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:
The Good
-The kineticist wood element being in a hardcover.
-The fey and ooze form spells.
-Racial feats and alternate racial traits.
-Large bear and the animal/plant/vermin companion and familiar section in general.
-Some interesting class options like alchemist discoveries, hexes, rage powers, etc.
-Some archetypes like the brawler's.
-Magical plants and herbalism.
-Some interesting feats like command animal and command plant.
The Bad
-The Shifter(I am too angry and disappointed to say any more.)
-Most of the Shifter archetypes especially the fiendish one being evil only.
-The loss of the plant race immunities. I can understand mind-affecting effects and polymorph, maybe even poison, but not the rest.
-The nerfing of some reprinted material.
-Too many archetypes and not enough(or at all) of other class options like hexes, rogue talents, bloodlines, mysteries/curses, etc.
-A lot of lacking feats or good feats with ungodly or strange prerequisites.
This was a normal review up to some point and then I went full Jeff Goldblum
The book opens with ARG-style details on three nature-aligned races: gathlains, ghorans and vine leshys. Please note that ghorans did change slightly in this iteration, losing some of their powerful plant type immunities.
Next up is grand total 6 (Six! A staggering number, which left me reeling!) pages on the Shifter class ... which I would likely explore, if anybody in my gaming groups was interested in one. They aren't.
Chapter 2 are the usual barrage of archetypes and class options. I like many of them, in particular the Green Knight. Kudos to whoever wrote that one!
Chapter 3 is the even more usual avalanche of feats. They run the usual fare between "never gonna be used at my table" and BOW WOW WOW. In the second category, there are feats which grant you access to Barbarian totem abilities and improve the core Spring Attack Feat. Neat!
Fourth Chapter is oooh, oooooh, ooooooh this is where I go full Jeff Goldblum on the book, yes, mmmmmhmmm. It's a monster. It's 50 pages long. 50 pages! It's like a short novel, not a chapter. It starts with codified rules for exploration and discovery, including territory statblock rules! Mmmmmm mhmmm mmm exploration, more like HEXploration, running across hexes while casting ... hexes ... you know, those cool D&D kids like that. They also like to use one word for many things, like they have class levels ... and spell levels ... and dungeon levels ... levels.
I've warned you I'm going full Jeff Goldblum, mmmmhm?
Anyway, up next is a section on the First World, that crazy, crazy fey place, you know, where everything is relative, and nothing is relevant, it's a bit like a William S. Burroughs place, with some Tolkien sprinkled on. Tolkien, that guy, you know, I know he was a timid English professor, but I'm sure did throw wild parties for his Inkling pals at Oxford, wild parties, like the ones in the First World.
Then comes foraging and salvaging, you know the stuff you do when you're stuck on an island amusement park where dinosaurs just ran amok, and you need to, you need to look for stuff which you then put together to build a helicopter and escape the island or to forge a +1 longsword, +3 against dinosaurs. But let me tell you, I went up against a T-rex once and that didn't end all that well, no it didn't.
Next is a long section on Green Faith, Golarion's druidic religion. Druidic religion? Man, those people are, I don't know, I figure they're all herbs and mushrooms and rites of nature. Their parties are likely a bit more wild than those Tolkien parties I've mentioned above, but you need to take care what you eat and whom you sleep with, because not everybody would like to end up with a satyr, I mean I'm fine with satyrs, you're fine with satyrs, but there might be people out there who would find waking up next to a satyr ... uncomfortable. So, in this chapter you get Green Faith's lore, holy sites, holy smites, holy rites and archetypes, not architects, these people do not look like they do architecture much.
Coming up is the harvesting poison section. Man, those folks at Paizo really want us all, you know, to get down and oh oh inhale uh uh ingest, man this book is so salacious! But it is all PG, no nipples here my friends, no need to reach for the Holy Book and pitchforks. So harvesting poison is all about answering that question which the little girl always asks, "how do you produce poison from the dead giant spider?" Smart girl, she always asks the right questions. So, this section answer that and you no longer need to look at her all puzzled.
