Pathfinder Playtest – Page 2

Pathfinder Playtest: Resonance Test

Resonance.

If you’re playing the Pathfinder Playtest you’ll know that its one of the of the most controversial additions to the game. It was meant to represented your characters innate ability to activate magic items, and intended to help limit how much magical gear your characters could utilize each day. If you wanted to use a magical cloak you invest some resonance. Fire a magic wand? It costs resonance. Want to drink a potion? Resonance.

Personally? Disliked it. It felt… arbitrary. Like your GM just suddenly saying: ‘No, you can’t use that,’ when you know you should be able to. Especially with potions! And alchemical objects! Why?

Paizo has already confirmed that when Pathfinder 2.0 comes out there will be a change to the resonance rules. But, just this week they decided to test out a new system. They’ve taken our feedback and shook it up a bit.

Enter the Resonance Test!

The Resonance Test is a PDF rules update that is free to download and focuses on Resonance, new rules for it, and updated items and abilities that reflect this change. Afterwards there are some pregenerated characters. After reading the new rules, you select a character and use them to play through Pathfinder Playtest Society Scenario #2: Raiders of Shrieking Peak. Give the rules a shot and then provide Paizo your feedback in a special survey. It’s important to note that these rules are not for using with the rest of the Pathfinder Playtest, and that you shouldn’t create your own characters to utilize these rules.

So, what are these rules, anyway?

For starters, resonance means something different. It’s no longer the number of magical items you can use every day. Instead, resonance represents how many magical items you can wear each day. Essentially it takes the place of item slots. But, instead of keeping track of each slot on the body, you just get 10 of your choice. This is meant to be a large enough number that you don’t feel constrained, but at the same prevents excessive over-use. Magical items (wearable, consumable, and so on) no longer take resonance to function. In fact, they no longer take any kind of points to function. They just work. Most of them have a limited number of uses (either per day, or total).

Pathfinder Playtest Society Scenario 2 Raiders of Shrieking Peak — Pathfinder Playtest Society Scenario #2: Raider of Shrieking Peak, by Luis Loza.

But, that’s not all. They’ve also shaken up Spell Points. In this test they no longer exist. Instead you have Focus Points. These points are based off of your charisma and your ancestry. They represent your natural affinity for magic and magical objects. You can use focus points to either activate your spell powers (which you once used spell points for) or to get more out of a magical item. Now, taking a spell power from your class no longer grants you extra focus points and, since you have less focus points to work with that you used to have spell points, all of your spell powers abilities have been amplified. Simply put, spell powers are better than they used to be, and cost Focus Point instead of Spell Points. But you have less spell points.

But what if you don’t have spell powers? No worries! As mentioned, you can also use focus points to get a little something extra out of your magical gear. What that effect is will vary between item. Some potions might have double the duration or potency, a limited use ability could gain an extra use, and so on.

Interesting.

Overall, I vastly prefer the new resonance test rules to those found in the Pathfinder Playtest Rulebook. I like that resonance is going to replace item slots, and I like that you no longer need to spend points to activate magical items. I love the concept of focus points, and using your innate charisma to push magical items beyond their capabilities. It’s very occultist (and I love Pathfinder’s occultists!). I even like that spell powers and these new item focus powers share the same point pool. My only quibble? I’m going to wish I had more points! Haha.

I’m excited to see how these new rules work in play!

Jessica

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Pathfinder Playtest: 1.4!

Well, it’s another week and another Pathfinder Playtest Update! There’s new surveys to fill out about Pathfinder Playtest Adventure: Doomsday Dawn: Part Five: Heroes of Undarin, new videos to watch on Paizo’s twitch stream, and a new Pathfinder PlaytestUpdate Document. Be sure to head on over to Paizo’s website and download the free update. This version? 1.4!

So, what’s new this time around?

Heritages.

In previous versions of the Pathfinder Playtest you select an ancestry: dwarf, elf, goblin, gnome, halfling, or human. This choice grants you ability boosts and flaws, hit points, size, speed, languages, and some special abilities. Then you select a single ancestry feat. This feat grants you an additional ability or quality based on your ancestry that you get to select yourself. At higher levels you can select more ancestry feats. Unless of course, you’re a half-elf or a half-orc. To access those races you have to select human, and then use your ancestry feat to become a half-elf or half-orc.

That’s no longer the case.

Instead, they’ve introduced an additional kind of feat: heritage feats. Now you select an ancestry, apply it, then select a heritage feat and an ancestry feat. Like ancestry feats, heritage feats are tied to your ancestry. Only gnomes can select a gnome heritage feat, and so on. The half-elf and half-orc ancestry feats are now a part of this heritage feat system. You become a human, select a either half-orc or half-elf as a heritage feat, and select an ancestry feat like every other ancestry gets to. In addition to shuffling these feats around they created unique heritage feats for each ancestry. With the selection of a heritage feat you can now play a desert dwarf, jungle elf, svirfneblin, razor tooth goblin, nomadic halfling, and so on. Each ancestry has around four new heritage feat options. Some of these options will be familiar. For example, the dwarven hardy ability has been moved from an ancestry feat to a heritage feat called Strong-Hearted Dwarf. Others options are brand new.

But, that’s not the only changes. With the addition of heritage feats some of the ancestry abilities have been shuffled around. Other ancestries lost abilities, and some (like halflings) gained some (finally!). They’ve also created three new, higher level ancestry feats for each ancestry.

The rest of the changes are quite minor. They’ve altered the phrasing on a few abilities, improved fighter’s bravery, ranger’s full-grown companion, and the feats battle medic and natural medicine. Crafting can now be used to Recall Knowledge about alchemy instead of arcana. Medicine can now be used to find forensic information on a body or a crime scene. A few spells were slightly adjusted.

