The Pact Worlds are the beating heart of the Starfinder campaign setting, a solar system full of citizens both familiar and bizarre. From the cosmopolitan corridors of Absalom Station to the carnivorous jungles of Castrovel or the floating cloud-cities of the gas giant Bretheda, this hardcover rulebook is your guide to Starfinder's core worlds and civilizations, and the perfect place to launch any adventure.
Inside, you'll find:
In-depth gazetteers of the system's 14 major worlds, from high-tech Verces and the draconic empires of Triaxus to the necromantic wastleands of Eox or magical bubble cities floating on the surface of the sun. Each gazetteer features a detailed world map, residents and cultures, settlements and adventure locations, a unique theme to customize characters from that world, and more.
New playable alien races, from undead Eoxians to Castrovellian plant-people.
New starships, from the living vessels of the Xenowardens to sinister Hellknight dreadnoughts.
A codex of themed NPC stat blocks to help Game Masters create vivid encounters.
New archetypes for every class, including the Star Knight, Skyfire Centurion, and Divine Champion.
Tons of new weapons, armors, spells, feats, magic items, technological gadgets, and more to help outfit your adventurers.
Ok first off, why the HECK is this PDF 250 MB??? I buy PDFs so that I can load them all onto my iPad, but I can't do that if you start bloating these things for no apparent reason. You guys need to fix that ASAP.
Also, it has all the things it says it has in the product description, but just a very small smattering of each. A tiny handful of new spells, a few pages of new equipment, etc. I love fluff, but this book is like 90% fluff and 10% crunch.
The book is great new options and more flavor rich background, definitely worth to buy
The one thing that stick out is that Eoxian as a race were promised, but alas this didn't happen, just carefull with the advertisement
But none the less, great book
TL;DR: First impressions = Very good fluff, quite good crunch. Could do with a few minor additions, and the hardcover is pricey if you like to do mostly homebrew, but certainly well worth grabbing at least the PDF.
Got this today. Have had a good skim through - Looks like a good go-to book for when my PCs head to anywhere in the pact worlds.
The gazetteers are really good. Well condensed, considering each has to cover an entire planet's society, but providing a good feel for the places.
The info is plentiful but leaves enough blank canvas that you can see it 100% as "gospel" and still fit loads of homebrew stuff in where you want (e.g. my group were dealing with a "cloud-whale" hunting operation in the upper atmosphere of Bretheda's northern polar region. Now I've got the book and there's nothing in there about there *not* being such an operation, so I feel totally fine dropping the stuff from this book in around the operation - planets are big, so plenty of room for everyone).
Plenty of cool info on histories and cultures, organizations and factions. A smattering of gear of all kinds as well as a selection of starships and new ship systems. Some feats, themes and archetypes.
All told, I can see it being a very useful reference for colour and flavour for the myriad locations my players may find themselves, as well as handy info for fleshing out both PCs and NPCs.
The "supporting cast" section, also, will be handy for off the shelf antagonists and allies.
I would have liked to have seen some sample settlements with smaller scale tactical maps, etc (e.g. a sample formian hive or hellknight fortress) and maybe a selection of statted-up NPCs from each world.
Was super excited to receive my Pact Worlds copy. Lo and behold, no glue on the binding and the bookblock/signatures are both misaligned and hanging on by threads (literally).
Probably won't be buying more Paizo books unless they change their bindings. Fool me once on the first printing of the Core Rulebook, shame on you, fool me twice with this one, shame on me.
I've been a rabid fan of Pathfinder for years. I read book after book, and desperately sought a game, but none of my friends played, and none of them were into epic fantasy like I am. Along comes Starfinder, and it has just enough chrome in it to lure them in. We're about to start the third Dead Suns book.
One thing we've been stumbling around is lack of setting knowledge. When I heard this announced, I drooled at the thought of the Inner Sea World Guide for Starfinder. I had loved the ISWG, it had plenty of juicy oliphant meat for a gm to sink their teeth into.
