Lure ancient spirits to bargain for their supernatural power.
Immerse yourself in the ancient rituals and legends of pact magic. Grab thick chalk, gather totems, inscribe a geometric sigil, and invoke the name of an inchoate and terrible spirit from the Dark Beyond to aid your quest.
Behold! With a final flourish, you surrender to the spirit and a quivering surge of power emanates from deep within. Are you ready? Follow paths once trodden by shivering demons and martyred titans, lost mortals and chastised gods. Within this occult pages, the vestiges of 144 sundered souls lie at your fingertips, yours to command if you dare.
You will discover:
The pactmaker class with access to binder secrets.
Archetype options to integrate pactmaking into 30 popular classes.
Feats, spells, and magic items suited to binding of spirits.
One hundred forty-four bindable spirits from across the ages. Each spirit includes a legend, granted abilities, and more.
Six prestige classes, seven organizations and three alternate planes of existence well-suited to occult adventures.
Occult creatures, pactmaker background generator, pact maladies, dangerous ravager spirits, and more.
Ideas for GMs to integrate pact magic into their campaign settings.
This FULL COLOR tome brings together and replaces prior renditions of pact magic including "Secrets of Pact Magic" by Dario Nardi and adapted works by Alex Augunas. All classes, spirits, etc are entirely rewritten from the ground up.
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Paizo, this is a prime example of how the Medium should be revisited in Second Edition.
Golarion’s lore is rich enough to support an entire folio of unique spirits, rather than a scant half-dozen generic archetypes. And Radiance House did an Admirable job of making these spirits feel like more than a stat-block and a collection of numerical bonuses. A few could have been simplified, particularly some of the ones with multiple aspects, but on the whole, I’m impressed.
The massive hardcover Ultimate-style book for Pact magic clocks in at 387 pages, 1 page front cover, 1 page inside of front cover, 2 pages editorial, 1 page ToC, 1 page KS-thanks, 4 pages of SRD, 1 page back cover, leaving us with 376 pages of content, so let’s take a look!
This review was moved up in my reviewing-queue as a prioritized review at the request of my patreons.
I was a KS-backer for this book and as such, I have received the massive hardcover. My review is mostly based on the print version, though I have also consulted my pdf-iteration for it.
So, what is this book? The short tl;dr-version would be that it is for Pact Magic, what Ultimate Psionics was for psionics. A more detailed response would also note that this book is not simply a compilation of previously-released material; in fact, this massive grimoire does feature a lot of new material, material previously not seen for PFRPG and some massive tweaks to existing options.
So, what is pact magic? Well, the short reply would be that it was the original Pact Magic. First conceived in 3.5’s Tome of Magic, the system had some serious hiccups and balance-issues in its initial iteration, but at the same time, it was a revelation for me: The idea was that named spirits exist; said spirits have fallen past the usual confines implied by D&D cosmology and, from their in-between status, they hunger for the chance to interact with the realms of mortals. From legends to archetypical beings to strange demons, all kinds of weird spirits, some of which were influenced by the key of Solomon, were thus presented.
This system was greatly expanded in two massive hardcovers back in 3.X, “Secrets of Pact magic” and “Villains of Pact Magic”, both of which are undeservedly obscure and have a place of honor on my bookshelf. They tweaked the balance of the system, expanded it and made it more unique – and, more importantly for me, they rank as some of my favorite rule-books of that age – the spirits came with HUGE short stories depicting their legends, adding a vast amount of flavor to each of the options herein. Then, two stand-alone updates/expansions for PFRPG were released, expanding the concept and translating it to PFRPG, though these did cut back on the beloved legends I enjoyed so much. This book once again features a lot of legends, though some have been externalized to a short-story collection.
Fast-forward to this book, which presents basically the latest and most refined iteration of the concept. At the heart of this system lies the pactmaker class, which gains d8 HD, 4 + Int skills per level, proficiency with simple weapons and light armor, ¾ BAB-progression and good Fort- and Will-saves. The class adds +1/2 class level, minimum 1, to Knowledge (arcane), Knowledge (history), Knowledge (religion) and Knowledge (planes) and gains a bonus on these to research a spirit’s knowledge tasks, instead gains a bonus equal to full character level.
So, what are knowledge tasks? Each spirit has a specific, occult seal that is drawn by the binder: This seal and the spirit need to be researched via knowledge tasks – basically, these represent the effort to learn a spirit. This is important, in that there is no limit otherwise on spirits known, if you will: While a pactmaker can only bind spirits of 1st level in the beginning, he may learn all of them. New spirit levels are unlocked at 3rd level and every 2 levels thereafter and spirits are organized by levels, much like spells; the 9th level spirits being obviously the most potent. A pactmaker may bind multiple spirits at higher levels – 2 at 4th level, +1 one spirit every 6 levels thereafter. 7th level and every 6 levels thereafter allow a pact maker to replenish an expended spirit ability 1/day and the capstone makes spirit abilities count as extraordinary and allows for the ignoring of personality influences and also nets the class automatically the capstone empowerment. Bear with me for a second – those are spirit terms. 3rd level and every 3 levels thereafter provide a choice of bonuses while bound to a spirit. Saves against abilities, generally, are determined by Charisma as a governing attribute.
And that is already pretty much the basic chassis of the class. Let’s move on to the basics of pact magic, shall we?
