Prestige Class Spotlight 8: Pathfinder Chronicler
While the core rulebook was chock full of expansions, simplifications, and revisions of various classes from the 3.5 edition of the World’s Oldest Roleplaying Game, there was one entirely new prestige class that cropped up. This prestige class was a direct tie to the setting which gave the burgeoning new system its name. I present to you, the Pathfinder Chronicler.
In the Golarion setting, the Pathfinder Society is an archaeological organization dedicated to exploring and researching ancient ruins and the like to discover more of the past of their world. After all, a variety of ancient civilizations of all sorts of races once existed across the world, but time and disaster, particularly Earthfall, erased many of their accomplishments and secrets.
While some conservatively-minded folk might claim that the society constantly risks unleashing ancient evils, others argue rightfully so that ignoring the past risks it coming to bite modern civilization in the rump, either making the same mistakes as their distant ancestors, or letting said ancient evils fester on their own, rising up from the shadows to a wholly unprepared world.
While there are several archetypes connected with the society, chroniclers in particular are the resourceful scholars and scribes of the organization, constantly searching for more discoveries to record. Don’t mistake them for mere treasure hunters or bumbling scribes. Every chronicler has had their mettle tested, and particularly powerful ones can draw upon powers tied to the many stories of heroics that they have read or personally witnessed.
The knowledge these chroniclers possess easily rivals that of bards, and indeed, many start as bards, and further build upon that resource of lore.
Long before certain archetypes or feats allowed for it, this prestige class was the first with the ability to have the cinematic ability to invest money into the vague category of “useful equipment”, and later deduct from it to draw a useful item from their inventory. Furthermore, they know how to best distribute their load around their body for long travel, and how best to hide contraband on their bodies.
Extremely well versed in language and the written word, these archaeologists can expertly read and write even magical writing, even under duress.
Driven as they are to record their stories and findings, they fight harder against magical effects on their bodies and minds than most, even restoring themselves sometimes from permanent effects like petrification.
Their study of maps and navigation gives them excellent sense of direction and expertise when forging a path through even trackless wilds. Even magical forms of directionless entrapment like the maze spell cannot hold them for long.
Further expanding upon bardic abilities they may have already, These scholars learn the art of bardic performance, though they typically favor oratory over most more musical forms of performance, though recording their tales through song isn’t unheard of.
Knowing the importance of working as a team, chroniclers learn the best ways to help others, improving their odds of success even further.
By investing their inspirational bardic reserves into the written word, they can craft tales that can be read to briefly grant the reader a bit of useful inspiration, though it’s hardly an efficient process. Still, it can give them an edge when farther away from the chronicler.
Adding more uses to the bardic arts, they can also denounce a foe to shake their resolve, or even do so to a crowd to stop them in their tracks and even shift their opinion towards the subject of the diatribe.
Another such use allows them to spur allies to greater action, moving or acting faster than normal for a few seconds.
Powerful chroniclers can even call upon the heroic dead to aid them, summoning lifelike warriors into battle for a brief period.
Eventually, the potency of their spun yarns increases, allowing the reader to read it aloud to provide the effects to many.
Finally, the summoned warriors of these scholars become especially deadly, being ghostly in form, but still lethal, and fearsome indeed to their foes.
If you’re looking for a way to make your character a powerful, non-spell-based support, this prestige class has a good, thematic way to offer it, providing the right equipment for the right job, sticking around when otherwise taken out, and being a major boon in combat and social situations. Having the support of some ghostly barbarians doesn’t hurt either. Obviously bards make the strongest chroniclers since their abilities synergize, but perhaps another class combination could make for an equally competent role?
Though tied heavily to the pathfinder core setting, I can imagine this prestige class might make for an excellent archaeologist or story-spinner sort of character even outside that setting, their dedication to rediscovering the past surely remains the same, however.
Overgrown as it is by a veritable jungle of fungus, the sinkhole city of Tredoz has been lost for some time, accessible from above only by a tiny fissure, and utterly unrecognizable. Worse, ambulatory fungus of all types lurk in the fallen city, including enormous mobile devil’s tooth fungi.
Though his penmanship needs work, Kelloch Long-Exile is nothing if not thorough in his recording of the waymarkers and standing stones around the country. However, his biggest challenge is getting others to accept the work of an ogre like himself.
A little thing like death wasn’t going to stop Rema from her life’s work. When she succumbed to ghoul fever and arose, she continued where she left off, her work exploring various structures from the previous empire only now including the occasional tomb-robbing for the corpses themselves, rather than the treasures within.