Pathfinder Roleplaying Game: Horror Adventures

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Pathfinder Roleplaying Game: Horror Adventures
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There are things that dwell in the dark places of the world, in long-abandoned crypts or musty attics—terrible things that can destroy your body and shatter your mind. Few individuals would think to seek out such nightmares, but those drawn into the darkness often find it infecting them, corrupting them in ways both subtle and disgusting. Some believe those who die facing such horrors are the lucky ones, for the survivors are forever scarred by their experiences.

Pathfinder RPG Horror Adventures gives you everything you need to bring these nightmares to life. Within these pages, you'll find secrets to take your game into the darkest reaches of fantasy, where the dead hunger for the living, alien gods brood in dreams, and madness and death lurk around every corner. Rules for players and GMs alike pit brave champions against a darkness capable of devouring mind, body, and soul. To prepare to face such torments, the heroes can take new feats, learn powerful spells, and even acquire holy relics—for they'll need every edge possible to survive!

Pathfinder RPG Horror Adventures includes:

  • Corruptions that can turn your character into a powerful monster, from a blood-drinking vampire to a savage werewolf. The only cost is your soul!
  • Character options to help heroes oppose the forces of darkness, including horror-themed archetypes, feats, spells, and more!
  • A detailed system to represent sanity and madness, giving you all the tools you need to drive characters to the brink and beyond.
  • Tips and tools for running a genuinely scary game, along with an in-depth look at using horror's many subgenres in a Pathfinder campaign.
  • Expanded rules for curses, diseases, environments, fleshwarping, haunts, and deadly traps.
  • New templates to turn monsters into truly terrifying foes, from creatures made of living wax to a stalker that can never be stopped!
  • ... and much, much more!

ISBN-13: 978-1-60125-849-6

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Spooky Fun, Can't Wait to Curse My Players

5/5

I am in love with this book. The themes for archetypes are spot on and everything goes beyond horror basics, it's much more than vampires, werewolves, and zombies (though they are included). Some of my favorite elements are the Deep One corruption (corruptions in general are sweet, this seems like a well balanced mechanic for horribly warping the PCs into monsters, while still giving them a way to fight it) and the Gingerbread Witch. The Deep One corruption is a great example of the depth of horror this book includes, this plays on a less often used horror theme of the paranoia of harming oneself (in this case, by drowning). This reminds me so much of elements from the book The Boy Who Drew Monsters, and the mom's terrible fascination with people who drowned in a shipwreck a hundred years ago. You could adopt this same corruption for vertigo or even a bodily harm thing. On a lighter side, the Gingerbread Witch made me so, so happy. It's a well thought out archetype, I'm not sure they'd be great as a player character (but there aren't evil restrictions, so have at!) but I can't wait to insert a horrible Gingerbread Witch near some unassuming town, with her creepy haunted gingerbread house and evil delicious familiar.

I just can't say enough good things about the mechanics. They are flexible enough that you don't have to have a horror specific campaign to use elements from this book. The fear and sanity rules can be used with any campaign to add realism or more of a gritty fantasy feel. If your level 1 characters just killed a person for the first time, maybe they should lose some sanity and wrestle with that emotion. If they are in a dank, creepy dungeon with skeletons, maybe some of them would be spooked. The rules for adapting fear resistant characters like Paladins are also nicely balanced and I appreciate that attention to detail - your paladins don't have to yawn at the sideline, they're vulnerable too, just in a way less debilitating way that actually paints them as more of a hero around evil and undead.

Lastly, the warning about needing consent before using this book in a campaign was a very nice touch. That totally hooked me when starting to read this book. I kind of thought I'd just have spooky themed elements, but that paragraph inspired me to try to take this to the next level. How fun would it be to have a session that turns your actual living room into a haunted house, or to be the director of the scariest experience your friends have had all year?

If Halloween is your favorite holiday or you love low, gritty fantasy, I highly recommend this book. I will be reading this one cover to cover and am excited to use its elements for many, many sessions.


An Endzeitgeist.com review

5/5

This massive hardcover clocks in at 255 pages - if you take away editorial, index, etc., you still arrive at 249 pages of content, which is A LOT.

I was gifted a copy of this book for the purpose of a fair and unbiased review. My review is based on the hardcover of this book.

Now, the first thing I'd ask you to do, is to read the series of Miscellaneous Musings I wrote on horror gaming in general. Or least the last one. Why? Because it is my firm conviction that one has to establish realistic expectations in order to review a book such as this.

(The articles are fully linked on my page.)

Alternatively, if you already own it, there is a sentence in the advice chapter on running horror games that should be taken to heart: "Pathfinder is not designed with horror in mind." I'd like to elaborate on this, at least briefly. As I have established in my long, long rants on the subject matter, it is my firm conviction that you can run horror in PFRPG, even purist horror, but that the base system per se is more conductive towards playing the angle of pitting horror against the angle of heroism, of allowing PCs to have a shot against the darkness. While you can modify PFRPG to play akin to CoC, the game is simply more conductive towards the heroic angle.

It is a testament to PFRPG's versatility that horror of any way works in the first place, in spite of the focus of the game. Now secondly, I'd like to address two aspects of the game and what we can expect, with the first being character options. We are all aware of the vast array of built-options available for PFRPG and thus, it should come as no surprise that yes, we do receive a significant array of player- (or at least character-)centric options. Which would bring me to the first observation: It is my firm convictions that players should stay out of this book.

