The elemental forces of air, earth, fire, and water are among the most powerful in the multiverse, forming the basis of the material world and giving creatures capable of wielding them immeasurable influence. Now players and Game Masters can harness these primal powers for themselves by exploring the Elemental Planes—entire realms of existence dedicated to the four elements—with Pathfinder Campaign Setting: Planes of Power. This book fully details each of the four Elemental Planes with advice on adventuring in their harsh environs, new character options and creatures, location gazetteers, and an examination of major settlements that offer welcoming landing sites for planar travelers.
Season 8 of Pathfinder Society Roleplaying Guild will journey to the Elemental Planes, where adventurers can explore these fantastic realms and face the diverse foes that call them home. This book is the perfect resource for those undertakings and any campaign on the Elemental Planes, and includes nuanced information such as:
A thorough look at how each plane's environment affects Material Plane natives, including suggestions for those to wish to protect themselves from such dangers.
A look at the elemental lords both past and present, including lore about the methods the current evil overlords used to imprison and sequester their good counterparts during the Material Plane's earliest days.
New druid domains for characters who frequent the Elemental Planes, the elemental purist kineticist archetype, the planar sneak rogue archetype, and elemental barbarian rage powers, as well as new magic designed for planar travelers.
Detailed articles about each of the planes, including information on their inhabitants, prominent locations, and the complex politics and geography that tie all four realms together.
A bestiary full of potential new elemental threats and allies, from the nephlei—or cloud nymphs—who hail from the Plane of Air to the Plane of Earth's serpentine monstrosities called agrawghs to Ymeri, Queen of the Inferno and Elemental Lord of Fire!
Planes of Power is intended for use with the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game and the Pathfinder campaign setting, but can be easily adapted to any fantasy world.
ISBN-13: 978-1-60125-883-0
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Planes of Power is a great introduction for designing adventures set on the Elemental Planes. Indeed, there’s enough information in here to inspire numerous full campaigns. GMs will need to expand on the details and fill in the blanks, but overall, the book is an invaluable resource to get them started.
As far as "bang for your buck" goes, Planes of Power is in my top 5. Fun gazeteer seeds one can easily build a campaign around for every plane, plus new monsters and a political primer on the genies. If you want to take your party into the elemental planes, this book is worth is every copper.
I really enjoyed this book though not as much the First World one or Distant Worlds.
The Good
-Interesting information about the four elemental planes, it's denizens, and it's rulers(current and old).
-Some cool monsters including stats for one of the elemental lords.
-Some useful equipment/character options.
The Bad
-10 pages just isn't enough to cover a single plane.
-Wished we got stats for all 4 elemental lords.
Book #82 of the Pathfinder Campaign Setting (or #94 if you count the 12 Pathfinder Chronicles books too) is a mixed bag:
GOOD:
The "Unveiling the Elemental Planes" introduction is actually pretty cool, especially the "alternative Druid domains" and the new Rage powers.
The 9 creatures in the Bestiary section seem mostly solid too, as does the "elemental-infused creature" template.
BAD:
The four 10-page sections of each of the elemental planes - essentially the main reason i bought this book - are severely lacking:
While there are some nice details in the gazetteer sections, there are no maps, neither of the planes, nor of their capital cities (which just get a short stat block and a very short - less than 2 pages- gazetteer)!
I get that we don´t get the stats of the four imprisoned good elemental lords, but why only stats for one of the four evil ones?
UGLY:
The City of Brass, which is supposed to be the largest of the four elemental capitals (that has been said since the early D&D days), has a 6 million population, as has the metropolis of the plane of earth.
The capital of the plane of air has a 6,1 million population, while the largest city in the plane of water has only 282,000!
This book didn´t inspire me very much, which is the opposite of what it should do and what i was expecting.
First off let me say I was really looking forward to this book for the last several months for the 'Elemental Purist' archetype which in all honesty...really kinda sucks... it has the right flavor idea but mechanically only the change in Endcap ability is really fitting for the theme and has me really disappointed for hopes of a more Earth Dedicated Geokineticist(the template has promise though)
The rest of the book is pretty solid but seems to be even more lacking in stat details than many other books I've purchased lately. While the info on the individual planes, the local denizens, their attitude and motivation and 'interesting places' is great getting their stats can be a challenge(references to things like RotRL collector's edition, Curse of the Crimson Throne, Book 5 of Mummy's Mask, etc). Also somewhat disappointing is the total lack of stats for 3 of the Elemental Lords and little to no information on the Fallen Lords(plenty of room for homebrew campaigns I suppose). I was really looking forward to seeing the stats for Ayrzul but sadly only Ymeri is stated out. The creatures are interesting and appropriate for the book as expected, for the price the PDF is a decent enough deal for those truly interested in the planes either as a PC or DM and opens up a lot of potential.
