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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I was waiting a long, long while for this book and my expectations were very high and you know what? I love every single page of it! Get it, you won't regret it.
As a horror lover and a pathfinder enthusiast, I was almost overcome with joy at the prospect of a supplement focused entirely around building and running a campaign based entirely in the traditions of terrifying literature and film.
And by no means does this text fail in that regard. From rules for handling lycanthropy to possession, the Horror Adventures book for pathfinder is one of my new favorite books, providing all the inspiration and hard mechanics I need to really take my adventures from a simple nod to horror, to a full blown campaign of terror and insanity.
The new archetypes and class options really shine in this book, giving players new ways to add on to their builds, and giving fresh, but slightly twisted archetypes for characters of questionable morals.
The new additions to old concepts such as disease and haunts really bring this book together, expanding on the more mysterious, and potentially fatal hazards that lurk in the darker places of Golarion and your own personal realms of depravity.
I have just recently finished my second reading of this book cover to cover. And I will admit, there are some interesting ideas. Some of the archetypes and class options offered are interesting.
However, nearly everywhere else in the book, the material falls flat. The primary selling point for me was the corruption system. Suggested as a way to finally be the monstrous characters we all wanted. This is a bad system. Let us imagine that you use the provided variant rules for a more gentler, more kind version of the corruption rules, your character still faces severe penalties by the corruption system as default that far outweigh the benefits. The worst part? You don't even become what you're trying to.
The closest you can get, to say, a lich, or a ghoul, is an approximation of weaker versions of their abilities without a true type change. This is, in and of itself, unacceptable. There are feats that have more effect than this, and frankly, it's more confusion, more trouble, and less benefit than simply offering my players to take the template they're after.
Finally, due to a little sidebar on evil spells, I find the recent shift in the approach to good and evil alignment to be stagnant. Thanks to the stated rules in a sidebar, casting an evil spell, is an evil act, regardless of why it was done. Therefore, by simple logic, no matter how flawed it seems, using a good aligned spell to evil ends, is also a good act.
Ultimately, if you're a first time DM or player looking for some tips on playing a horror game, or want some interesting archetypes, it can be useful. However, if you're like me, and you were looking for meaningful character options, I don't think you'll find many good ones here.
Will there still be a flickering light in the darkness?
While this book (which is awesome) gives you plenty of options for how to make monsters out of people (and PCs) there are still spots for heroes to be a beacon when all is the lost.
The Tortured Crusader archetype for Paladins for example, ACTUALLY makes me want to play a Paladin (Psssst, Paladins with 4 skill points and Perception and Stealth as class skills just for starters).
The Corruptions are wonderfully and horrifically well done, and no need to worry, cautious GMs, there is more than enough bad to go with the power to make most actually think twice before they let their characters devolve into monsters.
And that's only two small parts of the book, you still have the rest of thing to go through with!
Nice to see someone post a proper review of this product. Too many gamers on this site have no clue how to do a review but like hitting one star. There needs to be a biblical flood to clear the forums of this flotsam.
