Pathfinder Player Companion: Agents of Evil (PFRPG)

Announced! Cover image and description not final.

I will be skipping this one.

I will be skipping this one.

I won't! It'll be interesting to compare with Champions of Corruption. I do enjoy a good evil PC.

Well, I will be buying this one and sleeping with it under my pillow! Oh the wonderful dreams I will have.

What a very nice book this seems to be!

The great Asmodeus approves this book.

So this is essentially about evil PCs?

No, it's about PCs who ironically pretend to be evil but in reality are just jaded and bored CNs who want to challenge the society's perception of the notions of good and evil. Tragically, they end up butchered by CG Paladins of Asmodeus.

Sorry, couldn't resist.

This is going to be interesting.

I love the description.

Not every protagonist is a hero! Get the tools to carry out dark deeds for even darker employers in Pathfinder Player Companion: Agents of Evil! Sometimes player characters are less interested in defeating evil and making the world a better place, and more interested in working for the winning side, avoiding the consequences of bucking the system, and definitely getting paid! Inside this book you'll find discussions of what it means to carry out evil plans (especially for characters not themselves evil), new character options for PCs not squeamish about what patrons, gods, or other sources of power they call on, and equipment, magic items, and spells that will keep paladins from being willing to work with you!

So I will definitely be getting this book.

No, it's about PCs who ironically pretend to be evil but in reality are just jaded and bored CNs who want to challenge the society's perception of the notions of good and evil. Tragically, they end up butchered by CG Paladins of Asmodeus.

Sorry, couldn't resist.

The Paladin actually did something!

I love the description.

Product Description wrote:

, and spells that will keep paladins from being willing to work with you!

Cantrip - 'Wall of Evil' [Evil] - This shimmering gray curtain has no mechanical effect except to make paladins who pass through it feel distinctly unwelcome. If the Paladin fails a will save, she visibly flinches, and anyone watching can tell she's a big wuss.

'Pride Goeth Before a Fall' [Evil] - If the target is good, it trips. If the target is neutral, it is unaffected. An evil target gains an additional move action this round.

Bestow Curse variant - A Paladin affected by this curse treats every space she enters as if it was under the effect of a grease spell (same DC as the bestow curse spell). An atonement spell will end this curse.'

Any idea which twisted sickos....ehrm....authors and/or freelancers will be working on this?

So this is essentially about evil PCs?

No not at all. It is for those PCs with a certain level of morale flexibility.

You know, I'm sick and tired of evil getting such a bad rap all the time.

If there weren't good, then there couldn't be evil. So all you "good guys" get at least half the blame for the moral depredation in the world. :p

Axial wrote:

So this is essentially about evil PCs?

No not at all. It is for those PCs with a certain level of morale flexibility.

Flexible morale doesn't sound very useful compared to flexible morals.

John Kretzer wrote:

Axial wrote:

So this is essentially about evil PCs?

No not at all. It is for those PCs with a certain level of morale flexibility.

Flexible morale doesn't sound very useful compared to flexible morals.

Could be an interesting Bard option. "I sing, sing, sing a song of flexible morale! You get a +2 morale bonus to attack rolls, damage and AC, Mr. Monk. You get a +2 morale bonus to your concentration checks and caster level, Ms. Sorcerer/ess. And, because I hate you, I give you a -2 morale *penalty* to everything, Mr. Cavalier/Iconic D-bag!"

.

On a more serious note, I'm intrigued to know if this book will give a little bit more information on evil organizations, like the Aspis Consortium.

I mean, the Pathfinders basically sneak around in countries where they are not welcome, desecrate the burial sites of their ancestors, steal their cultural treasures, and then spirit them away to hide in a vault somewhere even the dudes who risked their lives to steal them never get to see them.

And the Aspis Consortium is the 'evil' version of that?

Sort of like being the hot version of the sun, right?

:)

On a more serious note, I'm intrigued to know if this book will give a little bit more information on evil organizations, like the Aspis Consortium.

