Pathfinder Roleplaying Game: Ultimate Wilderness

Just a thought: it is super high level, but the Arcane Bloodline Bloodrager eventually gets something about as good as (if not better) than druid wildshape at level 16. They can get Beast Shape IV or Form of the Dragon I for free at the start of every rage.

So, I guess there is at least one full BAB class that effectively gets unrestricted wildshape even if it doesn't happen until near the end of a campaign. The funny thing is at that level an Arcane Bloodrager is a better shapeshifter than the Shifter class, though the Shifter has longer durations.

Yeah, I am not super thrilled by the base class, I think it has a lot of potential for fun though. I am a bit upset that they don't get an ac boost from wisdom when they wild shape, though I feel it was the intention (There is an FAQ that says when your armor melds you are still wearing it)

On the other hand I am already very happy with the variety of archetype options for Shifter, and it is really highlighting how it can be an amazing vessel for archetypes.

Yeah, I am not super thrilled by the base class, I think it has a lot of potential for fun though. I am a bit upset that they don't get an ac boost from wisdom when they wild shape, though I feel it was the intention (There is an FAQ that says when your armor melds you are still wearing it)

On the other hand I am already very happy with the variety of archetype options for Shifter, and it is really highlighting how it can be an amazing vessel for archetypes.

You do get Wisdom to AC while Wild Shaped, unless you’re using barding or wild armor. Armor merging doesn’t take away your other AC bonuses.

Armor merging doesn’t take away your other AC bonuses.

Sadly, it does.

When wearing melded armor and shields, if you gain no benefit from the melded armor, you still count as wearing an armor of that type, but you do not suffer its armor check penalty, movement speed reduction, or arcane spell failure chance.

If there's one 'bright' side to the base class, it makes tengu shifters pretty cool.

Probably not the design intent, though.

Just a thought: it is super high level, but the Arcane Bloodline Bloodrager eventually gets something about as good as (if not better) than druid wildshape at level 16. They can get Beast Shape IV or Form of the Dragon I for free at the start of every rage.

So, I guess there is at least one full BAB class that effectively gets unrestricted wildshape even if it doesn't happen until near the end of a campaign. The funny thing is at that level an Arcane Bloodrager is a better shapeshifter than the Shifter class, though the Shifter has longer durations.

The Shapechanging bloodline has similar features. While it doesn’t get quite the same level of shapeshifting as ‘early’ as the Arcane bloodline, it’s capstone is an at-will Greater Polymorph on yourself. So, in that regard, it’s the best level 20 shapeshifting class we have.

Removed a bunch of posts that discuss drama from other communities or other websites. Please also remember that tone can be difficult to convey in text based mediums.

Stealing my book away from my kids for a bit, I wanted to mention the feat "False Trail". I'm not sure this deserves to be a feat but rather something someone with Survival or perhaps the Track class ability can do.

Stealing my book away from my kids for a bit, I wanted to mention the feat "False Trail". I'm not sure this deserves to be a feat but rather something someone with Survival or perhaps the Track class ability can do.

if I remember correctly. the feat makes you able to do it faster than normal.

Man, so much discussion on something that is under 5% of the content of the book. There is a lot of stuff in the book that could be discussed instead.

And maybe an unpopular opinion, but I don't think everything that Paizo puts out HAS to be great. They do a lot of stuff and if this one class isn't up to snuff (which is not even necessarily my opinion), what does it matter in the big scheme of things.

I'd rather Paizo try a lot of things and fail sometimes than keep everything safe and boring. Most of their stuff, even considering this book, is pretty darn good.

I can't wait to get it in my greedy little hands.

Man, so much discussion on something that is under 5% of the content of the book. There is a lot of stuff in the book that could be discussed instead.

Perhaps......but it was the 5% that many people were buying the book for. There are some fun Archetypes, a lot of reprinted material (depending on your view point, this may be good= as in consolidation....or bad= as in paying twice for the same information)....some good (ooppss....I almost used the term fluff, I have already been jumped on for that and should know better) "setting" information. But ya, when all is said and done the new Shifter class was my big reason for being excited about this book.

And maybe an unpopular opinion, but I don't think everything that Paizo puts out HAS to be great. They do a lot of stuff and if this one class isn't up to snuff (which is not even necessarily my opinion), what does it matter in the big scheme of things.

When all is said and done it doesn't matter. It's a game....it is a game however that I (like many) spend a significant amount of my hard earned cash on, like most gamers. If the material is of no interest to me based on concept I'm fine with ignoring it and writing it off (Gunslinger and Star Finder are good examples of this)....however when a concept you are interested in, is hyped for months as being one thing, and ends up being inferior to what you know (from experience) the developers are actually capable of producing....it is perfectly fine and acceptable to voice your disappointment. They may, or may not listen/care....but that's up for them to decide ;)

I'd rather Paizo try a lot of things and fail sometimes than keep everything safe and boring. Most of their stuff, even considering this book, is pretty darn good.

