Kolokotroni's page

So, waaay back in 2009 Super Genius games release the Genious guide to the dragon rider. I quite like the class and have used it several times in my games, and have a player use one as a pc in the first pathfinder campaign I ran.

At the time Owen hinted at a more castery version that was in the works. Now, 5 years later, here it is, the Dracomancer. And in my humble opinion, it was worth the wait.

Now mind you, if you dont like the idea of a pc in your game having a dragon buddy follow him around, this class isnt going to work for you. Though there are some less obtrusive options (some of the dragon options are actually tiny sized in this product), many of the best choices for dragons are going to eventually be rather big.

If dracomancers and dragon riders arent actually a part of your campagin world, this is going to be a rather significant issue when the dracomancer rides into down on the back of a huge dragon. In my game world we made some allowances, adding them to the lore of the world, including several countries that favor dragon riders and dracomancers for the benefits of what amounts to an air force in their military. So at least in my world, its no more outrageous or problematic then say a druid with a tiger companion walking into town. Not a normal day, but not unheard of either.

As for the class itself, its nearly perfect in my mind. 6 level casting, a combined summoner and magus spell list, and a potentially powerful companion makes for alot of choices. The thing is, they are generally choices. The more powerful dragons, which have animal companion like stat blocks and progresion, require actions by the dracomancer (starting at standard actions) in order to do more then take a move action on their turn. So if you put that along side say a druid with a combat focused companion, the druid is significanty more capable, since both he and his companion can act in the same turn.

There are also some of the smaller dragons which are really just walking breath weapons x times per day for the dracomancer to use when appropriate.

This makes for a very flexible class. With the spell list you have access to as well as the spells granted by your specific dragon choice, you can be a potent spell caster, though still operating with 6 level spell slots. Or you can focus on the dragon and its combat prowess, effectively alternating between casting spells and laying the hurt with your big dragony buddy.

There is also a fairly unique and entertaining roleplay opportunity here. While the dragon's actions are bound to the will of the dracomancer, and it will act to support him, its words are not. In my game I have taken on the role of the dragon (as the dm) and it has become a fairly enteraining relationship with the players at the table as this intelligent and charismatic creature comments on the actions of the party and the situations they are in. I have definately enjoyed that interaction in my game.

All in all, I really like this product. But again, you have to be comfortable with the general concept. Basically, if a caster riding a dragon that isnt grossly overpowered and actually works as pc class is something that sounds awesome to you, you will like this class. If a caster with a dragon buddy (possibly a tiny dragon) seems like a fun way to inject a little extra roleplay into your campaign, then again, I strongly recommend the Genius Guide to the Dracomancer.

There have been quite a few 3rd party attempts at a fighter/caster combination in pathfinder. Not many have made me think they would do the job better or as well as the Magus. The battle scion definately makes me consider it.

It is a full bab d10 HD, 4th level spell max caster that is very similar in style and performance to the paladin. It is a prepared caster that primarily relies on martial abilities with a few defensive buffs, and a couple strong burst damage/attack abilities. Where the paladin has smite evil and divine bond, the Battle Scion has Force blast and deowmer weapon. Deowmer weapon functions almost identically to the weapon version of divine bond, with different potential enhancements. Force blast, is, well exactly what it sounds like. A blast of force spell like ability that the battle scion can use 3+int times per day that scales as you level.

2d4 damage (which does up as you level) isnt really impressive then you realize the battle scion could easily be swining a great sword for 2d6+6 + power attack and weapon specialization (since they count as fighters at level-3 for qualifying for feats) but since it works like a magic missile it makes for a versatile tool. Battle Scions are intelligent, and consequently can be selective about their targets. This makes them fairly dangerous enemies to use as npcs.

Overall I really like the class, and I think it does something that is different then those that have come before. I particularly like the Force blaster archetype, which focuses even more on the force blast ability then the normal battle scion.

I think the only thing I'd change is a persona preference thing, where I would make it charisma based and alter the skills some, but that is just my own pet peeve about the lack of charisma based character classes in the game, and not a failing of the battle scion itself. If you want a good Fighter/magic user (big F little mu) the battle scion is a good choice.

