Raise your character to the pinnacle of magical might with Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Ultimate Magic! Within this book, secrets arcane and divine lie ready to burst into life at the hands of all the spellcasting classes in the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game. In addition to the brand-new magus class—a master of both arcane magic and martial prowess—you'll also find a whole new system for spellcasting, rules for spell duels and other magical specialities, and pages upon pages of new spells, feats, and more. Because when it comes to magic, why settle for less than absolute power?
Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Ultimate Magic is a must-have companion volume to the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Core Rulebook. This imaginitive tabletop game builds on more than 10 years of system development and an Open Playtest featuring more than 50,000 gamers to create a cutting-edge RPG experience that brings the all-time best-selling set of fantasy rules into the new millennium.
Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Ultimate Magic includes:
The magus, a new base class combining deadly arcane magic with the skills and weapons of a trained warrior.
Words of power, an innovative and flexible new spellcasting system.
New options for dedicated casters, such as alchemist discoveries, alternative uses for channeled energy, druid companions, sorcerer bloodlines, eidolon abilities, witch hexes, and oracle mysteries.
Additional feats and magical abilities for martially oriented casters, including monk ki tricks, inquisitor archetypes, and ranger traps.
New magical conditions called spellblihgts, as well as systems for crafting constructs, binding outsiders, and spell-dueling.
More than 100 new spells, plus detailed guidelines for designing your own.
The main beef I had was with the alchemist and magus. Alchemists are supposedly primitive scientists/herbalists. In this however, they gain all kinds of bombs and discoveries. Their "alchemical created specialties can be stolen but cannot be used by anyone other than themselves." One heck of a failsafe but complete b+**#*+s. They gain reistance to poison faster than an assassin. Apply poison as a swift which makes them even better at that than an assassin or ninja. Bombs which do fair amount more than alchemist fire since its 1d6+Int and their Int would be high since its the basis for their abilities. True ressurection at level 16 which is a level earlier than the cleric. Also considering the fact they cast up to level 6 spells but can cast a level 9 spell is laughable. This resurrection potion can also be drunk by them and it functions as a contingency effect since it'll bring them back to life should they perish. Feels like a combination of cleric/wizard assassin but is better than each in certain select areas of the other three classes. There are other factors but these are the main crux of it.
On to the magus. At first levelhe can enhance his weapon and the bonus goes up with levels. This isn't a problem but the enhancing weapon ability is drawn from some mystical arcane pool which doesn't take up casting a spell when doing this. Later on, more abilities can be created from this pool which also increases as the magus level increases. A desperate attempt to get around the limitations spellcasters have of only so many spells per day. This coupled with the fact they can cast later in medium and heavy armor at no penalty is ludicrous. If it was just in light armor, it would be believable. They also qualify for fighter feats despite having no levels in fighter. What was originally fighter specific now applies to them. There is more but that about spells the main part of it.
All in all, a book which has introduced classes which gain too much too quickly and tries desperately to tear down the limitations of other classes then mix them all in together. With the alchemist its assassin/wizard/cleric. With the magus its ninja/wizard/fighter.
At first I was extremely excited about ultimate magic. I was hoping for some new racial bonuses like in APG, or perhaps a racial template for Anthropomorphic animals. Hell, I was hoping that Anthropomorphic animal would have allowed you to really have an anthro, and not just rip all the cool things animals can do from them.
As i started reading more and more, I kept finding little irky things, such as the Geshia or dragon shaman. The scroll master was pretty irky too.
Cause while these things had flavor, most of it was meh at best, as the flavor they were suppose to create missed the mark or could just be easily done through roleplaying. In the cae of the scroll master, it had so much more it could have done, provided it was on something like the magus.
But the most irksome thing is the constant "reminder" that this content isn't all just for the players. The DM could use the geshia archetype. But seriously.. if the DM was using it, the DM didn't need the archetype in the first place.
Then so much of the book is used up on stupid things. Like the new ranger and monk things, and most of the paladin, wasn't truthfully that magical. Most of it in fact was pretty mundane.
Then magic items. There is NO magical items in this book, unless you really wanna make a golem, which the pages for that get lost petty easily in the second chapter. Beyond the large collection of new familiars, and spell duel things..
Then the words of magic. Its bloody hard to figure out what it is trying to say here, would have been a bit helpful to show off a couple of combonations and possibly make it easier to figure out which words are which.
All in all, its a nice book, but common... There was far too much mundane, boring options in a book that was suppose to be ultimate magics.
I picked up UM from my local bookseller hoping to find a new Paizo contribution on par with their excellent APG release - easily one of my top 5 purchases in 20 years of gaming. Unfortunately, no streak can go on forever, and Ultimate Magic really falls off the mark on a number of levels.