And that’s it! It’s a small update, but the heritage system is going to effect every character created to date, so it’s quite important. I’m curious to see how this alters the feel of Pathfinder Playtest characters.

Only time will tell!

Jessica

First snow and giving thanks!

Whoo, it’s been a busy week!

My family spent the better part of last weekend preparing for winter. We dug out and washed all of our winter gear, tried on coats and boots, matched mitts (or shoved lonely mitts into mismatched pairs), donated what was too small to the homeless, and went out to buy new winter boots. Everyone in my house needed a new pair this year and with the amount of walking we do winter boots are a necessity for everyone, not just my kids. Which is unfortunate, I suppose, because they’re really expensive. It’s important they’re warm enough and waterproof to keep everyone nice and toasty throughout our chilly winters, so cheap fashion boots won’t cut it. They’ve got to be cold rated for -30°C at least. -40°C is better. Not easy to find for my daughter. For some reason boys boots are built for the cold, while a lot of girl boots look like they’re warm, but aren’t. Anyway it took us the weekend, but we all managed to find a pair. And just in time! We had our first real snow on Wednesday. I say real snow because we’ve had flurries before this. But this snow stayed. There was enough of it to get the kids all excited, and to make snowballs and tiny snowmen (or in my daughter’s case, tiny snow rabbits). I’m not sure how long the snow will stay. It might not go away until next spring, but there’s only a few centimetres, so if we get a warm day it might still melt away. We’ll see. My kids were thrilled for it, but after only a day of the damp and the (very, very mild) cold they’re already complaining.

Suck it up kids! We’re just getting started! It will get so much worse. Haha.

My toddler-aged niece that I watch on the weekdays hates getting in her winter clothes, so every trip outside and to and from school is a tear-filled struggle. Not to mention the time! It takes twenty minutes to get everyone properly dressed and out the door. (Once they get used to it I hope to cut it down to fifteen. Ten would be a welcome miracle). My niece keeps expecting me to give up on her and let her do whatever she wants, which is not going to happen. Clearly she has forgotten we had this same problem last winter. She did not win. She’ll grow accustomed to it in a few weeks. Hopefully sooner. Thankfully her older brother (he’s four) does remember last year’s winter. He knows he needs to bundle.

Pathfinder Playtest Doomsday Dawn — Pathfinder Playtest Adventure: Doomsday Dawn

In other news, my family and I tried playing some more of Pathfinder Playtest Adventure: Doomsday Dawn. We prepared our characters for ‘In Pale Mountains Shadow’ and got started. Unfortunately, by the end of the session they decided they were bored with it. They’ve officially given up playing through Doomsday Dawn and are ready to go back to their regular games. My son desperately wants to continue with the Carrion Crown Adventure Path (we’re about to start Carrion Crown: Book Two: Trial of the Beast), my husband wants to continue with The Shackled City Adventure Path (we’re nearly done book one), and my daughter wants to play some more of our Starfinder Society characters. Most of the other campaigns we’re playing together I moved online so we can play via play-by-post. Getting in a post a day lets us keep playing, so we can dedicate our one chance to play on the weekends to one of our three main campaigns.

Although it may sound like we’re done with the Pathfinder Playtest that’s not quite accurate. I’m playing through two different play-by-post runs of Doomsday Dawn, and we’re all playing in a play-by-post run of the Pathfinder Playtest Society Scenarios. We’re halfway through Rose Street Revenge right now and enjoying it. My son’s character is particularly hilarious. We’ll share more about that at a later date.

My son’s current favourite book: The Adventures of Captain Underpants: The First Epic Novel by Day Pilkey, by Day Pilkey.

My son has been reading like crazy lately! Obviously, I’m very proud of this. I believe that reading is one of those incredibly important skills you really need to instil a love of young. I always encourage my kids to find something they love to read, and indulge in it. Even though both of my kids are good at reading I always push them to try reading something that’s a challenge everyday. Not absurdly hard for them, or anything, but something they do need to work at a bit. Anyway, both of my children are reading well above their grade level so their classrooms don’t have anything that’s a challenge for them. They both bring home books that are far too easy for them for home reading everyday. In fact my daughter can read her older brother’s home reading books without trouble, never mind her own. We have a ton of books at home for my kids to read, but only two books that are a challenge for my son to read that interest him (and he’s read both chapter books repeatedly already). We have plenty of chapter books that my son reads for fun — Geronimo Stilton, The Hardy Boys (Secret Files), Scooby-Doo! mystery novels, Minecraft books, the Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom junior novelization, and so on — but he can read one of those in under a half hour. They’re a challenge for my daughter (and some are too hard), but not exactly a challenge for my son. Something must be done! Once a week after I pick my kids up from school we go for a walk to the local library and I let them each pick out one book that’s a challenge for them to read, and one book that they just want. I say one, but inevitably they come back with one challenging book and a ton of other books they want to read. This is expected and totally fine. A while ago my son brought home a massive book on ecology clearly intended for pre-teens or teenagers. This thing was huge! Anyway, he loved it, but this time he wanted a chapter book. He contemplated starting the Guardians of Gahoole books, so he picked up one of those. But for his fun book? Captain Underpants. My son LOVES Captain Underpants. So he pulled down not one book, but every single Captain Underpants chapter book the library had. There are twelve of them.

My daughter’s favourite chapter book: The Princess in Black and the Hungry Bunny Horde, by Shannon Hale and Dean Hale.

“Are you sure you’ll read all of them this week?” I asked my son. “They’re going to be heavy.”

“Uh, yeah, Mom. Of course! But, it might take me two weeks to read them.”

