Well, we have what is expected to be the last PFS1e update to the Additional Resources, or AR. This covers two of the APs (Tyrant’s Grasp and Wrath of the Righteous) as well as a couple of Campaign Settings (Concordance of Rivals, and Druma: Profit and Prophecy), plus the Player Companion Chronicle of Legend.
It’s been a while since they came out, so I took a look through what actually got sanctioned and what didn’t. Here’s what stood out.
AP: Wrath of the Righteous
Notable options sanctioned:
- Bilous Bottle – this is a misspelling of the bilious bottle, which might be a fun and relatively affordable toy for gnomes and alchemists everywhere.
- Sin Eater – this should reference the Sin Seeker, a CR 2 tiny magical beast that can be taken as an improved familiar at 5th level.
- Lymirin Discourses – An expensive relic of Iomedae. You need to alternate between at least two of the bonuses, so if you can find two bonuses you like, this might be worth it at higher levels when the price becomes more affordable. Longsword users and positive channelers might find something to like here.
- Unleash Panedemonium – a 30-foot radius spread that deafens those inside with no save could have some utility as a debuff–it might shaken the targets as well, and doesn’t prevent the shakened condition from escalating to a more severe fear condition. It’s listed as a 5th-level spell, however, which might be a level too high to keep up with the most powerful spells.
- Spherewalker’s Staff – This is actually a pretty nice and almost affordable staff.
- Starbow – Effectively a +3 adaptive composite longbow that triggers light vulnerability in the targets it hits. Helpful for vampire hunters, perhaps, but snipers should avoid it–arrows fired by it mimic tracer fire, which has a tendency to reveal an attacker’s position in the real world.
- Swallowtail Bracers – if you worship Desna, you gain immunity to nightmares and the ability to send messages every day via a dream spell, which can save you charges on your wand of sending. Otherwise, it’s an overpriced luckstone that takes up a magic item slot.
- The Green Faith is finally legal, and its customized summon list is legal for play. Go make some clerics into counterfeit druids!
- Talisman of True Faith – a phylactery of faithfulness that provides a bonus on concentration checks to cast spells impeded by planar traits. Might have some value in Season 8, or in other planar adventures.
Notable options not sanctioned
- This probably shouldn’t come as a shock, but the righteous medals weren’t sanctioned.
AP: Tyrant’s Grasp
Notable options sanctioned:
- Sweet Rest – an alchemical item that lets you roll twice when making saves to remove a temporary negative level. Might become quite handy, and it’s cheap.
- Dampening Ointment – a means of hiding from lifesense or spiritsense.
- Bone Burn – more alchemical stuff. A handy weapon against undead–costs as much as alchemist’s fire but deals double damage against undead, and against skeletal creatures, it has the fire damage on the next round like alchemist fire does. Could become a key weapon in an alchemist’s arsenal–it looks like the alchemist’s intelligence bonus to damage would be doubled against undead creatures, as well.
- Spiresteel – this special material has some amazing utility when forged into armor–and with a cap of a 3,000 gp modifier for heavy armor, it’s cheap, too. Half of its armor bonus will apply against incorporeal touch attacks, making this a very affordable alternative to the ghost touch armor ability.
- Lady’s Mercy – at 150 gp, this spotless, weightless magic coin will heal you back up to 1 hp if you succeed at a constitution check to stabilize. You won’t succeed at a lot of these checks in your adventuring career, but it might be worth 150 gp to a healer to keep one handy.
- Worship of Arazni was already sanctioned, but the additional options here are now legal.
- Cihua Couatl and Barzahk are legal for worship.
Notable options not sanctioned
- Note that the options in the back of book 6 were not sanctioned, although they may be made available in some other way.
Campaign Setting: Concordance of Rivals
This book is relatively limited from a player option point of view, mostly dealing with the worship of monitors.
Notable options sanctioned:
- The monitors are legal for worship
- Monitor Obedience – deific obedience for monitor demigods (the neutral ones!)
- The Proctor prestige class (One of the starts-at-level-8 divine prestige classes, similar to Mystery Cultist)
Campaign Setting: Druma, Profit and Prophecy
This book is also a campaign setting, and has limited player option content.
Notable options sanctioned:
- There are two feats, Golem’s Conviction and Unspoken Bond, that are likely to have limited impact in Organized Play.
