I wasn't sure what to expect with this product. It was a novel concept. I have to admit that I've been skeptical of evil campaigns before. But between the sales pitch and the buzz, I wanted to see what this was about.
I'll get the cosmetic out of the way first. This book is pretty. There isn't a ton of art, but what there is is good, and fits the theme. The format, colors, and presentation all look really sharp. This is a first class production just based on looks.
But to get to the crux of the matter, how is the adventure?
It's great. The set up is fun, and there is a great sub-system that is simple but perfectly logical for resolving the final act of the adventure.
The advice for evil campaigns is simple, but pretty logical, especially as applied to this campaign. There is a semi-random character generation method I'm not sold on, but the campaign traits are thematic and perfect to set the tone of the adventure.
All in all, if you have ever been curious about how to set up an evil campaign to avoid the general pitfalls that might come about, this is definitely worth a look, even if you only use it as a model for your own ideas.
The taxes in here are great, and a lot of them make perfect, logical sense to throw into a campaign. For the price, the extra details and idea starters are excellent.
Before we started our game at the FLGS the night I picked this product up, we laid these out on the table and looked around the map.
Not only did we find all sorts of interesting areas from APs and from Pathfinder Society adventures, it got us talking about the setting, about how traveling from one area to another influences things, what likely go traded with whom.
I also got us talking about the "good old days" and some of the great maps that came with campaign settings of ages past.
Its probably not a mandatory for running games in Golarion, but I have to say, if you have the cash its a great investment.
These cards do exactly what they say they do . . . they have conditions on them, and its easy to look through the cards, find the condition, and hand it to a player so they don't keep flipping through their rulebooks.
But more than that, every person I showed these to at the FLGS loved the goblin illustrations. So they do what they say they do, and they do it with style.
I love simple templates, but I have to admit, the two that I get the most use out of, giant and advanced, can start to feel a bit overused. So when I saw this product, I was definitely interested.
There are six templates in this product: Diamond (CR +2), Eternal (CR +2), Ghul (CR +2), Mighty (+5), Missing (+3), and Two-Headed (+1 or +2).
All of the templates are interesting, although I'd have to say that Diamond and Ghul are my least favorite, not because either one of them is bad, per se, but they push the limits of my gut feeling of "simple." Diamond creatures are native to the elemental plane of earth, and ghuls have some really specific undead traits and abilities. Additionally, they are a bit more complicated than the other templates to apply.
I say this only because the other templates tend to be very broad templates to do "something" to a monster, while the two listed above have more of a specific flavor to them.
That having been said, if you every wanted quick rules to make a lot tougher version of monster (say you want a more powerful, "mythological" version of a classic monster), the mighty template looks to be great for this.
The Eternal and Missing templates (one making a creature immortal and the other making something naturally invisible and displaced) look to be fun from all kinds of roleplaying standpoints.
All in all, I'm pretty excited to find excuses to slap some templates on some standard monsters, and simple templates are great for tinkering.
I used this to prep for my last two game sessions. I have to say that while I don't quite like the texture as much as the rolls, and I like the lighter blue for the lines, this stuff is so much easier to sit at my desk and drawn out rooms, even if I spread them out over a couple sheets.
I bumped this a star because it feels a "little" pricey. Its not bad, and I get that this is a new product that takes more process than the rolls, but other than that, I'm pretty happy with this, and I'll be stocking this along with the rolls.
I really don't have much to say that can't be gleaned from the other reviews. I'm not 100% sure all of these guys are winners (Cactus Golems are interesting, but they don't jump out for me to use them, for example), but there are a few I really want to use.
Lower CR constructs are great as temple guardians, and the Void Golem alone is almost worth the cost of admission. In fact, the Void Golem is is probably my #1 vote for monster that I would love to see used in an official Pathfinder product right now.
Honestly, its not a badly written book. Its not a bad looking book. But I'm not sure why you would need it. I'm not sure that the quirks that some dragons pick up (which are kind of fun in the case of black dragons, for example) make up for the status quo of most of the dragons.
