points at 20th level, you get attributes of 30, 18,14,10, 10 to assign as well as 30 skill points. Animated dolls have up to +5 saves and 3/4 BAB-progression. Beyond these basic ways to advance the prowess of the doll, the dolls are also different depending on the base material they're crafted from, with textiles being e.g. faster to repair, but resulting in a starting Int of 8 (and one skill point less), while Ivory puppets get more skills per HD, but actually cost 50 sp per point of repair. Bone, clay, horn, plant husks, porcelain, way and wood are also possible materials, all with benefits and flaws - kudos! A total of 45 (!!!) customization options to invest your wonder-points are provided, costing between 1 and 14 points and ranging from minor natural armor and the varying armor proficiencies to pincer, tentacle, talon etc. attacks and even sneak attack, pounce and complete magic immunity, the puppets counting as supernatural beings. Now unlike the often rather creepy summoner eidolons, puppet-customizations often are restricted to themes, making it e.g. impossible for a puppet to get both pincers and tentacles at the same type and requiring a base-form of the puppet that reflects creatures that conceivably could make use of the ability - a imho great way of blending fluff with crunch to ensure balance. By paying Puppetmaster level times 4 points, they may also bring an abandoned (due to refunding of powers etc.) doll back to life, which is a nice idea indeed, as is that the dolls remain active for a short while after the Puppetmaster has died, making room for dramatic roleplaying opportunities and interesting hooks.

The second discipline is completely different and grants dex-modifier wonder points - masters of marionettes. Holding a marionette requires one hand, manipulating it two hands - but what can they do? Essentially, they can force a creature of the type depicted by the marionette to make a will-save or be subject to his machinations: he can force the creature to do make an attack on his behalf, with d20 + Puppetmaster class level + dex-mod being rolled instead of the creature's own. While conscious actions like power attack, arcanas or vital strike cannot be applied to the attack, passive bonuses like from weapon specialization still apply. Being underwater and its penalties to manipulation are covered, but NOT whether the subjects can be manipulated into attacking themselves. That's a flaw in my book. Generally, though, these abilities can be put in two categories: Abilities that allow the beneficent manipulation of allies to grant them rerolls, usurp mind-control (or make sleeping characters act as if awake) or offensive, with iterative attacks of controlled creatures, forcing movement (for better or for worse), manipulate allies into casting spells and even make them stronger/grant them the ability to fly or breathe water via his mystic puppets. Overall, a VERY interesting take on an uncommon buff/debuff-focus.

Finally, puppet masters get the option to employ rod puppets to tell stories, some of which require two rod puppets or rod puppets of a specific type. One hand is required per puppet. When taking up this profession, the Puppetmaster gains cha-mod wonder points and the effects of the story target all creatures within 30 ft that can see or hear him. In order for them to work, the puppet master has to succeed at respective story-checks, i.e. d10 + class level + cha-mod. The high teh ten-digit of the check, the greater the respective benefits. Ranging from 4 to 15 points in required wonder points, the myths and stories are perhaps closest to bardic buffs, though e.g. the interesting 1-in-20-chance to not expend spells, spell-like abilities and X/day-abilities that even takes shadow jump and similar abilities into account and some of the others are distinct enough to make these stand out sufficiently.

Finally, there are miscellaneous ways of spending wonder points not aligned with the 3 disciplines, granting enhancements to dolls, more spells known, a backpack to stow and retrieve puppets faster, gain a synergy AoO with his puppets and carry a tiny workshop around that shrinks them - and yes, rules for falling out/being inside while the replica is shaken are covered!

The pdf also covers the Puppetmaster's spell-list as well as options for having to still learn the craft, stats for non-animated puppets, craft DCs and required materials as well as the option to create puppets that are beyond masterworks, remarkable puppets.

Conclusion:

Editing and formatting are very good - though I stumbled across a wording during my lecture of this pdf, the class is mostly concisely phrased and thankfully unambiguous in its rules, though careful reading is admittedly required due to the complex nature of the class. Layout adheres to Dreadfox Games' parchment-style background in beige with its b/w-thorn-borders and the full color artwork depicted on the cover is neat. We also get 2 b/w-pencil drawings that are original as well. The pdf comes with full bookmarks and e.g. the spells are bookmarked in a nice unobtrusive way to d20pfsrd.com.

