Pathfinder Player Companion: Blood of Shadows (PFRPG)

This is my first "Blood of" book as a developer. I have my own view of what such books should cover, which is informed by but not beholden to previous books. Certainly, I think they should be player-focused, and believe this one will be.

Just make sure the Caligni get some generious love Owen....and I'll be a happy camper :P

Just make sure the Caligni get some generious love Owen....and I'll be a happy camper :P

Sadly the order of then the books have to be outlined and approved vs when Bestiary 5 was actually out means we didn't do specific caligni support, though obviously there are lots of dark- and shadow-themed options they can access.

This Player Companion is probably the most anticipated amongst my one Pathfinder Group. We play a lot of Underdark campaigns ... and as a result, we are constantly using, fine-tuning and optimizing game-play to accomodate the dynamic underground lighting conditions. So where there's darkness and shadow-themed goodies to be had - we're totally there!

This is my first "Blood of" book as a developer. I have my own view of what such books should cover, which is informed by but not beholden to previous books. Certainly, I think they should be player-focused, and believe this one will be.

Do your best, in the time you have. :)

<wants>

Darn you Paizo for making me want more stuff!

Yeah after Dirty tactics Toolbox and heroes of the Street i´m really looking forward to this one!

Sadly the order of then the books have to be outlined and approved vs when Bestiary 5 was actually out means we didn't do specific caligni support, though obviously there are lots of dark- and shadow-themed options they can access.

I´ve been thinking, wouldn´t it be possible to apply something like a descriptor to races and feats/abilities that grant them access or not.

This is my first "Blood of" book as a developer. I have my own view of what such books should cover, which is informed by but not beholden to previous books. Certainly, I think they should be player-focused, and believe this one will be.

Hope it goes well! Speaking from experience with Path of Shadows, shadow-based things are a lot of fun to write with. I'll have to see how the two play alongside each other.

Alexander Augunas wrote:

What sort of love does the shadowdancer need?

Unsure about writing something that makes shadowjump work with dimensional agility, since that somehow implies that it does currently not work, what i´m opposed to.

http://paizo.com/paizo/faq/v5748nruor1fm#v5748eaic9qow

The FAQ specifically states that it doesn't.

"Only if the pre-requisite calls out the name of a spell explicitly."

Shadow Jump functions *like* Dimension Door, but it isn't Dimension Door, it's an ability that works like it but has a different name. Shadowdancers do not qualify for the Dimensional Agility chain, sadly.

As for the Shadowdancer, I would love to see some cool and useful class features for the SD that focus on ... dancing. We've seen a lot of emphasis on the "shadow" component of the name Shadowdancer, but nothing intriguing about the "dancer" part of the name. The class has Perform as a skill, so dancing (of some sort) should be prominent for this class as well.

Owen K. C. Stephens wrote:

John Kretzer wrote:

Well the last couple of the Blood of X have been...lacking I hope this one is better.

This is my first "Blood of.." book as developer, so I am totally open to ideas on how to make them better, and would love to hear why you felt the last few were lacking. :)

Blood of Night: People were expecting a lot of things about/for Dhampir, but most of it ended up about/for Vampire (and that wasn't anounced early enough), not much use for Players.

Blood of the Moon: many hoped for rules to play Lycanthropes, option for them, etc... Skinwalker were a last minute anoucement, which didn't help to them being liked be some, and disliked by others.

Blood Of the Elements: For starter, 5 races thinned the content, people were expecting options à la Blood of Angel/Blood of Fiend, and it had a bit too much fluff.

But Player Companion have been suffering from a strange illness for a while, it seems some people forgot it is meant for players way more than for DM/GM... Maybe it need to go back to being bi monthly, maybe the Campaign Setting line need an increased page count, or be splitted (Campaign Setting becomes for both Players and DM/GM, and DM/GM get their own "companion" line), etc...

The disparity between the focus from Blood of Angel/Fiends and Blood of Night can't be stressed enough. After the first two, I was thinking the 'Blood of' Line was a must buy, but Blood of Night put it into a 'why bother to buy?' category.

Fourshadow wrote:

Nutcase Entertainment wrote:

Blood of Night: People were expecting a lot of things about/for Dhampir, but most of it ended up about/for Vampire (and that wasn't anounced early enough), not much use for Players.

