50 Fun Facts About Pathfinder Roleplaying Game

Pathfinder's first edition was designed to stay compatible with which release of Dungeons & Dragons?

Version 3.5 was being retired by its own publisher, so Pathfinder kept it alive and fans nicknamed the new game 3.75.

The Pathfinder Roleplaying Game's official adventures and sourcebooks are set on which fantasy world?

Golarion is the third of eleven planets circling its yellow sun, a blue world of vast oceans with a single moon.

Most actions in the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game are resolved by rolling which die and adding modifiers?

A 20-sided die decides nearly everything a Pathfinder hero attempts, which is why the game's rules family is known as the d20 System.

Which small Pathfinder monsters hate dogs and horses and think writing steals words from their heads?

Goblins ride wolves and giant rodents called goblin dogs instead, and their camps are raucous places of song and laughter.

Pathfinder Second Edition streamlined combat by giving each character how many actions on every turn?

Three actions can go on anything from striking to moving, while more complicated manoeuvres simply use up two or all of them.

Which figure of Slavic folklore conquered Pathfinder's frozen land of Irrisen and crowned her own daughter queen?

Baba Yaga returns every hundred years like clockwork to remove the reigning queen and put another of her daughters on the throne.

Which tentacled Lovecraft creation, the mightiest Great Old One, has monster statistics in Pathfinder's Bestiary 4?

Cthulhu carries a challenge rating of 30 in Pathfinder, and the game styles the towering monster the Dreamer in the Deep.

Which Pathfinder god of ale, bravery and freedom is said to have become divine after a drunken dare?

Cayden Cailean was a hard-drinking sellsword who attempted a fabled test of godhood on a friend's tipsy challenge, and somehow passed.

In Pathfinder lore, a crashed alien spaceship scattered strange technology and skymetal across which barren nation?

Numeria's biggest wreck fragment, the Silver Mount, looms near the capital, Starfall, and its radiation still mutates nearby life.

Which archdevil, called the Prince of Darkness, is the only ruler of Hell worshipped as a full Pathfinder god?

Asmodeus is the god of contracts and pride, and his faithful credit him with penning the contract of creation itself.

In Pathfinder, the player who narrates the adventure and controls every monster is officially called what?

Game Master is the title Pathfinder uses, usually shortened to GM, and the role lends its name to the remastered GM Core rulebook.

Which Steve Jackson Games parody of role-playing got its own Pathfinder-themed edition in 2013?

Munchkin is a humorous take on role-playing, named after players who care only about building the most powerful character possible.

Which colossal, city-razing beast is known as the Armageddon Engine in Pathfinder's world?

Tarrasque can bring itself back from the dead, so heroes can only hope to banish, trap or transport it to end a rampage.

Before Pathfinder, Paizo spent five years publishing Dragon and Dungeon magazines under contract to which company?

Wizards of the Coast chose not to renew the deal in 2007, so Paizo launched its Pathfinder adventure line as a replacement.

Which studio developed the 2018 computer role-playing game Pathfinder: Kingmaker after a Kickstarter campaign?

Owlcat Games built Kingmaker around ruling a kingdom of your own, layering realm management on top of classic party-based adventuring.

Which Pathfinder class captures magic in liquids, brewing extracts and mutagens and hurling homemade bombs?

Alchemist recipes are kept in a formula book, the class's answer to a spellbook, and its brewers are seen as being as unstable as their concoctions.

Which Pathfinder spellcaster receives spells from a mysterious patron who speaks through a familiar?

Witch patrons prefer to keep their distance, so many of their agents never learn who or what is granting them power.

Which Pathfinder class, introduced in Ultimate Combat, powers its signature deeds with a resource called grit?

Gunslinger characters push their weapons to the limit and beyond, and firearms are crafted in only a few technological strongholds.

Which island metropolis, called the City at the Center of the World, is the largest city of Pathfinder's Inner Sea?

Absalom sits on the Isle of Kortos, ringed by the wrecked siege engines of the many armies that failed to take it by force.

In Pathfinder lore, mortals such as Iomedae and Norgorber became gods by passing the test of which fallen gemstone?

The Starstone rests in a cathedral where anyone may attempt its test, yet only a handful of mortals are known to have emerged as gods.

Which Pathfinder god of humanity died mysteriously on the day of a prophesied return, beginning the Age of Lost Omens?

Aroden had been expected to usher in an Age of Glory; instead his death threw the whole planet into decades of turmoil and confusion.

Which Pathfinder goddess of dreams, luck and travelers is pictured as an elven woman with butterfly wings?

Desna spent her earliest days building the heavens while her peers laboured over the world itself, trusting there would be plenty of time to explore its wonders later.

Which Pathfinder goddess, known as the Dawnflower, teaches that enemies of the faith should be redeemed if possible?

Sarenrae is the goddess of the sun and healing, yet she expects her faithful to learn the scimitar for foes who refuse redemption.

Which Pathfinder goddess of birth, death and fate judges every soul that arrives in her Boneyard?

Pharasma sees each creature's fate from the moment it is born, but reserves her final judgement until the soul stands before her.

Which Pathfinder empire did House Thrune seize after signing a pact with the powers of Hell?

Cheliax made devil worship its state religion under the new rulers, who then moved the capital from Westcrown to Egorian.

