Pathfinder Chronicles: NPC Guide (PFRPG)

2.70/5 (based on 7 ratings)
Pathfinder Chronicles: NPC Guide (PFRPG)
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Scores of Characters!

Save yourself some number crunching and use this collection of 91 fully statted and ready-to-run nonplayer characters. Whether you need a veteran Pathfinder, an eccentric Red Mantis assassin, an undead-hating Nexian mage, or just a rough-and-tumble thug, this book does the dirty work for you!

    Characters in this book include:
  • Thirty unique NPCs native to the myriad nations of Golarion, with illustrations, histories, complete stat blocks, and special boons for PCs who befriend them. While they bear flavor and history tied to their homelands, all 30 NPCs may appear in any part of the world, and in any setting—use them as mentors, allies, cohorts, or sworn enemies of your PCs.
  • More than 50 nameless NPC stat blocks, custom designed for maximum utility in your game, including raiders from the Lands of the Linnorm Kings, Katapeshi slavers, spider-riding goblins, Gillmen knife fighters, and evil cultists. Whether you use them as bosses in low-level adventures or minions for high-level enemies, you’ll save yourself hours of work by putting your own names and faces over these premade NPCs.
  • Seven adventurer PCs played by Paizo staff members, presented as NPCs with illustrations, histories, stat blocks, and player boons. Use one as a quick premade PC, or drop them all into your campaign as a rival adventuring group!

Pathfinder Chronicles: NPC Guide is intended for use with the Pathfinder Chronicles campaign setting, but is suitable for any setting using the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game or the 3.5 edition of the world’s oldest roleplaying game.

ISBN-13: 978-1-60125-219-7

A free Web Enhancement featuring five additional NPCs was featured in the Paizo Blog.

Other Resources: This product is also available on the following platforms:

Fantasy Grounds Virtual Tabletop
Archives of Nethys

Note: This product is part of the Pathfinder Lost Omens Subscription.

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Average product rating:

2.70/5 (based on 7 ratings)

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A quick resource to get NPC

3/5

In reading the "sell" on Paizo website you get the feeling that this book is the saviour to the bane of GMs. Indeed when you look through the blog materials you get a sense this could be correct. Only one obvious missed points that the book is targetted to low-mid level scenarios.

The introduction in the book itself sells this book better than the advert does. A lot of time and thought has gone in to creating NPCs with charcter. A GM could use the proposed NPCs as a bases and adapt to suit only needs but again it adds time - something this book claims to save for GMs.

I enjoyed the stories and particularly the Paizo characters in at the back. It provides what it says it would but perhaps not to expectations of GMs. It is a solid book and worthy of 3 stars.


I wanted to like this...

2/5

As stated in the previous review. I am a very busy DM, and as such, have little time to spend on generating NPCs.
I hav eno issue with the format, some fleshed out, some little more than stat blocks. It is the level range that was selected that bothered me.
Even at my current busy level, I can take the time to throw together 1st, 2nd or 3rd level NPCs. It is when you get into the middling (8,9,10)to higher levels (11+) that the idea of what this can do seems more appealing to me.
Instead, the decision was made to put in a plethora of low level NPCs.

Something as easy as the old first edition "Rogues' Gallery" would be fantastic!

This artifact had nearly one hundred stats for all of the classes, and a selection of more fleshed out characters, including those characters run by E. Gary Gygax, and the other originals.

I am NOT a grognard, I just think this would have served my purposes much, much better. I know that the stat blocks of today are thicker and chunkier than those of yore, I just think that a more streamlined version of this would have gone better, as would the higher levels.




Not the GM resource I was looking for.

3/5

What I liked what several NPC's was the several fleshed out characters and special designed NPC's around the world of Golarion which I have adopted as my new home for my players as GM. this was a cool feature, but is of limited use to me as you can only use so many low level Hellknights.
What I would have liked to see in a GM resource such as this and would still be VERY interested in purchasing from Paizo. Is an NPC generation guide. I am an Extremely busy person but the majority of my GM'ing occurs within cities, so my players antagonists and protagonists tend to be humanoid. I think something that took the base classes and leveled them up each level or say 1,3,5,8,10 and gave me the stats for each level and maybe one or two different twist so not every fighter I used had power attack and every mage used sleep. other sections I think would have been and still could be great would be area specific building charts, such as a name, height, clothing chart for Cheliax, Linnorm, Ustalav, Etc. so i could take those stat blocks and give them personalities on the fly. I'm not sure about other GM's but this has always been one of the biggest time consumers for me and slows both battle down and storyline as I now I have to give Bob the guard a name and levels for his shiny new sense motive check I didn't see coming.
For what it is, it will be useful. It just not what I was hoping for.


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Sovereign Court

Excellent Smithers...

--School of Vrock

Liberty's Edge

Some of the featured NPCs in the guide have Exile as a trait. Did I miss that one somewhere?

