Pathfinder Roleplaying Game: Ultimate Wilderness

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Pathfinder Roleplaying Game: Ultimate Wilderness
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Wild, untamed lands hold a wealth of mystery and danger, providing the perfect backdrop for heroic adventure. Whether adventurers are climbing mountains in search of a dragon's lair, carving their way through the jungle, or seeking a long-lost holy city covered by desert sands, Pathfinder RPG Ultimate Wilderness gives them the tools to survive the wilds. A new 20-level base class, the shifter, puts animalistic powers into the hands—or claws—of player characters and villains alike, with new class features derived from animalistic attributes. Overviews of druidic sects and rituals, as well as new archetypes, character options, spells, and more, round out the latest contribution to the Pathfinder RPG rules!

Pathfinder RPG Ultimate Wilderness is an invaluable hardcover companion to the Pathfinder RPG Core Rulebook. This imaginative tabletop game builds upon more than 10 years of system development and an open playtest featuring more than 50,000 gamers to create a cutting-edge RPG experience that brings the all-time best-selling set of fantasy rules into a new era.

Pathfinder RPG Ultimate Wilderness includes:

  • The shifter, a new character class that harnesses untamed forces to change shape and bring a heightened level of savagery to the battlefield!
  • Archetypes for alchemists, barbarians, bards, druids, hunters, investigators, kineticists, paladins, rangers, rogues, slayers, witches, and more!
  • Feats and magic items for characters of all sorts granting mastery over the perils of nature and enabling them to harvest natural power by cultivating magical plants.
  • Dozens of spells to channel, protect, or thwart the powers of natural environs.
  • New and expanded rules to push your animal companions, familiars, and mounts to wild new heights.
  • A section on the First World with advice, spells, and other features to integrate the fey realm into your campaign.
  • Systems for exploring new lands and challenging characters with natural hazards and strange terrain both mundane and feytouched.
  • ... and much, much more!

ISBN-13: 978-1-60125-986-8

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

Hero Lab Online
Fantasy Grounds Virtual Tabletop
Archives of Nethys

Note: This product is part of the Pathfinder Rulebook Subscription.

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Do the writers even play?

1/5

I am now sad I purchased this steaming pile. Straight up nerfs to things that didn't need it, badly thought out feat reqs, majority of archtypes are not even worth a second glance. You can really tell this book had no play test as even basic players could have pointed out numerous WTF things wrong with it. Shifter... I don't even know where to start on how bad this was thought out, Hunter archtypes..... Look elsewhere. Most of the archtypes in general in this book give up huge core features for gimmicky, extremely limited use things.


Solid, But Not Perfect

4/5

I'll be going through this book section by section with an individual rating for each piece to allow the reader to decide if there's any particular section that they would weight more heavily.

Chapter 1: Wilderness Races (3/5)

The first section of Ultimate Wilderness features wilderness races. These are largely familiar faces, though with more support than seen in their earlier entries.
The first race is the gathlain. Originally presented in the Advanced Race Guide as an example of a buildable race, they reappear here with a full racial write-up describing their place in the world, as well as alternate racial traits, favored class options, and racial archetypes. Gathlain get +2 Dex, +2 Cha, -2 Con, are Small sized, have a 40 foot fly speed with poor maneuverability, low-light vision, +1 natural armor, and entangle and feather step as 1/day spell-like abilities. This is a pretty potent package and makes the gathlain one of the more powerful races presented as a player race, particularly in the hardcover product line, arguably a couple steps above the aasimar (or only 1 step if you're using Blood of Angels). The archetypes for the gathlain include the Fey Courtier, a bard who gets cursing performances and fey contacts, the Season Sage, a druid who gets a variety of seasonal supernatural abilities instead of wildshape, and the Fey Prankster, an entertaining Rogue archetype that gets plant-oriented distraction and trap abilities alongside Improved/Greater Dirty Trick. There's also a couple pages of equipment, feats, spells, and magic items that are all flavorful and on-theme for the race. Overall a fun but powerful racial option. The 40 ft. fly speed in particular, despite the poor maneuverability, may prove to be a very powerful option in some campaigns.

