History TabletopGame / Pathfinder

* TheAgeless: Leshies' magical plant-based bodies do not age, and while they can still die due to violence or mishap, they are functionally immortal otherwise. However, since they're mercurial nature spirits, leshies typically [[WhoWantsToLiveForever don't actually ''want'' to live forever]], and most voluntarily give up their mortal form after a few centuries at most.

''Pathfinder'' Second Edition Remastered was announced in 2023, in the wake of Wizards of the Coast's attempts to revise the OGL. (While [=WotC=] seems to have abandoned attempts to revise the OGL -- something roundly condemned by the RPG community -- Paizo decided that the time was right to formally break any form of legal connection to [=WotC=] and D&D.) Second Edition Remastered's goal is to provide a backwards-compatible revamp of the game that completes the system's divorce from D&D by publishing the system under a new, system-agnostic [[FunWithAcronyms Open [=RPG=] Creative]] license. It removes a large number of elements that were specifically tied to the Open Gaming License or Dungeons and Dragons as a whole, most notably [[CharacterAlignment alignment]], while reimagining, revising, or downplaying a number of legacy elements dependent on [=OGL=] content.

* ChildByRape: ''Pathfinder'', being DarkerAndEdgier than ''Dungeons and Dragons'' played up this aspect of Half-Orcs, something that the game's designers have defended as emphasizing both the darker nature of their setting and the innate heroism of half-orc player characters. That said, there are at least two named half-orc [=NPCs=] in two separate adventure paths who were born of [[InterspeciesRomance consensual encounters]]; a male half-orc pirate in ''Skull & Shackles'' who was born to a human man and the female orc he befriended and helped escape, and Irabeth Tirablade, a female half-orc paladin born to a male orc that [[DefectorFromDecadence abandoned his people's evil ways]] [[LoveRedeems to marry a human woman]].

* OurTitansAreDifferent: The Titans tried to wage war upon the gods. Some, the ChaoticGood Elysian Titans, turned upon their kin and assisted in their defeat. The ChaoticEvil Thanatotic Titans were imprisoned in the deep layers of the Abyss, where they created the flawed demodands as servants. Both are hideously powerful, and described as very near divine. Then there are the [[MultipleHeadCase Hekaton]][[MultiArmedAndDangerous kheires]], who were the first to take up arms against the gods, and rather than be banished to the Abyss with the Thanatotic Titans, they were cast out of reality because they were ''too powerful for the Abyss to contain'', and their lesser descendants are more powerful than regular titans of the other varieties. ''Bestiary 4'' then introduced the Formorian titans. Rather than the malformed giants of ''Dungeons and Dragons'', they're titans so powerful they had to imprisoned within their own armour!

* OurTitansAreDifferent: The Titans tried to wage war upon the gods. Some, the ChaoticGood Elysian Titans, turned upon their kin and assisted in their defeat. The ChaoticEvil Thanatotic Titans were imprisoned in the deep layers of the Abyss, where they created the flawed demodands as servants. Both are hideously powerful, and described as very near divine. Then there are the [[MultipleHeadCase Hekaton]][[MultiArmedAndDangerous kheires]], who were the first to take up arms against the gods, and rather than be banished to the Abyss with the Thanatotic Titans, they were cast out of reality because they were ''too powerful for the Abyss to contain'', and their lesser descendants are more powerful than regular titans of the other varieties. ''Bestiary 4'' then introduced the Formorian titans. Rather than the malformed giants of ''Dungeons and Dragons'', they're titans so powerful they had to imprisoned within their own armour! Still a case of SadlyMythtaken though.

* PlotHole: A particularly noteworthy one exists in the Carrion Crown adventure path. The villain's plans rely on retrieving a few specific items and one book is dedicated to the party getting one of these items before them. Despite the item being described as essential to their plans several times the party getting it first has no impact on those plans. There's no explanation for why the plan still works and the item's surprise lack of importance means the whole book revolving around it can be [[{{Filler}} skipped without affecting the plot at all]].

** [[UnwittingPawn Paladins of Asmodeus]] ''do not happen''. Forget you ever read that.
*** ''Anti''paladins of Asmodeus however, are allowed with the [[http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/alternate-classes/antipaladin/archetypes/paizo---antipaladin-archetypes/insinuator-antipaladin-archetype Insinuator]] and [[http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/alternate-classes/antipaladin/archetypes/paizo---antipaladin-archetypes/tyrant-antipaladin-archetype Tyrant]] archetypes (the latter even ''requires'' you being LawfulEvil).

