Heyo folks,
I’ve got good news, and I’ve got bad news.
Bad news first:
I mentioned a few months ago that I wanted to start on my own tabletop game, rather than relying solely on doing third-party for other systems. Unfortunately, those plans are put on hiatus, for two reasons:
The most immediate reason is that I straight up don't have the funds for it anymore. Without boring you all with details, some taxation issues on my house have caused my monthly mortgage bill to jump by almost $1000 😬. Unsurprisingly, that means most of my free money is gone, and with the threat of student loan payments possibly restarting soon, I definitely don't need to be throwing thousands of bucks into a new product.
You ever heard the saying of "never monetize your hobbies"? I'm feeling that pretty strongly about now. I've said before that I write because I enjoy it, and once I put timetables and deadlines and massive amounts of funding into something it's not really a hobby anymore, is it? It's been starting to feel like a second job and not an enjoyable distraction from the day-to-day anymore. 🫤
Despite the above that doesn't mean I want to quit RPG writing forever. As I said I do still enjoy it, but between financial woes and the constant feeling of "falling behind", I don't see a project as big as an entire new game being completed any time soon. So "hiatus" is probably a good word for it, but I don't know if it'll just be until my finances are sorted out or for years. It's tough to say. I'm wanting to keep this to "free time" and not "every night I have available" to recover from the burnout. I still intend on publishing my own game…sometime. But I’m going back to treating this as a hobby and not as a side hustle, you know what I mean?
I hope this isn't too much of a let-down for you all. Hopefully I'll be back in the far-flung future with some exciting stuff to show, but for now I have to put my priorities elsewhere.
As for the good news!
Paths of Magic has been out for almost two years! And for the 2nd anniversary, I wanted to make sure the book can be the best that it can ever be. So with that in mind, I’m pushing to do one final, MASSIVE update to Paths of Magic! This is a huge balance pass, and while it’s still the “same” book (you’re not gonna find like, new spells in this update) several of the classes are shaping up for big balance updates and quality-of-life changes.
Some of the biggest changes are:
The elementer can now use any combination of affinity powers and still get the full “synergy” benefit, without having to focus entirely on a single element. You now also pick which powers you want to activate, rather than having to use them in ascending order. So if you want to go into aegis and just use a moderate-tier power for a fly speed, you can! This should make the class a LOT more flexible in what kinds of aegis powers you can use and give aegis a bit more longevity.
The invoker’s secondary spirit (the one you use with dual invocation) can now be of any dominion or oath. Your primary spirit still has to match, though. It was already possible to combine any two spirits before with clever selection of your oath/dominion, but this should make those weird combos more accessible. On top of that, there’s now a clause allowing you to use feats granted by invoking to qualify for other feats! This is gonna open up a LOT of possibilities for builds, and a few spirit abilities that were feat-adjacent have been changed to grant feats, instead, so as to take advantage of this change.
Nightblades now get a baseline bonus for attacking foes that are flat-footed and flanked, and even get a bonus to casting spells against such foes! Being hidden was previously useful but it didn’t do anything for the nightblade that it didn’t do for everyone else in Pathfinder. This gives a clear, mechanical benefit to the nightblade’s entire conceit of “stealthy spellsword”, whether you focus on the class’s magical or martial talents.
Warden’s core math has been adjusted, with their maximum verdant bonus being +4 instead of +6. BUT, they now are significantly better at healing with remedy, many secrets and wards are adjusted/improved, and they have a few new secrets available to improve various aspects of the class (like bonuses to CMB/CMD, immunity to paralysis and polymorph, or the ability to swap out your facets once per day).
Vanguard is practically an “unchained” version, since it was just…way too good at too much. It now has a resource mechanic called sparks that tie together imbue and resonances, and resonance duration is now more similar to bardic performance. However, they can also heal their companions WAY more than previously (like…four times as often, if they use their sparks for it) and can also make Small companions, too!
Click here to download a copy of the updated classes for the last Paths of Magic update!
There’s plenty of other smaller changes like some retooled cabalist insights, added spells to all of the class’s spell lists, and reconfigured archetypes, too.
If you have suggestions to add into the quote-unquote “FINAL” update to Paths of Magic, be sure to join the Discord channel to make yourself heard! There will be links to previews for the updated classes there for you to browse and give your feedback.
This update will be coming within just a few weeks, so the open time for suggestions and feedback is pretty short. Now’s the time for you to make your ideas known!
Thank you all for being fans all this time! It really does mean the world to me.
~Chris