I've been waiting for more Aspis info for years. They seem forever doomed to be butt monkeys to the Pathfinders' heroics (?), which is unfortunate, because they have so much potential. I'd love to learn more about the Board of Patrons and the two Executives, and the look at Conference Z in Occult Mysteries got me all a tingling.

At the very least, they could be as cool as the Zhents.

I'm intrigued to know if this book will give a little bit more information on evil organizations, like the Aspis Consortium.

The Aspis Consortium are the Washington Generals of Golarion.

In PFS we call them Team Rocket.

They make the Red Wizards of Thay look like competent.

The Aspis Consortium, giving Evil a Bad name.

It's like a whole continent spanning organization decided to emulate and method act all the tell tale qualities of the two Home Alone villains.

In PFS we call them Team Rocket.

Hah, I was this close to mentioning Team Rocket too.

I know I'll get no use out of this book in PFS, but I'll enjoy reading it anyhow!

Yep. These days, I stick to Pathfinder Society play, so it looks like I'll be dropping most of my subscriptions for a while this winter / spring.

Yep. These days, I stick to Pathfinder Society play, so it looks like I'll be dropping most of my subscriptions for a while this winter / spring.

Certainly I don't expect this book to be useless for PFS players...

Inside this book you'll find discussions of what it means to carry out evil plans (especially for characters not themselves evil)

It'll be interesting to see if/how Hell's Vengenace (or whatever the name of the AP is) gets PFS sanctioned. I can see it being "campaign mode only", or perhaps with a set of pregens. It could be like "Serpents Rise"; not something your actual PFS characters could do, but something that you could do for PFS-related reasons.

Whatever happens with that will certainly have a bearing on the PFS usefulness of Agents of Evil.

How will this book differ from/relate to Champions of Corruption? My first thought on seeing the title was "they already did that"....

Chris Mortika wrote:

Yep. These days, I stick to Pathfinder Society play, so it looks like I'll be dropping most of my subscriptions for a while this winter / spring.

Certainly I don't expect this book to be useless for PFS players...

The Description wrote:

Inside this book you'll find discussions of what it means to carry out evil plans (especially for characters not themselves evil)

Our crew is all sorts of good and have no desire to carry out evil plans, so....I second the call for more Aspis Consortium info.

It would be all too easy to simply reinvent a certain tome of profaned shadiness. Hopefully there'll be good stuff for evil NPCs of good intentions for GM use too.

I am cautiously optimistic about this one.

-TimD

It can't hurt to talk about what you'd *like* to see in this book. :)

The Description wrote:

Inside this book you'll find discussions of what it means to carry out evil plans (especially for characters not themselves evil)

Paladins "of" Asmodeus revisited? ...Mwahahaha...

It can't hurt to talk about what you'd *like* to see in this book. :)

I am not sure if you guys will do archetypes but an Archetype for the Antipaladin that is Lawful Evil would be nice. Been waiting for that for years now.

A Hellfire Metamagic feat perhaps. Like half fire/half unholy energy or something.

I am trying to think because I'll be wanting more options come time Hells Vengeance comes out.

+1 to LE Antipaladin.

I'm afraid that Paizo is committed to not doing an LE antipaladin or CG paladin. It's just something they've decided not to do; for one reason or the other.

I knew they were committed about paladin, but I wasn't sure about antipaladin. Ah, well - worst case scenario, they don't make one. ^_^

I'm still trying to come up with other suggestions... I like that the Player Companion line is Golarion-specific, so I'd like to see stuff for specific organizations or nations.

-More stuff for Norgorber's faithful would be cool.
-A Cheliax-specific inquisitor archetype for Thrune agents would be interesting.
-I'd love to see more Aspis Consortium or Whispering Way content.
-This probably isn't the right book, but I would love to see the options for the "lesser" Hellknight orders developed.

That's all I've got so far...

I'm still trying to come up with other suggestions... I like that the Player Companion line is Golarion-specific, so I'd like to see stuff for specific organizations or nations.

