Pathfinder Roleplaying Game: Pathfinder Unchained (OGL)

4.60/5 (based on 15 ratings)
Pathfinder Roleplaying Game: Pathfinder Unchained (OGL)
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Get ready to shake up your game! Within these pages, the designers of the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game unleash their wildest ideas, and nothing is safe. From totally revised fundamentals like core classes and monster design to brand-new systems for expanding the way you play, this book offers fresh ideas while still blending with the existing system. With Pathfinder Unchained, you become the game designer!

Pathfinder Unchained is an indispensable companion to the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game: Core Rulebook. This imaginative tabletop game builds upon more than 15 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 a new era.

Pathfinder Unchained includes:

  • New versions of the barbarian, monk, rogue, and summoner classes, all revised to make them more balanced and easier to play.
  • New skill options for both those who want more skills to fill out their characters' backgrounds and those seeking streamlined systems for speed and simplicity.
  • Changes to how combat works, from a revised action system to an exhaustive list of combat tricks that draw upon your character's stamina.
  • Magic items that power up with you throughout your career—and ways to maintain variety while still letting players choose the "best" magic items.
  • Simplified monster creation rules for making new creatures on the fly.
  • Exotic material components ready to supercharge your spellcasting.
  • New takes on alignment, multiclassing, iterative attacks, wounds, diseases and poisons, and item creation.
  • ... and much, much more!

ISBN-13: 978-1-60125-715-4

Other Resources: This product is also available on the following platforms:

Hero Lab Online
Fantasy Grounds Virtual Tabletop
Archives of Nethys

Note: This product is part of the Pathfinder Rulebook Subscription.

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4.60/5 (based on 15 ratings)

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Some of the suggested mechanics are worth the entire price

5/5

Automatic Bonus Progression is enough to justify the entire price of the book. Better versions of the Rogue and Monk, as well as fixes to the summoner and streamlining the barabarian seal the deal. There is a lot of other good stuff in here as well. Well worth it!


Upgraded Mechanics!

5/5

I love the idea of this book, I wish this happened more often. They took what they saw wrong with their game and spent proper time and effort to come up with proper solutions. It's pretty rare for a company to spend this much effort on tweaking things. The new proposed mechanics for combat and skills are unique and great ideas to help customize your groups' gaming experience.
I hope they release more books like this in the future. I've love for more variations for multiclassing, and I'm still waiting for a summoner archetype that removes the class summon monster ability and focuses more on the eidolon.
Highly recommend it, especially for anyone interested in how someone goes about making a gaming system. It provides awesome insights.


Fantastic product

5/5

It's been a while since it took me so long to digest a Pathfinder book, and boy, did Unchained ever keep me digesting. More optional rules than you can shake a stick at, to be implemented in modular or wholesale fashion, to tweak your game to your heart's content, and with top-notch art throughout, to boot. Excellent work by Paizo and one of their finest offerings in a while.

As for the negatives, the only thing I can really point out is that the writing can be somewhat scattershot and unfocused in a couple of reasonably complex sections, which would have benefited greatly from examples or bolded formulae.


Love The Options

5/5

This book is a great addition. Options are optional, and it's great that this book has so many. It really makes customizing a campaign easy. Of you'll like you never use every option, or likely even half of them in a single you play or run, but having them really gives you a great toolbox to use. Some people are finicky about house rules, so having an official batch of "house rules" to choose from is nice for people who prefer to stick to official products. No book is perfect, but being this book isn't really being forced on anyone (of course I suppose none of the supplements are), and that is a giant bag of options that you can pick and choose from to enhance the game, for those who'd like it enhanced, I give this product 5 stars, especially if I am comparing it to the usefulness of the average Pathfinder product.


Great Options for Pathfinder

5/5

I'm a huge fan of the rules options in Pathfinder Unchained. They do a great job of creating fixes to some of the potential issues with the Pathfinder system without upsetting the entire rule system.

