Let me preface this by saying this is 4 star book, solid, better than Ultimate Magic, but not near the greatness of the Advanced Players Guide. HOWEVER I will give it 5 to try and deflate some of the shear ridiculousness of some of the reviews that give one star or two stars. Please, people, if you have not actually read the book, just glanced at its pretty pictures; try to imagine how some of the features, if not for you, are at least written out well for the people whom do enjoy them, do not put up 1 star reviews. Some of us painstakingly went through the beta, added suggestions, knew what was coming, and were quite happy with the result. You belittle authors hard work with ramblings like "NINJAS R SUCK" or "LOL Y ARMER IS DR?". The comments I see lambasting the Samurai and the Ninja without even understanding what a Archtype and an Alternate Class are astound me.

This book, apart from the gunslinger annoyed me. The Ninja is a rogue with an eastern flavour that should have been handled as an archetype build and a samurai is essentially identical to a cavalier. I do really like the gunslinger though my players do not...

I really had high expectations of this book but it failed utterly. A huge amount of this book is dedicated to spells. Um Ultimate Combat = spells? That is what I bought Ultimate Magic for right? The mastering combat section tried to introduce a whole heap of complexity right where it is not needed and the options for classes felt thin. To quote bilbo, like trying to spread too little butter across a piece of toast.

Called shot rules are cool! About four books too late though. Nearly every campaign has their own house rules by now and they actually contain some stuff in it that has to do with hitting items, not just body parts...

So, what I think happened is someone in the Paizo Pathfinder team went "Hey, wouldn't an Ultimate Magic book be cool? We could put stylised duels in, some nifty class builds and some cool spells!" Then someone else went "Well if we do that lets have an Ultimate Combat book too! Not sure what we could do in it but we will figure it out as we go..." This is one book (with the notable exception of the artwork and the Gunslinger) that I wish I had never bought. In fact it is still laying precisely where I put it after finishing reading it and trying to convince my players the gunslinger was cool. It has not been touched since then...

It may seem like the following review is the same as the one I gave for Ultimate Magic. Well, it pretty much is, because I feel pretty much the same way about both.

It's hard to take reviews seriously on this board. If you're a longtime lurker or poster, you know well that every additional book Paizo has put out for Pathfinder has from its inception been a bright, shiny target seemingly custom made for the hurled monkey poo of a horde of miserable would-be design "experts." These people spend six months at a time lurking in the forums and throwing hate on every idea as it is being tested, so should we be surprised when they rain their hate down on the product once it has been released?

Here is a frank and honest review from somebody who actually does make a side living making games and related accessories, and who doesn't have an axe to grind or a big fat ego to polish.

I love this book. I admit, I don't use all of it. I don't care. What I use, I love. What my players use, they love. Nothing here has yet broken the game. Nothing here is out of whack or out of balance. I make great and memorable NPCs from this material, and I have never been so happy doing so.

This book, as with Advanced Character, and Ultimate Magic, continues what Paizo does best. They zero in on what options were missing, or were cluttered, or required five 3.5 books to accomplish, or that were originally poorly conceived by 3rd parties, and they improve on them and put them all in a nice, clear, tidy reference for me to have all the fun I wanted to have, but never did.

In short, the book provides great fun alternatives, and covers a lot of ground, making the work of a 3rd party designer like me, a whole lot of fun, and accommodating a wide variety of imaginative builds.

And a note to those who compare the information offered in these books to 3.5 variants. Yes, you've seen some of this before, and we get it. You are bored with it. But it is a gigantic ego trip to think that the only people Paizo makes these books for, is yourself. There are new players Paizo has to think about, too. Players who have not seen these ideas before. Give a matter a little thought and try not to be so eager to deal out spite and venom.

I really wanted to say thank you for developing the "Style" Feats. It was EXACTLY what I was asking for. So many additional options otherwise as well. Excellent piece of work.