** The ''Hell's Rebels'' AP has the players leading an uprising against the Thrice-Damned House of Thrune after it starts a crackdown on the northwestern Archduchy of Ravounel, previously known as an oasis for free-thinkers in Infernal Cheliax.
* RiddleForTheAges: How did Aroden die? Per the developers, that question will never receive an official answer.

* SealedEvilInACan: All over the place. The biggest evil, in the biggest can, is the apocalypse god [[EldritchAbomination Rovagug the Rough Beast]], sealed into the molten core of Golarion by all the gods who survived his initial rampage.

* ShamSupernatural: Razmir, the GodEmperor of Razmiran, is an ordinary, though very powerful wizard who uses a GodGuise to run a ScamReligion. Razmiran "priests" therefore have no actual divinely granted powers nor levels in the cleric class: the game implements them as a sorcerer archetype and a PrestigeClass that use various ritualistic tricks to imitate the class features of a cleric.

%%** Similar events are behind the upcoming ORC game license, as Wizards of the Coast once again attempted to tighten its licensing policy in preparation for OneDnD.

** {{Downplayed}} with Erastil, the LawfulGood god of hunting, agriculture, family, and rural communities. One of the most ancient deities of the pantheon, he actually has no problem with strong women or even female warriors, he just thinks they should at some point get married to equally strong partners and start families with them. He's mildly baffled by fellow LawfulGood goddess Iomedae's[[note]]goddess of justice, valor, and duty, essentially the PatronGod of {{paladin}}hood[[/note]] disinterest in marriage, but at the same time has an OddFriendship with NeutralGood LoveGoddess Shelyn, due to her own support for marriage and families (Shelyn herself is part of a [[{{Polyamory}} thruple]] with Desna and Sarenrae).

* SuccubusInLove: Nocticula, a {{Demon Lord|sAndArchdevils}} and the [[MonsterProgenitor first succubus]], became lovers and [[TheMasochismTango rivals]] with the succubus Shamira after Shamira infiltrated her bedchamber. Their relationship was extraordinarily unusual for ChaoticEvil demons, all the more so when Nocticula became a ChaoticNeutral goddess yet remained AmicableExes with Shamira.

* ThreadOfProphecySevered: Aroden, the patron god of humanity, was prophesied to descend from the heavens to rule mankind as a GodEmperor in a new golden age in 4606 AR. On the prophesied date, worldwide natural disasters wracked Golarion: Aroden had instead died of unknown causes. In the century-plus since, no prophecy has come to pass anywhere, which has caused problems for Pharasma's priesthood since she's the goddess of prophecy in addition to life and death.
* TimeyWimeyBall: The ''Return Of The Runelords'' Adventure Paths involves extensive time travel, especially in the latter half. The rules are never really made clear, but, in addition to historical events changing, there's also things like a library frozen in time (which the [=PCs=] can unfreeze) and an entire city state caught in a GroundhogDayLoop (which the players can also fix.)

** The Boneyard is a sprawling graveyard where all mortal souls, no matter who or what they were in life, come to stand before Pharasma, be judged and determine their place within the Great Beyond. Most of those who are judged fit to remain within the Boneyard are those who are unclaimed by any gods and unaligned with any particular ethos in life.

* WizardsWar: The nations of Geb and Nex suffered a brutal ForeverWar under their namesake [[TheArchmage Archmages]], including multiple {{Fantastic Nuke}}s, huge [[NightOfTheLivingMooks waves of undead]], and armies of mechanical and biological constructs. 4000 years later, [[TheNecrocracy most of Geb is undead]], much of Nex is [[SaltTheEarth desolate]], and the no man's land between them is a magically depleted wasteland.

* EarlyInstallmentWeirdness: The first few adventure paths have a DarkerAndEdgier tone to them that borders on mean-spirited at times (like the hillbilly rapist ogres in ''Rise of the Runelords''), a relic from an attempt to establish Golarian as a more "adult" setting than most ''D&D''. Later entries went for more of a "mature and nuanced" tone that tries to deal with weightier matters but not in a gratuitous shock-value way.