I'm one of those weird people who loved playing my TWF core rogue through all 11 levels of PFS, but I have to admit that the unchained rogue is an improvement. I also actually prefer the unchained summoner to the base summoner; even though the new one may seem less powerful, it's more thematically appropriate. I'm considering playing a summoner for the first time.

I've been using some of the alternate rules systems in my Hell's Rebels campaign, and I like how they are working out. I'm using automatic bonus progression at least in part because I know some of my players like to ignore the Big 6, or spend all their gold on +6 stat items as soon as possible to the exclusion of other items. This way I know their AC is still going up, and they'll end up more balanced. I can now also let them craft---using the much more engaging dynamic item creation rules---without worrying too much about wealth by level.

Some of the rules I wouldn't personally implement. I feel like alignment affirmations will just lead to alignment arguments at the table, and in my experience, multiclassers don't need the boost from partial base attack bonus increases. But I am glad that these options exist for tables that want them.


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Mark Seifter wrote:

To add to what Jason has said, when it comes to unchained, everything is unchained in some way or another, there's really a sliding scale, ranging from "Wow, that's a cool new take on an iconic idea" all the way out to "'The sacred cows are dead and strapped to a catapult while everyone cavorts in the moonlight and watches in awed anticipation as the chains of reality shatter and the entire world dissolves into the Maelstrom". Some combinations from Pathfinder Unchained are going to bring you more towards the second description in terms of how much they will alter the fundamental way you play to bring a completely new feel, but the new classes are more like the first description.

Uh oh! Does that mean that the Inevitables and Axiomites will try to prevent this book from being published?

Shadow Lodge

Pathfinder Rulebook Subscriber
Mark Seifter wrote:

To add to what Jason has said, when it comes to unchained, everything is unchained in some way or another, there's really a sliding scale, ranging from "Wow, that's a cool new take on an iconic idea" all the way out to "'The sacred cows are dead and strapped to a catapult while everyone cavorts in the moonlight and watches in awed anticipation as the chains of reality shatter and the entire world dissolves into the Maelstrom". Some combinations from Pathfinder Unchained are going to bring you more towards the second description in terms of how much they will alter the fundamental way you play to bring a completely new feel, but the new classes are more like the first description.

So, to use a hypothetical example of a class that isn't under current discussion for Unchained, a theoretical unchained druid would probably not trade out all her spells, wild shape, and animal companions for the ability to shoot a bow with her feet, reliant on her dinosaur pool, a personal pool based on 1/2 druid level + Wis modifier that allows her to transform her foot-bow arrows into dinosaurs midflight (scaling dinosaur type by druid level) with a special feature called Plant Mastery that allows you to gain combat bonuses based on going into your local forest or arboretum in real life and collecting a variety of leaves and other flora that you bring to the game session, each one granting a unique boon (with a sidebar for equivalencies of plants if you play on different continents).

Hmm...that actually sounds kind of awesome in a very MtG Unglued kind of way...

And why isn't this being published?

Webstore Gninja Minion

10 people marked this as a favorite.

Removed some additional unhelpful posts. Take the theorycrafting off this thread, and personal insults out of your posts and off these forums.


Adventure Path Charter Subscriber
Mark Seifter wrote:

So, to use a hypothetical example of a class that isn't under current discussion for Unchained, a theoretical unchained druid would probably not trade out all her spells, wild shape, and animal companions for the ability to shoot a bow with her feet, reliant on her dinosaur pool, a personal pool based on 1/2 druid level + Wis modifier that allows her to transform her foot-bow arrows into dinosaurs midflight (scaling dinosaur type by druid level) with a special feature called Plant Mastery that allows you to gain combat bonuses based on going into your local forest or arboretum in real life and collecting a variety of leaves and other flora that you bring to the game session, each one granting a unique boon (with a sidebar for equivalencies of plants if you play on different continents).

Foot-bow powered dino druids: confirmed for the August 2015 hardback!