There are tons of references to a greater draconic culture, but very few specifics. I'd love to have seen a bit more information on the religions of Apsu and Dahak, but what you actually get is references to the two that assume you have other source material on them.
Still, I'd probably have given this a solid three, if not for the things I think were the negatives in this book. There are places in this book where dragons are referenced as interacting with societies on as casual a level as elves or dwarves. It really makes them seem much less special and intimidating. Finally, the bit that really caused me to have fits with this book had to do with silver dragons. Essentially, silver dragons are the worst parody of every bad paladin stereotype ever.
Honestly, I'm hoping over time the good parts of this book make it into other books, and the rest just kind of fades away.
This book does a very good job of fleshing out several cities in the Pathfinder campaign setting, and many of these cities also serve to give some additional flavor to the nations that they are associated with.
The coverage of Cassomir is a perfect compliment to the Taldor: Echoes of Glory product, and immediately, perhaps more than any of the other cities, this one stands out in the product as being the best base for a "standard" adventuring party.
On the other side of the coin, Nisroch doesn't seem like a place well suited for much except a destination for an adventure where the adventurers are quick to exit the scene once their mission is done.
It doesn't run at maximum awesome. Corentyn is fine, but doesn't seem especially well suited for being called out in a product like this, as an example.
Still, none of the write ups are bad, and the product as a whole is very solid.
There are lots of interesting points about Taldor in this book that detail the country for those that want more details. That's good, but it goes beyond that to explain where there are likely adventures, what kind of political maneuvering is going on, and how Taldans see the world around them.
Reading this made me want to run a campaign in Taldor, and previously I viewed Taldor as that "past its prime" country. Its still, well, fading, but there is lots of life left in the place as an adventuring region.
If you like "Sword and Castle" style fantasy, this is actually a really good area to run that kind of campaign.
While the book has lots of nice idea for equipment, its got some serious strikes against it.
1. Errata in a book of equipment is a killer. Its not as big a problem when its some side issue, but the whole point of a book like this is stats, and there were too many mistakes on that front.
2. Format. This follows the standard format of Player's Companion books, which is odd for a book like this and causes you to have pages on an alchemist NPC that I really don't care that much about.
3. Some of the best stuff in here ends up in the Advanced Player's Guide as well. You may want to check and see if that stuff you really just have to have is reprinted there before picking this up.
This book has some great information for giving you some snapshot information of various power groups in the campaign setting, without getting too in depth, so that players can get a taste for them.
The faction point system seems to work well, and is pretty much the same one that is in effect in PFS organized play.
My biggest concern is that too many factions in the guide have rewards that have to do with granting followers, which can be a pain for a GM that doesn't quite know what to do with those extra bodies, especially when some of them are implied to being active participants in adventures (like bodyguards) instead of just non-combatants for roleplaying purposes (which some of them are).
Wow was this book amazing. If there is any problem I have with it, its probably some of the redundancy with items presented in this book that were also in the Adventurer's Armory, but they all make sense to put in this book.
When it comes to the archetypes, I have to say that anywhere a similar option is presented to something that was done in 3.0 or 3.5, such as a blight druid or a spell less ranger, I like the options in the APG better, and the option seems to flow a lot more naturally.
I did deduct one star from this product because in at least one case (one of the paladin archetypes), the errata seems to a whole new restriction on an ability rather than simply clarifying how it works. I hate errata that rewrites whole sections of rules instead of clarifying or just adding a word or two . . . if this product wasn't so solid nearly everywhere else, it probably would have cost my review more than one star.
Books like this really make me less and less concerned about phasing out some of my 3.5 material, as these options seem to play much nicer with my style of play.
I remember early on in the Pathfinder Society Organized Play circles, finding out what ioun stones did with wayfinders was a big deal. Strangely, that mystery seemed less important by the time this book came out, but the explanation was still a lot of fun.