It took him three days. Which is great! But, also… not great. I now have to break it to him that there are only twelve Captain Underpants books. He just read them all. Meanwhile my daughter picked out three Princess in Black chapter books. She owns one of them: The Princess in Black and the Hungry Bunny Horde, already, but the others are new to her. Although she’s disappointed they are not going to have any rabbits in them, she is enjoying them. So much so that she was inspired to write her own book. It’s called ‘Bunny’s Adventure.’ In it a rabbit named Pim journeys up the rainbow and finds another world. She makes some friends and is back home in time for bed. She worked on it for a few days and in the end gave it to her teacher as a gift. (Her teacher had just returned from surgery that week). It was adorable. She’s so proud of it.

Traveller Core Rulebook by Mongoose Publishing.

I was recently invited to join a play-by-post game of Traveller, and gifted a digital copy of the rulebook by the overly generous Tarondor. (Thank you!) Traveller is a game I’ve never played before, so I’m super excited to give it a shot. I’ve given the book a skim, and have just embarked on a thorough read-through. The character creation rules look particularly interesting. Like a mini-game of its own. Very cool! I can’t wait to try it out. I’ve got plenty left to read though, so I’m not sure how soon that will be. Haha. This time of the year is quite busy around my house. But, I’m happily working on it.

This coming weekend is going to be just as busy as the last one. Busier, in fact. Yesterday was a day off from school, this morning is swimming lessons for my children (which is about a thirty minute walk away), then dentist appointments later today. I’ve got to squish in a trip to the grocery store and the laundromat. And tomorrow? Thanksgiving at my Mom’s! Monday’s another day off from school and more Thanksgiving celebrations, this time at my mother-in-laws. That’s actually pretty quiet for us for Thanksgiving, in all honesty. We usually also try to squish in visits to my grandparents and my Dad’s, but it’s not going to happen this year. We don’t own a vehicle, and frankly I’m too tired. Haha. We’ll be making time for less frantic visits with them soon.

Well, I’ve got to get cracking! Plenty to do and no time to do it in.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Or, for those of you who are not Canadian, have a great weekend! I wish you all the best.

Jessica

Take a Look d20diaries cropped — My son desperately wanted his picture featured on d20diaries. This was our compromise. Haha.

Pathfinder Playtest Scenario #4: Frozen Oath

Pathfinder Playtest Rulebook Today we’re going to look at the brand new Pathfinder PLAYTEST Society Scenario and tell you what we thought. Currently, there are four of them available as a free download on Paizo’s website: three that were released back in August, and one that was released a short time ago. (For more information on the first three scenarios check out this previous blog post. Each scenario is replayable. You may create your own characters for the intended tier (either created as level one for a tier one scenario, created as level five for a tier five scenario, or created as level ten for a tier ten scenario). Unlike regular Pathfinder Society Scenarios, you do not need to earn enough XP to reach higher levels for the Playtest. If you don’t want to make your own characters, you can also head over to Paizo’s website and download the Pregenerated Pathfinder Playtest characters for the three low level scenarios. For this new scenario, which is tier ten, there are no pregenerated characters. You’ll need to make your own. All you’ll need to run these four scenarios (other than your characters) is the Pathfinder Playtest Rulebook, the most recent update document which, at the time of posting this, is version 1.3, and the scenarios themselves. Each scenario is intended for groups of FOUR players (unlike regular PFS Scenarios which are intended for six) although each contains easy ways to scale up encounters for larger groups. Although you’ll find references to events in each that I liked or disliked, and comments about specific characters, these scenarios are not explored in detail. It’s not my intention to spoil the events in these scenarios, or give summaries and full reviews, but to share my opinions and provide recommendations. Once you’re done playing or GMing any one of these scenarios, be sure to head over to Paizo’s website and fill out a survey about your experiences. This will be used by the Paizo team to make the Pathfinder Playtest the best that it can be.

So, without further ado, let’s get started!

Pathfinder Playtest 4 Frozen Oath Pathfinder Playtest Society Scenario #4: Frozen Oath is a Tier 10 adventure written by Ron Lundeen. As previously mentioned, you do not need to earn enough XP to reach level ten. Instead, you need only create your characters at level ten. The majority of this scenario takes place in Urjuk near the Crown of the World. It’s a harsh land of ice and snow, claimed by frost and taiga giants. The adventure begins in Turvik, a settlement in the Lands of the Linnorm Kings, then moves quickly to the Path of Aganhei, and finally to Dvalinheim, a giant temple. For more information on the Crown of the World check out Pathfinder Adventure Path 51: The Hungry Storm (Jade Regent Book 3 of 6). For more information on the Lands of the Linnorm Kings check out Pathfinder Campaign Setting: Lands of the Linnorm Kings. This scenario utilizes Pathfinder Flip Mat: Basic Terrain Multi-Pack, Pathfinder: Flip Mat: Tech Dungeon, and a custom map of Dvalinheim.

ogthup tom ventre — Ogthup by Tom Ventre.

This scenario begins in a meeting in Turvik with the delightful Venture-Captain Bjersig Torrsen and his husky Mahki. Bjersig is a deaf half-orc well trained in reading lips who made another recent appearance in Pathfinder Society Scenario #10-03: Death on the Ice. He’s an awesome VC and I was thrilled to find that he had his own art this time around. Bjersig informs the party that he recently deployed a team of goblin trial-pathfinders on a scouting mission to a giant temple called Dvalinheim. They returned with an object of interest — a few tiles taken from the site which show the giant temple has a connection to the Tian representation of Desna. Believing that this temple could be a site built by the founder of the Path of Aganhei he’s dispatching the PCs to investigate further. He even gives the group a map drawn by one of the goblins. So… yeah. It’s totally accurate (not). Chances are the first thing the group will do is visit the goblin artist to ask her what the heck the map means. Which leads us to our second awesome NPC: Ogthup the goblin. Honestly, chatting with this quirky (and wonderfully drawn) goblin was my favourite part of the scenario. From there the PCs set out to follow Ogthup’s directions to the temple. There’s a few battles along the way, but the bulk of this scenario takes place in Dvalinheim itself. There the group will have to explore the temple, deal with more than a few angry frost giants, and… well let’s leave that part a secret for now. Haha. I particularly enjoyed the monster statistics in this scenario. Many of the creatures have special reactions, and interesting attack forms that make them feel really unique. My personal favourite was the disperse ability of the air elemental. Overall, I thought this was a fun scenario with engaging (but minor) NPCs and interesting opponents. I give it four out of five stars.

