Pathfinder Campaign Setting: Aquatic Adventures (PFRPG)

3.80/5 (based on 6 ratings)
Pathfinder Campaign Setting: Aquatic Adventures (PFRPG)
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Dive into Adventure!

There's plenty of adventure hidden beneath the gentle tidal cycles and crashing waves of Golarion. Discover the rich ecologies and complex societies hidden in the briny depths of the oceans and seas. In this book you can learn more about merfolk nations, the dangerous sahuagin, peaceful aquatic humanoids, and the aquatic terrors that wage war against them. Dare deadly environments, explore strange underwater cities, and find lost treasures within these pages.

This book also provides a wealth of rules for underwater combat and ways for terrestrial adventurers to adapt to aquatic environs, including new archetypes, feats, and magic items. Dive in to underwater adventure!

Inside this book you'll find:

  • A thorough gazetteer of Golarion's five oceans that explores the various points of interest and conflicts between those who make these bodies of water their home.
  • A look at Golarion's seas and their inhabitants, as well as strange treasures that can be found within their depths.
  • An expansion of rules for underwater combat that clarifies those presented in the Pathfinder RPG Core Rulebook and introduces new challenges to consider.
  • Dozens of new archetypes, class features, feats, spells, and items both magical and mundane that players can use to prepare their characters for adventures beneath the waves.

Pathfinder Campaign Setting: Aquatic Adventures is intended for use with the Pathfinder campaign setting, but can be easily adapted to any fantasy world.

ISBN-13: 978-1-60125-944-8

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

Hero Lab Online
Fantasy Grounds Virtual Tabletop
Archives of Nethys

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Indispensable for Aquatic Encounters

5/5

It's fair to say that aquatic combat is complex and cumbersome to handle in Pathfinder: dealing with the shift to three-dimensions is hard to track on a grid, there are special rules for different types of weapons, the constant need for Swim checks to maneuver (or avoid sinking), tracking of how long a character can hold their breath, and much more. If it's a situation that only pops up on isolated occasions (diving to the bottom of a pool in a dungeon, for example), many GMs will just handwave it. But for campaigns set in or around rivers, lakes, and oceans, hand-waving the aquatic combat rules makes aquatic encounters less special, aquatic monsters less threatening, and character options designed for such a situation irrelevant.

Aquatic Adventures does a great job explaining and supplementing the rules for aquatic encounters as presented in the Core Rulebook. I'd consider it indispensable for adventures set in places like the River Kingdoms or for something like the Ruins of Azlant adventure path. Only about a third of the book is rules "crunch", with most of the chapters devoted to crunch-free (but extremely flavourful!) descriptions of the different oceans and seas of Golarion. I'll go through the chapters one by one, but first, we have to give praise to that amazing cover--that's the sort of thing that should be a poster. The art is reprinted on the inside back cover, while the inside front cover is a sort of "in-game" map showing the different oceans and seas in the game world (it's startling to remember just how small the Inner Sea region is compared to the rest of Golarion we rarely see). The overall layout and interior art of the book is very well done.

INTRODUCTION (2 pages)

This is a short, lyrical overview of oceans and their dangers. There's nothing wrong with it, but it's inessential.

ANTARKOS OCEAN (4 pages)

This is the great southern ocean of Golarion. The name is a bit too much on the nose, because the "Antarkos Ocean" has freezing waters, the danger of icebergs, fog, and so forth. The description is very well done, and makes the prospects of exploring the ocean and the ice sheet of the south pole the sort of thing to fill PCs with dread. There are some great bits of setting lore, like a mysterious race of dream-powered giants and a colony of kalo. In addition, there are tons of great adventure hooks to explain why the PCs would want to come here in the first place.

ARCADIAN OCEAN (4 pages)

The Arcadian Ocean separates the continent of Avistan (where most Pathfinder adventures are set) from the rarely-seen continent of Arcadia. The ocean here is filled with pirates, submerged ruins, and lost magics. This is where Ruins of Azlant takes place. Again, a lot of great adventure hooks to explain why PCs would try to cross such treacherous waters.

