Pathfinder Roleplaying Game: Ultimate Wilderness

3.00/5 (based on 59 ratings)
Pathfinder Roleplaying Game: Ultimate Wilderness
Show Description For:
Non-Mint

Add Print Edition $44.99

Add PDF $19.99

Non-Mint Unavailable

Facebook Twitter Email

Answer the Call

Wild, untamed lands hold a wealth of mystery and danger, providing the perfect backdrop for heroic adventure. Whether adventurers are climbing mountains in search of a dragon's lair, carving their way through the jungle, or seeking a long-lost holy city covered by desert sands, Pathfinder RPG Ultimate Wilderness gives them the tools to survive the wilds. A new 20-level base class, the shifter, puts animalistic powers into the hands—or claws—of player characters and villains alike, with new class features derived from animalistic attributes. Overviews of druidic sects and rituals, as well as new archetypes, character options, spells, and more, round out the latest contribution to the Pathfinder RPG rules!

Pathfinder RPG Ultimate Wilderness is an invaluable hardcover companion to the Pathfinder RPG Core Rulebook. This imaginative tabletop game builds upon more than 10 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 RPG Ultimate Wilderness includes:

  • The shifter, a new character class that harnesses untamed forces to change shape and bring a heightened level of savagery to the battlefield!
  • Archetypes for alchemists, barbarians, bards, druids, hunters, investigators, kineticists, paladins, rangers, rogues, slayers, witches, and more!
  • Feats and magic items for characters of all sorts granting mastery over the perils of nature and enabling them to harvest natural power by cultivating magical plants.
  • Dozens of spells to channel, protect, or thwart the powers of natural environs.
  • New and expanded rules to push your animal companions, familiars, and mounts to wild new heights.
  • A section on the First World with advice, spells, and other features to integrate the fey realm into your campaign.
  • Systems for exploring new lands and challenging characters with natural hazards and strange terrain both mundane and feytouched.
  • ... and much, much more!

ISBN-13: 978-1-60125-986-8

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.

Product Availability

Print Edition:

Available now

Ships from our warehouse in 11 to 20 business days.

PDF:

Fulfilled immediately.

Non-Mint:

Unavailable

This product is non-mint. Refunds are not available for non-mint products. The standard version of this product can be found here.

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

PZO1140


See Also:

1 to 5 of 59 << first < prev | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | next > last >>

Average product rating:

3.00/5 (based on 59 ratings)

Sign in to create or edit a product review.

Another Great Hardback Update Collection!

5/5

Ultimate Wilderness is a much better book than some reviewers might lead you to believe. You get the new shifter class - which has had some basic errata since release - along with great archetypes for most of the other classes to help them fit into a wilderness-based campaign.

It's a great book to help players prepping to play something like Kingmaker or Ironfang Invasion. You get new spells, feats and a new exploration mode.

The book itself maintains the high quality of work that most Paizo products exhibit. The art in this book is some of my favorite in any of the hardback collections. There are a few updated spells that needed errata, such as snowball.

As a fan, I really like that several of the archetypes convert the flavor of many Game of Thrones characters into Pathfinder mechanics. What more could you ask for?


Lots of ptential, but none of it really sticks

2/5

I was extremely excited for this publication, so it's rather depressing how disappointing the books contents turned out to be.

The shifter class was an interesting idea, but when put down on paper is just druidic wild shape with hunter focus, in the form of aspects. It, unfortunately, never surpasses the druid in the wild shape department, and is, in fact, rather limited, and the temporary nature of all the aspects means that the shifter isn't terribly impressive in that regard either. The archetypes, both for the shifter and other classes, are interesting, but several suffer from massive drawbacks, for little to no gain. Like taking on druidic weapon/armor proficiencies and restrictions, including losing abilities for wearing metal, but don't gain any significant power to mkae up for it.

The new rules expansions are, for the most part, only thrown off by some conflicting skill applications (survival to harvest poison, but heal to take internal organ trophies?) but these are easy to ignore, or fix by homebrew. So these chapters are the most stable and useful of the lot.

One of the most exciting discoveries was the Cultivate Magic Plants feat, allowing you to grow plants that copy spell effects, but the price tag attached to them, especially when attached to something with the considerable disadvantages of being an immobile magical item, makes it entirely useless next to the crafting cost of regular magical items, especially if you have a GM that's willing to allow players to use the rules on creating new magical items. Just for an example, a goodberry bush can fully feed 2 people per day forever... for 4000 GP to craft. While you could make an item to infinitely cast goodberry for 2000 gp if you have to wear it, or better yet create food and water (for about 30000).

In conclusion, the book has a lot of cool stuff in it, but only for GMs. Players won't be able to make good use of many of the archetypes and feats as they revolve too much around staying in a single environment or working with nonsensical restrictions. While many of the feats are just too focused (or expensive) to be useful except to an NPC. GMs, grab it, it's got good stuff, but players will (and should) probably stick to what they've already got.


Everything I wanted from Ultimate Wilderness

4/5

Great race write ups, a fun new class (that doesn't require a ton of source books to play) and tons of information and systems to run a wilderness adventure or spice up the wilderness sections of any game. Definitely happy to add this one to my bookshelf.


