A Most Unfortunate Delay

Monday, August 31, 2015

Are you eager to hear the Top 32 results for Season 9 of RPG Superstar? We certainly are! Unfortunately, we're all going to have to wait a little bit longer.

A series of unfortunate events means that our original plan to announce the Top 32 will be delayed until tomorrow. I know many of you were eager to see if you made it into the final round, and we certainly wanted to share in the excitement! In the meantime, we're going to have to ask you to delay your actions until Round 2, the dreaded Map Round! But it need not be that dreadful—we've already got a great discussion about maps in our RPG Superstar forum (not to mention last year's discussion, and if you want to be inspired, be sure to check out the amazing maps on the Cartographer's Guild. And if you're hankering for a bit of design, check out the Design Challenge and win a custom Paizo.com avatar for your winning effort!

Once again, we'd like to thank everybody for participating in RPG Superstar, both to the entrants and the voters. Just stay on target, and be back here tomorrow for the Top 32 announcement!

Liz Courts & Owen K.C. Stephens
Community Manager, Developer

Giantslayer Marathon: Part 6!

Saturday, August 29, 2015

The folks over at Order of the Amber Die just got me the report from their final marathon session as they tackle the sixth Giantslayer adventure—Pathfinder Adventure Path #96: Shadow of the Storm Tyrant! If you haven’t read the previous reports check here: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, and Part 5. Now I’ll turn this blog over to the Order of the Amber Die and let you hear how it all went down, but beware—spoilers abound!

Order of the Amber Die is back with the sixth update on our ambitious endeavor to complete the Giantslayer Adventure Path in just 6 months!

We had made it to the finals—the Super Bowl of Giantslayer—and we all felt it. We fully expected a hard adventure, and author Tito Leati delivered. Emotions soared when we began preparation for the final marathon of this 6-month gaming odyssey of our lives. We did what we could to look for some icing on the endeavor when it came to immersing ourselves in the Storm Tyrant's cloud castle. To start, we tapped into smell this time by using some Adventure Scents entitled "Flying Airship." We also couldn't resist breaking out two fog machines for the long climb through the clouds. To go further, one of our members constructed a unique lamp that simulated some of the bizarre lighting we encountered in the castle. Lastly, we even received some mid-marathon support from one of our fans in the form of an Edible Arrangements!

Highlights From our Experience With "Shadow of the Storm Tyrant"

• Boarding the castle almost didn't happen: the party was left dangling from massive chains as the ground kept getting further and further away—and then the guardians launched their attack.
• An epic feel was captured perfectly in this adventure, as we squared off against more colossal and gargantuan foes than any other module we have played.
• We worked our way through chamber after chamber of the biggest cloud castle we could ever have hoped for. A 15-foot scale? Thank you Paizo!

How it Ended

Despite our best efforts, our clash with Volstus the Storm Tyrant went downhill fast. We employed a haste spell and rushed him, only to watch the giant leap onto the back of his gargantuan red dragon and take to the air. We attempted to engage, but the tyrant/dragon combination was too overwhelming, and two rounds later we were beating a retreat into an adjoining tower. It was decided that we would regroup by running down the stairs into the levels below. Eventually we ran into Liniratis, the naga companion of Volstus, who helped convince our party of where our true allegiance lay. When it was over, Crowe and Quinn were dead, Zadim and Oloch were in service to the Storm Tyrant, and Jagrin Grath remained hidden inside Ironcloud Keep. Only Thoon the doppleganger escaped. TPK? Pretty much.

Character Deaths

• After a timely wall of force by the naga sorcerer, Crowe found himself facing this wicked foe alone. The Shoanti chased her around the chamber, only to watch the serpent disappear into one of many wicker baskets and reappear in another. While the bloodrager turned his focus to destroying the baskets, the naga proceeded to rain down 6 maximized fireballs in a row.
• Zadim stared deep into the naga's eyes. Yes, it was all so clear to him now: his slayer talents were best used for the giants, not against them. He turned to face Quinn the investigator, who had been his companion. Quinn the untrustworthy. Quinn the enemy. With six swift attacks from the slayer's kukris—including 3 critical hits—Zadim put the traitor down.

Best Quote From Marathon 6

Mike (playing Quinn): "This is what I was born to do." (about to disarm the most enormous bomb we had ever seen)

The Giantslayer Adventure Path by the Numbers

• Giants slain: 133
• Total marathon hours: 464 hours, 5 minutes
• Actual session hours played: 292 hours, 15 minutes
• GM prep hours: inestimable
• Real-life months passed: 6
• Days passed on Golarion: 233
• Character deaths: 16
• Most amount of damage in a single round: 316 (Zadim)
• Most amount of damage in a single hit: 194 (Crowe)
• Highest DC reached on a skill check: 60 (Quinn)
• Attacks of opportunity prevented with Escape Route teamwork feat: 182
• Uses of Swing About teamwork feat: 25
• Group-consensus on most valuable skill in Giantslayer: Craft (Alchemy)
• Approximate mg of caffeine consumed from Monster per marathon: c. 4,500
• Approximate mg of caffeine consumed from Starbucks per marathon: unknown

Final Thoughts

Certain problems plagued our team throughout the early parts of the AP, and those same things came back to defeat us in the finale. Still, we reached the end and accomplished our goal of playing through an entire adventure path in the shortest amount of time ever recorded—yet another world record! We also clocked the largest number of documented session hours of Pathfinder (played and GMed) within a 6-month period. It is our hope that the work we leave here will have contributed something new and lasting to the RPG community, and that others will follow in our footsteps in the days to come.

The footsteps of giants.

More Content

Read through the entirety of The Giantslayer Endeavor, and for more pictures, campaigns, and other content check out: Order of the Amber Die Facebook and Order of the Amber Die Instagram.

Painting for miniatures provided by Blue Table Painting.

The crew is going to take a break from marathons for a bit and then return with a new project. Hopefully I’ll get to bring all of you the reports from the next endeavor. I’ll keep you posted.

Adam Daigle
Developer

Let Your Voice Be Heard!

Friday, August 28, 2015

The final days of voting for RPG Superstar are here, and Soon™ we will reveal the Top 32!

There's only a few short days until we reveal the Top 32 of RPG Superstar Monday, August 31st at noon but there’s still plenty of time to get in some RPG Superstar Season 9 voting over the weekend! Your votes determine who will be in our Top 32, and one of those contestants will be writing an adventure set in Golarion, so this is a great opportunity to influence who helps us develop our campaign world!

We’ve had more than 224,800 votes, have performed four culls of items in the lower range of votes, and so far have boiled the contestants down to the top 30% of entries.

I want to thank everyone who entered Season 9 of RPG Superstar, all our judges and staff, and everyone who has spent time voting or commenting on the forums. We’re off to a great start this year, and I’m looking forward to see what everyone does with the newly revamped Round 2, the dreaded Map Round! (And if you think there’s a chance you might be part of our top 32, and you’ve got some spare time between votes, you might want to take a look at the recently-posted official Round 2 rules.)

Vote Now!

Owen K.C. Stephens
Developer

More from the Rusty Dragon

Friday, August 28, 2015

I’m writing this from the floor of PAX Prime, where we’re running thousands of gamers through Pathfinder Roleplaying Game and Adventure Card Game demos here in our home town of Seattle. It’s always a blast to rub shoulders with gamers at this convention, as it has a youthful, joyful buzz that makes it the perfect way to (pretty much) end the summer convention season.

I am giddy with excitement not because of PAX, however, but because of what WizKids delivered to the Paizo offices last week: ALL the paint masters for November’s The Rusty Dragon Inn set of Pathfinder Battles prepainted gaming figures!

I’m getting a bit ahead of myself, naturally. It took our crack team more than an hour to carefully evaluate the paint masters for Iconic Heroes: Set 5 and Iconic Heroes: Set 6, where were absolutely incredible and include some of the best prepainted figures I’ve seen from Pathfinder or any other line.

But all along, my eyes kept wandering to The Rusty Dragon, which looks absolutely phenomenal. I couldn’t be more proud of the way the set is coming together. If you liked Dungeons Deep (and sales suggest that most of you did!), you’re going to love The Rusty Dragon Inn.

It’ll be a while before we can show off the paint masters, but seeing all of them got me in the mood to share some more images from the set!

Up first this week is the Farmer. He farms. He’s a great victimbystander figure for rural or town scenes, and I imagine he slakes his thirst after a difficult day by grabbing a seat at the Rusty Dragon Inn. The Farmer is a Medium, common figure.

People on the comment threads keep worrying that this set doesn’t have enough monsters. You might think they’re afraid. Or even PETRIFIED. In the grand spirit of petrification, and to prove that The Rusty Dragon has more than farmers and barmaids, I present the Gorgon, whose breath turns victims into stone. The Gorgon is a Large, uncommon creature.

Did you know that no one has ever made a prepainted miniature of a Bunyip? Well, no one until November, that is! Another straight-up monster from The Rusty Dragon flops its way onto the scene. Bunyips show up in a surprisingly large number of Pathfinder adventures (including The Rise of the Runelords Anniversary Edition), so I thought it high time they got a chance in the spotlight. The Bunyip is a (meaty) Medium, common figure.

And that’s it for this week. I’m back to PAX! See you in seven days!

Erik Mona
Publisher

Behind the Art of Hell's Rebels

Thursday, August 27, 2015

The launch of the Hell's Rebels Adventure Path is special for a number of reasons. Most significant, of course, is that this series will include the long-awaited issue number 100! It's taken a lot of hard work from many talented people to get Pathfinder this far, and I am extremely grateful to have been here to see issue 100 take shape.

Also, because of the significance of this Adventure Path, we wanted to make it visually distinctive. No special Paizo project would be complete without the brilliant work of Wayne Reynolds, and this time we were also fortunate to have the talented Eva Widermann involved to paint some beautiful design elements for the cover and interior pages. Between those two superstars, as well as the numerous artists working on the interior illustrations, this is our most beautiful Adventure Path yet.

Illustrations by Caio Maciel Monteiro, Kiki Moch Rizky, Ekaterina Burmak, and Will O'Brien

And on a personal level, this series is significant for me because it will unfortunately be the last one I work on. After commissioning the art and designing the look of our Adventure Paths since Reign of Winter, and working on the layout since Serpent's Skull, I will be moving on to other adventures. This line has been a big focus of my professional life for the last five years, and I'm going to miss playing my part.

Andrew Vallas
Senior Art Director

He Must Die—Again!

Thursday, August 27, 2015

The arrival of Pathfinder Roleplaying Game: Occult Adventures with its host of psychic magic and class options means new ways to tell stories for the world of Golarion (and beyond). But what about some of our older adventures, particularly one about a Very Infamous Monk? Are you ready for a Design Challenge?

When Occult Adventures first made its way through playtesting, one question I often thought was, "How could our older adventures be retold with these new options?" Being a rather large fan of Russian fairy tales and folk lore, I am quite fond of the Reign of Winter Adventure Path, so of course, I immediately gravitated towards that one to pick for this Design Challenge.

What does this mean to you? It means I have thrown the gauntlet to everybody who loves creating stat blocks, whether you're they type who spends hours poring over new archetypes, class combinations, and gear selection, or just like putting together a fun NPC for your group to face. "Pray tell, Liz, what is the rules of this duel?" you might ask.

You get to make this guy, Grigori Rasputin, but this time, using one of the new character classes from Occult Adventures.

Grigori Rasputin returns—but as what? You get to decide!

