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Pathfinder Roleplaying Game: Horror Adventures

3.80/5 (based on 14 ratings)
Pathfinder Roleplaying Game: Horror Adventures
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There are things that dwell in the dark places of the world, in long-abandoned crypts or musty attics—terrible things that can destroy your body and shatter your mind. Few individuals would think to seek out such nightmares, but those drawn into the darkness often find it infecting them, corrupting them in ways both subtle and disgusting. Some believe those who die facing such horrors are the lucky ones, for the survivors are forever scarred by their experiences.

Pathfinder RPG Horror Adventures gives you everything you need to bring these nightmares to life. Within these pages, you'll find secrets to take your game into the darkest reaches of fantasy, where the dead hunger for the living, alien gods brood in dreams, and madness and death lurk around every corner. Rules for players and GMs alike pit brave champions against a darkness capable of devouring mind, body, and soul. To prepare to face such torments, the heroes can take new feats, learn powerful spells, and even acquire holy relics—for they'll need every edge possible to survive!

Pathfinder RPG Horror Adventures includes:

  • Corruptions that can turn your character into a powerful monster, from a blood-drinking vampire to a savage werewolf. The only cost is your soul!
  • Character options to help heroes oppose the forces of darkness, including horror-themed archetypes, feats, spells, and more!
  • A detailed system to represent sanity and madness, giving you all the tools you need to drive characters to the brink and beyond.
  • Tips and tools for running a genuinely scary game, along with an in-depth look at using horror's many subgenres in a Pathfinder campaign.
  • Expanded rules for curses, diseases, environments, fleshwarping, haunts, and deadly traps.
  • New templates to turn monsters into truly terrifying foes, from creatures made of living wax to a stalker that can never be stopped!
  • ... and much, much more!

ISBN-13: 978-1-60125-849-6

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Spooky Fun, Can't Wait to Curse My Players

5/5 —

I am in love with this book. The themes for archetypes are spot on and everything goes beyond horror basics, it's much more than vampires, werewolves, and zombies (though they are included). Some of my favorite elements are the Deep One corruption (corruptions in general are sweet, this seems like a well balanced mechanic for horribly warping the PCs into monsters, while still giving them a way to fight it) and the Gingerbread Witch. The Deep One corruption is a great example of the depth of horror this book includes, this plays on a less often used horror theme of the paranoia of harming oneself (in this case, by drowning). This reminds me so much of elements from the book The Boy Who Drew Monsters, and the mom's terrible fascination with people who drowned in a shipwreck a hundred years ago. You could adopt this same corruption for vertigo or even a bodily harm thing. On a lighter side, the Gingerbread Witch made me so, so happy. It's a well thought out archetype, I'm not sure they'd be great as a player character (but there aren't evil restrictions, so have at!) but I can't wait to insert a horrible Gingerbread Witch near some unassuming town, with her creepy haunted gingerbread house and evil delicious familiar.

I just can't say enough good things about the mechanics. They are flexible enough that you don't have to have a horror specific campaign to use elements from this book. The fear and sanity rules can be used with any campaign to add realism or more of a gritty fantasy feel. If your level 1 characters just killed a person for the first time, maybe they should lose some sanity and wrestle with that emotion. If they are in a dank, creepy dungeon with skeletons, maybe some of them would be spooked. The rules for adapting fear resistant characters like Paladins are also nicely balanced and I appreciate that attention to detail - your paladins don't have to yawn at the sideline, they're vulnerable too, just in a way less debilitating way that actually paints them as more of a hero around evil and undead.

Lastly, the warning about needing consent before using this book in a campaign was a very nice touch. That totally hooked me when starting to read this book. I kind of thought I'd just have spooky themed elements, but that paragraph inspired me to try to take this to the next level. How fun would it be to have a session that turns your actual living room into a haunted house, or to be the director of the scariest experience your friends have had all year?

If Halloween is your favorite holiday or you love low, gritty fantasy, I highly recommend this book. I will be reading this one cover to cover and am excited to use its elements for many, many sessions.

An Endzeitgeist.com review

5/5 —

This massive hardcover clocks in at 255 pages - if you take away editorial, index, etc., you still arrive at 249 pages of content, which is A LOT.

I was gifted a copy of this book for the purpose of a fair and unbiased review. My review is based on the hardcover of this book.

Now, the first thing I'd ask you to do, is to read the series of Miscellaneous Musings I wrote on horror gaming in general. Or least the last one. Why? Because it is my firm conviction that one has to establish realistic expectations in order to review a book such as this.

(The articles are fully linked on my page.)

Alternatively, if you already own it, there is a sentence in the advice chapter on running horror games that should be taken to heart: "Pathfinder is not designed with horror in mind." I'd like to elaborate on this, at least briefly. As I have established in my long, long rants on the subject matter, it is my firm conviction that you can run horror in PFRPG, even purist horror, but that the base system per se is more conductive towards playing the angle of pitting horror against the angle of heroism, of allowing PCs to have a shot against the darkness. While you can modify PFRPG to play akin to CoC, the game is simply more conductive towards the heroic angle.

