Pathfinder character sheet in Russian. Why Pathfinder is better than Dungeons & Dragons

Welcome to Varisia!

– desktop card role-playing game, the action of which takes place in the harsh, but majestic and beautiful kingdom of Varisia.

Age: from 13 years old

Game duration : from 60-90 minutes;

Number of players: 1-4;

Game components: 495 cards: 7 classic Pathfinder heroes (warrior, wizard, rogue, priest, bard, ranger, sorcerer), each with 3 cards - character card, role card, location card; 1 adventure road, scenarios, 5 dice with different number of faces d4,d6, d8, d10, d12; rules of the game.

There is no playing field as such, the whole picture is completely made up of cards. Players choose their character, and since the entire Company cannot be completed in one or two evenings, the choice of their hero will have to be taken seriously. You need to choose a character from the ones offered, in the starting set there are 7 of them - a warrior, a wizard, a rogue, a priest, a bard, a ranger, a sorcerer. This is a simplified role-playing game - the color of the eyes, the shape of the ears, the features of the figure and character do not need to be created. The hero gradually, as the game progresses, will add skills needed in battle and campaigns. Choose your future pet, try on his image (acting plays an important role in role-playing games) and set off to comb the locations in search of that very evil Villain. Villains. Each scenario has its own Villain and a bunch of his Minions, the purpose of which is to slow down your campaign and cover their master.

Preparing for the game.

The host, according to the script, lays out the locations. Each location has its own small deck of cards, where the Minions and the Villain himself are hiding. Their cards are laid out

secretly, where the Servant is and where the Villain is hiding, the players will have to find out.

Players are given a starting set of cards, some of which are laid out in their hand (the number of cards depends on the character), the rest remain face down in the deck. As the game progresses, cards will be taken from this deck, returned again and completely expelled from the game. These cards are your lives. All cards will end - your hero will die. But this is not the end, the characters can return with a starting set of cards from the next game. Therefore, at the first stages of passing, dying is not so scary, sometimes it is even useful and done on purpose. But the further the players advance, the more they collect useful loot and acquire skills, the more diseases will die.

A game.

The characters move around the locations, look for the main Villain, kill his minions, along the way they find obstacles, the passage of which requires verification. All characters have their own forte. For someone it is Strength, for someone Dexterity, Intelligence, Wisdom and so on. Sometimes, in case of failure, you have to lose precious lives. If luck smiles, you can buy useful loot. To defeat the Villain, you need to have time to kill all his Minions and close the locations. If the Villain meets earlier, he will have to fight, but even after defeating him, he will not die, but will hide in any unclosed location. Therefore, it makes sense to carefully find out in which location the enemy is hiding and leave him “for dessert”.

This is a cooperative game, the players all fight together against the Villain, help each other, prompt and consult before each move, because their number is limited. If you do not have time to close all the locations and defeat the Villain, the scenario will not be completed and you will have to go through it again. The number of moves is quite accurately calculated for the passage, you won’t relax too much, collecting various “sweets” such as cool weapons, armor, blessings, etc.

If the scenario is completed, you can get an improvement - add +1 to any one skill of your character. And go through the next scenario, more interesting and, of course, more difficult.

Before the game, players place their characters in any location. One location can be chosen by several players.

Blessing cards in the amount of 30 pieces are laid out in the center of the table - this is the number of moves in the game. When they run out, the game will stop. Players draw the required number of cards from their deck and the game begins.

Each player's turn consists of:

Shrinking the Blessing Deck.

The player reveals a blessing card and places it on the blessing discard pile. As the stack begins to melt, the tension in the game increases. At the very beginning, everyone is a little lazy, the players are looking for interesting cards finds: weapons, spells, armor, items, companions, blessings. In case of a successful acquisition, they are added to the character's deck, adding life (!) And a useful opportunity for something.

But as soon as the deck of blessings begins to melt, a slight panic begins to spread over the players, which becomes more and more as the deck disappears. Each move is worth its weight in gold, a step-by-step plan for each player's move is developed. In general, it becomes quite funny and interesting.

Card transfer .

If desired, you can transfer one card from your hand to any other player. Special condition: You must be in the same location unless it is a blessing card.