No, really. You see, quite a lot of the new class options, like the blood alchemist, elder mythos cultist, hexenhammer or medium spirit-variants like the butcher or lich (for champion and archmage, to give two examples) scream "NPC" for me. I know, it is perhaps not what you'd expect me to do, but ultimately, I consider the material here to be mostly intended for the GM. Yes, we have martyr paladins with stigmata and bloody jake slayers and serial killer vigilantes. Yes, some players will want to play these...but from my experience as a horror-GM, it may actually make sense restricting these...or simply not telling the players about the rules. Before you're asking, btw.: From a min-maxing perspective, you'll probably find better options anyways...but if that's a consideration for you when playing in a horror game, I'd strongly suggest thinking about priorities and of what makes for a fun game for everyone - see my long, long posts on the necessary contract/gentlemen's agreement between the GM and player.

That being said, there is one aspect I am holding against this book, in spite of the aforementioned previous considerations, and that would be that there is no dividing line between content obviously designed for players/good guys and that for villains - it does show in the archetype-section and, more than that, in the feat-section, where we can find REALLY cool Story-feats alongside a bunch of feats intended for evil characters or monsters - in the latter case often enhancing universal monster abilities and providing further numerical escalation - which would be less of an issue, if PFRPG didn't have this many options to gain access to precisely these abilities. In short, we are catering to a mindset here that kinda undermines the horror premise the rest of the book is trying hard to set up. In short: We also get a lot of alternate racial traits for the core races, which generally fit with the themes of horror, though the fortification they offer against these challenges don't really fit my personal vision of what I like to play in the context of such a campaign, but your mileage here may obviously vary. These are my least favorite aspects of the book.

But let's move back to the very beginning: The advice given for players when making characters for horror adventures is extremely sound and should most certainly be read carefully - the book spells pretty much out what I did, minus the advice on Achilles heels, but I guess you can't have everything. The notes on making a compelling personality etc. makes sense, and so does the advice of roleplaying fear. I am a big fan of the note that the book emphasizes conspiration and communication with the GM here.

One of my favorite parts herein would be the more diversified take on Fear: We are introduced to a 7-step progression tree of various states of fear, including rules on immunity to fear and how it should be used in conjunction with this system. It works pretty seamlessly, though I honestly wished the already widely in use cowering condition had been implemented here as well - considering the effects of the highest fear-level "horrified", the differences are not that pronounced. And yes, I am aware that this adds a bit of potential complexity to some options, but here at least, I consider the trade off worth it.

Sanity...is a bit more clunky. We get a relatively simple system: Add mental attributes together and you have the sanity score; half of that is the sanity edge. This determines the severity of the madness incurred when something exceeds your sanity threshold - which is equal to the bonus of the highest mental attribute bonus. When you incur a sanity attack and its damage exceeds the threshold, you gain a madness - simple, yes...but it does ultimately reward characters that are SAD on a mental attribute, whereas in my opinion, sanity-shattering effects often are made worse by understanding them properly, perceiving them properly, etc. The system is not bad per se, but it requires managing three scores and for that, it doesn't deliver the results I'm personally looking for in such a system. Your mileage may vary, obviously, but yeah.

The star-subsystem here would be basically PFRPG's take on dark powers-checks, so-called corruptions. These tie in with character flaws of the PC and represent a dark and malevolent stain on the character that slowly mutates them, granting benefits, while at the same time driving them further down the dark path. Where previously, in Ravenloft, you ultimately became a darklord, corruptions now have 3 stages, with the final stage usually turning you NPC. Progression along this path is via a variety of actions and they generally have a catalyst to first spring them on a character. These corruptions also feature tempting powers, so-called manifestations, which also come with a stain, a drawback, that is in relation to the behavior in question.

Now, first things first: At one point, I wrote a pretty long essay on how to tempt both players and PCs at the same time with horrific power and the psychological reasons to do so - while it has been cut and never been published, let me summarize: I argued that a weakness of the monster-transformation aspect championed by Ravenloft was, that on the one hand, the PC should be horrified by what he does, while craving the power in question. Similarly, the player should feel the same.

If there is a disjoint between player and PC, roleplaying suffers. The corruptions, when looking at them, are surprisingly tame - not in their visuals, mind you: The hive, for example, is really icky. Still, it is somewhat surprising to see the heavy penalty of corruption stage 3...and at the same time, the significant array of manifestations each corruption offers. Now, some folks have complained about the risk of being turned NPC being too high (it's a sort of game over, after all), but from a meta-design perspective it can be a motivator for munchkins to take heed.

There is another aspect to the system pretty much every review I read did not pick up on - and I don't get why. In my third essay on horror gaming, I talked about the realities of being a big publisher and not one of the underground one-man operations. I also talked briefly about the witch hunts our hobby is subject to, one that continues in some regions and circles. More than that, moral and aesthetic limitations vary within persons - more so between folks. As the big dog that Paizo is, it is pretty hard to sell "play a monstrously vile thing and the descent into evil" to a part of their demographic - though, in particularly the hardcore horror fans will want exactly that, the teetering on the edge of damnation experience, for from this precipice, the best redemption stories are woven.

Here's the beautiful thing about the corruption system: The increase of manifestations is not tied to the corruption stage progression. At all. You can retain the whole save mechanics, variants and the whole rest and just throw out the three stages. You can introduce as many stages as you'd like (perhaps 7 or 5, as previous editions of the game did - perhaps 13, if you want to go an occult angle...) - the system's validity remains. And yes, I'll confess, my kneejerk response was like that of many out there, to complain and curse about the 3 stages - but know what? This is by far the best and most detailed (and balanced) such system I have seen for a d20-based game. It covers the company and at the same time, easily allows for PCs and NPCs, for GMs and players alike, to enjoy a system I never expected to see in this shape or form from a big publisher. Now personally, I would have actually increased the potency of the corruptions if you're running with the stage-limit and NPC-threat...but, once again, that is if you're planning on playing a relatively tame campaign. The fact that each manifestation has its custom gifts and stains, completely divorced from the stages, means that you retain maximum control when tweaking the system to your needs. The fact that the save to resist progression is tied to compulsive behavior means that even it, as an aspect, remains valid, its tie to further manifestations in the save-calculation providing a roleplaying catalyst even without the presence of the threat of NPCdom.