Some is....some isn't....that's subjective. One thing that is definitive....if they don't know were they have failed....they have no hope of getting better. Failure is not a bad thing, it teaches lessons. The only real failure is the failure you refuse to learn anything from....or the wrong thing from.

Man, so much discussion on something that is under 5% of the content of the book. There is a lot of stuff in the book that could be discussed instead.

And maybe an unpopular opinion, but I don't think everything that Paizo puts out HAS to be great. They do a lot of stuff and if this one class isn't up to snuff (which is not even necessarily my opinion), what does it matter in the big scheme of things.

I'd rather Paizo try a lot of things and fail sometimes than keep everything safe and boring. Most of their stuff, even considering this book, is pretty darn good.

To be fair, classes do tend to be the most important aspect of a book, whether we like it or not. I have seen every single base class in play at some point, but I have never seen any of the following : Hero Points, Duels, Performance Combat, Armor as Damage Reduction, Called Shots, Piecemeal Armor, Wounds and Vigor, Words of Power, Chakras, Psychic Duels, Consolidated/Grouped Skills, Alternate Crafting, Variant Multiclassing, Removed Alignment, Revised Action Economy, Removing Iterative Attacks, or Social Combat. Some portions of rulebooks just tend to get used more than others, and classes are by far the most used.

I'm not saying that every class has to be perfect, or that they should stop with optional systems or other content, because some of them are really good. I would never, ever consider running a game without traits at this point. But I can understand the concern from people, as the shifter class is almost guaranteed to be the most used aspect of the book.

On the topic of the last few posts, I think ultimately you guys agree on most of what you're saying here, and for that matter, me too: Design is a process where there's always room for tinkering, modding, iterating, and improving into something better. That's always going to be true, and designers are always tinkering like that. It's one reason we got so excited at the chance to put out Unchained and express that sense of laboratory tinkering excitement for everyone. Each release is a success; it's a triumph of the labor of outliners and the project manager, freelancers, designers and developers, editors, the art team, and the executive approvals team (not to mention everyone involved with getting the book out there once it's done, from the web team to the warehouse team, and the amazing and patient customer service team that handles all sorts of inquiries about it). But it's also always an opportunity to learn, to grow, and to improve. Whether it's Occult Adventures, which so far appears to have our fewest errata on a 1st Printing of an RPG line book, or whether it's the first printing Advanced Class Guide, which had far more errors than Ultimate Wilderness, each book will have some serious strengths we can build off in the future, and some weaknesses we can discover and work around next time. So too will each book, and even individuals parts of books, inspire different feelings in different people, and that's OK. Everyone's favorite book is a book someone else didn't care for. It's important that all voices are able to speak their minds in order to help us grow. Let's neither silence a critic for her opinion nor write off a satisfied community member for enjoying something. Those two people can hold opposite opinions without either being wrong, and they're both valuable to know. We need to hear everyone in order to grow as much as possible with each release!

Alrighty, back to vacationy stuff now. For those of you in the US, have a great Thanksgiving. I'm thankful for our fan base, both those who take the time to write thoughtful criticism and help us be the best we can and those who take the time to post honest praise and light up our day whenever we're feeling down. Unless you work in a creative field, it might be hard to understand quite how much you mean to us.

In other news, the Trophies and Treasures subchater found use during today's Hell's Rebels game. The PCs eagerly used the opportunity to produce a Gargantuan tortoise shell and a vial of aboleth caviar. I was so glad to have a subsystem for this instead of having to wing stuff out of thin air every time I get the "so can we harvest the corpse for anything valuable/useful" question.

ROFLMAO....

I suspect the development team will be absolutely silent on this.

There’s a chance we’ll hear something from the design team, though.

This will reveal my ignorance, but, can someone explain the difference between the development team and the design team? Does 1 of them start off with, say, a rough concept for something, then the other 1 take the ball and run w/ it??

Passive Aggressive Poster wrote:

I suspect the development team will be absolutely silent on this.

There’s a chance we’ll hear something from the design team, though.

This will reveal my ignorance, but, can someone explain the difference between the development team and the design team? Does 1 of them start off with, say, a rough concept for something, then the other 1 take the ball and run w/ it??

I was very much wondering the same thing....;)

Well, the following is purely guesswork on my part, based on what JJ has said before. At the Ultimate Wilderness panel of PaizoCon, he said he was in the middle of developing the book. During it, he mentioned that he wasn't sure how much space he'd have for the natural disasters/hazards, and if he could, he was going to try to fit in a table with the location and pages of other hazards, like the rules from the GMG.

