Most roleplaying gamers would probably agree that creating a brand new character is half the fun of getting into a new campaign. There’s something magical about creating an alternate persona, and choosing the statistics and mechanics that make that character come to life within the game’s rules. Designing a detailed character is almost an art form, and it can be a deeply satisfying creative process that can lead to hours and hours of enjoyment with one’s friends in new world of adventure.
But in complex RPGs like Paizo’s Pathfinder, creating a character is a fairly daunting process. To neophyte gamers, even the most patient of Game Masters can find it difficult not to have the games rules and design overwhelm the player. And for veteran gamers, sometimes creating a new character can be a too long process, particularly when asked to play in a game at the last minute.
Last year, Legendary Games published a set of 8 pre-generated heroes for Players to use in Paizo’s Adventure Paths and Pathfinder Society game sessions. Created by Paizo freelancer Neil Spicer, whose credits include The Snows of Summer (PF67), Sword of Valor (PF74), and the recently released Fires of Creation (PF85), these 1st Level characters are stocked and ready to go into whatever dangers a player might lead them!
Righteous Heroes: Pre-Generated Characters
Righteous Heroes: Pre-Generated Characters is a set of pre-generated characters designed by Paizo freelance author Neil Spicer for use with Adventure Paths and Pathfinder Society use. The supplement contains eight 1st Level pre-generated heroes complete with history, personality, and stat blocks. Each hero also comes with gear, role playing tips, and more…
Production Quality
The production quality of Righteous Heroes: Pre-Generated Characters is excellent. The game supplement has not only some exceptional writing and creative talents of a known game designer, but also has a solid easy-to-use layout presenting the contents. The paper edges and incidental fonts give the product a very Paizo-like feel, and PFRPG gamers will be quite familiar with the layout of the stat blocks and notations.
Regretfully, however, the PDF has poor navigation tools, possessing neither a table of contents nor any bookmarks. Thankfully, each character is designed to be three pages long, which makes it a little easier to get around in the pages.
The artwork in Righteous Heroes: Pre-Generated Characters is really grand, with each character having its own full-sized color illustration. The illustrations are quite detailed, some with dramatic poses and clearly defined style of dress, accouterments, and gear. The art really breathes life into the heroes dossiers and certainly can help fire the imaginations of the players who opt to portray them in a game.
Heroes by Design
Although it does not specifically say it in the introduction, it’s fairly obvious that Righteous Heroes: Pre-Generated Characters was originally designed for the Wrath of the Righteous Adventure Path released last year, but the characters can certainly be used in any official Paizo Pathfinde RPGr campaign. Excepting for one character, they are all legal 20-point buy characters, with options of a 15-point buy build to give players and game masters some flexibility in the design.
The pre-generated characters in this supplement include:
The last character on the list is noted to have features which make it banned from organized play in the Pathfinder Society, but is certainly a nifty character that might be very enjoyable to play in a homebrew campaign.
Each character is laid out on a three-page dossier, with the first page presenting the full color image of the character, ready for adventure. There is also a short blurb of flavor text which gives a nice idea about what the character is like from a personality and conviction standpoint. These quotes are well-written and dramatic comments that a character might proclaim to their comrades by way of explaining their mission in life.
An excellent example of this is an excerpt from the tiefling spy Emerina Vestelle as she declares herself rather defiantly on the side of righteousness:
The third page of each hero dossier contains the heart of what makes the character fun to play – the roleplaying information. Here one will first read about the Background and personal history of the hero, including pronunciation guide for their name. Next comes the Physical Description, which includes hair style, clothing selection, and gear that they favor in addition to the standard height, weight, build, age, eye color, etc. Then there is a solid paragraph describing a hero’s Personality and how they think, and there are some very interesting pathos and behaviors that could expanded upon by both player and GM. There is a section on how the character will likely go about Advancement as they gain in levels, with the author offering a very logical selections for abilities, skills, spells, and feats for each hero based upon their background history and personality. Finally, there is a section of Roleplaying Ideas in each hero dossier, with personal quirks, goals, and possible interactions with other members of the party for the player to try – and even some adventure hook ideas for the GM to exploit.
And finally, at the back of Righteous Heroes: Pre-Generated Characters, there are some character flats to print and cut out to make nifty full-color standees to use on a battle map.
Overall Score: 8.4 out of 10.0
Conclusions
Overall, there’s a lot of great character design in Righteous Heroes: Pre-Generated Characters and the author does an excellent job of creating really compelling heroes to use in a Pathfinder RPG campaign. And while ostensibly designed for the Wrath of the Righteous Adventure Path, these heroes could be used in a variety of campaigns types, whether official Paizo releases or one dreamed up by your local GM. The artwork and overall character design will have great appeal to gamers who want a dramatic visual experience, and new role-players will find the suggestions and tips on personality and character advancement very handy as they learn the complexities of PFRPG. If nothing else, GMs might find this supplement useful for creating helpful NPCs or even twisting them into villains for use during an adventure or role playing encounter.