Move.

You can move to any location once.

Study.

Once per turn, you can explore the location. You open the map if you see a Servant there - fight with him, if it is the Villain himself, if possible, you are washed away from him for the time being. If there is an obstacle, you try to break it or bypass it; if it is loot, you try to acquire it.

Examination.

Conclusion.

I can’t say that this game is suitable for absolutely everyone, although I have heard more than once that even inexperienced players can play it. Can not. Still, some level of preparation is necessary. The game is not so simple and the specific genre is fantasy. The first games we went through the jungle of rules and rather complex maps. All cards with text and properties, a lot of difficulties arose with checks, constant looking into the rules and the general meeting made the first games very long. Not everyone liked it, and I at first, too. The first scenarios took place twice, as they did not have time to close the locations in time and defeat the Villain, but the subsequent ones were already much more cheerful and interesting. The game is really addictive: with its beauty of the design of the cards, the complexity of the passage. Especially the complexity of the passage, the more difficult, the more you want to play. Yes, the first few games will have to think, be patient, but later you will be drawn in and you won’t want to go out. Just remember - the main thing is RECOVERY. It will be very boring without it. The brighter you imagine yourself in the place of your character, the more exciting the game will be.

Ratings:

• Mastering the game - 60 POINTS
• Game mechanics - 85 POINTS
• The plot and atmosphere 90 POINTS
• Ease of play 85 POINTS
• Quality and design - 99 POINTS
• Received fun - 90 POINTS

TOTAL -85 POINTS (including full immersion in the game)

In the forty years of its existence, tabletop role-playing games have gone long haul from wargame imitation to impromptu theater without a single roll of dice. Pillars of the industry such as Shadowrun, GURPS, World of Darkness have changed with the needs of the players. Holes in the rules were patched up, new opportunities appeared for managing the characters and the plot. Unfortunately, only a narrow stream reached the post-Soviet space from the entire stream. Until recently, the very concept of "role-playing game" for us was synonymous with a single game, Dungeons & Dragons, or rather, its third (and a half) edition of the rules.

Of course, the "troika" is an excellent system, with a long list of additional materials, ready-made adventures and even computer implementations. For its time, it was a breakthrough. With enviable tenacity, most Russian roleplayers continue to use it, despite all its shortcomings and the availability of more suitable systems. The two subsequent editions of D&D did not arouse enthusiasm among many supporters of the third version.

Only while our guys continued to use the old rules did a real revolution take place in the west. In 2008, Pathfinder was released, the ideological successor to D&D 3.5. new game managed to lure away a significant part of the fans of the old editions due to the many small successful finds in the rules. For the first time in thirty years, Dungeons & Dragons has been stripped of its title as the best-selling RPG in the world. Needless to say, we are familiar with Pathfinder by an insignificant part of the community of craftsmen and players? It's high time to change that.

Recently, Hobby Games has successfully published and is preparing to release a starter kit for a role-playing game. For the first time in our country, a world-class role-playing game can get an official publication, a decent circulation and worthy support. To understand how significant this event is, let's try to talk about the advantages of Pathfinder over D&D 3.5.

There were a lot of problems in the third edition of D&D by 2008. Some of them were solved in additional books. Additions made it possible to create characters atypical for heroic fantasy. For example, Complete Scoundrel contained many options for spy heroes, sharpies, and tricksters. In Tome of Battle, the warrior classes have received new combat techniques and become one step closer to truly deadly mages.

Nevertheless, many of the design miscalculations of the “troika” were never compensated for by anything. The cumbersome skill system forced precious points to be spent on Rope Use and Escape Artist, preventing dexterous characters from tying decent knots using Dexterity alone. The classes were poorly balanced. At early levels, wizards and sorcerers had too little health and could cast spells at most ten times a day (and then mostly harmless things like fireworks or a hand carrying light objects). Warriors were stronger in every way.

But then, on medium and high levels, conjuring characters significantly outnumbered their illiterate counterparts. A spell of the sixth circle could kill, subjugate someone else's will or summon a powerful ally from another plane, besides, an experienced wizard could cast any spell instantly, silently and without even blinking at all. The only problem for spellcasters, vulnerability in close combat, was solved by pumping the Concentration skill, and this skill almost eliminated the chance of losing control of magic.

