Order of the Amber Die—Doomsday Dawn Playtest: Wrap Up!

Thursday, December 20th, 2018

Before letting the folks from the Order of the Amber Die get their final thoughts regarding the Playtest out there, I want to thank them for the heroic effort they made in getting this material to all of us. It was great not only hearing about the play experience and seeing the thorough data, but it was also amazing to gaze at the gorgeous pictures. So, thanks to the Order of the Amber Die! Take it away, y'all!

In the Order, as with many role-playing groups, we hold several planning sessions before beginning any major campaign or project. Of equal importance to us, however, is having at least one session of reflection following each such endeavor. These are fairly casual, with each of us taking turns going around the table discussing our favorite aspects of an Adventure Path, in-game or out-of-game problems we encountered, or even answering the usual list of discussion questions our GM has written on a dry erase board. We also like to go through the photos that didn't appear on the Paizo Blog or our social media, laughing at some of the more candid moments from a project. By the end of a good session of reflection, we've always got a list of improvements we want to make for next time. We're excited to be able to share some of those reflections here, including several fun photos of various aspects of our playtest experience.

Before reading these reflections, it might be helpful to catch up on both our experiences and data from our previous playtest blogs:

Part 1: "The Lost Star"

Part 2: "In Pale Mountain's Shadow"

Part 3: "Affair at Sombrefell Hall"

Part 4: "The Mirrored Moon"

Part 5: "The Heroes of Undarin"

Part 6: "Red Flags"

Part 7: "When the Stars Go Dark"

From character sheets to scrap paper, we saved everything.

Cumulative Playtest Data

• Total number of published adventures completed with Doomsday Dawn: 148
• Total time spent creating characters for all players in DoomsdayDawn: c. 64 hours
• Total time spent playing Doomsday Dawn: 76 hrs, 13min
• Total recorded time spent in GM preparation for Doomsday Dawn: 55 hrs, 51min
• Number of words written by GM for playtest surveys/reports/feedback: c. 17,000
• Total time spent during setup/breakdown of playtest scenarios: c. 21 hours
• Accumulated travel time by playtest participants: c. 60 hours
• Overall win/loss record throughout Doomsday Dawn: 4-3
• Total number of times a character reached 0 Resonance in Doomsday Dawn: 12
• Average number of times a character reached 0 Resonance during a scenario: 1.7
• Average number of Hero Points given to party per scenario: 38
• Average number of Hero Points used by party per scenario: 23
• Average number of Hero Points used by each character per scenario: 6
• Total number of character deaths in Doomsday Dawn: 13
• Average number of character deaths per scenario: 1.8

A rare glimpse behind the screen during part one.

Favorite Aspects of the Playtest

Adam: Resonance

Matt: Critical successes/failures for spells

Dan: Balance among character classes

Erick: Hero points

Sean: Three-action economy

GM Reactions

Here I'll provide two common points addressed in my GM open surveys.

Very early on in the playtest, resonance seemed to establish itself as one of the most significant new changes to the game. As a GM who witnessed a dozen or more full campaigns during the 3.5/3.75 era, I saw plenty of examples of the use and possible abuse of magic items and was excited from about the prospect of a solution in the new edition. With the introduction of resonance, gone are the days of buff stacks, quivers stuffed with wands of cure light wounds, or saddlebags full of my favorite culprit from version 3.5: wand of lesser vigor. Along with our custom initiative board, OAD even had our "Buff Tracker 2011," which will soon be gathering dust with some of our other defunct materials from previous editions. We know full well what it did to our campaigns to employ an overabundance of such magic, and while we still had a good time in those years, I'm eager to see how the game plays with the addition of resonance. While we still haven't seen the final version of resonance, I appreciated both the effort Paizo made to provide balance with magic usage, and the courage it took to do so.

Inside the "Map Room" of the Order's HQ, where parts 2 and 3 were drawn.

After seven scenarios of observation, the Pathfinder Playtest clearly established itself at our table as a game with a high amount of mobility compared to the previous edition. The absence of universal attacks of opportunity, coupled with the three-action economy, created a feel of fluidity in the great majority of our combats. Just as it felt like no monster or character could be cornered easily, it also seemed as if no one was truly safe in the back ranks of the marching order anymore. Even the very concept of marching order felt like a loose term, since once each character received their first three actions in a combat, everything was up in the air. The game may have seemed a bit fast at first—perhaps even scary—especially for the players whose combat routines had been established for years. As the scenarios rolled on, however, I watched them adapt and develop new tactics, eventually finding a comfortable existence within the broader confines of the playtest's combat. This being said, there were actually quite a few points throughout the playtest where battles broke the limits of the standard 24" x 30" Flip-Mat. As such, I ran some of the applicable encounters on different sizes of maps (36" x 36", 27" x 39", 30" x 40", and 40" x 60"). In the end, the larger maps all felt more comfortable and better able to accommodate the play found in the playtest, with 36" x 36" feeling near perfect, and 40" x 60" being enjoyable but far more luxury space than necessary.

Player Captain Reactions

I'll try my best to summarize what all of the players have wanted to see addressed, as well as some of my own reflections. (Matt, Player Captain)

One change that proved interesting was the new critical success/failure system. Of course, the rules for critical hits with weapons are different now, but the bigger change seemed to be critical successes and failures for spells. Prior, the wildest fluctuations in damage during a round seemed to occur from massive critical hits from x3 or x4 weapons (often power attacking to boot). Now, the greatest variability seems to come from area-of-effect spells where multiple enemies are forced to make saving throws. The variety of effects from a critical success (usually no effect) to a critical failure (usually double effect) is significant, and it made spells more interesting and unpredictable throughout the playtest.

A completely normal moment with Fumbus at the table.

All of the players enjoyed the inclusion of hero points in the new system, and we were fortunate to see the entire range of options for their use. Most common, was to see one of our players toss two tokens into the center of the table and go for a re-roll when it mattered (often a saving throw or special attack). The act by itself amplified the emotion already present at the table during an important roll. If Desna blessed the re-roll with success, there was even louder rejoicing—but if not—the groans were that much deeper. Keeping an eye on spellcasters throughout the playtest (I actually played five casters out of six), it was fun to occasionally see someone throw down all three hero points to gain an extra action, thereby casting two spells in one round. And of course, every player at one time or another had a lone hero point stashed away, pocketed to save their life. Perhaps the best part of hero points was that using one meant having to describe your actions in a heroic light, and thereby made combat more vivid and entertaining.

Challenges

We really wanted to get a head start on the playtest in August before the two-week playtest windows began, but because we needed to play everything with the most recently released errata, we couldn't be too far in front and instead had to fit everything into the scant two-week segments. There was a lot to cram into each of the many fourteen-day cycles: learn new errata, make new characters, prep a new scenario, complete GM surveys, player surveys, open surveys, compile data for the blog, select photos from the previous session, then actual play took place, and we'd repeat it all over again. For the final six weeks, our GM took to leaving his entire living room set up as our playtest studio.

From the planning stage to this final blog, our playtest experience lasted nearly six months. A lot can happen to any role-playing group in that time: two of our members began different careers, one prepared to welcome 170 new students on the morning after emerging from the Tomb of Tular Seft, while another was helping their own young children adjust to the demands of nursery school, and one of us even experienced the birth of his first child, wishing us well as he headed for a daring new adventure. Yet, the Order's commitment to each other over the years has always helped us work through life's obstacles and see our campaigns to completion, and the playtest was no different.

The Order running part two of the playtest at PAX Unplugged.

Final Thoughts and Thanks

A shout out goes to Blue Table Painting, who brought our iconic miniatures (and the kraken) to life. Another goes to the skilled team at Keltic Greene, who love to build elaborate gaming studios in their spare time. A warm thanks to Sarah McIlvaine, who sat with the Order at our high school lunch table in the 90s, and still supports us by printing everything from high quality maps to the character placards we used in the playtest. Lastly, it was both an honor and a pleasure to have the Order be among the vanguard of this new era; our deepest thanks go out to the community for their encouragement, our Patrons for their support, and the staff at Paizo for their boundless efforts to improve the game we so revere.

As we eagerly await future announcements regarding the final version of Pathfinder Second Edition, the Order is closing in on completing our 150th published adventure in 2019. 150 could likely be the highest number of published adventures ever completed and would make a nice number to retire on. Maybe we did consider it, but there are still too many dungeons and too many adventures out there not to continue onward.

And continue we shall.

Our namesake: There is only one Amber Die.

Follow Order of the Amber Die on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, or YouTube.

Adam Daigle
Managing Developer

Order of the Amber Die—Doomsday Dawn Playtest, Part 7

Saturday, December 8th, 2018

They've reached the end of Doomsday Dawn! The Order of the Amber Die is here to give a report of their experiences with the last chapter of the Playtest adventure after an exciting run through the whole thing. Did they survive or perish? Read below to find out. But! If you want to avoid spoilers, read this a bit later after you're done with the adventure.

Part six was past us, part seven of the playtest had arrived, and our record was split at 3-3. This was it: game seven of the series. The prize for winning was nothing less than the salvation of Golarion itself. We had been working with the playtest for almost six months, and the atmosphere at the session felt like the ending of some of our previous projects for the Paizo blog. Players paced, our GM was in his zone, and there was the familiar blend of anticipation, anxiety, and nostalgia.

On a windy autumn afternoon, we shared a feast for heroes with enough leftovers to keep us going until the sun came up. What we didn't know, was that our GM had purposely scheduled this scenario to be played throughout the night—the darkest part of night—the darkness between the stars. As we laid out our dice under the sheen of several black lights, the evidence we had acquired from the previous six scenarios started to become all too apparent: This chapter was almost certainly authored by James Jacobs. We were afraid to discuss it, but knew that we'd be probably be up against some kind of Lovecraftian finale that would not disappoint. To find our way through, we'd have to draw courage from our experiences in The Enigma Vaults of Thornkeep, level sixteen of The Emerald Spire, and The Strange Aeons Experiment.

The Party

This part of the playtest was designed to use the same characters as parts one and four. Initially, we had planned on using this party to discover if a lineup without major access to healing would be able thrive in the new edition. Now we would also get to see how well this non-traditional roster of iconics could hold up at very high levels. Thus far, these four had experienced both a nice win and a TPK. However, we felt good about the way they performed during the several fights involving hard-hitting enemies in part four. For playtest purposes, the same four OAD members played the exact same iconics as before. Also listed are the names of each player on the team and the year each became a member of the Order (when a player has reached 100 hours at our table).

Seoni human sorcerer 17

Bloodline: Imperial

Class Feats: Familiar, Dangerous Sorcery, Reach Spell, Steady Spellcasting, Vicious Concentration, Bloodline Heightening, Widen Spell, Effortless Concentration, Cantrip Expansion

Background: Family Friend

Played by Matt Hardin, Player Captain (2003)

Lem halfing bard 17

Muse: Lore

Class Feats: Bardic Lore, Loremaster's Recall, Cantrip Expansion, Multifarious Muse, Lingering Composition, Additional Heightening, Mental Prowess, Soothing Ballad

Background: Mind Quake Survivor

Played by Daniel Scholler (2007)

Fumbus goblin alchemist 17

Class Feats: Quick Bomber, Far Lobber, Calculated Splash, Precise Bombs, Powerful Alchemy, Expanded Splash, Uncanny Bombs, Glib Mutagen, Perfect Medicine

Key Formulas: Acid splash, alchemist's fire, elixir of life

Background: Goblin Renegade

Played by Erick Germer (2007)

Sajan human monk 17

Class Feats: Monastic Weaponry, Dragon Stance, Brawling Focus, Ki Strike, Wholeness of Body, Wall Run, Wind Step, Wind Jump, Ghost Strike, Quivering Palm

Build: strength, speed, more speed!

Background: Budding Osirionologist

Played by Sean Linville (2016)

"When the Stars Go Dark" By The Numbers

Player Tracking Sheet

• Average time spent in character creation: 152 minutes
• Number of times a character reached 0 Resonance: 3; Lem (2), Fumbus (1)
• Number of critical fails when overspending Resonance: 0
• Number of times a character ran out of spell slots: 0
• Number of times a character ran out of spell points: 2; Sajan (1), Seoni (1)
• Number of Hero Points used: 32; Lem (11), Fumbus (8), Seoni (7), Sajan (6)

GM Tracking Sheet

• Total time spent playing "When the Stars Go Dark": 14hrs, 20min
• Total time spent preparing "When the Stars Go Dark": 8hrs, 10min
• Number of sessions spent playing "When the Stars Go Dark": 4 (session increments are 4 hours)
• Total number of Hero Points given out: 48
• Number of characters reduced to 0 HP: 3; Lem (2), Fumbus (1)
• Number of characters killed: 0 (2 temporary deaths during event 1)
• Rounds elapsed in final encounter (after Ramlock appeared): 19
• Attempts made to defeat malignant theorems: 1
• Players who gained the frightened condition vs. the Ashen Man: 0
• Uses of wish: 4; desynchronization (3), meteorswarm (1)
• Number of party rests: 2

Additional Data

Seoni

• Uses of Reach Spell: 5
• Total range gained through Reach Spell: 105ft
• Average range added through Reach Spell: 21ft
• Uses of Dangerous Sorcery: 8
• Total damage dealt with Dangerous Sorcery: 96
• White Axiom boon: Cha, Dex

Lem

• Total number of hit points healed with Soothing Ballad: 250
• Total number of hit points healed with Soothe: 108
• Total number of hit points healed with vampiric exsanguination: 99
• Cantrip Damage: 31
• White Axiom boon: Int, Str

Fumbus

• Bombs thrown: 16
• Bombs hit: 8
• Total splash damage: 60
• Total persistent damage: 401
• White Axiom boon: Wis, Str

Sajan

• Uses of Flurry of Blows: 21
• Number of double-hits from Flurry of Blows: 13
• White Axiom boon: Cha, Str

Highlights From "When the Stars Go Dark"

Not long after entering the actual pages of a tome known as The Last Theroem, we were surrounded by malignant theorems that weren't out to welcome us. This became one of those rare moments when something happens on the table that looks just as scary inside the game. Not long in, were left watching helplessly as our goblin and halfling companions stood base-to-base with four gargantuan rune giant miniatures. See our data for how it ended.

We expected to visit some strange places at this point in our journey, and we definitely got one: a demiplane which consisted of a desert in eternal twilight. It was empty, until a star-spawn of Cthulhu pulled itself from a pit of infinite depth we had approached. For the first time during the playtest, the alchemist hogged the highlight reel, pouring on the persistent damage with acid splash and timely dousings of alchemist's fire to shut down its regeneration.

Jacobs provided an epic feel in this scenario from start to finish, and the size of the monsters repeatedly matched the occasion. Sajan went fist-and-claw with a gargantuan dragon, in a fight that deserved nothing less than slow-motion for its entirety. The fact that the clash took place inside of a workshop created a heck of a mess—of the dragon.

Character Deaths

We're proud to report zero permanent deaths!

Current Situation

To win, we needed to sever the connection between Aucturn and Golarion, which meant desynchronizing an artifact known as the Veinstone Pendulum. Opposing us in the finale was the aberration that the wizard Ramlock had become, fully strapped with spells like time stop and power word kill, as well as adhesive tendrils that gave a 30-foot reach. We tried to trade points equally at first, but when our foe put down 186 damage on Seoni in a single round, we knew we were going to have to take some risks in order to win. Lem made the call, and tried to use one of the four wishes we were given against the pendulum itself. When it appeared to work, we capitalized on the opening, and two more of us followed suit.

Final record? A winning one.

From left to right: Dan, Matt, Erick, Adam, Sean

Follow Order of the Amber Die on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, or YouTube.

Adam Daigle
Managing Developer

Pathfinder Society 2: Factions and Fame

Wednesday, November 28, 2018

This is our fourth installment discussing our original sticky forum threads regarding the transition of the Pathfinder Society between version 1 and 2 of the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game. In past blogs, we discussed Tiers, Level Gain, and the Roleplaying Guild Guide; Boons and Chronicle Sheets; and GM stars, Replay, and Boon Conversion. We also put up a blog about Pregenerated Characters. We're seeking your feedback on each of these topics. If you're interested in sharing your thoughts and haven't done so already, please follow the links above.

Today, I'll be talking about the final thread, Factions and Fame. Who are your allies, and how can you leverage your reputation into meaningful benefits for your character? I'll talk about fame first, since it's a bit more straightforward.

Fame

There wasn't much discussion in the sticky thread about fame, so our work on this topic is mostly based off of the lessons we've learned from Starfinder Society. By a large margin, we've heard that people prefer just about every aspect of the way Reputation and Fame work in Starfinder Society to the way Fame and Prestige work in Pathfinder Society. I'll say more on the inconsistent definition of Fame across campaigns in a moment. But for now, I'd like to break down which changes we're looking to make for Pathfinder Society as we transition to the future..

Item Access: In the current version of Pathfinder Society, character's Fame determines their access to magic items. In theory, this system could be used as a way to reward PCs who excel at their missions with better item access. In practice, the chart is irrelevant to the vast majority of PCs, who are limited only by the amount of money they have. This system requires us to print magic items on Chronicle sheets that nearly all PCs would have access to anyway. We've heard a fair amount of negative feedback about this chart, and we're not planning to use it going forward. Instead, we are looking to tie magic item access to character level. This would not necessarily use the same rules as Starfinder Society. Once the new rules are finished, we'll explore the details of this method further. Factors like the rarity system and expected item access by level need to be finalized before we can realistically make progress on this topic.

What is my Prestige good for?: Other than removing the Fame chart for item access, the other common request we've received about the fame/prestige system is to make sure there are plenty of options for spending Prestige Points, with a focus on options that are broadly available to characters without being gated behind purchasing certain books or playing certain scenarios. For this, we're looking toward a model similar to Starfinder Society, including plenty of faction-specific boons as well as some general use boons. This would also come with a loosening of the faction system so PCs could earn benefits for multiple factions, but I'll get back to that in just a minute.

Infamy: Starfinder Society has an Infamy system, in which characters who choose particularly shady solutions to the challenges in the adventure or otherwise act in less-than-upstanding ways become known for their misdeeds. In Starfinder Society, infamous characters have a harder time finding people to sell them items. If they become infamous enough and don't take steps to fix their reputation, they could even lose their position in the Starfinder Society. The Infamy system has been particularly well-received, so we are planning to implement an Infamy system. We may tie Infamy to item access in the next iteration of the Pathfinder Society as well, but like I said above, decisions on that will need to wait until all of the changes from the Playtest are in place.

Fame and Prestige, or Reputation and Fame?: One point of confusion that arises between the Pathfinder Society campaign and the Starfinder Society campaign is the meaning of Fame. In Pathfinder Society, Fame is a number that represents your character's overall standing and influence, while Prestige Points are a spendable resource. In Starfinder Society, on the other hand, Reputation represents your character's standing and influence, while Fame is a spendable resource. We've received a fair amount of feedback that this is confusing. To make it easier for players to engage with both campaigns, we're inclined to use the terms Reputation and Fame in Pathfinder Society version two, in a matter consistent with the way they are used in Starfinder Society.

Factions

Factions have gone through quite a bit of transformation since the Season 0 of the Pathfinder Society Roleplaying Guild, when five rival factions based around the interests of specific nations vied for influence within the Society. In Season 3, the number of factions doubled, adding five more factions based more on ideology than national origin. In Season 4, in an attempt to bring the number of factions to a more manageable level, the two factions with the lowest reported popularity, the Lantern Lodge and the Shadow Lodge, were retired from play. In Season 6, the national factions themselves transformed into ideological ones. While these new ideological factions were better suited to storytelling and appealed to a broader range of characters, we received feedback that the mid-campaign switch was jarring. Faction transformations can be tough, and retirements more so, particularly if you've built a character around being part of a group and suddenly find yourself needing to switch to a different cause. With that in mind, we're working to build a system from the get-go that includes enough factions to give choice without being overwhelming, and to create factions that appeal to a broad range of characters without being generic.

One Faction or Many?: As members of the Pathfinder Society chapter one, PCs choose a single faction to represent. They can change to another faction, but doing so often requires paying a significant cost. In Starfinder Society, PCs can support the interests of a single faction, or they can branch out and champion several factions. They can choose each scenario which faction they want to champion, and there is no penalty for switching. The feedback we've received strongly suggests that the Starfinder system is a big improvement, so we're planning to use it in Pathfinder Society as well. This doesn't mean we're going to create Pathfinder analogues of the existing Starfinder factions, but rather that we want to open up more options for ways to play your character.

Scrolls, Spells, and Swords: We saw a few suggestions to include the schools within the Pathfinder Society—the Scrolls, Spells, and Swords—into factions. We aren't planning to make them factions; instead, we'd like them to represent another meaningful decision you can make at character creation. For context, most agents begin their careers by training at the Grand Lodge, receiving instruction from the three deans, adopting their respective virtues, and often favoring one of the three schools by the point of Confirmation. The Scrolls value knowledge, diplomacy, and the pursuit of truth. Meanwhile, the Spells value determination, independence, and magical talent. They focus on magical studies, both those that uncover the lost secrets of the past and those that create new items, spells, and traditions. Finally, the Swords value personal fitness, martial training, and sound judgment under pressure. In the future, we're planning to make this affiliation matter. We've begun to consider several models for giving the PCs access to resources and support based on their school (or what it might mean to be a field-commissioned agent), but this is another factor that will need to wait for the final game rules to consider further.

Factions: If the Scrolls, Spells, and Swords represent how your character joined the society and grew to become a capable agent, factions represent your character's goals, motivations, and allies. The shift from a rigid system of factions that demand exclusive allegiance to a system with many choices also gives us a chance to re-examine what the factions are.

What we aren't looking to do is simply port over factions into Pathfinder Society chapter two. Some factions have largely completed their goals. Others may experience changes over the course of Season 10 or during the campaign's Interactive Finale. Rather than being bound to the list of factions we have now, we'd like to start from the perspective of creating a list of factions that are interesting to many different PCs. To that end, we brainstormed a list of character motivations that lend themselves to group action. Some of these ideas have clear parallels to existing Pathfinder Society factions, while others explore new territory. Once we've chosen which seeds to use, we can build more nuanced factions around them. Let us know what you think in this week's survey, linked at the bottom of this blog.

So this raises a natural question—what about our faction leaders? Will they end up leading some of the new factions, taking supporting roles, fading into the background, or leaving the Society entirely? There's a Season 10 scenario that addresses exactly this question for one faction leader. Beyond that, we'd like to hear what you'd like to see us do with the current leaders. When rating NPCs, be sure to rate them based on your feelings as a player, not your character's feelings. So if there's an NPC that one of your characters has a grudge with, but that you as a player would like to see stick around, rate them accordingly.

We look forward to hearing your feedback in the Pathfinder Society Factions Survey!

Linda Zayas-Palmer

Developer

Thanks

Monday, November 19, 2018

Last week we wrapped up the Actual Play streams of Doomsday Dawn from here at the Paizo offices, but that does not mean that the playtest is over! If you missed the streams you can still catch them on our YouTube channel and over on Twitch. We hope you are having as much fun with these games as we are!

As we go into this holiday week, we here on the design team want to encourage you to continue playing and reporting your results. While we are hard at work making changes to the structures and rules behind the game, you feedback is helping to inform our direction, ensuring that we are making the best version of Pathfinder we can.

So, thank you!

We know that this playtest has been one of the most stressful, challenging tests we have ever put out there. Never before have we tried such a rigorous process, designed to push the system to its limits and while we know it has been difficult, I cannot tell you how much your dedication has meant to the design team and all of us at Paizo. Your dedication in scheduling your group through playtest after playtest, whether it be chapters of Doomsday Dawn, Pathfinder Society scenarios, or homebrew adventures. Your dedication in filling out page after page of surveys to help us collect the richest data we have ever received in a playtest. And your dedication in analyzing and expressing yourselves to help make the game the best it can be. For that, we are truly thankful.

Jason Bulmahn
Director of Game Design

Order of the Amber Die—Doomsday Dawn Playtest, Part 6

Saturday, November 17, 2018

Closing in on the end of Doomsday Dawn, the guys from the Order of the Amber Die are here with their report on Part 6—"Red Flags"! Keep in mind that there are spoilers in this report, so if you haven't played through the adventure and don't want to know any secrets, come back after you're done.

As you've probably noticed from our blog reports over the years, our members enjoy the sense of competition that comes from pitting themselves against published adventures. With this in mind, one of the ways we've maintained our intensity through so many complete playthroughs and reports of each playtest scenario has been to track our team's win/loss record. Part 1: Win. Part 2: Loss. Part 3: Win. Part 4: Loss. Part 5: Loss. So, at 2–3 it was clear going into Part 6 that we needed a win if we even wanted a chance to finish out with a positive record. Two factors upped the pressure even more, and the first was the author himself. In nearly 150 published adventures completed, and despite being aware of his long involvement in the history of the game, by random chance we had never played an adventure by Stephen Radney-MacFarland. The second factor had to do with a certain name he chose for a sunken ship in this adventure: Blackguard's Revenge. Everyone in OAD fears that name, since we have quite a storied relationship with the 2005 module by the same name (described here); we had no choice but to take it as a sign that Besmara herself had a stake in part six of our playtest.

Since we were headed to what was essentially a pirate party in "Red Flags," we decided to make the session into some revelry of our own—complete with the best laughs of our playtest run. This scenario also had the largest map of the playtest, so we turned to the talents of Black Bard Studios, who brought its 10-foot scale to life by crafting a setup of the entire coastal stronghold: thirty-five square feet! Adding some nice accents were the latest pieces from Bannerless Builds and Blue Table Painting. With our seafaring personas ready, we were on our way!

The Party

This was the scenario in which we were to create a party that was heavily roleplaying focused. We added our own playtest goal of making characters who took advantage of the new archetype system to give us the feel of multiclass characters from previous editions. Each player also had to choose how their particular character served the Esoteric Order of the Palatine Eye. Also listed are the names of each player on the team who committed their time to this detailed playthrough, and the year each became a member of the Order (when a player reaches 100 hours at our table).

Raven Stormclaw human sorcerer (rogue archetype) 14

Bloodline: Imperial

Key Spells: dimension door, see invisibility, spider climb, passwall

Class Feats: Widen Spell, Conceal Spell, Rogue Dedication, Basic Trickery: Trap Finder, Reach Spell, Skill Mastery, Advanced Trickery: Light Step

Role in the Esoteric Order: Spy

Played by Matt Hardin, Player Captain (2003)

Nezam human wizard (bard & fighter archetypes) 14

School: Universalist

Class Feats: Hand of the Apprentice, Bard Dedication, Basic Muse's Whispers: Lingering Composition, Conceal Spell, Inspirational, Fighter Dedication, Opportunist, Effortless Concentration

Key Spells: illusory disguise, passwall, telepathic bond, true seeing

Role in the Esoteric Order: Archivist

Played by Daniel Scholler (2007)

Ehsan Hashen human alchemist (rogue archetype) 14

Class Feats: Alchemical Savant, Rogue Dedication, Sneak Attacker, Basic Trickery: Nimble Dodge, Enduring Alchemy, Poison Antidote , Evasiveness, Potent Poisoner

Key Formulas: silvertongue mutagen, deathcap poison, quicksilver mutagen, elixir of life

Role in the Esoteric Order: Researcher

Played by Erick Germer (2007)

Captain James Adalay human rogue (fighter archetype) 14

Rogue's Technique: Finesse Striker

Background: Sailor

Class Feats: Nimble Dodge, Fighter Dedication, Unbalancing Blow, Fighter Resiliency, Sly Striker, Trap Finder, Basic Maneuver: Sudden Charge, Twist the Knife, Instant Opening

Role in the Esoteric Order: Diplomat

Played by Sean Linville (2016)

"Red Flags" By The Numbers

Player Tracking Sheet

• Average time spent in character creation: 149 minutes
• Number of times a character reached 0 Resonance: 0
• Number of critical fails when overspending Resonance: 0
• Number of times a character ran out of spell slots: 0
• Number of times a character ran out of spell points: 0
• Number of Hero Points used: 18; 5 (Raven), 5 (Nezam), 4 (Ehsan), 4 (Captain James)

GM Tracking Sheet

• Total time spent playing "Red Flags": 10hrs, 5min
• Total time spent preparing "Red Flags": 6hrs, 40min
• Number of sessions spent playing "Red Flags": 3 (session increments are 4 hours)
• Total number of Hero Points given out: 36
• Number of characters reduced to 0 HP: 3; Nezam (2), Captain James (1)
• Number of characters killed: 1 (Nezam)
• Amount of gold spent earning influence in Plumetown: 407gp
• Number of party rests: 0

Additional Data

Raven Stormclaw

• Uses of Deception (impersonate): 3
• Successful Deception (impersonate) attempts: 2

Nezam

• Uses of Read Lips: 2
• Attacks of Opportunity: 2
• Successful Attacks of Opportunity: 1 (40 damage, interrupted spell)

Ehsan Hashen

• Poison attempts: 0
• Total uses of Stealth skill: 1
• Successful Stealth uses: 1

Captain James Adalay

• Uses of Diplomacy skill: 8
• Critical successes (Diplomacy): 4
• Successes (Diplomacy): 2
• Failures (Diplomacy): 1
• Critical Failures (Diplomacy): 1

Highlights From "Red Flags"

Adjusting to a new edition was bound to bring a couple of humorous stumbles, and this scenario had our favorite of any scenario. We were pumped to open the session strong, and after some shouts of encouragement at the table, fired off the teleport spell that would take us to the island known as the Smoker. Though we were expecting an exciting description of the place to follow, we instead saw water. Lots of water, and we were in it. The new rules for teleport meant that because it was more than 100 miles from Caliphas to the Shackles, we would arrive with a 1% margin of error. Good thing we were packing a second teleport!

The guest list for the gala included a contract devil, an evil sorcerer (the party's nemesis) and his goblin butler, along with the host of the festivities—a tengu Free Captain. Let's just say this gave a certain emphasis to the 'ole "Let's try to blend in." We've got to hand the roleplaying MVP award to Sean, and after you see how his dice aided his words, you'll also understand how he survived a diplomatic dance with the devil.

After our social skills were tested, the scenario took a twist, and we had to make our way past several high-level traps. One such trap was a series of shifting portals that appeared to forcefully thrust anyone with an incorrect guess backwards onto iron spikes. We could try to figure it out, or like high-level characters should be able to do, lean on our abilities. Three castings of passwall later, we were headed deeper into the fortress.

Character Deaths

Going up against a kraken was likely to send someone to the Boneyard. Nezam did everything he could to stay alive, but the beast ground through his hero points and crushed the wizard into data to feed our playtest.

Current Situation

Headed into the final encounter, things couldn't have been stacked any worse against a team desperate for a win. We had to face a kraken with our least combat-oriented party of the entire playtest. As its many tentacles bore down on us with a 60-foot reach, we were moments from accepting that it was all over. Then we remembered the mission goal and realized that we didn't have to beat the kraken—just get past it. Thanks to a combination of the cave's unique layout, several timely castings of dimension door, and three characters with the Quick Unlock skill feat, we pulled off one of the canniest victories in OAD history. We're 3–3 overall now, and headed into the final scenario with a chance to close out with a winning record!

Follow Order of the Amber Die on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, or YouTube.

Adam Daigle
Managing Developer

Pathfinder Society 2: GM Stars, Replay, and Boon Carryover

Wednesday, November 14, 2018

This is our third installment discussing our original sticky forum threads regarding the transition of the Pathfinder Society between version 1 and 2 of the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game. In past blogs, we discussed Tiers, Level Gain, and the Roleplaying Guild Guide and Boons & Chronicle Sheets. This week, we focus the conversations around converting PFS version 1 items, namely GM stars and boons, and what replay may look like for PFS version 1 after we launch version 2.

