The Secrets for Renegade Archetypesgives you—yes, you guessed it—new archetypes for the most popular base classes created by your favorite third-party Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Publishers allowing you to make the most out of the most radical and revolutionary designs available for the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game.
The classes (and their archetypes) supported by this product are as follows:
Armiger
Divine Upholder: A mystic, stalwart shield user protected by guardian spirits, resistant to spells and resilient.
Juggernaut: A brutal warrior slamming himself onto his enemies, moving and trampling them with his powerful charges.
Divine Channeler
Iconist: An artist with divine inspiration, creating breathtaking and soothing pieces of art.
Dragon Rider
Drakker: A real dragon's soul within an humanoid body, going through the hard but more interesting way of adventuring to gain in power.
Mythographer: A specialist in myths and legends who drew the attention of an adventuring dragon, ready to write legends about herself.
Skalwyn: A white knight riding a dragon, both of them bringing justice upon evil.
Gladiator
Crackerjack: A specialist in the field of counter-intelligence, polyvalent as spy, escort, bodyguard or assassin, working in the shadows.
Godling (all archetypes are compatible with adept, eldritch, clever and might godlings)
Godslayer: The scourge of any deity, a godslayer's wrath toward the Divine can shake the gods themselves.
Soulgiver: A divine heir with the primordial powers of Creation, able to insufflate life in all things.
Beast Tamer: A wild godling, closer to nature than others, especially forming a close bond with animals.
Luckbringer
Black Cat Burglar: Harbinger of bad luck and dramatic misfortune, causing enemies to fail harder.
White Rabbit: The lucky charm of any adventurer group worth it's name, sharing her luck with allies to make them victorious and keep them alive.
Malefactor
Destineer: A supernatural seer, able to twist events and influence fate with various tools to manipulate one's destiny.
Machinesmith
Cipher: A scholar of magic, using mathematics and encryption to reduce the ability of his foes to resist his fringe, original prototypes.
Toymaker: An engineer specialized in mobius puppets, also able to expand upon the field of constructs and chemistry.
Taskshaper
Doppelganger: A shapeshifter adept of racial adaptation, assimilation and infiltration, able to imitate specific creatures with more efficiency.
Time Thief
Nechronomancer: A time thief greedy for power, suffering from her own mortality and sucking other's time for her own purposes.
Author: Benjamin Rombeaut Pages: 22 Cover Illustration: Jason Rainville
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This pdf is 26 pages long, 1 page front cover, 1 page editorial, 1 page SRD, 1 page advertisement, leaving us with 22 pages of content, so let's take a look!
One of the things that galled me most about 3.X was the lack of support for all those cool 3pp-options out there - you find this cool new class and no one EVER supported it. Now Rite Publishing has for some time been at the spearhead of 3pp-collaborations with e.g. "101 Renegade Class Feats" and the collaborations in Pathways that include Owen K.C. Stephens from Super Genius Games, Creighton Broadhurst's (mastermind of Raging Swan Press) monthly contributions, articles by the Adventureaweek.com-crew etc. Not to speak of e.g. LPJr Design's take on psionics in NeoExodus, the support of the Machinesmith-class by SGG, Alluria Publishing's stellar undersea psionics-book that should be a must buy for anyone owning Psionics Unleashed or the support of the bestselling spell-less ranger by SGG. Other players like Jon Brazer Enterprises have supported other 3pp-classes in their Shadowsfall-books and this now is the latest supplement that springs from a community of sharing and support, bringing us new archetypes for some of the finest classes out there, but can they hold up to their excellent base-classes? let's check this out!
The pdf kicks off with new fodder for SGG's Armiger, arguably the tank-class to go to for PFRPG, with an archetype that at first feels absurd - the Divine Upholder gets no proficiency in medium or heavy armors. Yes, a tank in light armor. Get that. However, the divine Upholder offsets this by being surrounded by guardian spirits and they also use their shields to determine touch AC in addition to dex and learn a limited array of spell-like abilities over the levels (namely sanctuary, holy shield, shield other and martyr's bargain) and may opt to learn to channel energy via armiger talents or learn to use their spirits to hamper sneak attacks, crits and even entangle foes. They also sacrifice their armored DR for resistance bonuses to saves and at higher levels even send rays back on the casters that threw them. All in all, a more mobile, divinely inspired shepherd-style sacred warrior that I can see work oh-so-well in my campaign. Two thumbs up!
The second Armiger-archetype is the Juggernaut and if you're familiar with the Marvel villain, you know what this is about: It's about waltzing over your foes! Gaining increased bull rush and overrun capabilities, the juggernauts cover their allies when charging through their spaces (a neat ability) and use their level as BAB for combat maneuvers instead of the lesser progression of the standard armiger. Better yet, the 4 new armiger talents juggernauts gain access to allow them to deal e.g. spiked armor or shield damage when using their crushing combat maneuvers and may also rather impressively improve their grappling prowess. I can see characters wincing when the heavily armored colossus comes for them - spellcasters will dread these guys and I love 'em.
