Bullet Points: 4 Death Mage Feats (PFRPG) PDF (based on
2
reviews)
Super Genius Games
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Sometimes rules supplements read like the world-setting bible of frustrated novelists. While solid world-building is a useful skill, you don't always need four paragraphs of flavor text to tell you swords are cool, magic is power, shadows are scary, and orcs are savage. Sometimes a GM doesn't have time to slog through a page of history for every magic weapon. Sometimes all that's needed are a few cool ideas, with just enough information to use them in a game. Sometimes, all you need are bullet points.
#1 With A Bullet Point is a line of very short, cheap PDFs each of which gives the bare bones of a set of related options. It may be five spells, six feats, eight magic weapon special abilities, or any other short set of related rules we can cram into about a page. Short and simple, these PDFs are for GMs and players who know how to integrate new ideas into their campaigns without any hand-holding, and just need fresh ideas and the rules to support them. No in-character fiction setting the game world. No charts and tables. No sidebars of explanations and optional rules. Just one sentence of explanation for the High Concept of the PDF, then bullet points.
The High Concept: Four feats designed to augment the options and utility of death mages (from The Genius Guide to the Death Mage) or, if death mages aren’t being used in a campaign, that can be taken by alchemists of the reanimator archetype, clerics with the death or repose domains, oracles with the bones or dark tapestry mysteries, undead-bloodline sorcerers, necromancy-specialist wizards, witches with a death, occult, or plague patron and (if the GM wishes) summoners who have an eidolon with the undead appearance evolution (replacing death mage levels prerequisites with a class level prerequisite in the appropriate class).
The feats included are:
Deathless Vigor: Your studies into the power of death and undeath allows you to resist the call of the grave a little longer than most.
Revenant: When you die or are near death, spirits loyal to you form an undead body to carry out your bidding.
Student of the Dead: You can use the mystic lore found in corpses to alter your spells.
Vampiric Spell [Metamagic]: You can call forge a link between you and the targets of your spells, using it to gain false vitality.
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This pdf is 3 pages long, 1 page front cover, 1 page SRD, leaving 1 page of content for the 4 new feats.
What are the feats?
- Deathless Vigor: Add the highest-level necromancy-spell you can cast to your negative hit point total before you die. Additionally, you are only disabled when in less than half your best necromancy spells level's negative hit points.
- Revenant: Once per day when unconscious and carrying an onyx worth 25 gp per level, you automatically create a skeleton/zombie to carry out your wishes/guard you.
- Student of the Dead: If you spend a 15 minutes with a recently deceased corpse, you can exchange your prepared spells. Spontaneous spellcasters can swap a known spell with one from their spell-list.
- Vampiric Spell: This metamagic feat adds +1 to the spell's level and can be applied to any spell with a saving throw fort half/fort negates or will half/ will negates. For any victim who fails the save, you gain 1d4 temporary hit points up to a maximum of the spell's level.
Conclusion:
Editing and formatting are top-notch, I didn't notice any glitches. Layout adheres to a 3-column standard and the pdf has no bookmarks, but needs none at this length. I really liked the 4 new feats, but vampiric spell feels rather under-powered - for an additional spell-level, the restrictions of not stacking hp up to the spell's level felt rather weak to me. Seeing that the feats still are cool and iconic, I'll settle for a final verdict of 4 stars - a good pdf, though vampiric spell needs an upgrade.
Another addition to the popular Bullet Point series, this PDF weighs in with the standard 3 page, 3 column format, with one page given to the cover/Intro, one page to the new material (in this case 4 new feats), and 1 page to the OGL. Artwork is B&W with pieces by both Tamas Baranya as well as stock art from the Forge Studios, and ranges from pretty good to meh (2 being on the better end of that scale). Format and grammar all appeared to be good, I noticed nothing that derailed my reading of the material.
Following the recent trend of the Bullet Point series, this one also deals with an SGG class from the genius series, in this case The Death Mage. In case of a campaign without the Death Mage however, alternate classes are presented for usage with these feats. We are given 4 feats to expand upon the deviousness of this class.
Deathless Vigor: Offset your threshold for HP before dying based upon level of highest class ability spell you can cast.
Revenant: OK, forgive my level of geek here, but this is cool. Forms an undead to serve you, at the moment you fall below 0 HP, ala “Anakin Skywalker”....out of pure energy. An undead corpse formed literally from the necromantic energies of the universe.
Student of the Dead: Whispers of the recently dead gain you the ability to swap out your prepared/known spell list for the day.
Vampiric Spell [Metamagic]: Enhance spells with saves based upon Fortitude or Will to allow you to gain HP from your target if the save is failed. Also comes with a rather cool visual and auditory enhancement.
The first three feats grabbed me instantly, and I could easily see them being feats I would pick for a Death Mage NPC I wished to plague my group with, the fourth however I am not sure fits me personally. Where as I really liked the visual and auditory enhancements that are added to whatever spell this feat is used to affect, the concept of a vampiric spell has been done to death in my opinion. On the other hand, by presenting it as a feat, instead of a spell, and allowing you the freedom to use it in conjunction with whatever spell you wish, it does attempt to breathe some fresh air into the concept, and redeems itself by doing so. I also really liked the concept of the Revenant feat, roleplay wise, there is so much storytelling potential there....the mysterious undead that simply manifests to serve a character the minute they lose consciousness or die....oh, that's gold, that truly is.
All in all, this collection of four feats gives one a great deal to spark thoughts, and you can ask no more of a gaming product than that. I have spent the last several minutes retyping these last few lines more times than I can count, as I found myself continuously rambling on about another thought inspired by one of these four, simply devious, unassuming little feats.
There is a reason I count the Bullet Point series amongst my favorite 3rd Party Products, and this addition to the line is a perfect example. Four feats, boundless ideas and creativity. Well done SGG, 5 stars happily given.
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