The chapter on magic provides a wide array of thematically fitting spells that range from the subtle to the in-your-face blunt - sleepwalking suggestions, massive, gory blood effects and cursed terrain generally make sense and even otherwise pretty standard damage spells included herein sport nice visuals: Screaming flames? Yes, I can see that working. I am honestly more in love with the fact that we get a 5 pretty neat occult rituals here that all are amazing in their own way, with each having the potential to act as a proper plot-cornerstone. I wished we got more of them!

Now, I mentioned that I consider this to be a GM-book and indeed, the GM-section is a bit of a treasure trove in some aspects: We get a couple of new curses and advice on making more, as well as notes on cursed lands and items - if the topic interests you: Both Legendary games and Rite Publishing have released whole supplements dealing with curses, often in really creative ways, but that as an aside. Curse templates allow for the customization of curses herein. Now, the disease chapter gets my full-blown applause for disease templates - and e.g. the one named "incurable." It actually does what it says on the tin! (minus the usual wish/miracle-caveat) - this is amazing. I mean it. Diseases have, in pretty much every d20-based system, been afterthoughts, crippled, lame and ultimately were the lame brothers of poison. This changes that. The sample diseases like "brain moss" or "gore worms" also make me tingle and twitch in a good way.

Speaking of things I like: We get a vast number of cool terrain hazards, haunted spots and the like to add to encounters, allowing for quick and easy eerie customizations. Domains of Evil can also be found. You know. Domains. With dread fog. That modify how magic works. With hazards and potentially different flow of time. That are haunted. Yeah, let's stop teh pretense here: If you're like me and a sucker for Ravenloft, then this chapter will have you smile from ear to ear, even before the rules on nightmares and the couple of traps. These, btw., unfortunately are the roll to see and disable kind - particularly in a horror game, team effort, complex traps that require multiple tasks make for the more compelling option, but I digress.

Now, the next section of rules is something that I was looking forward to, since it had been featured, but never codified properly in rules at least not by Paizo (there are a couple of 3pp-forays into that territory)- fleshwarping! And yes, it is cool. It sports a ton of nice effects, but the system is, to a degree, a double-edged sword: On one hand, fleshwarping works really well and on the other, its price is perhaps a bit too high: Let me elaborate: Fleshcrafts can either be permanent grafts or temporary mutations, instilled by an elixir that requires succeeding a Fort-save to gain the benefits. The temporary prices and benefits and being keyed to slots etc. makes sense for the elixirs, but since the effects also sport a penalty, the price for the respective fleshcraft grafts is still pretty high when compared to magic items - baseline for the grafts seems to have been 1/2 of a comparable item's base price to make up for the drawback. Considering the disfiguring nature of these options, that may still be pretty high, though. It depends a bit. Chaotic fleshwarping mutations can also be found - and unlike the chaositech mutations of yore, these generally are detrimental.

The extensive section on haunts that follows includes templates for them (called haunt elements) as well as variants like dimensional instabilities, maddening influence, magical scars and psychic haunts. The array presented ranges from humble Cr 1/4 to CR 20, including classics like being buried alive or the twisted wish. Madnesses are codified in lesser and greater madnesses - big plus here: For once, a supplement does not confuse schizophrenia with dissociated identities. (Seriously, if I had a buck whenever I saw that being confused...)

Now, one of the most useful sections regarding GM-considerations would be the massive chapter that deals with running horror games - which not only classifies and quantifies horror sub.genres, their tropes, etc., but also mentions all the classics like lighting, music, creating an undisturbed environment, etc. - tricks for dealing with various snags, how to encourage horror roleplaying etc. - and it is sad, but obviously necessary that, beyond talking about what does and does not fly with individual players, overdoing it does not work. HOWEVER, I do actually disagree with one aspect - involving outside people. To have an unrelated accomplice like a spouse play with the light on e.g. a stormy evening - not all the time, but once or twice, can be rather effective...but I generally get why these disclaimers are here. This section, obviously, is targeted at less experienced GMs in the genre - and in particular such GMs will also appreciate the section on improvising rules for e.g. being buried alive, crumbling structures, etc.

Part II of my review can be found here!


Subpar book, mostly for GMs

2/5

This book has a lot of systems, mechanics, archetypes, feats, spells, environment challenges, haunts, curses, etc. While most of it is clearly presented and has enough flavor text to give you some ideas on how to use it, everything just seems to fall flat.

My two biggest gripes (I have more than just two):
1) The sanity system is horribly balanced, heavily penalizing martial characters, and it's effects are easily cured by powerful spells. Really poorly executed, why make the gap between martials and casters even worse?
2) Most of the Archetypes are realistically for GM use only, as they are very niche. I wanted to give my players a lot of cool horror themed archetypes to play with, instead they got a scant few.

This book really could have been SO much better. Disappointed.


Paizo Knows Horror and Here's Their New Toolkit!

5/5

Paizo reviews come in two forms: players that whine because they wanted something other than what was in the book (^^^)and then gamemasters/players that actually review the material provided. This is a review from the latter.

Paizo has created some of the best horror themed adventures for Pathfinder and Dungeons and Dragons over the course of their existence. In this book, they round it all up and spell out all of the tricks and tips they use to make it happen.

I have written everything from adventures to comic books to film scripts and I would easily hand this book over to a non-gaming writer that needed advice on how to create horror. This book goes to great lengths to provide players with archetypes for classes to use in horror themed adventures as well as giving gamemasters tools they need to create horror in session after session.

