This pdf is 23 pages long, 1 page front cover, 1 page advertisement, 2 pages editorial, 1 page Toc, 1 page SRD and 1 page back cover, leaving 16 pages of content, so let's check this out!
Raging Swan presents us a selection of new random encounters-book, all with information on terrain and details to make them feel unique. This time, we go to the marshes. So what kind of encounters do we get?(SPOILERS ABOUND, players should jump to the conclusion)
-The first encounter we're presented (EL 7) is a rather neat and somewhat funny one - the PCs meet a selection of Lizardfolk cultists worshipping a frog. That is actually a baleful polymorphed bone devil. Hilarious, cool, neat!
-The second encounter has no less potential for coolness and jinx - a strike squad of kobolds has a big sack - and in it, 3 severed troll heads, kept from regenerating via a biting spider swarm in said bag. Unfortunately, the startled kobolds drop the bag upon encountering the PCs. Not only are the kobolds and spiders a problem, the regenerating heads make this encounter also one in which the PCs have to succeed at damage control.
-After that, the PCs will meet Griselda, a distraught mother whose just delivered child has been abducted and who subsequently is almost lost in grief. As a twist on the damsel in distress, the mother actually is a dread poisoner-Green Hag in disguise and tries to manipulate the Ps to return her monstrous offspring...
-The child's father, an insane cannibal, also is among the potential illustrious people the PCs can meet - he tries to lure one of their number away to feast on them and a nice cover-story is provided as well. Neat!
-A very deadly duo awaits the PCs on an old battlefield - a team of an invisible stalker and a will-o'-wisp guard the remains of the fallen and constantly try to add to the pile of vanquished foes. A sidebar sums up natural invisibility, which adds this little bit of comfort that distinguishes good from excellent files.
-The next encounter has the PCs come just in time to prevent a tengu-witch and her flock of children from sacrificing a child she just kidnapped. Unfortunately, said child is the spawn of a green hag and a psychotic cannibal. It is here I'd like to note that the social encounters come with all sample DC to improve NPC attitude and sample pieces of dialog for the respective attitudes. Are the PCs deceived? Has even such seed from an evil womb a right to live? An interesting encounter with potentially far-reaching moral questions.
-Perhaps the PCs have journeyed to the swamp for answers and that they may get from Chalos, the friendly hydra-sage for ye olde swamp - provided you know when to pack your things and leave, for not all of the hydra's heads are scholarly and the creature tends to get hungry quick when talking to potential snacks...
-The final encounter has the PCs encounter a nice half-orc guide to the marshlands.
Have I mentioned two additional encounters via a free web-enhancement?
Conclusion:
Editing and formatting are top-notch, I didn't notice any glitches. The pdf comes fully bookmarked and layout adheres to RSP's elegant b/w-2-column standard. The b/w-artworks rock and the pdf comes with an additional pdf for you stat-library that collates the statblocks as well as a version optimized for use with e-readers. This pdf has by far the coolest, most imaginative and far-out encounters released by RSP in this series so far and makes for a more than compelling, neat little read. The potential for some of the encounters to be linked is nice and the general quality/ideas of the encounters is top-notch. Seeing that this installment surpasses its two predecessors, I'll settle for a final verdict of 5 stars - a great little selection of encounters that has me impressed - congratulations to author David Posener.
This installment of Rite Publishing's free e-zine Pathways is 48 pages long, 1 page front cover, 14 pages of advertisements and 1 page SRD, leaving a whopping 32 pages of content, so let's check it out!
After the neat editorial by David Paul, we delve right into the action with the cover-creature and the sublime creature template (CR +2) by Jonathan McAnulty: Sublime creatures are immortal, positive-energy-induced creatures and the sample critter is AWESOME: Kallia, the Sybil of Eldorus, the medusa from the front cover, makes for a truly deadly (CR 20) foe - the sublime celestial greater medusa oracle 10 comes again with a great fluff text, an excerpt from a ballad and a tragic background story, a new magic diadem, new magic daggers and 3 monstrous feats. Kallia ranks among my very favorite creatures presented in Pathways. Expertly-written with a stellar full color artwork. Two thumbs up!
T.H. Gulliver, master of the #30-haunts-series delivers a cool article on the destruction of haunts and suggestions on how to make the experience sufficiently rewarding. A neat read that makes me hope for a horror-mega-adventure by T. H. Gulliver soon!
Creighton Broadhurst, mastermind of Raging Swan Press, presents us three sample cutpurses and thieves (CR 1/4 Urchins, CR 1/3 Cutpurse and CR 1 Skilled Cutpurse) and a neat general encounter to have the non-violent guys try to steal from the PCs, including terrain, crowd etc. and even a list of cool distractions. Nice!
The next article is once again by Jonathan McAnulty and is entitled "Sacred Sepulchers" - continuing the longest-ranging of support for ANY class released by a 3pp so far - the divine channeler gets channeling effects for the murder and undead subdomains and 3 sample sacred tomes. This particular article goes above and beyond, though, and offers a new skill use for diplomacy: Dealing with grief. Two new spells are included as well, one to temporarily induce a depression and one to temporarily remove the condition. As one with enough experience with the topic, I enjoyed the take on the topic, although I would love to see a more complex take on the topic of grief, sadness and depression, perhaps in an upcoming release.
We also get Moso's Bluff, a fast, grimy intrigue-sidetrek set in Kaidan 8or any Japanese-style-setting) and feeling like a neat little urban noir adventure. Ron Lundeen, author of several adventures and most recently, mastermind of Run Amok Games (The first Run Amok-adventure, "Six Griffons Haunt" scored 5 stars...) presents us with a neat scenario based in the seedy Yakuza-infested underbelly between bakuto-parlors and tattoo-studios and makes use of the best Way of the Yakuza has to offer. This scenario alone lets me hope for an adventure anthology in Kaidan and look forward to Ron's next offerings! As a DM, you have to check this one out, it's an awesome sidetrek! Have I mentioned Tengu-archers and the blind bard?
Owen K.C. Stephens, master of crunch and one reason of the success of Super Genius Games, is next for a very interesting interview and an offering to aspiring authors.
Finally, in case you're too busy to check up on them, the esteemed Dark_Mistress and yours truly both present their personal top-10 of third party products for the Pathfinder RPG released in 2011. If you haven't checked them out, take a look - maybe something went under your radar.
Conclusion:
Editing and formatting are very good, I didn't notice any significant glitches. Layout adheres to the 2-column standard and the awesome artwork by Colby Stevenson of the greater medusa is stunning. The pdf has no bookmarks. Content-wise, this issue is absolutely AWESOME and blows most issues out of the water. The creature, the template, the advice on haunts, Creighton's encounter, the divine channeler support and Ron's excellent adventure all conspire to make this issue of Pathways my favorite so far. And it's free. Have I mentioned that this is free? It's worth every mb on your hard-drive and you should download this now. Final verdict. 5 stars and Endzeitgeist seal of approval. Great work!
This installment of "The Sinking" is 17 pages long, 1 page front cover, 1 page editorial, 1 page SRD, 1 page advertisement and 1 page back cover, leaving 12 pages of content for this adventure.
This being an adventure-review, the following contains SPOILERS, so potential players might wish to jump to the conclusion.
Still here? Righty right!
A famous architect has gone missing and the PCs are hired to find him. Unfortunately, as their research shows, he was not only massively indebted to problematic individuals, but somehow, everyone talking to the PCs tends to wind up mutilated, beaten or even dead.
Hunted by a sadistic loan-shark debt-collector, the PCs will find the architect's base, strange diagrams and deduce the truth - it seems that the architect has found an unpleasant end in the sinkhole - along many of his holdings. His source of wealth, a tomb of a former king, though, is yet there and via an enchanted plumb line, the PCs can climb down into the sinkhole, through an illusory wall and explore the crypt - only to be confronted with a rather unpleasant curse...
Conclusion:
Editing and formatting are ok, I didn't notice any significant glitches. Layout adheres to a 2-column standard and the artworks and maps are top-quality. The pdf comes with full bookmarks. A combination of simple investigation, exploration and mini-dungeon, complete with a hand-out of the plumb line and a minor puzzle to figure out how to use it, this installment of "The Sinking" sets a precedent for what can be done with such a short little scenario - Tito Leati has created a nifty little scenario I can unanimously recommend. Thus, final verdict will be 4.5 stars, rounded up to 5 stars for the purpose of the platform.
This pdf is 291 pages long, 1 page front cover, 1 page editorial, 1 page ToC, 2 pages of advertisement and 1 page SRD, leaving a whopping 285 pages of content!
The compilation starts off with very extensive lists of the spells - the vast array of excellent spells provided so far by the 101-series. I did reviews for all of them, so my individual scores were:
Apart from the content from the individual files, we also get additional content: the APG and UM get full support with Alchemist formulae, Inquisitor spells, Summoner spells and Witch spells and yes, even Magus spell-lists, providing a great support for the new classes and making sure they also get their share of the pie.
Conclusion:
Editing and formatting are excellent, I didn't notice any significant amount of hick-ups - quite a feat for a book of this length. Layout adheres to RiP's old, rune-covered b/w-2-column standard and the artworks are stock and mostly repeated from the series, although I actually did notice some pieces I couldn't recall encountering in the individual pdfs.
The pdf comes with extensive bookmarks, which is a necessity for a book of this length. Content-wise, the vast majority of these spells rocks and the added APG-support and UM-support as well as the hero-lab support provided make sure that this vast tome retains its usefulness.
However, that's also where a part of my criticism falls: While spell-lists for the new classes are included, the entries of the individual spells don't feature this information (i.e. they only read clr, sor/wiz etc.), which is a pity. While I realize that including this information in the spell-lists would have been a tremendous amount of work, I would have loved to see it nevertheless, as it would have felt like it integrated the support for the new books instead of adding it via appendices. The additional Hero-lab support, for everyone using the software, is awesome. By the way: If you have purchased all individual 10 101-spells pdfs, you can get this compilation for free by shooting an e-mail @ Rite Publishing - stellar support for the customers! So, how to rate this one? While the minor gripe I had is unfortunate, you still get more than 1000 spells for less than 20 bucks. Now if that is not an awesome bang-for-buck ratio, I don't know what is. Add to that the high individual scores the component pdfs garnered from me and I'll settle for a final verdict of 4.5 stars, rounded up to 5 - excellent, almost perfect compendium of spells at an unbeatable price for the vast amount of content provided.
The first adventure of the Splinters of Faith-adventure series is 20 pages long, 1 page front cover, 1 page editorial, 1 page ToC, 3 pages of advertisement, 1 page SRD, leaving us with 13 pages of adventure.
This being an adventure review, it contains SPOILERS. Even worse, since it (and I) discuss the metaplot, there are MASSIVE SPOILERS for the whole series.
Players should really skip to the conclusion of the review.
Still here?
All right! Once upon a time, a priest-king named Akruel Rathamon, a vile man of unrivaled power subjugated all the lands under his tyrannical rule in the name of a deity that we now know as Orcus and said priest-king was winning the war, especially after turning himself into a super-powered version of a vampire with lich-like immortality. To stop the tyrant, an artifact was crafted, the Scepter of Faiths. Said scepter was jammed into the tyrant's heart - but it didn't kill him - unbeknownst to the forces of good, his true life-force was sheltered elsewhere and thus his empire and minions faded to distant memory, while a mausoleum was built over his motionless, artifact-staked body. Over the years, a natural hill has formed over the crypt and all the once powerful wards have slowly deteriorated...
Deteriorated is also what should be best used to describe the village of Lessef - 30 houses (more shacks, really) form a dilapidated, poor community that borders on being a ghost town. Even the impromptu Inn is only a side-business run by the local priest and almost all youth seems to have (justifiably) fled this place. Looming over the hamlet, a church called aptly Poverty's Brethel, situated on a large hill, remains standing. The town is aptly presented in its state of dilapidation and the town has a problem - a rather smart fox has been killing the settlement's chickens, threatening the little livelihood the place still has left. Of course, the culprit is not a fox, but rather a group of thugs guarding a badly hidden excavation site on the other side of the looming hill. Hired by a necromancer who has managed to revive the priest-king, they await a return of entities who have already left via magic. Once the PCs have defeated the thugs, they'll have to explore the decayed tomb, battle its ghoulish inhabitants and find both the shattered scepter of faiths and cryptic instructions on how to recreate it to stop Akruel once and for all. It should also be noted that some side-quest-style hooks that entwine this adventure with other installments of the series are included.
Conclusion:
Editing and formatting are very good, I didn't notice any significant glitches. Layout adheres to an easy-to-read two-column standard and the b/w-artwork and maps rock. The pdf unfortunately has no bookmarks. Oh boy, on the one hand I enjoyed this adventure, on the other hand, I did not. Let me elaborate: This is a sandbox that is not a sandbox - the village is depicted in a compelling way that hearkens back to classic fantasy, where a looming threat of human extinction was present, however, essentially we get the village as a kind of gazetteer. After the gazetteer, some rudimentary information on the thugs is provided and then there's the dungeon. The adventure does not cover the PCs setting traps for the "foxes" (no map of the chicken stalls etc.) and assumes the PCs find the perpetrators etc. The dungeon is, apart from the foreshadowing elements, just, I'm sorry to say, boring. The maps are not depicted on pages of their own or in large, making handing them out to the players harder than it should be. Additionally, we don't get player-friendly maps of the village, temple or dungeon. And then there's the amount of content: 13 pages is just not enough for 5 bucks - especially when taking into account that the background story further diminishes the page-count of the overall module. I really liked the atmosphere transported by this module and thus it pains me to do it, but for the price, I don't consider this module a good investment. It's necessary for the series, though. Thus, If you're planning to run the arc, this is 3 stars for you. For those of you undecided/looking for a nice introduction, I can't recommend this - for you, this module is 2.5 stars, rounded down to 2 for the purpose of this platform.
This installment of "The Sinking" is 15 pages long, 1 page front cover, 1 page SRD, 1 page editorial, 1 page ToC, 1 page advertisement and 1 page back cover, leaving 9 pages of content.
This being an adventure review, the following contains SPOILERS. Potential players might wish to jump to the conclusion.
Righty right, the Great City-adventures have provided some of the most exciting fêtes I've encountered in any written modules and the latent sense of aristocratic decadence reminiscent of the fin-de-siècle is one of the components I personally have always enjoyed about the setting. This particular installment of "The Sinking" fully capitalizes on the idea, as the PCs are hired to make sure a party of some decadent nobles goes smoothly - said party is to take place in a bathhouse (fully mapped, btw.!) right at the edge of the sink-hole. To add more complications, the bathhouse was supposed to be haunted, which develops a nice basic tension.
The PCs will have to contend with quite a few complications during the party - an albino python concealed by its particular color, two hot-blooded young nobles almost coming to blows over a flirtatious lady, a brown mold infection that may claim the life of an attending guest and finally, once enough social and other complications have been sprung upon them, the climax of the adventure happens:
The ghost of the bathhouse appears! Only, there was never a ghost, but rather a trapped water elemental and a rather powerful guttermage called Burlstaff has taken up residence here and taken the gem containing the element as the center of his new shrine. The grumpy fellow doesn't necessarily want to hurt the attending crowd or the players and might make for a social resolution or a very tight battle once the PCs see through his ghost-bluff. Of course, the panicking crowd can get itself into quite some trouble and in the end, it's up to the Pcs to save the panicking youngsters.
Conclusion:
Editing and formatting were actually quite good - while I noticed a minor glitch here and there, I didn't notice enough to rate this adventure down in and of itself. Layout adheres to the elegant b/w-2-column standard and the b/w-artworks and maps are top quality. The pdf is fully bookmarked. This particular scenario is rather interesting as it is rife with social complications and offers a nice twist on a rather creepy masque. The potential for the final encounter to be resolved without spilling too much undue blood is nice as well. I essentially have only one gripe - why not make the bathhouse be in danger of slipping over the edge/falling into the sinkhole? The angled bathhouse would have made for an exciting location and the natural disaster-component of "The Sinking" would have featured more prominently as well. Due to the minor glitches and said unrealized potential, I'll settle for a solid verdict of 4 stars for this very affordable, neat little scenario.
This pdf is 89 pages long, 1 page front cover, 1 page editorial, 1 page ToC, 1 page SRD, leaving 85 pages of content, so what exactly is this spell weaving?
Spell weaving essentially is a skill-and point-based alternative to the standard vancian casting-system for arcane magic. By manipulating the strands of reality itself, hidden from the eyes of regular folks, Spellweavers can duplicate effects of regular spells. They do so via new int-based class-skill called spellweaving. In order to counteract the difficulties associated with skills being usable as often as one would like, the base-class Spellweaver also features a number of weaves per day. This means that every spell costs only one weave-attempt, but the DCs naturally vary. The base-class of the Spellweaver is what you'd expect of a primary caster: d6, 1/2 BAB, good will save, 2+Int skills per level. Spellweavers start with 4 weaves per day and can reach up to 40 at 20th level, suffer from arcane failure chance and similar traditional penalties just as much as their regular counterparts, but in order to counteract their supreme flexibility, their way of spell-casting naturally comes with a sort of penalty: If they botch their weaving attempts, the results can be dire indeed and result, when greatly overstepping one's boundaries in casting the equivalent of high-level spells too soon, in even death. No one is keeping the weaver from trying, though - potentially, this can lead to rather exiting situations at the table.
Note that not every botched attempt has to have severe repercussions and a rather complex table is provided. It should be noted that topics like collective weaving, weave-traps etc. are covered as well, making the spell-weaver feel distinct beyond his access to a wide array of known magical forces.
To make matters more exiting, the concept of weave-saturated areas (i.e. places of power) is introduced as well, making for a neat take on the trope of ley-lines and similar places of power( or dead magic). The interaction of spell-weaving and regular casting is given quite a detailed depiction and spellcraft, dispelling and spellweaving the divine is covered as well - depending on the DM's world, the gods may frown upon those who seek to usurp the powers they grant their faithful, potentially necessitating +3d4 DC to weaving divine spells. For those wanting to completely exchange the vancian casting system advice is provided as well as advice on how to handle PrCs not originally designed for the Spellweaver and how to handle tweaking them.
No PFRPG class would be complete without the customization options provided by archetypes and thus the Spellweaver also provides some: The primal weaver weaves rather intuitively (thus more unstable) and can fall into weave-powered rages. The Puppet Master is essentially the enchantment/manipulation specialist, the Reader uses his ability to perceive the weave to better avoid damage and learns to extend his/her senses and the Weaver Shaman follows a shamanistic understanding of the weave as a kind of anima universalis.
Prestige Classes specifically designed for the spellweaver are included in the package:
-The Battle Weaver (d8, 2+Int skills, full BAB, medium fort, 7 level casting progression) is a kind of barbarian/spell weaver gish that can imbue his weapon and armor with the power of the weave.
-The Cartomancer (d4, 4+Int skills, 1/2 BAB, medium will-save, full spell-progression) is an intriguing concept: By expanding senses over the weave, these fellows can create maps of surrounding areas, but without giving all the details like furniture and inhabitants away. At higher levels, their clairsentient powers improve and become more precise. I'm not sold on the d4 HD, though - according to PFRPG-design standards, that should be a d6, especially due to this PrC being anything but too strong.
-The Fated (d6, 4+Int skills per level, 1/2 BAB, medium will-save, full spell-progression) are another matter entirely - they can, via the weave, manipulate destiny itself and borrow skills and feats and even bar their foes from using them via their mystic connection to the weave. An interesting class, for sure, but one that necessitates careful watching.
-The Weave Dancer (d6, 4+Int skills, 1/2 BAB, medium fort- and ref-saves, 1/2 spell progression) is the monk/spellweaver multiclass and feels a bit odd - The table provides a better flurry of blows atk-bonus progression than a regular BAB-progression: at 10th level, it presumes +5 BAB for regular attacks and +9/+9/+4/+4/-1 for flurry of blows, which points towards a rather grievous formatting glitch here.
Next up is a new race, the Ardekh - spiderlike humanoids that worship the weave and would make for disturbing characters: They get their full age, height & weight tables, +2 Dex and Int, -2 Cha, Darkvision 60 ft., Weave Sight as a bonus feat, +2 natural armor, all-around vision (immunity to flanking when not flat-footed), +2 to Spellweaving, a climb-speed of 20ft. (and +8 to climb checks) and reduced penalties for fighting with multiple weapons. In case you didn't notice by that array of powers, a "challenge-rating adjustment" of +2 is presumed till level 6, then +1, hitting one of my absolute pet-peeves: I always hated the ECL-system of 3.5 and the balance-problems it brought and this essentially is a ECL+2-race that does not conform with PFRPG-design standards, essentially rendering the race's appeal as a player-race null and void. We also get 7 new traits, 2 of which are for the new race.