* EmptyLevels: ''Pathfinder'' has taken steps to avert this trope with a vengeance. Unlike 3.5, where most of the martial classes would end up having most their levels granting nothing but an attack bonus, practically every non-spellcaster class gets a class feature every level--something the official guide for converting {{splat}}s from 3.5 specifically points out. Spellcasters, of course, get spells instead. This has the side effect of {{nerf}}ing {{Prestige Class}}es by comparison: you miss out on a lot more features of the base class than before.

* EvilVersusOblivion: [[SatanicArchetype Asmodeus]] was more than willing to pull an EnemyMine with Sarenrae and other nonevil gods to ensure [[OmnicidalManiac Rovagug]]'s imprisonment.

* {{Familiar}}: Wizards, witches, and default sorcerers have the automatic option of gaining one of these. Wizards can choose to establish an "arcane bond" with either a living familiar or an inanimate object, such as a magic amulet, weapon, or wand. Only one type of sorcerer gets this bonding ability. Witches, however, MUST have a familiar, which acts as a link to the mysterious patrons that grant witches their magical power. Several other spellcasting classes has familiars (only familiars, those with something like the item bonding tend to do it for specific, restricted types of item) as a possible class feature, and a feat chain can allow anyone with strong enough will to get a familiar.

* FateWorseThanDeath: Do NOT get captured alive by drow in this setting.

* FunWithAcronyms: The licence used by remastered version of 2nd Edition, which replaces the older OGL, is called Open RPG Creative License (ORC for short).

** One of the potential drawbacks on a magical item is that the user's gender changes while the item remains in their possession (or possibly, just while it's in use). Technically a curse for cisgender player characters, although an item with this drawback still otherwise works as normal.

* GenreShift: Occurs at the start of the second volume in the Kingmaker Adventure Path. You go from being typical adventurers to becoming the rulers of a new kingdom. Adventuring still takes up most of the gameplay, but you will spend a lot of time running your kingdom.

** Tar-Baphon, the Whispering Tyrant, is a lich obsessed with both power and personal survival. He views his current status as an ageless undead and the most powerful necromancer to ever live as a stopgap measure mean to give himself time to work towards his real goal -- conquering Absalom, draining every drop of divine power from the ''Starstone'' and becoming a god.

* HotSkittyOnWailordAction: Several species in ''Pathfinder'' are quite capable of breeding with just about anything. Aside from the typical half-orcs, half-elves, aasimar and tieflings, there's also the matter of sorcerers whose bloodlines can include devils, dragons, angels, undead, plants, and shadows.

* InterspeciesRomance: With all the HalfHumanHybrids and other crossbreeds running around and considering the HotSkittyOnWailordAction above, this happens pretty often. Though not as often as in ''D&D''. It even shows up specifically in certain adventure paths.

** In the second adventure for ''Reign of Winter'', a potential non-player character ally is Greta, who is a female winter wolf [[note]]a race of intelligent, evil, talking white-furred wolves with frost-breath attacks and cold immunity[[/note]] currently transformed into a human form by the magic of her city of residence. Unlike Undrella, it's quite explicit that she's looking for romance, but a player character could eventually use this to [[LoveRedeems help her]] to make a HeelFaceTurn. It's easier to get her interested if the [=PC=] is using a certain magic item that makes her assume they're also a transformed winter wolf, but it's possible to do so without it, and even if she is misled in the first place, she [[IfItsYouItsOkay doesn't care when she finds out that her lover isn't a winter wolf]]. That said, it does make her especially interested in finding some way of maintaining a human form if she leaves the city.

* InTheBlood: Sorcerer bloodlines.

* LadyOfWar: The goddess Iomedae is, well, the [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin goddess]] of this.

* LightIsNotGood: Shining Children (creepy borderline-EldritchAbomination evil outsiders with light and fire themed powers) and Lurkers in Light (creepy extraplanar [[TheFairFolk evil fey]] with abilities that make them most dangerous in well-illuminated areas) from the second ''Bestiary''. There is also the demon lord Nurgal, representing the merciless, destructive power of the sun, and has a portfolio of [[SillyReasonForWar pointless conflict]].

* CharacterizationMarchesOn: Tying into the EarlyInstallmentWeirdness nature of the setting, many of ''Pathfinders'' more recurring characters, especially the gods, have gone through this over the years. For example: Erastil and Asmodeus used to have sexist aspects to their characterizations, but overtime this was removed (Asmodeus) or changed (Erastil) to reflect Paizo's move away from their original ideas for the setting. Even gods without controversial and outdated views had elements changed to make them more less rigid; Pharasma going from universally hating undead, to more so being against the act of creating them as an example.