While there are some very useful spells, magic items, and gear in the book, this is mainly a book to explain the history and mindset of the Pathfinder Society. While it would be very nice if people interesting in playing Pathfinders would get a feel for the organization, if someone isn't the type of player to care about that, they aren't really going to get that much out of the book.
Still, if you want to know how you may have been trained, how the organization started, what the lodges look like, and what the current clack within the Society might be, this is a good book to pick up.
The book does seem to meander a bit when it comes to describing how Pathfinders view different regions of the setting, because there seems to be little difference between what Pathfinders see in a region and what general adventurers see in that same region.
This book has some very nice background material on Hell in the Pathfinder setting, as well as information on the ruling beings of Hell, its layers, and how it works.
Reading through the book makes you really want to find a way to work this information into your campaign. There are disturbing planar cities as well as interesting sites and terrain.
Not only is all of that in place, but the PFRPG rules in the book are a good support to the information, such as the Diabolist PrC, and the rather nasty spells and monsters in the book.
One of the things I really like is that the secret events of the beginnings of the universe MAY be explained, but may not, depending on how reliably you adhere to the source of the information. Wonderful way to expand large scale setting information of this sort.
The Armiger is an interesting class. The concept is a neat one, that being that its a combat class that is all about maximizing defensive capabilities.
The class has a d12 hit dice and a medium BaB . . . it gets talents at various levels, and it has DR whenever the character has armor on, and can do things like granting cover to adjacent foes.
I really, really want to like this class. I like the concept. But I have a hard time with the various, and I mean various, deviations from Pathfinder standard rules.
A lot of times, I know that SGG pushes the boundaries and sees what works. I appreciate that, and sometimes I don't always agree, but I understand and think the experimentation is a good thing.
This class has medium BaB with a d12 hit dice (one deviation)and treats any hit points rolled on their hit dice under a 6 as a 6 (meaning they get a minimum of 6 hp per hit dice no matter what). . . I'm not quite thrilled with those deviations from "Pathfinder RPG Norm". The core conceit of the class is to twist and break the standard rules to attempt to make sure the class always has more hit points than anyone else. That doesn't feel like a strong basis for a class.
Sorry guys . . . I still love you for trying though! Also, I amended a bit of the review as I misinterpreted a rule on my initial run through, and a mistake was corrected in the PDF in the meantime.
This book is absolutely amazing. If you think you already know the advice in this book, you are probably right, but honestly, its not the words, but the presentation. You'll want to remind yourself why some of this stuff is the sort of thing you should be doing when you run your game.
The NPC, Campaign, and Settlement tracking sheets are amazing, not because they have brand new things you have never thought of on them, but because they are put together in a great format to make you want to use them.
The NPC Gallery alone is worth the price of admission, and I have to say, its much more useful than the old NPC stats in the 3.5 DMG, since these characters are built not to be a generic member of a class at X level, but rather these are characters to fit a theme (pirate, adventuring wizard, tomb raider, etc)
The optional rules, such as insanity, chase rules, and haunts, are great GM resources.
I could go on and on, but honestly, this is just a great collection of tools and advice for any GM. You can't go wrong, and you may want to use things like the Campaign sheet or the NPC sheet no matter what game you are playing.
A good solid selection of combat oriented feats. I like the prerequisites of not having any caster levels for some of these. We haven't seen that before, but it doesn't "feel" wrong to me either.
Nice feats for dealing with several of the headaches that front line warriors have to deal with, such as running screaming from a fight or getting their rear ends handed to them by spells targeting their "bad" saves.
Also a nice few feats for building a swashbuckler, and monks get a nice "Jedi" option for their deflection abilities . . . ;)
Its probably no surprise that I'm not a fan of Battle Mage, due to its extra sub-system that it introduces, and I have a hard time really liking Layered Armor, but beyond that, its a really nice collection of feats.
One of the reasons I really like the Genius Guides is that I'm the kind of GM that would rather allow a source as a whole, rather than picking apart what I would allow here or there. So having a "themed" smaller product is really good for my mindset.
First off, I really like most of these feats. None of them strike me as being over powered, and for the most part, they strike me as being in line both in power and "feel" with Pathfinder core material.