Players get archetypes, feats, spells and new gear with which to battle the horrific forces of the multiverse. GMs get a ton of new tools including a nifty new Bestiary that brings us Pathfinder versions of Alien-style xenomorphs called the Hive AND a nice analogue for the Slender Man called the Unknown. Horror requires more than monsters, so you also get new rules on corruptions, curses, diseases, horrific environments, fleshwarping, haunts, madness and more!

Creating horror is more than giving players more 0's they can add to their attacks. It involves setting, tone, atmosphere and management of expectations. If you want to run a game that makes your players fear for their characters lives, then pick up this book and give it a read. Follow up with the recommended reading and required viewing and you'll get a feeling for how to instill dread in everyone sitting at your table.


More Like Evil Adventures

3/5

This book feels more like Pathfinder's version of the Book of Vile Darkness then horror themed adventures. Also this is a very DM heavy book though I thought it would be 70% player 30% DM but is actually the other way around.

The Good
-I loved the Dread Lord, Hive, Trompe L'Oeil, Unknown, and Waxwork Creature.
-I like the Corruptions.
-I like the reprint/expanding of madness rules.
-I like some of the magic items like mantle of life, monster almanac, and elder sign.
-I liked a few archetypes like the two for witches.

The Bad
-Too many evil archetypes, spells, etc.
-Do not like the sanity rules.
-Do not like the fleshwarping rules for characters.
-Most of archetypes were lacking or unusable for players.
-Very few interesting spells that are player friendly.
-Very few interesting feats.
-Not enough character options related to specific class features like wild talents, bloodlines, rogue talents, oracle curses/mysteries, etc.

I feel this book was a missed opportunity for same great horror based player character options. Such as expanded options for void kineticist like fear effects, controlling/creating undead, etc. new psychic disciplines, sorcerer/bloodrager bloodlines, oracle curses/mysteries, hexes, phantom emotion focuses, etc. I could even see some interesting ideas for rogue talents, rage powers, slayer talents, etc. I would have been fine with reprints like the pestilence sorcerer bloodline, kineticist void element, and other fitting options from past books.


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I have checked this book but can't seem to find were the hive subtype is found. Does anyone know were in the book this info is located?


Pathfinder Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
Dragon78 wrote:
I have checked this book but can't seem to find were the hive subtype is found. Does anyone know were in the book this info is located?

Page 233.


Thank you Luthorne, I don't know how I missed that.


Several people have mentioned how great the stalker/slasher template is. May we get a general idea of what it provides?

Silver Crusade

1 person marked this as a favorite.
Eric Hinkle wrote:
Several people have mentioned how great the stalker/slasher template is. May we get a general idea of what it provides?

There's a lot, but my favourite thing is if they are finally killed they leave a psychic imprint on everyone within 60ft, and those people are plagued by nightmares constantly and have to make Will saves.

If one, just one, person fails 3 in a row then the Implacable Stalker is resurrected.


1 person marked this as a favorite.

Thanks Rysky, and thanks everyone else who answered my questions here.

And a monster resurrected by the PTSD of its slayers? That's nice and creepy


Rysky wrote:
Eric Hinkle wrote:
Several people have mentioned how great the stalker/slasher template is. May we get a general idea of what it provides?

There's a lot, but my favourite thing is if they are finally killed they leave a psychic imprint on everyone within 60ft, and those people are plagued by nightmares constantly and have to make Will saves.

If one, just one, person fails 3 in a row then the Implacable Stalker is resurrected.

Tasty.

Lantern Lodge RPG Superstar 2014 Top 4

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Verzen wrote:
"Unknown" remind me of Slender Man

Designer of the Unknown here! My inspirations for it was the slenderman mythos, as well as the entity from the horror movie It Follows! :D


Pathfinder Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

Hmm, looking through the corruptions more thoroughly, Possessed is actually pretty interesting because even if you hit Corruption Stage 3, you can still potentially take back your body because you become the possessing spirit, presuming that spirit also hits Corruption Stage 3...makes me imagine a game where everyone has the Possessed corruption (resurrection gone wrong, perhaps?), but instead of the spirit being an NPC, everyone makes up the spirit for another player, sharing the same physical ability scores but being able to have different mental ability scores and classes, allowing them to swap out. Not a perfect scenario, since it might result in some people playing two characters while others are stuck as spirits with divergent rates of corruption, but it's certainly interesting to consider...

Or, of course, you could simply have someone playing both the spirit and their character. That would also be pretty cool, presuming the player was willing to not take shameless advantage and could roleplay it out well...


Luthorne,

I was always in favor of having the PC take charge of their character and let someone else (like say someone that doesn't want to make a character but enjoys watching) join in and do the evil spirit thingie.

Liberty's Edge

In Wraith, each player played both his character and another character's "shadow" : its tempting dark side


Could someone ive a little more info on the WIS based Paladin?

Sczarni

Pathfinder Lost Omens, Rulebook Subscriber
Alex Mack wrote:
Could someone ive a little more info on the WIS based Paladin?

Sure.

They get knowledge arcana, dungeoneering, planes and perception, stealth, survival, and use magic device to their class skills rather than diplomacy or handle animal.

She doesn't gain detect evil or divine grace. But she does get smite evil and at 2nd level, she gets a +4 attack and +4 deflection bonus to AC against the target of her smite.

She can't use lay on hands to heal others or channel ability, but she can start converting lay on hands (2:1 exchange rate) for smite evils.

Her auras only affect her. The divine bond has to be a weapon as well. NO MOUNT.

