The first thing that jumped out at me when I received Kobold Quarterly #15 in the mail was the cover. I've long been a fan of William O' Conner's work and this cover is just fantastic. Evocative, interesting, eye catching and extremely well done - everything you want in a cover!
The production value is top notch as always. Nice paper, well done lay out, great interior art. Kobold Quarterly is in every way a top flight, professional publication.
The articles and content are what readers have come to expect - well written and more than worth the cost of the issue.
In particular, I really enjoyed Ryan Costello, Jr.'s Nature's Orders - Variant Druid Orders for Pathfinder. Quite well written and full of great ideas!
Pits of Despair by Andrew Hind offers 12 cool new pit traps ready to drop into your Pathfinder game.
Those Dark Dungeon Blues offers a fascinating look into what it was like working for TSR. As someone who grew up in the early '80s playing AD&D (or First Edition) a LOT, TSR seemed like such an amazing, almost mythical place and I never tire of stories that take me behind that curtain ...
The interview with Margaret Weis was was a nice treat. Reading the original three Dagonlance novels as a teenager was a pretty important part of my youth, so seeing one half of the writing team in the pages of KQ was great. Now we just need to land that interview with Tracy Hickman!
I'm a fan of rangers and druids ... any kind of nature oriented gaming material really, so Children of the Wood by Stephen Styrsky was fun to read. Planty of new, nature oriented Pathfinder material = new bloodlines, domains and wizard schools. Good stuff!
All in all, another solid issue. I can't stress it enough: if you were even slightly a fan of Dragon magazine, you need to be a subscriber of Kolbold Quarterly. It's a great magazine that just keeps getting better!
Kobold Quarterly 15 arrived in my hot little hand yesterday, and I have to say, this issue is solid.
The cover—Wow. Maybe its being a dad. No, this is just an absolutely gorgeous piece by William O’Connor. I loved his piece on KQ#7, and this one comes in a very close second. The swaddling cloth alone is a beautiful detail and the text does an excellent job of staying out of the way of the image—which has been a complaint of mine in the past.
For those still paying attention to the composition of articles to editions, let’s just get this out of the way, shall we? This issue has:
Two years into this and the coverage still seems pretty balanced, which also means folks are submitting material for all of those options since KQ is driven on submissions.
So what looks ripe for pillaging and dumping across your game table like so much loot?
The obvious two choices for Pathfinder are the Druid article and the Children of the Wood article. These are great options for a GM and a player, and that’s why I’ve selected them. The Bestial Druid is shapeshifting done right. The Godai is a good update for a shugenja or a wu-jen, at least in terms of flavor. And the Purist is a fairly cool look at a cross between a druid and a cleric, and has me jonesing even more Zombapocalypse gaming. The opening for the Children of the Wood article leans a bit on the Open Design world of Midgard, referencing the recent project and some of the Zobeck canon pantheon, but that’s all cast aside for the uninitiated as we dig into the meat of the article. Offering up a Bloodline and its progression (Blood of the Green), two domains with powers (Forest and Harvest), and a school of Magic with three spells (Nature), this also has some great material which would make for interesting characters, and that’s what every table wants.
The ant, pit trap, and weapons articles are what they claim—and well written, but just not the sexy you get from the other two I mentioned. They’ve got more of a GM vibe, but I can certainly see rangers asking for giant ant animal companions and warriors of all stripes asking to use the weapons, but don’t they ooze the awesome you get from the first two articles I referenced. Honorable mention goes to the tactical maneuvers. I love these kinds of cooperative options, but I always worry about taking them unless I can discuss character generation with everyone at once.
For 4th Edition, the mounted combat and critical hit articles make this issue worth the price of entry. The art for the mounted material reminded me of Boudicca charging through Roman Legionnaires, and the sheer variety of gear, feats, powers, and a trio of mounts will leave you nodding and quietly mouthing, “Oh yes.” Not to be outdone, Quinn Murphy (of At-Will blog fame) offers up a great concept of expanded criticals which present specialized effects for scenes. This isn’t just hitting for full damage plus a die roll and some fluff. This is climbing all over the huge monster in Legolas-fashion, thunking away as you spider across it. This is shifting the battlefield or shifting multiple enemies trying to swarm you. It’s very interesting stuff, and that’s why it beats out its close competitor—the skill stances. These feed my desire to see combat incorporate the environment with more personalized actions through the skill tree. Set up as replacement utility powers, these clinch it for me on the 4E side of the house. The trap rigs or the whack in a box are ok, but they really only play to one or two classes or the GM, and the rest is goodies for everyone.
Everyone? Yes.
Every. One.
The neutral material is good for sweetening the pot and has some exciting discoveries hiding within its folds—like the sidescrolling dungeon concept or Monte Cook’s article on simulating reality. I like that the magazine is willing to find new ideas and ask, “What do you think, will it work?”
Overall, I have to give this issue top marks. The art is gorgeous. The bulk of the articles seem to provide a little something for GM and player alike. The editing is consistent and so good it simply melts into the background. And the production values are deliciously indulgent with a nice, heavy stock cover and glossy internal pages that make you want to just pick up the magazine and admire it. This is a Halloween treat you’ll be consuming for weeks to come.
