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Pathfinder Roleplaying Game

Pathfinder Roleplaying Game: Ultimate Intrigue

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Words Cut Deep

In the right setting, a single scathing word can prove deadlier than a poisoned dagger. Behind the scenes of heroic battles and magical realms lies a seething underbelly of danger and deception. This world of intrigue holds endless possibilities for adventure, as heroes duel with words instead of steel, plot daring heists, and engage in battles of wills against relentless nemeses. A high-stakes game of shadows and secrets is yours to master—if you have the wits!

Whether the heroes are taming the blood-soaked back alleys of their favorite metropolis or jockeying for the queen's favor alongside highborn nobles, Pathfinder RPG Ultimate Intrigue is an invaluable companion to the Pathfinder RPG Core Rulebook. This imaginative tabletop game builds upon more than 10 years of system development and an Open Playtest featuring more than 50,000 gamers to create a cutting-edge RPG experience that brings the all-time best-selling set of fantasy rules into a new era.

Pathfinder RPG Ultimate Intrigue includes:

- The vigilante, a new character class that lives two lives—that of an unassuming member of the community, and a cloaked crusader with his own agenda!
- New archetypes for alchemists, bards, druids, hunters, inquisitors, investigators, mesmerists, rangers, rogues, slayers, spiritualists, and more!
- New feats and magic items for characters of all sorts, granting mastery of street-smart combat, impenetrable disguises, and misdirection.
- Dozens of spells to manipulate tense social settings, whether to reveal adversaries' secrets or hide the truth.
- A complete system of influence, providing new goals and rewards to challenge players and link their fortunes to nonplayer characters and organizations.
- Systems and advice to help Game Masters introduce a variety of new encounters into their games­—daring heists, extended pursuits, and tense searches for buried secrets.
- Rules for social combat and verbal duels, allowing characters to use words as weapons to sway hearts and humiliate foes.
... and much, much more!

Cover art by Wayne Reynolds

256 pages, Paperback

First published March 30, 2016

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63 people want to read

About the author

Jason Bulmahn

125 books40 followers
Lead Designer of Paizo Inc and Minotaur Games, creator of the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game.

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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
Profile Image for Aisha.
69 reviews36 followers
June 7, 2017
There's is a freaking template to create a Magical Girl™. I am in love with this book. Thank you, BookCon!
Profile Image for Horrorsage.
78 reviews5 followers
February 15, 2022
Good evening and welcome fellow Children of Chaos.

I am going to keep banging this drum, modern D&D and PRGP artwork is overdesigned trash. While the vigilante class only needed to look like Zorro, he's got like these tattered bright red tassels all over him. Metal clippings on his stomach. A character like Batman says a lot with a little. A shadowy figure in the night. Is he real or a figment of our imagination. The designs in PRPG says our artist has no restraint.

Though as goofy as it is, I kind of like the vigilante class. I mean he isn't applicable to every game, but he is fine.

However there is a lot of crap in here. A discussion I had about why I didn't like 4e, I said as a wizard I should be able to do more than blast. I like having options to be useful outside of making a monster's HP number lower. the argument was magic solves all the problems making other classes useless. And I do have to admit in the 3.X line of games wizards are too powerful. And with another 30 or so spells to make sure they can solve every stupid edge case my argument of "no, let the wizards have some utility" dies. You can give casters options without dumping a bunch of stupid spells on them.

Also PRGP promised not to bloat classes like 3.5 did. The fucking liars. They might actually be worse, they just call them archetypes. So we get like 30 more stupid new classes, because of course we do.

Also in this attempt to dissuade 3.X is only good for combat they add in rules for research, that are just combat rolls against the HP of a library. And overly complicated and stupid rules of dueling.

Now I know the argument of just don't use them. But if I am going to dump 30 more bucks into a book, how about some of the real-estate being used for something anyone will ever use. Has anyone used these debate rules are thought them anything other than a clunky mess? I would honestly like to know.
Profile Image for Ty Arthur.
Author 5 books40 followers
January 14, 2019
Normally prefer to do the sleuthing / heisting / seducing in our sessions via roleplaying rather than via game mechanics, but if you want some specific rules to put a little Blades In The Dark into your Pathfinder, there's a ton of great options here. From the Batman-esque Vigilante to a host of new options for existing classes there's a lot to add to any urban game. The sections on verbal duels, chases, and elaborate heists are probably the best bits if you want to add a different flavor behind just combat to your game.
Profile Image for mythicgeek.
129 reviews37 followers
June 28, 2017
Um I will be creating a new campaign immediately and there will be a MAGICAL GIRL in it because there's a template for it!!!
181 reviews
April 26, 2016
The latest in the Pathfinder RPG splatbooks is something of a departure from the previous enteries in the Ultimate series. Unlike Magic and Combat, social skills have tended to be neglected in the D&D system so this book is Paizo's attempt to address this shortcoming. While the book has the Vigilante class, various archetypes and the usual assortment of spells and feats to assist players in a more socially oriented game, for me the best part were the chapters on running an intrigue oriented campaign. This includes advice for GMs who want to take their party out of the Dungeon as well as appropriate rewards for research and social interactions, a chapter on social combat (Useful if the PCs are ever accused of a crime and have to defend themselves in court) as well as a discussion on the usefulness and limitations of various spells in an intrigue campaign (No more using Speak with Dead to find out who the murderer was). Because this expansion adds an entire new dimension to any Pathfinder campaign I'd reccomend that GM's make Ultimate Intrigue one of the first expansions to get after the Advanced Players Guide.
Profile Image for the worst person you've never met.
26 reviews9 followers
October 15, 2018
Everything was fine until I came across a spell known as shamefully overdressed. It was a spell for making people take their clothes off. I don't really know what that has to do with intrigue but okay. Then I found an archetype known as magical child and I laughed because that sounds a lot like magical girl. Finally my magical journey through this book concluded with the spell: they know, which is such a funny name that I laughed. At that moment I realized the true point of this book. It is comedy!
Profile Image for Kat.
2,352 reviews117 followers
October 11, 2023
Basic Premise: New rules, classes, etc for investigative-type characters for the 1st Edition Pathfinder RPG.

If you really like city-based or intrigue-based games, this is the book for you. Wanna run a heist? Or have a chase? Do CSI, but fantasy? This is a really fun book with lots of crunch and fluff to make those more city-based characters and campaigns. There are resources for both GMs and players here. I love playing rogues, and there are a TON of nifty bits in here.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews

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