Blood of the Moon: many hoped for rules to play Lycanthropes, option for them, etc... Skinwalker were a last minute anoucement, which didn't help to them being liked be some, and disliked by others.

Blood Of the Elements: For starter, 5 races thinned the content, people were expecting options à la Blood of Angel/Blood of Fiend, and it had a bit too much fluff.

But Player Companion have been suffering from a strange illness for a while, it seems some people forgot it is meant for players way more than for DM/GM... Maybe it need to go back to being bi monthly, maybe the Campaign Setting line need an increased page count, or be splitted (Campaign Setting becomes for both Players and DM/GM, and DM/GM get their own "companion" line), etc...

You haven't paid attention lately? I loved last year's Ranged Tactics Toolbox, More recently: Heroes of the Wild--very nice, Heroes of the Streets--also very nice, Occult Origins--nice again, Weapon Masters Handbook--people are raving about this, Cohorts & Companions--pretty good, Monster Summoner's Handbook--very nice, Dirty Tactics Toolbox--getting lots of positive feedback... All very Player-centered. Not for GMs much at all.

Sould have said 50%? (kinda) It's more the "Blood/People/Race of ..." that suffer from what I said. "X Slayer Handbook" suffer from a different problem that is already subject to hundreds of threads/topics.

Undead Slayer's Handbook and Champions of Purity are two of our family's favorites. Those get referenced often. Very good stuff in there.

I actually have a different problem with Undead Slayer's Handbook (and this might be the issue NE is referring to). I'll keep it short and spoiler-tagged, though, since this isn't really the place.

As for the Blood of books...

-I liked Fiends/Angels (especially the d% tables). They also had a lot of content, such as oracle curses, that wasn't limited to their race.

-I liked Night just fine too, although I appreciate why others didn't. I'm the sort who might (one day) end up with a vampire PC at my table, and I like seeing stuff like the hunger rules.

-Elements needed to focus far more on the races than the environments they come from; that applies to this book as well, Mr. Stephens. I think it could have worked for all four geniekin races if it had kept a tight focus on them.

-I was worried about Moon at first, because I figured the skinwalker wouldn't see much support. I was proven wrong there. As with Night, lycanthrope PCs are very possible here, so it's nice to have some content for them. (The lunar oracle can be a bit ridiculous at times.)

Hopefully this little review helps when the next Blood of book goes into production, as it sounds like I'm a little late for this one. I look forward to seeing it, though. ^_^

@ Fourshadow and Kalindlara:

Blood of Shadows would be an ideal book to also provide some developer clarifications on RAW usage and adjudication of the 3 big "Shadow" spells in Pathfinder - Shadow Conjuration, Shadow Evocation and Shadow Enchantment (and all their lesser/greater variants).

Those spells are among the most common spells you'll see in Rules Forums everywhere (and have been going back to the early 3.0 days). Especially concerning the quasi-real effects and percentages of non-damaging spells affecting enemies and beneficial spells affecting allies.

Blood of Shadows would be an ideal book to also provide some developer clarifications on RAW usage and adjudication of the 3 big "Shadow" spells in Pathfinder - Shadow Conjuration, Shadow Evocation and Shadow Enchantment (and all their lesser/greater variants).

Those spells are among the most common spells you'll see in Rules Forums everywhere (and have been going back to the early 3.0 days). Especially concerning the quasi-real effects and percentages of non-damaging spells affecting enemies and beneficial spells affecting allies.

Sounds like a better topic for a PDT blog post then a Player Companion that the design team may or may not have had any input in to me, personally.

Blood of Shadows would be an ideal book to also provide some developer clarifications on RAW usage and adjudication of the 3 big "Shadow" spells in Pathfinder - Shadow Conjuration, Shadow Evocation and Shadow Enchantment (and all their lesser/greater variants).

It is [very rare for core rule clarifications to come from a Player Companion. I expect it'll remain rare. That's not what these books are for and, honestly, I think that's best.

I think the biggest issues with everything post the aasimar & tieflings book in my mind kind of wraps up like this.

Blood of the Night: Interesting idea that really felt like it was either aimed at at best a limited audience (those tables that let vampires run at table) or under represented what a lot of people picked it up for, information on dhampirs. For me personally I was let down that their wasn't more of the latter to be had in that book.

