Sign in to create or edit a product review. The editorial warns us the issue covers poisons. And the issue does deliver poison in spades. The first article, by Steve Russell, is the walking wasteland creature template, bringing poison and putrefaction to an adventure near you. I really like the degeneration aura to shut down fast healing and regeneration. Not much of a fan of the putrefying aura. Cool ability, but a bit wonky in the mechanics. Does it putrify every round or what? The other abilities are appropriately themed and make any creature with this template a conundrum for the party to deal with. At the end of the article, a blink dog is given the template and I feel sorry for the poor creature. Trying to warn of its destructive nature, but blighting the area around it. The second article is by Mike Welham and presents 18 alchemical items. Most are alternatives to spells with minor drawbacks that help make them unique additions to a healer's handbag. The Miracle Pill is an obvious nod to The Princess Bride. Cauterizing Agent is pretty nifty against bleed. But the real gem here is the [optional] side effects charts! Next by Creighton Broadhurst are 20 descriptions of chests. No, not the burly man or shapely lady kinds, but storage chests... 1, 9, 13, and 17 were my favorites. Followed by 20 things found in a vermin infested dungeon by Creighton Broadhurst. 6, 9, and 18 are especially noteworthy. Fifth on the line up, is a list of quirks by Jonathan McAnulty. Traits that are more powerful than average, but with drawbacks. Each as a result of being poisoned by something in your past. First off and my favorite was the Abuyssal Affinity, grants detect evil, but the character always detects as a little bit evil. So many shenanigans to be had! Ten quirks in total. Sixth article details gillmen as having a Polynesian flair. This article by Elton Rob ended up being my favorite in this issue. Well thought out and pretty detailed. My only complaint is the racial variant for the gillmen were once again created by aboleths. Also, glance over the Cerulean Seas Campaign Setting to understand the the variant gillmen. This issue's interview is with Jacob Blackmon (no mon, he's not Jamaican). I read this article first, as I like his art and he's pretty humorous on Facebook. Pretty good, had a couple giggles reading it. He also does the comic at the end and it reminds me of my niece a little... And finally, the issue ends with reviews. I never read these for some reason. DisappointedThomas LeBlanc (RPG Superstar 2012 Top 32) —General plot = okay except as spoilered below. A bit predictable, but while I knew the knife was coming, the direction it came from was not predictable.
Plot vs Rules: The rune on the summoner's head should have been visible, removing the only suspenseful part of the novel. But that would have ruined the plot, so instead, the author ruined the story for me. Classes: Summoners and gunslingers are supposed to be rare outside of the respective areas they hail from. But both are found far from home, coincidentally, in a speck of a town in the River Kingdoms.
I am also a "no guns in my fantasy" type of guy, so that is a mark against the novel for me. And why are there so many summoners in PF Tales all of a sudden? I swear if there is a summoner in any upcoming PF Tales, I am canceling my subscription. So prolly the next Dave Gross novel featuring Radovan, the synthesist summoner (another class I dislike in general). Enemies: I had written a longer review, but it was consumed by the post monster and I have calmed down a bit...
Climatic battle: 15th level summoner, 9th level witch, 6th level pack lord & misc low level rangers = How did so many of the party survive? And the enemies tactics sucked for the preparation time and knowledge of the heroes they had. Content: 4/5
The foreword is well written and is resplendent with a few bad jokes. The first chart has 100 interesting physical details for a zombie. Pickled zombie (#97) anyone? The second chart lists objects found on or carried by a zombie. I felt a bunch of the items were inappropriate or just silly. Take for example the "potato; overgrown with eyes all over" (#59). I placed it on a zombie during a PFS scenario. After 15 minutes of trying to figure out what the deal with the zombie was, the players were pissed that it was just a plain potato. "Why did the f---ing zombie have a potato?" was yelled by one upset player. Table C (which wasn't really a table) has 6 zombie templates and stats for a human and fast human zombie. I had a "D'oh" moment when I saw the legless zombie and wondered why I had never seen it before. Table D has 20 adventure hooks to transform a zombie encounter into something more interesting during a campaign. My favorite is the zombie cat lady! The last page is a "Understanding Statblocks for Dummies." Good introduction for new GMs. Crunchitude: 3/5
The zombie stat blocks were not done in the standard fashion, which I believe detracts from their usefulness. I am used seeing a statblock in a certain way and varying from that is distracting. Also there are a few minor mistakes, but the stat blocks are still useable. The zombie pet template is kind of a stretch and would make more sense for an archetype or a variant Improved Familiar styled feat. Flavourocity: 4/5
Also, a head is not a limb (zombie swarm template)... Last Words: This was a well done product. I will be using a few of the templates in my home game and definitely the zombie descriptions. I feel the author missed a chance with the zombie stat blocks. The human zombie is already presented in the Bestiary and providing a different zombie would have been more useful. And instead of a fast zombie, apply one of the new templates to the standard human zombie. Content - 5/5