Chapter 3 deals with feats and kicks off with a vast list of feats and how they interact with spell-weaving - the level of support provided is awesome and something that sets the pdf apart - it takes the APG, Ultimate Magic and Ultimate Combat into account and lists them over several pages before introducing us to 55 new feats. These new feats are rather interesting, as they deal not only with weave-interaction, but also with adding metamagic effects to weaves( thus increasing the DC). More interesting are the elemental or specialization-style feats that increase the DC for e.g. spells with the [fire] or [acid]-descriptor, but add a burning effect, temporarily deafen foes etc. While limited in appliance, these feats do allow a customization that is nice to see. Not all of them are what I'd consider well-balanced, though: Thanatopic Spellweave for example, makes it possible to use death and negative energy effects against undead or beings sheltered by a death ward. The explanation is that the animating force is turned against them, but the repercussions of this feat are rather wide and any ability that ignores any protection from it, especially when it's such a feat, is wide open to abuse. Plus: Undead can already be hurt via positive energy. Adding negative energy to the mix just feels wrong to me. Spell Eater is another feat I consider BROKEN: If you add +5 to the DC of a save you have to make and succeed at it, you regain 1/2 the attacking spell's level, minimum 1 weaves. Can you see what this feat will make the players do? Can you see the wizards casting touch of fatigue unlimited times on their ally, the spellweaver regaining 1 weave per save? I can, and I don't like it. While most of the feats are well-designed, exceptions like these, practically screaming "Abuse me" somewhat cast a tarnish on an otherwise excellent chapter.
Chapter 4 then delivers the true meat f the book - tables upon tables that e.g. contain the modifications to the DC for regular respective levels of the spellweaver to cast (adding e.g. +27 for 9th level spells at 1st character level, ensuring that no level 1 spellweaver will meteor swarm foes to oblivion) and providing all the tools to convert e.g. 3pp-spells to the spell-weaving system: Range, school (and sub-school), area of effect, saving throw, duration, casting time etc. - everything influences the final DC of the weave and the final chapter provides the basic DCs (still to be modified by the weaver's relative level to the spell) of the spells from the Core-book, the APG, UM and UC - an awesome convenience that takes a LOT of work off your hands. Even better, an excel- calculator is included in the deal.
Finally, we get new weave-themed beasts: Apart from the Ardekhs, we get the new Loomer-race (Cr 1/2 - evil djinn-influenced creatures), varying weave-elementals, the weave-embraced template (CR +1), the undead Weave Haunt (CR 4) and the spider-like weavelings (CR 3) as well as a variant of the rotgrub hazard tat inhabits the weave. The pdf concludes with 4 pages of an extremely useful quick reference appendix. A write-up of a weave-centric goddess is also included in the deal, btw.
Conclusion:
Editing and formatting were good, though not perfect: Some lines that should have been bold weren't etc. More important, there are some design-remnants of 3.5 unfortunately interspersed in an otherwise excellent conversion, like e.g. the aforementioned d4. The flurry of blows table of the weave dancer needs a revision. Layout adheres to a clear and easy-to-read 2-column standard and comes with beautiful full-color artworks. The pdf is fully bookmarked, comes with an artless, printer-friendly b/w-version and the aforementioned calculator, which is nice (though the calculator doesn't work with my version of excel - something you should be aware of). Oh boy. This one is oh so hard to rate. On the one hand, we get a neat, interesting alternate system of spellcasting that feels well-balanced and not half as prone to breaking as I had expected, a vast amount of support and stellar feats. On the other hand, we get a race with an ECL (that should be either just an NPC-race or needs a revision), a d4 HD in a PrC, a faulty table with another PrC and one little fact: As much as I liked the base-class, none of the PrCs or archetypes for that matter felt truly compelling. The cartomancer is a great idea, but feels a bit weak and like an excuse to give player hand-out maps, something that could also be done via other investigative means - this PrC actually needs MORE power. If you're looking for a skill-based magic-system, the spell-weaver will cater to your needs and provide a cool, flexible alternative to regular casters that could enrich e.g. a non-orthodox magic tradition in your campaign.
Were I to rate the base-class and the basic system/support provided alone, this would be 5 stars. If you're in for the whole deal, you'll have to be aware of aforementioned rough-edges, though. Should the 3.5-design-remnants I found be taken care of and e.g. the Ardekh-race nerfed to the point of being usable as a player-race, I'd gladly give the whole package 4 or even 4.5 stars. As written, though, some rough-edges of a first foray into PFRPG-rules are still evident and diminish the overall appeal of the book. Thus, for now, my final verdict will be 3.5 stars, rounded down to 3.
This pdf is 25 pages long, 1 page front cover, 1 page editorial & ToC, 1 page SRD, leaving 22 pages of content to introduce these new concepts to PFRPG. What do they bring to your game?
Fate points and aspects were first introduced by the FATE roleplaying system, a narrative-driven system probably best-known for being featured in the Dresden Files-RPG. This pdf seeks to convert these mechanics to the PFRPG, offering a system similar to hero points/action points. If you're familiar with said concepts, you have a basic inkling of what to expect: The points can be used to reroll saves, hit harder, be better at skill-checks etc. Ever since Monte Cook's Arcana Unearthed, the concept has featured in my campaigns and I'm quite fond of it. So, how are Fate Points different? What are aspects?
Well, aspects are essentially the essence of a character, an adventure or an encounter. A Leitmotiv, so to speak, whether it is "A light in the dark" or a character description like "Hot-blooded student of the fiery arcane arts". You basically reduce a character to an essential characteristic description and every time something comes up, for weal or woe, you can react according to said motto. I.e.: The DM has said student, while gathering information, suffer from his violent temper, potentially resulting in a brawl or other consequences and elaborates upon it.
The player has the option to accept that the temper of his hot-blooded student got the better of him and gain a fate point for his troubles. If he declines and doesn't want to RP this flaw/suffer no negative consequences, he loses a fate point. Environments can also feature these "essences" and rules are provided to find out and potentially exploit your foe's aspects and use them against them. Of course, players an try to invent/find out aspects. Rules for the escalation of aspects, compulsions etc. are provided as well.
Conclusion:
Editing and formatting are ok, I did notice some minor typos. Layout adheres to a 2-column standard, is full color and features a used parchment-style with runes at the side and an exceedingly ugly font used for the headers of the sidebars. There is no printer-friendly version included in the deal. Artworks are ok, though nothing to write home about. The pdf features extensive bookmarks.
I already mentioned that I like systems like Hero points, though this particular one left me singularly unimpressed for several reasons: First of all, it distracts from immersion in the campaign: Metagaming is an essential component of the negotiation of obtaining fate points between the DM and players, detracting severely from a coherent immersion in a gaming world. Players can and WILL try to wiggle as many FATE points out of the DM with their aspects and go for maximum breadth, somewhat detracting from the intention of the system as formulated. Worse, the intent of acting as a roleplaying catalyst is impeded by said haggling and meta-gaming.
The fact that scenes and characters are reduced to (granted, somewhat complex) stereotypes by the system is another pet-peeve of mine that keeps me from enjoying this system at all - you detract from an organic and well-rounded personality by offering an incentive to behave like a one-sentence cliché. Especially for my kind of roleplaying, favoring shades of grey and complex, evolving PCs, this system is more or less the antithesis and, while I appreciate and understand its intention, I dislike the execution to an extent which makes it impossible to recommend it to anybody on a personal level. As a reviewer, though, I have to take into account that this system might and will appeal to some people, for which this might be exactly what they've been looking for. For these people, this pdf might be 5 stars. Personally, though, I abhor the basic concepts underlying this system. I hate it with a passion and sincerely regret wasting the time it took to read and review it as well as the money to buy it. For me, as a person, this is a 1-star file and if you share my pet-peeves, steer clear. My final verdict will be between, a 2.5, rounded up to 3 stars. I can't bring myself to rate this higher.
This pdf is 11 pages long, 1 page front cover, 1 page editorial, 2/3 of a page SRD, leaving 8 1/3 pages of content for 15 new specific magic items, so let's check out what Headless Hydra Games has to offer for less than a buck!
After a cool discussion on the nature of magic weapons, we delve into the items and in this installment, we get weapons that are a bit more off the beaten track - we e.g. get the Bang Cutter, a magic dogslicer that ignites those nasty horses and dogs. The Bolt of minor inconvenience is a neat piece of ammunition as well: It teleports hit enemies 1d100 ft. in a random direction when the target fails a will save. The other 2 bolts of inconvenience are more powerful versions - cool ideas! The Detonating pilum is also a cool throwing weapon, dealing some neat explosion damage and we get firestorm shurikens and even a magic ogre hook. Another cool item is the librarian's rejoinder, a bloodletting keen kukri (bloodletting being a new special weapon quality introduced in this pdf) that can transcribe the last text the victim read one hour before being killed by the weapon in infernal - very cool idea. Add to that an enchanted stake and an enchanted bladed scarf that doubles as a hat of disguise and can cover the wielder's face in flames.
Conclusion:
Editing and formatting are top-notch, I didn't notice any glitches. Layout adheres to a beautiful 2-column standard and 6 of the weapons get their own artworks. The pdf comes with extensive bookmarks. The new magic items are cool and using some more exotic base types (and reprinting their stats) is a good idea and some of their abilities rock. While not every item herein is a full-blown winner, I enjoyed them enough to consider this installment a worthwhile investment - at less than a buck, you get a neat selection of magic items that goes a bit beyond what you'd expect. Seeing that I don't have anything to complain and taking the low price into account, I'll settle for a final verdict of 4.5 stars, rounded up to 5. Well done!
This pdf is 15 pages long, 1 page front cover, 1 page blank inside the front cover, 2 pages editorial and 1 page ToC and foreword, 1 page SRD, 1 page advertisement and 1 page back cover, leaving 7 pages of content.
Seeing that 2012 will be a very piratey year for PFRPG, this pdf provides the beleaguered DM with tables to create pirate ships on the fly: We get 100 ship names, 1oo descriptors for ships, 50 sample ship names, 20 sample names for male captains and 20 names for female captains. We also get 2 tables (DC 10 and 20) on knowledge about the ship with 10 entries each. For a DC 15 or 20-check we get 10 sample pieces of information on crew and captain and even 2 lists on past exploits of the crew. The pdf does not stop there, though and adds 50 pirate epithets, 50 figureheads and 50 sample flags.
In contrast to most "So what's..."-pdfs, we get 3 sample statblocks for pirates - a CR 1/2, a Cr 1 Veteran and a CR 3 master-at-arms. Useful additional content!
Conclusion:
Editing and formatting are top-notch, I didn't notice any glitches. Layout adheres to a 3-column standard for the tables and 2-columns for the more wordy sections. The pdf comes with a special version optimized for e-reader usage, but no collated statblocks in a single pdf - seeing that there are 3 and they take up one page, that's not too bad. There is nothing wrong with this pdf and I really enjoyed the statblocks. However, I would have enjoyed more of the knowledge tables and e.g. a "special"-table containing bits of information like "the ship's hull is plastered with sahuagin scales", "fire-proof", "crew-less golem-ship" etc.. That being said, this installment of the series is still a good buy and I'll settle for a final verdict of 4 stars - a good pdf that could have been a bit better.
This pdf is 13 pages long, 1 page front cover, 1 page blank inside the front cover, 2 pages editorial, 1 page ToC and foreword, 1 page SRD, 1 page advertisement, 1 page back cover, leaving 5 pages for the tables, so what exactly is included?
We get 3 tables per cultural background, each table featuring 50 names: Male names, female names and surnames. We get Anglo-Saxon names, Finnish names, Greek names, Roman names and Viking names. the latter getting nicknames instead of surnames, as old Norse nomenclature usually uses the father's name and a suffix for a surname.
Unfortunately, the Viking name section is majorly flawed: "Svart" is given as a male name and actually means "black" and has not been used as a name. If you'd go for designation, you'd call the guy "Svartr" instead, but that's a nickname, not a proper name. Another major hick-up would be "Hallgrim" as a female name - Hallgrim is a male name that can be suffixed via an -a into the female variant - "Hallgrima" would be a viable female name. These are but 2 examples, with other names not adhering to any of the Scandinavian name-conventions. I'm not that versed in Finnish names, but the mix-ups from the Viking-names would make me interested in whether there are glitches there as well.
Conclusion:
Editing and formatting are top-notch, I didn't notice any glitches. Layout adheres to a 3-columns per page standard and is elegant. The pdf comes with full bookmarks. While I didn't notice any obvious mistakes on the Roman, Greek and Anglo-Saxon names and can't comment on the accuracy of Finnish names, I was severely disappointed by the glitches in the Viking-names. Seeing that this product sells us names, glitches with regards to gender or nomenclature are a severe flaw, at least for me. There are not many glitches in this product like this, but seeing that there's not much more one can botch in such a product, I'll settle for a final verdict of 2 stars, as the pdf at least partially botched its intent. Had a DM presented me with a valkyrie named Hallgrim, I would have fallen laughing off my chair...
This pdf is 24 pages long, 1 page front cover, 1 page editorial, 1 page ToC, 1 page SRD and 1 page advertisement, leaving 19 pages of content, so let's check this adventure out, shall we?
This being an adventure review, the following contains SPOILERS, so potential players please be aware of that and jump to the conclusion.
Still here? Righty right, let's check this out! For centuries, a strange structure has been an iconic sight - a kind of tree-like structure of metallic resin carries 4 huge crystalline, impenetrable eggs that are alight with a terrifying inner light reminiscent of lightning storms. Via extensive research (which the DM should improvise, as none is contained herein), the PCs find out that once a year, via a certain constellation, an invisible causeway leads into the top-most crystalline egg-structure and the time is now - the spire is the PCs to loot - if they can survive its inhabitants.
If that's not abundantly clear by now, we're in for a dungeon crawl of the old-school variety, complete with a rather interesting scenario: The levels of the dungeons are within the respective eggs and within each a continuous lightning storm rages above the PCs, for they can easily climb the walls of quartz to be subjected to electrical discharges, but also get a kind of top-view and the ability to essentially climb over walls to hidden sections of the dungeon. This becomes even more awesome as soon as the PCs find pods which they can navigate like non-conductive hamsterballs. Yeah, I just wrote that.
The utter weirdness of this dungeon is reflected in a mishmash of magic bordering on technology, pods containing so-called oozeanderthals (humanoids with elongated limbs and deadly claws), rats that slither through crystalline walls and perhaps the last remnants of the race that once erected this structure, the Korog and their rigid caste-system. In order to pass through the dungeon, weird mechanisms have to be operated, strange creatures be fought and a potion-making slot-machine delivers insights into the Korog's language.
At the end of the dungeon, in the lowest egg, the PCs will have to brave dread Iomnogoron, once chief scientist of the korog and now enclosed in a protective ooze that makes him immortal and quite mad.
Conclusion:
Editing and formatting are good, although I did notice some punctuation glitches. It's also quite strange that the final boss has no more concentration skill as a spellcaster, greatly diminishing the threat of the dual caster/melee threat he is supposed to be. Layout adheres to the b/w-2-column standard and the original pieces of artwork are stunning and disturbing, bringing this odd dungeon to life. The maps help a lot in giving an over-view of this strange structure, although I would have loved to get a version without map keys to print out, cut into pieces and gradually show to my players as they explore. The pdf comes with extensive bookmarks.
First, I was utterly blown away by the iconic quality of this dungeon - the set-up of entering it alone is so cool, I caught myself smiling. And indeed, most of the encounters and beings herein are up to this quality. However, I somewhat feel that this module is either too short or too long: Between some rather standard/filler battles and the iconic encounters that utilize the unique environment, there's quite a difference and the unique means of transportation that's possible to brave the currents could have easily been expanded to make this a much more enticing and even stranger place. Why not whole sections where the PCs navigate beyond the quartz-structures while surrounded by potential deadly environmental hazards? A chase or at least a battle in this environment? Why does the final boss have no more concentration skill as a unique caster? It essentially makes his dual capabilities useless. Make no mistake, I love what author Matthew J. Finch has created here - I only find that with a bit of work, it could have been more awesome. Perhaps +10 pages or condensing the dungeon to 3 levels would do the trick. As written, I gladly give the Spire of Iron and Crystal a 4-star rating and a hearty recommendation for everyone willing to check out a dungeon that is truly different.
This pdf is 3 pages long, 1 page intro/front cover, 1 page SRD/editorial, leaving 1 page for 8 new feats for barbarians, so let's check this out!
The feats are as follows:
-Battle Lust: Each round in which you crit you score with a weapon that has a x3 or x4-modifier does not count against your rounds spent in rage.
-Great Thews: Expend one round of rage for 10 minute-lasting rage power.
-Iconic Barbarian: Once per day, use a rage power normally usable only one time per rage an additional time.
-Melancholy: Suffer only half the penalty to any attacks, damage and skill-checks, but also gain only half the morale bonus.
-Mighty Stamina: Ignore the fatigued condition for 24 hours for expending 1 round of rage. The rage does not refill until you sleep for 8 hours.
-Panther-like Grace: Expend one round of rage for a bonus to dex-checks or dex-related skill-checks equal to half your class-level. Rather bland and without a bonus to reflex saves, not a good choice.
-Sudden rage: When rolling initiative, you may start raging immediately and add your Con-modifier to initiative.
-Thews: Spend a round of rage to gain access to a rage power for 1 minute.
Conclusion:
Editing and formatting are top-notch, I didn't notice any glitches. Layout adheres to SGG's 3-column standard and the pdf has no bookmarks, but needs none at this length. The feats are great and present iconic ways to enhance your playing experience of the barbarian, hearkening back to the pulp-classics of old. For one buck, you can't go wrong here and the feats present no balance-problems. While melancholy is rather powerful and might upset some games, it can also work VERY, VERY well in a game and a barbarian in my group tested it and immensely enjoyed it - surprisingly, the feat didn't unbalance my game. With one feat feeling rather worse and boring but the rest being better, I'll practically have to settle for a final verdict of 4 stars - a great investment to add some support for the unfortunately often neglected barbarian-class.
This pdf is 3 pages long, 1 page front cover/introduction, 1 page SRD and 1 page content, delivering 7 new feats centered on sword and shield fighting, so let's check them out!
-Bashing Critical: When equipped with one-handed weapon and shield, you may initiate a shield bash maneuver when scoring a critical hit.
-Knock aside: Sacrifice you shield bonus as part of an attack for one round to gain +2 to atk against a foe you attack.
-Guarded Attack: You may sacrifice one or all your attacks to gain a +1 bonus to shield bonus per attack you sacrifice. If you at least sacrifice one attack, you are immune against a foe's gaze attack until next round.
-Shield Check: When an opponent provokes an attack of opportunity from you, you can make a combat maneuver and attack the foe to shield bash that foe and prevent his movement this round as well as deal shield bash damage.
-Shielded Maneuvers: +2 to CMBs with bull rushes, disarm, overrun and trip when using a shield.
-Shielded Rider: When riding while wearing a shield, he gets +4 to ride-checks to negate attacks.
-Shielded Spellcasting: Cast while wearing a shield, but get 1 bonus less from the shield-ac-bonus.
Conclusion:
Editing and formatting are top-notch, I didn't notice any glitches. Layout adheres to SGG's 3-column-standard and the pdf has no bookmarks, but at this length, the pdf needs none. While the product value of this pdf is beyond questioning and Guarded Attack is awesome to speed up high-level play, I felt nevertheless rather disappointed by this pdf. Seeing how great the idea of guarded attack is, I nevertheless feel like it could have been expanded via more feats, as I doubt the usability of the minor AC-bonuses - a greater variant of the feat would help here. Additionally, most of the feats felt like good ideas, but didn't truly wow me. Taking a look at my other reviews from the BP-line, I'll settle for a final verdict of 4 stars due to wanting more awesome feats, but finding no true problems.
This installment of the monsters unleashed-series is 18 pages long, 1 page front cover, 1 page editorial, 6 pages SRD, leaving 10 pages of content - quite a bunch for the low price! Let's check out the monsters:
-The first creature is the Erotodaemon (CR 8), a daemon of hedonims and debauchery that comes with a heartstone, a heart that can be extracted from the disturbing, yet somewhat beautiful creature to enslave the being. Oh, and they have a summoning awareness and the ability to intercept summons. Cool critter, cool concept - two thumbs up.
-Dread Eyebeast (CR 14) is a disturbing being - a hydra-like beast with a plethora of eyestalks that have beholder-powers - great stand-in for the spherical icons.
-Less deadly, but nevertheless an interesting animal is the Cr 4 Mawgriff - essentially, a carnivorous giraffe that makes for a disturbing mount. Even better, they come with animal companion information. Neat!
-The next new creature is the Sage Whisperer (CR 5), a non-evil, intelligence-draining undead sage that values knowledge and written records above all. An ok critter, but nothing to write home about.
-The CR 5 Shimmer Dragon is not a true dragon, but rather a minor draconic being that can use its scales to blind foes and has a poisonous bite. This creature elicited only a yawn from me. I don't like disposable, low-CR draconic foes and this species, sans progression and true age-categories, just didn't grab my interest. While we do get a CR 8 sample shimmer dragon with some sorc-levels and a short sample horde, this does not salvage the critter for me.
Finally, we get 1 new feat and 4 spells. I didn't notice any major glitches there and they felt nice, though nothing to write home about. The final page of the page is devoted to paper counters of the monsters.
Conclusion:
Editing and formatting are good, I didn't notice any glitches that impeded my ability to understand how the creatures work. Layout adheres to a 2-column standard and features neat b/w-artworks for every creature. The pdf is fully bookmarked. I loved one creature herein, enjoyed 2 and was rather unimpressed by two, thus I'll settle for a final verdict of 3.5 stars, rounding down to 3 in spite of the low price. More unique signature abilities for the Mawgriff, shimmer dragon or sage whisper would have been awesome and make me round up. Due to the low price still a pdf you might want to check out.
-Dead Sexy: may affect Undead with spells that target humanoids and use diplomacy on mindless undead.
-Dire Hex: Add a hex to a critical hit.
-Eldritch Advocate: +1 caster level when in contact with familiar.
-Eldritch Proxy: Patron spells may be cast from the familiar's origin.
