I don't review a lot of Pathfinder material here. Mostly because I have been writing a lot of Pathfinder material and I don't want to read much of it so as not to unduly influence myself. Well, those manuscripts are off (more or less) so I picked these up for a review.
The Pathfinder Occult Adventures and Pathfinder Horror Adventures are the two most recent books I have picked up. Like all Pathfinder books these books are compatible with D&D 3.5 and still fairly compatible with D&D 5 and other OSR games. How compatible depends on how much work you want to put into it.
Given that most people reading this are likely not Pathfinder gamers, I am also going to talk about how to port these over to your own games.
Pathfinder Occult Adventures
Hardcover 272 pages, full color cover and interior.
This book is essentially the psychic powers book for Pathfinder. It uses the same 3.x spell system that Pathfinder has always used only now there is Divine, Arcane, and Psychic magic. This makes porting over to other systems a lot easier, but it certainly lacks some of the flavor of some other psychic books.
Chapter 1: covers Occult Classes. The classes are the elemental Kineticist (which has powers and not spells), the Medium (powers and spells), the Mesmerist, the Occultist (which is a rather cool class), the Psychic (the star of the book really), and the Spiritualist. Some racial options are also given for the classes. Of all these, the psychic could be ported over the easiest. They are, essentially, magic-users with a unique spell list.
Chapter 2: Archetypes give an "occult" or psychic bend to the Pathfinder classes (of which I think there are about 135 by now). We start out with the classes in the book, lots of different ideas to swap out powers and feats for other types of characters. The more interesting one is the Tome Eater Occultist; this archetype actually eats books and scrolls to gain their magical powers. We get to archetypes for the previously published classes. Cavalier + Spiritualist, for example, gives us a Ghost Rider. Which is actually really cool. Occult Witches are known as Ley Line Guardians. There is a lot if interesting ideas here.
Chapter 3 Feats details all the new feats. Now either you love feats or you hate them. I am hitting a little bit of feat fatigue myself.
Chapter 4 is all about the Psychic Spells. Now the advantage of using the existing spell system for a new class is that other class spells can be used for the new classes and the new spells can be used for the older classes. So everyone gets something new. At 46 pages this is one of the larger sections in the book.
Chapter 4 covers Occult Rules. This covers a wide variety of rules and rulings for an occult game. In particular rituals, possessions, and auras.
Chapter 5 gives advice for running an Occult game. This includes planes of existence and other locales for adventuring.
Finally, Chapter 6 covers Occult Rewards or magic items.
The book is a lot of fun and has a lot of material that I have seen elsewhere in different games over the last 35+ years, this just has them all in one place with the same system.
Pathfinder Horror Adventures
Hardcover 260 pages, full color cover and interior.
Playing a good horror game is not easy. It takes work on the part of the DM and the players. But for me I find it one of the more rewarding types of games. Playing "Horror in D&D", even if that D&D is Pathfinder, is a bit trickier. Horror relies on a certain sense of powerless and unknown. D&D characters are largely powerful. The difference is the same as a horror movie versus and action movie.
Chapter 1 covers some horror rules. The usual suspects are here; Fear, Corruption, and Sanity. I am as a rule pretty particular about using Sanity in my games. I spent years as a Qualified Mental Health professional only see some game rules that were beyond embarrassing. These rules work well enough due to their simplicity. Though I question the actual use of sanity in heroic fantasy. In gothic fantasy, sure. But here it feels, well, perfunctory. Corruption is interesting since your character can now slowly become the monster they hunt.
Chapter 2 covers the various archetypes for all the Pathfinder classes (453 at last count). There are some neat ones here too. Alchemist + Horror gives you a Mad Scientist. Cleric + Horror gives us a Elder Mythos Cultist. Various types of hunters, slayers, killers, and collectors are also given.
Chapter 3 is Feats.
Chapter 4 gives us horror themed Spells and Rituals. The rituals use the same rules as does the Occult Adventures book.
Chapter 5 details various Horror Rules. This chapter also has a section on curses and diseases and how to use them in a horror game. Different environments and their effects on the characters are also detailed. One of these changes includes Madness. Again, I am generally very critical here but nothing jumped out at me save that I am not sure I need another set of sanity rules at this point. There is also a great section on horror domains. So yes you can add some Ravenloft-like areas to Pathfinder, but also Dreamlands, Far Realms and more.
Next we get the main focus of this book, Chapter 6 Running Horror Adventures.
There is some good stuff here. In particular ideas on running a D&D-style horror game. Now there is a section on "Consent". Sorry Paizo, but I have been running horror games for decades. So have others. Consent is given by sitting down at the table. I hate to sound like a jerk here, but seriously. Pick up a copy Vampire the Masquerade, Call of Cthulhu or Chill to see how this can be done.
The various horror sub-genres are covered here. Not all of them, but enough and some ideas on how to run a game using those sub-genres.
Chapter 7 lists our Horror Gear and Magic Items. Yes, there is something similar to the Lament Configuration.
Chapter 8 Bestiary, was an unexpected surprise. There are not a lot of creatures here but there are some interesting ones.
The book ends with a list of horror inspirations in print and film.
Both books are fun, but they are viewed through the lens, naturally, of the Pathfinder game.
Either book has something to offer the Pathfinder GM/DM but also the D&D/OSR DM willing to do a little work and little tweaking. Classes and Archetypes can be converted as can spells and magic items. Advice on running the games is good for any sort of game system really.
They are good guides, not the best, but still pretty good.