I think a lot of people find the idea of playing a half vampire interesting. The potential inner conflict with your darker nature, or the outer conflict with your parentage can really provide interesting moments at your table. Dhampir: Scions of the night provides this in spades.

The are a host of ways to customize your Dhampir. After giving you a fair bit of Flavor in the first 2 pages, you have a number of alternate racial traits to personalize your Dhampir. Some of the ones that really stand out to me are the variants on spell like abilities. While detect undead is somewhat useful (particularly if you are going with the Dhampir Vampire Hunter Trope), it can be a little lackluster. These alternate spell like abilities offer some very interesting additional options, and they all capture a piece of the lore that surrounds vampires in game. From animalistic form, which at high levels allows you to change into a bat or wolf, or draining touch, which gives you a taste of the power that vampires wield against life itself, you'll find something to suit your tastes here if you like vampires.

This product also offers a number of interesting character options. In particular the rogues Play Dead Talent seems like it could offer an interesting dynamic to a combat. Its a bit more flavorful and dramatic then a simple in combat feint to get in a sneak attack. Overall I'd say you can find a number of interesting options here for most any kind of Dhampir character.

It is also a very useful tool for DMs who want to include Dhampir NPCs. First and foremost it has several fleshed out and detailed Dhampir NPCs at the end, complete with backgrounds, tactics and plot hooks to bring them into your campaign. In addition all of those alternate racial features are laid out in tables that you can roll against randomly if you need to generate an NPC on the fly. There is also a random feature chart with everything from bite shaped birth marks, to pupils that disappear in the sun. There is lots to flesh out what sets your Dhampir apart in this table.

Overall I'd say its a very good product, and definitely brings that can't wait to play one of these feel to playing a Dhampir Character.

Sometimes you set out to create player options and you end up with something that is more a tool for GMs. That is what I see this product as. It provides a host of options and customizations for Aasimars, but nothing really stands out as an exciting thing that really makes me want to make my next character an Aasimar.

What I think it does very well is give DMs a tool to flesh out their Aasimar npcs very easily. Alternate racial abilities, and defining features are laid out in neat tables to allow for random generation. A very useful tool if you suddenly have need of an Aasimar npc you havent planned for. For those who have ever had a party member take the population breakdown of a town or a city as a challenge to meet every one of the races mentioned, its nice to have a table to roll on to bring up a detailed character to life quickly.

Airin the Elysian Blooded, Steadfast, healer, with Copper Hair and silver fingernails, already has a ton of character even before the first words are exchanged with the PCs. And that is before rolling on the origin chart on page 16, which provides 12 interesting starts for an Aasimars Backstory.

There are also several sample NPCs of a variety of CRs that can be used in a pinch as well. They have detailed backgrounds, and descriptions. They even come with individual hooks to work them into your campaign.

There is also the issue of some of the information in the product conflicting with the Advanced Race Guide. It isn't a major issue, but is one that you will have to be conscious of when using this product. In particular the age, height and weight charts, and the racial favored class bonuses differ from the ARG. Again I don't think it's a problem, just check with your DMs on which you should use if you are a player using this product.

Let me start by saying that had this product ended on page 13, it would have gotten a 5 star review. I absolutely love the riven mage, and the concept of riven mage. It is unfortunate that (at least in my opninion) an archetype added at the end of the product brings it down in my eyes.

First off, I really like riven magic. I like the concept and the execution. Basically you have a handful of simple spells, and you can pour more or less energy into them to vary the effect with limits based on your level. So a 1st and 10th level riven mage might both know the same 'bolt' spell, but the 10th level riven mage can put alot more 'umph' (called flux in the product) into it, and has alot more umph to use over the course of the day.

Think Dresden files. Harry has always known his fire spell 'fuego' but the amount of energy he has been able to put into it has changed (increased) over the course of the series. The same spell can be used to set something flammable on fire, or to knock out a wall of a building, the latter just takes more energy.

There also isnt the same overwhelming number of options that vancian spellcasting offers. You know a handful of spells, they are useful, but you dont have the 60's style batman with an anti-thing spray in your utility belt like pathfinder wizards can often have.