Definitely worth a free download!

I hope you enjoyed taking a look at this playtest scenario. If you have a chance to play it, I’d love to hear what you thought!

All the best,

Jessica

Pathfinder Playtest 1.3!

As the Pathfinder Playtest keeps chugging along, this week brings us new surveys and new rules updates! The new surveys are open for the next chapter of Doomsday Dawn: The Mirrored Moon which reunites your players with their primary PCs for this mini adventure path. And the rules updates? There’s a lot of them! Thirteen new pages of rules, plus a separate pdf with a bunch of new content on… wait for it… archetypes! (Pardon me while I squeal with glee!)

So, what exactly is new this update?

To start with the penalty for being untrained in a skill is greater. While it used to be equal to your level minus two it is not equal to your level minus four. Although it might seem lame, I like this change. Now those people who have taken the time to become trained in a skill actually feel better at it than those who didn’t. Before it was kind of a toss up.

The next major change is the DC chart. They’ve shuffled around the DCs a bit, and fine-tuned it. This also effects the DCs across all skills and throughout Doomsday Dawn and the Pathfinder Playtest Scenarios. Yeah. This change is sweeping! I’m curious to see how it plays out.

There’s also… the ten minute rest! What? Yup! First of all, identifying magical objects no longer takes an hour, it only takes ten minutes. FINALLY. This was one of my major pet peeves from the Playtest so I’m thrilled they changed it. Ten is more manageable. Repairing items? Also ten minutes. And finally, they’ve added a new way to use the medicine skill. You can now use it to treat wounds. This takes — you guessed it — ten minutes and can heal up to six people (yourself included) of some of their wounds. This means that there are now ways to heal yourself and your party without relying on magic. In addition, it makes taking a ten minute break after a fight a standard, organic thing to do. You fight, you win. Yay! You bandage your wounds. While the healer does that the mage identifies a magical item and the fighter repairs his shield. It fits. You know? This I can get behind.

There have been some nice changes to classes. Alchemist’s are no longer double-dinged on resonance when using infused items that they give to their companions. Monks finally have simple weapon proficiency so they can actually use a ranged weapon. Thank goodness! Rangers have some new 1st level feat options, and Rogues no longer need to be Dexterity based. Instead they have a trio of techniques they can choose from at level one. Sorcerers no longer have to take their later bloodline feats, which makes them feel less restrictive.

Death and Dying rules have been adjusted again, with the inclusion of a new condition ‘wounded.’ For the full details you’ll have to give the pdf a read, but I think this method is meant to make it a bit harder to survive than the last updates made it, but still easier than the original Playtest rules. I’m curious to see how it plays out.

There’s other smaller changes and clarifications. Its been confirmed that shields can never take two dents at once. Its also been pointed out that your spell roll is not used for your spell attack rolls. Instead you use your proficiency modifier and Dexterity or Strength as normal. I was really happy that the spell roll was used for your spell attack rolls, but I can see why that’s not the case. Still, I think it’s and unfortunate clarification. I rather liked being a mage who could naturally aim their spells. (Sad! Haha).

That’s all of the big changes, but there’s also a second document. This contains updated rules for all of the multiclassing archetypes, changes some of them (fighter: here’s looking at you!), and adds a bunch of new ones. Oh, yeah! There are now multi class options for every base class. Very exciting!

In other news, Pathfinder Kingmaker the video game has now officially launched. For those of you who don’t know, Pathfinder Kingmaker is a computer RPG with a wide variety of NPC allies for your character to befriend (and the ability to create your own allies!). The game looks AMAZING. It’s currently available to purchase on GOG and Steam. For more information on the game check out our recent blog post: here. Already playing? Let me know what you think! I’d love to hear all about it!

Until next time,

Jessica

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Pathfinder Kingmaker

This week brings us a few exciting announcements. For starters, Pathfinder Playtest has just released two new surveys. These are both general feedback surveys which are not connected to Doomsday Dawn. The first is about your experiences and opinions on ancestry and the second is on classes. Both surveys can only be filled out once and feature opportunities for your to offer feedback on each of the ancestry an class options. If there’s any that you don’t want to give feedback on you’re welcome to skip them. It really important to remember that these surveys are very in depth. Make sure you’re prepared to answer detailed questions including which aspects and feats were your favourite, overpowered and so on. It’s handy to have your Pathfinder Playtest Rulebook on hand to reference feat and ability names. Overall I really enjoyed the ancestry survey, but I did have trouble with the class survey. It had an error which kept redirecting me back to the beginning of the survey after I completed the feedback on the first class. I’m going to head back and try again later, but for now I’ve had to leave it be. When you’re ready, be sure to head over to Paizo’s website and fill out the surveys. Or click the links provided: Ancestry Survey and Class Survey.

UPDATE: The survey is now working fine for me!

Octavia, Pathfinder Kingmaker, Half-elf arcane trickster — Octavia the half-elf arcane trickster from the Pathfinder Kingmaker computer roleplaying game.

