Louis Porter Jr. Design will be releasing an all-new product for use with The Pathfinder Roleplaying Game, just in time for Halloween called Horrific Terror: The Fear and Terror sourcebook. Here is information on this product:
Games in the genre of dark fantasy and horror work naturally work against some of the accepted assumptions of heroic fantasy. In a typical fantasy RPG game, combat might not be as dangerous and threatening in a fear or horror based adventure. The core hit point rules allow PCs to absorb a few attacks without disrupting their abilities. In contrast, most horror movies and stories are built with devastating, direct threats that can slay even the toughest hero with a single blow. Magic, monsters, and other facets of the core rules may not match the tone and feel that you want to induce in your horror or dark fantasy gaming session. Horrific Terror: The Fear and Terror sourcebook presents a mixture of new options you can use to modify the core rules to make you gaming sessions fit the dark fantasy and horror better. This sourcebook is completely 100% open OGL content for use with Pathfinder Roleplaying Game system that can be used with any campaign. This Horrific Terror: The Fear and Terror sourcebook presents quick, easy, and flexible system for incorporating the effects of fear, horror and in some cases, extreme madness into your fantasy game. Horrific Terror: The Fear and Terror sourcebook reminds players that hazardous adventures can bring all types of penalties and facilitate motivate role playing.
The Horrific Terror: The Fear and Terror sourcebook includes rules for:
• The Template Approach to Fear and Horror
• Character Health and Mortality
• Constitution and Health System
• Wound Levels and Injury Penalties
• Rules for Fear, Terror, and Madness with Madness Points for Long-Term Insanity
• And much more.
Available for $5.99 this October exclusively only at Paizo.com.
Ooooo..... :)
Your Friendly Neighborhood Dalesman
"Bringing Big D**n Justice to the Bad Guys Since 1369 DR"
Would you like to see this as a Print On Demand book also?
...how is this project coming along?
All the writing is done. I just have to start the layout. It is 18K words in length so I figure it will be roughly 40 - 45 pages long.
All the writing is done. I just have to start the layout. It is 18K words in length so I figure it will be roughly 40 - 45 pages long.
Well I was little off with this extimate and it was only roughly 30 pages in length. Sorry about that. Bad math on my part. Now available!!! Excluvisely only at Paizo.com!!!
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All the writing is done. I just have to start the layout. It is 18K words in length so I figure it will be roughly 40 - 45 pages long.Well I was little off with this extimate and it was only roughly 30 pages in length. Sorry about that. Bad math on my part. Now available!!! Excluvisely only at Paizo.com!!!
I somehow missed the announcement...I'm reading it now...
humm this looks interesting. Any body get it yet?
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All the writing is done. I just have to start the layout. It is 18K words in length so I figure it will be roughly 40 - 45 pages long.Well I was little off with this extimate and it was only roughly 30 pages in length. Sorry about that. Bad math on my part. Now available!!! Excluvisely only at Paizo.com!!!
So I picked this up just now and was glancing through it. From my cursory glance it looks good, but I'm seeing only 27 pages including title and OGL page. Page 26 has a decent half page picture on it and the text only covers half of the other half of the page. As I mentioned I haven't read it yet so wondering before I start if perhaps an earlier version got uploaded by mistake or do you mean close to 30 pages with your "roughly" statement. Which if that's the case I no biggie, but just wanting to make sure I got the whole product if that's the case. If so it might be helpful to include another art piece as perhaps a filler for the blank space, perhaps just using your logo or something if you don't have extra art to place there.
Thanks for putting this out though! :-)
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humm this looks interesting. Any body get it yet?
I'm liking what I've read so far. Finished about the first five pages which cover alternate hit point system to make it more fearful of dying. Looks pretty good, well put together though I've found a few grammar and typos which are common in all products. Will need to set up an errata thread I think for that stuff. If you like horror though I'd recommend it.
Product has color cover and black and white interior. Art is solid but way to much use of black for shadowing, which if printed will eat black ink like candy. Mechanics seem solid so far, but as I mentioned only about 5 pages in or so. Will post more once I finish it.
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I finished reading it so here's a basic review of the book in addition to what I've already posted.
Horrific Fears presents a thought out system of rules for horror roleplaying with the Pathfinder RPG. The PDF weighs in at 27 pages which include the cover and OGL license page. It might seem like a light product but it is crunch from start to finish. This product presents each section in a template format so that gaming groups can use portions of the material or all of it, depending on their needs.
First off Horrific Fears, in attempting to capture the essence of a good horror roleplaying game, starts off by introducing a new hit point system referred to as the Health System. This template presents a way to reduce hit points so that heroes, especially at higher levels, are still easier to kill and thus reintroduces the fear element of a quick and painful death. In addition to the Health System the PDF introduces Wound Levels which present Injury Penalties. It offers a format that is reminiscent of the condition levels found in most other games where each level of wounding causes penalties to be applied to the characters. A character suffering too many wounds will quickly find they are becoming ineffective in combat, possibly forcing a retreat for the party. Used together both systems will definitely cause second thought in a player's mind and introduce that missing element of fear as they wonder will this encounter be the last for this character? Both templates present suggestions for the GM to apply it to monsters and NPCs that the party might encounter. However, as expected in a horror game, some monsters are recommended to be left with regular hit points to emphasize their toughness at being killed. I can already hear players shouting, “Why won’t it die!”