I also like the subtle influence of the riven paths. They seam like a minor ability choice, but they also allow access to one specific riven spell that other rivenmages get. A sacred riven mage can heal, and a sneak can turn invisible. That is the kind of thing that could strongly influence a character over the course of it's career. I'd love for an expansion of this product with a few new riven spells, and especially a few more riven spells tied to riven paths. One that would allow complete healing duties (condition removal and ability damage/level drain) to be handled by riven mages on the sacred path for instance.

With a slight expansion I could see a campaign that elminates traditional spellcasting in favor of riven magic, particularly if we got a super genius style archetype that could be integrated in to most classes.

There are a number of feats after the riven spells that make for some interesting options, though I would love to see a few magic items that were wand/staff equivalents for riven mages. Maybe something that integrated the genius guide to runestaves and wyrd wands implement rules with riven magic.

Then we come to the part of the product I dont like. The last couple pages are occupied by the rivener, an archetype for the Archon, a super genius class that was the projenetor of riven magic. And to be blunt, its bad, and poorly thought out. The archetype basically strips all of its class features and gives it back only a handful and a weaker version of riven magic. It inexplicably leaves in the arcane surge ability that does not work for a rivener since it doesnt use traditional spells, and riven spells are already swift actions. So all they end up with is a weakened form of riven magic (about 1/3 of a spell), 3 bonus feats, Riven bond at 8th level and a capstone feature. Levels, 1,2,4,6,7,10,11,12,14,16,18 an 19 dont have class features. That isnt a good class and its definately not in line with the design goal of pathfinder to have classes get something every level.

As interesting as it would be to combine a full bab class with riven magic, the absolute derth of class abilities the riven mage gets and the inexplicable choice to remove potentially useful abilities like soul of the spell blade or favored spell (which could have been reworked relatively easily to work with riven spells), and leave in a completely useless set (arcane surge) make this an inexcusably bad Archetype. The reduced riven magic is not worth all of the classes class features AND 6 levels of standard spellcasting.

And it is a realy shame because I would love to see several levels of riven magic, perhaps even the full specturm of paladin, inquisitor and cleric casting (4levels, 6 level, and 9 levels). Not sure if the rivenmage is supposed to be in line with the bard/inquisitor or the wizard/cleric when it comes to riven magic, but my impresion is its the middle ground caster. So that would leave open the 'full' rivenspell caster, and the full bab partial caster that the rivener should have been.

That said, this is still a great product, just ignore the last couple of pages. I absolutely love the concept and the execution, and can even start visualizing a campaign where this is the dominant for of magic and not vancian.

A lot of times as you look back on a product that has been out a while, especially something as self contained as a single base class, you wonder if it's still relavent. Long before paizo released the Magus in Ultimate Magic, super genius games sought to scratch that fighter/mage itch. There were a few homebrew ideas bouncing around, but this definately caught my eye. I picked it up and read it over. Part of me was thrilled. A full bab martial/caster that can cast spells from 1st level? Could it really work? After my first read through I wasnt convinced. I was underwhelmed by the class abilities. It seemed like too far a shift from high powered 3.5 attempts like the duskblade.

But I didnt have an issue with it in terms of balance, it just didnt seem all that impressive. Still, I printed it and put it in my ever growing binder of Super Genius material that I allowed into my game. Shortly after the start of my last campaign which lasted almost 2 years and spanned levels 2 through 12, a new player joined my group. He had in his head a concept of a fighter mage. So as I usually do with new Players I sat down and showed him different options in terms of classes and prestige classes. He chose (dispite my urging for something different) the Archon.

And he struggled at first trying to find his place in the game. We had several combatants in the party already, and he wasn't going to outdamage any of them. But over the course of the campaign I came to appreciate the sheer flexibility of this class. It can stand up and duke it out with all but the best of them, and it also has sufficient access to spells that it can have the 'batman anti thing spray' effect. As a full BAB combatant, it can afford to keep a more of its spells in it's pocket as saftey nets. AND riven spell effects allow the Archon to turn prepared spells that end up being not useful into a useful bonus (much like a cleric or druid's spontaneous casting).

The Archon ended up being one of the most versatile and important members of the party, able to fill in where there was need. And while the fighter, and paladin dished out more damage, they were often caught without options in complex encounters. The archon always seemed to have a spell up his sleeve that kept him able to bring the fight to the enemy.

