cross-posted from: https://wanderingadventure.party/post/28

I've spent the past few weeks kicking the tires on nodeBB, with the intention to use it as a federated blog and distraction from the PF2 discourse on Reddit. Originally posted yesterday to !blog@wanderingadventure.party

Hoping eventually to be able to directly dual-address PF2 relevent content so it shows up here, but that's not currently supported functionality.

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> Spend almost any amount of time below the fold of the Internet and you're likely to come across someone smugly repeating their junior high grammar lessons in front of the whole of humanity. They're telling someone they shouldn't've used “should of”, that it's not OK to use “its”, and that they're nauseated by people claiming to feel nauseous. Or that you can't start a sentence with a conjunction, even! > > Large scale social media tends towards competitive spaces, where participants are jockeying for likes, shares, up-votes, or some other form of passive micro-validation just in order to get eyeballs on what they have to say and to feel heard. Ironically, this tends to limit what someone can say, boiling a discussion down to a few choice strategies for gaining social approval.  > > One of these strategies is flexing their intelligence by being technically correct, something that leads to engage in prescriptive rhetoric, like such as over-correcting someone's grammar, even when everyone around understood what the original speaker was trying to say. > > TTRPG discussion tends towards prescriptivism as a mater of course, since rule sets are, well, prescriptions for playing the game. Rules also – generally speaking at least – have a singularly defined intent behind their existence, which while sometimes debatable, are not usually meant to be open to interpretation. Or, at least, this is the common conceit of spaces dedicated to discussing said rules. As a “crunchy” rule set with a specific focus on balance – and therefore on math and numerics – Pathfinder Second Edition discussions are especially prone to this kind of thing.  > > I mean, it makes sense, right? The game has a lot of rules! Clearly it wants to be viewed through a prescriptivist, mechanics-first lens! > > Right? > > But what if it doesn't?  > > What if the more natural lens to view the game through is not the one that low-key paints it out to be an overly-needy and insufferable pedant? What if, instead, the designers knew they were making an imagination game built for co-operative storytelling, and not just Lord of the Rings X-COM with an atrocious frame rate? How might we interpret the the rules then? > > While the prescriptive view of the rules leads to a mechanics-first understanding of the game, a descriptive view supports a fiction-first one, and smooths over a lot of the rough edges that new players who are more accustomed to a less rigid form of play experience when trying out the game for the first time. For instance, many players coming from 3.5 or 5e take issue with the game's ‘Action’ framework, where every thing that characters do in the game is filtered through pre-defined Actions such as Strike, Trip, Shove, Sense Motive, Seek, Take Cover, etc. They come across the fairly long list of basic Actions and see them as meaning that the game is finicky, and even demanding. Some even end up feeling that players are confined to only do things that are ‘pre-approved’ by the list. > > You know, because game rules are ‘supposed’ to tell you what players are supposed to, or allowed to, do. > > The descriptive interpretation of Basic Actions, though, is that they are describing typical play, and act as examples to the GM about how to handle rulings for the most common or useful cases, providing a framework for improvising actions in the process. Anyone familiar with other d20 fantasy games should quickly recognize that most Actions are just descriptions of skill checks, anyway, sometimes with a little rider or critical success/failure effect.   > > The prescriptive, mechanics-first lens, then, has this tendency to make play sound very clinical, e.g.:  > > > Player 1: “I use the Stride Action to approach the enemy, the Trip Action, and the Strike Action with my longsword.” > > > > Player 2: I use the Cast a Spell Activity to cast Fireball, and then use the Cast a Spell Activity to cast Shield. > > even though this would sound totally bizarre and foreign to even most tactically invested tables. The fiction-first approach, though, sounds more natural (and also doesn't require the player to remember the specific names of the various Actions): > > > Player 1: “I charge the enemy, trying to knock him to the ground before attacking with my longsword!” > > > > Player 2: I cast Fireball, and then… umm… cast Shield. > > Here, it's up to the GM to decide what “knocking the enemy to the ground” means, but the most common ruling for this is going to end up being “roll Athletics against Reflex” or “roll Athletics against Fortitude”. The game defines Trip by the former, and Reflex is, in fact, the save that makes the most sense if you're trying to describe the reality of getting knocked off your feet – keeping yourself on your feet is usually more a feat of dexterity than it is of whatever “constitution” is!  > > “But what if the GM picks Fortitude, like a stupid, uneducated philistine?," I hear you ask. "Doesn't that break the tactical element of the game?” And yes, it kind of does! It would buff the defences of low Ref monsters, potentially considerably. If your table is concerned about maintaining good tactical hygiene, it's important for GMs to either remember that Trip is Ref and Shove is Fort, or have a strong enough understanding of hand-to-hand combat to intuitively know what is a DEX-based save and what is a CON-based one. But if your table isn't concerned about tactical hygiene?  > > Then it probably doesn't matter.  > > And if your table is concerned about it, but it's somebody else's table that's running it that way, it definitely doesn't matter to you.  > > I know this all sounds pretty pedantic so far. Really, what's the big difference between being more formal and stiff with describing your turn vs being more fluid and narrative? At the end of the day, the math is all the same, and the game ends up playing the same way, right? > > Well, things start to diverge pretty quickly once you start pointing your descriptive lens at various elements of the game.  > > ## The Game Expects… > > It is sometimes shocking how demanding some people believe the game to be. Every time I turn around, it feels like someone is telling a new player or a struggling GM that “the game expects” this, and “the game expects” that, and every time I see it I'm left wondering if people bought very different books than I did, or if the Archives of Nethys are serving up very different pages to me, for it seems like they're playing a very different game than the one I engage in each week.  > > “The game expects" is, of course, the catchphrase of prescriptivism.  > > The most common topics subject to this line of thinking are things like:  > > - player conditions ("the game expects everyone to be at full health at the start of battle")  > - loot ("the game expects you to have [x] gold at level [n]") > - encounter size ("the game expects battles to have budgets of no more than 160 XP")  > - character stat distributions ("the game expects you to have a +4 in your key attribute" or “the game expects you to have potency and striking runes by level [n]”).  > > All of these statements regularly bring the system into conflict with new players and GMs – particularly those coming from 5e – and, importantly, literally none of them are true. But at this point, they're all practically dogma to the most vocal parts of the online Pathfinder 2e community. > > The descriptive lens on these elements are that these are mostly – the first three, in particular – just signposts, or marked gradations that are useful for reference: If you build an 80 XP encounter, it will present a Moderate threat to a party of 4 who are at full HP; if your encounter has 120 HP, it will use significant party resources, and may even turn deadly, for a party of 4 at full health; etc. If your party is at half their max HP, however, the counters could end up being much more difficult! If you build a 100 XP encounter, it will be more dangerous than an 80 XP fight!  > > Importantly, you do not need to decide on the difficulty of the encounter before you build it. You can, instead, decide that there's a Goblin raiding camp over this hill, and it just so happens to have 5 Goblin Commandos, 2 Goblin Pyros, and 20 Goblin Warriors in it, just come back from a successful raid. For a party of 4 Level 3 adventurers, this camp represents a 100 + 40 + 200 = 340 XP encounter, which is more than twice the power budget of an Extreme encounter. As a GM, you know that this camp is a problem for your party. > > But the game is about finding solutions to problems, is it not? > > The prescriptive lens says that this encounter is illegal – outside the bounds of the rules – since the encounter barometer caps off at 160 XP, but the descriptive lens just says “sounds like the party's going to get messed up right some good”.  > > A similar thing plays out if we look at the Treasure by Level table. The prescriptivist view is that players must get 3 Level 1 consumables, 2 Level 2 consumables, 2 permanent items of both Level 1 and Level 2, plus 40 gold in coin and disposable treasure over the span of Level 1. They shall not receive less, and they should not receive more (within reason)! If the GM does not give them their allotted entitlement, then that GM is starving the PCs and depriving their players of the Proper Pathfinder Experience! And they're just running the game wrong! > > But the thing is, this requires GMs to craft encounters that have just the right loot buried in them, or to create environments that have just the right amount of treasure for reasons beyond reasonable explanation. Shouldn't the environment the players find themselves in dictate how much loot, and of what kind, the players find? Shouldn't the amount of effort players put into actually looking for loot matter? The descriptivist GM would say so, but the (strawman) prescriptiveist would say that their Level 1 players find 40 gp and some healing potions for robbing a bank, and in the process they might only come across a couple of guards, throwing themselves at them black ninja style.  > > Through the descriptivist lens, the Treasure by Level table just tells us where the sweet spot in the power curve is. At each level, a certain amount of the player's power budget is taken up by items and gear, and the Treasure by Level table marks off where the standard is for each level. A player who has significantly less than listed will be less powerful than the ‘Standard’ character of their level, and the one who has significantly more than what's listed will be more powerful. But being below or above the curve isn't a problem through this lens, it's just a description of the current state of the game. If players are under the curve, they may find 80 XP encounters a little harder than the ‘Moderate’ description, and if they're over it, they'll find them a little easier.  > > And that's OK. > > ## The Prescriptive Lens and Tactical Power Gaming > > Things like battle budgets and treasure tables make sense as things people would see as dictated by the game, since they are directly part of the text of the rule books. Even though the game text does not come out and directly use the word "should" when discussing these topics, it's totally logical that a new GM is going to look at them and say "this is what the game recommends". And for a new table, these do a huge amount of the heavy lifting with respect to providing predictable combat encounters, which are touted as one of the major selling points of the system. > > But where do these ideas around players being 'expected' to have full health, or 'needing' to have a +4 in their key attribute come from? They're not found in any of the rule books! At least, not explicitly. And they're not things that new players or GMs would necessarily intuit from reading the text. > > Many argue that the the received wisdom of always having full health is a corollary of the encounter building system, since fights are bigger threats than advertised if players are significantly lacking in resources. For some reason, however, the only resource people seem to insist that players should not be lacking is HP, even though the designers will specifically call out Spell Slots, Focus Points, and even consumables when discussing the topic. The idea that player are entitled to full spell slots, free potions, or a flight of Alchemist's Fire just never seems to come up. > > The real clue is in the rhetoric around the key ability modifier. Again, not something that comes up anywhere in the system's library, the received wisdom to maximize this value comes from the fact that it optimizes damage. And if you spend time observing the community's attitudes towards sub-optimal play, things really start to snap into focus. > > The majority of online discussions about Pathfinder 2e are quietly, almost secretly, power gaming or optimization discussions, regardless of whether the people initiating the discussion are seeking optimization advice. Some fans have even argued that the expectation of optimization is baked into the game's core, built on top of the assumption that the game is really a tactical combat game wearing the skin of a roleplaying game. Power gamers and tactical combat game fans both love rigid systems and predictable math, and Pathfinder 2e provides plenty of the latter. The game can easily and much more reliably present what these groups are looking for than many other systems out there, especially if they also want in on that d20 fantasy lifestyle. But the idea that it's a roleplaying game second? > > This is a thesis that I, personally, vigorously and wholeheartedly reject. > > The game can be a rigid, tactical power game, if that's how you want to utilize the the tools in its toolbox. And if it is, more power to you. I'm really quite incredibly glad the game can be played in that way, both because I like a big tent, and also because I like the occasional tactical combat game (Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle is by far my favourite game I got from Ubisoft during my tenure with the company), but it can also be a lot of other things, depending on how you utilize those tools. > > Because that's what the rules are: Tools to help you craft a gaming experience tailored to your table. And these tools work just as well, and make just as much sense -- if not more -- if viewed through a descriptive, fiction-first lens. And playing the game in a fiction-first way quickly highlights that Pathfinder 2e is a very flexible, kitchen-sink fantasy RPG that is just as good at being a collective storytelling engine as it is at being a crunchy, mechanics-first tactical sword and sorcery game. > > It doesn't get nearly as much credit or attention for this as it deserves.