Man, this chapter never ends, it just goes on and on like a Marcel Proust novel. You Americans read Proust? You should have, maybe then you would be a little less jaded in places. Anyway, Hazards and Disasters section is up next and amazingly, there is no reference to last year's politics there. Well done Paizo, well done, I know your silky Seattle-ian hands were itching, twitching, to play that trump card of referencing real world events but not, you have made your brave exit on this. So, this chapter is earthquakes and fording wild rivers and vampire orchids instead. Vampire orchids? Man, somebody, somebody hook me up with whoever writes that.
Herbalism subchapter is ... I mean, Paizo, you have made one mistake with this book. The graphic design, the artwork, this all should have been deep 60s/70s LSD style. I am sure there are some retired (or not so retired) hippies among your company, c'mon, this was asking for this. So, herbalism, how to find and use herbs such as Merfolk's Comb. I have gone to the field of Vampire Orchids to gather some Merfolk's Comb. This is, this is, you know it is an adventure hook in itself, I mean I am hooked already, I want to go where the Vampire Orchids grow.
Spells of the Wild subchapter goes on about how does magic alter the world around us. It is about all those situations where ... real life we would be in deep trouble, lost in the forest with no food and water, velociraptors on our tail and a wounded, useless professor of mathematics to drag around ... after he ran into a T-rex ... while trying to heroically save some kids ... that was a role everybody remembers. Anyway, this chapter tells us what happens if the Jurassic Park protagonists hooked up with a Druid or a Wizard and their magical spells would solve most of the issues right away. Say what magic could they use and how would that interact with the wilderness on a more ... general scale, not just the regular target, duration stuff.
Remember that "how do I harvest a spider for poison" clever little girl? Little girls ... so clever. And brave. And getting stronger each year, now they do not want to do your dishes anymore, they want to be ... what was her name, she was played by Daisy Ridley in the new Star ... Wars, not Trek, right? Ah, Rey! So, all brave girls want to be Rey and that is good, that's veeery good, we will be better for that. Anyway, so this little girl comes around again and asks, "now that I have the poison, I want to chop the dragon and sell his horns and teeth as trophies". And you are what, stunted again? Like I would be. So, this section tells you how to handle that. Imagine how will everybody smile when the little girl ... rides into a big city and sells all those dragon horns for millions of monies.
This chapter still? I am exhausted, I need some magic spell to revive me. Cure light wounds it was called? What is the D&D spell to make you less tired? We need more of that in real life. Anyway, concluding section of this chapter ... did you notice, D&D books are a bit like law, like bills and statutes, chapter, section, subsection ... lawyers must have fun playing this game. So, this section is weather. Now I know we here in America use Fahrenheit but ... come on Paizo, there are thousands, millions even, playing this game in Europe or UK! How about we maybe ... acknowledge the existence of Celcius? I mean, they acknowledge the existence of Jeff Goldblum, we owe them something in return. Anyway, this section reads a bit like some scientific article on weather, complete with tables for wind strength and rain intensity. I guess it helps by putting all those crazy, crazy specific rules in one place, I mean they are really crazy specific, when I run a game I just say it is -2 to all rolls because it is effing cold. But you might want to do it differently.
Chapter 4 ends with Wilderness Traps. Traps ... Clam Clamp ... a "classic" trap ... with a pearl inside ... Paizo, you are really, really DIRTY because I fell for this kind of trap a couple times in my life and ... well, it was nice most of the time, but I can see how it can be a deadly trap sometimes.
Chapter 4 is over, and I am still at my jeffgoldblumiest.
Fifth chapter is companions and familiars. First it updates the magic item slots on all animals, so if you want to put a belt and a saddle on your walrus, you know that you are green to go. A saddled walrus ... we are deep (ha!) in The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou territory here. Man, that was a movie. Cate, Will, Owen ... we have had a ball with this one. I was so happy to work with Cate again lately in that ... that movie you geeks and nerds will all love, Thorrr ... Rrragnarrrok ... yeah. I get to fool around there a lot. So, you are riding ... whaling ... whaling your saddled walrus and then you happen upon an armorfish, one of new animal companions. Armorfish! But it is not just fish here, there are other companions, and there are plant companions for those of you what want to walk around with an intelligent bonsai tree, or vermin companions ... we are back in William S. Burroughs territory here, big bugs, big talking bugs. Ewww. Next up are familiars, can anybody tell me what is the difference between animal companion and familiar? Oh, I understand now. Now that I know that familiars are a bit more of a dressing, I am not sure why do they get so many stats, so many numbers, -2, 1d2-4, is it all that relevant? But I guess some of you folks like that kind of detail. So, you get a lot of detail, and new familiars, including Perry the Platypus. Perry the Platypus! Oh, and you get archetypes for both animal companions and familiars, so you can make a saddled walrus an Ambusher or have Perry the Platypus the Ambassador. I don't even. And sure, you get tricks and feats for all those animals and vermin and plants because ... yeah, that's how deep we are here with Steve Zissou and his crew.