EMBARAL OCEAN (4 pages)

The Embaral Ocean is a "marine desert", which I didn't realise was a real thing. There's no aquatic life at all, nor is there any wind or currents to make journeys easier. It's an interesting idea in concept, though I'd have to see some adventures using it to really get a sense of whether it would work in practice.

OBARI OCEAN (4 pages)

The Obari Ocean borders Casmaron (and Vudra), and features occasional terrible storms. At this point, I notice that it's hard for the writers to make descriptions of different oceans sound interesting--"water be water", after all. There's something about an ice forest which sounds like a cool concept.

OKAIYO OCEAN (4 pages)

This is a pretty standard ocean, distinctive only by the presence of a mighty sahuagin empire.

GOLARION'S SEAS (18 pages)

This section includes two pages each on the following seas: the Castrovin, the Fever, the Inner, the Ivory, the Shining, the Sightless, the Songil, the Steaming, and the Valashmai. Each entry includes a brief summary, then longer passages on characteristics, denizens, treasures, and a notable geographical feature. It might sound bland, but there's a lot of exciting ideas here like the Razored Labyrinth of the Castrovin Sea (a maze of rocks sure to sink any ship that tries to pass through without a map) or the epic kaiju (and more) of the Valashmai Sea. Devotees of the Inner Sea will find a bit on different countries' navies.

AQUATIC RULES (22 pages)

As I mentioned in the opening, this section is indispensable. It contains clarifications and additions for things like buoyancy, fighting underwater, how various types of spells function, Perception and Survival checks, drowning, pressure and temperature, and more. If you want to do underwater combat well, this section will answer most of your questions. It contains some advice on "thinking in three dimensions", though I'd suggest this may be a trial-and-error thing for most groups. The section also includes several new archetypes and class options--most of them are really good at making underwater exploration and combat more feasible for PCs. For example, there's an "aquanaut" archetype for fighters, an "underwater" combat style for rangers, lots of good mundane equipment, the "aquadynamic focus" feat, and some great spells like free swim and lead anchor (potentially really nasty!). Melee characters will appreciate the underwater special weapon ability. There's a ton of new options here, and the vast majority are solid in terms of power versus cost.

And that's Aquatic Adventures. It's one of those books that's easy to overlook until some goober falls off a bridge, tips over a canoe, or decides to become a pirate--but when you need it, you really need it.


Worth the price for the Aquatic Rules chapter alone

4/5

First things first: this is Campaign Setting, so if you bought it to power up your PC and found out that many options are so narrow that they work best for NPCs ... well, you get what you deserve for not reading my review.

Second thing is that there are some very nice things for PCs here. I kind of wish that some of the stuff here was included in Blood of the Seas, but that ship has sailed. AHAHAHAHAHAHAHA. You got the joke, right? Right?

Anyway, apart from rules material, this book has two things going for it. One are the chapters on Golarion's oceans and seas which, while evocative and well written, are somewhat brief. They're more primers than full descriptions, so as usual with Paizo, there's a lot for a GM to fill out with her or his imagination.

Now the big kahuna is the Aquatic Rules chapter which gathers, updates and expands the rules for aquatic movement and actions. Why is this such a great deal? Well it's because these rules are horribly spread across the core rulebook thanks to the CRB inheriting less-than-stellar layout of the 3.5 PHB. Here you have everything in one place - movement, buoyancy, combat, spellcasting, drowning AND the creme de la creme, some guidance as to how do spells work underwater. My snarky tongue-in-cheek argument about lightning bolts underwater suddenly holds far less water than it used to. AHAHAHAHAHAH! Also a joke! C'mon, you did get this one, too? Let me know in comments below.


Okay, but not amazing

2/5

The book does what it says on the tin, but nearly all of the new rules elements are unusable in all but the most heavily water focused games. An example of this is the Drowned Channeler Spiritualist, who has to be within 25 feet of a major body of water to gain /any/ benefit from Shared Consciousness. Not any water, not even a lake or major river - it has to be something on the scale of an ocean or sea.