cross-posted from: https://wanderingadventure.party/post/21

This was the largest encounter I've ever run, and what an experience it was! I learned as much from this one fight as I have from months of adventure prep and minor encounters.

We're a very casual table, just me, my partner, my step-son and a friend, running short (~90 minutes) sessions every week or two. We're progressing slowly, and leveling up even more slowly. I decided early on, due to the material I've, uh, stolen my ideas from, that level progression would be locked to McGuffin acquisition, but speed with which the party is actually getting their hands on these objects is much slower than I had initially expected.

We've settled into a tick-tock adventure cadence, then, with mid-level power-ups being added via gold and item injections into keep everyone happy. Which is all to say, when the players level up, it's a big deal, and I've taken to giving them something worthy of their new powers to cut their teeth on.

This time, we'd been running the Forge of Fury, which I converted as we went.

Consider this a spoiler warning for this 25 year old module!

Hiding in the third section of the dungeon -- known as the Foundry -- was the party's second McGuffin, and after some unexpectedly friendly interactions with a group of Hryngars (nee Duergars), a frightening from an Allip, and a really awkward discussion with a crypto-succubus, they managed to find their level-up trinket.

The original adventure hook for the module was to go searching for some ancient +1 weapons, or some such, but that seemed like some pretty weak sauce. The intent was also for players to delve too deep and encounter Nightwing, the black dragon and its hoard of gold, but I'd sent the players in there looking for an NPC and a McGuffin, and have a setting where dragons are very rare, and where at least some of the enemies are (unbeknowst to the players) trying to resurrect a dragon, so just throwing one at the players early in the campaign would be kind of undermining.

So I threw zombies at them, instead. A lot of zombies.

Forge of Fury has a Xulgath (nee Troglodyte) den on the second level, and that is where I stuffed the NPC they were trying to find/rescue. Unfortunately, the party bypassed the den, and took the outer route around the outskirts of the dungeon. This meant that the amped up Drow Sorceress/Necromancer I had following them had some bodies she could unalive and then un-unalive.

Not exactly RAW, of course, since it takes a full day to use the Create Undead ritual for a single target, but the players don't know this, and what they don't know can't hurt them. Besides, Summon Undead is a Rank 1 spell. shrug

The players return to the main hall, new power-up in hand, to discover the troop of friendly Duergars fighting a large wave of shambling Troglodytes (a Level 4 Shambling Troop).

It's at this point that I hand them the stat blocks for the Duergars and a list of names that they will be playing. Each of them got 2 Duergars Sharpshooters and a Duergar specialist of some type to play, which I expected them to use as cannon fodder.

Each round, I unleashed new creatures onto the battle field. First, it was spiders (four Hunting Spiders and a Huge Spider Swarm), then it was the missing NPC's party (2 human Zombie Shamblers), then it was the Xulgath leader and an Orc captive (2 Zombie Brutes). Some skeletal warriors and a Ragewight followed this, before themselves being followed by the boss: A custom built undead anti-paladin, representing the NPC they failed to save.

The battle was chaos, in the best way. Even with this giant roster of enemies, the players got a turn every couple of enemies, and my partner seemed really into the idea of running multiple creatures, and letting the dice determine their personalities.