The second race presented in UW are the ghoran. The ghoran have appeared in a couple previous publications, both Inner Sea Bestiary and Bestiary 5, but we get a more complete write-up here than we've seen previously, including alternate racial traits (the Martial Recollection ability alongside the base Seed ability makes for an interesting option for relatively quick and cheap rebuilds of martial characters, though it has some unique risks until you have ready access to restoration), favored class options, and archetypes. The ghoran are another powerful race, gaining +2 Con, +2 Cha, -2 Int, +2 natural armor, the plant type (though with immunities removed, which appears to be a balancing change from previous versions), the Delicious drawback which imposes a penalty against escaping grabs made as part of a bite attack, detect poison, goodberry, and purify food and drink as 1/day spell-like abilities, the Seed ability, which allows them to expel a seed which grows into a new version of them 2d6 days later in exchange for taking a negative level, the Light Dependent drawback requiring them to be exposed to sunlight at least 1/day or take Con damage, and Past-Life Knowledge which lets them treat all Knowledge skills as class skills. I should call out the Seed ability as being particularly problematic, if thematically cool; while the ability can be used to retrain all skill points (and combat feats with the Martial Recollection alternate racial trait), it's also adventuring immortality in any situation where you have some control over your adventures, especially big sandbox games like the Kingmaker AP. Once you can cast restoration on yourself there doesn't appear to be much reason not to plant a seed before each outing to ensure that you're safely protected against the negative consequences of things like death, ability drain, etc. This gets doubled down on with the propogation pod magic item, which automatically eliminates the negative level and keeps the spare body in stasis until you actually die. Playing a functionally immortal plant creature who can shed essentially all negative conditions with just a smidge of planning while simultaneously retraining skills and feats could be a difficult mechanic for many campaigns to deal with. In addition to the various other spells, feats, and items, the ghoran gets archetypes for the bloodrager, mesmerist, and shifter classes. The shifter archetype gets a negative note for replacing all of the shifter's minor forms, but not addressing the shifter's final aspect capstone which interacts with the minor forms. All in all a powerful and flavorful race that greatly rewards thought and planning.

The last player race presented here are the vine leshys. While leshys are a long-standing fixture of Pathfinder and D&D, I believe this is the first time we've seen this particular iteration. Vine leshys get +2 Con, +2 Wis, -2 Int, the plant type with immunities removed like the ghoran, small size, slow speed, darkvision, low-light vision, pass without trace as a constant spell-like ability, the ability to change shape into or back from a Small vine as a swift action, the ability to speek with vines as though under a constant speak with plants spell, the verdant burst ability which heals plant creatures and cause wild growth of plants leading to difficult terrain, a +4 racial bonus to Stealth, and a +2 racial bonus to Climb. The alternate racial traits presented for the vine leshy offer some significant options for modifying them and optimizing them, including allowing them to gain a Dex bonus instead of Con, swift action poison instead of plant speech and change shape, swap their climb bonus for a swim bonus, or swap pass without trace for goodberry. In addition to the standard complement of magic items, feats, and spells, the vine leshy gains archetypes for the alchemist, bard, kineticist, and the leshy subdomain, a surprisingly versatile and useful modification of the Plant domain. While still a very powerful race, the leshy feel a little less blatantly powerful compared to the other two races; they'll certainly have some strong options, and being able to stack up +8 in Stealth bonuses alongside a Dex bonus is something that used to be relatively unique to the weaker goblin race up to this point, but they lack the "big" game-changers like the gathlain's 40 foot fly speed or the ghoran's immortality, and thus feel like the most balanced race presented here.

Overall the races presented in Ultimate Wilderness are definitely on the more powerful side of the spectrum, with two of the three distinctly more powerful than options like the aasimar and tiefling that were already considered to be on the stronger side for many tables. The flavor and options are generally spot on with a couple outliers that have issues ranging from minor to significant but unlikely to come up often, so I'm calling this section a 3/5.

Section 2: The Shifter 4/5
The shifter is the new class presented in Ultimate Wilderness, included in the same chapter alongside the new races. Advertised as the "nature paladin" in statements my Paizo leading up to the release of this book, the shifter is apparently inspired by concepts like Norse berserkers or Beorn from The Hobbit and attempts to be the paladin to the druid's cleric. So how does it do?
The shifter gains a d10 hit die, full BAB, good Fort and Reflex saves, and 4+Int skills from a small but solid skill list including highlights like Acrobatics, Perception, and Stealth. Their proficiencies are an exact replica of the druid's, including restrictions on metal armor and the loss of class abilities for 24 hours after breaking said restrictions.