-Fetch: Grant a +4 bonus to the next attack against a foe threatening you.
-Seal Wife: Gain Swim as class-skill, use Int-modifier for swimming and gain swim speed and underwater-breathing at 5th level.
-Scorn Scent: Smell creatures that have harmed you in the last 7 days.
-Skin Changer: Make a cloak from creatures and wildshape into them. VERY cool!
-Wound Drinker: Transfer limited wounds of allies to yourself.
Conclusion:
Editing and formatting are top-notch, I didn't notice any glitches. Layout adheres to a 3-column standard. The pdf has no bookmarks, but needs none at this length. The pdf provides us with a neat variety of hexes for the witch-class, some of which are simply stunning. Most of the hexes, while interesting, didn't stun me, but I encountered no problems either. Seeing that I really enjoyed some hexes and have no qualms about any of them and adding the low price, I'll settle for a final verdict of 5 stars - well worth for advocates of the witch class.
This pdf is 18 pages long, 1 page front cover, 1 page editorial, 2 pages of advertisements and 1 page SRD, leaving 13 pages of content, so let's check out these new traits for pirates and privateers, especially useful for the Skull & Shackles-AP or Freeport-campaigns.
Before I get into this review, I have to make something clear: I really like the basic premise of traits - further individualizing characters according to their backgrounds. What I personally always considered balanced, but oh so boring, was the execution of most traits: Let's face it - a minor bonus of +1 or 2 to skills is nothing to write home about. This installment of the 101-series thankfully takes another approach to traits: Essentially, the design-goal of this pdf, according to a side-box, is pushing the boundaries and adding a bit excitement to traits. Essentially, traits in this book are often more powerful than usual for traits, but come with restrictions on their usability.
A neat example for this new approach would be the trait "Balance the Books" - a friend or allied NPC is indebted to you in such a way that they're willing to lay down their life for the PC. This might have them take the place of the character in prison, resurrect the character once or do a similar, significant task on behalf of the PC - but only once. Another rather interesting case would be "Accursed Corsair", which enables the PC to take an oracle's curse, including all penalties and benefits. If you haven't noticed by now, the traits not only go beyond what you'd usually expect, but also provide what I'd consider "background-hooks". In my home game, I tend to give story-awards for good background stories and in-built character hooks and exactly as such can many of these traits be considered. One of my favorite traits assumes that you have made a dark pact that lets you summon a desolate ship/ghost vessel, usable only by you and your first mate, rise from the waves - which might, at least once, save your skin. While not worth anything, the iconic act of raising a ship from Davey's locker is just too cool, even if you cannot sell it for gain.
Of course, more mundane traits are included as well: If you for example want a weaponized peg-leg there's a trait for it, as there's one for having depth-perception in spite of just having one eye and an eye-patch. "By Land or by Sea" is another smart trait, granting your merfolk character the amphibious subtype and the ability to change into biped-form. If you're inclined to play rather a noble and cool commander, "Face Death with Dignity" might be up your alley: Once per week, when being under the effects of fear, you ignore the frightened condition and gain a modified version of the confusion condition, sans "attack self" and "attack nearest creature", but with +2 to Str and Con and +1 to will-saves. The restriction to "usable once per week" is applied in more than one trait, making what would otherwise be too strong for a trait actually work well and more importantly: COUNT.
A trait that is integral part of your background story might actually make a DIFFERENCE. This is why I really like this book - it provides traits that deserve the name and re-imagine the rather bland basic concept of traits to a new level that makes them feel more distinct from feats, talents etc.
I also enjoyed a trait that lets you start play as a restless soul (from the excellent RiP-supplement or In the Company of Monsters) or start game with a curse that ensures you becoming one. My absolute favorite of the bunch, though, is the trait "Parrot Voice": You are mute, but gain a parrot-familiar that squawks the somatic components of your spells while sitting on your shoulders. This is genius!
Conclusion:
Editing and formatting are slightly worse than I've come to expect from Rite Publishing: Aforementioned Parrot-Voice trait e.g. suffers from 2 minor glitches. While not impeding my ability to understand the content, I think that another pass at editing would have been a good idea. Layout adheres to a 2-column standard and the classic stock-art pictures are fitting. The pdf comes with no bookmarks, which is another minor downer. I'm in a bit of a pinch here: On the one hand I absolutely LOVE the new approach taken to traits herein. On the other hand, this installment of the 101-series is not as stunningly awesome as its predecessor. While still a good book oozing usability and cool options for any Freeport or Skull & Shackles-game, I feel that this book could have used a bit more polish on the side of formal criteria. In the end, though, all my points of criticism have to be taken as nagging on a very high level. My final verdict will thus be 4 stars - a good book that falls a bit short of absolute excellence.
The Freeport Companion is a massive 175 page book, not including front and back cover, but including 1 page editorial, 1 page SRD and 2 pages Index, leaving a whopping 171 pages of content, so let's pay a visit to the by now legendary city of pirates in its Pathfinder iteration!
Before I get into the details, I'll have to say that I'm a big fan of Freeport - swashbuckling action, gunpowder, pirates, cthulhoid and pulpy influences - all in all, I own every Freeport resource published as of now. While I did love the system-neutral "Cults of Freeport", I'm glad that the Companion provides us with the solid rules for PFRPG to bring to life this city of swashbuckling - but does it hold up to its glorious heritage or is it on par with the less fanciful installments that accompanied the 3.X-glut?
Well, we get crunch - a lot of crunch: Starting with 20-level base-classes, we're immediately thrown into the setting: The first is the spell-less Assassin base-class some of you might know from Kobold Quarterly. I really love the class, but at least for me, it was not original content. By the way, if you don't have the KQ-issue - buy it. And every other KQ-copy out there. They're stellar.
But I'm rambling, next base-class is the corsair, which I recently stumbled over again in Rite Publishing's 101 Renegade Class Feats. The Corsair gets d10, 4+Int skills, good BAB, good fort-and ref-saves, dirty fighting skills and the very iconic corsair's luck that can be vastly expanded upon with Rite's pdf. If you plan of playing one, be sure to check the pdf out as well. On the other hand, the Monster Hunter, a kind of ranger variant devoted to the extermination of multiple kinds of beasts gets d10, 4+Int skills, good BAB and good fort- and will-saves and feels rather been there, done that. While there is nothing wrong per se with the class, it just didn't feel imaginative. I did like the IC-comments for the different sub-classes for the hunters. The final new class on the other hand is just STELLAR: the Noble is a kind of aristocrat-variant suitable for PCs - i.e. the class is still focused on leadership, commanding, social skills, etc. but doesn't suck. The Noble gets d8, 6+Int skills, 3/4 BAB, good ref and will-saves. They can choose special noble-trainings and even delve into the illicit. The final new PC-class is the survivor - the proverbial last man standing who gets d12, 4+Int skills, good BAB, good fort-saves, arcane and initiative bonuses and dirty fighting, unarmed damage and DR - nice idea for a non-armored tank! Kudos, the design of that one must have been rather difficult. The NPC Cultist-class also features 20 levels, d6, 4+Int skills, 3/4 BAB, good will-saves, sneak attack of up to 3d6 and spellcasting of up to 5th level - finally all those gibbering wretches get their own club to belong to. EZG approves.
After these new classes, we get some new uses for skills, languages and feats. Feats. A lot of feats. To be precise 101 of them, most of them focusing on swashbukcling battle, fighting in specific environments etc. At this amount of feats should make it rather unsurprising that they are not all of the same quality. While a lot of the feats are not that bad, I unfortunately have to report that some of them felt rather strong and I wasn't really wowed by them. Optional rules are also provided, to be precise, Insanity and madness rules, including tables for short-term, long-term and indefinite madness. I'm a huge fan of madness systems and I loved this one as well - however, I do have one central gripe - it's a small section, 4.5 pages. With some additional space and expanded tables, this system might actually have supplanted my own homebrew system, but as written, it's a bit too short to truly excite me. I hope we'll one day see a more broad, expanded version of these rules.
Of course, crunchy bits are not everything, Freeporters also need things to spend their hard-earned loot and thus the next chapter features new goods, first of all, of course, all of the pistols and black-powder weapons, rules for using them as a club etc. Unfortunately, these rules have been created prior to the release of the Gunslinger. An update or a little file à la "Gunslingers in Freeport" would be awesome. The chapter also includes rules for the most common drugs available in the city of pirates as well as the obligatory spell-section, once again due to being an older book, sans lists for the APG and UM/UC-classes.
The spell-section actually surprised me with a rather nice little twist - each spell comes with a one-sentence fluff-description that frames what it does, making not only reading the section more exciting, but also adequately framing what can be considered a selection of spells that is actually better than average. Of course, that's not where we stop - we also get a selection of magical weapons and artifacts, including siege weapons like magical ballistae and, of course the legendary siege cannons of Freeport. There are also magical compasses, enchanted crow's nests and figureheads, dice etc. - It's these items, once again with descriptions, that constitute the first part of the book that truly wowed me: From unusual item-classes to ingenious ideas, the items and artifacts are all winners and expand/develop the canon of Freeport lore. Excellent!
Chapter 6 features the PrCs of Freeport:
-Crime Boss: 10 levels, d8, 6+Int skills per level, medium BAB, medium Ref- and will-saves; Urban criminal kingpins that get a lot of henchmen and a dread reputation.
-Musketeer: 10 levels, d10, 2+Int skills per level, good BAB, medium ref- and will-saves; Firearm specialist.
-Mystic Navigator: 10 levels, 4+Int skills per level, d6, 1/2 BAB, medium will-save, full spell progression with one level exception; Navigator wizard that can even navigate the planes.
-Sea Dog: 10 levels, 4+Int skills per level, d10, full BAB, medium ref-save; Fighter specialized on fighting aboard ships, probably not suitable for PCs and more geared towards NPCs.
-Witch Hunter: 10 levels, 2+Int skills per level, d10, full BAB, medium fort- and will-saves; Divine warrior/fanatic and channel righteous fury into destructive wrath. By far the coolest of the PrCs.
In Chapter 7, Freeport-enthusiasts will get their due: Statblocks. Piles and piles of statblocks, for lowly thugs, despicable assassins, cultists and a huge amount of NPCs, we get a huge number of rock-solid stats that make sure that your Freeport campaign is backed by solid crunch. And yeah, iconic characters like a certain halfling kingpin are included as well. We get 47 pages of characters and then some monsters in addition: 11 new monsters are detailed - from flayed men to serpent-people, they all have solid stats and come with lore-sections etc. However, not all monsters get their own artworks, which is a minor bummer.
Finally, we get a sample adventure called Fury in Freeport. The following text contains SPOILERS, thus, I'd urge potential players to jump to the conclusion.
Still here? All right.
Essentially, the adventure revolves around an evil sacrificial dagger that is haunted by a ghost of one of its wielders. Enter Beedle, drop-out arcanist, wannabe murderer of his noble aunt and downright despicable bastard. After having been kicked out by his aunt (after trying to kill her), he wants a part of her legacy and hires the PCs to try to steal the dagger from an auction house. An infiltration at first level? Yep, complete with map of the auction house and no, the Pcs not necessarily have to succeed - in fact, Beedle expects them to fail. To further complicate matters, a diabolist named Faratsay with his infernal allies and strong men also craves the dagger. The PCs will have to untangle the weave of deception, find the now-possessed Beedle via various contacts and legwork and make sure the dagger does not fall into the wrong hands. Beedle's killing spree on behalf of the possessing spirit does not make this particularly easy either.
Conclusion:
Editing and formatting are very good - I noticed only two minor glitches. Layout adheres to the classic Freeport 2-column standard, including fonts etc. While this is neat, personally, I preferred the presentation used in Cult of Freeport. I only have the dead-tree version, thus I can't comment on bookmarks etc. I'm kinda torn on this Freeport Companion. While I liked some of the base-classes and PrCs, not all of them are truly killer and in fact e.g. the Sea Dog is blatant filler. The Monster Hunter didn't wow me either. The feats are just not my cup of tea - maybe I'm over-saturated, but I've become VERY hard to impress with feats, spells etc. and while the spells were not bad, in fact quite good, they didn't blow me out of the water. While the magic items and wide variety of statblocks do rule and I greatly enjoyed the adventure included, the lack of artwork for some of the monsters is another downside. While the stats rock, I would have loved more information on laws (the few that exist), government, secret societies etc.
The book is rather weak on the fluff-side and essentially, at least for me, boiled down to hit and miss, mostly due to space-issues. A prime example would be the madness-rules that could have been truly great with more space, more madness effects etc., but as written only amounts to an "ok system". Another downside I see with the Companion is something that the book is not to fault, but stands against it nevertheless: The book has definitely aged with the release of APG, UM and UC especially - the lack of Gunslinger-support is felt in a setting with a solid gunpowder-aspect like Freeport. On the other hand, the vast amount of statblocks makes sure that this book is useful even when not necessarily playing in Freeport and the amount of gunpowder weapons and siege weapons/weird magic items as well as the well-written adventure made me enjoy this book. Were I to judge this book when it was released, I'd settle for a final verdict of 4 or even 4.5 stars. Seeing how the book hasn't aged too well and the minor gripes I had with component parts, my final verdict has to be lower though. Thus, I'll settle for a final verdict of 3 stars - still an ok purchase, but no longer a stellar one.
This pdf is 69 pages long, 1 page front cover, 1 page editorial, 1 page SRD, 1 page back cover, leaving 65 pages of content, so let's check this adventure (anthology) out!
Peril in Freeport is actually a series of short adventures that build upon each other and are connected via a metaplot, each of which can be run in approximately a session -an interesting approach that has not yet been done for the City of adventure, at least to my knowledge. This being an adventure review, the following will contain massive SPOILERS. Potential players should jump to the conclusion.
Still here?
...
All right, Peril in Freeport's basic premise is that once, a war raged under water. In said war, a hero of the sea-elves sacrificed his life to bury a spawning ground of infernal aquatic monstrosities and entomb them forever. Now, a coven of hags is utilizing its allies and minions to kidnap people to enslave them and have them excavate said spawning ground, which has the unfortunate byproduct of rather unsubtle sea-quakes, the first of which hits Freeport in the first part of the series.
In the wake of the approaching tidal wave and the chaos that ensues, the players will have the opportunity to track and catch some wanted fugitives as well as help some common folk endangered by the tidal wave, hopefully gaining the trust of sergeant Yarrick by tracking aforementioned fugitives through a tailor's shop and finally hunt them down before they escape Freeport. I really liked the tidal wave as an environmental hazard and backdrop for this section.
In the next chapter, the PCs rescue a halfling from a floating barrel and being eaten by a giant moray eel and represents the only one who has managed to elude a merrow-attack on his erstwhile vessel, the tradewind. Hiring the PCs, he wants them to find his familiy and save them from the brute's clutches. After reaching and exploring the vessel (the PCs will have fun with creatures on the way), the PCs witness an attack by a merrow warband and hopefully track them back to their mostly submerged little base. After rescuing the folk there and finding some piece of evidence, the PCs can determine the name of a collaborator with the aquatic brutes and upon their return to Freeport, hopefully bring justice to this scoundrel.
In the wake of the close-down of the rather unpleasant Safe Passage company, the halfling Glinder Fontonry stumbles across irregularities in the ledgers (which are provided as a handout - commendable!) just as a former business associate pops up. Quick-thinking PCs might track the slave trader, confront them and via them, find an island inhabited by ogres and their hell hound pets and hopefully rescue more enslaved from the degenerate brutes.
This year's Great Hunt takes place on the high seas due to 3 different vessel being capsized by a dread tentacled horror, a fiendish giant squid. Preventing their vessel from capsizing due to sea quakes while fighting the squid. This might make for some rather interesting battle situations.
After dealing with the squid, the PCs are contacted by a nixie while lounging in a bar - after the obligatory brawl, the PCs venture out to a reef to infiltrate an aboleth-lair and kill their way through this most powerful of the coven's allies and attain a scroll that finally fits them in on the whole background story.
The final chapter has the PCs attack the ogre-staffed stronghold of the coven and finally a showdown with the hags - the last of which escapes through a portal to the spawning ground to unleash the fiendish offspring on the oceans. The PCs will be hard pressed to stop the hag while being hounded by the dread sharks and squids. One of the problems of this showdown is that we don't get any information on the positions of said creatures apart from the hag.
The pdf has the NPCs and creatures in the back, a page of sample nautical encounters, and comes with extensive maps: We get a map of the tailor shop, of the wreck of the Tradewinds, the merrow lair, the safe passage, the slaver ship, the ogre island, the ogre camp, the dame fortune, a tavern, an alchemist's shop, the aboleth's lair, the hag's lair and finally the depths. We also get 3 handouts as well as a rather half-hearted 1-page write-up of the new half-ogre race.
Conclusion:
Editing and formatting are still ok, although e.g. in the last encounter, the amount of creatures is missing from the write-up and I noticed some glitches. Layout adheres to a 2-column standard and the adventure features an used parchment background makes for a rather strange read due to the font: I don't know why, but the no-frills font feels oddly out of place in the otherwise beautiful layout. The artworks are mostly b/w and nothing special, the amount of cartography provided, though, is awesome. On the whole, I am quite torn about this module: On the one hand there are some rather interesting ideas and environmental hazards and fighting under-water is something not seen too often. On the other hand, this adventure feels like a mostly unrelated sequence of encounters held together by a rather flimsy overarching plot and fails to evoke any true sense of urgency. The foes we encounter are rather run-of-the-mill as well and for example the aquatic aberration falls a bit short of its presumed intelligence in the planning of its defense. Furthermore, the unique 3-dimensional aspects of under-water combat are largely ignored and environmental complications are mostly absent from the adventure.
In the end, I kept on reading and occasionally thinking "good idea", but my final impression was unfortunately a total "meh". The plot simply is not exciting in its narrative as the PCs essentially travel from A to B to clear out monster lairs at the behest of NPCs without the action feeling like there's anything truly at stake. The final encounter, which could have been AWESOME with information on the monsters, is rather disappointing - while the PCs should take out the BBEG and then frantically try to escape, there is no real information on the particulars of the tactical situation,, which is a major bummer. In the end, this adventure is not truly bad, as there are some nice ideas herein. It is, though also far away from being an interesting or captivating set encounters and does not feel particularly tied to Freeport or its canon and thus ultimately commits a cardinal sin - being bland. In fact, it would easily work (and possibly even better) with a generic harbor town. While I'd love to rate this higher, I still feel like had I known what to expect, I wouldn't have bought this adventure. It is just boring and the least exciting Freeport adventure I've read to date. My final verdict will be 1.5 stars due to the amount of handouts and cartography, rounded up to 2 stars for the purpose of this platform.
This pdf is 31 pages long, 1 page front cover, 1 page blank inside of the front cover, 1 page editorial, 1 page ToC, 1 page advice on reading statblocks for novice DMs, 1 page SRD, 1 page advertisement and 1 page back cover, leaving 23 pages of content for the new cult.
This review depicting a cult contains SPOILERS, thus I'd advice potential players to skip to the conclusion.
Still here? All right! Havra Zhoul's cult is not a common "More-Evil-than-thou"-Cult, which becomes readily apparent even from the start - so-called dictums of the cult, i.e. sections from the writing of the holy book of the cult, depicting the philosophy of the sect.
An organized task-force created by a paladin who got too radical, the cult of Havra Zhoul takes the idea of the "good shepherd" and people as a flock and develop it to the logical extreme: A totalitarian organization that seeks to impose the dictums of the cult at any cost. Starting off as a seemingly benevolent secret police that punishes evil-doers the system can't seem to grab/defeat or who have powerful official backing, the cult could even work with the PCs, increasing the horror of realizing the lows to which the cult could sink.
Even better, the cult per se might actually improve the overall situation for a time...before imposing draconic rules, that is. Especially when used in noir-settings like in "Streets of Zobeck" or Freeport, the edge the cult gives law and order might make the organization the lauded heroes of the downtrodden and opens up whole revenues for adventuring - have e.g. the PCs guard murderers and similar criminals, perhaps because they're still needed...
Of course, adventure hooks galore are provided for the cult, beginning with a magic investigator (complete with stats) who lies low, for he knows that he's bitten off more than he can chew and will pay dearly for his discoveries. A sample safehouse of the cult and the artifact housing the founder's soul, the holy book of the cult is included as well as two sample rites to create two unique kinds of devils from willing and unwilling supplicants as well as 2 new templates that grants infernal powers to those fully initiated into the cult. We also get a new witch archetype centered on poison-usage and a new class of magic items, necklaces of venomous beads.
Additionally, we get the full 4 NPC-descriptions of the cult's leaders and powerplayers entangled in webs of deceit, each with at least 2 pages of information, hooks, mannerisms and CHARACTER. There are a lot of NPCs out there, but these are truly fully developed characters, going so far as making even a chaotic evil decadent bastard a valid potential choice for an ally of the PCs. The writing of the NPCs and the cult itself is, let me make this abundantly clear STELLAR. The excerpts from the Dictum make this pdf not only a joy to read, but also gives the DM a great bunch of philosophical things to paraphrase/read to his players when confronting them with the cult, gradually introducing them to ever more extreme appliances of the teachings.
Conclusion.
editing and formatting are top-notch, I didn't notice any glitches. Layout adheres to the 2-column RSp-standard and the b/w-artworks are neat. The pdf comes fully bookmarked and features an extra pdf of collated stat-blocks as well as one optimized for use with e-readers. I LOVE this pdf. I really do.