The combat system was well supported various ways causing damage, but passed in a tavern fight. The rules for grappling and tripping involved a lot of ability checks, skill checks, and, worse, gave less advantage than a normal sword strike. Many class abilities were puzzling. The ranger especially got it - his "chosen enemy" allowed him to deal additional damage to a single monster out of more than three hundred antagonists (Nival repeated the same mistake in Heroes of Might & Magic V). It is the ranger, the forest hermit, in D&D who is listed as a specialist in combat with two blades, although it would be more logical to give this option to a warrior. (The literary heritage affects - the famous dark elf Drizzt Do'Urden fought in the Salvatore novels in this way). The problem arose with the druid: each time, turning into a new beast, he acquired the characteristics of the selected monster (very high) and "forgot" his own parameters.

The rules for creating magic items and writing spells gave players migraine attacks: for each attempt to enchant an item, the hero was forced to pay ... with earned experience. To top it off, D&D 3.5 did not support all styles of play, and most of the settings developed even before D&D came under the wing of the owners of the Wizards of the Coast card "Magic" were left out, including the popular Planescape and Dark Sun.

The first attempts to catch up and overtake the "dragon" were made back in the 1970s. History has forgotten most of the early D&D clones because they didn't fix any system problems. The maximum was introduced a system of character careers and allowed to play for unknown animals. A more or less well-known example that has survived to this day is the RPG Talislanta. Only Pathfinder managed to jump over his head. Perhaps thanks to a strong development team. Jason Balman, Eric Mona, and James Jacobs of Paizo Publishing have produced several D&D add-ons and have been editors of role-playing magazines for a long time. These people didn't just understand what role-playing games were - they knew all the strengths and weaknesses of D&D 3.5. When the magazines closed, Balman, Mona, and Jacobs found something to do.

Balman outlined the main goal of Pathfinder as follows: playing for any class should be equally interesting. In the original D&D 3.5, the most effective characters were similar to fanfiction heroes: two levels of a warrior, a level of a rogue, and now we will learn how to cast spells ... The Pathfinder game designers did not ban the multiclass - instead, they raised the "reward" for constancy. In addition to the increase in characteristics, a character who chooses one class at each level receives useful bonuses (whereas in D&D 3.5 at the fifth level, a warrior received only a few hit points and +1 to an attack roll, and it was much more profitable to take levels of other classes). You don't need to be scattered: the paladin no longer needs high wisdom - holy magic becomes stronger from his charisma. The freed up points can be spent, for example, on intelligence, destroying the stereotype of narrow-minded warriors of light.

Instead of almost forced animal companions and familiars, sorcerers and druids have received new abilities - they can learn more spells, use metamagic, or increase the number of available domains and schools. Priest's "Turn Undead" and Paladin's "Lay on Hands" have become much more flexible: the former creates flows of positive/negative energy that affect both undead and living creatures, the latter allows you to remove negative effects. Bard, the most useless class in the "troika", able to do everything, but mediocre, in Pathfinder was raised from the bottom. Now he has a lot more spells, and at high levels he can literally kill with his songs.

There are plenty of other nice touches too. The rules for fighting techniques have become convenient. Minor skills are grouped - so Sight, Hearing and Search are grouped into Perception. Concentration as a skill has been completely removed - now the chance to lose control over magic depends on the level of the spell and the magician himself, and it has become more difficult to maintain witchcraft. Saving throws against most spells are easier to throw, Weakening Ray, Entangling Roots, Tasha's Hysterical Laugh, and many other wiles of sorcerers now leave warriors a chance for revenge. But "cantrips" (zero-level spells) magicians can use unlimitedly. The experience loss for creating items has been removed from the system altogether, enchanting now requires expensive material components.

But the main thing that the authors of Pathfinder RPG can offer is support for their game. All materials of the third edition are compatible with it. And if the publication of new extensions for 3.5 has long ceased, for Pathfinder there are several hundred pages a month. Third-party firms also work on adventures (for example, Green Ronin, which released a series of books about the city of Freeport). The number of add-ons that reveal the game world, and voluminous adventures where you can "adventure" from the first to the twentieth level, "Pathfinder" is not inferior to the "troika". The latest books, Pathfinder Unchained (a collection of additional and updated rules) and Pathfinder Occult Adventures (a book about occult characters with new classes and a new type of magic), take the system far beyond the "D&D 3.5 clone".

