Hello again Paizo fans! We’re back once again to bring you slightly-belated news of the latest updates coming for the Pathfinder Playtest – complete with the final chapter of the Doomsday Dawn playtest adventure. Strap in, because there’s a whole mess of changes incoming in Update 1.6!
First and foremost, the playtest adventure. Heroes new and old have been struggling to understand and contain the sinister forces of the Night Heralds. The fate of all of Golarion rests in your hands as you rush to beat an inexorable countdown! WHEN STARS GO DARK continues the last adventure’s exploration of high-level play and is the culmination of the Playtest’s “scripted” components, leaving the rest up to you and your crazy homebrew campaigns. Feedback looks to be accepted through the end of the years, so make something big and ridiculous and tell ‘em what you think!
Now, onto the rules updates. It looks like all of the major classes in the Playtest are seeing the results of all the testing and feedback, so much so that all the details are probably worth perusing on your own time. Since I’ve got you here, however, let’s take a look at some of the highlights:
This article was contributed by Ben Reece (LongGoneWriter) as part of EN World's Columnist (ENWC) program. We are always on the lookout for freelance columnists! If you have a pitch, please contact us!
First and foremost, the playtest adventure. Heroes new and old have been struggling to understand and contain the sinister forces of the Night Heralds. The fate of all of Golarion rests in your hands as you rush to beat an inexorable countdown! WHEN STARS GO DARK continues the last adventure’s exploration of high-level play and is the culmination of the Playtest’s “scripted” components, leaving the rest up to you and your crazy homebrew campaigns. Feedback looks to be accepted through the end of the years, so make something big and ridiculous and tell ‘em what you think!
Now, onto the rules updates. It looks like all of the major classes in the Playtest are seeing the results of all the testing and feedback, so much so that all the details are probably worth perusing on your own time. Since I’ve got you here, however, let’s take a look at some of the highlights:
- Alchemists no longer use Resonance! Well, for their common class-specific things, they can use it in the normal ways. In addition, their scattered focus on bombs, mutagens, and alchemical creations are being split into subclasses called “research fields”, letting you make exactly the kind of mad chemist you want.
- Barbarians have a pretty major change coming in for their rage mechanic. Instead of a static number of rounds of rage, barbarians now have to roll a flat check to stay in rage mode after every round. While I’m not certain any barbarians I know want to be rolling dice unless they’re hitting things, but there’s potential here for future updates to tweak this based on a number of variables.
- Bards are getting a bit of a tweak to remove some confusion over muses, and clerics are the impetus for a change to somatic components that make it easier to cast with your hands full(!). I foresee a lot more shenanigans happening with more than just paladins over this rule change. Druids have a few minor tweaks and a deep-dive into the wild order, so make sure you take the time to really get a handle on that.
- Fighters and monks don’t get a lot of love other than splitting stances off from “opens”, and monks are given an additional toy in the toolbox called the Ki Rush, meant to favor mobility and defense over offensive power.
- Paladins are finally coming away from the strict Lawful Good restriction, opening up to the other Good alignments. They keep most of their kit, with some variations to name and flavor based on the new alignment. Ranger has received some simplification to the Hunt Target feature and somehow some added flexibility, which is all good news to my ears. Rogues also benefit from new flexibility and investment in their techniques.
- Sorcerers get access to a feat which automatically heightens all their bloodline spells, which makes one wonder why it isn’t a standard feature. Wizards get access to even more flexibility with a now-baked-in Quick Preparation feat and the ability to change out low-level spell slots for high-level spells. I hear mutterings about how this makes wizards even more of an obvious choice over sorcerers, but that’s something for your table to decide.
This article was contributed by Ben Reece (LongGoneWriter) as part of EN World's Columnist (ENWC) program. We are always on the lookout for freelance columnists! If you have a pitch, please contact us!