Now granted, this class is not for everyone. The Puppetmaster can easily be considered wonky if in the wrong hand - but he could also be creepy as hell, beneficent, tragic - the concepts are wide in scope and the execution rather professional. Make no mistake, this is an advanced class if I've ever seen one, making the summoner pale in comparison, not in power, but in options. While the wonder pool could have used a slightly more concise explanation on how it works, after you got the hang of it, it indeed is a cool resource that offers a wide flexibility between pets, manipulation and buffing, making the Puppetmaster a class that will result in widely varying playing experiences. The mechanics and the concepts used by this class are complex, but also rewarding in the benefits they grant as well as in the style of the respective abilities - if you've ever played Metal Gear Solid 4 and considered Screaming Mantis creepy - well, here's the chance to play something akin to that!

Mechanically and balance-wise, this definitely is one of the most interesting classes I've seen come out of PFRPG and one that strays quite a bit from established class designs - and is better off for it. The one thing I'd criticize is the lack of true capstone abilities for the respective sub-crafts, but in the end, that is a minor flaw. So, apart from minor complaints about more concise wording all's great? Yes. Yes, indeed. The Dreadfox lead-designer Reid Stewart has learned to take environmental factors into account (though I would have loved to see these influencing puppets based on material) and as a pdf that introduces the base-class, this works very well. So much so, in fact, that I'm not even missing archetypes or supplemental feats. The class is varied enough to work for now without them and provide a plethora of different gaming experiences. The price point, when compared to e.g. the Ritualist, is also more in line, offering about twice as many options as that one. While still not cheap at 5 bucks, the class is one that should be considered worth the investment if the idea remotely intrigues you. I'll even go so far as to ignore the minor hick-up that fails to specify whether manipulated creatures may attack themselves and use the default "reroll save at +4-solution" established by enchantments. My final verdict - due to the minor hick-ups here and there and the price-point 4.5 stars, but still gladly rounded up to 5 this time.

Endzeitgeist out.

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If I'm not a huge fan of the summoner due to the Build Your Own Pet aspect and powergaming, what would make me like the puppetmaster?
Cheapy wrote:
If I'm not a huge fan of the summoner due to the Build Your Own Pet aspect and powergaming, what would make me like the puppetmaster?

If you don't like complicated character builds, you won't like this class.

If you don't like focusing on pets, you may very well like this class.

You build your own puppetmaster, but you don't have to build your own pet (or allow players to do so). The focus is on the main character, and there are plenty of non-pet abilities to choose from.

You get a certain number of Wonder Points based on your level. Almost all of your abilities are purchased with these. You can spend them however you like. There are three basic Puppetry Wonders, plus Miscellaneous Wonders:

  • Animism - A construct companion. It's powerful (better defense but worse offense than an eidolon) and strongly encourages imagination, but its ability to heal is very limited. If it dies, you can bring it back once per day, but repairs take a lot of in-game time and the animated doll becomes substantially weaker each time you bring it back (until you gain a level).

  • Marionettes - Actions through other creatures. You start with the ability to make a single attack through another creature as a full-round action, and get the ability to perform more diverse actions with a better action economy as you invest further.

  • Rod Puppets - Stories with an infinite number of uses per day that apply effects to all creatures within range (including enemies). There are some really unique effects to these; it doesn't play like your typical buffer because the effects are so exotic and you have to use them cannily to make them benefit allies more than enemies.

  • Miscellaneous - Includes spells known and a handful of extremely unique features.

I think that this class encourages role playing much more than it encourages power gaming, but for those players who can't help it, it's a great choice. Instead of 1 player running away with the game and making everyone else feel weak, an optimized puppetmaster helps every player contribute and makes everybody feel like their character is awesome.

Yep, you sold me.