Quote:
The Pathfinder Roleplaying Game contains numerous rules considered sacred by players and GMs alike. Since the system itself was based upon RPG "technology" already more than 20 years old, "backwards compatibility" often meant sticking with the familiar, even if tradition was filled with cobwebs and decades-old assumptions. Pathfinder Unchained dares to take a fresh look at the system itself, altering some of the fundamentals of the game and giving fresh optional takes on classic rules. Inside this collection of alternate rules and options you'll find completely redesigned versions of the barbarian, monk, rogue, and summoner classes. Delve into a new system for resolving player actions designed to speed play and dispel confusion. Many of the new systems (such as the revised classes) work seamlessly with the existing Pathfinder rules. Even the most staunchly traditionalist player will appreciate the book's math-lite system for on-the-fly monster creation and the new system for generating dynamic magic items that go far beyond a simple +1 to add lore and interest to the campaign. Players will love the book's new resource pool for martial characters, allowing for exciting new tactical options, as well as the robust new system that allows spellcasters to modify their spells with powerful spell components.

Wait, hold on... I thought we were talking about aspects kept in Pathfinder to maintain backwards compatibility with 3rd Edition, which was published FOURTEEN years ago.

What other things could they possibly be talking about here??

Grand Lodge

1 person marked this as a favorite.
Pathfinder Adventure, Adventure Path, Pathfinder Accessories, Rulebook, Starfinder Adventure Path Subscriber
The Rot Grub wrote:

Wait, hold on... I thought we were talking about aspects kept in Pathfinder to maintain backwards compatibility with 3rd Edition, which was published FOURTEEN years ago.

What other things could they possibly be talking about here??

Spell slots. Character classes. Dungeon-focused gameplay.

Dark Archive

The Rot Grub wrote:

Wait, hold on... I thought we were talking about aspects kept in Pathfinder to maintain backwards compatibility with 3rd Edition, which was published FOURTEEN years ago.

What other things could they possibly be talking about here??

Updated second edition Players Handbook and DM's Guide came out in 1995, twenty years ago, so perhaps some of the concepts in those books are being considered, like wizards school specializations (instead of just 'magic users and illusionists').

I really don't remember what changed between the first 2nd edition books in 1989 and the new release in 1995, so that might be a bad example...

Most of the sacred cows I was thinking of where stuff like skills and character classes and dice, which have been around longer than twenty years.

"Dice? Where we're going, we won't need dice..."


2 people marked this as a favorite.

But I like dice :(


I'm looking forward to playing the Commoner: Unchained!


Tels wrote:
I'm looking forward to playing the Commoner: Unchained!

Don't laugh, but I unironically would love to play a commoner that, as he fights things, gravitates to a certain class. But I can't even imagine how to do that...

Dark Archive

1 person marked this as a favorite.
Odraude wrote:
Tels wrote:
I'm looking forward to playing the Commoner: Unchained!
Don't laugh, but I unironically would love to play a commoner that, as he fights things, gravitates to a certain class. But I can't even imagine how to do that...

A long time ago, I saw a game in which people started out as Warriors, Adepts or Experts, and then 'graduated' to PC classes, paying the difference between the faster XP they were getting as NPC classes to upgrade each level to a PC class level.

Warrior to Fighter was obviously the easiest back then, since the only difference was spend some XP and get some feats.

Contributor

Tels wrote:
I'm looking forward to playing the Commoner: Unchained!

Announced for Pathfinder Unchained: New adjustments to the CR system render NPC classes useless, so they have been removed from the game. The Commoner: Rechained.


Pathfinder Adventure Path Subscriber

Eclipse: Codex Persona comes to mind.
Now that would be a very nice development.

A complete overhaul of magic use could make the distinction between spontaneous casters and learned casters difficult though.
If you look at Dreamscarred Press Psionics for example, which is a nice point system, there are all spontaneous.
Could still say wizards need to learn their spells and can spend les points on them.

Sovereign Court

I'm game I suppose. Hope all the new rules and things aren't just in the streamlining direction.

Wouldn't mind rules that slow things down and make things much more complex. Tactical gridless miniature combat rules, etc.


1 person marked this as a favorite.
Jason Bulmahn wrote:
Its just an argument for its own sake.
Jason Bulmahn wrote:
...arguing about them is a bit pointless.