As each member of the Organized Play team focused on two issues, this week's blog includes discussion from myself, Lead Developer John Compton, and Developer Michael Sayre. Linda's got the week off from writing blog posts, but she'll be back in two weeks to discuss the final installment of original thread follow-up when we discuss Factions and Fame.

With the final installment of the blog in site and our refocusing of each issue to the most popular or most feasible options, we are closing down the original discussing threads. We wish to thank everyone who provided feedback, as it allowed us the opportunity to make PFS version 2 a community focused organization. While we know we cannot please everyone in all things, creating an organized play program that appeals to our community remains a top goal of the team.

Looking at today's topics. I focused on the GM stars conversion and PFS version 2 GM status indicator. Currently, the community poll regarding what to call GM status markers in PFS version 2 shows glyphs, but the poll doesn't close until December 1, so you still have time to weigh in. Submit your vote by visiting the October 3rd Organized Play blog and scrolling to the poll at the end.

GM star conversion is one area we've mostly made a decision on, as that choice isn't based on the results of the Pathfinder Playtest but entirely on player feedback, our analysis, and the ability of our technical department to support display of GM status markers. At this time, we are not planning converting GM status from PFS version 1 to version 2. We've also decided not to do a weighted model, where your first marker would be subsidized through your earned PFS version 1 GM Stars. Many factors weighed in on this decision, but in the end, we noted that the systems are substantially different, eighteen months into Starfinder we already have 4-nova GMs and carrying over discourages newer members of our community from participating.

We are currently in discussions as to how to process 5-nova GMs for Starfinder. We would like to automate some aspects of the process and are investigating with tech the feasibility of this option. We also are looking at how to make the Venture-Captain assessment more objective and standardized. In moving forward on the nova discussion, we intend that criteria to become the standard for both novas and PFS version 2 GMs achieving their 5th status marker.

Moving on from GM status, developer Michael Sayer weighs in on the matter of replay:

Replay Options

As some number of you all reading this might be aware, we've asked the community what your thoughts are on replay for the current PFS campaign and set up a thread for that discussion. There were a lot of thoughts and opinions expressed, running the gamut from not extending replay at all to opening everything up for unlimited replay.

Taking all of your feedback into account along with the prospective health of both editions of Pathfinder, we've come to the conclusion that the "no additional replay" option is not the correct path forward for the community as a whole. We believe that some additional replay options for the current Pathfinder campaign will be necessary for the health and well-being of those existing communities that rely on these play opportunities. That being said, we will not be implementing any changes to replay until mid-September to early October in 2019, and whatever replay option(s) we introduce will almost certainly be specific to the existing campaign as a means of compensating for the fact that we will no longer be producing new scenarios and will not reflect potential changes for Starfinder or the new edition of Pathfinder.

So, all that information out of the way, allow me to talk about what that really means for our GMs and players! We've come up with three new variations on our plans for expanded replay in the current PFS campaign once the new edition launches. These take elements of some of our earlier suggestions modified through your feedback and some discussions with our tech team to discover what was possible, and we'd like your input here to help us narrow down which of these options you'd most prefer as a community.

• Option 1: A modest, fixed number of replays that would renew on a seasonal basis. These replays would not be level or character locked and would give opportunities to progress new characters through old stories or seat players who have already completed an adventure so that a full table can be formed.
• Option 2: A more generous but fixed number of replays for all players and GMs. This would work much like option 1, except instead of a small pool that would refresh each season, you'd get a larger pool to spend at your discretion. However, with this option once you've used all of your replays, that's it.
• Option 3: A sliding scale, fixed number of replays based on a percentage of total games played. This option would work much like option 2, except instead of everyone getting the same number of replays, the quantity of replays offered would scale up based on the number of games you've completed. This option would likely include a weighting mechanism whereby the number of GM stars you possess add some number of additional replays, rewarding our most devoted players and GMs with additional replays. One distinct benefit we see in this option is that it will help normalize the progress of groups with a mix of new and long-time players; long-time players will have more replays since they have fewer unplayed scenarios available to pick from, and newer players should find that it's easier to get tables for the remaining scenarios they still haven't played.

Whichever of these options you help us choose will be implemented about 1-2 months after the new edition releases, and will comprise the basis for continued play in the current campaign going forward, so let us know which option you think will be best for you and your local gamers!

Speaking to people at conventions, one of the most frequent conversations revolves around PFS convention boons and what will happen to them in PFS version 2. Organized play lead developer John Compton answers that:

Any discussion of how we're handling First Edition benefits going into the Second Edition campaign has always juggled at least three common considerations: established player loyalty, new player accessibility, and ease of implementation. I explore these ideas in one of our earliest Pathfinder Society blogs about the new edition, and these have been key in our examination of how to handle First Edition boons—and when I discuss boons here, I'm primarily referring to stand-alone boons commonly referred to as "convention boons" or "race boons," acquired through special events, the regional support program, and more.

So how do boons play out when examining these three considerations? From an established player loyalty perspective, having First Edition boons grant some benefit in Second Edition is typically good because it means that up to 11 years of play (and as much as 8 years of earning these boons) translates in some way to the new campaign. That's generally a nice feeling. The several counterpoints are discouragement of new players, design load, bookkeeping, and volume.

The more advantage a long-time player has, the more it can disincentivize someone joining the campaign. We hope that Second Edition's campaign can serve as a good jumping-on point for organized play, and starting people on a largely even playing field is important to us. From a design perspective, we have to balance how much time is involved in facilitating boons from one campaign to affect the other; this is one of the reasons that creating a conversion guide for all of the boons out there isn't feasible. Creating a whole bunch of conversions for boons would also be tricky because they'd require a lot of on-the-ground bookkeeping with trade-ins or validation, likely falling on the shoulders of venture-officers. In terms of volume, we have to consider not only that some very active players might have many dozens of boons, yet other campaign veterans may only have a couple. Anything we implement would need to ensure that somebody sitting on a boon trove wouldn't completely dominate the system while also ensuring that someone who has only a few boons still feels there's some benefit to using those boons for something in Second Edition.

When we considered the intersection of modest cross-campaign boon interaction, a realistic design footprint, ease of implementation for local organizers, and managing volume, we found ourselves repurposing a somewhat familiar tool: the "prize table" mechanic. This mechanic presents each player with their own set of potential prizes, which the player can purchase with some campaign currency (such as with the Playtest Points from our Pathfinder Society playtest). With few exceptions, there's only one of each prize, so a player can't just buy the same thing over and over.

What would this look like for boons? We're currently considering a Chronicle sheet similar to the Master of Spells/Scroll/Swords sheets issued for Pathfinder Society a few years ago. We intend one Chronicle for Pathfinder Society version 2 and one for Starfinder Society. A player may use one sheet in each campaign. Each Chronicle would include 5–8 benefits—most (or all) of them limited in scope to a single encounter or scenario, some of them personal boosts, and some of them benefits that could only be used on allies. In addition, we like the idea of having several benefits that would grant a notably bigger benefit if the player spent more than one boon when activating it. To use one of the benefits, you would take an unassigned boon, mark it to show it's been expended, and check off the benefit you used on this prize table Chronicle sheet.

For example, the Second Edition benefits sheet might have one option that says "Check the box that precedes this benefit and expend a boon to gain 2 Hero Points that last until the end of the adventure. If you expend two boons when activating this benefit, grant two other players 1 Hero Point. If you expend three boons when activating this benefit, grant every other player at the table 1 Hero Point." You expend your First Edition "Share the Wealth," "Celestial Traveler," and "Expedition Manager" boons, granting everyone at your table Hero Points that could avert death or turn the tide in a tough encounter. Once you use it, this benefit would be gone.

So how does the prize table approach to boon conversion aim to tackle the issue?

• It presents the means to expend boons from one campaign on another to a limited degree—particularly in ways that provide a short-term benefit, not a permanent advantage.
• By presenting a strong initial benefit, players who have only a few boons can still get a substantial benefit. By providing some options to expend additional boons when activating a benefit, those with many boons still have an outlet that doesn't substantially increase the frequency with which they can activate these benefits.
• By including numerous options (and in some cases requirements) for these benefits to assist others at the table, these benefits can represent an experienced player's sharing their wealth with others, not excluding other players who don't have the same number of boons.
• It places tracking in the hands of the players by means of a downloadable sheet.
• Creating several such benefits sheets is a realistic project for the organized play team, in addition to the other projects we're currently handling.

We're interested to hear feedback on this plan, which we believe is a solid solution in handling the limited transfer of First Edition boons into Second Edition's campaign.

Next week, join organized play lead developer John Compton and developers Linda Zayas-Palmer, Michael Sayre, and Thurston Hillman as they preview the November Society scenario releases.

As a heads up, the Paizo offices are closed November 22nd and 23rd due to the celebration of Thanksgiving in the United States.

Until next time—Explore, Report, Cooperate!

Tonya Woldridge

Organized Play Manager

Catching Our Breath

Monday, November 12, 2018

The past three months have gone by in a blur, with new surveys, updates, and playtest releases almost every week! We know that this has been a challenging process for many groups, so we wanted to take the moment to once again offer up our thanks. You've really worked incredibly hard to give us the feedback we need to make this version of Pathfinder be the best it can be.

This week we're taking a brief pause to catch our breath. There's no new survey, no new update, and no new part of Doomsday Dawn to talk about. In fact, we're getting close to the end of the organized portion of the playtest, but that doesn't mean we're done. Far from it! Keep working on your scenarios and turning in feedback. The more data we have, the more certain we can be about the course we're taking.

As for us here in the office, we've been hard at work these past months collecting that data and using it to create a massive list of changes that we're in the process of making to the game. It's an ongoing process, with everyone's comments and feedback adding to the list nearly every day. Just the other day, we completed a huge examination of the math behind much of the game and discovered a number of issues, based on your feedback. This has been going on for a while and the results are something that we're sure that you're going to like.

Well, we don't want to tease you with spoilers too much just yet, but we can't wait to share more of the final game with all of you!

Jason Bulmahn
Director of Game Design

Join the Pathfinder Playtest designers every Friday throughout the playtest on our Twitch Channel to hear all about the process and chat directly with the team.

Shining Lights and Dark Stars

Monday, November 5, 2018

The final chapter of the Doomsday Dawn playtest adventure is here, "When the Stars Go Dark." Your heroes have spent the better part of a decade researching and struggling against the forces of Night Heralds. As the ancient countdown clocks race to their final moments, do your heroes have the courage and skill to save Golarion from a nightmarish fate?

While there's still much to be learned from the playtest, this final segment takes us up through the highest levels of play, wrapping up the "scripted" component. If you haven't completed your run through the previous parts, you still have until the end of the year to play and tell us what you think. Once you've wrapped up "When the Stars Go Dark," make sure to go to the following surveys and give us your feedback on Part 7 of Doomsday Dawn!

Player Survey | Game Master Survey | Open Survey

Gigantic Update 1.6

The final chapter of Doomsday Dawn brings with it the final planned update for the Pathfinder Playtest, Update 1.6, and it's a big one! Now, this doesn't mean it's the last time we're going to tell you about changes and updates—far from it—it just means that this is the last chance we have to make an official update and ensure that all of you can access and use the updated rules in your playtest games.

Download Rulebook Updates

Stay Classy

Update 1.6 focuses on a variety of classes, in particular addressing some of the systematic class-related topics you've shown us throughout the playtest so far. This isn't the end of the story for any of these classes, but they're the next step along the way, with some useful tweaks and additions we'd like you to test. There's a lot, so I'll give a brief overview class by class.

Alchemist

First off, we've implemented some of the alchemist changes originally seen in the Resonance Test, so the alchemist now can use infused reagents to create alchemical items for free each day. Also, many of you said that you wanted more versatility in building an alchemist who might focus on alchemical items other than bombs, so we've given the alchemist several fields of research specialization, as many players suggested. All the bomb improvement class features have been moved to the new bomber research field, and if you want to be better with mutagens, or healing items, or poisons instead, there are research fields for those, too! Your research field grants you a variety of benefits, including eventually being able to use Quick Alchemy for free on select low-level alchemical items from your specialty!

Barbarian

We've heard you say that the barbarian's rage is weirdly predictable and static, so we're trying out our most experimental change of all: after each round, you roll an increasingly harder flat check to stay in rage (don't worry, it starts at 0, so you always get at least 2 rounds of rage). Let us know whether this helps give rage the feel of a more uncontrollable and emotional event rather than a predictable ebb and flow!

Bard

Thanks to some extremely good dialogue on the forums about confusion with bardic muses and their associated feats, we've revamped the way these are constructed. Now, each muse's feats are limited to that muse, but we've added a new feat to let you keep all the flexibility you had before. Taking the Multifarious Muse feat lets you gain a 1st-level feat from a different muse than the one you started with, and qualifies you to take that muse's feats in the future. In essence, this keeps all the benefits of the old system without any of the confusion of the prerequisites; plus, it's even more flexible if more 1st-level feats come out for any of the muses later.

Cleric

There's only really one feature for one class that you've all told us time and again is too much: clerics get too many uses of channel energy. We've reduced that, but rather than leave clerics hanging, we've instituted a change to somatic components such that you can now perform them even with your hands full. This mainly benefits two-handed clerics and weapon-and-shield clerics (as well as those types of paladins), who now don't need to take feats specifically to avoid this issue.

Druid

We've increased goodberry healing as well as animal companion Armor Class opportunities (especially if you don't want to use a lot of barding). But the biggest change for druid is a major revamp of the wild order. Once again, this took a lot of data from you all; those of you who participated in forum threads about the wild order will see that many of those ideas made it into this revamp.

Fighter

Fighter is one of the classes that you've been saying is in the best shape, but that doesn't mean there aren't changes to be made. As a start of an examination on opens, we've separated stances from opens. While you can still use only one stance per round, stances are no longer opens, which means that you can stance up and follow it with an open. This change also helps monks, though they have fewer opens.

Monk

Speaking of monks, at your suggestion, we've increased the power of ki strike, but we've also opened up other avenues into gaining a ki pool. Want some huge mobility and defense rather than an offensive boost? Try Ki Rush!

Paladin

This is a biggie. The numbers are in, and you've made it clear that we should change the name of this class so that it can handle champions of deities of all alignments, and have said that you want the lawful good version to keep the name "paladin." We haven't changed the class name just yet, but I want to make it very clear to everyone who wants the "paladin" name to remain on lawful good that this is only temporary for the purpose of making the update manageable—we're not going to make you all go through your playtest books and change the name of the class every time it comes up; we'll handle that for you in the final book! The basic deal is that we've left the lawful good option—the defender—and also added the redeemer and the liberator, who swap out the last two edicts from each of their codes for some particularly neutral good and chaotic good edicts (instead of the lawful good edicts to obey authority and act honorably). Each version keeps lay on hands, but the three variants have different reactions, with the lawful good defender retaining Retributive Strike. Speaking of which, we've revamped Retributive Strike, allowing you to protect your ally within 15 feet even if you can't reach them, and we've added a 1st-level class feat to let you use Step or ranged weapons to counterattack on behalf of an ally within that range. There's a bunch more feats supporting the new paladin versions too. Lastly, everyone now gets the lay on hands upgrade that was in Hospice Knight for free, so that feat is no longer with us.

Ranger

Everyone's presented significant analysis on the pros and cons of Hunt Target toward various play styles, so we've made some changes to give you more flexibility, while also making Hunt Target less complicated at its baseline. Essentially, you choose what kind of ranger you want to be, either making a flurry of attacks at your target, making fewer but more damaging attacks against the target, or gaining advantages on a huge number of skills against the target. Also, you can use Hunt Target in exploration mode while tracking the target and have it ready ahead of time!

Rogue

You've responded extremely positively to the three choices for rogue's technique, so much so that we feel comfortable expanding them out. Now each rogue's technique has a few technique-specific feats!

Sorcerer

We've added the diabolic bloodline into the mix for all your infernal needs. Additionally, we're expanding the role of the sorcerer's 10th level feats (which currently include only the 10th-level bloodline power feat) by adding a feat that makes all your bloodline spells spontaneously heightened all the time.

Wizard

Wizard is an enigma, ranked high for power among the classes but the only spellcaster ranked as uninteresting; the other four spellcasters top the chart of most interesting, followed by alchemist, while the wizard is several classes down. We've decided to double down on the wizard's role as the consummate flexible prepared spellcaster, basically, the character who can think ahead and turn their ability to prepare and adjust for the situation into a major strength. How? Well for starters, everyone has been loving the Quick Preparation feat, to such an extent that we decided to just give it to wizards for free! Secondly, at higher levels, we're adding some preparation flexibility across your spell levels, allowing you to pull tricks like using up two of your 5th-level spell slots to prepare a 7th-level spell.

So what do you think? Let us know how these new adjustments have been playing out as you finish off Doomsday Dawn and save Golarion, or as you run any other playtest games. The playtest will still be open through the end of the year, so don't worry if you haven't been keeping pace. See you Thursday for the Twitch stream of "When the Stars Go Dark!"

Mark Seifter
Designer

Order of the Amber Die—Doomsday Dawn Playtest, Part 5

Saturday, November 3, 2018

It's time for another report from the Order of the Amber Die! This time they give us a peek at their table as they ran through Part 5 of Doomsday Dawn, "The Heroes of Undarin"! As usual with these blogs, if you haven't played or read this and don't want to see any spoilers, turn away now!

Following our interactions with authors from Part One, Part Two, Part Three, and Part Four of the playtest, the time had come to face Jason Bulmahn once again. Our GM did much to invest us in what was essentially a wave-by-wave grinder, and we learned later that this was also to prevent us from developing the notion that in this scenario our deaths were likely inevitable. We were told our start time had been adjusted to match the time of day during which the adventure began (late afternoon), and that we'd likely be going late into the night. While Adam will often employ Syrinscape, ambient tracks, or his own themed soundtracks, this time he had us rocking out to combat the entire evening with such as one of our ESPN favorites, "300 Violin Orchestra," and NIN's "The Day the World Went Away." Our love of immersion and role-playing is clear from many of our reports over the years, but you don't have to look far in the Order to find players who are also up for a dice-throwing, hand-slapping brawl that will go twelve session hours.

The Party

Going in, we were told that we'd be playing hardy characters accustomed to facing terrible enemies in the Worldwound. We actually had quite a bit of freedom with character creation and wanted to accomplish a couple of things: acquire more data on a paladin and cleric played at higher levels, and spotlight both the highest level single-classed wizard and fighter of our playtest run. Listed with the names of each player on the team is the year each became a member of the Order (when a player has reached 100 hours at our table).

Maarlill human wizard 12

School: Universalist

Key Spells:Stoneskin, fly, resistenergy, mirrorimage, electricarc

Class Feats: Eschew Materials, Reach Spell, Widen Spell, Quick Preparation, Cantrip Expansion, Makeshift Wand, Focus Conservation

Yuma Hardgaze dwarf paladin 12

Deity: Torag

Class Feats: Warded Touch, Divine Grace, Aura of Courage, Shield Warden, Fiendsbane, Oath, Shield of Reckoning, Holy Wall

Best Magic Items:+2 corrosive composite longbow, +3 dwarven waraxe, heavy steel sturdy adamantine shield, +3 half-plate, cape of the mountebank, dust of appearance, feather tokens (chest, ladder)

Hofbah half-orc fighter 12

Class Feats: Furious Focus, Power Attack, Double Shot, Triple Shot, Positioning Assault, Combat Reflexes, Brutal Finish

Skill Feats: Quick Repair, Cat Fall, Quick Jump, Steady Balance, Kip Up, Quick Climb, Rapid Mantel

Best Magic Items: +3 full plate, +3 bastard sword (with holy rune), +2 corrosive long bow

Caerwynn Bastille half-elf cleric 12

Deity: Iomedae

Domain: Zeal

Class Feats: Holy Castigation, Emblazon Symbol, Healing Hands, Align Armament, Deadly Simplicity

"The Heroes of Undarin" By The Numbers

Player Tracking Sheet

• Average time spent in character creation: 131 minutes
• Number of times a character reached 0 Resonance: 0
• Number of critical fails when overspending Resonance: 0
• Number of times a character ran out of spell slots: 0
• Number of times a character ran out of spell points: 1 (Yuma)
• Number of Hero Points used: 19; 6 (Maarlill), 5 (Yuma), 3 (Hofba), 5 (Caerwynn)

GM Tracking Sheet

• Total time spent playing "The Heroes of Undarin": 11hrs, 50min
• Total time spent preparing "The Heroes of Undarin": 6hrs, 25min
• Number of sessions spent playing "The Heroes of Undarin": 3 (session increments are 4 hours)
• Total number of Hero Points given out: 36
• Number of characters reduced to 0 HP: 10; Maarlill (4), Yuma (2), Hofba (2), Caerwynn (2)
• Number of characters killed: 4
• Wave in which the first player character reduced to 0: 2 (Maarlill)
• Wave and event in which the first player character died: wave 2, event 6 (Yuma)
• Wave and event in which the last player character died: wave 2, event 6
• Number of party rests: 0

Additional Data

Maarlill

• Uses of Reach Spell: 9
• Total range gained through Reach Spell: 215 feet
• Average range added through Reach Spell: 24 feet
• Uses of Drain Arcane Focus: 4
• Spells returned with Drain Arcane Focus: 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 6th

Yuma Hardgaze

• Uses of lay on hands: 4
• Total number of hit points healed with lay on hands: 121
• Damage prevented by adamantine shield damage reduction: 194

Hofbah

• Total number of melee attacks made: 51
• Number of hits: 34
• Total melee damage dealt: 1540
• Average damage per hit: 45

Caerwynn Bastille

• Number of channel uses: 7
• Total positive energy damage dealt: 1003
• Total hit points healed to party using all source: 1323

Highlights From "The Heroes of Undarin"

With the sun setting across a ruined temple deep in the Worldwound, we prepared to defend sacred ground from an onslaught of demons and undead. We had several situational tools at our disposal, and foremost among these was the ability to use an ancient stained glass window to bring Desna's will upon our enemies. Second was an altar that allowed each of us to use the god's blessing for one well-timed reroll of a d20. Between these and the assortment of terrain and antagonists featured, this was a true test of tactical skill in an edition we weren't very familiar with—thus an exceptional challenge we won't soon forget. What Bulmahn has created with this scenario is now a trial for all Order members to aspire to.

We're having to adjust to the new numerical norms in our favorite game, which is also part of what makes any playtest interesting. When a treachery demon tossed down a 44 initiative to open a combat jaws dropped, and we realized just how far we were from the days of the previous edition of Pathfinder. Go ahead and combine that with 29 TAC attacks against our wizard from a pack of dread wraiths, resulting in 15 misses. How about a single channel from our cleric, ripping 198 damage against four opponents?

Not only were divvying powerful items an important aspect of party construction for this scenario, it was at 12th level that potent items from the new era of Pathfinder truly began to shine. Don't take our word for it though, let the numbers above tell the story of a paladin's unbreakable shield and a fighter's holy sword.

Character Deaths

The end wasn't pretty. When the players on this team joined the Order, we heard stories from the 1980s and 90s about past members who saw their beloved characters devoured by a certain demilich during five different playthroughs of the "Tomb of Horrors." If it gives you an idea of how much our GM reveres demiliches, he chose one for his Paizo messageboards avatar—that same one from the "Tomb of Horrors." Worse yet, Adam can now add four characters from this era of the Order to his gruesome tally. At least we'll have some stories for the fire pit about our wizard's ray of frost being reflected back at him as a critical hit, another character critically failing against a maze spell, and watching our cleric's body turn to dust when the demilich trapped his soul.

Current Situation

We learned afterward that this was the scenario in which we were supposed to die. That's fine, we understand and appreciate the value of providing data from our destruction to help produce a better game. It still stings a bit though, as any TPK would. Dropping to a 2-3 performance thus far in the playtest, we're now left with no choice if we want to finish with a winning record: We'll have to run the table!

Follow Order of the Amber Die on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, or YouTube.

Adam Daigle
Managing Developer

Pathfinder Society Playtest—September Update

Thursday, September 27, 2018

We're reaching the two-month mark, and playtest results for our first three Pathfinder Playtest scenarios are rolling in. By far, we're seeing that the largest amount of feedback came in over the first two weeks of the playtest, with the two 5th-level scenarios steadily receiving survey results each week. This feedback's been really valuable in analyzing what does and doesn't work in these adventures, so please do continue to playtest and encourage everyone to let us know what they think. The surveys have been averaging about 3-5 minutes for player surveys and about 5-7 minutes for GM surveys.

We're not just here to talk about surveys, though. I'd also like to highlight a few special topics: an updated appendix format in Pathfinder Playtest #4: The Frozen Oath and our imminent re-release of Pathfinder Playtest #2: Raiders of Shrieking Peak to test out the updated resonance rules.

The Frozen Oath

As a quick reminder, this 10th-level scenario is available for download now. However, unlike the other playtest scenarios so far, this adventure does not include any pregenerated characters. It's important to either schedule time during the event for your players to create their own, or have everyone create a character before the game.

We'll have the player, GM, and open response surveys up on the site shortly.

A New Appendix

I've been going back and forth on different ideas to make the creature appendices more useful. Right now, scenarios print and custom creatures directly in the encounter, and any reprinted creatures (such as from a hardcover Bestiary) are reprinted in an appendix at the back of the adventure. On one hand, that's nice because it should cut down on the number of resources a GM needs to have on hand while running the adventure. That said, there's room for improvement, especially because this can lead to a fair amount of page flipping between the encounter description and the appendix during play.

That means experimenting with new creature stat block organization. Because scenarios are digital-only products with somewhat flexible page counts, we have a few options.

• Include all of the creature stat blocks—custom and reprinted—directly into the encounter description.
• Include none of the creature stat blocks in the encounter description. Instead place everything into the appendices.
• Include the custom stat blocks in the encounter description, and expand the appendices to include all of the stat blocks that are necessary to run the adventure.

The first option is certainly tempting because it places all of the information where a GM needs it, but in some cases that can be numerous pages of stat blocks across several subtiers. Based on some past scenarios with 3 subtiers, it's easy to start losing track of the adventure amid the many stat blocks—especially once they're interspersed with sidebars and creature illustrations. That also complicates one of the strong requests I've seen in the GM surveys: a desire to have stat blocks start and end on one page. The more those stat blocks are competing with other material, the harder it is to make them fit cleanly.

Well, the playtest is a time for experimentation! While developing "The Frozen Oath," I tried to fit in as much as I could. You'll find that the essential stat blocks for running a 4-player table appear directly in the encounters. Given this scenario doesn't have multiple subtiers, I could manage that; however, each of these stat block sections would be roughly double the length were this to be, say, a Tier 9-12 adventure. In practice, that might be too much to jam into a typical scenario's text.

I also changed how the stat block appendix looks. Rather than including all of the stat blocks in the same section and alphabetizing them, I broke down the appendix by encounter area, starting each one on a different page. Each encounter area's appendix now prints all of the stat blocks—both the ones already appearing in the adventure as well as every stat block necessary for scaling the encounter for larger groups. That way you can find all of the creature statistics all in one place, flipping pages less often or just printing off the pages you need.

Take a look, and let us know what you think.

Raiders of Resonance Peak

As the design team reviews playtest feedback, they've been busily revising systems and exploring new solutions. One of the major topics is resonance, which influences how often a PC can attune to and activate magic items. They've developed a new approach that's launching in the coming weeks, and to provide more avenues for playtesting it, the design team has created an updated version of "Pathfinder Playtest #2: Raiders of Shrieking Peak" that includes revised rules for all of the treasure you could find. In addition, they're updated the 5th-level pregenerated characters to reflect this new resonance approach and the recent playtest errata to characters' starting skills (plus some minor corrections here and there). Once this new version comes out, you'll still be able to run either version for credit, and you'll report them both in the same way. Expect to see a special survey for this new version of the adventure.

John Compton

Organized Play Lead Developer

Sending Your Heroes to the Mirrored Moon

Monday, September 24, 2018

The Pathfinder Playtest is roaring along as we move our focus to Part 4, The Mirrored Moon. This adventure sees the return of your characters from Part 1. In the years that have passed, these heroes have grown to be powerful adventurers in their own right, but the mystery that started all those years ago in Keleri's basement has yet to be solved. In Part 4, you'll rejoin them as they continue the quest in Thicketfell, in the faraway River Kingdoms.

Once you have completed your playthrough of Part 4, please remember to take the following surveys. Your data is critical in helping us make the second edition of Pathfinder be the best game it can be!

Player Survey | Game Master Survey | Open Survey

As a reminder, if you have not completed Parts 1, 2, or 3, you still have plenty of time to finish your sessions and get us your survey feedback. The more data we get, the more certain we are of how various parts of the game are performing. I should also note that as we get further into the playtest, some of the goals of each part of the adventure become a bit more extreme. You might play sessions that seem out of balance or somewhat harder than you're used to as we push the system to its limits and beyond. We've endeavored to make sure each part of Doomsday Dawn provides a fun and engaging adventure, but the goals of the test come first. We want to thank all of you for your patience and understanding as we delve deeper and deeper into the system.

All of the Changes in Update 1.3

Today also marks the release of Update 1.3, which promises to deliver a number of substantive changes to your game. Before I launch into the details, why don't you go grab a copy?

Download Rulebook Updates

So, first and foremost is a revision to the Proficiency and DCs of the game. As of today, if you're untrained in something, your bonus is now equal to your level -4! This change was made to ensure that characters who haven't specialized in a given skill or ability aren't directly competing with those who have made the choice to invest in it. We've also made significant alterations to Table 10-2, Skill DCs by Level and Difficulty. In most cases, we lowered the DC by a point or two (but sometimes by 4 or more at higher levels). We made this change so that players who focus their character choices around a task have a better chance of success and so that this chance of success grows as you do. As a result, we have included errata for all 7 parts of Doomsday Dawn, updating all of the skill DCs across the adventure to reflect this change.

Death and dying receives another revision in this update. After looking at playtest data, we saw a significant change in dying rates and play style due to the way that characters came back from being unconscious. As of this update, we have removed the slowed condition that applied to characters after they were revived, and we've replaced it with a new condition: the wounded condition. This condition doesn't penalize your checks or DCs, but if you fall unconscious again, your dying condition is increased by your wounded condition. This means that while you're not penalized directly for getting up and charging back into the fray, your chance of dying increases the more times you're knocked out in a fight.

To go along with this change, we've also added a new way to use the Medicine skill, allowing you to spend 10 minutes to bandage the wounds of up to six creatures (one of which can be you). Depending on the check, this allows you to heal a significant amount of damage to everyone under your care! The best part is, you don't have to be a cleric to use this ability and it doesn't rely on your magic resources, so you can save those for combat. We made this change so that out-of-combat healing was a bit easier to manage, which allows you to heal up between fights and rely a bit less on the classes that have access to magical healing.

Finally, there are a lot of smaller changes in this update, including revisions to a number of classes, most notably the ranger and the rogue, both of which got some much-needed versatility added to their builds. But there's one other gigantic addition I want to talk about.

Multiclass Archetypes Update

Today we're releasing playtest material for all 12 of the multiclass archetypes, along with some revisions to the existing multiclass archetypes found in the Pathfinder Playtest Rulebook. These additions expand your range of tools when building new characters. With these changes, you can now play a bard that dabbles in the strange mysteries of the monk, or a barbarian with a sorcerous lineage!