We really want to include Shadow Puppets as well, but that will have to wait until Secrets of Sword & String (the swordmaster & puppetmaster expansion). Which has to wait until we've played, watched and talked about the classes for several months.

We just didn't have enough time to tweak and balance a 4th style of puppetry.
Pathfinder Maps Subscriber

Really enjoying the class on first read through, I was struck by the breaking of the BAB/HD core rule of Pathfinder though, what made you choose to do that? Was it for flavor?
apexut wrote:
Really enjoying the class on first read through, I was struck by the breaking of the BAB/HD core rule of Pathfinder though, what made you choose to do that? Was it for flavor?

The puppetmaster got a d8 hit die combined with a low BAB for a variety of reasons, but they're all mechanical in nature.

In short, it was about making him play the way we wanted him to play.

Hit Die: In terms of flavor, I wish we could give the puppetmaster a d6. But a d8 is as squishy as we can make a class without inherent defenses (especially a MAD one). With a serious dearth of mid-to-high level defensive spells (he has mage armor, but doesn't get stoneskin, fly, dimension door, etc.), he wouldn't last very long with a d6. He is very MAD (multi-attribute dependent), which means that, unlike sorcerers and wizards, he can't afford to spend a lot of ability score points on Constitution to compensate for a low hit die. And in most cases he will have a lower AC than a cleric or rogue, but he should be a higher priority target for intelligent enemies. Rod puppeteers in particular have to utilize tactical positioning, which would be a recipe for disaster if we coupled the poor defenses listed above with anything less than a d8. We don't want puppetmasters leading the charge against dragons, but we also don't want them to be too skittish to enjoy their abilities.

BAB: This is low to encourage puppetmasters to be team players, regardless of their primary focus (i.e. even animist primaries). At low levels, when puppetmasters don't have enough Wonder Points to diversify their puppetry, BAB is fairly insubstantial. Ability scores and proficiencies are much bigger factors in chance to hit than BAB until level 4 or 5, which is why the puppetmaster has a number of excellent string-based proficiencies (to help carry animists and rod puppeteers caught without an appropriate story through low levels). At mid levels, we wanted to make it optimal for even animist primaries to spend a few Wonder Points in marionettes or rod puppets, so that every puppetmaster would benefit the entire table. A low BAB effectively phases out weapon attacks at mid levels, replacing those standard actions with spells, Use Magic Device checks or the use of a secondary puppetry style. That's exactly what we want - an optimized puppetmaster's standard actions to benefit other players. Even if a puppetmaster is adamant about sinking 100% of his Wonder Points into animism, a low BAB ensures that nets quickly become the best use of standard actions (because they target touch AC), which is ideal because tossing nets helps the party in a controller / leader capacity.

Reviewed first on Endzeitgeist.com, then submitted to GMS magazine, Nerdtrek and posted here and on OBS. Cheers!
Silver Crusade

Has anyone played a puppetmaster yet? If yes, how did it go? I am thinking of purchasing the product. I am reading through the free preview now. It seems fun and interesting.

I am currently constructing a murder mystery/conspiracy with a puppetmaster as the villain, but so far I haven't a PC puppetmaster.

If you're interested, I'd be happy to keep you in the loop, though I won't run the adventure in the next 2 months...
Silver Crusade

Thanks End. I would like to hear about it. That is how I looked at this class though. Perfect for a villain, not sure how good it would be for a player character.

Just bought this and have been pouring over it. A great addition. Considering the high quality of the work put into class, I was curious why there ended up being columns with sections that are blank? Did some art fall through? Just seemed odd considering the otherwise AWESOME work in the pdf.

@ Chris
I am going to try and talk my GM into letting me multi-class into puppetmaster. Keep in mind my character is a monk so this would be a far cry from an effective build. My interest is purely role play oriented. If it pans out I'll toss up some notes.
Chris Zank wrote:
Has anyone played a puppetmaster yet? If yes, how did it go?

I know mine are not valuable words from this perspective, but we play everything we develop in at least one campaign.

I loved my marionettes puppetmaster, and so did everyone else in my party.
Lareg wrote:
Considering the high quality of the work put into class, I was curious why there ended up being columns with sections that are blank? Did some art fall through?