The term to denote a character using pact magic is “binder”; a binder level is the equivalent of the caster level, for the purpose of governing the spirit’s abilities. A binding check is a d0 + ½ binder level + Charisma modifier, and it is made upon summoning a spirit to determine the power of the pact. This requires a ceremony and a binder check versus the binding DC of the spirit in question – rushing the ceremony is possible, but results in massive penalties to the check. On a success of the check, the binder gets a good pact. A binder that makes a good pact can freely suppress the physical sign or minor granted abilities of being inhabited by the spirit (like horns, tentacles, weird voices, etc.) and suffers no penalty when acting against the spirit’s influence – basically, the personality of the spirit. If failing the check, he still gets the spirit, but makes a poor pact; the binder must exhibit the physical sign and suffers cumulative penalties when disobeying the spirit’s influence, lasting for 24 hours, even if the spirit if exorcised before that duration has elapsed. Suppressing a spirit eliminates all benefits, but also all penalties that may be incurred by having a spirit inhabit you. The process of making a good pact can be improved by using totems – basically optional material components or terrain components. Additionally, some spirits are more well or ill--disposed towards some races (favored allies and enemies), beings with certain alignments, class features, etc., while others reward those that call them in dark places, while stricken by illness, etc. the possibilities here are endless and tie in very well with the flavor of the spirits in question, rewarding players for caring about the story of their spirits.
Here is the catch: Spirits have three types of abilities: Minor abilities, which are always granted; major abilities, which are expended for 5 rounds after being used unless otherwise noted, and capstone empowerments, which are only gained when the spirit’s DC is beaten by 10 or more, making even low-level spirits retain their usefulness at higher levels.
It is not in the chassis of the pact-maker class or one of the numerous pact magic based class options that the system’s appeal lies; it is within the massive, colossal array of spirits. It should also be noted that most spirits are assigned to a constellation – upon binding them, the binder gains constellation aspects and these general affiliations double as thematic restrictions and schools of spirits if you will; you can focus on binding nature spirits…or fiendish ones…or those that hearken from the dark beyond. Whether you want to focus on slenderman-like entities or strange fey or on any combination of them, the spirits are here and allow for a wide variety of different types of character. And yes, benevolent spirits like cynical detectives that have fallen through the cracks of reality or basically saints can also be found – this is important to note, for pact magic, requiring less study thanb comparable magic and no divine oversight either, does carry with it the flavor of the forbidden, of the occult. And yes, there are starless, more obscure spirits.
As you may have gleaned by now, a strength of spirits lies in the way in which many of their abilities operate on a cool-down mechanic…and frankly, I went through this massive tome with my analysis, and rules-wise, there are precious few hiccups: To note two remarkable ones: The spirit Sevnoir, for example, heals you when inflicting damage to a creature suffering from a fear-effect. If you have a character with a fear-aura on hand, the 1/round caveat doesn’t prevent cheesing this via kitten slaughter.
At the same time, this book does predate the release of Occult Adventure regarding when it was worked on, and as such, unfortunately does not provide synergy with that glorious tome. Prestige classes, magic items, feats, special binder secrets (talents), spells, races, planes and organizations (apocryphal desert…nightmare weald…need I say more?) – the book has a ton to offer in crunch and I could bloat this review to 14, 20 pages even – easily, and still scratch the surface of what the book offers in terms of sheer content. There are some minor formatting inconsistencies to be found, with abilities that should be red showing up in black instead and the like.
There is one more thing you should be aware of: RAW, binders do NOT gain new spirits upon reaching new levels. While *personally*, I require downtime training to gain the benefits of a level up (I really dislike just *pling*, getting level-ups mid-dungeon...), I know that many groups do just that – in such cases, I’d suggest automatically gaining a spirit upon reaching a new level. So yes, this may be, for some groups, a drawback of the RAW engine, though one that can be houseruled away with ease. System-immanently, groups that do not engage in a lot of roleplaying as opposed to rollplaying will have a bit less fun with this, though please do take a look at my conclusion for what I mean by this.
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I have to break my usual system of presentation here a bit in order to convey what this book provides, so let me prematurely interject my
Conclusion:
Editing and formatting are good, but not perfect – I noticed a couple of hiccups here and there, some formatting glitches and the like; less than in many books of this crunch-density, but enough to notice. Layout adheres to a gorgeous 2-column full-color standard and the book comes with a TON of absolutely phenomenal full-color art; some of which was previously used and colored, but most is new. Each spirit has his/her/its own seal as a visual representation, so yeah, you can actually draw the seal, if that’s how you roll! The pdf version comes fully bookmarked with detailed, nested bookmarks for your convenience and thankfully, the book has a massive, multi-page index that helps navigating this tome. The hardcover is a beauty to behold and well worth getting.
…
You know, as a person and as a reviewer, I generally tend to gravitate towards complex options; beautiful mathy constructs and subsystems that provide an interesting playing experience. I can honestly appreciate it when math works out, when some abilities do something utterly unique with complex rules operations. While certainly not simple in these regards, pact magic never reaches the complexity of akashic mysteries, ethermagic or similar systems. And still, it is one of my favorite systems ever.
I am not a sentimental man, so nostalgia is not the culprit here and it took me quite a while to deduce why pact magic works so well for me. There is no simple answer. One, though, would be that much like psionics, I can see it completely replacing the standard spellcasting classes for a completely different campaign experience, one steeped in occult lore, research…and one that makes magic more dangerous, feel more forbidden, medieval. In fact, I’m regularly stealing spirits from this book when playing OSR-games, breaking them down to the simpler rules of such systems. LotFP, LL, S&W – it works and fits thematically perfectly will the often more gritty aesthetics there. This has literally transcended the bounds of its system, at least for me – something only precious few books in my vast library achieve.
At the same time, the strength of the system, its appeal, does not lie wholly in its mechanics; pact magic, to a degree, is the original occult magic, prior to Occult Adventures. In my review of Paizo’s phenomenal hardcover, I commented on the fact that I love how player agenda AND character agenda are emphasized, and how the classes have ROLEplaying potential hardcoded into their respective rules. This is, ultimately, why I adore this massive tome; I adore tactical combat and I’m the first to appreciate a well-made combat-encounter with strategically-interesting hazards etc. – I love these. I love the tactical, complex combat aspects of PFRPG. But I also adore the storytelling aspect of the game; I love good roleplaying between characters, between PCs and NPCs; I use story-rewards a lot. To me, the beauty of roleplaying games with a high rules-density lies in the blending of strategy and story-telling, in the fusion of stories and tactics. Ultimately, for me the best rules let me do either unique things in the strategy department, in the roleplaying department, or both.