Many people tend to skip the foreword, which is a shame. The author, Creighton Broadhurst, does a good job outlining the product and I had a giggle at the line “that was never a CR 1 trap”. The product begins with a list of 13 pit traps, CR 1-13. A nice variety of different depths, damages, and the occasional inclusion spikes, some with poison. And an accompanying wall Climb DC chart for easy reference. Next is a d100 chart with descriptive details for the physical appearance of the pit. 44 different descriptions and 2 re-roll possibilities. The third chart is a d100 with 98 flavour bits, some of which have mechanical impact on escaping the trap, and 2 re-roll possibilities. And the content finishes up with 4 fully detailed traps, a sidebar about falling into various environmental hazards, and a sidebar about creatures appropriate for placing in a pit trap. On a whim, I tossed the detailed CR 4 trap on my party and hilarity ensued. "A trap within a trap is just evil" and ended up spawning a 2 hour detour for the group. Crunchitude - 5/5
Flavouricity - 4/5
Word Dressing - Well written descriptive text was included for all the tables, but I was a tad disappointed the detailed traps did not include much of it. The second table was unlabeled, which wasn't much of a flaw, but was a bit distracting for my OCD. And the third listed table isn't a table, but rather just 4 traps. BLARG! Last Words
Art: One of the things I like about Wayfinder is the large variety of artwork. The change in styles found throughout are more apt to grab my attention. The cover was really well done, with amazing detail on the weapon and the blur around the boat on top of the water lending itself to how it may seen from below the waves. Ulygun (pg. 2), the Cannibal's Maw map (pg. 5), and the Ulat-Ashad (pg. 79) ended up being my favorite pieces. I found only 3 pieces I did not like (2 were in ads) which is pretty good considering the amount of art found within. CONTENT
Foreward Rob McCreary opens with a nice mixture of personal background, professional observations, and drum-up of the current issue. Weal or Woe 3 articles.
Adventure 1 article
Magic Items 3 articles
Gazetteer 6 articles
Character Options 4 articles
Aboleth-Tainted Ancestry: Feats of the Deep - 7 feats based on the character being descended from a creature altered by an abolteh. Tales of the Arcane Archaeologists: Plundering the Secrets of the Inner Seas - Introduces a few NPCs and a collection of various info they have collected. New spell, feat, magic item, and creature. The Colloquium of Abendego - The article describes it best, "a unique school to train sailors, officers, and spellcasters". Three disparate schools fall under the name of a single institution. Esoteric Order of Dagon - It seems odd a demon would have an order in their name. It implies following of rules... I really like the thought and explanations that went into this article. Bestiary - 9 creatures, 1 template, 1 haunt Variations of Vegepygmy - an article doing an ARG style write-up for vegepygmies. Boarding Ships for Fun and Profit - A supplement guide for running boarding actions. Curse of the Coral Throne: Crimson Throne as an aquatic campaign - Exactly as the title states. Well thought out, but may not be easy for a beginner GM to implement. Realm Building My article. New rules for water hexes, buildings, kingdom events, leadership roles, settlements, and kingdom navies. If you're interested, I did more sea articles in A Pirate's Life that came out last year. Fiction 7 articles. I am not much of a fan of fantasy fiction, but I prefer sci-fi. So I am not a good person to evaluate. The Wreck of the Cayden Cailean: A Legend of Meatclaw the Reefclaw - A song about a giant reefclaw that hunts in the Jeggare. Words from Many Seas: The Shackled Isles - 4 sea inspired poems. Ads: I have to say something about the ads. Quite a few caught my eye. Clockwork Gnome Publishing, Dungeonlands, and It Came From the Stars stuck out the most. Well done artwork and color is more likely to catch the eye. On the reverse side of the coin, the stark ad by Raging Swan Press stuck out all the more due to a simple black and white presentation. I ran about 12 games for 20+ people at the FLGS. We had varying levels of boardgame experience, from none to heaps. Only 3 people did not enjoy the game. And 6 of us plan on buying the game upon release. None of us had played the 1st Edition so we decided to learn as we played. The first game took about 1 hr and 15 minutes to play the introduction scenario, learning as we went. The next scenario (chosen from the middle of the quest list) took 50 minutes to play with about 10 minutes of looking up rules for new options. By the end of the night we played using the campaign rules which unlock more abilities and options. The rules seemed daunting at first, but they made sense and were presented well. We replayed a few of the scenarios and discovered there is no value in replaying a quest with players that have run it before. They easily won without much of a problem. But the box has enough materials to create your own scenarios. I created a couple myself easily. I think that is the main draw of this game. The only rules question we had:
The player complaints:
A quick search reveals the previous edition had expansions, which I can't wait to see for this game! |