The Great Beyond

Paizo's take on the planes offers a different look at the well known "Great Wheel" cosmology of 3.x Dungeons and Dragons.  The Great Beyond expands upon the cursory descriptions given in the campaign guides for Golarion fleshing out the structure of the planes and the denizens that reside there.

Perhaps the biggest drawback to this book is that it is simply too short to give a proper treatment to all the major planes (much less important/notable demiplanes) and the inhabitants within.  As a result while the descriptions of the planes do a good job evoking how a given plane looks and feels there are two things lacking: actual planar traits and statistics for common denizens of that plane.  Both of these require additional books not necessarily needed for play (GameMastery Guide and Bestiary 2) to add mechanical support to the descriptions provided.  There are a few creatures provided (roughly one for each major plane that hasn't gotten some love from Bestiary 1) so the game master does have something to go on if they don't own Bestiary 2.  The GameMastery Guide I believe contains the actual mechanics for planar traits so unless the game master has some 3rd Edition D&D references to fall back on (again requiring additional books) they will have to improvise planar traits.  This might be a plus to some game masters/players but may also be a minus for others.

That being said, the book does a good job with a small page count on detailing all the different planes including maps and describing major/notable locations within them.  Also described are the denizens and their governments (if any) that control the planes.  From a setting perspective these could keep a campaign going for years without ever returning to the material plane.  Story hooks are also sprinkled amongst the descriptions giving characters interesting reasons to go to many of the different planes (other then just that planes are generally awesome to explore!).

The book does take some time to describe some esoteric planes like the Dimension of Time and the Dimension of Dreams which opens the door for some very unusual game types.  While not really up my personal alley for things I'd want to game about there inclusion is an thoughtful step to think outside of the box.  This is a trait that Paizo seems to have in droves and while it doesn't always hit the mark with me I cannot fault that they take the risk/effort to try and implement new takes in what would otherwise be a bland fantasy knock off of D&D (also a variation of existing fantasy settings not that this is a bad thing in and of itself!).

One final issue that is entirely out of Paizo's hand is the missing "iconic" planar creatures from D&D such as slaads and aasimars.  These are likely missing because they are licensed creations of Wizards of the Coast and as a result not part of the OGL/SRD.  This books (and the Bestiaries to support it) have provided interesting monsters in their stead but I still found myself missing the slaads when reading about the Maelstrom.

So to sum up the big problem with this book is that it's too small.  It just doesn't benefit much from being one of the short little booklets that Paizo puts out on a regular basis.  The production values are the usual quality one would expect from Paizo though so as long as the reader doesn't mind referencing other books for their crunch.  I'd rate this a 6 out of 10.

Available in: Physical* and PDF

Links: Paizo, Amazon, Noble Knight

Up Next: The Inner Sea World Guide (Pathfinder)