Pierre van Rooden gives us not one run-of-the-mill cult, but a concisely-written organization that makes sense in every word and makes membership in the cult a believable goal, perhaps even for players. Depending on your campaign, the shades-of-grey approach taken herein might challenge a lot of overtly simplistic and boring dichotomies many players tend to take as for granted, making this pdf not only a good read, but offering an organization that very well could change how your PCs think about law, order and the price living in a peaceful society might entail. A sub-textual criticism of our ever-growing fear and mounting surveillance in real life is evident and, with divinations etc., an experienced DM could use this cult easily as a foundation for a roleplaying social commentary. Or you could simply use it as written and still enjoy one of the best NPC-organizations released for PFRPG to date. My final verdict? Not surprising at this point - 5 stars and the Endzeitgeist seal of approval.
This pdf is 3 pages long, 1 page front cover/introduction, 1 page SRD - 1 page new feats - straightforward as it gets! So let's check it out!
The Archon was the first Gish-class for PFRPG and is still one of my favorite classes, mostly due to the fluff and the fact that it is sufficiently unique and different. The other Gish-class by SGG, the Vanguard has recently seen an upgrade in form of new feats in RiP's "101 Renegade Class Feats" and these feats added a truly distinct fighting tactic and very special options to the class, proving that some exclusive feats go a long way in making a class memorable.
Does this Bullet Point-pdf reach this level of quality? Well, the feats we get are:
- Add Invocation to Injury: If you damage a foe via mundane (i.e. non-magical/supernatural) means, you can penalize her/him/it until your next round with -1 or -2 (depending on the weapon) on her(his/its saves. Cool feat - while not too powerful, it does offer a mechanic that rewards fighting both with magic and weapons instead of focusing on one of the two.
- Eldritch Insight: This feats does the same in reverse: If a foe botches a save against your spells, said foe becomes easier to hit by your mundane attacks. The ability works for 1 minute, taking into account that spells are limited for a greater duration. A great feat for the same reason as the first.
-Spell Weapon: Via a ceremony, you attune yourself to a weapon: When casting a specific set of spells: Greater magic weapon & keen edge can be cast as a swift action without M/DF component. Locate Object gets an expanded range. Magic Weapon and Light work longer. Obscure Object hides your attuned weapon for 24 hours.
-Second Spell Weapon: This grants you a second attuned spell weapon. I really like these two feats, as they reward specific tactics/ability synergies with bonuses. I hope to see more feats in the future that reward fighting styles/ enhance buffing.
-Spell Weapon Charge: Somewhat a misnomer in the English language, this is no charge attack, but lets you store an undelivered charge from a touch attack in your blade to cast other spells, effectively making your attuned weapon a kind of battery - once again, a cool idea, flawlessly executed.
-Spell Weapon gestures: You can use your spell weapon-wielding hand to fulfill somatic components of spellcasting.
Conclusion:
Editing and formatting are top-notch, I didn't notice any glitches. Layout adheres to SGG's 3-column standard. The pdf has no bookmarks and at this length, needs none. These feats are GOLD for any gish -replace the archon-lvl-requirements with "Magus", "Vanguard" or whatever and you can easily use them for other gish-classes as well. The feats are expertly written and showcase why Owen K.C. Stephens has a reputation for being a true master of crunch. Having nothing to complain about and LOVING the spell weapon-feat tree, my only gripe is that I would have loved a full genius guide with feats of this quality. My final verdict will thus be 5 stars and the Endzeitgeist seal of approval.
This pdf is 56 pages long, 1 page front cover, 1 page inside front cover, 3 pages of how-to-use the deck, 4 pages SRD, leaving 47 pages of content, so let's check out this deck, shall we?
This deck provides a way to present a maze to your players sans any mapping or similar efforts. essentially, the DM determines the length of the maze to be explored by setting a point value. Depending on the length of the maze, the Cr goes up or down. Next, you designate a discard and exploration pile. Each of the cards offers two challenges, of which the PCs choose one. If they succeed at the skill challenge/combat maneuver or save, the card goes on the exploration-pile. If they fail, the card goes to the discard-pile. Once the card's value in the exploration-pile exceeds the labyrinth's value, the encounter is defeated and the labyrinth considered cleared.
Conclusion:
The b/w-artworks on the respective cards are nice and the challenges are ok. This deck offers an interesting way of running a maze-encounter. While the challenges on the cards necessarily are abstract, the deck does work and the overall system is neat. However, the level of abstraction used for e.g. taking damage due to failing a challenge means a certain disconnection from regular exploration. E.g. the Skeleton-card deals 1d6 points of damage to the whole party, which doesn't scale with higher CRs or interacts with the usual mechanic of discarding cards/shuffling etc.. No specifics for failing the maze-challenge are given, which would have been nice. However, the deck is cheap and while certainly not perfect, offers a way to run a maze with absolutely no preparation time. As such, I'll settle for a final verdict of 3 stars - an ok solution that could be even better.
This free web-enhancement for Mor Aldenn, the city of Mages, is 7 pages long, 1 page front cover, 1 page advertisement, 1 page SRD and 1/2 a page editorial, leaving 3.5 pages for the location.
So what is the gallery of dreams? Essentially, the gallery is a pocket dimension, entrances to which seem to pop up randomly in back alleys, scarcely-travelled roads etc. Inside, travelers can take a look at silver-lined mirrors, in which the dreams of themselves and others, even significant ones are repeated. A ghost-curator (complete stats) is included as well as a nice adventure hook centering on a stolen mirror from the gallery of dreams.
Conclusion:
Editing and formatting are top-notch, I didn't notice any glitches. Layout adheres to a 2-column standard and the pdf even includes a piece of original b/w-artwork of the curator. The pdf has no bookmarks, but at this length needs none. I absolutely loved this little location and seeing that the pdf is free, you can't do anything wrong with downloading this neat piece. My final verdict will thus be 5 stars - check this out!
This installment of the Infamous Adversary-line is 30 pages long, 1 page front cover, 1 page editorial, 4 pages of advertisement and 1 page SRD, leaving 23 pages of content - that's quite a bunch for the low price, so let's check it out!
The pdf kicks off with a bang - a stellar, original, full-page artwork of Raxath'Viz - gorgeous and not something I would have expected for the price point. You'll hear these words more often in this review. The description of Raxath'Viz kicks off with a disturbing, well-written introduction before providing us the statblock of the villain: Raxath'Viz is a Cleric (Hidden Priest)10/Divine Scion 3/Rogue (Trapsmith) 3 and thus has a COMPLEX statblock with a LOT of special abilities. The statblock contains a minor layout error - a part of the statblock is not shaded like the rest of the block. That does not deter from his wide array of abilities or their usability, though, just an optical hick-up. Raxath'Viz has an ambition quite profound - be the instrument of reincarnation for the goddess of disease and become a demi-god himself in the process.
In order to accomplish this lofty goal, he has to succeed in 6 profane boons, which are detailed not only with prophecy-like lines, but also how Raxath'Viz plans to accomplish/accomplished them - this prophecy per se could be seen as a seed for a whole campaign, if desired. If you want to use a Raxath'Viz over the course of a campaign, you'll also get an advancement track for him as well as 3 additional plot hooks. Sample lore-DCs are provided to go along the campaign and plot seeds. If you want further ideas n how Raxath'Viz operates, you'll see it in yet another short piece of fiction before we get to his perhaps most valuable ally, Zogulryk the unholy, a male Oytugh Oracle 10 who is the one true ally/friend (if such a word is applicable) the Kobold has.
The installment does not end here, though, and instead goes on to provide sample names and personalities for the Festering Lesion, Raxath'Viz rag-tag band of kobold followers. We also get some sample custom traps the clever kobold employs and especially a consuming jack-in-the-box is worthy of Batman's Joker in its twisted humor. Of course, the Kobold also has pets, namely a variety of otyugh-mutations, one of which, the two-headed guardian otyugh, is also presented with a full statblock.
Unbelievably, we get even MORE: The profane Vessel of his goddess, a giant CR 20-super otugh remains even after his defeat, waiting for the day when a divinity will emerge from its cancerous growths and posing the final obstacle for the PCs to squash the ambitions of Maramaga, a goddess of pestilence spawned from a barbaric ritualistic druidic sacrifice and her own 2-page write-up is surprisingly compelling in imagery and tone, making her more than yet another deity of disease.
The pdf closes with information on a faction of (semi-) unwitting pawns to Raxath'Viz machinations that shall remain unnamed for spoiler's sake as well as a new devastating disease.
Conclusion:
Editing and formatting are good, though not excellent: I noticed this one layout-glitch and an incorrect use of the -eth-suffix for a verb in the prophecy. All in all, though, less than 5 hick-ups, all minor, over 23 pages. Layout is new, different and beautiful - while not as printer-friendly as TPK Games' previous layout, the grey borders make for a visually pleasing reading experience. The artwork of Raxath'Viz is STUNNING. It makes a KOBOLD look intimidating as hell. The villain per se features a lengthy statblock, and as has been the tradition with TPK Games alongside all other statblocks in this pdf, been excessively hyperlinked to d20pfsrd.com, making usage of the file on a laptop extremely easy. The pdf is also excessively bookmarked and *drumroll* comes with full hero lab support of all the creatures herein - great for the people who use the tool (though I don't).
Content-wise, I'll just say: Wow. Temerlyth was a very good villain. Raxath'Viz blows him out of the water. The sheer amount of content provided in this pdf is awesome - the short stories are well-written, Raxath'Viz's statblock is complex, we get unique servants and allies, a new (and cool) goddess, a dread prophecy (including his plans to accomplish it - a potential campaign in itself) and a villain that acts SMART. Oh yeah, and new traps. The only thing anyone could ask for from this file that is not there is statblocks for less accomplished versions of him, but seeing that we get the high-level version, they can potentially be reverse-engineered. This pdf provides a LOT of content for 3 bucks - much more than I would have expected and at a higher quality, too. In fact, I'm going so far as to say that TPK Games have just upped the ante on NPC/Villain-supplements in the low price-range by a considerable amount. While the minor glitches would usually result in about half a star being detracted, the excellent bang-for-buck ratio more than does its share to counter this minor blemish. Thus, my final verdict will be 5 stars and the Endzeitgeist seal of approval - a truly deadly, devious, frightening kobold villain indeed and a great testament to the level with which the Infamous Adversary-line has been improving.
This adventure is 32 pages long, 1 page front cover, 1 page editorial, 1 page SRD, leaving 29 pages for this first adventure by Run Amok Games, the new company of Ron Lundeen, so let's check it out!
This being an adventure review, the following text contains massive SPOILERS, so potential players might want to jump to the conclusion.
Still here? Righty right, so essentially we have an investigation of a haunting - the aristocratic, exclusive Six Griffons lodge has seen some hauntings and the PCs stumble across a rather violent manifestation of said haunting. The situation is made more precarious by the fact that the lodge houses a collection of magic/unusual weapons. Before you start sighing and devise ways to deprive the PCs of the stolen weapons, rest assured that they won't waltz out of this adventure with an arsenal of magic weapons.
Hired by the butler/resident scholar of the lodge to find the cause of the unrest before a scheduled dinner of lodge members, the events start to escalate pretty fast. People start dying in rather macabre (and potentially lethal ways for the players), but without accumulating an overdue bodycount. The adventure features some rather interesting twists on the classical haunting that are massive SPOILERS: First of all, the culprit is not the classic undead, but instead a new creature called haunting elemental. Even better, they are only the symptom of the true problem and a corrupt member of the lodge tries to steal what is supposed to be a weapon to grant innumerable riches. The weapon that is confused with the silver-creating instrument of destruction is in fact the true culprit - a weapon cursed by its djinn-creators to forever thirst for the blood of evil creatures: If the weapon's thirst is not sated, the deadly elementals start manifesting. Have I mentioned that one character is a djinn in disguise that can act as a savior if the PCs are stuck?
While format-wise the investigation is rather open, it also contains a timeline and puts some pressure on the PCs to find out the truth without unnecessary dawdling. It should also be noted that the adventure comes with 4 extensive handouts the PCs should analyze (which are consolidated on two pages for ease of printing out in the end) and a gorgeous 4-page full-color map of the lodge. I do have one very minor gripe: The Haunting Elementals. They reminded of of an old Planescape-joke with Berkamentals and quite frankly, could have been other creatures, as they don't feel like elementals to me.
Conclusion:
Editing and formatting are top-notch, I didn't notice any glitches. Layout adheres to a printer-friendly 2-column standard and the pdf comes with excessive bookmarks. The beautiful map and b/w-mugshots of the characters herein help to endear both characters and location to the PCs. This adventure is a rather fast-paced investigation with several fail-safes if the PCs get stuck, moderately difficult encounters and an unique flair - following the tradition of Ron Lundeen's Soldragonn Academy (by Headless Hydra Games), the adventure does feature a rather dark sense of humor that does not devolve into a massacre or truly mature material - indeed, the best way to describe it would be a investigative comedy of manners with a very dark sense of subtle humor. If played right, suspense and smiles at the characters herein go hand in hand, at least they did in my game. My group finished the adventure in one session, meaning that DMs with clever/investigating characters might want to throw in some additional red herrings. This and aforementioned personal preference are the only true gripes I can find, though, resulting in a 5-star verdict - well done! Now let's see a more complex one! ;)
This module is 32 pages long, 1 page front cover, 1 page editorial, 1 page ToC, 1 page SRD, 1 page advertisement, leaving 27 pages of content for this adventure by Dennis Sustare, author of the original druid-class. The cover-image by Paul Jaquays enhances the cool old-schoolish feel of the module from the get-go, so let's dive in!
This being an adventure-module, the following review contains SPOILERS, thus potential players might wish to jump to conclusion.
Ursined, Sealed and Delivered jumps off with the PCs returning from a polar expedition with a sage, when a seal surfaces from icy waters to ask them to find a golden fish, another seal and kill a bear who supposedly cursed it and its brother. If the PCs want to help the seal, they're in for quite an adventure, for the ship will return thrice, once every 7 days and they may take rations from the expedition, but only 8 crates. From the get-go, the harshness of nature and detailed notes on survival, not only for the PCs, but also for their dog-sleds are covered and staying alive in these frozen reaches proves to be dangerous - scaling the cliff from the point of arrival and pulling up the dogs/ crossing an icy river with them make for not only cool, but intriguing hazards. The adventure is sub-divided in 3 general section at this polar coast-line:
The first location is a snowed-in tower in which skeletons and wights dwell that is the prison of the seal's brother. The second is a polar outpost manned by corrupt men under the leadership of an evil were-bear (with a cloak that can transform you into a seal) and finally, a set of icy caves in which golden fish dwell, the only way to reverse the seal-transformation. Following broadly lesser-known motives from Inuit-legends, this adventure thus has a distinct feel of antiquity, even of fairy-tales with it. The triple trial to saves the siblings-turned-seals serves to further enhance this general feeling. Unfortunately, the survival aspect of the module, broadly set up via cool ideas, a plathora of rules etc. goes...nowhere. The distances between the 3 locations are too short, PCs won't be pressed to survive this trip, let alone manage their resources well. In fact, from one end of the coast to the other is only a two-days dog-sled travel, which makes the survival aspect/conservation of food etc. more or less moot - PCs have to be very foolhardy/stupid to suffer from any detrimental environmental consequences in this module, at least as it's presented. The locations per se, apart from the ice caves, also feel like they woefully fall short of the hazardous potential a polar expedition could provide and even the exploration of latter caves feels unfortunately a bit like a slightly more complex, white-painted cavern-exploration. Hazard and foe-wise. much more and iconic encounters could have been possible with each location.
Imagine the tower of the seal - first some haunts, then corpses and slowly, suddenly, an undead onslaught, an artic storm and the tower starts getting covered in snow - once the PCs have to spend a week or two inside, they will know the dread of wasting resources. The adventure does no such thing. The were-bear villain has no motivation, no true ecology and both he and his man remain painfully bland as well, once again, not utilizing his seal-enchanting cloak to full, disturbing potential. In the end, the PCs will reverse the transformations and be on their way.
Conclusion:
Editing and formatting are ok - I noticed bold lines to help the DM, that are inconsistent in their boldness and a keyed location missing from the maps. The b/w-artworks are top-notch and the maps provided do their job. Layout adheres to a cool, ice-float-style b/w-2-column standard I wish FGG had also used for the Northlands-saga. The pdf, insultingly, comes without bookmarks - in this day and age not something I enjoy, especially with all the survival aspects to keep in mind. My main gripe with this adventure is not it's fairy-tale-like set-up, nor its convention-style approach to Xp, but rather its content: We get this wonderfully set-up arctic exploration, awesome survival rules, an iconic landscape in its presentation if there ever was one...and then the module falls terribly flat on its face. The 3 locations of the trial all suffer from at least one major shortcoming, be it bland and repetitive fights against one kind of foe (who don't utilize the environment to their advantage), cardboard cut-out villains or just plain wasted potential.
If this adventure had been 64 or at least 48 pages, with actually good locations in the midst of this wilderness, I'd love it to death and be raving about its qualities right now. In fact, that's how it begins! With a stellar introduction to polar survival, neat rules, great help for the DM...that won't be needed. The adventure is a) easy, b) too short (both in page count and distances covered), c) fails to utilize its own antagonists/enemies to their potential and d)presents us iconic, stellar even locations only to disappoint us with blandness incarnate when populating them with foes, hazards and traps. I'm going to run this adventure, mind you. But I'm replacing just about every enemy, add hazards (OD's Northlands, how I love you...), haunts and traps etc. and THEN have fun. As a reviewer, though, I'm in a bit of a pinch. After all, I'm supposed to review what's there and not necessarily potential. Unfortunately, apart from the locations and the survival-rules, I can't recommend this adventure. Seeing that these two aspects are awesome and provide a saving grace, I'll settle for a final review of 2.5 stars, rounded down to 2. If you're just looking for a stretch of coastline to populate yourself, you might still enjoy this.
This installment of "The Sinking" is 16 pages long, 1 page front cover, 1 page SRD, 1 page editorial, 1 page ToC, 1 page advertisement, 1 page back cover, leaving 10 pages of content.
This being an adventure review, I encourage potential players to skip ahead to the conclusion in order to avoid the SPOILERS that now will come.
Righty right, so a rather shocking event like "The Sinking" striking the metropolis had to have some kind of religious consequences and this particular installment deals with one of them: A prophet has risen from the crowd, an enigmatic man who calls himself Lazarus and claims to have surfaced from "The Sinking". The new cult is rapidly spreading and his right-hand man, a pudgy man who is called "the Mouth of Lazarus" contacts the PCs with a rather urgent request:
It seems like the deadly assassin "Deathbolt" was hired by a rival cult to make Lazarus very dead indeed and that said legend always uses a rather strange, signature weapon - a weird crossbow he always uses for his kills. While the authorities will be at the speech in the person of Judge Winch and his guards, he wants this additional insurance. Lazarus' speech is impending and time is of the essence. The PCs thus journey to Deathbolts hideout (the location of which is conveniently provided by the Mouth), where they encounter some low-level thugs and finally find the strange weapon - sans bolts. Hopefully, the players are smart and smell a rat here. If they didn't kill the thugs, they can easily find out that something is amiss.
The thug claims that he was hired by a man in the shy mermaid. The rather pompous and exclusive design of the weapon might point the PCs to the Castle Ward weapon shop, the only place in the city with sufficient expertise to create said weapon. While the weapon shop offers no clues per se, showing off the weapon to the respected craftsmen there might offer a way for the PCs to escape unpleasant consequences in the aftermath of this scenario... One of the girls in the shy maiden saw the face of the one who hired the thugs and, for a bribe of her madame, might accompany the PCs to the church of Lazarus, where the speech by now should be due. Further inquiries might have yielded a baffling absence of knowledge about any kind of "legendary assassin Deathbolt" in any area/social circle, which should provide another clue as to what is being played here, namely: The PCs.
The Mouth of Lazarus, actually a quite smart urbanist, has decided that the church would profit from a martyr, namely Lazarus. He plans to murder the prophet via one of his automatons, a thing called nail which by coincidence shoots the strange bolts that only a custom-made crossbow could - like the ones the PCs recently acquired. While the prostitute can identify the mouth, he has yet another contingency and tries to kill her as well. During the speech (in a sinkhole-adjacent, fully mapped church), chaos erupts when Lazarus drops dead by the Mouth's ghastly ploy and he seeks to frame the PCs - who are stand-in in a crowd of enraged believers! The resulting finale and potential repercussions (after all, the mouth was clearly visible, unarmed and a judge is present...) might make for interesting complications beyond this particular scenario. Also, Lazarus' spirit is seen sometimes, floating over the mysterious sinkhole...
Conclusion:
Editing and formatting are very good, I only noticed 3 minor punctuation-style glitches. layout adheres to an elegant b/w-2-column standard and the quality of the b/w-artworks and maps is top-notch. The pdf comes fully bookmarked. Ascension of the Prophet is a prime example that an intriguing investigation can be done in just a few pages. The writing of Mario Barbati is concise and the adventure per se simply a nice little blast to run. Add to that the cool final encounter and we have n excellent installment of "The Sinking". Taking the low price into account, I'll ignore the very minor glitches and settle for a final verdict of 5 stars - well done!
This installment of The "Sinking"-series of short pdfs is 14 pages long, 1 page front cover, 1 page editorial, 1 page ToC, 1 page SRD, 1.5 pages advertisements, 1 page back cover, leaving 7.5 pages of content, so let's check this scenario out!