If this was an exception and not the rule, I could give this three stars - but this book is sadly not so. Nearly every rules element has no effect outside of water, some actively penalize you for being on land; unless you regularly play entirely-aquatic games, skip this book and save yourself $16+


Life Is Better Down Where It's Wetter

4/5

A good solid book about Golarion's oceans and seas and it also has some nice additional/expanded under water rules. While I do like some of the additional class options, spells, etc. I would have preferred less crunch for more world building.


Excellent, although too many rules for my liking

4/5

I find this book very hard to rank in the usual one to five star way.

I enjoyed the first forty pages immensely. They give a really good survey of the oceans and seas of Golarion including plenty of adventure hooks, details of who lives where and everything you'd want from an introductory 'gazetteer' of such large areas.

My main complaint is that each section is too short and further that there's no discussion of the bodies of water to be found in the Darklands. Given the importance of underworld regions to a fantasy world, the latter in particular feels like a glaring omission.

The reason for that is no doubt the perceived need to include the mechanics in the latter part of the book. I suspect that these rules elements are well done and probably even necessary (I don't buy the campaign books for rules, so I haven't done more than flick through the later parts of the book) - nonetheless, I wish they'd been provided in some other way. It feels to me that this isn't really a campaign setting book, but rather two thirds of a campaign book plus some rules stuff.

Given all of that, I still consider this good value and it's a welcome entry in the line. I'd just personally prefer that the flavor proportion of these books be given greater weight.


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Paizo Employee Developer

2 people marked this as a favorite.
Dragon78 wrote:

I wonder if merfolk will get to be on the cover art.

Will the naiad from B6 get a mention in this book? Will any water fey in general get mentioned?

No merfolk on the cover, but there is at least one merfolk illustration in the interior art. No naiad appearances as this book spends its time talking about bigger bodies of water than those live in.


Well that answers both of those questions, thanks Mr. Daigle.


1 person marked this as a favorite.
Adam Daigle wrote:
Dragon78 wrote:

I wonder if merfolk will get to be on the cover art.

Will the naiad from B6 get a mention in this book? Will any water fey in general get mentioned?

No merfolk on the cover, but there is at least one merfolk illustration in the interior art. No naiad appearances as this book spends its time talking about bigger bodies of water than those live in.

A naiad once told me, "yo momma so fat, she lives in the ocean."

:-(


Well now that I think about it, naiads are found in streams, rivers, and waterfalls:)

Hopefully there will be more options to protect from pressure damage.


More spells with the water descriptor, please!

Lantern Lodge

2 people marked this as a favorite.

Yep - more non-ice water spells please for us tropical aquamancers :-)


Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber; Pathfinder Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Roleplaying Game, Starfinder Society Subscriber

Very excited about this book, I just hope we can get more at some point. 30 pages isn't very much considering that whole races and nations exist in the Oceans. Although to be fair I understand that detailing the underwater nations, cities, races, and cultures is similar to exploring the other continents. It's such a big topic!

Dark Archive

1 person marked this as a favorite.

I wouldn't have minded a 96 page or even hardcover version of this book considering the huge broadband it has to cover and the fact that it is the only Campaign Setting book coming out in the next 7 months.

Can we get some little previews, please? :-)


Marco Massoudi wrote:

I wouldn't have minded a 96 page or even hardcover version of this book considering the huge broadband it has to cover and the fact that it is the only Campaign Setting book coming out in the next 7 months.

Can we get some little previews, please? :-)

If it were a hardcover, it wouldn't be a Campaign Setting book anymore, though, and you'd be posting this on the next book in the line! It's probably a bit early for previews, though.


1 person marked this as a favorite.
Pathfinder Maps, Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Maps, Starfinder Roleplaying Game, Starfinder Society Subscriber; Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber

Inner Sea Gods and Inner Sea Races are hardback books in the Campaign Setting line.


David knott 242 wrote:

Inner Sea Gods and Inner Sea Races are hardback books in the Campaign Setting line.

Huh, didn't realize that.

The More You Know!


Hopefully there is some more Lake Encarthan lore for the upcoming Irongfang Invasion AP, as well as for those of us running Nirmathas based campaigns.