For reference, here's his original stat block, as it appeared in "Rasputin Must Die!":

Spoilers for Reign of Winter AP:

Grigori Rasputin  CR 17

XP 102,400
Male middle-aged human oracle 18
NE Medium humanoid (human)
Init +0; Senses true seeing; Perception +13
Aura unholy aura (DC 22)

Defense

AC 32, touch 22, flat-footed 32 (+10 armor, +4 deflection, +4 insight, +4 luck [touch only], +4 natural)
hp 192 (18d8+108)
Fort +16, Ref +12, Will +20; +4 vs. death effects, domination, mind-affecting effects, and possession
Defensive Abilities stitched soul; SR 25 vs. good

OFFENSE

Speed 30 ft.
Melee mwk dagger +13/+8/+3 (1d4–1/19–20)
Ranged mwk Nagant M1895 revolver +14/+9/+4 (1d8/×4)
Oracle Spells Known (CL 18th; concentration +26)
9th (3/day)—astral projection, miracle (DC 27)
8th (6/day)—fire storm (DC 26), mass cure critical wounds, moment of prescience, stormbolts (DC 26)
7th (7/day)—blasphemy (DC 25), destruction (DC 25), ethereal jaunt, mass cure serious wounds, regenerate, reverse gravity (DC 25), vision, waves of ecstasy (DC 25)
6th (7/day)—antilife shell, blade barrier (DC 24), harm (DC 24), heal, mass cure moderate wounds, project image
5th (7/day)—contact other plane, flame strike (DC 23), greater forbid action (DC 23), mass cure light wounds, slay living (DC 23), telekinesis, true seeing
4th (8/day)—cure critical wounds, divine power, freedom of movement, scrying, sending, terrible remorse (DC 22), unholy blight (DC 22)
3rd (8/day)—bestow curse (DC 21), blindness/deafness (DC 21), clairaudience/clairvoyance, cure serious wounds, dispel magic, searing light
2nd (8/day)—cure moderate wounds, death knell (DC 20), dread bolt (DC 20), enthrall (DC 20), hold person (DC 20), levitate, minor image (DC 20), silence (DC 20), spectral hand
1st (8/day)—command (DC 19), cure light wounds, entropic shield, forbid action (DC 19), murderous command (DC 19), remove sickness (DC 19), unseen servant
0 (at will)—bleed (DC 18), detect magic, detect poison, ghost sound (DC 18), guidance, light, mage hand, read magic, resistance, stabilize, virtue
Mystery occult

TACTICS

Before Combat Within the Thrice-Tenth presbytery (area H6), Rasputin enjoys the benefits of the World Engine’s unholy aura and insight bonus to his AC. When faced with combat, Rasputin activates his ectoplasmic armor revelation and casts entropic shield, freedom of movement, levitate, moment of prescience, and true seeing. Once enemies are in sight, he casts antilife shell and spectral hand to enable him to use touch attacks beyond the field’s perimeter.
During Combat Under the protection of his antilife shell, Rasputin attempts to hinder opponents with reverse gravity and waves of ecstasy and turn foes against each other with terrible remorse and murderous command, before laying waste with such deadly effects as blade barrier, blasphemy, destruction, harm, stormbolts, and unholy blight. If wounded, Rasputin casts quickened cure spells while continuing to target enemies with offensive spells.
Morale On the precipice of claiming his mother’s mythic power, Rasputin relies on his stitched soul to preserve his life, and fights to the death again and again until slain permanently.

STATISTICS

Str 9, Dex 11, Con 19, Int 14, Wis 17, Cha 26
Base Atk +13; CMB +12; CMD 30
Feats Combat Casting, Craft Wondrous Item, Diehard^B, Ectoplasmic Spell^B, Expanded Arcana (2), Great Fortitude, Iron Will, Lightning Reflexes, Persuasive, Quicken Spell, Toughness
Skills Bluff +25, Diplomacy +30, Intimidate +25, Knowledge (arcana) +15, Knowledge (nobility) +10, Knowledge (planes) +12, Knowledge (religion) +20, Perception +13, Sense Motive +16, Spellcraft +15, Use Magic Device +25
Languages Church Slavonic, Common, Russian
SQ oracle’s curse (haunted), revelations (ectoplasmic armor [+10, 18 hours/day], project psyche, shroud of retribution [3/day, 1d8+9], spectral spells [4/day], spirit walk [2/day, 18 rounds], sure soul [+4])
Gear mwk dagger, mwk Nagant M1895 revolver with 21 metal cartridges, amulet of natural armor +4, belt of physical perfection +2, cassock of the Black Monk, headband of mental prowess +4 (Wis, Cha)

SPECIAL ABILITIES

Stitched Soul (Su) Rasputin’s soul is stitched to his body with threads of fate, and he clings tenaciously to life. He gains Diehard as a bonus feat. In addition, when first reduced to a number of negative hit points equal to or greater than his current Con score, Rasputin dies, but he springs back to life 1d4 rounds later as if the target of a resurrection spell. If killed a second time, the Mad Monk again comes back to life 1d6 rounds later, as if the target of a raise dead spell (upon his return, he loses 50% of his remaining unused spell slots as if they had been used to cast spells). Only after Rasputin is slain for a third time do his soul’s stitches finally unravel from his corpse, releasing his malignant spirit into the ether.

Your entry will be judged on presentation and adherence to theme, and to help me with that, I've brought in the man responsible not only for the original Pathfinder version of the Mad Monk, but was also one of the lead consultants on Occult Adventures as well: Brandon Hodge!

But what is the reward for all of your hard work? Something we've never offered before: A custom Paizo.com avatar with art selected from Occult Adventures, along with $25 in store credit. On Paizo.com, a custom avatar means either being a Paizo employee (or the subject of whim by a Paizo employee), so this is a rare opportunity for a unique avatar that nobody else has!

Now, onto the rules:

• One entry per poster. Employees of Paizo, their immediate family members, and persons with whom such employees are domiciled are ineligible. Anyone who is currently employed full-time as a designer for a game company is ineligible. Anyone with a cover credit on a hardcover RPG book is ineligible. Anyone who has a design credit in 3 or more of Paizo's Pathfinder products is ineligible.
• You must post your entries in this blog's discussion thread.
• All entries due Midnight, September 13th, 2015, Paizo time.
• Entries must be in the following format:
  Stat Block Format:

  [b]Grigori Rasputin  CR 17[/b]

  [b]XP 102,400[/b]
  zzAlignment zzSize zzType
  [b]Init[/b] +##; [b]Senses[/b] zz, zz,; Perception +##
  [b]Aura[/b] zz (## ft., DC ##)

  [b]----- Defense -----[/b]
  [b]AC[/b] ##, touch ##, flat-footed # (+## zzModifier, +##zzModifier)
  [b]hp[/b] ## (##d##+##); fast healing ##
  [b]Fort[/b] +##, [b]Ref[/b] +##, [b]Will[/b] +##
  [b]Defensive Abilities[/b] ##/zzAbility; [b]DR[/b] ##/zzMaterial; [b]Immune[/b] zz; [b]Resist[/b] zz ##, zz ##; [b]SR[/b] ##
  [b]Weaknesses[/b] zz, zz

  [b]----- Offense -----[/b]
  [b]Speed[/b] ## ft., fly ## ft. (zzManeuverability)
  [b]Melee[/b] zzAttacktype +## (zzDamage plus zzOthereffect), zzAttacktype +## (zzDamage)
  [b]Ranged[/b] zzAttacktype +## (zzDamage)
  [b]Space[/b] ## ft.; [b]Reach[/b] ## ft.
  [b]Special Attacks[/b] zz, zz
  [b]Spell-Like Abilities[/b] (CL ##zz; concentration +##)
  At will—[i]zz[/i], [i]zz[/i]
  1/day—[i]zz[/i], [i]zz[/i]

  [b]----- Tactics -----[/b]
  [b]Before Combat[/b] zzBeforeCombat
  [b]During Combat[/b] zzDuringCombat
  [b]Morale[/b] On the precipice of claiming his mother’s mythic power, Rasputin relies on his stitched soul to preserve his life, and fights to the death again and again until slain permanently.

  [b]----- Statistics -----[/b]
  [b]Str[/b] ##, [b]Dex[/b] ##, [b]Con[/b] ##, [b]Int[/b] ##, [b]Wis[/b] ##, [b]Cha[/b] ##
  [b]Base Atk[/b] +##; [b]CMB[/b] +## (+## zzConditionalmaneuverbonus); [b]CMD[/b] ## (## vs. zzManeuvername)
  [b]Feats[/b] zzFeatname, zzFeatname
  [b]Skills[/b] zzSkillname +##, zzSkillname +## (+## zzCondition); [b]Racial Modifiers[/b] +## zzSkillname, +## zzSkillname when zzCondition
  [b]Languages[/b] zzLanguage
  [b]SQ[/b] zz

  [b]----- Ecology -----[/b]
  [b]Environment[/b] zzClimate zzTerrain
  [b]Organization[/b] zz, zz, or zz
  [b]Treasure[/b] zzCategory

  [b]----- Special Abilities -----[/b]
  [b]zzName (Ex/Sp/Su)[/b] zzDescription

• Entry must be CR 17, must use a character class from Occult Adventures, and must include the stitched soul special ability.
• You may use any Paizo-published material, but you must cite your sources.
• Selection of avatar art is subject to Paizo.com's Community Guidelines.

Remember, all entries must be in by September 13th, 2015. Good luck in designing the Mad Monk Rasputin, and letting us kill him again—or try to!

Liz Courts
Community Manager

Pathfinder Legends Unearths the Treasures of the Dead

Wednesday, August 26, 2015

Last spring, four heroes arrived in the sleepy coastal town of Sandpoint, were attacked by goblins, and embarked on a journey to stop the awakening of a legendary runelord in the first Pathfinder Legends series, Rise of the Runelords. Since this first audio adventure adaptation of Paizo's Pathfinder Adventure Paths, the interest and feedback from fans of the series have been fantastic. But what's coming next?

Today, we're happy to announce that starting this September Ezren, Harsk, Merisiel, and Valeros will be trekking to the pyramid-laden realm of Osirion in Mummy's Mask: The Half-Dead City, the first of six new Pathfinder Legends releases. This new series will follow the story of the Mummy's Mask Adventure Path, beginning in the city of Wati, where our heroes unearth a plot that could lead to the resurrection fo the ancient and feared Sky Pharaoh Hakotep. Will these iconic characters be able to succeed and defend the city, or will they be unable to stop the rule of this undead mummy from Osirion's distant past?

Illustration by Chris Seaman

Not familiar with Big Finish or Pathfinder Legends? Big Finish produces hundreds of audio titles based on popular titles like Doctor Who, Dark Shadows, Stargate, Highlander, and more. For Rise of the Runelords we worked closely with their team to determine the cast of characters, fine tuning the Adventure Path story to this new format, and pairing voices with the vivid characters featured. James Jacobs detailed this process last year on the Paizo blog.

With Mummy's Mask the Pathfinder Legends format is changing up! Each release is now double the length (running at about 2 hours) and will be provided as both a double CD set and digital download. Each Mummy's Mask episode will be released monthly as well.

Don't want to miss any of the action in Mummy's Mask? Starting today, Paizo is now offering the Pathfinder Legends ongoing subscription! By subscribing to Pathfinder Legends, you'll get:

• 20% off of the list price of each double CD set
• A free digital download version of each double CD set

The first installment in this subscription, Mummy's Mask: The Half-Dead City, will begin to ship with September's new releases. If you want to get all six episodes of the next Pathfinder Legends audio adventure as they release, sign up now!

Chris Lambertz
Community & Digital Content Director

Mind Beasts Hunger for Your Dreams!

Wednesday, August 26, 2015

Gather close to learn a harrowing secret of the hidden world of Pathfinder Roleplaying Game development! One plan was to include occult monsters—psychic vampires, duergar, and advanced aboleths, among others—in the Pathfinder RPG Occult Adventures hardcover. During that book's development, however, we discovered that we wanted to explore more occult themes than would fit in a single book, and thus Pathfinder Campaign Setting: Occult Bestiary was born. Containing all the creatures originally intended for the pages of Occult Adventures as well as dozens more, Occult Bestiary provides GMs with nearly 50 new monsters with which to populate any occult-themed campaign, many of which use the new rules presented in Occult Adventures.