This being an adventure-review, the following contains SPOILERS, so potential players please jump to the conclusion.
Still here?
All righty! The Menach family (known from the Great City before) was rather severely influenced by the Sinking, losing the patriarch of the half-orc smugglers and collapsing a lot of their tunnels. When his sons took over the family business in his absence, a devil corrupted them promptly and changed them by adding the half-fiendish template. *yawn*
Ever since, they have been kidnapping people with alchemical ether and started operating a slave-ring. The PCs thwart a kidnapping attempt in an alley (*yawn x2* for the cliché of saving the damsel in distress that way) and one of the kidnappers has a note (a hand-out, which is nice) that leads the PCs to the tunnels that contain the operation. I can't count how often this "parchment of the guild leads to hide-out"-routine has been done and quite frankly, it means that everyone participating in the operation is stupid with a capital "s". A short investigation based on some other clue would have gone a long way of making this more enticing.
After surviving a trap, the PCs stumble upon the smugglers and their devilish allies and hopefully defeat them. A little map of the complex is included, as is a magic chamber pot, feeling like a ominous and unfortunately rather fitting end for this one.
Conclusion:
Editing and formatting are ok - I noticed some typos and punctuation glitches that are unnecessary at this length. Layout adheres to the elegant two-column b/w-standard and the pieces of b/w-artwork rock. The pdf comes with bookmarks. I'm sorry, this is probably rather harsh, but this adventure is BORING. The Npcs take what has been a morally ambiguous, but useful factor in the great city and turns them into card-box cut-out villains who are utterly stupid to boot. The combats don't offer that much enticing imagery or environmental complications and the damsel-in-distress-parchment-clue angle is stale, bland and bad. If I'd use it, my players would ask whether I was hungover, as I usually improvise better lead-ins. The tie-in to the Sinking is also rather flimsy, as the PCs probably never get to find out why the foes turned towards the means of their corruption and probably wouldn't care either. Not engaging, boring and clichéd to the extreme, I can't bring myself to recommend this installment. Due to the nice artworks, low price and the fact that the formal criteria are ok, I'll settle for a final verdict of 1.5 stars, rounded up to 2.
The first of the supplements for the upcoming Shadowsfall-prodcuts centered on the shadow plane, the latest Book of Beasts (the predecessor made it on my top-10-2011-list) is 52 pages long, 1 page front cover, 1 page blank inside the front cover, 1 page editorial/SRD, 1 page ToC, 1 page containing suitable monsters from the core-books (nice support for the DM!), 1 page advertisement, 1 page blank inside back cover, 1 page back cover, leaving 44 pages of content, so let's check this out!
After the lists in the beginning, we are introduced to the first new beast, and glorious it is: The Black Worm (CR 18) is essentially the shadow plane-version of a purple worm, just...well...worse - add negative energy breath weapons, insane SR etc and you're in for a good example of what to expect from this book: While the beasts herein are thematically linked and shadow-plane-themed, they do feature massively different abilities from their prime material counterparts, if such exist. Also, each entry features a descriptive fluff of the beast and some text by one of the survivors or other players of the setting. The CR 7 Centaur Raav is an undead centaur with scyth-blades at the arms and bone-spikes protruding from their skeletal frames. While cool, the semi-incorporeal Clawed Kaidan (CR 9) features an aura of lethargy and feature not only a disturbing artwork, but also abilities to match and a neat weakness.
Truly disturbing and one of my favorites in this book is the (blandly named) CR 6 Darkling - Troll-like fey with an aura of silence, the ability to spray deadly snow and wicked stone axes - awesome creatures supplemented by a stellar b/w-artwork. The CR 17 Deathhands, hunters of Charon seeking to kill people who cheated death also make for a neat take on the Grim Reaper-trope. The Quake Dragons (3 sample stats) are also a neat new creature and actually a kind of dragon that does add something to the draconic family. Dread Gargoyles, essentially CR 10 more badasss gargoyles, are the first creature that somewhat fell short for me personally, in spite of its disturbing ability to form the stone of their own body. Then, there are the Dull Mites (CR 2), shadow plane versions of the mites that can steal your colors! Of course, we also get shadow elementals, rather tricky customers (6 statblocks) and while there's nothing bad about them, they fall terribly short of the...
GREAT DODO (CR 7)! Yep, you read right, there are still giant dods on the plane of shadows and they subconsciously know that your ancestors have hunted them to extinction on the prime material, thus making them even more ferocious and fueling their rage of extinction. Fast, deadly, cool and a little bit silly, the Great Dodo is a prime example of stellar monster design. For those discerning liches who are truly equal-opportunity, we get 2 stats for hunchbacked skeletons and then there are the Helblar (3 statblocks) - these undead guardians of the graveyards adhere to special ethics and woe to any who disturb their chosen fields....
On the iconic and truly disturbing side of things, we get two new kinds of Kytons -the CR 11 Dermestide (who skins foes alive and wears the straps like a mummy) and the CR 1 Noxil Kyton, who wears a spiked head mask and a heavy pendulum blade attached to it, forever suffering under its weight - very cool idea and features a unique fighting style - especially awesome for a CR 1 creature - they feel wholly distinct from any regular creatures of the same CR. Kudos!
The shadowplane is not Oz, yet there are Monkeybats (CR 1/4) as well and the filth is both a carrier for diseases and a great component for wizards. Not so great for wizards (or any other living being) is the new Nightstalker (CR 12), a lion-like Nightshade of black flames that heals via inducing fear while it leads its undead armies. The Onyx ooze (CR 8)on the other hand is a rudimentary intelligent predator that will make your PCs double-check any source of water.
The Phantasm Swarm, a conglomerate of dissolved souls forever barred from the afterlife (CR 12) seeks to wreck its vengeance on any priests and pietous characters (and comes as an undead swarm with an awesome artwork). The new Memitim Psychopomp (CR 14, I still can't get over the creature class-name - not the fault of this book, though) is a kind of reaper-angel that tries to escort powerful beings into the afterlife. When compared with this array of awesome beings, the CR 3 Shade Aurans, amphibious frog-like humanoids fall somewhat short, but this is offset a bit by two new statblocks on spectres and information on legendary spectres of the Shadowsfall.
Grognards like yours truly get a nice blast from the past/homage in the form of the Spiderbear, a CR 9 magical beast that had me remember Mishka and his dread demons. The CR 19 Starak is not even a bit cute - a class of legendary beasts, their control of the earth itself makes them for dragon-strength foes below the surface - very cool. The Unquiet Giant (CR 13) has a nice twist on the trope of the undead giant: They rhyme while squishing foes! While the idea is cool, I have some problems with this creature: a) I think it should have been a template. b) Been there, done that - x times. c) with exactly that (admittedly gorgeous) artwork - I've seen it 5 (!!!) times in different publications - we need a new undead giant artwork out there! The final creature of the pdf is the vampiric tree, an iconic CR 10 blood draining, voracious part of the flora that ensures that going to the deep dark forest is nothing to laugh about - they stun you via bark darts and then pummel you into submission to ram their blood-draining, fang-like roots into your body - ouch!
The appendices provide ample additional undead for your campaign, i.e. 5 different shadows (including a titan centipede shadow!), 6 sample skeletons, 6 sample zombies, the darkened template (CR +1), 4 sample creatures and for your convenience's sake, reprint some universal monster rules and monster feats as well as the rules for the shadow subtypes and a list of creatures by CR.
Conclusion:
Editing and formatting are top-notch, I didn't notice any glitches, which is quite a feat over so many pages. Layout adheres to a printer-friendly 2-column b/w-standard that features awesome artworks - kudos to the participating artists. The pdf is extensively bookmarked, adding to the usability of the book and the overall organization of the content is awesome. The bits and pieces of information on the settings, specific individuals/advanced creatures etc. made me anticipate more books from the line and the overall standard of the critters, their signature abilities and sheer iconic qualities has baffled me - while there were 3 creatures that felt like falling a bit short of the standard of the book, said standard is so high that this was to be anticipated. In fact, I was rather baffled that this book turned out not to be another selection of easily exchangeable undead/dark creatures, but rather contains a wealth of cool creatures and ideas. If I had to voice one gripe I have with this book, then it would be that it does not include hazards and sample NPCs like its predecessor, but I gather that's because of the other books in the line. Thus, I look forward to seeing more supplements for the plane of shadows and, taking the more than fair price into account, remain with a final verdict of 5 stars and a definite recommendation for this excellent bestiary.
This part of the divine favor series is 20 pages long, 1 page front cover, 1 page editorial/ToC and 1 page SRD, leaving 17 pages of content for the Inquisitor, so let's check out what we get, shall we?
The Divine Favor series has been hit and miss for me, so let's take a look into which category this one falls, shall we?
The pdf begins by introducing a new ability, the so-called censure, which brings the wrath of an inquisitor's deity down on the sinners by utilizing a kind of minor curse that uses the judgment ability. 11 different censures are presented and none of them felt overpowered or unbalanced and since they use the judgment ability, the added versatility does not impede balance. I would have loved a suggestion on inquisitor's learning them à la in SGG's book on new judgments, though.
The second new class ability does replace a feature of the Inquisitor and a relatively powerful one at that: Condemnations take the place of solo tactics at third level. Starting with a selection of 5 at 3rd level, they are expanded on 6th by adding 6 more to choose from and again 5 at 9th and 12th level, resulting in a total of 21 condemnations to choose from. Essentially, they are touch attack-delivered curses that impose negative conditions from fatigued til turning to stone/paralyze.
Want more inquisitions? Divine Favor delivers by providing 11 new inquisitions with two powers each. It's fascinating, really. The abilities per se are interesting, but it's this one tiny little sentence of fluff at the beginning of each inquisition's entry that makes me want to play an inquisitor utilizing them.
Of course, no crunch-heavy class-book for PFRPG nowadays would be complete without new archetype: The Ghost Hunter is a slayer of the incorporeal that makes calling for an inquisitor finally make sense: They may disperse ghosts and apparition and with the new spell final rest, they can end the threat of even rejuvenating foes.
The hand of god, a rather complex archetype, gets 8+Int skills and is a kind of covert ops unarmed secret agent of his church who is especially adept at infiltrating hostile territory, whether it is a cult or a nation of infidels.
The Penitient is an ex-inquisitor who has forsaken his fanatism for forgiveness. What a wimp! ;) Just kidding - great idea to keep a character in play!
If the Hand of God is the secret agent of a church, then the stalking shadow is the assassin - replacing bane and greater bane with sneak attack, he makes for a deadly foe. However, I don't get why his sneak attack is called killing blow - I always think of the assassin when reading that... The sworn foe is a rather simple (and boring) archetype that gets the rangers favored enemy. Next! The Witch Hunter archetype gets a cool feature that lets him be the bane of all spellcasters by getting a modified version that surpasses improved counterspell. Personally, I prefer the SGG-class, but to each his own. The archetype works.
The 8 spells belong to the imaginative, useful and iconic kind: From aforementioned final rest to end the threat of rejuvenating undead to "Nail Foot", which lets you drive a nail into a foot print to slow down the person to which it belonged like a caltrop and mechanically interesting spells that let you lend condemnations to others, the spells are all killer, no filler.
The pdf closes with 3 feats, one granting you an extra condemnation, one an additional kind of condemnation and one letting you transfer it via melee attacks.
Conclusion:
Editing and formatting are top-notch, I didn't notice any glitches. Layout adheres to the two-column standard and used parchment-look of the series. The artworks are stock with the exception of the cover. The mechanics introduced in this book add whole new dimensions to the inquisitor and I really like the iconic new abilities, spells and condemnations and censures. However, the archetypes somewhat felt not that exciting to me. Yeah, they are not bad. In fact, they are pretty good. But they didn't truly stun me with their imaginative potential and some felt like filler. None do something new, all revisit some tropes that have been done to death via PrCs, archetypes or even full classes. In the end, I liked this pdf, though the oracle-one felt superior by a margin. My final verdict will thus be 4 stars.
This installment of Open Design's Divine Favor-series is 20 pages long, 1 page front cover, 1 page editorial/ToC, 1 page SRD, leaving 17 pages of content, so let's check it out!
Even though I'm all for shades of grey moralities, I friggin' LOVE paladins - ever since I managed to roll one up in the 2nd edition days of old, I enjoyed playing them and their inherent potential for tragedy and heroic sacrifice. I am also a proponent of the idea that paladins don't have to be lawful stupid and in fact, never had an unpleasant paladin character in my campaigns - they led by example.
Following the format of Divine Favor, we kick off with a two-page discussion of the core-competences of the paladin-class before delving into alternate class abilities, the first of which is the divine aspect, which replaces divine bond: He gains powers depending on aspects of his deities domains and his levels, which range from bonuses, to halos etc. 5 abilities per domain, the domains covered include Community, Glory, Good, Healing, Law, Nobility, Protection, Strength, Sun and War. While I like the idea per se and the respective abilities felt balanced enough, divine aspect is not as modular as I would have liked it to be - subdomains don't get their own abilities and no guidelines to create your own divine aspects are provided, making the ability far less useful than it could be. What about the polar crusader or the noble lion-asathi with the lion mount and animal domain?
Next up are Stigmata, a rather brilliant idea - instead of stripping a paladin of all powers, they are a way for the DM to punish a paladin for breaking his code of conduct. Basically, they are extraordinary abilities that offer a penalty, but also a minor bonus. At least in theory. 4 sample ones are provided (unfortunately not much) and I also have to report, that in practice, their penalties are not offset by their benefits: Excommunicated provides an SR of 11+ the paladin's level against ALL divine spells. Wait, wut? Depending on the adventure, this stigma may actually make him STRONGER! The same goes for tormented sleep - the paladin must sleep 10 hours per day and takes a penalty against exhaustion, but may, one a week not go to sleep for 48 hours and yet regain hit points, spells, abilities etc. That's not only immensely strong at the climax of adventures where time's of the essence, but also undermines a basic premise of the vancian spellcasting system and even point-based magic systems like SGG's Zauberer and the Psionics system by Dreamscarred Press. Classic example of good idea, bad execution.
Next up are the new archetypes, of which we get 5: The Heavenly Beacon exchanges smite evil and aura of justice with inspire courage, greatness (9th lvl) and heroics (15th lvl). That is, he loses his most iconic attack and aura of justice for a paltry version bard abilities. While the abilities per se are not bad, there is an SGG-archetype, the Chantry, that does this much better and cooler. Not sold. The Holy Sword exchanges spells for fighter weapon training. Ok, I guess, though nothing to write home about. The Metropolitan is the first truly ingenious paladin archetype in this book and unfortunately remains the last - a paladin devoted to a city who replaces detect evil with blindsight and gains smite denizen. Great idea and I can already see a ragged street saint prowling the Great City... on the other hand, though, is the execution of the rules rather boring - making more complex rules, a city-sense, anything really, could have made this archetype an awesome divine watchman of the city. The Questing knight takes perhaps the oldest trope for the paladin and gains the ability to find the object of his quests and commune etc. Nothing wrong there, but nothing I'd want to play either. Finally, we get the Templar-archetype, who gains the abilities to protect areas via hallow and magnificent mansions. Good idea. Only: He can cast sanctuary. AT WILL. That means that at all times, creatures will have to make will-saves to attack a templar. This is insanely overpowered.
Next up are 4 codes of conduct: Vow of Abstinence, Vow of Poverty, Vow of Honesty and Vow of Servitude, all of which provide some bonus spells to add to the spell-list for the restrictions they impose on the paladin's actions. And the actions of his allies. For all the vows specifically mention that the paladin has to act like a jerk and impose his beliefs on others: Paladins with Vow of Honesty correct the lies of their allies, paladins with vows of abstinence can't look after their drunken comrades: "She must also refrain from associating with others who regularly pollute themselves with substances (alcohol, drugs, overly rich food, sexual relations)." While "regularly" is open to DM fiat, it would probably fit in with 90% of adventurers... Worse, instead of providing an lead-by-example-mentality, the restrictiveness of the vows plays right into the hands of all the people who hate paladins for being the jerky-goody-two-shoes-characters. While mechanically, there is nothing wrong with the vows, the fact that their restrictions are imposed on other players makes me loathe them. I vastly prefer how the Book of Hallowed Might handled vows and oaths in the 3.5 days of old. Another part that won't ever see use, probably also because I consider adding some spells for the oaths to be the most boring design decision possible.
The final section of the pdf provides us with 14 new feats for divine characters and paladins especially: Divine Initiative is only the first of the feats with which I have a problem: It adds one's Cha-bonus to initiative, thus probably surpassing improved initiative and stacking, making thieves potentially lose to clerics and similar divine casters. Not so well-thought out. Additionally, two of the feats have "Vow of Honor" as a prerequisite. There is no "Vow of Honor" in Divine Favor: Paladin. There is no "Vow of Honor" to be found in d20pfsrd. I'm too lazy to look further for the vow and assume it just has been cut from the pdf, making two of the feats essentially useless. Apart from these gripes, I don't have anything against the other feats - they don't feel overpowered. Neither are they truly compelling, though. Essentially, they are forgettable and will not see any use in my campaign.
Conclusion:
Editing and formatting are ok, although I noticed an editing glitch of the highest caliber with the missing vow prerequisite. Layout adheres to OD's two-column standard and the artwork is appropriate stock-art. The pdf comes with bookmarks. Let's sum it up: Discussion of the class's strengths and weaknesses: Okay, useful for beginners. Divine Aspect: Good idea, no subdomains, no guidance. I prefer RiP's divine channeler. Stigmata: Good idea, bad execution. Archetypes: Mostly bland/boring, one non-standard one, one insanely overpowered class-feature. Codes of Conduct: Boring design choice (additional spells), imposes morality on other players, thus annoying them. Feats: Okay, nothing to write home about, one with power-creep, two that can't be used as written due to missing prerequisite.
Oh boy. I'm so pissed I paid money for this. While I didn't like every pdf of the series, I did love the inquisitor and oracle ones and at least found some good pieces in the druid and cleric-pdfs. Here, though: Nothing. I got nothing. A small archetype and an ok alternate class feature, which I consider moderately interesting just don't make up for the amount of SUCK herein. This pdf takes everything bland about the paladin and amplifies it. Worse, it actually encourages a playstyle that led to the bad reputation of the class in the first place. If it had done so with rules that are interesting, perhaps even genius, I wouldn't have minded - you're speaking of a DM who had EXALTED paladins in his campaign (yep, Book of Exalted Deeds - horribly broken, but can be counteracted with roleplaying restrictions) and even though they were annoying, they led by example. This pdf does e.g. not address not killing humanoids. Non-lethal abilities? Peaceful solutions? Perhaps an alternative for smite that doesn't kill, but subdues? An ability to slowly convert people to good, perhaps by granting bonuses to allies who behave accordingly, thus granting an incentive? Nope. Instead, the rather bland options impose overly restrictive moralities upon the whole party, include a severe editing glitch in the feats and make me angry.
This pdf has officially replaced Advanced Feats: Might of the Magus as my least favorite pdf by Open Design. I got nothing positive to say about this apart from the fact that all other Divine Favor-pdfs are vastly superior. My final verdict will be 1 star.
This pdf is 166 pages long, 1 page front cover, 1 page editorial, 4 pages ToC, 1 page SRD, 2 pages char-sheet, 2 pages mini-monster-sheets, 1 page condition tracker, 1 page combat & initiative tracker, 1 character advancement tracker, 4 pages of advertisements, leaving 148 pages of content, so let's check it out!
The NeoExodus campaign setting has been in the making for quite a long time and I've reviewed a lot of smaller pdfs related to the setting - from the Races-supplement to monsters and NPC-books as well as secret societies. If you don't know about the setting, I#ll try to rehash the basics for you: NeoExodus shares one distinct characteristic with many other fantasy settings - once, it was under the control of strange creatures that have been driven from the surface. These beings are collectively known as the First Ones and are by far no unified force or race, but rather enigmatic beings, races and creatures still plotting and scheming. They were defeated by their former slaves with the help of the Kaga, essentially a sentient conglomerate of thoughts of the most powerful arcanists/psionicists of the world that has become a kind of godlike sentient extranet - think sentient internet with an agenda for human dominion. (this, btw., can be considered one of the two dominant religions, with the other being a blood-magic using hardliner version of the Catholic Church that worships a kind of anima universalis in the blood of the Sanguine Lord, which constitutes the life-force of all that exists.
Ever since the First Ones have been driven underground, the lands have seen strife between large empires that have gone through the fantasy equivalent of massive wars bordering on World Wars and have only recently settled into a unified truce. Tensions still rise high, both from sources without and within and in this age of empires, conflicts might prove disastrous. Add to that the new races (more on them later) and we have a campaign setting that is very different from e.g. Golarion or similar straight medieval fantasy settings.
And this is only the beginning - in contrast to Obsidian Twilight, we get a more than aptly written, concise and cool history of the world of NeoExodus, its trials and tribulations and thus paints an imaginative, cool backdrop against which the crunch is set. It is only fitting that the first thing we'll read after the history of the world would be a list of unique elements that distinguish NeoExodus from other campaign settings and help you portray the differences in mood, themes and approaches. Major threats to the stability of NeoExodus, global threats so-to-speak, are mentioned and after that, we'll get into the write-ups of the different respective nations, which all come with basic information on settlements, forms of government, laws, population, currency etc. and even coats of arms. Fluff-only write-ups for the movers and shakers of the nations are provided alongside new hazards, detailed elaborations on how the land operates etc. - the complete opposite from the sketchy approach in OT and quite simply, an inspiring lecture that really made me want to set campaigns in these locations - the potential for global and local internal and external political strife serves to capture a rather enticing, cool setting that includes avenues for adventures galore, especially ones that go beyond standard crawling modules (though these might get a very different touch in NeoExodus...).
