Antariuk's page

Well, damn.

This is the book that could persuade me to run another wilderness exploration game with Pathfinder. My last hexcrawl was a pretty good ride I think, and there already are a lot of options for players to engage wilderness adventures, but still... damn. Instant must-have.

83. When the characters encounter a sand storm in the desert, which they know is created by some sort of mummy guardian who's roaming the desert, and when said characters enter the storm in the hopes of claiming some shiny items from the mummy... have that mummy fly, cast spells and command a legion of undead (i.e. about 40 skeletons and 5 skeletal champions with spellcasting). At 7th level.

Most successful use of mythic templates ever (for me) :)

You say "easily", I say "clumsy". Personal preferences, and all that. I don't deny it's possible and workable, and I don't mind using my tablet for bestiaries and rulebooks, but when it comes to adventures I much prefer a physical product.

It isn't so much the lack of physical copies, it is more that I had to choose between a desktop computer and a laptop and the desktop is in a different room than the gaming room. PDFs work great when I need to buy something for a reference that doesn't need to be directly on hand, but it doesn't go so well when I try running an adventure directly from it. I'd be saving so much money if it did. I just wish I had known about Pathfinder earlier than I did.

I agree. Running from PDF is fine up to a certain adventure size, after that it gets really bothersome. This goes, in my opinion, double for something as involved as an AP where you often want (need) to switch between volumes to cross reference something. It's not impossible of course, but without a pricey tablet with drawing capabilities for notes I think the physical product wins.

It would be so cool if Kingmaker got a reprint. Doesn't even have to be a special edition. It was my first ever AP as a player, and from what I gathered at that time and for years afterwards, it sparked numerous long discussions about exploration, hexcrawling and domain management that spanned multiple forums and different games or retroclones. The blogosphere in particular almost exploded for a while on that topic, it was great. Suddenly, people, who before would have never touched Pathfinder with a ten foot pole, talked about how Kingmaker fulfilled the promise of kingdom management that often went largely unfulfilled in older incarnations of the game.

Even though I'm not planning to run an AP in the foreseeable future, if I were able to buy a Kingmaker reprint I might change plans immediately :)

So I finally got to write a review, of some sorts. Got to play a priest for a while and had a lot of fun with it, but in the end it was too powerful for my liking. Still, with a few adjustments, I can see this become another addition to the roster of 3rd party classes allowed at my table.

Play good, play hard, play fair - or unfair, if that's what the situation requires - and try being the best possible version of yourself in whatever role you're filling.

I'm still reading through the PDF, and although I feel a bit hesitant towards yet another divine caster class and also some of the priest's mechanics, I really really like what I see. This will definitely go into the folder of 3rd party classes allowed at my table.

A review is on its way.

So for my upcoming Dark Sun game I looked at the various homebrews and conversions for the defiling mechanics, including official sources such as Dragon magazine and athas.org. As it turns out, there is a lot out there. The problem is that almost every approach I've seen so far is either too powerful for my tastes (granting free metamagic and such to defilers), or that it's too complicated, with derived tables for defiler points or terrain types or some such detail. Pathfinder is fiddly enough as it is, more arcane bookkeeping is not what I'm after. So I sat down and came up with my own system.

I worked under the following assumptions:

• Magic in Pathfinder is powerful enough as it is. There are fewer infinity-loops compared to 3.5, but "free" metamagic is not what the doctor ordered. Therefore, any bonuses granted by defiling should be somewhere below what a metamagic feat grants. If this becomes a problem of diminishing returns in later game stages, I might need to come up with an alternative.
  
• The only classes viable as defilers are wizards, nothing else (maybe arcanists? Would need additional work).
  
• The standard way of casting arcane spells in Pathfinder translates to preserving (more or less), not defiling. Otherwise, preserving would have to be a sufficiently nerfed form of spellcasting and that's hard to sell to players in a setting where a random cactus might be a psionic, flesh-eating monster. There are drawbacks and benefits to both casting traditions, but I won't introduce nonsense such as "casting a preserving spell always takes a full-round action".
  
• The effects of defiling should be easy to grasp and not involve long tables that need referencing whenever a character defiles something. Point pools and mini games are ok, but they must be straightforward and relate directly to something on the character sheet and not a randomly derived number.
  
• In relation to that, defiling should be a fun mechanic and not something that punishes a player character unduely for setting reasons. A defiler needs to be able to participate in adventuring, he needs to be able to calculate how dangerous his defiling is in terms of consequences, and defiling cannot interfere with the character's core abilities (that is, being an arcane spellcaster).
  

This is what I came up with:

Defiling
When an arcane spellcaster decides to add a bonus (see below) to his spell or to use metamagic, or both, the spell becomes a defiling spell and the character becomes a defiler. This has three main consequences.

First, the caster defiles a radius equal to 10 ft. per spell level around him (5 ft. for 0-level spells). The soil and any vegetation, insects and tiny animals within this radius wither and turn to ash. Magically created or summoned creatures or plants are not affected by defiling (note: maybe with a feat?). A preserver can't cast spells within a defiled area unless he succeeds on a concentration check with a DC equal to 10 + the defiler's caster level. A defiler can cast multiple defiling spells from the same position, increasing the defiled area with each casting, but he can do so only a number of times equal to the modifier of his spellcasting attribute (minimum 1). Beyond that, he must change his position (that is, step outside the defiled area) to cast more spells, even if he doesn't want to defile.