The monsters in the book can be easily broken into three categories. The first of these is the monsters that were going to appear in Occult Adventures—reimaginings of monsters that would have used psychic magic rules when they first appeared, had we had such rules at the time. These include aboleths, neothelids, seugathi, intellect devourers, and so forth. When they were going to appear in a hardcover rulebook, that seemed like a fine way to do it. But in a book set in the Pathfinder campaign setting, we needed to distinguish between a "normal" aboleth and a "psychic" aboleth. So instead of making an alternate aboleth, we created a new, CR 18 aberration in the same family: the omnipath.

Illustrations by Yigit Koroglu, Maichol Quinto, and Ben Wootten

The second type of monster in the book are those that come from real-world occult beliefs. Many of these are templates like the prana ghost (think Obi-Wan Kenobi in Empire and Jedi), the alter ego, and the psychic lich (whose phylactery is held safely within a mindscape). Others are standalone creatures like the boggart or the tattoo guardian. These were even more fun to concept than the first type of monster!

Illustrations by Audrey Hotte and Jason Juta

Finally, we have my favorite group: the monsters we just made up or that have existed in the Pathfinder campaign setting for years but that we never got to stat up. These include the potential familiar psyche serpent, the Lashunta's shotalashu mounts, new rakshasa and dark folk, and even Kalervo Oikarinen's RPG Superstar 2015 monster entry!

Illustrations by Yigit Koroglu, Kim Sokol, and Ben Wootten

I always know a bestiary is ready when reading the entry for a random monster within inspires a new adventure that would let me use it; every monster in Occult Bestiary had me champing at the bit to throw it at unsuspecting PCs! What occult horrors are you most excited to subject upon your players?

Mark Moreland
Developer

Who's the Outsider Now?

Tuesday, August 25, 2015

Heads up! Adventure Card Game fans will want to keep an eye out for the September issue of Game Trade magazine. Issue 187 comes with a special Wrath of the Righteous promo card: the cohort Valais Durant. Valais will also be sent to Pathfinder Adventure Card Game subscribers—in addition to the usual retailer promo card—along with Adventure Deck 5.

How do you follow up giving the players the chance to play as a succubus? Send them to the Abyss, of course! The Midnight Isles Adventure Deck does just that.

This is one of my favorite adventures. The characters are on a mission from the queen to find the source of Nahyndrian crystals and stop them from being refined into elixirs that can make demons mythic. To do so, they'll be exploring the Midnight Isles, a set of islands forged by a demon queen's imagination from the bodies of demon lords she's assassinated. Wow.

I've always loved exploring the options available when characters journey to the other planes, and it was challenging to put all of that in the card game.

The Midnight Isles is the first adventure deck where those rules are really put to the test. After the first scenario, all locations are considered to have the Abyssal trait (whether they normally would or not.) This can be a bit of a challenge for players who've spent a lot of time acquiring cards that work well against outsiders, since demons lose the Outsider trait here.

The islands are made of what?

Finding the Way

Since this is the fourth adventure deck, the players now have roles, so the danger increases to match their increase in power. The first scenario of this adventure, The Abyss Gazes Also, has many intricate, challenging parts to it. First, I love that the players have to face all of the non-Abyssal locations before they can tackle the Abyssal ones. This severely limits their options and makes them work together. Plus the monsters they defeat don't go back to the box—they go into the Abyssal locations to be faced again!

Stop gazing at me!

There's also a nested Easter egg in this scenario. If a player moves to an occupied Abyssal location, he'll have to face an extra henchman, Minagho. Though this is fairly easy for the players to avoid, there's a bonus to fighting her. If you defeat her by no more than 6, you get a chance to snag a free cohort: Yaniel! Even better, Yaniel is her own Easter egg. She's the paladin that originally owned the sword named Radiance, which the players may have acquired by now. If they still have it, they can use Yaniel to transform it into Holy Radiance. It's a long and complicated road to get that card, but it's worth it!

Chain gang!

This scenario also features a tricky location: the Grinder. This is where the villain will try to retreat if defeated, but the place also has an interesting feature you may remember from the Abyssal Rift. It flips! One side is innocuous, but if you gain a boon, BANG, it flips to the hard side and all banes get a +5 difficulty boost. This could be especially troublesome if the villain happens to retreat there. I love how all of these mechanics fit together!

Back to the grind!

Speaking of the villain, the Heart of the Fane is no slouch. Before the characters even fight it, they must EACH face a Vulture Demon. If they all win, they can finally catch a break... if they're willing to banish a Divine card they've earned (and take a small jolt.) If not, they must try to defeat the villainous barrier with an epic Arcane or Divine 20 check. If you fail, it will try to go to the Grinder, where it will probably enjoy that 5-point bump in difficulty.

Not for the fane of heart!

Midnight Monsters (And Barriers)

There's an extra element of risk for characters facing many of the monsters in this adventure. Most monsters just deal a bit of damage, which you can hopefully soak with some armor, but these guys play for more serious stakes. For example, the Horned Demon requires you to make a Wisdom 12 check or shuffle a random card from your hand into the location deck. You could lose your best card before you even fight, and then you'll have to go looking for it again!

Was that your favorite card?

The Umbral Dragon has a clever little trick. It picks a random occupied location and everyone there has to succeed at a check to avoid BURYING THEIR ROLE CARDS. The deeper into this adventure path you go, the more crippling this could be. Oh, and if you don't defeat it the first time, it comes back!

Role away!

Of course this deck has its share of temptations as well: four of them, to be precise. The Gift of Shamira is particularly tricky. You can choose to add 1d20 to a check to defeat a monster AND you get to draw 1d10+1 cards as well. That's all good, right? Oh, you rolled a 10 and you don't have 11 cards in your deck? Oops! And even if it doesn't kill you outright, it's going to make playing those cards you drew more difficult, since drawing to replace them could kill you anyway.

Drawing cards is good, right?

Isle of Boons!

The Midnight Isles also offer a bounty of rewards for those brave enough to explore them.

There are several Corrupted weapons here just waiting for someone to redeem them (or in the case of a Fallen Arueshalae, just use them!) The Stalker's Crossbow adds 1d8+4 to your Ranged combat check, and if you fail it, you get to reroll and add another 1d8! It just costs you a card off the top of your deck when you use it.

Fail, fail, fail...

There are so many great spells in this deck, like Cape of Wasps and Pillar of Life, but I have to single out Terraform for special consideration because it messes with the fundamental rules of the game. If someone has this card, characters no longer have to fear a horrible price for closing a location. When they need it, this card just makes them automatically succeed... without the checks or costs or having to defeat demons with combat 40 checks.

Location, location, location!

Isle of Blessings!

There's one more little tricky bit to this deck (as if all the others weren't enough). Like many other decks, it introduces a new blessing: the Blessing of Nocticula. However, these don't just get shuffled into the box to pop up at random locations. Players have to EARN them.

Powerful, but fragile.

In scenario 3, Nocticula's Attention, the villain is not a hulking monster, but instead a sort of bureaucrat named Vellexia. She stands between the players and the demon queen herself. Players must use their Charisma and Diplomacy to "defeat" her. If they fail, it's 1d20 damage straight to the brain. If they succeed, they may display a Blessing of Nocticula next to the scenario, and she scampers back to the location she came from. The players repeat this until they have amassed as many blessings as there are players, at which point, they win and collect all the ones they've displayed.

Fill this out in triplicate!

And let's not forget that every demon they defeat has a 1 in 6 chance of summoning Shamira.

40?!

I've barely scratched the surface of the wonders this deck offers. The Midnight Isles Adventure Deck is a well-oiled machine with great intertwining mechanics and surprises for the observant among the players.

Enjoy it with my blessing... and possibly that of Nocticula as well!

Paul Peterson
Adventure Card Game Designer

Minnesota Pathfinder Society Gives Back the the Community

Monday, August 24, 2015

At Paizo, we get an overwhelming amount of feedback surrounding the growth of the Pathfinder Society. Many of these are positive reports of our volunteers and Venture Officers building strong gaming groups and communities within their region. And occasionally, we hear back about how these local chapters are turning their passion for gaming and PFS into a platform for giving back to people in need. We were contacted by the Minneapolis/St. Paul lodge recently, and wanted to share with you how they've decided to make a difference through their local convention, Skål Con.

On September 18-20, the Minneapolis/St. Paul Pathfinder Society lodge will host a brand new convention: Skål Con. This is our opportunity to give back to the community as Skål Con is a fundraiser for local charity Tubman—Minnesota's largest provider of family crisis and support services. We will donate every dollar we make beyond covering our base costs (which we have done!) to Tubman: all of it.

The inside story...

I was flush with excitement from our best Con of the North ever and wanted to keep the momentum going with a new convention. With the input of other Venture Captain and having run conventions (including in unconventional spaces, like grocery stores even!), I challenged myself to come up with a plan. Fantasy Flight Games had opened a brand new game space, Fantasy Flight Game Center, in the summer of 2014. We already have a great relationship with management, and the room is large enough for our group. Within hours of getting to work and emailing the rest of the Venture Officers and volunteers that made Con of the North a success, we all went to work. It is a testament to our local group of volunteers that within three months we had the more than just the skeleton of the convention in place.

Why charity? Why Tubman?

I wanted Skål Con to be more than just another con, as it was our goal to give back to the community in a meaningful way. I wanted us to do something positive that benefited those who need help and have a great time doing so. When I sat down to think about where our efforts should go to, the choice was easy.

Each year Tubman helps over 30,000 women, youth, men and families who have experienced relationship violence, sexual assault and exploitation, elder abuse, addiction, and other forms of trauma. As the state's largest provider of domestic violence services, Tubman provides 20% of all Minnesota shelter beds for women and children experiencing family violence. This is a small sampling of the services they provide to those in need. I am proud we are able to help a truly great organization reach their goals.

We need your help!

Paizo has graciously allowed us to do a guest blog about our convention, but to reach our fundraising goals our local chapter needs your help. Please go to skålcon.org to register for the convetion and/or donate. If you choose to attend, we will be auctioning off items (like this signed Pathfinder RPG Core Rulebook, artwork, and more!), hosting raffles, and running both Pathfinder Society Roleplaying Guild and Adventure Card game tables over the weekend. Your help allows us to give back to our community.

My sincerest thanks to you all!

Jon Dehning
Venture Captain—Minneapolis, MN

Chris Lambertz
Community & Digital Content Director

Announcing the Gen Con 2015 Cosplay Contest Winner!

Saturday, August 22, 2015

Every year we run a Pathfinder themed costume contest for Gen Con attendees! This year we saw loads of fantastic costumes, props, and more. We're happy to announce that our grand prize winner truly impressed us with her detailed interpretation of the iconic barbarian, Amiri. Congratulations goes to Torie!

Let's also give a shout out to our next two contestants, who will each be receiving a runner up prize: Absolut-Aegis as Sajan the iconic monk and Phea as Lini the iconic druid!

Thank you to everyone who voted and stopped by the Paizo booth at Gen Con! We can't wait to see you all next year!

Chris Lambertz
Community & Digital Content Director

FAQ on Errata

Thursday, August 20, 2015

Illustration by Dmitry Burmak

As many of you are probably well aware, we have had a number of update documents drop in the past few weeks, correcting a wide array of issues with some of our rulebooks. Seeing that some of these have caused some controversy among players and GMs alike, I thought I would take a moment to talk about the process of creating these documents and give you all some insight on how we decide on the changes made to the game.

No book is perfect. It's an unfortunate reality of the publishing industry. Despite all of our best efforts and countless hours spent poring over proof copies and making corrections, every time we send a book to the printer, it is with the nagging knowledge that there are at least a few mistakes lurking in its pages. Almost without fail, we spot one within a week of getting the first printed copies shipped to our office, well after it is possible for us to fix it. At this point, the first internal correction file is made. As the staff here at Paizo starts using the book, we usually find a few more, and the file grows. Then the book ships out to the public and the questions begin in earnest.

After that point, we primarily rely on the FAQ system and forum threads to point out errors in our books that need to be addressed. When people on the forums notice problems, post threads, and click the FAQ button, we get notified through our system. About once per week we take a look at some of the most pressing issues, answering them as needed and noting many of them in our corrections file.