Since the shifter is made or broken on its class abilities, I'll be discussing each of those in turn-

Shifter Aspect: The first of the shifter's unique class features, Shifter Aspect can be used for a number of minutes per day equal to 3+ her class level, spent in one minute increments. When the shifter first gains this ability, she must choose an animal type from the following list- Bat, Bear, Bull, Deinonychus, Falcon, Frog, Lizard, Monkey, Mouse, Owl, Snake, Stag, Tiger, Wolf, or Wolverine. For the first 3 levels of the class this is basically the same as the Hunter's animal focus when used on the hunter, though with an extra 3 minutes added to the duration. The shifter gains an additional animal aspect she can emulate at 5th, 10th, and 15th level. The aspect the shifter chooses will have a lot of impact on her future class abilities and not all of the aspects are equal, so the choices made here will definitely impact the impression a player gets from the class. Stand-out options include the Bear, Bull, Deinonychus, Falcon, Owl, Tiger, and Wolverine.

Shifter Claws: The second of the shifter's unique class features, shifter claws grant the shifter a pair of claw primary natural attacks it can activate as an at-will swift action. The claws deal 1d4 slashing and piercing damage, and gain updates in the following order- 3rd level ignore DR/ cold iron and DR/ silver, 7th level damage increases to 1d6, 11th level damage increases to 1d8, 13th level damage increases to 1d10, 17th level critical multiplier increases to x3, and 19th level ignores DR/ adamantine and DR/-. When wildshaped (we'll touch on that shortly) her new forms natural attacks gain all the benefits of her shifter claws and use the higher damage dice between the base or that granted by the claws. This is going to be strongest at levels 1-5 when having two primary natural attacks dealing multiple damage types is generally going to be superior to most two-weapon fighters and becomes less useful thereafter, but fortunately wildshape starts picking up the slack (and then some) from that point forward.

Wild Empathy (1st level): Nothing new here, this works just like the druid and ranger abilities of the same name.

Defensive Instinct (2nd level): Defensive Instinct is a defensive buff similar to the monk's unarmored AC bonus. Just like the monk, this ability allows the shifter to add their Wisdom bonus (+1 at 4th level and every 4 levels thereafter) to their AC, flat-footed AC, touch AC, and CMD. Unlike the monk ability, Defensive Instinct can actually be used with armor (though this reduces the bonus gained from the Shifter's Wisdom, but not the bonuses gained by level, by half), which makes the shifter a very powerful entry defensively. By the time the shifter can afford wild armor they're looking at being able to stack up some significant bonuses to AC, as well as having higher touch and flat-footed ACs than other defensive classes like the fighter and paladin.

Track (2nd level): Just like the ranger ability of the same name.

Woodland Stride (3rd level): Just like the druid ability of the same name.

Wild shape (4th level): The shifter's wild shape is conceptually similar to the druid's, but with several unique changes. The shifter can only change into a specific form granted by one of their aspects, as the beast shape II spell. When this ability first comes online, that means it grants a stronger transformation than the druid's, but lacks the versatility of being able to assume multiple forms. From a combat perspective this grants some powerful and unique advantages to the shifter, especially compared to its full BAB counterparts like the barbarian, fighter, ranger, and slayer. With options like Tiger, Falcon, and Owl available, the shifter has access to a 3 attack pounce with grab on all attacks 6 levels before the barbarian gains pounce, or flight a level before the wizard gains access to it. The strength of this ability tapers with levels since the shifter never gains at-will use of wild shape, and rather than gaining the additional forms and types the druid has access to they gain skill bonuses, feats, and special abilities that build off of their base form. I'd have liked to see more uses of this ability given its limitations (it only gains 1 use plus an additional use every 2 levels thereafter, though they do last for hours per level) and the fact that the shifter really wants to use one form for combat and another for exploration by the mid-game levels, but overall it's a strong combat option with some solid utility hooks.

Trackless Step (5th level): Works as the druid ability of the same name.

Chimeric aspect (9th level): Allows the shifter to gain the minor aspect abilities of two of her aspects at the same time, similarly to the hunter's second animal focus.

Greater chimeric aspect (14th level): Allows the shifter to gain the minor aspect abilities of three of her aspects at the same time.

Final Aspect (20th level): Grants the shifter their 5th and final aspect, and allows them to gain the minor aspect benefits of all of their aspects at the same time.

