From the Wilderness to Your Table

Friday, November 3, 2017

"Some people fear the wild, clustering into cities where the largest beasts they have to contend with are scurrying rats. I'd never want to live in one of those so-called bastions of civilization. Why, they build their own cages! Walls, they call them, to stave off the dark and the unknown. The energy of nature sings through my veins. It connects me to everything that moves and breathes. Through it, I am truly alive."
—Nalsa Tigerstalker

Illustration by Ramon Puasa Jr

Looking to play a character who thrives in the wild? Not in the mood for playing another city-slicker? Let me tell you a bit more about what we have in store for you in the upcoming Ultimate Wilderness. Stephen showed off the shifter in Tuesday's blog, and talked a bit about two of the three featured races: ghorans and vine leshys. Let's take a closer look at all three of these races.

Ghorans are an ancient race of plant creatures whose memories trace back thousands of years. Their bodies can only last a couple of decades, but they continually renew themselves by planting seeds that sprout into new vessels for their consciousness. If you play a ghoran, check out the delightfully odd aromaphile archetype. These mesmerists can produce clouds of sickeningly sweet odors. By making subtle changes to the aroma, they can alter the way it affects those who inhale it. These clouds can hypnotize and debilitate their foes, and they can also help their allies recover from negative effects.

Vine leshys are a new race in this book. Unlike most leshys, they don't devote themselves to a particular ward. Instead, they prefer to wander and explore, taking on new wards for only a short time before taking off in search of new and exciting vistas. I wrote these little guys, and they are leshys, so of course I love them. I've been playing a vine leshy named Verdant Taleweaver in a home game. She uses one of the new archetypes from this book: the herbalist alchemist. Herbalists rely upon their insights into the natural world rather than raw intelligence, and they can harness some of the secrets of druidic magic. Instead of throwing bombs, with their risk of harming innocent plants, herbalists use seedpods. These pods harness the powers of other leshy types to weaken and hamper their targets. Playing Verdant wasn't 100% about wanting to play a leshy PC, honest. I also got valuable playtest feedback. Please just ignore the fact that my door is plastered with pictures of leshys. *whistles innocently*

And that brings us to this book's third featured race, the gathlains. These playful fey are capricious and free-spirited to a level that makes even gnomes raise their colorful eyebrows. They soar through the air on winds of wood, venturing far from their homes on the First World. If you want to play a gathlain who loves a good prank, check out the fey prankster rogue archetype. These tricksters can harness their connection to plants to distract, trap, and befuddle. They can also weave illusions that sow confusion by disguising pairs of people as each other. These illusions work on objects too, allowing the gathlain to, say, make a piping hot bowl of soup appear to be a hat and vice versa.

You certainly don't have to play one of these new races to make use of the new archetypes in this book. There are over 60 pages of archetypes for all sorts of characters. There are new options for the classes you'd expect to see highlighted in a nature book, like druids, hunters, rangers, and kineticists. One of the druid options is a rot warden, a druid who can transform into vermin and command swarms. Plant master hunters form bonds with plants instead of animals, and they take on the aspects of creatures like assassin vines and giant flytraps. Several of the new ranger archetypes give rangers additional powers based upon natural features that help them wherever they go, like the flamewarden, who wields the power of fire to immolate enemies and restore the spark of life and health to her allies. If you want to play a character whose powers are intrinsically tied to her environment, try the terrakineticist, a kineticist who taps into the strongest nearby source of elemental power, giving her powers over water in the ocean and air in the skies.

These traditional nature classes certainly don't get to have all the fun, though. How about a slayer who is a master of death from above? He's called the avalancher for a good reason. Bacchanal skalds thrive on drinking, dancing, and wild parties. Even animals dance to their merry tunes. If you'd rather play a class that turns its attention to the skies, try the star watcher investigator, who combines navigational skill with a penchant for astrology. Star watchers produce horoscopes imbued with magical power. To pick one last archetype at random, summoners can become leshy callers. Leshy callers call forth extraplanar plant material and imbue it with leshy spirits, and they can summon adorable plant creatures to aid them in combat. These are just a few of the archetypes that caught my fancy, but the book has a lot more to offer.

