Customer Reviews

Pathfinder Chronicles: Campaign Setting

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Golarion is a fantastic world and this book does a great job covering it. First off, it's extremely well-written: concise when that's called for and in-depth when it needs to be. Each country has a 2-4 page spread detailing government, geographic overview, and important locations, as well as how it interacts with neighbors. There are in-depth class and race descriptions for those of you playing the Pathfinder Beta and wishing you had more info.

As for the setting itself, rarely does a book inspire like this. Each realm is more or less fashioned on a setting stereotype- the land of desert nomads, the unexplored jungle expanse, the gothic realm of horror, the Mordor-like homeland of the orcs, et cetera. Any type of campaign you want to run, you'll find inspiration here. Fitting them all together was brilliant on Paizo's behalf. It's also nice that a GM can briefly describe each of these lands and have the players immediately get a feel for them. Saying "Galt is like Revolutionary France" immediately lets players understand what they're in for, without having to explain a full history. Very nice.

Each realm section has enough information to run it, but leaves enough open for the gamemaster to tweak it to her liking, filling in blank map space and important figures. This really impressed me, because as much as I love settings like Forgotten Realms, they contain just too much "canon" to soak in at once. The last thing you need is a PC correcting you on the local lord's name.

A special mention goes to the chapter on Race. Everyone gets a two-page spread, including the sub-races of humans, and none of it is silly stat-balancing. Paizo has really added some cool flavor to the standard PC races, and provided nice touches that bring out the feel of each race more than just an excuse to give stat bonuses and penalties. I never liked Gnomes before, but Pathfinder turns them into unbearably cool Outsider-like Fey that explains their oddity without making them goofy anymore. Awesome.

As someone else mentioned, there is quite a bit of "crunch" here, too- new regional feats, gods, class descriptions, and some prestige classes. I'm less interested in those aspects, but they're helpful. The most important thing to me is that this book really fires up your imagination. Every time I pick it up and randomly flip to a page, I find myself wanting to send the PCs there. Even realms that I initially dismissed turn out to be distinctly cool (hello, Qadira). No matter what rules set you're running, you owe it to yourself to buy this seriously well-crafted book. I'll be running every game in Golarion from now on.

WARNING - This is a BIG Review - but I just couldn't help myself... :-)

As a GM, what I'm after with any Campaign Setting is a fantastical realm that has great 'feeling' to it, giving me enough background information, ideas and links to run campaigns and adventures that keep (i) me as GM happy, and (ii) my players enthralled, excited and having fun...

I love to work with that simple formula that has enough fluff and meat to keep it 'realistic' (based around the medieval concepts that fantasy role-players know and love) yet flexible enough to offer challenge, high fantasy and a bit of respect and fear for the unknown. It also has to HELP me create adventures and atmosphere; not perplex and confuse me with so much information that I'm scared of making 'continuity contradictions' (that spoils the flow and encourages grumbles and moans from the players), or woe betide poring over several hundred books to join pieces of a huge jigsaw together...

So what, specifically, is good about this book? Why have I given it 5 stars?

First it has a wonderful, pull-out, full-colour map (81cm x 53cm) that covers 'The Inner Sea Region' of Golarion (the pathfinder Campaign World) presented in your gamer-favourite-design that's nice and simple to read, and offers plenty of different geographical regions and adventuring opportunities and hazards - from icy tundra and mountains to sweltering deserts and sprawling oceans. The map is HUGE - roughly 2700 miles North to South, and 2000 miles East to West. An essential resource for any good campaign world, and one that doesn't disappoint.

The 255pp book itself delves straight into CHARACTERS, offering simple yet gloriously useful two-page biographies that detail how the different races present themselves on Golarion; from the traditional 'non-human' races of Dwarves, Elves, Gnomes, Half-Elves, Half-Orcs and Halflings; to 11 human regional 'races' that also offer plenty of role-playing flavour for the vast expanse of the Inner Sea. I LOVE this section, as it offers tremendous scope for playing character races based upon where they come from in the world, with a healthy dollop of stereotyping but enough twist to make each race a bit different... The character section then rounds out with one page backgrounds for each of the key characters classes - from Barbarians to Wizards (as detailed in the Pathfinder Rulebook). Again, nice and simple yet wonderfully flavoursome.

