Run Amok Blog

I'm excited to see so many people saying such good things about the first Abomination Vaults Adventure Path volume, Ruins of Gauntlight by James Jacobs. A point came up with one of the key NPCs, and I thought it was worth bringing up. First, so you can see a little bit of how awesome this is and go buy it, here is that NPC: the heroes' patron, Wrin Sivinxi.

Wrin Sivinxi   Creature 5

Unique, CG, Medium, Elf, Humanoid, Tiefling

Female tiefling elf oddities merchant

Perception +12; low-light vision, spirit sight (precise) 30 feet

Languages Aklo, Common, Elven, Sylvan, Varisian

Skills Acrobatics +12, Astrology Lore +12, Nature +12, Occultism +12, Performance +10, Religion +13, Spirit Lore +16

Str +0, Dex +3, Con +0, Int +2, Wis +3, Cha +4 

Claustrophobia Wrin becomes overwhelmed when she’s underground, or when she’s in an indoor space that’s smaller than 10 feet in diameter. At these times, she is sickened 2 and cannot reduce her sickened condition until she’s outside of the enclosed area.

Spirit Sight Wrin can see creatures with the spirit trait within 30 feet, regardless of whether they are visible to the naked eye. This ability sometimes allows Wrin to notice other supernatural auras, such as the buildup of spiritual energy atop Gauntlight.

Items harrow fortune-telling deck, silver religious symbol, +1 starknife, violin

AC 20; Fort +9, Ref +15, Will +12

HP 75

Speed 25 feet

Melee [one-action] starknife +12 (agile, deadly d6, finesse, magical, versatile S), Damage 1d4 piercing

Melee [one-action] tail +10 (agile, finesse, unarmed), Damage 1d4 bludgeoning

Ranged [one-action] starknife +12 (agile, deadly d6, magical, thrown 20 feet, versatile S), Damage 1d4 piercing

Primal Spontaneous Spells DC 22, attack +14; 3rd (3 slots) enthrall, heal, remove disease; 2nd (4 slots) glitterdust, hideous laughter, restoration, web; 1st (4 slots) charm, feather fall, gust of wind, pest form; Cantrips (3rd) dancing lights, disrupt undead, ghost sound, ray of frost, stabilize

Bloodline Spells 1 Focus Point, DC 22; 3rd faerie dust

Blood Magic When Wrin casts charm, enthrall, faerie dust, ghost sound, or hideous laughter, fey glamours dance around Wrin or one target of the spell, causing them to be concealed for 1 round. Such obvious concealment can’t be used to Hide.

Read the Stars (divination, exploration, prediction, primal) Frequency once per day; Effect Wrin attempts to read the future in the stars by spending an hour studying the night sky—she can’t use this ability during the day, on an overcast night, or when she can’t otherwise study the stars. Although Wrin usually performs this reading for an individual person or to answer a pressing question she has, for the purposes of this campaign she reads the stars for the party as a whole. She attempts an Astrology Lore check, using the DC appropriate for the heroes’ current level.

Critical Success The results of Wrin’s astrological readings have the effects of read omens, and the heroes gain a +1 circumstance bonus to saving throws for 24 hours.

Success The results of Wrin’s astrological readings have the effects of augury, but can predict results up to 24 hours into the future.

Failure No reading.

Critical Failure Wrin brushes against hostile spiritual forces, and cannot Read the Stars for 1 week.

An observant forum poster noted that Wrin doesn't have any signature spells, even though she's a primal sorcerer.

My response was probably lots wordier than it needed to be, but I thought it worth repeating here, where anyone designing Pathfinder Second Edition NPCs might come across it:

She's not a sorcerer. She's an oddities merchant. It says so right in the first line of her stat block after her traits.

The more you expect NPCs to look like player characters, the more likely you are to get confused by their stat blocks, when everything you need is right there. Wrin has primal spontaneous spells, bloodline focus spells, and blood magic, but that doesn't mean she's missing anything a player character sorcerer would have (like signature spells). Because she's not a sorcerer.

Wrin also doesn't have the 30 foot base speed an elf player character would have, nor does she have the darkvision a tiefling elf player character would have. None of that is wrong.

We at Paizo take from existing rules to give a specific feel to NPCs (such as by giving an NPC Nimble Dodge, Sneak Attack, and Surprise Attack to make it "feel" like a rogue), but we're not locked in to any mandated abilities.

I don't want to think they've somehow failed for including some class-like abilities but not others on an NPC. We're not locked into this, and neither are you!