Finally, when it comes time for us to actually assemble the updates document that you see for each printing of our books, we get together as a team to discuss each issue. While many of the problems are straightforward mistakes that are easy to fix, some require us to rework a rule or make an adjudication on how it actually works in play. These can be contentious issues, both on the forums and internally, but we are always trying to do what is in the best interest of the game. Which brings me around to the most recent update document that is releasing today, making more corrections to Ultimate Combat.

And the Crane Wing feat.

Many of you might remember the conflict over this feat when Ultimate Combat was first released. We felt it was just too good for a heavily defensive build, so when the second printing of the book was released, we made changes to bring it more inline. Some people on the forums let us know that they felt we went too far in "nerfing" the feat and at the time, we said that we would keep an eye on it and see if it required further adjustment.

As it turns out, the feat did need some work, so we changed it so that it provides a +4 bonus to AC until you are missed by 4 or less (at which point it turns off until the start of your next turn). You can still use it to deflect an attack when taking the total defense action. This is an improvement and one that we hope makes the feat a more viable choice.

Of course, this is only one of a number of changes we made to various rules in Ultimate Combat. There were changes to the Musket Master and Pistolero archetypes, removing an ability that allowed them to ignore misfires at 13th level and double-barreled guns saw a change to balance them as well. The Myrmidarch and Titan Mauler both saw changes that strengthened them, allowing them to work better as originally intended, while the Master of Many Styles was altered a bit to make it more rewarding to those that stuck with it, as opposed to just dipping into the class for quick benefits. You can download the appropriate update document below, or from the Free Downloads or product page.

• First Printing to Third Printing (v1.1)—Download (2.3MB zip/PDF)
• Second Printing to Third Printing (v2.0)—Download (2.3MB zip/PDF)

The process of updating our books is never simple and it is a job we take very seriously. We know that many of you are invested in these rules and the characters that rely upon them. Hopefully this gives you a little bit of a better understanding about the process of updates. If you have any thoughts or comments about the most recent Ultimate Combat update, please post them in this thread (as opposed to making a bunch of individual threads) and we will try to answer your questions.

Jason Bulmahn
Lead Designer

Liar's Island Sample Chapter

Wednesday, August 19, 2015

In Liar's Island, when Rodrick and his talking sword Hrym are summoned to the royal court of Jalmeray, the con men—well, con man and con sword—sense the opportunity for easy money. Yet while the legendary island is as fantastic as the stories tell, and the thakur's treasury as full as either man or sword could hope, there's more to this summons than a simple social visit. As intrigue mounts and the island's deadlier residents begin revealing themselves, Rodrick and Hrym quickly realize that the most important treasure they can escape with may be their own lives...

Chapter One: Cornered

Kresley was head of the little lord's household guard, a position that seldom required more than standing around looking good in a polished breastplate at interminable balls and occasionally kicking priests, beggars, or solicitors who somehow made it past the lord's gates back out into the streets of Absalom. Today, unfortunately, he'd been sent on an errand that was really more the province of the city guards... but the little lord wanted it handled personally, because the city guards were interested more in the law than in allowing the lord to exact a terrible revenge.

Kresley cleared his throat and tried once more to do it the easy way. "Rodrick! Come out! None of us want to see blood spilled." This gray street in a rough part of the city had probably seen plenty of blood spilled, though the predominant scent was actually urine.

"Especially our blood," muttered Haverford, a grizzled veteran with a long scar down one cheek who'd been hired onto the household guard because he'd once saved the little lord's cousin from getting a crossbow bolt in the face on one battlefield or another. Haverford was fond of wine and didn't respect Kresley's authority at all, even though Kresley's breastplate always far outshone Haverford's own.

Kresley, Haverford, and three other men—and the wizard, but Kresley didn't want to think about the wizard; they weren't the sort of people you wanted standing behind you, because what if one of their spells went off by accident?—were arrayed in a loose semicircle before an abandoned storehouse in the Coins. The wizard had tracked their quarry this far, through the winding streets of Absalom, and there was no doubt they'd found their prey, and that he was trapped. Kresley had scouted for other exits, and this door was the only way out, since the storehouse was built right up against the similarly dilapidated buildings around it on all sides.

But the thief, Rodrick, wasn't acting like he was trapped, and showed no interest at all in giving himself up. Kresley wasn't keen to bash his way into a building full of who knew what, through a door only large enough to admit one man at a time, against an enemy who'd had time to set traps or an ambush.

Especially this enemy. Kresley had seen the damage done by Rodrick's sword, the holes blasted in the little lord's wall, ragged gaps still rimed with frost. He knew the wizard was here to take that icy advantage away, but what if the man's magic missed?

The front door of the storehouse was even hanging askew, practically an invitation to enter, which surely meant some terrible preparations had been made beyond. Kresley had never served in any organized military force, but he knew attacking an enemy on prepared ground was harder than kicking a beggar down the little lord's front steps.

"Why don't you come in?" Rodrick called, voice muffled. "It's nice in here. Plenty of room. We can sit and chat."

"If we have to come in after you, there will be violence!" Kresley said. "Give yourself up, and it will go easier on you!"

"I see," Rodrick called, but his voice seemed to come from farther away. What was he doing in there? "So, if I come out, you won't harm me?"

"That's right!"

"But you'll take me back to the little lord, who will harm me?"

"He... hasn't told me his plans for you... "

"Oh?" Rodrick's voice was bright, and now sounded closer. "He could want me for anything, then. Perhaps I'm to be guest of honor at a feast, or he wants to play a game of towers. Sit with me and sip brandy by the fire and discuss the peculiarities of Osirian funeral rites or the philosophies of the Mammoth Lords, just us, two men of the world. I suppose that's the sort of hospitality he offers thieves? Though to be accurate I'm not a thief at all, because I was discovered before I had a chance to steal anything. The indignity of fleeing the palace—of running from you—isn't that punishment enough, especially considering I made no profit off this endeavor at all?"

"You did get your wages for serving as security at the ball," Kresley said. "Those are ill-gotten gains." Why was he arguing with the man? Oh, yes: Because it was better than rushing someone who had a magical sword. Or indeed any kind of sword.

Rodrick and Hrym are always up for a job, provided it doesn't involve any actual work.
Illustration by Eric Belisle

"Are you claiming I didn't provide adequate security?" Rodrick sounded outraged. "Was the dance floor attacked by hordes of ravening demons? Did ogres overturn the punch bowls? Did a bugbear eat the goose liver off a rich man's plate? Were the musicians torn apart by werewolves? They were not, and I'm sure my presence made all the difference. I gave good value for those meager coins."

Haverford spat and, to Kresley's surprise, spoke up loudly enough for Rodrick to hear: "The little lord paid you for your loyalty, thief. Just for one night, but you took the coin, and you made the deal, and so were bound by it. You betrayed him, and a man who'd betray another is no man at all. Treachery's a worse crime than theft."

"Oh, in that case, I'll be right out," Rodrick said. Something clattered, and someone else inside the warehouse swore.

Kresley frowned and leaned over to Haverford. "Is that... is there someone else in there? Does he have an accomplice?"

"It's the sword." The wizard rolled his eyes. He was fat and robed, but he wasn't old, and didn't look like a proper wizard at all, being entirely beardless. "You know, the whole reason I'm here? The reason this Rodrick was hired to provide security at the ball in the first place? He's just a man, but that Hrym is a wonder. A talking sword of living ice."

"I knew about the ice," Kresley muttered. There'd been something about the sword talking, too, but he'd dismissed it as exaggeration. The sword certainly hadn't said anything back at the little lord's manor house.

"I can also sing!" the second voice called. He—it?—sounded jovial and curmudgeonly all at once, like a drunken grandfather at the wedding of a relative he didn't like much.

"No, Hrym, don't sing!" Rodrick cried. "We want them to leave, not die!"

Kresley pinched the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger. He was getting a headache, and this street really did smell like every cat, dog, and vagrant in the Coins used it as a latrine. "All right. This is nonsense. We're going in. Rodrick, this is your last chance—"

"Oh, well, if you really want to die, I can't be blamed," Rodrick interrupted. "But I have to wonder if you've thought this through. Say one of your men manages to get a sword into my neck before Hrym freezes him solid. What have you accomplished, really? You can kill me, but you can't kill Hrym. He's a sword. And a magical one, at that—you can't even melt him down. Believe me, many have tried."

"I daresay the lord would be pleased to have a... a talking sword... to add to his collection."

"Ha! You don't want this sword." Rodrick's laugh was booming and hearty. "He's cursed, you know."

Kresley blinked. "I... what?"

"My sword. Ooh, look, a magical sentient sword of living ice, everyone's always so impressed. But, yes: he's cursed. Cursedly cursed."

"You have, by all accounts, traveled with this blade for many years," Kresley said. "In what way is it cursed?"

"What? Look where I am now," Rodrick said. "I'm about to be murdered by a bunch of household guards, of all things! Hrym's obviously cursed. It's just a slow-acting curse."

The wizard sighed. "The sword isn't cursed. Are we going to stand around here much longer? It's only, I've got plans."

"Cursed or not, the very idea of Hrym languishing in your master's collection disgusts me!" Rodrick said. "Hrym thrives on open air, long roads leading to nowhere in particular, and a general life of adventure!"

"I wouldn't mind resting on a pile of gold coins somewhere cool and dry, actually," Hrym said. "If anyone's asking me. Which no one ever does."

"Honestly!" Rodrick said more loudly. "Doesn't the thought of such waste, of turning a majestic creature like Hrym into an ornament—doesn't it sicken you, Kelso?"

"It's Kresley," Kresley said automatically.

A long pause. "If you say so. I'm sure you know best. But your confusion about your own name aside, doesn't it trouble you? The way your lord and master keeps such wonders—none as wondrous as Hrym, but still, quite wondrous—locked up, out of sight in a vault, made useless? Is it any wonder I wanted to take a few of them away with me? Those relics deserve to be appreciated, not kept sealed away for one rich man's pleasure."

"You were just going to sell them," Hrym said. "And for sums only another rich man could afford."

"Yes, true, but I was going to sell them to several rich men, to sort of spread the joy around, you see."

"I get the sense that Rodrick isn't taking us very seriously." Haverford looked Kresley up and down. "I can't imagine why."

"Fine," Kresley snapped. "Men, let's go in."

"The first man who comes through that door," Rodrick called, "will be frozen into an ice sculpture of himself. The process is generally fatal, but at least you'll make a beautiful decoration at your own funeral."

"Don't worry about it," the wizard said. He muttered something and made a series of complex gestures. He stepped forward, tapping each man briefly on the back of the neck. "There," he said. "Protection from ice, cast on all of you. Go forth and do whatever it is people like you do. As you should have ten minutes ago."

"Protection from ice won't help if they've got traps set up in there," Haverford muttered.

The wizard rolled his eyes again. "I wouldn't worry about it. This Rodrick probably hasn't had to think his way out of a problem since he first got his hands on that sword. This building, it's just an old storehouse, not an armory. They might try to push a pile of crates on top of you, but otherwise I wouldn't fret."

"Did someone out there say 'protection from ice'?" Hrym said.

"You're still a sword," Rodrick said. "We can, you know... cut them. Stab. What have you."

"But you're no swordsman," Hrym said. "No offense, but if it's just you against, what, three of them?"

"Four!" Haverford called, and drew his blade. "Five, counting our illustrious leader." Now he was smiling. "Things are looking up. These are the sort of odds you like, eh, Kelso?"

Illustration by Michal Ivan

"Kresley," Kresley muttered. But, yes—he did like these odds. He considered sending Haverford in first, in case there were traps, but the man would look at him with even more scorn than usual if he did that. Kresley strode forward and kicked the door off its hinges. The interior of the storehouse was visible in light streaming through the dusty skylights, and the space was almost entirely barren, apart from a few cobwebbed shelves near the back.