At 2nd level, she can cast lay on hands as essentuially a free action by setting triggers such as, "When I become paralyzed" or "When I fall unconscious"

At 11th level, they get last stand which doubles the damage from smite evil if they at least pay 1 additional usage of smite.


Speaking of Paladin, a little more info on the Martyr? Does it trade out Lay on Hands? What bardic performances he gets?
Hoping here it works well with Oradins. D:

Edit, kinda ninja-ed: Hhhm, so Tortured Crusader still gets LoH, but can only use it in himself? That's sounds neat!

Silver Crusade

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Alex Mack wrote:
Could someone ive a little more info on the WIS based Paladin?

Tortured Crusaders gain 4 skill points and gain a bunch more skills to pick from (Perception, Stealth, and Use a Magic Device being nice ones).

They gain a nice static bonus to Smite Attack and AC (and it's actually better than a normal Palaldin's if they didn't buff CHA up out the ass), and can eventually spend two uses to double the bonuses.

Can't use LoH to heal others but can transform two uses into an extr Smite, and can also use to and set them go off in certain contingencies such as when I'm paralyzed or killed.

They don't get Detect Evil, Divine Grace, and Channel Energy, and their Auras only affect them and have to form a divine bond with a weapon.

Edit: Ninjaed.

Silver Crusade

Adahn_Cielo wrote:

Speaking of Paladin, a little more info on the Martyr? Does it trade out Lay on Hands? What bardic performances he gets?

Hoping here it works well with Oradins. D:

Edit, kinda ninja-ed: Hhhm, so Tortured Crusader still gets LoH, but can only use it in himself? That's sounds neat!

There is a Martyr archetype though.

They take bleed damage to replicate bardic performances (countersong, distraction, and inspire courage), using heal instead of perform.

They increase the range of their auras but don't gain immunity themselves.

They can use LoH at range and can use any mercy, but if it's a mercy they didn't pick then they just transfer the affliction to themselves rather than curing it.

They also give a bunch of bonuses vs other stuff.


Martyr also gives up Divine Grace and swift-action LOH, if I recall. Fortunately, the bleed damage is only one per round.

Silver Crusade

QuidEst wrote:
Martyr also gives up Divine Grace and swift-action LOH, if I recall. Fortunately, the bleed damage is only one per round.

Correct and correct, the bleed is 1 and never increases past that.

Combine that with the Blood Spurt feat and you can really ruin your enemies day.


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QuidEst wrote:
Martyr also gives up Divine Grace and swift-action LOH, if I recall. Fortunately, the bleed damage is only one per round.

Noooo D:

Oh well, Tortured Crusader sounds cool for Oradins, at least. Being WIS based should open up the option of using Shaman instead of Oracle for Life Link.
Edit: Also, thanks for the infos, Rysky <3


1 person marked this as a favorite.
Adahn_Cielo wrote:
QuidEst wrote:
Martyr also gives up Divine Grace and swift-action LOH, if I recall. Fortunately, the bleed damage is only one per round.

Noooo D:

Oh well, Tortured Crusader sounds cool for Oradins, at least. Being WIS based should open up the option of using Shaman instead of Oracle for Life Link.

The idea behind Martyr is if its allies get something, the Martyr doesn't selfishly have a better version.

Designer

3 people marked this as a favorite.
QuidEst wrote:
Adahn_Cielo wrote:
QuidEst wrote:
Martyr also gives up Divine Grace and swift-action LOH, if I recall. Fortunately, the bleed damage is only one per round.

Noooo D:

Oh well, Tortured Crusader sounds cool for Oradins, at least. Being WIS based should open up the option of using Shaman instead of Oracle for Life Link.

The idea behind Martyr is if its allies get something, the Martyr doesn't selfishly have a better version.

Yep, you figured out the mechanical theme; it grants lots of team benefits, and it loses advantages/incentives to use abilities selfishly!


Pathfinder Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

Got to say, I also like the idea of, after a total party kill, bringing the PCs back with the Promethean corruption as a result of an alchemist's efforts, whether he's trying to help them or just thought they would be better research materials than normal people. I do kind of wish there were more exact rules for what exactly is required to create someone with the Promethean corruption from a mechanical viewpoint, though...ah, well, it can be handwaved easily enough.

Silver Crusade

Luthorne wrote:
Got to say, I also like the idea of, after a total party kill, bringing the PCs back with the Promethean corruption as a result of an alchemist's efforts, whether he's trying to help them or just thought they would be better research materials than normal people. I do kind of wish there were more exact rules for what exactly is required to create someone with the Promethean corruption from a mechanical viewpoint, though...ah, well, it can be handwaved easily enough.

I'm pretty sure it was left intentionally vague so that from a story standpoint you could use pretty much anything you wanted.

Designer

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Rysky wrote:
Luthorne wrote:
Got to say, I also like the idea of, after a total party kill, bringing the PCs back with the Promethean corruption as a result of an alchemist's efforts, whether he's trying to help them or just thought they would be better research materials than normal people. I do kind of wish there were more exact rules for what exactly is required to create someone with the Promethean corruption from a mechanical viewpoint, though...ah, well, it can be handwaved easily enough.
I'm pretty sure it was left intentionally vague so that from a story standpoint you could use pretty much anything you wanted.

That's a big part of it, and also the idea that corruptions aren't predictable, quantifiable, and consistently repeatable processes. But in the direction you were mentioning, if we said you needed to have Craft Construct, cloudkill, geas, limited wish, polymorph any object, and be level 16 (like the creation reqs of an iron golem), that would cut down on the usability unless there's a character like that hanging around.