Second, a defiler can add one bonus to his defiling spell, chosen from the list below. This is part of the defiling and not a separate action. Any bonus such gained stacks with other bonuses, even metamagic effects.

• +1 to the spell's attack roll.
  
• +2 to a concentration check.
  
• +1d4 to any variable, numerical effect of the spell.*
  
• +1 to the spell's DC.
  
• +5 ft. effective range of the spell.
  

Third, casting a defiling spell nets the caster defiling points. They represent the disconnect between him and the natural world of Athas and mark him as a defiler. The amount of defiling points gained this way is equal to 1 point per effective spell level (level-0 defiling spells without metamagic net 1 defiling point per day, no matter how often used). Note: I think I want to make it that defilers with defiling points are detectable with an appropriate detect spell as per cleric aura rules.

The first time a caster gains a defiling point, he also immediately gains a tainted trait (see below). A tainted trait remains even of all defiling points are gone, and they can only be removed by a willing druid who casts atonement on the defiler or by some extraordinary task that the defiler fulfills on behalf of Athas' mistreated nature (GM's discretion).
The maximum defiling points a character can handle is equal to 10 + his caster level + his spellcasting attribute's modifier. The sum of all defiling points acts as a penalty on Fortitude saves against nonmagical effects and on Diplomacy, Handle Animal, Ride and Survival checks. It's also the DC for any other spellcaster attempting to bring the defiler back to life via reincarnation, raise dead, and similar effects.

Defiling points heal naturally at a rate of 1 point per day. The spell lesser restoration removes 1d4 defiling points, and restoration removes defiling points equal to the caster's level. Limited wish or wish remove all defiling points, but they can't remove any tainted traits.

If a defiler with maximum defiling points casts additional defiling spells, he gains an additional tainted trait for any spell cast beyond his limit (except for level-0 spells). He can only have a number of tainted traits equal to his caster level though, and should he ever gain more tainted traits than that he becomes an undead t'liz and an NPC under the GM's control.

Tainted Traits

Note: I only have a few entries so far and not a complete table. Also, I'm not sure if tainted traits should be rolled randomly or gained in order. I'm always a fan of random effects, and presenting a fixed sequence will surely result in some metagaming, but I can also see that random effects aren't always fun. Like I said, not sure what to make of this...

• A -4 penalty to your negative Constitution score for determining when you die.
  
• A -2 penalty to your Strengh score.
  
• You need twice the amount of water per day.
  
• All creatures have their initial attitude towards you lowered by one step.
  
• ...
  

The problem here is to find some form of balance between something that imposes a clear penalty and something that renders a character effectively unable to continue being an adventurer. I feel that penalties to physical attributes and survival stuff such as food and water are ok (since magic can help with that), but I have problems finding the line.

___

So, what do you guys think?

One thing that would really, really help me would be to fix the "search" function so that if, for example, you're searching for "Fighter," the fighter class (CRB) would be listed first, maybe fighter archetypes next, and example fighters after that, etc.

Or, searching for "ogre" should come up with the standard Bestiary ogre first, then maybe the mythic ogre and ogre mage, and after that all the other stuff that tangentially has "ogre" in the name.

Currently, the results seem to be in date order, which means that the oldest stuff (generally the main entry you're actually looking for) is really far down the list.

Oh man, that would be really awesome. Had that problem myself when looking up generic terms, the basic stuff from the CRB is almost always not among the first 20 or so results.

Since the PRD seems to be linked to the messageboard search function, that's probably not something Paizo can or wants to change. But they could for example offer a filter for the result page with categories such as "creatures", "feats", "classes", etc.

Maybe it's market saturation? Don't get me wrong, I like Bard's Gate and FGG in general a lot, but I could see people hesitating to buy yet another 500+ shelfbreaker that might or might not ever see use in an actual game.

Still, I hope this one makes it.

As someone ho's only ever read about the shaman, was exactly is a mess about the class' design? The only impression I got so far is that the whole spirit mechanic is a bit too... all encompassing, I guess? I'd love to hear specifics though.

So one thing that's been irritating me lately is how unsatisfying the advancement of animal companions is, because they all take a huuuge step forward at 4th or 7th level - besides the constant advancement as per the druid's companion table that is. Over night, a creature suddenly grows one size category, has maybe almost double its former strength and one or two special abilities on top of that. In general, I feel this to be a lot clunkier than the standard advancement of PCs.

Other than splitting up the things an animal companion would gain into several chunk and distributing those over several levels of advancement, are there any existing ideas or homebrews on this? Google and the forum search didn't really net me anything other than lots of rules questions.

TL;DR: the huge step animal companions take at 4th or 7th level is a bit much, is there anything out there to help smooth the advancement a bit?

Hey Kirth, I'd be interested in the latest batch of your rules if possible :)

Sounds neat! Any info on what resources are utilized for the villains? I see cruel musketeers and a slayer's guild, which could mean a lot and doesn't necessarily indicate content beyond the CRB, but I sure hope it does :)

Yeah, Gore fiend could be useful if you actively build towards it. I saw a half-orc ranger/barbarian with her falchion critting all the time like a beast.