The other big announcement? PATHFINDER KINGMAKER! I know, I know, Kingmaker’s an old campaign. But we’re not talking about that. We’re talking about Pathfinder Kingmaker the computer game! This RPG is currently available for pre-order on both GOG and Steam and is going to be released next week. It looks AMAZING (if only my computer was good enough to play it… Haha). This game follows the story of the Kingmaker Adventure Path, and expands upon it greatly, including an entire new ending, a plethora of new characters, and a ton of quests. You’ll have to conquer, rule, and protect your own nation in the Stolen Lands! There’s supposed to be a ton of character options for your characters, including multi-classing and archetypes. After completing the tutorial and prologue you can also create your own team of characters. In addition, there’s eleven pre-made party members who have their own stories, personalities, quirks, and abilities. Each has tied to unique events from the game’s storyline, and some of them can even be ‘romanced’ by your characters. I’m definitely looking forward to the banter. Haha.

So who are these characters? So glad you asked!

One of them will be familiar to most of us: Amiri the Kellid barbarian. There’s also Nok-Nok the goblin rogue (who some of us might recognize from his Pathfinder Adventure Card Game promo card). The rest (as far as I know) are all new. Ekundayo the Garundi ranger, Harrim the dwarf cleric of Groetus (god of the end-times), Jaethal the elven undead inquisitor of Urgathoa (goddess of undead), Jubilost the gnome alchemist, Linzi the halfling bard who’s going to chronicle your adventures, Octavia the half-elf arcane trickster and her good friend Regongar the half-orc magus, Tristian the human cleric of Sarenrae (goddess of the sun and redemption), and finally Valerie the human fighter who gave up a life in service to Shelyn (goddess of beauty and love) to learn to fight. They look like a fun group of unique characters. And their art? AWESOME. All of them look great.

Ekundayo

Harrim

Jaethal

Jubilost

Amiri

Nok-Nok

Linzi

Regongar

Tristian

Valerie

For more information on Pathfinder Kingmaker you can check out Paizo’s blog post, or watch some of the previews from GOG and Steam. Want to get the whole scoop? Pick up the game yourself! And be sure to swing by and let us know what you thought of the game.

What are you waiting for? Get gaming!

Jessica

Pathfinder Playtest 1.2!

The Pathfinder Playtest is changing again. That’s right, it’s time for some more rules updates!

This week marks the second set of changes to the Pathfinder Playtest rules. Be sure to head over to Paizo’s website and download version 1.2. But that’s not all! You’ll also need to download the new character sheet! It’s been edited to conform with the new rules, and been shuffled around a bit. I rather like the new layout.

This update document is eight pages long, with the last page dedicated to the open game license and other fine print. It includes all of the updates to Pathfinder Playtest (from the first and second updates). This means that you only need to have the most recent version of the update document, not all of them. Any new additions to the update document are in bold. Although it sounds simple, it’s actually quite hard to differentiate between regular text and bold text in the document, so look closely! Rules updates are split into four types of rule changes: New Rules Updates, Critical Updates, Other Updates, and Doomsday Dawn Updates. Despite being ranked by importance, it’s imperative you begin to use all of the new rules immediately.

As for the rules themselves, we won’t get into specifics. The document is free and does a better job of explaining things than I ever could. The biggest changes you will notice this time around are with signature skills. They’re gone. Poof. Vanished. No longer does your class restrict which skills you can become Master or Legendary with. Instead, anyone can become Master or Legendary in whatever they want — if you’re willing to invest in that skill of course. I’m a big fan of this change, so I’m happy they went this route. This change affects a lot of other aspects of the game. Some feats are now irrelevant, and others were modified. The text throughout the book has to change a lot. There’s other skill changes you’ll notice as well. Each class is automatically trained in a certain skill, and many classes have more skills they’re trained in to start with. More nice updates, if you ask me!

There’s some other fun changes. Bards now have a feat that lets them gain 10th level spells. The range on their soothe spell has also been changed to 30 feet. Some of the spells granted by domains are different now. And the barbarian animal totem can now use weapons — as long as they’re NOT raging. There’s some other barbarian updates as well, so be sure to read closely!

This is just a taste of the changes. There’s a lot more updates. Changes will continue to occur over time so your feedback is incredibly important.

Feedback? What feedback?!

Surveys. When you’re done playing any part of Doomsday Dawn, the Pathfinder Playtest Society Scenarios, or just playing in general, head on over to Paizo’s website and fill out one of Paizo’s many surveys. Paizo goes through that feedback and makes changes. That’s right! Constantly over this next year they’ll be combing through your survey responses and adapting their rules for the playtest. It sounds like these changes will occur approximately bi-weekly, but don’t quote me on that. Not only do your responses provide Paizo with a large pool of data that they can use to decide the future of the game, it also lets them find out all kinds of nifty little bits of information.

At the moment, you can fill out surveys on a variety of adventures. Each of the Pathfinder Society Scenarios has it’s own trio of surveys: player survey, GM survey, and general feedback survey. Doomsday Dawn originally launched with access to three surveys, all for the first part of the adventure: The Lost Star. (Again, a player survey, GM survey, and general feedback survey). Surveys are now also available for the second adventure in Doomsday Dawn: In Pale Mountain’s Shadow, and the third adventure in Doomsday Dawn: Affair at Sombefell Hall. Further surveys for the later adventures in Doomsday Dawn will be released in the future. There’s also some general feedback surveys available. Soon you can expect to see new surveys on more general topics.

Now, if you haven’t filled out your previous survey on the Lost Star, or In Pale Mountains Shadow, don’t worry! It’s not too late. All of the surveys will be available until the end of the year, and will be revisited by the Paizo team regularly. You haven’t missed your chance to contribute.

Let us know what you think of the new changes in the comments!

Until next time,

Jessica

Playtest — Farewell old character sheet! It’s time to make some changes!

September New Releases

Secrets of Roderics Cove Adam Daigle Return of the Runelords 1 — Pathfinder Adventure Path: Return of the Runelords: Book One: Secrets of Roderic’s Cove by Adam Daigle.