This was also the encounter where I decided to say "ok, fuck it" more often. As we've played, I've been increasingly convinced that PF2 not just works as a fiction-first game, but plays better that way. I've lacked the confidence to truly give in to this idea at the table though. But with three other characters at her fingertips, all of them martials, my partner started mulling over her character sheet less, and just... dropped her knees into the boss's back. The NPC was tied up at this point, and prone, thanks to a critically successful bola attack, so there wasn't a whole lot he could do about this. I thought about it for a second and decided that it sounded like an unarmed strike to me. But it also sounded like she was now on top of the guy. Like, that's what happens when you drive your knees into a prone person's back, right? So, I threw caution to the wind, let the fiction take over, and told her "you're now sitting on top of him".

The light in her eyes at hearing that was magical.

On his turn the NPC shook her off, broke his bonds, and got to his feet. The battle resumed, but something had changed. The players now understood that they had permission to try things, and I had confidence that I could decide whether what they were trying made sense, and, importantly, what potential outcomes made sense.

The fight ended a couple of rounds later, the boss disarmed (they thought to kick his sword away) and once more knocked to the ground. The party's Guardian did a Smash Bros. style leaping downward strike with his sword, pinning him in place, while two enlarged Duergars stomped a mudhole in him. After four sessions, and nine rounds of combat, the battle was won, and the module was complete.

And my table finally started seeing the game through their characters' eyes, as a world where they can try to get away with anything.

[en español with English subtitles] 5 razones por las que prefiero Pathfinder RPG a D&D (Rules Lawyer) | 5 Reasons Why I Prefer Pathfinder RPG Over D&D

The rules for encounter building and XP rewards in PF2E are great. If your party is all about the same level and you know how difficult of an encounter you want to throw at them it's really easy to build that encounter. As in so many things, the core Pathfinder math Just Works.

But what is hidden behind it? What if, due to player shenanigans, the encounter ends up being very different than you planned or there is a completely unplanned combat? Or you're just curious about how the encounter math works behind the scenes?

Well, here's how it works: Creatures of level 1 and above are worth 160 XP/level. So, a level 2 creature is worth 320 XP and a level 10 is worth 1600 XP. Creatures of level -2, -1 and 0 are worth 40, 80 and 120XP respectively.

To get the per character XP reward for defeating the encounter, total the XP for the creatures in the encounter and divide by the total PC levels at the table.

For example: an encounter of one level 2 and two level 1s is worth 640XP. If faced by a four person party each of level two, thats 640/(4 * 2) = 80XP per character. Or that same 640XP encounter by a party of two level 2 and one level 1? 640/(2+2+1) = 128XP per character.

Granted, this can get silly if the creature levels are way out of whack, which is why in the encounter building rules they don't have table for creatures more than +-3 levels away from the PCs. But just in case you have an odd party or an odd encounter, the math is pretty easy.

Includes both 1E and 2E versions of the the epic Kingmaker adventure path, a Steam key for the Owlcat Kingmaker CRPG, and a bunch of other adventures and source books. A hard copy of the 1E AP is also available.

Does the Player Core book replace the Core Rulebook? Or are they both need?

!

I dole out level-ups somewhat more sparingly than most, operating under more of an actual-play cadence of one level-up per 'chapter'. The adventure structure that has come out of this mini-boss midway through the adventure, mid-boss guarding the adventure goal, and then adventure boss after level-up.

This time, they beat the dungeon boss, gathered the treasure (a relic crossed with a spell heart, giving them access to higher ranked spells than they 'should' have), and now they're facing... basically all of the enemies (and potential allies) in the dungeon that they bypassed.

This isn't an easy fight. This is a custom-tooled run of the Forge of Fury. They wiped out the Orcs on the main floor, by bypassed almost all of the Troglodytes, and almost all of the undead.

They befriended the Duergars, at least.

I've given everyone control over the Duergars (9 in total), so everyone is playing 4 characters this fight. They got through a couple of rounds of combat last session just fine, and everyone was into it.

Then last night, one of the players -- my partner -- managed to roll a 1 on every. Single. Damage roll. Like, her dice just decided they could not stand the sight of her anymore. It got to the point where I started to let her just re-roll her first roll if it was a 1, and about half the time it still came up a 1.

So, near the end of the session, as this well established itself as a giant cosmic joke, I pitched cascading damage dice to everyone, triggering off of a 1. They all agreed -- though one of the kids was sharp enough to ask if enemies would get the same benefit (of course they would) -- and we finished off the session giving it a try.

My partner rolled a lot of additional dice in the last halaf-hour of play. I let d4s trigger a second d4, but didn't let the secondary die explode. The mood at the table lightened considerably. The damage output increased negligibly, as 1s begat more 1s.

I've never played with exploding or cascading dice before. I don't have the bredth of system experience to have come across it organically. I was pleasantly surprised with how it added tension to damage rolls, and everyone else really loved how it softened the disappointment of rolling strong on their d20 only to find that they actually struck their enemy with a wet noodle.

I'm looking forward to next week, where I'll get to see how this plays out over a longer period of time. I think the kids are going to get a lot out of it, if they ever start rolling 1s.

In other words, what's an official rule or interaction between different rules in Pathfinder 2e that you think is dumb?

This past week has seen the launch of crowdfunding campaigns for The Potter's Curse, a low-level Pathfinder 2e adventure by Jay Scott, and of WARDEN, the genre-agnostic distillation of PathWarden by Ghost Spark. PathWarden is a hack of Pathfinder 2e, which means there's a lot of PF2's DNA to be found in WARDEN.

There are also several system neutral releases, thanks in no small part to ZineQuest

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New

The Potter's Curse

• A gritty rescue adventure for Pathfinder 2e!

  Product Type: Adventure

  Systems: Pathfinder 2e

  Start Date: Saturday, 1 February, 2025

  End Date: Monday, 3 March, 2025

  Funded: false

Greasy Spoon: System Neutral Infusion Tables

• Art you can play! Solo or with friends. A tool for GMs and players to have fun going gonzo in the new weird!

  Product Type: GM Resource

  Systems: System Neutral

  Start Date: Saturday, 1 February, 2025

  End Date: Friday, 28 February, 2025

  Funded: false

Beside the Lesser Travelled Road

• 20 system agnostic, unusual and characterful camping spots for your fantasy TTRPGs games!

  Product Type: GM Resource

  Systems: System Neutral

  Start Date: Tuesday, 4 February, 2025

  End Date: Tuesday, 25 February, 2025

  Funded: true

RELICS + RELIQUARIES PART II

• A massive collected anthology of 100+ system-agnostic tools, friends, foes, encounters, items, curses and more for your favorite TTRPGs!

  Product Type: GM Resource, Items & Equipment

  Systems: System Neutral, D&D 5e, Mork Borg, Fist, Mothership

  Start Date: Saturday, 1 February, 2025

  End Date: Saturday, 1 March, 2025

  Funded: true

WARDEN - The d20 RPG for All Settings

• WARDEN is a genre-agnostic and cinematic d20 RPG, built on the bones of Pathfinder 2e, and designed for tight, tactical and fluid gameplay.

  Product Type: System

  Systems: WARDEN, Pathfinder 2e

  Start Date: Monday, 10 February, 2025

  End Date: Thursday, 13 March, 2025

  Funded: false

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Ending Soon

Pip and Pawn - For D&D, Pathfinder, and Savage Worlds

• A short ebook about in-fiction games in table top RPGs. Includes history, magic, monsters, and more!