Given the quality of the writing and the art, the price tag on Righteous Heroes: Pre-Generated Characters is fantastic – it comes out to less than a dollar a character! That and the character flats make this Pathfinder RPG supplement from Legendary Games a unique and exciting resource for any gamer to pick up and try out!
Editorial Note: This Reviewer received a free copy of the product in PDF format from which this review was written.
Grade Card (Ratings 0 to 10)
Last year, Legendary Games published a set of 8 pre-generated heroes for Players to use in Paizo’s Adventure Paths and Pathfinder Society game sessions. Created by Paizo freelancer Neil Spicer, whose credits include The Snows of Summer (PF67), Sword of Valor (PF74), and the recently released Fires of Creation (PF85), these 1st Level characters are stocked and ready to go into whatever dangers a player might lead them!
Righteous Heroes: Pre-Generated Characters
- Author: Neil Spicer
- Art: Lance Red, Tanyaporn Sangsnit, Colby Stevenson
- Publisher: Legendary Games
- Year: 2014
- Media: PDF (32 pages)
- Price: $5.99 (Available at RPGNow.com)
Righteous Heroes: Pre-Generated Characters is a set of pre-generated characters designed by Paizo freelance author Neil Spicer for use with Adventure Paths and Pathfinder Society use. The supplement contains eight 1st Level pre-generated heroes complete with history, personality, and stat blocks. Each hero also comes with gear, role playing tips, and more…
Production Quality
The production quality of Righteous Heroes: Pre-Generated Characters is excellent. The game supplement has not only some exceptional writing and creative talents of a known game designer, but also has a solid easy-to-use layout presenting the contents. The paper edges and incidental fonts give the product a very Paizo-like feel, and PFRPG gamers will be quite familiar with the layout of the stat blocks and notations.
Regretfully, however, the PDF has poor navigation tools, possessing neither a table of contents nor any bookmarks. Thankfully, each character is designed to be three pages long, which makes it a little easier to get around in the pages.
The artwork in Righteous Heroes: Pre-Generated Characters is really grand, with each character having its own full-sized color illustration. The illustrations are quite detailed, some with dramatic poses and clearly defined style of dress, accouterments, and gear. The art really breathes life into the heroes dossiers and certainly can help fire the imaginations of the players who opt to portray them in a game.
Heroes by Design
The pre-generated characters in this supplement include:
- Briathos Tassiel, aasimar purifier oracle
- Caric Solnebren, human oathbound paladin of the Goddess of Valor
- Emerina Vestelle, tiefling infiltrator inquisitor of the Goddess of Dreams
- Illemandir Ziruul, half-elf arctic druid (menhir savant)
- Jilani Safiro, human wildblooded empyreal sorcerer
- Loric Solnebren, human sanctified rogue
- Norgrym Hammerfell, dwarf crusader cleric of the God of Strategy
- Tessara Artinesse, elf synthesist summoner
The last character on the list is noted to have features which make it banned from organized play in the Pathfinder Society, but is certainly a nifty character that might be very enjoyable to play in a homebrew campaign.
An excellent example of this is an excerpt from the tiefling spy Emerina Vestelle as she declares herself rather defiantly on the side of righteousness:
On each second page of the character dossiers is a simple-form stat block easily read by any PFRPG player and the special abilities that the hero possesses – usually Ex abilities from campaign or other Traits. This page also contains recommendations on how to buy back a character to a 15-point buy build without losing the essential flavor of the hero design.
And finally, at the back of Righteous Heroes: Pre-Generated Characters, there are some character flats to print and cut out to make nifty full-color standees to use on a battle map.
Overall Score: 8.4 out of 10.0
Conclusions
Overall, there’s a lot of great character design in Righteous Heroes: Pre-Generated Characters and the author does an excellent job of creating really compelling heroes to use in a Pathfinder RPG campaign. And while ostensibly designed for the Wrath of the Righteous Adventure Path, these heroes could be used in a variety of campaigns types, whether official Paizo releases or one dreamed up by your local GM. The artwork and overall character design will have great appeal to gamers who want a dramatic visual experience, and new role-players will find the suggestions and tips on personality and character advancement very handy as they learn the complexities of PFRPG. If nothing else, GMs might find this supplement useful for creating helpful NPCs or even twisting them into villains for use during an adventure or role playing encounter.
Given the quality of the writing and the art, the price tag on Righteous Heroes: Pre-Generated Characters is fantastic – it comes out to less than a dollar a character! That and the character flats make this Pathfinder RPG supplement from Legendary Games a unique and exciting resource for any gamer to pick up and try out!
Editorial Note: This Reviewer received a free copy of the product in PDF format from which this review was written.
Grade Card (Ratings 0 to 10)
- Presentation: 8.0
- - Design: 7.0 (Excellent writing; solid design; disappointing lack of navigation tools)
- - Illustrations: 9.0 (Awesome artwork; and there are cool character flats too!)
- Content: 8.25
- - Crunch: 8.0 (Great character design; excellent rules use to match the hero’s personas)
- - Fluff: 8.5 (Very fascinating personal histories; great roleplaying ideas and potential nuances of play!)
- Value: 9.0 (Great price – eight cool heroes with their own personal character art!)
