One of the events I always do at PaizoCon is the banquet. There’s good food and a presentation with all the upcoming Paizo news. With Paizo staff and industry guests sitting at each table, it’s a chance to get to meet and talk with some of the people that help make the games I’m here to play. I’ve sat with developers, the CEO, and others. This year I found a table with a good view of one of the screens and sat with Dan Tharp, Paizo’s Outreach Coordinator and Spencer Crittenden the gamemaster of Harmonquest fame, as well as other attendees.
I’ll be writing up my entire experience after the con, but we’re here for the news, right?
Starfinder Roleplaying Game: The Core Rulebook will be released at GenCon in August and they discussed the iconic characters representing the 7 core classes and races which have been discussed in-depth on multiple posts on the Paizo Site. We did get to see some page layouts from the Starfinder Core Rulebook and from these pages we could glean some great information such as Hellknights, Aspis, and the Azlanti Star Empire existing as organizations in Starfinder. We got to see the reveal of the cover of Alien Archive book of monsters. As we’ve been hearing, monsters will be easy to adapt between Pathfinder and Starfinder. Other things, such as a class, will not be as easy, but possible. The last two days of delves (short 20 minute RPG encounters run by staff) will be Starfinder based, so, I’ll be sure to check that out! We did not hear much new, but check out my summary of what we know about Starfinder, my reveal of the Drift, and the Starfinder blog to learn more! You’ll be happy to know though, that goblins did make it to space!
Pathfinder RPG: While Starfinder is the star of the show again, there’s plenty being released for Pathfinder.
- Book of the Damned Hardcover: A compilation of the now out-of-print Book of the Damned series, with additions. “Explores the workings of demons, devils, and daemons, focusing on the numerous demigods that influence life and the countless fiends who prey upon the living and dead alike.” Orcas anyone? Available in September.
- New Pocket Editions: The pocket editions are simply smaller versions of the hardcover rulebooks. These have been very popular, especially with Pathfinder Society Players who have to lug their tomes around to gaming sessions. Paizo is printing four more, with the goal of completing their library of hardcovers. Advanced Players Guide and GameMastery Guide will be released in May, and Ultimate Equipment and Bestiary 2 in October.
- Next Adventure Path: Ruins of Azlant: This is not new information, but I’m excited for this Atlantis-ish themed adventure path. “The Ruins of Azlant Adventure Path casts the heroes as explorers among the ruins of an ancient, shattered, continent, filled with time-lost secrets and immortal enemies in a complete campaign of classic high fantasy thrills!” The Ruins of Azlant will run monthly August 2017 through January 2018.
- Spring Adventure Path: War for the Crown: The adventure path running from February 2018 through July 2018 in a “thrilling campaign of espionage and intrigue that mixes James Bond with Game of Thrones.” As the characters try to aid Princess Eutropia in securing her claim on the throne.
- Fall Hardback: Ultimate Wilderness: Focused on nature folks, Ultimate Wilderness, will provide new archetypes, feats, magic items, spells and animal companion rules, to provide characters new options of wilderness play. This hardcover introduces a new class (and iconic), in the shifter. As a full BAB melee class the shifter is to the druid as the paladin is to to clerics. While paladins smite creatures down with their weapons, the shifter is primarily a natural-weapon combatant that utilizes wild shape and dozens of animalistic aspects to wreak havoc on foes.
- Society Play: Year of Factions’ Favor: The coming year of guild play will focus on the Pathfinder Society factions. Tying up loose ends and through player interaction determine the fate of some past and present factions. The War for the Crown Adventure Path will be directly tied in with PFS play starting with the GenCon special Assault on Absalom. There will also be adventure card game elements. Starfinder Society organized play starts with, Year of the Scoured Stars, occurring just after a catastrophe in which the Starfinder Society loses most of its veteran members, and an influx of noobs (that’s us!) need to help rebuild the society. Player’s will have heavy feedback and choice in what happens with the campaign, answering questions like, “What do we do with this new species we’ve run into.” while they also look into the cause of the catastrophe.