It is a testament to PFRPG's versatility that horror of any way works in the first place, in spite of the focus of the game. Now secondly, I'd like to address two aspects of the game and what we can expect, with the first being character options. We are all aware of the vast array of built-options available for PFRPG and thus, it should come as no surprise that yes, we do receive a significant array of player- (or at least character-)centric options. Which would bring me to the first observation: It is my firm convictions that players should stay out of this book.

No, really. You see, quite a lot of the new class options, like the blood alchemist, elder mythos cultist, hexenhammer or medium spirit-variants like the butcher or lich (for champion and archmage, to give two examples) scream "NPC" for me. I know, it is perhaps not what you'd expect me to do, but ultimately, I consider the material here to be mostly intended for the GM. Yes, we have martyr paladins with stigmata and bloody jake slayers and serial killer vigilantes. Yes, some players will want to play these...but from my experience as a horror-GM, it may actually make sense restricting these...or simply not telling the players about the rules. Before you're asking, btw.: From a min-maxing perspective, you'll probably find better options anyways...but if that's a consideration for you when playing in a horror game, I'd strongly suggest thinking about priorities and of what makes for a fun game for everyone - see my long, long posts on the necessary contract/gentlemen's agreement between the GM and player.

That being said, there is one aspect I am holding against this book, in spite of the aforementioned previous considerations, and that would be that there is no dividing line between content obviously designed for players/good guys and that for villains - it does show in the archetype-section and, more than that, in the feat-section, where we can find REALLY cool Story-feats alongside a bunch of feats intended for evil characters or monsters - in the latter case often enhancing universal monster abilities and providing further numerical escalation - which would be less of an issue, if PFRPG didn't have this many options to gain access to precisely these abilities. In short, we are catering to a mindset here that kinda undermines the horror premise the rest of the book is trying hard to set up. In short: We also get a lot of alternate racial traits for the core races, which generally fit with the themes of horror, though the fortification they offer against these challenges don't really fit my personal vision of what I like to play in the context of such a campaign, but your mileage here may obviously vary. These are my least favorite aspects of the book.

But let's move back to the very beginning: The advice given for players when making characters for horror adventures is extremely sound and should most certainly be read carefully - the book spells pretty much out what I did, minus the advice on Achilles heels, but I guess you can't have everything. The notes on making a compelling personality etc. makes sense, and so does the advice of roleplaying fear. I am a big fan of the note that the book emphasizes conspiration and communication with the GM here.

One of my favorite parts herein would be the more diversified take on Fear: We are introduced to a 7-step progression tree of various states of fear, including rules on immunity to fear and how it should be used in conjunction with this system. It works pretty seamlessly, though I honestly wished the already widely in use cowering condition had been implemented here as well - considering the effects of the highest fear-level "horrified", the differences are not that pronounced. And yes, I am aware that this adds a bit of potential complexity to some options, but here at least, I consider the trade off worth it.

Sanity...is a bit more clunky. We get a relatively simple system: Add mental attributes together and you have the sanity score; half of that is the sanity edge. This determines the severity of the madness incurred when something exceeds your sanity threshold - which is equal to the bonus of the highest mental attribute bonus. When you incur a sanity attack and its damage exceeds the threshold, you gain a madness - simple, yes...but it does ultimately reward characters that are SAD on a mental attribute, whereas in my opinion, sanity-shattering effects often are made worse by understanding them properly, perceiving them properly, etc. The system is not bad per se, but it requires managing three scores and for that, it doesn't deliver the results I'm personally looking for in such a system. Your mileage may vary, obviously, but yeah.

The star-subsystem here would be basically PFRPG's take on dark powers-checks, so-called corruptions. These tie in with character flaws of the PC and represent a dark and malevolent stain on the character that slowly mutates them, granting benefits, while at the same time driving them further down the dark path. Where previously, in Ravenloft, you ultimately became a darklord, corruptions now have 3 stages, with the final stage usually turning you NPC. Progression along this path is via a variety of actions and they generally have a catalyst to first spring them on a character. These corruptions also feature tempting powers, so-called manifestations, which also come with a stain, a drawback, that is in relation to the behavior in question.

Now, first things first: At one point, I wrote a pretty long essay on how to tempt both players and PCs at the same time with horrific power and the psychological reasons to do so - while it has been cut and never been published, let me summarize: I argued that a weakness of the monster-transformation aspect championed by Ravenloft was, that on the one hand, the PC should be horrified by what he does, while craving the power in question. Similarly, the player should feel the same.

If there is a disjoint between player and PC, roleplaying suffers. The corruptions, when looking at them, are surprisingly tame - not in their visuals, mind you: The hive, for example, is really icky. Still, it is somewhat surprising to see the heavy penalty of corruption stage 3...and at the same time, the significant array of manifestations each corruption offers. Now, some folks have complained about the risk of being turned NPC being too high (it's a sort of game over, after all), but from a meta-design perspective it can be a motivator for munchkins to take heed.

There is another aspect to the system pretty much every review I read did not pick up on - and I don't get why. In my third essay on horror gaming, I talked about the realities of being a big publisher and not one of the underground one-man operations. I also talked briefly about the witch hunts our hobby is subject to, one that continues in some regions and circles. More than that, moral and aesthetic limitations vary within persons - more so between folks. As the big dog that Paizo is, it is pretty hard to sell "play a monstrously vile thing and the descent into evil" to a part of their demographic - though, in particularly the hardcore horror fans will want exactly that, the teetering on the edge of damnation experience, for from this precipice, the best redemption stories are woven.