We put all of these archetypes in their own document for ease of reference.

Download Multiclass Archetypes Updates

The Future of Resonance

Since the start of the playtest, we have heard a lot of feedback on the resonance system and we have been working hard to come up with a way to make it a better part of the game. Currently, we're looking at ways to use the resonance system just for tracking the items you wear, purely as a replacement for the slot system from Pathfinder First Edition. At the same time, we're looking to add a system that allows you to focus on the magic that your character can utilize to give it a boost in power when you need to, but otherwise allowing you to use it in a simpler way in an emergency. It's a little early to go into too many details, but I will say this: under this new system, you'll always be healed when you drink a healing potion.

While our current plan for the system is still coming together, we know that a change of this size is going to be challenging for us to fully implement before the end of the playtest. But, we do have a way to ensure that you can give it a try before we're done. In the coming weeks we're going to release a special version of the Pathfinder Society Playtest Scenario Raiders of the Shrieking Peak. This adventure is played using pregenerated characters, which allows us to create a conversion to the new system without having to convert the entire game all at once. When this scenario becomes available, we'll be asking everyone to give it a try, and we'll generate a specific survey looking at the new systems to get your feedback.

Well, that's about all for this week! Let us know what you think about these changes in the comments down below. And as always, we thank each and every one of you for participating in the playtest!

Jason Bulmahn
Director of Game Design

Join the Pathfinder Playtest designers every Friday throughout the playtest on our Twitch Channel to hear all about the process and chat directly with the team.

Order of the Amber Die—Doomsday Dawn Playtest, Part 2

Saturday, September 22, 2018

The folks from the Order of the Amber Die are churning through the Pathfinder Playtest. Here is the next report from their table as they play through the second chapter of Doomsday Dawn! If you intend on playing through this adventure, maybe wait to read this part after you're done, because there are spoilers aplenty in this blog post!

After our initial experience in part one of the Playtest, we were eager to employ some of the already released errata and ride headlong into part two. Discovering a countdown clock was on our Pathfinder bucket list for a while now, so we dialed up some lighting to match the southern continent, and prepared to set out on a cross-country trek. In typical OAD fashion, we tapped a live NPC to play our animal companion, and our GM rendered another one of those maps that made us scared to even put our hands on.

The Party

To better craft a party suited to what we were allowed to know about this section of the playtest, we opted away from our standard method of playing iconics; instead, we drew upon inspiration from one of our past campaigns and created an entirely wilderness-oriented party. The party was given the same name as their predecessor, The Lost Arrows, who consisted (then and now) of four companions well accustomed to outdoor adventure. What we didn't know when we initially answered a request in Kelmarane, was that we'd have to navigate a tomb complete with traps and confined spaces. After an anxious mission briefing, we were confident we could at least beat our opponents—the Night Heralds—in a race across Katapesh to the tomb.

Nemus human druid 4

Class Feats: Wild Shape, Poison Resistance, Animal Shape

Preferred Animal Form: Bear

Druidic Order: Wild

Played by Jody Gerst (1998)

Ithilian Nightfall human barbarian 4

Totem: Fury

Weaponry: greataxe, javelins, short sword

Class Feats: Sudden Charge, Swipe, No Escape, Acute Vision

Played by Matthew Hardin (2003)

Keletheryl Ennan elven cleric 4

Deity: Erastil

Domain: Earth

Class Feats: Emblazon Symbol, Healing Hands

Played by Alex Rivera (2015)

Rayden Ridell human ranger 4

Class Feats: Animal Companion, Double Slice, Favored Aim, Twin Parry

Companion: "Rufus" the Badger

Ace in the Hole: sleep arrow

Played by Sean Linville (2016)

"In Pale Mountain's Shadow" By The Numbers

Player Tracking Sheet

• Average time spent in character creation: 176 minutes
• Number of times a character reached 0 Resonance: 4; Nemus (1), Ith (1), Keleth (1), Rayden (1)
• Number of critical fails when overspending Resonance: 0
• Number of times a character ran out of spell slots: 2; Keleth (2)
• Number of times a character ran out of spell points: 0
• Number of Hero Points used: 31; Nemus (4), Ith (10), Keleth (11), Rayden (6)

GM Tracking Sheet

• Total time spent playing "In Pale Mountain's Shadow": 14hrs, 35min
• Total time spent preparing "In Pale Mountain's Shadow": 11hrs, 30min
• Number of sessions spent playing "In Pale Mountain's Shadow": 4 (session increments are 4 hours)
• Total number of Hero Points given out: 48
• Number of characters reduced to 0 HP: 6; Nemus (3), Ith (1), Keleth (1), Rayden (1)
• Number of characters killed: 4
• Number of party rests: 6

Additional Data

Nemus

• Damage dealt with spells: 101 (x7 flaming sphere)
• Damage dealt while in bear form: 160 (9 hits)
• Damage received while in bear form: 92 (6 hits)
• Damage received while in human form: 79 (6 hits)

Ithilian Nightfall

• Uses of No Escape: 1
• Total movement granted through No Escape: 5ft
• Number of successful attacks with greataxe: 14
• Total damage dealt with greataxe: 222

Keletheryl Ennan

• Number of arrows fired from longbow: 46
• Number of shots affected by -2 volley modifier: 6
• Number of shots missed due to volley modifier: 1
• Number of two-action spells cast: 27
• Number attacks made following a 2-action spell: 18

Rayden Ridell

• Uses of Work Together ability: 1
• Total uses of Parry: 4
• Successful uses of Parry to avoid attacks: 1
• Uses of Hero Points to reroll: 3
• Successful uses of Hero Points on reroll: 2

Highlights From "In Pale Mountain's Shadow"

While traversing the slopes of Pale Mountain, we were ambushed by a classic foe—a manticore—that had everyone eager to see how the beast would perform with its new makeover. When our GM landed six out of his first eight tail spikes (including two critical hits and a nasty new ability that pinned our barbarian in place), it was already time to pull out the stops. That sleep arrow listed above? Yeah, Sean pulled it off.

Each character had their moment to shine during part two; when it came to the barbarian, the playtest rules felt right at home alongside our favorite iterations of the class over the years. Gnolls twice attempted to swarm Ithilian with their pack attack ability, but his raging damage numbers quickly turned whack-a-mole into wreck-a-gnoll.

Inside the Tomb of Tular Seft, we came across a puzzle which involved a series of elemental equations. To solve it, we felt sure we'd need a party more suited to dungeon crawling. Not so, and after drawing upon a variety of skills to produce several stellar DC 25 checks, we had the doors open and our goal close at hand.

Character Deaths

If we were to rank our TPKs across 147 adventures, PC party vs. NPC party would easily hold the record for the deadliest conflicts out there. Logan Bonner, well played. We owe you one.

Current Situation

From the outset of the final encounter, it was clear that The Lost Arrows and the Night Heralds had entered into a fierce skirmish from which only one party would survive.

Our ranger went down as fast as his animal companion, followed by the barbarian. Nemus, the druid, tried to buy enough time for Keleth to whisk the countdown clock to safety. Using a combination of elven ancestry, Nimble, and Fleet, the elf performed his best version of the 4x40 and tried to outrun the only enemies capable of pursuit. The Night Herald's scout pursued him out onto the ledge and into Pale Mountain's shadow, stopping to let off shots that only created distance with each miss. Just a few yards from maximum range, our GM knew the only way to deliver a hit would be a natural 20. He reached for the Amber Die itself. It did what it's done for decades, and we could only offer reverence.

Follow Order of the Amber Die on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, or YouTube.

Adam Daigle
Managing Developer

Ancestry and Class Surveys

Monday, September 17, 2018

Creating a playtest process for a game as complicated as Pathfinder has been a challenge unto itself. While we knew that we needed robust play data from all of you, which took the form of Doomsday Dawn, we also wanted to grab wider-ranging feedback based on not only your experience at the table, but also your time spent reading the book, building characters, and dreaming up new adventures.

So, today we're launching the first of our Game Feedback Surveys, starting with the Ancestry and Backgrounds Survey and the truly massive Class Survey. But before you go rushing off to take these surveys, there are a few things you should know.

First off, you should note that you can take each of these surveys only once, though you can choose to leave a survey and come back to complete it later (until we close the surveys at the end of the playtest). This might be useful for the Class Survey in particular, which is quite lengthy and could be difficult to finish in one sitting, and which is also divided into sections for each class.

Second, you don't have to answer every question in these surveys. The Class Survey asks you if you want to give feedback on a class before displaying those questions, allowing you to skip classes entirely if you find that you don't have any feedback on their theme or mechanics. You can also skip questions that you find aren't relevant to your experience (although we've tried to provide response options for you to clarify this as well).

Finally, while you don't have to answer every question, it's still important that you go all the way to the end of the survey, as there are several important questions that come later on.

So, if you think you're ready, go on over and take these surveys using the following links! We're looking forward to hearing what you think!

Ancestry & Backgrounds Survey | Classes Survey

If you have more open ended comments or feedback, you can take these surveys to give us more detailed commentary on the rules.

Open Response Ancestry and Background Survey | Open Response Class Survey

Tune back in here in the coming weeks as we add even more surveys to the mix, which will ask about your view on various game mechanics and monster design!

A Note on Playtests

Just to recap some of what we talked about on the Paizo Twitch stream on Friday, I wanted to take a moment to talk about the playtest as a process. Some of you have begun to notice that the Doomsday Dawn adventure feels a bit different that the adventures you're used to seeing. This is intentional—each part of Doomsday Dawn is specifically designed to stress test one or more facets of the game. This means you might see encounters with the same theme repeated multiple times at various challenge levels, or that every encounter in one part of the adventure might share a common element. It might also mean that some of the fights are beyond challenging.

Making the best version of Pathfinder that we can means finding where the current system breaks. In some cases, we need you to do that, so that we can figure out where the line actually is. But it's equally important to the data collection process that playtesters not know what those goals actually are until the test is over, since to do so any other way would bias the results.

The design team offers our sincerest thanks to everyone for helping us with this rigorous process. We promise to pay for resurrections and therapy for your poor PCs when this is all over.

Jason Bulmahn
Director of Game Design

Join the Pathfinder Playtest designers every Friday throughout the playtest on our Twitch Channel to hear all about the process and chat directly with the team.

On the Road to Sombrefell Hall!

Monday, September 10, 2018

As of today, we turn our focus to Part 3 of Doomsday Dawn, "Affair at Sombrefell Hall," written by one of the many talented developers of the new edition of Pathfinder, Amanda Hamon Kunz. If you've already played Part 3 of Doomsday Dawn, you can find the surveys at the following links:

Player Survey | Game Master Survey | Open Survey

Before we move on, we'd like to look back at what we've learned from the first two parts of the adventure and talk about some additional changes we're making to the game based on your comments and feedback.

But first, a few important notes.

First off, you can still turn in survey results for Parts 1 and 2 of the adventure. Although we're moving on, your responses will still be counted and help us make further decisions about the game.

Second, I want to take a moment to stress that the various parts of Doomsday Dawn are meant to be tests that look at various parts of the game engine. This goal was more important to us, in some places, than creating a balanced play experience. This will make certain parts of the adventure a little challenging to run at times, but we hope you'll bear with us. We've tried to ensure you'll have a good time with the adventure, but the test goals have to come first. Thanks for understanding.

Finally, the rest of this blog may contain spoilers for Parts 1 and 2, so if you have not finished those chapters, you might want to go back and do that first.

Deconstructing Part 2: In Pale Mountain's Shadow

In case you missed the Twitch stream on Friday, Designer Logan Bonner sat down with Dan Tharp to talk through some of the things we've learned so far from the survey results from Part 2 of Doomsday Dawn. Here are a few of the highlights, along with a thing or two we might have missed.

As the first part of Doomsday Dawn to be set above level 1, Part 2 was our first chance to ask about archetypes. 15% of you took an archetype, and of those, most were arcane spellcasters picking up the fighter archetype.

This is also the first part of the adventure where characters start play with magic items. 62% of you chose magic armor as your 3rd-level item, but over 10% took a lower-level item or a consumable item instead. We might look into making changes in how you can select items in the future to accommodate players who want more flexibility.

It took players, on average, almost 10 minutes less to make their 4th-level characters that it did to make their 1st-level characters, which is great news.

Resonance continues to be a topic of discussion amongst players, and our surveys are just starting to give us a picture of how it is working in play. Only about 1 out of every 4 players ran out of resonance once during Part 2, and only 1 out of every 10 players failed their check when overspending resonance and became cut off during Part 2 (usually alchemists). Now, the important thing to note here is that this is not really showing us how resonance is being used, merely that players aren't running out very often, so be on the lookout for survey questions in upcoming parts that will delve a little deeper into exactly how you're using resonance at your table.

Finally, this part of the adventure was designed to test the game in situations with complex environmental and tactical challenges. Our results showed that players viewed these fights as a significantly greater challenge than the raw monster numbers—not counting the environmental advantages—would indicate. Players also rated the fights in this part as significantly longer and not quite as fun. Some of this was expected, but when we look at these results by class, things become really interesting, showing us which classes had the most difficulty with Part 2. Barbarians, monks, and paladins, for example, seemed to have a bit of trouble with the manticore fight, since they tend to lack ranged options. This shows us that there are adjustments to be made with these classes to ensure they have some way to contribute.

New Updates

With the start of a new part of Doomsday Dawn, we also have a number of changes to the game that we want to bring to your attention. All of these can be found in the download below (which includes all of the previous changes in one handy document). Here are a few of the highlights:

First up, we're changing the anathema for the animal totem barbarian to allow you to use whatever weapon you want while outside of rage. When transformed with fury, though, you still need to use those special animal unarmed attacks. Look for a few more barbarian updates as well.

Next, we're adding a longer range to soothe, the occult healing spell, allowing you to use it on targets up to 30 feet away. There's a bard update, as well; they now have a feat to gain access to 10th-level occult spells.

Finally—and this is the big change for the week—we're removing the concept of signature skills from the game. Now anyone can advance any skill up to any proficiency rank they want (assuming their level is high enough for them to do so). In addition, a number of classes are having their total number of starting skill choices increased to at least three, with each also getting one or more automatic skills, to represent basic class training.

This change also precipitates the need for a NEW CHARACTER SHEET! On top of removing signature skills from the game, we are also taking this opportunity to clean up a number of issues with the character sheet to make it a bit more intuitive and easy to use.

Download Character Sheet

As always, none of these changes are final, but instead more steps toward the best version of Pathfinder we can make. Thank you for all of your feedback and assistance so far. We're looking forward to learning more from you in the coming months.

Jason Bulmahn
Director of Game Design

Join the Pathfinder Playtest designers every Friday throughout the playtest on our Twitch Channel to hear all about the process and chat directly with the team.

Positives and Negatives

Friday, September 6, 2018

Over the past few weeks, I've been spending some time talking to folks on the unofficial 2nd Ed Pathfinder Playtest group on Facebook. Mostly I've been listening to people's thoughts and anecdotes about the playtest, but I've also been answering a few rules questions and conversing about various subjects. Something that's come up a couple of times in that group and in other forums is how we, the folks at Paizo and especially the design team, respond to criticism.

We are no stranger to playtests. Each time we launch a playtest, we get a pile of feedback, both positive and negative. Both are important. Of course, we all love hearing what you like, and in a perfect world we would bask in the glory of your adoration... but we only create worlds of fantasy, we don't live in one. We playtest to hear what you think about the rules and to get your take on what is sound, exciting, and fun. Sometimes you might not care for our initial design. Sometimes you'll spot problems with the initial design. We want you to tell us. No, we need you to tell us. We're making this game not for ourselves, but for all of us to play!

Case in point—let's talk about Resonance Points.

Yeah, that's right. I'm going there.

Let's talk about exactly what design challenges Resonance Points were designed to solve, as that seems to be a point of some confusion.

First, they're meant to address the economy of lower-level consumable magic items as you level up. This is colloquially referred to as the wand of cure light wounds issue in Pathfinder First Edition, but it's more systemic than that. In short, as you go up in level and your ability to purchase and craft (or find) lower-level consumable magic items increases, they actually become the most economical use of resources. When you are limited only by what you have on hand, the amount of bang per buck makes higher-level magic items nearly pointless.

This problem and the Pathfinder First Edition method of item pricing also played havoc with lower-level items with limited uses per day. Designers, by nature, want you to use the items they created in actual play. But adventure designers are often under budgetary constraints to make not the best item for the story, but the one that does the trick while still conforming to the amount of treasure output in the design guides. These factors often created a race to the bottom, design-wise, spawning tons of these little X-per-day buggers that characters could afford, featuring relatively powerful (and always useful) effects that often became more useful as you gained levels. All of this creates a sort of mini-nova during climactic encounters, as characters spend a handful of swift and immediate actions ramping up to their optimal tactics. This is especially true for classes in the Pathfinder RPG Core Rulebook, since they typically have fewer class-based options competing for the use of swift and immediate actions.

Another problem Resonance Points are trying to address is what is often called the "Christmas Tree" effect of games that impose limits based solely on magic item slots. This goes hand in hand with the cheap consumable (or X-uses-per-day items), as many players rush to fill their slots with items featuring charges or uses per day. While slots still exist in the Pathfinder Playtest, they are the exception rather than the rule, and their primary goal is simply reducing redundancies (like wearing two pairs of boots at the same time and similar nonsense).

Lastly, the Resonance Point system is intended to eliminate or at least severely limit the bookkeeping involved in those X-uses-per-day and X-rounds-per-day items. Instead of tracking a bunch of little point pools, Resonance Points can do the job in most, if not all, cases, with the rest limited to once per day. Admittedly, this aspect was not as thoroughly implemented as it could have been in the playtest rules.

Those are the main issues that the Resonance Point system is trying to confront. Are there problems with the current implementation? You bet. The most glaring one is that it's currently not doing a good job of reducing the number of magic item use-per-day pools at higher levels. We're going to need to pound the system into shape a little more to achieve that goal.

A big issue is that a lot of folks just plain don't like Resonance Points. There are many reasons for that. It's new and different from what people are used to. Other folks don't see the challenges this system is trying to tackle, or they don't see them as problematic. More telling is that even many who do understand the issues have some misgivings, feel that this solution is too artificial, or see it as just plain punitive. We anticipated that. But even with all of the issues, we knew that the current design of Resonance Points would give us valuable information about play patterns and consumable use throughout the playtest, and it has done that in spades already and continues to do so.

Better still, it has given us valuable information on how to solve the issues that the Resonance Point system confronts in a better and more pleasing way for the final game. In short, your use of the current incarnation of Resonance Points throughout the playtest helps us come up with better mechanics to use in Pathfinder Second Edition. You've done a great job in providing us that information already, and as we move into higher-level play, that useful data will become more abundant.

So, in the case of Resonance Points, positivity of play and critical comments have guided us in the right direction. We already have a few options on how to either fix or replace the mechanic, and we are going to keep on kicking ideas around as the playtest data keeps flowing in. So keep on filling out those surveys and sharing your opinions. Getting your thoughts on the game and how it plays, no matter how you express them, is what the Pathfinder Playtest is all about.

Stephen Radney-MacFarland
Senior Designer

Ongoing Changes

Tuesday, September 4, 2018

The playtest of the new version of Pathfinder is well underway, and with it comes a variety of changes to the game and how it works. There are a number of parts of the game that we're looking at for revision, but we want to get a bit more data in on them first. Signature skills, ancestry benefits, and multiclassing archetypes are all under review, and some of these systems might need additional testing before the playtest process is over. As we get closer, we'll let you know what changes you can expect to see.

While we're on the topic, it's important to note that there will be other parts of the game we'll be changing between now and the final version, but that some of these parts aren't really very practical for us to test. Take the introduction to the book, for example. From all your early feedback, we've realized a number of ways in which this chapter could be improved, from including more examples to reorganizing some of the information to help folks learning the game. The team is already hard at work figuring out a better structure for the chapter and we feel that when you get the final version, the results of your feedback will really show.

While I have your attention, there's a matter of presentation that we're contemplating changing, but we want your thoughts before we do. It has to do with saving throws. Currently, there are a lot of spells and effects in the game that look something like this.

Fireball Spell 3

Evocation, Fire

Casting [[A]] Somatic Casting, [[A]] Verbal Casting

Range 500 feet; Area 20-foot burst

---

A burst of fire explodes, dealing 6d6 fire damage; creatures in the area must attempt a Reflex save.

Success The creature takes half damage.

Critical Success The creature is unaffected.

Failure The creature takes full damage.

Critical Failure The creature takes double damage.

Heightened (+1) The damage increases by 2d6.

The degrees of success for the saving throw are pretty common throughout the spells chapter. In fact, they're so common that we thought it might make sense to simplify the process a bit. So, if a spell or effect is one where you take half damage on a success, take no damage on a critical success, take full damage on a failure, and take double on a critical failure, we're contemplating calling that a basic saving throw. Using this sort of scheme, fireball might look like this.

Fireball Spell 3

Evocation, Fire

Casting [[A]] Somatic Casting, [[A]] Verbal Casting

Range 500 feet; Area 20-foot burst

---

A burst of fire explodes, dealing 6d6 fire damage to creatures in the area, depending on their basic Reflex saves.

Heightened (+1) The damage increases by 2d6.

That version is a lot cleaner and it takes up quite a bit less space, but this would be another term that players and GMs would need to learn. What do you think of this kind of approach? Let us know in the comments below whether or not basic saves are a thing you want to see in Pathfinder.

Jason Bulmahn
Director of Game Design

Join the Pathfinder Playtest designers every Friday throughout the playtest on our Twitch Channel to hear all about the process and chat directly with the team.

A New Part Dawns!

Tuesday, August 28, 2018

Time flies when you're playtesting a new version of Pathfinder. It's been over three weeks since we got underway by encouraging everyone to play Part 1 of Doomsday Dawn. And play you did! The outpouring of survey responses from those who completed "The Lost Star" (Part 1) has truly been overwhelming. We've learned a lot about the game, but there's still so much to explore! That is why, today, we're moving our focus to Part 2 of Doomsday Dawn, titled "In Pale Mountain's Shadow."

Before we move on, I want to stress that while we're shifting focus to Part 2, it's still not too late for you to contribute to the surveys for Part 1 (which you can find links to at pathfinderplaytest.com). We'll be keeping those surveys open until the end of the year, and the results will be checked regularly as we continue to analyze the data.

In Pale Mountain's Shadow

Starting today, we want to encourage everyone to play Part 2 of Doomsday Dawn. Your GM will have all the details you need to create characters for this adventure. You heard me correctly—you'll need to make new characters for this part of the adventure. Don't throw away those sheets from Part 1 just yet, though; we might revisit characters throughout this process.

Once you've played through the adventure, we once again have surveys for you to fill out to give us a sense of what everyone is playing and how the game is performing in this new adventure. You can find the surveys at the links below:

Player Survey
GM Survey
Open Response Survey

Please note that just like last time, these surveys are ONLY for participants who have completed Part 2 of Doomsday Dawn. Also, please ensure that you complete all four pages of the Player Survey or GM Survey, since if you don't complete the survey, it'll end up not being counted.

Updates to Death and Dying

Before you begin your playthrough, we highly encourage you to grab the newest version of the Pathfinder Playtest Update document. Inside you'll find a host of changes to the game, as well as a revision to the Death and Dying rules, which we made based on feedback from the first round of the playtest. Make sure to incorporate these changes before you play your next game so you're playtesting the latest version of the system.

Results from The Lost Star

In case you missed it, we ran a stream on the Paizo Twitch channel on Friday, called Doomsday Dawn Deconstructed, in which we explored some of the survey results from Part 1 of Doomsday Dawn. Here are just a few of the highlights from the surveys (mild spoilers ahead).

• Ancestry: Of the characters made for Part 1, humans were the most common (around 25%), followed by elves and goblins (around 15%) and dwarves (around 12%). The other ancestries were around 6-8% each.
• Class: Cleric, fighter, and rogue were the most common choice for class (around 12% each). Most others fell between 6-9%.
• Dying: Around 6% of characters were killed in Part 1 of Doomsday Dawn, with clerics dying the most often (probably due to no one being able to heal the group's only healer).
• Trivia: 3 characters elected to venerate Asmodeus. 34 decided to drink from the polluted fountain. Fewer than 1 in 8 alchemists completely expended their ability to use Resonance Points during the adventure. Monks had the most coin left over after creation, at 64 sp.

There's so much more for us to learn from this playtest, and we're truly grateful to all of you that have taken the time to play our game and give us your feedback. We're looking forward to seeing more as we get underway with Part 2. Good luck at your next game!

Jason Bulmahn
Director of Game Design

Join the Pathfinder Playtest designers every Friday throughout the playtest on our Twitch Channel to hear all about the process and chat directly with the team.

Order of the Amber Die—Doomsday Dawn Playtest, Part 1

Saturday, July 25, 2018

You've heard their tales of marathon Adventure Path sessions, now the folks from the Order of the Amber Die are eagerly leaping into the Pathfinder Playtest. Below is the first report from their table as they play through the first portion of Doomsday Dawn! Beware spoilers if you intend on playing through this adventure!

The Order has a storied past with edition changes, as we began playing first edition AD&D in our GM's basement in 1987. Over the years, we switched to 2.0, then 3.0, next to 3.5, skipped 4th and went to 3.75—and yet now we stare at another phase of the game's evolution. For eighteen years, we've essentially played some iteration of 3.0—our longest stint in any edition. After so many years, it is an honor to be able to present our data from the dawn of a new era!

We've found that one of the best ways for a group to make the shift to a new edition is simply as a group. The players held several get-togethers and also used a live document to guide each other through some of this edition's most radical changes. To physically represent the new feature of Hero Points, one of our members cut tokens from aircraft aluminum in the likeness of the Amber Die. Another member created dozens of condition cards—a set for everyone. To celebrate the debut of Pathfinder's new goblin iconic, we reached out to Aradani Studios for the first set of goblin ears ever to appear at our table. Lastly, Fumbus had to have a miniature to match the rest of the iconics, and the artists at Blue Table Painting made sure that a goblin would show proudly among the veteran iconic miniatures around him!

The Party

Our roster throughout the playtest will adjust slightly for each part, consisting of OAD veterans from previous Paizo blog projects such as The Giantslayer Endeavor, The Strange Aeons Experiment, and The Azlant Odyssey. Also listed is the year they became a member of the Order (when a player has reached 100 hours at our table). While Resonance was tough on us without a cleric, this party set out to prove that even a non-traditional lineup without major access to healing could thrive in the new edition.

Seoni, human sorcerer

Bloodline: Imperial

Feats: Hobnobber, Toughness

Background: Family Friend

Played by Matt Hardin (2003)

Lem, halfing bard

Muse: Lore

Feats: Bardic Lore, Dubious Knowledge, Unfettered Knowledge

Background: Mind Quake Survivor

Played by Daniel Scholler (2007)

Fumbus, goblin alchemist

Feats: Quick Bomber, Burn It, Quick Repair

Formulas: Alchemist's fire, acid splash, antidote, elixir of life

Background: Goblin Renegade

Played by Erick Germer (2007)

Sajan, human monk

Feats: Toughness, Monastic Weaponry

Build: strength, flurry of blows, shurikens

Background: Budding Osirionologist

Played by Sean Linville (2016)

The Lost Star By The Numbers

Player Tracking Sheet

• Average time spent in character creation: 144 minutes
• Number of times a character was reduced to 0 HP: Fumbus (1), Sajan (2)
• Number of times a character reached 0 Resonance: Fumbus (1), Sajan (1)
• Number of critical fails when overspending Resonance: Fumbus (1)
• Number of times a character ran out of spell slots: Lem (1)
• Number of times a character ran out of spell points: 0
• Number of Hero Points used: Fumbus (0), Lem (2), Sajan (3), Seoni (3)

GM Tracking Sheet

• Total time spent playing The Lost Star: 6hrs, 43min
• Total time spent preparing The Lost Star: 7hrs, 36min
• Number of sessions spent playing The Lost Star: 2 (session increments are 4 hours)
• Total number of Hero Points given out: 24
• Number of characters reduced to 0 HP: 3
• Number of characters killed: 0

Additional Data

Fumbus

• Bombs thrown: 6 of 7
• Persistent damage total: 10

Lem

• Composition uses: 8
• Cantrip damage (telekinetic projectile and chill touch): 28

Sajan

• Uses of 3rd attack in a single round: 2
• Successes of 3rd attack in a single round: 0

Seoni

• Enemies' saving throws vs. spells: 9
• Enemies' critical failure vs. spells: 1
• Enemies' critical success vs. spells: 0

Hero Point Usage

• 3: Moved, then full-casted magicmissile (Seoni)
• 3: Extra attack (Sajan, missed)
• 2: Rerolled attack (Lem, successful)

Resting and Encounters

• Number of rests: 0
• Number of encounters (traps/hazards included): 6

Highlights From The Lost Star

Not long after entering the Ashen Ossuary in search of a family heirloom, we got into a sprawling melee with goblins in the dark. What we used to call the tedious "five-foot shuffle," now became the highly mobile "goblin scuttle," and they ran circles around us. Our GM used the new third action to have goblins break away and run toward our back ranks, dog slicers in hand. Without attacks of opportunity, no one was entirely safe.

When it came to Hero Points, we saw plenty of them. In addition to the standard one point per session and one for contributing (OAD members are expected to carry plenty of out-of-game tasks), we threw ourselves at the adventure trying to do something daring or heroic enough to warrant an additional point. In the end, we were conservative with the points we earned—maybe too much—but their ability to save us from death was worth keeping around.

The final battle was nothing short of the action we've come to expect from Pathfinder. Sajan led the way into the chamber occupied by Drakus the Taker, a hobgoblin thought to be a vampire. The monk let off a shot with an expert crossbow he'd picked up, enhanced with magic weapon: natural 20. Fumbus followed in, urging the party on by throwing an alchemist's fire bomb: another natural 20. Drakus reverted to his true form, then lashed out with a natural 20 of his own, dropping the goblin renegade. A round later, the monk too lay at the feet of the ugothol. With just Seoni and Lem left, the sorcerer used three Hero Points to move into line of sight, followed by a full casting of magic missile for the win!

Current Situation

Near the end of our crawl through the ossuary, Lem suffered a critical hit from a poisoned lock that left the halfling struggling for life; before the poison could advance further, we hurried to the safety of Magnimar's streets. We also recovered the lost Star of Desna, and returned it to Keleri Deverin with plenty of time to reach the Swallowtail Festival—she couldn't be late for the launch of one of Paizo's most legendary Adventure Paths!

Follow Order of the Amber Die on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, or YouTube.

Adam Daigle
Managing Developer

Your First Adventure

Monday, August 13, 2018

The Pathfinder Playtest is live!

I know that it's hard to believe, but the Pathfinder Playtest Rulebook is less than 2 weeks old, and we've already learned so much about the game. Feedback for the first part of Doomsday Dawn and the three Pathfinder Society adventures is pouring in through our surveys and the paizo.com forums. While there are some interesting early trends in the data that point at a few things that are going to need some work, we want to avoid getting into any of the fine details until the first part of the playtest is over (in just about 2 weeks). Until then, we'd like to talk about a number of other things.

Rules Updates

Starting today, you're going to begin seeing some rules updates from the team to clarify or fix issues with the current draft of the playtest. Rather than focusing on typos or other small errors, we're going to try and keep the updates restricted to things that we think are problematic to the gameplay if left as-is. In the coming weeks, you might also see us replace entire subsystems of the game, if warranted by playtest feedback.