Pathfinder Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
Mark Seifter wrote:
Rysky wrote:
Luthorne wrote:
Got to say, I also like the idea of, after a total party kill, bringing the PCs back with the Promethean corruption as a result of an alchemist's efforts, whether he's trying to help them or just thought they would be better research materials than normal people. I do kind of wish there were more exact rules for what exactly is required to create someone with the Promethean corruption from a mechanical viewpoint, though...ah, well, it can be handwaved easily enough.
I'm pretty sure it was left intentionally vague so that from a story standpoint you could use pretty much anything you wanted.
That's a big part of it, and also the idea that corruptions aren't predictable, quantifiable, and consistently repeatable processes. But in the direction you were mentioning, if we said you needed to have Craft Construct, cloudkill, geas, limited wish, polymorph any object, and be level 16 (like the creation reqs of an iron golem), that would cut down on the usability unless there's a character like that hanging around.

Yeah, it's tricky, since on the one side, it does leave it more open, but on the other side, if a character wants to figure out how to reproduce it, it would be nice to give them a rough idea of what they need to do to even attempt it, even if the failure rate is high. And I do think that one of the advantages to the D&D/Pathfinder system is that if an NPC can do something - minus monsters or special templates - a PC can usually do it too, even if it's not always worth the investment, be it skill-related, feat-related, resource-related, or all three. Still, you can probably bash something together if you need to...

Idle Speculation:
Off the top of my head, perhaps something requiring a certain number of ranks of Craft (alchemy) and Heal (possibly HD + 5 of target, with perhaps an aid another option for extra virtual ranks), Craft Construct, steal Ultimate Intrigue's research rules and adapt them to specifically researching a particular creature (the procedure is too customized to the individual to be able to research a particular class of creatures in general) with the appropriate Knowledge, base 10% chance of success, but being able to scale up to 50%-70% with appropriate resources/sidequests to find appropriate things...but as I said, that's just off-the-cuff musing. Though actually, dynamic magic item creation from Pathfinder Unchained might be a pretty good way to do it too, just start off with a lower success rate, perhaps...

Sczarni

Pathfinder Lost Omens, Rulebook Subscriber

Mark. So I had time to really digest the Dark Elementalist and I feel like it's a crappy archetype that's a straight downgrade.

1) You have to be evil

2) Int is an inferior casting stat

3) You can't front load your defenses and gain the Elemental overflow bonus at the start

So you have to do a LOT of extra work as a kineticist to get the 'same' bonuses that you'd get otherwise by using an inferior casting stat.

I honestly think it would have been more balanced if you doubled the bonuses with elemental overflow or gave some extra incentive for all the extra work and risk.

Greater risk == greater reward, right? Well, the extra work of killing a sentient creature and burning his soul would obviously also attract guards to your evilness or some heroes or something and would damage your reputation in game as well as the extra effort to FIND sentient creatures to do this to as well. It's a whole lot of extra work for the same bonuses. I would have given them something extra to make the bang worth the buck.


*doesn't think kineticists need that much of an upgrade*

I will say the new paladin archetypes are something I'd consider in fighting in the Worldwound for sure.

Sczarni

Pathfinder Lost Omens, Rulebook Subscriber
Thomas Seitz wrote:

*doesn't think kineticists need that much of an upgrade*

I will say the new paladin archetypes are something I'd consider in fighting in the Worldwound for sure.

I don't want an 'upgrade' but more so archetypes that are of equal strength to the vanilla versions. If they are straight downgrades, it's more like, "What's the point?"


Uhm roleplaying challenge maybe Verzen?

Silver Crusade

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Verzen wrote:
Thomas Seitz wrote:
*doesn't think kineticists need that much of an upgrade*
I don't want an 'upgrade' but more so archetypes that are of equal strength to the vanilla versions. If they are straight downgrades, it's more like, "What's the point?"

Completely agreed, Dark Kineticist is red for a reason. The extra effort needed to make it work is just too much for too little gain, and while it does alleviate some of the issues with non lethal damage, tying overflow to soul burn was just painful in that past 6th level or so, it becomes too clunky to use with the accuracy and damage of the kineticist dropping far below acceptable standards for the class.

It's not a roleplaying challenge, it's a straight downgrade, and saying being a 'better roleplayer' would make a weak archetype better is really insulting.


I guess we're approaching that elephant in the room, so I'll ask:

To those rules-savvy who've obtained their copies, how well-balanced do things look, for the most part? Dark Kineticist is evidently pretty bad, and I heard a "meh" for the combat feats. Are problems like that prevalent, or do you think this book contributes plenty of stuff you would want to use in your game?


Verzen wrote:

Mark. So I had time to really digest the Dark Elementalist and I feel like it's a crappy archetype that's a straight downgrade.

1) You have to be evil

2) Int is an inferior casting stat

3) You can't front load your defenses and gain the Elemental overflow bonus at the start

So you have to do a LOT of extra work as a kineticist to get the 'same' bonuses that you'd get otherwise by using an inferior casting stat.

I honestly think it would have been more balanced if you doubled the bonuses with elemental overflow or gave some extra incentive for all the extra work and risk.

Greater risk == greater reward, right? Well, the extra work of killing a sentient creature and burning his soul would obviously also attract guards to your evilness or some heroes or something and would damage your reputation in game as well as the extra effort to FIND sentient creatures to do this to as well. It's a whole lot of extra work for the same bonuses. I would have given them something extra to make the bang worth the buck.

1-Hardly an issue, in fact in some cases an advantage. Outside of PFS where you can't be evil, there's quite a few evil spells that will either not affect you or be even beneficial if you're evil-aligned, and unless you are the party-unfriendly kind of evil you should have little issue integrating in the group as long as you don't have a smite and purge obsessed paladin or similar type of character (And then there's ways to mask your alignment)

2-You have to be kidding me. Intelligence provides plenty enough benefits in skills, particularly because most Charisma-based skills can be swapped over to Int via traits, UMD being one of them. There'd be reason to make the argument if it was Charisma, but Int is good enough on its own.

