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GM Core

GM Core

Logan onner and Mark Seifter

Logan Bonner and Mark Seifter

Second Edition

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GM Core

GM Core

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6

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62

62

Table of Contents

Introduction 41 Running the Game 6

Introduction ..................................................................................................................6Special Considerations

..............................................................................................15Running Encounters
.................................................................................................24Running Exploration
.................................................................................................34Running Downtime
...................................................................................................44Diiculty Classes
......................................................................................................52Rewards
.......................................................................................................................56

2 Building Games 62

Introduction ................................................................................................................63Campaign Structure

..................................................................................................64Adventure Design
......................................................................................................68Encounter Design
......................................................................................................75Variant Rules
..............................................................................................................82Alictions
...................................................................................................................86Environment
...............................................................................................................90Hazards........................................................................................................
Hazards .....................................................................................................109Building Creatures
...................................................................................................112Building Items
..........................................................................................................130Building Worlds
.......................................................................................................134

3 Age of Lost Omens 142

Introduction ..............................................................................................................143Regions
......................................................................................................................146Cultures
.....................................................................................................................156Creatures
...................................................................................................................160Religion
.......................................................................................................................161Factions
.....................................................................................................................164Nations
......................................................................................................................166Settlements
..............................................................................................................168The Planes
................................................................................................................172

Paizo Inc.7120 185th Ave NE, Ste 120Redmond, WA 98052-0577

paizo.com

AUTHORS

Logan Bonner and Mark Seiter

ADDITIONAL WRITING

Amirali Attar Olyaee, Creighton Broadhurst, Jason Bulmahn, James Case, Jesse Decker, Eleanor Ferron, Jaym Gates, Fabby Garza
Marroquín, Matthew Goetz, James Jacobs, Brian R. James, Jason LeMaitre, Lyz Liddell, Luis Loza, Ron Lundeen, Stephen Radney-
MacFarland, David N. Ross, Owen K.C. Stephens, Amber Stewart, Clark Valentine, Landon Winkler, and Linda Zayas-Palmer

DESIGNERS

Logan Bonner, Jason Bulmahn, Lyz Liddell, Stephen Radney-MacFarland, and Mark Seiter

ADDITIONAL DEVELOPMENT

Luis Loza

REMASTER DEVELOPMENT TEAM

Logan Bonner, Jason Bulmahn, James Case, Eleanor Ferron, Jenny Jarzabski, Dustin Knight, Luis Loza, Michael Sayre, and Landon Winkler

EDITING LEAD

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Simone D. Sallé

EDITORS

Judy Bauer, James Case, Felix Dritz, Josh Foster, Leo Glass, Patrick Hurley, James Jacobs, Avi Kool, Priscilla Lagares, Lyz Liddell, Lynne M.
Meyer, Zac Moran, Ianara Natividad, Adrian Ng, Lu Pellazar, and Sol St. John

COVER ARTIST

Wayne Reynolds

INTERIOR ARTISTS

Gislaine Avila, Leonardo Borazio, Diana Campos, Matsya Das, Emile Denis, Cynthia F.G., Giorgio Falconi, Oksana Federova, Taylor Fisher,
Michele Giorgi, Igor Grechanyi, Vlada Hladkova, Roman Kierszenbaum, Katerina Kirillova, Ksenia Kozhevnikova, Roman Roland Kuteynikov,
William Liu, Raph Lomotan, Valeria Lutullina, Damien Mammoliti, Sophie Medvedeva, Federico Musetti, Will O’Brien, Nikolai Ostertag, Mirco
Paganessi, Mary Jane Pajaron, Roberto Pitturru, Konstantin Porubov, Maichol Quinto, Miguel Regodón Harkness, Wayne Reynolds, Kiki Moch
Rizky, Riccardo Rullo, Firat Solhan, Daniele Sorrentino, Matteo Spirito, Anthony Star, Yasen Stoilov, Brian Valeza, and Iana Vengerova

ART DIRECTION AND GRAPHIC DESIGN

Kent Hamilton, Sonja Morris, and Sarah E. Robinson

CREATIVE DIRECTOR

James Jacobs

DIRECTOR OF GAME DESIGN

Jason Bulmahn

PUBLISHER

Erik Mona

SPECIAL THANKS

Ron Edwards and John Stavropoulos

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142

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82

182

28

218

GM CORE

4 Subsystems 182

Introduction ..............................................................................................................183Victory Points