Rodrick stood in the center of the space, sipping from a flask and holding a crystalline longsword that shimmered like diamonds and sent up faint curls of icy vapor all along its length. Rodrick lifted the sword, and a blast of white wind spiraled toward the door. Kresley winced and closed his eyes, but apart from a cool, damp breeze, he felt nothing, and when he opened his eyes, Rodrick was making a face like he'd bitten a lemon.

Haverford shouldered in, followed by the other men. The wizard seemed content to wait outside. "How bad of a beating do we put on him before we drag him back to the little lord?" Haverford asked.

"Medium bad," Kresley said. "Feel free to break his arms and hands, but leave the legs and feet—otherwise we'll have to carry him the whole way back."

"You are cursed, Hrym," Rodrick said.

"You're cursed," the sword replied, voice emerging from the empty air in the vicinity of the blade. "Oh well. It's been a while since I was owned by a nobleman. As I recall, they hardly ever sleep in ditches or haystacks."

The guards advanced.

They were quite surprised when a djinni appeared before them in a swirl of mist and wind, rising nearly eleven feet tall, its lower body a swirling funnel of air, its upper body that of a muscular dark-skinned man, with a very solid-looking scimitar gripped in each hand.

"You will not harm this man," the djinni intoned, dust and filth swirling around in its whirlwind. Kresley stepped back, and even Haverford retreated a few steps. Kresley looked at the sword in his hand. He considered dropping it so the creature wouldn't mistake it for a threat.

"Ha," Rodrick said from behind the genie. "You didn't expect that, did you, Kelso? I can summon djinns. Djinn. Djinnis? One of my many skills."

"No it's not," Hrym said. "You've never even seen a djinni before. The plural is djinn, by the way."

"Shh," Rodrick said. "This is a marvelous opportunity to embellish my already considerable legend."

Kresley swallowed. "Ah... wizard? Do you... is there such a thing as... protection from... djinn?" He stole a glance through the open door and saw the wizard running away as fast as his sandaled feet could take him.

"Guess not," Haverford said, and ran away too, followed by the other guards.

Kresley waited a moment longer, as befitted his position as head of the household guard, and then he ran away as well.

Purchase the whole novel here!

You Must Be This Good to Ride This Dog

Tuesday, August 18, 2015

Editorial Note: Due to delays at the port, the Paladin Class Deck and Wrath of the Righteous Adventure Deck 4 release dates have been pushed back one week to September 2. To keep the Season of the Righteous in sync with the Adventure Deck, there will be no scenario released to Adventure Card Game Venture Officers next week. Scenarios 1-4A and 1-4B will be released on September 2.

When people find out I've been to 31 consecutive Gen Cons in the Midwest, they're always gobsmacked. "Mike, you must be so lucky," they say in unison, "to get to go to such an awesome show year after year!" And I am. But every year, I am reminded that Gen Con has a dirty little secret: It's a germageddon. If you're not lucky, you can bring a nasty little bit of Gen Con back with you.

And what we learned this year is that Tanis isn't a paladin.

See, in the RPG, a paladin becomes immune to disease. That would make her the perfect Gen Con attendee! But Tanis isn't a paladin, so she's real sick, and you should send her your best wishes. And believe me, she'd want to be writing this Paladin Class Deck preview blog for you, but I'm doing it instead so she gets better. Because Healthy Tanis is Awesome Tanis.

So without further heartstring tugging, let's talk about paladins!

Seelah: "Friend, You Look a Little Worse for the Wear"

When we released the Wrath of the Righteous Base Set, we made Seelah the front-and-center character. That Seelah had her hair unbraided and her shield out, so demons beware. If you want a Seelah that can punch an Abyssal pitspawn into next Thursday, Wrath Seelah is your paladin.

But what if you want a Seelah who not only knows how to mix it up melee-style, but is also the best friend anyone's ever had, you want Paladin Deck Seelah. Let me show you why.

This version of Seelah has a hunt-and-kill power similar to the one on Rise of the Runelords Seelah, where she will shove aside boons to get to the crunchy monsters hiding from her smiting. She also borrows a version of Kyra's healing power, except instead of burning explorations to help her friends, Seelah burns her own cards to make her companions healthier. And unlike the clerics, she makes her friends healthier in a predictable manner. Seelah knows every time that she can trade one card of hers for two or three of yours. That's every turn she takes. With a single power feat, that's every turn anybody takes. But what about characters at other locations? Check a box on the Faith Healer role, and she can bring you to her and heal you, so you can get around to taking your turn right then and there.

Keeping Seelah alive thus becomes the party's primary goal. And lookie here, her Faith Healer role has the best way to do just that. As long as she has a blessing or another Divine card in hand, she can recharge any Healing card she plays. That Mass Cure? Seelah says, "Don't worry your pretty little head about it—it'll come back before you know it."

Speaking of awesome, here's a couple tricks from the Paladin deck that Seelah likes a ton.

Koren: "We Should Kill That Because It's Weird"

Now, a half-orc paladin may not be your average paladin, but Koren isn't exactly average. He's got some orc in him, so despite being raised in a loving home by two upstanding half-orcs, he explodes in righteous vengeance a couple times a day.

Koren starts out all about helping his friends. He uses armor like Sue Storm uses force fields: Give him a shield, and he'll throw it in front of his buddies to absorb their damage or power up their attacks. That's all well and good.

But hey, select that Gilded Fist role, and all of a sudden this likable half-orc is glaring at Undead and Aberrations and Outsiders with all the fury of Sarenrae scorned. Bonus dice, Magic trait, recharging blessings—Koren turns into a multi-tool of weird-monster crushing. He’s also the spell-heaviest paladin in the deck, so that crushing is bolstered by spell and sword alike.

While we're at it, let's give Koren some more tools for that multi-tool.

Raz: "Who's a Good Griffon? You're a Good Griffon!"

Raz is already your favorite gnome paladin ever. That armored riding dog is just the cutest. And a two-foot-long lance! Adorbs!

Nah, she's gonna kick your skull in, and so's her little dog, too. Raz (short for Razzmatazz, our playtest name for her) is the ultimate mounted paladin, optimizing the deck's many cards that have the Mount trait. When she starts out, she can recharge a Mount from the top of her deck to boost her lance, and she can bury one to intercept another person's monster fight. One checkbox in, she can do the latter just by discarding a Mount.

However, she is subject to the mercy of her card draws... unless she's a Dog Rider Knight. The Dog Rider Knight just says "I would like a Mount please" and—poof!—one appears. What a faithful dog! And significantly, that role has the best flavor text Tanis ever wrote. Admit it, you want to toss aside whatever you're playing and play Raz right now.

Here's a couple of Raz's best friends. She's not just good with dogs, natch. Sometimes, you just gotta fly.

Those are our paladins du jour. In the name of all that's holy, go play them!

Mike Selinker
Adventure Card Game Designer

25 New Reasons to Attend a Convention

Monday, August 17, 2015

Every season since the Year of the Ruby Phoenix at Gen Con 2011, the we've released a new set of convention-exclusive boons that Pathfinder Society Roleplaying Guild players can win. The next year I wrote the Season 4 boons as a volunteer, making a few rewards that have reappeared over the years: Expedition Manager (what if a boon let you do real archaeology?), Treasure Map, Missing Mentor (can a standalone boon tell its own story?), and the infamous Xenophobia (what if there was a boon that ate all of your race boons?). I have no doubt that boon writing played an important part in my being hired by Paizo, so you can understand that I have a special fondness for the process.

This year Linda Zayas-Palmer joined in, and she brought some great ideas and energy to the project. We also had a great new RPG hardcover book dripping with flavor that we could incorporate into these unique rewards. Finally, now that the Pathfinder Adventure Card Guild has begun the Season of the Righteous, we have teamed up with Tanis o'Conner to create several convention rewards tailored specifically to the Adventure Card Game's organized play program.

This year that adds up to 25 new rewards: 18 RPG convention boons, 5 Adventure Card Game convention rewards, and 2 GM boons.

Wait, two GM convention boons? Yes, by popular demand, we took the much-desired Expanded Narrative boon—allowing one to "recharge" GM star replay opportunities by GMing more games—and converted it into an alternate GM boon. Now every time you GM at a convention, you can earn your choice of that or that quarter's boon that unlocks the ability to play a PC with a rare race. To kick it off, we're reintroducing aasimars as a GM boon.

Let's take a look at look at this year's Roleplaying Guild player rewards:

Illustration by Alexandur Alexandrov

1. Psychic Dilettante allows your PC to use one of the psychic skill unlocks from Pathfinder RPG Occult Adventures without being a psychic character.
2. I rather enjoyed writing Prophetic Dream, which lets your character experience a nocturnal vision that can grant her a much-needed advantage during the rest of the adventure.
3. The Soothsayer is a unique follower who can assist you on a skill check or boost your Armor Class with a dire prediction that then leaves you shaken for 1 round.
4. Aspis Slayer is the first of two anti-Aspis-Consortium boons, and it lets a ranger choose the Consortium as a favored enemy or lets anyone else perform a devastating smite against an Aspis agent.
5. Against the Consortium is the second of these, and it's what I'd categorize as an achievement boon. Foil enough Aspis schemes, and you can gain a deadly reputation that gives you an edge over any other Consortium thugs.
6. Niche Specialist appears for the second time, granting a PC his choice of a bonus during chases, an edge when fighting in darkness, or an advantage against haunts.
7. We were rather charmed by the idea that regular use of an object could imbue it with a psychic impression. To introduce this in the organized play campaign, Linda created Psychic Awakening, a boon that lets you develop a greater attachment to a favorite piece of equipment by using it regularly or incorporating it into your actions. In return, it becomes slightly easier to enchant.
8. Why should kineticists have all the fun? Elemental Blast lets any character unleash a kineticist's signature attack once—or allows a kineticist to perform a much-needed composite blast she otherwise hasn't learned.
9. Some new spells and abilities in Occult Adventures allow a character to read auras, whose colors correspond to different emotions. The Emotional Aura boon lets you channel one of these emotional auras and glow with the corresponding color to gain temporary bonuses.
10. Ley lines wind their way through the world, and Ley Line Access lets your PC tap into one to bolster spells with certain descriptors. I'm particularly proud of this one—both because of the way you can reuse it when especially close to the ley line and because of the fun opportunity I had to describe a few minor lines in the Inner Sea region.
11. Some locations have their own benevolent spirit, and the Loci Spirit Ritual boon allows a PC to contact one of these to curry its favor (and gain defensive and healing abilities). However, performing evil actions can corrupt a loci spirit, causing it to turn vengeful.
12. The Expedition Manager is back, giving a PC the ability to launch his own archaeological expedition and uncover more powerful items when spending Prestige Points.
13. One of the most common requests I've heard over the past two years is for a way to transfer a boon from one PC to another. Share the Wealth allows for exactly that, but only for boons that grant the PC the ability to select an otherwise prohibited animal companion, familiar, or other creature. You can instead use it to transfer access to an intelligent item from one PC to another. I know that some folks aren't going to like that this is a convention boon and not a universal ability, but we'd first like to see whether this mechanic works on a smaller scale before introducing a more widespread rule. Let us know what you think.
14. Hypnotic Therapy lets your character retrain a class feature at a greatly reduced cost, or she can subsidize a larger retraining project.
15. Linda and I enjoy boons that allow one of a player's PC to interact with another of his PCs, and the Pathfinder Apprentice boon allows one of your Seeker PCs to mentor a 1st-level PC and grant her an additional trait from a short list.
16. Now that there are rules for psychic magic, it's important for PCs to consider ways to defend against these abilities. Psychic Bastion grants a PC a small bonus on saving throws against mind-affecting effects, and the bonus increases if the effect is from a psychic source.
17. Not everyone joined the Pathfinder Society early in life. Some started as members of the Aspis Consortium and then thought better of that decision. The Aspis Defector boon grants your PC a reusable trick learned from her time among the Consortium.
18. It's hard to say no to a Treasure Map, which lets a PC use his downtime to search for hidden treasure rather than work a day job.

