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Forgotten Heroes: Scythe and Shroud Review

4/5

With the Forgotten Heroes line of products from Goodman Games, the good stuff just keeps on coming. While in their last installment they beat WotC to the punch with their renditions of a couple of essential, missing core classes, this time they bring a few yet-undeveloped classes that are a bit less likely to appear soon as core classes, but are no less desirable as additions to any campaign… especially one centered around the themes of death, mortality, the afterlife, or undeath!

Forgotten Heroes: Scythe and Shroud bring us the first 4E incarnations of four classes whose focus are death and undeath: the Assassin (classic!... glad to see it here!), the Deathwarden, the Necromancer (another classic!... right on!), and the Spiritsworn. The theme common to these classes being death, authors Allison, Bernstein, Cortijo and Tito cleverly work that into a new source of power ripe with new game mechanics, hooks and story arcs that are sure to engage the imagination of game masters and players.

But as with literally every Goodman Games product, the packed-in punch goes beyond just what you’d expect. Aside from a description of classes, builds, and powers, you get some serious crunch for your buck! The new stuff includes: 2 new epic destinies, 37 new feats from all tiers, about 30 new items and rituals (including new implements for the classes presented, and more than a handful of new poisons to make your Assassin all the more deadly!), and some great content with inspiration for your campaign. There are seeds for adventure, conflicts between the classes, the historical rise and development of the classes, broad suggestions for campaign arcs, and appendices to help you generate NPCs on the fly.

The painstaking efforts the writing team went to in Forgotten Heroes: Scythe and Shroud to provide new concepts and inspiration for your game alone are worth the price of the book. The bulk of it, of course, is going to be the game material you need to run characters of these classes, and the class features, powers, paragon paths and other details are well-developed and balanced relative to other official WotC offerings. These classes will fit right in alongside those from the PHB.

Maybe the Assassin’s “Death Study Points” are a minor hiccup or distraction in an otherwise very-well-developed bundle of game mechanics. As admitted by the authors in the textual description of this Assassin class feature, “the rules for spending and possessing study points can create some interesting situations…” That is to say, this particular mechanic is a bit cumbersome, but it does make sense once you get a handle on it. A side bar with examples of its usage helps to more clearly illustrate how it works, so you’ll no doubt get it. Just be ready to put a bit of time and effort in to the chore of tracking those Death Study Points.

The final verdict? Go get it. Death: great concept for power source, campaign story arc, and the seed of conflict between characters. The classes: interesting, well-developed, and fun to play. The extras: Goodman always delivers. You’re sure to enjoy!


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Hero's Handbook: Dragonborn Review

5/5

“Hero’ s Handbook: Dragonborn” is an extensive, intensely-detailed tome that adds such a degree of depth and flavor to the 4th edition’s newest core character race that GMs and players alike will find nearly boundless possibilities for their dragonborn NPCs and characters.

But to say only that is to seriously understate the scope of this book.

The book itself, paperback and black-and-white, won’t jump off the shelf at you. The disappointing cover art is just a step above childish, cartoonish caricature. Fortunately, though, this is most definitely the only drawback of the work as a whole.

“Hero’s Handbook: Dragonborn” is exactly what a third party supplement should be. It takes what the core rules give us, and adds detail and depth in a thoughtful and imaginative way. This book gives players and GMs so much to work with that, should they choose, they could go just as far as to spice up their individual dragonborn characters, or take it all the way and create a fully-developed, intricately-detailed dragonborn campaign. Whether dragonborn are going to be rare, unique creatures of myth in your game or dominate the spotlight, this supplement is an absolute “must have.” Let’s hope that Goodman Games continues to draw on LaSala’s, “Blackdirge’s,” and Stroh’s creativity and inspiration to keep the “Hero’s Handbook” line going and continues to fill the void of details left by the core rulebook’s sadly underdeveloped racial entries.


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Good Intro Adventures... Potential for a Heroic Campaign

4/5

I actually play tested “King Dretch” and found it to have an interesting flare that caught my players off-guard. They were perplexed to find the ultimate challenge to be a seemingly mundane foe who, in actuality, was a very potent adversary. We enjoyed the varied and challenging combat encounters. It was a great intro to the 4E system for this group that had never played 4E before, allowing me to highlight some of the intricacies of the new edition (especially combat rules) and allowing them to use a fair range of their characters’ scope and potential. While not under-utilized, there are only a few uses of the “quest” system and “skill challenges” in this adventure and throughout the entire work, and little in the way of role playing opportunities. Be that as it may, those can be injected by GMs who are willing to spend a little time developing them.

The final word is that, if you’re looking to game now with little or no prep work, you’re interested in diving headlong into 4E’s combat system, and you want just enough flare to keep the game interesting, then you’re likely to find “In Search of Adventure” to be for you. Further, if you’re willing to do some work during the downtime between sessions, “In Search of Adventure” could potentially offer you an entire campaign’s worth of material, ready to take your players all the way through the heroic tier. Either way, you’ll appreciate the very-good-quality production values, easy-to-use layout and flow, extra crunch material offered throughout the adventures and in the book’s appendix, and the various authors’ creative takes on some familiar foes and adventure themes.


Blackdirge's Dungeon Denizens

5/5

Blackdirge’s Dungeon Denziens (BDD) is a fascinatingly eclectic monster tome that opens a world of creative possibilities.
Layout: You’ll find this work to be smartly laid-out and easy to use. Stat blocks, monster tactics, and encounter groups follow the core book’s format, and the entire piece is well-indexed. BDD goes a step further, though, offering monsters categorized not only by level, but also by origin, type, and keyword. Further, where the core book’s background text is decidedly lacking, entries in BDD tend to be detailed and engaging.
BDD is illustrated by a number of artists with a variety of styles. The cover-art is strong and catchy, as is much of the interior art. Many of the sketches are reminiscent of the 1st edition monster tome (which old-schoolers will appreciate). While not all of it is a home run, enough of it is done competently to solidify the work as a whole.
Content: Monsters of every level from 1 to 30 are provided, and all are well-written and balanced to be integrated seamlessly into any campaign. While loaded on the low-level end, paragon- and epic-tier creatures are so well-developed and thoroughly detailed, as are their lower-level henchmen and minions, that an entire campaign could be built around them, providing a multitude of opportunities for play.
As a bonus, a handful of yet-unseen monsters you’ll recognize are re-envisioned in the 4E format. An appendix with racial trait information is provided. You’ll also get stats for a couple of new diseases.
Recommendation: “Blackdirge” and Goodman have delivered a well-produced monster tome that packs creativity and substance where the core book is found lacking. Balance, creativity, and depth are the highlights of the work. Of particular note, readers will be pleased to find that there is a certain amount of thought and development behind each entry. The bulk of the art adds to the book as a whole. Blackdirge’s Dungeon Denizens is sure to be a resource you’ll value.