** The Esoteric Order of that Palatine Eye is several late 19th and early 20th century occultist belief systems blended together, with Aldus Canter being a clear analogue to [[Creator/AleisterCrowley Aleister Crowley]].

* CharacterizationMarchesOn: Tying into the EarlyInstallmentWeirdness nature of the setting, many of ''Pathfinder;s'' more recurring characters, especially the gods, have gone through this over the years. For example: Erastil and Asmodeus used to have sexist aspects to their characterizations, but overtime this was removed (Asmodeus) or changed (Erastil) to reflect Paizo's move away from their original ideas for the setting. Even gods without controversial and outdated views had elements changed to make them more less rigid; Pharasma going from universally hating undead, to more so being against the act of creating them as an example.

''Pathfinder'' Second Edition Remastered was announced in 2023, in the wake of Wizards of the Coast's attempts to revise the OGL. (While [=WotC=] seems to have abandoned attempts to revise the OGL - something roundly condemned by the RPG community - Paizo decided that the time was right to formally break any form of legal connection to [=WotC=] and D&D.) Second Edition Remastered's goal is to provide a backwards-compatible revamp of the game that completes the system's divorce from D&D by publishing the system under a new, system-agnostic [[FunWithAcronyms Open [=RPG=] Creative]] license. It removes a large number of elements that were specifically tied to the Open Gaming License or Dungeons and Dragons as a whole, most notably [[CharacterAlignment alignment]], while reimagining, revising, or downplaying a number of legacy elements dependent on [=OGL=] content.

* {{Baku}}: Baku resemble floating, shaggy and tusked tapirs, and can when feeding choose to eat all of a person's dreams -- causing them to wake up later exhausted and unrefreshed — or only their nightmares — which grants immunity to nightmare-inducing magic or dream haunting by malicious beings. They are mortal enemies of the dream-haunting night hags, and go to great lengths to hunt them down, fight them and prevent them from preying on sleeping minds.

* BlandNameProduct: Strangely, the Ultimate Equipment book has "Wismuth Salix", a chalky pink liquid medicine. "Wismuth" is a play on bismuth, and "salix" can be translated from Latin as "peppy" - it's fantasy Pepto-Bismol.

* BloodKnight: Golarion orc society tends to emphasize fighting, pain, and glory. How this is received by others varies highly on context and politics - the orcs of Belkzen are generally seen as barbarous for their standoffish nature and border raids, but the Matanji orcs are considered heroic by their neighbors due to them focusing their aggression on fighting demons and teaching others how to do the same.

** As the book ''Monsters of Myth'' is dedicated to detailing monsters that are ShroudedInMyth and how they can be used in an adventure, this trope was bound to come up. Most of the monsters in the book are either truly supernatural, have a MultipleChoicePast, or both, but there is one exception. [[spoiler:The Melfesh Monster is actually a series of spawn of a subterranean fungal colony that exist to bring it food. There is nothing that is particularly maleficient about this colony—[[NonMaliciousMonster it just needs to eat]].]]

*** The Mwangi Expanse is DarkestAfrica - in 1st edition. 2nd edition makes a deliberate effort to humanize the setting and present it from an insider's perspective rather than that of colonialists and looters. A 400-page book about the setting was released in 2021.

** Heaven is a realm of perfect goodness and exquisite order, and its residents see the two as inextricably linked—righteousness requires structure, but structure is pointless without a just and noble goal.
** Nirvana is a realm of pure good—an idyllic wilderness of enlightenment and redemption that promises sanctuary to the weary and enlightenment and transcendence to those who seek it out.

* {{Kamaitachi}}: Kamaitachi are malicious fey creatures resembling flying weasels with curved blades instead of legs, who delight in causing pain and suffering. They have the ability to delay the actual damage caused by their slashing claws — effectively, someone they cut won't actually start bleeding and hurting until the kamaitachi decides they should — and use this to force people to shame and demean themselves in exchange for their lives.

* NighInvulnerable: Subverted. In this game system, everything is vulnerable to getting hurt. Creatures from TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons 3rd edition often had their Damage Reduction completely removed or at best heavily limited (no more [=DR=]50 enemies). Even being incorporeal only grants full immunity to almost all non-magical attacks - it's possible to punch a ghost to "death" with bare hands, if the hands are enchanted.

