Pathfinder for Savage Worlds - Companion, my review

Pathfinder for Savage Worlds: Pathfinder Companion by Jason Bulmahn

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


I've been playing RPGs since 1977, and in that time I've become a bit of a connoisseur of game settings. I've seen the really great ones (Glorantha, Hârn) and the really bad ones (looking at you, Mystara.) So I know what makes a good setting. Interesting places and people, a coherent history, and opportunities for adventure galore!

This book hits all the marks, We start with an introduction to the Pathfinder Society, a loosely-organized adventurers' guild that can be a launch pad for many adventures. The main focus of the Society is gathering information. A party might be told by their Venture-Captain (the local "branch managers") that a black dragon has been sighted near a certain swampy area where no dragon has been seen for centuries. Go find it and assess the threat. That kind of mission, along with political intrigue, exploration, and traditional dungeon delves. Good stuff.

Next, we get a timeline, and here's where I took off a star. The designers (and I realize that this is all adapted from material published by Paizo earlier) fall into the "thousands of years" trap. Humans have had writing for about 6,000 years. All those early societies are dead. It's just human nature for things to change. But still, it is a good summation of events leading up to the present day.

Then comes the real meat, the Gazeteer. We get introduced to the states of the Inner Sea, and they are an amazing lot that all make sense and all provide adventuring opportunities galore! Take Galt, a nation that overthrew its noble rulers and is now reminiscent of France under the Committee for Public Safety. Governments rise and fall, factions form, dissolve, and battle in the streets, and the Final Blade, a guillotine that traps the soul of its victim, never stops. It makes sense in the context of what is happening in Galt's neighboring states. Golarion is a cohesive world.

We get a short but useful adventure generator, some of the more important factions in the Inner Sea region, and advice on merging Pathfinder's class & level expectations so Savage Worlds, the gods and main infernal beings, the other planes, and final some powerful artifacts.

A very well-produced book! An asset to my gaming shelf.



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