The latest installment of RiP's free e-zine is 44 pages long, 1 page front cover, 1 page editorial, 19 pages of advertisements and 1 page SRD, leaving 22 pages of content, so let's check out what we get, shall we?
The e-zine kicks off with one page of editorial prior to offering us the dread CR+5 Hero Killer template along its sample dread Remorhaz-creature (CR 12), which is also featured on the cover and gets a one-page version of its artwork - neat! It should also be noted that the creature offers some nice in-character narration to further convey its mindset as well as a lore section and 4 monster feats. I think the template is by Steven D. Russell, but I'm not entirely sure. Anyways, Kudos.
Next up is master of haunts T.H. Gullivers contribution to this month's issue, providing 3 neat new haunts to terrorize your PCs.
An new monster, the Potion Weird ( CR 8 ), also is included and makes for a neat adversary, though the final sentence is cut off.
Steven D. Russell provides 10 magical armor and shield qualities from his excellent 101-pdf on them, so if you're on the edge about purchasing the pdf, check them out.
Next up is a quite informative and actually at times amusing interview with Lou Agresta - be sure to check it out.
Finally, there's an extensive selection of reviews by Dawn Fischer, Dark Mistress, Shane O' Connor and yours truly.
Conclusion:
Editing and formatting are ok: I noticed some glitches like the cut-off sentence and the missing author's name for the template. Layout adheres to RiP's 2-column standard and is beautiful. The original artwork of the Remorhaz rocks and all in all, you get some nifty pieces of content for free -what's not to like? Unfortunately there are no bookmarks. Well, while I enjoyed the interview, I did get the impression that there is not as much content in this installment of Pathways as in the predecessors. While I'm not one to complain about free content, I maintain that the other installments of Pathways are better suited to give you an impression of what Rite Publishing has to offer. That being said, if this is your first Pathways, why haven't you downloaded them? Anyways, my final verdict will be 4 stars - neat free content.