Check back again in a few days for more previews of Ultimate Wilderness!

Linda Zayas-Palmer

Developer

Advanced Class Guide Preview: Slayer

Tuesday, July 22, 2014

Into every generation, a slayer is born. The slayer is a hunter, a stalker, and a killer, with enough power to fight fairly and win, but the inclination to fight unfairly and win by an even wider margin. The slayer combines the stalking and combat styles of the rogue and the ranger with none of the ranger's nature focus. Basically, the slayer is Ezio from the Assassin's Creed series, the quintessential assassin and the last person you want to see leaping out at you from the shadows.

The slayer is a full BAB class with a slower sneak attack progression than the rogue, talents at even levels, and its own prime feature, favored target (which is now called studied target). Studied target is the slayer's spin on favored enemy. Instead of hating a particular type of creature, the slayer studies any target he wants (hey, no wonder it's called studied target!), gaining bonuses against that target until he switches targets. Since this bonus also applies to Bluff, Knowledge, Perception, Sense Motive, and Survival (and later Disguise, Intimidate, and Stealth), clever slayers can also gain a substantial boon from this feature in a variety of non-combat situations as well by studying NPCs during social encounters too. Favored target has unlimited daily uses, and who knows—if the old lady suddenly starts attacking, then you're even ready to fight back right away!

Illustration by Ramon Puasa Jr

In the original version, there were 16 choices for slayer talents with 8 additional advanced talents available at level 10. Playtesters had trouble finding enough talents that they wanted to take for their builds, so for the second playtest, this increased to 24 talents and 10 advanced talents, including the powerful combat style talent that could be taken three times, essentially granting the ranger's combat style feats to the slayer, and allowing the slayer the potential to amass a small army of feats at his disposal. Additionally, playtests had shown that the slayer's 4+Int bonus skill points were insufficient to pick up all the sorts of skills he needed to successfully slay, so he bumped up to 6+Int skill points.

The final version of the slayer as it appears in the Advanced Class Guide is quite similar to the second playtest version, so pull up your playtest document (or download it now) for an excellent preview of the class. The most exciting change is in the action economy of studied target—at low levels (before 7th when you can study as a swift action), melee slayers were finding the move action to study a target was really cramping their ambushes. So now, starting from level 1, if you hit and deal sneak attack damage, you can apply your studied target as an immediate action, and it even applies the favored target bonus to damage for that same attack. That way, you can ambush all you like and get right to the slaying!

The slayer screams out for archetypes that capture all the different facets of the iconic image of the slayer. The slayer archetypes in this book are really nice in that they give you what you're looking for with a relatively light touch, generally switching out a few of your talents for thematic abilities and losing very little else. The bounty hunter is your Boba Fett, bringing back criminals and debtors alive with combat maneuvers and an incapacitating death attack. The cleaner is the guy you send in to make sure those darned investigators don't figure out what happened, with a special ability to force any would-be detectives to beat the cleaner's Disguise or Stealth in order to find clues. The cutthroat is even more like Ezio, losing outdoorsy skills for city-based powers and skill bonuses that will help you leap off buildings instead of out of the shadows. The grave warden goes back to my intro quote with a kickass undead slayer, gaining an at-will self-only death ward at level 7 (it does cost 4 holy waters) and the ability to death attack an undead. But I'm sure you've been wondering "Mark, when are you going to get to that glowy purply shadow guy. He looks awesome!" That, my friends, is the stygian slayer, a killer imbued with the darkest shadows. He can cast invisibility, use wands and scrolls of a few thematic spells without a Use Magic Device Check, and turn into an inky black cloud that obscures vision. And that's just 5 of the 8 slayer archetypes in the final book! But wait—people have been asking for a thrown weapon ranger combat style for a while, right? Yeah, we have that too!

So you've got the rogue. You've got the ranger. Why should you be excited about the slayer class? Because those other classes serve a few masters when it comes to their design, but the slayer unashamedly serves only one—he wants to be the best at slaying, eliminating a chosen foe or foes. And he serves his master well. Even a fighter's offense can't keep up with the slayer, so if you prefer a style that emphasizes guile, stealth, and strong offense over defense, the slayer is the class for you.