And those are just the RPG boons! As Tanis O'Connor explains, "The Adventure Card Guild rewards run the gamut from useful to awesome, with die bumps and scenario-spanning powers representing just a few of the goodies on offer." On of my favorites is the Riftwarden Response, which helps everyone fend off summoned henchment.

We're excited to see these Chronicle sheets in players' hands, and we hope you enjoy using them as much as we had fun writing them.

John Compton
Developer

Let the Voting Commence!

August 17, 2015

The Open Call is over, and now it's time for YOU to determine our Top 32! Voting will run until 11:59 PM Pacific time on August 30th, and our Top 32 (and four alternates) will be announced the next day. Voting is handled by presenting two random items side-by-side to a voter, and having the voter select which is better. Over the course of thousands of votes, we'll sort through all the entries and determine which are most popular with the voters. Every couple of days we'll cull the lowest percentage of vote-getting items so they don't keep showing up, which should both keep the voting process more interesting for voters, and give us a better field of final items.

Since we are determining our Top 32 using just the public voting this year, the kind of contest we have is very much up to the fan-base. You can use any metric you wish to determine which items get your votes, but I strongly suggest you include asking yourself "would I want to buy a product written mostly by the designer who created this item?" There's nothing wrong with personal preferences, but remember that at the end of the day, we need someone who can actually write RPG products you want! We're trusting you to find them. We hope you'll take that trust seriously.

As a more specific voting consideration, voters should keep in mind that the official template presented with the Open Call rules didn't provide the BBCode tags to have spells listed as prerequisites be italicized. Since the proper format for such items as presented in the Core Rulebooks (referenced by the Open Call rules) is to italicize spell names, voters shouldn't penalize contestants who did so. Since the formatted entry offered in the open call rules lacked this, voters also shouldn't penalize contestants who didn't italicize spell names in the prerequisites section.

While of our Open Call judges are already looking at many of the entries, their detailed comments on each item wouldn't be put up until we have determined our Top 32. It'll likely take a few days, so we ask fans and contestants to be patient when Round 1 ends. We will get feedback to all our Top 32, it just won't be immediate. Subsequent rounds will function as they have in the past, with judges' comments presented as each voting period opens.

Speaking of subsequent rounds, contestants who want to begin work on round 2 should note that the maps this year are the same scale as Paizo's Flip-Mats, a 24 x 30 square grid with a 1 square = 5 feet scale that represents an encounter area. We'll provide a grid to download before round 2 starts (hopefully later this week). Each map should use the entire grid area in a useful and interesting way, provide all the details a professional cartographer needs to create a complete, engaging, useful encounter map, and should include a compass rose (in all cases) and legend (where appropriate), even though Paizo flip-maps don't normally have either. We don't care if you draw and scan your maps, use mapping software, or draw it within illustration programs, as long as the final entry matches the dpi and scale we'll list in the official rules.

These maps should present encounter areas that makes GMs itch with ideas for interesting challenges to run their players through. In addition to the map's name, each entry may have up to 50 words of prose to help provide context for the map, though this kind of description isn't required. The maps need not be publication quality, and the judges aren't rating maps based on artistic merit. However, the maps do have to be concise, easily understood, and presenting enough details to allow a cartographer to know exactly what the end product of each map is supposed to look like.

There's no specific theme for the map this year, and while the official Round 2 rules (which will be posted prior to Round 2 officially beginning) take precedence over this blog post, we aren't planning any last-minute twists to the rules.

I want to thank everyone involved in this contest for making RPG Superstar Season 9 possible. Obviously the staff and judges are doing in a lot of work over the course of the contest, and the contestants have put their creations out in the public eye, but I want to thank the voters as well. Going over entries, considering their merits, taking the time to vote, and even getting involved on the contest messageboards is often an otherwise thankless task, but without that effort there'd be no point in having a contest. We all appreciate the time and effort our fans put into the contest every year, and we hope you'll all be thrilled by the end result.

Vote Now!

Owen K. C. Stephens
Developer and RPG Superstar Host

Around the Inn

Friday, August 14, 2015

With Gencon behind us, it’s time to get back to weekly previews of upcoming Pathfinder Battles releases! Today I spotlight three figures from November’s The Rusty Dragon Inn set.

Here we have the Kobold Devilspeaker, from page 134 of the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game: Monster Codex. That book is the gift that keeps on giving for Pathfinder Battles, since it contains so many great full-body illustrations that are perfect for miniatures. We’ve done several kobolds so far (notably in the Legends of Golarion set, but I always wanted a robed, spellcasting kobold, and the Devilspeaker makes a great addition to the hordes of kobolds already available. Best of all, the Small figure is slated at the common rarity, so you can pretty easily build up a whole coven of robed kobolds for all your nefarious GMing needs.

While it’s a little difficult to imagine a kobold being allowed in the Rusty Dragon Inn, it’s well known that the bar caters to some, shall we say, less reputable characters. The Cutpurse, from page 144 of the NPC Codex is a great example of one such lout. Use him as your rogue player character or collect a handful for a street ambush. At the common rarity, this Medium figure is great for filling out your tavern map on the off chance that a fight breaks out.

Everyone loves horses, right? The set includes this Riding Horse, perfect for tying to the hitch outside the tavern or using as a mount. We decided to go without a saddle for this guy, so he also works for a wild horse. If demand is there, perhaps we’ll see a saddled horse in a future set. We’ve already announced a Draft Horse, so this horse will have plenty of equine company in the set. The Riding Horse is a Large, uncommon figure.

That’s it for this week! Check back next week for more previews of upcoming Pathfinder Battles releases!

Erik Mona
Publisher

8th Annual Gen Con Costume Contest Voting!

Thursday, August 13th, 2015

Time to flex your voting muscles with our annual Gen Con costume contest—are you ready to look at some amazing cosplay and help pick our winners?

Gen Con 2015 is only two weeks past, but we witnessed a lot of excellent cosplay (and yes, some were shiny and chrome), but more importantly, we also collected a handful of entries for our annual costume contest! Seeing art turned into real things is always an amazing experience, and this year, some entrants got to show off their costumes with artist Wayne Reynolds (who designed all of our Pathfinder iconic characters)!

Without further ado, here are our contestants!

Torie as Amiri the Iconic Barbarian	Kaitlynn as a follower of Calistria	cronjewel08 as Damiel the Iconic Alchemist	Romulan Sith as D'Cat the Ranger
Phea as Lini the Iconic Druid	JamesShade as a Red Mantis Assassin	Absolut-Aegis as Sajan the Iconic Monk

As a voter, your job is to simply pick which one you think is best, and the first place winner will get $75 in Paizo.com store credit! Two runner ups will also be selected, and they will be rewarded with $50 each! You can vote until noon on August 21st, 2015, and we'll be announcing the winners on August 22nd!

Liz Courts
Community Manager

Special thank you to Adam Daigle, Brandon Hodge, Erik Mona, and James Sutter for photos!

Let the Rebellion Begin!

Wednesday, August 12, 2015

Kintargo's citizens have reached a breaking point under the oppressive rule of Thrune and now they're taking to the streets. In the next few weeks, subscribers will get their hands on the first volume of the Hell's Rebels Adventure Path. To help get people ready for this campaign, we've released the Hell's Rebels Player's Guide. This free download provides a wealth of hints, tips, and advice to help players make the best decisions possible for their characters. In addition to this character advice, this guide includes information about Kintargo where most of the action takes place. In addition, the Player's Guide includes full rules for how to build and maintain a rebel group, as well as a rebellion sheet to track the progress of your revolution.

Don't waste any time getting into the excitement! Download the Hell's Rebels Player's Guide now! Gather your friends and help take down Thrune!

Illustrations by Ekaterina Burmak

Adam Daigle
Developer

Arranging Notes into a Song

Tuesday, August 11, 2015

Greetings, Pathfinders! This is the first in a recurring series of blog posts written by you. We're kicking things off with homebrew scenario creator extraordinaire Ron Lundeen. After reading this, I learned that Ron and I design scenarios in a similar way, so I can vouch for this excellent advice.

Hey, all! I'm Ron Lundeen, freelance author and avid Pathfinder Adventure Card Game fan. I'm here to give you a rundown on homebrew scenario design. I've released over 80 scenarios, including the very first fan-made scenario for the game and two full homebrew Adventure Paths: Shield of Rannick, which allows you to reuse all your Rise of the Runelords cards in a whole new way, and Bloodlust Corsairs, which does the same for Skull & Shackles. You can pick up these Adventure Paths and more for free at welbybumpus.com. Now that the "establishing my bona fides" and "hawking my work" bullet points are out of the way, let's talk scenario design. I'll break this down in four steps. Along the way, let's design a new scenario!

1. Fit the Story to the Cards, Not the Cards to the Story

First, find a few cards you'd like to use together in interesting ways. This is the most exciting part of scenario design for me, and I usually do it with the cards right in front of me. You might have an awesome scenario idea about a haughty nobleman protected by an army of obstinate bureaucrats, but without cards to fit those ideas, you won't get very far (which is where the card creator at DriveThru Cards could become your friend, but we're concentrating on scenarios you can make with cards that you already own.) So start with the cards, then build a simple story.

Our Scenario: Let's use Wrath of the Righteous. The loot card Fiendsplitter from Adventure Deck 3 is a powerful weapon devoted to Torag, righteous god of the dwarves, and the villain Staunton Vhane from Adventure Deck 2 is an evil dwarf. Perhaps those two can go together: Vhane has stirred up some group to attack dwarves who follow Torag. An evil dwarf seems like just the kind of guy to lurk in a remote Canyon or Cavern, preying upon pilgrims at a Celestial Beacon. We'll plan on using those locations. Plus, this set has Blessings of Torag—perhaps we can use those somehow. We now have the nucleus of our scenario!

"Axes and dwarves" feels a little stereotypical, but we have to start somewhere.

2. Consider Where the Cards Are (or Could Be)

Certain cards are going to be required for your scenario—villains, henchmen, and locations, most likely. Those are pretty freely available for you to mix and match across adventure decks, or even across entire adventures. You don't want henchmen that are wildly more powerful than the villain (or vice versa), because the adventure will feel uneven. Building a scenario around cards other than villains, henchmen, and locations is a lot of fun, but must be done carefully. If your scenario requires other cards, consider whether they might already be in someone's deck; if so, don't use them, or set your scenario earlier than the cards would "appear" in your game.

Our Scenario: For Vhane's henchmen, let's use Deraknis. Vhane hasn't been paired with those before. I'd really like to use Blessings of Torag somehow—maybe shuffling all four of them into the Celestial Beacon to represent the pilgrims there—but those are base box blessings and therefore could be in players' decks already. So it's best not to have any special rule with those. Fiendsplitter is granted as loot in the third adventure, so we should set our scenario prior to adventure 3. Let's call it adventure 2 (which is also in line with our villains and henchmen). We'll banish Fiendsplitter at the end of the scenario; let's say the pilgrims of Torag loan it to the characters to put down Vhane.

Do they seem a little easy? We'll fix that.

3. The Scenario Designer Giveth and the Scenario Designer Taketh Away

Most scenarios have a factor that makes things easier and another that makes them harder. If you notice that a scenario has one fewer location than normal, you can bet it's going to have a rule making the scenario pretty tough (like needing to close all locations to win.) If the scenario has only one or two locations regardless of the number of players, you'd better strap in. For both easier and harder scenario rules, steal like crazy from anywhere in the game: villain powers, support card effects, and even character powers all provide good ideas for scenario-wide rules. Plus, the tricky part of including a rule—wording it clearly—has already been done for you.

Most scenarios mix locations that are beneficial and locations that are harmful. Mix those up as the number of players increases—you don't want to have only beneficial locations for smaller groups with the harmful locations showing up only for larger groups. But more importantly, choose locations that fit the theme of the story you're telling. If doing that makes the whole scenario feel a bit too easy or too hard, skew the scenario rules to compensate.

