5 out of 5 rating for Pathfinder Roleplaying Game: Occult Adventures
Occult Adventures is more than just Paizo's take on psionics. Dreamscarred Press has already done a respectable showing of the 3.5. style "Crystals and Psi-Points" Psionics that many of my various playgroups have accepted as a part of the PF Canon.This is different. Occult Adventures forgoes the traditional D&D aesthetic in favor of something that is paradoxically both well-worn and yet completely new... occultism and esoterica. The characters created in Occult Adventures forgo obscure terms like "psicrystals" and "Dorjes" for more familiar tools like Quija boards and crystal balls. It's a style of magic rarely seen in D&D-like settings, but fits in perfectly in Pathfinder's beautiful anachronism stew of gunslingers, nanotech androids, and traveling fortune tellers. Part of the reason Occult Adventure works so well is because the reader is familiar with all of these things; nothing is obscured behind strange words like "Metacreativity", and all of the implements used are things one could feasibly find themselves. That makes the book's overall theme of delving into the unknown all that more accessible; one must have familiar ground to start on before they begin diving into the esoteric.The actual rules for Psychic Magic are perhaps the crux of this sense of accessibility. One complaint of many GMs (myself included), is that traditional point-based psionics are difficult to keep track of, and their interaction with traditional magic isn't entirely clear. Psychic Magic doesn't have that problem; anyone who understands how a Pathfinder spellcaster works will automatically understand how Psychic Magic works. Psychic Magic is merely another school of magic, akin to Arcane and Divine, and many psychic spells can be cast as normal spells by more traditional casters. There are only two primary differences: first, psychic spells replace somatic components with "emotion" components and verbal components with "thought" components. This has its strengths and weaknesses: a psychic can cast while bound and gagged and never needs normal material components. However, they're crippled by fear effects (which prevent them from using emotion components at all), and take a penalty to concentration checks when in melee unless they spend a move action to center themselves. It's an interesting flavor choice, but ultimately a minor one. The other major change is Undercasting, which is an elegant replacement to the occasionally clumsy "Augmentation" system used by point-based psionics. The idea is that certain spells are "tiered", and knowing the highest level tier automatically grants you the ability to cast each lesser tier. It's a good way of handling the system without allowing people to cast above their weight range.Each individual class is also quite interesting. One of my main complaints with the (fantastic) Advanced Class Guide was that several of the classes lacked sufficient character to stand on their own. An Arcanist was not sufficiently different from a Wizard to make the choice between the two any more significant than a matter of convenience. Occult Adventures doesn't have this problem; while the base system of spellcasting is fundamentally the same as the rest of PF classes, each individual class is outfitted with a tool kit so strange and delightfully weird that even the classes that are similar to existing classes (like the spiritualist) feel distinct and exciting. The Archetypes are also a treat; while a few are simple mechanical tweaks that let one shift their focus, others (like the Reanimated Medium, the Fragmented Mind, or the Amnesiac) are filled with such flavor and roleplaying potential that I'm willing to forgo optimization concerns to play one of them.But the strongest element of the book is the setting material; Occult Adventures presents a version of Pathfinder that is focused on the strange and weird, and gives advice for running adventures that are filled with mysteries upon mysteries. This isn't like Call of Cthulhu horror; your characters are still badasses, and none of the threats presented are ever portrayed as unbeatable. It's more like... a more intellectual type of Pathfinder, akin to games like Planescape, where players are drawn into strange situations and must rely on their wits to win the day. The game even includes a new-agey interpretation of the Pathfinder cosmology, and rules for strange mindscapes and esoteric planes. Overall, the book is by far the single best Pathfinder supplement I have ever read, combining strong crunch with engaging (and for a GM who was in a rut, inspiring) fluff to create a must have experience. If you like your roleplaying games on the weird side, or even if you just like the idea of running around with a quija board, you absolutely have to buy this book. You won't regret it.