The updates themselves are broken into two categories. The first is critical updates. These are issues that distort the game heavily and should be fixed immediately. The second category, just called updates, refers to rules that are important enough to warrant a fix, but that have a relatively limited impact at the game table. There are plenty of other changes we're noting as well, but most of these will have little to no impact on the current state of the game.

You can find the current updates by going to the downloads section on PathfinderPlaytest.com. After you download the PDF, you'll get an email notifying you of additional changes whenever we post an update!

Playtest Surveys

As mentioned above, some of the playtest surveys are now live! If you have completed your playthrough of Part 1 of Doomsday Dawn or of any of the three Pathfinder Society playtest scenarios, then we have some surveys for you! For those of you who have not, I have a couple of reminders.

• If you are playing Doomsday Dawn, make sure your group has the playtest tracking forms, which are located at PathfinderPlaytest.com. These will help GMs and players track a few vital statistics during play that you might otherwise forget when it comes time to take the surveys.
• The surveys are only for people who have completed Part 1 of Doomsday Dawn or one of the three available Pathfinder Society playtest scenarios. Each adventure has a survey for Game Masters and a survey for players. Doomsday Dawn also has an open response survey, allowing you to give more descriptive feedback of your experience.
• General surveys asking about classes, ancestries, and other mechanics will come out next month (giving everyone a chance to get in some play time first).
• The surveys are each a few pages long (usually 4 main sections) and most should take you no more than about 10-15 minutes to complete. Please make sure you go all the way to the end of the survey!
• Here are the links for the surveys:

Doomsday Dawn Part 1, The Lost Star
Player Survey | Game Master Survey | Open Survey

Pathfinder Society Playtest Scenario #1: The Rose Street Revenge
Player Survey | Game Master Survey

Pathfinder Society Playtest Scenario #2: Raiders of Shrieking Peak
Player Survey | Game Master Survey

Pathfinder Society Playtest Scenario #3: Arclord's Envy
Player Survey | Game Master Survey

What's Next

For the remainder of the playtest, you can expect to see a blog from the design team once per week looking at the playtest, talking about where we're at, what we've learned, and where we're going. In addition, you can find us livestreaming Doomsday Dawn as we play through the adventure in the office with staff. Finally, after each part of the playtest is over, you will find us on the Twitch stream talking about what we've learned from the playtest and taking questions from the room and from the forums. It's sure to be a lot of fun, and you will be able to watch it all live over at twitch.tv/officialpaizo.

Until next time, keep playing and sending us that feedback. We've only just begun on our journey to make a better Pathfinder, and we need your help to see it through! Will you join our noble quest?

Jason Bulmahn
Director of Game Design

Join the Pathfinder Playtest designers every Friday throughout the playtest on our Twitch Channel to hear all about the process and chat directly with the team.

Pathfinder Playtest Preorder Update

Wednesday, August 1, 2018

When Paizo was planning this year's Pathfinder Playtest, we expected to exceed our own ability to fulfill orders on a timely basis, so we decided to use Fulfillment by Amazon. Unfortunately, Amazon's reports indicate that most customers will not be receiving their orders by tomorrow's release date. They shipped 3 orders on July 28, 3 more on July 29, and no orders on July 30 or 31. Today, they have shipped almost 10% of the outstanding orders, and they are continuing to ship through the night and into tomorrow. They have so far been unable to tell us when they will complete shipping. We will be posting updates as we receive them in this forum thread.

This delay doesn't impact preorders placed with retailers; most of them should have already received their products for release tomorrow. Paizo.com preorders for pickup at Gen Con are also unaffected.

We sincerely apologize for this delay. If your paizo.com Pathfinder Playtest preorder is being fulfilled by Amazon, we will be giving you $15 in paizo.com store credit in the near future.

PDFs of all of the playtest products will be available for free shortly after 6:00 AM Pacific time at paizo.com/pathfinderplaytest.

—The Paizo Team

Playtesting the Game

Tuesday, July 31, 2018

Welcome to the Pathfinder Playtest! Along with all the other members of the Design Team and the rest of the Paizo staff, we'd like to thank you for your time, dedication, and enthusiasm. Without you, we could not hope to make the best possible version of the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game. Your feedback, thoughts, concerns, and criticism are vital to our process—we literally can't do it without you!

So, let's talk about all the ways you can help us playtest the newest version of Pathfinder! Starting on Thursday, August 2, make sure to grab the free PDF of the Pathfinder Playtest Rulebook and make your first character. If you are planning on being your group's Game Master, download the free adventure Doomsday Dawn and start reading through Part 1 of the adventure. Make sure to also grab the free Pathfinder Playtest Bestiary PDF, since it contains all of the adversaries you will need to run the adventure.

Once you've gathered a group together, plan on playing regularly over the next few months as we make our way through all seven parts of the adventure. Doomsday Dawn is broken up into seven distinct chapters, each of which tests different levels and different aspects of the game. Make sure to set aside some time to give us your feedback as well. We are including surveys this time around to collect your thoughts and help you get your feedback to us as quickly and efficiently for you as possible, so taking part in the playtest could not be easier!

Playtesting with Doomsday Dawn

1. Before play begins, make sure to download the Playtest Tracking PDF (which will be available starting Thursday, August 2) to help you keep track of a few important pieces of information that we'll ask about later in the surveys. Note that the PDF contains a sheet for GMs and a sheet for players.
2. Play a chapter of Doomsday Dawn. We highly recommend you start with Part 1 and play the adventure in order so that you fully experience the story, but if you can only play some of the parts, that's OK!
3. Fill out the surveys that correspond to the chapter you just played (either the GM survey or the player survey, plus general feedback if you want to give some free responses). You'll be able to find links to the surveys at pathfinderplaytest.com starting on Thursday, August 2. Surveys for Parts 2-7 will go live as we progress through the playtest (see the playtest schedule below). We recommend filling out each survey soon after you play the chapter so the memory is fresh, but don't worry about memorizing any fine details; that's what the Tracking PDF is for!
4. Go back to Step 2 and play another part of the adventure until you're done with Doomsday Dawn! We'll be focusing on each part in order, according to the playtest schedule.

Playtesting with the Pathfinder Society

1. Before play begins, make sure to grab the Society Playtest Tracking PDF (which will be available starting Thursday, August 2) to help you keep track of a few important pieces of information that we'll ask about later in the surveys.
2. Play one of the Pathfinder Society playtest scenarios.
3. Fill out the survey corresponding to the scenario you just played (the player or GM survey, plus the general feedback survey if you want to give some free responses). We recommend filling out any surveys soon after you play the scenario so the memory is fresh, but don't worry about memorizing any fine details; that's what the Tracking PDF is for.
4. Go back to Step 2 and play a different scenario. You can also replay any of the scenarios to try out a new class, ancestry, or other combination!

Playtesting with Custom Adventures

There aren't any step-by-step instructions for playtesting using your own adventures. You're in charge! Use the rules in the Pathfinder Playtest Rulebook and Pathfinder Playtest Bestiary to create any sort of adventure you want. To make sure your data are as strong as possible, try to keep to the guidelines in the rulebook and avoid setting any house rules, as these limit what we can learn from your responses. For instance, if you run a monster much stronger than the guidelines and then report that the PCs were easily defeated, we can't tell how they might have fared under normal conditions. Other than that, the sky's the limit.

General Surveys

In addition to the adventure-specific surveys, we will also be releasing general surveys that we would like everyone to complete, focusing on ancestries, character classes, play mechanics, and more! We want to give you a chance to playtest a bit before we launch those surveys, but when they go live, you'll find the links with the other surveys at pathfinderplaytest.com.

Discussions

In addition to responding via the surveys, you can engage with other players and designers over on our forums, discussing the rules of the game and possibilities for the future. While we want to focus on actual play feedback, we also want to hear your ideas about the game.

Playtest Schedule

The playtest officially gets under way on August 2, 2018, and runs through the end of the year, closing on December 31, 2018. During that time, we will be focusing on various parts of the Doomsday Dawn adventure, making our way toward the dramatic conclusion in mid-November. Check out the following schedule so you can plan your games accordingly.

Doomsday Dawn, Part 1: 1st-level characters, playtest begins 8/2/18
Doomsday Dawn, Part 2: 4th-level characters, playtest begins 8/27/18
Doomsday Dawn, Part 3: 7th-level characters, playtest begins 9/10/18
Doomsday Dawn, Part 4: 9th-level characters, playtest begins 9/24/18
Doomsday Dawn, Part 5: 12th-level characters, playtest begins 10/8/18
Doomsday Dawn, Part 6: 14th-level characters, playtest begins 10/22/18
Doomsday Dawn, Part 7: 17th-level characters, playtest begins 11/5/18

Watch Us and Chat Live

You can also follow along with the playtest on the Paizo Twitch stream. Once the playtest is underway, we will be hosting a live stream every week where we play the game and talk about the results of the playtest so far. Videos from that stream will be archived on our YouTube channel if you miss the live broadcast. We will also be doing a playtest wrap-up every two weeks as we move from one part of the playtest adventure to the next. Expect to hear all about the results of the playtest and what changes are being made based on your feedback and comments!

How do you plan on participating in the playtest? Do you have any other questions about the process you'd like to ask us? Let us know in the comments below!

Multiclassing and Archetypes

Friday, July 27, 2018

One of the trickiest parts of the rules is multiclassing. At its heart, multiclassing allows you to build almost any character you can envision, taking parts from multiple classes to build the perfect version of your character. Making these rules play well with the rest of the game, unfortunately, has always been a challenge. Concepts that really should work together just fell flat, leaving you with a character who could not perform at its level and keep pace with single class characters. This was especially the case for certain classes, like most spellcasters, that had a central class feature or features that you would fall sharply behind in if you weren't constantly progressing in that class.

Suffice to say, when it came time to redesign the system for the Pathfinder Playtest, we knew that multiclassing needed work.

Then came the rules for archetypes. The new design for this emblematic part of the game allows archetypes to be taken by any class, so you can decide exactly how much you want to invest into an alternative path for your character. The more we worked on that system, the more it began to sound like it shared almost exactly the same goals as multiclassing. Our thought was, shouldn't they just be the same system?

Multiclass archetypes are one of the more experimental parts of the Pathfinder Playtest. So much so that there are only four of them in the book, one for cleric, one for fighter, one for rogue, and one for wizard. Just like ordinary archetypes, you must take a special dedication feat to gain access to the archetype, but you cannot be of the same class as the archetype (so you can't take the rogue dedication feat if you are already a rogue). Let's take a look at one of these feats.

Wizard Dedication Feat 2

Archetype, Dedication, Multiclass

Prerequisites Intelligence 16, trained in Arcana

---

You cast spells like a wizard and gain a spellbook containing four arcane cantrips of your choice. You gain access to the Cast a Spell activity and the Material Casting, Somatic Casting, and Verbal Casting actions. You can prepare two cantrips each day from those found in your spellbook. You're trained in spell rolls and spell DCs for casting arcane spells and in attacks you make with arcane spells. Your key spellcasting ability for these spells is Intelligence. You can use wands, scrolls, and staves, but only for spells of a spell level you can cast. Arcana is a signature skill for you.

Special You cannot select another dedication feat until you have gained two other feats from the wizard archetype.

Right away, this lets you cast a few simple cantrips; allows you to use wands, scrolls, and staves; and makes Arcana a signature skill for you (meaning you can advance your proficiency in the skill to master and legendary). Like other dedication feats, once you've taken Wizard Dedication, you gain access to other wizard archetype feats, each of which makes you a more powerful master of the arcane arts. Take a look.

Basic Wizard Spellcasting Feat 4

Archetype

Prerequisites Wizard Dedication

---

Add two level 1 spells to your spellbook. You gain a single level1 spell slot that you can use to prepare a level 1 spell from your spellbook. At 6th level, add two level 2 spells to your spellbook, and you gain a level 2 spell slot that you can use to prepare a level 2 spell from your spellbook. At 8th level, add two level 3 spells to your spellbook, and you gain a level 3 spell slot that you can use to prepare a level 3 spell from your spellbook.

Even though you can cast spells, the spell level of your cantrips and arcane powers is half your level rounded up.

This feat pays dividends all the way up through 8th level, giving you more spells you can cast, and if you take it later on in your career, you get all of that spellcasting all at once. Better still, there are additional feats you can take to gain spells of up to 8th level! But let's say you want to be even more of a wizard—you want to get some of the other class features that make wizards fun to play. Take a look at these feats.

Arcane School Feat 4

Archetype

Prerequisite Wizard Dedication

---

Select one school of magic from those found in the wizard class. You gain the level 1 school power tied to your school and a pool of Spell Points equal to your Intelligence modifier that you can use to cast that power.

If you already have a pool of Spell Points, use the higher ability score to determine the pool, as normal, and your Spell Point pool increases by 1.

Basic Arcana Feat 4

Archetype

Prerequisites Wizard Dedication

---

Gain a level 1 or level 2 wizard feat of your choice.

Advanced Arcana Feat 6

Archetype

Prerequisites Basic Arcana

---

Gain one wizard feat. For the purposes of meeting its prerequisites, your wizard level is equal to half your level.

Special You can select this feat more than once. Each time you select it, you gain a new wizard feat.

There's even a feat that gives you additional spell slots of every level except for your two highest, giving you more versatility in your spellcasting. It's important to note that these powers come at the cost of some of the flexibility of your primary class, but not at the cost of core features. A cleric who multiclasses into fighter will keep all of her spellcasting abilities, but she will have to trade out some of the feats that allow her to be better at casting heal or at using domain powers in exchange for increased proficiency in weapons and armor, added hit points, and the ability to make attacks of opportunity. You might even choose to multiclass into several classes. You could play a cleric who, in addition to all her cleric spells, also has up to 8th-level druid spells and 8th-level wizard spells, though such a three-tradition spellcaster would have few cleric feats to speak of!

Well, that about covers the rules for multiclassing in the Pathfinder Playtest. If these archetypes work, you can expect to see one for each class in the final version of the game, giving you the flexibility to build characters that draw on more than one class to make their concept click. We hope you'll give these a try during the playtest and let us know what you think!

Jason Bulmahn
Director of Game Design

Pathfinder Society Playtest Scenarios

Wednesday, July 25, 2018

One of the advantages of this team's creating organized play scenarios for the better part of a decade (it surprises me that I can truthfully say that) is that we're now very familiar with how Pathfinder Society scenarios are laid out, how we word certain things, and countless other nuances. Introducing Starfinder Society gave us (especially Thurston Hillman) lots of opportunities to tweak our models to fit a new game system, and in many ways it prepared us for the changes we've made in Pathfinder's Second Edition. Sure, some of these are editorial minutiae like no longer splitting whether we use the preposition "on" or "to" when referring to bonuses on rolls versus bonuses to static values (e.g. AC or CMD). Others are more apparent, such as how we arrange encounters, where we place tactics, and how we calculate treasure. Learning these new styles and adapting them to organized play has been an experience, and we're hoping that this is a first step toward presenting great scenarios in the upcoming campaign.

One of the most unexpected updates for us was how Second Edition shapes those Knowledge checks that appear at the beginning of most scenarios (right after the adventure briefing). In the current edition's Pathfinder Society scenarios, these provide increasingly specific, esoteric, and/or useful information based on the result of a PC's Knowledge check. Some of Second Edition's underlying math, the different levels of success, and other factors make it so that this start-of-scenario tradition has to evolve, and Michael, Linda, Mark, and I brainstormed lots of different approaches to handling these opening skill checks to learn more. We found that there's not one perfect solution in theory, so we've used a different model in each of the playtest adventures releasing in August. As we launch these scenarios, we'll also be posting survey links to solicit your feedback. As you can imagine, we're eager to hear how each of these information-gathering systems worked for your table.

Illustration by Kenneth Camaro

But hey, that's enough nuts and bolts. If you'd like to know more about the Pathfinder Society playtest process, check out the Organized Playtest blog. Let's dive into the stories!

The early public previews of Pathfinder's second edition have relied on two particular adventures. Most of our playtesters so far have experienced our demo, in which the PCs clash with a cruel Asmodean zealot and his small army of undead. Beginning at PaizoCon, we also debuted Pathfinder Society Playtest #1: The Rose Street Revenge as a lottery event that's also appeared at Origins and PaizoCon UK. In the wake of Absalom's grand manumission event(kudos, Liberty's Edge faction!), the city's former slaves have found new homes there as the newest free citizens. However, someone seems to hold a grudge. Known as the Rose Street Killer, this villain has systematically killed or abducted these freed people, and the latest victim is a recent recruit of the Pathfinder Society. In this series of four quests for 1st-level characters, the PCs follow exciting leads in order to unmask the killer and put an end to the attacks once and for all. Not only do these adventures involve a visit to the Society's unlikely kobold allies beneath Absalom, but there's also a chance to explore the Puddles, a flooded district where volunteer Muckrucker guards (like the one illustrated here by Kenneth Camaro) keep the peace. We expect this quest series by Leo Glass, Thurston Hillman, Joe Pasini, and Linda Zayas-Palmer will be many players' first and fun introduction to Second Edition.

Illustration by Josef Kucera

Linda took the lead on our next scenario, so let's hear from her directly.

The first of our offerings for 5th-level characters is Pathfinder Playtest Scenario #2: Raiders of Shrieking Peak, by developer Luis Loza. When Pathfinder agent Inisa Ardaali recovered a relic from Iomedae's ascension, she took every precaution to get it back to Absalom safely. Instead of sailing directly into Absalom's harbor, she landed in nearby Diobel and hired a nondescript caravan to cover the rest of the distance overland. Despite her preparations, however, her caravan did not reach its destination. They fell prey to an unexpected group of bandits, leaving the survivors to limp back to Diobel empty-handed. The PCs pick up the robbers' trail and set off into the perilous wilderness. Will they forge new alliances with those they find along they way or let their blades do the talking? It's up to you to decide. How would you respond to this fellow swooping down out of the sky, as illustrated by Josef Kucera?

Illustration by Javier Charro

Want more 5th-level adventure possibilities? Look no further than Pathfinder Society Playtest #3: Arclord's Envy by Lyz Liddell. This adventure does many things we've always dreamed of: it's a story that takes place in Nex, resoundingly reflects its setting in the encounters, and at long last shows off the Nexus House (the oldest Society lodge outside of Absalom)! What's more, we've introduced the lodge's three caretakers, most notably the esteemed gnome Sebnet Sanserkoht (illustrated here by Javier Charro). The 5th-level PCs are in charge of a daring whodunit that hinges on a recently discovered text written by the archmage Nex himself. This is no mundane investigation, though—not in a capital city run by wizards, maintained by elementals, and guarded by a pair of titanic golems! Because it's possible to replay these playtest scenarios for credit, this scenario includes some flexibility for the GM to vary parts of the investigation and the culprits themselves in order to keep players on their toes every time.

And don't forget that we'll also have a 10th-level scenario coming out in September! In the meantime, get ready for three great adventures to kick off the playtest at Gen Con in style!

(And surveys. Don't forget the surveys!)

John Compton
Organized Play Lead Developer

Born of Two Worlds

Tuesday, July 24, 2018

As some of you have no doubt noticed, we haven't said much about half-elves and half-orcs except to confirm that they'll be part of the Pathfinder Playtest. Of all of the ancestry choices in Pathfinder, these were two of the trickiest to design. With the way that the feats are structured, it would be easy enough to just list the feats from both parents (plus some unique options), but that quickly led to cherry-picking the best of both. Moreover, that approach didn't address the base statistics of the ancestry that are very important to overall balance, such as starting hit points and speed.

In the end, we decided to make both half-elves and half-orcs an addition to the human ancestry. You start by selecting human, then take the corresponding heritage feat to represent your diverse ancestry. Let's take a look at the half-elf feat.

Half-Elf Feat 1

Heritage, Human

Either one of your parents was an elf, or one or both were half-elves. You have pointed ears and other telltale signs of elven heritage. You gain the elf trait. Select two of the following benefits: elven speed (increase your Speed by 5 feet), elven tongue (add Elven to your list of languages), gifted speaker (you are trained in Diplomacy), or low-light vision (you can see in dim light as well as you can in bright light). In addition, you can select elf, half-elf, and human feats whenever you gain an ancestry feat.

Special You can select this feat twice. The second time, it loses the heritage trait and you gain the other two benefits.

This approach comes with a number of advantages. First off, it lets us make a half-elf that truly does have some of the advantages of both ancestries, while still allowing you to pick the parts that you think best represent your character's upbringing. Grew up among elves? Then picking up the Elven language makes sense. Had to explain yourself to the humans you grew up with? Then being trained in Diplomacy might be the way to go. As with all of our ancestries, we wanted the choice of being a half-elf or half-orc to be meaningful to your character and expressive of the backstory that you've decided to create. This ancestry feat gives a lot of benefits; to get similar benefits, you would normally use a general feat to pick up Adoptive Ancestry, which grants you access to the ancestry feats from another ancestry (as long as they don't have physiological requirements) to represent your deep connection to another ancestry's culture and traditions. However, being a half-elf gives you access to human feats, elf feats, and half-elf feats (including feats with physiological components), as well as two additional benefits.

At this point, you might be saying, wait, what about humans in general? Let's take a look at some of their options. At its core, human is a very flexible ancestry, with choices like Natural Ambition to gain an extra 1st-level class feat, General Training to gain an extra 1st-level general feat, and Skilled to gain training in two additional skills. However, humans also have fun options for particular builds, like this one for a character who wants to reduce the penalties for being untrained.

Clever Improviser Feat 1

Human

You've learned how to handle situations where you're out of your depth. You gain a +1 circumstance bonus to checks for skills in which you're untrained.

Of course, this approach for half-elves and half-orcs means that we needed to include a few orc feats in the book so players would get the complete experience of being a half-orc. Take a look at this classic feat.

[[R]] Orc Ferocity Feat 1

Orc

Frequency once per day

Trigger You're reduced to 0 Hit Points.

---

Fierceness in battle runs through your blood, and you refuse to fall from your injuries. When this feat is triggered, you avoid being knocked out and remain at 1 Hit Point.

This allows the half-orc to stay in the fight after taking a felling blow, even a really big hit or a critically failed save against a dragon's breath attack!

In addition to allowing you to choose any feat from both ancestries, we were also able to design a few ancestry feats specifically for half-elves and half-orcs. Take a look at this half-elf feat.

Inspire Imitation Feat 5

Half-Elf

You inspire your allies to great feats through your own actions. Whenever you critically succeed at a skill check, you automatically qualify to take the Aid reaction when attempting to help an ally at the same skill check, even without spending an action to prepare to do so.

This means that when you critically succeed, you can Aid your ally at no extra cost to yourself, which is particularly useful if your ally needs some help doing something at which you excel.

Beyond what this means for half-elves and half-orcs, using an ancestry feat to unlock a more diverse heritage gives us a lot of options for the future. For instance, aasimars, tieflings, and other planar scions come from a wide variety of ancestries in Golarion, instead of just defaulting to human. In Pathfinder First Edition, there's a sidebar to that effect, but it provides no mechanical adjustments for non-human planar scions beyond their size category. The playtest treatment would allow you to build a character whose ancestry really reflects their combined heritage. And if your setting has half-elves and half-orcs where the other parent isn't human, say half-orc/half-dwarf characters, you can just allow the half-orc feat for dwarf characters and the rest of the work is already taken care of. This also opens up a lot of design space (in the form of feats) to explore what otherworldly parentage might mean, giving you different options based on what type of outsider has influenced your heritage, similar to the popular subcategories of aasimar and tieflings (pitborn, musetouched, and so on). Having a solar in the family might grant access to entirely different feats than if your ancestors were blessed by a hound archon.

Now, this approach is a little different than what we've done in the past, so we are going to be asking a few questions about this through surveys during the playtest. We're keen to hear what you think about half-elves and half-orcs in the playtest. Why not roll one up and give it a try?

Jason Bulmahn
Director of Game Design

Druid Class Preview

Monday, July 23, 2018

Druids are practitioners of primal magic, which blends vital essence (the essence of life, instinct, and faith) with material essence (the essence of matter and the natural world). Thus, primal traditions are rooted in an instinctual connection with and faith in the surrounding world: the cycle of day and night, the turning of the seasons, and the natural selection of predator and prey. Druids are the iconic primal spellcasters; they call upon the power of nature for magic through their deep faith, as opposed to primal sorcerers, who harness the power of fey or other natural creatures that flows through their blood to access the same sorts of primal energies.

Since this is the last class, before we go deeper into the druid's mechanics, I want to show you some extra pieces each class has that you might not know about. Every class entry starts with some bullet points to help you get a feel for what playing the class might be like.

Playing a Druid

Players of druid characters might approach gameplay in the following ways:

• During combat, you call upon the forces of nature to defeat your enemies and protect your allies. You can cast spells drawing upon primal magic to summon deadly animals to fight at your side, grant resilience to you and your friends, or heal their wounds. Depending on your bond to nature, you might also call upon powerful elemental magic or even change shape into a terrifying beast to fight with tooth and claw.
• During social encounters, you represent balance and a reasoned approach to problems, looking for solutions that not only are best for the natural world, but also allow the creatures within it to live in harmony and peace. You often propose compromises that allow both sides to gain what they truly need, even if they can't have all that they desire.
• In exploration mode, your skills in nature are invaluable. You can track down enemies, navigate through the wilderness, or use your spells to detect any magical auras around you. You might even ask wild animals to assist your group in your travels with their extraordinary senses and scouting abilities.
• In downtime mode, you might craft magic items or potions. Alternatively, your tie to nature might lead you to tend to an area of the wild, befriending its beasts and healing the wounds caused by civilization. You might even attempt to teach people sustainable techniques that allow them to subsist off the land without harming the natural balance.

Roleplaying a Druid

Druids are the living embodiment of nature, acting as its agent; you protect the wild places from harm and speak for their interests in more civilized lands.

If You're a Druid, You Likely...

• Have a deep and meaningful respect for the power of nature.
• Are in constant awe of the natural world, eager to share it with others but cautious of their influence.
• Treat plants and animals as allies in your quest, working with them toward your goals.

Others Probably...

• View you as a representative of nature, and might even assume you can control it.
• Assume you're a recluse who avoids society and cities, preferring to live in the wild.
• Treat you as a mystic, similar to a priest, but answering only to the forces of nature.

Illustration by Wayne Reynolds

Spellcasting

Druids are full prepared spellcasters, able to cast the same number of spells per day as the cleric and bard, rather than gaining extra spells through bloodlines or schools as the sorcerer and wizard do. However, just as the cleric has channel energy and the bard has compositions, the druid has more than enough tricks up her sleeve to make her a primal powerhouse. And figuring those out starts with...

Orders

As the druid's initial architect, Jason pulled the concept of orders from the sidelines of lore directly into the spotlight, making your choice of order a major part of your druid. As with the bard's muse, you can choose abilities that belong to another order, but unlike for the bard, you gain extra benefits from feats and abilities that belong to your own order, incentivizing you to check out your own order's feats first. An order member gains a new skill and an order power that druids of other orders can't gain, and each order adds its own component to the basic druid anathema forbidding actions like despoiling nature. The four orders presented in the playtest are animal, leaf, storm, and wild, though more orders are all but certain to arise.

Animal

An animal druid (known by names like druid of the claw or druid of the wing depending on her preferred animal) has a strong connection to animals. She is trained in Athletics, which is a signature skill for her. She also gains the heal animal order power (exclusive to that members of order) and the Animal Companion feat. Committing wanton cruelty to animals or killing them unnecessarily is anathema to her. (This doesn't prevent her from defending herself against animals or killing them cleanly for food.)

This is the order that's all about having the coolest animal companion. Other druids can easily get an animal companion (and they're a solid choice for all druids) and take the same upgrade feats, but with each feat, the animal order druid will get something cool or extra for the animal. As an example, an animal druid's companion can have multiple specializations, which are like animal companion archetypes, if the animal druid commits more to this path.

Leaf

A druid of the leaf reveres plants and the bounty of nature, acting as a caretaker and warden for the wilderness, teaching sustainable techniques, and helping areas regrow after disasters or negligent humanoid expansion. She is trained in Diplomacy, which is a signature skill for her. She also gains the Leshy Familiar druid feat and the goodberry order power (exclusive to that members of order). Committing wanton cruelty to plants or killing plants unnecessarily is anathema to her. (This doesn't prevent her from defending herself against plants or harvesting them if necessary for survival.)

This style of druid is all about plants, with options including Verdant Metamorphosis, where you flat-out become a plant, and the druid of the leaf's leshy familiar, which has more powers than a typical familiar. Let's check out Verdant Metamorphosis to see a special benefit only druids of the leaf receive:

Verdant Metamorphosis Feat 18

Druid

Leaf Order

You transform into a plant version of yourself. You gain the plant trait and lose any trait that's inappropriate for your new form (typically humanoid). You can change from a form that looks mostly like your old self into a tree or any other non-creature plant as an action (this action has the concentrate trait). Perception checks don't reveal your true form, but a creature can attempt a Nature or Survival check against your class DC to determine that the plant is new to the surrounding area. While in this form, you can observe everything around you, but you can't act other than to spend an action (this action has the concentrate trait) to change back, which ends your turn. In this form, your AC is 30, your TAC is 20, only conditional bonuses, conditional penalties, and circumstance bonuses and penalties can affect you, and you treat all successes and critical successes on Reflex saves as failures.

Special If you are a druid of the leaf order, if you transform into a non-creature plant and take your daily rest during daylight hours, the rest restores you to maximum Hit Points and removes all non-permanent drained, enfeebled, sluggish, and stupefied conditions.

Storm

A druid of the storm carries nature's fury within her, channeling it to terrifying effect and riding the winds and storms. She is trained in Acrobatics, which is a signature skill for her. She also gains the Storm Born druid feat and the tempest surge order power (exclusive to that members of order). Creating unnatural weather patterns that could be damaging to the local environment (such as by using a 9th-level control weather ritual) is anathema to her.

In addition to healing magic, the primal list contains powerful energy blasts, including fireball and other spells newly available to druids. Armed with this magic, druids of the storm are elemental dynamos who focus on the power of the tempest, flying around in storms and ignoring penalties from weather. Notably, their tempest surge order power is an extremely good blast for a 1 Spell Point power, particularly after if they take a feat that ups the d10s to d12s. Let's take a look, since you'll be slinging it around a bunch of times each day.

Tempest Surge Power 1

Air

Electricity

Evocation

Casting [[A]] Somatic Casting, [[A]] Verbal Casting

Range 30 feet; Targets one creature

---

You surround a foe in a swirling storm of violent winds, roiling clouds, and crackling lightning. The storm deals 1d10 electricity damage to the target, depending on their Reflex saving throw.

Success Half damage.

Critical Success No damage.

Failure Full damage, and the target is sluggish 1 for 1 round.

Critical Failure Double damage, and the target is sluggish 2 for 1 round.

Heightened (+1) The damage increases by 1d10.

After increasing the damage to d12s, the damage scales at the same rate as lightning bolt. But it doesn't just deal damage! The sluggish condition penalizes AC, attack rolls, and Reflex saves, so taking double damage on the critical failure is just the beginning of the horrible pain. When we were playtesting, every creature that critically failed against tempest surge was in for a very bad round.

Wild

The savage, uncontrollable call of the natural world infuses a druid of the wild, granting her the ability to change her shape into the ferocious form of a wild creature. She is trained in Intimidation, which becomes a signature skill for her. She also gains the Wild Shape druid feat and the wild claws order power (exclusive to that members of order). Becoming fully domesticated by the temptations of civilization is anathema to her. (This doesn't prevent her from buying and using processed goods or staying in a city for an adventure, but she can never come to rely on these conveniences or truly call such a place her permanent home.)