If you are viewing the PDF on a tablet, then yes, some art is disappearing.

There is a compatibility issue with newer versions of Adobe Acrobat and most tablets. We have resolved the issue and have an updated version in-house that should go live very soon. We're working on a lot of brand-wide improvements and want to hold off on updating our live files until they're all finished because we don't like to spam updates.

Very good things loom on the horizon...
Dreadfox Games wrote:

If you are viewing the PDF on a tablet, then yes, some art is disappearing.

There is a compatibility issue with newer versions of Adobe Acrobat and most tablets. We have resolved the issue and have an updated version in-house that should go live very soon. We're working on a lot of brand-wide improvements and want to hold off on updating our live files until they're all finished because we don't like to spam updates.

Very good things loom on the horizon...

That makes so much more sense considering the otherwise great work here. I've been keeping an eye on your publications as they have seemed very compelling. This was the one that finally made me willing to pay the slightly higher price than I'm normally willing. Looks like I'll have to pick up some of the previous pdfs next time there is a sale :-)

Thanks for the quick update.

Just a minor issue I noticed. Manipulator’s Wiles is described at occurring at 2nd, 6th, 12th, 14th, and 18th level. The puppetmaster table lists the ability at 2nd, 6th, 10th, 14th, and 18th. I'm assuming the 12th is a typo.
Lareg wrote:
Just a minor issue I noticed. Manipulator’s Wiles is described at occurring at 2nd, 6th, 12th, 14th, and 18th level. The puppetmaster table lists the ability at 2nd, 6th, 10th, 14th, and 18th. I'm assuming the 12th is a typo.

The table is correct, the text is incorrect.

An updated file has been submitted to Paizo and should be available for download very soon. It's also optimized for display on tablets.

Thanks for letting us know!

Crazy fast update. I received the email from Paizo, but haven't downloaded the new version yet. I'll let you know how it works. (Edit: Downloaded the updated pdf and the art shows up great.)

In the meantime I put up a thread with one of the archetype ideas the class inspired.

Thanks again for the great work.
Silver Crusade

I just picked up the full version today. This is a very interesting class. I want to see how it does during play.

I may have a chance to play it multiclass with a monk. Still working out details with my GM and finalizing an archetype I put together (used a concept from an old racial PrC and some recent stuff by 3PP). I can post details in the thread I linked up thread if anyone is interested.

I'll be sure to chime in if and when I have a chance to play the class.

If you have the archetype done and feel like sharing, I'd eb interested in it - I'm currently building a Puppetmaster/Marionette-monk (Wayang-monk archetype I use for other races as well - Amazing Races: Wayang)- monastery serving the Penumbral Pentagon and your archetype sounds just like a cool addition! :D

Will toss the archetype up on the thread. It isn't a monk focused archetype, but instead plays on the theme of a craftsman who is in denial about the reality of the animated puppet.

Next session my multi-class monk / puppetmaster goes live (monk 9 / puppetmaster 1). Needless to say it isn't an optimal build, but I'm thrilled with the role playing possibilities (and the possible utility of animism).

I'm glad to see that people are enjoying the puppetmaster so much. Its development took twice as long as any of our other classes, so it makes us very happy to see that work pay off.

More importantly, thanks for all of the constructive feedback so far! We're always starving for more, especially of the post-play variety.

p.s. We're plotting a system of player appreciation. It'll be released with the rest of our prep-for-print improvements (which are taking much longer than anticipated...).

I purchased this yesterday, and have been going through it...question, for the Poison (Animism) wonder, it reads:

Puppetmaster wrote:
This wonder can be selected multiple times, but it can only be selected one time per point of the puppetmaster’s Intelligence modifier. This wonder only adds poison to an attack the first time it is selected. Each time it is selected (including the first), the saving throw DC of the poison increases by 1, the size of the damage die increases by half a step (the second selection increases the die to 1d3, the fourth selection increases the die to 1d4, the eighth selections increases the die to 1d6) and the duration increases by half a round.