Here's the beautiful thing about the corruption system: The increase of manifestations is not tied to the corruption stage progression. At all. You can retain the whole save mechanics, variants and the whole rest and just throw out the three stages. You can introduce as many stages as you'd like (perhaps 7 or 5, as previous editions of the game did - perhaps 13, if you want to go an occult angle...) - the system's validity remains. And yes, I'll confess, my kneejerk response was like that of many out there, to complain and curse about the 3 stages - but know what? This is by far the best and most detailed (and balanced) such system I have seen for a d20-based game. It covers the company and at the same time, easily allows for PCs and NPCs, for GMs and players alike, to enjoy a system I never expected to see in this shape or form from a big publisher. Now personally, I would have actually increased the potency of the corruptions if you're running with the stage-limit and NPC-threat...but, once again, that is if you're planning on playing a relatively tame campaign. The fact that each manifestation has its custom gifts and stains, completely divorced from the stages, means that you retain maximum control when tweaking the system to your needs. The fact that the save to resist progression is tied to compulsive behavior means that even it, as an aspect, remains valid, its tie to further manifestations in the save-calculation providing a roleplaying catalyst even without the presence of the threat of NPCdom.

The chapter on magic provides a wide array of thematically fitting spells that range from the subtle to the in-your-face blunt - sleepwalking suggestions, massive, gory blood effects and cursed terrain generally make sense and even otherwise pretty standard damage spells included herein sport nice visuals: Screaming flames? Yes, I can see that working. I am honestly more in love with the fact that we get a 5 pretty neat occult rituals here that all are amazing in their own way, with each having the potential to act as a proper plot-cornerstone. I wished we got more of them!

Now, I mentioned that I consider this to be a GM-book and indeed, the GM-section is a bit of a treasure trove in some aspects: We get a couple of new curses and advice on making more, as well as notes on cursed lands and items - if the topic interests you: Both Legendary games and Rite Publishing have released whole supplements dealing with curses, often in really creative ways, but that as an aside. Curse templates allow for the customization of curses herein. Now, the disease chapter gets my full-blown applause for disease templates - and e.g. the one named "incurable." It actually does what it says on the tin! (minus the usual wish/miracle-caveat) - this is amazing. I mean it. Diseases have, in pretty much every d20-based system, been afterthoughts, crippled, lame and ultimately were the lame brothers of poison. This changes that. The sample diseases like "brain moss" or "gore worms" also make me tingle and twitch in a good way.

Speaking of things I like: We get a vast number of cool terrain hazards, haunted spots and the like to add to encounters, allowing for quick and easy eerie customizations. Domains of Evil can also be found. You know. Domains. With dread fog. That modify how magic works. With hazards and potentially different flow of time. That are haunted. Yeah, let's stop teh pretense here: If you're like me and a sucker for Ravenloft, then this chapter will have you smile from ear to ear, even before the rules on nightmares and the couple of traps. These, btw., unfortunately are the roll to see and disable kind - particularly in a horror game, team effort, complex traps that require multiple tasks make for the more compelling option, but I digress.

Now, the next section of rules is something that I was looking forward to, since it had been featured, but never codified properly in rules at least not by Paizo (there are a couple of 3pp-forays into that territory)- fleshwarping! And yes, it is cool. It sports a ton of nice effects, but the system is, to a degree, a double-edged sword: On one hand, fleshwarping works really well and on the other, its price is perhaps a bit too high: Let me elaborate: Fleshcrafts can either be permanent grafts or temporary mutations, instilled by an elixir that requires succeeding a Fort-save to gain the benefits. The temporary prices and benefits and being keyed to slots etc. makes sense for the elixirs, but since the effects also sport a penalty, the price for the respective fleshcraft grafts is still pretty high when compared to magic items - baseline for the grafts seems to have been 1/2 of a comparable item's base price to make up for the drawback. Considering the disfiguring nature of these options, that may still be pretty high, though. It depends a bit. Chaotic fleshwarping mutations can also be found - and unlike the chaositech mutations of yore, these generally are detrimental.

The extensive section on haunts that follows includes templates for them (called haunt elements) as well as variants like dimensional instabilities, maddening influence, magical scars and psychic haunts. The array presented ranges from humble Cr 1/4 to CR 20, including classics like being buried alive or the twisted wish. Madnesses are codified in lesser and greater madnesses - big plus here: For once, a supplement does not confuse schizophrenia with dissociated identities. (Seriously, if I had a buck whenever I saw that being confused...)

Now, one of the most useful sections regarding GM-considerations would be the massive chapter that deals with running horror games - which not only classifies and quantifies horror sub.genres, their tropes, etc., but also mentions all the classics like lighting, music, creating an undisturbed environment, etc. - tricks for dealing with various snags, how to encourage horror roleplaying etc. - and it is sad, but obviously necessary that, beyond talking about what does and does not fly with individual players, overdoing it does not work. HOWEVER, I do actually disagree with one aspect - involving outside people. To have an unrelated accomplice like a spouse play with the light on e.g. a stormy evening - not all the time, but once or twice, can be rather effective...but I generally get why these disclaimers are here. This section, obviously, is targeted at less experienced GMs in the genre - and in particular such GMs will also appreciate the section on improvising rules for e.g. being buried alive, crumbling structures, etc.

