Optionsmas is Nigh: Cayden Cailean Edition

After a harrowing six months, we finally get to see what did and didn’t make the cut in this edition of: Pathfinder Society Additional Resource Updates! As usual, please comment on what new toys you’ve found, and feel free to discuss my own findings below! This month we got tinctures and inebriation rules for the Caileanites, lover’s bangles and covenant rings for the couples, And so many neat poisons…

Adventure Paths:

Most Hype: Chicken-Fox! Chicken-Fox! The galluvix is the cutest improved familiar since the pipefox. It’s a half-rooster half-fox that can take the form of either at will. It has some SLA including ghost sound, mage hand, sonic scream and blurred movement. Coolest of all, it can vanish into the First World as a full-round action and in an hour it returns from its mini-quest with an egg for its master! The egg functions as a cure light wounds, delay poison, lesser restoration or remove paralysis potion, and the galluvix (or its master) can crack it open for them. While not the most optimal familiar, it is so flavorful and cute that I can’t help but convey total hype for this foxy rooster…thing. Bawk!

Most Useful: I think most players are going to overlook the Exilir of Concordance. It is expensive for a consumable, but Spell Focus and a free Metamagic Feat can be worth it. The versatility of choosing between four metamagic and having no caps on the spell-level makes it comparable to a metamagic rod. And Dark Archive members can always requisition one for free, if you’ve completed enough season cards.

Flaming Lemon Award: Pearlescent Pyramid Ioun Stone is so overpriced its almost laughable. I suppose if you are in an incorporeal heavy AP it will make you stop hating yourself if you don’t already have a ghost-touch weapon by the time you can afford that 48,000 gp price tag, but until then I’ll stick to haunt siphons and ghost salt. Or, you know, pay the GP for a ghost touch weapon.

Dodged a Bullet: Coalition Leader was never going to be approved, but it tickles my fancy that even when the Leadership feat only gives you a Cohort, it’s still so good it becomes almost mandatory.

Pathfinder Campaign Setting:

Most Hype: Inebriation Rules look really fun for the right group with the right mindset and I’m glad to see more optional subsystems being opened up in PFS! The mixologist looks like a total blast to play, making targets more and more drunk with their bombs has great potential for seriously fun roleplay! I can already see a Mixologist Vanara who worships Sun-Wukong…

Most Useful: Implacable makes me want to look into playing a Drunken Fighter Monk again. Sure, the DR is basically only good against bludgeoning, but it’s still DR 5 from a feat. I’m going to also point out how amusing it is that Drinking Buddy will most likely benefit a Hunter…if they get their animal companion drunk. Look out for drunk T-Rexes!

Flaming Lemon Award: Read the Room is so niche its almost laughable. Getting a circumstantial +4 to Diplomacy only when using a very specific second feat is laughably bad; I’d rather pick Skill Focus (Diplomacy), and I can’t think of many builds that would take that.

Dodged a Bullet: Extreme Mood Swings was way too easy to abuse, potentially adding +2 to darned near every d20 roll you make on the right build.

Special Note: I’m sad Drunken God’s Blessing doesn’t work for worshippers of Sun-Wukong. Cayden gets all the feats! In all seriousness, it looks like a surprisingly useful feat in numerous scenarios and I’d love to see a Caydenite who has the feat open to select it.

Pathfinder Player Companion:



Most Hype: It should be no surprise I’m super excited to see Tamashigo expanded upon! The Ward Speaker archetype for the Samurai is fantastic, stacking with Sword Saint and Warrior Poet and effectively offering the use of some very powerful feat and feat-like abilities which can be dismissed for d20 rerolls?! Don’t get me wrong, resolve is good…but this archetype’s flavor is such a homerun for me that I can’t resist wanting to build one. Maybe even two.

