Pathfinder Roleplaying Game: Advanced Class Guide (OGL)

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Pathfinder Roleplaying Game: Advanced Class Guide (OGL)
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A New Breed of Hero

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.
  • ... and much, much more!

ISBN-13: 978-1-60125-671-3

Errata
Last Updated - 7/22/2015

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

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3.20/5 (based on 51 ratings)

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A Great (if errata-filled) Book for Players

4/5

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.


Unbalanced, uninspired and rushed.

1/5

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.


A continuing disappointment

1/5

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.


The first real dud in my Pathfinder collection

1/5

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.


Overall disappointing

2/5

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.


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Pathfinder Adventure Path, Lost Omens, Rulebook, Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

Got it... there go a few hours. :)


Pathfinder Lost Omens, Rulebook Subscriber

Wait I got it working, downloading now....


It's doing the same thing for me zergtitan.


Pathfinder Lost Omens, Rulebook Subscriber
Farastu wrote:
It's doing the same thing for me zergtitan.

It seems to be a little slow, give it about 3 times the time and select it again.

on multiple purchases download in the order selected in your downloads.


zergtitan wrote:

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?

Same here.-_-


zergtitan wrote:

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.


Purchased / downloading now!!!!

-- david

ps. THANK YOU Liz Courts for making sure that the PDF was available at 00:01 PDT.

Edit: And the single file lite just finished after 13 minutes of downloading!

Sczarni

zergtitan wrote:

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?

Same here :|


Still nothing, regardless how long I wait. I'm going to give it 10 minutes now....

Silver Crusade

Running into the "Personalizing..." stick too. I guess I'll sleep on it and check it out tomorrow.


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?


Pathfinder Adventure Path, Lost Omens, Rulebook, Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

OMG, the Arcanist is crazy powerful. Move over, Wizard. :-/


zergtitan wrote:

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. And the download date is listed as June 4th for some reason.


Hoping to pick up my Dead Tree version tomorrow or Friday, I am excited!


I cannot download my copy either. Not making a happy customer.


1 person marked this as a favorite.

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.

Sczarni

As the others recommended, I kept trying and it finally worked. Good luck to everyone still struggling!


Never mind lol. Right after I posted my reply, I was able to download. Just had to be patient I guess.


It has begun. 30 seconds left. :D


1 person marked this as a favorite.

Patience grasshoppers.

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.

-- david


Its refreshing to see patience on the internet for a change.


RyanH wrote:
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?


carshalash wrote:
So, what exactly do you have to do to get past the personalizing deal?

If I recall, when it says, "Please wait while we presonalize your product" you have to wait a moment, then click the download link again.


carshalash wrote:
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.

May Desna grant you ALL of the luck!


Tels wrote:
carshalash wrote:
So, what exactly do you have to do to get past the personalizing deal?
If I recall, when it says, "Please wait while we presonalize your product" you have to wait a moment, then click the download link again.

Wonderful to know a moment is 40 minutes. :/


carshalash wrote:
Tels wrote:
carshalash wrote:
So, what exactly do you have to do to get past the personalizing deal?
If I recall, when it says, "Please wait while we presonalize your product" you have to wait a moment, then click the download link again.
Wonderful to know a moment is 40 minutes. :/

The combination of the larger PDF and the many people the website has to personalize for is likely going to be causing issues for quite a while.


carshalash wrote:
Tels wrote:
carshalash wrote:
So, what exactly do you have to do to get past the personalizing deal?
If I recall, when it says, "Please wait while we presonalize your product" you have to wait a moment, then click the download link again.
Wonderful to know a moment is 40 minutes. :/

Time is all a matter of perspective.

Grand Lodge

Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber
Blazej wrote:
RyanH wrote:
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.

>>But I want it now<<

Sovereign Court

Hi All

What, still no pdf?

Paul H

Grand Lodge

(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?


Kroama wrote:

(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!


Not saying Blessings are OP, but I cannot find anything that resticts any blessings to usages per day.

I am perfectly OK with the healing blessing giving unlimited free healing at level 10.

Also RAW Pummeling style and Pummeling Charge can be done on a full attack with a weapon since the feats are not restricted to unarmed strikes.


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. :)


Ahh there it is!


Love the feat that allows you to grapple with one hand and no penalties. Been waiting for something like this for a while.


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.

Liberty's Edge

I'm really enjoying reading through my copy!

Here is a quick question/bug report.

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?


1 person marked this as a favorite.
Insain Dragoon wrote:
Cthulhudrew wrote:
Insain Dragoon wrote:

Anticipate Dodge and Counter reflexes?

Please don't tell me those feats negate dodge and mobility.

Effectively, yes. They will negate the dodge bonus received from Dodge and the AC bonus from Mobility.

Those are probably the saddest feats I ever heard of....

Seriously? This in the same book as Divine Grace for Oracles and Cha Clerics?

Ahhhhh, I was waiting for this comment from you. But I got the wording wrong, so I guess I do in fact owe up on that bet :(


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?


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.


1 person marked this as a favorite.

Warpriest (Sacred Fist), where have you been all my life !!!

This is my next character in our home game!

-- david


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.

Scarab Sages

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.

Liberty's Edge

1 person marked this as a favorite.

Just read the review by FelwynGD ...

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.

Scarab Sages

Insain Dragoon wrote:


Also RAW Pummeling style and Pummeling Charge can be done on a full attack with a weapon since the feats are not restricted to unarmed strikes.

While this is correct in the feat text, the table summary reads "Pool all unarmed strikes into a single powerful blow"

Silver Crusade

Hrothdane wrote:
They sound like the kind of feats that purely exist for GMs to give NPCs to throw a curveball at a PC with a very specific build.

Fighters, you mean fighters.

Silver Crusade

Jinete wrote:
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

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