I'm done with Pathfinder

Sorry for the clickbaity title but this post came from really strong feelings that occured due to a breaking point. But really its not as bad as it sounds.

What do I mean when I say that I'm 'done' with Pathfinder? Well here's what it doesn't mean. It doesn't mean that I'll stop talking about Pathfinder on this blog. It doesn't mean that I'll stop writing reviews of third party material or ignoring news about it. It doesn't mean that I am angry at Paizo or Pathfinder. It doesn't mean that I'll stop playing Pathfinder.

What it does mean is that I won't be going out of my way to buy new Pathfinder material whether its third part stuff or Paizo stuff. I'll pick up some things that I wanted to pick up for a long time and things that are too good to pass up but I'm not thrilled with getting more stuff and will soon eliminate my Pathfinder budget. The Villain Codex will be my last hardcover purchase. The hardcover Curse of the Crimson Throne will be my last Adventure Path purchase. I do not intend to get new Player Companions or Campaign Settings. I have some third party things I intend to get to round out what I have, such as the remaining Spheres of Power supplements and maybe additions to the corruptions from Horror Adventures. But that's it.

Why?

1) I have enough stuff.

I have a shelf dedicated to holding all my Pathfinder hardcovers and the player companions/campaign settings. I have another shelf that holds all my print third party stuff. I have another shelf that's half full holding my adventure paths and modules. I haven't gotten the chance to even use all of it. I've only completed less than half the adventures I have, I have used bits and pieces of most of the other material but I haven't really used much of the options and classes and alternate rules that are on these shelves. The same goes for the gigabytes of pdfs on my computer. I'm pretty sure that I have enough Pathfinder material to last me a long while before I get bored, and better yet I have enough material to handle most concepts, settings, and styles that I can think of as long as they have some magic in it. I have material for outer space, cyberpunk, Ebberon-like dungeonpunk, and almost 200 different classes to work with. I'm good. I don't need any more. I can already do whatever I want now. For christsake, I have Ponyfinder, Thunderscape, and Aethera coming soon. I can throw ponies in space with magitech arms coming out of their backs that shoot lasers and they all fly through Stargates in a TARDIS to fight Galactus (LPJ's Crisis of the World Eater). What else do I really need at this point? Even the additions to the stuff I like are getting kind of unappealing because I'm not bored with what I have already. I have third party things that are expansive enough to represent things that will keep me busy for years but still have new things coming out of it. I was not actually ready for a Path of War 2. I wasn't ready for anything psionic past Ultimate Psionics. I already have so many things to do with that material.

2) Starfinder is coming.

I dedicated a lot of effort to collecting material to bring Pathfinder into outer space and making scifi or sci-fantasy adventures. Now Paizo is putting out an entire game where it's on a silver platter, and given the space Pathfinder game I'm currently running it'll probably go smoother than what I'm doing right now because I'll tell you right now that it is difficult to manage even with all the scifi crap that's out. Depending on what it winds up looking like I'm either going to discard or convert the scifi material I have because I know that Starfinder is going to wind up becoming my go-to Sci-fantasy game leaving Pathfinder to handle the straight fantasy stuff. That's an entire realm to be explored now that there is going to be a dedicated corner of Paizo working on it. And that's when we already have a shrinking new idea pool in Pathfinder itself that we take a huge chunk of territory to handle and just shoot it over to a new game. Plus its a new game to learn that's probably less crunchy than Pathfinder but likely more crunchy than Dungeons and Dragons. Either way given my enthusiasm for Space stuff in Pathfinder I'm all but guaranteed to buy Starfinder and Starfinder is pretty much going to talk over quite a few grounds that I use Pathfinder to cover because of it's nature. And its not just Starfinder.

3) I've been playing other games lately. 

So here is the list of games that I've been getting into lately and will probably talk about more on this blog. Ryuutama, Savage Worlds, Dungeons and Dragons, OVA, Golden Sky Stories, and Fate. Now I have assorted feelings about each of these but most of them have a place and a mode of play that Pathfinder doesn't really reach or does not reach easily. I think that if I want to run a module or one-shot from Pathfinder, I'd much rather do Dungeons and Dragons than Pathfinder because its faster to make a character and conversion is very easy. Pathfinder doesn't do low fantasy very well and I suspect Starfinder won't do 'hard' scifi very well so I've been getting into Savage Worlds. Same goes for anyone who is fairly mundane like college students  and stuff like that is hard to do with Pathfinder because even 'mundane' classes get super sturdy quickly. Some games I really need to represent something obscure or deal with entire campaigns where fighting just isn't a thing so I have the other stuff.  Its not that I'm tired of medieval fantasy or whatever Golarion is, I just have some other stuff to play too and in some cases they are absorbing some aspects that I was using Pathfinder for due to campaign length or complexity. And really once that happens the more I don't need new Pathfinder stuff. I already have what I need to represent medieval fantasy to renaissance steampunk with airships, but I also want to play around with contemporary settings with normal people or a high school drama, or fighting Nazis on a land of the lost. I just have some other stuff to play and I don't want to deal with Pathfinder to do it because Pathfinder is kind of complicated. Which leads to my next point.

4)  Pathfinder is kind of huge, bloated and unbalanced. 