In the third chapter, the unique races of NeoExodus are portrayed - from the hive-mind-possessing, ratlike cavians, the crystalline cyneans, the mobile plants called Dalreans, the beast-like, mutating Enuka, the language-centered Prymidians, the cat-like P'Tan (as seen on the cover) and the secret-mongering Scorpion-people called Sassori, the races are unique indeed. The roster of races has a new-comer as well, the Kalisan. Seeing that I went into details in my review of "Races of NeoExodus", I'll only sum up the Kallisan here and some details. Kalisans are the civilized brothers of Calibans and get +2 Str, +2 Dex, -2 Int, proficiency with great-axes and falchions, the endurance feat and ferocity. If you own the Caliban-pdf, they can also take the iconic, yet disturbing Caliban racial traits and feats. It should also be noted that gevets (NeoExodus Tieflings) have their own entry - they get +2 Dex, +2 Int, -2 Wis, darkvision, outsider-blood, fire resistance 5 and males get +1d6 sneak attack damage while females get +1 caster level when casting healing spells. Generally, I liked the races and some abilities are downright awesome - Cavians for example can choose a racial trait that enables them to implant a kind of seed that makes it possible to spy on victims of their bite - neato!
Heroes of NeoExodus, chapter 4, focuses on the deities and new character options contained herein - we get a new archetype for the alchemist, the apothecary - this character is focused on creating healing salves, the Fits of the Dragon for the Barbarian, the Cleric of Kaga, the Peacekeeper fighter and the Jannissary Monk. New languages are also covered and no new setting would be complete without PrCs. NeoExodus is no exception and provides the following:
-High Guard: Personal guard of the Emperor of Caneus, 5 levels, d10, 4+ Int skills, good BAB, good fort and will - elite bodyguard class
-Imperial Man-at-arms: 5 levels, d10, 4+ Int skills, good BAB, good fort-save: Non-magical tougher-than-nails elite soldiers.
-Khalid Asad: Eternal Lions, anti-spellcaster elite assassins of the Donion. 5 levels, d8, 4+ Int skills, moderate BAB, good ref and will-saves, 2 sneak attack progressions.
-Panther Warriors: Feline-affine wild-shaping elite of the Reis Confederacy. 5 levels, d10, 2+Int skills per level, full BAB, good fort and will-saves. Pouncing death at the cost of spell progression.
-Protectorate Artillerist: 5 levels, d8, 6+Int skills, medium BAB, good fort-and will-saves. Very cool PrC that is extremely deadly against constructs and can call down artillery fire when near a battery. Awesome idea - whip out the big guns without being over-powered.
-Wyrdcaster: Spellcasting elite of the Dominion, d6, 2+ Int skills per level, 10 levels, apart from the first full arcane spell progression, bad bab, moderate fort and will saves. Learns kind of super-meta-magic via talents that is called wyrd and comes at a price.
That's it with the new PrCs. While they by no means felt weak, I didn't have any balance concerns with the PrCs and actually enjoyed their flavor and the fact that they are truly PRESTIGE classes - these specializations have to be EARNED. Two thumbs up!
Chapter 5 is the crunchy heart of the book for which the players have been clamoring - we get over 80 new feats and thus I'll refrain from commenting on each and every one of them. A lot of the feats center on modifying/improving racial abilities or adding area-specific fighting styles. While not all feats are made of awesomeness, I see the usability of most of them and didn't have any substantial gripes with them. The new spell-section includes a new subtype, spells that are corrupt and belong to the providence of the tainted First Ones - in the spell-list, some religions/factions are mentioned, thus making the respective spells rather rare and adding to the uniqueness of the factions by providing signature spells. The section comes with spell-lists for bards, druids, clerics, sorc/wizs and witches, but no new tools for alchemists, summoners or magi. It is unfortunately in this section where I noticed some major formatting glitches - the spell "Bitter Ashes" says "If the save succeedsfail, the target takes 3d6 15 points of negative energy damage per caster level, ."[sic!]
This is especially a pity due to this spell being one that felt overpowered in the beta-test version of the setting. Unfortunately, the amount of typos in the spell-section exceeds what I'd consider an amount to let slip: "Army and[sic!] swarms" and minor plural/singular glitches abound. Additionally, as much as I'm loathe to say it, while I do consider several of the spells cool, there are examples that are quite simply off with regards to balance, out-classing spells of similar levels by quite a bit. DMs should tread carefully with regards to them. Note that insta-death effects do not abound as much as they did in OT and there are enough intriguing spells herein to still make the chapter interesting, it's not as good as it could have easily been with another pass at editing and some additional scrutiny with regards to balance.
Of course, we also get a selection of new weapons, armor, magic and mundane, alchemical substances and similar pieces you'd expect from a book like this. MY favorite part of this section would be the new class of books, which comes with detailed information on the book, lore-DCs, spells, bonuses for referencing it, etc. - I hope to see more of these books in future publications.
Some creatures unique to the NeoExodus setting are presented as well: The Arcanebloat-template (CR +1) has creatures suffused with unstable magical energies and are, as the aspic creatures, created by the First Ones. We also get stats for Calibans, their hounds, crystalline cats, humanoids of draconic descent, mischievous, flame-dancing fey, stats for protectorate golems, mobile cannons, melted flesh oozes, the dread quickslavers, thermic vampires and many more.
The pdf closes by providing all the stat and form-sheets you might need, as I mentioned in the beginning of this review.
Conclusion:
Editing and formatting are mostly good - the section of spells being the unfortunate exception in a book that, in spite of its length feels like care was taken to make it feel professional. Layout, as I've coe to expect from LPJr Design, is BEAUTIFUL. The two-column style with the borders, in full color, highlighted by the GLORIOUS pieces of artwork is quite an eye-catcher and some of the portraits of rulers herein are on par with Paizo's best mug-shots. Kudos where kudos are due! The pdf is also EXTENSIVELY bookmarked - each spell, each section, each talent is bookmarked, making using the file rather easy. Seeing the length and full-color standard, the size of ~100 Mb is not that much. All right, let's get on with it: I think on the general the guys at LPJr Design have improved their editing over the course of 2011 and it really shows in this book. On the other hand, there still are some of the old glitches herein that could be caught with a bit more care. I have to be honest, I expected quite some recycling in this campaign setting, as several pdfs for NeoExodus have been released - I was quite positively surprised that both the races have been expanded and the fluff does not stop at the general history with which you might be familiar due to the "World of NeoExodus" free pdf.
Content-wise, I can't complain and indeed, the world of NeoExodus feels organic and makes sense - there are a lot of details and ideas herein that go far beyond the staple of fantasy to create a setting and options that feel fantastic again in an age where no-one is awed by yet another mystic elven nation in the woods. To cut a long ramble short - I really, really like the fresh ideas that are an integral part of NeoExodus and I'm all in favor of the diversity the world and its nations and unique focus lend towards gaming of a different style. However, rules-wise, the crunch can't always hold up to the fluff - while general balance problems are few and far between, several of the races feel rather geared towards specific classes. While the same could be said about some core-races, personally I'd prefer more broad approaches towards race-creation. My other minor point of criticism is another personal one - I would have loved to see the psionic variant of the Cavian race included as well, as I'm a big fan of psionics and enjoy NeoExodus embracing the powers of the mind. So, how do you rate a setting that features such iconic nations, a secret police focused on controlling psionics, sentient spells and a mostly benevolent blood magic religion? A setting that includes the coolest group of villains I've seen in quite a while with the Folding Circle? Were I to rate the ideas only, the uniqueness and the general guts it takes to release a setting so radically different from all other established settings I've read, I'd go for 5 stars.
On the other hand, though, the accumulation of editing glitches and minor balance concerns as well as the blatant class-focus of the races would usually make me settle on something along the line of 3 stars. In the end, both verdicts would not be justified - if you're in not only for the crunch, but mainly for the ideas and fluff, you should check this out. If you e.g. liked "The Folding Circle" or the "Annihilation Sphere", give this one a try. If you want rock-solid rules, you might want to read this book very closely and scrutinize some of its content, though. My final verdict, in spite of said minor blemishes, will thus be 4 stars, which is a bit of a pity, since it could easily have been 5 stars + seal of approval.
This adventure is 67 pages long, 1 page front cover, 1page editorial, 1 page SRD, leaving a whopping 64 pages of content! Not bad at all, so let's check out the dread laboratory of Temerlyth, the Undying!
This being an adventure review, the following contains SPOILERS, thus I encourage potential players to skip ahead to the conclusion.
Let's get ready for some horror-show indeed, for after an encounter with some ogres and drow in the wilderness, even the entrance of the dungeon is not entirely simple, necessitating the solving of a riddle, which is always nice, at least for me - riddles are often painfully underrepresented in modules and are a welcome diversion from regular crawling. And what a crawl this is!
Let me preface this, by saying this crawl is HARD. Frog God Games hard, with the potential for a clever DM to make it even more challenging and I love this design philosophy. My players tend to waltz through many modules and this provides a challenge indeed. Another thing this module gets, is a sense of antiquity - Temerlyth's ancient elven architecture is mixed with goblin borrows, offering a nice mishmash of elven splendor, goblinoid decay and a mad scientist's lab. Which brings me to lichdom: Once in the day, a lich was the ultimate undead corruption: A being who sought to extend his existence at all costs - in contrast to vampires and other undead, they cannot be brought into life by accident and their willingness to sacrifice their mortality makes them even more alien and despicable than other undead: Where we can feel pity for shadows, ghosts and wights, project fantasies and Eros on the vampire, these undead still have some relatable characteristic and be it flimsy as the hunger for life. Liches sacrifice willingly the warmth of the touch of a loved one, their sense of smell and taste and any craving but the search for ultimate power behind, making them despicable to even vampires. The ultimate darkness, the utter corruption that perpetuates this decision is something that has, at least in my opinion, often been forgotten in recent publications. Not so here.
Temerlyth's dungeon is the mirror of a disjointed, relentless and obsessive mind with a twisted sense of humor and devious traps that clearly show the amoral stance the lich takes towards mortal life: Several of his traps are actually designed to infect interlopers with lycanthropy, which will promptly be triggered by his moonlight-producing chandeliers and sow confusion and infighting in invading parties. If an approaching party manages to infiltrate the complex at all, that is. The sentinel, a wood giant skeletal champion ranger and the puzzles make already for neat glimpses of the horrors to come. The crawl itself removes mostly about finding 4 crystalline keys to lower mooncrystal bridges via pedestals to a central platform and raise Temerlyth's crowning achievement and work-in-progress, but more on that later.
The elven lich's servants and allies not only include zombie lords, constructs and ghouls (among which is a potentially recruitable ghoulish cleric, who might at least make for an interesting temporal ally), but also a variety of were-bat slaves who consider him some kind of benevolent over-seer. While I have no problems with his rather cool golems, like the bomb-throwing Aclhemy golem, I do think that the equipment of the were-bats is terrible. Perhaps this is intended to reflect Temerlyth's underlying hatred for them, but they and their dire bat allies will be squashed by your PCs. On the other hand, the zombie lord has a terribly over-powered weapon you should be aware of: A magical shovel that can bury the living with a successful attack )grappling and pinning them with +25 CMB and summon the undead. The PCs should not be able to use this item, the potential for abuse is HUGE.
If you've read Temerlyth's Infamous Adversary-pdf (which you should - his background story is explained there), you also know about his now undead family, who also serves as his minions and might go for a rather creepy holo-deck style encounter. I also particularly enjoyed the gallery of rare and very strange were-creatures and his vault, in which he bound souls of lycanthropes to now terribly cursed armors and weapons. His laboratory also bears mentioning: It's one of the locations where Temerlyth could make his final stand and his phylactery, for once, is actually CLEVERLY hidden, as befitting of a foe of Temerlyth's intellect. So, what's in it for the PCs, should they succeed? Well, it's here that the scenario is truly interesting: We get a significant slew of Temerlyth's library as items - complete with names, contained information, (very specific) skill-bonuses gained when consulting them etc. - a total of 23 grimoires are included and what can I say: I love them! I love it when publications go above and beyond and its flavorful tidbits like this that stand out and make for a much more memorable payoff than finding 100 GP worth in books.
And then, there's Temerlyth#s artifact: The Moonfire Soulstone. Once activated, it shoots searching rays of lycanthrope-searing light and continues to do so until charged. Killed targets are soultrapped and once the device is fully charged, it emits a devastating explosion of energy at close range and purges lycanthropy from a huge radius, using the trapped souls as fuel. Pure genius! This is a tactical weapon of mass destruction and will be the reason why my players have to defeat Temerlyth: Just imagine an army of lycanthropes, poised to crush any resistance and then, the PCs hear about this benevolent sage who fights the threat - only to realize fast that salvation from the were-beast onslaught might come at the cost of their moral integrity or even their souls. Or provide for a heroic last stand where the PCs thwart a lycanthropic invasion at the cost of their immortal souls. Barring that, an activation of the weapon makes for a thrilling final confrontation with Temerlyth that surpasses even the lich's stand-alone lethality.
The pdf also contains a reference sheet for the dungeon's general properties, a page on how to read the grimoire-sections, extensive information on how to scale every encounter from CR 8 to 12, a fully hyperlinked spellbook of Temerlyth and a one-page, full color map of the complex.
Conclusion:
Editing and formatting are top-notch, I didn't notice any glitches. Layout adheres to TPK Games b/w 2-column standard and the b/w-artworks are nice, although I have seen them in other sources before. The pdf comes with extensive bookmarks and, as has become the tradition with TPK Games, hyperlinks to the SRD for quick reference of any rules you might have forgotten. However, in contrast to other releases by TPK Games, some of the statblocks have not been as extensively hyperlinked as others. While each includes at least some hyperlinks, the coverage is not as universal as with their other releases. When reviewing the Tomb of Caragthax the Reaver, I complained about it being too short - the same cannot be said of Temerlyth's laboratory - we get a concisely-written dungeon full of sadistic traps, deadly lycanthropes and hungry undead. One thing you should be aware of, though, is that while all stats necessary to run this scenario are included, I do urge you to buy Temerlyth the Undying as well in order to fully understand the primary antagonist's motivations and character.
Some of the enemies herein are weaker than you would expect for their CR due to poor equipment, but the amount of treasure and the deadly challenges herein mean that your PCs won't be disappointed on the loot-side. They'll also be hard-pressed to triumph against the rather deadly challenges offered by this dungeon. While I love the library with its detailed list of tomes herein, I also consider the item gravemaker terribly over-powered. The map, while beautiful is rather cluttered and I would have LOVED a player-friendly version sans secret doors/keys/traps to cut apart and show to my players, as I hate drawing dungeon maps. In the end, the venture to Silvermote can be considered a diamond in the rough - there are minor smudges like aforementioned item and inconsistencies and essentially, you should add $1.99 for the Temerlyth-pdf to the price, but the dungeon still makes for an iconic, disturbing, deadly crawl that offers quite a bit of content for you. Weighing all the pros and cons, I still very much enjoyed the pdf and can easily change e.g. gravemaker to work only for his specific owner, thus my final verdict will be a good 4 stars and a hearty recommendation, especially if you're intrigued by the artifact/last stand idea I mentioned earlier.
This pdf is 5 pages long, 1 page front cover, 1 page SRD, 1 page advertisement, leaving 2 pages for the 10 feats, so let's check them out!
Steven D. Russell's Luckbringer is one of my favorite 3pp-classes out there - inspired by SGG's Time Thief, the class provides both a modular model of powers and great abilities that capitalize on all the lucky scoundrel/fortune's favored tropes out there and even after "101 Renegade Class Feats" I wanted more support for the class - seems my wish has come true: So, what feats do we get?
-Advantageous Strike: When using "Critically Lucky", you can roll two dice to confirm a critical, taking the better of the 2 rolls. Usable once per day. Nice last resort ability to land that crit when you really, really need it.
-Auspicious Escape: Usable by Time Thieves/Wardens, Taskshapers and Luckbringers, this ability enables you to suppress detrimental conditions once per day. You spend e.g. a mote, a moment of chance etc. to do so. If you surpass 10th level in such a class, you may ignore all adverse effects instead. Can be taken multiple times, each time grants one additional use. Great to see that even other classes can benefit from this neat little feat. The limitation of uses per day prevents it from being op, so no balance-concerns on my side.
-Break the Pattern: When you use "Twist the Pattern" and take a 10, roll a d20 and take the higher result. When you take 20, you roll a d20 and get a bonus according to a table. Ok idea, though not too exciting.
-Fortunate Fate: When using "fatespin", you use 2 d20 and take the higher result for your reroll, mitigating effects of bad luck. Great feat - powerful, but limited in its application and yet a feat that will save many a luckbringer's day.
-Karmic Reaction: If you have used your "Good Karma" ability on an ally and are adjacent to him/her/it, you may have this ally take the attack you're subjected to in your stead - neat ability for players who want to stay alive and might make for some neat debates in the round. HAs to be handled carefully, though: If it results in PC death, this feat might lead to strife in less mature groups.
-Last-Minute Gamble:If you use your "Hazard" and empty all your moments of chance, you may unleash a devastating hazard, adding +2 to DC and 1d6 damage per luckbringer class-level. Great last resort strike and the stuff, epic stories are made of.
-Martial Kismet: As long as you have at least one moment of change, you can ignore up to 20% miss chance as long as you know which square the foe is standing in. Nice and with minor modification just as usable for similar classes and even psions.
-Motion of the Morai: This makes the bonus from "Fatefull Footing" continuous as long as you have at least one moment of chance left and lets you reduce an affected target's speed, even permanently at higher levels. Nice!
-Opportunity knocks twice: If your AoO misses and you still have a moment of chance, you may reroll the AoO. Cool idea, though personally, I'd restrict the usage somewhat so it can only be used x times per day or burns a moment of chance, as my players are INSANELY good at getting AoOs and exploiting the hell out of them, but that's my personal experience and I know that this does not come up in most groups.
-Woe unto him: You can apply the luck penalty of "Weal and Woe" on your foe after the result is known and you no longer need to be aware of the action. Wow, this is just iconic, cool and enables the luckbringer to potentially prevent the worst of disasters by a margin.
Conclusion:
Editing and formatting are top-notch, I didn't notice any glitches. The pdf comes with a neat 2-column, colored layout you might know from the free Pathways e-zine. The pdf has no bookmarks, but doesn't need any at this length. I really like the Luckbringer and this pdf delivers some AMAZING abilities to expand the powers of the class. In fact, the feats add a lot of cool tactical options that make the luckbringer even better at what makes the class so fun: Doing just the thing that might save the group, hitting when it is required, rolling the critical against the death-priest conjuring up the vampire-lord etc. - the pivotal moments we all know, love and have seen over our gaming careers when this one lucky hit meant the difference between defeat and victory. With these feats, the luckbringer is even better geared to be the lucky one in the party: Not the arcane arsenal, not the assassin, not the brute, but the one who does just the right thing at the right time, without failing. While Opportunity knocks twice is a feat I'll nerf in my home game, on the whole I did not notice any feats I'd consider unbalanced and instead found iconic gold within these humble pages. Due to the low price, I can unconditionally recommend this neat file to you. And if you haven't, give the luckbringer a try - I guarantee you won't regret it. My final verdict will be 5 stars - well done!
This pdf is 3 pages long, 1 page front cover/introduction, 1 page SRD, leaving 1 page of content:
-Aevum Mastery: Lets you take another aevum power from eithe time thief or time warden list. While it enables one class to scavenge in the other's list, that can be home-brewed and is not exactly what I buy pdfs for.
-Alternate Self: Spend one aevum to temporarily gain 3 skill points or one feat (for which you must meet the prerequisites), which an alternate self from another timeline has learned. Great feat, cool idea!
-Last-Second Save: Spend one mote of time to make a critical hit or a sneak attack a normal attack. Again, neat idea!
-Mote Mastery: Spend a mote to take mote manipulation options from another class at a lower level. Once again, ok idea, but nothing that gets me excited.
-Opportune Blow: Temporarily gain a limited form of sneak attack depending on your level for a mote.
-Precognition: Spend an aevum for a 90% accurate divination spell.
-Timely Detonation: Spend 1 mote to add your mote bonus dice to the total damage dealt by spells you cast.
Conclusion:
Editing and formatting are top-notch, no glitches to be found. Layout adheres to SGG's 3-column standard and the pdf has no bookmarks, but at this length need none. This collection of feats comes at an extremely affordable price, provides quality content and is a neat addition for the time-classes. So, due to this, I'm going to ignore the 2 feats that didn't excite me as much and still award a full 5 stars - well done!
This free little adventure is 11 pages long, 1 page front cover, 1/2 a page editorial, 2 pages of advertisements and 1 page SRD, leaving 6 1/2 pages of content.
This being an adventure review, the following contains SPOILERS.
Still here? All right! The City of Mages has been beset by the forces of the legendary Night Hag for quite some time and one of her most deadly assaults/ insidious plans centered around a terrible creature, a extremely deadly hydra. Now, a henchwoman/hag of the Night Hag has reclaimed the corpse of said legendary monster and returned it to life - unfortunately sans the heads, as they are on display in Mor Aldenn.