Most Useful: Esoteric Initiate is a powerful option for caster-focused occultists. Being able to shift mental focus without losing your focus makes an already versatile class even moreso, and Comprehend Languages at will is super useful in Pathfinder Society. Shoutout here for Greater Lantern of the Elements, giving martial PCs Levitate and Spider Climb 1/day to help “the flying problem” for only 6,500 gp. Foresight Quill is also ridiculously useful, since you can always burn away that other roll on something relatively harmless (like a third iterative attack or a skill check to identify after someone else in the party has already identified the creature). It’s especially good on those pesky initial knowledge checks, when you know you’ll have until the next day to “recharge”.

Flaming Lemon Award: “for example, the average of 3d6 is 9”

Dodged a Bullet: Numerology Cylinder was pretty busted, allowing a free Spell Penetration just for doing a check any Wizard can do in their sleep.

Special Note: I’m disappointed Godstar didn’t make it in. Hopefully it will be on a Chronicle Sheet.



Most Hype: Gown of Graceful Petiteness lets you play a small-sized version of your PC for just 3,500 GP! The restrictions on it make it fun for characters looking to play “young” versions of themselves, even if it just means their characters have arrested development.

Can we talk about how awesome and yet how awkward the Badger Plush is? Why does a Badger Plush give -1 initiative but a real badger doesn’t? Why does this affect badgers? Why would it affect creatures who wouldn’t know what a badger was? Why wouldn’t a minor image of a badger plush do the same? Let’s not overthink this. It’s actually really cute to give a masterwork benefit to a plushie, and believe it or not this is the most hyped thing I’ve seen people discuss from this book! If only it were an owelbear plush…

There has also been plenty of talk about Cathedral Pit Stone, not that we haven’t seen something like this before.

Alabaster Trapping is also super hype, being able to repel anyone who tries to touch you without any kind of dice-roll and doing significant damage ot them for a 5th level item.

I don’t know how Khanguard Scabbard got legal. Being able to change what weapon you are wielding as a free action is nuts with reach builds.

Most Useful: Canon of Coin is strictly better than Indominable Will in 99% of situations. Blackwood is cheaper than masterwork on many weapons, but conveys masterwork. Rebuilder’s Boots gives higher level characters another way to get Featherstep. Dagger of Black Sands is super cool for high-mobility rogues. Looter’s Satchel is potentially game-breaking, especially if the dead body had any items “hidden” on it.



Flaming Lemon Award: Necklace of Ensured Return is a complete trap item in PFS, where you can just buy a ressurection. Even if it were cheaper, it doesn’t get you back into the action which would just make it a pseudo-investment if you really liked playing difficult modules.

Dodged a Bullet: Whisper Safe makes it so easy to break a scenario I don’t think anyone thought it would be legal.



Special Note: The campaign clarificaiton on Covenant Rings turned them from being absolutely oppressive (imagine wearing 20 of them!) to a really cute little item that I can’t wait to see two players take advantage of. Of course, you can always claim the other ring is on Sir Not Appearing in this Adventure…In a homegame I like to think of these as “insurance that your GM will use your romantic interest NPC against you”.



Most Hype: Dispelling Blood is going right onto my Lion Blade, forcing a rebuild because being able to dispel magic all day long with Snake-Tongue Concoctions is just cool. Hemorrhaging Venom may make the Nagaji poisoner a thing. Oh, and we now have an archetype that can milk venom, which is pretty cool. It probably also puts to rest the case that “almost unlimited (bad) poison is broken” (its not).

Most Useful: The tinctures are really good. Steelsheen Exilir gives you a….competence bonus to AC? That’s really nifty and should stack with everything. Dodger’s Draught really will stack with anything and is super cheap. Mage’s Assistant is really cheap for a +5 bonus to concentration checks. Oh and now you can get Fast Stealth for an hour for only 300 gold and some minor penalties.

Flaming Lemon Award: Identifiers Eye. I’m using a 2nd level spell to mimic a cantrip with a +5 to the check? Uhm…I shouldn’t have to explain why this is a lemon.

Dodged a Bullet: I can’t prove it, but I just know whoever wrote Restless Slumber was cackling the entire time.