Over the course of collecting third party material I think I've found ways to handle pretty much any general balance issue that exists in the game. If magic in general is overpowered, just replace it with something more far reaching and more balanced. If martial options are too week there's stuff out there to make them better from just better options or entire rewrites or replaces the weaker classes. Skill distribution is unbalanced? Just introduce rules from Pathfinder Unchained. But that's the way that Pathfinder is 'unbalanced'.  Pathfinder is unbalanced starting from its very premise just by the fact that it is very possible to have a badly made character and very possible to make a very well made character and the gap between that is huge. that the Strategy Guide exists is somewhat proof of this and that it starts with the core rulebook. Because of this as the game releases more and more options this gap gets wider. Now it is entirely possible to restrict books so that things aren't overwhelming but that kind of makes it seem like the complexity, the glut of options and the growth you experience by being able to make a 'good' character is a bad thing when that's one of the best parts about the game. It gives choices meaning, it makes you think about your character and it makes just the process of making a character an exciting experience. Not only that but having to look up stuff, crunch numbers or make builds just adds to the amount of hours being involved with the game and if that is fun for you, then its just more hours of having fun and the fun extends past the table. However there's a consequence to this and that is that new players that don't want to or can't look deeper into the rules because they don't want to spend the time or don't have the time or don't find it fun just kind of fall behind. It is possible to come to a table and your character just sucks and the rest of the party has to carry you or ignore you whenever combat happens, or even worse, the other players have to reign it in because one or more player can't hack it and start to resent not being able to do anything because its overpowered by comparison or use interesting options because it's restricted to another book.  When everyone is on the same page Pathfinder works beautifully even if everyone is a new player just learning the game but I personally am starting to resent everyone when they aren't on the same page. I have to tell some players to tone it down because other players aren't up to speed and the gap is so huge that they need to basically break a leg to get in line. I have to spend an entire session to teach players how to make a character, even though they have played the game before, while the players that know what they're doing either have to twiddle their thumbs or just not attend session zero. I have to check character sheets so that players aren't running around with vanilla Rangers with 10 wisdom (which has happened before) or that they aren't geared towards making an army of summons or clones. I have to adjust the difficulty of NPCs so that they have to be able to handle the guy with a million AC but not be capable of immediately killing the guy that still doesn't know how Power Attack works. Its actually less work when everyone is overpowered because I can throw whatever I want at them and I don't have to check character sheets or explain things. Its also easier when everyone sucks because I don't need to look at stat blocks that look like essays because NPCs don't do anything more complicated than run up and attack, plus everyone is learning and growing together and getting into more and more advanced options and ways of thinking. But for now, since I actually like perusing and using the huge list of options I perfer to play or run Pathfinder when everyone knows what they're doing and leave everyone else to Dungeons and Dragons.

5) I have far too many adventures to run. 

I like making adventures that are interesting or quirky or play around with genre. I also have a lot of published adventures. And really I find it difficult to get through them all and part of that is because I primarily focus on Pathfinder. One thing you'll notice is that the list earlier of RPGs I'm getting into is full of non fussy and easy systems. These aren't the only RPGs I own or that I like,  but I only have room in my heart for one really crunchy system and the list is full of simpler games for expediency and price. I want to be able to run more concepts as one shots or short campaigns and I'm tired of doing that with Pathfinder because it is option heavy and front-loaded. If you bother to make a character in Pathfinder using a bunch of options and stuff I imagine that you're in for the long haul. At least 12 levels of campaigning that can take about a year. Because that character took work and investment compared to the 5 minutes it takes to make a character in Savage Worlds, Dungeons and Dragons, or FATE. So those adventures that take a few levels or five sessions to complete seems like a waste of time. Worse yet, I have trouble keeping a Pathfinder game going for long before somebody has a baby, or gets a new job or some other obligation and nobody can agree on a new time. The only adventure path I personally saw from start to finish had 12 different players go in and out, and only two of us (not including the GM) were there from the start. I have several Pathfinder Adventure Paths and actually got to play about half of them due to this. And again, I love having an invested character built from a ton of options in a long game but sometimes I can't do that or I only have a certain range or a certain power level of ideas. Sometimes I just shorten them out so we can get something done that has an actual conclusion. This is why the primary new games I'm getting into is FATE, OVA, and particularly, Savage Worlds. For a low price I can get a lot done really quick and the range is wide. Heck, I don't even like FATE all that much but its a game that builds other games instead of a game that has a very narrow focus so I'm good with it enough to need it for obscure concepts rather than having to pick up a whole new game that can only handle it's own specific type of play. And despite the difficulty to maintain group long enough to complete an adventure path apparently I have a lot of people in my area that want to play and like my campaigns so I just have a lot on my hands and Pathfinder doesn't go through it fast enough.


So that's why I'm done with getting new Pathfinder stuff. As I said before this doesn't mean that I will stop posting new reviews of third party stuff. I have enough of a backlog to go on with that for a long time. I also won't stop playing and running Pathfinder because I do really like the system. Some would say 'with it's warts and all' but in my case I really like the warts. I'm like a troll from Elfquest, that stuff just gets me off. I just have had my fill of it in the sense that I have more than enough to do quite a bit and lately I've been getting into things that can handle whatever Pathfinder can't handle without getting too much in the way. I just hit a wall where new Pathfinder stuff isn't really useful to me anymore so I'm just going to stop.

As it stands now, here is my RPG list and what I use for what.

Pathfinder: Heroic Fantasy and Dungeonpunk for long campaigns.
Dungeons and Dragons 5th edition: Heroic fantasy for short Pathfinder modules or string of modules.
Starfinder: Mostly speculation but, heroic sci-fantasy for long campaigns.
Savage Worlds: Contemporary fantasy/horror, gritty fantasy and dungeonpunk, hard sci-fi, superheroes, and anachronistic pulp for long or short campaigns.
Ryuutama/Golden Sky Stories: For their intended purposes (they have very narrow modes of play). Particularly for young players.
OVA/FATE: the remaining weird stuff that needs abstract or very narrow sets of mechanics like high school romance or replicating a linear subgenre. Particularly non-action or non violent subjects.

FATE, D&D and Savage Worlds has the most support so I'm going to talk about those on this blog the most after Pathfinder and maybe Starfinder when it comes out. Of course this is pending my overview of each of those games as a whole.

Where I've been?

If you're wondering where I've been for the past few weeks, the excuse is simple. My computer broke and I'm low on computer fixing money.

The long version is that for whatever reason I turned my computer off and now it won't power back on. I'm more savvy than a lot of people I know when it comes to computers and can fix some problems but many problems just leave me at a loss and I have no idea what to do. There are also a few family crisis and big convention going plans, which haven't exactly eaten up my free time but have eaten enough money where getting the funds to deal with them makes fixing my computer less of a priority.  I've been keeping up a bit on my phone and tablet which are still functioning but that involves typing with my thumbs or using a bluetooth keyboard on squinto-vision so I'm reluctant to actually make full on posts. I do have some access to stuff at work so I may post a bit to tide things over since I have a few half-finished posts that I can probably finish easily. For the most part I have about an hour and a half of typing per day on an actual keyboard/screen.

Sorry guys but reviewing will also be trickling in rather than getting back on the saddle since I'll be mostly reading them on my tablet, thinking them over and then posting about them rather than going through my usual re-reading and analysis since navigating pdfs on my tablet is kind of a pain and I have no real time for editing, so typos ahead.

