Publisher: Paizo Publishing
RPG System: Pathfinder (Second Edition)
As the premier alternative to Dungeons and Dragons, Pathfinder has carved itself a nice niche as a crunchy fantasy roleplaying system. The system comes with many more customization options while still remaining complex and balanced. Still, that complexity and crunchiness are intimidating for newcomers to RPGs, and Pathfinder doesn’t have the name recognition or as many GMs available to teach the ins and outs of the system.
The Second Edition corrects errors from the first, includes rules that came in later first-edition books, and makes the game easier to play than ever. The Player Core book focuses on the player, giving them the opportunity to know everything they about character creation, equipment, spells, and of course, the rules.
Storytelling & Worldbuilding
The Pathfinder Player Core book fully embraces the idea that roleplaying is an opportunity for players and GMs to tell a story together. Players with this book have every opportunity to create a fully realized character, even if they feel like they don’t have every piece necessary when it comes to creativity. The character creation portion of the book provides summaries of character ancestries and their heritages, backgrounds, and even languages.
The background and language portions of the book are brief and don’t contribute much to storytelling, but the ancestries and heritages are excellent for giving players the creative spark they need to make a dynamic and interesting character. Every ancestry comes with a “You Might…” and “Others Probably…” section to five players a glimpse at what makes their character tick. There are also brief descriptions on their ancestry’s physical traits, society, and beliefs. Players also have access to Heritages that let them further fine-tune their character’s origins and motivate through heritages. For example, if players choose the Dwarf ancestry, they have access to heritages such as Ancient Blooded Dwarf, Rock Dwarf, and Strong-Blooded Dwarf, which have short lore tidbits in addition to mechanical perks that are bestowed at the 1st level.
All of this, plus small cultural additions such as religion and language gives players everything they need to start, regardless of how new they are to roleplaying.
Rules & Mechanics
The Pathfinder Player Core book presents its many rules with tons of clarity, making it easy for players to find the information they need. If a player requires clarification, the format and comprehensive index ensure that everything is easily accessible.
The game offers three modes of play:
Encounter Mode: This uses an initiative system with turns and delays, much like traditional tabletop RPGs.
Exploration Mode: Designed for activities that take place over minutes or hours, this mode uses travel speed to determine distance.
Downtime Mode: This mode covers activities occurring over days, such as making money, training, or recovering.
Pathfinder employs a three-action system where players have three actions and one reaction per turn. Different abilities require varying amounts of actions, while reactions typically have specific triggers.
The game uses a d20 system for rolling checks with modifiers, featuring four degrees of success: critical success, success, failure, and critical failure. There are also flat checks, fortune checks, and secret checks, adding more layers to the gameplay. Despite its depth, the rules for effects, movement, attacking, defending, skills, and spells are straightforward and easy to reference. Pathfinder’s complexity is comparable to Dungeons & Dragons, with a similar level of crunch, though it differs in its specific mechanics and systems.
A neat feature is the Hero Points system, where players earn points for heroic deeds. These points grant advantages such as rerolling checks and avoiding death. Hero Points only last for a single session, and the GM has flexibility in awarding them, often encouraging players to describe their heroic actions for more roleplaying shenanigans.
Pathfinder includes a wide array of action types, from basic actions like aiding, crawling, dropping, leaping, seeking, striking, and taking cover, to more specialized actions for specific situations, such as grabbing edges or flying. Combat movement is grid-based and uses elements like cover, difficult terrain, statuses, and a flanking system for extra damage, with range playing a significant role too.
Overall, the Player Core book impressively consolidates a vast number of rules while maintaining accessibility for new players. This book makes Pathfinder feel so good to play.
Artwork & Presentation
The Player Core book has excellent presentation, with great fonts and vibrant colors that make flipping through the many pages fun. The book’s layout is designed for ease of use, ensuring that players can quickly find the information or rules they need.
Throughout the book are bits of art depicting characters, monsters, and various scenes. This artwork not only looks nice but also breaks up the text, making the book more engaging and less daunting to read.
The book is hefty and well-bound and should last for a long time, although the pages are somewhat thin and may tear over time with heavy use. Considering the price point for a book of this size, the amount of great looking content is excellent.
The GM Experience
The Player Core book is obviously focused on players, so it offers limited content specifically for GMs. However, it still provides benefits for GMs by ensuring that players have a solid understanding of the rules, reducing the workload on the GM during gameplay.
For a better guide to the GM experience in Pathfinder, feel free to read our review on the Pathfinder Second Edition GM Core Book.
The Player Experience
Pathfinder provides an excellent experience for players, especially the experienced ones. The setting and lore are immersive, with tons of established traditions for your characters, as well as flavor for the world, spells, and items. The way the rules are presented makes it easy to quickly look up something for clarity.
Despite its reputation for crunchiness, Pathfinder‘s second edition is designed to be as welcoming as possible. The detailed character creation options, including ancestries, heritages, backgrounds, and languages, give players the tools they need to craft unique characters. The inclusion of various modes (Encounter, Exploration, and Downtime) and a flexible action economy further enhance the player experience by accommodating different styles of play and ensuring that the game remains dynamic. Most games will use all of the modes, but it is still nice to accommodate players who specifically enjoy combat or roleplaying. Everyone gets something here and each of those things is done especially well.