It's up to the Pcs to find the monstrosity and slay it again before it can reclaim its head. Via the Headless Hydra inn and its Tapestry (included as a one-page hand-out - neat!) the PCs journey to the place, kill some skeletons, the hag and battle with the dread HEADLESS HYDRA! (great piece of meta-humor, btw.!) The Headless monstrosity can spew acid from its head-stumps, is surrounded by an extremely virulent aura of disease and had me cackle with glee - lethal, bad-ass, deadly - what more does a DM want?
Conclusion:
Editing and formatting are top-notch, I didn't notice any glitches. The b/w-artworks are beautiful for a free product and the hand-out rocks. The pdf adheres to HHG's 2-column layout standard and the adventure has no bookmarks. The monster is iconic, you can easily spin an elaborate investigation around the pieces of the creature and the write-up of the final beast is awesome. Iconic, old-world style, an intriguing creature and all for FREE! Author Stefen Styrsky provides us with some fun little, easily expandable encounters and thus my final verdict will be 5 stars + the Endzeitgeist seal of approval - check this out!
This installment of "The Sinking" is 15 pages long, 1 page front cover, 1 page SRD, 1 page editorial, 1 page ToC, 1 page advertisement and 1 page back cover, leaving 9 pages of content, so let's check out this particular installment, shall we?
This being an adventure review, the following text contains SPOILERS. Potential players might wish to jump to the conclusion.
Righty right, so what exactly is the deal here? When entering the (fully mapped - nice) Merchant Heaven Inn, the PCs have to contend with a small group of mischievous pugwampis and while fighting them, might notice white wisps floating in and sliding into furniture - which promptly attacks! Once the animated objects have been taken care of, all hell breaks loose in the streets: Animated street lamps try to explode on people, animated suits of expensive armors have to be pummeled into submission and even a funeral procession is not safe - a coffin and its recently deceased resident animate as well, as does a carriage that tries to work against its draft horses while the residents are still inside.
The trail of chaos leads to the sinkhole, where the WHOLE STREET animates as a deadly cobblestone golem that might actually kill off one or two PCs and makes for a hard, very memorable final encounter of this action-laden tour-de-force.
Conclusion:
Editing and formatting in this installment were quite good, though not perfect. The pdf adheres to a neat, easy to read two column standard and the b/w-artworks are top-quality, as are the maps. The pdf comes with full bookmarks. The mysterious going ons, the chaos, the action-fueled pace of this module - this is the very first scenario of the sinking that manages to expertly evoke a sense of uncomprehending chaos and dread associated with natural disasters and catastrophe-driven movies. It is also by far the most challenging in the line as of yet and PCs who don't act smart might get cobbled (pardon the pun). I really loved this installment of the Sinking, its mystery and its innovative concept. Add to that the low price and the minor glitches don't matter that much anymore. Congratulations to author Tom Ganz - this installment gets my full 5 stars!
This pdf is 3 pages long, 1 page introduction/front, 1 page SRD, leaving 1 page for the 9 new feats of the Armiger. Let's check it out!
-Armored Hulk: Gain armor check penalty as bonus to CMD vs. bull rush, drag, grapple, reposition, overrun and trip.
-Brace for Impact: Treat all 1-and 2-handed weapons as braced. If you brace, you get +2 to attack to roll and AC.
-Hard to Kill: Convert limited amounts of damage into non-lethal damage. This is in addition to the DR the Armiger gets.
--Helmed Confidence: Gain a bonus to will-saves when wearing a helmet.
-Push back: If you resist a selection of combat maneuvers, you may make an attack of opportunity/shield bash.
-Shield Crush: deal more damage with shield bashs and threaten more crits with the shields.
-Shield Parry: Gain more Ac-bonus when using combat expertise with shields.
-Shrug it off: Use your tower shield to get limited amounts of temporary hit points.
-Soak it up: Retroactively adds hp for all class levels and future levels and change HD you gain in future levels: d12 e.g. becomes 1d8+4. However, it is not explained how this ability interacts with the armiger's "always at least 6 points on a d12"-rule, which is somewhat of a pity.
Conclusion:
Editing and formatting are top-notch, I didn't notice any glitches. layout adheres to SGG'S 3-column-standard. The pdf has no bookmarks, but neither does it need them. I did enjoy these feats, although the Armiger-class probably won't ever be my favorite. What somewhat bugs me, is that "Soak it up" needs a clarification, otherwise it actually makes the Armiger (d12+ Con-mod, at least 6+con-mod) WEAKER: 1d8+4+con-mod may result in having less HP than before! This being a major hick-up, my final verdict will be 4 stars.
This pdf is 142 pages long, 1 page front cover, 1 page editorial, 1 page advertisement, 1 page SRD and 1 page back cover, leaving 137 pages of content, so let's check out what Van Graaf's tome has to say about adventuring...
Adventuring is a broad topic and thus it is only expected that not all bases will be covered and the first area covered would be a section on gearing up - an alternative system for mundane little items is presented - essentially, a rummage-through-clothes check to find items you didn't have on your character sheet. If your players don't enjoy planning their items all the time, this system might make them happy. The new mundane items are actually quite cool and consist of a lot of bits and pieces that could easily be overlooked. A new system for carrying equipment is presented as well - essentially, e.g. items on the back take longer to get and every character e.g. has a carrying slot on the thighs, back, shoulders, etc. Implementation of the system leads to more planning and more realistic Pcs, but could, depending on player-type, lead to annoyance due to bogging down play. However, not all is great in this chapter: There is an extensive amount of space devoted to suggested things to take along on an adventurous trip through any given terrain. While the idea is nice, the information provided is mostly of the "D'uh"-type - i.e. logical things that just didn't need to be spelled out.
The second chapter, rules of engagement, provides us with a cool idea - party tactics that can be learned via several weeks/months of training that grant you and your allies bonuses when e.g. luring foes into ambushes. I really enjoyed the idea and its presentation. Unfortunately, though, the chapter contains much, much filler, providing an exhaustive, bland description of first, basic roles in the party and secondly, how classes view other classes. This information is so superfluous, words fail to describe the sheer obsoleteness of the section, constituting a blatant way of upping the page-count. Even worse, and this is problem of the whole book, it completely ignores the classes from the APG, UM and UC, somewhat making it feel overall as if it has not been written for PFRPG, but is rather a rehash of a 3.5-book. The fact that synergy-bonuses are mentioned further gives credence to this nagging suspicion, as does the fact that e.g. rage powers, bloodlines etc. are not discussed at all. More annoyingly, this chapter of the book also contains general, bland tactics and ways to deal with enemies by general types. Do we really need a discussion on the very basics of any form of investigation/reconnaissance? This is information that belongs to a starter-kit, not a book like this.
Chapter 3, entitled "intelligent spellcasting" organizes spells by purpose (which is handy to have) and provides us with sample spell-lists. A LOT of sample spell-lists. However, the utility of said lists is greatly compromised by the lack of APG, UM and UC-support, making this whole chapter, at least for me, rather useless.
Thankfully, the final chapter once again has some actually useful new rules, dealing with home bases of adventuring groups. Rules for provisions and upkeep as well as discipline etc. are covered, as are different types of bases. I would have preferred a tighter synergy with the Kingmaker or the Jade Regent-rules, though. Nothing is wrong with the content of this chapter.
Conclusion:
Editing and formatting are ok - I did notice some relics, punctuation errors etc. Layout adheres to a nice 2-column standard. The b/w-artworks are nothing to write home about and nowhere near the quality of the cover. The pdf comes without any bookmarks, which, at this length, is simply unacceptable - navigating a pdf of over 100 pages sans bookmarks in this day and age is a sign of bad production values and simply sloppy.
While I was reading this book, I couldn't help but feel that the content is a cobbled together rehash of 3.5-rules components that has not even been updated to the new realities of PFRPG - no APG, no UM, no UC-support is just weak. Furthermore, the redundant and boring, basic character-class/roles discussions never once mention archetypes or any of the innovations PFRPG brought to the table. And then, there's the price. Essentially, this book asks you to shell out A LOT of money for an un-bookmarked pdf that contains obviously reprinted information that has not been updated. Blatantly boring filler-material abounds and the utility of the spell-lists (by the way: Over 20 pages!) is questionable.
Quite frankly, while the equipment and base-upkeep rules are not bad, I feel insulted by this pdf. It's advice is patronizing, it's content often redundant or simply not something ANY roleplayer but absolute beginners needs spelled out. In fact, I'd wager that even novices don't need the pieces of advice herein. Add to that the lack of bookmarks and not only the scarce, but actually rather good components in here can salvage this book. I can't recommend this pdf to anyone - especially at the ridiculously high price. If the items intrigued you and you want an equipment book, I'd much rather recommend 4 Wind Fantasy Gaming's Luven-book. My final verdict will be a harsh, somewhat annoyed 1.5 stars, rounded down to 1. Steer clear of this book!
This pdf is 11 pages long, 2/3 of a page front cover, 1 page editorial & SRD, leaving 9 1/3 pages of content for the sorceror.
Sorcerors have become much more iconic in PFRPG than in the 3.5 days of old, thanks to a massive support of their bloodline-class features. Unfortunately, most of the support centered on providing only these. This genius guide seeks to bring more diverse options for the sorceror and begins by introducing a new concept, so-called arcane endowments. These can be taken instead of feats and correspond roughly in power to a feat or oracle revelation. 18 arcane endowments are presented and mostly cover quite interesting and iconic options: From sacrificing spell slots to heal yourself and end detrimental conditions to using your Cha-mod instead of Int for knowledge skills, adding spells from other spell-lists and limited, albeit more versatile uses of metamagic spell forming to a limited sideboard of additional spells that are somewhat reminiscent of a DIY-domain, the options are versatile, iconic and ooze sorceror flair and panache.
Much to my excitement, we also get 10 new spells exclusive for the sorceror. I think that with the 3 arcane base-classes, we desperately need more class-specific spells to make them more distinct and Beyond Bloodlines delivers with the sanguine spells that prematurely and temporarily unlock bloodline powers or even lend them to others, a symbol-spell based on your bloodline bonus spells and the very powerful and cool transfiguration that changes your spellcaster-list and lets you draw from another kind of spellcaster. Very cool!
The pdf does not stop there, but instead provides us with three alternate classes/archetypes, one of which is simple, one medium in complexity and one quite complex: The Bedreven is the complex one and offers us a variant of the sorceror that casts via a spell-pool and is more versatile than the sorceror, but at the cost of some raw power. If you've read my review of "New Arcane Discoveries" and my praise for the Zauberer-archetype therein, you can imagine that my praise for this one is no less pronounced. To make it short, the Bedreven is worth the price of the pdf alone. The Scourge is a kind of sorcerous bard that does not use the bard's spell-list, but the sorceror's and pays for this advantage with less skills. It's another take on the gish-type and not a bad one. Not one I'd recommend either, though. The Strega, the final archetype, is rather simple and gains limited access to some hexes, which blurs the class-lines and does not appeal to me that much, but oh well.
Conclusion:
Editing and formatting are very good - although I did notice minor punctuation errors, nothing grievous caught my attention. The pdf comes with neat artworks (some of which stock as far as I could tell), no bookmarks and layout adheres to the 3-column standard by SGG. Sorceror's Options is what I cherish about Super Genius Games in a nutshell - while they mostly lack fluff, they often produce awesome crunch, concisely presented for an affordable price. Beyond Bloodlines enriches the sorceror beyond its usual support and I'm sincerely hoping we'll get to see more pdfs like this one for other classes. My final verdict for this excellent little supplement will be 5 stars.
Endzeitgeist out.
This adventure is 34 pages long, 1 page front cover, 1 page editorial/ToC, 1 page SRD, 1 page advertisement and 1 page back cover, leaving 29 pages of content for the adventure, so let's check it out!
I'll start with my usual disclaimer: This being an adventure-review, it contains SPOILERS. Players might wish to jump to the conclusion!
The "Spirit of the White Wyvern" takes place at aforementioned inn, located some place in your campaign setting, preferably at some trade route. As one would come to expect from 0onegames, the inn features a detailed, excellent map - but what takes place over the course of this adventure? Well, it turns out the inn is run by a former adventurer who managed to cross a powerful cabal of evildoers and is hiding here from them - thanks to the divination-thwarting property of the inn, he had managed to elude their grasp and hide an artifact from them.
Unfortunately, some time ago a traveling minstrel has been killed in the undisclosed vicinity of the inn and haunts the place ever since, becoming a kind of oddity and mascot that draws more attention and crowds than the proprietor would like. Thus, the PCs are recruited to put the harmless, benevolent and yet tortured spirit to rest. Over the course of their stay, the agents of the evil cabal have already infiltrated the inn and seeks to enlist the aid of the PCs as well. In the following sequence of events, kidnap attempts, lies and attacks by several humanoid strike-squads, the PCs will be hard-pressed to protect the inn and its staff and guests. In the end, the owner will probably have to relocate and the PCs will have a inn - with or without the spirit, for securing a large enough audience to finally show off his masterpiece to might just be a more taxing task than anticipated, but that's beyond the scope of this adventure. It should be noted that each and every character and creature gets his/her/its own statblock.
Conclusion:
Editing and formatting are actually very good, I only noticed one minor punctuation glitch, netting the adventure top-scores in this particular department. Layout adheres to an elegant 2-column b/w-standard and the artworks are b/w and absolutely top-notch as well. The pdf is extensively bookmarked. On to the content: I like the use of an actually interesting red herring to cover up what has been truly going on and how the structure of the adventure is interesting. I would have loved a map without a map key to print out for my players, though. I have but one central gripe with this module, though it weighs quite a lot, at least for me: As interesting as the cast of characters is, the conflict between two factions could have been more exciting. The antagonists have not the most intriguing agenda and feel like card box cut outs - while the generic nature of both organizations featured herein makes integration of them into any given campaign easy, the also feel extremely bland as a consequence.
I also would have loved the ultimate fate of the spirit to have an encounter/representation. While the adventure is not bad, it is also not one that blew me away. My players waltzed through it in one session, which is also something you should be aware of. I'm not sure why, but as I read it and when I dmed it, the only thing this adventure delivered for me personally was an overwhelming sense of "meh". An interesting build-up essentially goes nowhere, the potential of the neat characters is more or less squandered as the adventure devolves and becomes a slugfest, of which I've quite frankly seen better ones. The interesting components remain mostly un(-der)developed and the potential the whole set-up has remains bland in its execution of tropes I've seen and read done better. Thus, I consider this adventure to be 2.5 stars, rounded down to 2 for not being bad, but somewhat boring. Mechanically, there's nothing wrong here and if you're looking for a tavern-sourcebook, this might even be 4 stars for you. As an adventure, though, it fails in my opinion. My final verdict will thus be 3 stars.
This pdf is 15 pages long, 1 page front cover, 1 page blank inside of the front cover, 3 pages introduction, editorial foreword and ToC, 1 page SRD, 1 page advertisement and 1 page back cover, leaving 7 pages for the tables herein, so let's check them out!
Essentially, this product provides the beleaguered DM with a selection of tools to spontaneously create NPCs: it starts with a master-table of d20 with 11 rows and 5 general categories in columns: Physical, emotional, mannerisms, activity and profession. If you for example roll a 16, you have 3 physical, 2 emotional, 3 mannerisms, 1 activity and 1 profession.
We then take a look at the d%-table that provides 100 physical traits and roll 3 when using our example. Then we move on to the emotional/behavioral traits d%-table and roll twice on that, move to the mannerism-d%-table, roll thrice and roll once on the d%-activity table and once at the d%-profession table. Each of the tables provides 100 different entries and we get 15 sample mug-shots in b/w-artworks as well as a d20-list of ready-made NPCs for the DM caught completely by surprise.
Conclusion:
Editing and formatting are top-notch, I didn't notice any glitches. Layout adheres to RSP's b/w-2-column-standard and features some nice pieces of b/w-artwork for the price. The pdf comes with extensive bookmarks as well as a version optimized for use with e-readers. Well, to be honest, I fully expected this installment of "So what's..." to fall short of my expectations due to the evocative NPC-descriptions, mannerisms etc. usually portrayed in RSP-books - suffice to say, I'm pleasantly surprised that this toolkit is not only easy to use in just about every fantasy RPG, but also creates interesting NPCs with broken noses, scars etc., quirk like constant whistling etc. - it takes only a quick calculation to determine the vast amount of possible combinations this pdf offers and the ready-made NPCs-information (sans stats, mind you), is the icing on the cake - nothing to complain, excellent work, 5 stars and the Endzeitgeist seal of approval.
This installment of RiP's #30-series takes us to Kaidan. It's a whopping 28 pages long, 1 page front cover, 1 page editorial, 1 page ToC, 4 pages advertisement, 1 page back cover and 1 page SRD, leaving 19 pages of content for the new haunts, so let's check out whether T.H. Gulliver can maintain the extremely high standard set by the predecessors.
Indeed, the introduction of the supplement is awesome - an IC-narration including a new magic items to find haunts (and the way to Kaidan!) is an awesome, efficient way to immediately captivate the reader's attention and the one-page legend "The Paths of Destruction" adds to this sense of immersion, providing a great narrative framing for the haunts. Different kinds of haunts and their respective, special rules are explained to GMs who have, as of yet no experience with the #30-haunt-books.
There is a definite sense of otherness, of the Kaidanese exotic karmic morality gone wrong inherent in the haunts and in contrast to other haunt-books, we also get stats for variant wights, an unique undead, ghost monks, a multi-classed tengu-vampire, a raven herald of madness, carrionstorms and even the dread wide-grinning women. The pdf provides plenty of stats to accompany haunts. While haunts are somewhat like traps with stories, this is even more true in this supplement - the haunts come with a vast amount of background information, a darkest legend that, like a blood-red thread, runs through this whole supplement. More importantly, these haunts are CREEPY, well-thought out and yet distinctly Kaidanese.
Conclusion:
Editing and formatting are top-notch, I didn't notice any glitches. the pdf adheres to the bamboo-lined, beautiful Kaidan-layout and the artworks are neat for the low price. The pdf comes with extensive bookmarks. I'm starting to sound like a broken record that heaps superlative over superlative of praise on T.H.Gulliver's haunts and even though it seems hardly possible, this installment even surpasses the previous offerings of the #30-series. The added stats, legends etc. make me crave a full-blown horror-adventure, be it in Kaidan or another setting - in fact, with some work, you might craft an organic adventure from this supplement. My final verdict will be 5 stars and the Endzeitgeist seal of approval - be sure to check this out!
This installment of the Mythic Menagerie-series is 15 pages long, 1 page front cover, 1 page introduction, 1 page editorial/SRD, leaving 12 pages of content for the new fey, so let's check them out!
The first new creature herein is the Charnel-kin (CR 4) is a disturbing undead fey that can reanimate bodies via a kiss and shares some undead qualities. Sorry, but I've seen the undead-fey-angle done better.
The next one would be the Caith Sith (CR 2), essentially a disease-carrying fey-cat with a cool weakness.
Number 3 is the first fey I really enjoyed - the CR 8 Gahonga is a stone creature that can have rocks explode - kudos for a cool way to dispatch it, a neat signature ability and for simply being an original creature.
The CR 2 Glade Maiden is a good fey that is essentially tied to a glade and has a halo of butterflies and the ability to create hallucinogenic pollen.
The CR 6 Night Swan is another fey associated with darkness and undeath and comes with a formatting error: Undead Kin is cut-copy-pasted from the Charnel-kin. While I like the idea of a deadly swan-creature, I do think that it and the charnel-kin combined could have made for an interesting critter - as written, I did not enjoy either.
The CR 10 River Mother is an aquatic, serpentine fey that drowns and then resurrects/enslaves her victims. The idea of the creature is quite ingenious and the signature abilities rock, but the appearance of yet another female/serpent-creature somewhat felt boring - with a more far-out appearance, this one might be awesome - mechanically, it sure is.
The Waterbaby (CR 3) is disturbing - aquatic half-kelp-like fey with a cry that makes people kill each other makes for an iconic and disturbing fey creature.
Speaking of iconic: Beetles that work as arrow-heads and fly back to their owners are simply awesome and the Nathair-rope-like weapons are cool weapons for the fey folk. Three of the 6 new feats are devoted to the weapon and the other 3 provide neat customization options for your fey. The pdf also includes two new spells, one to call creatures from fangs and one to attack via razor-sharp bird swarms! Great ideas!
Conclusion:
Editing and formatting are ok, though I noticed a rather obvious formatting glitch that could easily have been caught and some further hick-ups. The pdf adheres to the 2-column standard, has no bookmarks and the b/w-artworks are ok, though none reach the quality of e.g. Demonic Harlots or Covens of Chaos. I love fey from the bottom of my heart and really wanted to love this pdf - unfortunately, it more or less disappointed me. While by no means bad, I do consider ZSP's take on fey ore exciting and in the end only three of the fey truly felt like fey to me - the others could be undead, magical beasts, aberrations etc. While grounded in real-world mythology, a further detour to less-known mythologies might have proven fruitful for the endeavor of providing truly far-out fey. I'm still waiting for one book to capture the brilliance of 3.5's Van Richten's Guide to the Shadow Fey. While the additional material rocks, I've been missing cooler beasts with more far-out abilities than "Energy Drain" and "Reviving Dead" - especially the Black Swan had potential galore and fell painfully flat. My verdict - above average, but not a pdf that blew me away - 3.5 stars, rounded down to 3 for the purpose of this platform.