I would recommend picking up the PDF copy if you can afford a little indulgence for the book's high points: the magus class, the new alchemist & druid archetypes, a few nuggets of inspired genius among the feats and spells, the new oracle mysteries, paladin oaths, and... that's about it. It's a shame that these options may languish by mere association with this product, because many of them are excellent additions to the game.
Other than these high points, though, this book suffers from some serious quality shortfalls. The tight, thoroughly considered execution of the APG is glaringly absent among UM's pages - many feats and powers are broadly open to abuse or obtuse/vague to the point of uselessness, and whole archetypes are essentially unusable because they are basically half-finished. Large sections of the book - particularly chapter 2 - are devoted to the expansion of highly niche or circumstantial systems that seem extremely unlikely to crop up in the average campaign. They have a place in a book such as this, certainly, but their inclusion rankles when more important sections seem to have suffered from severe neglect and lack of attention to detail. The writing falls into an amateurish and uncharacteristically (for Paizo) unpolished tone at points, and there are lots of loose ends left hanging throughout. These are vagaries that GMs considering using UM will have to resolve for themselves before much of this book is play-ready, and not in the usual good 'a GM should be free to shape the game in the way they want' way that's become part of the Paizo ethos - more in the 'we forgot to finish that thought before going to print' vein.
Gamemasters - there is meat here, particularly for designing compelling challenges and adversaries for your players, but you'll have to pick and comb through the text carefully to find the payoffs and prune away or supplement the half-baked sections. Players - don't read this book expecting every little bit of it to fit seamlessly into your GM's campaign, because frankly much of it is broken or unusable.
A few errors, but overall a compelling book for both Players and Gamemasters
If possible, I would give this book a 4.5 star review, but I’m bumping it up to 5. Unlike the Advanced Player’s Guide, I view this book as a mixed DM and Player hardcover book. There are plenty of archetypes, spells, and options for both a player and DM.
For players, the Magus is a wonderful class that, after the playtest period, was balanced and brought to near perfection. The addition of a few archetypes for Magus in the same book as the base class was also a very welcome surprise. A few spells also brought in some holes in some classes spell lists (like water/ice spells for clerics). Other player options such as Saurian Shaman, Bardic masterpieces, and cleric variant channeling I have already seen use in PFS organized play and enjoyed the flavor that was brought into the game from it.
For DMs, the meat of the book comes in Chapter 2 and Chapter 4, where items such as spell dueling, creating spells, and words of power are brought it. Words of Power are not something that I personally would use, but it enables a DM to create a magic system for his world that has a large amount of flavor different from the normal D&D magical system. In addition most items from Chapter 2 won’t be used extensively, but having rules written out for a spell duel is useful for that time that you need it. Other options that won’t come up often, but are still great tools for DMs in Chapter 2 are the Spellblights, Binding rules, building spells, and building/modifying construct rules. Players could dabble in these things as well, but the real gem is that it gives DMs tools to do more “magical” things within their campaigns.
For both players and DMs the Appendix also gives a nice quick update/support on some older spells and familiar rules that will clarify and bring things up to date.
While there are some editing mistakes in the book, and there will most definitely be an errata coming in to correct those, I think most reviews are focusing on the few glaring errors and forgetting that as a whole, the book is well written. DMs exist for a reason, and they’ll be able to sort out any editing problems in the interim until the final answer is given by Paizo with an official errata. In the end, if the price is too expensive for the hardcover, I fully recommend buying the PDF of this product today, and getting the hardcover after the next errata if it bothers you enough. You will always be able to download the most recent PDF with changes from Paizo.
For yet another book, Paizo seems to not have ran a book through editing.
Perhaps I'm not in a position where I can understand everything that has to go on while writing a splat-book, but I genuinely believe that if hired to look over this book, that anyone off the street could correct 90% of the errors bound herein in a day. I suppose that's too much to ask.
So for anyone thinking about purchasing this book, I'd advise saving your money; don't buy the first printing. If you want to buy it, wait for the second printing. Hopefully by that time they'll fix the typos. If you're not phased by terrible editing, I'd advise you to read the other reviews.
As for me, after giving them multiple chances, I'll never buy a first printing Paizo product again, at least until I hear that they've finally raised their standard.
I can't believe this hasn't been asked yet, but will there be an expanded list for Summon Monster/Summon Nature's Ally spells? Preferably with things from Bestiary 2?
I can't believe this hasn't been asked yet, but will there be an expanded list for Summon Monster/Summon Nature's Ally spells? Preferably with things from Bestiary 2?
It's been asked inumerable times, on many different threads. The answer is no.
I can't believe this hasn't been asked yet, but will there be an expanded list for Summon Monster/Summon Nature's Ally spells? Preferably with things from Bestiary 2?
It's been asked inumerable times, on many different threads. The answer is no.