The next section, which is the largest understandably, covers Fear, Terror, and Madness. This section is the heart of the book and what everyone will be looking for the most when they buy this product. As with the replacement of hit points everything in this section is presented as a template that will work by itself or with the rest of the rules presented. I’ll break each section down separately for a more detailed review.
How Terror (actually Fear) works is by applying a set of conditions (shaken, frightened, panicked, cowering, and overwhelmed) determined by failing a Will save made against a Fear Rating. Using the guidelines presented in Horrific Fears, each monster and even certain events are given a Fear Rating. As mentioned if you fail your Terror check bad things will happen as each condition applies penalties to your character. Fail by five or less and your character is shaken suffering a -2 to attacks, saves, skill checks, and ability checks. Fail by 21 or more and your character is so overwhelmed with fear he loses all sense of reality and starts acting at random as if under a confusion spell. Optional rules presented in this section cover Fear Immunity and combining Fear Ratings so as to have only one fear check per encounter (normally you make a check versus each monster or event present).
No matter how you look at it, it’s all madness and the Madness section delivers. Here we find the Madness Score; start at zero and hopefully you never make it to 100. As you progress up the madness scale your character develops quirks and disorders related to their madness. Fail your Terror Check and depending on the Fear Rating you roll a predetermined set of dice for the madness points gained by your character. A failure against a Fear Rating of 1-5 only nets 1d2 points of madness while a Fear Rating of 40+ adds 3d8 and some monsters are so horrible to behold you don’t even have to fail your save! There are rules for recovering Madness Points as well which usually requires you to defeat a monster or event before you can recover them.
Quirks are disadvantages that usually only come into play under certain conditions, such as some form of phobia or personality disorder brought about due to stress. Disorders are long term penalties that affect the character continually, ranging from an addiction to Terror Attacks that disable you during combat. And what would Madness be without completely losing it at some point, especially if you reach 100 when true madness sets. There's nothing more fearful than the fear your favorite character might become the next villain in the game; determined to purify the world of those deemed responsible for his/her madness (and yes I’m talking about the rest of the party).
That’s pretty much the rundown of Horrific Fears without giving too much away. I hope that helps. There are a few things I didn’t like about the product that could easily be fixed. While addressing immunity to fear it doesn’t cover how to work around the Paladin who often is immune to said affliction. The Madness domain is not addressed nor its affects upon the templates presented within the book. Neither are there any spells that might work one way or another toward madness; the real problem with this is that you have no idea how spells that cause madness affect the fear rating as well as those that might cure madness. Overall it’s a good start for a fear system and the modular template format allows you to apply just what your game group wants as I mentioned. I rate it a 4 out of 5 and recommend it if you want a good horror system to use in your game.
Thanks for the review. I've been looking for such a Fear/Madness system, but the mechanics seem quite similar to what exists from Unearthed Arcana, Heroes of Horror, and/or Call of Cthulhu d20. One of the problems I run into when attempting to apply such templates is to figure out some sort of formula to apply it to an event or a creature w/o it going overkill. After awhile, some players may get more annoyed rather than terrified when these rolls come into play, so I guess the semantics and timing is more left up to the DM.
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Thanks for the review. I've been looking for such a Fear/Madness system, but the mechanics seem quite similar to what exists from Unearthed Arcana, Heroes of Horror, and/or Call of Cthulhu d20. One of the problems I run into when attempting to apply such templates is to figure out some sort of formula to apply it to an event or a creature w/o it going overkill. After awhile, some players may get more annoyed rather than terrified when these rolls come into play, so I guess the semantics and timing is more left up to the DM.
My review isn't fully detailed as it could be, but I wanted to leave a lot of the decision up to the buyer. With it only costing $5 if what I've written doesn't peak interest then a full review won't make much difference. You are correct that it is very similiar to what is presented in those products and it would be easy just to use them. I like the formula that's given though for calculating fear. If LPJ updates it to include a couple of the things I mentioned I think it would be a top notch product, but it is still good for what it offers.
I finished reading it so here's a basic review of the book in addition to what I've already posted.
Do LPJ Design a favor, and place the actual review up at the product here. This helps us sell products to people might be interested and looking atthe product with out have to search the forums. Thanks!
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I finished reading it so here's a basic review of the book in addition to what I've already posted.Do LPJ Design a favor, and place the actual review up at the product here. This helps us sell products to people might be interested and looking atthe product with out have to search the forums. Thanks!
Reviews can only be 400 words so I had to do some serious editing and apply liberal use of acronyms to make it fit. I hope I didn't lose too much of the impact in the editing. I do like the product though.
Reviews can only be 400 words so I had to do some serious editing and apply liberal use of acronyms to make it fit. I hope I didn't lose too much of the impact in the editing. I do like the product though.You don't give us any stars for the Horrific Fears?
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Reviews can only be 400 words so I had to do some serious editing and apply liberal use of acronyms to make it fit. I hope I didn't lose too much of the impact in the editing. I do like the product though.You don't give us any stars for the Horrific Fears?Oops, fixed it. For some reason when I went in and edited it the rating reset.