My weekly top ten posts will be late for a while, this weeks will be on Wednesday, but I'll get them up starting this week.

Anyways, sorry for the lack of delays. Hopefully things will be up and running soon.

Big Thanks to Fat Goblin Games

Here is a big thank you to Fat Goblin Games for the gift of several items from my DrivethruRPG wishlist. You may have noticed that as per my recent posting policy these items are now at the top of my review list taking place of my personal picks in between the (*) requested reviews. This is with the exception of Everyman Unchained: Skills and Options, which I put out just now, and a break in the order for Technology Unleashed due to very strong feelings towards that product in particular.

Also a big thanks for the first 5th Edition product on the list. Before that I'll post up my overview of 5th Edition so that everyone knows where I'm coming from. I'm also going to start adding 5th edition products to my DrivethruRPG wishlist. This does mean that from that point on I'm officially open to 5th edition products.

Another big change is that I'm going to soon remove my Paizo wishlist for practicality reasons. For one the little widget doesn't exactly work making it useless, but also I can post reviews on Paizo.com without having bought the product from them but the same isn't true for Drivethru RPG so I'm better off buying and receiving products from DrivethruRPG from now on. On a personal note, Paizo's pdfs come in a zip file that is labeled as the product but the unzipped files are often labeled in code making me have to rename it so that I can store it in a way that I can find it which is a pain in the butt.

Well that's it for now. I'll be back tomorrow with a new review for you and soon a surprise as I experiment with being a good game host.

My Posting Policy

To save a bit of time for everyone involved and to give a bit of insight as to how my blog operates I decided to make a post describing how I handle requests for reviews or overviews and how I will prioritize my posting from this post on.

This blog started out primarily as a place for me to keep my thoughts on Pathfinder products published by companies other than Paizo but has since expanded in scope. Currently my primary focus is third party Pathfinder products through reviews, trending products and opinions on how to fit it into a home campaign but as time goes on I will also occasionally post about tabletop gaming in general. This will include subjects like cooking snack foods for when I host games as well as other social aspects of tabletop gaming. Pathfinder is my favorite RPG and so it is the system I am most comfortable talking about but I am also open to discussing Dungeons and Dragons 5th edition and FATE. I actively collect and use Pathfinder material so it will be the most frequent. I also collect and use Paizo's Pathfinder material so you will see first party reviews and overviews more often.

Requests.

I am open to requests to report on third party material for Pathfinder or 5th edition. To make a request just contact me at disreal@gmail.com  with "Malwing's Blog" in the title and I will reply as soon as I can. The exception to this is Mythic Pathfinder products as I have very little experience with the Mythic ruleset. Outside of Pathfinder and D&D 5th edition, I will only write reviews of products after I have made a review of the basic rules, and I do accept requests for overviews of rules systems. This includes material that is more of a board game variety than a role playing game as I have some upcoming kickstarters that will be trickling in soon that are board and card games.

I will also review apps related to rulesets that I am familiar with but keep in mind that I use an Asus Nexus 7 (2013) for gaming use so I will not be able to review iOS exclusive apps. And of course I will review character sheets so long as I can be provided with a source to link to so people know where to get it and any supporting program that I can get on my PC, with the exception of Herolab files because the price of entry is too high and it does too little for my needs as a very avid collector of third party material and my liberal use of house rules. 

If I have already purchased the product in question I will  note that I already have it, otherwise I will postpone the review until I have had a chance to purchase it or until I am provided with a copy to review. I purchase products on my own based on my interest and the needs of a upcoming or current campaign. I normally post my reviews on Paizo.com the day after I post it on the blog. If I have purchased the product elsewhere I will additionally post my review there but otherwise I will only post on other platforms if by request. Please note that I cannot post reviews to DrivethruRPG unless I have purchased a copy from that site. And of course I will start to make note at the top of any review whether or not I have received a complementary copy of the product in question in the form of a quick thanks to whoever gave it. Otherwise its perfectly fine to bring things to my attention and I'll get to it as soon as I can by my own means.

When I agree to a request for a review or overview I will add it to my 'Upcoming Review Pile' which I write reviews for in the order that they appear. This order is determined at a first come first serve basis with products placed on the list with reviews that I have personally picked out of products that I own copies of. I try to space out reviews for products from the same company which means that if I have two requests in a row from the same company the order will appear as; Company 1 => Personal pick => Company 2 => Personal pick => Company 1.  Requests will be noted on the list by and asterisk (*). The order of my personal picks may change depending on the extreme excitement or extreme disappointment over a product in which I will jump it to the top of the list so that I can rant about it, then and then get back to schedule.

I also post reviews labeled as retrospectives. These are not a part of my review pile and consist of reviews that I have posted on Paizo.com. These retrospectives also represent changes of opinion or looking at products that have made heavy changes since my last review.

You'll notice that I use both the words 'overview' and 'review'. That's because those things are different to me. An overview in this case is me talking about my general experience with a product and what I liked and what I didn't like. Now this may sound like a review but the big difference is that in an overview I don't have as much experience or authority to really judge the product well enough to give it a real critical score or I don't have a platform to post on where any kind of score means anything. In other words I'm doing less of a critical analysis and more of  description of my general impressions. 

Sharing and Links.

If you take a look at the sidebar in my blog you may notice the block that says "Sites to See". This is my little list of sites that a frequent for whatever reason that is either a geeky friend site or other tabletop gaming site that I feel are related to this blog's interests. If you want your link on that sidebar send me an email at disreal@gmail.com with "Malwing's Blog" in the title and I will happily visit your site and put it in my sidebar if it's relevant to tabletop gaming or general geekery. Of course I greatly appreciate posting links to my blog to your own site or blog.

Wishlists.

Also on my sidebar among my link list is a link to my DrivethruRPG wishlist and in a little widget my wishlist from Paizo.com. These are things that pique my interest and are coveted by me. Of course they will be purchased by me eventually but lack of money and a lack of a campaign that really needs the material in question is a factor so if you feel like giving me a gift I'd appreciate it wholeheartedly. If it's something that I can give a review or overview about it will go to the top of my personal pick list.