Reprinted material, lack of clarity

1/5

First off, I'm a huge fan of Pathfinder. But I'm not a fan of "Ultimate Wilderness." There are a number of issues with the content in the book, mostly the clarity of language. A lot of the rules seem unclear and not straightforward. The shifter is the biggest example of this.
To be honest I was looking forward to the shifter, being far more robust than it actually is. And I understand that this is my issue with what I expected from them, but what built up my anticipation of the shifter was the quality of past classes released by Paizo: summoner, alchemist, witch, bloodrager, investigator, brawler, spiritualist, medium (even if it isn't harrowed), magus, ninja, hunter and so on and so forth.
Past that, I'm not a big fan of the reprinted material because I buy the smaller books. If I'm buying the smaller books why would I want to buy them again with a hardcover?
That being said, I'm still a big Pathfinder fan, but I'd like for future releases to take a different developmental cycle than what "Ultimate Wilderness" received. This book seems like it lacked editing and playtesting.


4/5


1 to 5 of 59 << first < prev | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | next > last >>
2,351 to 2,400 of 3,560 << first < prev | 43 | 44 | 45 | 46 | 47 | 48 | 49 | 50 | 51 | 52 | 53 | next > last >>

1 person marked this as a favorite.
StrayChowChow wrote:

Can anyone give me a rundown of Rot Warden (druid archetype)?

This might be the archetype I've been impatiently waiting for

Not great at summarizing things, and it's probably been posted before but:

Rot Warden:

Invoke Decay: replaces spontaneous casting, gives a list of rot/plague-esque spells (like decompose corpse, explosion of rot, swrm skin, etc)

Nature Bond: if choose a domain choose from this list: Destruction, Erosion, Repose, or Vermin.

Vermin Empathy: as the name suggests, works on swarms at -4 unless you have the same kind of vermin companion or are in that vermin wildshape

Swarmcaller: replaces trackless step & venom immunity, can Summon Swarm 1/day as a standard action, but only cockroach, locust or spiders, increasing to army ant, centipede, and wasp at lvl 9. If you use this ability in a surprise round, in the first round of combat flat footed creatures are shaken

Enduring Druid: replaces resist nature's lure, gets +4 vs vermin/vermin swarm abilities, aswell as things that would age or decay the rot warden or his stuff

Wildshape: gain at lvl 6, at lvl -2, can never be an elemental, gets vermin shape 1 at 8, 2 at 10, and 3 and 12


I'm playing a Feral Hunter, actually. Since Hunters and Shifters share the Druid parent class, I'm hoping some of the feats in this book might help out my PC. She's pretty versatile right now, but we're only a 2nd level party, and I can see her having melee problems when DR starts becoming more commonplace.

Any recommendations for feats from this book that would help out claw dmg? Again, I'm making the perhaps optimistic assumption she'll qualify for them w/out being a Shifter...


It's time's like this I wish a dev could chime in and explain what went into designing the class, or tell us about what kind of builds people were using during play testing. Sometimes there are things we don't see, like design constraints or goals that prevent the class being exactly what we want. It might at least put a check on the speculation on development that tends to happen in these situations.

I know why many devs don't do this, of course. It opens them up to an inevitable deluge of abuse and personal attacks that seem to get stuck in between the lines of most internet criticism, valid or otherwise.

Designer

9 people marked this as a favorite.
Brew Bird wrote:

It's time's like this I wish a dev could chime in and explain what went into designing the class, or tell us about what kind of builds people were using during play testing. Sometimes there are things we don't see, like design constraints or goals that prevent the class being exactly what we want. It might at least put a check on the speculation on development that tends to happen in these situations.

I know why many devs don't do this, of course. It opens them up to an inevitable deluge of abuse and personal attacks that seem to get stuck in between the lines of most internet criticism, valid or otherwise.

While this is often the case in other threads, I do want to thank everyone in the thread for being respectful (whether they are fans of the shifter or not) in response to my post about what I learned from the shifter, but it also wasn't very head-on since I didn't contribute much to the class design/dev process. If anyone wants to talk about some of the cool new rules subsystems or animals and companion stuff, first of all check out John's new blog from yesterday for more juicy details, but also, I worked more directly on those chapters so I know more about them.


bewareoftom wrote:
StrayChowChow wrote:

Can anyone give me a rundown of Rot Warden (druid archetype)?

This might be the archetype I've been impatiently waiting for

Not great at summarizing things, and it's probably been posted before but:

** spoiler omitted **

This is perfect! Thank you so much.

Finally my decay druid can be true.


1 person marked this as a favorite.
Pathfinder Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
StrayChowChow wrote:
bewareoftom wrote:
StrayChowChow wrote:

Can anyone give me a rundown of Rot Warden (druid archetype)?

This might be the archetype I've been impatiently waiting for

Not great at summarizing things, and it's probably been posted before but:

** spoiler omitted **

This is perfect! Thank you so much.

Finally my decay druid can be true.

Problem is that it references Vermin Shape III when there's no vermin shape III.

EDIT: If I was gonna do Vermin Shape III I would just do this since all you're doing is scaling numbers.

Vermin Shape III:

This spell functions as vermin shape II, except it also allows you to assume the form of a Diminutive or Huge creature of the vermin type. If the form you assume has any of the following abilities, you gain the listed ability: burrow 60 feet, climb 90 feet, fly 90 feet (good maneuverability), swim 90 feet, darkvision 90 feet, low-light vision, tremorsense 60 feet, scent, blood drain, constrict, grab, lunge, poison, pull, trample, and web. You don’t gain full immunity to mind-affecting effects, but you do gain a +6 bonus on all saving throws against such effects.

Diminutive vermin: If you take the form of a Diminutive vermin, you gain a +6 size bonus to your Dexterity, a –4 penalty to your Strength, and a +1 natural armor bonus.