-More stuff for Norgorber's faithful would be cool.
-A Cheliax-specific inquisitor archetype for Thrune agents would be interesting.
-I'd love to see more Aspis Consortium or Whispering Way content.
-This probably isn't the right book, but I would love to see the options for the "lesser" Hellknight orders developed.

That's all I've got so far...

A Drow Fleshwarper archetype for the Alchemist :)

I'm still trying to come up with other suggestions... I like that the Player Companion line is Golarion-specific, so I'd like to see stuff for specific organizations or nations.

-More stuff for Norgorber's faithful would be cool.

Norgorber's cool in that his four 'faces' lend themselves to Barbarian content (rage powers for mad reavers of the Skinsaw Man), Bard content (reapers of reputation, all political and intrigue-y), Rogue content (Gray Master tactics and rogue talents) and Alchemist content (Blackfingers-inspired poison using alchemist archetype, replacing mutagen or something with a daily pool of poisons that can either be assembled at the beginning of the day (and last only 24 hours) at no cost, or, at higher level, a smaller pool of poison that can be crafted instantly).

New classes, like the Investigator and Slayer, have Norgorber written all over them, as well. Maybe even a divine Ninja, reflavoring the ki powers / pool with a pool of divine energy recharged by prayers to Norgorber, but mechanically pretty much identical (less Asian flavor in the weapon choices, perhaps) could be a thematic tweak.

-I'd love to see more Aspis Consortium or Whispering Way content.

Oh yes. Blackfire Adepts, as well.

Some specific Necromancer type Archetype for Clerics, Bone Oracles, Necromancer specialists, etc. for the Whispering Way could be creepy and cool.

Similarly, some specific summoning options for Blackfire Adepts could also be funky (perhaps the ability to corrupt anothers summons and cause celestial summons to become fiendish ones inclined to attack their summoner, or to counter-summon opposed fiends to fight enemy celestials?).

For that matter, being able to counterspell [good] spells with [evil] spells would totally make sense. PC is casting protection from evil to hold your summoned demons at bay? Your evil NPC cleric can't cast protection from evil, but he *can* cast protection from good, and what logically and thematically would make more sense to 'counter' protection from evil, than protection from good? Same with holy smite or holy word or similar spells that have alignment subtype opposites.

Maybe even a counter-channel feat, that allows a cleric within the radius of another clerics channeled energy to expend a use of their own channel energy as an immediate action to negate it (plus or minus any leftover dice, if one is stronger than the other).

Other thoughts;

Evil Druids of Zon-Kuthon already have a niche with the Umbra-Token, Shade of the Uskwood business, but Zon-Kuthon is literally the *last* evil god who thematically fits with 'Druid.' Just a sentence or two describing how Druids and Rangers of Lamashtu (mothers of monsters!), Asmodeus (helltamers/students of planar ecologies!), Norgorber (toxicologists!), Rovagug (masters of disaster!) and Urgathoa (students of the negative energy 'ecosystem!') function in Golarion could be handy.

(That could apply to neutral and good gods as well, for later books. Anyone can grok how a Druid of Gozreh would roll, s/he's practically got 'god(dess) of Druids tattooed on hir backside, and a Druid of Cayden or Calistria or Abadar or Shelyn could focus on intoxicating plants or mean old wasps or domesticating animals/agriculture or pretty birds and flowers, but a Druid of Gorum or Irori or Iomedae is less intuitive.)

A larger selection of evil *arcane* spells, sufficient to allow someone to specialize in Evil, instead of Conjuration or Fire. Not everything to do with evil has to involve the evil gods, or divine casters, after all! Some people are wicked and selfish without extraplanar incentives!

(And yeah, logically, it would make sense to also increase the number of Good, Chaos and Law spells, and make similar specialists for those alignment directions, eventually, just not in this book.)

I am not sure if you guys will do archetypes but an Archetype for the Antipaladin that is Lawful Evil would be nice. Been waiting for that for years now.

For Lawful Evil (or at least Any Evil) antipaladins, check out Legendary Games' Legendary Villains: Antipaladins. It features three archetypes for Any Evil (or, in one case, Chaotic Evil or Lawful Evil) antipaladins.