Every single spirit is a bit like an unruly character that influences the PC or NPC; they all have personalities, quirks and goals, enemies – and they may grow with your PCs. When a spirit helps vanquish a certain foe after being bested by him, you have your work cut out for you as a good roleplayer; you can tweak your character with spirits and keep them perpetually fresh and interesting; perhaps your character is a teetotaler, so binding some spirits may be something he’d be loathe to do; perhaps bidning one spirit and succumbing to the spirit’s influence nets you some complications…or new allies – it’s small, organically happening constellations (haha! – sorry, I’ll punch myself for that later) that make this shine as brightly for me.
There is another aspect to this book. One that perhaps bears no importance for you…but then again, I think it does.
No other system I have used has made me write this much custom material.
When, for example, Aldern Foxglove was a very popular character in my RotRL-game back in the day and then died (trying to be SPOILER-less), I promptly had him come back as a spirit with peculiar personalities, fluid constellations and abilities depending on the dominant personality; when my PCs liberated the ghost lions from the Ghostlord in Red Hand of Doom, I made the pack return as a spirit to be bound; When Kyuss fell, he became the master of the Worm constellation. The Crimson King is a spirit in my game. So is the Dark Tower.
I'm going to start off this review by stating that this review is focused on the areas of the book I've used, or have extensively read over. There are some sections I glossed over, simply because they would never come up/effect any game I'll play. This isn't to say that these sections aren't of value, simply that they did not fit in the campaign I'm playing in.
So let us get to it, shall we?
I came to the Grimoire of Lost Souls for two things. That was the Pact Maker class and of course the spirits that they use. The pact maker class at first glance could look a little bland, however, it ends up being a solid chassis that allows for a fair amount of versatility and variance for different builds. Pact Augmentations, in particular, stand out here, as they give you a decent amount of choices to either patch up some weaknesses, or reinforce strengths when you receive them.
The secrets available to the class are somewhat hit or miss in my opinion, with only a handful that I really wanted to use. However, with the implementation of one particular secret that allows you to choose an occult feat instead, this was less of an issue. This is personal tastes, however, and I'm certain that there are those that would find many of the secrets desirable.
One thing in particular that I didn't care for, was that pact makers (and all other archetypes and prestige classes) do not automatically gain any spirits when leveling. Since the process to learn a new spirit is designed to take a few days, that means that while everyone else in your party is automatically getting new stuff, you still will have to wait a little bit, hoping that in game you're allowed the time to make the appropriate checks to get that cool new spirit you've had your eye on. This was meant to push the flavor of the class, with the intention that the GM might flesh out a miniature story of discovering this new spirit in the game. That said, my GM and I found this idea to be a bit tedious to implement into a long campaign, not wanting to add a veritable side quest every time I wanted to gain a new spirit. This, in turn, boiled the flavor away down to the mechanics, which is just rolling and trying to hit certain DCs. My GM was gracious enough to homebrew the allowance of 1 automatically gained spirit that my character is capable of using when I level. This has worked out for me so far, and with the other rules in place, has left the balance of the class undisturbed. Add to that, that I can still work to learn more spirits over time, and I'm still a happy camper.
Now onto the meat of the book. The spirits. There is a lot of flavor and heart poured into these spirits. A lot of interesting and/or fun effects. The fact that a pact maker can mix these abilities together as they progress, makes them almost a Swiss Army Knife able to pull off all sorts of different feats, potentially. From reincarnating into a fish person if you die to survive while your head is cut off, to transforming into animals to mimicking spells, and on and on. Some spirits even take major influence from characters and stories we know and love today, which just makes them that much more fun and inspirational.
There are a good chunk of spirits that are situationally useful, but there are just as much, if not more that are generally useful and versatile. I found it extremely important when playing this class to know which is which and to use the generally useful spirits unless you find yourself in the situation in which the situationally useful spirit you've learned arrives. To this point, I even went as far as to making a guide for myself to realize the difference and have found this mindset to be helpful in making sure I can feel useful and do things in any given session.
The feats provided in the book are more or less solid. Some can be situational or are meant for very specific builds, but that is to be expected and I don't blame them for it.
As far as magic items go, there weren't many that excited me, but there were a few that I liked. Those tended to be either too expensive for my character to use at the time, or simply help me manage to make good pacts with spirits. Other magic items seemed to be meant for campaigns that were steeped in this books flavor and setting, and so won't be seen in my campaign, as I'm the only one playing a pact maker, using these spirits.
I won't review prestige classes, as there weren't any that I felt interested in using, and so I only glossed over them. I also haven't used any of the spells added to the book, nor the special aging rules added to the book so far, and thus cannot give a reliable review here either. Lastly, since I chose to play a straight up pact maker, the archetypes and archetypes for other classes (such as sorcerers, fighters, rogues and such) never came up for me, and again I do not feel I can give a reliable review in this regard.
The art of the book is solid. I enjoyed the seals drawn above each spirits entry the most. To be honest, I came to this book more for the function than the flair, so I've not really bothered to look over the artwork in detail.
In the end, the pact maker character I made using this book, along with the spirits provided has been one of the most fun characters I've played in quite some time. Now, a big chunk of that enjoyment is the personality I've made for them, the setting and the campaign that my GM has developed, but the versatility of the class, and the flavor and various abilities the spirits offer are a big part as well and I can't think of wanting to play another class for this particular PC I've developed.
TL'DR: The class, spirits, and feats provided in this large book are largely very solid, and very fun to play, and very balanced, with only one or two personal qualms that were easily be mended with a very simple house ruling. Very good stuff. Would definitely recommend to others.
Loving this product and very happy to have backed it. I'm updating my handbook with the new spirits and other information.
My two major questions have to do with Researching Spirits and Knowledge Tasks. First - it appears that, if your Pactmaker doesn't complete these tasks, don't have access to another binder or tome to teach you, and doesn't come across a seal while adventuring, you won't learn any new spirits at all. Am I reading this correctly?