Last month was a busy one, with some awesome new releases, but also some delayed products. Fans of Starfinder were treated to the Starfinder Roleplaying Game: Armory, Starfinder Flip-Mat: Asteroid, Starfinder: Dead Suns Pawn Collection, and two awesome Starfinder Society Scenarios: #1-20: Duskmire Accord 9, and #1-21: Yesteryear’s Sorrow. Fans of Pathfinder were finally got their hands on the finale of the War for the Crown Adventure Path: War for the Crown: Book Six: The Six-Legend Soul! There were Pocket Editions released of Ultimate Combat and Bestiary 5, and three amazing Pathfinder Society Scenarios: #10-01: Oathbreakers Die, #10-02: Bones of Biting Ants, and #10-03: Death on the Ice. There were also a lot of map releases, with Pathfinder Flip-Mat Multi-Pack: Forests, Pathfinder Flip-Mat Classics: Watch Station, Pathfinder Flip-Tiles: Dungeon Starter Set, and Pathfinder Flip-Tiles: Dungeon Perils Expansion. They also released the Ultimate Wilderness Add-On Deck for the Pathfinder Adventure Card Game.

Of course, there was also a wide array of Pathfinder Playtest releases including the Pathfinder Playtest Rulebook, Pathfinder Playtest Rulebook Updates, Pathfinder Playtest Bestiary, Pathfinder Playtest Adventure: Doomsday Dawn, Pathfinder Playtest Flip-Mat Multi-Pack, Character Sheets, Tracking Sheets, Pregenerated Characters, and three Pathfinder Playtest Society Scenarios: #1: Rose Street Revenge, #2: Raiders of Shriekers Peak, and #3: Arclord’s Envy. All of these products are available as a free download on Paizo’s website!

Against the Aeon Throne Reach of the Empire Ron Lundeen — Starfinder Adventure Path: Against the Aeon Throne: Book One: The Reach of Empire by Ron Lundeen.

Because of the recent website outages over at Paizo, shipment of their newest adventure path volumes were delayed a bit, meaning plenty of subscribers didn’t receive their copies until the start of this month, as opposed to the end of last month. That means that this month there is a WHOLE LOT of Adventure Path Volumes coming out! Both Starfinder and Pathfinder are launching new Adventure Paths. Pathfinder takes us back to Varisia with the highly anticipated Return of the Runelords! It begins in Return of the Runelords: Book One: Secrets of Roderick’s Cove, and continues on later this month/the start of next month with Return of the Runelords: Book Two: It Came from Hollow Mountain . This campaign looks like a ton of fun! It’s going to take you all the way to level 20, and pits you against not one, but all five of the remaining Runelords (or their minions)! For more information on the Return of the Runelords, check out my recent blog post: Return of the Runelords. As for Starfinder, they’re shaking things up with a special three-part adventure path that starts with a bang and just keeps the excitement coming! The Against the Aeon Throne Adventure Path pits your players against the Azlanti Star Empire, a massive tyrannical governing body that controls a whopping three solar systems! Your players will be taking on the role of some rebels who are out to help a friend, and cause some trouble for the Empire. Although they won’t be taking on the entire Azlanti Star Empire, they get some good licks in and get out safe and sound (hopefully). This adventure path feels very Star Wars themed to me, and seems very personal and exciting. It begins with Against the Aeon Throne: Book One: The Reach of Empire, which is already out, and continues at the end of this month with Against the Aeon Throne: Book Two: Escape from the Prison Moon! For more information on this adventure path check out my previous blog post: Against the Aeon Throne.

It Came From Hollow Mountain Mike Shel Return of the Runelords 2 — Pathfinder Adventure Path: Return of the Runelords: Book Two: It Came from Hollow Mountain by Mike Shel.

While we’re on the topic of adventures, let’s take a look at what else is on the agenda this month, shall we? War for the Crown Poster Map Folio comes out, which features three poster-sized maps for use with the War for the Crown Adventure Path. The maps are of Oppara, the capital city of Taldor (which is also where the adventure path begins in War for the Crown: Book One: Crownfall, and ends in War for the Crown: Book Six: The Six-Legend Soul), Meratt (a Taldan county featured in War for the Crown: Book Two: Songbird, Scion, Saboteur), and the nation of Taldor itself. There’s also the new Pathfinder Module: Cradle of Night coming out.

Pathfinder Module: Cradle of Night is an adventure that was outlined, worked on, and written by, a large number of people including Wes Schneider, Neil Spicer, James Jacobs, Greg Vaughan, and Ron Lundeen. It’s an awesome sounding adventure intended for level eight characters which will be around 64 pages in length. Of course, it’s also cursed! This poor thing has been perpetually delayed. With an original release date of last year, it was bumped to a January release, then mid 2018, and has finally shown up on the soon to be released products page. Preorder begins now (again), and hopefully will be out in a month or so. The adventure itself takes place in Nidal and begins when a refugee Caligni from the Darklands comes to the surface for help! He needs someone to save/stop his people from releasing darkness upon the world and bringing about the rebirth of a “shattered god.” It moves from Nidal, down into the Darklands, includes a lot of information on the origins of the Caligni peoples (darkfolk), and the Shadow Plane. Plus, it just sounds epic! Curious who the “shattered god” is? So am I! Haha. I’m particularly excited that this book will allow me to make use of my Pathfinder Campaign Setting: Nidal, Land of Shadows sourcebook!

Against the Aeon Throne Escape from the Prison Moon Eleanor Ferron — Starfinder Adventure Path: Against the Aeon Throne: Book Two: Escape from the Prison Moon by Eleanor Ferron.