So, we see a lot of familiar class features from both the druid and the ranger here, though that's probably appropriate on a class that embraces so many of the same nature-oriented themes. The class is a little boring for my tastes, but I could see it being a very popular pick amongst players who enjoy playing fighters and barbarians since it's accessible and straightforward with a minimum number of "fiddly bits" to deal with. The class very much embraces the idea of a "nature paladin" and makes for a strong and competitive option alongside the other full BAB classes, though if you were expecting the druid's wild shape ability on a full BAB chassis, you're going to be disappointed. The shifter's wildshape starts out stronger but much more narrow than the druid's and ultimately lags behind in later levels, relying on the shifter's aspects and full BAB chassis to pick up the slack. The class does, however, deliver on its advertised premise and is a strong addition to the full BAB lineup. If this were a 3pp release from a company like Kobold Press, I suspect it would be pulling 5 star ratings left and right. As a 1pp release it does feel a little plain and uninspired, borrowing heavily from the other nature classes, so my final verdict on the class will clock in at 4 stars.

Chapter 2: Archetypes and Class Options 3.5/5

Chapter 3: Feats 3/5

Chapter 4: Mastering the Wilderness 5/5

Chapter 5: Companions and Familiars 4/5

I've run out of space in this venue, so I'll be completing this review at somnambulant-gamer.com (link to be included when review is complete).


The Good, the Bad, and the Shifter

3/5

Ultimate Wilderness is a product which shows the best and the worst of Paizo. There are a large number of great character options and GM tools to be found here. However, there are also a number of disappointments, some of which have been becoming a bit too familiar.

The Good
Three new well developed races
Expanded animal companion and familiar list, including large bears
Several great feats (such as eidolon mount and improved/greater spring attack)
The wilderness rules section is excellent

The Bad
Large number of useless filler feats, which will further bloat the game's feat list
Reprints (though this can be good if you don't buy player's companions)
Many archetypes are really only useful for NPCs or evil characters
Nerfs. While this can be necessary, too many nerfs makes figuring out the rules more and more confusing.

The Shifter
The shifter is what many people were looking forward to the most in this book, and for many it will probably be the most disappointing part. I'm saying this as someone who specializes in making shapeshifting characters, and was looking forward to another option for my 'playbook' so to speak. Anyway, the shifter is a full BAB class with claws, short duration animal 'aspects' that it can take on, and a limited wildshape which can only assume a few forms. It also has Monk Ac and Tracking. The class is limited, but it isn't unplayable. It does good damage and has flavorful archetypes. Many people have complained that for a class that is called the Shifter it is very bad at shapeshifting, but I'll ignore that and focus on how the class itself functions.

In my opinion, the problem with the shifter is that almost all of its class features can be mimicked with the Beast Shape II spell. There really isn't much else to the shifter, and it doesn't do much that another shapeshifting class hasn't already done better. The class peaks at level 5 when it has wildshape and pounce. After that it gains very little aside from additional forms, and a feat or two that only functions when it is in a specific form. When compared to a Druid, the shifter seems to give up an unbelievable amount of power and versatility for its BAB increase. Sure, the druid is overpowered, but the shifter doesn't compare very well to any other shapeshifting classes or archetypes either. Why play a shifter who can only shapeshift, when there are other full BAB classes which can shapeshift nearly as well while also having a ton of additional class abilities (such as rage powers or vigilante talents) on top of that?

It really wouldn't have taken much to make the shifter into a good class for all levels of play. Simply sprinkling in more flavor abilities from the monk, druid or ranger past 5th level would have helped. Another option would have been 4th level spellcasting. But neither of those happened, so we're stuck with a disappointing class whose main class abilities can be mimicked with a single 4th level spell. In my opinion, the shifter is really only useful for new players, low level games, or people who just don't want to deal with the complexity of other shapeshifting classes. While I can understand the benefits of having an easy to learn shapeshifting class, this doesn't mean it can't have any depth to it. The fact that the Shifter's design issues were not noticed by someone at Paizo is a bit concerning, and I'm hoping that this was a one time thing driven by the recent focus on Starfinder.

Conclusion
This book has several major issues, the biggest of which was the Shifter. I am afraid that saying this makes me sound full of it, but many of the problems in this book make me wonder how well Paizo understands their game or their customers.

However, the good sections of the book are *very good* and I feel bad that I didn't spend more time to talking about them. Whether or not this book is worth a hardcover purchase for you basically depends on what you wanted from the book. If you really only wanted the shifter and more class options, this may only be worth a PDF for you. If you're interested in the races, wilderness rules, and animal companion sections then a hardcover purchase may be worthwhile. Overall though, this is a very flawed hardcover that may have the most problems since Ultimate Magic (if not more).


good class and okay content

5/5

Well this makes bunch of people angry but shifter looks quite good in my book just needs several castings of guidance to find its way to its place. It just needs little bit more aspects and clean ask me any thing treat where people can learn about it from creators. Its not the martial master of many forms lot of people wants but hey its literally out for a day. and people try to smear camp already. I have flash backs to launch of starfinder with all the every class must dip blitz soldier so they can do their job threats and it feels like bunch of people crying after their spilled milk instead of go to fridge and pull them self's another cup of milk. So relax people your money is well spend


Nature, what is it good for? (Absolutely everything.)