Second, even if you do set out to research the knowledge tasks, the DCs seem quite high early on (minimum 26, and you need to make 4 of them to learn a spirit, which appears to take several days even if you're not actively adventuring.) The book mentions getting a +5 bonus to that task every time you fail, but you can't actually retry Knowledge checks until you gain more ranks (since the check represents what you know.) This suggests that whenever you fail a specific task, you need to level up before you can try again. Am I missing something? Should Pactmakers be begging their GMs to make seals, tutors or books available? Can you take 20?
My plan right now is to make Milo of Clyde always be my first-level spirit so I at least have a reroll when trying to learn others, but it's not the most elegant solution, so I'm hoping there's something I've missed.
1) It's true - if you don't complete the knowledge tasks, you won't get any new spirits. You'll probably want to talk to your GM about how you'll be learning new spirits, although there are the notes on how to do it while adventuring. I found that it's pretty easy to say "It's basically crafting, except I'm learning new spirits instead".
2) You can retry the checks. The cumulative bonus comes from the fact that you're actively researching them and trying to get more information. To do otherwise would be a little too restrictive. XD I'd just ask if I could have a few "books about spirits" and use those to explain the research being done.
Incidentally, once you can bind third-level spirits, you can get Xalen d'Marek. Between him, the Lore Consultant constellation aspect of the Scholar, the cumulative bonus for failed checks, and the Pactmaker's Occult Knowledge ability, you should be able to rip right through the knowledge tasks.
My understanding is that while you can't retry a Knowledge check, when you're fulfilling a Knowledge Task, it's essentially a new Knowledge check every time, thus you can continue attempting to use Knowledge checks to fulfill your Knowledge Task without having to level up.
It is correct, though, that you don't learn new spirits simply by leveling up anymore.
I would personally also treat it as a new Knowledge check, but I can easily see GMs ruling the other way - particularly since I'm just trying to learn the same information as last time. What's worse is that the book says the cumulative bonus stacks "between multiple weeks." Does that mean I have to wait 7 days just to get the bonus from failing? Even the example given in the text of a Pactmaker trying to learn Aza'zati shows that she fails for an entire week before getting the bonus.
This section is a bit unclear, and I feel that any favors you need to ask the GM to grant you to make it work are only going to make it that much harder for them to sign off on you using third-party in the first place. However well-designed and fun it might be, getting some GMs to accept third party can be a pain, and now I need to also ask them to provide my character with tutors, or give me days if not weeks of campaign time to research, or stick seals into the dungeons we're going to, etc...
I personally preferred how it worked in Pact Magic Unbound where your GM could simply choose "Rare" and my Pactmaker would get a couple of different starting spirits as well as some free ones from leveling, making us a little less beholden on the GM's good graces to contribute to a party until we can find or research more. More difficult campaigns can always choose "Scarce" if they want to run hard mode, you-must-find-or-research-all-seals if they want.
Specifically, researching one of a spirit's four tasks takes eight hours of work per-level of the spirit. So, if you can do eight hours a day, then 1st-level spirits can let you do a check every day, 2nd-level spirits every two days, and so on. You can accelerate it by increasing the DC, too, which honestly isn't going to be a problem if you use the method above.
If you have a week's worth of failures, you get a bonus from that point forward as long as you're still researching the same thing. Or, to put it another way, it's impossible to fail in the long term. Sooner or later - and with the setup I mentioned above, it's probably sooner - you will be able to learn them. More likely, though, you're not even going to need the bonus from failing very often. It may not be obvious at first, but Pactmakers are really, really good at researching spirits (I can crunch some math for you, if you'd like), and get even more so over time thanks to their metric ton of knowledge boosts. I don't think it'll be too hard to actually learn the spirits you want during the course of a normal campaign, and certainly not once you get third-level spirits and can go hardcore on research during any downtime.
Of course, if you're on some sort of crazy accelerated schedule - like, the whole game takes place across ten levels in two-weeks of in-game time - then yeah, I'd just ask the GM for free spirits or gnostic tomes or something. XD But outside of those corner cases, it's honestly not going to be much of a problem.
Hmm, I think the week wording might be a remnant for a previous version where it actually did take a week for each check, before Alex lifted the magic item creation rules and adapted them. I'm not completely certain, though, and I did express similar misgivings myself earlier on, since it does make it tricky bringing in, say, a 4th-level binder since you have to work out with your GM if you should get any for free from previous research, if there are tutors you can have already purchased the knowledge from, or if you're stuck shelling out for gnostic tomes...which is already more thought than some GMs might want to put into allowing you to use a third party class or archetype.
Well, hopefully Alex will chime in the not-too-distant future to illuminate us on things, and perhaps there will be an official FAQ on the subject in the future for you to direct your hypothetical GM to? One can hope.
Tangentially, I wonder if we might get some adapted rules for fulfilling Knowledge Tasks via the research rules from Ultimate Intrigue in a future product...though I suppose it's certainly already quite possible for a GM to include that as a method for fulfilling a Knowledge Task in an appropriate library, if the GM has fully bought into pact magic for their setting.
1) It's true - if you don't complete the knowledge tasks, you won't get any new spirits. You'll probably want to talk to your GM about how you'll be learning new spirits, although there are the notes on how to do it while adventuring. I found that it's pretty easy to say "It's basically crafting, except I'm learning new spirits instead".
Which is a perfectly good way to handle it! It also gives the GM some flexibility to give you class-related rewards for completing adventures. (Like how a GM can leave scrolls for a wizard.)
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2) You can retry the checks. The cumulative bonus comes from the fact that you're actively researching them and trying to get more information. To do otherwise would be a little too restrictive. XD I'd just ask if I could have a few "books about spirits" and use those to explain the research being done.
Incidentally, once you can bind third-level spirits, you can get Xalen d'Marek. Between him, the Lore Consultant constellation aspect of the Scholar, the cumulative bonus for failed checks, and the Pactmaker's Occult Knowledge ability, you should be able to rip right through the knowledge tasks.