Silver Crusade

Adam Daigle wrote:
The Gold Sovereign wrote:
Does it comes with the classic bestiary section?
There's no bestiary chapter in this book. Sorry.

So we'll need to wait for Aquatic...uh...Worlds?


"Aquatic Worlds" would make more sense for monster stats, if such a product existed for Pathfinder.

Silver Crusade

Pathfinder Adventure Path Subscriber

Ruins of Azlant will likely have a ton of aquatic monsters, in any case.


1 person marked this as a favorite.

Well it might have plenty of aboleth.

Dark Archive

OneTrueBaldo wrote:
I really hope to see new discoveries for aquatic alchemists. 'Gills', 'Deepsea Mutogen' and 'Pill Extract', maybe?

An underwater tweak on bombs might be useful, since throwing stuff isn't as viable underwater. Some sort of pressurized valve that squirts the 'bomb' in a line (with 'splash' damage affecting those along the path, perhaps) might be a way to twist it up for an underwater alchemist (with the base damage being acid or electrical, instead of fire).

There are a few classes that could use a little thought as to how they'd operate underwater. Aquatic wizards could use something more thoughtful than 'waterproof spellbooks' (particularly those from aquatic races which might not even have 'books' or paper or any of that), and aquatic weapon styles focused around Piercing weapons like spears (most useful underwater, compared to the limited effects of Slashing or Bludgeoning weapons) for Fighters, etc. would seem a useful theme to cover.

Presumably, any race or individual capable of breathing underwater would be able to vocalize and produce verbal spell components, so that, at least, shouldn't generally be an issue, but there's plenty of other stuff that could use a think. (Do aquatic race barbarians or monks or clerics with the travel domain swim faster, for instance? What's the merfolk monk version of slow fall?)


Dragon78 wrote:
Adam Daigle wrote:
The Gold Sovereign wrote:
Does it comes with the classic bestiary section?
There's no bestiary chapter in this book. Sorry.
Wow, that is disappointing hear:(

I'm not too disappointed. We'll still be getting new critters in each installment of the Ruins of Azlant AP.

Dark Archive

Fourshadow wrote:
Dragon78 wrote:
Well I am not surprised that this book doesn't have info on lakes since it is focused on oceans and seas.

One can have Aquatic Adventures in lakes and rivers... I do wish Lake Encarthan was in this...perhaps it could get its own book? Or include it with other lakes like the Lake of Mists and Veils. A Lake book or rivers and lakes sounds great to me.

Still excited to see this one as well.

I too wish for a book on Lake Encarthan or a full adventure path.


1 person marked this as a favorite.
Pathfinder Adventure Path Subscriber

If there's any connection at all to the Mordant Spire I'll definitely bite for this one.


1 person marked this as a favorite.

You know what I wish they'd put in that I know they're not going to? A mythic path for aquatics. Think about it, becoming a mythic lord of the seas or being able to split the ocean. That would be amazing, but it's never going to happen.


1 person marked this as a favorite.
Kobolum wrote:
You know what I wish they'd put in that I know they're not going to? A mythic path for aquatics. Think about it, becoming a mythic lord of the seas or being able to split the ocean. That would be amazing, but it's never going to happen.

Legendary Games is running another Mythic Mania event on Kickstarter by the end of the year which is projected to include material from the hardbacks that did not get done during the first campaign. Aquatic Adventures is projected to release before Wilderness and that book was specifically mentioned...


Not sure about this one. Will have to wait for more details.


Still got another month before this one gets updated.


Definitely interested in this one! Then I can see how many rules I broke while trying to run an improvised underwater chase near Thistletop. :)

Dark Archive

A (thorough) gazetteer of all 5 oceans?

I am very intrigued. :-)

Dark Archive

1 person marked this as a favorite.

Nice Devilfish (B2 page 88) vs. Jirelle & Merisiel cover, by the way!


Yeah nice cover.

I can't believe this one got updated days ago and I didn't notice.

I can't wait to find out more about Golarion's oceans/seas.

