Product– Pathfinder Lost Omens: Legends
System- Pathfinder 2nd Ed
Producer– Paizo
Price– $18.37 here https://paizo.com/products/btq023gd?Pathfinder-Lost-Omens-Legends
TL; DR– Almost the best text book it could be. 86%
Basics– Welcome to the Age of Lost Omens and Golarion! Pathfinder Lost Omens: Legends is the current standing of the world of Golarion and its people. It updates the setting from Pathfinder 1st ed. to Pathfinder 2nd ed., gives a good overview of the major areas of the Inner Sea, and provides some player options to help players get some mechanical links to the areas of their game. Let’s look at the pieces of this book.
Mechanics or Crunch-This book has some solid mechanics, but I’d still like a bit more. What is really surprising is this book has archetypes for each region’s specific known combat enthusiast. Think of having a Special Forces archetype if you were to do a write up on the US. That is surprising and enjoyable. Also there are backgrounds for each area. Both of those are VERY welcome in the equivalent of a fantasy high school geography book that only the GM might spend a lot of time reading through. I would like a bit more though. Give me some ancestry feats that all the people from an area might get. It doesn’t matter if you are an orc, dwarf, or human, if you come from the cold place of ice and snow, odds are you picked up some cold tolerance! Even some more general feats would be good additions to this book. What is here is some solid mechanics that you don’t often see in these books, but I would just like a bit more to really drive home that players need this book. 4.5/5
Theme or Fluff– This is another solid area of this book, but the book needs a bit more to fully round it out. This book is both too short and too long. If you read this from cover to cover you will not enjoy it as much as if you just wanted to read about one area quickly. You wouldn’t read all of wikipedia in one day, but you would drop in to read quickly on an area if you are studying as an example. This honestly is a fantasy high school geography book as you will get 10-20 pages on an area. That is a good introduction, but the book needs a bit more like who are the gods and more world building. Those things are mentioned, but I feel I need more on them. As a Pathfinder 1st ed. player, I know a lot of that world stuff, but for a new player, they will have to do outside research on who some of the key players are. I learned a few things that maybe I missed before, and I can see where Paizo is setting up the next 10 years worth of adventure paths in the mix, but I felt like I needed a bit more content to better understand the world if I was an outsider. 4.5/5
Execution– PDF? Yes. Hyperlinked? NO! If you buy a college textbook today or even a highschool text on an ipad, it is hyperlinked. This is getting crazy as this is an over 100 page civics book and I have to scroll around and find random bits I want to read more on. What is here is good. If you read in chunks, it reads well enough and is enjoyable. If you marathon the book in one sitting, then it’s not as much fun as it does feel too long and too short. Long for its got LOTS of information, but short because I feel like I need some explanation on a few of the players. The art is good and you get a few headshots of major movers and shakers in the world ,so you can drop them in your game. The layout is nice in general with enough breaks to make the reader not go crazy staring in a textbook. I just need a few more additions to really make this an amazing book 4/5
Summary– I have compared this book to a textbook often, and it is a well done textbook. If you needed to learn what most people in an area would know about the region, this would be a great resource to give the players. Also, if you like me haven’t read every splatbook or adventure path put out by Paizo in the last 10 years, then this is a good way to get deep into the world quickly. Now, there is room for improvement. I need a bit more on the world. Gods play an incredible role in the setting, and I feel like they don’t get enough exploration in this book. I also love what’s here mechanically, but I want more. So, all players, not just who decide to make a hellknight, can lay claim to a heritage from Cheliax. Also, PAIZO LEARN TO HYPERLINK! Let me click around your book with ease please. Most textbooks do it now, and your world textbook needs to as well! This is a good world book with a few key flaws that keep it from being great. 86%
Throat Punch Games 