- The bacallia is legal, a distractingly-shiny alpaca now available as an animal companion
- Two (adorable) familiars are available, in the form of a large lizard that glues things to its hide to disguise itself and a ground squirrel that trades with other animals around it. Both familiars appear to be the only familiars that grant their respective skill bonuses–disguise for the keulia (lizard) and a profession skill of your choice for the tauhoti (ground squirrel).
Player Companion: Arcane Anthology
This was already sanctioned, and its appearance on the top of the player’s companion list (and in red, no less!) is a typo. For the real list of sanctioned content, scroll a bit further down and find it in the normal alphabetical order.
Player Companion: Blood of Angels
There’s what might be some “new” sanctioning text here that’s more specific about non-human aasimaars, but this rule isn’t a new one. The book itself has been sanctioned for quite a while.
Player Companion: Chronicle of Legends
There are lots of interesting options in here, but the two things that might make the most impact would be the exemplar traits and the Fireball magic tricks.
Notable options sanctioned:
- Prestige Class feats: the feats on pages 8 and 9 were all sanctioned. While the text specifically limiting them to prestige classes didn’t make the cut into the Additional Resources page, each feat has a specific requirement that ties them to one prestige class. There are feats for:
- Arcane Archer
- Arcane Trickster
- Assassin
- Dragon Disciple
- Duelist
- Eldritch Knight
- Loremaster
- Mystic Theurge
- Pathfinder Chronicler (the Inspire Action class feature appears to be a typo for the Inspired Action ability that the Chronicler gets)
- Shadowdancer
- Magic Tricks – the Daylight, Shield, and Prestidigitation tricks are okay, but there’s a Fireball trick — concentrated fire — that could be very popular, and overall it looks like the Magic Trick feat plus Selective Spell could be a popular choice for fireball specialists. The Mage Hand tricks look like they might prove a viable alternative to the Arcane Trickster prestige class, depending on what you were hoping to get out of the class.
- Swashbuckler Deeds- Dodging Dance is an especially good upgrade over Swashbuckler’s Grace. It costs another 7th-level deed–superior feint and targeted strike are both fine, and you’ll miss them, but if you’re building for Dodging Dance you probably won’t mind the tradeoff.
- Ninja Tricks – False Face is an excellent option for an intrigue character or campaign. Kami Warden is nice for a bodyguard build, although ninja doesn’t seem like a natural fit for the build, and Spiritual Companion gets you an improved familiar, which is always a popular option.
- Slayer Talents – Marksman’s Shot may have some utility for the right build. Reaping Stalker might enable a niche scythe build or two.
- Vigilante Talents – Leap and Bound is fun. Malleable Flesh could be especially good if you like your vigilantes creepy–it’s probably a better fit for an opponent, especially if you’re homebrewing up an X-Files-themed campaign.
- Esoteric Knight – looks like a version of the prestige class Eldritch Knight, translated to the occult classes, to me. It doesn’t read as especially powerful, but if you’re the type that could work with Eldritch Knight, you can probably work with this prestige class.
- Rival’s Weald spell – if you believe in visualizing your goals and you also enjoy telling dad jokes, you can now tell your foes to “Make like a tree and leaf” and really mean it.
- Exemplar Traits – it sounds like someone wanted to give players an option to build characters with lots of traits. These traits count as two traits when you take them, but they let you take multiple traits of the same type, which could have unpredictable effects. The traits for Maya Ryn and the Witch of Roses (Curator of Mystic Secrets and Charming Smile, Cunning Soul, respectively) might have the most direct impact.
- The capstones are nice, but at level 20, they’re not likely to impact PFS much.
Notable options not sanctioned:
- The only items in this book are relics, which we wouldn’t expect to be made PFS legal.
- Collection bonuses are not legal, because the feats that grant them didn’t make the cut.
- The Gruesome Parry and Lethal Patience gunslinger deeds were probably a little too good.
- Acceleration of Form for the Ninja was probably also too good. All the Stars in the Sky is a bit disappointing to not have sanctioned, as it might have made shuriken builds more viable at later levels.
- The Vigilante loses out on morphic weaponry and volatile arrows–seeing volatile arrows restricted should not be a surprise, as it was especially powerful.