4/5

For those reviewers who are spending $10 (pdf) or $45 (hard copy) for just a class and are only judging the book based on that one item, are missing the whole premise of the book. For those that run nature campaigns or want story ideas, or planet races, this book is a valued resource.

This is probably the first hardback Pathfinder Corebook of the main product line that I have bought in a long time. I usually play the bard or a druid, and was excited to see the many options of nature focused archetypes for almost all the other classes as well.

Chapter 1 includes 4 races, Gathlains are my stand out favorite for the fact we get a race with wings, finally. I don't like that they are a small race. My only down side to it. Ghorans are your humanoid living plant race, I like to compare them to the android version of plants. Then you have vine leshys, which I can say are simply druid created baby Groots. Then of course the shifter class. It is everything they said it would be. In Paizo's blog they mentioned that it would focus on animal aspects. Our introduction to aspects were the totems for barbarians. This in consideration is the outline of the class, throw in wild shape (works slightly different than the druid), and make the aspects like blood lines. I am 100% curious who actually had input on the class design, as it looks somewhat familiar to others I have seen. Add in wild shape, and treat your main aspects a bloodlines. Overall it is not a bad class, it’s not for everyone. I think the biggest complaint is the natural claw damage dice progression, but with a few feats, it can become powerful. The claws start at a d4 and you earn d6 at 7th level, but it keeps in line with monsters (see Mi-Go, bestiary 4). The first issue many people will have, but they do get to bypass damage reduction. So there is a trade off. Again, take a feat or two and wammy, it can get awesome.

Chapter 2 is the big meat and potatoes of the stew. It covers 18 class, not including the shifter with a min of 3 archetypes each. Too much for me to cover to be honest, I don’t care for all of them (just my preference), but the vast majority are excellent. From my personal experience as a 3PP and a design fanboy, looking at the cover credits of authors for the book, I again can make some guesses as to what author may have written each one. It’s a good solid mix of mechanics, some decent flavor, 100% worth the look if you like options. Don’t worry kineticist lovers (which I do not like that class), you have your earth benders. Monks can also become water kineticist with an archetype.

Chapter 3: Feats. At the time of this review I have not read the feats, so I can’t include a review.

Chapter 4: Mastering the Wild – the flavor oozes from the spine. Can someone at Paizo tell me the authors of who contributed to this chapter? Round of applause on this block. Green faith, herbalism, weather, *clap clap clap*. This is the reason I bought the hardcover.

Chapter 5: didn’t read yet. Companions and Familiars

Chapter 6: Spells – meh didn’t read yet.

Chapter 7: I did read. Magic plants and adventuring gear. Dang, magic plants are pricey. Plant and harvest for more…okay, decent balance for the price. This chapter is useful for any adventurer.

Summary:
Many people are so hung up on the shifter class that they haven’t looked at the rest of the book. Crack it open and give it a read. There are a few people huffing and puffing about the compiled and reprinted material from other supplements and APs in the Paizo product lines contained in this book. Well for those of you, like myself, who don’t have the extra cash to throw around on the other supplements, we look forward to the core book line were the material is revised and gathered. This is not a problem for me, so get over it.

- If you liked the 3.x version of AEG toolbox supplement “Wilds”, you will enjoy this book.
- Want nature focused archetypes for a crap ton of classes, you will enjoy this book.
- If you want to expand your exploration rules provided in Ultimate Campaign, this book has a couple of pages for you.
- Want mechanics and flavor, some new gear, revised and ready to play material from other product lines, than this is the book for you.
- Consolidated section on familiars and companions, it’s for you.
- Want to spend $10 (pdf) just for a new class, probably not for you.

For me: the druid and bard class playing person, who wanted a nature focused book ever since Faiths & Philosophies, this is the book for me. 4/5


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

I was a great fan of the Lapith (shapeshifting centaur) race in the 3rd party product Races of Hoof and Horn, but a perusal of the Race Builder rules in the Advanced Race Guide clearly implies that this race is overpowered by current Pathfinder standards.

As a result, I am looking forward to finding out how many Shifter levels will be required to approximate that race.


Well shoot, I was hoping for an Advanced NPC Codex or even Chronicle of the Righteous or Concordance of Rivals. Oh wells, you can't win them all I guess.