And to "GalacticCmdr"

You are the reason Facebook should have a "Hate it" button.

I knew that I had to own a copy of this book the moment I heard the Gunslinger Base Class was included in it. And I'm actually very happy with it. I think Grit is a great mechanic, and it's even better when your GM can use it as a reward when the Gunslinger tries to pull off some crazy maneuver and succeeds.
But as a GM who is struggling to find a way to fit firearms into a world without completely breaking it for our plate-mail friends, I was disappointed. I understand that the aims of the firearms rules were meant to be realistic (and even includes a disclaimer), but I still weep for our group's fighter when I read these. Nonetheless, the rules for firearms can certainly be tweaked to help the armor-bearers of the group. I simply gave them half their armor bonus (if they had med. or heavy armor) as DR, rounded up. Realistic? Probably not. Keeping the fighter from throwing the book at me and encouraging him to keep his head down? Absolutely.

That aside, I had high hopes for the Armor as DR system for Pathfinder, and I have to say I was disappointed also. I'd been hoping for 3.5 to do the idea justice, but they never even came close. Pathfinder at least makes an honest attempt, but still falls short.

Monk Feats? Awesome.
Steampunk Gunslinger Wizards? Awesome. Can't wait to test 'em out.
New Archetypes? Always fun. Really like the Musketeer Cavalier Archetype. It really encourages me to run a Commonplace Guns Pathfinder setting (once I settle on the firearm rules)

Piecemeal armor & gladiator weapons? Great if you're planning on running any sort of Arena games. If not, then you have some detailed armor for bandits and such.

I feel the Eastern themes of this book could have been played up more, Let alone the lack of Samurai and Ninja Base classes. At least the weapons were very detailed and interesting.

All in all, I see this book as one long list of options for use in your own game, but it's not a book where you will use every shiny new rule bauble immediately. I think the book is more subtle than that, and encourages the players to come up with their own use for the material given in this book (after all, the spellslinger archetype is so out there that I feel like creating a world that could explain it as a variation or an evolution of the common wizard.)

I would say this book might not be completely essential to everyone at it's 40 dollar price tag, but if you want to add some bits (read: boulders) of flavor to your game, you can't go wrong with this book.

4-stars.

There may be an unballanced thing or two along the way, but hey, I think I can live with that.

There is a new class - the gunslinger, which half of my group hated on sight and another half wwanted to play immediately, so I don't doubt that I'll see one in action pretty soon. It will probably see some use in skull and shackles as well IMO.

Two class variants that bring some asian flavour for current AP and as extensive archetypes ammend some things with their core counter parts. Samurai focuses the cavalier even more to combat and the Ninja brings a bit more mystic power to the rogue and also tries to add some combat value to that class, which was long asked for around the boards.

There's a ton of feats, a lot of them focused on unarmed combat give the monk some much needed love and there are archetypes that cover some previously vacant niches, like antipaladin turning undead (sort of), rather lovely, and some weird, like the siege mage. It may be weak, but I'm considering to have a canon instead of a familiar now.

Other sections include expanded asian weapon and armour rack that are rather fine. It could have been handled a bit different, but it isn't bad either. Siege weapons and vehicles are back, as are the guns. Just remember the obsession with realism while reading the firearms section, they are rather inferior to bows on later lvels on sheer DPR, but that's where guns normally belong IMO before the industrial age made them repeating (advanced firearms are included as well).

I haven't seen armour as DR and piecemeal armours in action yet, so I'll have to wait to comment them further.

As far as new spells go, there are tings to play with the new mechanics from the book and there are spells for more combat-minded casters, like rangers, paladins and so on. I don't see any problem with including these in a combat book.

So, let's see what we have here: Gunslinger, Ninja, and Samurai. Wow, what an awesome collection of core classes that just can be dropped right into a campaign. It is the kind of decision that frankly one face palm is just not enough.

Pathfinder also continues its drive to employ the worst editors in the game industry.

