Adventure like never before with the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Advanced Class Guide! Explore new heights of heroism with 10 new base classes, each with 20 levels of amazing abilities. Incredible powers also await existing characters, with more than a hundred new archetypes and class options. Prepare characters for their most legendary adventure ever with massive selections of never-before-seen spells, magic items, and more!
The Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Advanced Class Guide is a must-have companion volume to the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Core Rulebook. This imaginative tabletop game builds upon more than 15 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 Advanced Class Guide includes:
Ten new base classes—the magic-twisting arcanist, the ferocious bloodrager, the cunning investigator, the daring swashbuckler, the formidable warpriest, and others.
Variant class abilities and thematic archetypes for all 29 base classes, such as the counterfeit mage and the mutagenic mauler.
Nearly a hundred new feats for characters of all classes, including style feats, teamwork feats like Coordinated Shot, and more.
Hundreds of new spells and magic items, such as feast on fear and skullcrusher gauntlets.
An entire armory of amazing equipment, from vital new adventuring gear to deadly alchemical weapons.
This book has gotten a lot of flack for two reasons: (1) A number of people were upset by the large amount of errata posted after the book came out. (2) A number of people were upset by the perceived power-creep that this book carried with it, especially in the archetype section.
Both of these are reasonable complaints that I largely agree with.
That said, this book also contains a cornucopia of player options that are great fun. A number of the classes it introduced are now mainstream: it’s hard to imagine playing the game without options like the Brawler, the Investigator, the Slayer, the Bloodrager, the Hunter, or the Warpriest. Or to play without archetypes like the Bolt Ace (Gunslinger), Mutation Warrior or Martial Master (Fighter).
Moreover, the book introduced a number of feats that improve on the available build options available to most players (Extra Hex! Slashing Grace!). Likewise, although the spells in this book seem to have flown under the radar, there are a lot of nice and interesting spells are introduced in this book (Glue Seal, Communal Align Weapon, Wall of Blindness/Deafness, Wall of Nausea, Anti-Incorporeal Shell, Adjustable Disguise, Adjustable Polymorph, Investigative Mind, etc).
Easily 5 stars worth of good material here. Given the unusually large amount of errata, I feel compelled to deduct a star. But all that said, it’s hard to imagine playing Pathfinder without this book -- after the Core Rulebook and Advanced Players Guide, it’s probably the best book for players to pick up.
This book still sticks out as one of Paizo's biggest missteps. It was extremely rushed and it shows.
At least half of the new classes don't even need to exist as anything other than archetypes. Even among the ones that actually work, most feel very uninspired.
There are a few good things in it, but not really enough to justify buying it. It's not worth your money and it's best not to encourage sloppy work.
Hopefully Paizo learns from this and prioritizes quality over quantity and speed from now on.
The ACG had problems. Many problems. And it continues to have problems.
From concept ("Let's make ten classes as complicated and broken as the magus, or more so!"), to out-of-whack game design, to simply poor editing, the ACG is a mess. The book's philosophy seems to be "create a new utterly unbalanced mechanic, and proliferate it as far as possible." The (quickly issued) errata pulled some of it a bit more into line, but it just doesn't come close to correcting it.
Even something as simple as alchemical items are way out there. Holy Weapon Balm costs 5gp more than holy water, and does 1400% more damage. And that doesn't even include increasing damage to incorporeal creatures.
Even two years after it was released, I continue to be impressed with the complete disregard for balance and sense in this book. If power creep had happened this much every year, we'd be looking at 9999 damage caps by now. The ACG stands out for its insanity.
Perhaps pulping it for the cover error would have been the better move.
I am extremely disappointed in this product, and glad I only purchased the PDF version. As other reviewers have pointed out, the new classes are poorly balanced when compared to the preexisting ones, and would be a better fit for a book like Unchained, much like Unearthed Arcana's gestalt characters.
There's far too many feats and toys dedicated to these new classes, which drastically lessens this book's universal appeal, and even though some contrivances are provided to make some of said feats accessible to other classes, it ends up painting the book's title as a misnomer - it isn't an "advanced class guide" any more than it is a guide mostly about ten new classes, that are "advanced" only in the sense that they're more powerful than the others.
It's my fault for not properly researching the book before buying it, so buyer beware if you're expecting to find a literal advanced class guide, as opposed to a lengthy introduction to ten new ones.
Okay, there's a lot here that's just terribly rushed and it shows, like the editing here is painful at points. The classes themselves range wildly in value, and there's a lot of examples of Paizo's classic retro nerfing of things to help make options here look better. This was an obvious rush to gencon book, and it shows. While not everything in it is bad, and there's some salvageable content, you could easily continue to play the game without this book and miss out on absolutely nohthing.