With all these reveals in the last few weeks or so, it makes me wonder what they will be revealing at Paizo Con.


Dragon78 wrote:
With all these reveals in the last few weeks or so, it makes me wonder what they will be revealing at Paizo Con.

Products for 2018.


1 person marked this as a favorite.

I am hoping there will be a nice GM section going over ways to extend the use of environmental hazards and typical survival type problems in Pathfinder. As is, there are a lot of very low level spells that mostly remove these as problems for even very low level parties.


Marco Massoudi wrote:
I hope this book is better than Ultimate Intrigue or Horror Adventures - it certainly has the potential.

Well...in the product request page, Ultimate Wilderness was one of my top suggestions, because Ultimate Intrigue was so focused on urban games, and it was obvious that made a niche for this book.

So I am guessing this will be maybe similar in organization but perhaps opposite in content to Intrigue.


2 people marked this as a favorite.
Nutcase Entertainment wrote:
Dragon78 wrote:
With all these reveals in the last few weeks or so, it makes me wonder what they will be revealing at Paizo Con.
Products for 2018.

Well at least there's hope for a possible release of the other two volumes of Tabris the Chronicler's work next year then.


It's been a while, what were the other two books/volumes called?


Pathfinder Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
Dragon78 wrote:
It's been a while, what were the other two books/volumes called?

Chronicle of the Righteous and Concordance of Rivals.


I think I would love to see the Concordance of Rivals as a hardcover book.

Silver Crusade Contributor

5 people marked this as a favorite.

Disclaimer: The following is based upon observation of publishing practices and industry trends. I have no knowledge of private statements or discussions by Paizo staff on the matter.

I think it's in your best interest to make sure that the Adventurer's Guide does well. The Chronicle of the Righteous was one book where the Books of the Damned were three, so it has far less page count to fill up a hardcover. (Adding Concordance of Rivals content might swell that, but... see below.) If it's going to get an expanded and updated release, the 192-page format of the Adventurer's Guide is the most likely way it's going to happen. And since it's a world-specific book, that relies on the Adventurer's Guide doing well and proving the experiment successful.

Why not fold the Concordance of Rivals into that and make one big hardcover? The content is thematically dissonant. They're not going to put together Good and Neutral Outsider Worship. If someone has a better title idea, let James Jacobs know!

The biggest issue, though - the bane of Second Darkness and the Dragon Empires - is sales. The Book of the Damned exists as much because its components are out of stock as for any other reason. As long as copies of the Chronicle of the Righteous are still in the Paizo warehouse, a hardcover is not happening. The same almost certainly goes for a softcover Concordance of Rivals, for the record. (Staff passion and other factors influence this as well, but... if it won't sell, they won't make it.)

That said, we're derailing here. If you have further thoughts on this matter, I recommend creating a new thread in the Paizo Products subforum. Or at the very least, taking it to the Book of the Damned thread. ^_^

Silver Crusade

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Marco Massoudi wrote:
I hope this book is better than Ultimate Intrigue or Horror Adventures - it certainly has the potential.

Me too, and I really liked those books!


As much as all of the bits mentioned for this book sound interesting and useful, I lament that the poor, neglected Underground environment seems left out.


Pathfinder Maps, Pathfinder Accessories, Starfinder Society Subscriber; Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber
Urath DM wrote:
As much as all of the bits mentioned for this book sound interesting and useful, I lament that the poor, neglected Underground environment seems left out.

A Dungeon Adventures isn't out of the realm of possibility, you know...


1 person marked this as a favorite.

I know it was mentioned above but I would like to put in my vote for a nature loving, tree hugging wizard. Someone who wanders the land and helps out farmers and ranchers with their magic. Survival would be a class skill for them. Give them a mechanical reason to put ranks in Knowledge(Nature) and Profession(Herbalist), maybe the ability to make balms and salves to help live stock or rid plants of diseases.


Kalindlara wrote:
The biggest issue, though - the bane of Second Darkness and the Dragon Empires - is sales. The Book of the Damned exists as much because its components are out of stock as for any other reason. As long as copies of the Chronicle of the Righteous are still in the Paizo warehouse, a hardcover is not happening. The same almost certainly goes for a softcover Concordance of Rivals, for the record. (Staff passion and other factors influence this as well, but... if it won't sell, they won't make it.)

If you want to play smart, you left out the reasons why some of those have troubles selling.

Plus, less and less people are interested in the printed format, some out of concerns for the wilderness, other for economical (and sometime logistical) reasons, or both.