Huge vermin: If you take the form of a Huge vermin, you gain a +6 size bonus to your Strength, a –4 penalty to your Dexterity, and a +7 natural armor bonus.


2 people marked this as a favorite.
Mark Seifter wrote:
Painful Bugger wrote:
People wanted a class where the shifter turns into someone as a disguise to help the party, a versatile scout that turns into all manner of creatures to sneak through a dungeon or to bypass a check point, they wanted a guy that at any moment turn into a big monster and be the focus of attention. We didn't get that. All we wanted was a class that at it's most heroic was Beast Boy from Teen Titans and AKU! SHAPESHIFTING MASTER OF DARKNESS at it's most villainous.
...The shifter class is instead something different, and something that I (as an unapologetic member of the group of players we mentioned in the panels and interviews who spend hours combing through every book for different polymorph monster forms)...

As a fellow polymorph option junky, do you think a so-called "shapeshifting master of darkness" is something we could conceivably see from Paizo in the future? Be it a class, archetype, or other player-friendly rules system?

Polymorphing divorced from a spell-list still feels like an under-explored mechanic, I'd love to see something that does for shapeshifting what the kineticist did for elemental magic.


10 people marked this as a favorite.

There are large bears now. All other arguments are irrelevant.


6 people marked this as a favorite.

Wow sad times on the paizoboards. So as a numbers guy this is what I see in the shifter:

Offense:

Natural attacks are the best way to get high DPR numbers up until about level 10. So being able to build around them is great. In higher level play you need to decide whether or not you want to rely exclusily on natural attacks (and get as many as possible) or mix em up with manufactured weapons or unarmed strikes.

However natural attacks don't really need full-BAB to function as you don't get iteratives. So the shifter's big selling feature (full-BAB) only grants it very minor bonuses for it's intendend combat style. This design flaw has already been pointed out elsewhere.

The shifter gets 2 claws to start with. Many other classes get this as well and a slew of racial options can also get you claws from the start. A number of magic items and feats can help you expand your natural attack arsenal and of course wild shape and that nifty new feat do as well.

Lesser aspects are a weak class feature due to only granting enhancement bonuses. They are also the only built in accuracy boost the class sports and fail pretty badly at that. Also copy pasting this from hunter can't really be seen as anything other than unispired. The strength of the hunter's animal aspect was it's versatility. The Shifter gets his second aspect at level 5.

Wild Shape, despite all the hate it gets, is of course a very powerful class feature. As verzen pointed out the dino and the tiger are prolly the go to forms at level 4.

Defense:
WIS to AC and a scaling AC bonus are nice. The fact that you still get half your WIS to AC while in armor means you can easily build a tanky shifter while wearing armor or while wildshaping. Also both DEX and STR builds will work for this.

Also some Wild Shapes can further enhance defenses.

A STR based tiger will actually appreciate the lesser aspects defensive boost.

The focus on wisdom as a secondary stat also partially helps to kit the poor WIL saving throws.

Compared to other full BAB natural attack builds (Barbarian or bloodrager come to mind) the shifters defenses look pretty good. Builds focusing on DEX and Wisdom should be really tough to hit.

Madness:
You need either high DEX or STR. Some CON and WIS. CHA and INT are prime dump stats. This seems manageable under 20 point buy. But folks who hate dumpstats might be in for a rough ride.

Versatility:
4+Int class skills and up to 5 creatures to wild shape into. Also nature flavored abilities like woodland stride. Some of the minor aspects help with skills.

Compared to most Full-BAB classes (not looking at you avenger) this seems like an okay amount of versatiliy. But compared to the druid or the hunter it's obviously very dissapointing.

Summary:
So what do we have in sum. A primary martial class with bland offenses, truffeled with a few real highlights like pounce at level 4, which sports decent defenses but lacks a bit in the accuracy department.

Compared to the Druid, the Shifter offers some great ammunition for those who argue that the caster-martial disparity in Pathfinder is too large.

For those primarily interested in wrecking face the shifter is an interesting option. I can see a lot of builds exiting the class after level 4 (and take shaping focus) as much like swashbuckler it scales poorly. Also I'm pretty sure folks will try to find ways to harm themselves or dip Barbarian for accuracy reasons.

Also due to the easy avilability of DEX to damage on all natural attacks (Agile AoMF) and shifter's edge, the class might actually make for viable DEX based builds.


8 people marked this as a favorite.
QuidEst wrote:
I get that you don’t like the result, but could you say it with less shouting? I like the writers and devs coming around to comment on things, and that’s kinda hostile.

There's no real shouting going on. I do think there's plenty of (rightfully) disappointed people, myself being one.

As far as things go, I expected the Shifter to be good at, well... shifting. Instead, it's a lackluster class that awkwardly tries to do things that other classes do better. It's got strictly inferior versions of abilities from other classes, along with a smattering of strangely-placed ones (Do they need trackless step? And, why put Wis to AC on a class with no other reasons to have high Wisdom?) Its main gimmicks, the claws, and the Animal Aspects, just aren't good. The natural attacks scale badly, and make poor use of its full BaB. The Animal Aspects themselves are really lackluster- niche bonuses such as Darkvision, bonuses to Acrobatics and Swimming, and ones that I feel would overlap ultimately (enhancement bonuses to Strength, Constitution, Dexterity). The fact that you only get five total by level 20, and that you're only ever capable of merging the Minor Aspects (to my knowledge), really just makes them seem bad. On top of all this, it's a Combat/Martial class... with nothing that really screams 'combat abilities'. It doesn't get Weapon Training, or Rage, or Bonus Feats, or a Combat Style, or Studied Target, or Favored Enemy, or anything that makes it hit harder, and hit better. Just the claws, which aren't even really that good (no innate piercing of DR/Magic? Really?)