** It was ruled that, if an attack would do zero damage, instead of always doing one point of ScratchDamage, it does one point of nonlethal damage. Most creatures that were affected by this rule were creatures like house cats or rats, which were fairly notorious in 3.x for their ability to injure or defeat 1st-level humans (scratch damage is a big deal when you have four hit points) - [[http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0780.html humorously demonstrated here.]]

** The Magus has the option to get a Swashbuckler deed and use their arcane pool points as panache points to use the ability. However, they count as a 0th-level Swashbuckler for the purposes of the ability. This is a highly unusual way to implement it (many abilities copied from another class would do nothing at all at 0th level), and had to be confirmed via errata - which added that although they can spend their arcane points as panache points, they don't ''have'' panache points for these abilities, not even if they get actual panache points by another source. The goal appears to be to stop the Magus from gaining Precise Strike or Evasive, respectively powerful offensive and defensive boosts that care about whether you have at least one panache point and your Swashbuckler level, that were considered acceptable on a non-caster melee class but too powerful on the Magus. This has the side effect of making the ''majority'' of Swashbuckler deeds, even quite innocuous ones, partially or entirely nonfunctional if taken by the Magus.

* OurAlebrijesAreDifferent: Alebrijes are magical beasts created when a particularly vivid dream inspired by a real or imagined living creature generates a new being within the Dimension of Dreams, or more rarely when a preexisting animal becomes altered by the Ethereal Plane's influences. They resemble multicolored animals, usually patterned with complex stripes, spots or spirals and sometimes with additional traits — wings of some sort are fairly common. They can move between the Material Plane, the Ethereal Plane and individual mind-scapes at will, and may form strong bonds with individual mortals, especially if they were created from a dream of an animal with whom the mortal had a close link. In these cases, the alebrije may seek out the mortal after death to protect their soul and escort it to the afterlife.

* OurSoulsAreDifferent: The planes are constantly being worn away by the Maelstrom, and so need a constant supply of divine energy from the Positive Energy Plane to maintain themselves and grow. The gods couldn't trust each other to divide this divine energy fairly, so they divided it into discrete packets, gave those packets free will, and allowed them to choose - via dedication to a deity or CharacterAlignment - which plane would be their ultimate home. Those packets of free-willed divine energy are souls.

* OxymoronicBeing: As funny as it may seem, one of the best build for an oracle of [[AnIcePerson Winter]] is to be a lizardfolk with the Cold-Blooded curse - as in, '''extra weak''' to the cold. This is because oracles have a spell to throw the effects of their curse at an opponent, and giving a foe -4 to saving throws against your primary spells as well as a chance to stagger them is nothing to scoff at. Not to mention that several of your revelations have effects that can help counteract the curse.

** Ghlaunder, the Gossamer King, is a ChaoticEvil god of parasitism and disease strongly associated with biting insects — he himself takes the form of a hideous, mosquito-like monster. Thematically, his cult and mythos emphasize motifs of feeding off of others while spreading weakness and disease to one's victims.

* ResistantToMagic: Characters and monsters with Spell Resistance (SR) have a chance of {{No Sell}}ing any spell (except for a select few) cast against them. Specifically, the caster needs to make a 1d20 + spellcaster level check against the target's SR value, otherwise the spell just bounces off — and even if it doesn't, the target is still entitled to any regular saving throws the spell allows afterwards. Enemy SR can completely shut down low-level casters, because it usually starts in the high teens and there are very few ways to improve your rolls to overcome SR beyond simply leveling up, forcing casters to focus on indirect damage, like manipulating the environment or buffing their non-magical party members.

* WorldOfTechnicolorHair: Gnomes are close kin to fey and often have brightly-colored hair -— scarlet, blue, purple, green, yellow, white, and so on -- as a result; mundane shades are almost entirely unknown. Elves also have more diverse coloring than humans but tend to match their surroundings, so their primary unusual color is green for forest-dwelling elves.

* ParanormalGamblingAdvantage: Nudge the Odds is a spell that enhances the user's skill at gambling. The catch is that it turns a physical feature of the user like their iris or a lock of their hair gold, which [[GlamourFailure can't be concealed using magic]]. As every village on Golarion will have at least one professional magic user on average, [[AwesomeButImpractical don't bother]]. Magic is common enough that the odds that you'll be caught are [[NoFairCheating quite high]], and it's only a minor boost.