There are two Pathfinder Player Companion books out this month, Pathfinder Player Companion: Heroes from the Fringe, which presents a look at a lot of non-human, unique character options. Examples of this include the Ekujae elves of the Mwangi Expanse, and Pahmet dwarves of Osirion’s deserts, and many more. The part I’m most excited about? Whimsical phantoms for spiritualists! Come on, you know you want to be haunted by a chipper gnome ghost! I’m very intrigued with this product and can’t wait to see what’s inside. There’s also Pathfinder Player Companion: Plane-Hopper’s Handbook, which is a great tie-in the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game: Planar Adventures. It provides a host of new player options and equipment for characters who traverse the planes, including new eidolon subtypes for the unchained summoner, alternate race traits and favoured class bonuses for extrapljnar raves (like ganzi!), and some archetypes. I’m definitely curious what’s inside!

There are a wide variety of maps out this month. Pathfinder Flip-Mat: Wizard’s Dungeon, Pathfinder Flip-Mat Classics: Desert (which is very usable), Pathfinder Flip-Mat Classics: Seedy Tavern, and Starfinder Flip-Mat: Ghost Ship! Whoo! And that’s not all! There’s also the release of the Pathfinder Flip-Tiles: Forest Starter Set, which I am very curious to give a look see.

Heroes of the Fringe — Pathfinder Player Companion: Heroes from the Fringe

And the product my son is most excited for? Pathfinder Flip-Tiles: Dungeon Decor Pawn Collection! This product contains a ton of set dressing, from fireplaces, curtains, and bookshelves, to windows, stairs, doors, and statues! There’s a ton of useful bits and bobs in here. It’s very similar to the previous release Pathfinder Pawns: Traps & Treasures Pawn Collection. My son has officially added both to his Christmas list. Haha.

Finally, this month sees the release of two Pathfinder Society Scenarios, and two Starfinder Society Scenarios. Pathfinder Society Scenario #10-04: Reaver’s Roar is a tier 7-11 scenario of special importance to the Silver Crusade faction, which tasks you players with retrieving a relic of the Shining Crusade from it’s guardians. This mission could get complicated, as it sounds like you’re not the only ones after the relic. Pathfinder Society Scenario #10-05: Mysteries Under Moonlight, Part 1: Testament of Souls is a tier 3-7 scenario which takes place in Magnimar and revolves around the mysterious corruption of some of their monuments. This scenario is the first of a two part series which concludes with Pathfinder Society Scenario #10-07: Mysteries Under Moonlight, Part 2: The Howling Dance. I’m a huge fan of Varisia and its many eclectic cities, so I’m pretty excited for this one!

Plane-Hopper's Handbook — Pathfinder Player Companion: Plane-Hopper’s Handbook

Starfinder Society Scenario #1-22: Protectorate Petition is a tier 1-4 scenario that tasks the players with traveling to a planet in Near Space to determine whether the alien ‘copaxis’ should be granted protectorate status in the Pact Worlds. You’ll have to visit their planet, review their claims, explore some ruins, learn some history, and decide whether or not these guys deserve to join the Pact Worlds. Starfinder Society Scenario #1-23: Return to Sender is a tier 5-8 scenario which is a direct sequel to the special Starfinder Scenario #1-99: The Scoured Stars Invasion! Its of particular importance to both the Exo-Guardians and the Dataphiles. Your players will have to take a stolen spaceship into enemy territory and complete their objectives without getting caught. If they’re successful they’ll enable the Starfinders to launch an offensive against the jinsul empire! This is going to be awesome!

And that’s all for this month! I don’t know about you, but I’m most excited for the Return of the Runelords, and Against the Aeon Thrones Adventure Paths!

Jessica

Pathfinder Playtest: Ever Evolving

The Pathfinder Playtest is ever evolving. You download (or purchase) the rulebook, make your characters, and play. Maybe you play one of the adventures from Doomsday Dawn, maybe you play all of Doomsday Dawn. Maybe you play one of the Pathfinder Playtest Society Scenarios (#1: Rose Street Revenge, #2: Raiders of Shrieking Peak, #3: Arclord’s Envy). And maybe you play a custom adventure. When you’re done you fill out one of Paizo’s many surveys. Paizo goes through that feedback and makes changes. That’s right! Constantly over this next year they’ll be combing through your survey responses and adapting their rules for the playtest. It sounds like these changes will occur approximately monthly, but don’t quote me on that. We’ll have to wait and see. What is certain, is that their first update to the Pathfinder Playtest rulebook is already here.

Right now.

So what’s different?

First off, head over to Paizo’s website and download the update document. Then give it a read. The update document is five pages long (the final page is the OGL), and is split into four types of rule changes: New Rules Updates, Critical Updates, Other Updates, and Doomsday Dawn Updates. Despite being ranked by importance, it’s imperative you begin to use all of the new rules immediately.

As for the rules themselves, we won’t get into specifics. The document is free and does a better job of explaining things than I ever could. The biggest changes you will notice are to death, dying, and the rules surrounding it. No longer can you be dying while conscious, which is wonderful. The updates make use of the slowed condition, which I think is going to be an improvement. We’ll have to see how that plays out. Another major update includes some alchemist changes. For starters, your special alchemist abilities (Quick Alchemy and Advanced Alchemy) no longer specify that they must be used with common formula, so if you unlock an uncommon formula throughout the course of your adventures you can still use it with your special abilities. In addition, they gain training in one extra skill, and the number of formula that alchemist’s start with has been clarified. Turns out the number is eight. Four from your formula book and four from the alchemical crafting feat. (Note to self, update my daughter and my alchemists…). Also, all classes are proficient with unarmored defence (which means you’ll still get a bonus to AC even if you’re unarmored). Bards gain an extra spell known to start, druids get training in one less skill, rangers can choose Strength or Dexterity as their key ability score, stabilize has been changed, bastard swords deal slashing damage (they were erroneously listed as piercing damage, haha), recognize spell has been adjusted (to fix counter spelling), and don’t worry: the bag of holding has been fixed! This is just a taste of the changes. There’s a lot more updates. Four whole pages worth! So put on your thinking caps and get reading. (Wow, I really hope they put out an updated copy of the Pathfinder Playtest Rulebook that includes these changes. Once they put out a second update document, referencing it for changes is going to be painful! Haha).