I think the biggest thing for me that sold this as either a poorly put together(or lazy, take your pick) was the fact that once I finished reading it through, I went back over it to see if I missed anything. The class feels oddly empty, like it's missing a primary class feature, or a defining ability. It feels like they never went past adding secondary abilities. I mean;
Wild Shaping can't really be a Primary feature, can it? It comes online at level four, and is severely limited
It can't be Animal Aspects- their minor effects are too minor, and their major ones need a secondary class feature to be relevant
The claws aren't powerful enough to be a Primary class feature
And the rest are just QoL/Utility secondaries from other classes (Trackless Step, Track, Wild Empathy),

I rarely get excited for a book release, and I'd been looking forward to this one for ages, primarily because of this class right here. To have it be so poorly done, and to have it feel so half-baked, is just awful.
Well, at least I still have alternatives to scratch that Shapeshifting itch, like Moonscarred Barbarian, Feral Hunter, and Beast/Metamorph Alchemist.

EDIT: Credit where credit is due, though- I actually really like the idea of the forms growing in strength as you level up. Though some of them feel a little poor in this regard, there's enough strong ones that I think the idea was implemented pretty darn well, at least.

Dark Archive

10 people marked this as a favorite.
Pathfinder Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

Can I just say I'm bothered by how all reviews are about shifter class?

I mean, I'm looking forward to buying this book for wilderness rule guidelines <_< And nobody discusses them so I have no idea if this book has what I want aka guidelines for doing wilderness adventurers and exploration and survival and etc.

Heck, kind of feels like nobody cares about anything in book besides the shifter :P People aren't reviewing the book, they are reviewing the class

Shadow Lodge

4 people marked this as a favorite.
CorvusMask wrote:
Heck, kind of feels like nobody cares about anything in book besides the shifter :P People aren't reviewing the book, they are reviewing the class

The Shifter is what Paizo has been overwhelmingly using to promote the book, and the reason many people bought it. For many people, the wilderness rules are either uninteresting, or too niche, to be concerned with; you saw the same thing with all the subsystems in Ultimate Intrigue.


3 people marked this as a favorite.
Pathfinder Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
Disk Elemental wrote:
CorvusMask wrote:
Heck, kind of feels like nobody cares about anything in book besides the shifter :P People aren't reviewing the book, they are reviewing the class
The Shifter is what Paizo has been overwhelmingly using to promote the book, and the reason many people bought it. For many people, the wilderness rules are either uninteresting, or too niche, to be concerned with; you saw the same thing with all the subsystems in Ultimate Intrigue.

Exactly, hell the iconic is on the cover and the class is in chapter 1 for a reason.


2 people marked this as a favorite.

I'd need a very good reason to buy a book with an average rating of 2 stars out of 5. OK, 2 1/7 at the time I write this, The ultimate intrigue subsystems didn't wow me and I've got no particular reason to assume the wilderness rule subsystems are better than those yet.

Dark Archive

3 people marked this as a favorite.
Pathfinder Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
Disk Elemental wrote:
CorvusMask wrote:
Heck, kind of feels like nobody cares about anything in book besides the shifter :P People aren't reviewing the book, they are reviewing the class
The Shifter is what Paizo has been overwhelmingly using to promote the book, and the reason many people bought it. For many people, the wilderness rules are either uninteresting, or too niche, to be concerned with; you saw the same thing with all the subsystems in Ultimate Intrigue.

Wilderness situations aren't rare in Pathfinder though, meanwhile actual politics/fancy intrigue party spy action is rare in most campaigns <_< So the wilderness rules should have more often chances to be used. So yeah, still disappointed nobody has reviewed them so I have no idea of their quality


Pathfinder Adventure Path, Lost Omens, Rulebook, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
Mark Seifter wrote:
Brew Bird wrote:

It's time's like this I wish a dev could chime in and explain what went into designing the class, or tell us about what kind of builds people were using during play testing. Sometimes there are things we don't see, like design constraints or goals that prevent the class being exactly what we want. It might at least put a check on the speculation on development that tends to happen in these situations.

I know why many devs don't do this, of course. It opens them up to an inevitable deluge of abuse and personal attacks that seem to get stuck in between the lines of most internet criticism, valid or otherwise.

While this is often the case in other threads, I do want to thank everyone in the thread for being respectful (whether they are fans of the shifter or not) in response to my post about what I learned from the shifter, but it also wasn't very head-on since I didn't contribute much to the class design/dev process. If anyone wants to talk about some of the cool new rules subsystems or animals and companion stuff, first of all check out John's new blog from yesterday for more juicy details, but also, I worked more directly on those chapters so I know more about them.

Not a good time for me right this minute, but oh, I want to talk sub-systems. :)


A combination of hefty work schedule and real world stuff has prevented me from reading the rest of the book. Hopefully I will have time tomorrow.


1 person marked this as a favorite.
Pathfinder Maps, Pathfinder Accessories, Starfinder Society Subscriber; Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber

Sundays are not my own and while I have had time to post, it has been mostly simple questions or problems with the Shifter. I will be reviewing this book (I currently rate it somewhere between 3 and 4 stars myself, but that could change upon a closer look), and will try tonight to get some info on the subsystems and their respective value.