Where I'm a little iffy are the Subtle, Surprise Attack, and Trickster Mage feats. The first two are things I'm not so sure I wouldn't just allow someone to do without a feat under the right circumstances.
Trickster Mage is one of those things that creeps up once in a while that feels a little too complex and outside of the Pathfinder standard for me to be comfortable with. Its not overpowering, its just that it introduced a sub-system when you take the feat, as well as having a more complicated system for spontaneous casters using the feat than prepared casters.
Overall, a solid work, with the exceptions that I mentioned above, which may not bother other people at all. The price is great, so I can't really tell anyone that this one is too expensive to check out and evaluate for yourself.
I wouldn't suggest using everything in the book and dropping it into just any campaign, but the concept is so broad and interesting that its pretty easy to use piecemeal in a lot of campaigns.
If you have a unique animal that is intelligent, and you want to give it class levels, you are covered. If you want to go the full Monty and run a Narnia style campaign with full on intelligent animals as common as other intelligent races, or if you want your Faerie realm populated with intelligent animals, you have more than enough information for that too.
As an example of what I mean by using things piecemeal, the first part of the book deals with the stats that animals have compared to other races. You can use this easily with the normal rules and make up a character.
If you want to, you can use the information on separate magic for animals and other races and blood magic, but you can also just use the animals as is for their statistics.
One of the first things that this product made me think of was going back to the 1st edition concept of reincarnation allowing for animal reincarnations, and another concept that this book helps to support is the idea of awakening an animal and using it as a cohort for someone in the party.
That having been said, for what might be a niche campaign, its a sizable investment. Not that its not well done, or fun to read, but its not something that will appeal to everyone ( . . . says the man whose wife has often said she hates any "talking animal" fantasy stories).
If you are really interested in how you might play animals as viable characters in a Pathfinder RPG campaign, its really well done and worth a look. If you are just looking for more general campaign information, or more on "standard" animals, its might be a bit too much of a "fringe" product for what you are looking for.
The concept of elf/oni is kind of cool. Its also not something that seems like it would be common. The support material for this races, including a PrC and a Paragon class, are really solid. I really liked that this was reworked as a standard race instead of trying to shoehorn the original +6 LA race into Pathfinder.
That having been said, with a strong Asian flavor and a hard origin to make common, these guys aren't going to be easily dropped into just any campaign, unless you are making a PC or NPC that just happens to be a unique being, but then you lose out on using a lot of the strong background material.
If you have an "unexplored land" that might work for the origin of this race, it may not be quite as hard to use them. But if too much is established about how common Oni are and where and how elves interact with others, its a little trickier.
Despite that, its a good read, and its interesting enough that the material at least makes you want to try to make them fit into a campaign, because its such a unique concept and so well realized and fleshed out here.
Take my three stars as more of a measure of general utility rather than specific quality. Its solid design and a satisfying read.
I love giants. I'm not sure why. They seem like a very simple type of monster, and yet I love them. Maybe its the association with Norse and Celtic myths that draw me to these guys.
What you get with this product isn't a race, but actually a race and a hybrid race/class. If you play the "stunted" version of the race, you are essentially a humanoid with a powerful build that has a giantish lineage. To me this works very well for a Celtic or Norse themed game.
On the other hand, if you don't play "stunted" version of the class, you have to take the paragon class, which essentially allows you to customize your character into one of the more traditional giant types, over time.
Essentially you are from a race of giants that kind of has the potential to be any other type of giant.
There are a couple of minor, but understandable, aspects of this product that keep me from rating it higher. I understand from the mechanics viewpoint why a character that isn't "stunted" is locked into the Paragon Class, but the "fluff" part of it just doesn't work as well for me as it could. I'm not quite sure why, but the "advance or die" reasoning isn't as satisfying as it could be.
Also, while it doesn't bother me to end up as a Huge frost/fire/stone giant, if I'm playing this class to emulate one of the "smaller" giant races, I'm not sure I'm as thrilled with playing a gargantuan or colossal giant.
