One of the best days in gaming hits this weekend: Free RPG Day! This Saturday—June 21st—all across the world, participating game stores will literally be giving away incredible RPG rules, adventures, and accessories, and you're not going to want to miss it! As for us, this year Paizo's got not just one, but two fantastic Pathfinder Free RPG day offerings!
Character Art by Ben Wootten
Ranzak the Pirate Goblin: For Adventure Card Game players already looking forward to August's release of the Pathfinder Adventure Card Game: Skull & Shackles Base Set we've got the perfect preview: Ranzak the Pirate Goblin! This brand-new character card combines that infamous goblin lunacy with a piratical love of plunder, assuring an entirely madcap character experience like none you've ever had in the Pathfinder Adventure Card Game. You can use Ranzak right away to give a bizarre twist to your Rise of the Runelords game or save him for your upcoming Skull & Shackles adventures! Ranzak will only be available in limited supplies after Pathfinder Adventure Card Game: Skull & Shackles Base Set releases in August, so be sure to nab your copy this weekend!
Pathfinder Module: Risen from the Sands: A forgotten pharaoh rises in this year's Free RPG Day adventure, a perfect one-shot quest to play at your favorite game store or add to your home campaign. Aside from featuring a complete delve through an ancient, unexplored pyramid, Risen from the Sands includes a playable preview of four of the new classes in the upcoming Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Advanced Class Guide ! Play Risen from the Sands as one of four pregenerated characters—the daring swashbuckler, cunning investigator, brutal warpriest, or unstoppable bloodrager—weeks before those classes' debut in game stores this August.
Also, to help run your Risen from the Sands adventure, check out the two Bestiary 4 monster templates below. GMs will find both handy in running this new adventure if they don't have their copy of Bestiary 4 on hand.
Mummified Creature
"Mummified creature" is an acquired template that can be added to any living corporeal creature (hereafter referred to as the base creature). A mummified creature uses all of the base creature's statistics except as noted here.
CR: Same as the base creature +1.
Alignment: Any evil.
Type: The creature's type changes to undead (augmented). It retains any other subtypes as well, except for alignment subtypes and subtypes that indicate kind. Do not recalculate class HD, BAB, saves, or skill points.
Senses: A mummified creature gains darkvision 60 feet.
Aura: A mummified creature gains a frightful presence aura with a range of 30 feet and a duration of 1d6 rounds.
Armor Class: Natural armor improves by +4.
Hit Dice: Change all racial Hit Dice to d8s. Class Hit Dice are unaffected. As an undead, a mummified creature uses its Charisma modifier to determine bonus hit points (instead of Constitution).
Defensive Abilities: A mummified creature gains DR 5/— and the defensive abilities granted by the undead type.
Weaknesses: The mummification process leaves a mummified creature vulnerable to a single energy type. Choose or determine randomly from the following list. d10 Energy 1 Electricity 2–3 Acid 4–7 Fire 8–9 Cold 10 Sonic As a fail-safe in case of rebellion, a mummified creature is subtly marked during the ritual process with a hieroglyph someplace inconspicuous on its body or wrappings that identifies the particular energy type to which it is vulnerable. A successful DC 20 Perception check is needed to find the mark, but a successful DC 25 Linguistics check is still required to decipher the hieroglyph's meaning.
Speed: Decrease all speeds by 10 feet (to a minimum of 5 feet). If the base creature has a f light speed, its maneuverability changes to clumsy.
Attacks: The mummification process hardens the mummified creature's bones to a stone-like density, granting the mummified creature a powerful slam attack if the base creature has no other natural attacks. This slam attack deals damage based on the mummified creature's size (Bestiary 302), treating the creature as if it were one size category larger.
Special Attacks: A mummified creature gains the following special attacks.
Burst of Vengeance (Su): Despite its slow, lumbering nature, a mummified creature is capable of lurching forward to attack with a short but surprising explosion of speed. Twice per day as a swift action, a mummified creature may act as if affected by a haste spell for 1 round.Abilities: Str +4, Int –2 (minimum 1). As an undead creature, a mummified creature has no Constitution score.
Dust Stroke (Su): A creature killed by a mummified creature's natural attack or slam attack is disintegrated into a cloud of dust and ash, completely destroying the victim's body (as disintegrate).
Feats: A mummified creature gains Toughness as a bonus feat, and Improved Natural Attack as a bonus feat for each of the base creature's natural attacks.
Skills: A mummified creature gains a +4 racial bonus on Stealth checks.
Zombie Lord
"Zombie lord" is an acquired template that can be added to any corporeal creature (other than undead) that has a minimum Intelligence of 3. This corporeal creature is referred to hereafter as the base creature.
CR: A zombie lord's CR is 1 higher than that of a normal zombie with the same Hit Dice, plus the normal CR increase for class levels (if any).
Type: The creature's type becomes undead. It keeps subtypes except for alignment subtypes and subtypes that indicate kind.
Alignment: Any evil.
Armor Class: Natural armor as per zombie (Pathfinder RPG Bestiary 288).
Hit Dice: Change all of the creature's racial Hit Dice to d8s, then add 2 racial Hit Dice to this total (creatures without racial HD gain 2 undead HD). Hit Dice from class levels are unchanged.
Saving Throws: Base save bonuses for racial Hit Dice are Fort +1/3 HD, Ref +1/3 HD, and Will +1/2 HD + 2.
Defensive Abilities: A zombie lord gains DR 5/slashing and channel resistance +4, in addition to undead traits.
Speed: As zombie (Bestiary 288).
Attacks: As zombie (Bestiary 289).
Abilities: Str +2, Dex +2. As an undead, it has no Constitution score.
BAB: A zombie lord's BAB for its racial HD is equal to 3/4 its HD.
Skills: A zombie lord gains skill ranks per racial Hit Die equal to 4 + its Int modifier (class skills as the undead type). Skills gained from class levels remain unchanged.
Feats: A zombie lord gains Toughness as a bonus feat.
Special Qualities: Unlike a common zombie, a zombie lord does not gain the staggered special quality.
So check with your local game store to make sure they're participating in Free RPG Day and get out there to get your copies of Ranzak and Pathfinder Module: Risen from the Sands. For more details on Free RPG Day be sure to check out http://www.freerpgday.com . We'll see you all at the game store!
F. Wesley Schneider
Editor-in-Chief
Update Character sheets for four brand new Advanced Class Guide iconic characters are now available for download here (1.3 MB zip/PDF). Print them out for your own run through Risen from the Sands or for your home campaign!