Starfinder: Pact Worlds is not the ISWG, and that's fine with me.
Starfinder: Pact Worlds is chock full of detailed information on each planet/planetoid/seedship/station/potential sleeping Great Old One, a bunch of new playable races, and a plethora of player-focused character options; including archetypes, themes, items, and spells.
This was not the book I wanted, but it is the book I need.
The ISWG was too meaty for trepid adventurers. Starfinder: Pact Worlds will be massively more effective at helping me intrigue, befuddle, and awe my players. It will give them the tools and the allies they'll think they need to surmount the infinite darkness.
Thank you, truly, Paizo, for not giving me what I wanted. You've done well by me yet again. I look forward to the next book, and the next, and the next, and the next, and the next, and the next, and the next.....
I'm particularly interested in playable Eoxians. I feel like it would add interesting roleplaying opportunities if there were intelligent undead that didn't automatically want to eat your face that you pretty much had to deal with as long as it didn't start trouble. I also feel that the core book did give the bare bones when it came to equipment, but does seem a bit light on the selection (everything you might need, but not everything you might want if that makes sense) More themes? Also welcome.
Whoa, didn't notice each area getting its own theme! Excitement increased considerably by the prospect of 14 new themes… especially the one for being from the sun.
Speaking of undead, might we possibly see undead archetypes at some point? After all, a vampire or something similar would be difficult to represent with a race, but an archetype would do the trick well.
Speaking of undead, might we possibly see undead archetypes at some point? After all, a vampire or something similar would be difficult to represent with a race, but an archetype would do the trick well.
Especially since, as they are grafts, templates can't just be easily slapped onto PCs at the GM's discretion.
I also hope it will have no postermap bound in, i'd rather have a seperate "Starfinder Poster Map Folio" with a Star System map, Absalom Station map & a known starship size comparison map.
Will we see a world generation system at the end of this book? Just to help out a GM if the PC's jump to a world which he was completely underprepared for?
Might we also see a town generator? A place where the PCs might venture and the harried GM is rushing to throw something together, would be really helpful for on-the-fly gamemasters.
I was talking to the owner of my FLGS about how Id like if they did a hardcover for each Pact World, but knew this was more likely. Still very excited!
Pathfinder Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
OMG. Cannot wait for this. SO FAR AWAY. This will be a perfect birthday present though. Still wandering if we will see player companions or so. I know it was stated that content will be pushed out slower than Pathfinder. I kind of hope there isn't and they bundle everything in to the bigger hardback based books.
"New archetypes for every class, including the Star Knight, Skyfire Centurion, and Divine Champion."
Does this mean we get class specific Archetypes or just Archetypes that can be used with every class?
Archetypes that can be used with every class. That's our baseline. Any different use of archetypes should be the exception.
Okies.
Slightly sad Space Succubus now.
I for one am glad that all archetypes are available to all classes. At least initially, it seems Paizo is publishing only a few Starfinder books per year, so there won't be tons of archetypes, initially. Making single-class archetypes would mean that we'd have only one-seventh of the archetype options available, which would be a bit wasteful. If/when Paizo publishes new classes, the problem would be further compounded.
Besides, a Starfinder archetype designer's main design principle should NOT be "I'm designing this archetype for no particular class so it fits all"; it should be "I'm making this archetype for ALL of the seven existing classes and all classes published in the future". (Future-proofing is difficult, but not impossible.)
In other words, hopefully, whenever new archetypes are published, people will say "Yay, I'm getting new archetypes for my favorite class AND all the other classes, too." That's how I look at it, anyway. :)
Another problem with single-class archetypes in Pathfinder has been that if an archetype built around a particular concept already exists, it's less likely that other classes get archetypes built around the same concept because designers generally strive to create something new rather than more of the same.
I'm sure the new archetypes will be fun and awesome. :)