Paizo's official online ruleskeeper, the Archives of Nethys, is available for [[http://www.aonprd.com 1st Edition]] and [[http://2e.aonprd.com 2nd Edition]]. In addition, a ''massive'' online index of rule information for [=1st Edition=] -- almost everything Paizo published, plus some third-party materials, minus many setting-specific and thus copyrighted names -- can be [[http://www.d20pfsrd.com found here.]]

!! The World of Lost Omens

* ''VideoGame/PathfinderKingmaker'' (2018), an isometric single-player RPG adapting the ''Kingmaker Adventure Path''
** ''VideoGame/PathfinderWrathOfTheRighteous'' (2021), an indirect sequel adapting the ''Wrath of the Righteous Adventure Path''

Totally unrelated to [[Film/Pathfinder1987 either]] [[Film/Pathfinder2007 film of the same name]], or [[Literature/Pathfinder2010 the novel of the same name]] written by Creator/OrsonScottCard.

* ''VideoGame/PathfinderKingmaker'' (2018), an isometric single-player RPG
** ''VideoGame/PathfinderWrathOfTheRighteous'' (2021), an indirect sequel

Paizo's official online ruleskeeper, the Archives of Nethys, is available for [[http://www.aonprd.com 1st Edition]] and [[http://www.aonprd.com 2nd Edition]]. In addition, a ''massive'' online index of rule information for [=1st Edition=] -- almost everything Paizo published, plus some third-party materials, minus many setting-specific and thus copyrighted names -- can be [[http://www.d20pfsrd.com found here.]]

* EasySexChange:
** The ''Wrath of the Righteous Adventure Path'' describes Irabeth Tirabade selling a family heirloom in order to buy a special potion for her wife Anevia as a wedding present so the latter could complete her transition.
** Second Edition introduces the Serum of Sex Shift, which gives the drinker a one-time limited shapechanging effect to change their primary and secondary sexual characteristics in any way of their choice. Given its price of 60 gold pieces, it's somewhat out of reach for everyday commoners, but adventurers would be able to afford one pretty quickly.

The ''Pathfinder'' RPG is the first, and arguably most well-known, Tabletop RPG system produced by [[Creator/{{Paizo}} Paizo Publishing]]. Paizo Publishing began life as a group that was split off from Creator/WizardsOfTheCoast in 2002 as an outsourced publisher for ''Magazine/{{Dragon}}'' and ''Magazine/{{Dungeon}}'' Magazines. When [=WotC=] announced the fourth edition of ''D&D'', they took back the publication rights to the magazines in order to create exclusively online versions. Now without their only client, Paizo decided to publish a 3rd-edition-focused magazine of its own, ''Pathfinder'', keeping up the Adventure Path tradition they'd established in the last three years of ''Dungeon'' while establishing a new in-house campaign setting -- the "Inner Sea", based on a new world called Golarion. This saw the publication of the ''Rise of the Runelords'', ''Curse of the Crimson Throne'', ''Second Darkness'' and ''Legacy of Fire'' Adventure Paths published specifically for ''D&D'' 3.5 under the Open Game License. However, as they heard from more fans of 3rd Edition who were dissatisfied with the radical changes introduced in the 4th Edition of ''D&D'', Paizo saw an opportunity: they would [[StartMyOwn create their own ruleset]], using the foundation of [=3rd-ed=] ''D&D'' (the core rules of which were in perpetual open license under the Open Gaming License) to offer something new and fresh while allowing old players to build on what they already knew, created, and played. It also prided itself on being compatible with 3.5 (with a few rules alterations, of course, mostly in service of trying to patch what were then 3E's most obvious holes and broken parts).

* BecomeYourWeapon: A high-level summoner has the ability to merge forms with their eidolon, combining their stats and effectively acting and fighting as one being. The Synthesist archetype allows them to do it from level 1, at the cost of not being able to summon the eidolon as a separate being. Heavily nerfed in ''Second Edition'', however.

* BeneathTheEarth: The world beneath is known as the Darklands and draws inspiration from pulp fiction of the early 1900s, such as Creator/EdgarRiceBurroughs's ''Literature/{{Pellucidar}}''. It's divided into three "layers"--the uppermost is home to fairly normal humanoids like [[OurGoblinsAreDifferent goblins]] and [[OurDwarvesAreAllTheSame dwarves]], the middle layer is home to more reclusive races like the [[OurElvesAreDifferent dark elves]], and the deepest pits are artificial Vaults, vast terrariums which may be {{Lost World}}s or the homes of [[EldritchAbomination unspeakable horrors]].