Pathfinder outperforms most of the competition thanks to its well-established system of organized play. Every year, a new round of the plot (Adventure Path) starts, in which players from all over the world can take part. The adventures in these campaigns will last for several years of non-stop play: Paizo's official website has materials for 18 different stories (for a minimum of 6 game sessions each).

Support for the game is carried out not only through the active publication of game materials. The Pathfinder Society is the official community of players and hosts around the world who take part in special format games. Player characters act as agents of the Pathfinder Society and perform various tasks. By participating in official events, players directly influence how world events will develop. And what is most interesting - you save the progress of your character. Having played today in a home meeting, tomorrow you can bring the same character to a convention or game library.

The publication of Pathfinder in Russian is good news in itself. But even better, it could open the way for other games as well. If Beginner Box works, it could be followed by RPGs set in Warhammer universes, Star Wars, eminent GURPS and World of Darkness. Everything depends on us.

The path will be found

Launched on the CrowdRepublic platform, the Pathfinder Beginner Box contains everything you need to start your first adventure in the world of Golarion:

a 64-page Book of Heroes describing the creation of characters, their abilities and inventory;
The 96-page Master's Book, which contains the characteristics of all monsters, traps, and tips on how to play the game;
a set of 7 dice (d4, d6, d8, 2 d10, d12, d20);
sheets with 80 "pawns" (paper figures of heroes and monsters);
8 character sheets of 4 different classes (4 filled and 4 empty);
a double-sided field on which you can draw with a marker (indispensable for any leading thing).

Brief review of the game "Pathfinder. Tabletop role-playing game. Starter set"

Description

"Pathfinder. Tabletop role-playing game" is a role-playing game in a setting known to many card game"Pathfinder. Return of the Rune Lords". The role-playing version of the game appeared in 2009, that is, before the release of the card counterpart, which appeared only in 2013. It is worth noting that since the release of Pathfinder. popularity and sales.

Overall, the game is an expanded and improved version of the D&D 3.5 rules. This version was created specifically in order to increase the interest of playing within a single character - and, as it turned out later, the game completely coped with this. Many of the rules have been simplified, so "Pathfinder RPG Starter Pack" is a great choice for those who would like to start their journey into the world of real role-playing games. In fact, in front of you - a verbal adventure game, where all the action takes place in the imagination, and individual game components simply simplify the game and increase the degree of immersion.

"Pathfinder. RPG. Starter Pack" is a basic set that contains the necessary minimum for a great trip to a new and rich in interesting stories world! Of course, you first need to read the Player's Handbook, create your character, and find a master to guide you and tell you the adventure. The set offers the necessary descriptions of various places, creatures, objects and much more. Thanks to a high-quality double-sided map and many features, your adventure will be not only exciting, but also comfortable!

What is a role playing game?

Many have heard the term RPG (RPG - Role-Playing Game), but understand this concept as games in which you can somehow pump, that is, develop your character, for example, as in computer hits like Diablo. So many refer to RPG games as "Munchkin", which is not entirely correct.

In fact, character development is just the tip of the iceberg - in real role-playing games, to which this masterpiece belongs, you literally completely play the role (that's why the game and "role-playing") of a character created according to certain rules and are free to do anything on his behalf. The scope of possibilities is regulated by the master of the game or the leader, and the outcome of events is regulated by rolls of various dice. The most important role in the mechanics is played by the rules books of the Master and the Players - they must not only be read, but also well oriented in the material.

The role of the master

As mentioned above, one of the participants in the game is the Master, he is also called the host, storyteller or game master. In his hands is concentrated power over the plot of the game and the game world. The game story, main plot twists, key events - all this is also worked out by the Master, so his role is quite creative. Since the players act together and do not quarrel with each other, the Master is the link between the game world and the players. He does not play against his comrades, but it is he who will have to set a goal and set the difficulty for it - arrange the forces of monsters, place traps and treasures, and draw a map. In addition, in controversial situations, it is the Master who interprets the rules and resolves issues.