Which Pathfinder god of destruction, called the Rough Beast, lies imprisoned deep within the world?

Rovagug stirs restlessly in his prison, the Dead Vault, and many blame those movements for the world's earthquakes and volcanoes.

Which coastal town in Varisia, known as the Light of the Lost Coast, is where Pathfinder's first Adventure Path opens?

Sandpoint is known in-world for theatre and glass-blowing, and a ruined lighthouse from the ancient empire of Thassilon towers over its bluffs.

Which six-part campaign, opening with Burnt Offerings, launched the Pathfinder Adventure Path line in August 2007?

Rise of the Runelords won gold ENnie Awards for its opening adventure, and it ran on another game's rules because Pathfinder had none yet.

Pathfinder Second Edition sorts every spell into arcane, divine, primal and which fourth magical tradition?

Occult magic is the tradition most associated with bards, and its ties to the eldritch and the unknown make it the most misunderstood of the four.

Pathfinder Second Edition uses which word, instead of race, for a character's people such as elf, dwarf or gnome?

Ancestry is the broader word, because the setting treats race as a narrower term that covers only biological differences.

Which Pathfinder Second Edition resource, earned through daring deeds, lets a player reroll a check or cheat death?

Hero Points last only a single session: each player usually starts with one and loses any left unspent when the session ends.

Pathfinder Second Edition ranks proficiency from untrained up through trained and expert to which highest tier?

Legendary proficiency adds 8 plus the character's level to a roll, against just 2 plus level for someone merely trained.

Pathfinder Second Edition tracks carrying capacity with which abstract measure of an item's size and awkwardness?

Bulk spares players from adding up pounds: a character carries 5 plus their Strength modifier before becoming encumbered.

In Pathfinder Second Edition, beating a check's Difficulty Class by at least how much makes it a critical success?

A margin of 10 works both ways, because missing the target number by that much turns an ordinary failure into a critical failure.

Pathfinder's 2023 Remaster removed which inherited system that sorted characters into labels such as lawful good?

Alignment went out together with the eight schools of magic, since both had been inherited from a rival publisher's open rules document.

A Pathfinder summoner fights beside which powerful bonded being, which grows stronger as the summoner does?

An eidolon comes at a price, because the summoner's own spells and powers are limited by the time spent strengthening the bond.

Pathfinder sorcerers need no spellbook because their magic flows from which source, such as draconic or infernal?

A bloodline also decides which magical tradition a sorcerer's spells belong to, so two sorcerers can cast from entirely different lists.

Which Pathfinder class from Ultimate Magic blends swordplay with arcane spells, channelling magic through a blade?

The Magus is so adaptable that it is uncommon to find two who practise their arts the same way, which has spawned a wealth of disciplines and tactics.

Which Paizo designer, originally trained as an architect, led the creation of the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game rules?

Jason Bulmahn pitched the idea as a tweak to existing rules, and Paizo then tested his draft in public for a year before printing it.

Which British fantasy artist, born in Leeds, painted numerous covers for the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game?

Wayne Reynolds has also illustrated Magic: The Gathering cards, Hearthstone and several books for the Eberron setting.

Which co-founder of Paizo, who started out on Ars Magica at Lion Rampant, led the Pathfinder publisher as CEO?

Lisa Stevens stepped back from daily operations in 2020, after nearly two decades in charge of the company she helped found.

Paizo, the publisher of Pathfinder, takes its company name from a Greek word with which meaning?

I play is the sense of the Greek verb paizo, a fitting badge for a company founded in 2002 to publish gaming magazines.

After a 2023 dispute with the makers of Dungeons & Dragons, Pathfinder moved to which new open licence?

ORC stands for Open RPG Creative, and the licence was designed to be perpetual, irrevocable and owned by no game publisher at all.

Which Pathfinder Adventure Path about crusades against the demons of the Worldwound became a 2021 video game?

Wrath of the Righteous invests its heroes with mythic power, and the video game lets that power grow along paths such as angel, trickster or lich.

Which iconic Pathfinder character is a two-sword fighter from Andoran who became a wandering mercenary?

Valeros fled a quiet farm a month before an arranged marriage, then drifted through one mercenary band after another before going solo.

The lich Tar-Baphon, who ruled Ustalav for centuries in Pathfinder lore, is better known by which title?

The Whispering Tyrant was finally beaten by the Shining Crusade and locked inside his own capital, Gallowspire, for nearly 900 years.

Which tiny Pathfinder duchy invented firearms to survive in the magic-dead Mana Wastes?

Alkenstar sits where an ancient arcane war left magic inert, so its engineers pushed technology further than anywhere else on the Inner Sea.

In Pathfinder lore, which meteor strike destroyed the empires of Azlant and Thassilon and created the Inner Sea?

Earthfall threw up so much dust that the sun was blotted out for a thousand years, an era remembered as the Age of Darkness.

Karzoug, an archmage who ruled part of Pathfinder's ancient empire of Thassilon, embodied which deadly sin?

Greed suited him: a year after taking power, Karzoug razed his own home town to erase the record of his early life as a slave.

Amiri, the iconic Pathfinder hero from the Six Bears tribe in the Realm of the Mammoth Lords, belongs to which class?

Barbarian Amiri carries a blade far too big for her, taken from a frost giant she found already dead at the foot of a cliff.