PathFinder - First Edition - Core Rulebook

After Wizards of the Coast did that One D&D OGL debacle, I decided to explore other TTRPG systems, and the first one on my list was Pathfinder. I've heard that the first edition was nicknamed "D&D 3.75 E", so I decided to start there for the similarities. 

My first impression: "A lot crunchier than D&D 5E". I had read the books for D&D 3.5 E, but I hadn't actually played it. My play experience is with 5E exclusively. There are a lot more skills in PF 1E, as well as tiers for status effects and conditions, and also a lot of different kinds of bonuses. On the one hand, I like this because D&D 5E can be pretty restrictive and limiting, and on the other hand, this is a lot more to keep track of. I spoke with someone at a Rennaissance Festival about this, and he remarked that he had to use a smart phone app to manage it all. 

I like greater depth in the classes compared to D&D 5E, the barbarian, for instance. In D&D 5E, there really is no reason not to rage immediately at the start of each encounter, because you could keep it up through the encounter and were unlikely to run out of rages in a single day. Here, raging is a more strategic resource, bestowing advantages and disadvantages (unable to spell-cast while raging is hardly a disadvantage). 

CRAFTING! I really like the idea of crafting items, but the rules in D&D 5E are so scant in terms of crafting, and those that exist are so onerous, that me and one of my players had to homebrew a system for his character to make more types of poisons than basic and in a reasonable amount of game time (we based it off how a wizard can learn new spells, but added a research function; he wanted to be this "artisan poison crafter"). 

All that said, I'm not sure what sort of a grade to assign, because the actual experience is in playing, and I'm not going to play 1st edition. By now, I suspect that PF 1E tables are going to be harder to find than PF 2E tables. I mostly read this to understand how it differs from both PF 2E and D&D 5E. Yes, I am a nerd! 

Trickster Eric Novels gives " PathFinder - First Edition - Core Rulebook" a Thumbs Up

Click here for my next book review: The Last Dragonlord

Click here for my previous book review: The Selection Series book 4 - The Heir

Brian Wilkerson is an independent novelist, freelance book reviewer, and writing advice blogger. He studied at the University of Minnesota and came away with bachelor's degrees in English Literature and History (Classical Mediterranean Period concentration).

His fantasy series, Journey to Chaos, is currently available on Amazon as an ebook or paperback.

New book up! Catalyst for Glorious Change!

The Selection Series book 4 - The Heir"

This is the fourth book in the Selection Series, but it is the start of a new plot line, so it is a good jumping on point. I don't feel like I'm missing anything. In fact, starting here helps me empathize with the new protagonist, Princess Eadlyn, the daughter of the original two leads. 

Her country used to have a caste system based on numbers? That's weird. Her parents weren't ALWAYS this fairy-tail-style romantic couple that she sees every day? Outright bizarre. So, it's nice that way.  

This is a first-person perspective, and it has an engaging narrative voice. We have a front row seat to Eadlyn's perspective on things, which is a big deal when she's grown up showing a particular careful image to the press, and now has to get more intimate with the Selection Boys. 

It's basically The Bachelorette, but with much higher stakes. And this time, it's basically a long-term publicity stunt to buy time for her father. He needs something to distract the country from civil strife while he works on a solution. Eadlyn turns out to be /terrible/ at this, because, as written previously, she has grown up hiding her true self from basically everyone, including herself, so she has no sense of perspective. 

The overall narrative meanders a lot. There doesn't seem to have been any sort of plan for Eadlyn's Selection other than "gather a bunch boys and film Eadlyn interacting with them". Sometimes big things happen out of nowhere, like Rule of Drama. Especially the ending. 

The ending is a big load of drama. It makes sense, sort of. The very first page foreshadows the ending, with its big shift of weight, and Eadlyn's shift of focus. So that feels earned. The other half of the drama bomb feels staged. Yes, staged, like the author is staging the events of Eadlyn's life in the same haphazard way that Eadlyn is staging the events of the Selection. If not for that, then I would think more highly of the ending. As it is, it feels like a manufactured cliffhanger, rather than a shifting a narrative weight Insert-Disc-Two sort of thing. 

Trickster Eric Novels gives "The Selection Series book 4 - The Heir" a C

Click here for my next book review:   PathFinder - First Edition - Core Rulebook

Click here for my previous book review: Shadow Guard - a Second Guard novel

Brian Wilkerson is an independent novelist, freelance book reviewer, and writing advice blogger. He studied at the University of Minnesota and came away with bachelor's degrees in English Literature and History (Classical Mediterranean Period concentration).

His fantasy series, Journey to Chaos, is currently available on Amazon as an ebook or paperback.

PUBLISHED! Catalyst for Glorious Change!

 Hi everyone!

I finally published something! It's been years. The first time in the better part of a decade. I finally got something published.  It truly is a "Catalyst for Glorious Change". ( I hope that doesn't sound to presumptuous ^_~). 

It's not the final book of Journey to Chaos. Unfortunately, that journey continues. What I'm here to talk about now is the start of the journey. 

Yes, Catalyst for Glorious Change is a prequel. It shines a spotlight onto several major characters from Journey to Chaos and what they were doing before Eric arrived on Tariatla. Specifically, it is some of the prep work that Tasio did prior to inviting/bamboozling Eric to Tariatla. 

A lot of this is stuff I planned to include or allude to in the main Journey to Chaos series. In fact, the original draft of Book 5 had this sub-arc that focused on Tiza, and another one explored what growing up as The Trickster's Choice was like for Kallen. Those events were "returned to chaos" and they were reborn as this story, and they formed an adventuring party with similar events for other characters, like Nolien, Basilard and Annala.  

And I got a new cover illustrator! It's been a while.  Laura J Prevost created this for me! 

This is just the ebook cover. The paperback is even cooler! It's a wrap around that continues the motif!

Dropping a link to her website here because she's awesome

The ebook is available on pre-order right now. The release date is April 5th.  A paperback version will be available at that time as well. 

You can find the Amazon sales page at this link here

SO EXCITED THAT I FINALLY PUBLISHED ANOTHER BOOK!

Brian Wilkerson is an independent novelist, freelance book reviewer, and writing advice blogger. He studied at the University of Minnesota and came away with bachelor's degrees in English Literature and History (Classical Mediterranean Period concentration).

His fantasy series, Journey to Chaos, is currently available on Amazon as an ebook or paperback.

Just realized that this banner-thing is technically obsolete. Whatever.  I'm still writing Book 5 of Journey to Chaos - The Highest Power!