Blood of the Moon: Kind of the reverse. Considering that lycanthrope is a bit easier to deal with in a lot of home games (no frying in sunlight, get to be your character most of the time) I was looking for more information on stuff that involved being and dealing with lycanthropes at the table. Unfortunately a lot of the content ended up being about skinwalkers whom I love to death (they are a core race at my table) but weren't what I felt the book was really advertised for.

Blood of the Elements: Where to begin. The crunch in a lot of this can be fun (the order of flame for cavaliers is a blast and so is the admix teamwork metamagic feat) but directionless was an understatement. Every writeup for the element blooded races felt copy pasted and then some. Every origin basically read, "powerful elementalists do elemental magic and sometimes they have ifrit/undines/whatever one we are talking about in this page writeup". It was a nightmare and never really gave me as a GM or player anything to build on that I couldn't really do myself unlike in a lot of the other books. For instance I would have loved something like the nosferatu born writeup in Blood of the Night, the idea that these guys live for so long but just keep on aging gave me a lot of meat to dig into for character design while all I know about sylphs is they can be capricious and come from parents who like to play with lightning. What's worse was over half the book was just talk about the elemental planes, an interesting idea but something that feels like it needs its own book rather than wedged into the back half of the book and taking up space that could have been used to elaborate on the various races. Like I would have loved a random table like the tieflings had for abilities or features, more racial feats and abilities, cheaper magical items (seriously some of that stuff is really cool but ridiculously overpriced) and further elaboration on either the elemental races or potentially stuff on how these creatures come into being or the relationships with things like the elemental races.

I think the biggest issues with everything post the aasimar & tieflings book in my mind kind of wraps up like this.

Blood of the Night: Interesting idea that really felt like it was either aimed at at best a limited audience (those tables that let vampires run at table) or under represented what a lot of people picked it up for, information on dhampirs. For me personally I was let down that their wasn't more of the latter to be had in that book.

Blood of the Moon: Kind of the reverse. Considering that lycanthrope is a bit easier to deal with in a lot of home games (no frying in sunlight, get to be your character most of the time) I was looking for more information on stuff that involved being and dealing with lycanthropes at the table. Unfortunately a lot of the content ended up being about skinwalkers whom I love to death (they are a core race at my table) but weren't what I felt the book was really advertised for.

Blood of the Elements: Where to begin. The crunch in a lot of this can be fun (the order of flame for cavaliers is a blast and so is the admix teamwork metamagic feat) but directionless was an understatement. Every writeup for the element blooded races felt copy pasted and then some. Every origin basically read, "powerful elementalists do elemental magic and sometimes they have ifrit/undines/whatever one we are talking about in this page writeup". It was a nightmare and never really gave me as a GM or player anything to build on that I couldn't really do myself unlike in a lot of the other books. For instance I would have loved something like the nosferatu born writeup in Blood of the Night, the idea that these guys live for so long but just keep on aging gave me a lot of meat to dig into for character design while all I know about sylphs is they can be capricious and come from parents who like to play with lightning. What's worse was over half the book was just talk about the elemental planes, an interesting idea but something that feels like it needs its own book rather than wedged into the back half of the book and taking up space that could have been used to elaborate on the various races. Like I would have loved a random table like the tieflings had for abilities or features, more racial feats and abilities, cheaper magical items (seriously some of that stuff is really cool but ridiculously overpriced) and further elaboration on either the elemental races or potentially stuff on how these creatures come into being or the relationships with things like the elemental races.

I 1000% agree with the above.

doc the grey wrote:

I think the biggest issues with everything post the aasimar & tieflings book in my mind kind of wraps up like this.

Blood of the Night: Interesting idea that really felt like it was either aimed at at best a limited audience (those tables that let vampires run at table) or under represented what a lot of people picked it up for, information on dhampirs. For me personally I was let down that their wasn't more of the latter to be had in that book.

Blood of the Moon: Kind of the reverse. Considering that lycanthrope is a bit easier to deal with in a lot of home games (no frying in sunlight, get to be your character most of the time) I was looking for more information on stuff that involved being and dealing with lycanthropes at the table. Unfortunately a lot of the content ended up being about skinwalkers whom I love to death (they are a core race at my table) but weren't what I felt the book was really advertised for.