** Serpent's Skull: [[spoiler:The serpentfolk's plots to return their god Ydersius to full power was thwarted.]]

* ExpertInUnderwaterBasketWeaving: Characters in ''First Edition'' can invest in Craft and Profession skills, many of which are so specific and so orthogonal to the adventuring trade that they're only of use to [=NPCs=] or in particular acts of ItemCrafting. The ''Unchained'' expansion lets characters gain even ''more'' specialized expertise in those skills.
** ''Second Edition'' downplays this--some skill feats can have oddball, very specialized effects, but almost all skills as a whole have a defined niche. Played straight by Lore skills, however, which function as "very specialized knowledge" skills.

* FanService: Paizo puts a lot of effort into artwork. And makes a point of featuring a lot of female [=NPC=]s and characters. The fanservice isn't just of the sexual variety. A foreword to one of the ''Jade Regent'' adventures notes several great things about a story that combines ninjas with vikings, such as having a good excuse to paint a cover featuring ninjas fighting on a burning longboat.

** The Mendevian Crusades are, well, meant to be analogues to the Crusades, with the difference being that they're against demons boiling out of an interplanar breach called the Worldwound. The First Crusade was a notable success story, but the three subsequent Crusades were at best barely able to hold onto its gains due to infighting. The ''Wrath of the Righteous'' adventure path (and [[VideoGame/PathfinderWrathOfTheRighteous its CRPG adaptation]]) deals with the Fifth Crusade.

** ''Rasputin Must Die'', the fifth part of the "Reign of Winter" adventure path, adds stats for real UsefulNotes/WorldWarI Russian guns, even mustard gas. It also includes the Trench Fighter archetype for the Fighter class.

* PowerCreepPowerSeep: Correcting the power creep of 3rd edition TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons was one of the game's founding goals. Inevitably, as it has aged, it has developed a few examples itself...which ''Second Edition'' was in part intended to correct.

* {{Reincarnation}}: Inherited random reincarnation spells from [=D&D=] 3.5. In ''Pathfinder 2nd edition'' Reincarnate is a {{ritual|magic}} that brings one back as a common ancestry for the region where the ritual is performed on a d20 roll of 1-14, but an uncommon or [[ReincarnatedAsANonHumanoid rare ancestry]] on 15-20, which can include living dolls, shapeshifting spiders, or fragments of cosmic energy that have accumulated shells of mineral or plant matter.

* SealTheBreach: Golarion suffers from the Worldwound, a nation-spanning {{Hellgate}} and [[TheLegionsOfHell demon-infested]] RealityBleed. Five crusades are mobilized to fight back its advance, and in the climax of the ''Wrath of the Righteous'' adventure path, the PlayerParty can [[spoiler:kill the {{Demon Lord|sAndArchdevils}} responsible and [[SupernaturalSealing ritually seal]] the Worldwound forever.]]
** Done canonically by the time ''Second Edition'' rolls around.
* SecretArt: The Uncommon, Rare, and Unique rarity traits from ''Second Edition'' denote increasing levels of obscurity--something with the Uncommon trait requires special training or comes from a particular part of the world, something with the Rare trait is very difficult to find (and is only included through either in-game discovery or allowed to by taken through GM fiat), and something with the Unique trait is one of a kind. Notably, Recall Knowledge checks become increasingly difficult the more "secret" the thing you're recalling is.

* TooManyHalves: Mechanically possible via abuse of the various "half-x" templates. Using only first-party material, it is theoretically possible (though any sensible GM would veto it for a player character) to have a creature that is half-fiend (there are actually ten subvarieties), half-celestial, half-dragon, half-janni, and half-serpent, for a creature [[Webcomic/DarthsAndDroids two-and-a-half times as big as you'd expect]]. Averted by ''Second Edition'', where you can only have one Versatile Heritage.

* UnequalRites: As with 3.5, ''Pathfinder First Edition'' has various ways in which this can manifest, and now has more feats that further differentiate between each type.

* WrittenByTheWinners: Ask an average dwarf about their ancestral Quest for the Sky, and they'll describe a glorious time where the dwarven people united as one and heroically fought their way out of the Darklands and found their way to the surface of Golarion. Ask your average orc, whose ancestors were brutally attacked and displaced by the dwarves with near-genocidal tactics during the Quest, and you'll get a ''very'' different perspective.