Orienteering
This blog article is an attempt to collect many of the details about wayfinders and aeon stones for you, into a cohesive document that you can bookmark for reference, since they are scattered across rule books and Lorespire. See, I'm orient(eer)ing you to wayfinders. Aren't I clever?
Wayfinders
Wayfinders are a magical compass, badge of office, and symbol of honor for Pathfinders in both homebrew and Pathfinder Society games.
You earn a FREE WAYFINDER after earning 2 Chronicle Sheets. It’s a free boon under “Chronicle Boons” in your Paizo.com Organized Play account. This is for every character you have.
Otherwise, a standard Wayfinder is level 2 and costs 28gp.
Sense Direction comes with a -2 item penalty if you don’t have a compass. A wayfinder is a kick ass magical compass and gives you +2 to Sense Direction checks, thus negating the penalty. A compass only gives you +1, but you should also have a compass, and maybe an astrolabe too. Trust me, you'll thank me later. 👇
Wayfinders all have command words like “Nathrach” (“Dragon” in Gaelic). You can pick your own cool command word. Nathrach is mine. I call dibs. Maybe the GM will give you a hero point for roleplaying if you blurt out your command word in game when you use your own wayfinder? Doesn’t hurt to try, right Jericho (The Jibber of Jab)?
All wayfinders can cast “Light”. Nothing like a beacon in the dark, . . . HUMAN. I usually play human characters, so I've heard this over and over for years.
Aeon Stones
All wayfinders have an opening in the top to hold an Aeon Stone. Aeon stones make you cool.
Aeon stones have “resonant powers” ONLY when they are invested in a wayfinder. You gotta have that resonant power man.
If you carry 2 wayfinders with aeon stones invested, neither aeon stone will work. This is because their resonant powers “resonate” and cancel each other out.
You can however activate multiple aeon stones to circle your head. Don't do that. You'll look like a SIMS loser, plus they can be easily stolen with a simple disarm check during combat.
When hunting for wayfinders or aeon stones in rulebooks, they are sometimes found on multiple pages, scattered throughout the book. Check the index of every book you have. Sometimes they hide in plain sight. A good starting point is:
Lost Omens: Pathfinder Society Guide
Lost Omens: World Guide
Treasure Vault
GM Core
There are LOTS of wayfinders and aeon stones of varying levels out there. Wayfinders are often higher level, and expensive, but you can get some cool ass affordable aeon stones at low level, and the faction wayfinder boons you'll read about below are practically free.
My personal favorite is my Cleric of Pharasma is a member of Radiant Oath. He has a Radiant Wayfinder with a Pearly White Spindle aeon stone. That means he heals 1hp every minute because of the aeon stone, making sure the healer stays healed, and he can see invisible creatures with the wayfinder. The aeon stone resonant power is kinda lame though, it just grants you resistance 1 to negative energy.
The GM Core and Pathfinder Society Guide are the first places I'd start if I were you. They both have the highest number of choices for wayfinders and aeon stones.
Guns & Gears Soapbox
There is a picture of a Clockwork Wayfinder in Guns & Gears in the Rotating Gears section, on page 189, but there is no stat block anywhere. Not in the book, not on AoN, not on the wiki. What the hell? What gives Paizo? Is this an oversight, or a tease? This is the book that should have a whole chapter on wayfinders, yet it has none at all! 😫 It's probably like, I don't know, . . . level 17, and 50,000gp anyway. 😒 Maybe the new Pathfinder Society season will reveal what a Clockwork Wayfinder is!
Faction Wayfinder Boons
Ok, back to the scheduled program. So 5 out of 6 factions have a faction wayfinder boon that can be applied to wayfinders when you become “Liked” in reputation by your faction. It’s 20 reputation points to become Liked by your faction. Yes, you CAN stack faction wayfinder boons onto your wayfinder. You just need 20 reputation points in the additional factions. So track all that additional reputation you earn.
Harmonic Wayfinder (Envoy's Alliance) - When you Aid, a success becomes crit success
Esoteric Wayfinder (Grand Archive) - Recall Knowledge crit fail becomes a fail
Rugged Wayfinder (Horizon Hunters) - use an action to reduce clumsy, enfeebled, sickened by 1
Adamant Wayfinder (Vigilant Seal) - Resist Harm reaction
Radiant Wayfinder (Radiant Oath) - See invisible within 10’
No Cool Wayfinder (Verdant Wheell) - Don't ask me why, but they didn't give Verdant Wheel a wayfinder of their own
The faction wayfinders are found on Lorespire, and are not found on AoN, or in any book.
Astrolabe
Astrolabe's are available in Pathfinder. They are found in the Pathfinder Society Guide. They're not cheap. In game, they allow you to find your lattitude if you know the date and time. No roll, you just automatically know your lattitude. The same is true in reverse. If you know your lattitude, you can determine the date and time, without having to roll. It also gives you a +1 to Survival checks to identify stars at night.
It doesn't however give you a bonus to survival or sense direction checks, although it should. Especially if you're in featureless terrain. Using a compass or a wayfinder relies on features seen on the horizon to orienteer, so if you don't have those, they should actually be less useful. Making the astrolabe viable. But that's not how they wrote the rules. Although it's not RAW, if someone has gone to the trouble to purchase an astrolabe in game, they have it on their character sheet, and they can explain to me what it's for, as the GM, I'm going to reduce the difficulty of survival checks to navigate.
Homebrew House Rules
- All players that knew what orienteering meant before you read this article get a +1 circumstance bonus to your next sense direction roll.
- If you have actually performed orienteering IRL you get a +2 circumstance bonus to your next sense direction roll.
If you learned to orienteer in the Boy Scouts and possess the Orienteering Merit Badge, you get an automatic success on every sense direction roll.
If you learned to orienteer in the military, you get a critical success on every sense direction roll.
If you bring a legit compass to a game to roll-play your wayfinder, you get a hero point.
If you can demonstrate orienteering at the table, everyone at the table gets a hero point.
If you bring a legit wayfinder or astrolabe to a game, you get a chronicle sheet before the game starts with all possible gold, reputation, XP, downtime, and a heroic RIP boon.
If you can explain what declination is with regards to orienteering, I will buy you a wayfinder IRL.