Notice the wild order druid starts with Wild Shape? Any druid with Wild Shape feats gets a free extra casting of certain polymorph spells, heightened to her highest possible level, eventually rising up to two free castings if the druid takes enough Wild Shape feats. But the thing that makes a wild order druid particularly different is that, in addition to these, she gains a number of additional bonus castings of these spells equal to her Strength modifier (if it's more than 1). That means a druid of the wild tends towards higher Strength than a typical member of other orders.

Druid Features

Aside from an order, you gain spellcasting and primal spell proficiency at the same levels as all the other spellcasters, new spell levels at every odd level save 19th, expert proficiency in primal spells at 12th level, master proficiency at 16th level, and legendary proficiency at 19th level. You also get the secret Druidic language (don't teach it to nondruids—that's anathema!) and wild empathy, which lets you use Diplomacy to Make a Request of animals, and possibly of plants if you're a leaf order aficionado.

Druid Feats

I covered many feats that connect to orders, but many feats aren't affiliated, like this powerhouse:

[[F]] Leyline Conduit Feat 20

Druid

Metamagic

Frequency once per minute

Trigger You start to cast a spell of 5th level or lower that has no duration and a maximum of 2 spellcasting actions.

---

You add a Somatic Casting action to the casting of the triggering spell, and you don't expend the prepared spell as you cast it.

This means every minute, you can cast a 5th level or lower spell without expending it. That's really useful! There are some interesting effects of how Jason designed this feat, though, that make it more than just a simple repetition, particularly the fact that you can use Leyline Conduit only if you were already able to cast the spell, meaning you had to prepare it and then avoid using it up by casting it without Leyline Conduit. So the feat gives you somewhat limitless uses of the spell, but if you really need to cast it again before the minute is up, while Leyline Conduit is unavailable, you'll expend the spell for real (at least for the rest of the day).

Animal Companions

Before I go, let's talk about animal companions. While Jason was deep in preliminary design of the druid, he bestowed upon me a strange primal chart of flowing options, almost in Druidic itself, and explained it to me. This chart combined all the best aspects of the 4th- and 7th-level animal companion advancements with animal companion archetypes and new unique features for each different animal, all while moving away from having to make tons of basic feat selections for the companion. What I built from that chart was the first draft of the animal companion system in the playtest. Let's show off the companion most often overlooked in Pathfinder First Edition, the noble bear. The bear has generated a plethora of threads dedicated to how neglected it is, so let's see how the playtest handles it.

Bear

Your companion is a grizzly, panda, polar bear, or other type of bear.

Size Small

[[A]] UnarmedStrikes jaws, Damage 1d8 piercing;

claw (agile), Damage 1d6 slashing

Abilities Str, Con

Hit Points 8

Skill Intimidation

Senses scent

Speed 35 feet

Work Together Benefit Your bear mauls your enemies when you create an opening. Until your next turn, all your weapon Strikes against a creature your bear threatens deal 1d8 additional slashing damage. If your bear has a specialization, the additional slashing damage increases to 2d8.

Advanced Maneuver Bear Hug

[[A]]Bear Hug

Requirements Your last action was a successful claw Strike.

---

Make another claw Strike against the same target. If your Strike hits, the target is also grabbed, as if you had succeeded at the Grapple action.

The bear starts out Small. Don't worry—when it grows up, it can eventually become a Large bear (in the first book, too; there's no need to wait). The bear's boost in Strength and d8 damage die for its jaws make it the most directly damaging companion, tied with the snake, which it edges out in terms of Constitution, Hit Points, and land Speed. (The snake, for its part, has better AC and lots of special Speeds.) The Work Together benefit is something you can have the bear do instead of attack, and it again deals the most direct damage, adding 1d8 (later 2d8) to the damage of your weapon Strikes. The bear is a great companion for someone who plans, much like the bear itself, to wade into the thick of the fight. Finally, the bear can eventually learn the Bear Hug advanced maneuver. This maneuver essentially means that if the bear hits twice in a row, it gets a free automatic grapple. Handy for keeping foes in place!

So that about wraps up the druid. If you were a druid, which of the four orders would you be?

Mark Seifter
Designer

Running the Game

Friday, July 20, 2018

As the Pathfinder Playtest begins, Game Masters will need to quickly get up to speed with the new rules. The Game Mastering chapter of the Pathfinder Playtest Rulebook is here to help you out! It covers the responsibilities of a GM, gives advice on running sessions, and teaches you how to adjudicate the rules of the game. Because this is a playtest, there aren't details about creating your own campaign or adventures, but rest assured, this information will appear in the Pathfinder Second Edition rulebook!

Running Modes of Play

A large section of the Game Mastering chapter runs through the special concerns of running the three modes of play: encounters, exploration, and downtime. The specific rules governing those modes appear in the Playing the Game chapter, so this chapter instead talks about how to set the pace of the game as you GM. Exploration and downtime get the most focus here, since most the rules for running encounters are addressed in Playing the Game. The section on exploration goes over exploration tactics characters might adopt, and gives advice on what to do when players want to choose tactics that aren't included in the default options. It also addresses how to begin and end encounters, including some advice on how to use the new initiative rules of the playtest. The section on downtime shows you how to play out a single downtime day at the table, and how to cover long periods of downtime quickly and keep them interesting. It also talks about buying and selling items and retraining abilities.

Difficulty Classes

Setting DCs is one of your major tasks as GM, and the rulebook covers how to create two different types of DCs: those that are appropriate for a certain level and those that are static challenges in the world. This first category is great when you need the DC of an obstacle created by an enemy of a certain level but don't have all their statistics, when you set the DC to Craft an item of a particular level, and so on. Levels and categories of difficulty are given in a table so you can pick a DC quickly. The level is based on your opposition's level, and the category depends on the particular situation. Here's a portion of that table.

Level	Trivial	Low	High	Severe	Extreme
0	9	10	12	14	17
1	10	12	14	15	18
2	11	13	15	16	19

Static challenges are everything from climbing a tree to identifying a minor noble. These tasks don't really get more difficult if the PCs are higher level, but can still be expressed in terms of level and difficulty category. The guidelines explain how to select a level and category of difficulty. For instance, climbing a rope that's hanging in mid-air is a level 1 task, so it's normally a high DC (14), but it might have a low DC (12) if you can brace yourself against a wall while climbing through a narrow area, and maybe even a trivial DC (10) if you can brace against two walls. Because static DCs don't increase as the PCs advance in levels, eventually low-level static tasks will become nearly automatic for them. We give guidelines here for GMs crafting their own adventures, but it's ultimately up to them what level and DC tasks are. (In published adventures, this information is still provided.)

As you can see, the rules for DCs intentionally put far more choice in your hands as the GM. Rather than having a long list of DCs and modifiers pre-defined, we wanted to let the GM assess the particulars of any given situation and then use some simple tools to set the DC, rather than needing to calculate a DC based on rules that aren't always exactly suitable to the challenge facing the players.

This section also speaks to some particular categories of skill DCs for crafting, gathering Information, performing for an audience, practicing a trade with Lore, recalling knowledge with skills like Arcana or Lore, or training an animal.

Rewards

This section contains some rules not directly related to Doomsday Dawn, but that we want people to take a look at and use if they create their own campaigns during the playtest. One thing that shows up is rules on awarding Experience Points. This includes XP awards for accomplishments, so that you'll have guidance for when the group pulls off important tasks that aren't encounters or hazards. As noted previously, it normally takes 1,000 XP to level up, but there are also options for varying the players' advancement speed by having a new level every 800 XP or 1,200 XP. If you're playtesting your own campaign, you might want to have characters level up every 800 XP so you get a chance to playtest more levels of the game!

Environment and Hazards

The last section of the Game Mastering chapter briefly summarizes environments and the rules for hazards (such as traps, environmental dangers, and haunts). These are covered in more detail in the Pathfinder Playtest Bestiary. They'll be in the final version of Pathfinder Second Edition's core rulebook, but the Playtest Rulebook didn't have quite enough space for the whole thing!

Are you looking forward to GMing playtest games? What changes are you hoping to see? Are you going to run Doomsday Dawn, or try some of your own adventures too? Sound off in the comments!

Logan Bonner
Designer

Bard Class Preview

Monday, July 16, 2018

The bard—it's arguably the most iconic support character. For some reason, bards are often the butt of goofy jokes, even though they're powerful force multipliers who can contribute to just about every aspect of play. Bard is one of my favorite classes in Pathfinder, and it has some of the most exciting changes of any of the classes in the Pathfinder Playtest, but I'm going to start you with a big one first. Are you sitting down yet? OK, good:

Bards are full 10-level spellcasters.

Spellcasting

As before, bards are spontaneous spellcasters who make up for having not quite as many spells as the other spontaneous caster, the sorcerer, by having special bardic performances. But this time around, bards don't have a delayed spellcasting progression. Instead, they have one fewer spell in their repertoire and one fewer spell slot per day at each spell level, compared to the sorcerer. That's pretty awesome already, but here's the even cooler part: bards have collected all sorts of esoteric bardic knowledge since forever, right? With an offbeat spell list that combines mental magic, a handful of unique additions, and a little bit of healing, bards are the primary occult spellcasters, blending mental and spiritual essences. That brings bards, whose spell list has grown with far less than that of wizards, to the forefront among the other primary spellcasters. This has given us the opportunity to create a bunch of cool never-before-seen bard spells for the playtest. Also, as I mentioned in the spells blog, bards can replace the Somatic Casting and Verbal Casting components of spellcasting by playing a musical instrument, in case you want a bard who plays the violin to cast his spells! But what about their performances? How do those come into play?

Compositions

Compositions are a special type of spell that only bards gain. You might be thinking these are probably powers like other classes, right? Not so! In exchange for their slightly lower number of spells bards get, most of their compositions are cantrips, usable at will, meaning you no longer need to worry about running out of bardic performance rounds per day. Not only that, they're often cast with a single action. They start out with a composition that will likely look familiar.

Inspire Courage Cantrip

Cantrip, Composition, Emotion, Enchantment, Mental
Casting [[A]] Verbal Casting
Area 60-foot aura
Duration 1 round

You inspire your allies with words or tunes of encouragement. You and all allies in the aura gain a +1 conditional bonus to attack rolls, damage rolls, and saves against fear.

Usually, a bard can cast only one composition per turn and have only one active at a time.

Bards have powers and Spell Points in addition to their compositions. Many bard powers allow you to manipulate and customize your performances as you desire, including increasing the duration, granting a more significant bonus (an extremely powerful benefit), or having multiple compositions active at a time. Typically, these extra benefits require a successful Performance check to activate and provide an even more powerful effect on a critical success. Take for example, lingering composition.

Illustration by Wayne Reynolds

Lingering Composition Power 1

Enchantment, Power
Casting [[F]] Verbal Casting; Trigger You finish casting a cantrip composition with a duration of 1 round.

You attempt to add a flourish to your composition to extend its benefits. Attempt a Performance check. The DC is usually a high-difficulty DC of a level equal to the highest-level target of your composition, but the GM can assign a different DC based on the circumstances. The effect depends on the result of your check.

Success The composition lasts 2 rounds.
Critical Success The composition lasts 3 rounds.
Failure The composition lasts 1 round.

But altering your performances with special modifications like this is just one of several paths represented by a new bardic class feature…

Muses

A bard's inspiration comes from a unique place—his muse. There are three muses in the Pathfinder Playtest. The first is maestro, focused on powers that alter compositions. Next is lore, focused on Occultism, willpower, and unusual knowledge. The third is polymath, focused on being a jack of all trades with increased skills and ability to handle unexpected situations, including the ability to keep a spellbook to prepare a small number of new spells to add to your repertoire each day. As befits the individualistic nature of a performer's muse, none of the initial muse abilities are exclusive, so you can use your feats to traverse as deeply as you want into the abilities from each path; your muse merely represents a starting point on your bardic journey.

For example, if you select the maestro muse at 1st level, you gain the Lingering Composition bard feat (granting you the lingering composition power detailed above) and add soothe to your spell repertoire, but any bard can take this feat or learn this spell—selecting the maestro muse just grants them as a default.

Bard Features

As a bard, you gain spellcasting and occult spell proficiency at the same levels as the other spellcasters, new spell levels at every odd level except 19, expert proficiency in occult spells at 12th level, master proficiency at 16th level, and legendary proficiency at 19th level. You also have the most trained skills at 1st level except for rogues, just barely edging out rangers. Finally, you begin play at 1st level with two compositions, the inspire courage cantrip (which has been detailed above) and the counter performance power.

Counter Performance Power 1

Composition, Enchantment, Fortune, Mental, Power
Casting [[R]] Verbal Casting or [[R]] Somatic Casting; Trigger You or an ally within 60 feet must roll a saving throw against an auditory or visual effect.
Area 60-foot aura

You protect yourself and allies through performance. Choose an auditory performance if the trigger was auditory or a visual performance if it was visual, then roll a Performance check for the chosen performance. You and allies in the area can use the higher result of your Performance check or their saving throws.

Since you need to use only a reaction to cast counter performance, rather than needing to activate it ahead of time like in Pathfinder First Edition, creatures that rely on visual or auditory effects will have a really hard time messing with you!

Bard Feats

Bard feats tend to fall in two categories: feats associated that are loosely associated with one of the three muses, and those that grant you a new composition.

For instance, the Cantrip Expansion feat at 4th level allows you to add two cantrips from the occult spell list to your spell repertoire, which can come in handy for those bards with the lore or the polymath muses. The powerful 14th-level Allegro feat, on the other hand, grants you the following cantrip to add a spring to an ally's step.

Allegro Cantrip

Cantrip, Composition, Emotion, Enchantment, Mental
Casting [[A]] Verbal Casting
Range 30 feet; Targets one ally
Duration 1 round

You perform rapidly, speeding your ally. The ally is quick and can use the action to Strike, Stride, or Step.

There's plenty of favorites in there from among bardic masterpieces from Ultimate Magic too, like house of imaginary walls, which Cosmo used with his goblin bard to mime a box around my ranger, trapping me with a dangerous enemy while Cosmo remained safe and sound.

In a nutshell, bards now have a vast number of quality-of-life improvements, while fundamentally staying true to the way they worked before. Fellow bard fans, what do you think?

Mark Seifter
Designer

Common Ground

Friday, July 13, 2018

When it comes to using game rules to simulate a fantasy setting, one thing that's always been in the background in Pathfinder has been the idea that certain monsters, types of armor, and so on are more common in some areas than in others. For instance, Pathfinder First Edition's rules for the Knowledge skill rely on the fact that some monsters are more commonly known, though it doesn't really define which are which. Meanwhile, there are circumstances such as the spell Echean's excellent enclosure from Rival Guide where knowledge of a spell is closely guarded by its creator (in this case, an evil 20th-level wizard).

To make it easier for players and GMs to engage in worldbuilding, whether playing in Golarion or your own setting, we've created a formalized framework for the Pathfinder Playtest—using the categories common, uncommon, rare, and unique—that you can use to help determine the tone of a setting, region, or adventure. These are relative terms; while we list suggested rarities for various rules elements, they naturally vary from place to place even within the same campaign setting. For instance, in the playtest, a longsword is listed as common, and a katana is listed as uncommon, but in a game focused around Japanese fantasy (or, in Golarion, Minkai or Minkai-influenced nations in Tian Xia), a katana would be common and a longsword might be uncommon.

Common

Something is common if it's ubiquitous in its category, like any of the core races and core classes, longswords, fireball, bracers of armor, and the like. All characters can select common options without restriction.

Uncommon

Something is uncommon if it's a little rarer, but still possible to find or use if you are deeply interested in it. These options are a bit weirder, more complicated, or known to fewer people, so they haven't spread across the world as much. Many uncommon options explicitly become available to a character as they proceed along a path that teaches them about that option. For instance, all domain powers in the playtest are uncommon spells, but clerics are granted access to domain powers through their deities. Characters from a given region, ethnicity, religion, or other group in your world might gain access to uncommon options associated with it. To go back to our previous example, even in a game set in the Inner Sea region of Golarion, if your character hailed from Minkai in her background, you and the GM might decide that you should gain access to Eastern weapons instead of, or in addition to, Western ones.

Story events in your game are another way a character could gain access to uncommon options. For instance, Stephen previously mentioned in the blog on alchemical items that you would have to get the formula for drow sleep poison from the drow; it's an uncommon option. But in your campaign, if your alchemist was captured by the drow and forced to brew poisons for them, the GM might add drow sleep poison and other uncommon options to the formulas available to your alchemist! Uncommon options make amazing rewards to find in adventures, and they can be found at a much higher rate than rare options, since they are more common in the world.

Rare

Something is rare if it's extremely difficult to obtain without doing something special in-world to find it. This means that rare options involve interplay between the player and the GM, or are granted by the GM directly. There's no way to get access to these through choices in your character build alone. Rare options are spells known only to the ancient runelords, techniques passed down by the grandmaster of an ancient monastery in the Wall of Heaven mountains, golem-crafting secrets of the Jistka Imperium, and the like.

Unique

Something is unique if there's only one. Most artifacts are unique, as are certain monsters, like the Sandpoint Devil or Grendel. No artifacts appear in the Playtest Rulebook, so in the playtest only a few Doomsday Dawn monsters and hazards are unique.

Uses of Rarity

So how is this system useful to you?

Worldbuilding and Emulating Genres

First of all, your group can really alter the flavor and feel of the game by changing around the commonness of certain elements, allowing for a wide variety of genre play and settings through a relatively simple system. This is a big tool in your toolkit for worldbuilding. What would a world be like where the wizard was uncommon, or where all healing magic was rare? You can create a new subgenre or setting simply by shifting around the assumptions of what elements are common, uncommon, and rare. The rarities in the Playtest Rulebook are meant to show a good baseline for a typical Pathfinder campaign and make for a solid default if you're not straying to far from classic fantasy, but I can't wait until people start posting their modified schemes for all sorts of different concepts, from prehistoric to horror, and from low-magic (all magic is uncommon or rare) to super high fantasy mash-up (everything is common!).

Mechanical Diversity without Cognitive Overload

While some groups go for a kitchen sink approach to available options, many groups want to allow options from other books but are tend to stick to the core content because of the sheer mental load of learning, using, and preparing for all of those options, especially on the GM. With rarity, you have a framework for adding more material without just opening the fire hose: you start with common content (for a new group, probably the things labeled as common in the book) and you expand into mastering uncommon and rare content only as it appears in your game. If a particular rare spell hasn't shown up in the game, you don't have to worry about how it might interact with your character's build or your NPC's plot in the same way you might otherwise. A player can bring some desired uncommon or rare options to the GM, who can get a feel for the rules involved and decide when and how to introduce those options to the campaign. If the PC is interested in spells and items from ancient Osirion, perhaps the PCs find a new quest that takes them there, or is contacted by an Osirionologist NPC who's willing to trade her Osirian secrets for the PCs' help with a different adventure.

We love games with plenty of options, but we also want to consider fans who've told us that though they love new options, they started becoming overwhelmed by just how many options there are in Pathfinder First Edition. With the rarity system, you can enjoy the best of both worlds.

Awesome Rewards

One thing that can be tough in Pathfinder First Edition is giving a reward to a PC whose player has already looked up all the options and bought or crafted all the items they really want, learned all the spells they really want, and so on, even if some of those items and spells really seemed like they wouldn't be available on the open market. Rarity allows a GM to give rewards that aren't easily available without needing to homebrew a brand new item or ability every time, and allows players who gain rarer options to feel special and important.

When you emerge from a Thassilonian tomb with a rare spell few have seen in millennia, wizards' guilds might start salivating over that knowledge. Will you keep it to yourself? Will you sell it to select wizards for a pretty penny? Will you spread the knowledge to all who desire it, possibly making the spell uncommon or even common in your setting? Or will you keep it to yourself to show off for the spellcasters you meet who have never heard of it? Only you can decide, giving you the power to make a permanent mark on the setting.

So how are you most excited to use the new rarity system?

Mark Seifter
Designer

Pathfinder Society 3: Organized Playtest

Wednesday, July 11, 2018

The past few months have been busy for the organized play team, from many of us traveling to give fans sneak peaks of the Pathfinder Playtest to our developing a huge number of scenarios to launch at PaizoCon, Origins, and Gen Con (more on those Gen Con adventures in several upcoming preview blogs). We've also been discussing many of the features in a Second Edition Pathfinder Society campaign, as we introduced in our initial playtest blog as well as the blog that followed. We'll be getting into some of our ideas—including some possibilities for incentivizing special events without gating material—and takeaways from your feedback shortly after Gen Con.

In the meantime, I want to confirm and reinforce what you'll be seeing at Gen Con and beyond for the Pathfinder Society Playtest.

1: What to Play

Paizo has created 11 different adventures for you to playtest, and we're including them all in the organized play playtest.

Pathfinder Playtest Adventure: Doomsday Dawn (August 2nd): The biggest playtest adventure resource by far is this series of 7 adventures that span a wide range of levels. Some of these are "traditional" adventures, whereas others are designed to stress-test different parts of the game. A common estimate is that each of these adventures runs about twice the length of a Pathfinder Society scenario, though it will vary by your group, play style, and familiarity with the rules.

Pathfinder Society Playtest #1: The Rose Street Revenge (August 6th): This is a series of four quests (short adventures intended to take about 40-;60 minutes each). Explore Absalom, clash with a variety of foes, catch a murderer, and emerge as heroes.

Pathfinder Society Playtest #2: Raiders of Shrieking Peak (August 6th): This is a scenario (about 4-;5 hours) for 5th-level characters, taking the PCs into the Isle of Kortos's wilderness to rescue a missing comrade and recover a lost relic.

Pathfinder Society Playtest #3: Arclord's Envy (August 6th): This is a scenario for 5th-level characters that takes place in the wondrously arcane nation Nex. Solve a murder in the capital city, where mages, golems, and elementals rule.

Pathfinder Society Playtest #4: The Frozen Oath (September 26th): This is a scenario for 10th-level characters, taking the PCs into the frozen Crown of the World. There they'll fight with all manner of arctic menaces while uncovering an ancient ruin. We'll have a product page up for this scenario soon.

Beyond that, Paizo's also excited to receive any homebrew adventure data. Just keep in mind that 1) that style of game doesn't earn any organized play credit (see below) and that 2) one big advantage of having printed adventures to playtest is that they control for more variables in the playtest process and thus provide information that's easier to process and compare.

Valeros is pumped and ready to playtest!

2: Characters

The playtest experience is distinct from the current Pathfinder Society Roleplaying Guild campaign. That means you aren't bringing your existing Pathfinder Society characters to the table—at least not directly. There are two different ways we're handling player characters.

Build Your Own Character: In Pathfinder Society, you have to play a certain number of times to reach a particular level. In order to playtest a wide range of levels, we're not using that organic character growth model in the playtest. Instead, each of these adventures is made for characters of a particular level, and you get to build a character of that level and just show up.

Play a Pregenerated Character: The organized play team is providing a set of pregenerated characters (we're currently working on six of them with a possible seventh character) at both 1st and 5th levels. That's perfect for Pathfinder Playtest Scenarios #1-3, especially when running The Rose Street Revenge as a demo or when playing these adventures at conventions. You can also use the 1st-level pregenerated characters for the first Doomsday Dawn adventure with some minor modifications—or your own home games, if you like.

Doesn't that leave plenty of adventures in which there won't be a pregenerated character option? Yes. We're providing a good array of pregens for our first few adventures, but creating pregenerated characters for all of the levels represented isn't practical. Paizo's also really interested to hear about the character-building process—if it was easy, intuitive, hard in places, et cetera. This does make it important to factor this into your playtest schedule, though (see the General Advice below).

3: Earning Credit

Back in March, we introduced a "prize table" method of earning playtest credit (see the end of the linked blog). The more we discussed and refined the concept, the more we liked it.

Playtest Points: At the back of each Pathfinder Society Playtest scenario, you'll find a pair of half-page tracking sheets. Each asks you to record the adventure you played, the date completed, the GM's organized play number, the GM's initials, and a reminder to fill out that adventure's survey (see below). That means that instead of receiving a different Chronicle sheet for each adventure, you'll just fill in a single line of information. If you fill up your tracking sheet, just grab a new one and starting filling it in, too. Just keep these sheets together, much like you would your character's Chronicle sheets!

In addition, for each of these adventures you will earn a number of Playtest Points (PTP). 

• Earn 1 PTP for each playtest quest played. It's absolutely fine to play all of The Rose Street Revenge in one sitting and record it as a single event.
• Earn 4 PTP for each playtest scenario played.
• Earn 4 PTP for each chapter of Doomsday Dawn
• For every 4 PTP someone earns by being a GM, they'll receive 1 bonus PTP.

As we approach the launch of Pathfinder Society's Second Edition campaign, we'll post the different ways that you can redeem these points for special character options. These aren't intended as major power upgrades but rather as fun tools, backgrounds, and other options to thank you for contributing to the playtest process.

Replay: You can freely replay these 11 playtest adventures for credit; in fact, you'll likely learn something new about the game each time you play an adventure. Just be sure your foreknowledge of any story and encounters doesn't ruin the experience for others at the table. We expect there will be plenty of playtest rewards, so by replaying some adventures and gaining extra PTP, those points aren't going to go to waste.

Reporting: How are we tracking how many PTP you've earned? Although your tracking sheets are a handy record, you'll be purchasing rewards using your accumulated PTP reported on paizo.com. Yep, reporting is important. Think of this as a trial run for how we can provide ongoing rewards once we launch the new campaign, so help us report events dutifully so that we might distribute, say, ancestry boons in the future.

But what's your character name? Your character number? Your faction? Go ahead and make up a name used in playtesting. For your number, use XXXXX-15XX (for example, 11300-1501 for a first character, 11300-1502 for the second, etc.). It's easy to go overboard in creating characters by making loads of characters, so you might want to stick to just a few numbers or one character number per playtest class. Whichever strategy you choose, the playtest points you earn are cumulative to the campaign; you don't need to assign credit to the same character.

4: Surveys

Surveys are going to be a major vector for soliciting feedback during the playtest process, and that includes the organized play events. In addition to several general-purpose surveys, each of the playtest adventures will have associated surveys—often including a different survey for the players and for the GM—that seek scenario-specific information. Once the playtest launches at Gen Con on the first weekend of August, you'll be able to find these surveys at paizo.com/pathfinderplaytest. Keep in mind that Paizo will periodically add more surveys to that site to secure more information and better pace the playtest feedback.

In particular when running chapters of Doomsday Dawn, keep in mind that there might be specific numbers to track during gameplay. If you are the GM, please take a look at the survey beforehand so that you can record these values and report them accurately later.

5: General Advice

Plan for Building Characters: In the Characters section above, I noted that there will only 1st- and 5th-level pregenerated characters available. This comes with a really important consideration: plan for building characters AT or BEFORE your playtest events. That might mean gathering your group together the day before the event to run a character-building session. It might mean scheduling the event to start an hour earlier to build in time for this process. If someone shows up without a character for Pathfinder Society Playtest #1, 2, or 3, they can always grab a pregenerated character. For #4, though? It's important to have that character ready to go. Work out with your group, your store, or your community what makes the most sense.

How much gold does your higher-level character start with? Each PC should be built using the character wealth numbers for their respective levels found on page 348 of the Pathfinder Playtest Rulebook (see Table 11-2).

Plan for Teaching Rules: I've now run many hours of our convention demo and the Rose Street Revenge quests, and I've found it's possible to convey a nice overview of the rules in about 10 minutes. However, I could readily stretch that out to three times that length, especially in answering questions. As with planning for building characters, you'll want to schedule a little time for teaching the rules.

Assess Your Area's Needs: Just figure out what's best for your region, your gaming space, or your home group. It might make sense to run a few big events, meet regularly to run part of a scenario at a time, or create temporary playtesting groups to tackle the larger Doomsday Dawn adventures. Take the time to discuss it with your community. There's no one right answer.

We're excited to see what you think of the new edition and our excellent new adventures! Next week we'll provide previews of the upcoming July and August Pathfinder Society and Starfinder Society scenarios, and the following week we'll preview the increasingly imminent Pathfinder Playtest scenarios.

John Compton
Organized Play Lead Developer

Sorcerer Class Preview

Monday, July 9, 2018

Their magical blood gives sorcerers their spellcasting power, and it's been a major part of the class since Pathfinder's inception. So for the Pathfinder Playtest, we're going all in: your character's bloodline determines her spell list!

Illustration by Wayne Reynolds

Bloodlines

You pick your bloodline at 1st level, which tells you which spell list you use: arcane, divine, primal, or occult (the last of the four magical traditions, which we'll cover in a future blog!). It also defines some of the spells you know. For instance, the demonic bloodline gives you the divine spell list and the fear spell at 1st level, in addition to two other spells that you choose yourself from the divine list. In some cases, the special spells from your bloodline come from other lists. For example, the demonic bloodline gives you slow when you learn 3rd-level spells (for the sin of sloth) and disintegrate when you learn 6th-level spells. There are a couple more. How about we look at that whole bloodline entry and you can make your own guesses about which ones are from other lists?

Demonic

The demons of the Abyss debase all they touch, and one of your ancestors fell victim to their corruption. You're burdened with dark thoughts and the desire for destruction. This urge can be overcome if you choose to fight it, but the beauty of sin calls to you always.

Spell List divine (Pathfinder Playtest Rulebook 200)

Signature Skills Athletics, Deception, Intimidation, Religion

Granted Spells Cantrip: detect magic; 1st: fear; 2nd: resist energy; 3rd: slow; 4th: divine wrath; 5th: banishment; 6th: disintegrate; 7th: divine decree; 8th: power word stun; 9th: meteor swarm

Bloodline Powers Initial Power: glutton's jaws; Advanced Power: swamp of sloth (2); Greater Power: abyssal wrath (2)

You can see that the bloodline also determines your most important skills and gives you some bloodline powers. We've talked about powers before (see the cleric preview. These are special spells you can get only from specific classes, and they are cast using Spell Points rather than spell slots. They also automatically heighten to the highest level of spell you can cast. You start out with a number of Spell Points per day equal to your Charisma modifier, and if you have the demonic bloodline, you gain the glutton's jaws power, which you can cast at a cost of 1 Spell Point.

Glutton's Jaws Power 1

Necromancy

Casting [[A]] Somatic Casting, [[A]] Verbal Casting

Duration 1 minute

---

Your mouth transforms into a shadowy maw bristling with pointed teeth. These jaws grant you an unarmed attack you're trained in, dealing 1d6 piercing damage. They have the finesse trait.

Attacks with your jaws have the following enhancement.

Enhancement If the target was living, gain 1d4 temporary HP.

Heightened (2nd) Your jaws gain the effects of a +1 weapon potency rune (a +1 item bonus to attack rolls and an additional damage die) and the temporary Hit Points increase to 2d4.

Heightened (4th) The jaws gain the effects of a +2 weapon potency rune and the temporary Hit Points increase to 3d4.

Heightened (6th) The jaws gain the effects of a +3 weapon potency rune and the temporary Hit Points increase to 4d4.

Heightened (8th) The jaws gain the effects of a +4 weapon potency rune and the temporary Hit Points increase to 5d4.

At higher levels, you'll get to make a swampy morass that makes creatures slothful or call forth the dangers of an Abyssal realm.

The number of bloodlines in the Pathfinder Playtest Rulebook is fairly small, since we want to see how people react to the new style of the class with just a subset of the bloodlines. In the book, you'll see the following bloodlines: aberrant (occult), angelic (divine), demonic (divine), draconic (arcane), fey (primal) and imperial (arcane). That last one comes from the magical traditions of ancient mortals and matches our iconic sorcerer, Seoni!