Remember boys and girls = Ultimate Combat means even more spells. Lots of new spells because we could just not fit them all into Ultimate Magic. You know the book that should have spells, unlike say Combat which should at least give the weapon types a bit of love - especially at the higher end of the level chart where damage blasters rule the roost.

It is like someone had a bet to produce a book more worthless than Ultimate Magic. Something with minimal play balance and usage. Splat book junk now is a larger and more expensive format - hey what's not to love.

This book is worth it for at least helping wrap up the possibilities for a oriental game.

With a fair amount of options, giving some lovin' to the combat classes UM left out. I love it for the guns information, the airships and all new rogue archetypes. A MUST for any table looking for supplements.

I am glad I got this on PDF and not DTF... the money difference is what saved it.

Classes: Left so much to hope for.
Gunslinger - Less than inspiring but a nice ranged option to supplement casters and archers when done right.

Ninja - *sigh* Rogue. So badly done. I have seen 13 year olds write better tripe for their characters.

Samurai - A complete joke and waste of paper. With so many sources to draw upon for inspiration for samurai, this load of FECES is what counts as a samurai? A low quality cavalier wannabe? Makes me glad I kept my old AEG/L5R inspired 3.0 books. A little elbow grease might be able to bring those old hackneyed classes up to snuff with the power creep in today's game.

Archetypes - Good but lacking.

If you enjoyed the advanced players or the magic manual, you will enjoy this. Funny how the gunslinger got archetypes (albeit only 4) but ninja and samurai got left out. Oh, I guess since they were just half backed rogues and cavaliers, they didn't need anything. Except for this failure, this section almost made the book.

Feats
It's feats. Yay. What do you expect? They make fighting interesting but nothing says 'TAKE ME!!!' all over it. Still, adding spice to boiled beef.

Mastering Combat
If you actually open to this section, you are either looking for new gear or you missed the feat section. Try flipping a few pages. Oh, the dueling is fun... too bad I know they won't add the melee parrying rules into the main combat rules. Beyond that, you are not missing anything.

Vehicles
Same rehashed 3ed ships and vehicles that we have had since the Arms and Equipment guide. Wake me up when something actually interesting arrives... like a galleon or a true man of war. The vehicle rules are not much changed either from those days. Almost not worth including.

Variant Rules
Do not open this section.

Armor as DR is terrible... especially if it makes EVERYONE and their dog hit and provides NO BLOODY ACTIVE DEFENSE! Just turns the game even MORE into stand there and be hit like a retard.

Called shots - *bored* wheeeeee...

Piecemeal Armor - Now I can look like a hobo or min max my armor! Thanks Billy Mays!

Wound Pts and Vigor - Great. Lets not address the insane damages and autohits and make things die EVEN faster. Hells.

Spells - WHY!
This is the COMBAT book... I don't need 50 pages of new spells... especially on the heels of a CASTER book a few months back that next to ignored melee in it.

In summery - If you need a splat book to flavor a bland character, can't go wrong here. Does it have problems? Oh by the gods yes it does. Do the writers and producers need to be dragged out behind a building and flogged? No. But a sound smacking around is deserved for this book.

I had some of the same problems with this as I had with ultimate magic, It doesn't have something for every class and some classes(wizard) get more that others(sorcerer). I also would have liked some unarmored options, more feats for unarmed, light, and natural weapons. Things like adding dex intead of strength to light weapon damage, adding wisdom to unarmed strike damage for monks, gaining monk like ac instead of armor prof.,some prestige classes, etc. But with that being said there is a lot of good stuff in this book such as more feats than I have seen in one location, many good archtypes, new weapons, armor , special materials, called shots, duels, seige weapons, and much more. All in all I still like the book but it is hard to compete with the Advanced players guide wich in my opinion is the best player options book I have ever seen. So if you like martial themed characters then this definitly up your ally if you are spellcaster or skill monkey then you might still find some good stuff in here as well.