Chapter 6 is Spells and Chapter 7 is Gear and Magical Items, your usual dose of ... magic. The spells once again feel like somebody was really on to something here with stuff like Wandering Weather or Snowball. Snowball got nerfed, you know? Nerfed, like hit by a nerf gun, so I am told it means it is weaker than it used to be. There was obviously a moment of self-reflection there by the writer, when he or she stopped and said "nooooo ... there was too much of good stuff here, we need to dial back". I like how people can walk back and fix things like that here. So, spells, dozens of spells, and rituals, natural rituals, no ritual of joyous love here sadly, more stuff like "Reinforce Campsite". You need a magical ritual to reinforce a campsite?
And finally, there's gear and magic items, the usual, with stuff like Goblin Fishing Lure or Altitude Fern to make you scratch your head and wonder just how fresh is the air in Seattle. I need to go there.
As for my final verdict, mmmm, mhmmmm, well I bought this book for crazy news stuff to do with my friends in the wild and you know what? It delivers, it does, I can now fly a saddled Ambusher Walrus through a field of Vampire Orchids while looking for Merfolk's Comb that grows between two Altitude Ferns. I mean this alone is worth the asking price. It is like, a message, a message from the writers that we should go out and have fun, fun, not spite and hate and all the other bad things that happen when somebody expects something to be +2 and it turns out to be +1. I give this 5 stars and I will now try, try to exit the Jeff Goldblum mode, that might not be all that easy, I feel like Jeff is taking over, run.
I hope it's more so of a hybrid form. I want to transform into a werewolf. I don't want to transform into a wolf.
I want to transform into a half demon, half human. Not a full blown demon.
So on and so forth. Hybridize. That's one reason I dislike wildshape. I have to transform into something that's not human-like.
Curious, but why not both?
The hybridization seems perfect for low levels, with claws, elemental resist, darkvision, natural armor, being a decent way to be a half demon, but then at higher level, allowing a change into a more full demon. But still also continuing to gain more partial shifting options.
You could then split these paths into archetypes/PrCs, giving up the one option to focus on the other.
I hope it's more so of a hybrid form. I want to transform into a werewolf. I don't want to transform into a wolf.
I want to transform into a half demon, half human. Not a full blown demon.
So on and so forth. Hybridize. That's one reason I dislike wildshape. I have to transform into something that's not human-like.
Curious, but why not both?
The hybridization seems perfect for low levels, with claws, elemental resist, darkvision, natural armor, being a decent way to be a half demon, but then at higher level, allowing a change into a more full demon. But still also continuing to gain more partial shifting options.
You could then split these paths into archetypes/PrCs, giving up the one option to focus on the other.
I don't think he/she means that kind of Hybridization.
I am hoping wild shape with other gimmicks and improvements.
I also hope the class has good skills points and fort and reflex are good saves. I hope there is a archetype(if not the base class) that has some AC improvements that work while polymorphed like constant mage armor, monk like AC bonus, wild armor enchantment, etc.
Other gimmicks and improvements related to shape changing, I said nothing about spells or animal companions. I want this class to be martial based(d10HD, full BA) with no spells.
They would never update those spells with new abilities but they would create new ones.
Ok so I hope this book contents are not set in stone just yet. Mainly i just want them to maybe look at adding a bloodrager archetype. I havent seen a bloodrager archetype in a while and think a nature based one could fit nicely.
Ok so I hope this book contents are not set in stone just yet. Mainly i just want them to maybe look at adding a bloodrager archetype. I havent seen a bloodrager archetype in a while and think a nature based one could fit nicely.