Looking forward to it!

Random other notions for Golarion;

Blood alchemists of Geb, using vampire blood to develop new discoveries, such as mutagens that give the drinker vampiric traits (increased strength, slam attack, bite attack, undead-derived resistances (such as save bonuses to things undead are immune to, like poison)), bombs that explode in bone shrapnel that causes bleed damage or summon rat/bat swarms, or a self-bomb that explodes the alchemists body (damaging those adjacent to him) into a gaseous form for a number of rounds.

Red Mantis Assassin archetypes or feats developed for those who follow that group but aren't the usual monks or rogues, such as clerics of Achaekek, bards, ninja, slayers, warpriests, etc. Blood mantis vermin companions for druids, hunters and rangers of the Red Mantis.

Warriors of the Whispering Way, students of war using necromantic insights to avoid the weaknesses of the flesh / ravages of age, similar to the Unfailing of Hallowfaust in the Scarred Lands / Warriors of the School Beyond the Veil from Arcana: Societies of Magic / Death Knights of the Secret School of Necromancy. Archetype for Fighters who strengthen their body through exposure to negative energy and slowly develop increased toughness, immunity to the penalties of aging and undead-like resistances, while remaining alive. Perhaps self-crafting bone armor and weapons from the bodies of those they slay, partially animate / necromantically strengthened (harder to disarm, tough as iron, reducing armor check / movement penalties, etc.)?

John Kretzer wrote:

Axial wrote:

So this is essentially about evil PCs?

No not at all. It is for those PCs with a certain level of morale flexibility.

Flexible morale doesn't sound very useful compared to flexible morals.

I imagine that neither are quite as useful as a good summon monster (morays), although personally, I'm much more fond of summoning morels. {is dragged offstage by shepard's crook}

Chris Mortika wrote:

Yep. These days, I stick to Pathfinder Society play, so it looks like I'll be dropping most of my subscriptions for a while this winter / spring.

Certainly I don't expect this book to be useless for PFS players...

The Description wrote:

Inside this book you'll find discussions of what it means to carry out evil plans (especially for characters not themselves evil)

That sounds encouraging, but then there was plenty of stuff in Champions of Corruption that could have made it into PFS and nothing made it in.

Booooooooo!

Did someone say Boooooooo-urns?

KILL KRUSH MAIM BURN DESTROY!

Looking forward to this!

It looks to be the book for the schemers. It says agents of evil, but really it is a mixture of evil and neutral. It helps those evil(or morally dubious) players actually think of ways to be an evil/morally dubious person and not get immediately handed over to the nearest murder hobo for easy XP. Like building an orphanage as a cover to train evil agents from the children, setting up an elaborate con, running a slave ring, maintaining an evil cult, quietly subverting lawful nations. And bringing hard handed order to the more chaotic ones. The reason most evil overlords fail in their bid for power is simple. They get too caught up in the image of a villain to realise that the most diabolical thing you can do is to help them, earn their trust, quietly get them to your line of thinking, and then watch as the heroes are faced with a bunch of good, honest people defending the villain. Even antipaladins can do this.

Announced! Cover image and description not final.

Looking forward to this one. Some of my fondest PF memories are from running evil campaigns. Not really digging the title font though.

Well, I'm hoping for Antipaladin archetypes as usual. Specifically archetypes that deal with trading out smite good and cruelties for other bonuses (such as gaining the barbarian 'Rage' ability along with 'Rage Powers'). Some Ninja archetypes would also be very welcome as well.

Or....how about an Antipaladin archetype that trades out 'fiendish boon' for a 'Black Blade' (like the one gained from the Magus archetype). I mean, come on...who doesn't like the idea of having an evil blade with a mind of its own? Tis clearly much more practical than a silly little ring (just make sure the hobbits don't steal it) ;)

If Paizo is still taking suggestions for this book, I have one: an evil cleric archetype that can channel positive energy and pretend to be a cleric of a good-aligned deity.