Yeah, it basically falls under the "If you're researching" clause of the Knowledge skill, where having the resources necessary to research lets you retry Knowledge checks as muchy as you want.
And Xalen IS really good at helping you research occult lore. Almost like he was some kind of occult scholar in life. ;-)
Hmm, I think the week wording might be a remnant for a previous version where it actually did take a week for each check, before Alex lifted the magic item creation rules and adapted them. I'm not completely certain, though, and I did express similar misgivings myself earlier on, since it does make it tricky bringing in, say, a 4th-level binder since you have to work out with your GM if you should get any for free from previous research, if there are tutors you can have already purchased the knowledge from, or if you're stuck shelling out for gnostic tomes...which is already more thought than some GMs might want to put into allowing you to use a third party class or archetype.
Well, hopefully Alex will chime in the not-too-distant future to illuminate us on things, and perhaps there will be an official FAQ on the subject in the future for you to direct your hypothetical GM to? One can hope.
Tangentially, I wonder if we might get some adapted rules for fulfilling Knowledge Tasks via the research rules from Ultimate Intrigue in a future product...though I suppose it's certainly already quite possible for a GM to include that as a method for fulfilling a Knowledge Task in an appropriate library, if the GM has fully bought into pact magic for their setting.
After reading the section over, I have decided that "week" should be "attempt." Basically, it's like a Craft check. You research for X days, where X is 8 hours per spirit level, and attempt a check. If you fail the check, you get a cumulative bonus the next time that you try that same check for that same component for the spirit you were researching.
Specifically, researching one of a spirit's four tasks takes eight hours of work per-level of the spirit. So, if you can do eight hours a day, then 1st-level spirits can let you do a check every day, 2nd-level spirits every two days, and so on. You can accelerate it by increasing the DC, too, which honestly isn't going to be a problem if you use the method above.
That's 8 hours per task if you're not actively adventuring though, and it also assumes you succeed every time. Considering that you probably won't have downtime right at the start of a campaign and you're looking at a minimum DC 26 check at 1st level, that's definitely not a given. Then every failure adds at least another day, more than that if you're trying to adventure at the same time...
I definitely appreciate the "fail bonus" - it reminds me of Diablo's "pity timer" for legendaries, where the rising drop rate with every failure guarantees you'll succeed eventually. It's rough though when even the example shows how likely you are to fail and need more than one week of research. Most APs have multiple encounters happening in the first week (RotR for example), during which time you'll have been stuck with a single spirit and constellation.
Alexander Augunas wrote:
After reading the section over, I have decided that "week" should be "attempt." Basically, it's like a Craft check. You research for X days, where X is 8 hours per spirit level, and attempt a check. If you fail the check, you get a cumulative bonus the next time that you try that same check for that same component for the spirit you were researching.
That's great news - I'll be sure to add that note as a clarification.
Yeah, the start of a given campaign is always a bit rough for research. It really does smooth out pretty fast, but I wouldn't hesitate to ask the GM for a single spirit of each new level reached if the campaign hasn't had downtime for research.
Fortunately, most of the second-level spirits aren't drastically more powerful than the first-level ones - it's not like the difference between spell levels. And while choices are nice, Pactmakers don't start binding additional spirits until 4th level... by which point they'll be able to start making those research checks pretty reliably*. You're not necessarily "missing" power for your character if you only have one spirit until then - at worst, you're rather like a wizard who knows more spells than they can prepare. (It is important to pick a good, generally useful spirit as your first one, though.)
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*I'm bored, so let's actually break this down. XD Let's say you have an 18 in Int and a 16 in Charisma by fourth level.
You get 4 points to knowledge checks for your stat mod, +3 for the class skill, and +4 from investing your nice amount of skill points into the relevant Knowledge checks (because you know how important this is for you). That brings us to a base of +11.
You also add your Occult Knowledge bonus, and because you're trying to fulfill a spirit's knowledge tasks, that's another +4. You invested one of the Binder Secrets you have into Revelation of Brilliance, letting you add your Charisma modifier (another +3), bringing us to a bonus of +18 for the check... and that's not counting any Aid Another bonuses, skill-boosting spells, or other benefits from a friendly member of your party.
Since you're starting off with Milo of Clyde - who is pretty decent for a first-level spirit, I might add - you get a Scholar constellation aspect, and you pick the one that lets you reroll. That means you'll probably hit at least a 10 on each check you make. Because you're fourth level, you can only research up to second-level spirits (DC 27).
Just from you, though, your average result is already 28 - which you have two rolls for! - and you'll continue to get better at knowledge checks faster than the difficulty grows. Failures can still happen, but it won't be too often - and once you level up and get Xalen, you'll be even more secure.
Point is, in the short-term having just one spirit isn't a real problem because you can only bind one anyway, and by the time the long-term happens, you'll be well-prepared to shred through the checks and get any spirit you want pretty fast. ^^
Revelation of Brilliance at first level is definitely a good idea. Does it let you add both Int and Cha to knowledge checks, or does it merely swap the stat?
Getting a 16 and an 18 by 4th level isn't exactly easy; just two 16s at 1st level uses up the entirety of your 20 point buy, leaving a 10 in your Con and Dex, both of which you'll likely need more of if you plan to survive to reach 4th level. More realistically you're probably looking at 14 Int at most, and that's without considering a gish Pactmaker who wants some physical stats.
There's also the issue of getting through 4 levels with a single spirit and constellation to begin with. Milo isn't particularly strong; even in a game with firearms, he doesn't give you a lot to work with offensively besides basic proficiency, while in a game without firearms, you already have the crossbow proficiency he grants. But picking a different spirit locks you out of the Scholar aspects.
I wouldn't mind even just starting the game with 2 spirits. You could use Milo during low-combat days and then pick a more combat oriented one like Forash or Marat to be your combat spirit. Starting with 3 spirits would be even better, but 2 could work.