Status Report: April 1st 2016

As you may have noticed the sidebar has some significant changes. I've put up a list of my upcoming reviews, not including retrospectives, and a list of sites to other places I visit frequently. I've also put up my Paizo wishlist and DrivethruRPG wishlist.

My review pace is rather low right now for a number of reasons. I have quite a few things to do for Infinity Matrix and my next review, Kineticists of Porphyra 2, is rather dense. I've also been working on a retrospective of Monk Unfettered which is more dense and I'm somewhat stuck on an upcoming post discussing whether or not Path of War is balanced. Past all that I'm running low on posts that I've already written but have not posted and at work the dreaded Magic: the Gathering prerelease is happening eating up a lot of time in addition to everything else this weekend (Next weekend is the actual release which will eat up more time.).

I'll get the next few reviews out before the end of next week and try to spend some free time creating a buffer of content so I can push something out at least once a weekday. Right now I mostly spend about three hours a day weekday on blog content so I'm looking into ways to monetize the blog so that the time spent is more worth it, and thus more time is spent on it. I thought about a Patreon but I don't think I'm at that stage yet. If anyone has any ideas please leave a comment but otherwise I think I'll start producing comics (I draw and paint believe it or not.), stock art and some 3pp content of my own leading up to sell-able compilations. Perhaps if that takes off I can eventually freelance. Also leave a comment if any of that is desirable just so I know have some idea as to whether or not I actually have an audience.

Also if if you have a blog or Pathfinder related site and want me to put your link on the sidebar, email me at disreal@gmail.com and we can exchange links.

Infinity Matrix: Skills

As part of my houserules for Infinity Matrix I decided to go a different direction with skills. My general intention was to make things a bit simpler and give a bit of an edge to some of the classes that don't have many skill ranks to work with. The last part was extremely crucial due to the nature of the campaign. In a medieval-stasis setting its perfectly fine to live and die by the sword and rely on your friends to carry certain skills around. But in a futuristic setting skills are a lot more crucial because this is the kind of setting where swords and sorcery can't really solve every problem, especially in a space ship.

For this I enlisted the help of Pathfinder Unchained and built up around the consolidated skill list. In the end this is what I have. This does several things.

Rules for skills follow the Consolidated Skills rules from Pathfinder Unchained with the following changes.

Skill	Untrained	Ability	Skills Included
Acrobatics	Y	Dex	Acrobatics(except Jumping), Escape Artist, Fly, Ride
Athletics	Y	Str	Acrobatics(Jumping), Climb Swim
Expertise (Multi)	N	Int	Appraise, Craft, Knowledge(engineering), Profession
Finesse	N	Dex	Disable Device, Sleight of Hand
Influence	Y	Cha	Bluff, Diplomacy, Intimidate
Nature	N	Int	Handle Animal, Knowledge(dungeoneering, geography, nature)
Perception	Y	Wis	Perception, Sense Motive
Performance	Y	Cha	Disguise, Perform
Psionics	N	Int	Autohypnosis, Knowledge(psionics), Use Psionic Device
Religion	N	Int	Knowledge(planes, religion)
Society	N	Int	Knowledge(history, local, nobility), Linguistics
Spellcraft	N	Int	Knowledge(arcana), Spellcraft, Use Magic Device
Stealth	Y	Dex	Stealth
Survival	Y	Wis	Heal, Survival

• Classes get their full class skill ranks per level but not their bonus from INT. For example; a Fighter would get 2 ranks per level, a Monk would get 4 ranks per level and a Bard would get 6.
• To accommodate classes from third party sources you may choose your class skills. You may have up to your ranks per level plus your INT bonus in class skills chosen among any of the skills that your normal class skills folds into. For example if you would normally gain Bluff, Diplomacy or Intimidate as a class skill you may choose Influence as class skill. When you multiclass you gain two extra class skills.
• A new skill Expertise has been added. Like the old functions of Perform, Expertise is actually a number of separate skills. You could have several Expertise skills, each with its own ranks. The most common Expertise subjects are; Food, War,  Mechanical, Seafaring, Alchemy, Metalworking, Apparel,  Farming, and Construction. Potential subjects include; Chemestry, Biology, Electronics and Machinery. Expertise covers the old functions of Appraise, Craft, Knowledge(engineering), and Profession. You can only gain one Expertise skill as a class skill at a time like what was previously the knowledge skills.
• A new skill Psionics has been added. This skill is only applicable in the context of using psionic rules from Dreamscarred Press when psionics is ruled as different from magic.
• Racial bonuses and bonuses gained from class features apply to specific skill function not to all functions of the consolidated skill and are not halved.
• The following feats are removed from the game and any feat that would use them for prerequisites no longer require them; Acrobatic, Alertness, Animal Affinity, Athletic, Deceitful, Deft Hands, Magical Aptitude, Persuasive, Self-Sufficient, Stealthy.
• Any bonus applied to a Craft skill now applies to an Expertise instead. 

This does several things. First of all this takes Int out of the equation when it comes to skill ranks. This seems like a big step but it ended up making more sense to me in the environment of consolidated skills. For one you aren't penalized for having lower Int, or at least not as penalized as the game normally does. It also simplifies matters. The best part is that skill prowess starts to fall into where I think classes should be. A class with 2 ranks per level and no reason to invest in Int doesn't end up getting crippled in the skill department, something I don't want happening in the setting. They can max what is effectively 3-8 skills. Classes like the Rogue  gain an incredible amount of skills making them more ideal as 'the skill guy' instead of other classes that have reasons to invest in Int and therefore actually capable of gaining more skills. 

There are a few percieved problems that seem to appear but get alieviated naturally. 

Casters of any sort that rely on Int get penalized. This isn't as bad as a problem as it sounds. A wizard can max upwards to 8 effective skills which is the same amount of skill ranks that they would get if they had 22 Int, which definitely isn't bad. The most likely skills to max in their case is Spellcraft and an Expertise which is effectively 7 skills. They certainly aren't helped if they go past 20 Int but they aren't crippled by the system. 

Int becomes irrelevant because having low Int doesn't penalize. Int is less relevant here as you can still be relatively skillful without the Int investment. But while low Int doesn't penalize having it is more useful than not having it.  Your amount of class skills is still effected by Int so it gives the ability to spread skill ranks around and if you have low Int you actually start having fewer class skills than you have ranks to max them out so you'll be missing that class skill boost. Also Int still controls almost half the skill list, with one of the skills being a multi-skill and some skills, like Use Magic Device and Handle Animal got folded into an Int-based skill. Int is still very potent and desirable to have, you just aren't heavily crippled from not having quite enough. 