3-Won't dispute this one, I'll have to ask other people that are more experienced with the class to agree or disagree with this fact.

Sczarni

Pathfinder Lost Omens, Rulebook Subscriber
Kobold Cleaver wrote:

I guess we're approaching that elephant in the room, so I'll ask:

To those rules-savvy who've obtained their copies, how well-balanced do things look, for the most part? Dark Kineticist is evidently pretty bad, and I heard a "meh" for the combat feats. Are problems like that prevalent, or do you think this book contributes plenty of stuff you would want to use in your game?

The corruptions, imo, are the highlight of the book. They are incredibly balanced and fun looking, imo.

Some of the archetypes look super fun, such as the mad scientist alchemist. I don't play druids or inquisitors, but death druid and the living grimoire look incredibly fun to play.

The serial killer vigilante also looks fun.

There are some fun archetypes in the book.

Sczarni

Pathfinder Lost Omens, Rulebook Subscriber
Tuvarkz wrote:
Verzen wrote:

Mark. So I had time to really digest the Dark Elementalist and I feel like it's a crappy archetype that's a straight downgrade.

1) You have to be evil

2) Int is an inferior casting stat

3) You can't front load your defenses and gain the Elemental overflow bonus at the start

So you have to do a LOT of extra work as a kineticist to get the 'same' bonuses that you'd get otherwise by using an inferior casting stat.

I honestly think it would have been more balanced if you doubled the bonuses with elemental overflow or gave some extra incentive for all the extra work and risk.

Greater risk == greater reward, right? Well, the extra work of killing a sentient creature and burning his soul would obviously also attract guards to your evilness or some heroes or something and would damage your reputation in game as well as the extra effort to FIND sentient creatures to do this to as well. It's a whole lot of extra work for the same bonuses. I would have given them something extra to make the bang worth the buck.

1-Hardly an issue, in fact in some cases an advantage. Outside of PFS where you can't be evil, there's quite a few evil spells that will either not affect you or be even beneficial if you're evil-aligned, and unless you are the party-unfriendly kind of evil you should have little issue integrating in the group as long as you don't have a smite and purge obsessed paladin or similar type of character (And then there's ways to mask your alignment)

2-You have to be kidding me. Intelligence provides plenty enough benefits in skills, particularly because most Charisma-based skills can be swapped over to Int via traits, UMD being one of them. There'd be reason to make the argument if it was Charisma, but Int is good enough on its own.

3-Won't dispute this one, I'll have to ask other people that are more experienced with the class to agree or disagree with this fact.

Intelligence is sub par as a casting stat compared to con. That's why they nerfed the Scarred Witch Doctor and made them int again rather than con.


Tuvarkz wrote:
2-You have to be kidding me. Intelligence provides plenty enough benefits in skills, particularly because most Charisma-based skills can be swapped over to Int via traits, UMD being one of them. There'd be reason to make the argument if it was Charisma, but Int is good enough on its own.

Compared to Constitution?

Silver Crusade

Does I want more hit points? Or skill points? Hmm...

Designer

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Tuvarkz wrote:
3-Won't dispute this one, I'll have to ask other people that are more experienced with the class to agree or disagree with this fact.

A lot depends on factors of the campaign, as well as playstyle, and element. For instance, fire is not as likely to set up a defense at the beginning of the day while also having touch attacks and AoE, but water likes to start off with defenses and if using water blast, uses the accuracy from overflow significantly. Dark Elementalist is also in a rare situation where you are likely significantly more powerful near the end of the day than you were at the beginning (for instance, if you have 22 Int and fight 6 strong enough enemies during the day and decide to use 6 burn on aether's defense, you now have 3*your level extra temporary hit points with no nonlethal damage or other detrimental effects on you that you didn't have at the outset), which is the reverse of typical, and so the nonparallelism can either be a bane or a clutch save depending on the party and encounter dynamics.

However, I agree with earlier posts that a long discussion on a particular option is best served with a separate thread.


Verzen wrote:
Tuvarkz wrote:
Verzen wrote:

Mark. So I had time to really digest the Dark Elementalist and I feel like it's a crappy archetype that's a straight downgrade.

1) You have to be evil

2) Int is an inferior casting stat

3) You can't front load your defenses and gain the Elemental overflow bonus at the start

So you have to do a LOT of extra work as a kineticist to get the 'same' bonuses that you'd get otherwise by using an inferior casting stat.

I honestly think it would have been more balanced if you doubled the bonuses with elemental overflow or gave some extra incentive for all the extra work and risk.

Greater risk == greater reward, right? Well, the extra work of killing a sentient creature and burning his soul would obviously also attract guards to your evilness or some heroes or something and would damage your reputation in game as well as the extra effort to FIND sentient creatures to do this to as well. It's a whole lot of extra work for the same bonuses. I would have given them something extra to make the bang worth the buck.

1-Hardly an issue, in fact in some cases an advantage. Outside of PFS where you can't be evil, there's quite a few evil spells that will either not affect you or be even beneficial if you're evil-aligned, and unless you are the party-unfriendly kind of evil you should have little issue integrating in the group as long as you don't have a smite and purge obsessed paladin or similar type of character (And then there's ways to mask your alignment)

2-You have to be kidding me. Intelligence provides plenty enough benefits in skills, particularly because most Charisma-based skills can be swapped over to Int via traits, UMD being one of them. There'd be reason to make the argument if it was Charisma, but Int is good enough on its own.

3-Won't dispute this one, I'll have to ask other people that are more experienced with the class to agree or disagree with this fact.