Next up are 3 archetypes for a class that is very popular, but completely, utterly, totally not something I'd ever want to see in my game: SGG's Dragon Rider. Yes, the class per se is well-balanced and works just fine, but the concept is just something I personally could never really get behind. That being said, my animosity will not fracture into the final verdict and I'll base my verdict on the merits of these archetypes. Without further ado: The Drakker makes this class work for me. Yes. There. I said it. I hate the dragonrider and even I have to take a bow to the Drakker-archetype. Why? Because it essentially allows you to play a reincarnated dragon that is stuck in a petty mortal shell - the archetype uses the base classes mechanics to instead change into draconic form. This is pure awesomeness and so incredibly cool, especially since the archetype is so concisely worded that it's actually not as hard to use in-game as you would think. Glorious! The Mythographer archetype is closer to the base-class and the archetype is much less complex - the archetype lets you play a kind of chronicler of your dragon's deeds. While their focus with their steed is slower than the regular dragon rider's, they get access to the bard's spell-list and grant competence bonuses to steed and allies when focusing. Okay, but nothing to write home about. Skalwyns are another relatively simple archetype, they get access to the paladin's spell-list, an aura of good and can serve as shock-troops of good.
Rite Publishing's Divine Channeler is a stellar divine caster-class and the Iconist, who can scribe scrolls in the form of carvings, religious calligraphy etc. Their icons may also channel the energy-types garnted by their domains, making the archetype interesting for me mostly due to liking the fluff - after all, we all know about religious icons, statues weeping blood etc. pp. and being able to play a person who can inspire others by their works is cool. If you don't get the appeal of religious imagery and the awe it can inspire, even in guys like me, make a trip to Rome and visit St. Paul's. Even to me as a not particularly religious guy, the effect was mind-boggling. Now add true magic and there we go!
The Galdiator-class from 4 Winds Fantasy Gaming's "Paths to Power" also is supported via the new Crackerjack-archetype - these guys are not the stars of the arena, but rather of the underworld, the back alleys and may gain access to minor gunslinging and devastating grappling, making them ideal as secret agents of the underworld or intimidating enforcers. Cool!
The Godling-classes by Super Genius Games have seen quite a bit of support, which is definitely cool - but here we get 3 new archetypes suitable for all types of godlings. The first being the godslayer, who has the aim of slaying the god of his/her line - they can suspend clergy powers, gain hp when saving versus divine spells and may as a capstone either be reborn as full-fledged mortals or challenge their deity and usurp their divine throne. So damn cool! Soulgivers are godlings with blood that inherits the spark of creation, allowing them to have a clockwork/or toy familiar that is animated by their lifespark as well as gaining the ability to infuse object with life and, even cooler, making spells ooze-like beings that wobble around and may serve as allies, dealing their damage over the rounds: The idea is that the ooze only does minimum damage and vanishes once its maximum array of damage points have been dealt. Offers some nice tactical options and is iconic - I approve! They may also heal allies and even keep the souls of the recently dead from departing, but at a cost to her own body. The third godling archetype is something for fans of nature-based characters, counting as a druid for purpose of animal companions gained via the animal lineage domain and gaining access to the beast master ascendancy (with 4 steps). Okay, though not as awesome as the first two. If you don't get an increased companion, you may instead opt for a divine trait o scion talent.
Rite Publishing's Luckbringer is one of my favorite 3pp-classes out there and thus, I'm glad to see two new archetypes for it: The first is a variant of the Black Cat Burglar archetype centered on gaining the dirty trick-feat tree and which can use moments of chance to force rerolls of natural 1s and 20s by using a ranged, enhanced dirty trick maneuver. As an improbable option, she may opt to deny AoOs and use cha instead of str for dirty tricks. As an highly improbable option, she may opt to use dirty tricks to grant her allies an AoO at penalty versus her target. The second archetype, the White Rabbit, can cause rerolls of d20s of nearby allies even without being aware of them, grant allies a +2 bonus to a d20 roll as part of an attack and even alternatively allow them to spend the bonus to regain 1 ability pool point à la motes of time, ki, etc. Per se a cool archetype, were it not for one problem: What about classes with multiple pools like the Time Thief/Warden? Can the ability be used to replenish aevum as well? I wager not, but I'm not sure. What about rounds of rage or rounds of bardic performances? My gut tells me, they should also be able to exchange the bonus for one more round, but I'm not sure... This archetype NEEDS clarification.