I’m 100% sure that both Alex and Dario both want owners of their book to have fun with the material, so if a particular aspect, such as the number of spirits known, is potentially causing stress or unhappiness, change it/discuss it with the GM! They went with a particular artistic vision for the Grimoire, but you don’t have to agree with it or use it.
For those people who only have the Grimoire, here is something from the Pact Magic Unbound, Volume 1 (page 42):
Spoiler:
How Many Spirits Do I Know?
Unlike many other magical arts, pact magic has no tables or charts that indicate how many spirits a binder has at his or her disposal. The number of spirits known depends solely on the GM’s campaign in regards to how available pact magic is. Refer to the options below to adjudicate how many spirits a binder knows.
Pact Magic is Scarce: … In such a world, a binder starts play knowing a single 1st-level spirit of the player’s choice and gains no additional spirits knowledge when leveling up. Such binders must scour the globe in search of forgotten ruins and occult shrines in order to learn the spirits’ seals and ceremonies. …
Pact Magic is Rare: … They start play knowing four 1st-level spirits and add one spirit per binder level beyond 1st to their list of known spirits. As in scarce settings, the knowledge of additional spirits can be gained through study and adventure, and binders are not restricted in the total number of spirits they may learn.
Pact Magic is Prominent: ... In such a setting, a binder has easy access to spirit lore and automatically knows the seal and ceremony of every spirit up to his or her maximum spirit level.
Note that it was only in Pact Magic Unbound, Volume 2 that they expanded on the Knowledge Tasks material, to help provide context to the information above.
Does Paizo has made a pact with Radiance House and the GoLS print will only be available for sale here or for at a later date it will appear at OBS (maybe a softcover edition?) or at amazon?
Can someone give me an idea of how this plays? I have it and have read it but don't quite grok how it will play. I guess I'm looking for specific examples in play of what a pact binder did. What role did they play in the party and how did they stack up against the other standard character classes?
Can someone give me an idea of how this plays? I have it and have read it but don't quite grok how it will play. I guess I'm looking for specific examples in play of what a pact binder did. What role did they play in the party and how did they stack up against the other standard character classes?
Have you ever played the Binder from D&D 3.5's Tome of Magic? It's basically that, but powered up to keep pace with Pathfinder's higher floor.
It's a very fun class; they can change the role they play in the party drastically on a day-by-day basis, which makes them a perfect 5th man. Need an additional sneak, or an off-tank, or a backup caster, they can do all that. The downside is also fun - the spirits you take on have their own ideas about what you should be doing with your time, so if you make a poor pact the GM gets to mess with you in subtle ways.
As for what they excel at - you need high Charisma to be a good Pactmaker, and they are very practiced at negotiating, so they make a very useful party face. I have a handbook to the class that I'm (slowly) updating with all the new content that should help people figure out what they can do.
Well, if you're wondering how the Pactmaker is supposed to play... the thing to remember is that the Pactmaker is an insanely flexible class, all things considered. You can build one into almost any role in the party, and even somewhat change that role from day to day.
In play, it might look something like this:
You're a 2nd Level Pactmaker who's had the time to research a few spirits. On a normal 'adventuring' day, you often bind Aza'zati, who you know to be something of an adventurer spirit. The acid cone is pretty decent against the enemies you're currently facing, and you occasionally make use of the improvements to Bluff and Diplomacy (alas, just +1 at this level, but still), the ability to sniff out gold (which you use to make sure your group picked up all the treasure), and the natural armor bonus because you're often at the front lines right now. You also took the Viper familiar instead of the ability to shrink yourself, because familiars are handy and size-changing just wasn't coming up a lot.
On days where you expect to see serious combat, though, you bind General Hessant instead. Knocking foes prone has been pretty handy as an opening move when it works, and the magical enhancement for your longsword makes you just a little bit better - especially when your dice are rolling well enough to let you daze your foes.
Basically, each spirit is associated with a particular kind of playstyle, and when playing any kind of Binder, your goal is to try and figure out which spirits will be most helpful in a day. In that regard, it's a lot like a Wizard picking their spells. Chances are you'll usually default to something generally useful, but you'll work on getting other options both for higher levels (when Pactmakers can bind more spirits at once) and for different situations (like when you know you'll be facing social events instead of dungeon crawling).
Because pact makers are so flexible, they usually work best in consultation with the rest of the party. You might agree that more damage would be good on one day, more healing on another day, and so on. With the right selection of spirits, you can be what your group needs you to be. Or, y'know, just pick a role you want and get all the spirits related to that. It's up to you. XD
Pactmakers aren't the most powerful class, but they are quite probably the most flexible. If you're smart about building your character, you should be just fine playing them in a normal group. (It really does help once your options open up, though, and you can really start to make use of your choices.)
Can someone give me an idea of how this plays? I have it and have read it but don't quite grok how it will play. I guess I'm looking for specific examples in play of what a pact binder did. What role did they play in the party and how did they stack up against the other standard character classes?
As the others have said, the class is very flexible. You will need to generally know what you'll be facing to get its maximum usefulness, but if you select spirits with (largely) generally useful effects, that shouldn't be an issue.
An example of something my character often does. My favorite spirit combination as a lv. 8 pact maker currently, is Loh'Moi, the Mad Geometer and Fey Baraddu, the Beast in the Woods. This allows me to shapeshift into various animals lasting as long as have a pact with Fey Baraddu, teleport, squeeze into places two categories smaller than I normally could, fire a magic missile-esque laser (that I can use while shapeshifted) and if I want to give up some extra teleportation utility for a vestigial bond, I can also have a weaker eidolon like those that summoner's use.
All of that is from 2, lv. 4 spirits. Add in the fact I can use a back up spirit for 8 min. a day due to a feat/secret, have fairly high knowledge checks due to revelation of brilliance and with some pact augmentations I can make a reasonable (not the best) front liner, and it's a class I've enjoyed quite a bit.
I have an odd question, are there any particular spirits a pactmaker can bind that would work well with Anajira the Prideless King? I have the book myself, but I never seem to find a good combination with him.