Those certainly aren't game breakers for me, however, and the temptation of playing pretty much any type of giant with lots of "extra" thematic powers via the paragon class, and the added benefit of being able to just play a "giant-blooded humanoid" if I don't want to get into that class, this is a solid offering for me, and since giants are pretty much a standard for most campaigns, a pretty easy concept to slot into a campaign.
The main reason I gave this three stars is not due to the work put into this. Not only is the original concept a pretty good one when it first appeared in The Book of Iron Might, but the work to update and extract the OGL material into this product is pretty good as well.
Its a good, general construct race that doesn't require quite as much backstory as a certain other living construct race. That having been said, I guess I'm still of the opinion that I'm very leery of introducing a construct PC race. If I had a player that wanted one, I'd certainly offer this one up for use.
On top of the fact that living constructs can be a touchy subject, there is the fact that the race can be highly customized. This is both a plus and a minus. For someone that just wants to play a "golem," it might be a bit much to see all of the options at one time, although with a little digging its pretty obvious what are the best choices for what type of character you are going for.
So, to fully explain my three stars, I'd have to say that its more a matter of thinking that this race might need to be carefully introduced into a campaign for what it is, rather than the quality of the work involved. Not only is the design work solid, but its a fun read.
Give it a look, but if you are the type of GM that doesn't want too many "non-standard" races running around, know that you may need to be careful with how often you throw these around or how much access you let your players have to these guys.
I really like this class. I think the only real quibble I might have, and this speaks to the kind of games I run, is that I'm not that hung up on barring PCs from using the undead, so a lot of the work on the "breathless" template is kind of a long winded work around for the types of games I would run.
Other than that, this is a fun alternate class that works really well if you want a dedicated necromancer instead of a character that is a wizard first, and a necromancy specialist second.
The spell list is tailored to make it less of a blaster, and much more of a character that plays with life forces. Since the list is tailored for this class, you really have to work within the "Death mage" concept, instead of falling back on standard wizard spells in combat.
It is a d8 medium BaB class, which at first glance seems a bit over the top for a caster, except that as a "necromancer top to bottom," you are going to be doing a lot less controlling the battlefield and a lot more specifically targeting opponents and bringing combatants into the fight, so the HD progression doesn't feel out of place in that light.
I picked this up because I am actually becoming quite a fan of the Genius Guides, especially the classes. In many cases, they serve as better versions of 3.5 ideas, well integrated into Pathfinder RPG rules.
These guys carry on the tradition of doing a pretty good job of feeling like they are working within the Pathfinder RPG rules, although they are a little complicated compared to most of the official classes that have come out.
I'm not sure this is a "must have" class niche for the game, and this is coming from a guy that spent a lot of 3rd edition as a player running Mystic Theurges. I guess the divine/arcane spellcaster, to me, almost feels more satisfying to pull off when you have to work at it.
Don't let the above fool you though. This isn't a bad class. Its really an interesting idea, and if you don't mind the slightly more complicated mechanics to juggle the concept, there is nothing game breaking about either the power level or even the "fluff" of the class.
I guess, given that I'm used to having to work a bit harder to make the concept work, and the fact that the Mystic Theurge is part of the Core rules, this one still feels like a "its well designed, but I'm not compelled to use it" class.
Obviously what you want out of your spellcasters in your campaigns is going to influence your opinions on this, and if I ever ran a smaller group with someone wanting to have divine and arcane access from the beginning, I do "trust" this class enough that I'd consider letting someone run one.
I'm just not excited enough to "promote" the class to someone that isn't already looking for something like it.
I really liked this class. My biggest complaint is that I'm not a fan of the name "War Master," but hey, if I used this, I'm free to just replace the "official" Marshal with this class.
Essentially my biggest problem with classes that have attempted the same niche in other products have to do with the fact that the class doesn't have much to do when its not making others better at what they do.
Other classes like this one have almost come across like bards without the spells, i.e. they just get to buff and modify others, but they don't really have much to do themselves.