Part II of my review can be found here!

Subpar book, mostly for GMs

2/5 —

This book has a lot of systems, mechanics, archetypes, feats, spells, environment challenges, haunts, curses, etc. While most of it is clearly presented and has enough flavor text to give you some ideas on how to use it, everything just seems to fall flat.

My two biggest gripes (I have more than just two):
1) The sanity system is horribly balanced, heavily penalizing martial characters, and it's effects are easily cured by powerful spells. Really poorly executed, why make the gap between martials and casters even worse?
2) Most of the Archetypes are realistically for GM use only, as they are very niche. I wanted to give my players a lot of cool horror themed archetypes to play with, instead they got a scant few.

This book really could have been SO much better. Disappointed.

Paizo Knows Horror and Here's Their New Toolkit!

5/5 —

Paizo reviews come in two forms: players that whine because they wanted something other than what was in the book (^^^)and then gamemasters/players that actually review the material provided. This is a review from the latter.

Paizo has created some of the best horror themed adventures for Pathfinder and Dungeons and Dragons over the course of their existence. In this book, they round it all up and spell out all of the tricks and tips they use to make it happen.

I have written everything from adventures to comic books to film scripts and I would easily hand this book over to a non-gaming writer that needed advice on how to create horror. This book goes to great lengths to provide players with archetypes for classes to use in horror themed adventures as well as giving gamemasters tools they need to create horror in session after session.

Players get archetypes, feats, spells and new gear with which to battle the horrific forces of the multiverse. GMs get a ton of new tools including a nifty new Bestiary that brings us Pathfinder versions of Alien-style xenomorphs called the Hive AND a nice analogue for the Slender Man called the Unknown. Horror requires more than monsters, so you also get new rules on corruptions, curses, diseases, horrific environments, fleshwarping, haunts, madness and more!

Creating horror is more than giving players more 0's they can add to their attacks. It involves setting, tone, atmosphere and management of expectations. If you want to run a game that makes your players fear for their characters lives, then pick up this book and give it a read. Follow up with the recommended reading and required viewing and you'll get a feeling for how to instill dread in everyone sitting at your table.

More Like Evil Adventures

3/5 —

This book feels more like Pathfinder's version of the Book of Vile Darkness then horror themed adventures. Also this is a very DM heavy book though I thought it would be 70% player 30% DM but is actually the other way around.

The Good
-I loved the Dread Lord, Hive, Trompe L'Oeil, Unknown, and Waxwork Creature.
-I like the Corruptions.
-I like the reprint/expanding of madness rules.
-I like some of the magic items like mantle of life, monster almanac, and elder sign.
-I liked a few archetypes like the two for witches.

The Bad
-Too many evil archetypes, spells, etc.
-Do not like the sanity rules.
-Do not like the fleshwarping rules for characters.
-Most of archetypes were lacking or unusable for players.
-Very few interesting spells that are player friendly.
-Very few interesting feats.
-Not enough character options related to specific class features like wild talents, bloodlines, rogue talents, oracle curses/mysteries, etc.

I feel this book was a missed opportunity for same great horror based player character options. Such as expanded options for void kineticist like fear effects, controlling/creating undead, etc. new psychic disciplines, sorcerer/bloodrager bloodlines, oracle curses/mysteries, hexes, phantom emotion focuses, etc. I could even see some interesting ideas for rogue talents, rage powers, slayer talents, etc. I would have been fine with reprints like the pestilence sorcerer bloodline, kineticist void element, and other fitting options from past books.

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Invictus Novo wrote:
Part of the Accursed Stain is "if you cast or use a harmless spell or spell-like ability..." my question is, would using a wand fall under that statement? It is using a magical item which I would think wouldn't apply, however am not sure. I'm thinking of something like using a wand of cure light wounds.

I'm assuming it would be something more like a wand of animate dead or wand with a curse descriptor spell in it.

Dark Archive
2 people marked this as a favorite.
Pathfinder Adventure Path Subscriber

As someone who likes Pet Semetary , a big thanks to whoever wrote 'soured ground'.
1 person marked this as a favorite.

Reading through the archetypes, I have to say that overall these are stronger and more worthwhile than I've seen from Paizo in a long time. The Kineticist and Medium options are garbage, but so far (I'm through Paladins) everything else ranges from respectable to very good.
Contributor
2 people marked this as a favorite.
Plausible Pseudonym wrote:
Reading through the archetypes, I have to say that overall these are stronger and more worthwhile than I've seen from Paizo in a long time. The Kineticist and Medium options are garbage, but so far (I'm through Paladins) everything else ranges from respectable to very good.

I don't know, I personally think that the option to get a familiar on a kineticist is pretty worthwhile for the same reasons that familiars are awesome for spellcasters. What's better, kineticists can use the second talent to grab an elemental wysp, which can give them bonuses on attack and damage rolls with their blasts.

Alexander Augunas wrote:
I don't know, I personally think that the option to get a familiar on a kineticist is pretty worthwhile for the same reasons that familiars are awesome for spellcasters. What's better, kineticists can use the second talent to grab an elemental wysp, which can give them bonuses on attack and damage rolls with their blasts.