Thrill of the kill? I just see too many limitations when something else gives you more with zero limitations. UNLESS you had them both. I mean if you want to go crazy ragey and blow all the feats on them, that MAY be useful... but hoping to get that last hit in on an opponent equal to your level?? If there are hordes, they're usually lower then you that add up to a high CR... if there's only a few, by the time you kill it you probably don't need the extra rounds...

I know my guy's a niche character... i'm trying out the variant multiclass...

Sure, the HD limit is annoying, but if I were to play AM BARBARIAN in, say, a random hexcrawl with the possibility of several brutal encounters per day, I could think of dozens of feats way worse than Thrill of the Kill. But I'll concede that its far from being a strong choice.

Probably not the WORST feat ever written... but I really hate

'Thrill of the Kill.
When you are raging and your attack reduces an enemy to negative hit points or kills it, you regain 1 round of rage. You may only use this feat if the fallen enemy had at least as many Hit Dice as you. You can only gain this benefit once per round.

I was looking at this pretty seriously for my alchemist(chymist/Barbarian build... till I noticed Extra Rage: Gain 6 more rounds of Rage...

I suppose they may stack, but +6 is a heck of a lot better then hoping you get the final kill WHILE raging, and hoping the opponent is worthy enough to qualify 6 times a day...

Sure, at early levels and for run-of-the-mill encounters with one or two creatures Extra Rage is a safe bet, but if you know that you're up against lots of beatable melee opponents and you like to challenge yourself a bit, Thrill of the Kill is not so bad. Neither is Gore Fiend, for that matter. Just because those feats don't guarantee you X amounts of rage rounds 100% all of the time, doesn't make them bad. They give you the opportunity to regain a limited resource beyond the normal limits (rest and wait for the next day). Compared to other really bad feats named in this thread, they don't even compare.

I don't think you really need the Beginner Box, since you're just a bit out of date and not a total beginner. I mean, the BB is a great product but I'm sure you could just grab the CRB and get a standard game going with your new group. Of course, you know best, but that's my impression.

As for self-contained adventures, Paizo has released quite a lot of those, and many of them are good or at least ok. If however you're hesitant to spend a lot of money upfront and want to test the waters first, there are a number of totally free adventures to grab.

First, there is a free introduction series from Pathfinder Society called "Pathfinder Society Scenario Intro", in three parts. The first part is called In Service to Lore, you'll find the other two after that. Pathfinder Society assumed that all players are members (or aspirants) of the adventuring organization called Pathfinder Society, which makes your job as the GM a lot easier (no lengthy introduction about where and why everyone is traveling together). There are a few other free PFS adventures as well, but you'd have to read the reviews since I've never played them.

Second, every year when we have Free RPG Day, Paizo releases a small adventure. Some are single affairs and self-contained, others form a quasi-series - like the goblin adventures. These modules are pretty short but are a great way to get your tows wet and see how this all works, or to expand an existing adventure. Note that Hollow's Last Hope and Revenge of the Kobold King are older modules and technically still 3.5, but you can run them with Pathfinder almost on the fly. Hollow's Last Hope is the first of several (older) adventures that take place in Darkmoon Vale, and not a bad way to start a short-zo-medium adventure series.

Third, browse the Messageboards for past RPG Superstar events, because in the final round the remaining four participants all submit an adventure proposal, one of which then gets released as an official Paizo module. But the rough drafts are all still there on the forums, for you and every GM to read and work into your own game. Here for example are the four adventures from last year's round. The RPG SuperStar events are a goldmine, since you can also browse a huge amount of monsters, magic items and encounters, some of which are really something not seen in standard fantasy fare.

In addition, there are dozens of private blogs and websites where people made Pathfinder adventures or encounters, so it's not hard to find something free to start with.

To expand a bit on the 3rd party publishers, or at least a handful of them since I sincerely doubt that anyone has a complete list at this point (there really are a lot by now, I believe even more than we had back in the early 2000's when everyone and their grandmother were doing some d20 knockoff), let me list a couple of them and the materials they have released. Like I said, just a handful to get you started.

Dreamscarred Press
This publisher brought Psionics to Pathfinder, and was so successful that we not only a "core rulebook" (Psionics Unleashed) and an "advanced player's guide" (Psionics Expanded: Advanced Psionics Guide), but also a compilation of the above, inclusing add-ons and errata, culminating in Ultimate Psionics. These rules are widely regarded as being at least as good as Pathfinder's official stuff, if not better. By now Pathfinder has its own version of psionic themes, introduced with Occult Adventures, but the so-called psychic magic is different from psionics so it's up to you. Dreamscarred Press' psionics are probably closer to the psionics from older editions of D&D. The pusblisher has also released a Pathfinder version of the somewhat famous 3.5 supplement "Book of the 9 Swords" (called "Path of War" now) and is also bringing 3.5's Incarnum magic to Pathfinder (staggered releases with single classes right now, but I'm sure a compilation is coming as well).