As to why I went with the consolidated skill list rather than Background Skills is simple. Simplicity. I'm already adding quite a bit to the game. I didn't desire a more complicated skill system on top of that. That and the background skill system solves very few of my problems. I didn't want to use the consolidated skill list as is because even that was more complicated. In it's original version you would get 1/2 your ranks per level plus 1/2 your Int bonus. This means that you need at least 14 Int before it matters and 18 Int before it matters more. It just puts the skill power more into the hands of classes that use Int as a casting stat rather than classes that are meant to be skillful. I was also not keen on having Craft and Knowledge Engineering left out in a Scifi adventure campaign, thus the Expertise skill. Expertise was also created to account for skill ranks pulled for other sources. With 8 ranks per level, classes like the Rogue can consume a huge amount of the list and if they can pull ranks from other sources Expertise gives a bit of room to grow into. This also lowers the impact of skill ranks from unexpected sources since Expertise can eat up a lot of skills if you try to be a super science whiz.

The rest of the changes were based on the fact that I use a lot of third party material. I didn't want to create new skill lists for each class I'd allow so I just let players pick what class skills they would get. I didn't want to change each race one by one, work that would have to happen if I used this system for another campaign so I just allow skill bonuses to apply to functions over specific skills. The same goes for skills in regards to class features. I just didn't want to sift through classes and archetypes to change everything so adjusted the consolidated skill system to account for whatever new classes pop up.  

So that is my revised Consolidated Skill list which is what my players are using for the Infinity matrix campaign. Leave a comment if you have questions, praises or criticisms. If possible please try this out in your own campaigns and tell me how it worked out for you. I'd love to see more reports on how this works in action.

3pp Top Ten: March 18th 2016

Every week Paizo sends out an email detailing the happenings of the Paizo store. This includes top 10 lists of what sells on their stores. Each week I'll be focusing on the list, 'Top 10 downloads from other companies' and commenting on the rise of the companies involved and changes of the list.


1. New Paths 8: The Trickster - Kobold Press

I haven't reviewed this one yet but I have purchased and read it. I think it deserves it's spot on the list. The class has the appeal of a 20 level arcane trickster done right, filling in the same niche that other New Paths classes have filled like the Theurge and the Elven/Mystic Archer. It also doesn't try to be super fancy and sticks to it's premise so it's easy to see why it's on the list along with Kobold Press' deserved prestige giving it some weight.

2. Kineticists of Porphyra - Purple Duck Games

I've reviewed this one. Like the Trickster it reeks of gridfilling in the sense that it pushes into a niche that I'm surprised wasn't in the rules to begin with. I've seen it on the list before so others must have liked it just as much. More than that it allows Kineticist, a rather recent class, to play catch-up with the plethora of options that the core classes enjoy.

3. One on One Adventures Compendium - Expeditious Retreat Press

Another one that I have but haven't reviewed. It may not seem like much but when you're sitting at a table waiting for 5 out of the six players that are a part of the campaign or when you spend months trying to wrangle three other people into one schedule for a game, the concept of running a solo adventure starts to get really appealing. The product also has quite a bit of thought in it as it tells you what kind of class each adventure is designed for so you don't run into issues where you can't survive because you don't have the right amount of hit points or spells.

4. Kineticists of Porphyra II - Purple Duck Games

Well we liked the first one so much they decided to do it again I guess. Big week for Purple Duck Games as the Kineticist has bought them two tickets to the top 10 list this week. Author N. Jolly can be found on the Paizo forums having a strong amount of communication with players which fuels the acceptance of these book. I don't have this one yet but it is going on my wishlist.

5. The Genius Guide to the Talented Witch - Rogue Genius Games

Yet another product I have that has no review yet. This one I picked up as a part of the Ultimate Witch and Warlock Kickstarter. If you don't know why this one is here; This is another installment of Rogue Genius Games' Talented series, breaking down classes into a series of choosable edges and talents, many taken from archetypes but plenty of original stuff as well, allowing players to piecemeal their class together and allow it to flourish as itself without the baggage of some of the class features imposed on it. This worked out great for the Fighter, Monk and Rogue in making them more effective and are some of my top picks in terms of power balancing with the others simply adding new ways to envision your Barbarian, Cavalier and Ranger, making this product's place on the list very obvious.

6. Four Horsement Presents - Hybrid Class: Shifu - Rogue Genius Games

I know next to nothing about this one but the description of Monks crossed with Kineticist has to be the epicenter of appeal as two dynamic fan favorites with troubled past iterations combine. This one is going on my wishlist despite potentially stepping on the toes of the Mystic from Amora Game. If it is as interesting as the Mystic then the spot is definitely deserved, and with the minds from Rogue Genius Games behind it, that may be a given.

7. Advanced Races Compendium - Kobold Press

Another product from Kobold Press but this one I don't have. When the Kickstarter launched I was in the final stages of preparing for my wedding so I was too short on cash to participate and missing out on this has been haunting my mind despite not having a urgency for new races. (no new campaign that would need them) And who can blame me, I loved the Advanced Feats, Deep Magic and New Paths and this product looks so slick. With over 20 races inside it's the only third party thing that really compares to Paizo's Advanced Race Guide. This has been on my wishlist since it first appeared on Paizo.com.

8. Path of War - Dreamscarred Press

One of the poster children of solutions to martial/caster disparity and a grand successor to Book of 9 Swords, Path of War was sure to be popular. It makes combat fun, dynamic and powerful and breaks away from the 'full attack or die' format that combat can fall into which has garnered a lot of love for the folks that want to take things up a notch.

9. Psionic Bestiary - Dreamscarred Press

The Psionic Bestiary brings in some psionic monsters to the game allowing GMs to make a setting or campaign feel like psionics really do exist rather than some weird espers running around in your fantasy land full of magic. This may not be that important with  the ability to rules psionics and magic as being the same thing but this is especially useful with the advent of psychic magic and creatures to differentiate the psionic from the psychic and also in settings where psionics is different from magic. As an essential companion to the psionics system in general it's place on the list is more than understandable.