Before they get whisps, how are they useful in the same way familiars are for spellcasters? Familiars are good for spellcasters since they get additional actions to a limited degree, the wild talent on the other hand consumes your standard action every round you want the familiar out.

1 person marked this as a favorite.
Milo v3 wrote:
Alexander Augunas wrote:
I don't know, I personally think that the option to get a familiar on a kineticist is pretty worthwhile for the same reasons that familiars are awesome for spellcasters. What's better, kineticists can use the second talent to grab an elemental wysp, which can give them bonuses on attack and damage rolls with their blasts.
Before they get whisps, how are they useful in the same way familiars are for spellcasters? Familiars are good for spellcasters since they get additional actions to a limited degree, the wild talent on the other hand consumes your standard action every round you want the familiar out.

Even without having the familiar out, you get Alertness and +4 intiiative/+1 natural armor/+2 to a save/+3 to a skill...don't think many kineticists will want the grappling bonus, though perhaps telekineticists will, or someone looking forward to the grappling infusion. And if it can fly or has a climb speed, it can still get into places you might not be able to yet at lower levels, and once it can communicate with you at 5th level, it arguably makes a decent scout since instead of potentially dying, it automatically returns to your mind after taking any damage.

Silver Crusade Contributor
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Regarding kineticist options: when one of my players got their hands on this book, the very first thing they did was gush about their telekineticist getting a little elemental familiar. ^_^
6 people marked this as a favorite.
Kalindlara wrote:
Regarding kineticist options: when one of my players got their hands on this book, the very first thing they did was gush about their telekineticist getting a little elemental familiar. ^_^

Pika, pika!

I have yet to do a thorough reading, but from what I have read all of the stuff aimed at players are interesting and very flavorful. Good work!
Milo v3 wrote:
Alexander Augunas wrote:
I don't know, I personally think that the option to get a familiar on a kineticist is pretty worthwhile for the same reasons that familiars are awesome for spellcasters. What's better, kineticists can use the second talent to grab an elemental wysp, which can give them bonuses on attack and damage rolls with their blasts.
Before they get whisps, how are they useful in the same way familiars are for spellcasters? Familiars are good for spellcasters since they get additional actions to a limited degree, the wild talent on the other hand consumes your standard action every round you want the familiar out.

I don't have the book yet, so I might be misunderstanding this. However, if having the familiar active consumes the Kineticist's standard action each round, how can they take advantage if the Wysp's attack/damage bonus on blasts? It takes a standard to use the blast power.

HeHateMe wrote:
Milo v3 wrote:
Alexander Augunas wrote:
I don't know, I personally think that the option to get a familiar on a kineticist is pretty worthwhile for the same reasons that familiars are awesome for spellcasters. What's better, kineticists can use the second talent to grab an elemental wysp, which can give them bonuses on attack and damage rolls with their blasts.
Before they get whisps, how are they useful in the same way familiars are for spellcasters? Familiars are good for spellcasters since they get additional actions to a limited degree, the wild talent on the other hand consumes your standard action every round you want the familiar out.
I don't have the book yet, so I might be misunderstanding this. However, if having the familiar active consumes the Kineticist's standard action each round, how can they take advantage if the Wysp's attack/damage bonus on blasts? It takes a standard to use the blast power.

You're misunderstanding it, yeah. Basically, there are two wild talents, elemental whispers, a 1st-level utility wild talent that requires you to concentrate to manifest a normal familiar, and greater elemental whispers, which lets you get either a small elemental or a wysp as an improved familiar without needing to concentrate on it.

Gotcha, that's very cool actually.
Silver Crusade
Alexander Augunas wrote:
Plausible Pseudonym wrote:
Reading through the archetypes, I have to say that overall these are stronger and more worthwhile than I've seen from Paizo in a long time. The Kineticist and Medium options are garbage, but so far (I'm through Paladins) everything else ranges from respectable to very good.
I don't know, I personally think that the option to get a familiar on a kineticist is pretty worthwhile for the same reasons that familiars are awesome for spellcasters. What's better, kineticists can use the second talent to grab an elemental wysp, which can give them bonuses on attack and damage rolls with their blasts.

I think they're more referring to the archetypes for things that are bad. The familiars are somewhat janky in base execution but at the same time, it's a familiar, so familiar bonuses. The advanced familiar is quite nice as well.

The archetypes however aren't the best.
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*likes the archetypes* Corruptions and Haunts are the best however. :)
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I love that there are archetypes for all of the classes. The corruptions immediately stand out as something I can add to my game.
Liberty's Edge
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Plus as a minimum they can be used to make some boss/mini boss encounters stand out. People will probably remember the guard captain who was corrupted by the powers of hell while trying to save a town, only to become evil and need to be put down by the heroes, even though he had done his best to protect the town up until that point.
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Has there been enough love for the templates yet? Because the Unknown template is terrifying. The stalker that comes back in your dreams is brilliantly chilling. Plus, the art is great—I love the Kyton template's image, and the Unknown is just close enough to That One Thing We All know It's Referencing without being too close. Same with the dreadlord.