This web-enhancement for Streets of Zobeck is 17 pages long, 1 page front cover/editorial, 1/2 a page SRD, leaving 15 1/2 pages of content to add to the adventure anthology, so what exactly do we get?
First of all, we get a great way to introduce the PCs to Zobeck's corrupt side - coming to the city on board of a boat, Jaroslav Strauz, a corrupt city official who tries to have the PCs set up for alleged smuggling/similar crimes - even better, the set-up makes for a great introduction of the PCs to one of the adventures.
We get an alternate form of lust-domain for Marena and additional encounters for the respective adventures: The Fish and the Rose gets an added encounter with two barghests. The First Lab is expanded by full rules for the creation and modification of clockwork modifications and "Ripper" gets a new template.
Then, there are new characters (all with their original artworks!): We get Goldscale, a kobold paladin, a crazy gutter prophet and a river captain who struck a deal with the unseelie.
Players get even more tools with 5 new feats and 7 new traits as well as grafts - additional dirty fighting feats and rules for grafting clockwork hands etc. on your body. Even cooler, we get 4 new magic items (like a deceptive scarf) and a new incantation to steal memories. The true winners here, though, are the alchemical smoke bombs and the clockwork caltrops.
The pdf goes on to provide us 50 common items on a list and 50 valuable items - neat!
Seeing how important locations are in Streets of Zobeck, the addition of two fully mapped locations is great - the rampant roach and Ulmar's rare book shop. Even better, several scenario ideas are provided not only for these new locations, but also for ones from Streets of Zobeck. The final cool NPC introduced is the loyal kobold, Blackeye, proprietor of Blackeye's carriage.
Conclusion:
Editing and formatting are top-notch, I didn't notice any glitches. Layout adheres to the 2-column standard and the artwork sets a new standard for any web-enhancement out there - all original and of the highest quality - very impressive. The pdf has no bookmarks, my only and very minor gripe. The bits and pieces contained herein add even more value to the anthology and the new characters/introduction encounters are top-notch. Seeing I have nothing to complain and that the quality is as stellar as possible for the low price, I'll settle for a final verdict of 5 stars - if you own Streets of Zobeck, you need this.
This urban noir adventure anthology set in the by now legendary clockwork city of Zobeck is 94 pages long, 1 page front cover, 1 page editorial, 1 page ToC, 1 page advertisement, 1 blank page and 1 page back cover, leaving 88 pages of content, so let's follow Ben McFarland's advice and get gritty and grimy!
The pdf kicks off with so-called faces of Zobeck, i.e. characters and creatures that dwell at the dark and dirty underbelly of the city, from grimy urban fey to drug-addicted mages, enigmatic individuals that can make corpses disappear, goblin assassins and alchemist who dilute their potions - all the Npcs featured in this chapter come with their own background, goals and secrets and all are somewhat influenced by the harsh dog-eat-dog- realities of life in the grime - if you want an example from literature, think Thieves World.
Of course, we not only get new NPCs, but also new places and it is here that the anthology starts to truly rock hard - each of the locations is iconic and comes with its own, highly detailed map. The Black Lotus, an opium den led by the enigmatic, kabuki-style painted man who offers any magical favors you require would be only one example. Of course, we also visit the black market in the eponymous cartways of Zobeck. Once we're done shopping with illicit goods, we show up at the neutral ground of the city's underworld, the botanical rooftop garden of Hommal for a nice tea (or other substance) we'll visit the old Stross bathhouse/massage parlor, before we, refreshed, but somewhat disturbed by the glimpse of a shadowfey in the pool, go to the silken scabbard to relax with the prostitutes there. It is also here, where we find Tyron, king of fixers, the best of a kind of rogues (new archetype + new roguish talent) who can get/repair just about anything - for the right price/favor!
Before we jump head-first into all the adventures awaiting us, let's check out the traces of Zobeck at the end of the book: 8 new feats center on urban (and non-lethal - yes!) problem-solving and 16 regional traits to create e.g. characters who are sons of butchers or gang members. We also get 4 excellent new spells (including a amoral atonement), 3 stellar new mundane items (e.g. special paint only visible via a certain lens), a new weapon quality (disarming) and 6 new magic items, including a black book of confessionals, a bag of traps and a cloak that makes people forget they even saw/met you. Excellent tools for those on the problematic side of the law.
That being said, we'll dive into Ben McFarland's contribution to the adventures with "Everyone Lies" (House M.D. anyone?). From here on, the SPOILERS reign. potential players might want to jump to the conclusion.
Still here? All righty! Everyone lies is a take on the quintessential femme fatale story - a thief has botched a job and wants the PCs to find his lady and warn her. Unfortunately, that's not all - said thief has acquired a black book of confessions of a noble and now the secret police also tries to press-gang the PCs into getting it back for them. Said thief's guild happens to be the dread cloven nine and this guild also wants the book. The PCs will have to embark on a investigation that is hindered by all factions, several brawls and finally meet to girl and keep her safe - unfortunately, she doesn't have to book with her. The PCs have to plan a heist to get to the book and manipulate the power-structures of the city's underbowels to get out of the crossfire - possibly even with the help of the notorious drakhul! An excellent and quintessentially noir adventure.
The second adventure, "Rust" by the master of creepiness Richard Pett has two disreputable merchants contact the PCs - Mister Corpulent and Mister Doldrum, both more than meets the eye, want to hire the PCs to put an end to the hauntings of the "night-things" and claim a treasure of one butcher-lord/minor industrialist that has been disposed by his workers. Unfortunately, the greedy slaughterman does not rest easy and neither his new body, nor his automatons and newfound gargoyle-artist allies want the twisted merchants or the PCs to succeed, resulting in first a disturbing sandbox investigation and then a showdown in an animated, possessed slaughterhouse. Backstabbing clients included... Stellar. Richard pett at his finest - grimy, iconic, disturbing - Mnar, indeed!
Of course, no noir anthology would be complete without a heist, and Christina Stiles provides one in "The Fish and the Rose" - the PCs are supposed to steal a magical picture and hand it over to a shadowy employer. Of course, only a most lethal entrance to the cartways, guarded by a local legend of a brawler leads to the vault and said vault is guarded as well. However, the planning of the heist/possibilities for the PCs to find these means of entrance feel a bit shoehorned - more versatility/ options for the Pcs to plan the heist as well as a more lethal vault for a more Mission Impossible-feeling would have been nice. A good adventure, but not on par with the first two.
Next on the line would be "The First Lab" by Mike Franke, which opens a rather dark chapter in the history of Zobeck: Kovacs, one of the masterminds (if not THE mastermind) behind the clockwork knights seems to have experimented with soul removal, infernal creatures etc. and some of his prestigious creations might be still out there. Worse, someone has stolen a diary leading to his lab and there still are...things...inside. The PCs are hired to reclaim the diary and keep their mouths shut. In order to make up the advantage of thieves, the PCs will have to sell some of their dreams to the dragged woman. Once the deal's been made, they'll be at Kovac's lab and will have to deal with the infernal clockwork abominations and clochworker assassins. Their primary antagonist hiding behind the lab's defenses - an insane clockworker cleric hell-bent on utter eradication of his own kind.
Matthew Stinson's "Rebuilding a good man" is a completely different kind of scenario - Heet Nul, philanthropist, sponsor of orphanages and downright awesome guy is dying of old age and his heir is a greedy, evil s-o-b. Fortunately, a devil is currently trying to extort the painted man, who doesn't take lightly to any such attempts, leaking precious information to Heet's friend - the devil's lackeys are stealing a clockworker body and it's up to the PCs to steal it back from them. Of course, that's only the beginning - they need a specialist to transfer Heet's soul from his failing form to his new body. Unfortunately the only guy available is in the Silent Scabbard, drunk and uncooperative. Even worse, the parts are not enough and potions, a heart etc. is still missing - tailed by the devil and Heet's heir, the PCs are on a run through the night to scrounge everything together and save at least one good man in this cesspool of corruption. Even better, each and everything they do has to be weighed between doing the prudent thing and the faster thing - Heet's clock is ticking... By far my favorite of the scenarios in this anthology!
Mike Franke's "Ripper"is a story that has the PCs press-ganged into a murder-investigation against a serial-killer after they fail to stop a lynching. The investigation is intriguing, but there is one thing I really didn't like about it: It's yet another "possessed-dagger"-story. All right, I can name "Fury in Freeport" and "Hour of the Knife" from the top of my head and could probably find more examples that have done this schtick. Not impressed, in spite of the cool imagery involved.
The final adventure, Christina Stiles' "Flesh Fails" is more interesting - a love-triangle between two archmages and a master alchemist has ended rather unpleasantly with an engineered death and now the PCs stumble into the machinations of one truly powerful antagonist and his diabolical schemes. In order to find the truth, the PCs will have to do some research in an exclusive BDSM-club devoted to Marena and finally stop one of the most powerful arcanists in all of Zobeck! I really liked this adventure, not only for the mature depiction of BDSM not only being for the evil guys, but also because the adventure has potential galore to be expanded - the masterplan of the villain lends itself to further expansion and all in all, I would have loved for the adventure to be a full-blown mega-adventure instead of a part of an anthology, but oh well.
Conclusion:
Editing and formatting are good, though not as good as I've come to expect from Open Design-projects, there are a lot of bold/non-bold inconsistencies in e.g. the feats. Layout is STUNNING, though - 2-column standard and the artworks by Glen Zimmerman, distinct, creepy, grimy and dirty is simply AWESOME and something that truly helps the feeling of this noir-anthology. The pdf comes fully bookmarked. Streets of Zobeck is a stellar anthology of locations, characters and adventures that center on the grimy parts of the city - in fact, the overall details of the setting converge into a sense of detail that makes the city as much a character as the people who inhabit it. While I'm not too excited about the traits and feats, the magical items and especially the characters and locations are simply stellar and should be considered the new benchmark for urban characters/locations. Add to that a selection of mature, grimy adventures from the seedy underbelly that mostly feel distinct and completely different from your usual fare and you get another excellent anthology from Open Design. My final verdict, due to the one adventure that falls flat and the editing and formatting glitches, will be 4.5 stars, rounded up to 5 for the purpose of this platform.
This pdf is 31 pages long, 1 page front cover, 1 page blank inside the front cover, 2 pages editorial, 1 page ToC, 1 page advice on reading stat-blocks, 1 page SRD, 1 page advertisement and 1 page back cover, leaving 22 pages of content for those touched by the celestial realms - let's check them out, shall we?
The second in Raging Swan's race-centered supplements details the noble Aasimar. The discussion of the assimar begins with the obligatory fluff (aptly-written, btw.) as well as age, height & weight tables to provide us with the basic attributes and racial traits of the assimar. In the tradition of the Dhampir-supplement, we also get 8 alternative sets of attribute-modifiers to represent aasimar from e.g. Jyoti, Triton, Archon, etc. bloodlines. In order to balance the additional flexibility of these attribute-modifiers, it is suggested to make a trait obligatory - neat option for Dms like your truly who are very conscious of balance. We also get 11 different alternative skill-sets depending on ancestry and 11 alternate spell-like abilities to choose from. While I like this customizability, DMs and players should be aware that the respective abilities are supposed to be explained by the aasimar-bloodline, so wild combinations might lead to strange ancestries. I'd personally be rather strict about it.
After these basic pieces of information, we delve into aasimar and class-relations, alternate favored class options for bard, cavalier, cleric, druid, inquisitor, monk, ninja, oracle, paladin, ranger, rogue, sorceror and summoner. We also get a new cavalier-order, the order of the beacon (a kind of hunter of the evil forces, ok rules). The clerics get 4 new subdomains (Couatl, Elysian, Jyoti and Triton), monks get the Fist of Heaven archetype (rather boring, gain good-aligned unarmed strike etc.) and two alternate paladin bonds.
We also get 7 new feats to be taken at first level that help further customize your aasimar, 7 new traits and a whole page of distinguishing features that range from exotic eye-colors (glowing and normal) to glowing hands, halos, scales and feathers etc. The table rocks and if you're hard-pressed for a certain aasimar background, 12 sample backgrounds are provided that actually make you want to play an aasimar from the background.
The second part of the pdf contains sample npcs, who all get the full NPC-treatment, i.e. not only contain full stat-blocks, but also information on mannerisms, distinguishing features etc. More interestingly, though, is that most of the aasimar go beyond the holy crusader-trope and come with quite different background stories, ranging from Cr 14 to Cr 1/2.
In addition to the content of the pdf, we also get a one-page web-enhancement covering foo-blooded aasimar, garuda-blooded aasimar, kami-blooded aasimar and finally peri-blooded aasimar, including 4 variant skilled abilities and 4 variant spell-like abilities.
Conclusion:
Editing and formatting are top-notch, I didn't notice any glitches. Layout adheres to the 2-column b/w-standard by RSP and the b/w-artworks are nice. The pdf comes with extensive bookmarks and a version optimized for use with e-readers as well as a pdf with collated stats for your Raging Swan statblock library. All in all, I did enjoy this particular pdf - the abilities, backgrounds etc. are neat, modular and interesting and while they in and of themselves are not unbalancing, they demand a certain care from the DM to prevent abuse. I was a bit surprised to see not favored class option for the samurai in the book and enjoyed most of the options. The background stories and distinguishing features rock, as do the sample aasimar. All in all, I enjoy this supplement - it's a great pdf for all people who want to play aasimar and I really don't have any major gripes. Apart from one - at no time while reading this did I really think "eureka!" - the options are cool, they are aptly-presented, but none made me jump off my seat with excitement. Seeing that there's nothing truly wrong with this supplement, I'll settle for a final verdict of 4.5 stars, rounded down to 4 stars.
Thus installment of the series devoted to the cult garbage-gobblers is 12 pages long, 1 page front cover, 4 2/3 pages of SRD (the last containing counters for all creatures featured herein), leaving 6 1/3 pages of content, so let's check it out!
In tradition of the series, we get a template-modified version of the Otyugh in two incarnations - one based on GOWs-magical beast version of the base-creature and one based on the core-rules. The template used this time is the typhoon-kissed template (CR +1), a remnant of a planar storm that ensures the creature has its own personal rain-storm. Neat idea.
We also get a sample environment to place the otyugh in, Stormgut island (EL 9), a place where a small war between a tribe of grindylows worshipping a typhoon-kissed otyugh and a bronze dragon are toughing it out - it's up to the PCs to stem the tide against the oytugh and his henchmen. A new magical shield is presented along 3 statblocks for grindylows.
Conclusion:
Editing and formatting are top-notch, I didn't notice any glitches. Layout adheres to the 2-column standard and features some nice b/w-artworks I wouldn't have expected at this low price-point. The pdf also features some nice bookmarks. This one is hard for me - I did like this installment of the otyughnomicon, but the template felt a bit less inspired than in the predecessors. On the other hand, the pdf is VERY cheap and makes for a purchase you won't regret. All in all, though, the igniting spark, the feeling of "Great idea"-didn't jump over. Sam Hing delivers a solid, good otyugh, template and stats, but not one that had me jump in excitement up and down. Thus, my final verdict will be 3.5 stars, rounded up to 4 due to the low price of the file.
This installment of "The Sinking" is 17 pages long, 1 page front cover, 1 page editorial, 1 page ToC, 2 pages of advertisements, 1 page SRD and 1 page back cover, leaving 10 pages of content, so let's check out the tunnels of despair, shall we?
This being an adventure review, the following contains SPOILERS. Potential players might want to skip to the conclusion.
Still here? Righty right, the PCs, while partying or investigating in the army ward, are in a bar and by one hook or another, notice that a barmaid (who might have had a tryst with a PC before) has been kidnapped. Tracking the kidnapper down into the tunnels under Circus Maximus (which come with maps), where they stumble across some less-than-friendly goons of the Crimson Medusa, a rather prominent organization of slavers and dealers in the illicit and after a flooded tunnel, they meet the true culprits of the kidnapping - slaves on the run from their tormentors, who wanted to steal food for their subterranean refugee camp and were caught by the barmaid, who is by the way unharmed. This leads to an interesting situation, where the PCs can gain allies in the proverbial underground by helping the slaves: They want a certain bugbear slavehunter and his rather smarty disguised operation aboard an exclusive "yacht" for "the privileged" taken down.
The yacht is fully mapped and the assault on it constitutes the second part of the adventure, where the PCs have all freedom to stage a smart attack on the barge before authority can shut them down. Not only will they have to contend with aforementioned bugbear, but also with his tengu crew, a half-giant and a rather unpleasant guttermage. Once successful, they have made powerful enemies and interesting friends.
Conclusion:
Editing and formatting are ok - I noticed some awkward phrases and minor punctuation errors here and there. Layout adheres to a 2-column standard and the b/w-artworks and maps are neat, especially for the very low price. The pdf comes with bookmarks. This adventure uses several classic tropes, but always has one or another minor addition that make them feel fresh, whether it is the new slingshot-weapon or the non-standard nature of some parts of the PC's opposition. That being said, while this is by no means a bad scenario, it is also not one that blew me away. I thought some time and figured the glitches and great artwork/maps cancel each other out and thus arrive at a final verdict of 3 stars - an ok scenario for a very affordable price.
This pdf is 43 pages long, 1 page front cover, 1 page editorial, 1 page SRD and 2 pages advertisement, leaving 38 pages of content for the new complications to any Pc's life.
Before I go on to review this pdf, I want to tell you a little story - In my current campaign (which has been going for 8 years now), one of my characters had found a pot of clay in an abandoned storage room and had no idea what was inside. Said character carried around the pot for 2 years IRL, vowing that the last thing he'd do would be to unleash the pot. When his final reckoning dawned (against one of Mishka's Wolfspidergenerals), he threw the pot and my group erupted in laughter. Why? Well, turns out the pote contained a ultra-virulent strain of green slime. Suffice to say, the character died, but the green-slime pot will forever be a part of our annals. Another iconic story had my PCsuse brown mold to create a kind of magical freezer and transport spoiling goods, thus sabotaging the trade empire of a major organization that sought to kill them and made some decadent noble allies in the process.
What I'm trying to illustrate here is, that similar to e.g. haunts, hazards are not necessarily simple challenges to overcome, but actually plants, mold, crystals and the like do A LOT of mostly unrecognized work to make a campaign setting feel different from our world, feel organic, strange and magical. And yet, there is a sad lack of supplements to expand these little factors and make them feature in your campaign. At the top of my hand, I could mention "Two Dozen Plants" and similar files by LPJr Design, but that's about it. In this vacuum, Rite Publishing's mastermind Steven D. Russell throws 101 Hazards and Disasters. A quick read immediately shows us some very smart design decisions: Almost each of the hazards herein comes in multiple iterations, i.e. versions for different CRs. Even better, many of the hazards have a "done the wrong thing"-consequence - similar to growing brown mold subjected to fire, several (though by far not all) of the hazards have similar ways for the uninitiated to make them worse. We do get a plethora of slimes, btw. - for example one that will superheat and destroy equipment and melt full plates on their owners. There are vast amounts of extremely cool plants, for example ones producing rapture-like trances or even ghost plants that rip the soul from those passing their glades.
Of course, the pdf not only includes plants, but we also get locations tainted by the seven deadly sins, divine catastrophes and crystals. I see you yawning at crystals, but hear me out - there is one that actually amplifies sound to devastating levels when subjected to it. And there are crystals that may age you to venerable - which, as a nice nod, e.g. Time Thieves and Time Wardens can counter via spending time motes. It's little additional details like this that not only showcase great collaboration between 3pps, but make the respective supplements get more value. Have I mentioned carbon-monoxide bubbles rising from lakes to suffocate life? And then there is a new way to approach madness if you don't want to include a full-blown new system - essentially, the idea is that madness works much like other afflictions, but is rather hard to get rid of. Neat!
This is not where the pdf has its sole focus, though: There also are rather big disasters/problems that contain more complications and could be considered encounters or even location templates in and of themselves: Burning buildings (including smoke, heat, fire walls etc. and even alchemical explosions), conveyor-belts of doom (with rock crushers, steam, etc.) and e.g. meteoroid-impacts are covered, the latter of which some of you might know from 3.5's excellent "When the Sky falls"-event book by Bruce R. Cordell, one of my 3.5-all time favorite books. Have I mentioned rules for standing, fighting (and falling off) carriages, howler- or dire cheetah-drawn carriages and even trains?
Conclusion:
Editing and formatting are very good, I only noticed two minor glitches, none of which impeded my ability to understand the content. Layout adheres to a 2-column, full-color standard. The pdf comes with full bookmarks.
Don't be fooled by the rather bland front cover - this pdf is the best start into the new year a reviewer like yours truly could ask for - this installment of the 101-series is on par, perhaps even superior in quality and usability with 101 New Skill Uses! The new hazards are awesome, imaginative and cleverly designed that I was smiling to myself almost all the time. From iconic plants and small hazards to the stellar, complex disasters and environmental complications like the aforementioned battle of a carriage/train-roof or burning buildings make this pdf an instant-classic that should be a part of ANY PFRPG-GM's library.
If you're a player and look for a present for your GM, BUY THIS. If you're a GM looking to recapture the magic of encountering your first green slime, brown mold etc. - BUY THIS.
Seriously, this is one excellent, stellar pdf that is a hot candidate for my "Top 2012-list", even now! All the potential ideas included herein make a campaign more detailed, challenging and organic. We need more of the ilk and I hope we'll get another 101 Hazards and Disasters soon. My final verdict? 5 Stars, Endzeitgeist seal of approval.
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