I did enjoy BtM: Owlbear. At first I wasn’t impressed. I was thinking, “Great we have another wizard makes Owlbears thing,” but then you go and give me a scaring childhood experience that gives birth to the monstrosity we know as the Owlbear. This was the gold for me. I thought this was a great way to go. We all have those bizarre things that happened to us when we were younger, and it doesn’t matter if you’re a powerful wizard those experiences will still haunt you. I really enjoyed this adaptation from just the normal “wizard make weird creatures.”
I appreciated the tidbits in the boxes about polymorph, rage, and intimate, but I’m not sure they were needed. These things feel more like DM calls to me more then things deserving of mechanics. They also feel like they were last minute thoughts.
The magic items were solid fluff driven items, which in my opinion is the most important thing fluff before crunch. I really enjoyed the token. I would love to have one as a barbarian maybe incorporate the token into Owlbear totem worshiping holy symbol kind of thing.
Bearowl…GREAT…My first thought was how do I get one as a familiar? This was just a cool funny little aside that would create hilarity and confuse players. I do wish there was more information on the Bearowl. I am really curious how other Owlbears react to Bearowls, and assuming Owlbears raise their young, I would think they would, how do the parents react towards the Bearowl. Also maybe some familiar info like: a player can acquire a Bearowl as a familiar via the improved familiar feat at X caster level. All in all this was a great fluff piece that I enjoyed. I loved the new spin that was put on an odd idea. And I feel like you really knew how to add just the right amount of odd detail that makes the product really shine. Plus you can't beat the price. I would highly recommend this product, and if this is a taste of what’s to come I’d recommend the company as well.