1 person marked this as a favorite.

Yeah, could we maybe spin off a separate thread for the shifter? It's, what, 10% of the book's content?

My PCs spend a lot of time walking from place to place, so more stuff on making the wilderness interesting would definitely make me take notice. Rules, monsters, equipment, encounter design, environments, whatever. Is that stuff in there? Is it any good?

Doug M.


2 people marked this as a favorite.

A lot of us cheerfully pick up the flagship books as pdfs because *it's just $9.99*, or even less with a subscription. That's like half the cost of the other splatbooks, and yet you get all kinds of content. A hardcover can contain 100 pages of stuff that absolutely doesn't interest me, and I could still consider it a great deal if it has 188 pages of stuff that really does.

So... please... can we talk about the rest of the book for a little while?

Doug M.


2 people marked this as a favorite.

If I'm honest, had the book never been advertised with the Shifter, and the book arrived with the Shifter completely absent, I'd probably have given the book a 4/5. Had they not mentioned the Shifter at all advertising the book (the shifter is a complete surprise) I'd probably have given the book a 3/5.

As I recall, the book's expectations weren't hyped up by the excellent wilderness rules. That would have been the Shifter and the (middling to excellent) archetypes and animal companions.


1 person marked this as a favorite.
Pathfinder Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

Also overlooked are the new races (though their flaws have been raised elsewhere).

Are they becoming Featured Races that are easier to access than some of the content from the ARG for PFS?

Some of the Feats looked pretty nifty... but like all Feat-chains, they seem to have some glaring 'dead levels' that can be problematic?

*is avoiding talk about the thing that recent posters want to avoid because still waiting to hear word about class synergies*

Silver Crusade

11 people marked this as a favorite.
Pathfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Adventure Path Subscriber
technarken wrote:

If I'm honest, had the book never been advertised with the Shifter, and the book arrived with the Shifter completely absent, I'd probably have given the book a 4/5. Had they not mentioned the Shifter at all advertising the book (the shifter is a complete surprise) I'd probably have given the book a 3/5.

As I recall, the book's expectations weren't hyped up by the excellent wilderness rules. That would have been the Shifter and the (middling to excellent) archetypes and animal companions.

So are you reviewing the book’s content or the company’s marketing?


1 person marked this as a favorite.
Pathfinder Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

If an item is marketed to be one thing, and the thing that is delivered bears at best only superficial resemblance to what the marketing would seem to indicate, that could be considered fraudulent. 'Bait and Switch', as it were.

In that particular case, I would hope like heck that the reviews would point out that situation, so currency/time/investment could be directed elsewhere to projects that delivered what they promoted.

Back on track, I've tried reading the Wilderness rules a couple of times now and they go 'boiler-plate' on me. It happens.

Someone else who's stronger in rules-fu want to give it a crack?


6 people marked this as a favorite.
Pathfinder Adventure Path, Lost Omens, Rulebook, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

Got a few minutes.

Discovery & Exploration. I like this system, as it allows for much more nuance than the basic hexploration system in UCam. Basically, you can do research, or spend time exploring a ‘territory’, and once you accrue enough ‘Discovery Points’ (never abbreviated to the acronym for obvious reasons), you can spend them to find something (as long as there’s something to find). You might also find ‘Way Signs’ which are things, places, clues, whatever, which can help you.

So far, this is a very worthy addition to hexploration and kingdom building (and as such I’m a huge fan). There is, though, a downside. And that downside is the first two sentences of the Creating A Territory section: The CR of a territory (which determines the DC for all checks involving that territory) is based on APL (modifiable by the GM). Which makes this subsystem fall flat for sandbox games. I want to see a Territory CR chart which sets a base CR based on terrain, modified by proximity to settlements, what plane of existence you’re on and from, and a few dozen other modifiers to allow a GM to then plug that into this system in a way that’s not tied directly to the level of the party.


8 people marked this as a favorite.
Disk Elemental wrote:


However, Paizo is still attempting to sell it. Which is why I stand by the low rating I've given the book, and would encourage others to do so as well. This content is not worth paying for, and should not be purchased without a great deal of forethought.

(Emphasis mine)

Is it possible that it's not -- and shouldn't be -- up to you what reviews other people leave on the book? Your feelings should not get to decide how other people feel about a book or what they have to say about it.

Also, whether your intent or not, it almost sounds like you think Paizo should be punished for releasing the book.


Douglas Muir 406 wrote:

A lot of us cheerfully pick up the flagship books as pdfs because *it's just $9.99*, or even less with a subscription. That's like half the cost of the other splatbooks, and yet you get all kinds of content. A hardcover can contain 100 pages of stuff that absolutely doesn't interest me, and I could still consider it a great deal if it has 188 pages of stuff that really does.

So... please... can we talk about the rest of the book for a little while?

Doug M.

Yeah, Shifter stuff probably could be spun off in to its own thread. I only dropped a comment in about the Shifter because it's what I'd been looking forward to, but the rest of the book deserves discussion too.

Contributor

8 people marked this as a favorite.
Wei Ji the Learner wrote:

Also overlooked are the new races (though their flaws have been raised elsewhere).

Are they becoming Featured Races that are easier to access than some of the content from the ARG for PFS?

Team Concordance of the Wilderness gave each of the races a full Advanced Race Guide treatment to all of the races—I'm pretty sure it's the same depth that was afforded to the Featured Races in that book.