If your scenario is a one-off game that you intend as a detour from a published Adventure Path, the reward should be light: a single card draw is sensible. If you're designing an entire adventure—or even an entire Adventure Path—provide rewards at the same frequency as those provided by the published adventures.

Our Scenario: Let's have a scenario rule to make Fiendsplitter a bit better; we want to let multiple characters get a lot of use out of it. Some characters—like Alain and Radillo—can put useful cards on top of their decks, so let's create a power like that for Fiendsplitter. To ramp up the difficulty, and to keep the Torag theme, let's use a rule I swiped from the Kraken ship card from Skull & Shackles: against the villain or henchmen, characters must replace each die they roll that's larger than their Strength die with their Strength die. For locations, we already have the beneficial Celestial Beacon and the harmful Canyon and Cavern; let's include a few more locations appropriate for a pilgrim's trail through an isolated mountainous region. This is a one-off scenario where we anticipate being rewarded by holy pilgrims, so a non-Basic blessing is a reasonable reward.

That's right: I just stole from a pirate ship.

4. Shake It Until You Break It

Once you have your scenario sketched out, test it a few times with groups of different characters and different sizes. The more you deviate from the standard scenario model, the more you should test it. Pay particular attention to where you've changed how an existing rule works, so you can see whether that makes other rules function oddly or whether the change disproportionately affects some characters more than others. If you find something like that, change it or build an exception around it. Or you can just pretend that's what you intended all along!

Our Scenario: Playtesting reveals that our scenario doesn't work for large groups—there aren't enough Derakni cards in the set to populate all the locations. We need to add one more henchman. I first thought about a Grimslake, but that seemed too tough in testing, so let's use Chorussina instead. After testing with a bunch of different characters, I found that the rule about limiting some checks to your Strength die doesn't really bother Crowe, but that's okay: Torag loves Crowe. The rule also particularly handicaps low-Strength characters like Seoni and Enora, so we'll make sure that characters who spend mythic charges to swap in d20s don't have their d20s knocked down to their Strength die. Low-Strength characters can then plan to reserve mythic charges for this circumstance.

Vhane's bringing this gal to the party.

Now we've got our final scenario, The Pilgrim's Axe. Give it a try and let me know what you think in the Homebrew and House Rules section of the Pathfinder Adventure Card Game forums. Better yet, post a scenario of your own!

Cheers!

Ron Lundeen
Contributing Author

If you've got an idea for an Adventure Card Game homebrew blog you want to write, send me your pitches at pacg@paizo.com!

Tanis O'Connor
Adventure Card Game Designer

A Record Year for Organized Play

Monday, August 10, 2015

A week ago we flew back to Seattle from another great Gen Con experience. By day we managed the Paizo booth, and after the exhibit hall closed, we ascended to the Sagamore Ballroom for a special event every night. On Thursday night we presented Pathfinder Society Special #6-97: Siege of Serpents, which debuted at PaizoCon 2015 but easily shattered past attendance records in the Sagamore. This was also an opportunity to thank Mike Brock for his service to the organized play campaign, announce 11 new Campaign Service Award recipients, and recognize the many GMs who have received their fifth star in the past year.

Mike Brock announcing Campaign Service Awards and 5th stars.
Photo courtesy of Chris and Amanda Hays

On Friday night we seated even more players, reaching 1,350 participants (not even counting our admirable orange-shirt HQ volunteers who relayed tables' successes). The Pathfinders at long last activated the Sky Key during Pathfinder Society Special #7-00: The Sky Key Solution, during which they had a unique opportunity to explore a never before seen corner of Golarion lore. Partway through, publisher Erik Mona and many of our senior editorial staff stopped in on their way from the ENnies to address the room and pass out promotional miniatures.

During the event, editor-in-chief F. Wesley Schneider snapped this panoramic shot of the room.

On Saturday morning, I approached Thurston Hillman and cajoled him into running a bunch of us through Pathfinder Society Special #6-99: True Dragons of Absalom, the adventure he wrote to debut at Gen Con. That night, after Mike Brock announced four more Campaign Service Award recipients, five Paizo employees, and Tonya Woldridge (one of the lead HQ volunteers) got to play kobolds while Thurston fought back by inserting extra Easter eggs that never would have survived development. One highlight of the evening included the GM running around the table like an airplane, pretending to be a much more ferocious flying creature that demanded our obedience. Fortunately for Thurston, the only documentation of that moment is too blurry to post. Mike Brock also joined a game that involved some of the best 3D terrain we've seen!

Judy Bauer, John Compton, and Linda Zayas-Palmer scheme while Thurston Hillman (right) plans how to end their miserable kobold lives—and poaches another GM's 3D terrain.
Photo courtesy of Tonya Woldridge

There was even a special event on Sunday morning, when players got to portray conniving Aspis Consortium agents attacking a key Pathfinder Lodge in Pathfinder Society Special #6-98: Serpents Rise. Both this and True Dragons of Absalom are now available for the campaign's most devoted GMs (4- and 5-star respectively) to run, and we're adding these to those GMs' downloads soon.

A fraction of the Sagamore's many tables in action and the immense banners of our iconic characters—including all of the new iconics from Occult Adventures.
Photo courtesy of Erik Mona

Several other changes to the Sagamore Ballroom stood out this year in addition to the larger space and the greater number of special events. You may have seen that HQ operated several information desks near the ballroom's main entrances, helping to direct new players, explain what Pathfinder Society is all about, and distribute important handouts like pregenerated characters and Faction Journal Cards. Right in front of the elevated HQ platform, Miniature Building Authority generously set up a large 3D village, and we ran short demo adventures in which players portrayed goblins raiding Sandpoint and performing a variety of zany missions. I think I'll let Erik Mona's picture show you how beautiful a scene this set for goblin carnage. Finally, as in previous years, we also debuted six new quests called Phantom Phenomena, written by three great authors we learned about through the Pathfinder Society Open Call.

Thank you to everyone who made it to Indianapolis and helped make the weekend so fun!

The Pathfinder Society Team

Giantslayer Marathon: Part 5!

Sunday, August 9, 2015

I just got back into the office mid-week from crazy whirlwind of GenCon, and one of my highlights was getting to meet the Order of the Amber Die in person at the show. I first met the guys outside of the dealer hall on the day the show opened and then they sat in the front row of the Pathfinder Adventure Path Q&A panel we had on Friday. Later that day, I spent one of my breaks from the booth talking with them in a quiet environment outside of the bustle of the convention center. They shared some more stories about their Giantslayer project and we talked a bit about what they want to do for their next big endeavor. I even got a chance to game with Sterling on Saturday night! They are truly enthusiastic about the game and great ambassadors of fun.

Enough about my stories from last weekend, let's get into the meat of this thing. What follows is the fifth report from the Order of the Amber Die as they took on Pathfinder Adventure Path #95: Anvil of Fire. As always, this blog is going to contain some spoilers, so proceed with caution if that kind of thing affects you.

Order of the Amber Die is back with the fifth update on our ambitious endeavor to complete the Giantslayer Adventure Path in just 6 months.

Coming off of our enormous success in marathon 4, there was a bit of nostalgia knowing that we were entering the last third of our journey. With this in mind, we wanted to make sure and set the right mood for delving the fire giant stronghold and dormant volcano known as Ashpeak. We set up a few lava lamps around our play area and decided they would remain our only lights during the nighttime hours of this 75-hour marathon. We also tapped two additional members of our Order to play the live-NPC roles of Thoon the doppleganger and Jagrin Grath during this adventure, with one flying from Maine to NJ for the chance to fight a fire giant king.

Strong builds with our ACG classes helped us put on a display of high-level power to be etched into the annals of Pathfinder lore. Zadim delivered an incredible 316 points of damage with a full attack. Quinn put up a DC 59 perception check. Oloch tripped 4 giants with Gorum's Thorn overall, and managed to dish out 190 points of damage in one round. Crowe reached a new high with 143 points of damage in a single hit. Should we mention that we were one level underpowered for the adventure?

Highlights From our Experience With Anvil of Fire

• The giants played a sturdy defense and used better tactics than we have seen so far. Our foes set ambushes, employed hell hounds to scent through invisibility, and grouped up to try and overwhelm us. It didn't matter. We carved through more than 60 of the big folk as we pushed into the steaming caverns of Ashpeak.
• We faced our first Gargantuan foe: an extraplanar giant known as a gigas, born from the footsteps of titans. The gigas also faced our slayer, and it fell like the rest.
• We kicked so much butt in this adventure that we even had several giants cowering from Oloch's Dazzling Display and Disheartening Display combined with fear and aura of doom spells to escalate their conditions.
• Our GM gave the Amber Die a rest after throwing down 16 natural 20s with it, but we shook the house when not long afterwards he tossed a 20-20-20 for the second time in this Adventure Path.
• It's only fair to note that Pathfinder still has ways of putting the overconfident party in its place. We found out that even though we slay giants very well, we still run from dragons—especially a rookery of them.
• Thanks to author Sean K Reynolds, we got to shake hands with a fire giant queen as she offered us an ending that we never saw coming: single combat against King Tytarian and his retinue—one for one. We held a team meeting at the same time that our GM prepared his strategy, and tensions peaked when we found out that we would fight the monarch in front of a court that included some of Golarion's most infamous giants. Crowe took on the fire giant king himself, and Tytarian landed a blow that should have finished the bloodrager—were it not for his defy death bloodline ability. With only one round to down the king and secure the win, the Shoanti made it happen.

Character Deaths

• Skirkatla the graveknight queen from "Ice Tomb of the Giant Queen" made a deadly return in the beginning of this marathon. She was accompanied by her most powerful lieutenant, a unique svathurim dullahan known as the Decapitant Lord. Kurst Grath tried to slow the charge of the undead, but fell at the end of a lance powered by eight hooves.
• As the fight against Skirkatla dragged on, the graveknight cornered Zadim and swung down with a full attack that packed more than enough damage to avenge her first loss against the party.

Current Situation

The Champions of Trunau proved the stronger team time and time again in this adventure, and we are now headed into the finals of this AP. Despite the excitement, anxious thoughts of confronting Volstus the Storm Tyrant are in the back of everyone's mind. We are still under-level, but our equipment has held up well, and we are now in possession of the most powerful artifact discovered thus far: the Hammer of Thunderbolts. It's time to write some stories around it.

Best Quote From Marathon 5

Louisa (Thoon): "Do you think it would confuse the giant if I dopplegang into Crowe? I just want to dopplegang something!"

More Content

Read through the entirety of The Giantslayer Endeavor. For more pictures, campaigns, and information on the Order of the Amber Die, you can find them on Facebook and Instagram. The miniatures used are again painted by Blue Table Painting.

Stay tuned for the the conclusion of the Order of the Amber Die's Giantslayer conclusion in "Shadow of the Storm Tyrant."

Adam Daigle
Developer

One is the Loneliest Number

Saturday, August 8, 2015

We just got back from a great Gen Con where we met thousands of people interested in Pathfinder Online, and we gave out around 1,700 postcards inviting people to check out the game. We were running the Elemental Rift escalation all weekend with a giant screen showing the action to everyone while veteran players took turns fighting pesky elementals for the crowds. Overall, it was a really fun weekend—I especially loved putting real-life faces to many in-game avatars.

One question came up over and over at the con: Can you play Pathfinder Online solo? In a game billed as massively multiplayer, with territory control and settlement building as main features, is solo play even viable?

The answer is that while you really need to join a settlement for training purposes, there are many activities that you can pursue on your own that don't force you to interact with others.

Gathering raw materials is usually a solitary endeavour. Heading out into the wilderness to find some rare ingredient can be very zen-like as you move from resource node to resource node discovering what bounties the wild has to offer. Sure, harvesting in a group can provide safety from NPCs and other players, but there is something very satisfying about exploring the world and its resources without having to communicate with other gatherers.

Tenbar checks out a forest node near Pathfinder University.

