OWL CAT Games; Pathfinder Kingmaker, Pathfinder Wrath of the Righteous, Rogue Trader

Whatever the situation might be, Octavia always pays close attention to details that often elude others. She is the quickest to notice a companion’s change of mind and the hidden suffering of other beings – as well as fleeting moments of beauty such as a pretty hair clip in a girl’s hair that deserves a compliment. Cheerful and quirky, this half-elf lives in the moment. According to her, the future is too uncertain to worry about while the past is better left behind. However, she's a bit disingenuous on that last part, and for good reasons: it’s hard to forget years of bonded servitude to the sinister Technic League that keeps all of Numeria in fear. Due to her magical aptitude, Octavia has been forced to serve the League masters for all her life. The only one who helped her get through dark times was Regongar, her true half-orc friend, who shared her pain and misery.

Light shines brighter in the darkness: hardships didn’t break Octavia’s boisterous spirit. Despite everything, the girl has brought her optimistic and merciful nature through the whole ordeal right to the day she became the master of her destiny. While on a Technic League's assignment in the Stolen Lands, Octavia and Regongar were set free by a daring adventurer, who claimed untamed territories for the young barony. Today, the half-elf can do as she pleases – and that includes fighting for all the just reasons as well as making up for every lost opportunity to primp and preen!

n battle, Octavia makes good use not only of her magical abilities but of her nimbleness, as well. She avoids melee at all costs: lack of armor makes her extremely vulnerable to direct attack. Instead, she prefers to sneak up on her enemies and eliminate adversaries with deadly spells before they know what hit them.

Despite her seeming carelessness, Octavia is bright and resourceful. Thanks to these qualities, she is an excellent candidate for an official governing post. Whether it’s other people, money or magical dealings, Octavia is ready to use her talents for the benefit of society and the barony.

Eager to learn more about Octavia's partner? We'll tell you about Regongar in our next companion update. Stay tuned!

New stretch goal – 3 Archetypes or alternative features for each class

A satisfying RPG experience relies heavily on your ability to create just the character you want, to bring your character concept to life as accurately as possible. But some character concepts are not conventional and stray away from well-trodden paths. Yet classes were made with specific, more general concepts in mind, and while they allow many different builds – some less conventional approaches are left unsupported. The Pathfinder RPG has a feature that covers those wishes: Archetypes.

Archetypes are not new classes on their own, but merely modifications of an already existing class, although the extent of modification varies greatly from case to case. Archetypes remove some class features from their base class, change others, modify existing choices and numerical bonuses of the class. In some cases, they just replace one feature with a feature of another class, and in some cases, they replace significant parts of the class, with an array of completely new abilities.

Sometimes you want your character to specialize in a certain specific part of their class far more than representatives of this class usually do. For example, let's say you want to play a cleric that concentrates on summoning monsters, but find that this specialization is hard to achieve with just the conventional cleric. There is an archetype that fits this purpose perfectly. The Cleric's Herald Caller archetype concentrates on summoning allies to fight for him. While he loses his ability to wear medium armor, equip shields and only has one domain, he can convert his spells into summoning spells in the middle of combat, and the creatures he summons are far more formidable and numerous.

Sometimes you want to take a different approach to a conventional role, for example, to create a tanking fighter that relies on his swordsmanship alone – yet every time you look up your abilities your conviction wavers. You see that equipping a shield would make your character a better tank, but you never envisioned him hiding behind a shield in battle. On the other hand, not using one makes you feel that you aren’t using your character to his full potential. In this case, you may look for an archetype instead – and find one that fits your idea. For example, the Aldori Defender, a fighter archetype with his roots in the fencing school of Aldori Swordlords, prefers to master his parrying techniques instead of relying on shields.