Blood of the Elements: Where to begin. The crunch in a lot of this can be fun (the order of flame for cavaliers is a blast and so is the admix teamwork metamagic feat) but directionless was an understatement. Every writeup for the element blooded races felt copy pasted and then some. Every origin basically read, "powerful elementalists do elemental magic and sometimes they have ifrit/undines/whatever one we are talking about in this page writeup". It was a nightmare and never really gave me as a GM or player anything to build on that I couldn't really do myself unlike in a lot of the other books. For instance I would have loved something like the nosferatu born writeup in Blood of the Night, the idea that these guys live for so long but just keep on aging gave me a lot of meat to dig into for character design while all I know about sylphs is they can be capricious and come from parents who like to play with lightning. What's worse was over half the book was just talk about the elemental planes, an interesting idea but something that feels like it needs its own book rather than wedged into the back half of the book and taking up space that could have been used to elaborate on the various races. Like I would have loved a random table like the tieflings had for abilities or features, more racial feats and abilities, cheaper magical items (seriously some of that stuff is really cool but ridiculously overpriced) and further elaboration on either the elemental races or potentially stuff on how these creatures come into being or the relationships with things like the elemental races.

I 1000% agree with the above.

I 999999999% agree with it too.

I'd like to see more info about 'Shadow Absalom', but as this is a player companion it'll probably be fairly light on setting material. Still, a shadow plane metropolis co-located with the city at the center of the world and populated by all manner of shadow creatures should be home to all manner of shadow specific races, spells, traditions, et cetera.

I'd like to see more info about 'Shadow Absalom', but as this is a player companion it'll probably be fairly light on setting material. Still, a shadow plane metropolis co-located with the city at the center of the world and populated by all manner of shadow creatures should be home to all manner of shadow specific races, spells, traditions, et cetera.

That's probably not likely; the Player Companion line got a LOT of harsh feedback about including detailed city and environment information in Blood of the Elements. Shadow Absolam is cool, but its likely a better topic for a general "Shadowy Places" Campaign Setting line product.

The existence of Shadow Absalom is noted and informs many of our decisions, but we don't really offer new info on it. I'm a huge fan of SA, but this just turned out not to be the place to go into details.

Hi Owen, everyone can see you are doing a very fine job with the PC line.

I would like too see some options for Drow, as the are Darklands creatures and have the racial ability to cast "darkness" as a spell-like ability.

There were a few options in "Advanced Race Guide" i think.
But as this line here is Golarion specific and drow there are tied to demon lords maybe something to do with Shax - Demon Lord of Shadow or the ability that some demons have - darksight,the ability to see in magical darkness?

Anything for drow is much appreciated.

Keep up the great work and thank you.

* Shadow Bloodline (Bloodrager).

* Shadow/Darkness Mystery (Oracle).

* Shadow/Darkness Spirit (Shaman).

* UmbraKineticist.

* Shadow/Darkness themed stuff for other classes.

The disparity between the focus from Blood of Angel/Fiends and Blood of Night can't be stressed enough. After the first two, I was thinking the 'Blood of' Line was a must buy, but Blood of Night put it into a 'why bother to buy?' category.

I can't agree more. Angels/Fiends were must buy but every Blood of since then has been really weak. Dhampirs got like four pages when vampires stole their page space. Planetouched got like four pages each when they competed with each other for space. Since Angels/Fiends no Blood of book has truly given 32 pages to really flesh out a race. If Blood of books ever return to that, *then* I will return to them.

* Shadow Bloodline (Bloodrager).

* Shadow/Darkness Mystery (Oracle).
* Shadow/Darkness Spirit (Shaman).
* UmbraKineticist.
* Shadow/Darkness themed stuff for other classes.

Some (Su) shadow-themed rogue/ninja/slayer talents could be fun, perhaps related to Shadowdancer class abilities (and being able to improve/expand them, if one later takes levels in Shadowdancer).

One little detail I loved in the Scarred Lands setting is that there was a demigoddess of shadows, who had no extra-planar home, being in hiding from forces that sought her destruction, and instead 'lived' in shadow. If someone made a DC 30 or 35 Stealth/Hide in Shadows check, they might 'bump into' her, and feel her presence somehow 'behind' them (even if they were back to a wall at the time). Sometimes she would whisper a secret to them, or touch their arm for a moment. There was no real game effect, but it was cool as heck, that a mid to high level Rogue could 'bump into' their patron goddess, while hiding in deep shadows.