Paizo Employee Creative Director

Arnim Thayer wrote:

Some of the featured NPCs in the guide have Exile as a trait. Did I miss that one somewhere?

If the characters you're referring to are from the final chapter of the book, where the Paizo PCs live, then Exile is a trait I made up for that particular game that I'm running for them.

Liberty's Edge

As is Favored Son, I suppose... any chance that those will become official traits some day? 'cause now I'm REALLY interested to see them!


+1 for seeing the Exile & Favoured Son traits

Contributor

Sounds like an easy blog post, James.... :)

Dark Archive

Busted?


So hey, when are we going to see the other 4 installments of the web enhancement for this? The last one was posted on the blog all the way back on April 2nd...

Contributor

I'll remind Crys about that. Though I think it's only another two installments.


i am hoping someone can help shed some light here for me... i am very new to running any kind of 3.5 or DnD campaign, although i have been running games for about 20 years now, i stayed away from dnd for some reason i never understood... now i am running pathfinder for my friends and they are loving it.

seeing as how i am a 'sandbox' GM, i tend to let the players create the adventures and give them an overall objective to acheive and use guides like this to save myself time and energy.

now my players are looking them over, and they are trying to figure out how some PC characters in the book where made (an example is Shensen)... and i dont have an answer for them. the stats seem kind of high for the level the character is supposed to be.

can anyone shed some light for me on how this character was created so i can get the player off my back about it?

what they are asking about is this:

if the characters where created using the 4d6 drop the lowest method, how did a 12th level character get 2 stats in the 20's (one 22 and one 24). even with a racial bonus of +2 for half elf, and +3 attribute increases for being 12th, that means at best one stat could be 23... my players want to know what else can give you bonuses to your stats.

Dark Archive

I believe you'll find the answer to your question in the Combat Gear section of Shensen's stat block, specifically the belt of incredible dexterity +4 and the headband of alluring charisma +4.


cool! answers that question. i thought that only added a bonus to the stat bonus, not to the stat it self. thanks!


Shensen is a particularly complicated character; she's a reincarnated drow, so she also got the drow bonuses to her mental stats—those bonuses don't vanish when you get reincarnated.

Contributor

IOW, James is Cheaty McCheaterson. :)

The Exchange Contributor, RPG Superstar 2008 Top 6

Sean K Reynolds wrote:
IOW, James is Cheaty McCheaterson. :)

God bless you, I thought I was going to explode with the urge to post something snarky :P

And cool Shenshen avatar!

Scarab Sages Contributor, RPG Superstar 2008 Top 4, Legendary Games

Shensen wrote:
Shensen is a particularly complicated character; she's a reincarnated drow, so she also got the drow bonuses to her mental stats—those bonuses don't vanish when you get reincarnated.

Hey, Shensen came by her cheatin' honestly... one brutal character death at a time!


Yeah; no cheating involved, to be honest. All that was earned with blood, sweat, and tears in confrontations with hook horrors, gorillas, demonic surgical machines, gorillas, overly templated dragons, gorillas, monsters I invented myself used against me, gorillas, insane fellow players with hyperdestructive characters, and gorillas.

Also, gorillas.


Shensen wrote:
Yeah; no cheating involved, to be honest.

I nominate this to be the quote of the day!

Owner - House of Books and Games LLC

Shensen wrote:

Yeah; no cheating involved, to be honest. All that was earned with blood, sweat, and tears in confrontations with hook horrors, gorillas, demonic surgical machines, gorillas, overly templated dragons, gorillas, monsters I invented myself used against me, gorillas, insane fellow players with hyperdestructive characters, and gorillas.

Also, gorillas.

NOT to be confused with monkeys, of course.

Never.


Okay, after two months, I've finally gotten around to reading this thing. I'm curious about Halig Oaklage, the Gebbite ghast cleric on page 11. I thought that you had to have 4 or more Hit Dice to become a ghast. Otherwise, you just become a ghoul. So how did Halig get to be a ghast? Any thoughts on the subject?

Paizo Employee Creative Director

Aaron Bitman wrote:
Okay, after two months, I've finally gotten around to reading this thing. I'm curious about Halig Oaklage, the Gebbite ghast cleric on page 11. I thought that you had to have 4 or more Hit Dice to become a ghast. Otherwise, you just become a ghoul. So how did Halig get to be a ghast? Any thoughts on the subject?

When you become a ghast (or a ghoul, for that matter), you lose all your class levels and basically "start over" with your new race. Halig's 3 cleric levels were gained after he became a ghast.

Dark Archive

James Jacobs wrote:
Aaron Bitman wrote:
Okay, after two months, I've finally gotten around to reading this thing. I'm curious about Halig Oaklage, the Gebbite ghast cleric on page 11. I thought that you had to have 4 or more Hit Dice to become a ghast. Otherwise, you just become a ghoul. So how did Halig get to be a ghast? Any thoughts on the subject?
When you become a ghast (or a ghoul, for that matter), you lose all your class levels and basically "start over" with your new race. Halig's 3 cleric levels were gained after he became a ghast.