The next 105 pages carry 2-4 page descriptions of the key regions of Golarion, furnishing the DM with enough information to flesh out the area (such as 'main' alignment, the Capital and notable settlements, populations, rulers, government 'style', languages and religions) and a smattering of cool hooks with enough political intrigue to keep the inventive DM amused for months.

The RELIGION section is pretty standard core D&D meat, setting the scene for scheming conflicts that rage across ALL regions of Golarion, yet detailing special unique Domain powers (eg the Darkness Domain that grants its clerics the Blind-Fight bonus feat) and the four main 'philosophies' that add yet another dimension for plots and conspiracies. Beyond that is offered information on the elemental planes, outer planes and the outer spheres of the greater powers, demons and devils. The usual stuff - but VERY clear and precise.

The ORGANIZATIONS section offers yet another realm of curiosity and wonderful PC/NPC drivers, from the inquisitive Pathfinder Society of explorers, archaeologists and adventurers to the insidious Hellknights and (my personal favourite) the Red Mantis network of cultists and assassins. This section was maybe one of my favourites in the book.

Beyond that, the WORLD section covers a detailed timeline; info on the Darklands (underdark); unique equipment, weapons and armour; fauna and flora; feats; languages; five new Prestige Classes; psionics; technology; time and space; trade; weather and climate; and appendices like pronunciations (cool!); four NPCS; and random encounter tables by environment. Juicy.

In short this is a magnificent offering, and is everything a DM could wish for - offering a comprehensive overview of a Campaign setting with enough hooks to keep an Inner Sea fisherman in business for a decade...

Our group has moved lock, stock and barrel from 4th Ed D&D which seems to have lost its role-playing pedigree somewhat, to this wonderful world of high fantasy with its feet firmly on the ground.

In summary, as a DM you'll feel like you've played in it for years after your first flick through the book, yet you'll have 1001 new ideas to keep you and your players happy for many sessions. How welcoming!

It also just feels to me like REAL D&D once again. Gloriously simple but devilishly complex.

I've played D&D since 1st Edition, and it won't surprise me if this system ends up as popular as the classic Forgotten Realms of the legendary Ed Greenwood. I haven't been this excited in YEARS...

Over the last 25+ years, "the most popular fantasy role play game" has evolved through many versions. With the advent of 4.0, my player group made the decision to stay with 3.5 until material for that version was completely phased out. When I discovered Paizo's Pathfinder series, based on the 3.5 rules, I was excited to have a new world and material for our 3.5 gaming.

This Campaign Setting provides information about Piazo's world of Golarion. It includes a poster map of the the world and an introduction to the major kingdoms/empires used for the Pathfinder series, details on gods, magic, environment, organizations, races, classes, and a detailed world history timeline.

This is not a "rulebook". The official rulebook is due out this summer (but you can get the beta-test version free from Paizo).
The information in this book paints a detailed picture of the World itself. It is imaginative and informative. Additional information of the kingdoms included in this book is available in individual guides and adventures, but this Campaign Setting provides information on all of them in one book, although a bit less detail.

I'm excited to have new "spice" for our 3.5 game and have read this book from cover-to-cover.
And Amazon's price provides good cost savings.

Pretty derivative (if you like Ravenloft, Greyhawk, Al Qadim, steampunk, even Forgotten Realms, et al, it's all here!) but put together in a fairly intelligent and interesting way. If only one 3.5 world is going to be supported by "the powers that be," this is a worthy creation and I would have no problems GMing or playing in this campaign world. Definately recommend using this as well as the other Pathfinder modules (high-quality, all!) if you and your crew are staying with 3.0 or 3.5! My only regret is the Pathfinder setting didn't come out sooner, in order to compete against Ebberon or third-party worlds...

This is one of the best rpg "world" books for D&D that I have ever looked at. It compares to the monster tome that was the 3.0 Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting, but gives D&D a fresh and updated setting in which to play campaigns. I have purchased the 4e offerings that update the Realms and they do not compare.

For production value, this book is worth the cost. It is dense with information about the world, its gods, and history, and its people. Furthermore, for rules' enthusiasts it adds new feats, regional traits, prestige classes, and new equipment.

A lot of this review is going to be negative, so let me start out by saying, I love this world, and this is an excellent source book. I'm nit-picking because I feel there's so much to improve, but where they started is amazing.

