This review will be shorter than the review of the new Pathfinder Player Core. That review included my assessment of many of the Pathfinder rules, with frequent comparisons to Dungeons & Dragons Fifth Edition (5E). This review will focus on the contents of the new GM Core book itself, with only a few rule assessments. There will also be few comparisons with 5E, as I have not looked at the 5E Dungeon Master’s Guide in detail for quite a while.
Section 1: Running the Game
This section provides guidance for GMs on how to operate at the table. Nothing surprising here. The section seems pretty complete and well written.
Notable content: This section provides instructions on how to use “Lines & Veils” and the “X-Card”. These methods of making a safe table have been used in RPGs of all sorts for a few years now. It is good that Pathfinder is making them an explicit part of their game. The “Pathfinder Baseline” goes beyond these generalized techniques to specify what players will and will not experience and what they should or should not do at the table. I thought this was a very good list. I’m going to add it to my own D&D house rules.
Section 2: Building Games
This section is for GMs creating their own adventures and campaigns. As with Section 1, this section seems pretty complete and well written.
Notable content: Variant Rules. Some of these I like (one I REALLY like). Others, I do not see why anyone would ever use them. They seem to just make characters more powerful more quickly.
Automatic Bonus Progression: This rule replaces numerical bonuses provided by magic items, such as the “+1” for a magical sword. All characters get similar bonuses based on their level. Magic items would only be used for special effects. My first reaction is that this rule makes it harder to reward characters based on their class. It would be more fun for a player with a ranger character to find a +1 longbow than to get a generic plus that all characters get. My second reaction is that this is another example of Pathfinder trying to do everything it can to make numbers go up. If everyone gets the same bonuses, the party power level just goes up that much more. GMs cannot manage that power level by awarding more or fewer magic items.
Adjusting Items and Treasure: This rule seems to be made to reduce the power of magic items and to give the party less treasure. Players like getting treasure. Less treasure, less fun.
Free Archetype: This rule is supposed to add flavor by giving characters with similar backgrounds additional feats related to that background. Note “additional”, not “instead of”. These feats do not replace feats gained in other ways. That would make sense. This rule just escalates power levels. Similar backgrounds are better expressed with roleplay, not with extra feats.
Level 0 Characters: Level 0 characters are appropriate in some, very limited circumstances. It is good that there is a mechanism to create them, even if most players will never play one.
Proficiency Without Level: Finally, a way to curb excessive “numbers go up”. One of my major objections to Pathfinder is that a character’s level is added to many rolls. That number quickly comes to be more important than proficiency or the character’s ability scores. This rule gets rid of that problem. This should be the baseline, with adding the level the variant.
Notable content: Afflictions. It is interesting to have so many curses described. Not so much so many diseases. I’ll repeat a criticism from my main Pathfinder review. Providing long lists like this might be good for a quick adventure build. It tends to stifle creativity. Such a long list could be considered as the definitive list, only items on it are allowed. It would be better for the GM to provide rules for creating afflictions, along with mild, medium, and severe examples. That would make it easier for GMs to create afflictions tailored to the adventure. It would also make these books shorter, use less paper, and be cheaper.
Notable content: Doors, gates, and walls. Rules on how to break down doors seem to be a throwback to old-school D&D. I guess these would be useful for those who want a really detailed, really slow adventure.
Notable content: Hazards. Editing fail - Curses and diseases are listed in severity order. Hazards are listed in alphabetical order. Consistency, anyone? Also, see my criticism for afflictions regarding long lists. In this case, that criticism is somewhat addressed by including three pages on designing hazards.
Section 3: Age of Lost Omens
This section has some strange aspects to it. It starts out seeming like a reasonably detailed gazetteer for the baseline Pathfinder setting. That would be good. No need to buy a separate book. Towards the end of the section, they were either running out of space, or they realized they do want people to buy a separate book. Here are all of the planes, along with decent descriptions. Here’s how we describe cities - buy the book if you want to know what the cities actually are. Here’s how we describe nations - buy the book if you want to know what the nations actually are.
Section 4: Subsystems
As a former systems engineer, I will say that these are just variant rules, not subsystems. Combat, exploration, downtime - those are subsystems and were covered in Section 1.
This section seems to be a grab bag of topics that do not fit anywhere else in the book. Some, such as Influence and Research, provide detailed mechanics for actions that do not really need to be that formal. Some, such as chase and heist, are just new types of adventures or parts of adventures. I guess the only reason that they were not included where they should be, in Section 1, is that they were too long. Duels are combat rules that should be in the Player Core. Reputation and Leadership are the only ones that meet the criteria to be a true subsystem. Two pages on Leadership just are not enough to make the concept playable. Hexploration is exploration. Why isn’t it in Section 1. Vehicles should certainly be in Player Core with other equipment.
Section 5: Treasure Trove
Everybody’s favorite section. At least it was mine in my early days of playing D&D.
Notable content: The method of upgrading equipment using runes is pretty interesting. It raises the importance of getting a low power magic item. It is the first step on the ladder to getting an exceptional weapon that is tailored to the player’s play style. Thumbs up for this rule.
Notable content: Investment. This looks like the equivalent of the 5E attunement rule. 5E uses that rule to limit the number (3) of powerful magic items a character can use at one time. It can also be used to limit who can use an item. An item can restrict attunement to, say, a dwarf or a wizard. Investment is limited to 10. The rulebook itself says that this number is large so you do not have to worry about the number. I did not see any items that limited who could invest them. At this point, the investment rule seems to have no purpose what-so-ever.
Notable content: Magic items can be built using a variety of rules and materials that make them very customizable. This increases game complexity somewhat (my main criticism of Pathfinder, other than “numbers go up”), but the additional character that it gives to magic items offsets that.
Notable content: Rules are given for making custom arms and armor. Alchemy and potions need the same thing. Include rules for collecting ingredients, combining them, and testing the results. The martial characters definitely win out over arcane types here.
Overall, the GM Core is a good example of its type. Most of my criticism is with editing decisions, not the content itself. Much of the information here can be used in other games. Pathfinder has set a pretty high bar for the upcoming 5E Dungeon Master’s Core. (Who decided to call their updates “Core” first, Wizards of the Coast or Paizo?)
Den of the Red Wolf 