10. Ultimate Psionics - Dreamscarred Press. 

The big king that has sat upon the top ten list for a long time, Ultimate Psionics clings and refuses to let go of the list after being usurped. And it makes sense. Dreamscarred Press' psionic books have been top tier of the 3pp Pathfinder world in many people's minds and Ultimate Psionics basically serves as the one stop 'Core Rulebook of Psionics'. Although more material has been released, Ultimate Psionics remains a huge book that singlehandedly gives you all you need to keep you busy with psionics for numerous campaigns.


After a long stint of crowding up the top 10 list there are finally no Spheres of Power related books. For a while it looked like Spheres of Power was set to battle Psionics off the list but now there are triple Dreamscarred Press products. No doubt Spheres is lurking just outside the list waiting to strike although Dropdead Studios may see a surge once their product Skyborne starts hitting the shelves. Also potentially lurking is Strange Magic from Interjection Games, which had a heavy presence for a while.

This all makes me think about the popularity of alternate magic systems. Two popular products are only recently off the list  and the list itself shows some love for things beyond spells. The Kineticist is seeing a lot of attention with a hybrid class and two whole books full of new archetypes and powers. If not for the Trickster I could have thought that we were leaving behind spellcasting completely.

Company of the week is Dreamscarred Press but there is a lot of strong showings from Purple Duck, Rogue Genius Games, and Kobold Press as they each absorb more of the list with double products.

Infinity Matrix: The Gunslinger

As the session zero date for the Infinity Matrix campaign comes up there's one more gun related thing I have to tackle, and for this I'm going to ask the players what they want before they make their characters.

The Gunslinger is a very controversial class, usually just for bringing guns into the equation but also it can deal a lot of damage in a short amount of time if cheesed out. Usually the limitations of firearms knock it down a pet as using Rapid Shot with two guns can easily equal a -8 penalty to each shot and a boatload of gold lost. The limitations are lessened in a futuristic setting naturally but there's one problematic ability, which is Gun Training, a means to add dexterity to damage rolls with firearms.

This is a problem for a few reasons. Dex to damage makes firearms way more dangerous but that's easy to compensate for so the biggest problem is that the gunslinger is the only one that can do it. With guns being martial weapons in this campaign it's easy enough to use them but that dex to damage is way too valuable to pass up forcing anyone that would want to do this to dip into gunslinger since everyone would want to use a firearm and I don't want Gunslinger to be the only class that does this if everyone is using firearms.

Luckily this can be easy to house rule away but there are a few ways to go about it that are pretty good so I'm giving my players a choice.

1. Ban Gunslinger. This eliminates the problem altogether and I don't have to change anything. Although despite the advantages of firearms using rapid shot with them and using automatic mode is still -4 to each shot so they may actually come out relatively weak considering that technology makes melee combat pretty dangerous and the ability to avoid touch attacks is greatly increased. Also this option makes energy resistance extra annoying and thus eventually Clustered Shot a feat tax just to deal damage to anyone in a HEV suit.

2. Change how firearms work. One thing that I do for steampunky games is to make firearms lose the touch attacks and misfire and instead naturally deal dex to damage. Gunslinger gets Gun Training but its a +1 competence bonus at first level and every four levels after. This still results in me not needing to do anything to compensate for touch attacks being a major thing. However this makes some abilities and items useless like bulletproofing, scatterlight armor and the Avoidance feat chain.

3. Make Gun Training a combat feat, prerequisite +1 BAB and 13 Dex. This is the most extreme in terms of compensating but it's not impossible. In situations like this I add creatures' Natural Armor to their touch AC against firearms or as DR through the use of third party templates. Or in some cases just adding more monsters. It also can prove to be pretty lethal to players as They have to account for NPCs with firearms dealing a lot of damage to them without bonus HP to compensate. This makes touch AC very vital and although there is enough defenses to go around this will eat up equipment, feats or class features.

Ultimate Intrigue: First Glance.

Subscribers started getting their shipment confirmations so I got my hands on Paizo's Ultimate Intrigue. Here are my first impressions as I read through the book. Because these are just thoughts based on what I read there isn't a real structure or anything so you'll have to bear with me. I also won't be given specifics unless they are asked of me and I won't quote verbatim whats in the book.

Chapter one kicks off with the Vigilante himself after a very Batman like scene for the chapter cover. Only this guy seems to kill so it's more like Frank Miller's Batman. The Vigilante himself still has his dual identity and it works similarly to the playtest. He gets two identities that can have two alignments, scrying only works on one identity unless both identities are known to the scryer and certain abilities only work with either the social identity or the vigilante identity. The specializations Avenger and Stalker from the playtest remain in the class with the Avenger getting full BAB and the Stalker getting a pseudo sneak attack. From there the Vigilante has two tracks of talents. One for his social identity and one for his vigilante identity. He gets an ability that makes it virtually impossible to intimidate. The 'Appearance' line of abilities are still there where the vigilante causes enemies to become flat-footed, then shaken, then stunned when the Vigilante gets the drop on them. Lastly there is a mega punch that gets more powerful the longer the target was studied before getting jumped. Because the 'Appearance' abilities seem kind of useless in most scenarios I find myself in as an adventurer I'm not a big fan but they are nice and flavorful for the class and can be said about the whole class itself. Overall the structure is nice and simple. For the most part its two tracks for two identities without a lot of mumbo jumbo in between. Its a simple and clean design with a lot of little parts to move around.

But what about those parts? Like the entire class the social talents have limited usefulness in a typical adventuring day but they are all pretty appropriate and pretty powerful int he context of inner city intrigue, especially if downtime is involved. One interesting thing about the vigilante talents is that there is a backdoor to using them in the social identity by making a disguise checks, which is pretty cool. The vigilante talents themselves are mostly pretty neat. Some of the abilities I wish were a normal thing, like the ones that grant a feat but give some kind of extra ability to it. Like one that lets you make vital strikes on attacks of opportunity.

Then we go on to archetypes. Lots and lots of archetypes.

Alchemist gets the Alchemical Sapper(kind of a saboteur with more explosions), Interrogator(Injects people with mind control), and Metamorph (Actually a pretty interesting dirty mutie archetype but the cost is REALLY high. You lose bombs and extracts.).