And the reason behind it is expanded lists would add more options to the Summon spells, thus increasing their usefulness, if not their outright power, thus adding more fuel to the "Pathfinder is Spellcasters Edition" bonfire...
It would be nice to see a few more options for spells that need it like SM VIII, though.
How many Sorcerer bloodlines/Oracle mysteries will there be in this book?
Will there be any rules for "natural" magical places like healing fountains, wild magic zones, living buildings, magic items created by "natural" magical forces,etc.?
Will the Pestiliance Sorcerer bloodline from the Council of thieves (mother of flies) AP make into this book?
How will the book be broken up or orginized? For example the archtypes take up 32 pages so how may will be devoted to the other subjects(spells, feats, class features, etc.)
Will there be any feats that will be for sorcerers only like ones that enhance bloodline abilities, add spells to there spell list(like adding holy smite to the celestial bloodline) or add class skills/skill points?
I really hope we get a healing focused witch patron. My witch totally needs some way to heal ability damage/drain before level 14. Oh, and I wouldn't mind getting Breath of Life and/or Raise Daed either.
Please? Pretty please?
I was wishing as hard as one can wish for a Witch Doctor archetype (witch), but the blog preview doesn't mention one. Shame. It seemed so obvious to me.
What specific abilities would a "witch doctor" of the witch class need?
I don't necessarily think we need a "witch doctor" archetype for one specific class, since I could see it fitting equally well with the adept, cleric, or witch class. However, some way to replace the familiar with a voodoo doll/arcane bond might be interesting, and giving more (and lower-level) "waxen image"-type hexes (or maybe some sort of replacement for material components/foci?) could certainly help people play to a certain stereotype.
...Although that's probably more "voodoo priest" than "witch doctor," so this might be off-topic.
What specific abilities would a "witch doctor" of the witch class need?
A doctorate of some kind, of course. :)
Seriously, the class does a really good job of meeting most of the stuff that screams witch doctor. Maybe increase the healing hexes in some way, or add some diplomacy bonuses on tribesmen?
I was wishing as hard as one can wish for a Witch Doctor archetype (witch), but the blog preview doesn't mention one. Shame. It seemed so obvious to me.
You ought to pick up City of Seven Spears (Pathfinder AP #39). There's a whole chapter on "The Path of Juju," and though it's largely focused on the oracle class, there's some stuff in there for witches too. By which I mean, there's some very witch-doctor-y magic items that anyone can make/use.
But if you want a quintessential witchdoctor, an oracle with the Juju mystery is your man.
I would love for an official answer to by questios I have posted here and in the ultimate magic archtype preview twice. I dodn't care if they say "it's too early" or You will find out when it's previewed. I asked these questions(well most of them) on tuesday and would love to get a answer.
I would love for an official answer to by questios I have posted here and in the ultimate magic archtype preview twice. I dodn't care if they say "it's too early" or You will find out when it's previewed. I asked these questions(well most of them) on tuesday and would love to get a answer.
You know, the Paizo staff posts on these boards as a courtesy to their fans. They aren't obligated to answer every question posed to them - or any question at all.
I'm curious about the magus archetypes. Magus is already an amazing class, what seriously more could be done to it other than "Make it more fighty" or "Make it more magicky"?
I'm curious about the magus archetypes. Magus is already an amazing class, what seriously more could be done to it other than "Make it more fighty" or "Make it more magicky"?
I'm guessing archetypes that create slight shifts in flavor rather than changes to functionality. I'd be willing to bet that there will be an archetype for an "unarmed Magus".
I would also not be surprised to see an archetype focusing on a specific school of magic. It's a much longer shot, but I think it would be cool to have a Magus archetype that uses wands as it's primary "weapons".
They put up the Vivisectionist Alchemist Archetype on the paizo blog not to long ago which replaces bombs with sneak attack and i'm just wondering if the master chymist prestige class would advance the sneak attack damage as it does the bomb damage of the normal alchemist?
They put up the Vivisectionist Alchemist Archetype on the paizo blog not to long ago which replaces bombs with sneak attack and i'm just wondering if the master chymist prestige class would advance the sneak attack damage as it does the bomb damage of the normal alchemist?
Yeah, I'm wondering that as well. As written it doesn't but I could see an arguement for it or allowing a feat to "adjust" the progression. A big problem is that while the Chymist advances damage it doesn't advance the bombs per day so maybe advance the sneak attack damage at a slower rate?
They put up the Vivisectionist Alchemist Archetype on the paizo blog not to long ago which replaces bombs with sneak attack and i'm just wondering if the master chymist prestige class would advance the sneak attack damage as it does the bomb damage of the normal alchemist?