The fact that the War Master is a full BaB class which can take a hit and wear some decent armor, as well as giving the class some talents with which to customize their abilities, means that these guys become more interesting than just someone that moves their allies around like chess pieces.
To be fair, buffing and coordinating your allies is still a pretty big part of the class, so if you just want a front line character, you may not find much to like in these guys. But if you want a "buffing" class that can still decide to wade into battle and hold their own in hand to hand combat, take a look at this class.
While I don't know about allowing this into a campaign as a blanket option, or letting a player use it without carefully integrating the "race" into the campaign, this is a great tool to use for a campaign.
I don't know what more to say, other than that it seems to be a really balanced, flavorful way to deal with letting a character come back as "not quite dead" and move on with a campaign, and there is plenty of support for the concept in the PDF.
Between the really interesting options this presents you with for a campaign, and the price, it really can't hurt to take a look at this and add it as a potential option for your campaign.
Like a lot of the utility items that this company puts out, this PDF does exactly what it says, and does so at a fairly good price. If you are playing a summoning character of any kind, this is a good investment, and I really like that the stats even include the bonus for augmented summoned monsters.
I agree with the premise in the beginning of this article, that cold magic could really be expanded. I still have some things that I'm wondering about, after having read through this.
I love the idea of a spell that creates rough terrain, but I'm not sure that the level is quite right. I'll have to think about it, but its a great idea.
I'm pretty sure the avalanche spell has a typo, in that it mentions the avalanche affecting characters as if it was Bull Rushing with a CMD of X + X . . . I'm pretty sure this is suppose to be a CMB instead, but its a minor typo, unless I'm really misunderstanding the spell.
I really like the cold bloodline for the sorcerer, but I'm not sold on the cold specialist wizard, perhaps because I'm still wondering if there will be an official option for elemental wizards, and if there is, I'd like to see how they look first before I can judge how this would stack up.
Overall, again, for the price, this is an excellent buy, even if you don't end up using everything out of it.
Its well thought out, and very evocative in the writing department. It feels very much like a Shaman class should.
The bad?
If you aren't a fan of alternate systems being added to Pathfinder RPG, i.e. a class that does spellcastery things without matching up with the standard way of producing these effects, you probably won't be a fan of this class.
That isn't an indictment of the quality so much as a caveat concerning what kind of content you may want to let into your game.
Between the artwork and some cute references to holiday specials, this just wasn't my thing. I had a hard time getting past the jokes and the artwork to use this.
If you have a higher tolerance for cartoon artwork and holiday themed jokes, the work that went into the actual stats seems to be pretty solid.
I'm not sure if I'll give them another shot on monsters, as I'm assuming that this was an intentional wink and a nod. Hopefully other "themes" will be more serious.
In the grand scheme of things, I didn't quite like this one as much as the Dragonrider, even though they get the same star rating.
That having been said, I really like these guys. Pretty interesting take on the assassin, and I like how the Deadly Focus and Greater Deadly Focus reward you for picking a target to kill and work similar to a paladin's smite or a cavalier's challenge, so that the assassin has something to do as far as narrowing down a bad guy and locking him down (gods help the poor guy that has an assassin, a paladin, and a cavalier on his back at one time).
The supernatural shadowy thing is fun to play with, and the different talent trees are useful for making this fit specialized themes (i.e. ninja shiriken thrower FTW).
Overall, I'm pretty happy with this purchase, and this looks like a solid class, and a good "base" assassin.
The only real problem I think this class has is that the bonus damage from Deadly Focus does seem a little light compared to smite, sneak attack, or challenge, until Greater Deadly Focus kicks in, and it requires the assassin have a wisdom bonus that doesn't do much else for the class.
I like this class. I like this better than the Duskblade or the Hexblade. I think this does what its suppose to do pretty well. Oddly, there were a few things aesthetically that bugged me about this, however.
First, I'm not really sure that it adds anything to the class to make it a prepared caster with a limited list and then further limit how many spells the class can actually learn at each level. Its just feels complex for no real extra purpose.
