Pathfinder Player Companion: "Plane-Hopper's Handbook" [RPG]

 

The Plane-Hopper’s Handbook is a 32-page softcover companion to the Planar Adventures hardcover that Paizo released as the final “big” book for Pathfinder First Edition.  Since Second Edition had already been announced, Planar Adventures was intentionally “crunch-light”.  But The Plane-Hopper’s Handbook is full of options like new archetypes, feats, traits, spells, and more for players interested in having their characters adventure on other planes.  Not everything in the book nails a perfect landing, but overall it’s a solid product and worth purchasing if a campaign looks headed in an off-Golarion direction.

We’ll start with some general notes.  The cover isn’t my favourite, as it puts something uninteresting in the foreground (a character looking at their hands, and another tugging on them) and the really cool thing (a gate to another world!) in the background with a colour scheme that makes it hard to make out.  This cover art is reprinted, sans text, as the inside back cover.  The inside front cover is  . . . Well, I’m not really sure—I guess some sort of artistic representation of how some of the planes relate to one another.  The full-colour interior artwork is fantastic though—Paizo’s interior art is better than a lot of companies manage to get for the cover of their books.  The book has a page for the table of contents and two pages for an introduction.  The introduction is a sort of series of one-sentence overviews of each of the planes, and isn’t particularly useful.  However, it does have three new traits, and they’re pretty good in that they help characters acclimatize or navigate the planes.  The body of the book is divided into nine sections—and yes, I do have all day, and we will go through them one by one!

PLANAR TRAVELERS (6 pages):  This section starts with a good explanation of various ways to reach the planes (and get back home), and then moves on to summaries of two planar organisations: the Blackfire Adepts and the Riftwardens.  The section has, of all things, a new archetype for gunslingers (“Planar Rifter”)—it’s really cool in that their bullets can open interdimensional portals!  The section also includes an occultist archetype (“Planar Harmonizer”—looks okay), several new arcanist exploits, and then a set of really powerful style feats.

PLANE-HOPPING EQUIPMENT (2 pages): This section starts with a couple of different equipment packages for planar adventurers, which is a clever idea.  It then introduces several new material power components for spellcasters.  My favourite thing in the section is a new vehicle, the planar carriage—a vehicle capable of travelling through the planes, but with a set of specific limitations that makes it a great plot convenience without becoming overpowered.  I could envision a whole campaign centered around low-level PCs gaining access to a planar carriage but being given responsibilities across myriad dimensions.

PLANE-HOPPING MAGIC (2 pages):  This section contains a couple of good general utility spells.  It then provides some aasimar- and tiefling-specific spells, which I’m not a huge fan of as those races are already overpowered to begin with, and don’t exactly need more game support.

APHORITES (2 pages): New to me, aphorites are a sort of free-willed, more individualistic versions of axiomites, and a playable PC race.  This section provides them with alternate racial traits, several new feats, and some favoured class options. 

DUSKWALKERS (2 pages): Another new playable race, duskwalkers sound interesting—souls given a single, second chance at life because their first life ended too soon.  As with aphorites, this section has several new options.  I really like the set of origin feats.

GANZIS (2 pages): Ganzis are mortals infused with chaos.  The section includes a (somewhat incoherent) new archetype for paladins (“Chaos Knight), some “expanded oddities” for the race (fun flavour, but mechanics are small, forgettable flat bonuses), and some favoured class options. 

PLANAR SCIONS (4 pages): This section is a bit of a grab-bag.  It introduces alternate elemental heritages for oreads, ifrits, undines, and sylphs, but I’m not a big fan—a lot of complication to the setting for little gain.  Gathlains gets several new feats representing titles in the court of the fey—they have story prerequisites, which is relatively rare.  Finally, shabti (no idea) get a set of alternate racial traits and favoured class options.

PLANAR ALLIES (4 pages):  Several new eidolon subtypes are introduced here; I’ve never played a summoner, but many of these looks really cool.  Next, new elemental-themed archetypes are added for animal companions.  There’s then some “planar mentor feats” that offer up some interesting story possibilities if selected with the cooperation of the GM.

DEMIPLANES (4 pages): Demiplanes are more specialised or unique off-shoots of the major planes.  In this section, some new character options related to demiplanes are introduced.  There’s a series of spells tied to the Akashic Record, which I like in concept but they all end up pretty underpowered.  Worshippers of Desna get a series of feats related to the demiplane Cynosure, and these are pretty cool: they allow non-spellcasters to teleport and plane shift!  For the Dimension of Dreams, we get several new lucid dreaming feats.  Pathfinder Society devotees will note some feats and a spell related to the Hao Jin Tapestry, and anyone who has played through the very well-regarded module The Harrowing will find a new eidolon archetype.  Some fun stuff in this section.

To sum up, The Plane-Hopper’s Handbook is like most Player Companions in that it offers a mix of really good options and a few clunkers.  But overall, there’s more gold than dross here, and the writing and artwork are strong.  I’d recommend it.