Bards get the Impervious Messenger(photographic memory is now a class feature), Masked Performer(A little bit Factotum but not as interesting), Ringleader (A bard with a bit of mesmerist-envy) and Sorrowsoul(Emo Bard. I swear, I need to make a Bard/Skald party with each one representing a genre of music.).

Cavaliers get the Courtly Knight(I like these abilities more than the forced Mount. Its basically a more social cavalier.  It also interacts with social dueling), Daring General(gets a non-broken version of Leadership with multiple cohorts and can buff them with knight stuff. This goes back into 'broken' territory when I remember how good Tactician is when you have a group full of martials. ), and Hussar(faster and more skilled mount rider).

Druids get the Feyspeaker(gets 8 enchantment or illusion wizard spells and casts with charisma), Skinshaper(Mystique druid?) and Urushiol(druid with poison goo skin and a hard time getting intimate).

The Inquisitor sure got some love. 6 archetypes and two new inquisitions. Notable abilities include; Filling a guys head with criminal thoughts, the ability to hate one particular alignment to a ridiculous degree, a lot of  'detect' abilities (What is the Inquisitor like the Anti-Vigilante?), an Inquisitor that gets Tactician, two more sneaky Inquisitors, and a social buffer. 

Of course the Investigator gets 5 archetypes. One uses drugs for power. Much like the Inquisitor is an Anti-Vigilante in a counter subterfuge way, the Investigator seems like a natural advesary in both discovering secrets and hiding them.

The Mesmerist also gets six archetypes. Notable abilities include; Having a motherloving EYEBALL FAMILIAR?!?! That's just weird, another fey themed archetype that gains druid/ranger spells, identity theft, and a Mesmerist that's more like a Bard.

Ranger gets more Combat Styles. The archetype that draws my eye was the Dandy. It casts bard spells and has favored community instead of favored enemy.

The Rogue gets a whopping 7 new archetypes and some new talents. I can't help but to look at the archetypes as supervillains given the presence of Vigilante.  Overall I see abilities that make me like the Rogue better but nothing groundbreaking.

The Skald gets four new archetypes. Nothing too new here but they give me some insight as to what the Skald is and how it's different from a Bard in theme.

Spiritualist gets two archetypes. One gets a shadow monster instead of a ghost and the other gets a location-based ghost that's tied to some aspect of the city it's from. Its a nerf in a lot of situations but it's pretty neat and I like that Paizo is playing around with their past subsystems.

Swashbuckler gets three archetypes, the Guiding Blade(the team player), Noble Fencer(The social one) and Veiled Blade(can hide weapons inside her body?).

The Vigilante, playing catch up, of course has a ton of new archetypes. Each of the superheroes. I'll name them.

Brute = Hulk
Cabalist =  Daimon Hellstrom
Gunmaster = Lone Ranger
Magical Child = Every magical girl ever. (c'mon she even has a mascot animal)
Mounted Fury = Shining Knight
Psychometrist = Constantine
Warlock = Too many
Wildsoul = Spider-Man, Falcon and Wolverine.
Zealot =  Too many

After that everyone that didn't get two or more pages of archetypes gets something or another. Antipaladin gets an evil ruler archetype, Cleric gets to have more skills at the price of a domain, spontaneous casting and BAB, Gunslinger gets some fancy gun twirling and not so fancy face punching, Hunter gets to be lamer for better downtime and social skills as well as get an archetype that can run around a city-scape like a spider monkey, Kineticist gets some wild talents that are hit and miss, there's a poison monk and a feint monk, a court occultist and a secret occultist, an intrigue mystery for the oracle (I guess they didn't want to call it a Mystery Mystery), a Paladin that can be any good (Which, in all honesty, isn't that great of an archetype in terms of what you gain,), a more social Slayer archetype and an Unchained specific fey Summoner.

First chapter is of course exciting. Mostly its the new class and it's archetypes letting us live out some nice super power fantasies. There are a lot more social archetypes, allowing some classes to more likely be a face, as well as themes of keeping or discovering secrets and of course intrigue. There is a very strong fey sub-theme going on. Many of the archetypes give up exciting and powerful things for interesting but considerably less useful things. At first I saw this as skill part of the martial/magic/skill trinity that would make the Ultimate series complete but it is far from that. It's more of an urban book so far with many of the archetypes being basically useless unless you're fairly stationary in a big city. In a game with a lot of travel and no home base or politics I have a hard time finding used for some of these. But there are also more sneaky archetypes that are more in line with what's useful in a generic adventure and some social aspects that will be useful when you have to deal with people but not for intrigue.

Next chapter is about feats. The first immediately notable thing is that fencing grace is reprinted.

There's a feat that applies Bravery to all mind affecting effects. Too bad so many archetypes replace bravery. I've noticed that there's a slight increase in vanilla Fighter love lately.

I'm seeing a few feats that do things that I already allow people to do using skills. My current count is 3.

Now it's 4.

Now it's 6.

Oh, another bravery feat.

Starknives get dex to damage. It looks like we burned that bridge already but why not just one dex to damage on finesse weapons? At this point it looks like Paizo is pretty okay with it. We don't need a feat for EVERY weapon. Lets just cut some corners. Maybe they don't want Monowhips to get super insane or something.

At first glance the feat section is kind of meh. perhaps I'll find some gold as I pay more attention to the specific entries but there isn't anything jumping out as particularly exciting. There's feats that I would use of course but it looks like I'll only pay attention to about a third of them.

Next chapter is Mastering Intrigue, the subsystem chapter for this book as well as discussing in general how to run intrigue based games and scenarios.

Influence seems simple at first. Basically you have several kinds of skill checks to make to influence an NPC but you can find out what they are and they work better if you make a check to figure out something about them that will make them easy to influence. As you gain more influence over them the better their attitude will be towards you. Its like a relationship score. Organizations work similarly but have different kinds of ranks. This gets all kinds of complicated with new kinds of stat blocks involved so I think people are more likely to just shove an influence tab on NPCs and make up stuff as they go along.  Overall it is way more interesting to resolve influence than simply rolling single skills. so I'll probably use it in conjunction with Relationships/leadership and simplify it so that it's just one notch on the NPC stat block and some extra words rather than a whole new extra stat block.

The heist section is more like advice on how to smooth over those aspects of the game rather than hard rules, while the leadership section does have some more interesting rules to add to leadership. I've gotten to banning leadership and combining it with a mixture of relationships and leadership as described by a third party product so this is an interesting addition. There are even rules for monstrous followers and other more interesting forms of the leadership feat.