There was Prowler at World's End in Blood of Beasts.
I had another thought for the shifter: no need for an amulet of the mighty fist. At all. An option that allows you to enchant your natural weapons and have that enchantment transfer to other natural attacks would be amazing and is much needed for the cool factor.
Oblivious it would need some limitations though. Perhaps you can only have so many 'sets' of the enchantment and you can only apply one set to one natural attack but not multiples of the same natural attacks. If you shifted and have two claws you'd have to pick which claw got +1 Flaming for instance.
What you've described is a druid with different saves. Spells and an animal companion are the other gimmicks and improvements.
We do not need another druid.
Actually, spells are the core druid class feature. There are several druid archetypes that modify wild shape or do away with it entirely, but none that drastically alter or take away its spellcasting.
So in a way, a druid is actually a nature priest with shapeshifting and animal companion as its other gimmicks and improvements.
Ok so I hope this book contents are not set in stone just yet. Mainly i just want them to maybe look at adding a bloodrager archetype. I havent seen a bloodrager archetype in a while and think a nature based one could fit nicely.
Check out Adventurers's Guide, which just came out this week! My enlightened bloodrager archetype (originally printed in Arcane Anthology) got reprinted. :D
Ok so I hope this book contents are not set in stone just yet. Mainly i just want them to maybe look at adding a bloodrager archetype. I havent seen a bloodrager archetype in a while and think a nature based one could fit nicely.
Check out Adventurers's Guide, which just came out this week! My enlightened bloodrager archetype (originally printed in Arcane Anthology) got reprinted. :D
To be quite frank, people generally dislike reprints because we are basically paying for the same material twice. Especially those who have the RPG subscription and the companion subscription...
I was at the Ultimate Wilderness preview. I'm only approximating, and going off of memory.
Shifters are a sort of martial druid, kinda Paladins of the druid orders in thematic role. They start out with claws they can have around as much as they want (whether they get other natural attacks wasn't covered), and they gain wild shape at level 5 as well, how many uses wasn't covered. They're also based on the Hunter's Aspects in a lot of ways at first, in part to make the class simpler for new players. As you level, though, you begin being able to mix different aspects, (for instance, combining bear and owl for an owlbear form).
Specifics were relatively spare, but they confirmed they were Full BAB, and they're primarily unarmored, and have the no-metal clause of a druid. They also get druidic, and have similar alignment restrictions. No one at the panel asked about dragon-shifters.
That's what I remember off-hand about the Shifter.
Well at least there are a bunch of options for non-metal armours. And dragon plate/stone plate are both solid heavy armour options. Hopefully natural armour options are good for shifters.
I was at the Ultimate Wilderness preview. I'm only approximating, and going off of memory.
Shifters are a sort of martial druid, kinda Paladins of the druid orders in thematic role. They start out with claws they can have around as much as they want (whether they get other natural attacks wasn't covered), and they gain wild shape at level 5 as well, how many uses wasn't covered. They're also based on the Hunter's Aspects in a lot of ways at first, in part to make the class simpler for new players. As you level, though, you begin being able to mix different aspects, (for instance, combining bear and owl for an owlbear form).
Specifics were relatively spare, but they confirmed they were Full BAB, and they're primarily unarmored, and have the no-metal clause of a druid. They also get druidic, and have similar alignment restrictions. No one at the panel asked about dragon-shifters.
That's what I remember off-hand about the Shifter.
Was the shifter Iconic on display and if so what race/gender appearence etc?
They are primarily unarmored but they have no metal armor restrictions. So they still have some armor prof. but gain some kind of armor boost like dodge or natural armor?
Well I am happy they get a full attack bonus and wild shape. I hope they can use their claws at will and their natural attacks get stronger as they level.
I am not really a fan of wild shape in Pathfinder, so slightly disappointed that we are just getting wild shape the class instead of something new, but it could still be fun depending on the options and how it all works together.
I was at the Ultimate Wilderness preview. I'm only approximating, and going off of memory.
Shifters are a sort of martial druid, kinda Paladins of the druid orders in thematic role. They start out with claws they can have around as much as they want (whether they get other natural attacks wasn't covered), and they gain wild shape at level 5 as well, how many uses wasn't covered. They're also based on the Hunter's Aspects in a lot of ways at first, in part to make the class simpler for new players. As you level, though, you begin being able to mix different aspects, (for instance, combining bear and owl for an owlbear form).