It sucks, but at least he's immortal(ish) now. :)


James Jacobs wrote:
When you become a ghast (or a ghoul, for that matter), you lose all your class levels and basically "start over" with your new race. Halig's 3 cleric levels were gained after he became a ghast.

Interesting...

So Hallit got to at least 4th level growing fruit? I guess he could have had fights with other slaves.

Anyway, thank you for the reply.

Contributor

Aaron Bitman wrote:
So Hallit got to at least 4th level growing fruit? I guess he could have had fights with other slaves.

Or someone could have used create undead on his corpse, which doesn't have a level requirement for its target. It's not like he was killed in a ghast attack, after all, he was sacrificed as part of a ritual.

Scarab Sages Contributor, RPG Superstar 2008 Top 4, Legendary Games

Shensen wrote:

Yeah; no cheating involved, to be honest. All that was earned with blood, sweat, and tears in confrontations with hook horrors, gorillas, demonic surgical machines, gorillas, overly templated dragons, gorillas, monsters I invented myself used against me, gorillas, insane fellow players with hyperdestructive characters, and gorillas.

Also, gorillas.

HA! Glitterhaunt FTW, and all those kaorti-spawned freak monsters. Oh the delicious, cruel irony...


Sean K Reynolds wrote:
Or someone could have used create undead on his corpse, which doesn't have a level requirement for its target. It's not like he was killed in a ghast attack, after all, he was sacrificed as part of a ritual.

Ah yes!

Geb always intrigued me because I have trouble wrapping my brain around the idea of a society based heavily on necromancy. I always wanted to read more about Geb, because I have trouble thinking of ideas like THAT one. Thank you!


James Jacobs wrote:
Arnim Thayer wrote:

Some of the featured NPCs in the guide have Exile as a trait. Did I miss that one somewhere?

If the characters you're referring to are from the final chapter of the book, where the Paizo PCs live, then Exile is a trait I made up for that particular game that I'm running for them.

James know this was broached earlier in the thread but are we likely to see the Exile or any other traits from the NPC guide being published in either the APG or other forthcoming material [Inner Sea Hardcover]?

Cheers

BD

Sovereign Court

Black Dow wrote:
James Jacobs wrote:
Arnim Thayer wrote:

Some of the featured NPCs in the guide have Exile as a trait. Did I miss that one somewhere?

If the characters you're referring to are from the final chapter of the book, where the Paizo PCs live, then Exile is a trait I made up for that particular game that I'm running for them.

James know this was broached earlier in the thread but are we likely to see the Exile or any other traits from the NPC guide being published in either the APG or other forthcoming material [Inner Sea Hardcover]?

Cheers

BD

A selection of traits from James's Sandpoint game (including Exile) do indeed make an appearance in the Advanced Player's Guide, as example Campaign Traits.

Paizo Employee Creative Director

Black Dow wrote:
James know this was broached earlier in the thread but are we likely to see the Exile or any other traits from the NPC guide being published in either the APG or other forthcoming material [Inner Sea Hardcover]?

The Advanced Player's Guide puts traits into a hardcover book; and among those rules are rules for Campaign Traits. The traits for my Sandpoint campaign ended up being the ones used as an example for that book, so yes, these traits will be in print in the Advanced Player's Guide.


Thanks gents - think that just made the APG even more requisite [if that's possible!] :) - damn can't wait to get my hands on it now!

BD


Todd Stewart wrote:
spamhammer wrote:
Ezren is straight-up strangling a dude on that cover. Nice to see a wizard pushing sixty who isn't afraid to lay the smack down.
He's doing his best Hulk Hogan impression. :D

"Whatcha gonna do, Seltyiel, when these wrinkled 24-inch pythons run wild on you?"

Hmm, if Ezren is Hulk Hogan, then which iconic Pathfinder character would be the Rock or Mick Foley? ;)

More seriously, a question at the people who have a copy of this book -- does it just cover 'generic' NPCs or does it have a few specific characters as well?

EDIT: Never mind, if I'd read a bit more I'd have gotten an answer to my question. *sighs* But these original characters do sound pretty good. Yet another book on Ye Olde "Get It NOW!" list...


Just purchased this, eagerly awaiting my shipment!
Does anyone know when the PDF for this will be available for me to download? Shouldn't it already be available?

I cannae wait to read this!


Unless you actually subscribe to the Pathfinder Campaign Setting product line, you don't get a free PDF with your purchase, which is what I'm guessing is what you mean. You need to purchase the PDF separately if you want one. If you've purchased a PDF copy of the product, you can download it via My Downloads.

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