Spontaneous Spellcasting

This is our first preview of a spontaneous spellcaster! The sorcerer gets the same number of spells per day as a wizard, but she has a number of spells she knows permanently instead of preparing them from a spellbook every day. The spells she knows make up her spell repertoire. That means she can choose which spell to cast each time she casts a spell instead of needing to plan ahead. It's worth noting that the sorcerer now learns spells at the same character level as the wizard: 2nd-level spells at 3rd level, 3rd-level spells at 5th level, and so on.

As you level up, you learn new spells and can replace some of the spells you previously had with new ones. This lets you get rid of some spells that were great options when they were at your highest level but maybe aren't worth casting anymore.

The sorcerer's spellcasting is based on her inborn magical potency, so she uses her Charisma for her spell rolls and spell DCs. Because Charisma also adds to Resonance Points, the sorcerer can make up for some of her limited spell choice compared to the wizard's spellbook by supplementing her spell selection with more scrolls, staves, and wands.

Sorcerer Features

Many of the sorcerer's class features were explained under bloodline, as most of them tie back to that choice. The sorcerer gains her advanced power at 6th level and her greater bloodline power at 10th level. As with other spellcasters, her proficiency with spell rolls and spell DCs increases to expert at 12th level, master at 16th, and legendary at 19th.

The sorcerer gets one other class feature, called spontaneous heightening. As mentioned before, some spells in your lower-level spell slots get less useful as you go up in level. However, there are some spells you might want to cast with any of your slots. The spontaneous heightening feature lets you choose two spells at the start of each day that you can cast as their heightened versions using any of your spell slots. That means that if you want your angelic sorcerer to be able to cast 1st-level heal, 2nd-level heal, and 3rd-level heal, you can choose your 1st-level heal spell with spontaneous heightening rather than needing to learn the spell in your spell repertoire at all three spell levels. Then you can cast a 1st-level heal to top off someone's Hit Points when they're almost at full and still cast a 3rd-level heal in the middle of a fight to really save someone from the brink!

Sorcerer Feats

The sorcerer's feats primarily deal with her spells. Sorcerers get metamagic feats, many of which they share with other casters. One we haven't shown off yet is Overwhelming Spell at 8th level, which lets a spell that deals acid, cold, electricity, or fire damage ignore the first 10 points of a target's resistance.

If you want to make a blaster, you can pick up Dangerous Sorcery, which increases the damage of your spells by their spell level (with the exception of cantrips). You can also take Blood Magic at 8th level, which uses the magical potential in your blood to grant temporary Hit Points to you or a target of your spell if you're bleeding when you cast it.

One of my favorite cycles of feats are the evolution feats, which reinforce the themes of each magical tradition. Arcane Evolution makes your arcane sorcerer trained in a skill and lets you add a spell from a scroll to your spell repertoire for the day when you prepare each morning. Divine Evolution lets you channel energy like a cleric. Occult Evolution gives you a skill and lets you pick a spell with the mental trait to add to your repertoire each day. Finally, Primal Evolution lets you cast summon nature's ally as an innate spell once per day at the highest spell level you can cast.

How about a 20th-level feat? Sorcerers can take a feat to gain 10th-level spells of their tradition, but you might want to look at other options, like Wellspring Spell. This metamagic feat lets you cast a 5th-level or lower spell once per minute without expending the spell slot!

What sort of predictions do you have for the bloodlines? What spells will they get? Does this new scheme make you more or less likely to play a sorcerer? Do you want to try out a gnome fey sorcerer? How about an angelic sorcerer with the heal spell? Let us know in the comments, and start preparing for when you get the book!

Logan Bonner
Designer

It’s a Trap!

Friday, July 6, 2018

Hazards are some of the most common challenges in Pathfinder, apart from monsters, and the most common hazards are traps. Most of the hazards in the Pathfinder Playtest are traps, but there are also environmental hazards like mold and quicksand, or even haunts. Rather than have different rules for each type of hazard, in the playtest, hazards all have a unified format, though how you might find them and deal with them can be quite different.

Noticing a Hazard

Most hazards can be noticed using Perception, although simple or obvious magical hazards are easily noticeable via detect magic and similar magic. Some hazards are so easy to locate that you might notice them even if you aren't even searching. Other hazards might be created or hidden in a particularly devious way and require a certain proficiency rank to notice them before it's too late, even if you're searching. (The rogue's Trap Finder feat improves this even further in the case of traps, but any character with legendary Perception can find any Perception-based hazard—not just rogues!) These harder-to-locate hazards don't appear until higher levels, since it's incredibly unlikely to encounter a level 1 trap created by a legendary crafter, though that doesn't mean all high-level hazards are hard to notice. For instance, the most dangerous example hazard below, the Armageddon Orb, is trivial for almost anyone to notice.

Disabling a Hazard

The skill needed to disable a hazard varies. Traps are usually disabled via Thievery, environmental hazards via Nature or Survival, and haunts via Occultism or Religion, though there are exceptions in every category. Many hazards require a certain number of successes before they are fully disabled, and a critical success typically counts as two successes. A critical failure means you've accidentally triggered the hazard! Many physical hazards can also be destroyed by brute force. In many cases, breaking the trigger mechanism might set the trap off prematurely, which you might be able to do from a safe distance. We felt it was really important to make dealing with hazards a more narrative experience without taking lots of extra time or requiring the GM to make up details on the spot, and so every skill that can be used to disable a hazard is listed in the stat block, along with a description of the how a PC would use that skill to do so.

Simple or Complex?

Out of everything in the playtest, hazards may be the one component for which you can get the best preview right now. How? Starfinder. We had already created an early framework for hazards by the time Starfinder came around, so when I was asked to create a framework for Starfinder's traps, I adapted what we had for the Pathfinder Playtest, and the rest of the Starfinder Core Rulebook team liked what they saw. We've refined the playtest's system since then, which means that we have two main types of hazards: simple hazards that trigger, take their reaction, and are then done, and complex hazards that roll into initiative and shift the game into encounter mode until the PCs deal with them (or at least escape).

For Example…

Let's take a look at several sample hazards!

Hidden Pit Hazard 0

Mechanical, Trap

Stealth DC 16

Description A trapdoor covers a 10-foot-square pit that is 20 feet deep.

Disable Thievery DC 12 to remove the trapdoor, making the trap no longer hidden (Perception DC 0 to notice)

AC 10, TAC 7; Fort +1, Ref +1

Hardness 4 (trapdoor); Immunities critical hits, object immunities, precision damage

[[R]] Pitfall

Trigger A creature walks onto the trapdoor.

Effect The triggering creature falls in and takes falling damage (typically 10 bludgeoning damage). That creature can use the Grab Edge reaction to avoid falling.

Reset The trap still causes falling damage if anyone falls in, but the trapdoor must be reset manually for the trap to become hidden again.

Ah, the pit, the most basic of all simple traps. Anybody can find a hidden pit, even if they aren't searching for it, because the Stealth DC doesn't require a proficiency rank. If someone walks onto the trapdoor, the pit uses its reaction to open up, and the triggering creature might fall. The Disable entry explains how a character can pop the trapdoor off and make the pit obvious to all. Still might want to be careful crossing, though!

Armageddon Orb Hazard 23

Magical, Trap

Stealth DC 10 or detect magic

Description A roiling red orb, forged from a drop of Rovagug's blood, rains fire from the sky when a specified condition is met.

Disable Thievery DC 51 (legendary) to imbue thieves' tools with aspects representing Asmodeus and Sarenrae and use them to drain away the orb's power over 10 minutes, taking 5 fire damage each round during that time

[[R]] Burn It All (divine, evocation, fire)

Trigger A special condition set by the trap's creator, typically on the event of her death.

Effect Fire rains from the sky in a 100-mile radius, dealing 10d6 fire damage to creatures and objects in the area (Reflex DC 46 for half damage, or no damage on a critical success). Any creature reduced to 0 Hit Points in this way dies instantly. This is not enough damage to completely burn away a forest or level a mountain or city, but it typically kills most creatures in the area.

This one was pure, over-the-top fun to write. What would a level 23 hazard even look like? This one is really obvious but incredibly difficult to disable. The effect's damage is not even remotely a threat to high-level PCs—but if they care about any NPCs in the region, chances are they're not going to want to set this thing off!

Bloodthirsty Urge Hazard 10

Haunt

Stealth DC 29 (trained)

Description An object imbued with echoes of a vicious mind tries to kill someone who comes near.

Disable Religion DC 27 (master) to exorcise the spirit or Diplomacy DC 29 (expert) to talk it down

[[R]] Quietus (emotion, fear, illusion, mental, occult)

Trigger A creature moves within 10 feet of the haunted object.

Effect The haunt takes control of the triggering creature, forcing it to attack itself. The creature is affected by phantasmal killer (DC 25), except that instead of mental damage, the damage type is based on a weapon the creature has drawn, an object it holds, or its unarmed attack damage if it's holding nothing.

Here's an example of a haunt. As you can see, it uses the same basic framework as the other hazards, so once you learn the rules, you can use them flexibly for almost any hazard you can dream up! In this case, a PC could use Religion to exorcise the haunt, but a character could also potentially use Diplomacy to talk it down. Still, the master of Religion has the advantage with an easier DC. You could even imagine an adventure where it matters how the PCs deal with a hazard. Perhaps exorcising a haunt using Religion helps sanctify the area, while using Diplomacy might persuade the spirit to impart some hints to the PCs about what happened before it departs.

Spinning Blade Pillar Hazard 4

Complex, Mechanical, Trap

Stealth +10 (trained) or DC 24 (expert) to notice the control panel

Description A metal pole with three razor-sharp spinning blades is hidden in the floor, connected to trigger plates in up to eight floor tiles and a hidden control panel within 30 feet.

Disable Thievery DC 18 (trained) twice on the pillar, or Thievery DC 16 (expert) once on the control panel deactivates the entire trap

AC 19, TAC 15; Fort +6, Ref +10

Hardness 11 (2 dents) on the pillar, denting the panel causes the trap to stay constantly active and prevents disabling the panel; Immunities critical hits, object immunities, precision damage

[[R]] Rising Pillar (attack)

Trigger A creature steps on one of the floor tiles.

Effect The trap pops up in a grid intersection and makes a spinning blade attack against one adjacent creature (if any), then rolls initiative.

Routine (3 actions) On its initiative, the trap spends its first action making a spinning blade attack against each adjacent creature, its second action to move straight in a random direction (roll 1d4 to determine the direction), and its third action to attack each adjacent creature. This trap doesn't take a multiple attack penalty.

Speed 10 ft.

[[A]] Melee spinning blade +12, Damage 2d10+5 slashing

Reset The trap deactivates and resets after 1 minute.

This is the first complex trap ever created for the game. It was also responsible for the first death in the game, as Logan kept rolling randomly for the blade's movement, which just happened to be wherever Stephen's rogue had moved while trying to avoid it—and then it rolled right back over him after he fell unconscious. Note that the complex trap has a Stealth bonus, rather than just a DC, since it actually rolls for initiative in encounter mode (using Stealth). If your party has an expert in Thievery who can find the hidden panel (we didn't; our expert lay bleeding on the ground), this hazard is actually a breeze to disable, but even a trained character can disable it with patience, and a not-so-patient character can always smash it apart with enough big hits to deal 11 or more damage.

So what do you think? Care to hazard an opinion?

Mark Seifter
Designer

Ranger Class Preview

Monday, July 2, 2018

Rangers have a long tradition in heroic adventure. Whether they're portrayed as lone striders keeping the edges of the wilderness free of the threats that lurch forth from the world's shadows, as hunters tracking down fugitives or beasts, or as skilled archers serving as a scouting force for a local lord or group of village elders, rangers have a special place in our fantastical imagination.

For the Pathfinder Playtest, we decided to cleave closer to the core principles of the ranger—a rough and tumble warrior in the wild, possibly of the wild himself. Because of this, the most significant change we made to the class was that it no longer has spellcasting ability, at least as a default. Of course, this doesn't mean we have to abandon this aspect of the Pathfinder First Edition ranger forever. Because of the way classes are now structured, it would be easy to create a spellcasting build of the ranger later using Spell Points (like the paladin), but for the Playtest, we are trying out a a spell-less ranger.

But enough of what the ranger doesn't have. Let's take a look at what he does.

Ranger Features

First and foremost, the ranger is a hunter. In Pathfinder First Edition, you picked creature types or subtypes that you were skilled at hunting. There are few things more frustrating than playing a ranger who rarely—or worst of all, never—encounters their favored enemies. It also led to some players who tended to play in more human-centric campaigns picking the human subtype, even if their backgrounds may have pointed to better choices for favored enemies.

This time we made the ranger hunting ability a bit more flexible, based on some popular ideas from the guide archetype and the slayer's studied target. At 1st level, rangers gain the Hunt Target feature.

[[A]] Hunt Target

Ranger

Requirements You can see or hear the target.

You designate a single creature within 100 feet as your target and focus your attacks against that creature. While hunting that creature, you gain benefits for focusing your attacks. As long as all your attacks in a round are against the target you're hunting, the multiple attack penalty you take on the second attack is -4 (-3 with an agile weapon) instead of -5, and -8 (-6 with an agile weapon) instead of -10 on the third and any further attacks in the round. You also ignore the penalty for making ranged attacks against the target you're hunting within your second range increment. You also gain a +2 circumstance bonus to Perception checks when you Seek your target and a +2 circumstance bonus to Survival checks when you Track your target.

You can have only one creature designated as the target of your hunt at a time. If you use Hunt Target against a creature when you already have a creature designated, the prior creature loses the designation and the new target gains the designation. In any case, this designation lasts until your next daily preparation.

Illustration by Wayne Reynolds

There are many class feats and some higher-level abilities that augment the ranger's Hunt Target. For example, at 17th level, the masterful hunter feature decreases the ranger's multiple attack penalty to -3 (or -2 with agile weapon) with his second attack and -6 (or -4 with agile weapons) on his third or further attack, and he can ignore the penalty against the target of his hunt in the second or third range increment, assuming that he has at least master proficiency in the weapon he is. Speaking of which, like the fighter, the ranger gains weapon mastery for a group of weapons, though he gains it at 13th level instead of at 3rd level like the fighter. At 19th level, the ranger gains the swift target feature, which allows him to use Hunt Target as a free action triggered before he makes his first Strike each round, so he's never without a target to hunt! The specifics of the Hunt Target ability make the ranger excel at a variety of combat styles, especially his traditional two-weapon fighting (since you can decrease the multiple attack penalty with agile attacks to be incredibly small) and archery (since you eliminate some of the most common ranged increment penalties). Of course, a ranger with a less traditional style, like a greatsword with a reduced multiple attack penalty, works great too!

Other class features allow the ranger to stalk and avoid his foes. At 5th level, he gains trackless step. At 7th level, he gains evasion (followed by improved evasion at 15th level). He gains nature's edge at 9th level, which allows him to treat enemies in natural difficult terrain or in difficult terrain resulting from a snare (more on snares later!) as flat-footed. Come 11th level, he gains the wild stride feature, which allows him to ignore or minimize the effects of difficult terrain.

Ranger Feats

Class feats, of course, determine the flavor of individuals within a class, and the ranger is no different. Specific ranger feats allow him to gain an animal companion at the same progression as a druid's, though potentially with special benefits that only a ranger can obtain. Other feats will enable him to further focus on his weapon choice, including a whole string of feats that allow him to specialize in two-weapon fighting.

Some fun feats allow the ranger to use his knowledge and senses to aid his allies as well as himself. Here are a couple of my favorites.

Monster Hunter Feat 1

Ranger

When you critically succeed to identify a target you're hunting with Recall Knowledge, you (and your allies, if you tell them) gain a +1 circumstance bonus to your next attack roll against it, but not against other creatures of that species. The creature is bolstered.

[[F]] Scout's Warning Feat 4

Ranger

Trigger You are about to roll Perception for initiative.

You audibly or visually warn your allies of danger, granting them a +1 circumstance bonus to their initiative rolls.

Harkening back to the hunter's bond class feature in Pathfinder First Edition, these feats allow the ranger to support the rest of the group with increased flexibility in how he chooses to do so, and these are just a few. The ranger can expand on Monster Hunter to grant even more benefits with a successful Recall Knowledge and even share the benefits of Hunt Target with other PCs (pretty much any martial class will love this benefit). And while flanking-savvy fighters might be a rogue's traditional best friend, the 12th-level Distracting Shot feat allows the ranger who hits a target with two ranged attacks in the same turn to leave that critter flat-footed until the start of the ranger's next turn. This helps fast rogues bring the pain quickly and farther away from more heavily armored support.

Another group of feats allows you to create snares. (Told you I'd get to that!)

Snares

Like alchemy, the ability to create snares is granted by a general feat (Snare Crafting). And like alchemists, rangers have the potential to lift general snare crafting to greater heights.

What are snares? Well, they're small portable hazards, very similar to traps, which can be set up in a short period of time (usually 1 minute). While it's unlikely that you will set up a snare in the midst of combat, they are perfect tools to arrange a battleground to your advantage. For instance, remember the nature's edge class feature that allows you to treat enemies in difficult terrain as flat-footed? Here's the most basic snare that creates difficult terrain.

Slowing Snare Snare 1

Consumable, Mechanical, Snare, Trap

Price 2 gp

A square with this snare becomes difficult terrain when the first creature enters it, and then it is destroyed.

Other snares set off alarms, trip, or deal damage to those entering the area of a snare. Grab some alchemical items, and you can deal even more damage with a snare.

Freezing Snare Snare 8

Cold, Consumable, Mechanical, Snare, Trap

Price 50 gp

You set a trio of liquid ice bombs to explode in unison when a creature enters the freezing snare's square. The target must attempt a DC 22 Reflexsave.

Success The target takes 1d8 cold damage.

Critical Success The target is unaffected.

Failure The target takes 3d8 cold damage and is hampered 10 until the end of its next turn.

Critical Failure The target takes 6d8 cold damage and is hampered 10 until the end of its next turn.

Craft Requirements three vials of liquid ice

Ranger feats that deal with snares allow you to learn more of them as your Crafting rank increases, lets you set them up faster (even in the middle of combat), and increases snares' DCs to match your class DC. Always make sure that your allies know where you hid your snares, or no bonus to attack rolls or initiative that you grant them will make up for the damage and humiliation you might cause.

Stephen Radney-MacFarland
Senior Designer

Potency and Potions

Friday, June 29, 2018

Earlier this week, Logan gave you the skinny on Resonance and how it interacts with some iconic and all-new magic items. If you missed out on Logan's explanation of Resonance, you might want to take a look here before reading on, because we're going to come back to it at the end of the blog. You got how Resonance works? Good. Now forget about it, we're going to talk about weapons instead.

Potency and Properties

Unlike items with the invested trait or ones that you activate, weapons typically require no Resonance to use. You just pick one up and swing (or shoot, or sling, or thrust, or throw), and the magic weapon unleashes its punch, often with potency. Think as a weapon's potency as its "plus" and more. Potency still grants an item bonus to your attack rolls with the weapon, but now it also increases the damage dealt by an additional weapon die for each point of potency bonus. For example, let's say you find a +1 longsword buried in an otyugh's dung heap. Regardless of its current soiling, that weapon grants not only a +1 item bonus to attack rolls, but on a successful hit it deals 2d8 + Strength modifier damage, instead of the standard 1d8 + Strength modifier. A +2 longsword would instead grant a +2 item bonus to attacks and deal 3d8 + Strength modifier damage, and so on.

Of course, potency is only a part of the story. Magic weapons can also have properties. The maximum potency and the number of properties a weapon can have are based on that weapon's quality. Standard weapons can't have potency or properties, while expert-quality weapons can have up to +2 potency and one property. Master-quality weapons can have up to +4 potency and two properties, and legendary weapons can be +5 weapons and have three properties. Sometimes, special materials can affect the number of properties a magic weapon can possess. Since cold iron resists magic, weapons made of cold iron have one fewer property. Conversely, weapons made of highly magical orichalcum can have one additional property, but because the metal is so rare and difficult to work, these weapons must be legendary.

Both potency and property are imbued within a suitable weapon by etching magical runes upon it. Runes can be fairly easily removed or added (assuming the quality of the weapon allows it), and can even be found etched on a runestone, allowing them to be transferred separately from a weapon. Say you just found a handful of weapon property runestones in your adventure. What properties might they be? Well, let's take a look at one of the favorites of good and undead-hating clerics.

Disrupting Rune 5+

Method of Use etched, melee weapon

---

A disrupting weapon deals extra damage to undead. Undead hit by an attack with a disrupting weapon takes extra positive damage and additional effects on a critical hit.

Type standard; Level 5; Price 150 gp

The weapon deals 1d6 extra positive damage. On a critical hit, the undead is enfeebled 1 until the end of your next turn.

Type greater; Level 15 (Uncommon), Price 6,200 gp

The weapon deals 2d6 extra positive damage. On a critical hit, the undead creature must attempt a DC 32 Fortitude save with the following effects.

Success The target is enfeebled 2 until the end of your next turn.

Critical Success The target is enfeebled 1 until the end of your next turn.

Failure The target is enfeebled 3 until the end of your next turn.

Critical Failure The target is destroyed.

The disrupting property comes in two varieties. The standard disrupting property deals some positive damage and can enfeeble undead. The greater version deals more positive damage, and can force undead to attempt a save—if they critically fail that save, they're destroyed outright!

Of course, other types of properties can do even more incredible things. Sometimes, these properties can require an expenditure of resonance.

Vorpal Rune 17

Evocation, Magical

Price 15,000 gp

Method of Use etched, melee weapon that deals slashing damage

Activation [[R]] Focus Activation; Trigger You roll a natural 20 and critically succeed at a Strike with the weapon targeting a creature with at least one head.

---

When you activate a vorpal weapon, the triggering creature must succeed at a DC 35 Fortitude save, or it is decapitated. This kills any creature except ones that don't require a head to live (such as constructs, oozes, and some aberrations and undead). For creatures with multiple heads (such as ettins or hydras), this usually kills the creature only if you sever its lasthead.

If, like the vorpal property, a weapon property has an activation, you have to spend Resonance to activate it; however, unlike worn items, you don't have to already be attuned to a weapon to activate it. So roll those 20s and snicker-snack your opponents for as long as you've got the resonance to spare.

Armor Potency and Properties

Magic armor also features potency and may have properties. Like weapons, armor can hold a maximum amount of potency and properties based on its quality and special materials, and you can add, remove, or transfer potency and properties between armor via runes. The maximum potency and number of properties for armor is the same as for weapons, though it's worth noting that rather than granting an additional property, orichalcum armor instead grants a +1 circumstance bonus to initiative rolls and automatically repairs itself over time.

Armor potency grants an item bonus to AC (including Touch Armor Class) and to your saving throws. Magic and high-quality armors are also easier to use. Armors of expert quality have their armor check penalty reduced by one, while master-quality armors have their penalty reduced by two, and legendary armor by three.

Like other worn items, you must invest armor; that is, you have to spend resonance to gain its magical effects. If your armor has an activated property, you must have invested the armor before you can use that ability. Let's look at an example of such a property.

Invisibility Rune 8+

Illusion, Magical

Method of Use etched, light armor

Activation [[A]] Command Activation

---

Once per day, you can whisper the command word to become invisible for 1 minute, gaining the effects of a 2nd-level invisibilityspell.

Type standard; Level 8; Price 500 gp

Type greater; Level 10; Price 1,000 gp

You can activate the armor up to 3 times per day.

Craft Requirements You must supply a casting of invisibility.

This favored property of many rangers and rogues (and maybe a sneaky alchemist or two) allows the attuned creature to gain the benefit of an invisibility spell at the cost of an action and 1 RP. The greater version enables you to activate the armor three times a day instead of just once.

But not all properties feature activations or require expending Resonance beyond that spent for initial attunement. Here's a classic example of one—fortification.

Fortification Rune 12+

Abjuration, Magical

Method of Use etched, medium or heavy armor

---

Each time you're hit by a critical hit while wearing fortification armor, attempt a flat check with the listed DC. If you succeed, that critical hit becomes a normal hit. This property thickens the armor, increasing its Bulk by 1.

Type standard; Level 12; Price 2,000 gp; DC 17

Type greater; Level 18; Price 24,000 gp; DC 14

Granting medium and heavy armor users the possibility to transform a critical hit to a normal hit, fortification provides an excellent constant effect for fighters, paladins, and more martial-focused clerics.

Potions

Now that you know how magic weapons and armor work, let's talk a look at something much less permanent, but often useful in a pinch—potions! While in First Edition, potions were spells of 3rd level or lower in a bottle; we wanted to go a slightly different route this time. Potions not only can have effects that reach into higher levels, but they also don't need to be tied to particular spell effects. All of that said, there are just some potions that are so iconic and necessary, you can't mess with them too much. Who doesn't need a healing potion every now and then?

Healing Potion Item 1+

Consumable, Healing, Magical, Necromancy, Potion

Method of Use held, 1 hand; Bulk L

Activation [[A]] Operate Activation

---

When you drink a healing potion, you regain the listed number of Hit Points.

Type minor; Level 1; Price 3 gp

The potion restores 1d8 Hit Points.

Type lesser; Level 3; Price 8 gp

The potion restores 2d8+4 Hit Points.

Type moderate; Level 5; Price 20 gp

The potion restores 3d8+8 Hit Points.

Type greater; Level 8; Price 60 gp

The potion restores 5d8+12 Hit Points.

Type major; Level 12; Price 250 gp

The potion restores 7d8+20 Hit Points.

Type true; Level 16; Price 1,200 gp

The potion restores 9d8+30 Hit Points.

The first thing you'll notice is that there are six varieties of this point, ranging from level 1 (restoring 1d8 Hit Points) to level 16 (restoring 9d8+20 Hit Points) You'll also notice that this potion (and all potions) has an activation. Which, you guessed it, means you have to spend Resonance to gain its effect.

Of course, sometimes a healing potion does its best work when you're down for the punch and can't activate it yourself. No worries. The time-honored tradition of pouring a potion down your wounded friend's gullet is still in the game. Your companion spends an Interact basic action to administer the potion to you, but you still need to spend Resonance to gain the potion's effect (thankfully, you don't have to be conscious to do so).

Of course, this new flexibility for potions allows us to keep some items that in First Edition were called elixirs (a term that in the Playtest, we now use for alchemical concoctions). Here's one of my favorites:

Dragon's Breath Potion Item 7+

Consumable, Evocation, Magical, Potion

Method of Use held, 1 hand; Bulk L

Activation [[A]] Operate Activation

---

This liquid contains blood from a certain breed of dragon. For 1 hour after you imbibe the acrid concoction, you can unleash a breath weapon used by that breed of dragon. The potion's level and Price, as well as the amount of damage and the DC of the saving throw, all depend on the age of the dragon whose blood you used. This item has the trait matching the damage type of the breath weapon.

You can spend another Operate Activation action with no RP cost immediately after drinking the potion to exhale dragon breath. At any point during the potion's duration, you can use the breath weapon by spending 1 RP and 2 Operate Activation actions (one to inhale the necessary air and the other to breathe out). After you use the breath weapon, you can't do so again for 1d4 rounds.

Each creature in the area of the breath weapon attempts a save against your breath weapon.

Success Half damage.

Critical Success No damage.

Failure Full damage.

Critical Failure Double damage.

Type young; Level 7; Price 45 gp; Damage 4d6; DC 21

Type adult; Level 12;

Price 250 gp; Damage 7d6; DC 28

Type wyrm; Level 17; Price 2,000 gp; Damage 10d6; DC 35

Dragon Breath Weapon (Save)

Black or copper 30-foot line of acid (Reflex)
Blue or bronze 30-foot line of electricity (Reflex)
Brass 30-foot line of fire (Reflex)
Green 15-foot cone of poison (Fortitude)
Gold or red 15-foot cone of fire (Reflex)
Silver or white 15-foot cone of cold (Reflex)

This one is interesting because you spend Resonance when you first drink the potion and spew some draconic hate on your foes, and can then continue to do so for an hour after imbibing whenever you spend actions and RP. Pick the right kind of dragon, and you'll be the life of whatever party you join.

Very closely related to potions are oils. Like potions, you activate these consumable items, but you do so by applying the oil to an object or person. While it usually takes one hand to drink or administer a potion, applying oil takes two hands. This particular oil may be of interest to shield users.

Oil of Mending Item 3

Consumable, Magical, Oil, Transmutation

Price 6 gp

Method of Use held, 2 hands; Bulk L

Activation [[A]] Operate Activation

---

Applying this oil to an item casts a 2nd-level mending spell that repairs the item. If the item was broken, it is no longer broken. If the item has Dents, it loses those Dents. This restoration doesn't restore lost pieces. For instance, if used on a text with missing pages, it wouldn't recreate the lost pages.

A perfect backup when you fail your Crafting check to Repair an Item, or when you need to repair that dented shield in a hurry, the oil of mending has plenty of other uses.

Well, that's it for this week! Join us next week as we take a little walk in the woods.

Stephen Radney-MacFarland
Senior Designer

Trinkets and Treasures

Monday, June 25, 2018

Wayfinder. Bag of holding. Ring of the ram. Staff of power. Holy avenger.

The magic items you find during your adventures become a part of your story and let you do things beyond the techniques you've mastered and the spells you know. So how do these essentials of the game work in the Pathfinder Playtest?

Magic items are used in three major ways: by investing them, by activating them, or automatically. Invested items are ones you wear that you have to prepare as you don them, after which they work continuously. Activating items follows a system similar to that used for spells. Just as casting a spell requires you to spend actions to supply the somatic, verbal, and material components of the spell, activated items require you to use the Command Activation, Focus Activation, or Operate Activation action, or a combination of multiple actions. A potion requires you to spend an Operate Activation action to drink it. A necklace of fireballs requires you to spend 2 Operate Activation actions to unbind a bead and throw it. Activating a luck blade to reroll an attack just takes a mental nudge with a Focus Activation reaction (though you get to do that only once per day). Automatic activation happens with a small category of items that give their benefit whenever they're used for their normal purpose. A prime example is a sword with the frost property rune, which is always coated with frost and needs only hit a foe to deal extra cold damage.

Illustration by Wayne Reynolds

Resonance

Activating or investing an item costs 1 Resonance Point (RP). You might have heard a bit about this on the Glass Cannon podcast! Resonance is a new resource all characters have that can be used to activate items. Your innate magic item resonance is represented by a number of Resonance Points equal to your level plus your Charisma modifier. This ties back to the Pathfinder First Edition concept of Charisma as the main ability score tied to innate magic, as seen in the Use Magic Device skill and the fact that Charisma is used for spell-like abilities, oracles, sorcerers, and so forth. However, in Pathfinder Second Edition, true scholars of itemcraft *cough*alchemists*cough* might get to use their Intelligence instead.

The idea of resonance stems from the Pathfinder First Edition occultist, who was able to tap into the magical potential of items, and even before that to the idea of resonance between creatures and various magic items, as seen with the resonant powers of wayfinders. We've expanded that concept to apply to everyone. In practical terms, you're really unlikely to run out of Resonance Points unless you're using an absurd number of items, and you're at the greatest risk at low levels. You still have a chance even if your pool is empty, though. You can overspend Resonance Points! If you're at 0 RP, you can attempt to activate or invest an item anyway. You need to attempt a flat check (a d20 roll with no modifiers) against a DC equal to 10 + the number of points you've overspent today. So the first item has a 50% chance of working, and it gets more risky from there.

