Paizocon News: Demon Lords, Adventure Paths, and Ultimate Wilderness

Desh-Rae-Halra · May 28, 2017

Looks like a bunch of good stuff on the horizon!

Jester David · May 28, 2017

Ultimate Wilderness
The idea of the shifter is really one of the few class ideas I'd really support. A dedicated shapeshifer class is a niche in the game and one the system hasn't handled well.
The rest of Ultimate Wilderness *could* be cool if it takes its cues from the Wilderness Survival Guide, and is as much for the DM as players. Hexploration and types of wilderness, terrain, mapping, etc. But I doubt that... I expect a whole lot of new wilderness archetypes.

War for the Crown
Paizo went kinda generic in their APs for a little while. Having stuff that was only loosely set in their world and didn't really change anything. Because they wanted to save that stuff for DMs, rather than tie off their coolest plot threads*. For their last few they've really gone back to stuff set tightly in their campaign setting. This continues the trend, really tying into Taldor, one of their larger nations.
It also mentioned advancing the timeline slightly, which makes total sense. The last time the timeline actually changed was the year 4710. The original campaign setting had the year as 4708 while the revised printed added entries for 4708, 4709, and 4710. The current year is *technically* 4717 and while we know what happened in 4713 (Reign of Winter), so far nothing has officially happened in the Inner Sea in six years. It is getting to the point where enough time has passed that young figures, like the Princes Eutropia of Taldor, would have grown up and should be enacting their plans.

* I have issues with this. Okay, some of the plot threads that may or may not impact the world should be left alone. But anything that alters nations should occur in an AP, so an eventual future version of the campaign setting can reflect those events, rather than having the world be static despite passing time. (Or Paizo just needs to stop advancing the Golarion timeline with the real world timeline.)
DMs can always choose to ignore APs or set their own adventures before the AP if they like the nation. Or veer from canon.
Plus, "leaving things so DMs can tell their own stories" assumes that every DM will be able to tell a story as cool as the one in an AP. Many will not...

Book of the Damned
On paper this is the kind of book I will actually buy a hardcover copy of, despite no longer playing or running Pathfinder. Because details on demon lords and archdevils and the outer planes can work in any version of D&D. And with WotC not releasing a Manual of the Planes, this and hopefully future books on the good and elemental planes, will serve a similar function.
But... I already own the three Book of the Damned softcover books. While only 64-pages each, this one likely contains a good 50+ pages more content. But I'm uncertain how much of that will be the lore and details of Hell and the Abyss that I crave.

Brodie · May 29, 2017

Jester, if you want demon lords, there's always Shadow of the Demon Lord.

Jester David · May 29, 2017

Brodie said:
Jester, if you want demon lords, there's always Shadow of the Demon Lord.

There is still two weeks on the Bundle of Holding...
https://bundleofholding.com/presents/DemonLord

Brodie · May 29, 2017

Jester David said:
There is still two weeks on the Bundle of Holding...
https://bundleofholding.com/presents/DemonLord

In my opinion it's worth it. I have everything already so I know.

Now... Is Ruins of Azlant going to tie into Starfinder possibly? Starfinder has the Azlanti Star Empire, after all.

Starfox · May 30, 2017

Is the Shadow of the Demon Lord a new game, or an adventure path? The text is unclear on that.

Morrus · May 30, 2017

Starfox said:
Is the Shadow of the Demon Lord a new game, or an adventure path? The text is unclear on that.

It's a tabletop role playing game by Robert J Schwalb. It's been out for a year or so.

Starfox · May 30, 2017

Jester David said:
Ultimate Wilderness
The idea of the shifter is really one of the few class ideas I'd really support. A dedicated shapeshifer class is a niche in the game and one the system hasn't handled well.
The rest of Ultimate Wilderness *could* be cool if it takes its cues from the Wilderness Survival Guide, and is as much for the DM as players. Hexploration and types of wilderness, terrain, mapping, etc. But I doubt that... I expect a whole lot of new wilderness archetypes.

Paizo has published their hexcrawl rules in Kingmaker, but are they described in full in any other book? I think this will be the core of this book.

payn · May 30, 2017

Starfox said:
Paizo has published their hexcrawl rules in Kingmaker, but are they described in full in any other book? I think this will be the core of this book.

The Mummy Mask adventure path uses the hexcrawl rules in chapter 3.