New Paths Compendium

I have a lot of love for Kobold Press' products and it starts with New Paths Compendium, my first Kobold Press purchase. This book fills in a lot of mechanical gaps and adds a lot of flavorful options that I use constantly. If you want to add meaningful options to your game from new classes that just 'fit' and options that expand your Gunslinger, Monk and others you need this book. Five stars for being such a huge boost to my games.

You can find this over on Paizo.com here.

Retrospective:

My old review doesn't convey how good this product is because other reviews on Paizo.com already go into a lot of details so I just wanted to add my stars to the mix. I mentioned this a few times on this blog before and usually use the term 'gridfilling' and in the most satisfying of ways. If you want Pathfinder as a game to feel a step more 'complete' then this is a good book to start. Solid new classes, new archetypes, new feats and even some new alternate rules, this book has so much to give.

I've seen a lot of third party classes and what I take from the New Path classes is that they stand out by not exactly standing out. They feel more 'classic' as if they were a natural part of the game than being bogged with new expectations, paradigms and alternate resolution systems. They feel like they're supposed to be a part a Pathfinder from day one.

From new classes you have the Battle Scion, a full BAB arcane caster that feels very much like a Paladin with blaster capabilities than divine might. It's signiture move is shooting magic missile-like laser beams. It actually seems a bit wimpy at first level but by 6th level it's all kinds of tanky as the numbers catch up.

The Elven Archer is kind of an odd duck, basically a Ranger's chassis that got turned into a Arcane Archer base class, but it's specific to elves. It comes with a Dwarven Crossboyer and a Halfling Slinger that are specific to the races they're named after but curiously it also comes with the Mystic Archer which is the same thing but not race specific. Why the Mystic Archer doesn't headline the class I have no idea but hey, a full BAB 'arcane' archer is pretty great.

If you were around enough to be a fan of the Factotum from 3.5 the Savant is kind of a spiritual successor. An grand skill monkey and the ability to suddenly grab abilities to be a skill monkey, warrior or caster. It can even pull off mimicking a race and a few racial abilities.

The Shaman is a spontaneous Druid. Not much to say beyond that. It has more to it than that of course. It selects from a list of supernatural abilities, it heals instead of summon animals and a few other things, but it wild shapes, has an animal spirit guide (works differently from animal companion) and casts druid spells. It's the Druid's Oracle.

One thing awkward and cool is the Spell-less Ranger. which is exactly like it sounds. A pure martial Ranger that I actually think is kind of better. At the very least is more awesome since it has a variant where it's a wildshape without spells class.

The Theurge is a 20 level Mystic Theurge. It does basically nothing but cast spells and have class features that make casting spells better. But it has the most broken spell list in existence so there's that.

Then there's the White Necromancer, conjurer of the elusive good zombies in case you want to be a necromancer without being evil.

Past that you get some support for the classes already talked about but also some AMAZING support for the Monk, Ninja and Gunslinger, which seems like a random selection but comes with ninja clone jujitsu so I'm not going to complain.

There are feats and spells that do a lot more than support the classes inside. There are some nice style feats. There are also some condensed feat chains to make scaling combat feats and instructions on how to make more, which is pretty sweet. I like to use those.

There are new alchemical arrows that I use a lot. Rules for Scaling Magic Items. Then the best thing about the entire book. Tracking sheets for arrows, favored enemies, wild shape and prepared spells.

Seriously this book has so much and since it all plays so nicely with the base game it became a very frequent mainstay and full of popular choices. I especially recommend this for people who want 'more Pathfinder' as opposed to adding weirder elements from third parties, like psionics or something that shifts paradigms that the game sets up.