We expect Resonance Points to be a contentious topic, and we're really curious to see how it plays at your tables. It's one of the more experimental changes to the game, and the playtest process gives us a chance to see it in the wild before committing to it. Here are the advantages we see from a design perspective:

1. Using items is clear and consistent. Spend the required actions and 1 RP, and you activate or invest your item. If someone else wants to use the same item, you can remove it and let them put it on and invest it themselves.
2. You have less to track. We get to remove some of the sub-pools that individual items have (such as "10 rounds per day which need not be consecutive" or "5 charges") because we know you have an overall limited resource. There are still some items that can't be used without limit, but they get to be special exceptions rather than being common out of necessity.
3. It puts the focus on the strongest items. Because you can't activate items indefinitely, your best bet is to use the most RP-efficient item, not the most gp-efficient item. You want a high-level healing wand because you get more healing for your Resonance Point rather than getting a bunch of low-level wands because they're cheap.
4. Investiture limits what you can wear. That means we don't need to rely heavily on an item slot system, creating more flexibility in what kind of worn items are useful. You'll read more about this on the blog on Friday, when we talk about removing the magic item Christmas tree!

Will those benefits be compelling? Will people prefer this system over the Pathfinder First Edition system? We look forward to finding out!

Want to look at an item to see how this works in practice?

Cloak of Elvenkind Item 10+

Illusion, Invested, Magical

Method of Use worn, cloak; Bulk L

Activation [[A]] Focus Activation, [[A]] Operate Activation

---

This cloak is deep green with a voluminous hood, and is embroidered with gold trim and symbols of significance to the elves. The cloak allows you to cast the ghost sound cantrip as an innate arcane spell. When you draw the hood up over your head (an Interact action), the cloak transforms to match the environment around you and muffles your sounds, giving you an item bonus to Stealth checks. If you activate the cloak, you pull the hood up and are affected by invisibility for 1 minute or until you pull the hood back down, whichever comes first.

Type standard; Level 10; Price 1,000 gp

The cloak grants a +3 bonus.

Type greater; Level 18; Price 24,000 gp

The cloak grants a +5 bonus, and invisibility is 4th level. If you're also wearing greater boots of elvenkind, the greater cloak of elvenkind allows you to Sneak in forest environments even when creatures are currently observing you.

Here's a fairly complex item to show multiple parts of the system at once. The cloak of elvenkind is level 10, and there's also a greater cloak of elvenkind with an item level of 18. In case you missed it in the crafting blog, items have levels now, which indicate the point at which you can craft them (as well as being handy for the GM when making treasure hoards). Method of use indicates that this item is worn and that it's a cloak. A few items have this two-part listing because they're hard to wear multiples of. Multiple cloaks, multiple boots... not practical. Multiple rings or amulets? No problem.

This item is both invested (note the invested trait) and activated (as you can see by the activation entry). Investing the cloak lets you cast ghost sound. You get this benefit as long as the cloak is invested, which means you can cast the spell whenever you want without activating the cloak and therefore without spending more Resonance Points. You can also get an item bonus to Stealth checks from the cloak (+3 or +5 for a greater cloak). Finally, you can activate the cloak as you raise the hood, spending 1 Resonance Point to turn invisible! Certainly not every item has as much going on as a cloak of elvenkind, but several classic items seemed like they needed a little extra special treatment! What do you think? Too much?

How about something simpler?

Floating Shield Item 13

Magical

Price 2,800 gp

Method of Use held, 1 hand; Bulk L

Activation [[A]] Operate Activation

---

This master-quality light wooden shield (Hardness 6) protects you without requiring you to spend actions each round. When you activate this shield, you can release it from your grip as a part of that action. The shield floats in the air next to you, granting you its bonus automatically, as if you Raised the Shield. Because you're not wielding the shield, you can't use reactions such as Shield Block with the shield.

After 1 minute, the shield drops to the ground, ending its floating effect. While the shield is adjacent to you, you can grasp it with an Interact action, ending its floating effect.

You can hold this and use it just like any other shield. Activating it lets you free up a hand to cause the shield to float, where it protects you without you spending an action! While the floating shield offers far less Hardness than many magic shields of a similar level (some have Hardness up to 18!), it's not meant for Shield Block, and its abilities allow you to use it even with a character who needs both hands for other things.

Now let's look at two special types of items: one revamped classic and one brand-new category!

Staves

We went through several different iterations of staves. They needed to remain a powerful tool for spellcasters, but we also wanted them to appear earlier in the game so you didn't have to wait for most staves to appear at higher levels. Let's see the staff of healing!

Staff of Healing Item 3+

Invested, Magical, Necromancy, Staff

Method of Use held, 1 hand; Bulk 1

Activation Cast a Spell (1 RP)

---

Made of smooth white wood, this staff is capped at each end with a golden cross adorned with a multitude of ruby cabochons. A staff of healing adds an item bonus to the Hit Points you restore any time you cast the heal spell using your own spell slots, using charges from the staff, or from channel energy.

Type minor; Level 3; Price 60 gp; Maximum Charges 3

The item bonus to heal spells is +1.

• stabilize (cantrip)
• heal (level 1)

I've included only the level 3 minor staff of healing here. There are also versions at levels 7, 11, and 15, and they add higher-level heal spells, plus restoration, remove disease, restore senses, and more! A staff is tied to you, which means you have to invest it, unlike most held items. This investiture has two extra benefits. First off, it links the staff to you, preventing anyone else from investing the staff for 24 hours. More importantly, it restores charges to the staff equal to the highest level of spell you can cast. You don't have to expend any spells to do this; it's all part of using your Resonance Points. You'll notice this also means that if you find one of these as a 1st-level character, it will take you longer to recharge it than if you're a higher-level spellcaster. You also get the item bonus to healing as long as you hold the invested staff.

Now how do you cast these spells? Well, you activate the staff as part of casting one of the spells in it (spending 1 RP as usual). Then you have two options: You can either expend charges from the staff equal to the spell's level (1 charge for heal here) or expend one of your own spells of that level or higher. Yeah, your staff essentially lets you spontaneously cast the spells in it!

Trinkets

How about something completely different? One thing we wanted to add was a type of item that was like scrolls for martial characters. Spellcasters use scrolls and everyone uses potions, but how about something special that relies on nonmagical skills? Trinkets were the answer! Our first example was designed specifically for fighters.

Fear Gem Item 4

Consumable, Enchantment, Fear, Magical, Mental, Trinket

Price 11 gp

Method of Use affixed, weapon; Bulk —

Activation [[F]] Focus Activation; Trigger You use Intimidating Strike, but haven't rolled for the attack yet.

---

Dark smoke seems to writhe within this obsidian gem. When you activate the gem, if your Intimidating Strike hits, the target is frightened 2 and flat-footed against your attacks until the end of your next turn. If the attack roll is a critical success, the target is flat-footed against your attacks for 1 minute.

Trinkets all have the consumable trait, meaning they're used up after being activated once. They have the "affixed" method of use, and as this one indicates, it has to be affixed to a weapon. You can activate it with a Focus Activation as a free action when you use the Intimidating Strike action from the fighter feat of the same name. This makes the Intimidating Strike more severe, increasing its effect to frightened 2 instead of frightened 1 and making it especially strong on a critical success.

Now how about a trinket that's less specific?

Vanishing Coin Item 9

Consumable, Illusion, Magical, Trinket

Price 85 gp

Method of Use affixed, armor; Bulk —

Activation [[F]] Focus Activation; Trigger You attempt a Stealth check for initiative, but haven't rolled yet.

Requirements You are a master in Stealth.

---

This copper coin dangles from a leather strip strung through a hole drilled into the coin's center. It's usually tied just below the throat on a suit of armor. Until it is activated, the coin becomes invisible for a few seconds every few minutes, but always at random intervals. When you activate the coin, you gain the benefits of a 2nd-level invisibility spell until the end of your next turn.

Anyone with master proficiency in Stealth can use this trinket by affixing it to her armor. She can turn invisible by activating the coin when she rolls a Stealth check for initiative. Pretty useful in the first round of a fight!

Well, there's a lot to say about magic items, and we'll have more to say on Friday. For now, I'm going to leave you with a short list of some of the new items appearing in the Pathfinder Playtest Rulebook in addition to the classics.

• Anklets of alacrity
• Feather step stone
• Forge warden
• Grim trophy
• Handwraps of mighty fists
• Oil of weightlessness
• Persona mask
• Potency crystal
• Runestone
• Spell duelist's wand
• Third eye
• Virtuoso's instrument

Tell us what sorts of items you'd like to see in the final rulebook!

Logan Bonner
Designer

Archetypes for All

Friday, June 22, 2018

Illustration by Wayne Reynolds

Over the years, we have added a wide variety of new rules to Pathfinder First Edition, but none has been so well received as archetypes. It's no surprise that archetypes found such universal appeal. Allowing you to play a more specialized character, they let you play the character you want to play in a way that a single class often cannot support.

When the time came for us to look at archetypes for the Pathfinder Playtest, we knew that we wanted to make them a more integral part of the game, built to be an option from the very beginning. We also wanted to open them up a bit, so we could build archetypes allowing more than one class to access their features and feats, as opposed to having to recreate a concept for every applicable class with an entirely new archetype. This doesn't prevent us from creating more specific archetypes as well, but it opens up the design space further. In opening archetypes up, we realized that they might be easily abused if a player dipped into a variety of archetypes just to grab the best rules bits to make an overpowered character. It was a tough set of challenges, but fortunately for us, the answer was already built into the game.

Archetypes in the Pathfinder Playtest consist of a series of feats you can choose in place of your class feats. Every class gets its feats at roughly every other level, making them a perfect cost for archetypes. So if an archetype appeals to you—say, the pirate archetype—the only thing you need to do to gain access to it is take the appropriate dedication feat. Each dedication feat gives you some basic abilities and adds all the rest of that archetype's feats to your list of available class feats. The only catch is that you cannot take another dedication feat until after you have taken a specified number of archetype feats from the first one. So you can dip into a single archetype without too much trouble, but if you want more than one, you really have to put a fair amount of your character into the concept. For example, let's take a look at the pirate archetype.

Pirate Dedication Feat 2

Archetype, Dedication

Prerequisites Dexterity 12, trained in Acrobatics and Sailing Lore

When you Balance aboard a ship, treat a success as a critical success. You also ignore any difficult terrain, uneven ground, or incline caused by the ship's movement. You are trained with the hatchet, scimitar, and spear. In addition, Acrobatics is a signature skill for you.

Special You cannot select another dedication feat until you have gained two other feats from the pirate archetype.

As you can see, this first feat gives you a fair number of advantages while on a boat, certainly helping should combat break out, but you need to take more pirate feats before you can pick up another dedication feat. Let's take a look at two that you might choose.

Sea Legs Feat 4

Archetype

Prerequisites Pirate Dedication, trained in Athletics

Athletics is a signature skill for you. Whenever you succeed at an Athletics check to Swim, treat your result as a critical success. Additionally, you can always hold your breath for a number of actions equal to double your Constitution score when in water (this is not increased by using the Breathe Deep action).

Sea Legs really helps when you are in the water, letting you swim faster and hold your breath longer. It's also a prerequisite for Roll with the Ship, a feat that lets you reroll your Reflex saves when you are on your ship!

[[AA]] Boarding Action Feat 6

Archetype

Prerequisites Rope Runner

Swing on a rope or Stride up to twice your Speed. As long as you either boarded or disembarked a boat during this movement, make a Strike and deal an extra die of damage if you hit.

Boarding Action is one of those feats that nearly every pirate can be expected to have, since setting yourself up to board and pillage the enemy ship is going to be vital! It lets you close the distance to your foes, and if you move from one ship to another during this move, you can make a strike that deals extra damage! It's a bit more limited than the fighter's Sudden Charge, but you deal bonus damage as a benefit if you pull it off.

The pirate archetype has six feats to choose from (in addition to the dedication feat), which gives you plenty of variety if you are looking to explore the archetype before heading to the next one. The great part is that these pirate feats are part of your options list for the rest of your character's career, so you can always go back to pick up a feat that you missed.

Lastly, I want to take a look at prestige archetypes. These are archetypes whose dedication feats come with some pretty hefty prerequisites you have to meet before you can select them. In the Pathfinder Playtest Rulebook, we included only one such archetype as an example for you to play around with in your campaign: the Gray Maiden. Take a look at this dedication feat.

Gray Maiden Dedication Feat 6

Archetype, Dedication, Prestige

Prerequisites Strength 16, expert in Fortitude saves, trained in heavy armor and all martial weapons, member of the Gray Maidens

Your Gray Maiden training has steeled you against harsh physical conditions. You become a master at Fortitude saves. When you succeed at a Fortitude save, treat it as a critical success. You also gain access to special armor: Gray Maiden plate. Gray Maiden plate is a level 3 item that costs 600 sp, grants +7 AC and +3 TAC, and has a Dexterity modifier cap of +0; otherwise, it uses the same stats as full plate.

Special You cannot select another dedication feat until you have gained two other feats from the Gray Maiden archetype.

Becoming a master at Fortitude saves is not something you can easily do in most classes; in fact, level 6 is sooner than even a barbarian can manage, and that armor is some of the best you can find. Of course, joining the Gray Maiden organization is no simple feat either. Once you are in, this prestige archetype includes a variety of powerful feats that you can add to your character. Here is just a taste.

Unbreakable Feat 8

Archetype

Prerequisites Gray Maiden Dedication

You can endure a staggering amount of punishment. Increase your maximum HP by your level, increasing as you gain additional levels. You die at dying 5, or dying 6 if you also have Diehard.

This grants many of the benefits of the Toughness and Diehard general feats combined, and it stacks with both to make an incredibly resilient character.

That wraps up our look at archetypes. You'll find a number of them in the Pathfinder Playtest Rulebook, and we can't wait for you to give them a try. And come back on Monday for a massive blog that I am sure will resonate with many of you!

Jason Bulmahn
Director of Game Design

Monk Class Preview

Monday, June 18, 2018

Some players love to play monks so they can strive toward enlightenment. Others just like to punch stuff!

Monk Features

Monks choose whether their key ability is Strength or Dexterity, which will determine the DC of some of their abilities. Their selection of initial proficiencies looks pretty different from most classes! First off, they have expert proficiency in all their saving throws. Monks aren't trained in any weapons, but they are trained in all unarmed attacks. They also get powerful fist, which increases the damage die of their fists and lets them make lethal strikes without penalty when using normally nonlethal unarmed attacks. Further, they're untrained in armor, but get graceful expertise at 1st level, which gives them expert proficiency in unarmored defense (everybody else is only trained).

They get one last class feature at 1st level, of course: Flurry of Blows! This is a single action that can be used once per round to make two strikes using an unarmed attack. If both hit, their damage is combined. Both these attacks take the multiple attack penalty normally, so usually the monk will be making the second attack at a -4 penalty (since a fist is agile). Flurry of Blows is a huge advantage, letting the monk attack up to four times in a round, or letting the monk have plenty of actions to move and attack in a single turn. Speaking of moving, at 3rd level, a monk gains incredible movement, increasing his speed as long as he's not wearing armor. This starts at a 10-foot increase, and it goes up by 5 feet every 3 levels.

Illustration by Wayne Reynolds

Because monks can defend themselves in so many different ways, we wanted to let the monk pick how his saving throws improve. His saves increase at 7th level through the path to perfection class feature, which lets him increase a save's proficiency rank to master. The second path to perfection, at 11th level, lets a monk treat any successful save as a critical success instead, as long as he has master proficiency in that save. The monk gets his third path to perfection at 15th level, which he can use to either increase his proficiency rank in another save to master proficiency or progress his proficiency at a save in which he's already a master to legendary.

The monk's unarmored defense proficiency also goes up as he levels, first to master at 13th level and then to legendary at 17th. You'll notice that monks no longer add their Wisdom modifiers to AC, which is due to a few factors. First, depending on the monk's Dexterity modifier, the gulf between a heavily armored character and a monk without armor is extremely low, so adding even more bonuses would put the monk really far ahead. Second, adding more than a single ability modifier to a check or DC now really distorts the game. Third, we have another role for Wisdom to play in the class, and wanted it to be optional so monks aren't dependent on many different ability scores, giving you more flexibility with how you can build a monk character.

Of course, it goes without saying that the monk's unarmed attacks get better as he levels up. Magic strikes, at 3rd level, makes the monk's unarmed attacks magical, and increases his proficiency rank to expert. At 5th level, metal strikes causes them to be treated as cold iron and silver; at 17th level, adamantine strikes makes them act as adamantine. Fierce flurry, at 9th level, increases the damage dice of a Flurry of Blows by one step whenever both strikes hit. At 19th level, the monk has developed perfected form, meaning that when he makes an unarmed attack, he can treat any die roll lower than 10 as if he had rolled a 10! This lets the monk plow through weaker enemies who can't handle his immaculate fighting style, and against bosses, he can even turn a good number of misses into hits.

Monk Feats

A monk's feats let him expand how he can attack, teach him special martial arts techniques, let him develop an entire fighting style, or use magic called ki (which we explain in the Ki section).

Your monk could take Monastic Weaponry at 1st level, letting him use his unarmed attack proficiencies, as well as any monk abilities that normally work with unarmed attacks, with simple and martial monk weapons. This is how Sajan gets to use that sweet temple sword! If you'd rather stick with punches, kicks, knees, and headbutts, take a look at Brawling Focus at 4th level, which gives you the critical specialization effect for anything in the brawling weapon group. This means if you critically hit with your unarmed attacks, the target might be slowed 1 on its next turn, losing 1 action.

Some of the special attacks you can learn include Stunning Fist, a great option if you're looking to recreate your Pathfinder First Edition monk. A Stunning Fist strike takes 2 actions and you make an unarmed strike; if the strike deals damage, the target has to succeed at a Fortitude save against your class DC (based on your Strength or Dex, remember?) or be flat-footed for 1 round, or stupefied 2 if it critically fails. So how do you stun the target? If your strike is a critical hit, the target's saving throw result is treated as one category worse, and if it critically fails its save it's stunned for 1 round! At 4th level, you can pick up Deflect Arrow, a reaction that gives you a +4 bonus to AC against a ranged weapon attack, or Flying Kick, which lets you use 2 actions to jump and make a strike at the end of your jump. You can even Long Jump—normally 2 actions—as part of your Flying Kick, potentially moving very far before your strike. Other attacks include Ghost Strike, which lets you use 2 actions to target TAC, or Wall Run, which lets you run up vertical surfaces at your full Speed.

Now what about fighting styles? Let's look at one that starts with the Crane Stance feat at 1st level! A stance takes one action to enter, and can be used only in an encounter. You typically stay in a stance until you enter another stance or get knocked out. In Crane Stance, you gain a +1 bonus to AC and get better at jumping, but the only Strikes you can make are crane wing attacks. What the heck are those? Well, many stances give special unarmed attacks that have statistics much like weapons. Crane wing attacks deal 1d6 bludgeoning damage, and have the agile, finesse, nonlethal, and unarmed traits. They're not too different from normal fist strikes, but others differ more; for instance, heavy dragon tail attacks deal 1d10 bludgeoning damage and have the backswing trait instead of agile or finesse. What if Crane Stance isn't enough? Well, you can pick up Crane Flutter, a reaction that increases your AC against a melee attack and lets you immediately riposte with a crane wing strike at a -4 penalty if the triggering attack misses. Each of the stances in the Playtest Rulebook has one special attack tied to it, but I could see us expanding on them in the future, couldn't you? If you really get into stances, you can pick up Master of Many Styles at 16th level, which lets you enter a stance as a free action at the start of each of your turns.

Ki

Oh, geez, I'm running long, huh? Let's make this quick. You know how I said there's a role for Wisdom? Well, that's where ki powers come into play. And when I say powers, I mean powers—they're spells just like other powers (such as the wizard's school powers or the cleric's domain powers). You gain access to ki by picking up the first ki power feat, Ki Strike, which gives you a pool of Spell Points equal to your Wisdom modifier, which you can spend to cast ki strike. This power is a Verbal Casting free action you can use when making an unarmed strike to get a +1 bonus to your attack roll. So you let out a shout and hit better!

Now that you have Spell Points, you can expand your repertoire of powers to teleport with Abundant Step, fire a cone of force with a Ki Blast, or kill someone with Quivering Palm. Quivering Palm costs 2 Spell Points, and as with the monk's other Spell Point abilities, taking the 16th-level feat to get this spell increases your Spell Point pool by 2. Let's take a look, and then I'm outta here (probably flying away using the wind jump power)!

Quivering Palm Power 8

Attack, Necromancy
Casting [[A]] Somatic Casting, [[A]] Verbal Casting
Duration 1 month

Make a melee unarmed Strike, dealing damage normally. If you succeed and the target is alive, anytime during the duration you can spend a Verbal action to speak a word of death that could instantly slay it, depending on its Fortitude save.

Success The target survives, the spell ends, and the target is bolstered against it.
Failure The target is stunned for 1 round but survives. The spell's duration continues, but the target is bolstered against being killed by quivering palm for 24 hours.
Critical Failure The target dies.

If you cast quivering palm again, any previous quivering palm you had cast ends.

Logan Bonner
Designer

Conditions

Friday, June 15, 2018

Conditions were a significant part of Pathfinder First Edition, giving a set package of rules to effects like being blinded or fatigued. You might be wondering what kind of condition our conditions are in!

For the playtest, we've expanded conditions to cover a little more ground in two different directions. In one direction, now any long-lasting effect can impose a condition on a character. These conditions might be defined by a specific spell or ability, and often include a specific type of bonus or penalty called a conditional bonus or conditional penalty. This broadens our definitions so that more rules can now speak to conditions as ongoing effects. In the other direction, we've expanded on the conditions from First Edition to create a solid set of basic conditions for the playtest. Some of these conditions cover common benefits, allowing us to clarify how multiple effects combine. For example, the accelerated condition increases your speed by a certain value, and the hampered condition decreases your speed by a certain value. You use only the highest accelerated value you have—it's not cumulative. So if one effect made you accelerated 5 and another made you accelerated 10, your speed would increase by 10 feet, not 15. Many other conditions are quite similar to those you're familiar with, such as blinded or paralyzed (plus some rules tweaks, of course).

Some of our other conditions speak directly to the new action system for the game. The two big ones here are quick and slowed, which increase and decrease your number of actions. When you're quick, you gain one extra action per turn that you can use in one or more ways, according to the effect that made you quick! For instance, a 20th-level monk with Enduring Quickness is permanently quick, and can use the extra action to Stride, to Leap, or as part of a High Jump or Long Jump. The haste spell makes its target quick, and lets them use the extra action to Stride or Strike. So, if our 20th-level monk benefited from haste, he would add Strike to his list of options for the extra action from the quick condition as long as the haste spell was in effect. Conversely, slowed removes actions and prevents the creature from readying actions. This, like accelerated above, is an example of a condition that comes with a condition value to indicate how severe the condition is. So, a creature that becomes slowed 1 loses 1 action per turn, a slowed 2 creature loses 2, and so on. These aren't cumulative, so if your barbarian gets slowed 2 by one creature and slowed 1 by another, she loses only 2 actions.

Let's look at some other conditions that have condition values! The frightened condition has a higher value the more scared you are, and this value is also the conditional penalty you take to your checks and saving throws. So if you're frightened 2, you take a –2 penalty to checks and saves. There's some good news, though, because fear tends to pass after the initial shock. Frightened's condition value decreases by 1 at the end of each of your turns, until it reaches 0 and goes away. This condition covers all types of fear, so there's no more shaken or panicked. Frightened doesn't automatically make you run away, but some effects give you the fleeing condition as well, potentially for as long as you remain frightened! The sick condition is similar to frightened in that it gives you a penalty to the same rolls, but it's more severe for two reasons. First off, you're too sick to drink anything—including potions! Moreover, it doesn't go away on its own. Instead, you have to spend an action retching in an attempt to recover, which lets you attempt a new save to end the sickness.

Some conditions reflect the relationship between one character and another—for instance, when you're concealed or flat-footed. In the office, we call these relative conditions (as opposed to absolute conditions, like stunned or deafened, that don't involve others). The two examples I gave are pretty straightforward. The flat-footed condition gives a –2 circumstance penalty to AC. Some things make you flat-footed to everyone, but usually you're flat-footed to a creature that's flanking you or that otherwise has the drop on you. With the new critical rules, that 2 points of AC can make a big difference. Plus, rogues can sneak attack flat-footed targets! The concealed condition works much like concealment used to—an attacker has to succeed at a DC 5 flat check to hit you. In the playtest, flat checks have replaced miss chances and other things that might fail or succeed regardless of skill. Attempting a flat check is like any other d20 roll against a DC, except that no modifiers alter your result, so you need to roll a 5 or higher on the die or you just miss.

Some effects that used to deal ability damage now impose new conditions instead. Enfeebled imposes a conditional penalty on attack rolls, damage rolls, and Strength-based checks equal to the enfeebled condition's value. Sluggish is similar, but for Dexterity-based values: AC, attack rolls, Dexterity-based checks, and Reflex saves. The stupefied condition covers mental effects, imposing a conditional penalty on spell DCs as well as on Intelligence-, Wisdom-, and Charisma-based checks. It also requires you to attempt a special roll each time you cast a spell or else your spell is disrupted (meaning you lose the spell!). Because the penalty from stupefied also applies to this roll, the worse the stupefied condition's value, the harder it gets to cast spells!

Finally, let's look at one of the conditions used frequently by the barbarian, as shown in Monday's blog. When you're fatigued, you're hampered 5 (the opposite of accelerated, so your speed is decreased), and you take a –1 conditional penalty to your AC and saving throws. Furthermore, your fatigue means everything takes more effort to do, so when you're fatigued, each action you use on your turn worsens this conditional penalty by 1 until the start of your next turn. So if you use all three actions on your turn when you're fatigued, your defenses are at a –4 penalty! In the barbarian's case, the fatigue from a rage goes away pretty quickly, but if you get fatigued from another source, it typically takes a night's rest to recover.

Are you looking forward to playing with these conditions? What do you think about the change to flat-footed? What conditions do you dread the most?

Logan Bonner
Designer

Barbarian Class Preview

Monday, June 11, 2018

Rage consumes you in battle. You delight in carving through your enemies using powerful weapons and wreaking havoc without needing complicated techniques or rigid training, and you rely on your astonishing durability to get you through a fight. You associate your rage with a traditional symbol of affinity known as a totem, which might take the form of an animal, a spirit, or even a part of yourself. To many barbarians, brute force is a hammer and every problem looks like a nail; to others, the dark emotions within them are something to hold back and release only when it matters most.

When it came to barbarians in the playtest, we wanted to take the most popular parts of the original barbarian and the unchained barbarian and brew them together with a few special ingredients to make the class even more flexible to fit even more roleplaying and mechanical concepts. Let's take a look!

Rage

Rage is a barbarian's key class feature. Barbarians aren't super-trained in fancy weapon techniques like most of the other martial classes. Instead, a barbarian can enter a rage that drastically increases her damage and grants her a significant booster shot of temporary Hit Points, in exchange for a –1 penalty to AC and the inability to use concentrate actions unless they specifically have the rage trait (note, this means that somatic-only spells are now possible in a rage!). Unlike in Pathfinder First Edition, rage in the playtest is not limited in rounds per day—let's be honest, in Pathfinder First Edition, our barbarians never ran out of rounds anyway once they had gained a few levels. A rage lasts 3 rounds, followed by a round of fatigue. While you're fatigued, you can't rage again, but once that round has passed, you can enter a new rage, with a shiny brand-new set of temporary Hit Points to go along with it. You can do this as often as you need during the day!

Illustration by Wayne Reynolds

Totems

Without a doubt, the most popular element of barbarians in Pathfinder First Edition is the totem, introduced in the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game: Advanced Player Guide. These totems are a set of three thematically linked abilities the barbarian can choose, starting at 2nd level. In the playtest, you get a totem right away at 1st level. Your totem is a representation of how and why you rage and grants you an initial ability, access to more totem feats down the line, and, at 9th level, resistance equal to your Constitution modifier against a specific type of damage. Each totem also has its own anathema, most of which are relatively low impact and designed to create roleplaying hooks. For instance, the giant totem's anathema states that you cannot fail to accept a personal challenge of your strength, much like how Amiri accepted the challenging task her tribal fellows set her to slay a frost giant. Some though, are stricter—the superstition totem requires that you never willingly accept the benefits of spells, but grants you some truly astounding antimagic abilities in exchange.

Some of the totems, like animal totem, giant totem, and dragon totem, offer a few abilities that are flat-out magical. For instance, animal totem barbarians can adopt animal features and attacks and even transform into an animal (a great way to represent lycanthrope characters), whereas dragon totem barbarians gain a dragon breath attack can even grow wings. Even though totems are popular and roleplaying opportunities are fun, we recognize not everyone necessarily wants to commit to them, so we also offer the fury totem, which has no anathema or special requirements and focuses more on barbarian feats that aren't tied to any totem, which we'll look at in a bit. But first...

Additional Barbarian Features

Though I called out rage and totems specifically, the barbarian has some really neat abilities beyond those. For instance, at level 3, barbarians gain critical specialization effects when in a rage, even if they don't fulfill the usual proficiency rank requirement for the weapon—they use whatever weapon is most efficient to express their rage! One other thing they have that nobody else does: 12 Hit Points per level. Add that to the substantial temporary Hit Points that they can generate (possibly multiple times in a long fight) and the resistances from their totem that kick in at level 9, and barbarians have incredible staying power. Sure, they don't prevent as many hits as a paladin or a shield fighter might, but they can stand there taking hits long past the point where anyone else could stay standing. This is also a good point to mention one feature barbarians don't have in the playtest: alignment requirements. Barbarians can be whatever alignment they want; for instance, a lawful barbarian might act like one of the concepts I described earlier, controlling and holding back her emotions to channel and release her rage when it matters most.

As many of you have predicted, barbarians also have the best Fortitude proficiency, gaining the juggernaut class feature at level 7 (which grants master proficiency in Fortitude and the ability to count any successes you roll as critical successes instead) and improved juggernaut at 13th (which grants legendary proficiency and removes the chance of critically failing), but they also have a secondary Will focus, gaining indomitable will at 15th level to become masters in Will. Tireless rage comes in at level 17 to allow barbarians to ignore fatigue after ending a rage (though they still must wait the normal amount of time before entering a new rage). Barbarians are all about brutalizing opponents without worrying about carrying lots of different weapons and selecting the right one for the job with their monster knowledge, so it makes sense that they gain the ability to rip through a chunk of resistances automatically with level 19's devastating strikes ability. Possibly my favorite barbarian feature, though, is the level 11 ability mighty rage—whenever you enter a rage, it allows you to immediately use one of your rage-only actions for free. So many possibilities!

Barbarian Feats

In addition to the feats based on totems, there are a variety of other feats available, from the bread-and-butter, low-level Sudden Charge to the devastating Whirlwind Strike (attack everything in your reach), Brutal Critical (your critical hits deal an extra die of damage as well as persistent bleed damage), Vicious Evisceration (you maim the enemy, dealing extra damage, reducing its maximum HP by an amount equal to its level, and giving it a –1 penalty to Fortitude), Contagious Rage (one of your allies gets the benefits and –1 penalty to AC imposed by your rage, but can still concentrate), and Quaking Stomp (you stomp so hard that it creates an honest-to-goodness earthquake). But none caused a playtest GM to raise their eyebrows quite like the superstition totem's Spell Sunder, which really saved us when we faced walls of force, magical trap effects, and more.