Rite Publishing
This is a publisher that released a bit of everything: adventures, feats, spells, magic items, monsters, you name it. They have a line of "101 spells", where you get 101 spells of a certain level or a certain theme, which contains a lot of cool new options to play with (not all of them particularly balanced though, but that's half the fun), they also have a "#30" line where you get 30 items of a certain kind or of a certain theme (ioun stones, cursed treasures, mercenary companies, ...), which can be a great help if this is something you as a GM are struggling with or simply don't have the time to come up with on your own. A special shout-out goes to the series Faces of the Tarnished Souk, which in my opinion is the coolest assortment of NPCs ever done for Pathfinder. They were originally intended for the high-level dreamscape adventure Coliseum Morpheuon, but since every NPCs comes with an extensive backstory and three different writeups (each at a different power level, generally between 7th and 20th level) they're easy to plug into your own campaign. If you're looking for NPCs that go a bit further than "Xerxes, fallen paladin and bane of the north", this will be right up your alley.

Frog God Games
Ah, the frogs. This company used to be Necromancer Games and you're probably familiar with some of their products like the d20 version of Wilderlands of High Fantasy, the megadungeon Rappan Athuk, Bard's Gate or some of the smaller adventures like The Vault of Larin Karr. Frog God Games has brought a lot of d20 classics to Pathfinder, the latest project being a Bard's Gate Kickstarter (IIRC it's still running) for an updated version of that city sourcebook. Rappan Athuk has been converted and also received a lot of add-ons, there's a new pirate setting called Razor Coast that has awesome caribbean flair, and lots of other cool products. All in all, Frog God Games focuses on adventures and on huge releases, most of their major books have a pagecount of 500 and more, giving you hours upon hours of play value.

Rogue Genius Games
This used to be Super Genius Games, and like Rite Publishing you get a bit of everything here, but mostly small releases and mostly crunchy things for player characters like feats or classes. They have a line called "The Genius Guide to the Talented XXX" where they remodel existing Pathfinder classes to increase the flexibility of the class by making a lot of class features options you can take - or not. Some of them, like the Talented Witch, have been received very positively, so I think RGG is one to something here. They also have a line called Mythic Options with new toys for mythic characters, or a Monster Menagerie that is all about increasing a GM's options for certain monsters (they have in fact several product lines for that), and a lot of other things. Like Rite Publishing, this is a publisher you might want to look at if you're unsatisfied with a particular aspect of the original Pathfinder game, or if you like experimenting with new options. Nothing is a must-have, but there are some really cool ideas to be found here.

Alluria Publishing
Not a really famous 3rd party publisher, and I'm not sure if they're still producing content, but they made the campaign setting Cerulean Seas and that's enough to be mentioned here. Cerulean Seas is an underwater campaign setting, with new races, classes and options for Pathfinder games that might never see dry land at all. The setting itself is not fleshed out in the way that the official Golarion setting or older D&D settings like Planescape or the Forgotten Realms are, it just gives you enough information to start a game but leaves wiggle room to make it your own thing. What makes Cerulean Seas especially noteworthy is how it tackles the problem of a 3D environment where up and down don't necessarily have the same meaning as in your typical dungeoncrawling game, and also how it handles water pressure and adventuring in such an environment. There are a couple of expansions like a bestiary and a book for arctic waters, and from what I've heard they are about as good as the main setting book.

Legendary Games
This is something of a rockstar publisher, with all of the authors being former participants (or winners) of the RPG SuperStar contest or employees of Paizo or other 3rd party companies. They are famous for a line of plug-ins for Paizo Adventure Paths, giving a GM additional NPCs, magic items and adventures to gap "holes" in a given Adventure Path or simply expand it somewhat. They've also released a massive amount of options for Mythic Adventures, a "sword and planet" adventure path in the vein of pulp stories like John Carter, and rules for ruling and managing kingdoms and such. Legendary Games makes pretty stellar stuff in my opinion.

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And there are more, hundreds of them. If you look at the Messageboard overview, there are two Product Discussion areas (one for both Paizo and 3rd party products and one for 3rd party products only) where you can find tons of 3rd party product announcements, reviews and discussions. I'd also look at other RPG messageboards out there if you are interested in Pathfinder 3rd party products, like Giant in the Playground or EN World.

Yeah, I think its sad that staves are as unpopular as they seem right now. Since it is so easy in Pathfinder's current state to get spells and powers from other classes, the spells and powers provided by a staff lose attraction, especially since most staves cost tons of money. As a GM, I've dropped staves into the loot pile three times in the last 7 years, and not once were they really used before being sold off. A shame.

@Ravingdork: those look pretty cool, thanks for sharing.

Look at that, Dyson Logos provided maps of an awesome library right on cue.

How about an extradimensional library? That's a recurring theme with lots of adventuring potential. Maybe the plane will self-destruct in 3 days unless X happens, and the information is buried somewhere in all those books... and with wandering monsters and nasty guardians around the PCs can't exactly sit down and brute force their way through some pages. Or the place constantly shifts and changes, like Hogwarts or The Amazing Labyrinth board game.

A crafty GM could also turn books and tomes into some kind of on-site currency, as in that a demon bound to a door the PCs need to get through would let them pass if he is handed this one particular tome... only it also details a ritual that needs to be performed later on, so the players must decide if they pass on a brutal fight and MacGyver their way through the ritual later on, or not.

Or, to take a cue from the Inkheart novels, maybe there are books that you can make real by reading them out loud. Need to imprison that nasty guardian golem with iron binds? Read out from the creepy torture manual that talks about such things, and it will happen. Problem for the PCs is that they don't have enough such books to blast every challenge out of their way, or doing so creates other problems that might eventually kill everyone (maybe reading from a book destroys a random piece of the environment, or summons angry reality guardians, or something).