Also worth note before I get started: there is a new version coming out sometime in early 2011, so if you can get this book at cover price, it's probably still worth it, but some of the crazy prices I've seen at 2-5 times the cover price are definitely not worth paying. The new version will be an update to the latest Pathfinder rules (this edition is just OGL-compatible), which means you can expect the sections about character classes to change, but that's probably about it. There's not much "crunch" in this book, as one might expect, and so a rules update is kind of tangential to its content. There is also a book about the Inner Sea region coming out (Pathfinder Campaign Setting World Guide: The Inner Sea (Revised Edition)), so if you are specifically interested in that region, you might want to go that route either alone or in addition.

Now to the review. The cover art is blurry. An odd defect, given Paizo's usual standards, but I'll assume this is an artifact of their early rush to print when they were just getting started in the post-Dragon/Dungeon magazines era.

Inside, the book is beautiful. The art is spot-on and really gives a sense of the world. The poster map that comes with the book is excellent, if somewhat more sparse on detail than I would have expected. The races are wonderful. I especially love what they've done with gnomes: a race I previously couldn't care less about is now one of my favorites!

However, as you start to read, you definitely get the sense that someone forgot to write the introduction chapter. You end up having to essentially read the entire book cover-to-cover in order to make sense of the world. An intro that told us, "This is Golarion. Most of the action will take place in or within 1000 miles of the Inner Sea, a temperate sea that acts as the divide between the two major continents...." and so on. Not an in-depth view of the countries and peoples. There's plenty of that later on, but just a quick intro so that I don't feel lost the first time a major country or god's name is dropped as if I'm supposed to know what it means. I actually bought this book because the Adventure Paths were giving me the same lost feeling, and it solved that problem, but only after I slogged through most of the book (starting with the History chapter helped a bit).

In the writeups of the races, I have roughly the same problem. You almost have to start reading them from the middle, because that's usually where they get around to explaining who and what they are, rather than how they found themselves in some historical calamity, but again these write-ups are brilliant. Gnomes are much improved over their D&D roots, but every race has some excellent flavor to it. Elves will definitely be interesting. They're not really very nice, and I like that about them. In fact, between the Elves and the Drow, it's actually hard to choose a group to support, but the Drow have a point in feeling abandoned and wronged by the other elves.

Humans are my favorite race, however. I love the fact that they're not just the everyman white, European analog with a few ethnic minorities thrown in for flavor that most fantasy games have. They're a diverse mix of humanity both fantastic and realistic, and the Inner Sea is ideally located to be a mixing pot of Arabesque and pseudo-Eruopean influences of many flavors.

Overall, this is an excellent resource. If you're looking for a fully realized world on which to base a campaign, this is definitely it. If you're looking for a quick reference, then I suggest picking up the smaller Chronicles books such as Pathfinder Chronicles: Gods & Magic (Pathfinder Chronicles Supplement) and Pathfinder Chronicles: Guide to Absalom that suit your needs.

This book is awesome! For former D&D players, this book contains a world pretty similar to a mix of Forgotten Realms (including Kara Tur and Zakhara), Ravenloft, Iron Kingdoms, and other that i don't remember.
All of this coexists in a perfect hamony with rich history and believable references.
Despite all of those credits, it is a flaw that the book isn't in new "pathfinder 3,75" rules, which makes some conversions needed.
All in all, it is a rich figured book, good to develop new adventures and ideas.
By the way, my copy of the book came with a map with the following title: "The Inner Sea Reigon" wich surely is mistyped (correct: Region). It is a shame because i really want to put it in frame...

What pleases me the most is there is lots of crunchy kernels in this primarily fluff book. The fluff is great too, though, a little vague in specific geographical locals represented here. It is an excellent foundation for the world, its history, and races there in. It is more than enough to kick start a campaign or for general reference and use in an international club environment.

Paizo has created a world in which our own cultures, as well as our preconceptions of D&D, are thrown back at us. From the God of Destruction living in the world's core to the empire of Seven Deadly Sins (each sin associated with a school of magic), to the nightmarish World Wound, the campaign setting will provide you with hours of adventuring.

I won't pretend that you'll like all of it or use all of it as written, but every page will give you ideas to use in your campaigns.

With the recent schism in the Dungeons and Dragons community, [...]has struck off on their own, creating a rules set that builds on the Open Gaming License. Their default campaign setting world Golarion is detailed in this book. The setting is intriguing, and built by some of the legends of the gaming genre. If you are interested in mature pen & paper gaming with epic action and a well-thought out millieu, this book is for you.