It’s shaping up to be a big summer for tabletop games publisher Paizo with two big releases slated for Gen Con. The long awaited mass battle rules for Pathfinder Second Edition Remastered will be at the show. The new edition of Starfinder, which premiered as a playtest last year, will arrive in its final form as well.
There’s no rest for the wicked goblins at Paizo. There are books that have come out that expand options for players and Game Masters. Here are some highlights within these recent releases with thanks to the company for providing review copies for this article.
Pathfinder Second Edition Remastered Lost Omens: Rival Academies
The popularity of fantasy stories like Harry Potter have made wizarding schools a popular choice as a campaign setup. It makes sense to follow first level spellcasters as freshman through their graduation and beyond. Schools are chock full of potential allies and rivals that can cause drama in between dungeon runs.
Lost Omens: Rival Academies provides six schools for playes to use along with the personalities that make each school unique. They have different focuses and philosophies that get into the intrigues of wizards for any game. There’s even a runelord archetype for players who want to dip their toes into the dark side of villainous magic users that have been around since the beginning of the game.
I really enjoyed the Convocation section which brings together the schools for a sort of convention and competition. There’s a lot of politics and intrigue to explore here. It shows that Pathfinder doesn’t have to be dungeon crawls all the time.
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Pathfinder Second Edition Remastered NPC Core
One of the joys of classic fantasy games is flipping through the monster book for inspiration. Sometimes it’s to beef up an encounter while other times a neat monster with a clever ability can inspire a new story on its own. But what about obstacles of a less fire breathing nature?
The NPC Core book focuses on humanoid adversaries from goblin raiders to infernal bureaucrats. Each entry comes with a full write up plus lore, setting information and special rules to challenge players above and beyond their usual battle tactics. These NPCs are perfect for city and town encounters.
I’m glad Paizo decided to split this off into a separate book. Mundane adversaries like these often get a quick mention in the back because monsters are naturally more interested. Here, normal people the players encounter get a little more focus to help them connect with players and make story hooks more engaging.
Pathfinder Second Edition Remastered Treasure Vault
As Pathfinder Second Edition books go out of print, Paizo is taking the opportunity to bring them fully in line with their remaster project. Guns & Gears was the first of these books that updated some of the steampunk elements of the game. The inventor and gunslinger classes were refitted to make sure they interacted with everything else propeller.
The most recent expansion to get this treatment is Treasure Vault. This book contains a dragon’s hoard worth of magical items from the tiniest consumable to legendary relics. Players love getting new toys to play with and these are the newest.
There are crafting rules in here that go into a little more depth for players that want to build their own epic sword than buy one from the local blacksmith. I really enjoyed the narrative questing rules for crafts and the advice on how to turn a magic item into something the players earn. There are some great examples that pair well with iconic monsters to slay.
Starfinder Galaxy Guide
Starfinder Second Edition officially released next month. But, thanks to the playtest, most fans have a good idea of what’s coming in the core books. The last book on our list offers a bridge between the two eras of the game.
The first official Starfinder Second Edition hardcover release is Galaxy Guide. For old fans, it catches up what’s been going on in the setting with solid summaries of story points like the Drift Crisis and the Newborn. That also makes this a great jumping on point for new fans, too.
The book contains six ancestries, which are my favorite thing in Starfinder. While I’m glad the new edition can easily port over ones from Pathfinder, the ones here embrace a fun sci-fi feel right out of Star Wars or Guardians of the Galaxy. I’m definitely going to make a character with the giant floating brain aliens called speculatives out of this book.