Now the extremely cool shapeshifting-class Taskshaper gets a new archetype called Doppelgänger, who may use his moments of change to get access to racial traits they witnessed and exchange them for others, using the ARG-point mechanics. They may also emulate proficiencies they see in action by mirroring other combatants, which is extremely cool - remember all those creepy "evil mirror image"-opponents in gaming? Yeah - be one of them! Also gain a genetic pool to keep certain racial traits and may imprint feats and even class abilities when impersonating others and may even crudely reproduce spells via an ability shift. While in no way an easy archetype to master (as it modifies an already very complex class), the doppelgänger is a cool and rather intriguing concept that could also be used by DMs to scavenge abilities for any kind of shapeshifter o give them a further edge. Cool!
Another 3pp-class that should grace the virtual shelf of just about any group would be LPJr Design's Machinesmith and we get two new archetypes for this cool class - the first beiing the Cypher, a cryptography-expert that has to take the analyzer greatwork and gets expanded spell-selection and increased antimagic-capabilities. The second archetype is much more complex, the Toymaker. Obviously inspired by a certain Superman-villain, this variant of the machinesmith gets a mobius puppet and later more of these simultaneously: Speaking of these puppets - we get a total of 13 ranging from analyzing droids to friendly exploding puppets and tiny versions of the machinesmith to two-faced cherubs with knives, nurses that may administer first aid (or drain foes, inject poisons etc.) and mini voodoo dolls. Better yet, each puppet gets two greatworks upgrades, with e.g. Mr Teddy gaining the ability to turn into a real grizzly! A glorious, glorious archetype!
The next one we get is one for TPK Games acclaimed Malefactor-class and is called Destineer - though there's a typo in here (strafe-point instead of strife), the archetype is interesting indeed in that it offers the option to spend said points on creatures attacked to temporarily cling misfortune to them - especially cool for ranged builds. At higher levels, they also can make failing doubly painful by gaining tokens of broken destiny: Everytime an opponent fails a number of throws, the destineer gains one such token up to a maximum of wis-mod and they may spend these to add luck penalties to foes. They may also entangle foes, hamper teamwork feats and hamper language or spellcasting - though the latter ability mentions a will-save, but not how to calculate said save - I assume 10 + 1/2 class level + wis-mod, but I'm not sure. The coolest feature, though, in my book, would be that they gain limited access to temporal talents and moments of chance by the Time Thief and Luckbringer-class respectively. And before you start complaining - the rules are on d20pfsrd, if you don't own the two files.
The final new archetype is the Nechronomancer for the Time Thief-class, who perceive the world as moving too fast and thus seek to steal other people's time and life for themselves. The archetype definitely lends a sinister pall to the class, which is cool and comes with 3 temporal talents (one of which can actually be used to offset age penalties - great for old characters and a superb storytelling device) and 3 aevums that allow them to e.g. atrophy limbs and deal negative levels on foes. Sinister and a rather cool class, especially for more evil-inclined characters.
Conclusion:
Editing and formatting unfortunately are not up to the usually high standard of RiP - I noticed e.g. multiple uses of "strafe points" instead of strife points, underlines where none should be and some other minor glitches, that, while not that bad, detract a bit from this pdf's quality. Layout adheres to RiP's 2-column standard in full color and the artworks are ones you'll probably have seen before. The pdf is fully bookmarked.
This is the first solo-offering of Benjamin Rombeaut and it is glorious: These archetypes (and I've reviewed a few so far) are almost universally brilliant, teem with iconic ideas and offer options galore for some of the finest classes out there. In the case of the Drakker, it redeemed a whole class for me! Yes. It's that good. HOWEVER, I also feel that this could have used another pass at editing - we have here a saving throw that is not mentioned on how it's supposed to be calculated, there an ambiguity with regards to pool-access etc. These problems need and should be addressed - especially since this is otherwise a collection of SUPERB, innovative, cool and complex archetypes for classes that can really use them. In fact, they are that good that I will still slap my seal of approval on this pdf - but until they've been eliminated, I can't go higher than 4 stars + seal of approval on this. I still encourage you wholeheartedly to check this out, though - these archetypes are brilliant!
Sooooo...
Someone else makes base class(es) suitable for Pathfinder.
And you've expanded that by adding archtypes?
In order to benefit from your product, I have to buy someone elses product(s)? And I'm guessing this is an amalgam of other peoples base classes, so I'd have to buy multiple products before your product would be of maximum benefit?
While I might admire your work if I were to purchase it, I have to say it seems one (or more) steps too far removed to be an efficient expenditure of my wage.
I normally wait for sales before buying pdfs but am sorely tempted to just buy this one right now, if only to support similar projects that expand on 3pp work.
There are MANY excellent base-classes out there and this book adds fodder for them, supporting them. Perhaps you wouldn't use all of them, but perhaps they'd point you towards classes you didn't even know existed.