  Product Type: GM Resource, Lore & Worldbuilding, Rules Extension

  Systems: D&D 5e, Pathfinder 2e, Savage Worlds

  Start Date: Tuesday, 28 January, 2025

  End Date: Wednesday, 19 February, 2025

  Funded: true

Jason Keeley, Senior Developer on Pathfinder Second Edition, talks to Polygon about this year's big rule book release, Battlecry! Includes a look at the cover, and the new Jotunborn (Giantborn/Goliath) ancestry.

cross-posted from: https://ttrpg.network/post/14448537

> I made books of short one-shots to eliminate that stress DMs feel when they aren't fully prepped. > > I use a bullet point format, designed for quick absorption during a session. No need to study and make notes beforehand. Each adventure is on a two page spread, so you aren't flipping around pages to find info. They are very information dense. > > I varied the locations, type and plot so you'll have an adventure to fit just about any situation. Most adventures are not combat oriented. Some include riddles, puzzles and handouts. Each adventure has side tabs, so you can quickly find the type of adventure you want in the middle of your session. Won't be scrambling when the players go somewhere you didn't plan for. > > The adventures are system agnostic, so there are no stat blocks. You'll need to look up the monsters in your system. > > I worked hard to make each adventure very different from one another. I like to set up player expectations, and then use those expectations to surprise them. There are road ambushes with double twist endings, a gladiatorial battle where the enemies use the PCs own weapons against them, and a bard scroll, wrapped in a riddle, rolled up into a sea shanty. They've been selling well and I’ve been lucky to get amazing reviews. > > Try an adventure out for yourself. Each book description includes one free adventure and instructions: > > My website: https://deckanddicegames.com/quartershots_retail/ DTRPG: https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/publisher/28077/deck-and-dice-games Itch.io: https://deckanddice.itch.io/ Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/s?i=stripbooks&rh=p_27%3AMarcus%2BPascall > > p.s. I believe people who buy printed RPG books should get the PDF for free, so if you buy from my website, I'll send you a DTRPG link automatically. If you buy from a game store or Amazon, email me a copy of your receipt for the link.

From Redrazor's Patreon page:

>Quick update: > >I finished phase 1 of development, which is to create a working app without any of the paid features. > >I've signed up to the Apple Developer program and I'm in the process of getting a build of the app uploaded for testing. Once that is done I'll be clearer about how to get people to sign up for a bit of testing. I'll make a new post about that when I'm ready. > >In the meantime I'm working on phase 2, which is the remaining locked paid content (custom stuff, pets etc). I've got another couple of weeks before Guns and Gears Remastered so hopefully will get the bulk of it done before then. > >As ever, thanks for your continued support.

The Pathfinder-specific space is still pretty sleepy this January, but we've started to see some action on the system-neutral side of things. Some books of GM resources and roll tables are coming up on their close date in the next week.

The 5e space is absolutely buzzing right now, though. I'm glad to have a bit of a break in terms of what I'm interested in buying, but it would be super cool if some of that energy came Paizo's way in the coming months.

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New

Pip and Pawn - For D&D, Pathfinder, and Savage Worlds

• A short ebook about in-fiction games in table top RPGs. Includes history, magic, monsters, and more!

  Product Type: GM Resource, Lore & Worldbuilding, Rules Extension

  Systems: D&D 5e, Pathfinder 2e, Savage Worlds

  Start Date: Tuesday, 28 January, 2025

  End Date: Wednesday, 19 February, 2025

  Funded: true

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Ending Soon

50+ Random Tables

• What does that goblin have it its pockets? What's the name of that NPC? What's the MacGuffin for the next quest? Look no further!

  Product Type: GM Reference

  Systems: System Neutral

  Start Date: Monday, 2 December, 2024

  End Date: Friday, 31 January, 2025

  Funded: true

Blights, Catastrophes & Scourges on the Realm

• A collection of global catastrophic events impacting society that can be incorporated into fantasy RPGs. Claims D&D 5e compatibility, but appears to be system neutral in practice.

  Product Type: GM Reference

  Systems: D&D 5e, System Neutral

  Start Date: Wednesday, 1 January, 2025

  End Date: Friday, 31 January, 2025

  Funded: true

100 Amazing Events

• A supplement packed w/ 100+ unique moments, twists, and challenges to bring your World to Life! Claims to be for 5e, but appears to actually be system neutral

  Product Type: GM Reference

  Systems: D&D 5e, System Neutral

  Start Date: Thursday, 2 January, 2025

  End Date: Saturday, 1 February, 2025

  Funded: true

Landon Winkler is back with the second part of their preview of Lost Omens: Rival Academies. Here, they touch on the University of Lepidstadt, Magaambya, and the Monastery of the Unbreaking Waves.

Pathfinder developer Landon Winkler previews some of the academies spotlighted in Lost Omens: Rival Academies, namely Kitharodian Academy, Cobyslarni, and the Academy of the Reclamation.

Since War of Immortals has been out for a while now, I am curious: Does anyone have any experiences with the new Mythic Rules for 2E?

My group played through the 1E Wrath of the Righteous Campaign years ago, and while they were a lot of fun in the sense of being able to do some truly preposterous amount of damage, they were not exactly well-polished.

Does anyone have the erratas for 2e in a format that I can print on sticky back paper and just glue in over relevant changed passages?

u/double_blammit posted a new guide to the remastered Oracle over on r/Pathfinder2e that may be worth checking out. Their announcement post is quoted below.

>I've finally finished up my remastered oracle guide (or near enough to put it out there). I've got a few last touches I'm putting in place for some Divine Access recommendations, but as a whole, it's finished. The last section that needs some love is items, which is where I'll be spending the bulk of my time this weekend. > >There's a high likelihood that I haven't quite ironed out all the editing / conversion mistakes I wanted to. Feedback is very welcome! > >Divine Gift: A Guide to the PF2e Oracle [Remaster] > >I've also posted my Divine Access spreadsheet in a few scattered comments, but I've made some updates to it that should improve its value for spell selection. > >Divine Access Spells [Remaster] > >Shout out to u/w1ldstew, u/xxKhronos20xx, u/olu_igokra, u/lumgeon, u/Sovjohn, u/Basil06, and u/Suspicious_Agent for various reasons of being oracle stans and helping me out with guide issues, requests, and advice.

Over on Reddit, u/ThreeDaysGuy announced a new Godot-based combat manager that they've been working on for Pathfinder 2e. Unlike the vast majority of PF2e tools, this one's an actual, honest-to-goodness desktop application.

It's still rather young, and it's not feature complete yet. It's pulling creature data from the PF2 Foundry module, and is a few months behind on updating that.

The author has Windows binaries up for download on Itchi.io, but the program is platform neutral. They just don't have any pre-compiled binaries for Linux or Mac yet (you can build your own using the Godot compiler). The code repository can be found here: https://github.com/Zain-A-Abbas/PF2E-Combat-Driver

We're starting to see some action in the system neutral space again. There's this fascinating trend happening right now -- and maybe this is just an evergreen phenomenon that I haven't been paying any attention to -- of writers claiming (or believing) that their seemingly 100% flavour-text projects are somehow system restricted. Several books were listed with the author doing a lot of 5e thumping with zero mention of anything else, but their books actually appear to be OSR-style encounter tables or whatnot.

Gotta love a functional monopoly, eh?

Anyway, there are no Pathfinder-specific projects live right now, though there are a couple that have cropped up claiming to be 'Launching Soon'.

