Illustration by Paolo Puggioini
Next month, we’ll be releasing Pathfinder Player Companion: Pathfinder Society Primer, a 32-page player-focused sourcebook specifically designed for use in the Pathfinder Society Organized Play campaign. Written by John Compton and myself, the book should provide characters of all sorts with new options to use both in the organized play environment and in society-themed home campaigns.
Among the many new rules presented in the book are a series of feats designed to accentuate the difference between Pathfinder agents commissioned from the field after proving themselves as able adventurers and those initiates who receive training at the Grand Lodge before earning their wayfinders. While none of these feats has the prerequisite of either character background, those for field commissioned Pathfinders tend to focus on luck and spontaneity, while those for trained Pathfinders benefit characters whose abilities are based on study and extensive training.
Here are two sample feats from this section of the book.
Patient Strike (Combat)
Your training under the Master of Swords has taught you that a well-timed strike is worth waiting for and that patience will serve you well in the long run.
Prerequisite: Int 13.
Benefit: You can choose to ready an attack as a full-round action instead of a standard action. When you do so, you gain a +2 bonus on your attack roll when your readied action triggers.
Normal: Readying an attack is a standard action and doesn’t grant a bonus on your attack roll.
Versatile Spontaneity
You made a good name for yourself in the Pathfinder Society in part because you knew how to prepare for the challenges before you, even if your natural magical abilities lend themselves less to preparation and more to spontaneity.
Prerequisites: Int 13 or Wis 13 (see Special), ability to spontaneously cast 2nd-level spells.
Benefit: When you regain spell slots at the start of the day, you may opt to prepare one spell you don’t know in place of a daily spell slot 1 level higher than the prepared spell’s level. To do so, you must have access to the selected spell on a scroll or in a spellbook, and the spell must be on your spell list (even if it is not one of your spells known). This process takes 10 minutes per spell level of the selected spell. You can cast the selected spell a single time, expending the spell slot as though it were a known spell being cast by you. Preparing a spell in this manner expends a scroll but not a spellbook. A spell prepared in this way is considered its actual level rather than the level of the spell slot expended. You can apply metamagic feats to the spell as normal, as long as the spell’s actual level plus the increases from metamagic feats is 1 level lower than the highest-level spell you can cast. For example, a 12th-level sorcerer with this feat, a scroll of fireball, and the Empower Spell metamagic feat could prepare an empowered fireball spell in her 6th-level spell slot.
Special: If you spontaneously cast arcane spells, you must have an Intelligence score of at least 13 to take this feat. If you spontaneously cast divine spells, you must have a Wisdom score of at least 13 to take this feat. If you have both arcane and divine spellcasting classes, you can use this feat to prepare a spell using a given class’s spell slot as long as you meet the associated ability score prerequisite.
Pathfinder Player Companion: Pathfinder Society Primer is set for a July release, so preorder your copy today to ensure that you can start using the great character options within at the start of Pathfinder Society Organized Play’s Year of the Demon, which launches at Gen Con Indy on August 15.
Mark Moreland
Developer