Crafting is also a solitary pursuit. You can train your character in all the skills you might need to make certain items such as weapons or armor, from gathering to refining to crafting. You will want almost certainly want to buy or sell raw materials, refined goods, or finished products, but you can do that via the auction house, interacting only indirectly with buyers and sellers.

On the PVE side, it is rather easy to go out hunting solo as long as you're careful about which groups you initiate combat with. You'll eventually learn which groups you can take down with ease, which are a bit of a challenge, which you can defeat with some help and a little luck, and which will almost surely result in your demise. Part of the fun of solo combat is that you can constantly challenge yourself, testing the limits of your abilities. When you are in a group, it is never certain what part you played in the success or defeat of your group, but when you are solo, the thrill of victory or the agony of defeat is solely in your hands. But no one will be there to heal you back to health if you bite off more than you can chew, or to help you take down a particularly difficult foe.

Obviously, the territorial aspect of PFO isn't for the solo player. Running a settlement and generating the influence needed to make it viable is something that dozens of players need to do together. Even holdings and outposts need a handful of players to put up and run. But there are many other ways a solo player can contribute to a game which focuses on the interactions of many players.

Lisa Stevens
CEO

The Superstar Season Begins!

August 7, 2015

As we announced last week, RPG Superstar has come early this year! The Open Call will run until 11:59 PM Pacific time on August 16, 2015. Public voting and judging then has until the 31st of August to determine the top 32 items.

To ensure the bottom ranked items aren't showing up over and over (which both annoys champion voters and reduces the useful information we can get about how better items compare to each other), we hope to cull the bottom 10-20% of vote-getters more often. We may have to adjust the frequency based on how many entries we get and for internal scheduling, but the idea is to make sure we're constantly filtering out the least popular items. This means voter input is crucial at every step, as we refine what items are pitted against one another.

At the end of the Open Call, the top 32 remaining items become our Top 32, and the next 4 become out alternates. The remaining items in the top 100 will be presented in alphabetical order. Our Open Call judges will work on getting feedback up for our Top 32 within a few days of the reveal, since we know contestants and watchers alike enjoy seeing their commentary.

Before Round 2 begins we'll outline the full rules for the map round (short form—you'll fill in a Flip-Mat-sized grid and have 50 words to give judges and voters an idea what your map represents). From Round 2 onward the process will be much as it has been previous years, with judges giving feedback and recommendations to voters. We have an amazing line up of judges, including winner and longtime community member Neil Spicer, who is going to be judging every round this year.

So settle in, get your magic items crafted and your voting buttons limber. It's time for another season of RPG Superstar!

Owen K. C. Stephens
Developer and RPG Superstar Host

Your Honor Will Get You Dead!

Thursday, August 6, 2015

Does the thought of honorable combat sound like a good way to get killed? When the bad guys use every sneaky option in their arsenals, it only makes sense to retaliate with your own dirty tactics. Learn how to fight fire with fire (or poison... or poisonous explosives...) in Dirty Tactics Toolbox!

This 32-page Player Companion will be available later this month and contains a slew of options to ensure that your character never has to face a fair fight. For example, take a look at the Dirty Fighting feat that appears on page 14:

Dirty Fighting (Combat)

You can take advantage of a distracted foe.

Benefit: When you attempt a combat maneuver check against a foe you are flanking, you can forgo the +2 bonus on your attack roll for flanking to instead have the combat maneuver not provoke an attack of opportunity. If you have a feat or ability that allows you to attempt the combat maneuver without provoking an attack of opportunity, you can instead increase the bonus on your attack roll for flanking to +4 for the combat maneuver check.

Special: This feat counts as having Dex 13, Int 13, Combat Expertise, and Improved Unarmed Strike for the purposes of meeting the prerequisites of the various improved combat maneuver feats, as well as feats that require those improved combat maneuver feats as prerequisites.

That’s far from all the hijinks within the pages of the Dirty Tactics Toolbox! Check out some of the art below for an idea of other tricks this book has up its sleeve:

Illustrations by Vicky Yarova and Ian Perks

Amanda Hamon Kunz
Assistant Developer

You Must Don a Costume That Strikes Fear into Them...

Wednesday, August 5, 2015

Cave raptors are sated; it's time to blog!

Our newst Pathfinder Adventure Path is about to drop this month, and Hell's Rebels has two things Paizo fans love: fightin' against authority and swear words in the title! It also has daring adventure, a huge variety of encounters from roleplay and puzzles to devil-slaying and sabotage, along with a diverse cast of memorable NPCs—both helpful and vile—scads of unique magic items, and a whole new system for managing a secret society. But, we know what our readers really love: swear words.

Hell's Rebels kicks off this month with "In Hell's Bright Shadow", which takes PCs from their humble roots as loud but ineffectual rabble-rousers to leading a true rebellion against Cheliax's rule over the city-state of Kintargo and it's vile new lord-mayor, Barzillai Thrune!

And not only does Barzillai have a haircut like he hugs feral lawnmowers, not only does he dress like a recent convert to the church of self-laceration, he doesn't even like mint! In his first week in office, he issues not one but SEVEN proclamations, and sure some of them infringe on basic personal rights and freedoms, but c'mon, who doesn't like mint?!

I mean, seriously! What about him doesn't scream evil?!
Illustration by Shen Fei.

Proclamation the Seventh: The odor and flavor of mint is an abomination to the refined palate. Be not the cretin! Mint use in candies, drinks, and all manner of confections is hereby proscribed.

Who voted for this guy? I didn't! Did you? I don't even remember there being an election! Someone has got to stop this madman!

Just look at that jerk up there, lord-mayoring it over us. I'll bet that's mint wine.
Illustration by Caio Maciel Monteiro.

Kintargo used to have heroes once! But sadly, most of them inexplicably burned down just before the new lord-mayor arrived (because heroes have rotten timing and are, apparently, highly flammable). Who will save the city from the iron fist of the Thrice-Damned House of Thrune? What kind of maniacs would throw their lives away challenging a scion of Cheliax's ruling house, backed by an army of hellspawned goons (another swear word there for you; you're welcome)?! Only Kintargo's stupidest bravest souls would dare try!

Crystal Frasier
Contributing Author and Paizo Assistant Developer

Pathfinder Adventure Card Guild at Gen Con!

Tuesday, August 4, 2015

We've just recently begun to recover from an amazing, whirlwind Gen Con 2015. While we're getting back to our normal routines, we have some news to share about the fantastic show this year!

Demos of Wrath of the Righteous ran at all hours of the Exhibitor Hall were a big hit. More exact numbers will have to wait for some of our records to arrive, but we know that over a thousand people played Wrath of the Righteous with the help of a dedicated and talented cadre of PFS volunteers, along with Brian, Chad, Gaby, Keith, Mike, Tanis, and Vic.

Meanwhile, Pathfinders took over the Sagamore Ballroom for the second year in a row. The Adventure Card Guild ran over a dozen tables from morning to night, ably managed by a crew of amazing purple-, orange-, and axe-wielding volunteers. Both Season of the Shackles and Season of the Righteous were available for ACG play, alongside a sneak preview of the brand-new, yet-to-be-released Paladin, Druid, and Monk class decks!

Finally, we had one more special event for Gen Con 2015: the first-ever PACG Open Tournament! For the inaugural year, we kept the event to a manageable size (and yes, we definitely heard many requests to expand it in the future!), and ran the three rounds of demonically difficult scenarios over the four days of the convention. Combining elements of Rise of the Runelords, Skull & Shackles, Wrath of the Righteous, and the Class Decks, the Open Tournament was a blast to create and run, and many battered but victorious players declared it a delight to play. Each round allowed only a few select teams to advance, ending with a head-to-head competition against an angry, insane, watery demon lord.

Tanis: Here, I got you a present!

The excellently-named team "Don't Trust Tanis" did extremely well in the first round, but ran into some bad luck in the second round, and ended the tournament in third place. The doughty members of "Don't Trust Tanis" were Eric, Rob, Rand, and Joe. They have pledged to return next year, and to continue not trusting Tanis!

Is that TWO curses in front of Kyra?

Advancing to the finals and escaping with both their (character's) lives and a second place finish, the members of "Level 5" were: Shawn, Keegan, Aaron, and Daniel.

The runners-up: "Level 5!"

Finally, our winning team: "On the Dot", composed of Aaron, Dan, Todd, and Jesse!

The Winners: "On the Dot!"

We plan to release the ACG Open for horrified reaction and general use later this year.

That's it for us at Gen Con. Thanks again to all of the people who played the Pathfinder Adventure Card Game, the Adventure Card Guild, and especially to the wonderful Pathfinder Society volunteers!

Chad Brown, Tanis O'Connor, & Keith Richmond
Adventure Card Game Lead Developer, Designer, and Developer

There is No Certainty, Only Adventure!

Monday, August 3, 2015

Last week the Year of the Serpent kicked off at Gen Con 2015! Along with the Pathfinder Society Specials that tie into the new season, we ran tables of the latest releases: #7-01: Between the Lines, #7-02: Six Seconds to Midnight, and #7-03: The Bronze House Reprisal. These adventures have Pathfinder Society agents scouring the streets of Katapesh, on a crunch mission for rare reagents, and sending the Aspis Consortium the message that no act of aggression is going to go unnoticed. And since our Pathfinder Society team is still on the road heading back home, let's take this opportunity to show off some of characters you'll face at the start of the Year of the Serpent!

Illustrations by Marek Madej, John Derek Murphy, and Dion Harris

In addition to the new season, we ran tables of various quests and demos, including the new Pathfinder Society Quest: Phantom Phenomena. This new quest includes 6 new 1-hour adventures for 1st-level characters. And guess what? You can grab it to download right now!

And of course, adventures are exciting, but the outpouring of support and the efforts by our volunteers are what truly make Pathfinder Society successful. This weekend Mike Brock awarded a total of 15 new campaign service awards. Please join us in congratulating the recipients in either the Friday night announcement thread or Saturday night announcement thread!

Chris Lambertz
Community & Digital Content Director

Fin!

Sun, Aug 2, 2015 at 02:32 PM Pacific

And that's a wrap, folks! Thank you for another round of The Best Four Days
in Gaming!
See you next year!

Liz Courts
Community Manager

The last!

Sun, Aug 2, 2015 at 06:44 AM Pacific

The very last of Occult Adventures at Gen Con!

Liz Courts
Community Manager

Gen Con Booth Button: Sunday

Sun, Aug 2, 2015 at 06:17 AM Pacific

Saved the best for last! Sunday we of course have a goblin button!

Sara Marie
Customer Service Dire Carebear Manager

Sneaky sneak

Sat, Aug 1, 2015 at 05:38 PM Pacific

Hmmm...this goblin appears to be up to no good...

Liz Courts
Community Manager

Just Announced: The Strange Aeons Adventure Path!

Sat, Aug 1, 2015 at 12:40 PM Pacific

Coming from Paizo in summer 2016! Check out the Know Direction Podcast for more!

Chris Lambertz
Community & Digital Content Director

Okay, clearly...

Sat, Aug 1, 2015 at 12:11 PM Pacific

Clearly it's a cuddle of goblins.

Liz Courts
Community Manager

The resemblance is uncanny...

Sat, Aug 1, 2015 at 08:20 AM Pacific

Sara Marie
Customer Service Dire Carebear Manager

Gen Con Booth Button: Saturday

Sat, Aug 1, 2015 at 08:02 AM Pacific

Saturday's button is our new Iconic, Meligaster the Mesmerist!

Sara Marie
Customer Service Dire Carebear Manager

LFG: Need one publisher

Sat, Aug 1, 2015 at 07:47 AM Pacific

He said he was looking for Erik Mona. Seems like a trustworthy fellow.

Liz Courts
Community Manager

Stay on target

Sat, Aug 1, 2015 at 06:50 AM Pacific

This is that last of our Occult Adventures stock for the show, folks--come
and get it! (Subscribers, don't worry, we've got copies held back for you!)

Liz Courts
Community Manager