---

New Projects

Renegade Realms: Raven's Reach

• An endlessly expandable hex map for 5e, Pathfinder, Shadowdark, Forbidden Lands, Mörk Borg & other fantasy tabletop role-playing games!

  Product Type: GM Reference, Hexploration, Maps

  Systems: System Neutral

  Start Date: Thursday, 2 January, 2025

  End Date: Wednesday, 22 January, 2025

  Funded: true

Blights, Catastrophes & Scourges on the Realm

• A collection of global catastrophic events impacting society that can be incorporated into fantasy RPGs. Claims D&D 5e compatibility, but appears to be system neutral in practice.

  Product Type: GM Reference

  Systems: D&D 5e, System Neutral

  Start Date: Wednesday, 1 January, 2025

  End Date: Friday, 31 January, 2025

  Funded: true

100 Unique Factions

• A supplement packed with: Guilds, Clans, Cults, Orders, Houses, Leaders, 100 pages for your Campaign or Adventure! Claims to be for 5e, but doesn't appear to have any system-specific entries.

  Product Type: GM Resource, Lore & Worldbuilding

  Systems: D&D 5e, System Neutral

  Start Date: Saturday, 4 January, 2025

  End Date: Saturday, 25 January, 2025

  Funded: true

100 Amazing Events

• A supplement packed w/ 100+ unique moments, twists, and challenges to bring your World to Life! Claims to be for 5e, but appears to actually be system neutral

  Product Type: GM Reference

  Systems: D&D 5e, System Neutral

  Start Date: Thursday, 2 January, 2025

  End Date: Saturday, 1 February, 2025

  Funded: true

---

Ending this Week

A Fetch of Ferrets

• An in depth guide to an amazing magical item and spell; an arcane bag full of magical ferrets. For 5e, and frankly all fantasy RPGs!

  Product Type: Items & Equipment

  Systems: D&D 5e, System Neutral

  Start Date: Wednesday, 25 December, 2024

  End Date: Friday, 17 January, 2025

  Funded: true

If you've got anything PF2e related on your DriveThru RPG wishlist, it's not a bad time to take a look at it. Quite a few titles are on sale right now!

I'm looking at handing out some Relics to my players, but I'm having some difficulty understanding the guudance on Relic gifts in the GM Core. Specifically, I've been somewhat broken by the treasure-by-level table, and it's not clear to me whether a Relic us suppised to get 2 minor gifts at Level 5 and 3 major gifits at Level 10, or if it should receive its second gift at Level 5 and its third at Level 10, and those gifts should be a minor and major gift, respectively.

My default assumption is the latter, but... You know... Treasure by level...

Another quiet week this week. It kind of felt like there was something else going on or something, though I can't quite put my finger on what it might have been. It does look like there's a fair bit of system neutral fantasy projects in the chamber waiting to fire in the new year, though. January looks to be maybe a bit quieter, but several projects have signalled a possible February launch date, and March looks positively packed.

---

Ending Soon

The Hobgoblin's Fortress: a Location for D&D and Pathfinder

• Goblin mercenaries are about to mutiny against their officers. Will your party help them or sell them out?

  Product Type: Adventure, One-Shot

  Systems: D&D 5e, Pathfinder 1e, Pathfinder 2e

  Start Date: 2024-12-02

  End Date: 2024-12-30

  Funded: trure

---

Just Finished

Plug & Play Dungeons Vol. 4

• Inspired by the Shadowdark Lost Citadel of the Scarlet Minotaur dungeon, this book contains 5+ dungeons with a focus on lived-in spaces inhabited by multiple factions. Each faction is intended to have its own motives, wants, and goals

  Product Type: GM Reference, Dungeons

  Systems: System Neutral

  Start Date: 2024-11-22

  End Date: 2024-12-22

  Funded: true

  Late Pledges: false

  Status: Succeeded

The D100 Encounters Collection

• 100 adventure hooks for fantasy TTRPGs.

  Product Type: GM Reference

  Systems: System Neutral

  Start Date: 2024-12-07

  End Date: 2024-12-22

  Funded: true

  Late Pledges: false

  Status: Succeeded

---

Taking Late Pledges

The Practical Guide to Becoming a Great Player

• A guide to character creation, system interpretation, and roleplaying by YouTuber Guy Sclanders

  Product Type: Player Reference

  Systems: System Neutral

  Start Date: 2024-11-04

  End Date: 2024-12-04

  Funded: true

  Late Pledges: true

  Status: Succeeded

Nightfell - A Grimdark Fantasy setting for PF2

• Beware the Moon in this PF2 Compatible Grimdark fantasy setting.

  Product Type: Setting, Character Options, Items & Equipment, Spells, Rules Extension, Lore & Worldbuilding

  Systems: Pathfinder 2e

  Start Date: 2024-04-17

  End Date: 2024-05-08

  Funded: true

  Late Pledges: true

  Status: Succeeded

Dr Dhrolin's Dictionary of Dinosaurs

• A palaeontology-themed supplement for tabletop roleplaying games.

  Product Type: Besetiary

  Systems: Pathfinder 2e

  Start Date: 2024-06-14

  End Date: 2024-07-14

  Funded: true

  Late Pledges: true

  Status: Succeeded

Witchfyre: A Dark Fantasy RPG for 5E+ & Pathfinder

• An RPG world of enthralling dark fantasy awaits. Bring new witchy classes, spells, crafting, and more to your table.

  Product Type: Setting, Adventure, Character Options, Items & Equipment, Spells, Bestiary, Rules Extension

  Systems: D&D 5e, Pathfinder 2e

  Start Date: 2024-10-16

  End Date: 2024-11-15

  Funded: true

  Late Pledges: true

  Status: Successful

---

2024 Lookback

2024 was a pretty good year, with respect to 3rd party support for Pathfinder systems, especially if you include system neutral fantasy offerings. I followed or backed (more followed than backed, of course) 28 projects this year in support of my PF2 game, and I'm pretty excited to see some of the bigger projects delivered in the coming months.

Figgy Pudding Steals Christmas

• A Christmas themed adventure module where players have to investigate a very Grinch-like set of circumstances

  Product Type: Adventure, One-Shot

  Systems: Pathfinder 2e, Shadowdark, D&D 5e

  Start Date: 2024-10-29

  End Date: 2024-11-19

  Funded: true

  Late Pledges: false

  Status: Succeeded

GM's Toolbox 2

• Adventure seeds, hazard ideas, name generators, NPCs, factions, and a bevy of other system-agnostic GM tools

  Product Type: GM Reference

  Systems: System Neutral

  Start Date: 2024-11-01

  End Date: 2024-12-01

  Funded: true

  Late Pledges: false

  Status: Succeeded

The Practical Guide to Becoming a Great Player

• A guide to character creation, system interpretation, and roleplaying by YouTuber Guy Sclanders

  Product Type: Player Reference

  Systems: System Neutral

  Start Date: 2024-11-04

  End Date: 2024-12-04

  Funded: true

  Late Pledges: true

  Status: Succeeded

Tapestry of Towns: A Game Master's Compendium

• 20+ richly detailed fantasy settlements with maps, NPCs, and plot seeds

  Product Type: GM Reference, Cities & Towns

  Systems: System Neutral

  Start Date: 2024-10-31

  End Date: 2024-12-06

  Funded: true

  Late Pledges: false

  Status: Succeeded

The Fall of Rivenhelm

• An adventure module set in the world of Myrr featuring low, mid, and high level scaling, new monsters, new magic items, and more

  Product Type: Adventure

  Systems: D&D 5e, Pathfinder 1e, Pathfinder 2e, DCC, OSE

  Start Date: 2024-11-07

  End Date: 2024-12-06

  Funded: true

  Late Pledges: false

  Status: Succeeded

Legendary Bestiaries: SWARMS!