Sir, I applaud your attempts to appeal to the collective. However, you must have momentarily forgotten that this is the internet.

Very very excited about this book though. No arguments from me!


Ooh! New Monk and Rogue stuff sounds fun, and I'd love to see what they do with a second pass at Summoner. *Hibernates for the next nine months*


7 people marked this as a favorite.

Whenever I hear Pathfinder Unchained all I can think about is a module where a CN gunslinger massacres slavers while Tupac plays in the background.


Alexander Augunas wrote:
Tels wrote:
I'm looking forward to playing the Commoner: Unchained!
Announced for Pathfinder Unchained: New adjustments to the CR system render NPC classes useless, so they have been removed from the game. The Commoner: Rechained.

Y U H8 MY Parade?

Designer

4 people marked this as a favorite.
Tels wrote:
I'm looking forward to playing the Commoner: Unchained!

Why wait--start by converting Chicken Infested, Corpse, Delicious, Dirt Farmer, Incomprehensible Accent, Peasant Hat, Pig Bond, Unimportant NPC, Weresheep and XP Farm and make them into commoner talents. Then the Unchained Commoner gains a new commoner talent at each even level, so there are just enough.


8 people marked this as a favorite.

I thought we were moving the fighter related comments to the other topic?


Okay so based on the last tidbit of info we got, this will be a new take on the classes and not changing them into something they are not. Which makes sense, I mean now that I think about it there are some feats tied to sneak attacks, rage, and ki so I doubt these things will be removed from the unchained version of the classes. This is especially true for rage powers since the Skald(ACG class) will also be getting access to them.

So now that things are a little clearer on that aspect, we can better speculate what is to come. The rogue will still have sneak attack, trapfinding will most likely remain, I don't see evasion going away either...Ideally I would hope as I've stated before that they would gain an ability that increases their attack bonus, but it needs to feel rogue-ish something very pragmatic and underhanded. Another way to look at it is instead of increasing attack bonus the rogue could drop the enemies AC by a certain amount, but then it would have to work on most if not all enemies and people may think that would be a bit overpowered.


i should HOPE this book helps alleviate some of the more lackluster of classes. you know, the Big Three that we're not allowed to talk about.

one cant stab you in the dark, another cant punch you to save his life, and the last is bland and hilariously underskilled.

.

that, and wordcasting additions (don't just tease it and then act like it never happened, paizo) or variant spellcasting types (an 'MP'/spell points system might be fun)


2 people marked this as a favorite.

It is ridiculous that a rogue has to take a feat to sneak attack someone in the dark. Last I checked dark alleys could be classified as a rogue's natural habitat.


Pathfinder Adventure Path Subscriber
Wolfgang Rolf wrote:
Last I checked dark allies could be classified as a rogue's natural habitat.

Dark allies....rogues got a new class feature inhabiting other entities now? Guess you meant alleys ;)


Hayato Ken wrote:
Wolfgang Rolf wrote:
Last I checked dark allies could be classified as a rogue's natural habitat.
Dark allies....rogues got a new class feature inhabiting other entities now? Guess you meant alleys ;)

My mistake, serves me right for not checking before posting.


So excited for this book. I am also glad the fighter is not getting a rework. I suspect that something even more fundamental is happening: Feats, glorious feats.

Liberty's Edge

Personally, I'm hoping for a Barbarian based on the AD&D version from the Complete Barbarian's Handbook. Less berserker, more self-sufficient barbarian warrior. Not that I don't seriously enjoy the current version, but doing this seems like the best reason to actually include it in Unchained that I've thought of, and would create a neat class we don't quite have as of yet.


1 person marked this as a favorite.
silverhair2008 wrote:
Has anyone or everyone ever heard the term, "You can't please all of the people all of the rime"?

I have, and trying to do so has often left me cold.

Designer

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cannon fodder wrote:
silverhair2008 wrote:
Has anyone or everyone ever heard the term, "You can't please all of the people all of the rime"?
I have, and trying to do so has often left me cold.