As I'm typing this last paragraph, I've noticed that the slayer has some kind of a curved dagger to my throat, and he's made a few demands, so I want you to know, completely not under duress, that the slayer is my personal hero and is the best at all things. In fact, we're going to put out an entire book dedicated only to slayer options, and—aaaaaargh.

Mark Seifter
Designer

Editor's Note: After shooing the raptors away from the scene, we found this blog on a USB drive clutched in the hand of the remains of designer Mark Seifter. After a resurrection spell, he's fine now and back at work on Pathfinder Unchained, but he's still jumpy any time anyone mentions the slayer class. He defies anyone who claims that if he was dying, he wouldn't have bothered to have typed "Aaaaargh", he'd just say it.

Advanced Class Guide Preview: Brawler

Tuesday, July 15, 2014

The monk is a disciplined martial artist who spends years of practice to perfect his body and mind. A lawful paragon, the monk has strange and mysterious ki powers. But sometimes you don't want to play Bruce Lee. Sometimes you want to be Chuck Norris. No rules, no discipline, just a headbutt, a kick in the face, and a sucker punch. Bloody, ugly, but effective. If that's what you want, the Advanced Class Guide has the class you've been waiting for.

From the very first playtest version, the Brawler has also possessed some key features. She had full base attack bonus and rocked the monk's unarmed strike damage. She kept all her abilities in light armor (so appropriately, she is brutal in brawling armor). And she had a unique key feature all her own, martial maneuvers, now with a new name in the final version that better carries the awesomeness of the ability—martial flexibility. Martial flexibility is the brawler's answer for the disciplined abilities that the monk learns from all those years of study and perfection. With her flexible mind and intuitive grasp of close-quarters combat, the brawler has seen pretty much every trick in the book throughout her many bar brawls, arena fights, and adventuring combats. Martial flexibility allows her to spontaneously gain access to just the right combat feat (or later feats!) for her situation. Did someone splash ale in your eyes? Gain Blind-Fight. A spellcaster giving you the blues? Try Disruptive and Spellbreaker, maybe with an added dash of Step-Up. Giant enemy archer? Just take Deflect Arrows and they can kiss their Manyshot goodbye (after which you hit their weak point for massive damage).

Illustration by Ramon Puasa Jr

During the playtest, we were all out on the forums bringing back our data, which revealed a few things. Mainly, we all discovered that martial flexibility was awesome, but the brawler could use some more tricks that she could rely on consistently and that are unique to her. Have you ever wished you could hit that weakling wizard right beneath the jaw in just the right spot to knock him out in one hit? As of the second playtest version, the brawler gained the ability to dish out an instant knockout blow starting at level 13 with a devastating DC based on the brawler's Str or Dex score (your choice!). Furthermore, she gained the ability to use Awesome Blow without being size Large, eventually gaining the ability to dropkick the tarrasque 10 feet, knocking it prone, despite being size Medium.

As of the end of the playtest, the brawler was already awesome, and she seemed to have found a good place, but there were still a few observations from playtesters that led to some tweaks for the final version. First of all, the final brawler can deal increased damage with the close weapon group (growing at a slightly reduced rate from her unarmed damage), letting her brawl with everything at her disposal. Second, the knockout ability appearing at level 13 and then growing to 3 uses per day at level 16 seemed rather late and sudden. So the final version? She can start her instant knockout attacks at level 4! And just wait until you see the frankly mind-boggling feat novas you can pull off with her new capstone!

If standard brawler flavor isn't enough, brawler has some of the most evocative archetypes in the book. Instead of using unarmed strikes, the Exemplar can inspire allies like a bard and teach them teamwork feats. If you want a brawler like Bane who is at her best due to chemical enhancements, the Mutagenic Mauler has your back. And the Shield Champion throws her shield like Captain America. I mean look at that Shield Champion. It seems like she's about to punch you in the face right after the shield hits you and leaves you reeling. How cool is that? And that's only the first half of the archetypes in the book!

So to recap, the brawler is the monk's rowdy cousin, more interested in kicking ass than contemplating koans. The brawler is the Chuck Norris base class, and she's not afraid to get her hands dirty. Are you?