I'm super biased because I wrote the ghoran section, but I think that the races are super under-talked about in this thread—the flavor expansion for the galthians and ghorans is really neat, and the vine leshies are cool. There's also some really awesome archetypes. I'm not going to name my fellow Concordance members in case they want to remain anonymous, but the ghalthans have this awesome rogue archetype that lets you use dirty trick to steal people's appearances. And I wrote this cool ghoran mesmerist archetype that allows you to produce a hypnotic aroma instead of a gaze—it's a super cool AOE debuff character that I think people are going to really like, and the new ghoran spell that I wrote is among the darkest enchantment spells in the game IMO. But hey, if darkness isn't your style, there's a Baby Groot feat for ghorans too.

Everyone wrote:
*Perceived flaws in UW*

I don't really want to get into this conversation, because I don't think there's much value in it anymore. It's basically a bunch of people throwing the same points in each other's face over and over again, and I think that both sides have their points and their logical flaws. For one, I think "armchair design" is fine and dandy, but it needs to be supported by more substantial evidence. Armchair design is like stating a scientific hypothesis, but the next step is to actually perform an experiment to see whether the armchair hypothesis was correct. In other words, I think the people who say the shifter is great need to build some builds and share them (in another thread), and the people who don't like the shifter need to build some builds and share them (in another thread). And both sides need to *LISTEN* to each other and both respect and understand where the other's viewpoint is coming from. It turns out that different people play this game for different reasons, and look for different flavors for their characters. I think you'll find that hard evidence and less passionate discussion will get you guys much farther then you are just shouting at one another here.

But I'm just an author / publisher / podcast personality / behavior analyst-in-training. What do I know? :-)


Chemlak wrote:
There is, though, a downside. And that downside is the first two sentences of the Creating A Territory section: The CR of a territory (which determines the DC for all checks involving that territory) is based on APL (modifiable by the GM). Which makes this subsystem fall flat for sandbox games. I want to see a Territory CR chart which sets a base CR based on terrain, modified by proximity to settlements, what plane of existence you’re on and from, and a few dozen other modifiers to allow a GM to then plug that into this system in a way that’s not tied directly to the level of the party.

I don't have a copy yet, so I'll keep most of my options to myself, but while agree with you that a sandbox GM is going to need a way to create a territory agnostic of the APL when the party happens to wander over, I think laying it out in concrete might do more harm than good. If the system allows the GM to simply set the territory CR according to her whim, then that could be sufficient for the sandboxers without simultaneously giving the rules lawyers ammo to say "I added the CR modifiers and that Ancient White Wyrm is completely inappropriate for this territory labeled 'Field of Gentle Creatures with Soft Wriggly Noses'" or whatever else the territory CR is used for.


2 people marked this as a favorite.
Alexander Augunas wrote:
and the people who don't like the shifter need to build some builds and share them (in another thread).

I don't think that's the best data point. The people that don't like shifters should be providing the comparable alternative builds so that neither side can complain legitimately complain that the results are off because someone else doesn't know how to build a shifter/ faux shifter.


2 people marked this as a favorite.
Pathfinder Adventure Path, Lost Omens, Rulebook, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
AnimatedPaper wrote:
Chemlak wrote:
There is, though, a downside. And that downside is the first two sentences of the Creating A Territory section: The CR of a territory (which determines the DC for all checks involving that territory) is based on APL (modifiable by the GM). Which makes this subsystem fall flat for sandbox games. I want to see a Territory CR chart which sets a base CR based on terrain, modified by proximity to settlements, what plane of existence you’re on and from, and a few dozen other modifiers to allow a GM to then plug that into this system in a way that’s not tied directly to the level of the party.
I don't have a copy yet, so I'll keep most of my options to myself, but while agree with you that a sandbox GM is going to need a way to create a territory agnostic of the APL when the party happens to wander over, I think laying it out in concrete might do more harm than good. If the system allows the GM to simply set the territory CR according to her whim, then that could be sufficient for the sandboxers without simultaneously giving the rules lawyers ammo to say "I added the CR modifiers and that Ancient White Wyrm is completely inappropriate for this territory labeled 'Field of Gentle Creatures with Soft Wriggly Noses'" or whatever else the territory CR is used for.

Believe me, I know, and I would always want to allow a significant amount of leeway for GMs to play around with the CR of a territory (not to mention the freedom to stick whatever he or she wants as Monsters/encounters into that territory), but could easily see, for example, two different PFS scenarios at wildly different levels happening to do D&E in the same location, but because the CR (and thus the DCs) is set by level, the DC for the 1st level party in the low level adventure is 17 to just explore the area, while for the level 9 party it’s DC 27. Or another way: everyone knows the spooky forest is home to an evil witch. We could go and find her now (DC 17 checks) or go adventuring a bit to become strong enough to defeat her wards and traps (by which time the DC has gone up to match the party level).

As a GM, I’d like to be able to stick notes on my map that say “this forest is CR 4, the desert is CR 7, but this oasis is CR 9, this forest over here is CR 7” and while I can do that (yay!) the system is designed around D&E at APL.

Shadow Lodge

10 people marked this as a favorite.
Alexander Augunas wrote:
For one, I think "armchair design" is fine and dandy, but it needs to be supported by more substantial evidence. Armchair design is like stating a scientific hypothesis, but the next step is to actually perform an experiment to see whether the armchair hypothesis was correct.

This, right here, is proof you haven't taken the time to read the criticism that's been posted.