Pathfinder Adventure Card Game: We were told not to expect a new base set any sooner than GenCon 2018, and likely some time after that. Vic Wertz said that some decisions made during the first game, Rise of the Runelords are limiting in what they’d like to do now. They’re taking a step back to rework the game and experiment with new ideas. This’ll take time. The hope is that they’ll be able to tell richer stories, with a game that costs less to participate in. The ACG will still have guild-play releases, as well as new class decks.
Pathfinder Adventures: Obsidian is currently working on a PC and Mac port, expected out “soon.” With new content coming after that featuring Rise of the Goblins where we’ll get to play as… goblins, of course! It will introduce five new scenarios inspired by We Be Goblins and Season of the Goblins, alternative goblin players for the iconics, and new asymmetrical goblin dice. The coming changes will allow you to play your games across platforms.
Syrinscape: The excellent sound effect and music enhancement software from Syrinscape will offer Starfinder based sound sets as well as offer physical versions available in your local FLGS. If you haven’t checked them out, do so, they’re awesome!
Harmonquest: The second season of the hilarious Harmonquest has been filmed and is in post production. Releasing July 27th, Harmonquest is Dan Harmon, of Community fame, and friends playing a live Pathfinder campaign run by Spencer Crittenden. Some of each episode is the players sitting around the table playing, and some of the episode is animation of what the characters are doing within the game using the voices directly taken from the live game. I sat with Spencer Crittenden for the banquet and he said he’s more involved in the animation and editing steps this season. It will be released in two five episode chunks, and I expect to devour them as soon as available!
Pathfinder Comics: Yet another way to consume Pathfinder awesomeness, the excellent comics. Pathfinder Volume 6, Worldscape will be available as a hardcover in August, and Runescars, detailing the origin of Seoni’s tatoos during the Curse of the Crimson Throne events has begun.
Pathfinder Battles miniatures: Maze of Death is the next release in the miniatures line. Watch the Paizo blog in the coming months to see great images and descriptions, but here’s a huge air elemental from the slideshow. Note the figure standing next to this piece!
Pathfinder Online: While Goblinworks has gone away, Pathfinder Online lives! Paizo has taken it over and has a couple of developers working on finishing the core elements of the game. Watch Paizo for more info.
Pathfinder Duels: Digital Collectible Pathfinder Card game by 37Games: Not much was said about this, and the press release came out just after the banquet. “Pathfinder Duels will be a digital collectible card game based on the award-winning Rise of the Runelords Adventure Path. Players will build competitive decks around iconic Pathfinder heroes and villains. The game is in the early stages of development and is expected to release September 2017.”
Pathfinder: Kingmaker: We were treated to a bunch of the concept art for the computer based RPG of Pathfinder: Kingmaker. Lisa Stevens, Paizo CEO said that the game was probably a year out and currently had a couple of hours of content. I had the opportunity to demo the game during the day and it is much farther along than I expected. It was completely playable, and the developer said they had about four hours of mostly finished content, and more in various stages of development. They are planning to release with all the content and options from the Core Rulebook, and are expecting to do a Kickstarter, possibly in June, to add more classes, companions, and features. What I saw showed a game fun to play and pretty true to Pathfinder. The character sheet showed feats, and leveling choices that match what you make in the paper based version of the game. The developer said that while some feats had to be modified to fit a real-time-with-pause style video game, feats and options were included to allow you to create your characters as you’d expect from Pathfinder. What I saw left me more excited for this long awaited way to enjoy Pathfinder.
With that, back to it… there’s plenty more gaming to be had! Be sure to follow GeekDad for my post-con write-up.
Disclosure: Paizo provided a pass for the convention.
Hey Ryan, it was great to sit with you at the banquet and talk gaming. Hit me up the next con you go to … chances are I’ll be there as well. Keep up to good work!
You too and will do! It was unquestionably the best table…