..........................................................................................................184Inluence
...................................................................................................................187Research
....................................................................................................................190Chases..................................................................................................
....................192Iniltration .................................................................................................................196Reputation
...............................................................................................................200Duels
.........................................................................................................................202Leadership
...............................................................................................................204Hexploration
............................................................................................................206Vehicles
.....................................................................................................................210

5 Treasure Trove 218

Using Items...............................................................................................................219Armor & Armaments

..............................................................................................224Alchemy
....................................................................................................................244Materials
..................................................................................................................252Momentary Magic
..................................................................................................255Trappings o Power
................................................................................................270Gems & Art
Objects................................................................................................298Artiacts
...................................................................................................................300Intelligent Items
.....................................................................................................304Cursed Items
...........................................................................................................306Relics
.........................................................................................................................308

Treasure Table 320Glossary and Index 326

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The Game Master

In Pathnder, the Game Master (oten abbreviated as GM) is the player in charge o the story and the world the other players are exploring.
When you’re the GM, you take on the rewarding role o crating un experiences or a group o your riends. Your responsibilities
include...

Telling the story o the group’s adventures in a compelling and consistent way.

Fleshing out the world in which the game takes place, emphasizing the antastical while grounding it enough in the real world to eel
believable.

Entertaining the players and yoursel with novel concepts and rewarding creative ideas with interesting outcomes.

Preparing or game sessions by building or studying adventures and creating characters and plots.

The focus of every Pathnder game is the player characters—they’re the stars of the show and appear in every scene that plays out in-game.
But what about those scenes? What stories are being told? What old legends are being discovered, and what new ones are being forged?
Who are the villains, the allies, the traitors, the lovers, the monsters, and the gods? Who runs the world? When you’re the Game Master, that’s
all up to you!

INTRODUCTION

Improvising the reactions o nonplayer characters (NPCs) and other orces in the world as the players do unexpected things.

Making rules decisions to ensure airness and keep the game moving orward.Though the word “master” is in the GM’s title, it’s not a role
that requires—or even benets rom—absolutism. Pathnder is a collaborative experience, and while your role as the Game Master is one
o adjudicator or moderator, it doesn’t mean you control everything at the table, especially not the players and their characters. Nor does the
role require mastery, either o the rules or the setting. You’ll need to understand the game, but you don’t need to have every rule memorized.
When everyone shares the goal o having un and telling a story together, the details will all into place.

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GM CORE

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How to Use This Book

GM Core

is one o the central rule books or Pathnder, and it provides guidance on building and running whatever antastic stories you wish to tell.
The book also gives inormation on the Age o Lost Omens—the setting o Pathnder—as well as rules variants and tools you can use to
customize the game. Lastly, the book contains the magical items and other treasure that you can place throughout your adventure to reward
your PCs or their victories. Tips and advice or running a smooth game are included as well!Pathnder as a game is all about
customization, and this book provides you as the Game Master ways to customize your game just as a player customizes their character. The
toolbox nature o

GM Core

makes it easy to select whatever parts you need or the game you’re running at any time, especially in the Building Games and Subsystems
chapters. As with any toolbox, you won’t need to use everything at once!

Choosing Your Tools

No two Game Masters are the same. Perhaps you’re a veteran GM who’s looking or new ways to tailor your game to suit your interests and
those o your players. Or perhaps you’re a brand-new GM looking or guidance to eel comortable leading a game o your own. Maybe
you’ve been a GM or years, but this is your rst time running a Pathnder game. No matter where you are as a Game Master, this book is a
valuable tool that can help you tell the stories you want to tell with your players.

I’m a New Game Master

You’ll nd a wealth o inormation to help you eel condent in running your games. Chapter 1: Running Games can help you better
understand how to run a game in dierent modes o play, set DCs, give out rewards, adjudicate the rules quickly and airly, and adapt
when special circumstances or problems crop up at your table. This chapter also contains advice on using and determining rarity in your game,
working with your players to create a collaborative story, and adapting your game to meet the needs o the players at your table.

I’m Running a Published Adventure

You’ll nd guidance in Chapter 1 specically or running published adventures, and most o the advice in that chapter about running a game
applies to published adventures. The inormation in Chapter 3 gives you a primer on the Age o Lost Omens setting, introducing the world
and its nations, peoples, and history that you’ll nd eatured in Pathnder’s published stories. A number o adventures—especially
scenarios in the Pathnder Society Organized Play program and Pathnder Adventure Path volumes—use the subsystems in Chapter 4. The
Victory Points subsystem is the most undamental o these, but many adventures also use the other subsystems ound there or things like
vehicles, chases, and infuence.