I do have Tome of Magic but never got to play that or the other variants.
How did it work for research and the binding parts? Is that daily? Or only when you want to change? How were poor bindings handled?
I guess I'm also asking if this was more role playing style and done at the table? Or if it was behind the scenes with the DM?
Again, thanks!
At first, I RP'd the binding of spirits quite a bit and while I still do it on occasion, I try not to let it clog up my GMs narrative too much or hog the "spotlight" from the other players for something they'll likely only marginally care about; so nowadays I'll say which spirits I intend to try and make a pact with, roll for my binding checks and go from there. Again, on occasion, if I come up with interesting flavor for the pact, or the ritual itself for the pact requires something that may be odd (which can often be the case), I'll RP it out a little bit at least.
As for researching spirits, that has been very mechanical for me, with almost no RP there. Save for the GM tantalizing me with gnostic tomes (think books that teach you a spirit) once in the campaign that I happily RP'd along with, this has been a behind the scenes, do quick rolls to see how it goes sort of deal as long as my character had proper down time, for me personally. That's just my GM and me though. He's running a custom campaign and the particular setting may not be quite conducive to the general flavor of researching spirits.
Haven't done a poor binding yet. But that's because I avoid it, and make sure I can hit the rolls consistently. Green Glomairah might eventually destroy the streak though.
I have an odd question, are there any particular spirits a pactmaker can bind that would work well with Anajira the Prideless King? I have the book myself, but I never seem to find a good combination with him.
Anijara felt like the "get in your face" type when reading him, so I'd probably either go with a spirit like Tyrant Cromwell to further enhance the "get in your face" ability or improve ways to get in the opponents face with spirits like Loh'Moi, Al'Kra or even Marat (in that order). Another good combo could be Anijara and Vandrae. Vandrae would help in dealing with casters potentially and is quite a good, well rounded spirit. Though her personality influence may not mesh well with Anijara's.
I have an odd question, are there any particular spirits a pactmaker can bind that would work well with Anajira the Prideless King? I have the book myself, but I never seem to find a good combination with him.
Anijara felt like the "get in your face" type when reading him, so I'd probably either go with a spirit like Tyrant Cromwell to further enhance the "get in your face" ability or improve ways to get in the opponents face with spirits like Loh'Moi, Al'Kra or even Marat (in that order). Another good combo could be Anijara and Vandrae. Vandrae would help in dealing with casters potentially and is quite a good, well rounded spirit. Though her personality influence may not mesh well with Anijara's.
Haven't done a poor binding yet. But that's because I avoid it, and make sure I can hit the rolls consistently. Green Glomairah might eventually destroy the streak though.
There's a feat in the book that keeps you from falling under their influence unless you fail the check by 5 or more. Speaking personally though, getting Influenced is half the fun, and it makes my GM like the system more too.
Haven't done a poor binding yet. But that's because I avoid it, and make sure I can hit the rolls consistently. Green Glomairah might eventually destroy the streak though.
There's a feat in the book that keeps you from falling under their influence unless you fail the check by 5 or more. Speaking personally though, getting Influenced is half the fun, and it makes my GM like the system more too.
That's right. I forgot about that feat. Not sure I'm going to bother picking it up though.
Also, that's fair. I might be more open to the influences with another character, but this character's personality wouldn't allow it if he has the ability to avoid it haha.
And yes, you can use the spirits herein as guidance, tweak and reskin them for a lot of purposes. Don’t like a legend or a particular spirit? Chances are that you won’t have to do a lot of writing, just replace an ability and come up with a new legend. Done. When one of my players happened upon notes on a blood-drinking lizardfolk thing from ages long past, I took N’aylia the first vampire, tweaked her abilities a bit more towards the lizardfolk-esque and there we go. I actually improvised that reskin on the fly while GMing and nobody noticed.
Or, you know, you can pretty much write infinite amounts of new ones, based on your campaign. I have psionic spirits, akashic spirits, ethermagic-spirits…you name the subsystem and I pretty much have a spirit for it. Why? Because the engine per se is simple. You can easily complicate it in a vast variety of ways by grafting pretty much anything on top of it, with only your own skills as the limit – and the glue that holds all together is this basic system, one that is defined by choice, yes…but more than that, it is defined by the stories you tell with it.
A haunt put to rest? Potential spirit. An outsider slain? Potential spirit? Anything weird, from mages that fell through space and time to sentient constructs? Potential spirits. Fey kicked out of their courts/dethroned fey queens? Potential spirits. Defeated campaign endbosses? Potential spirits in the next one. Paladin PC that sacrificed his soul to seal the demon-lord in an artifact? Potential spirit. Endzeitgeist, a zeitgeist-like spirit of the end-times? Potential spirit. In fact, the book does an amazing job at showcasing the sheer infinite breadth of themes that you can cover with these spirits.
Pact magic is a nice, well-made system on its own – probably one that deserves, when divorced from all flavor, a verdict of 4.5 to 5 stars, somewhere in that vicinity. But this would not do the system the least bit of justice. Dario Nardi and Alexander Agunuas deliver with pact magic perhaps the most literally inspiring system I have ever encountered for a d20-based game. Its genius does not necessarily lie within its rules, but within how it is an incredibly potent narrative instrument, how it can change the depiction of a fantasy world to make magic feel more magical, how it rewards customization and making the system your own more than any comparable system I know. I guarantee that, when using the system thus, you will have perhaps the most impactful alternate system ever on your hands.
In case you haven’t noticed by now: I absolutely LOVE this system. Even my reviewer-bot-persona can’t really adequately complain about it, mainly because separating the fluff from the crunch divests the system of its core principle – it is, frankly, impossible to rate this fairly as anything but the sum of its parts, and that sum is a thing of absolute, inspiring beauty. This book will grace my shelves for years to come; it has already spawned more ideas than I’m ever likely to put to paper. It is, in short, the streamlined, improved heir of the old system; tighter and more concise, yet without losing any component of its uniqueness.