Also, any librarian adventure absolutely and positively must include the "No harm ever came from reading a book" quote from the 1999 The Mummy film somewhere. There really is no other way :)

You guys are awesome. All these ideas really make me want to run a competition game, a bit like the beginning of the Mummy's Mask AP, instead of having just one rival party.

Thanks for the ideas, I'll totally steal some of those.

Are there any recent archetypes I should be aware of? I've seen a lot of discussions about the Armor/Weapon Master's Handbooks lately.

I'll second the Advanced Player's Guide.

Using the Core Rulebook and the APG as your game's body of rules is something a lot of GMs and groups do, and for good reasons. As Rosc already mentioned, the APG introduces new concepts found in many later releases, and it represents the first stage of modifications (mainly through archetypes) of the eleven core classes. Especially if you have inexperienced but eager players, it often makes sense to ease them into Pathfinder's more advanced mechanics by giving them the APG - it builds upon content they'll likely know (the Core Rulebook) and the level of complexity is still very reasonable (in general of course; I know that you can build crazy complicated druids, oradins or alchemists, that's not the point).

The Advanced Class Guide is of course glorious and offers a lot of shiny new toys, but it builds upon contents and concepts introduced in the APG and you'll probably get a lot more mileage out of getting the APG first and then the ACG.

Also, and this is just a personal thing of mine, ask yourself which books you really want to include in your game, and why. Do you want your players to build cool and interesting characters (mechanically), or do you just keep your game 'up to date' in terms of content, or do you - or the players - need some specific content because the adventure will profit greatly from it? Can your players even fully utilize what you're offering? I'm not saying this to dissuade you from getting additional Pathfinder books, just to be sure why :)

Man, thanks for the fighter skill monkey link, that is just awesome. I'm not sure about the martial cleric yet, since this is something we've all seen at one point or another. My initial impulse was to make the cleric the party's rogue, but where does that leave the actual rogue?

So I need a rival NPC party for my game. The PCs, most of which are new since the party practically suffered a total wipe (leaving one survivor), are still in the process of finding their new group dynamic, but from what I've seen that should work out great for everyone. Now I want to challenge them a bit since they are pretty confident in their abilities right now. Rightfully so, mind you, and I don't want to be a dick and take that away, but you can't have real success without some kind of challenge, right?

Just for fun I was thinking of creating a rival party of the four classic D&D archetypes cleric, fighter, rogue and wizard. Only that they look and act in a way that the PCs won't figure this out easily - I want this NPC gang to be as wild and crazy as possible, and even switch intended roles if possible.

Right now the PCs are at 2nd level, and I'd love to introduce the NPC rivals around 5th level maybe - let's just say 5th level then. Can you guys help me out with some interesting build ideas and archetypes? The adventure takes place in the 3.0 Forgotten Realms campaign setting, so pretty much everything from Pathfinder's body of rules is game - and I don't mind templates or 3rd party content.

Right now I am looking at the spirit whisperer (wizard) from ACG and the eldritch guardian (fighter) from the Familiar Folio, but there's just so much to choose from...

The guy with 3 nines gets a reroll, the one with 2 sevens and a 10 is stuck.

Yeah, so? His other three scores must sum up 41, which means he must have 14, 14, 13, or he may reroll as well. 7, 7, 10, 13, 14, 14 might not be stellar, but it's far from unplayable. I'd play that in a heartbeat.

Don't know if I read it somewhere or came up with it on my own, but I have been thinking about adding "if three of the final ability scores are below 10, or if the sum of all ability scores is below 65, you may roll a new array" to 3E's organic method. Should prevent players from being stuck with really s#%!ty rolls, while preserving the randomness.

The team that performs the PRD updates is comprised of two people (myself and Liz Courts). This is on top of our other areas of responsibility, and Paizo has had a lot of exciting and new things crop up in the last few months that have required us to divert attention elsewhere.

That... sucks, to be honest. Definitely not because of you or Liz, but to hear that the place where lots of GMs (and players) go to check up on some rules or RPG line content is maintained by only two people, who're also involved in god knows how many other projects, is worrisome. Sure, it's free, but it's also Pathfinder's showpiece on the internet.

We are still working on items as we have time, and I hope for us to have an update before PaizoCon (barring any outstanding emergencies). I know it's not "good" news, but we're doing what we can. We appreciate your patience as we catch up :)

Thanks for the update!

Barb1: Toughness, Extra Rage
Wiz1: Spell Focus (???)
W2: Arcane Strike
W3: +1 Int
W4: Improved Initiative
W5: Heighten Spell
EK1: Weapon Focus (claw), Power Attack
EK2: +1 Str
EK3: Weapon Specialization (claw)
EK4:
EK5: Dodge, Lightning Reflexes

That should be a half-orc instead of a human, really. The alternate racial trait to get Endurance is PFS legal (as is Sacred Tattoo), and you gain access to a range of interesting feats.

Man, this thread got a bit out of hand, eh? :)

But I don't complain, since I'm still wrestling how to do ability generation in my upcoming Dark Sun game most comments here were immensely helpful.