I’m Making My Own Adventure

I you are looking to create your own Pathnder adventures, Chapter 2 provides you design guidance ranging rom the broad strokes o
building an entire campaign, to individual adventures, to the particular considerations o any given encounter. This chapter also provides a
toolbox you can use to build the creatures, hazards, items, and other elements you want to use in your adventures. I you plan to set your
adventures in a world o your own design, the world-building section o Chapter 2 can guide that process and help you establish the details
you’ll need to ensure your setting is a vibrant backdrop or antastic stories. You can also use the inormation on nations, settlements, and
planes in Chapter 3 to detail those parts o your world.

I Need Items!

New and experienced GMs alike will nd the treasures in Chapter 5 o great interest, whether you’re looking up what a reward in a published
Pathnder adventure might be or searching or just the right piece o magical gear to give your players ater a quest. Persistent items like
magical weapons and armor can serve as longstanding parts o a player’s kit, and consumable items like potions or talismans can inject un
one-o eects into your party. Lastly, the chapter contains highly narrative items that can play a role in campaigns all on their own, rom
artiacts and cursed items to powerul relics that grow alongside your players.In many campaigns, you can let players reely peruse this
chapter to nd items they like. This is especially true when players crat magic items or have broad access to magic item shops in Absalom
or a similar location.

REMEMBER THE FIRST RULE

The rst rule o Pathnder is that

this game is yours

. The rest o the rules exist or you to use to tell the stories you want to tell and share exciting adventures with your riends. There are plenty
o rules in this book, but none o them override that rst rule. Take the rules that help you make the game you want, change those that don’t
do quite what you need them to, and leave the ones that aren’t helping. It’s your game. There’s no right or wrong way to GM so long as

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everyone is having un—and that includes you!

CAMPAIGNS, ADVENTURES, AND ENCOUNTERS

The rules and advice in this book requently reer to three main structures o a game. A

campaign

is your group’s game as a whole, a serialized story consisting o one or more adventures. Each

adventure

tells a single story arc with a beginning, middle, and end; it includes many interactions, challenges, and encounters. An

encounter

is a single showdown or contest between the player characters and their oes or other nonplayer characters.

Introduction

IntroductionRunning the GameBuilding GamesAge of Lost OmensSubsystemsTreasure TroveTreasure TableGlossary & Index

As Game Master, you run each session of Pathnder, providing the link between the players and the world of the game. It’s up to you to set
the scene as the player characters battle monsters, interact with other people, and explore new locations.

CHAPTER 1:

RUNNING THE GAME

This chapter provides the tools you need to shoulder those responsibilities. The ollowing sections break down the various components o a
campaign, discuss the dierent modes o play and how to set DCs or the tasks the PCs attempt, provide dierent ways o rewarding
player characters, and describe aspects o the environment that might aect an adventuring party.

A Welcoming Environment

The role o Game Master comes with the responsibility o ensuring you and the rest o the players have a rewarding, un time during the
game. Games can deal with dicult subjects and have stressul moments, but undamentally Pathnder is a leisure activity. It can remain
so only i the players ollow a social contract and respect one another.Players with physical or mental disabilities might nd themselves more
challenged than abled players. Work with your players to ensure they have the resources and support they need. Additionally, be on the
lookout or inappropriate behavior, whether intentional or inadvertent, and pay careul attention to players’ body language during the game.
I you notice a player becoming uncomortable, you are empowered to pause the game, take it in a new direction, privately check in with your
players during or ater the session, or take any other action you think is appropriate.I a player tells you they’re uncomortable with
something in the game, whether it’s content you’ve presented as the GM or another player’s or PC’s actions, listen careully to that player and
take steps to ensure they can once again have un during your game. I you’re preparing prewritten material and you nd a

GM CORE

character or a situation inappropriate, you are ully empowered to change any details as you see t. You also have the authority (and
responsibility) to ask players to change their behavior—or even leave the table—i what they’re doing is unacceptable or makes others eel
uncomortable. It’s never appropriate to make the person who is uncomortable responsible or resolving a problem. It’s okay i mistakes
happen. What’s important is how you respond and move orward.Gaming is or everyone. Never let those acting in bad aith undermine
your game or exclude other players. Your eorts are part o the long-term process o making games and game culture welcoming to all.
Working together, we can build a community where players o all identities and experiences eel sae.