This is one of the most inspiring books, quite literally, that you can purchase for PFRPG. My final verdict will clock in at 5 stars + seal of approval. This is also, big surprise there, a candidate for my Top Ten of 2017. It also receives the EZG Essentials tag as a book I consider a must-own expansion for the system.
Now, can we have an Occult Adventures/Horror Adventures-crossover sequel or do I have to write the spirits myself? Who am I kidding – I’m going to write them either way!
Reviewed first on endzeitgeist.com, then submitted to Nerdtrek and GMS magazine and posted here, on OBS, etc.
Out of curiosity, how does it compare with the Medium from Occukt Adventures?
And is the content in this book usable with the Occult Adventures Medium?
In my opinion, the medium doesn't really compare, its spirits are fairly generic as 'champion' or 'trickster', while each of the spirits a binder can make a pact with has their own unique abilities, name, history, and so on and so forth, though of course the latter stuff can be modified if need be. And instead of losing control of your character, there are specific forms of influence the spirit can have you.
It's certainly usable with Occult Adventures, but even though it was finalized semi-recently, the bulk of the material was written before Occult Adventures existed, so there's no specific meshing, though I still hold out hopes for a future expansion offering more interaction with Paizo hardcovers that have come out since then.
Aye, seconded. The main draw of Pact magic lies in the way in which it can relatively easily be expanded and in the colorful spirits themselves, whereas the medium is defined more by its more classic way in which it uses the rules.
Pathfinder Adventure Path, Lost Omens, Rulebook, Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
Thanks for the answers! The pactmaker sounds like what I wanted to the Medium to be like...
One follow up question: how do they compare, power-level-wise? I.e., is a game with both the Pactmaker and the Medium one that would still be well-balanced. Or does the Pactmaker a strictly more powerful class?
The medium is basically a class with different "modes" you choose via spirits - the spirits of the medium are hardcoded into the class.
The pactmaker can have up to 4 different spirits at once at higher levels; these come in a wide variety of power (level 1 - 9), so there'll be more combos possible. That being said, the pactmaker is limited by spirits known, which makes limiting the class VERY easy for the GM. Generally, no spirit should break your game, balance-wise. At least I haven't had issues with the system in my games; if a spirit doesn't fit the game, excluding it doesn't break the class and can be likened to not allowing a spell or archetype. Similarly, as noted in my review, it's pretty easy to design new ones and graft other systems to pact magic - I have vigilante-style spirits, ethermagic and truenaming spirits, etc. in my game, for example.
The medium is basically a class with different "modes" you choose via spirits - the spirits of the medium are hardcoded into the class.
The pactmaker can have up to 4 different spirits at once at higher levels; these come in a wide variety of power (level 1 - 9), so there'll be more combos possible. That being said, the pactmaker is limited by spirits known, which makes limiting the class VERY easy for the GM. Generally, no spirit should break your game, balance-wise. At least I haven't had issues with the system in my games; if a spirit doesn't fit the game, excluding it doesn't break the class and can be likened to not allowing a spell or archetype. Similarly, as noted in my review, it's pretty easy to design new ones and graft other systems to pact magic - I have vigilante-style spirits, ethermagic and truenaming spirits, etc. in my game, for example.
tl;dr: Very different classes, imho.
So...when can we expect the release of an Endzeitgeist product with some of these new spirits? :D
The Pactmaker generally isn't super-powerful, but it is super-flexible... assuming you know a fair number of spirits, at least. Basically, every Spirit is geared around a certain theme and/or playstyle. Some are aquatic, some are combat-focused, some do defense or healing or information-gathering... between that and things like the Constellation powers and Pact Augmentations, I'm comfortable saying that the Pactmaker is one of the most flexible classes in the game, especially if you get into spirit combos. There are some nasty combinations a Pactmaker can pull. XD Seriously, whatever role you want to play, the Pactmaker can probably do it. Plus, the book has lots of archetypes.
Even so, most of the spirits aren't overly dangerous by themselves. You might get a couple of feats and some weapon proficiencies, maybe frequent uses of a decent SLA... but it's really not likely to be game-breaking, and as EZG noted, it's pretty easy for the GM to just nix any spirit they don't want in the game.
Adventure Path Charter Subscriber; Pathfinder Starfinder Adventure Path Subscriber
So Endzeitgeist any chance we will see some of those extra spirits that you wrote? I am most interested in the Aldern Foxglove one. But also the psionic, akashic & ethermagic ones.
Well, never say never, as they say. I most certainly could translate and clean up the spirits in question and may do so, either as a private commissioned design or for a future project...or just for the hell of it, if I have some time on my hands.
Depends on the spirit. For the most part, I found adjusting the flavor pretty easy, but I know that one of my designer-colleagues has struggled there. It depends on your individual skills.
I’m extremely interested in finding out if there’s any chance of a follow-up performance for Pathfinder’s Second edition. Any plans on another Kickstarter or, dare I dream, any chance Paizo might pick your brains if they decide to update the Occult Medium class?
I’m extremely interested in finding out if there’s any chance of a follow-up performance for Pathfinder’s Second edition. Any plans on another Kickstarter or, dare I dream, any chance Paizo might pick your brains if they decide to update the Occult Medium class?
There ARE plans, but they involve me publishing them under Everybody Games rather than Radiance House. Dario (Radiance House's publisher) has decided to do a lot of globetrotting and has downsized his publishing to mostly focus around his day job (neuroscience stuff). I got his blessings to carry on pact magic, sans a lot of the IP I don't own.
I’m extremely interested in finding out if there’s any chance of a follow-up performance for Pathfinder’s Second edition. Any plans on another Kickstarter or, dare I dream, any chance Paizo might pick your brains if they decide to update the Occult Medium class?
There ARE plans, but they involve me publishing them under Everybody Games rather than Radiance House. Dario (Radiance House's publisher) has decided to do a lot of globetrotting and has downsized his publishing to mostly focus around his day job (neuroscience stuff). I got his blessings to carry on pact magic, sans a lot of the IP I don't own.