• A monster book from Legendary Games that focuses on Swarm-type monsters. The Kickstarter also offers backers the option to 'catch up' on some of their previously released bestiaries

  Product Type: Bestiary

  Systems: Pathfinder 1e, Pathfinder 2e, Black Flag RPG, D&D 5e

  Start Date: 2024-11-13

  End Date: 2024-12-06

  Funded: true

  Late Pledges: false

  Status: Succeeded

Merry & Magical Meetings: An RPG Book for the Holidays

• Inside this lighthearted celebration of the season, you'll discover plenty of saccharine rumors, festive spells, and holiday adventure hooks that will help put the entire table in the mood for the yuletide season

  Product Type: GM Reference, Spells

  Systems: System Neutral

  Start Date: 2024-12-02

  End Date: 2024-12-11

  Funded: true

  Late Pledges: false

  Status: Succeeded

BattleZoo Ancestries: Year of Titans

• A book focused on providing players with new character options, focused on large (and larger?) ancestries

  Product Type: Character Options

  Systems: Pathfinder 2e, D&D 5e

  Start Date: 2024-11-12

  End Date: 2024-12-13

  Funded: true

  Late Pledges: false

  Status: Succeeded

Vendors of the Vale

• 30 different vendors with descriptions, backstories, plot hooks and a list of items they sell, including 240+ new items

  Product Type: GM Reference, Items & Equipment, Bestiary

  Systems: D&D 5e (Creatures), System Neutral

  Start Date: 2024-11-19

  End Date: 2024-12-19

  Funded: true

  Late Pledges: false

  Status: Succeeded

Dungeon Domains: Vault of Midias & Perilous Paths vol.2

• Dungeon Domains are hand-drawn geomorphs representing sections of dungeons, caverns, sewers, or catacombs, fleshed out with flavourful and detailed descriptions of each area as well as a unique legend explaining the dungeon’s history

  Product Type: GM Reference, Dungeons

  Systems: System Neutral

  Start Date: 2024-12-01

  End Date: 2024-12-21

  Funded: true

  Late Pledges: false

  Status: Succeeded

Plug & Play Dungeons Vol. 4

• Inspired by the Shadowdark Lost Citadel of the Scarlet Minotaur dungeon, this book contains 5+ dungeons with a focus on lived-in spaces inhabited by multiple factions. Each faction is intended to have its own motives, wants, and goals

  Product Type: GM Reference, Dungeons

  Systems: System Neutral

  Start Date: 2024-11-22

  End Date: 2024-12-22

  Funded: true

  Late Pledges: false

  Status: Succeeded

Fantasy World Design - Core Templates

• 11 flexible worldbuilding templates, each covering different aspects of your unique and detailed world.

  Product Type: Templates, Lore & Worldbuilding

  Systems: System Neutral

  Start Date: 2024-11-19

  End Date: 2024-12-19

  Funded: true

  Late Pledges: false

  Status: Succeeded

The Hobgoblin's Fortress: a Location for D&D and Pathfinder

• Goblin mercenaries are about to mutiny against their officers. Will your party help them or sell them out?

  Product Type: Adventure, One-Shot

  Systems: D&D 5e, Pathfinder 1e, Pathfinder 2e

  Start Date: 2024-12-02

  End Date: 2024-12-30

  Funded: true

The D100 Encounters Collection

• 100 adventure hooks for fantasy TTRPGs.

  Product Type: GM Reference

  Systems: System Neutral

  Start Date: 2024-12-07

  End Date: 2024-12-22

  Funded: true

  Late Pledges: false

  Status: Succeeded

DMs Plot Twist Compendium

• Toolkit of Thrills, and Twists for Every Fantasy TTRPG. Breathe life into your game—and terror into your players! Just drop in and use.

  Product Type: GM Reference

  Systems: System Neutral

  Start Date: 2024-11-14

  End Date: 2024-12-14

  Funded: true

  Status: Succeeded

Nightfell - A Grimdark Fantasy setting for PF2

• Beware the Moon in this PF2 Compatible Grimdark fantasy setting.

  Product Type: Setting, Character Options, Items & Equipment, Spells, Rules Extension, Lore & Worldbuilding

  Systems: Pathfinder 2e

  Start Date: 2024-04-17

  End Date: 2024-05-08

  Funded: true

  Late Pledges: true

  Status: Succeeded

A Tale of Two Seas: Monsters & Adventure for 5E, PF1, & PF2

• Monsters and adventures for DnD 5E and Pathfinder 1E and 2E from the Mediterranean to the Caribbean and all the seven seas!

  Product Type: Bestiary

  Systems: Pathfinder 2e, Pathfinder 1e, D&D 5e

  Start Date: 2024-04-23

  End Date: 2024-05-23

  Funded: true

  Late Pledges: false

  Status: Succeeded

Devabhumi: A TTRPG setting inspired by Ancient India

• Explore the Land of the Gods and immerse yourself in the magic of Ancient India in this DnD 5e, Pathfinder 2e campaign setting!

  Product Type: Setting, Character Options, Items & Equipment, Rules Extension

  Systems: Pathfinder 2e, D&D 5e

  Start Date: 2024-05-20

  End Date: 2024-06-19

  Funded: true

  Late Pledges: false

  Status: Succeeded

Dr Dhrolin's Dictionary of Dinosaurs

• A palaeontology-themed supplement for tabletop roleplaying games.

  Product Type: Besetiary

  Systems: Pathfinder 2e

  Start Date: 2024-06-14

  End Date: 2024-07-14

  Funded: true

  Late Pledges: true

  Status: Succeeded

Kobold Quest: From Ashes to Empire

• A Dungeons and Dragons (D&D) 5e, Pathfinder, and OSR campaign where you play as kobolds.

  Product Type: Adventure

  Systems: Pathfinder 2e, Pathfinder 1e, D&D 5e, OSR

  Start Date: 2024-06-15

  End Date: 2024-07-15

  Funded: true

  Late Pledges: false

  Status: Complete

Sea Monsters for 5E, ToV, PF1, PF2, plus Pirates & Plunder!

• Doom rises from the depths with 60+ savage sea creatures for 5E, Black Flag, Pathfinder 1E & 2E, plus nautical adventure & pirate loot!

  Product Type: Besetiary

  Systems: Pathfinder 2e, Pathfinder 1e, D&D 5e, TotV

  Start Date: 2024-07-23

  End Date: 2024-08-09

  Funded: true

  Late Pledges: false

  Status: Complete

Lugon: Evolution & Magic

• Explore a world where Evolution, Ecology, and Magic are closely intertwined.

  Product Type: Setting, Character Options, Spells, Rules Extension

  Systems: Pathfinder 2e, Pathfinder 1e, D&D 5e

  Start Date: 2024-07-30

  End Date: 2024-08-29

  Funded: true

  Late Pledges: false

  Status: Successful

Battlezoo Bestiary: Elemental Storm

• Over 170 award-winning monsters, new elemental spells, new monster hunter rules, and monster crafting rules for 5E and Pathfinder!

  Product Type: Bestiary

  Systems: Pathfinder 2e, D&D 5e

  Start Date: 2024-09-03

  End Date: 2024-10-09

  Funded: true

  Late Pledges: false

  Status: Successful

Dungeon Domains: Dwimmerdark Hall

• An endlessly expandable dungeon for fantasy tabletop role-playing games!