An additional problem with random rolling I "found out" yesterday was when I looked up a few options for one of my players (who's still not super-experienced in Pathfinder), and I noticed how many Feats still have prerequisites like "Str 15" or some other. This could be a massive hurdle for someone playing a Str 13 fighter. I realize it's a corner case, but still... hm.

I'm surprised how few people use the Organic Method from the 3.0 PHB:

1. Roll 4d6, in order.
2. Choose one stat to reroll. Keep the higher of the 2 rolls.
3. Switch two scores.

That's been my default system for years. Keeps the fun of randomness. Doesn't force someone to play a different class than they wanted.

Interesting... sounds like a good compromise between dealing with the dice results you get and playing the character concept you wanted. I've never played 3.0, but I think I've got a PHB lying around here somewhere that I can show to my players. Thanks for the pointer!

I do wonder how much his group's love for the concept is tied to their "amazing luck with the rolls". Will it fall apart when they don't have such luck in later games? Or when a couple have such luck and a couple don't?

That's actually a very good question... I think they all rolled really well on average, nobody having more than one ability below 10 (before racial adjustments), and that might have distorted their perception a bit.

I've read that some GMs like to set a limit to how low the sum of all abilities can be before it's declared unfit for play, like a sum of 65 or something like that. That might help mitigate really crappy rolls, should they ever happen.

Interesting comments!

I agree that I'm probably blessed with a rather good group of players... we have all sorts of personalities and playstyles at the table, but we get along fine and there's never been any bad blood whatsoever (a few heated RAW discussions with one of my players (who is very into playing by the rules) aside).

I figure that the sudden enthusiasm for 4d6 drop lowest, in order, may come from a) inserting more randomness into a game that by its nature is very binary for the most part. Also, it speeds up the process of character generation and I think at least 2 of my players don't enjoy that part as much as actually playing their characters.

The funny thing is that I planned to introduce random rolling for abilities in the upcoming Dark Sun campaign, and the thought probably lingered in the back of my mind when we started this intermediate adventure. Now I wish I'd tried out that idea earlier, but what do you know...

As for multiple rolled sets vs. assign in order or randomly, I think in the future I'll always offer my players to either roll 2 sets and select one, or assign as they like. If they still wanna go with roll in order, then I obivously I won't step in the way of them having fun, but in case someone really wants to play a certain class/type and the rolls don't support that, there should be an option to compensate.

It all started when we began playing an intermediate adventure between campaigns, because I still need time prepping and gathering my thoughts. I went with Shattered Gates of Slaughtergarde as a module because it way lying around on my shelf and I wanted to see if I can turn it into a halfway decent sandbox (because it's pretty terrible as-written)

Now, when we began character creation after I read the introduction blurb, I suggested that instead of the usual Point-Buy we use 4d6 drop lowest, just for s@*!s and giggles. This was met with great enthusiasm, much to my surprise. I then, only jokingly, also suggested everyone should roll dice oldschool, in order of the attributes, and not assign values at will afterwards.

Imagine my utter surprise when people began practically fighting each other about who should roll first. Everyone became very invested, and all in all they had amazing luck with the rolls, I think at least 3 out of 4 characters had an 18 or better as an ability score after racial adjustments. They had a hard time mulling over possible classes and what their characters should look like with those random stats, and I think this helped improve the entire atmosphere at our table.

Yesterday, when we played again, the group suffered almost a total party wipe and only one guy survived without any gear or reward. This happened after the group had cleared out the Slaughtergarde laboratory and collected a rather nice pile of loot. It was decided that instead of starting a new adventure, the lone survivor would try to enact some revenge with new friends from the next town.

When the players without characters started to roll up new characters, again with 4d6 drop lowest in order, I was given the offhand comment that "From now on, we wanna do it like this every time."

Consider me utterly blown away.

Why the "quotation" marks on "reviews"? Reviews don't "claim" things, they are people's thoughts and opinions. However colored by preference, bias or table variation. I found both of the low star reviews exceedingly informative about just what is missing - page count, and options.

I think that a review should be a bit more than ranting about feeling ripped off of lamenting the power level or lack of balance without any explanation - which two of the 1-Star reviews do. Its ok to not be satisfied with a product and give a negative review, but if you just want to let off some steam we have the product discussion threads for that.

Also, I am tired of people trying to sell reviews as a neutral thing - a review is always, ALWAYS a subjective affair. Which is totally ok. But just as every user here can post a review, I can decide to find a review to be improper or lacking. If you can't handle that, don't post a review.

My impression is that some people looked at the Trickster, saw a) access to the sor/wiz spell list and b) sneak attack and rogue class features and dismissed the entire thing immediately. I'd say that skill-wise the class is indeed too strong, but everything else is balanced within the Pathfinder system as it stands today. If you compare the Trickster to the Rogue or Magus, both of which have a huuuuge list of options and customizations available by now, the power level is pretty much even.

Table experience can and will of course vary between different groups and GMs, but that's true for the entirety of the game.

If you're so inclined, please consider posting an actual review (heck, your initial post could practically BE the review :)

I can do that no problem, but it would be a capsule review at this point without any actual play behind it.

Oh, as for additional Fortes ... excellent idea. I really want to keep the number of Fortes reasonably small, but one or two more is certainly doable. I already have what I think is an interesting new Trickster archetype written, when I have some time I'll start mulling over an additional Forte or two!