Second, I was kind of distracted, and not in a good way, with some "inside jokes" in the naming conventions of the class and its lore, i.e. "Gesh," "Soul of the Spellblade, "Hexsword," "Dusk Knight," which all kind of nagged at me by sounding like in jokes for 3.5 fighter/mage PrCs and Base classes.
Third, I don't like the class being named Archon. I know I can call it what I like, but calling it an Archon, which already has a definition in Pathfinder RPG, just kind of rubs me the wrong way.
Despite these problems, I like the class. I'm not completely convinced that there needs to be a base fighter/mage class instead of a PrC that facilitates the "build," but if there is to be one, I like this one better than a lot of them.
I'm squeaking this one in at a three, mainly because of the value of the book. There are a lot of logical feats that make sense, but a lot of them are a bit too complex for what they actually do.
For example, I like the feats that add some extra effect to acid, fire, cold, or electrical spells in exchange for a boost in DC, but the spells that add extra spells based on a theme are kind of a mess.
Also, the feats that allow you to pick up the "other option" for the "bonds" of various classes is kind of nice, but the examples are a bit awkward (for example, the druid picking up a domain as well as an animal).
I'm wondering if it wouldn't make more sense to break out adding, for example, the individual "bonds," for example a separate feat allowing a bonded mount, or a familiar, and leave out the somewhat clunky way of expressing a "less than optimal" sacred weapon, domain, or bonded item.
All in all, its interesting for the price, but I was hoping for a bit more clarity and polish. The production values are nice though.
I'm such a pain, but its really, really hard for me to give a product five stars.
That having been said, I really like this product, and for the price its an amazing product. Really nice production values, to begin with.
The dragon mount is presented in a consistent manner with Pathfinder animal companions, and follows a lot of Pathfinder conventions, and on top of that, the class fills a fantasy niche that has yet to be touched in Pathfinder, and in a way that it starts out right from 1st level.
Give it a look. For the price, even if you don't want to use it, it might not be a bad idea to see how well you can put together something using Pathfinder RPG conventions.
I have to admit, I was more interested in the class concepts in this book than I have been with some of the other 3rd party books I've read for Pathfinder, but the execution on many of the classes, including some of the potentially interesting classes, just falls short, to the point of not really being able to figure out how to implement them.
Overall, its not a bad buy to pick up and sort through what might work for you, but be aware that, while it seems like there are a ton of good ideas, there are also lots of places where a good editorial pass would have fixed some problems.
Much like the first two volumes, there are some solid, "your PCs haven't seen this before" monsters in here, and its not too bad for the price of the book.
Still, taken as a whole, you should probably read through the volumes of this series and pick and choose the ones that feel the most compelling. Without any "must haves," you may not want to spend too much on utility or novelty monsters to throw into the campaign.
Decent monsters, not the greatest I've ever seen, but useful for what they do, and again, not bad for the price and to have something to throw at your PCs that they aren't expecting.
None of these monsters seem inspired, or like something I would have to use, and they don't particularly follow a theme, but at the same time, they aren't bad monsters, and it never really hurts to throw some monsters at your PCs that they have no idea about.
I want to like this, and the price isn't bad (and gained it a star over what I would have normally given it), but at the same time, this product feels really close, but doesn't quite fire on all the right notes.
Mechanically, its not a bad product, but some of the class concepts seem like a really big stretch to actually be separate classes, and almost seem more like an experiment in trying to build new classes with existing class features. The result doesn't quite feel compelling, but it doesn't feel bad, if that makes any sense.
I almost think this might have been a more interesting supplement if more of it has been rewritten as alternate class features for existing classes, not unlike Unearthed Arcana's alternate class features, but geared towards Pathfinder RPG features.
Check it out if you don't mind experimenting with your handful of dollars.
The ideas for mimic related monsters are really interesting, and the new monsters, including the huge freaking mimic, are really cool and make me want to use them.