Very few people are complaining about the Shifter in regards to its mechanical efficacy, although basic number crunching shows the class has several issues in that regard. The overwhelming majority of complaints stem from an issue with the core design of the class, the copy-paste nature of the class features, and the limitations on shape shifting. Those issues are completely independent from builds, or theory crafting, or optimization. They are part of the class's identity.

Shadow Lodge

5 people marked this as a favorite.
MythicFox wrote:
Is it possible that it's not -- and shouldn't be -- up to you what reviews other people leave on the book? Your feelings should not get to decide how other people feel about a book or what they have to say about it.

I am encouraging others to stand by the low ratings they've given, not for others to give low ratings. Once again, I'm so glad that Paizo has fans dedicated enough to twist words and ignore context to defend their products.


Pathfinder Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
Disk Elemental wrote:
MythicFox wrote:
Is it possible that it's not -- and shouldn't be -- up to you what reviews other people leave on the book? Your feelings should not get to decide how other people feel about a book or what they have to say about it.
I am encouraging others to stand by the low ratings they've given, not for others to give low ratings. Once again, I'm so glad that the Paizo has fans dedicated enough to twist words and ignore context to defend their products.

I've looked at other gaming forums and I've generally seen the same criticisms leveled against the Shifter just about everywhere. Some are long winded write ups with mechanical comparisons and theorycrafting while some are colorful ways to say that the class is bad. But overall the general feeling people have for the class is disappointment. If want to have a look just hop on over to the pathfinder reddit page and many of criticisms mentioned here are mirrored over there. The only real solid defense of the Shifter I've seen is here.

Shadow Lodge

1 person marked this as a favorite.
Painful Bugger wrote:
The only real solid defense of the Shifter I've seen is here.

Could you point me to one such post? I've been largely been only responding to people who respond to me, and must've missed it.


Pathfinder Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
Disk Elemental wrote:
Painful Bugger wrote:
The only real solid defense of the Shifter I've seen is here.
Could you point me to one such post? I've been largely been only responding to people who respond to me, and must've missed it.

Maybe I should say "vigorous defenders" to clarify what I meant.


Chemlak wrote:

Got a few minutes.

Discovery & Exploration. I like this system, as it allows for much more nuance than the basic hexploration system in UCam. Basically, you can do research, or spend time exploring a ‘territory’, and once you accrue enough ‘Discovery Points’ (never abbreviated to the acronym for obvious reasons), you can spend them to find something (as long as there’s something to find). You might also find ‘Way Signs’ which are things, places, clues, whatever, which can help you.

So far, this is a very worthy addition to hexploration and kingdom building (and as such I’m a huge fan). There is, though, a downside. And that downside is the first two sentences of the Creating A Territory section: The CR of a territory (which determines the DC for all checks involving that territory) is based on APL (modifiable by the GM). Which makes this subsystem fall flat for sandbox games. I want to see a Territory CR chart which sets a base CR based on terrain, modified by proximity to settlements, what plane of existence you’re on and from, and a few dozen other modifiers to allow a GM to then plug that into this system in a way that’s not tied directly to the level of the party.

So something similar to the library/research stuff in Ultimate Intrigue?


Pathfinder Adventure Path, Lost Omens, Rulebook, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
shaventalz wrote:
Chemlak wrote:

Got a few minutes.

Discovery & Exploration. I like this system, as it allows for much more nuance than the basic hexploration system in UCam. Basically, you can do research, or spend time exploring a ‘territory’, and once you accrue enough ‘Discovery Points’ (never abbreviated to the acronym for obvious reasons), you can spend them to find something (as long as there’s something to find). You might also find ‘Way Signs’ which are things, places, clues, whatever, which can help you.

So far, this is a very worthy addition to hexploration and kingdom building (and as such I’m a huge fan). There is, though, a downside. And that downside is the first two sentences of the Creating A Territory section: The CR of a territory (which determines the DC for all checks involving that territory) is based on APL (modifiable by the GM). Which makes this subsystem fall flat for sandbox games. I want to see a Territory CR chart which sets a base CR based on terrain, modified by proximity to settlements, what plane of existence you’re on and from, and a few dozen other modifiers to allow a GM to then plug that into this system in a way that’s not tied directly to the level of the party.

So something similar to the library/research stuff in Ultimate Intrigue?

That’s a fairly apt comparison, even down to the “CR of library based on APL” thing.


2 people marked this as a favorite.
Disk Elemental wrote:
MythicFox wrote:
Is it possible that it's not -- and shouldn't be -- up to you what reviews other people leave on the book? Your feelings should not get to decide how other people feel about a book or what they have to say about it.
I am encouraging others to stand by the low ratings they've given, not for others to give low ratings. Once again, I'm so glad that Paizo has fans dedicated enough to twist words and ignore context to defend their products.

I think this is just a case of honest misinterpretation. The phrase "I stand by the low rating I've given the book, and would encourage others to do so as well" can very easily be read to mean you're encouraging low ratings. I read it that way at first myself, though your original intent is now clear.


Chemlak wrote:
Believe me, I know, and I would always want to allow a significant amount of leeway for GMs to play around with the CR of a territory (not to mention the freedom to stick whatever he or she wants as Monsters/encounters into that territory), but could easily see, for example, two different PFS scenarios at wildly different levels happening to do D&E in the same location, but because the CR (and thus the DCs) is set by level, the DC for the 1st level party in the low level adventure is 17 to just explore the area, while for the level 9 party it’s DC 27. Or another way: everyone knows the spooky forest is home to an evil witch. We could go and find her now (DC 17 checks) or go adventuring a bit to...