That campaign has come to a close and I truly look back fondly on that character. In a large group, with multiple casters and combatants (and even a few mixes like an inquisitor and a super genius dragon rider) it did not seem to overshadow anyone, but still found room to shine. Even in the face of new releases since then, particularly the Magus by paizo, this class still has it' place in my game. The class isn't as flashy as a magus using spell combat, but it gets the job done, in a sort of rugged and slightly clunky way. Two years ago I would probably have given it 3 starts, maybe 2. But having followed one through its career as a dm, I think the class is way better then I originally thought. Given I and my player had fun with this class for a whole campaign, it gets 5 stars from me today.

I happen to be a big fan of this series of products. I really like the modularity of this system. I love the idea of being able to add a little martial prowess to any character in exchange for some of it's standard abilities.

Like others I thought the Harrier was a little clunky, and the spellhammer is a little underwhelming. I like all of the others.

I was one of those people who really liked the 3.0 prestige class the lasher. The idea of using a whip to grab stuff or to move around or other specialist things is really fun. Paizo introduced a little of this with the whip mastery feats in ultimate combat, but you dont get alot of choice. The blacksnake can make any character a whip specialist. And its worth the price of admission in my view.

I also especially like the youxia. It can add a little bit of monk flavor to any class. And that can be important. For instance if you are playing a campaign (or character concept) where armor doesnt make sense thematically, you can add the youxia to any class to offer non-magical (but supernatural) defensive options to replace that armor.

The weapon master and the physical exemplar are pretty generic, but solid. They are great for taking a class that might have a different focus and pushing it towards combat. If you wish your inquisitor or your ranger were a little bit more like the fighter, well have no fear, these two archetypes can push the class in that direction.

You can even have a build your own class kind of situation. Some of the classes have 2 suites of abilities that can be traded out (leaving a fairly bair bones class behind). You can then add 2 archetypes from this or other products in the line to more or less make your own class. Ever wanted a cross between a fighter and a monk? Take both packages out the cavalier and make him both a weapon champion and a youxia. Like the inquisitors skills but dont like tracking the fiddly judgements and spells? Trade out both their archetypes for more static sets of abiltis like the physical exemplar, blacksnake, and weapon champion.

The title says it all. There is nothing more iconic in fantasy rpgs then Dragons. And since the begining, many of us have wanted to play a character who rode one. I have met few players that have not at least tried to convince their DMs to let them ride one. Leadership was one common path but often it was hard to manage a game where one player rode a dragon and others didnt.

This product eliminates most problems (besides the thematic issues one might have with the concept and the fact that you have a party member able to fly at level 1), by making having the dragon around the Dragon Riders Primary class feature. Sure they get paladin style casting, and a few bonus feats, but the real 'umph' of this class is your awesome mount.

At first glance the class seems very powerful, full base attack, strong saves, minor casting and an animal companion style dragon that is extremely potent. But the geniuses had a clever trick up their sleeves.

The Focus requirement of the strong dragons is higher. What this means is that in order for a dragon to take more then a move action at low levels the dragon rider must surrender his own actions. This requirement reduces as the character levels, but it goes a long way to keeping the class in line with the rest of the game, the player must choose between rider and dragons actions.

You also have a choice of every type of chromatic and metallic dragons, so finding one to suit your concept is fairly easy. Some are smaller and more agile, while the Red and Gold dragons are larger and more powerful (but have a higher focus requirement).

I had a player use one at my table for my last campaign, and my overall impressesions were positive. He chose the smaller blue dragon as his mount, and used it mostly as a mobile archery platform, which worked quite well. The flavor of the class also allowed for some interesting story developments with this evil dragon helping a good aligned character in the hopes of quickly gaining power.

Overall this is a great product and I have had and will have alot of fun with pcs and npcs using it. If you want to have a character riding a dragon, this is the hands down best way to go about it in pathfinder.

I think most of us can look on the concept of red mage, black mage, and white mage with some nostalgia. The idea that certain kinds of magic are associated with a certain color has been around for a long time. A certain collectable card game may have made it famous, but it certainly didnt start there.