Who has won?

Winning is not the main goal in RPGs. The main pleasure is obtained due to the incredibly deep immersion in the game world and due to the absolute possibilities within the universe. However, in any scenario, there is a main goal that our heroes strive for, and if it is achieved, the entire group will win.

"Pathfinder: Tabletop RPG Starter Pack" includes:

• A 64-page "Player's Handbook" containing the basic rules of the game and character creation, as well as descriptions of spells and equipment
• 96-page Host's Guide, featuring adventures, monsters, treasures, and tips for scripting and playing games based on your own heroic stories
• Complete set of 7 special dice
• Over 80 colored tokens depicting heroes and monsters
• Four pre-filled character sheets - just pick one and start playing!
• Durable, reusable, double-sided playing field that can be painted on with water-based markers
• Only in the Russian edition! "Player's Pack" and "Navigator's Pack" with additional adventure, Raging Barbarian class and other content
• Only in the Russian edition! Adventure "Master of the Shattered Stronghold", adapted to the starter set
• 20 small and 2 large plastic coasters

Actually, I wanted to make this article for a very long time, but somehow all hands did not reach. I'll talk a bit about the Pathfinder character sheet in Roll20 and how it gives players and the DM a chance.

And without this reference, the story would be very wrong.
So, what is Roll20 most of the players and masters on the Imaginarium and the World of Role Playing Games have most likely heard. And for those who have not heard or read, I will tell you a secret - this is a fairly good platform for online driving.

For starters, character sheets for the various systems are only available to Plus subscribers. This pleasure costs only 5 dollars a month, but it opens up gigantic opportunities for both players and masters: firstly, dynamic lighting (in the free version you will have to use the fog of war), and secondly, these same character sheets in which developers (enthusiasts , don't think too hard about the Roll20 command) implement some pretty cool stuff, like checking for critical failures that only show up at "1", confirming critical hits at "20" (when a separate line appears in the output text), and of course ready-made macros various throws.

Tip 1: be sure to bind the character token to the character sheet. First, it will enable new map just drag it from the folder to the map, and secondly, the character sheet can be quickly opened via Shift + double-clicking the left mouse button.

Several tabs are immediately visible in the Pathfinder character sheet: Core, Classes, Defenses, Attacks, Skills, Feats, Items, Spells, Details, NPC and, of course, settings (gear).

On the Core sheet, the player first of all enters the basic characteristics of his character and additionally indicates bonuses (for Peck, for example, this is a belt of dexterity +4).
Recently, the most beautiful thing appeared on this tab - buffs. Permanent spells that give a positive effect and must be taken into account when rolling dice can now be scored in advance in 10 fields for buffs and, if necessary, simply mark those that are used (cast Haste - quickly opened the character sheet through the token - see Tip 1, ticked the desired line and enjoy).

Below buffs is another great thing - Conditions, which will also count towards any dice rolls. No need to fool yourself by counting certain fines - the smart sheet will calculate everything by itself.

Hits (or wounds) were hidden under the states, places for entering modifiers of initiative, experience, prestige points, fame and hero points (excuse my crooked translation, but I don’t really want to write in English).

In the second tab "Classes" the player enters information about the classes that he has - the base attack bonus, the base saving throws for each class and the number of hit points dropped on the cubes (! Pay attention - these hits are entered without taking into account the Constitution - the sheet will count them itself and will not deceive :-))

And under the basic information about the classes there are fields for filling in class abilities, which can then be easily brought to the chat using the button with the image of a dice, and in addition to simply writing down class features, you can also correct the macro to perform calculations.

In the third tab "Defenses" the necessary values ​​​​of additional Armor Class modifiers, saving throws, stability, weakness, Spell Resistance, protection and additional notes are entered, which will be displayed if necessary in macros (for example, +2 to saves against fairies), well and of course the characteristics of the armor.

Moreover, all this can be additionally configured - what to display when throwing saving throws, and what not.