Silver Crusade

4 people marked this as a favorite.
Pathfinder Adventure Path Subscriber
Guy St-Amant wrote:
Kalindlara wrote:
The biggest issue, though - the bane of Second Darkness and the Dragon Empires - is sales. The Book of the Damned exists as much because its components are out of stock as for any other reason. As long as copies of the Chronicle of the Righteous are still in the Paizo warehouse, a hardcover is not happening. The same almost certainly goes for a softcover Concordance of Rivals, for the record. (Staff passion and other factors influence this as well, but... if it won't sell, they won't make it.)

If you want to play smart, you left out the reasons why some of those have troubles selling.

Plus, less and less people are interested in the printed format, some out of concerns for the wilderness, other for economical (and sometime logistical) reasons, or both.

Dragon Empires is a great book and Chronicle of the Righteous is fantastic. It's just that they didn't find as much audience, as, say, Distant Worlds.

And the dead-tree-less people are still a minority, the hobby is mostly driven by people who prefer paper to electronic formats. The fact that Paizo's website remains one of the most mobile-unfriendly places I visit on the Web is a testament to how digitally conservative the user base is.

Silver Crusade Contributor

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Attacking my intelligence is unnecessary and uncalled-for.


Gorbacz wrote:
Guy St-Amant wrote:
Kalindlara wrote:
The biggest issue, though - the bane of Second Darkness and the Dragon Empires - is sales. The Book of the Damned exists as much because its components are out of stock as for any other reason. As long as copies of the Chronicle of the Righteous are still in the Paizo warehouse, a hardcover is not happening. The same almost certainly goes for a softcover Concordance of Rivals, for the record. (Staff passion and other factors influence this as well, but... if it won't sell, they won't make it.)

If you want to play smart, you left out the reasons why some of those have troubles selling.

Plus, less and less people are interested in the printed format, some out of concerns for the wilderness, other for economical (and sometime logistical) reasons, or both.

Dragon Empires is a great book and Chronicle of the Righteous is fantastic.

Not saying they aren't.


Kalindlara wrote:
Attacking my intelligence is unnecessary and uncalled-for.

Sorry if it came out as that.

But leaving important points out just to "prove/make a point", is...

anyway, we should stop derailing.

Silver Crusade

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Pathfinder Adventure Path Subscriber
Guy St-Amant wrote:
Kalindlara wrote:
Attacking my intelligence is unnecessary and uncalled-for.

Sorry if it came out as that.

But leaving important points out just to "prove/make a point", is...

anyway, we should stop derailing.

And what were the important points? Because saying things by not saying them is something best left to professionals.


2 people marked this as a favorite.
Pathfinder Maps, Pathfinder Accessories, Starfinder Society Subscriber; Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber
Gorbacz wrote:
Guy St-Amant wrote:
Kalindlara wrote:
Attacking my intelligence is unnecessary and uncalled-for.

Sorry if it came out as that.

But leaving important points out just to "prove/make a point", is...

anyway, we should stop derailing.

And what were the important points? Because saying things by not saying them is something best left to professionals.

Like lawyers.

>.>
<.<

:)


The shifter sounds interesting! I just hope that the shifter can choose specialties like a kineticist instead of being a jack of all trades shapeshifter. I've been wanting to run specialist shapeshifters with dragon or werewolf themes for a long time.


Matrix Dragon, I am sure we will get stuff like through archetypes.


I am so ridiculously excited for this book!! Nature themed classes/fey stuff are some of my favorite elements of games/fantasy settings, so this book makes me super stoked to get more love, especially with the addition of a badass sounding class like the Shifter.

Liberty's Edge

Gorbacz wrote:
Guy St-Amant wrote:
Kalindlara wrote:
Attacking my intelligence is unnecessary and uncalled-for.

Sorry if it came out as that.

But leaving important points out just to "prove/make a point", is...

anyway, we should stop derailing.

And what were the important points? Because saying things by not saying them is something best left to professionals.

I guess he meant Second Darkness being "less than stellar", which might be a good reason that low sales do not always mean low audience for other products on the same theme.

I am not that enthusiastic about a Wilderness book myself since I do not see what exciting things can happen in the wilds compared to cities or dungeons. I would love to be proven wrong though

Maybe an open playtest for the Shifter would raise my interest in this book ;-)

Silver Crusade

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Pathfinder Adventure Path Subscriber
The Raven Black wrote:

I am not that enthusiastic about a Wilderness book myself since I do not see what exciting things can happen in the wilds compared to cities or dungeons. I would love to be proven wrong though

Maybe an open playtest for the Shifter would raise my interest in this book ;-)

You need to go out of the town more often.