Even if some of it is kind of situation, that's all mitigated by an awesome price. If anyone is interested in mimics at all, its worth the 2.00.
While some of the classes, especially the voyageur, are interesting, and might trip some player or GM's imaginations, I can't help but think that I don't want quite as many "alternate" versions of what Paizo has coming out officially. If you really don't like the Paizo versions, I guess this might be worth checking out.
Also, the NPC classes are interesting, but how much you value having new NPC classes will probably vary.
The PrCs really don't do much for me as far as "needing" to have PrCs.
The only complaint I have is that, while I don't mind listing optional rules for monster knowledge skills or DCs, I wish the "default" DC had been used instead of one of the optional one presented.
Other than that, its great if you are having a hard time with how much you want to give away depending on a given check, and I really, really hope someday they expand this to some other Pathfinder monsters in non-Bestiary products.
Really nice utility product, and an excellent buy for the price. Its a bunch of cards, with conditions on them. If you expect anything other than this, well, don't, but honestly, its great for what it does.
There are some interesting bloodlines and spells in this book, but I'm not sure for the price that this is worth a little bit of inspiration, and I have to say, most of the book doesn't grab me.
Part of why I look at a lot of Pathfinder compatible books is to see how well I can move onto fully Pathfinder material from 3.5. In order to really get that feel of replacing old material. This isn't really imaginative or inspiring enough to make me push old 3.5 material out of the way.
Overall, its not a bad product, but you should really think about how much you want to mine arcane material before you purchase this product.
If you aren't like me and tend to allow or disallow things on a pass/fail basis, but are willing to pick and choose what you want to put into your campaign, you will most likely be able to find a lot of use to you in this book. For me, I tend to like to say that a source is all in (perhaps with a few minor caveats) or just avoid the complication of adding a new source to the campaign.
This book, like the core rulebook, is gorgeous. Not only that, but it has most of the OGL creatures in it, updated to the Pathfinder rules as well as some interesting and logical tweaks.
The only real gripe I have is that, while I understand why it was done, I didn't like that some classic creatures were turned into templated versions of the core version of the monster (I don't know you you need to have separate stats for heavy war horses, but it just doesn't sit right, to me, to have them be "advanced" horses, for example).
All of that having been said, call this one a 4.75, but I'm just too much of a pain to give up a five star review.
Man, its hard to rate things like this on a five star scale. The production value to this thing is gorgeous. It looks better than any 3.5 book did, its that good.
Most of the rules changes are logical and streamline the game without changing too much too drastically, and the overall effect is a similar degree of drift as the difference between 3.0 and 3.5.
That having been said, there are still a few places where some changes seemed to be less about making the game run smoothly and more about addressing vocal segments of the gaming community (spiked chains anyone).
Overall, this is a beautiful book, and most of the changes are welcome and logical. If you were willing to give 3.5 a try after 3.0, this is probably a more logical and more streamlined change than that changeover was.
I can't quite put my finger on it, but while I like this book, and I certainly think its worth the money, and there are even some nice RP hooks and elven eccentricities, like magical food, in the book, I think it felt more like fine tuning elves a little to fit in Golarion than really grabbing me and hitting a home run.
I wouldn't not have wanted a radically different approach to elves, but at the same time, I'm not sure what its missing, but its not quite "there."
Still, its a good book, worth the money, and gives you some nice RP "flair" to hang on a Golarion elf to personalize it to the setting, and I can't fault that.
Its a bit rushed feeling, given that it was an early book in the system, but on the other hand, its pretty good for having some stat blocks on the fly if you need them.
Thugs, dark jedi, etc. that you may not have planned on your PCs running into are quick to find in here.
The downside to this is that it feels a little unorganized, there are a lot of stat block errors (nothing that really screws with CL, so its nothing that makes them unusable), and there really could have been more beast type threats included.
Overall, especially if you don't have a lot of Saga books and you also don't have a lot of time for making your own NPCs, its a good book to pick up, but you aren't going to learn a lot of obscure Star Wars lore from this one.
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