The Genius Guide to the Mosaic Mage brings this concept to pathfinder. There are 5 primary colors or spectrusm, red, black, white, blue and yellow. Each has their own 'spectrum powers' associated with the themes, as well as their own area of spells. The colors are well themed and the concept that certain colors complement each other I like a lot.

The problem comes with the spells for the class. You have access to ALL spells that fit certain school/subschool list for each spectrum. For instance, yellow has conjuration (summoning), Conjuration (teleportation), evocation (no energy type), Evocation (sonic),Illusion(patern), Tranmutation(with no subschool). You have access to ANY spell that fits these schools.

There however is no useful listing in any of the books of spells in a format that would allow you to easily look through them for the above schools. And here in lies with the problem with this product. Thankfully if you head over to the pathfinder srd website, their spells db will help ALOT, but I dont really like relying on a computer and a website to be able to create a character. Sometimes these things are not available (I keep a print copy of all my gaming pdfs that moves with my other books).

I never thought i'd say this but I like unique spell lists better then I like this method of creating guidelines for spell lists. It is just too much work to go through all the spells to find which ones match the criteria to make it worth it to use the class (particularly as a dm making an npc which is what I was considering using this class for).

For that, I give it 4 stars instead of 5. I really do like the class, but it probably would have been better served with its own spell list(s) in my opinion.

One thing we see very little of in various pathfinder products is new ways to use those things that make up the right most side of our character sheets (or at least many of them). Often forgotten under the flood of feats and class options and spells, are those wonderful little insanely self descriptive things we call skills.

Well this products breaths a little life back into the skill monkey with a host of interesting new ways to use them. I am extremely pleased with this product. I was expecting to grab a handful of these and insert them into my game, but after having read it, I am going to use all 101.

This game was keenly anticipated among my friends and I. Many are real trek fans, and we all play board games and strategy tabletop games. The design and rules of this game do not fail to deliver. After 4 games, I have to say I cannot wait to play again. It has come to dominate my weekly game night and I dont see any new games dethroning it for a while. The flavor is excellent, the cards and ship abilities are very flavorful. There are many ways to win the game, and the overall balance seems very good. All the games i have played have been close and exciting, and evenly split between both sides.

The problem is in the components. The cards and tiles feel thin and fairly flimsy. I am seriously considered about wear and tear already. But worse yet are the ship miniatures. Their connection to their base is extraodinarily fragile and will snap off very easily (happened 3 times already) and the 'clix' portion of the base has stoped being able to be moved on 3 ships, and has been difficult to move on many others. At this point we no longer use the clix bases and instead use tokens to track the current settings on the ship cards themselves. And despite the relative appeal of the miniatures, and I do like their look, there is zero effort to make any sense of the sake of the ships. There is no connection to the actual size of the ships and their models. Now I dont expect a precise adherance to scale (that would require either some extremely small ro extremely large miniatures) but some indiation would have been nice, because the size of the ships in question does play into their relative power, and that would be a useful visual queue for people playing the game.

Overall the game is brilliant in my opinion, but it is let down by its components.

Staves are a big part of fantasy literature. Gandalf didnt walk through moria with a magic wand. But in dnd, and now pathfinder, staves are hard to come by in most games. They have very little presence in most games I've played in.

Krazy Kragnar's magic staff Emporium addresses two issues that often stand in the way of PCs getting their hands on staves. One is the fact that if you want a custom staff, that suits your tastes you have to wait a long time for it. Staves take a fair amount of time to craft, and if you make one to order, you will be waiting around for it for a while.

The Tige Vierge address this to an extent allowing crafters to create most of a staff as a blank slate, and add spells to it later. It is an interesting idea, and really if you have a kragnar like magic shop in your game, it is a great way to present the players and other npcs with access to specific staves.

The second, and maybe more important addition is the lesser staves. Staves cost a lot of money. Rightfully so, but its hard for an item to remain iconic in a game where it doesnt show up untill the last fourth of a campaign or in some cases not at all. Lesser staves are within the price range for midlevel characters, and thus can be part of a character's person when they start to really come into their own.