The nemesis section has rules but the feel less like rules and more like guidelines to build a proper Lex Luthor enemy in a campaign that slowly escalates the situation.

Yay, chase rules.

Library rules.

Sorry I'm not that useful here. My eyes are starting to burn staring at this book for so long, and a lot of these are just really big complications one things that used to be abstract and simplified. As a whole I think you can avoid all this and be happy so I think its for the people that want to play certain kinds of games but don't want to switch systems so they just have random tools to play Pathfinder drastically differently by hanging on subsystems. In fact that's what this entire book is about. Fitting characters in non-Pathfinder games because roughly half the class options are playing the flavor game rather than the 'actually useful' game. Depending on how you run games, or at this point what kind of game you want to run, your milage may vary. My eyes are glazing over but I know at some point I'll need some 'action research rules' for when we decide to play fantasy Phoenix Wright and need some ammunition for when we pull off but at this point there is bound to be a lot of complaining about how unhelpful a lot of this book is for a typical campaign.

Seriously, library research rules? And there's pages of the stuff.

Spells of Intrigue gives you advice and specific spells that can be useful in an intrigue game.


Next chapter is about social combat, and I've started drinking because it's night time now and I'm bored.  That's right, a review where I am, I'm not going to say drunk but I'm getting there. I'll tell you when I'm there. I'll fix typos in the morning.

Like the Heist rules the social combat these are less of rules and more of directions on how to plan a game.

Oh snap! They pointed out that duels have been consistent things. There's sword duels, magic duels, psychic duels and now verbal duels. We could just complete the game without any of this combat system. there's a whole other system now.

By the way, I love the pictures in between everything. I think the Investigator is accusing the Magus of something at a Chelaxian court. Oh and Lem and Mel get to hang out but they still don't like each other. Well Mel doesn't like Lem. but in some pictures Lem looks like he's being a turd to Mel.

Verbal duels aren't that complicated but are about as useful as the other kinds of duels. You don't really need them unless that's the kind of campaign you're rolling with. You get a more simple set up in Carrion Crown but this is actually more interesting in addition to being more involved.

I'm there.

The inquisitor and the summoner traded hats. This is funnier than it should be.

There some further clarification on how certain social skills work and some rules about getting rid of opposed rolls

Spells is the next chapter.

I'm only going to lightly skim the spell lists to see if something interesting pops up.
meh. but there are some curiosities. Like I noticed that there's a 'Greater Detect Magic' and a 'Controlled Fireball'. This left me digging around for other spells that were other spells as I moved forward.

I notice a lack of zero level spells.

There are a lot of behavior spells that can probably cause some weirdness. I'm guessing will saves will be extra important after this or you're going to fall in love with a bugbear.

There is a spell that's literally a can of snakes.

Last chapter is about items. Interestingly there are new weapons and alchemical stuff.

Notable among the weapons is a wrist mounted dart launcher.

There are two new abilities attached to alchemical items. Alchemical burn, an kineticist-like burn condition that some items can give you, and alchemical inspiration which gives you a pool of alchemical points that lets you do something. Inspiration mostly includes using it to add dice to skill rolls.

Nothing estremely notable in the rest of the items. There are new weapon abilities and wondrous items. A bit lacking on the armor department. Mostly things that support some new options running around. Overarching theme of skill enabling.

Overall I like this book. I wasn't looking hard but I didn't really find it typoo-ridden like the Advanced Class Guide. But I can see where the online community can ride on it. As I said before, in a campaign where you're mostly traveling from town to town to kick in the local dungeon this book is mostly unhelpful. The archetypes are basically 2/3rds intrigue and flavor focused which means that the trade off for the new abilities is way off unless you're in a specific kind of game. For example: one cleric archetype loses a domain, medium armor and BAB for 4 extra skill ranks per level and more class skills. In most cases that is too many things lost for the skill ranks, but if you're in a campaign where you really can't afford having 2 ranks per level and no value from Int because you'll be twiddling your thumbs during any investigation scene then it's pretty desirable. This book takes the intrigue them very seriously.

The extra rules and subsystems are always valuable to home games but you probably aren't going to get much out of them in typical adventures. All this culminates into the majority of the book being useless for PFS. But for home games that need a bit of direction and some subsystems for inner city campaigns this book is extremely useful. Basically it's as game changing as Pathfinder Unchained in the sense that it opens up playing a whole new kind of game. Investigations become worthwhile and exciting, arguments and court battles have more give and take, going to the fracking library becomes an epic quest. Pathfinder is at it's core a game that can wear a lot of hats but no matter what it's mostly about stabbing a monster in the face. This book makes it very possible to run sessions upon sessions without any physical altercations. It can make Call of Cthulu investigations a real thing rather than some dice rolls in between stabbing an abberation.

If you're not into that, then that's fine. I understand. I'm not that keen on mass combat and downtime (Because I want to play "Lets slay dragons and explore dungeons!" not Civilizations). But there are some neat tools for playing more urban, social or smart characters, and a good chunk of the Vigilante stuff allows for some fun superhero builds.

Speaking of the Vigilante, the class is pretty okay. Like most of the book, having a social identity is useful in limited amounts of games. In normal circumstances I can see people not really using their social identity and therefore playing with two thirds of a class.  I cannot see this guy in a PFS game and I know from experience (three different games with three different characters) that party members can see secret identities as a challenge and will spend half the campaign being Jimmy Olsen and Lois Lane during the silver age of comics where they are constantly doing petty schemes to find out your identity. Then there are tons of abilities that require planning and schmoozing and downtime when some players want to just rest for the day and kick the door down in the next dungeon. On the plus side there are many ways to make changing identities quicker, both in and out of the class itself so it's not that burdened.

I certainly love the book. as much as I've been ripping on it, I was already working on a campaign where it's beyond useful.

My first glance rating is at 5 out of 5 stars. I'll read it deeper later so this may be subject to change. It's flaws are inherent in what it is rather than what it does and I appreciate what it does. I probably won't be playing Vigilante soon but I know what kind of campaigns I will want to use it for and at that point it will be awesome. In the meantime it has some archetypes that can fit in a normal campaign that may be useful.