I'm not the world's biggest fan of archetypes these days (way too many of them around), but any additional option for the Trickster is much appreciated. I'll be waiting then :)

Yeah, there already are games that work without XP, and I've played a few of them. My problem, if it's even that, with XP right now is also an old one and I just spitballed a little for a possible solution. I didn't want to sell this as a brand-new idea, sorry if my OP sounded like that.

As for story XP, I think that's totally cool but doesn't go far enough in this cas. As a GM I always reward story events with XP, sometimes even a lot, but I'd rather just lose XP altogether if possible.

Regarding the Monty Hall GM problem, I figure that players might still be inclined to fight some bandits or monster for loot. The alternate system just doesn't reward confrontational behavior as much in terms of character progression, and players need to find other justifications for their PC's actions than "That's what everyone does!"
But I see the problem, folks need their gear with advancing levels, and thankfully we already have solutions for that (this might be good opportunity to try that inherent bonus system from Pathfinder Unchained).

Ah, I see. Thanks for the clarification. That makes it a bit more interesting. If there'll ever be an expansion or revision, I think I'd really love to see a few additional Fortes - I get that the class has a tight focus and that a Forte is intended to emphasize this focus rather than shifting it around, but I think Forte branches like Stealth and Divination (as in gathering information by some obscure or illigetimite means) would be perfectly in line with the Trickster. Just a thought ;)

I've found this class last week and have mulled it over since. This is probably the best incarnation of the arcane trickster concept we've seen so far for Pathfinder, especially since you don't have to wait several level for a Prestige Class or need to compromise with an archetype (is it just me or is it weird that the Magus doesn't have any real trickster archetypes except Stygian Striker?).

While I would agree that the Trickster is definitely on the strong side of class balance, it's not as overpowered as some of the "reviews" claim it to be. Yes, having access to the entire Sor/Wiz spell list is a huge deal, but the Trickster's spell progression is worse than a sorcerer's. Also, Sneakspell comes online late enough to not steal the Magus' spotlight prematurely and there aren't tons of feats and options to customize it. The Trickster also doesn't get rogue talents, which I think is a huge balance point.

Claiming that the Trickster is stealing the Rogue's thunder strikes me as unfair since we already have Traits like Trap Finder that allow classes like the Bard or the Magus to beat the Rogue at his own game (or at least part of it).

My only criticsm right now is that the 5th-level ability of the Beguile Forte seems... I dunno, redundant? Either I'm missing something or this ability is already covered by the standard Bluff skill.

I'll definitely allow this class in my next game, hopefully one of my players is interested enough to give it a shot.

When preparing for my upcoming Dark Sun game, I read that discovery (especially the re-discovery of Dark Sun's lost past) is more important than slaying bandit group #37, and that a GM should reward such discoveries appropriately. This got me thinking... since this way of advancing characters neatly avoids part of the old murderhobo problem (killing monsters = XP = more power), why not adopt it for other settings and genres? Replace the XP progression table with 5-6 major discoveries between levels. Depending on the adventure and genre played, these discoveries could be:

- make a powerful friend/ally (maybe even under difficult circumstances)
- make a powerful enemy/nemesis (this probably won't happen on the party's own accord)
- gather clues/vital information or reveal a substantial lie
- discover a new magical property of the McGuffin
- ...

A GM could tailor the list to fit his adventures. The players might still decide to go after someone who's not really in their way because they want some shiny gear, but they're probably not going to murder every creature in sight because the risk-reward ratio has changed drastically.

The only downside I see right now is that the GM needs to communicate his list of advancement options clearly and before the game starts, so that everyone is on the same page.

Heroes of the streets (which you've already mentioned) is a must have and well worth reading. There are amazing archetypes and options in there.

Thanks! I'd put that one on my list because of something I read here on paizo.com, but I haven't really checked it out till now.

If you're on a demiplane owned by a trickster deity, you might think about how that relates to clerics receiving their spells. If the trickster deity interferes, then other divine spellcasting classes or other characters with healing abilities, such as oracles. Alchemists and bards seem to lend themselves to urban campaigns too.

This is pretty much my line of thoughts. I won't interfere with divine spellcasting, a few campaign rules about magic aside. I'll give the group a few hints at character creation to avoid problems, and later on the players can discover the rules of this strange realm step by step and learn what kind of magic works and what doesn't. Divination effects like commune for example are very unreliable, teleportation works normally within "zones" that shift over time, summoning works normally, etc.

If "allying with powerful entities" includes obscure, largely immaterial spirits you must bind yourself to (akin to the 3.5 Tome of Magic vestiges), then you might look at Radiance House's Pact Magic Unbound stuff (which is quite similar.) The books aren't specific on how much/which spirits a pact-magic user knows about, so discovery and mystery could very much be a thin if you wanted it to be.

That's an interesting idea, although I'm kinda set on more traditional deities (more or less). The trickster deity owns this place and can't be beaten at his own game, but he didn't just steal people from all over the multiverse, he snatched a few demigods and ascended beings as well. I though that I'd want to have Avacyn (the angel from MtG) as a good-aligend demigod, maybe Vecna to cover all the power-hungry necromancers, and one or two additional small deities. They all form a nice dysfunctional pantheon of some sorts, and the trickster deity is probably watching and laughing his a** off.