And I wouldn't count on an open playtest for the very same reason Starfinder didn't get one - open playtests are 20% useful feedback, 20% marketing stunt, 60% cesspools of anonymous toxicity.


I'm sure you haven't been in the wild enough. There, even the smallest bugs can provide you hours - if not days - of excitement... or pain.

Whereas in a world filled with monstrous folks, magical beasts, fey and aberrations.

Things that can happen in cities or dungeons could well happen in forests - I'm sure there are plenty of inhabitants that see forests as cities.

Silver Crusade

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Pathfinder Adventure Path Subscriber

I am *very* excited for a book that will help spice up the good old trek from the town to the dungeon. I find myself at ease when describing urban scenes - after all, I am a city rat my whole life - but I kind of fall short when it comes to wilderness. Of course I won't mind Ultimate Dungeon and Ultimate City, but I'm happy to see this one come first.


4 people marked this as a favorite.
Berselius wrote:
Well at least there's hope for a possible release of the other two volumes of Tabris the Chronicler's work next year then.

Er. Well... a snorgle of us proteans bumped into him as we were just starting what you mortals would describe as a crawl of intoxicant purveyor establishments. After the first couple "weeks", is that the term? (your concepts for marking temporal passage are so constricting), we realized he wasn't with us anymore. We, um, {looks uncomfortable} we sort of misplaced him, somewhere/somewhen out there.

{smiles brightly} But I'm sure he'll turn up eventually, with the majority of his ganglia, humours, appendages, and colors intact.


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I am very excited for this one, much more so then ultimate intrigue or horror adventures.


Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber

Is there going to be a playtest for the Shifter?

Designer

Prince Setehrael wrote:
Is there going to be a playtest for the Shifter?

There was some discussion earlier in the thread. My post here is probably the most useful.


Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber
Mark Seifter wrote:
Prince Setehrael wrote:
Is there going to be a playtest for the Shifter?
There was some discussion earlier in the thread. My post here is probably the most useful.

Thank you.

Designer

Prince Setehrael wrote:
Mark Seifter wrote:
Prince Setehrael wrote:
Is there going to be a playtest for the Shifter?
There was some discussion earlier in the thread. My post here is probably the most useful.
Thank you.

No worries!


1 person marked this as a favorite.

Do you suppose there are going to be a skinwalker specific archetype?


I do suppose that might be a thing


The NPC wrote:
Do you suppose there are going to be a skinwalker specific archetype?

Eventually yes, but I'm skeptical it will be in this book.

Silver Crusade

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And we have the awesome Rougarou now as well!


Hmm...
Curious if this does anything with Arcane-Utility Ranger concept (or via Hunter chassis).

Seems very "player option-centric" overall,
but weather/terrain/natural hazards also seem interesting.

I personally feel the entire "Getting Lost" function of Survival is massively underplayed and ignored. I mean, what amounts to no-Save Confusion effect seems like a big deal, but it usually is glossed over. Beefing up that mechanic and providing content to make it more interesting might change that.


Will there be a play test for the new class?


Pathfinder Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
Terevalis Unctio of House Mysti wrote:
Will there be a play test for the new class?

Might I direct you a few posts up?


1 person marked this as a favorite.
Luthorne wrote:
Terevalis Unctio of House Mysti wrote:
Will there be a play test for the new class?

Might I direct you a few posts up? [/QUOTE

Makes sense....the vast majority of the playtest just became toxic ego stroking....better to gather small groups privately.


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Yep, no more play test for classes, it was fun while it lasted.


Is it wrong to be far more excited to known what will be announced in Paizocon 2017 because the already announced products are more them awesome? This book - with the shifter in it - could totally be the star between the announcements, but it's already here...

I'm a little too anxious...


4 people marked this as a favorite.
Dragon78 wrote:
Yep, no more play test for classes, it was fun while it lasted.

Don't worry, folks, that's not what was said. However, discussion of other playtesting other books belongs on another thread.


I think it's been mentioned but I'd like to see some stuff to help play a vigilante in the wild. maybe even an archetype that focuses on the social identity rather than the vigilante one. Or just enough social talents to compliment someone who spends time in the wild as their social identity.


Need some Rogue nature archetypes.

??? Natural/Nature Trap Finding?


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Some feats designed specifically for animal companions would be nice.


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I am crossing my fingers for a dragon based archetype for the Shifter. I may finally be able to make Ryu from Breath of Fire.

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