To close off, some of you might have expected me to talk about the dragon totem barbarian Linda is playing in my playtest game, who has sometimes been the party's primary healer. She does that through abilities beyond the barbarian class, though certainly Moment of Clarity (which allows a barbarian to use an extra action to use a concentrate ability mid-rage). But if you're wondering why there was a time in my playtest when she was the only one with an area attack, that was because of her barbarian's dragon breath!

Mark Seifter
Designer

Feats of Skill

Friday, June 08, 2018

Now that Stephen has explained Pathfinder Second Edition's skills and how they work, it's time to look at the goodies you can earn as you level up: skill feats! Every character gets at least 10 skill feats, one at every even-numbered level, though rogues get 20, and you can always take a skill feat instead of a general feat. At their most basic level, skill feats allow you to customize how you use skills in the game, from combat tricks to social exploits, from risk-averse failure prevention to high-risk heroism. If you'd ever rather just have more trained skills than special techniques with the skills you already have, you can always take the Skill Training skill feat to do just that. Otherwise, you're in for a ride full of options, depending on your proficiency rank.

Assurance and Other Shared Feats

Some skill feats are shared across multiple skills. One that will stand out to risk-averse players is Assurance, which allows you to achieve a result of 10, 15, 20, or even 30, depending on your proficiency rank, without rolling. Are you taking a huge penalty or being forced to roll multiple times and use the lowest result? Doesn't matter—with Assurance, you always get the listed result. It's perfect for when you want to be able to automatically succeed at certain tasks, and the kinds of things you can achieve with an automatic 30 are pretty significant, worthy of legendary proficiency.

The other shared skill feats tend to be shared between Arcana, Nature, Occultism, Religion, and sometimes Society and Lore. This is because many of them are based on magic, like Trick Magic Item (allowing you to use an item not meant for you, like a fighter using a wand) and Quick Identification, which lets you identify magic items faster depending on your proficiency rank, eventually requiring only 3 rounds of glancing at an item. The rest of the shared skill feats are based on the Recall Knowledge action, including my favorite, Dubious Knowledge, which gives you information even on a failed check—except some of it is accurate, and some of it is wrong!

Scaling Feats

You might have noticed that Assurance scales based on your proficiency rank in the skill. In fact, many skill feats do, granting truly outstanding results at legendary. For instance, let's look at the Cat Fall skill feat of Acrobatics:

CAT FALL FEAT 1

Prerequisites trained in Acrobatics

Your catlike aerial acrobatics allow you to cushion your fall. Treat all falls as if you fell 10 fewer feet. If you're an expert in Acrobatics, treat falls as 25 feet shorter. If you're a master in Acrobatics, treat them as 50 feet shorter. If you're legendary in Acrobatics, you always land on your feet and don't take damage, regardless of the distance of the fall.

As you can see above, Cat Fall lets you treat all falls as 10 feet shorter, 25 feet shorter if you're an expert, or 50 feet shorter if you're a master. If you're legendary? Yeah, you can fall an unlimited distance and land on your feet, taking no damage. Similarly, a legendary performer can fascinate an unlimited number of people with a Fascinating Performance, scaling up from one person at the start. And these are just a few of the scaling skill feats.

Wondrous Crafters

Want to make a magic item? Great, take Magical Crafting and you can make any magic item—doesn't matter which kind.

MAGICAL CRAFTING FEAT 2

Prerequisites expert in Crafting

You can use the Craft activity to create magic items in addition to mundane ones. Many magic items have special crafting requirements, such as access to certain spells, as listed in the item entry in Chapter 11.

Similarly, there's a skill feat to make alchemical items, and even one to create quick-to-build improvised traps called snares!

Legendary!

Legendary characters can do all sorts of impressive things with their skills, not just using scaling skill feats but also using inherently legendary skill feats. If you're legendary, you can swim like a fish, survive indefinitely in the void of space, steal a suit of full plate off a guard (see Legendary Thief below), constantly sneak everywhere at full speed while performing other tasks (Legendary Sneak, from Monday's blog), give a speech that stops a war in the middle of the battlefield, remove an affliction or permanent condition with a medical miracle (Legendary Medic, also from Monday's blog), speak to any creature with a language instantly through an instinctual pidgin language, completely change your appearance and costume in seconds (see Legendary Impersonator below), squeeze through a hole the size of your head at your full walking speed, decipher codes with only a skim, and more!

[[A]][[A]][[A]]LEGENDARY IMPERSONATOR FEAT 15

Prerequisites legendary in Deception, Quick Disguise

You set up a full disguise with which you can Impersonate someone with incredible speed.

LEGENDARY THIEF FEAT 15

Prerequisites legendary in Thievery, Pickpocket

Your ability to steal items defies belief. You can attempt to Steal an Object that is actively wielded or that would be extremely noticeable or time-consuming to remove (like worn shoes or armor). You must do so slowly and carefully, spending at least 1 minute and significantly longer for items that are normally time-consuming to remove (like armor). Throughout this duration you must have some means of staying hidden, whether under cover of darkness or in a bustling crowd, for example. You take a -5 penalty to your Thievery check. Even if you succeed, if the item is extremely prominent, like a suit of full plate armor, onlookers will quickly notice it's gone after you steal it.

So what sorts of feats are you most excited to perform with your skills? Let me know in the comments section!

Mark Seifter
Designer

Learning Takes a Lifetime

Monday, June 04, 2018

While the kind of armor you wear, weapon you wield, and spells you know can be important measures of your character's power, your choice in skills is indicative of your character's depth. Is your character good at feats of acrobatics? Can they recall knowledge with scholastic effortlessness? Are they the sneakiest sneaker in the sneakerverse? Your skills may aid you in the thick of a fight, but they also enhance your effect on the world when the ringing of steel and the whizzing of spells subside.

The Pathfinder Playtest deals with skills a bit differently than the first edition did. First and foremost, we have cut down the skill list to 17 base skills (down from 35 base skills in Pathfinder First Edition). Now, I say "base skills" because the Lore skill can be split into numerous different lores, but for many purposes, like for this blog post, we can describe it as being a single skill.

Much of the reduction came from consolidation; for instance, we put the general functions of Use Magic Device into each of the various knowledge skills that focus on magical traditions, and we wrapped up a bunch of Strength-based skills into a general Athletics skill. In most cases, we coupled the consolidation with being a tad more generous in the number of skills you can be trained in (for instance, the fighter has 3 + Intelligence modifier trained skills in the playtest rather than 2 + Int in Pathfinder First Edition), making it easier to have a well-rounded character.

So what exactly are these 17 skills? They (and their key ability scores) are: Acrobatics (Dex), Arcana (Int), Athletics (Str), Crafting (Int), Deception (Cha), Diplomacy (Cha), Intimidation (Cha), Lore (Int), Medicine (Wis), Nature (Wis), Occultism (Int), Performance (Cha), Religion (Wis), Society (Int), Stealth (Dex), Survival (Wis), and Thievery (Dex).

Skill Proficiency

Like many things in the Pathfinder Playtest, skills interact with the proficiency system. While a detailed description of the system can be found here, here's the nitty-gritty. Your character can be untrained, trained, an expert, a master, or legendary in a skill. Being untrained grants you a modifier of your level - 2, while being trained grants you a bonus equal to your level, expert a bonus equal to your level + 1, master a bonus equal to your level + 2, and legendary a bonus equal to your level + 3. Then, of course, you add your ability modifier in the key ability for that skill, and apply any other bonuses or penalties. But the new skill system is more than just the bonus you gain. Each level of proficiency unlocks skill uses that are either intrinsic to the skill itself or that are uses you select as your character advances.

Skill Uses

To give you an idea of what this means, let's take a quick look at the Medicine skill. Whether you are trained in Medicine or not, you can Administer First Aid.

[[A]] Administer First Aid

Manipulate

Requirements You must have healer's tools.

You perform first aid on an adjacent creature that is at 0 Hit Points in an attempt to stabilize or revive it. You can also perform first aid on an adjacent creature taking persistent bleed damage. The DC for either is 15. If a creature is both dying and bleeding, choose which one you're trying to end before you roll. You can Administer First Aid again to attempt to remedy the other.

Success The creature at 0 Hit Points gains 1 Hit Point, or you end the persistent bleed damage.

Critical Failure A creature with 0 Hit Points has its dying condition increased by 1. A creature with persistent bleed damage takes damage equal to the amount of its persistent bleed damage.

Basically, this skill use allows anyone who has a healing kit to treat another creature who is dying or suffering from bleed damage, which is super useful. Of course, being untrained reduces your chances to save your friend and increases your chances to hurt them accidentally, but it's worth trying in a pinch. If you are trained in the skill, not only do your chances to help a friend by Administering First Aid increase, but you also gain the ability to use the skill to Treat Disease and Treat Poison, something that someone untrained in the skill cannot do.

Skill Feats

These default uses are just the beginning. As you increase in level, you periodically gain skill feats, usually at even-numbered levels (unless you're a rogue—they gain skill feats every level instead). Skill feats are a subsection of general feats, which means that any character can take them as long as they meet the prerequisites. Moving forward with the example of the Medicine skill, as long as you are at least trained in Medicine, you can take the Battle Medic skill feat. This feat allows you to apply straight-up healing to an ally through nonmagical means, which is nice when your cleric is knocked to the ground or has run out of uses of channel energy.

For a higher-level example, Robust Recovery is a Medicine skill feat you can take after becoming an expert in that skill, and increases the bonus to saving throws against poison and diseases when you treat creatures with those trained skill uses. When you become legendary in Medicine, you can gain this skill feat:

Legendary Medic Feat 15

General, Skill

Prerequisites legendary in Medicine

You've invented new medical procedures or discovered ancient techniques that can achieve nearly miraculous results. Once per day for each target, you can spend 1 hour treating the target and attempt a Medicine check to remove a disease or the blinded, deafened, drained, or enervated condition. Use the DC of the disease or of the spell or effect that created the condition. If the effect's source is an artifact, a creature above 20th level, or other similarly powerful source, increase the DC by 5.

The more powerful or useful the skill feat, the higher the proficiency required to take it. Legendary Medic grants you the ability to perform amazing feats of healing through skill and experience rather than magic, but you must gain that skill and experience first. Of course, the Medicine skill is just the tip of the iceberg. This structure is replicated with every skill, including nearly every rogue's favorite—Stealth.

Stealth is a bit of an outlier in that all of its initial uses can be attempted untrained, but training and later proficiency in the skill yields some very subversive results. The Quiet Allies skill feat allows you to use your expertise in Stealth to reduce those pesky armor check penalties on allies' skill checks, while Swift Sneak allows a master in Stealth to move at their full speed when they Sneak. Upon becoming legendary, you further enhance your skill by no longer needing to specifically declare the sneaking exploration tactic when you are in exploration mode, allowing you to sneak everywhere. You're just that good.

But this is all just the start. Mark will take up more aspects of what you can do with skill feats this Friday!

Constant Progress

Like many aspects of the Pathfinder Playtest, the goal of skills is not only to gain the greatest bonus, but also for you to expand outward and create a unique character who uses skills the way you want them to be used. Much like how ancestry feats allow you to choose the type of human, dwarf, elf, or whatever you want to play, the proficiency and skill feat system will enable you to determine what kind of knowledgeable, athletic, or sneaky character you want to play. Over time, this system gives us the opportunity to add more skill uses by way of skill feats, which will allow the game to become more dynamic as we add options. This also allows you to continue to grow your skills in new and surprising ways without us having to pull out the wires of the underlying skill, which is something we are always loath to do. In this way, as the game progresses, we can expand skill options in an open-ended way, without invalidating the gateway mechanics.

Stephen Radney-MacFarland
Senior Designer

Spending Your Downtime

Friday, June 1, 2018

Hey, everybody! It's our first design blog after PaizoCon! It was great getting a chance to show the game off for the attendees there and collect your comments after your first chance to play. But what if we looked at something there wasn't a chance to demo at the convention?

We've mentioned before that we're more clearly defining the three modes of play for the Pathfinder Playtest. Encounter, exploration, and downtime mode all have a place in the game, and they each play out differently at the table. So, let's look at the robust new systems we've built to cover what your characters do when they're not out on adventures!

Downtime mode is measured in days and gives you a chance to enact your long-term plans. You might craft items, heal up, conduct rituals, retrain some of your character options to choose other ones, or work at jobs or stage performances to make money. These are all things that take time and can't really be done in the middle of a dungeon.

Of course, just like with the other modes of play, these are all things you could do previously in Pathfinder. The difference in the Playtest is that we've more clearly defined these tasks in terms of what you can complete in the number of days you commit to them. This means if the GM wants to codify how long things take, it's more obvious what the value of a day spent at a task is.

Activities

When you have a day or more off, you can choose a defined downtime activity (or decide to do whatever else you want to). A few of these are general, like taking bed rest to heal more quickly or retraining your feats, skill choices, and selectable class features.

Illustration by Wayne Reynolds

Most of downtime activities, however, appear under skills and require skill checks. The ones appearing in the Pathfinder Playtest Rulebook are Craft, Create Forgery, Gather Information, Practice a Trade, Stage a Performance, Subsist on the Streets, Survive in the Wild, and Treat Disease. All of these require a skill check to determine how successful you are, and a few are explained in more detail later in this blog.

We also know we'll have some downtime activities that are beyond the scope of the systems in the Playtest Rulebook. Building a keep or wizard's tower is one of the big ones. While we for sure want you to be able to establish a home base, this requires interconnectedness between other systems and a high level of work by the GM, so for the Playtest, we wanted to keep the focus on the more directly player-oriented downtime activities.

Making Money

Practicing a Trade and Staging a Performance use Lore skills or the Performance skill, respectively, to make money and potentially draw the attention of employers or patrons. For these activities, the GM determines what type of work or audience you can find and assigns it a level, using the same scale as PC levels. This sets your DC and how much money you can make, with more money coming in based on your proficiency rank. If you're in a small town and you're higher level, you might not find the type of sophisticated work that makes full use of your talents. If you're adventuring in the Shackles, maybe you can find work as a master of Sailing Lore that you wouldn't be able to find in, say, the Hold of Belkzen.

Because downtime can include a really large number of days, performing these activities long-term requires rolls only for interesting events; you can continue doing the job and earning money at a steady rate until the job is completed or your audiences run out. This means you can cover long periods of downtime quickly and embellish your activity with interesting details, rather than getting bogged down with 30 rolls for a month of downtime.

Crafting

One of the parts of downtime we know will be important to people is crafting items, including magical and alchemical ones. We knew that we didn't want item crafting to be as powerful in the new edition as it was in the first edition, where it was simply too easy to end up with far more powerful characters that had twice as much wealth, and in a way that didn't make a whole lot of sense in the game world.

In the Playtest, items have levels. You can craft items of your level or lower, and you must be skilled enough at crafting, reflected in your proficiency rank, to craft an item of that quality (trained for standard items, and expert, master, or legendary for higher-quality ones). Crafting an item requires you to spend half its Price in crafting materials. You might find or acquire these sorts of materials, and most of them you can buy directly with currency, if you need to.

You have to spend at least 4 days crafting an item of your level, and you can reduce this if your level is higher than the item's. Once that time is up, you have two options if you succeed at your check: complete the item right away by supplying the rest of its Price in materials (a great option if you have the money for the item but can't find one on the market), or spend more time on your crafting to reduce the Price through your superior skill. You can stop crafting at any time and complete the item by providing the remaining amount of its Price. If you got a critical success on your skill check, the discount is better!

What does this mean for characters who are looking to make money by crafting? Well, crafting progress is based on a similar scale to Practicing a Trade or Staging a Performance, so it's about as lucrative. In fact, if you want to work as a crafter for cash instead of items, you can use the same rules for Practice a Trade, but using your Crafting skill modifier instead! You might make most of your money crafting and selling minor items in a process taken from the normal rules, but you might also get the occasional special commission from a client who wants a specific item and is willing to pay top... gold piece.

Using Downtime in Your Game

If you're a Game Master, downtime lets you pace out your game and show the passage of time between adventures. Characters and their circumstances can change in tangible ways during their downtime. Adding color and storylines to downtime, as well as recurring characters, helps the PCs form bonds and feel they're more a part of the world around them. It also means that PCs with long-term goals have a clear way of attaining them, with a clearer structure than the game had before. Less guesswork for you, and immense expandability!

So how are your characters going to spend their downtime?

Logan Bonner
Designer

Hail the Gauntlet!

Friday, May 25, 2018

Thank you to everyone who donated to Paizo's 2018 team for the Gauntlet charity tournament. Team Paizo fought hard in Tak, but a catastrophic Valeria round tumbled us towards the bottom, and we clawed our way back up to 11th, and almost as high as 8th, with an awesome performance on the final Puzzle Hunt round. Thanks to all of you, including an incredible last-minute donation over $1,000, we also unlocked an astonishing number of blog segments revealing further secrets about previously blogged classes. This will be a monster-length blog, so strap in for a long ride!

Fighter Combos: Randyll and Solveig
Luis Loza

I've always been a big fan of martial characters, which was fully solidified by one of my favorite characters, who happened to be a fighter. One of the big things I love about the fighter in Pathfinder is his ability to do just about anything in combat. With the right set of feats, a fighter can be anything from a typical sword and shield-wielding knight, to a spear master who leaps across the battlefield to defend his allies, to a light-footed master of the rapier. When I got a chance to join one of the playtest games here in the office, my first thought was to put this new fighter to the test. A lot of it felt the same, as the fighter was gaining lots of feats, but it turns out there was much more to the fighter this time around.

The Fighter Class Preview previewed several fighter feats and class features, but one thing it didn't mention was fighters' ability to string together attacks to make powerful combinations. They do this through abilities that let them Fan attack or press the offensive—abilities with the open trait must come before any other attacks, and those with the press trait must come after you've already made an attack. Fighters can also enter stances, which are one of the most common types of open abilities, and grant various powerful benefits for the duration of the encounter or until you enter another stance. A bastard sword switch-hitter can appreciate the debuff potential of following up an Intimidating Strike (which is neither an open nor a press ability) with Shatter Defenses, a press ability that stacks various penalties on an intimidated foe, or Combat Grab, a press ability that uses your open hand to grab a foe and simultaneously attack with the weapon in the other hand. Between those options and your ability to make your opponents flat-footed with critical hits, you can significantly reduce the AC of monsters so your lower-accuracy allies can take them down. With all of these new abilities in mind, I created my first fighter, Randyll. He was a master of the bastard sword with a penchant for yelling and rushing into combat. He would use the versatility of his bastard sword to his advantage, switching between a one-handed grip and a two-handed grip to use whichever feat was best for the situation, granting him a surprising amount of versatility.

Unfortunately, due to his recklessness, Randyll was not long for Golarion. In his place, I created Solveig, an Ulfen shield maiden entirely dedicated to defending her allies. She's fared even better. A shield fighter with a flail is all about careful tactical placement on the battlefield. If you're standing in the right spot, you can block for your allies with Shield Warden, and the flail critical specialization effect of knocking enemies prone can keep enemies right where you want them, even on an open battlefield. With Shielded Stride, you can even Stride at half speed with your shield up, ignoring reactions that trigger off your movement. The Shield Paragon stance is an open ability that gives you the benefit of a raised shield for the rest of the battle, an extremely powerful advantage. Solveig is a complete shift from Randyll's combat style. Her movement is calculated and her defense is unmatched (at least by the rest of the party!). By the time she had avoided close to 10 attacks in a row, I was in love with the fighter. I had found that same feeling that I had in Pathfinder First Edition and I could tell that there were so many possibilities with different weapons, armor types, and of course, all the new fighter feats. But there are so many amazing feats—how can your fighter take all the ones he wants? And how do you make sure you have the one you need for the day's adventure? The fighter's 9th-level Flexibility feat grants a different feat each day, and that increases to two flexible feats with Improved Flexibility at 15th level. This also means that, counting those two flexible feats, fighters have the most class feats in the game! Let me just say that playing the fighter in the playtest has only further solidified my love for the class. The fighter is awesome and continues to be awesome in Pathfinder Second Edition. In fact, if I were told I could play only fighters for the duration of the playtest, I would be happy. There's so much the fighter can do that I don't see myself running out of ideas any time soon!

Cleric Domains of the Mox Gauntlet
Andrew White

Thanks so much to everyone who helped us get this far! Your generosity is hugely appreciated, and we did our best to represent you accordingly at this weekend's showdown. And as a special reward to those of you who made your donations in the name of Team Cleric, here's a sneak peek at more of what's coming for everyone's favorite energy channelling, undead-neutralizing, wound-healing bludgeon enthusiasts!

If the Mox Gauntlet was a deity, what domains would it have? A gauntlet is a symbol of Might, the donations are a form of Wealth, the charity this year helps Families, and each year there's usually a final round shrouded in Secrecy. So let's talk about the domain powers that a cleric of the Gauntlet might be able to cast. The Cleric Class Preview already included unity, but the Family domain also has the basic power soothing words, which dispels emotion effects on a target; this is actually extremely strong because as a power, it's always heightened to your highest possible level. This means it's quite tricky to keep up emotion effects on a Family cleric's allies, and you'll probably never need to prepare remove fear. Might has two options that are really good for heavily armored and high-Strength clerics. The basic power athletic exploit lets you ignore your armor's check penalty and movement speed reduction when you really need to, and enduring might is a reaction that reduces damage based on your Strength modifier and your cleric level. The Secrecy domain has forced quiet, which limits the target's voice to a hoarse whisper, making it much harder to raise an alarm. Even a successful save against forced quiet still affects the target for 1 round (though the effect might last as long as 10 minutes on a critical failure!). Secrecy's advanced domain power, safeguard secret, has a 1-minute casting time but thereafter grants you and all willing allies in range an enormous conditional bonus to skill checks (almost always Deception) to conceal a specific secret you pick, and to saving throws against spells that seek to ferret out that specific secret. These benefits last indefinitely until you use the spell again. Finally, Wealth's basic power, acquisitive's fortune, is sure to make you popular with every business owner in the city and with allies who like to make money during downtime. Once cast, it allows the target to reroll any critical failure on their check to Perform a Trade in the next 24 hours. As the name implies, it's a fortune effect. The domain's advanced power, money talks, allows you to substitute coin currency for any sort of cost with a value measured in monetary value. So for instance, if you needed a vase worth 100 gp, you could just use 100 gp. This is particularly handy when you're away from a settlement and suddenly need a bizarre item for a cost that you wouldn't have thought to bring along; the Wealth cleric has you covered.

The Rogue's Hidden Tricks
Katina Davis

Although I'm not particularly stealthy in real life, I've always enjoyed rogues and their stealthy ways because I figured they were most like how I would actually behave in an adventure setting. Instead of barreling headfirst into a fight and counting on being able to chug a bunch of potions afterward, the rogue is more calm, calculated, and precise. What's the point in drawing attention (and attacks) to yourself when you can tiptoe in, get the job done, and sneak away unscathed? Never let your opponents know how strong you are, and they will always underestimate you.

Even after the Rogue Class Preview, the rogue was hiding some of her sneakiest tricks. What did you expect? One thing about the rogue that's different than in Pathfinder First Edition is the rogue's focus on slippery mental defenses. In addition to the Cognitive Loophole feat mentioned in her preview blog, the rogue gains the slippery mind ability, which makes her a master at Will saves. Add in double debilitation, the ability to apply two debilitations to a foe at once, and you have a good sense of the rogue's odd-level features. But there are so many feats still hiding in the shadows. While the first blog focused on ways to get sneak attack, the rogue also has some fun ways to play with the action economy, including drawing and attacking with a weapon as a single action, or Stepping and Striking at a -1 penalty with the same action (in either order, perfect for flanking, entering reach, or forcing your foe to take an action to reach you). The rogue also has a pair of feats that allow her to poison weapons more easily, keep her poisons from being wasted, and create a bunch of doses of a very simple poison for free each day (this also works great with an alchemist on the team to make some really powerful poison for free every day). For those interested in traps, you can gain Trap Finder, which makes finding even the most devious traps easier and protects you against them, and Delay Trap, which can give you the time you need to escape the area when you accidentally set off a trap. However, unlike in Pathfinder First Edition, engaging with traps as a rogue is your choice.

All right, those feats were cool, but what about some high-level options? Sense the Unseen is a reaction you can use when you Seek that lets you automatically learn the location of unseen creatures in the area, no matter how well they were hidden. You still can't see them, but it's a good start! Cloud Step allows you to step so lightly that you are essentially weightless when you are Striding, allowing you to walk over water or air and avoiding pressure plates until you finish moving. Perfect Distraction allows you to use smoke and mirrors, decoys, and other tactics to make it seem like you are somewhere you aren't, perfect for leaving a decoy right after you hide. If you have Legendary Deception, you can even gain Reactive Distraction and use the decoy as a reaction to avoid an enemy's attack or other ability. Afterward, it takes a bit of time to set up your next decoy, but it's worth it! Trickster's Ace lets you jury-rig magic item resonance and stolen magical energy to set up your own magical contingency each day, similar to the spell. And finally, Hidden Paragon lets you go completely invisible, even beyond the sight of true seeing, see invisibility and the like and impossible to outline with even glitterdust, faerie fire, or similar magic!

Take That, Evil!
Mark Seifter

The Paladin Class Preview was centered around alignment and the paladin code, with some extra helpings of spells, healing, and defenses, but there's more to paladin options than that. Sometimes you just want to put on your Gauntlet and beat evil down. So, this section is all about offense. Retributive Strike, first mentioned in the paladin blog, is a good way to add onto your damage while enfeebling enemies that dare to attack your allies, and all paladins have access to it at 1st level. Another ability all paladins receive is the righteous ally, a holy spirit that assists you from 3rd level on. There are three righteous allies to choose from (and you can take the Second Ally feat to gain another): blade, shield, and mount. Naturally, the blade righteous ally is the most offense-focused of the three, inhabiting your weapon (which you are free to change each day), and giving it the benefits of a property rune for the whole day. This starts with some simple properties like disrupting and ghost touch, but you can use feats to gain the benefits of more powerful runes; for instance, you can make your weapon dancing, allowing the spirit in your blade to attack on its own. The first major blade righteous ally feat is Blade of Justice, which is parallel to the Pathfinder First Edition paladin's smite evil—you declare a target to face judgment and deal extra damage to evil foes. Although Blade of Justice deals less damage than smite evil, it can be used as many times as you like as long as you have the actions for it. And the real kicker is that this extra damage is good damage, which means that creatures like fiends that are weak against good abilities are going to take a lot more damage.

Speaking of how offense-focused paladins can wreck fiends, there's also Aura of Faith, a feat that makes nearby good allies' first attacks each turn deal 1 extra good damage against evil creatures (and of course, this can become quite a bit higher when applying a fiend's weakness!). But there's also a smiting ability every paladin gets that can ruin a fiend's day. Holy Smite deals persistent good damage equal to your Charisma modifier to evil creatures you hit with any Retributive Strike, which can apply extra damage round after round if the creature has a weakness to good. Instrument of Zeal is the last in the series of badass offensive abilities for the blade righteous ally: when you score a critical hit with your weapon, either with a Retributive Strike or against your Blade of Justice target, you gain an additional die of damage and the target is slowed 1 on its next turn, which can put it in a really tight spot! There's another fun way every paladin can increase a party's offense, particularly if the group stands in a tactical formation. Aura of justice is a class feature all paladins get that allows you to take a penalty to any Retributive Strike in order to allow all allies within 10 feet and in reach of the monster to make Retributive Strikes of their own! If you find your group often uses this to create a mega-chain reaction, you can later take the Aura of Vengeance feat to remove that extra penalty when you use aura of justice.

Behold the Gauntlet!

The Gauntlet is a powerful magic item fought over by champions since ages long past. We will now reveal the powers of the Gauntlet in a Pathfinder Playtest-compatible form. Behold, the Gauntlet!

The Gauntlet Item 18

Invested

Magical

Potent

Transmutation

Price 24,000 gp

Method of Use worn, gloves; Bulk L

Activation [[A]][[A]] Operate Activation

---

This mighty adamantine gauntlet was forged by the legendary artisans of Mox from the Card Kingdom and is inscribed with hidden runes of great power. The Gauntlet boosts your might and enhances your strategy to a razor's edge. You gain a +5 item bonus to Athletics checks and Warfare Lore checks. When you invest the Gauntlet, you either increase your Strength score by 2 or increase it to 18, whichever would give you a higher score.

While wearing the Gauntlet, you gain a +2 conditional bonus to damage rolls on unarmed attacks against minotaurs.

When you activate the Gauntlet, you slam the ground, creating the same effects as an 8th-level earthquake.

While you have invested the Gauntlet, if anyone offers you a challenge for the Gauntlet and the challenge is fair, you must accept that challenge, though you can finish any life-threatening or time-critical task before doing so. Once someone has won the Gauntlet from you in a challenge, you must wait 1 year before you can challenge them again to regain the Gauntlet. If the Gauntlet is stolen, sold, traded, looted from a corpse, or obtained in any way other than being won in a fair challenge, it vanishes instead, perhaps returning to the vaults of Mox.

A Familiar Disguise

Familiars, the traditional fuzzy friends of wizards and witches, are extremely popular in Pathfinder, especially among those who are fans of animals or cute things. While many classes gained access to familiars in later books, including the archetypes I wrote for Familiar Folio (my first-ever author credit for Paizo), plenty of characters have access to familiars from the outset of Pathfinder Second Edition's playtest. Not only can wizards take a feat to gain a familiar even if they also have an arcane bond, but alchemists can also gain an alchemically created familiar, and druids can gain a leshy familiar. But the most surprising and awesome feature might send our fans who love both gnomes and familiars (hmm, who could that be?) into a spiral of gnomes: there is a gnome ancestry feat to gain a familiar regardless of your class.

So enough about who can get familiars—how do they work? As someone who loves building familiars and getting exactly the type of animal that fits my concept, I was sometimes stymied when my ability to choose a familiar was locked behind how many low-power creatures that would be useful mostly only as familiars could be fit into the Pathfinder RPG Bestiary schedule. In the playtest, you won't have to wait for Bestiary 5 to have a flying fox. Familiars have always been magical creatures forever altered by your magic, so why not capitalize on that to allow for more variety and flexibility than ever before?

In the playtest's familiar system, you get to pick from a variety of powers that either allow the familiar to gain special abilities, like flight or speech (yes, you can have a talking cat, or a talking winged cat) or that grant special benefits to you, including extra spells and delivering your touch spells at a distance. You can normally swap those powers each day as part of your daily preparations, which allows you some awesome flexibility for your familiar, though a familiar that would naturally have any of these special abilities (like an owl's flight) always has that ability locked in. So if you need your rabbit to be able to swim for the next day's adventure, you can do that, or you can grant your leshy wings of flower blossoms. For the playtest, we started with around 10 different powers, but I imagine the list will expand over time and we might create feats for familiar-friendly characters to gain more powers than usual or to unlock particularly strong powers.

So we know about powers, but what about a familiar's base statistics? Your familiar uses your full saving throw modifiers and AC, with a set 4 HP per level, so it has better defenses than familiars had before. Familiars are adept at Perception, Acrobatics, and Stealth, counting as trained characters of your level and adding your spellcasting key ability modifier (this is Charisma if you have only innate spells, like the aforementioned gnome non-spellcaster). For other skills, they have the modifier of an untrained character of your level, meaning that after a few levels, their skills are far beyond what a simple animal could achieve.

Whew, that was an epic-length blog. Thanks again to everyone who donated to the Gauntlet to support Wellspring in their efforts to assist the homeless, and if you liked how much content was in this blog, be sure to post and thank all the donors as well!