The biggest thing I think you'll run into is what to do with "wild" characters like the barbarian, druid, and ranger. The barbarian and the ranger are fairly easy to refluff for urban settings The former being madmen, thuggish gang members, REALLY spoiled aristocrats, etc. and the former being bounty hunters, sewer explorers, etc. Druids are a little bit more challenging.

Of course wilderness characters will be in some trouble if I were to kidnap them unprepared, but I will give advice during character creation to avoid this problem. The demiplane features some forms of wilderness, but its limited to a few steep mountains, a river (which acts as some kind of planar gateway, only that it doesn't let you out), and a swamp between the mountains, the river and the city. Its likely that the trickster deity didn't create the plane because he certainly doesn't care for this nature stuff, but its there.

Here's some archetypes that might be appropriate for an urban game: [...]

Thanks for the list! I know most of these archetypes by name, but haven't checked them all out in detail yet.

ckdragons wrote:

Is the Pathfinder Reference Document website going to be updated again anytime soon? Not asking for new content or errata's but just the reported errors. I'm sure everyone at Paizo is up to their eyeballs in projects, but the last update was in Oct 2015 (6 months ago). Thanks.

I am, in fact, working on Things as I type.

Any update on Things? :)

So I'm building an urban campaign at the moment, where the PCs will be abducted by a trickster deity and wake up in some bizarre dream city within a demiplane ruled by said trickster deity. Everyone there has been abducted in one way or another, either physically or while dreaming. A mash-up between Sigil, Thieves' World, and Lovecraft's city of Kadash, if you will. The PCs can do what they want and either ally themselves with powerful entities or try and become the toughest gang in town themselves. Maybe, just maybe, there's a way out of this...

Until now I've concentrated pretty much on the GM's side of the screen, I wrote up the city and the surrounding demiplane, who's who, some twists and plots, the usual. Now I want to collect options for my players and make a list of the most interesting urban character options out there. A player's guide, if you will.

Obviously the new Ultimate Intrigue is like a must-have, and I will get that book soon. I'm also looking at some Players Companions like Heroes of the Street or Blood of the Shadows. What else is there?

I'd love to hear your suggestions... books, options, party compositions, whatever. 3rd party is also welcome at my table.

You guys can snark all you want, the OP certainly has a valid point - the Paizo website is out-of-date. Veteran members might not care, but in terms of both usability and compatibility there is a lot of room for improvement. And that has nothing to do with the tech staff not doing their job, far from it.

Don't know if the lists are exhaustive, but PathinderWiki should have you covered.

As for the witch, that might be a class that's just not really ideal for Dark Sun. Since all arcane magic uses the life force of Athas and its creatures as fuel, there aren't any spirits involved as depicted by the patron idea of the witch class. Obviously you can change that in your game an make it fit no problem, but I'd be hesitant to create such a bridge between arcane and divine magic since it is an iconic cornerstone of the entire setting.

Personally, I'd say that witches must decide to preserve or defile same as wizards to, and I'd write up a list of creepy and appropriately strange familiar creatures a witch can choose from.

Can't say anything about the psychic though, haven't read that class yet. I'm also preparing a Dark Sun game that'll probably start in a few weeks and we're going to use Ultimate Psionics.

Hey guys,

In preparation for my upcoming Dark Sun game I made a custom character sheet because I wasn't really happy with the sheet from Dreamscarred Press (wasteful layout and errors), and also because I like to mess around in Photoshop. So this is an image-file sheet, nothing fancy like fillable PDF, sorry. Size is A4, so adjust accordingly before printing in Letter size!

The sheet assumes both Psionic rules from Dreamscarred Press and magic-psionic transparency. I also included a small box on the first page for minor psionic or psi-like abilities to avoid page-flipping for people who don't play full-blown psionics. The only real change I made ruleswise is to fold Climb and Swim into Athletics to accomodate for the desert environment of Athas (who needs Swim if there's nothing to swim in? You can't even do that in the Silt Sea). The money listings on page 2 adhere to the old Boxed Setting, no clue if that was different in 4E Dark Sun.

There are two versions of the first page, one with all the things listed above, and another one with an additional heat subsystem that was inspired by GoblinDaddy in this thread here, which is a nice compromise between incorporating heat and exhaustion and avoiding tons of active Fortitude saves every 10 seconds. I use degree Celcius, if you want Fahrenheit I can whip up a version for that as well.

Page 1 (no heat subsystem)

Page 1 (with heat subsystem)

Page 2

Very helpful information, thanks a bunch :)

Thanks for the reply! So if I got this right, every power card is a single page in the PDF? There aren't aligned as, say, 3x3 cards per page? That sounds a bit weird... but still, should be doable to get that stuff printed.

I think the Astomoi are pretty bad... not only does their description (no ears, eyes, mouth or nose) not fit their abilities (scent? susceptible to inhaled poisons?), they apparently also needed a special snowflake type of vision despite blindsense being a thing.

And I agree, how would you insert them into a game? As a unique monster I can kinda see a spot for them, but as a race of intelligent beings? Err... no.

But I really like the Caligni, despite their short list of uninteresting racial features. Dark Folk is the best folk.