After “Defenses”, quite logically, “Attacks” follow, where both the basic values ​​​​of melee and ranged attacks are calculated and individual attacks are filled. I think that everything is quite obvious there, but for those unfamiliar with Roll20 I will explain - the text "[] vs humans [] sneak" written in the note will be displayed along with the main dice rolls, and the syntax of the form "" will immediately throw the specified dice (or perform arithmetic calculations) and it will be easy to calculate the same additional damage.

On the "Skills" tab, data on skills is filled in, a class or non-class skill is indicated. There are empty fields for custom skills.

! Please note that in my campaign I use the subsystem of background skills - and the character sheet can do this (from Unchained a lot has already been incorporated into the character sheet) - and all this is set in the sheet settings.

On the sheet "Feats" - the player enters his feats and, in fact, that's all. You can also decorate them beautifully to display them in a chat, but I still haven’t figured out why))).

PF would be a poor Dungeons & Dragons follower if he didn't have a lot of magic items. Actually they are entered on the next tab. You can sort it into slots (this section is collapsed on the screen), paint each wand and use them through macros, and so on. And here it becomes a shame - a cool thing how they did buffs, but there is no automatic calculation of inventory weight, as in the list for the fifth edition of D&D. But it seems to be in the plans.

In the meantime, you can manually set the download level, specify the download values ​​for the wizard and enjoy life :-).

And finally, spells are a joy for magicians and priests. The level of the caster is indicated, and the characteristic from which it is cast, taking into account buffs, of course, DC, and of course there are fields for entering data for each spell and changing the macro for each individual spell.

! In the example, in the description of the spell, I have a line [] that calculates the value of some throw of an octahedron and the minimum value from the set of 5 and the level of the caster (0th class), so that the values ​​​​of hit points that the cleric will restore to his comrade are immediately displayed.

The details include appearance, weight, languages, racial traits, and the like, which I will not dwell on for a long time.

Let's move on to the settings sheet. In the first block, you can specify whether it is necessary to display pictures in the text of chat messages and you can set your own for each of the template types. The second one is devoted to Unchained and in it and which options to use are selected. The third shows typical macros, but for some reason they have a colon missing after the word template.

The appearance of the spell template.

Attack template (three pictures are indicated at once - depending on the desire, you can choose for melee, long-range or maneuvers like trip, disarm or grapple.

Defense Template (can be used for both saving throws and other defensive abilities)

General Template

And a template for a wall of text.

And at the very end, the relationship between the NPC tab (in which the master transfers statistics from the environment with handles) and the data of the game character (updating HP), and also where the throws of both NPCs and IPs will be displayed - either in a general chat, or in a personal masters.

Actually, on this review of the Pathfinder character sheet can be considered complete, but the need for invention is cunning and there are several interesting points that I made in my campaign. It is not always convenient to constantly open the character sheet, so the craftsmen have made several macros that are very useful to use.
1. A save macro that I created and shared with all players. When a token is selected on the map, macros appear at the top that are tied specifically to the token, which allows you to quickly throw saving throws.

2. Look for skills for a long time. It's easier through a macro that allows you to select the desired skill from the drop-down list.

3. A macro for the initiative in battle, which automatically adds the selected token to the queue of moves.

4. Macro for stabilization.

5. Macro for quick output of protective indicators.

As well as various macros for hidden throwing.

I thank Khata for the kindly provided charm, and the readers for reading this useless nonsense :-)

If anyone is interested, I have the original recording here.

It's time to go on a grand adventure. giant volume main rule book board role-playing game Pathfinder will be published in Russian with your support!

The tabletop role-playing game Pathfinder is one of the most popular systems in the world. Fifteen years of experience from more than 50,000 players came in handy to develop Pathfinder.

With the help of the main rule book, you will be transported to a world filled with magic and dangerous adventures. You are waiting for insidious monsters, intricate intrigues, ancient dungeons and legendary treasures.

The main rule book will be ready in late spring 2017. To be safe, we indicate June as the expected delivery date.

The English edition of the main rule book has 575 pages. This complete guide for players and host, with colorful illustrations, detailed descriptions and handy tables.

The Russian language requires more space, so there will be even more pages in our book!

The main rule book in Russian will include all last changes and clarifications. Just like the original book, our edition will have a hard cover.

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