  Product Type: GM Reference, Dungeons

  Systems: System Neutral

  Start Date: 2024-10-01

  End Date: 2024-10-21

  Funded: true

  Late Pledges: false

  Status: Complete

RPG Double Feature: A Rattle of Bones and Eerie Encounters

• Add a touch of the macabre to your next fantasy roleplaying game session with two new books by Lex Morgan and Philip Reed.

  Product Type: GM Reference

  Systems: System Neutral

  Start Date: 2024-10-05

  End Date: 2024-10-10

  Funded: true

  Late Pledges: false

  Status: Complete

Witchfyre: A Dark Fantasy RPG for 5E+ & Pathfinder

• An RPG world of enthralling dark fantasy awaits. Bring new witchy classes, spells, crafting, and more to your table.

  Product Type: Setting, Adventure, Character Options, Items & Equipment, Spells, Bestiary, Rules Extension

  Systems: D&D 5e, Pathfinder 2e

  Start Date: 2024-10-16

  End Date: 2024-11-15

  Funded: true

  Late Pledges: true

  Status: Successful

Mycologist’s Primer

• A magical mixture of science, folklore, and world-building for your tabletop role-playing adventure.

  Product Type: Lore & Worldbuilding, Items & Equipment, Adventure

  Systems: System Neutral

  Start Date: 2024-10-15

  End Date: 2024-11-15

  Funded: true

  Late Pledges: false

  Status: Successful

u/JM-the-GM over on Reddit is offering to run new players through Menace Under Otari in January. If you know anyone who might be interested trying the game out, and they use Discord, it might be worth a look.

> I will be running Menace Under Otari for new players or players that haven't played it yet free of charge through the month of January. The module will consist of 2-3 3 hour sessions. We will be utilizing Foundry for the game and Discord for communication. If interested, please send me a DM or contact me on discord at JM_the_GM

Not a whole lot of news in the world of crowd funding this week. A bunch of campaigns have wrapped, with nothing new on the PF/System Neutral front materializing. We do have a couple of SN projects coming to a close in the next week, though.

I've gone back to add some additional fields to my growing set of campaign data, including whether campaigns are taking late pledges. I'm still collecting data by hand, though, so changes to the status of these finished campaigns may get missed.

As the year closes out, though, it seems to have been a fairly good one for projects supporting Pathfinder, both 2e and 1e. I'm looking forward to growing my library of monsters I'll never get an opportunity to use in 2025.

---

Ending This Week

Dungeon Domains: Vault of Midias & Perilous Paths vol.2

• Dungeon Domains are hand-drawn geomorphs representing sections of dungeons, caverns, sewers, or catacombs, fleshed out with flavourful and detailed descriptions of each area as well as a unique legend explaining the dungeon’s history

  Systems: System Neutral

  Start Date: 2024-12-01

  End Date: 2024-12-21

  Funded: true

Plug & Play Dungeons Vol. 4

• Inspired by the Shadowdark Lost Citadel of the Scarlet Minotaur dungeon, this book contains 5+ dungeons with a focus on lived-in spaces inhabited by multiple factions. Each faction is intended to have its own motives, wants, and goals

  Systems: System Neutral

  Start Date: 2024-11-22

  End Date: 2024-12-22

  Funded: true

The D100 Encounters Collection

• 100 adventure hooks for fantasy TTRPGs.

  Systems: System Neutral

  Start Date: 2024-12-07

  End Date: 2024-12-22

  Funded: true

---

Taking Late Pledges

The Practical Guide to Becoming a Great Player

• A guide to character creation, system interpretation, and roleplaying by YouTuber Guy Sclanders

  Systems: System Neutral

  Start Date: 2024-11-04

  End Date: 2024-12-04

  Funded: true

  Late Pledges: true

---

Recently Completed

Merry & Magical Meetings: An RPG Book for the Holidays

• Inside this lighthearted celebration of the season, you'll discover plenty of saccharine rumors, festive spells, and holiday adventure hooks that will help put the entire table in the mood for the yuletide season

  Systems: System Neutral

  Start Date: 2024-12-02

  End Date: 2024-12-11

  Funded: true

BattleZoo Ancestries: Year of Titans

• A book focused on providing players with new character options, focused on large (and larger?) ancestries

  Systems: Pathfinder 2e, D&D 5e

  Start Date: 2024-11-12

  End Date: 2024-12-13

  Funded: true

Vendors of the Vale

• 30 different vendors with descriptions, backstories, plot hooks and a list of items they sell, including 240+ new items

  Systems: D&D 5e (Creatures), System Neutral

  Start Date: 2024-11-19

  End Date: 2024-12-19

  Funded: true

Fantasy World Design - Core Templates

• 11 flexible worldbuilding templates, each covering different aspects of your unique and detailed world.

  Systems: System Neutral

  Start Date: 2024-11-19

  End Date: 2024-12-19

  Funded: true

DMs Plot Twist Compendium

• Toolkit of Thrills, and Twists for Every Fantasy TTRPG. Breathe life into your game—and terror into your players! Just drop in and use.

  Systems: System Neutral

  Start Date: 2024-11-14

  End Date: 2024-12-14

  Funded: true

I missed last week due to work and family commitments. I spent some time this week actually setting up a recording, storage, and filtering system for what I'm tracking, and it should reduce the amount of time it takes me to actually output stuff going forward, I it shouldn't be an issue again.

That said, last Friday saw a bunch of projects ending, as they rushed to get Print-on-Demand books out the door and in peoples' hands before Christmas. Things are a little slower this week, with only one Pathfinder-specific project of note coming or going: BattleZoo Ancestries: Titans.

Many projects are taking late pledges, though. I'm going to update things this week and try to list some of those going forward, starting next week.

---

New This Past Week

The D100 Encounters Collection

• 100 adventure hooks for fantasy TTRPGs.

  Systems: System Neutral

  Start Date: 2024-12-07

  End Date: 2024-12-22

  Funded: true

---

Ending This Upcoming Week

BattleZoo Ancestries: Year of Titans

• A book focused on providing players with new character options, focused on large (and larger?) ancestries

  Systems: Pathfinder 2e, D&D 5e

  Start Date: 2024-11-12

  End Date: 2024-12-13

  Funded: true

Vendors of the Vale

• 30 different vendors with descriptions, backstories, plot hooks and a list of items they sell, including 240+ new items

  Systems: D&D 5e (Creatures), System Neutral

  Start Date: 2024-11-19

  End Date: 2024-12-19

  Funded: true

Fantasy World Design - Core Templates

• 11 flexible worldbuilding templates, each covering different aspects of your unique and detailed world.

  Systems: System Neutral

  Start Date: 2024-11-19

  End Date: 2024-12-19

  Funded: true

Read over the playtest classes last night. Going into it I was most excited about the necromancer as a sorta ultimate summoner. After reading though it feels more like just sorta a casting mcguffin as the thralls can't really do anything independently but take up space. It makes sense given the rules and balance but then it would seem it could get annoying as the necromancer could like fill a room with thralls. Its like they have a really crappy never ending wall of flesh spell that they can channel effects into. The runesmith though. Wow. Its a martial with magic that makes it less versatile but I feel more powerful than the magus. My rp class is druid but for quick and easy to play that have a huge effect I have like grabbing bard, ranger, and magus before but runemaster as it stands would be a new choice in the mix. punch an enemy and set a rune then activate it followed by raising a shield with a special blowback rune and get a better ac than a normal shield along with a magical retalitaion to the block. medium armor so grab sentinel and then bastion for the shield.