Scarab Sages

I hope this includes a clarification to the underwater rules, that creatures that live in the water don't take the penalties for doing blunt and/or slashing damage.

I always found it hilarious, that strictly by the rules, a dolphin takes penalties for attacking, because their attack is blunt. But a Cestus does not, because its piercing, despite it still being punching a fist through the water.

Paizo Employee Developer

8 people marked this as a favorite.
Tallow wrote:

I hope this includes a clarification to the underwater rules, that creatures that live in the water don't take the penalties for doing blunt and/or slashing damage.

I always found it hilarious, that strictly by the rules, a dolphin takes penalties for attacking, because their attack is blunt. But a Cestus does not, because its piercing, despite it still being punching a fist through the water.

I agree and we've got you covered.


I hope there will be some lower level means of protection from pressure damage under water. Also what types of creatures are immune to that kind of damage.


I do love the cover.

Dragon,

I'm assuming Deep Ones for starters...

Liberty's Edge

I also love the cover!

Silver Crusade

The cover is really nice :3

Scarab Sages

Adam Daigle wrote:
Tallow wrote:

I hope this includes a clarification to the underwater rules, that creatures that live in the water don't take the penalties for doing blunt and/or slashing damage.

I always found it hilarious, that strictly by the rules, a dolphin takes penalties for attacking, because their attack is blunt. But a Cestus does not, because its piercing, despite it still being punching a fist through the water.

I agree and we've got you covered.

Music to my ears. I will not have to drill a hole in my stomach to drink today.

Designer

14 people marked this as a favorite.

:Looks at cover:

Oh wow, I didn't realize but this is my first cover credit on a Paizo book, and I'm excited to share it with Amber! Her stuff is always awesome, and I can't wait to read it.


Mark Seifter wrote:

:Looks at cover:

Oh wow, I didn't realize but this is my first cover credit on a Paizo book, and I'm excited to share it with Amber! Her stuff is always awesome, and I can't wait to read it.

Congrats! I'm guessing that answers my unasked question of whether aquakineticists get their blast fixed for underwater use in this.

Designer

QuidEst wrote:
Mark Seifter wrote:

:Looks at cover:

Oh wow, I didn't realize but this is my first cover credit on a Paizo book, and I'm excited to share it with Amber! Her stuff is always awesome, and I can't wait to read it.

Congrats! I'm guessing that answers my unasked question of whether aquakineticists get their blast fixed for underwater use in this.

Strangely, though you asked your unasked question slightly incorrectly, you wound up being correct in a way you couldn't predict (you'll see what I mean when you have the book ;) ).

However, I think I'm on the record elsewhere on the forums that water blasts are clarified in here!


So Mark you actually did the cover art?

Designer

4 people marked this as a favorite.

Nope, I couldn't draw anything even 1% that cool. Look below the title.


Okay, I see, I just misunderstood what you meant when you got a cover credit.

Liberty's Edge

Any chance that the underwater combat clarifications here are going to also make it into Ultimate Wilderness so they could go on the PRD?

Paizo Employee Developer

4 people marked this as a favorite.
Samy wrote:
Any chance that the underwater combat clarifications here are going to also make it into Ultimate Wilderness so they could go on the PRD?

It was my hope when outlining this book that the rules chapter would make it to the PRD. I'll be sure to shout that from the rooftops when that comes to pass.


Great cover art! I'm looking forward to this book.

The Exchange

I mostly like the cover, but the red is weirding me out, because it really shouldn't show up that well under water.


4 people marked this as a favorite.
Zeugma wrote:
I mostly like the cover, but the red is weirding me out, because it really shouldn't show up that well under water.

'S a magic cloak. Cloaks of Resistance also resist optical desaturation.


It is clearly a magical cloak. Besides I am more interested what is the book then the color of a cloak on the cover.


2 people marked this as a favorite.
Zeugma wrote:
I mostly like the cover, but the red is weirding me out, because it really shouldn't show up that well under water.

Imagine how bright it is out of the water then......


I just realized that we've been talking about the Inner Sea for years but this is the first splat book set in the actual ocean!


Yeah, it is about time that we got one.

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