Slick, but now we're entangled in that conversation and could use an icebreaker.


I am sure it has be asked and answered, don't real like looking through all the posts. But what will this do for the basic fighter?


1 person marked this as a favorite.
Jack Rift wrote:
I am sure it has be asked and answered, don't real like looking through all the posts. But what will this do for the basic fighter?

If you read the product description, then you know as much as the rest of us do.

Lantern Lodge

Ok, I'm a little late to this. Only just heard about it on Know Direction.

Other then the 4 classes in the description above, any info on the other classes like Fighter, etc?
Will they be touched upon as well? I heard in the podcast that all 30 classes will be revisited?


2 people marked this as a favorite.
Secane wrote:

Ok, I'm a little late to this. Only just heard about it on Know Direction.

Other then the 4 classes in the description above, any info on the other classes like Fighter, etc?
Will they be touched upon as well? I heard in the podcast that all 30 classes will be revisited?

Not to be a total ass, but you could have read the comment immediately above yours.

Cthulhudrew wrote:
Jack Rift wrote:
I am sure it has be asked and answered, don't real like looking through all the posts. But what will this do for the basic fighter?
If you read the product description, then you know as much as the rest of us do.

Lantern Lodge

@Tels ,
Ok... There are 480+ posts, just wanted to know if I missed anything. No need to get all offended.

The podcast mentioned quite a bit, I was just hoping that an extra comment on any other class was being dropped by the design team.

I also see you have some interesting ideals for improving the fighter via improving feats, I do hope something a long that line to help the fighter appears in unchained.


1 person marked this as a favorite.

I agree with not reading the entire thread, but you could have done a quick search of the thread. There's a search box at the top of every thread that will search the thread for key words you designate.

As for getting offended, I was only kind of annoyed because someone had asked nearly the exact same question right above you and got answered is all.

This product has just been announced and there really isn't much information at out about it at all.

What we do know is that the Barbarian, Monk, Rogue and Summoner will be 'unchained' in that the Barbarian will be made 'easier, the Monk will have full BAB (buffed), the Rogue will be buffed and the Summoner will be nerfed.

We also know that they will be designing the game ignoring the expectation of backwards compatibility.

We know that some classes won't specifically be 'unchained' but that other systems of the game will be unchained, which may drastically effect the class. For example, if Magic is drastically different than now, it will heavily effect all of the casters in the game.

There will be new subsytems like mana pools and resources included and an over-hauled 'on-the-fly' monster creation system.

Other than the above, the PDT has been pretty tight lipped, as they should be. The product was just announced, I wouldn't expect any significant teasers for another 9 months or so until it gets closer to it's release date.

Lantern Lodge

@,Tels
Thanks for the breakdown, Tels!
Sorry for annoying you. :(

Will remember to search more in the future!

And I noticed the Fighter unchained thread. Going to pop in and have a look.
I really do hope they take a look at the fighter!
Hope for: +2 more skill points, allow acrobatics, feat bonuses, reflex good save!


2 people marked this as a favorite.

Adding this to my wishlist for the book: official rules for buffing monsters and bosses to compete against optimized parties. It would be interesting to see if Paizo can come up with something more interesting than just slapping on advanced templates or extra hit points, while still being quick.


1 person marked this as a favorite.

I wonder if creating a new progression scale for PCs (Ability points, saves etc) would fall into the purview of this to help eliminate the dependency on magic items (or some other way to help address this).


1 person marked this as a favorite.
Secane wrote:


@,Tels
Thanks for the breakdown, Tels!
Sorry for annoying you. :(

Will remember to search more in the future!

And I noticed the Fighter unchained thread. Going to pop in and have a look.
I really do hope they take a look at the fighter!
Hope for: +2 more skill points, allow acrobatics, feat bonuses, reflex good save!

Relax Secane. You were far from the only annoying thing in this thread :D And I don't blame you for not reading hundreds of posts chasing the same couple of ideas around and around... I did and I feel like I wasted some time I can never get back :)

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