I was looking for the playtest pdf's on paizo forums and saw it might be some hours but while doing so I encountered someone questioning the rituals which sorta sent me down a rabbit hole on aon for create demiplane and it mentions them being create in the astral or etheral plane. My question is does that mean one can pass the boarders of the plane and be on the astral/etheral plane and can anyone on that plane accidentally find your plane. I assume no and you have to have the key and the spell but the part saying its located in the planes confuses me. I thought it was more like an overlapping plane like first world.

Either a specific named class from 1e, D&D, or another game, or a general concept.

For those that don't know, Narrative Declaration is a comedy actual play troupe that deals deals primarily in Pathfinder 2e. Fronted by Zoran the Bear, a VTuber who formerly worked as Paizo's social media manager, and Thursdon Hillman, the creative director of Starfinder 2e, they've produced several actual play series in recent years, most notably Rotgrind.

A couple of years ago, they expanded, and started a couple of other shows: Rotgoons, which is set in the same world as Rotgrind (a homebrew setting called Tyne), which recently went on hiatus, and Abomination Vaults, which attempted to do the Beginner's Box -> Abomination Vaults arc.

Abomination Vaults only lasted 16 or 17 episodes, but it was my personal entry point into the NarDec world. I came across it while preparing to run the Beginner's Box for my family back in 2023, and got hooked on the series juuuuuust as it was coming to an end. As disappointing as that was, at least there was the finale to look forward to, right?

Well, part 1 of that finale finally dropped this week, and I'm super excited about it. It only took, like, a year and a half, but it's up, and the series will finally be publicly available in full. And since Friday is the day where I, apparently, just publicly shill for things I find interesting, like a the good consumer that I am, I thought I'd share it here.

The episode starts with an explanation from Zoran as to why the series ended -- financial pressures around the cost to produce the series, and it's lagging performance, as well as Zoran feeling like he wasn't GMing well enough -- and a question: Now that Narrative Declaration is on more financially stable footing, would people want to see the series rebooted, or the original cast come back.

Check it out, and see if you'd like to see them try again. Also, check out their more recent Kingmaker campaign to see how the show quality has evolved over time, and to get an idea of what a new AP-based campaign might look like. They've paywalled Kingmaker behind Patreon, but the first episode is currently available for free on YouTube, and they're supposed to be releasing episodes 2 - 5 there over the month of December.

Or check out their Warhammer 40k Wrath and Glory mini-campaign, where they're playing the Grim Harvest scenario from Litanies of the Lost, which is what they're currently doing between Rotgrind seasons.

In a 20 minute Twitch stream (linked in the title), Paizo announced two new classes being play tested starting next week:

The Runesmith

A slotless support caster/"melee magician" that invokes both passive and active "spell" effects by drawing runes on everything.

The Necromancer

A prepared Occult caster that summons undead "thralls" to do their bidding. Thralls sound like they are cheap, disposable summons intended to be utilized as an encounter resource.

We should get our hands on the playtest resources on 9 December. As someone who's gone from playing a Champion to a Guardian, I'm pretty pumped to have another melee support class. There's been an embarrassment of riches this year for support players who don't want to use spells! It's kind of giving me WoW Shaman vibes (which, of course, was my WoW class).

u/AAABattery03's tackling the oft-repeated claim that Pathfinder 2e casters are just cheerleaders for martials. This is something's argued about rather strongly over the past few months on Reddit, and it's a particular pet peeve of mine. While there are perception issues with casting in the game -- which I, personally, believe are a combination of poorly thought out wording around how spells are written, and an abundant sense of entitlement from your average enthusiast -- it's been shown repeatedly that, when played, right, they out perform casters.

This video is basically a distillation of his comments on the subject from the past year or so on Reddit.

The start of December is bringing a small flurry of Kickstarter campaign finales, as writers/publishers rush to get PDFs and Print-on-Demand titles into peoples hands before the 24th.

Fall of Rivenhelm seems interesting just for who the publisher is: Cawood Publishing, the team behind fairly high profile bestiaries like the Monsters of Feyland, Monsters of the Dungeon, and the Monsters of the Underworld. Most of their books are D&D 5e specific, but their adventures include conversion tables.

Not a whole lot new, though, this past week, and the 'coming soon' selection's mighty thin. Everyone who could get their campaign running before the holidays has done so. I imagine those who wouldn't are waiting until the new year.

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New This Week

Plug & Play Dungeons Vol. 4

• Inspired by the Shadowdark Lost Citadel of the Scarlet Minotaur dungeon, this book contains 5+ dungeons with a focus on lived-in spaces inhabited by multiple factions. Each faction is intended to have its own motives, wants, and goals.

  Systems: D&D 5e, Pathfinder, Shadowdark, OSR, and more

  Launched: 22 November

  Closes: 22 December

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Ending This Week

GM's Toolbox 2

• Adventure seeds, hazard ideas, name generators, NPCs, factions, and a bevy of other system-agnostic GM tools

  Systems: System Neutral

  Launched: 1 November

  Closes: 1 December

  Funded: Yes

The Practical Guide to Becoming a Great Player

• A guide to character creation, system interpretation, and roleplaying by YouTuber Guy Sclanders.

  Systems: System Neutral

  Launched: 4 November

  Closes: 4 December

  Funded: Yes

A Lifetime of Adventure: 66 Adventures for Fantasy RPGs

• Mix and match from Frog God and Necromancer Games' past adventures. Includes 5e, OSR, C&C, DCC, OSE, and system neutral modules.

  Systems: A mix of D&D 5e, DCC, OSE, OSR, C&C, System Neutral

  Launched: 1 November

  Closes: 5 December

  Funded: Yes

Tapestry of Towns: A Game Master's Compendium

• 20+ richly detailed fantasy settlements with maps, NPCs, and plot seeds

  Systems: System Neutral

  Launched: 31 October

  Closes: 6 December

  Funded: Yes

The Fall of Rivenhelm

• An adventure module set in the world of Myrr featuring low, mid, and high level scaling, new monsters, new magic items, and more.

  Systems: D&D 5e, Pathfinder 1e, Pathfinder 2e, DCC, and OSE

  Launched: 7 November

  Closes: 6 December

  Funded: No (but almost!)

Legendary Bestiaries: SWARMS!

• A monster book from Legendary Games that focuses on Swarm-type monsters. The Kickstarter also offers backers the option to 'catch up' on some of their previously released bestiaries.

  Systems: Pathfinder 1e, Pathfinder 2e, Black Flag RPG, and D&D 5e

  Launched: 13 November

  Closes: 6 December

  Funded: Yes

I spent some time this week throwing together a more formalized list of Kickstarters I'm watching. There are several interesting system-neutral ones in flight, but in terms of what's new or outgoing, it's an uneventful week, with only one campaign to highlight.

Next week should be more interesting, as there's a handful of campaigns ending during the first week of December. -- K

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Coming to an End

Coming up in the next week, we have one Kickstarter closing:

The Tome of Umbral Lore

• A book focused on the biology, sociology, and lore of the undead to aide GMs with world building.

  Systems: System Neutral

  Launched: 29 October

  Closes: 28 November

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Other Campaigns

There was also one system-neutral campaign that's in flight, and that I didn't notice last week:

Tapestry of Towns: A Game Master's Compendium

• 20+ richly detailed fantasy settlements with maps, NPCs, and plot seeds

  Systems: System Neutral

  Launched: 31 October

  Closes: 6 December