Pathfinder Pathfinder Accessories Subscriber; Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber; Starfinder Charter Superscriber
zergtitan wrote:
Oh wow they did change it till the 6th or 7th. Good to know.
Some part wasn't in by midweek, so they delayed authorisation until tomorrow to make sure they were right to proceed. vAs aresult , authorisation is starting tomorrow, put often takes two days. Once that's thorugh, they can slip
*DROOLS* I can haz book noaw? In all seriousness though this is absolutely the role-playing book I've been most excited about getting since probably ten years ago or so.
If anybody who has got it could post a summary of what's changed in the various classes between the last public playtest release and the current version that'd be great.
(I'm most interested in the Swashbuckler myself)
It won't start shipping to subscribers until the 6th. It officially releases at Gen Con. I doubt anyone reading this thread has access to the book or PDF. Not counting people under NDA, of course.
Hah! Yes! Got the order spawn notice. I realise this isn't really that exciting, since I won't get the PDFs yet, but it means that I'm close... so close I can almost taste it... mmmmmm.
Hah! Yes! Got the order spawn notice. I realise this isn't really that exciting, since I won't get the PDFs yet, but it means that I'm close... so close I can almost taste it... mmmmmm.
Hm - as I look at the div sorcerer bloodline from People of the Sands, I wonder if they'll include an asura bloodline in ACG. They already have bloodlines for the other fiends (including rakshasa's).
Sadly I've had to suspend my subscriptions til I get paid next week... so I won't be getting mine until much later in the month. Stupid bills, I feel like the utility companies should understand just how important these books are. Ah well.
I think it's possible I got magically lucky. I pre-ordered the PDF and it let me download it a month ago. XD
I can't re-download it from Paizo's website, but I have it on my computer, so...
Pathfinder Lost Omens, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
Well to not be too spoilery, let's start with your opinion of the final form of the ten new classes. Then maybe a selection of the magic items that you found most Interesting/awesome/desireable/etc.
Well, I like a lot of them. A few still feel useless, like Hunter. I don't see any reason to be a Hunter over a Ranger or Druid, depending on which you liked. The Skald also seems oddly specific, but if I ever wanted to play a Viking...The Slayer still comes across as not quite powerful enough, but other than that isn't bad.
I really like the finalized versions of Shaman, Warpriest, Investigator, Bloodrager, and Brawler. They all have really sweet Archetypes, too. (I'm a big Archetype user).
The Arcanist and Swashbuckler definitely have their uses, but I prefer other classes to them. But that's mostly preference.
I honestly didn't see a ton of magic items I liked, but there are cool ones. There's one that allows a light weapon to pretty much function like a Hidden Blade from Assassin's Creed, except magically, so it's harder to notice. Also, a Staff that is basically a Shovel that casts Create Hole. XD
All in all, it's probably my favorite book since the Advanced Race Guide.
Pathfinder Lost Omens, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
I can understand your thoughts on Swashbuckler and Arcainist as alot of people don't like the grit/panche mechanic and an arcane class that can step up against wizards and sorcerers. Though I myself love them due to having a grit mechanic without firearms (the lack of firearms in AP hurts this class more than others). The Arcainist as well to me feels like the universalit wizard I always wanted, While I will houserule a ban on the exploits mimicking the wizard specializations or sorcerer bloodlines.
I feel that the Skald, Hunter, Brawler, and Warpriest are like the class variants people wanted, a rock/metal bard, a more combat and less alignment restricted druid, A monk without the spiritual theme and Ki (don't like Ki), and a paladin without needing to be LG. The Shaman to me was the class I had the least interest in, but I hope to warm up to. The bloodrager to me feels like a Barbarian/Sorcerer Magus which I feel will be alot of fun to play. The Investigator is the most unique in my opinion as the class uses mechanics and basic that bare little resemblance to other classes.
Alot of the weapons are starting to look awesome to me, The Hidden Blade enchantment makes me want to play my dual sawtooth saber slayer even more.
While I don't have the book yet, this is making me very excited for the 14th, I don't subscribe. :(
Can't wait to get my hands on it! :)
Edit: Actually, disregard this - I'd rather read the book and find out for myself. Just really hope the shipping notification shows up before the 22nd!
Did they actually give us some dex to damage option in the form of a Feat/class ability?
Whatever it is, I hope it is possible for a non-human to pick it up at 1st level. I am tired of my dex characters doing 1/4th of the damage of a strength character at low levels, lol.
Edit: OK, so... Pummeling Style basically fixes some of the issues with Monks. It's essentially Clustered Shot for Flurry attacks, but better. Any one critical threat during it can make the whole thing a critical hit, if confirmed.
And then there's Pummeling Charge. So Monks basically have access to Pounce now, though it all has to be directed against one target.