The archetypes are great, the Corruptions and Haunts are great, but there's so much more in this book. I still haven't given spells a proper readthrough. Some of the play advice is really handy (like suggesting that each PC pick up a quirk like an iconic object), and the runthrough on horror genres and how to incorporate each one had some stuff I'm going to have to remember for my games. Domains are much better-explained than in Ravenloft (in that Ravenloft's main book is a bit vague on how to design your own domains for play), and I can't wait to use those ideas in my Ravenloft game. The Fear rules offer a lot more variety than I was expecting, especially with Terrified, which is basically Confusion but for scaredy-cats.

I really like this book. My only regret is not being able to afford the hardcover yet.

I have a PDF of this book and I love it. I've got to get the hardcover.

While it's minor I love the one suggestion for a Slasher villain called the Skulltaker, a sapient(?) bear that hunts people down to take their heads. Reminds me of the old legends about Bigfoot in the Nahanni/Valley of the Headless Men as well as classic 70's 'Gaia's Revenge' flicks like Grizzly and Prophecy: A Monster Movie all at once.

I do wonder where they got the name 'Bloody Jake' for the 'Hillbilly slasher' Slayer archetype, though.

And I do admit, I wish more was done with the familial phylactery for the lich.

Also -- is the haunt related to the witchflame related at all to the little adventure sketch about a murderous and vengeful witchflame that we got in Ultimate Intrigue?

Eric,

No idea but I think it should be if it's not!
Contributor
Milo v3 wrote:
Alexander Augunas wrote:
I don't know, I personally think that the option to get a familiar on a kineticist is pretty worthwhile for the same reasons that familiars are awesome for spellcasters. What's better, kineticists can use the second talent to grab an elemental wysp, which can give them bonuses on attack and damage rolls with their blasts.
Before they get whisps, how are they useful in the same way familiars are for spellcasters? Familiars are good for spellcasters since they get additional actions to a limited degree, the wild talent on the other hand consumes your standard action every round you want the familiar out.

I would argue that until they get Improved Familiar, the majority of spellcasters only care about their familiar for the Alertness and special bonus to their character. A familiar's actions don't matter much for most characters until they get Improved Familiar, since an improved familiar has special spells and abilities and might be able to use wands.

Silver Crusade
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Alexander Augunas wrote:
Milo v3 wrote:
Alexander Augunas wrote:
I don't know, I personally think that the option to get a familiar on a kineticist is pretty worthwhile for the same reasons that familiars are awesome for spellcasters. What's better, kineticists can use the second talent to grab an elemental wysp, which can give them bonuses on attack and damage rolls with their blasts.
Before they get whisps, how are they useful in the same way familiars are for spellcasters? Familiars are good for spellcasters since they get additional actions to a limited degree, the wild talent on the other hand consumes your standard action every round you want the familiar out.
I would argue that until they get Improved Familiar, the majority of spellcasters only care about their familiar for the Alertness and special bonus to their character. A familiar's actions don't matter much for most characters until they get Improved Familiar, since an improved familiar has special spells and abilities and might be able to use wands.

I don't want Improved Familiar, I like my little fluffy buddies. And peegs.

Alexander Augunas wrote:
Milo v3 wrote:
Alexander Augunas wrote:
I don't know, I personally think that the option to get a familiar on a kineticist is pretty worthwhile for the same reasons that familiars are awesome for spellcasters. What's better, kineticists can use the second talent to grab an elemental wysp, which can give them bonuses on attack and damage rolls with their blasts.
Before they get whisps, how are they useful in the same way familiars are for spellcasters? Familiars are good for spellcasters since they get additional actions to a limited degree, the wild talent on the other hand consumes your standard action every round you want the familiar out.
I would argue that until they get Improved Familiar, the majority of spellcasters only care about their familiar for the Alertness and special bonus to their character. A familiar's actions don't matter much for most characters until they get Improved Familiar, since an improved familiar has special spells and abilities and might be able to use wands.

Having your familiar scout for you is also handy, and Elemental Whispers gets you the best scouting familiar. As soon as it takes any damage, it effectively teleports back to you to report, no range limit, so it can't be killed. If it needs to head back in a hurry, it can hit itself for trivial damage and trigger it. If you need the familiar back in a hurry, you can just stop concentrating.

Yeah elemental whispers is fine. It's the Kineticist archetypes that are dire. And the Occultist options aren't all terrible in their mechanical benefits, they're just laugh out loud bad in what you have to do to get and keep them. A fair universe would award you a couple of mythic tiers for pulling that stuff off.
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Rysky wrote:
I don't want Improved Familiar, I like my little fluffy buddies. And peegs.

What about linnorms? ;)

This book is a very good product covering one of my favorite styles of game very well and I love it for that. The templates do not get enough praise, besides Unknown both Waxen and Impacable Stalker are great and capable of injecting great terror into games.

I generally love the book, except some minor quibble. The corruption one has a thread already, but besides that I feel some archetypes are not worth anything (Devouloutionsist) while others suffer from unecessary alignment restrictions (serial killer).
Saithor wrote:
unecessary alignment restrictions
Saithor wrote:
serial killer

Devolutionist is an awesome NPC archetype and pretty damn cool for a PC, though, in seriousness. "Dire" is a pretty nice "template", and whatever you affect is now friendly towards you.

Yeah, the problem is if I remember correctly (don't have the book with me) is that it requires domesticated animals, and those can be hard to run across at time (in dungeons, out in the wilderness) so sometimes that ability will be useless, and also you are likely to piss off whoever the animal belongs to.

