Pathfinder 1E Pathfinder Chronicles setting: what does it offer?

Silvercat Moonpaw

Adventurer
I've read reviews of the Pathfinder setting, but they don't mention much to distinguish it from a whole lot of other standard D&D-style settings. Other than being well-written, richly detailed, having few game mechanics in the book, having no high-level NPCs, a variety of places and cultures to choose from, EDIT: doesn't have legacy baggage, and EDIT: having ongoing support what does it offer?

What is the point of the Pathfinder Chronicles Campaign Setting over any similar worlds?
 
Last edited:

log in or register to remove this ad

ggroy

First Post
The Pathfinder Golarion setting is a fresh start without any legacy baggage.

After 20+ years of Forgotten Realms, all the canon and "canon lawyering" eventually turned me off from the setting.
 

Twowolves

Explorer
I've read reviews of the Pathfinder setting, but they don't mention much to distinguish it from a whole lot of other standard D&D-style settings. Other than being well-written, richly detailed, having few game mechanics in the book, having no high-level NPCs, a variety of places and cultures to choose from, what does it offer?

What is the point of the Pathfinder Chronicles Campaign Setting over any similar worlds?


Jeez, what more do you want, a Golden Ticket with every Campaign Setting hardback sold??

How about this: ongoing support.
 

resistor

First Post
It's a reasonably generic setting, like Greyhawk or FR. The big advantage, to me at least, is that it's my chance to get in on the ground floor, so to speak. I was never able to get into Greyhawk or FR because the backlog of information about them made they practically inaccessible to a newcomer. Golarion presents a similar style of setting, without all the baggage.
 

ggroy

First Post
It's a reasonably generic setting, like Greyhawk or FR. The big advantage, to me at least, is that it's my chance to get in on the ground floor, so to speak. I was never able to get into Greyhawk or FR because the backlog of information about them made they practically inaccessible to a newcomer. Golarion presents a similar style of setting, without all the baggage.

Pathfinder Golarion at the present time, to me feels a lot like the time when the original Forgotten Realms grey box was first released. In a 1E AD&D game I was playing in at the time, the DM used the FR grey box for the setting. It was quite exciting at the time. Also at the time, not many FR novels were released yet.
 

ggroy

First Post
How about this: ongoing support.

So far, Paizo has been pretty good about keeping the Golarion books in both the Pathfinder Chronicles and Companion series, relatively crunch-lite. This is what makes the Golarion books relatively easy to use in my 4E D&D game.

Hopefully Paizo will keep on doing this crunch-lite thing for Golarion specific books, even after the Pathfinder PFRPG core books have been released and the transition to PFRPG specific rules in the AP's and modules.
 

Silvercat Moonpaw

Adventurer
Jeez, what more do you want, a Golden Ticket with every Campaign Setting hardback sold??
This isn't about what I want out of a setting. This is about what's actually in the setting as opposed to how well it's made, how it stacks up compared to other settings, and what accessories it has.
 

fletch137

Explorer
Golarion's biggest strength is that it is more or less a generic 3rd edition D&D setting. They basically made a list of any kind of adventure a D&D player could want to have and made a place for it. There's an Egyptian setting, a jungle setting, a place where a sci-fi spaceship has crashed, devil-worshipping nations, Arabian Nights, black powder using peoples, frontier lands, Viking lands, major metropolises, three flavors of Underdark, etc. etc.

And somehow they manage to do this without it coming across as a complete hodge-podge like some D&D settings I could name.

Where it really shines is there ability to look at old tropes and make them fresh, an approach they've taken to making old standbys like goblins, ogres, the fey, and ghouls really scary again. They even have an upcoming book where they take a look at popular magic items and I look forward to seeing how they can make a bag of holding fun.

If it suffers from anything it's that the creators like too much fantasy literature. Thanks to their love of mythology (both ancient and contemporary), they've been tossing in everything from arcanotech to H.P. Lovecraft. They've got aliens from space, dinosaurs from the lost lands, and urban legends from right next door. You could seriously encounter a Hound of Tindalos just minutes after fighting off a pack of chupacabra.
 

Twowolves

Explorer
This isn't about what I want out of a setting. This is about what's actually in the setting as opposed to how well it's made, how it stacks up compared to other settings, and what accessories it has.

My point was that your list should have been more than enough solid reasons to enjoy the setting. You seem to have researched a bit on your own to make that short list in the first place, anything more would just be people's opinions, which may or may not be useful.
 


Remove ads

Top