Pathfinder‘s Second Edition continues to grow with the Lost Omens Character Guide, a new resource that provides additional feats, backgrounds, and races to the roleplaying game. Earlier this year, Paizo released a new version of Pathfinder that updated the game for the first time in a decade. While some of the rule changes were revolutionary, the new rule set also limited player options significantly, as Pathfinder‘s dozens of classes, backgrounds, feats, and races (which were replaced with ancestries in the new version) were all wiped from the board…at least temporarily. However, Paizo has kept up on releasing new content for Pathfinder 2E, as evidenced by the new Lost Omens Character Guide, which serves as both a rules book as well as a guide to some of the major organizations within the campaign setting in which official Pathfinder adventures take place.
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One of my favorite parts of Pathfinder is Golarion, the world of Pathfinder. While Dungeons & Dragons has featured various campaign settings over the year, Pathfinder has always stuck with Golarion, an incredibly diverse world affected by the seeming death of Aroden, the god of humanity. Past Adventure Paths (six part adventures released by Paizo over a six month period) would explore different regions of Golarion, exploring the cultures of various countries and offering players options should they want to build a character from that part of the world.
Golarion didn’t disappear when Pathfinder 2E was released, so the Lost Omens Character Guide serves as a catch-up guide of sorts for both veteran players and newcomers to the world of Pathfinder. The guide is split into two parts, one focused on ancestries and the other explaining some of Golarion’s major organizations like the Hellknights and the Pathfinder Society.
Players will likely pick up Lost Omens Character Guide for the first half of the book, which provides new ancestries feats as well as three new ancestries. All six of the ancestries found in Pathfinder 2E’s Core Rulebook are featured in Lost Omens Character Guide, explaining how different ethnic groups within those ancestries fit into the world of Golarion. Most of these ethnicities also have new ancestry feats that players can choose, providing new abilities or proficiencies.
Lost Omens Character Guide also comes with three new ancestries – hobgoblin, lizardfolk, and leshies. I thought it was interesting that Pathfinder chose to provide players with options for leshies and hobgoblins over tieflings or catfolk (both of which are popular choices among D&D players) but I suppose this was to help keep Pathfinder feeling different from its main competitors. Of the three ancestries, the leshies are my favorite, mainly because they seem so different than a traditional fantasy race. I also appreciated that hobgoblins are presented as a “lawful neutral” ancestries rather than evil. Monstrous ancestries usually get a bad rap and I liked how carefully the Lost Omens Character Guide tried to show hobgoblins as people rather than monsters to kill.
The second part of Lost Omens Character Guide is a detailed look at five major organizations within Golarion, which all come with new archetypes that provide players with additional feats should they join one of these groups. I feel that the organizations are a bit more situational – having Hellknight feats sounds fun, but I question how much use players will get out of them outside of very specific campaigns. Still, there’s a couple of cool mysteries buried in this half of the book, and veteran players will likely be thrilled that they can convert an old favorite character into the new version of Pathfinder.
Lost Omens Character Guide is a strong optional book that helps quickly build out the world of Pathfinder while providing plenty of mechanical options for players. It’s not quite a “splatbook” nor is it a full guidebook. Rather, it’s a necessary bridge between Pathfinder 1E and 2E, bringing back some old ancestries while filling new players in on some of the deep lore of the game.
Lost Omens Character Guide is available now for $34.99.