If you're going for RAW, then no, the master chymist wouldn't increase a vivisectionist's sneak attack. I think any reasonable GM would allow it to, however. Especially since, in the MC's description, it states how the class favors the "violent nature" of bombs (or somesuch). Sneak attack is pretty freakin' violent as well.
We are on schedule to ship in mid-May - see the Product Schedule for the latest updates!
I know it's set to ship mid-May, but I (and I suspect many other subscribers) really want to know if we'll have a shiny new PDF during the first week of May.
Don't forget what it was like being one of us! Waiting with baited breath for that "your order has shipped" email! Pure torture...
We are on schedule to ship in mid-May - see the Product Schedule for the latest updates!
I know it's set to ship mid-May, but I (and I suspect many other subscribers) really want to know if we'll have a shiny new PDF during the first week of May.
If you are a subscriber you can download your PDF as soon as your item ships. So if it ships in mid-May we'll have to wait until then.
I'm hoping there's some feat/template/archetype ability that allows the Summoner's eidolon to kick around while he sleeps (or is unconscious in general). Nothing like a creature on watch with +12 to Perception at 1st level while your Summoner naps.
Was it announced anywhere or confirmed/denied if there would be any prestige classes in this book? Ive been told that Paizo plans to shift a bit away from Prestiges and more towards Archetypes, but alas I was curious.
Was it announced anywhere or confirmed/denied if there would be any prestige classes in this book? Ive been told that Paizo plans to shift a bit away from Prestiges and more towards Archetypes, but alas I was curious.
I can't quote anywhere specific, but I'm fairly certain I saw somewhere that they said there would be prestige classes. Also, I cannot see Paizo ever stop publishing prestige classes, just significantly reducing the number of them and making them more interesting, such as the ones in the APG like the Rage Prophet or the Master Spy.
I agree with you AlanM. I wouldnt mind only a few Prestiges, because they are giving us A LOT of variety with variants, however its always nice to see multiclass options with prestiges. I hope they include a few in the book.
Was it announced anywhere or confirmed/denied if there would be any prestige classes in this book? Ive been told that Paizo plans to shift a bit away from Prestiges and more towards Archetypes, but alas I was curious.
Archetypes are cool, but are really only good if you know from the start that the Archetype fits your character's style... PrC's fill an important niche, I think, enabling a character to specialize AFTER play begins... unless there are rules for re-training into an Archetype that I missed?
I would think that Pathfinder is not going to ditch PrC's if ONLY for that reason.
Pathfinder Maps, Pathfinder Accessories Subscriber; Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber; Starfinder Charter Superscriber
divby0 wrote:
When do you think the pdf will be available for subscribers?
I think we will start seeing mail notices being sent out this week... certainly next Tuesday at the latest. If I am right, then we might be able to download our PDFs by the end of next week or the following Tuesday.
So close I can almost smell it. Pop in a "we processing you" email to me today and ship by Friday - and I'll throw in a good word with the Sheriff of Ravengro for you, whatyousay?
May 9th makes sense, as that'll leave 2 more previews I think before it begins arriving at peoples' homes and the PDF will be available at that time as well for everyone.
One of my players is excited to make a new Magus character
Pathfinder Battles Case Subscriber; Pathfinder Maps, Pathfinder Accessories Subscriber; Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Charter Superscriber; Starfinder Charter Superscriber
Woot! just got my Shipping in the Next week or so message!
Woot! just got my Shipping in the Next week or so message!
Could someone explain to me how this works? I just became a subscriber for the benefit of the free PDF and somewaht earlier shipping and I'm wondering how this all happens...
First I get an email that tells me it will be shipping in the next week or so (the email I got last week after order doesn't count I guess since it said exactly that : ).
After I get that I wait for the physical book to ship and get another email and THEN I can download the PDF?
How long it usually between getting the ships soon email and the actual shipping?
Pathfinder Adventure, Adventure Path, Lost Omens Subscriber
Yrtalien wrote:
Dragnmoon wrote:
Woot! just got my Shipping in the Next week or so message!
Could someone explain to me how this works? I just became a subscriber for the benefit of the free PDF and somewaht earlier shipping and I'm wondering how this all happens...
First I get an email that tells me it will be shipping in the next week or so (the email I got last week after order doesn't count I guess since it said exactly that : ).
After I get that I wait for the physical book to ship and get another email and THEN I can download the PDF?
How long it usually between getting the ships soon email and the actual shipping?
Do I have that all right?
Sounds about right, yes.
The one that came right after signing up for the subscription doesn't count because it could be a month or two before the actual product ships (depending on which subscription you sign up for). So sometime next week they should start shipping them out and people will get their PDFs.
Do note that due to the large volume of subscribers, it will take a few days for them to ship all the orders. So if the first people get their PDFs on Monday, some people will still have to wait until Thursday (or later if there are problems). So be patient! It will come!