Fair enough! I look forward to seeing it all for myself in a couple of days, so I may have further thoughts at that point.


2 people marked this as a favorite.

I don't really know what to think of the Shifter yet, but I suspect this book will be worth the pdf price at the very least based on the Animal/Vermin/Plant companions and familiars alone. I mean, that's an absolutely awesome list.

First off, there is, finally, an animal-companion compatible saber-tooth. I've been waiting for that for years. It's kind of a classic image in any prehistory-related adventure series, the barbarian hero and the Smilodon companion. Having Smilodons be relegated to out-of-reach Dire Animals when you could keep a Giganotosaurus as a pet always seemed really silly to me. Thylacoleo is a wonderful choice as well.

Also, Prionosuchus. What an excellent choice! We really need more palaeozoic creatures in this game.

Vermin Companions. I had always been really disappointed that all the vermin past the first Bestiary weren't companion compatible. And now, that problem is at least starting to be fixed.

All in all, I'll have to wait to see what I think of everything else, but overall, I'm really excited about the animals. Still waiting for an official Carnotaurus, though. Oh well, maybe Bestiary 7 will have one.

Designer

8 people marked this as a favorite.
Wannabe Demon Lord wrote:

I don't really know what to think of the Shifter yet, but I suspect this book will be worth the pdf price at the very least based on the Animal/Vermin/Plant companions and familiars alone. I mean, that's an absolutely awesome list.

First off, there is, finally, an animal-companion compatible saber-tooth. I've been waiting for that for years. It's kind of a classic image in any prehistory-related adventure series, the barbarian hero and the Smilodon companion. Having Smilodons be relegated to out-of-reach Dire Animals when you could keep a Giganotosaurus as a pet always seemed really silly to me. Thylacoleo is a wonderful choice as well.

Also, Prionosuchus. What an excellent choice! We really need more palaeozoic creatures in this game.

Vermin Companions. I had always been really disappointed that all the vermin past the first Bestiary weren't companion compatible. And now, that problem is at least starting to be fixed.

All in all, I'll have to wait to see what I think of everything else, but overall, I'm really excited about the animals. Still waiting for an official Carnotaurus, though. Oh well, maybe Bestiary 7 will have one.

Mikko and John blew me away with their work on those. I mean, I like Mikko and John's work on all the books they've written for that I've worked on, but in this particular case, I could immediately see how much effort they both spent looking into missing niches and carefully selecting how they would use their precious word count to fill out the lists with awesome new choices.


7 people marked this as a favorite.
Pathfinder Adventure Path, Rulebook Subscriber
BigNorseWolf wrote:
There are large bears now. All other arguments are irrelevant.

I am AMAZED this isn't getting more attention with often as I've read complaints about medium bears on these boards. Seriously, I expected this thread to be the message board equivalent of the "Flailing Kermit" gif.

I'm super-stoked about saber-tooth tigers, too. That whole section is just lovely. :)

Silver Crusade

9 people marked this as a favorite.
Pathfinder Adventure Path Subscriber
Nate Z wrote:
BigNorseWolf wrote:
There are large bears now. All other arguments are irrelevant.

I am AMAZED this isn't getting more attention with often as I've read complaints about medium bears on these boards. Seriously, I expected this thread to be the message board equivalent of the "Flailing Kermit" gif.

You've missed the "negativity is oh so much easier than positivity" memo.

People want X, they get X and barely notice. People want X, they don't get X. 1/5 STARS PAIZO YOU PRETTY MUCH RUINED MY LIFE NOW. Welcome to the world of creating content for anonymous, socially challenged nerds.


Pathfinder Maps, Pathfinder Accessories, Starfinder Society Subscriber; Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber
Chemlak wrote:
... There is, though, a downside. And that downside is the first two sentences of the Creating A Territory section: The CR of a territory (which determines the DC for all checks involving that territory) is based on APL (modifiable by the GM). Which makes this subsystem fall flat for sandbox games. I want to see a Territory CR chart which sets a base CR based on terrain, modified by proximity to settlements, what plane of existence you’re on and from, and a few dozen other modifiers to allow a GM to then plug that into this system in a way that’s not tied directly to the level of the party.

Actually—as you point out a little bit in the part I emphasized—the CR can vary as much as the GM decides or if it fits the story better. It is simply that "typically" it is tied to the APL. So adding in threats that are not tied to the APL is fully allowed and can set up situations in a sandbox where only foolish PCs dare to tread.

Shadow Lodge

12 people marked this as a favorite.
Gorbacz wrote:
People want X, they get X and barely notice. People want X, they don't get X. 1/5 STARS PAIZO YOU PRETTY MUCH RUINED MY LIFE NOW. Welcome to the world of creating content for anonymous, socially challenged nerds.

A small percentage of people want a minor tweak A, are given A and are therefore happy.

A much larger percentage of people want major thing X, are given Y instead, then are belittled and insulted for pointing out that Y is not X, and for ever wanting X to begin with.

Welcome to the world of attempting to voice dissent with people who can't separate a product from their identity.

2,351 to 2,400 of 3,560 << first < prev | 43 | 44 | 45 | 46 | 47 | 48 | 49 | 50 | 51 | 52 | 53 | next > last >>
Community / Forums / Paizo / Product Discussion / Pathfinder Roleplaying Game: Ultimate Wilderness All Messageboards

Want to post a reply? Sign in.