And sometimes you want to go even further. For example, create a magus, who is skilled with a bow. There is simply no way to do that with the basic magus class – his abilities work with one-handed melee weapons, and the bow is neither. Only archetypes can help you with this, and there is one designed specifically with that purpose in mind. The magus' Eldritch Archer archetype allows him to use his abilities with any ranged weapon and, instead of charging his blade with close combat spells, this archetype allows the magus to charge his attacks with long range spells, shooting fiery rays from his crossbow or launching bolts of lightning together with a javelin.

And that’s not the extent of possible archetypes – there are far more of them in Pathfinder. There’s the Sword Saint, a magus archetype that abandons armor and some of his spellcasting to become a master of one chosen weapon. There’s the Vivisectionist – an alchemist that replaces his signature ability to throw bombs with deadly sneak attacks. Ecclesitheurge – a cleric, favoring the perfection of his divine magic abilities over his martial prowess. Armored Hulk – a heavily armored barbarian. Sacred Huntsmaster and Mad Dog – inquisitor and barbarian with animal companions. And the list goes on and on.

Some classes, like Sorcerer or Wizard, while lacking these vast amounts of archetypes, have alternative class features that can replace them - subschools and wild bloodlines. We want to add even more choices, and depth to our game, to both, improve the base gameplay and provide replayability. Archetypes are a good way to do both, for they will add more meaningful choices to character creation and development, will allow us to add personalities to some companions in the form of archetypes, and to increase the variety of enemy encounters - for enemies will have archetypes, too.

What do you think about the archetypes listed above and which Pathfinder archetypes are your favorite? Let us know in the comments section!

Skills are an incredibly important part of most pen and paper RPGs, including Pathfinder. What are skills? Skills represent some of the most basic and yet most fundamental abilities your character possesses, like, for example, Perception – a skill to take note of details around you, to timely notice a deadly trap or to hear the muffled breath of a hidden adversary. Be it finding your way through the unknown lands or high court intrigues, be it searching for forbidden knowledge in the academy library, in a dusty tomb or a shady tavern – all of this is what skills are for. Without them, characters would be mere murderers. It is the existence of skills that allows them to resolve challenges and conflicts without resorting to bloodshed.

While it is a daunting, perhaps impossible, task to make skills just as useful in the CRPG as when playing Pathfinder on the table, it is not our goal to replace the original Pathfinder RPG, but rather to provide you with an experience similar to the fascinating atmosphere of pen and paper gaming. To do that we need to make the application of skills at least as frequent and at least as important as it is in pen and paper, if not as varied.

For our skill list, we decided to use our own approach to what is known to Pathfinder players out there as Consolidated Skills – a system where most skills from core Pathfinder are aggregated into bigger, wider skill groups. Our approach to this also includes our idea that skills should not only be used in dialogues but also in common gameplay and that these skills should be useful and applicable to the characters that archetypically should have those skills.

For this reason we, for example, made Lore - Nature, the archetypical skill of Rangers and Druids, to be based on Wisdom, and to include the knowledge about animals and insects, survival in the wilderness, handling of animals and tending to companions who were wounded or had succumbed to sickness. For that reason, we had made Lore - Religion to include knowledge about both Gods and their servants – outsiders, and plan to make it possible to use Lore - Religion to heal afflictions of the mind.

For those, who rely more on scholarly education, there are the branches of academic knowledge. Knowledge - World studies Golarion and everything specific to it, be it races and cultures that live there, their history and current interactions, trade and politics. Knowledge - Arcana deals with research and knowledge about various unnatural phenomena, eldritch spells, enchanted items and otherworldly entities such as elementals and magical beasts.

For those who crave action, there are Athletics and Mobility, the first of which deals with the skillful application of physical strength, mostly to surpass obstacles or to remove them from your way altogether, and the second deals with avoiding those obstacles and hazards through graceful movement and acrobatic feats. And those more cunning may find for themselves skills like Stealth, which allows you to move unnoticed behind the enemy lines, and Trickery, that allows you to pass through more complex obstacles like locks and traps.
For those of you, who, like kings are supposed to, rely on the world and its inhabitants to act according to your royal decisions, there are also skills like Persuasion, which is the mastery of manipulating others' thoughts and actions, through both subtle, direct or sometimes even forceful means and skills like Use Magic Device, which deals with the usage of magical items and tools in creative ways and bending even the most stubborn and complicated of them to your will.

