I recenty got a package in the mail. In it was a copy of Pact
Magic Unbound: Vol. 2. I was excited to see some new material for a pact
magic but also excited that some new support popped up on my radar from
d20pfsrd.com publishing.
The pdf spends quite a few pages giving a crash course in Pact Magic. It’s potentially useless information as I probably would not get this product without Pact Magic Unbound. I guess if anyone gets this product on accident they have more of an idea of what’s going on.
Chapter One gives us three new spirits. I can see myself using them as the flavor is very interesting and the powers are fun and work well with the flavor. You’re essentially channeling the spirit of a trickster gunman (complete with a magic intelligent gun), a spellsundering Barbarian, and an unholy abomination from the stars.
Chapter Two gives some new archetypes. The first one is hilarious, an occultist that forces spirits on others granting the bad pact effects but none of the powers. The later abilities mostly revolve around making the target of a successful forced binding miserable. Oddly enough this makes the Occultist feel more witchy than the Witch base class. Then there’s the Legion Occultist, an Occultist that seems to be honing in on the Summoner’s flavor. Basically the Occultist binds spirits into creatures made of various material. Then there’s the Soul Armorer, a Paladin(and Antipaladin!!!) archetype that smites whatever the bound spirit does not like.
Chapter Three introduces a subsystem similar to schools of magic or war colleges in the Magic/Combat of the Inner Sea Campaign Setting books. Your mileage depends on whether or not you use War Colleges and Magic Schools mechanics in your games.
At the end there is some bonus content advertising Pact Magic Unbound Vol. 2, which I just got in the mail so I won’t discuss here. What I will discuss is that I saw this trend on a previous d20pfsrd product and it seems appropriate considering that d20pfsrd.com is a, er, Pathfinder SRD. Now if only I got sneak peaks at cool things I have NOT already bought.
So would I play with it?
Despite the pages of redundant information and information that I may or may not use, the new Archetypes and Spirits really sell this for me making up for the actual page count with strong crunch. By my count this pdf has extended into Barbarian, Gunslinger, Summoner, and Witch flavor, making Occultist even more versatile without losing it’s own flavor. As a bonus the Paladin/Antipaladin archetype looks really fun. The most important part is that the options in this pdf make me dream of ways to play with them.
So would I allow it at my table?
As far as I can tell there aren’t any errors that make it hard to play RAW. It also supports something I already own without stepping on toes. There is nothing that would wreck my games or would be hard to deal with as a GM. As a player the Organization information is not something I want to see when there could be more archetypes, but as a GM I see more tools for use.
I'm giving this five stars out of five. I’m going to use this.
You can find this over on Paizo.com here.
Retrospective:
My feelings stay the same but this one is a bit ill timed. Soon after there was a Kickstarter for a fat new book compiling and adding to Pact Magic, which still hasn't come out yet. Then there's a new class from Paizo with a similar theme which has been absorbing all the attention away from Pact Magic making it a hard sell. This all means that I didn't get as much use out of this as I wanted. Right now it's a neat little pdf but chapter three is the most useful at the moment.
The pdf spends quite a few pages giving a crash course in Pact Magic. It’s potentially useless information as I probably would not get this product without Pact Magic Unbound. I guess if anyone gets this product on accident they have more of an idea of what’s going on.
Chapter One gives us three new spirits. I can see myself using them as the flavor is very interesting and the powers are fun and work well with the flavor. You’re essentially channeling the spirit of a trickster gunman (complete with a magic intelligent gun), a spellsundering Barbarian, and an unholy abomination from the stars.
Chapter Two gives some new archetypes. The first one is hilarious, an occultist that forces spirits on others granting the bad pact effects but none of the powers. The later abilities mostly revolve around making the target of a successful forced binding miserable. Oddly enough this makes the Occultist feel more witchy than the Witch base class. Then there’s the Legion Occultist, an Occultist that seems to be honing in on the Summoner’s flavor. Basically the Occultist binds spirits into creatures made of various material. Then there’s the Soul Armorer, a Paladin(and Antipaladin!!!) archetype that smites whatever the bound spirit does not like.
Chapter Three introduces a subsystem similar to schools of magic or war colleges in the Magic/Combat of the Inner Sea Campaign Setting books. Your mileage depends on whether or not you use War Colleges and Magic Schools mechanics in your games.
At the end there is some bonus content advertising Pact Magic Unbound Vol. 2, which I just got in the mail so I won’t discuss here. What I will discuss is that I saw this trend on a previous d20pfsrd product and it seems appropriate considering that d20pfsrd.com is a, er, Pathfinder SRD. Now if only I got sneak peaks at cool things I have NOT already bought.
So would I play with it?
Despite the pages of redundant information and information that I may or may not use, the new Archetypes and Spirits really sell this for me making up for the actual page count with strong crunch. By my count this pdf has extended into Barbarian, Gunslinger, Summoner, and Witch flavor, making Occultist even more versatile without losing it’s own flavor. As a bonus the Paladin/Antipaladin archetype looks really fun. The most important part is that the options in this pdf make me dream of ways to play with them.
So would I allow it at my table?
As far as I can tell there aren’t any errors that make it hard to play RAW. It also supports something I already own without stepping on toes. There is nothing that would wreck my games or would be hard to deal with as a GM. As a player the Organization information is not something I want to see when there could be more archetypes, but as a GM I see more tools for use.
I'm giving this five stars out of five. I’m going to use this.
You can find this over on Paizo.com here.
Retrospective:
My feelings stay the same but this one is a bit ill timed. Soon after there was a Kickstarter for a fat new book compiling and adding to Pact Magic, which still hasn't come out yet. Then there's a new class from Paizo with a similar theme which has been absorbing all the attention away from Pact Magic making it a hard sell. This all means that I didn't get as much use out of this as I wanted. Right now it's a neat little pdf but chapter three is the most useful at the moment.
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