Obviously that didn't happen, but based on that, I'm guessing that development is when they're taking the rules and trying to fit them to the pages of the book, trying to fit as much as possible into the limited space. Designers build the material, editors go over it, the development is fitting it in... at least, that's my guess.

Designer/Developer discussion.

Ahh, so what I said, and a whole lot more.

So designers and developers are equally responsible for what we end up with all in all...

Now we just need a term that incompases both :P

So designers and developers are equally responsible for what we end up with all in all...

Now we just need a term that incompases both :P

If you want to know who was the lead on a book you really liked, for a softcover, flip it open and check for "Development Lead" at the top of the credits.

For a hardcover RPG line book, it's usually going to be just the design team (me, Jason, Stephen, and Logan), though with Starfinder using some design resources, you'll see some different talented faces showing up recently. For instance, Stephen did the most work on Ultimate Wilderness's outlining, assignment, and first pass, with a good amount of work from me in a few chapters (I looked at most of 4, all of 5, and some of 2), shifter design shared with Jason, and a few sections from Logan too. But we usually give an RPG line book 2 passes before sending it to the editors. For Wilderness, the entire book got a second pass by James Jacobs, so he deserves a great deal of credit for helping out and making the book awesome!

Gathlains are of the Fey creature type, correct?

Yep.

Ok, I think I have a clearer understanding of designer v developer, in PF terms at least, so thanks.

To stay on topic, I had a ? about, oh, 4k posts ago that never got answered, so I'm going to try and reconstruct it ;-)

I think UW has a "Wilding Strike" feat chain that improves claw attacks. Is that feat chain exclusive to Shifters, or could, say, my Feral Hunter (w/ claws) benefit from it? I was trying to reason that since the 2 classes share a parent class, that would work, but I don't have UW as of yet.

Thanks.

P.S. I know natural attacks (like claws) become less ideal at high levels b/c they're not iterative...I'm only 3rd level now, though.

In other news, the Trophies and Treasures subchater found use during today's Hell's Rebels game. The PCs eagerly used the opportunity to produce a Gargantuan tortoise shell and a vial of aboleth caviar. I was so glad to have a subsystem for this instead of having to wing stuff out of thin air every time I get the "so can we harvest the corpse for anything valuable/useful" question.

so they're going to plug the holes and make a Geobukseon?

Shifter's Edge had some issues in the process and is pending a hotfix FAQ once we can get the new FAQ page up. I'm actually surprised it took this long to come up. And that's the only FAQ topic we know of for the book so far! After the FAQ, it's basically Lethal Grace for a shifter's claws (and claw-augmented natural attacks), meaning Dex-based shifters that use Dex to hit and Str to damage can do some pretty big damage (1/2 level scaling up to +10 damage).

Can you elaborate at all on the issue with Shifters Edge. I think the add shifter level to damage actually works extremely well for the shifter, to the point where I’m contemplating giving it as a bonus feat to the Shifter at level 2.

I’m happy to report that there are several players, myself included, who like the class and a keen to give it a try. Once we’ve used I think I’ll review the class.

I think UW has a "Wilding Strike" feat chain that improves claw attacks.

It increases the damage die of unarmed strikes, not claw attacks, so I doubt your feral hunter will have much use for it. ^_^

Another book, another 'Murican failure to acknowledge the existence of Celsius. Look, we can live with your feet and pounds, they're not *that* bad, but this arbitrary birdbrained rollercoaster of your temperature scale has no place on a civilised planet.

Another book, another 'Murican failure to acknowledge the existence of Celsius. Look, we can live with your feet and pounds, they're not *that* bad, but this arbitrary birdbrained rollercoaster of your temperature scale has no place on a civilised planet.

I keep trying to bring this up... but nobody listens to me!? Eh?

Another book, another 'Murican failure to acknowledge the existence of Celsius. Look, we can live with your feet and pounds, they're not *that* bad, but this arbitrary birdbrained rollercoaster of your temperature scale has no place on a civilised planet.

The Fahrenheit Future Is Now! Accept it.

Great, now we are going to have a flame war about Fahrenheit vs Celsius:)

Only if they insist on calling it "Futball"

There is no contest. There is no discussion. There is an aberration which needs to be stamped out, and a glorious truth where water freezes at 0, boils at 100 and your armpits start to smell at 30.

Seriously, stop resisting, wayward colonials.

I'll take my turkey cooked to 165 degrees thank you very much. :-)

There is no contest. There is no discussion. There is an aberration which needs to be stamped out, and a glorious truth where water freezes at 0, boils at 100 and your armpits start to smell at 30.

Seriously, stop resisting, wayward colonials.

As one of the wayward colonials that uses fahrenheit, I don't get why there wouldn't just be both fahrenheit and celsius in the book.