Serial Killed strikes me as unecessarily evil. We've had vigilante serial killers in books before (Dexter being the best example) and you good argue that Slayers are essentially the same. Seriously, murdering evil creatures has never before been an evil act, so why can't I play a Serial Killer who targets evil creatures? There's a lot of ways you can make it work, especially in places with evil governments.

Probably because the serial killer explicitly kills for the thrill of killing, not to make the world a better place. I would not call Dexter a non-evil character just because he goes after other serial killers.

And no, you're thinking of Undomesticate. Devolution can target animals or humanoids. Notably, there's no save as long as they do not or cannot move (though it occurs to me that this would make a great Corruption for an unfinished Devolution attempt). It's replacing fairly minor abilities, too, so it's not that bad a loss.

I believe they correctly pigeon-holed 'serial killer' archetype as evil. Murder has never before been an evil act?! That is new to me...
Slayers and serial killers are the same?! Not seeing it at all. PCs just have never considered 'murder' as a real option in my games.
Silver Crusade

For serial killer, the fact that they can have bystanders die from fright out of finding their handiwork is enough to say to me "Hey, maybe this is a bad guy!" If that feature could be traded out for something, maybe it'd have a better case for being just your everyday murderer and not an evil one.

Okay, that is the one questionable ability. But still, let me ask you

In a kingdom that oppresses the heck, is ruled by A LE tyrant and etc., if A person declares himself a champion of the people, and decides to intimidate his opponents in his quest to overthrow the government tries to psychologically intimidate his opponents through the brutal murder of his targets.

Murder is not something PC's practice? Anytime they kill an evil character who is protected by the law, it is Murder. The Ninja alternate class is built around the ability to assassinate their foes and have several way to do so, and assassination is murder. So no, no justification that PC's do not practice murder. Heck, unless they are officially sanctioned by someone, anything they do is murder. I'm currently running a game where the players are trying to fight an evil lord who murdered their parents during the sack of their village. And guess what they are guilty of by his, or even LN laws whenever they kill one of his servants/soldiers/allies while on his lands? Murder.

And personally I question that Nightmare ability. I would just make it so that it only applies to people with reason to fear. Random innocent died and you are an innocent? Terror! Guy has been killing your evil oppressors and one of their bodies have been found brutally maimed? Rejoice!
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Yeah, there's a case to be made for the assassin, since no abilities are explicitly evil and some people see "murder for hire" as potentially Neutral in the right context.

"Serial Killer"? The name tells you all you need to know. :P
Kobold Cleaver wrote:

Yeah, there's a case to be made for the assassin, since no abilities are explicitly evil and some people see "murder for hire" as potentially Neutral in the right context.

"Serial Killer"? The name tells you all you need to know. :P

Ehh, I've played CN/CG characters in the past who have intense hatreds of monsters and a compulsion to kill and maim specific kinds of monsters for revenge reasons. That plus this being a good archetype for Vigilante's that I argue makes them better assassins then the Assassin class make me think there is justification for it being PC available.

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Saithor wrote:
Kobold Cleaver wrote:

Yeah, there's a case to be made for the assassin, since no abilities are explicitly evil and some people see "murder for hire" as potentially Neutral in the right context.

"Serial Killer"? The name tells you all you need to know. :P

Ehh, I've played CN/CG characters in the past who have intense hatreds of monsters and a compulsion to kill and maim specific kinds of monsters for revenge reasons. That plus this being a good archetype for Vigilante's that I argue makes them better assassins then the Assassin class make me think there is justification for it being PC available.

Convince your DM and you're golden. :)

If I were your DM, N.Jolly's argument would be the same as mine. I'd say you have to be evil, or at least 'insane.' I would also remind you that this is from a Horror Adventures book. :) The idea is that there is something dark and horrific about what you're doing. Frame it under whatever alignment you'd like but this is supposed to be distasteful.
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Saithor wrote:
In a kingdom that oppresses the heck, is ruled by A LE tyrant and etc., if A person declares himself a champion of the people, and decides to intimidate his opponents in his quest to overthrow the government tries to psychologically intimidate his opponents through the brutal murder of his targets.

If they resort to evil measures to do so, rather than more good or neutral tactics like a default Vigilante, they're basically V, the guy who mentally and physically tortured an innocent woman just so he could recruit her to his side. In other words, kinda evil? :P

Saithor wrote:
And personally I question that Nightmare ability. I would just make it so that it only applies to people with reason to fear. Random innocent died and you are an innocent? Terror! Guy has been killing your evil oppressors and one of their bodies have been found brutally maimed? Rejoice!

See, your ideas for the ability aren't bad, but they aren't the ability. The idea of the ability is that it's a horrific sight—like, gore, heart replaced with a butternut squash, skin baked into pizza-style stuff. It's not, "Oh, no, he's gonna get me next." It's, "Oh, no, this is F+!~ING TERRIFYING."

The clue is in the name: Serial Killer. Not "A~%!*$# Freedom Fighter". Like Coffee Demon, though, it's an archetype ripe for modification.
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Rysky wrote:
I don't want Improved Familiar, I like my little fluffy buddies. And peegs.

Hmm.... would probably have to be made of air to be fluffy.... Cats and bunnies made of clouds.