Specifics were relatively spare, but they confirmed they were Full BAB, and they're primarily unarmored, and have the no-metal clause of a druid. They also get druidic, and have similar alignment restrictions. No one at the panel asked about dragon-shifters.
That's what I remember off-hand about the Shifter.
Was the shifter Iconic on display and if so what race/gender appearence etc?
Sadly, no. But they were mentioned to have a visible animal aspect (like claws at 1st level)
They mentioned that the shifter iconic was female, and also mentioned that they had a quasi-AC boost ala the monk, so that you could have a near-naked shifter, because that's cooler than covering your neat shapechange with armor. I don't remember for certain, but they might have the iconic on display at the preview banquet... I remember that they will have the cover there, and they were excited because two of the panelists hadn't seen the cover.
There are 3 races, two of them are plant creatures (vine leshy and another one that's already been printed... but I don't remember much about it). They also specified that because they didn't want oh... a leshy bard to be immune to its own Wild Shape or Bardic Performance, and also for balance reasons, they removed a lot of the plant immunities for the plant races PCs can take.
Let's see... *is wracking brain*
They're collating all the animal companions they could find into the book, I don't remember if the familiars were as well. They were drawing heavily from Animal Archive to get magic item slots for the animal companions. There're Animal Companion/Familiar templates, examples given were to give your pet draconic blood in its ancestry, or the trickster template that allows your familiar to 'spoof' your empathic link if it feels like it.
There was mention of fey-shifting spells, which add additional abilities since most fey abilities are slightly underwhelming. There was mention of magical plants, along the lines of a goodberry bush, that produce fruit with magical properties in certain seasons and how much of them there are. Rules for collecting poisons from animals/the wild... rules for cheaper wilderness traps...
I honestly can't remember much other than the hazards at this point, as they mentioned Flash Floods being in there, and James Jacobs was saying he may be able to fit a table in the book which tells you which book other hazards were in, like the volcano rules.
While it's not exactly what I wanted, I can deal with these shifter discoveries. Taking my favorite part of the druid and making a class focused on it. I will be trying one.
Oh anyword on stats? like is anything wisdom based (number of uses per day or what have you?
While it's not exactly what I wanted, I can deal with these shifter discoveries. Taking my favorite part of the druid and making a class focused on it. I will be trying one.
Oh anyword on stats? like is anything wisdom based (number of uses per day or what have you?
Stat priorities weren't discussed at all, nor were uses per day. The only thing that was confirmed is that your claws are either always-on, or usable at-will. They didn't specify (and the claws improve as you level).
Oh, I forgot! They confirmed that the Phytokineticist (wood-kineticist) will get a full reprint in this book, including the missing Basic Kinesis. I don't remember if they said there'd be additional abilities, though.
Well that is cool that the phytokineticist will get a reprint.
I like the news about animal companions/familiars and templates.
Not happy about plant races loosing their plant immunities though.
Really happy that the Shifter will get a monk-like AC bonus.
They did not specify, that I recall, what the AC bonus will be. I'm personally assuming natural armor.
The plant races lost the immunities because, yes, there are effects you can't have PCs having. But they also pointed out that a plant is immune to polymorph effects, and that includes all the beneficial ones. Same with mind-affecting abilities. It makes them problematic as PCs, so they had a huge discussion on how to deal with it. Getting rid of it for the sentient races seems to be how they decided to cut the gordian knot, since they didn't want to make it so you'd be relatively ineffective playing a Shifter, Barbarian, Bloodrager, Bard, or Skald (choosing classes off the top of my head that use significant abilities they couldn't benefit from).
I think it was a good idea, personally. As they said, sometimes you make what seemed like a good idea way-back when, but later on you realize it makes things more problematic.
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Good point -- we have far less on the Rougarou race. Maybe they will at least give a nod to the non-core shapeshifting races? It would be disappointing if they went into only three races in detail, gave FCBs for the core races, and said nothing at all about how the racial abilities of other shapeshifting races interact with the Shifter class and any archetypes of other classes with similar abilities.