There's a moderately decent argument that the range of human experience is between 0 and 100 F, whereas the Celcius scale is kind of all over the place.

Personally I like Kelvin as a temp scale, but I mostly do astrophysics.

Anyway, while I would happily do without the Fahrenheit temperature scale in my RP, I've got quite good at converting back and forth between F & C over the years, so it doesn't bother me too much.

Ahem...

Fahrenheit vs Celcius vs Kelvin

Another book, another 'Murican failure to acknowledge the existence of Celsius. Look, we can live with your feet and pounds, they're not *that* bad, but this arbitrary birdbrained rollercoaster of your temperature scale has no place on a civilised planet.

0= the coldest day for the year in a temperate climate

100= the hottest day of the year in a temperate climate.

Much better for tracking real life temperatures than a scale where 100 means you've been dead for the last 70 degrees.

Gorbacz wrote:

There is no contest. There is no discussion. There is an aberration which needs to be stamped out, and a glorious truth where water freezes at 0, boils at 100 and your armpits start to smell at 30.

Seriously, stop resisting, wayward colonials.

As one of the wayward colonials that uses fahrenheit, I don't get why there wouldn't just be both fahrenheit and celsius in the book.

WE CAN SETTLE FOR THAT.

Page space, writing flow. We fought a war to not have to use Celsius or extraneous U's....

BenS wrote:

I think UW has a "Wilding Strike" feat chain that improves claw attacks.

It increases the damage die of unarmed strikes, not claw attacks, so I doubt your feral hunter will have much use for it. ^_^

Thank you for clearing that up.

Page space, writing flow. We fought a war to not have to use Celsius or extraneous U's....

Yeah we kinda f#++ed up there.

Didn't the French (who developed the metric system) assist in the Independence War because they would fight anybody currently fighting Britain? Why was the only change after winning freedom making the gallon smaller?

Didn't the French (who developed the metric system) assist in the Independence War because they would fight anybody currently fighting Britain? Why was the only change after winning freedom making the gallon smaller?

To f#*~ with British merchants.

While we're at it, what about meters? Do you realize how easy diagonals are if the squares are 2 meter squares instead of 5-foot squares? We tried it out for a moment in very early Starfinder design with yards. A character's speed can be like 12 meters instead of 30 feet and then diagonals cost 3 meters and straight costs 2 meters (if you want to preserve the "first diagonal is free" feel, you can start with 13 meters, which is equivalent to 12 meters except it lets you make one diagonal without a problem).

Mark Seifter wrote:

Shifter's Edge had some issues in the process and is pending a hotfix FAQ once we can get the new FAQ page up. I'm actually surprised it took this long to come up. And that's the only FAQ topic we know of for the book so far! After the FAQ, it's basically Lethal Grace for a shifter's claws (and claw-augmented natural attacks), meaning Dex-based shifters that use Dex to hit and Str to damage can do some pretty big damage (1/2 level scaling up to +10 damage).

Can you elaborate at all on the issue with Shifters Edge. I think the add shifter level to damage actually works extremely well for the shifter, to the point where I’m contemplating giving it as a bonus feat to the Shifter at level 2.

I think the issue they have is that they don't want you doing +10 damage on an attack at level 10. What I think the FAQ team forgot is that Claws only get two attacks, even with full BAB.

As it is, it's powerful enough to make up for the lack of iterative attacks. The worst part is that if you're really using a Dex build, you'd probably try to have a +10 Dex mod by level 14. So Dex-To-Damage would actually just be a better ability than "Dex-to-hit and half-level-to-damage".

While we're at it, what about meters? Do you realize how easy diagonals are if the squares are 2 meter squares instead of 5-foot squares? We tried it out for a moment in very early Starfinder design with yards. A character's speed can be like 12 meters instead of 30 feet and then diagonals cost 3 meters and straight costs 2 meters (if you want to preserve the "first diagonal is free" feel, you can start with 13 meters, which is equivalent to 12 meters except it lets you make one diagonal without a problem).

I'm happy that apparently some of developers understand why I cry inside my head about feets and fahrenheits ;-;

But yeah, seriously though, really annoyed about Weather's section's insistence on Fahrenheits since Celsius makes much more sense to me :P

I have been thinking a lot about the Shifter class. One of the things I was wondering about is the claw attacks. If they, meaning each one, it a natural attack, then they are at full BAB. So it gets two attacks for the Shifter Claws attack. Is it modified with the BAB?

If it attacks at 1st lvl it starts at +1/+1, then at lvl 6 does it turn into +6/+6/+1/+1? If this is the case, then it really does start to turn into a beast, pun intended.

Also remember the in Beast Shape II, it states what abilities you get in the new form. The Major Form of the Aspects just modifies what is gained from BS 2. The owl aspect gets flying from BS 2 and then gains Flyby Attack at lvl 8.