Intelligence is sub par as a casting stat compared to con. That's why they...

The tradeoff is Con, which means HP (which, unless your DM is out to kill you or you play recklessly or w/no healer), and then 14 CON plus fcb to hp should do most of the work for; and Fort saves, which I'll admit is a bigger issue. Yet Int gives more skill ranks and gives better bonuses at plenty of them (Helping with monster identification and out-of-combat scenarios is a good way to make your character more useful outside of combat, as well as potential for helping in social scenarios), which is a fair enough bonus on its own.

To note, SWD was a nerf to Orc SWDs and a buff to Half-Orc SWDs, who can now start with an effective 22 Int for spellcasting if so they wish-Not nearly as sturdy, but now with spells that are slightly more likely to work and more spells as they gain levels.


As a kineticist, you get 4 + Int skill points per level. That's already ahead of the wizard. Put 2 points in Int, dump the rest in Con, and you're getting as many skill points as the average 16 Int wizard.

Sczarni

Pathfinder Lost Omens, Rulebook Subscriber
Mark Seifter wrote:
Tuvarkz wrote:
3-Won't dispute this one, I'll have to ask other people that are more experienced with the class to agree or disagree with this fact.
A lot depends on factors of the campaign, as well as playstyle, and element. For instance, fire is not as likely to set up a defense at the beginning of the day while also having touch attacks and AoE, but water likes to start off with defenses and if using water blast, uses the accuracy from overflow significantly. Dark Elementalist is also in a rare situation where you are likely significantly more powerful near the end of the day than you were at the beginning (for instance, if you have 22 Int and fight 6 strong enough enemies during the day and decide to use 6 burn on aether's defense, you now have 3*your level extra temporary hit points with no nonlethal damage or other detrimental effects on you that you didn't have at the outset), which is the reverse of typical, and so the nonparallelism can either be a bane or a clutch save depending on the party and encounter dynamics.

But on the other hand, your con won't be nearly as high as you would be as a vanilla kineticist and when you suffer burn, it acts as if you had 2 con less than you actually have down to -3 con bonus, or acting as if you had 5 con. Chances are, you'll put around 10 or 11 con in the dark elementalist and throughout the day, go through your 5 burn anyway and avoid taking the 3 extra, which means that the class itself cancels out abilities with the vanilla kineticist in terms of viability of being able to be hit and take damage for a lot of extra effort.

So it's more of a side grade after you put in all that extra effort.


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Rysky wrote:
Does I want more hit points? Or skill points? Hmm...

Ooh! Ooh! I know this one!


Kobold Cleaver wrote:
As a kineticist, you get 4 + Int skill points per level. That's already ahead of the wizard. Put 2 points in Int, dump the rest in Con, and you're getting as many skill points as the average 16 Int wizard.

I rarely see 16 Int wizards, at least they tend to have 18 if not 19-20 Int at level one, and that's before ability score increases/wondrous items start rolling in. In addition, with a good Int bonus and Pragmatic activator, you reach the level where you can automatically succeed at the DC 20 UMD check to use those wands of Infernal Healing or CLW faster.


I see Int 16 wizards all the time. Especially considering the advantages a wizard bears, most people I know get that you don't need a super high casting stat to dominate. I guess it depends on who you play with. :P

It's moot, anyways. Everybody knows HP are more valuable than skill points. If you want to start a thread to debate that generally accepted concept, I wouldn't be opposed, but we shouldn't have it here.

Silver Crusade

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Gisher wrote:
Rysky wrote:
Does I want more hit points? Or skill points? Hmm...
Ooh! Ooh! I know this one!

Maybe. Maybe not :3

This is how I go about assigning stats to my characters. I deicde either that they have a great CON and dump INT, or a good CON and average INT.

Then depending on what I picked is how I allot my +1 HP or SP from the Class Bonus.


Can someone list all of the archetypes that need to be evil?

As it stands, I feel like this book has a lot to offer for Way of the Wicked players.

Sczarni

Pathfinder Lost Omens, Rulebook Subscriber
Rysky wrote:
Gisher wrote:
Rysky wrote:
Does I want more hit points? Or skill points? Hmm...
Ooh! Ooh! I know this one!

Maybe. Maybe not :3

This is how I go about assigning stats to my characters. I deicde either that they have a great CON and dump INT, or a good CON and average INT.

Then depending on what I picked is how I allot my +1 HP or SP from the Class Bonus.

I seldom ever do the +HP or +SP. Often the alternatives are better.

Sczarni

Pathfinder Lost Omens, Rulebook Subscriber
Axial wrote:

Can someone list all of the archetypes that need to be evil?

As it stands, I feel like this book has a lot to offer for Way of the Wicked players.

I listed them a couple pages back.

In short, to get their full benefit, Dark elementalist, Necrologist, Serial killer vigilante, Blood alchemist, Gaslighter, Bloody Jake, Undead Master

Elder Mythos Cultist has TWO alignment options, Chaotic neutral or chaotic evil.


Axial wrote:

Can someone list all of the archetypes that need to be evil?

As it stands, I feel like this book has a lot to offer for Way of the Wicked players.

Evil:

Blood Alchemist, Dark Elementalist, Gaslighter, Bloody Jake, Necrologist, Serial Killer (Vigilante ID)

Non-Good:
Elder Mythos (CE or CN, may not be a great fit for WotW), Life Channeler, Hate-Monger, Serial Killer (social identity)


Thank you!

What is the Necrologist again?

Shadow Lodge

K I don't know if anyone has answered this yet but here it goes. In the new sanity rules it states that the only way to remove the insanity effect when one goes completely mad is by curing all madnesses, does curing in this instance mean removing or going dormant?

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