Is that supposed to read 'eighth selections', or is that supposed to be 'fifth selection'? It seems to make more sense as the latter, but it's possible I'm just missing something!

Also, a minor typo I noticed, in the Base Material table, for Wood, it says the flaw is "Gains vulneraility to fire" instead of vulnerability.

I'm still going over it, it's a very interesting concept mechanically, the way it lets you shift and choose between how much of a caster you are and the three main disciplines, though quite complex. Not sure how it would actually play out, but I'm certainly interested in trying sometime.
Luthorne wrote:
Puppetmaster wrote:
Each time it is selected (including the first), the saving throw DC of the poison increases by 1, the size of the damage die increases by half a step (the second selection increases the die to 1d3, the fourth selection increases the die to 1d4, the eighth selections increases the die to 1d6) and the duration increases by half a round.
Is that supposed to read 'eighth selections', or is that supposed to be 'fifth selection'? It seems to make more sense as the latter, but it's possible I'm just missing something!

It now reads:

Puppetmaster wrote:
Each time it is selected (including the first), the saving throw DC of the poison increases by 1, the size of the damage die increases by half of one (the second selection increases the die to 1d3, the fourth selection increases the die to 1d4, the eighth selection increases the die to 1d6) and the duration increases by half a round.

Eighth's consecutive consonants must have blinded me to that stray "s". Also, several months removed from this project, the word "step" seems very misleading because it implies that the die should jump straight to d6 at 6, d8 at 8 and d10 at 10, which is not the case (we found even a d8 to be a bit too extreme in the 2nd beta). Hopefully half of one is more clear.

Luthorne wrote:
Also, a minor typo I noticed, in the Base Material table, for Wood, it says the flaw is "Gains vulneraility to fire" instead of vulnerability.

Fixed!

Good catches. PM me your email address and I'll send you a little thank you present.

Ah, that does make more sense. I was thinking of the steps as being along the lines of improved natural attack or enlarge person, so it was confusing me. So, 1d2 (1st), 1d3 (2nd), 1d4 (4th), 1d5 (6th), 1d6 (8th), 1d7 (10th), 1d8 (12th), but cutting out 1d5 and 1d7 as not generally existing...and, of course, I doubt there's many that can get up to 1d8 with the Intelligence restriction, since that would be a puppetmaster with 34 Intelligence, and even a 1d6 would require 26 Intelligence.

PM sent!

The other odd thing I noticed a bit afterwards, though this might be purposeful? is that the puppetmaster spell list has share language (communal) as a 2nd level spell, but doesn't get the original share language spell, which seems a little odd to me. Was it an oversight one way or the other, or just a puppetmaster peculiarity?
Luthorne wrote:
The other odd thing I noticed a bit afterwards, though this might be purposeful? is that the puppetmaster spell list has share language (communal) as a 2nd level spell, but doesn't get the original share language spell, which seems a little odd to me. Was it an oversight one way or the other, or just a puppetmaster peculiarity?

It was deliberate.

We don't want puppetmasters stealing bards' thunder (in this case, communicating with anyone at 1st-3rd level, which only the bard can do and is kind of a big deal).

Puppetmasters have a lot at 1st level; bards have precious little (before bardic performance / knowledge picks up and their favorable spell levels really set in). We didn't want to raid one of the only real cookies in their low level cookie jar. I know it seems awkward, but we place a lot of emphasis on not letting our classes steal another class's thunder.

I was looking through this again, and I noticed that possess object is listed both as a 4th-level spell and as a 5th-level spell for the Puppetmaster. Mind if I ask which is correct?
Luthorne wrote:
... I noticed that possess object is listed both as a 4th-level spell and as a 5th-level spell for the Puppetmaster. Mind if I ask which is correct?

Possess object should be 4th level.

Another great catch! More presents for you!

I've updated my archetype thread with a rod puppet wonder and a weapon idea. Be interested to see what others think.

For anyone eagerly awaiting Dreadfox Games' followup book that expands on the puppetmaster (and swordmaster) I have something of my own creation to share.

Check this thread out to see my Expressive Weapons idea. Would love feedback / thoughts.
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