Objectionable Content

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Beore a campaign begins, check in with your players—as a group or individually—to nd out what types o content they want to allow in the
game and which topics they would preer to avoid. Because the story unolds in real time, it’s essential that you discuss these topics beore
the game starts, oten in a session zero (see page 9). These discussions are intended to keep players sae, so it’s not okay to ask why
someone wants a type o content banned. I someone wants it banned, ban it—no questions asked.It can help to start with a rating, like
those used or movies or video games. Pathnder games oten include violence and cruelty. What’s the limit on how graphically these
concepts should be described? Can players swear at the table? Does anyone have phobias they don’t want to appear in the game, such as
spiders or body horror?Ater you gure out the limits on objectionable content, you have our important tasks:

Clearly convey these limits to the other players.

Ensure you and the players abide by the boundaries.

Act immediately i someone becomes uncomortable about content during a session, even i it wasn’t already banned in a prior discussion.
Once the issue is resolved, move on.

Resolve the issue i any player deliberately pushes these boundaries, tries to nd loopholes, tries to renegotiate the limits, or belittles people
or having a dierent tolerance to objectionable content.

The Pathinder Baseline

You might nd that your players don’t have much to say on the topic o objectionable content and just assume that general societal mores will
keep the most uncomortable topics out o the game. That’s not always enough, as that approach relies on shared assumptions that aren’t
always accurate. The ollowing is a set o basic assumptions that works or many groups, which you can modiy to t your preerences
and those o the other players.

Bloodshed, injuries, and even dismemberment might be described. However, excessive descriptions o gore and cruelty should be avoided.

Romantic and sexual relationships can happen in the game, but players should avoid being overly suggestive. Sex always happens “o-
screen.” Because attempts at initiating a relationship between player characters can be uncomortably similar to one player hitting on another,
this should generally be avoided (and is entirely inappropriate when playing with strangers).

Avoid excessively gross or scatological descriptions.The ollowing acts should never be perormed by player characters:

Torture

Rape, nonconsensual sexual contact, or sexual threats

Harm to children, including sexual abuse

Owning slaves or proting rom the slave trade

Reprehensible uses o mind-control magic

TOOLS FOR RESPONSIBLE PLAY

Consent and comort are important topics or roleplaying games, and many designers have created techniques to acilitate responsible play.
Some methods you can use are lines and veils, developed by Ron Edwards, and the X-Card, developed by John Stavropoulos.

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Lines and Veils

The terms “line” and “veil” can give your table a common vocabulary or the concepts described in this section. A line is a hard limit to the
actions players might take, such as “We’re drawing a line at torture.” The group agrees not to cross a line and omits that content rom the
game. A veil indicates something that shouldn’t be described in detail. The scene ades to black, or the group moves on to discuss a diferent
topic, though whatever the veil is drawn across still happens. For example, you might say, “We’ll draw a veil as those characters head into the
bedroom.” Players might nd they need to modiy their lines and veils as play continues.

The XCard

Draw an “X” on a card, and you’ve got an X-Card. Place it on the table at the start o the session. Any player can silently reject content they
nd upsetting by tapping the X-Card; whoever is speaking then rewinds a bit and continues on, excising the content. As with setting the basic
campaign guidelines, there are no questions asked, no judgment, and no argument when someone taps the X-Card. You can, however, ask
or clarication i you need it, such as “How ar back should I rewind?” Some groups instead make an X with their hands, say “Let’s X that
out,” or use some other method. Either way, ollow up with the player privately ater the game to see i the guidelines need to be revised.
You can nd more details at

tinyurl.com/x-card-rpg

Running the Game

IntroductionRunning the GameIntroductionA Welcoming EnvironmentPreparing AdventuresCharacter CreationPlanning a SessionRunning a

SessionSpecial ConsiderationsRunning EncountersRunning ExplorationScenes within ExplorationFleshing out ExplorationExploration
ActivitiesSetting a Party OrderRestingStarvation and ThirstRunning DowntimeDiculty ClassesSetting DCsMinimum ProfciencySpecifc
ActionsRewardsExperience PointsHero PointsTreasureBuilding GamesAge o Lost OmensSubsystemsTreasure TroveTreasure
TableGlossary & Index

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