This also allows for staves to be used by midlevel npcs. In the finale of a recent campaign, a staff magus enemy made excellent use of a lesser staff of binding to free up his own spell slots for buff spells. It turned what might have been an average encounter, into a far more interesting one, when the well prepared magus and his allies could rely somewhat on spells from the staff instead of all from the magus' own slots in combat.

After getting my first experience with this class at my table this weekend I have to say this is really a great product. The player using this class is normally not the most inspired or descriptive, but in this session he couldn't wait to describe what he was doing. It helped that he is a prince of persia fan (both the films and all the video games), but that is the idea here, to inspire people looking to bring that kind of flavor to their game.

And this product definately does that, the mechanics and the flavor combine really well to provide a fun feel for the class. It fits neatly into the skills role in any party, and though it doesnt have the offense a rogue does with sneak attack, it isn't punchless, and has some fun special abilities providing solid debuffs.

The best praise I can provide for this product is the fact that the player had fun playing it, and I had fun dming it. So whether you are a prince of persia fan or just looking for a new take on 'theif' this products worth a look.

Most people want the products they buy to continue to be supported as new kinds of options emerge. Few people like feeling like they have to buy a bunch of products to get use out of the one's they do buy. Tough jam for a 3rd Party Publusher looking to add to the options for their products right?

Not if you are a genius! This product is essentially a free web enhancement adding alternate favored class options for the existing super genius games base classes for the pathfinder roleplaying game in line with the new ones presented in the advanced players guide. So whether you own one of their base classes or all of them, you want this product. If you dont own any of them, take a look anyway, you may be inspired to buy one or two. Go download it now, I'll wait...See isn't it awesome?

Seriously there is no reason not to download this.

I picked this up as I do the overwhelming majority of Super Genius products as a way to get my new gaming material fix.

SGG material never fails to inspire new ideas but this one has me rethinking a whole campaign idea. I want to include the Kingdom of Graves in my homebrew world using this product to drive the campaign as the players race to fend off an undead invasion. If you like undead in your game, and would like something new to spur ideas and confound players, look no further.

I have been meaning to review this one for a while. I like the concept. And I like it for one very big reason. Though the class is primarily defensive, there are lots of ways to make it offensive. Few options in the class will add to any offensive punch, but many of them mesh well with feats and specific equipment.

Hence the title of the review, you will want a billion feats for this class, but because of the design you wont get them all, keeping it balanced. On the flip side the fact that certain abilities synergize well with offensive feats means you are capable of not being the unhittable non-threatening tin can, that ends up being pretty useless in many encounters. (If intelligent enemies are completely unthreatened by a defensive character, his defense is less useful as they will just attack someone else).

I am currently adding a group of 'hoplite' armigger npcs into an encounter to see how some of the polearm and shield synergistic abilities work. I expect it to be different, and interesting to fight against for my party.

Overall, while not my absolute favorite SGG class, I definately think it is a good one and worth picking up if you want a new take on 'the tank' in a party, or as npcs.

This product started as a joke in a discussion of one of the previous loot 4 less products. I believe it was Owen that mentioned it, and fans mentioned that it would be an interesting idea. Low and behold we got the product. And it is a good one. All too often transport is bland and a glossed over part of an adventure. Now not only can wagons, and chariots be interesting, but they can be integral parts of encounter, adventures, and treasure. Where once a wagon may have been purely a means to carry treasure, it can now provide a fun and interesting reward in and of itself.

Have a small party? Or just a strong need/desire to cover some Arcane/Divine magic while being a caster in the other? When you look at the mystic thuerge class/multiclassing ideas to cover this, do you immediately see a giant sign that says "ITS A TRAP!"?

Well this is a class for you. The Geniuses have once again outdone themselves. For a long time someone who wanted both arcane and divine casting, either for roleplaying reasons or to fill a need in their party had to stick with relatively poor options like multiclassing into mystic theurge, but no longer! The magus allows the flavor and some of the flexibility of such a character with none of the suck.

It also provides some very interesting ways customize your character with unique talents and even new feats. The class is spontaneous so you wont have the flexibility of the traditional multiclass build but you will be a full caster, and not have to sacrifice caster levels (and thus have to wait longer for that higher level spell you are looking forward to)