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.
I can't download for some reason, every time it says wait ten seconds, I wait and count to ten, then it just refreshes the page.
is anyone else having that problem?
Yeah, I think maybe the servers are slammed. I had that problem with the TechGuide, but it downloaded starting on the third Personalizing/click and finished downloaded ok. I can't the ACG to get beyond the Personalizing message yet.
Edit: Yeah, the ACG started downloading after I waited about 30-40 seconds after it started Personalizing. It's downloading now, but it's coming down a bit slow.
Hey, I'm not sure why it isn't working for you guys! I had the same problem, but after manually refreshing the page and clicking 'download' on all 4 options, eventually one worked! :D
EDIT: Also, Herolabs says "Coming August 14th!" But it has been August 14th for 3 1/2 hours for me already.... Nyehhh :< Does anyone know when it will actually update to Herolabs?
This might a bit embarrassing to Paizo, but it needs to be said; Your South Koreans (Republic of Korea) customers won't be able to purchase your products, while North Koreans (Democratic People's Republic of Korea) customers will be able to. Please, fix this silly mistake and make your products available for S. Koreans.
It should eventually work. I guess I was lucky, only took about 5 minutes, and a couple of page refreshes to get them started. Then another 10 minutes for the download of all four files.
Bah ... not showing up as available, and I subscribed weeks ago ...
As a subscriber you get the PDF when the book is shipped. This normally means that subscribers get early access, but sometimes with how shipping is combined (and just dealing with the large amount of shipments, especially around GenCon) it might take a bit longer.
So, what exactly do you have to do to get past the personalizing deal?
Just try to be patient... It WILL work eventually! Just wait a full minute, refresh the page, and try clicking on the download link again. Also, if you haven't already, click to download all 4 separate ACG files...I don't know why there's 4, but there is. That's pretty much what I did, and that seemed to work for me.
Bah ... not showing up as available, and I subscribed weeks ago ...
As a subscriber you get the PDF when the book is shipped. This normally means that subscribers get early access, but sometimes with how shipping is combined (and just dealing with the large amount of shipments, especially around GenCon) it might take a bit longer.
(I know the archetype is not legal for play, but am curious regardless)
Question about the Witch archetype "Hex Channeler". She replaces her 2nd level hex with a 1d6 channel energy as a cleric, however later it states;
"This burst heals or deals 1d6 points of damage. Every
time the hex channeler is able to learn a new hex (including
major or grand hexes), she can instead increase her channel
energy amount by 1d6. This ability replaces the hex gained
at 2nd level."
Does this mean that i could take the feat "Extra Hex" which grants one additional hex and replace it with an extra 1d6 of channeled energy?
(I know the archetype is not legal for play, but am curious regardless)
Question about the Witch archetype "Hex Channeler". She replaces her 2nd level hex with a 1d6 channel energy as a cleric, however later it states;
"This burst heals or deals 1d6 points of damage. Every
time the hex channeler is able to learn a new hex (including
major or grand hexes), she can instead increase her channel
energy amount by 1d6. This ability replaces the hex gained
at 2nd level."
Does this mean that i could take the feat "Extra Hex" which grants one additional hex and replace it with an extra 1d6 of channeled energy?
Leadership > Cohort Witch that spends all feats and Hexes to increase channel dice. 18d6 Channel at 18th level!
Ok I've looked through classes, feats, and archetypes. Yet to look at spells.
A lot a cool stuff, but some major weirdness. It feels like the people who wrote the classes, the people who wrote feats, and the people who wrote archetypes had minimal communications. Also feels like the people who wrote feats and archetypes weren't around in the respective feedback threads for the playtest. Too many oddities and unwritten things in this book makes me feel a little disappointed as I read. I'm used to missing and the occasional oddity within Paizo books, but this book has too many.
Maybe SKR was right about the production schedule being too crunched and how trying to get this out by Gen-con constrained them a lot. I would have preferred this stayed another month in development and editing.
Warpriests do have a limit on how often they can use blessings, it's 3 + 1/2 warpriest level. It's noted on p. 60 under the blessing class feature description. :)
Has anybody pointed out the interaction between inspired strike Swashbuckler (inspired blade archetype) and Pummeling Style? Spend panache to force a hit into a crit; apply it to all successful attacks via Pummeling Style.
I'm very excited by the new 'psychic searcher' oracle archetype, but I noticed, "A psychic searcher’s inspiration pool is based on her Wisdom
modifier, not Intelligence." Should that be Charisma, for an oracle?
The Shaman doesn't have either summon natures's ally/monster spell. I was playing this class during the playtest in PFS and I'm left a moot feat in augment summons. I'm not seeing any literature in the new guide for season six about dealing with this conflict from the playtest. Do I have to suck it up and spend the prestige and gold for a retrain or do I get the benefit of the doubt and get to pick a new feat?
Pathfinder Adventure Path, Lost Omens, Rulebook, Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
Cheapy wrote:
magnuskn wrote:
OMG, the Arcanist is crazy powerful. Move over, Wizard. :-/
Wait a few months for us to see the true power level of it.
True enough, but you can clearly see the things which are going to be very good and the ones which are very much not so good by reading once through the class. I think that the slower spellcasting progression of the Arcanist is the only thing which would prevent the Wizard from becoming second place in the power curve.
So Arcane Deed is one of the best magus arcana available now with precise strike. Because Magi didn't do enough damage, they need + level to damage too.
It reads: I am excited for the book but right now it says the pdf is available but will not let me buy it. Kinda of a let down.
So, he gives the book a bad review because he can't download it yet? Which of course means he hasn't even read it?
Come on FelwynGD - that's not what reviews are for. I would seriously consider taking your review down or, at the very least, changing it once you've actually read the book
So far, I'm totally underwhelmed by the feats section of the book. I'm creating a Swashbuckler character, and there isn't a single feat in this book I find useful.
So far, I'm totally underwhelmed by the feats section of the book. I'm creating a Swashbuckler character, and there isn't a single feat in this book I find useful.
I am also disappointed in the feat section...the rest of the book is fine in my opinion even with al the "this is OP and this is weak and blah blah blah" talk that is going to be spamming the forums in the next few days....I think we can all agree that the feat section is the weakest part of the book (even though it does offer some good options).
I am truly hoping that the Advanced Class Options book offers a nice feat section to kind of make up for the lack of new options being offered in this book. Especially in team work feats department