I get your reasoning, but personally, I think especially for people that already have a couple of the base-classes, cooperations like this are exceedingly awesome - a kind of "everybody wins"-scenario where you get new fodder for what you already own and more ideas on what to get next. That's just my 2 cents, though, and I own all the base classes. ^^
One of my players is an armiger, and he's been looking for a way to leverage his high Wisdom score. Might allow him to take on the Divine Upholder!
It'd also help me the GM out by getting rid of that rascally hard-cover-to-adjacent allies.
That was the intent ! ;) The divine upholder's bonuses may become greater than the static hard cover bonus of an armiger, but they will not stack with the most common items used by adventurers: capes of resistance and rings of protection. It will allow more versatility and originality in wondrous items treasures/choices (and an equal amount of money saved !) at the cost of not being freakin' hard cover to overcome for enemies.
Your player should be ready to turn from physical to spiritual tank though by adopting this archetype, as it is more teamwork-oriented and does not receive DR.
ZenithTN wrote:
Sooooo...
Someone else makes base class(es) suitable for Pathfinder.
And you've expanded that by adding archtypes?
In order to benefit from your product, I have to buy someone elses product(s)? And I'm guessing this is an amalgam of other peoples base classes, so I'd have to buy multiple products before your product would be of maximum benefit?
While I might admire your work if I were to purchase it, I have to say it seems one (or more) steps too far removed to be an efficient expenditure of my wage.
Not all classes are from another 3PP's design. It was the whole intent behind the renegade series (like 101 Renegade Feats) to provide content for 3PPs by a 3PP... so the supplement indeed implies you already possess at least some of them, the same way you would not extract the best out of Ultimate Equipment without all other Paizo supplements. Think of it as a creative junction of the PFRPG 3PP community !
Note that outside of buying them on Paizo, d20pfsrd.com already hosts a good chunk of the classes covered by The Secrets of Renegade Archetypes, including additional rules from supplements provided by their original designers, so it should be easy to make the best out of the rules even if you didn't buy them yet by just getting a tab opened. I can assure you firsthand with the hours I spent on each class that they are excellent and versatile in their own ways (sometimes even too much when you search for a cool concept that isn't yet covered !).
Please note that I wrote the archetypes to be fun and interesting for both the fans, and people who do not know the base classes yet but may ultimately love their execution. Keep d20pfsrd.com handy, and if you find a concept you like enough to give the class and archetype a try with a cool PC or NPC, go for it !
Someone else makes base class(es) suitable for Pathfinder.
And you've expanded that by adding archtypes?
In order to benefit from your product, I have to buy someone elses product(s)? And I'm guessing this is an amalgam of other peoples base classes, so I'd have to buy multiple products before your product would be of maximum benefit?
While I might admire your work if I were to purchase it, I have to say it seems one (or more) steps too far removed to be an efficient expenditure of my wage.
Except all of these classes are available on the d20PFSRD.com
Except all of these classes are available on the d20PFSRD.com
Ahh. That's useful information and increases your products value. Thank you for the information. Off to d20pfsrd to judge the parent product(s) before considering the child.
Except all of these classes are available on the d20PFSRD.com
Ahh. That's useful information and increases your products value. Thank you for the information. Off to d20pfsrd to judge the parent product(s) before considering the child.
Thanks for the review Endzeitgeist, I'm glad you liked the supplement ! :)
Most of the editing typos have already been reported for the updated version of the .pdf, I'll add the last ones we missed from your review to the list, plus some clarification. Soon it shall deserve all its stars !
(I'll have to admit I did not remember the superman villain - the toymaker as written draws his inspiration from the puppeteer concept, plus a lot of movies, books, comics and pop culture references... including Santa Claus, Battle Angel Alita in USA/Gunnm in Europe and Japan, Pinocchio and Chtulhu. ^^)
The Drakker makes reference to the Mounted Heroism feat... but i cant actually find such a feat. What is it?
Hi Alexander,
I hope you enjoy the book ! Mounted Heroism is a Dragon Rider feat in the 101 Renegade Class Feats supplement which basically allows you to switch places at lightning speed with a helpless creature in close range when mounted on your draconic steed.
The ability you are mentioning means a drakker with this feat can use it anytime by taking the place of said creature as if he was mounted, even though the drakker is technically both rider and steed at once in a single character. Instead of being the Dragon Rider's pet though, you're the cool one taking blows for damsels and princes in distress.
The feat was mentioned to show the intended compatibility and synergy between Steven D. Russel's previous 101 Renegade Class Feats and this supplement. Ideally, I wanted this supplement to blend perfectly with any other of the Renegade series and bring only new ideas, while retaining the great value of already available rules. Likely, the other archetypes in this supplement can use their class-dedicated feats from "101" (armiger, etc.).
The future Secrets of Renegade Archetypes II will follow the same logic. ;)