The skills of your character and your companions may be used in combat, to demoralize the enemy with a disheartening threat using your Persuasion or to lull the enemy into thinking that you are not a threat with a timely use of Trickery, only to then catch him flat-footed for your next attack. Skills may be used when camping, to forage for food using Lore - Nature or to guard your sleeping companions better by having high Perception.

And, of course, skills can be used in dialogues and other events. For example, you might need to use your Knowledge - World, to remember some information crucial for the current conversation. You can try to use your Perception to gauge whether the person you are talking to is trying to swindle you. Or why not try to swindle them yourself by using Bluff, a specific use category of your Persuasion skill? Use categories are a type of actions that can be performed with this skill, in which Pathfinder fans may find familiar names. Intimidate, Bluff and Diplomacy being use categories of Persuasion, and some character traits, feats and class features may give bonuses to certain use categories only. Some character traits, feats, class features, and other abilities may give bonuses to use categories instead of a broader consolidated skill - it makes sense for a half-orc to have a racial advantage in using Intimidate, and not to Diplomacy and Bluff.

In many cases, you may also improve your odds by carefully preparing for the challenges ahead. You can find items that can be used in a specific skill challenge, like an encyclopedia just about the subject you need to have Knowledge about. Or have more common tools at hand, like a roll of sturdy rope or a trusty shovel. Or you may acquire a fine and specialized set of instruments just for a particular skill, for example, a box of masterfully crafted lockpicks. And sometimes your decisions and actions will affect the difficulty and bonuses to your skill use, for instance, by either providing you with a helping hand of someone you have saved before or depriving you of it in your moment of need. And, for certain, you can use spells and potions to make yourself stronger or quicker for the task before you.

That concludes our thoughts and developments in the field of skills. What was the most memorable skill application that you had witnessed in a pen and paper game session? Tell us in the comments section.

Just like Octavia, Regongar had a rough start in life. A childhood and youth spent in the Technic League’s captivity has left a permanent mark, forever changing the half-orc. But while Octavia believes that his suffering has destroyed almost everything good in Regongar, he thinks otherwise. In the crucible of servitude the magus* steeled himself for future challenges, forged his iron will and deadly proficiencies which made the free Regongar a living nightmare for the Technic League and its agents.

Regongar is extremely selective in choosing his companions: he abhors weakness, indecisiveness, and hypocritical prudery. A person that wins Regongar’s respect should be wary of such an honor: this magus has no friends except for Octavia, and he has no pity for those who disappoint him. Striking a deal with such a cataclysmic entity is a hazardous enterprise, but those who are brave – or crazy – enough to do so will be rewarded with a companion who knows neither rules nor boundaries. When he wants something, this half-orc has no scruples about stepping over a couple of bodies (or a dozen) or traveling to the deepest pits of Abaddon and back. Any team that collaborates with Regongar receives an unrestrained force that intimidates everyone – from the common soldiers on the battlefield to the lords in high castles.

Unlike Octavia, Regongar relishes melee combat: the magus makes a good use of magic protection and destructive spells as well as of his trusty blade. He has mastered many spells but his favorite are those that harness the power of electricity – an element that turns into a deadly force in his hands. Facing an angry Regongar is a truly terrifying experience, and he uses his ability to intimidate to his own advantage: sometimes his mere appearance on the battlefield is enough to make enemies flee. While out of combat, the half-orc can horrify his enemies with a sideways glance and a menacing phrase.

Regongar is brave, decisive and inexorable – great traits for those who are eager not only fight personally but lead others as well. Trusted with a governing position, he will become an astonishing warlord that keeps his own men in absolute fear and submission.



* Initially Regongar was intended to be a sorcerer but since we reached the Magus stretch goal, we decided to shake things up and change his class for he fits it well.