Changes will continue to occur over time so your feedback is incredibly important. Not only does it provide Paizo with a large pool of data that they can use to decide the future of the game, it also lets them find out all kinds of nifty little bits of information. For example: most played race so far? Human. Most worshipped deity? Cayden Cailean. Class that died the most? Cleric. Number of people who chose to worship Asmodeus? Three. Not three percent. Nope. Just three.

At the moment, you can fill out surveys on a variety of adventures. Each of the Pathfinder Society Scenarios has it’s own trio of surveys: player survey, GM survey, and general feedback survey. Doomsday Dawn originally launched with access to three surveys, all for the first part of the adventure: The Lost Star. (Again, a player survey, GM survey, and general feedback survey). Just the other day they released a second trio, all for the second adventure in Doomsday Dawn: In Pale Mountain’s Shadow. It is incredibly important that if you complete the survey on In Pale Mountain’s Shadow you us the new, updated rules! Further surveys for the later adventures in Doomsday Dawn will be released in the future.

Now, if you haven’t filled out your previous survey on the Lost Star, don’t worry! It’s not too late. All of the surveys will be available until the end of the year, and will be revisited by the Paizo team regularly. You haven’t missed your chance to contribute.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, my daughter and I have to select some extra formula for our alchemists.

Jessica

LEGO my Starship!

Well, it took about a week, but Paizo’s website is finally up and running properly. Oh. Actually, it’s down again. Haha. Well, it was up for a day, at least. (You can do it, Paizo!).

Dungeons and Dragons Coloring Book — Dungeons & Dragons Adventures Coloring Book, with art by Todd James.

It was strange, having my play-by-posts out of reach for so long. But, I got plenty of others things done. I got by house in order, helped my Mom move, and got my kids prepared for the new school year (which starts in another week and a half). I saw my youngest brother for his birthday. He asked for books and some socks, so I picked him up Naruto socks, Akasuki socks, and two books I thought he’d like: Ready Player One by Ernest Cline (which is also an awesome movie, by the way), and the first three books in The Legend of Drizzt series (Homeland, Exile, and Sojourn) by R. A. Salvatore. Drizzt’s origins are actually my favourite books he’s in, and my brother’s never read them. (Blasphemy! Haha). I think he’ll really like them. While we were shopping I found an awesome Dungeons & Dragons Adventures Coloring Book which I was super tempted to pick up for my kids (but didn’t). Maybe I’ll buy it for one of them for Christmas in a few months. Haha.

My daughter and I finished creating our newest Pathfinder Society characters, Croak and Sereia, whom we won race boons for, and my husband and son are about halfway done theirs. My daughter completed creating her second character for the Pathfinder Playtest adventure Doomsday Dawn, and I’ve just started mine. I got a lot of reading done, and have a few extra blog posts underway already. Be on the lookout for posts about Starfinder: Pact Worlds (I know, I’m slow, haha) and Pathfinder Player Companion: Blood of the Sea in the coming days.

I never have time for video games anymore, but with my play-by-posts down my kids and I started playing one of my very favourite video games of all time: Chrono Cross for the PlayStation. I was a kid when I played it the first time, and it literally blew my mind. Twist after twist I was just… Stunned. It’s got time travel, alternate dimensions, death, life, fate, a ton of NPCs you can get to join your party (many of which you meet well before you can convince them to join you), and (perhaps the coolest part) halfway through the game, after rallying friends and allies to help you defeat the villain, you have an epic confrontation which culminates with the villain using a magical ritual to swap your minds around. Your mind goes into his body and his goes into yours. All of a sudden those friends and allies are hanging around with the villain, trying to fight you. And you? Well, at least you don’t have to worry about fighting all those minions of the villain anymore. Cause they’re yours now. Sort of. Haha. So, if all your good friends are doing the work of the bad guy now, and they think they’re still doing good, but you and the other villains are working to stop them, are they still good guys? As a kid, I was amazed. Haha. Anyway, I started the game, which made my kids want to try, so we each started our own file. They’ve already reached the first big twist in the game, and were so shocked. They concocted a whole lot of crazy theories in an effort to figure out what’s going on. It’s adorable to watch. It’s been fun. I definitely owe fellow play-by-poster PaleDim a shout out for getting the music from Chrono Cross stuck in my head the other day. (Thanks!)

My husband and kids have been watching Voltron since it launched on Netflix quite a while ago, so they took the opportunity to delve into the newest season. One of the episodes was absolutely hilarious. The characters play a mock version of Dungeons and Dragons called ‘Monsters and Mana’ which is just a blast. I particularly like the GMs in campaign twists, and that one of the characters just kept playing a paladin no matter how many times he died. The other characters kept pointing out that he was a paladin in real life, so maybe he should try something else, but he thought that was absurd. There’s nothing better than a paladin, after all! My kids, my husband and I were laughing so hard. If you ever get a chance to watch Voltron Season 6: Episode 3: Monsters and Mana you should definitely take it! (It’s from the remake on Netflix, in case that needed clarifying, not the original show from when my husband was a kid, haha.)

Recently my husband suggested we build our own starships out of LEGO for use in Starfinder starship battles , which we all thought was an awesome idea. I’ve always loved playing with LEGO, but I wouldn’t say I’m great at it. I’m more of a ‘follow the directions’ or ‘build a square house’ kind of girl. But, I took to the challenge with aplomb! Turns out I did a pretty good job! My kids made some really nice ones. But, my husband turned out to be the LEGO Master of the house. Most of our ships came out way too big, but we had a lot of fun.

Well, it’s time for me to sign off now. I’m at the local laundromat and my laundry’s almost done. I’ll leave you with some pictures of our wonderful LEGO starships!

Until next time!

Jessica