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This is starting to sound like a creature from My Little Pony raised by pegasi. Some sort of cute fluffy cloud bunny critter.

Eh, I see your points, for me it's just like you said ripe for modification. Same as corruption rules really. I will say I don't think the the pathfinder morality system was really meant to handle V, or understand him.
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Saithor wrote:
Eh, I see your points, for me it's just like you said ripe for modification. Same as corruption rules really. I will say I don't think the the pathfinder morality system was really meant to handle V, or understand him.

Again, I don't think you need to feel constrained by the system in this or any other way; the system is only as constrained as your group is. All the rules are only suggestions. There's plenty of room for moral ambiguity in PF.

Evil is just a willingness to do evil deeds for whatever cause. Whether that means we can't admire V for what he did, or sympathize with his emotional plight, is entirely another matter. I mean, I'm kind of biased against him because of what 4Chan has done with that goddamn stupid mask, but that's a whole other story. :P
Kobold Cleaver wrote:
Evil is just a willingness to do evil deeds for whatever cause. Whether that means we can't admire V for what he did, or sympathize with his emotional plight, is entirely another matter. I mean, I'm kind of biased against him because of what 4Chan has done with that g+!*%&n stupid mask, but that's a whole other story. :P

I really hate reporting arguments, even from different threads, but:

If I remember correctly, didn't at one point Churchill know about an incoming raid of German bombers, but chose not to warn the targets, since the German's did not know about the system that had detected them or that it could detect them . Churchill essentially sacrificed a town of innocent people in order to protect the detection system . By your logic, Churchill was evil.

I mean, maybe? For all we know, he might have saved more people in the long run through that sacrifice. But yeah, I'm not averse to wondering if historical figures we venerate today might have been horrible people. Doesn't mean I can't admire what Washington* and Nixon did that was good. It just means I can also recognize that maybe I wouldn't really like them if they existed today.

The issue of whether "save fifty people but doom ten" is evil or not is a whole other story. Personally, I would say no—that if you know, for almost certain, that you'll save more people this way, it's strictly neutral to let the smaller number die (albeit very tragic and rather hard to forgive).

That said, I don't think V's "torture this lady I have a crush on so she'll see my point of view" is really the same thing.

*For the record, I'm pretty sure I would regard Washington as "evil", if I were to stat him out. The dude kept slaves, and took great pains to maintain them. You can talk about how well he treated his human chattel, you can talk about the rough environment he was raised in, but it doesn't change any of that. Dude did good things, but he was not a very good man.
Contributor
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Plausible Pseudonym wrote:
...the Occultist options aren't all terrible in their mechanical benefits, they're just laugh out loud bad in what you have to do to get and keep them. A fair universe would award you a couple of mythic tiers for pulling that stuff off.

The occultist archetypes have been pretty well received and the critique doesn't seem to match the mechanics. Are you sure you're talking about the right class?

Dark Archive

Wounder if they will release a Creature & New Optional DMG Screen with the themed artwork on the panels well its a thought anyway.
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Brandon Hodge wrote:
Plausible Pseudonym wrote:
...the Occultist options aren't all terrible in their mechanical benefits, they're just laugh out loud bad in what you have to do to get and keep them. A fair universe would award you a couple of mythic tiers for pulling that stuff off.
The occultist archetypes have been pretty well received and the critique doesn't seem to match the mechanics. Are you sure you're talking about the right class?

Medium! Occultist archetypes were amazing.

All I know is haunts are cool. :)
Silver Crusade Contributor
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Yeah, those legendary spirits are... a little tricky to attract. A couple thoughts:

1) Probably intended for NPCs, for whom that serves as background rather than onerous quest. It also makes a great Knowledge check for investigator PCs. "He's been bleeding people dry... he's trying to channel the Butcher!"

b) Earning them could be its own little arc, if you're into that sort of thing.

III) Honestly... in a case where a PC wanted one, I could see just letting them start with access. Maybe they did all that innocent blood stuff before the campaign started.

Kal,

1) might be that or just to make your PCs crap themselves.
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Plausible Pseudonym wrote:
Brandon Hodge wrote:
Plausible Pseudonym wrote:
...the Occultist options aren't all terrible in their mechanical benefits, they're just laugh out loud bad in what you have to do to get and keep them. A fair universe would award you a couple of mythic tiers for pulling that stuff off.
The occultist archetypes have been pretty well received and the critique doesn't seem to match the mechanics. Are you sure you're talking about the right class?
Medium! Occultist archetypes were amazing.

Playing with Herolab and the Haunt collector Occultist is a massive buff to the class. (actually due to the wording it may be on the level of the primalist bloodrager) Trading out weak resonance powers for a buff to your prefered playstyle is amazing.

At low levels an unbuffed transmutation/champion occultist hits like a barbarian, and the swift action spirit bonus shores up the biggest weakness of the melee occultist (you needed knowledge of whats coming up to prepare yourself adequately, now you can be effective without needing 2-3 rounds of prep)

For blaster occultists an archmage spirit is like free damage on all your spells, that stacks with the free damage evocation gives you. (did you really need that conjuration resonance power? free damage, a new power and still being able to keep your standard action 10 round summons sounds like an amazing deal. )

Being able to punch haunts is just icing on the cake.
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