Drendari, I believe? I still have most of the old Scarred Lands stuff.

rule number one about blood of shadows:watch out for shadow collectors. they might be a recent addition to the bestiary but i don't think any umbrakineticist's(manipulators of the energy drawn from the plain of shadows) or any key manipulators of shadowstuff would be privy to the idea of a creature trying to steal away the essence that grants you your powers.

Other than that, i wonder what dark possibilities this book holds for those that draw power from or find refuge in the deep shadows of the world. i wonder if it will become possible for some to turn the mortal shadows and dark places into doorways that swing both ways. because having having somebody sink or being dragged into their own shadow is a horrifying way to be 'removed from the way of the party'.

* Shadow Bloodline (Bloodrager).

* Shadow/Darkness Mystery (Oracle).

* Shadow/Darkness Spirit (Shaman).

* UmbraKineticist.

* Shadow/Darkness themed stuff for other classes.

Cool, I'd like to see more bloodrager bloodlines put out.

I agree every blood of book after angels/fiends have been weak and I haven't cared for how those books have been organized. I wish they would organize them with all the flavor in the beginning and all the crunch after.

It is a shame that the Caligni will not get any love in this one.

Were the Caligni in print at the time this was written? I expect this book will be just fine without them.

I'm hoping it at least gives more detail on the Darkfolk...

I think that any expansion of lore for Wayang and Fetchlings would be awesome.. Right now they are interesting races, but there are few hooks to hang things on. I like crunch, but some races need more lore.

Well the best place to expect lore for Wayang should be a Minata source book.
Honestly, until that is released giving actual context for them, I'm not really interested in them.
That basically goes for any "race" that we've been given stats for but no real in-setting context.

I guess one question might be if some remain on the Plane of Shadow, and what that history was, also their relation with Fetchlings.
Along with that some more info on Dziriak would be interesting, both on and off the Shadow Plane.
But lore context like that is less of a Player Companion line topic.

Crosses fingers that people remember that darkness doesn't equal evil and cool things from this book are PFS approved :)

Any update on the cover art for this book?

Updated product image to final.

Thanks Liz! *compares this to The Darklands Revisited* See I think they should switch covers. Cause THIS is what I think a Darklands fight should be like.

Drow fighting a Seugathi!

The later are not in Darklands Revisited so this cover would not be as appropriate as some people may think they are one of the 10 races presented in there.

I am glad that the drow get more love in february and will be getting this on the 24th.

I'm very happy with that updated blurb and excited about this book.

I just think while the seugathi aren't covered, they are an integral part of the Darklands, Marco.

Gloom chemist sounds interesting.

A male Drow on a cover? What in the World?

Sorry, couldn't resist that bit of sarcasm.

Dusk Knight sounds interesting. I'm guessing it's either a Paladin that can withstand the darkness and fight against it, or an Anti-Paladin who harnesses the darkness as power.

Nice cover art.

A male Drow on a cover? What in the World?

Sorry, couldn't resist that bit of sarcasm.

Ha!

Can't wait to see what the Shadowborn racial traits are. I'm also slightly curious about whether a character could take both a Feyborn trait and a Shadowborn trait.

Don't know I'm still hesitant. The last few races books being what they are and their success clearly stated I'm a little worried that the link between these 3 races won't be able to really bind the book together as cohesively as it will need to. We've got one of the most popular races in tabletop alongside 2 relative unknowns with only that shadow connection to transition between them and it leaves me worried we'll get a lot of stuff on drow (which presents its own problems both on a creative level and a playability level similar to the vampire thing in Blood of the Night) and we'll end up with a bunch of meh or shortened content for the other two like we got in blood of the elements or the stuff for dhampir in blood of the night.

Don't get me wrong I want to be totally wrong about this (I've been intrigued by wayang since their announcement when they were shadow gnomes and their art keeps making them look cooler) but considering the track record of the previous releases I'll be waiting to until it gets in my hands before I get hyped.

Shadowborn AND Feyborn would be really cool, though perhaps overkill. I just love the fact they are creating such things to jazz up the Core races. Perhaps people will not clamor so much for new races...aw, who am I kidding? That will never stop.