It is shame that genies do not have the elemental subtype because it would help with there lack of DR and other defenses.
I'm quite happy that genies do not have the elemental subtype, as a diversity of creature types and subtypes help keep expeditions to the Elemental Planes interesting. If everything that you encounter is immune to poison, stunning, critical hits, sneak attacks, and more, I imagine many character types growing frustrated. Instead, we have many outsiders that don't have such immunities, as well as a growing multitude of non-outsider threats (e.g. magical beasts, monstrous humanoids, and undead) that liven up the encounter expectations and give everyone a chance to shine.
Are you saying Water gives a real "splash" John Compton? ;)
The Plane of Water chapter is also delightful. Pun aside, I will note that it's hard to splash when everything's underwater.
Mostly I was trying to convey that the Plane of Fire chapter is very nicely done, such that even someone who doesn't think that fire is an exciting element might reconsider that stance after reading this book.
A thorough look at how each plane's environment affects Material Plane natives, including suggestions for those to wish to protect themselves from such dangers.
Is there a half elemental template so that I can create my half fire elemental thunder behemoth?
Mostly I was trying to convey that the Plane of Fire chapter is very nicely done, such that even someone who doesn't think that fire is an exciting element might reconsider that stance after reading this book.
It's not that fire isn't exciting, it's tgat fire is overdone in comparison to the other three planes- there are 4 different city of Brass done. Fire was the main opponent in temple of elemental evil. And so on.......folks have wanted more ofvthe other planes.
Tsunamis don't scare you? The unknown, vast depths of the ocean that we know even less of than the surfaces of other planets doesn't occasionally unnerve you? Not to mention the impossibly huge creatures that can only survive supported by water that might lurk within? The thought of being trapped in stygian blackness underwater, being unable to tell which way is up as you slowly run out of air doesn't frighten you?
As for air, well, if tornadoes and hurricanes don't frighten you, perhaps the theoretical hypercane? Could definitely imagine one of those occupying an enormous area in the Plane of Air. Or maybe the air just randomly decides to crush you and your surroundings for fun. Leaving aside the various lethal gases that could potentially kill you, or even just not having enough oxygen leading to slow suffocation, possibly without even knowing anything's wrong...or the possibility of extremely explosive gases. Wouldn't be surprised if there's a fair number of electrical hazards and storms to boot...
Well, perhaps they don't! But I think they can certainly be interesting!
Tsunamis don't scare you? The unknown, vast depths of the ocean that we know even less of than the surfaces of other planets doesn't occasionally unnerve you? Not to mention the impossibly huge creatures that can only survive supported by water that might lurk within? The thought of being trapped in stygian blackness underwater, being unable to tell which way is up as you slowly run out of air doesn't frighten you?
As for air, well, if tornadoes and hurricanes don't frighten you, perhaps the theoretical hypercane? Could definitely imagine one of those occupying an enormous area in the Plane of Air. Or maybe the air just randomly decides to crush you and your surroundings for fun. Leaving aside the various lethal gases that could potentially kill you, or even just not having enough oxygen leading to slow suffocation, possibly without even knowing anything's wrong...or the possibility of extremely explosive gases. Wouldn't be surprised if there's a fair number of electrical hazards and storms to boot...
Well, perhaps they don't! But I think they can certainly be interesting!
I get the impression your imagination would get along very well with the evil elemental lords, each of which finds delight in using his or her respective element to make mortal life unpleasant. Those are some great descriptions of terrifying phenomena and creepy unknowns that could haunt the Elemental Planes.
I get the impression your imagination would get along very well with the evil elemental lords, each of which finds delight in using his or her respective element to make mortal life unpleasant. Those are some great descriptions of terrifying phenomena and creepy unknowns that could haunt the Elemental Planes.
Sir John, you got me thinking, could the Elemental Lords make use of their elemental control to reshape their surround if they were in the Material Plane just as they do in their home plane? Or are they limited, just like the Eldest are to the First World?
This dilemma happened while I was throwing the Brackish Emperor into one of my adventures. While his cultists weren't able to completely summon him, they gave him enough time to flood an island. Some may disagree with my interpretation of the Elemental Lord's power, but I use a certain artifact as an example of how almighty should a completely free Elemental Lord be.
Will there be any mentions around these lines? Well, while Ymeri isn't my favorite lord, she will surely make it easier to shape the others and understand their powers.
gah. Now I won't get that song out of my head for like a week...
Also I'm pretty sure Asmodeus started the fire.
Clearly it was Ihys. But if it hadn't been for that damned Sarenrae...!
Disclaimer: The above sentence may contain propaganda, perversions of the truth, rewritten history, and the writings of an angel who has seen far too much of the multiverse...