Mark Seifter
Designer

Advanced Class Guide Preview: Skald

Tuesday, July 8, 2014

The savage warrior whose warcries and fury inspire his allies to great deeds. The respected keeper of epics and histories of a bloody and glorious past. Even before the Advanced Class Guide, the skald lurked in our collective fantasies, though he often manifested in different ways. A multiclass character here, an archetype there. But there was never really a dedicated class that captured the fury and power of the skald, until now. The skald was an easy fit for Golarion. I mean, we have the Ulfen, whose very language is called Skald, and there's plenty of other cultures where it's easy to see these fearsome and mighty battle leaders replacing the more refined and classical bard of the Lem variety.

Illustration by Ramon Puasa Jr

So the first playtest version unleashed the skald to all of you (and me!) to test out in your games. Right from the start, the skald was able to cast bard spells, wield any weapon he wants, and inspire a barbarian rage in his allies, even giving them the exciting boost of all the skald's rage powers. Visions of entire parties surrounded by spirit totems or clawed and pouncing soared through our collective heads, and the playtest began! But right away, all the playtesters started running into the same problem—the number of characters who desired the rage's advantages enough to be willing to risk the fatigue at the end were often too few, especially compared to how many could benefit from the bard. Not only the spellcasters, who couldn't cast their spells, were balking at the invitation to a rage-filled bloodbath. The archers, who needed adaptive bows to gain anything from the Strength but feared the -3 penalty to hit they would take from fatigue, were also quick to pass.

So the skald went back to the forge and began hammering himself a new set of tools while singing epics sadly to himself. And he emerged for round 2 of the playtest with a shiny new way to give out rage. Now party members could accept the rage on a round by round basis, with no commitment to staying enraged the entire song and without the fear of fatigue when the rage ends. Suddenly, the siren's call of fury became too much, and there were tales of archers (and even occasionally primary spellcasters eager for the rage powers' benefits) accepting the skald's offer to lose themselves to their primal instincts for a while. But still, the playtesters forged onward, providing feedback on the versatility of the skald and asking for more variety in the skald's song choices.

And the final version delivers! When it comes to both performances and skills, he is more versatile than ever before. He has three new song choices, the most metal of which is clearly his 14th level song of the fallen. You see, the trouble with being the support character is that sometimes the bad guys decide to kill your allies and you don't really have anyone to support. Too often inconvenienced by the deaths of his comrades, the skald has come up with a workaround, powered by the sheer fury of his raging song. He can revive any number of allies with this song, though if he's keeping the entire alive as deathless einherjar, he's going to run out of rounds of performance fairly quickly (since it costs a number of rounds of performance equal to the number of revived allies). And the allies are staggered, so they're not at their peak performance—but hey, it's a better way of killing time than waiting in line in the Boneyard!

But that's not the end of the skald's drum solo! Have you ever thought that it wasn't fair how linnorms have death curses but not your character. I mean, you put lots of time into building that character. That darn NPC deserves to suffer for killing Lord Kickass III. With the new skald rage powers (which anyone with rage powers can select), you too can bestow a horrific death curse on your enemies.

And there's archetypes too. The fated champion stares down the future without fear for what it might hold, with fate-twisting powers and supernatural insights. The herald of the horn forms an arcane bond with a horn (potentially an enormous horn nearly as big as his own body, according to the art). He doesn't compose elaborate kennings; he blows that sucker and crazy things happen! The spell warrior sends his rage into your weapon instead of your head, and his very spells are a weapon with which to do battle with those of enemy spellcasters. And the totemic skald channels the power of a totem animal into himself and his allies; you want to put the "bear" in ber-serker? Play this guy!

So to recap: If bards are your classical virtuosos who channel the tales of the mythical Orpheus, skalds are their metal cousins who channel the tales of poets with attitudes more like the Norse Bragi, who threatens to decapitate people who insult his courage. If that's what you've been waiting for since forever, once you get your hands on the book, roar in visceral triumph as you paw your way immediately to page 49 and feast upon the skald in all his glory.

Mark Seifter
Designer