This first book for Rossi Publishing Games' World of Terah is specifically designed to make the new classes, spells, and feats that will be featured in the upcoming Terah World Guide to be portable to any other Pathfinder Roleplaying Game compatible setting, including your own house campaign.
Play a conman with a heart of gold, with the new charlatan class or an insane scientist capable of bending the laws of physics with the spark class. Customize your character with the new feat lines in runeworking, telekinesis, and telepathy.
So I was initially leery. Steampunk has never been something I'm huge about. But I played in a game at Paizocon, and it was a ton of fun. I didn't like vikati at first, but Varrak the vikati swordsman won me over.
Charlatans are very interesting. I have yet to use them very much, but they seem to be a very complex class to balance. They get powerful spells like vanish as cantrips, and a seemingly at-will version of bardic performance, but certain limitations seem to render them quite suitable. When the charlatan spends most of the game being completely subtle only to leap out at the last minute and shrink the rail gun, you know there's something interesting here. The art is beautiful--I wasn't surprised to see that Hugo Solis was to thank for that--and I love the little snippets of fiction.
Sadly, it's not all good. Kobolds are inherently spiteful creatures, especially when we realize we are not as pro at reviews as we'd like to be. One major problem is the complexity of the spark class. Seriously. The spark class takes about 12 pages to explain, versus the charlatan's 3-4. Still, I like the disciplines, and it's clearly very fun to play once you understand it.
I still wish there were goblins. I think there's a lot of potential for fun with goblins. I house-ruled them into my game as gnomes an especially volatile spark experimented on, and I have yet to regret it. Goblins are funny enough with mere torches and oil flasks. Give them kegs of gunpowder and see what happens. Also, goblin sparks. "I INVENTED A NEW KIND OF FIRE!" indeed. ;D
I'd also like to see the exploding dice variant, but that's kind of wishful thinking on my part--"exploding dice" has always been my pet mechanic, ushered into every game I can fit it into.
Finally, I would have liked to see a bit more information on dwarves. There's some sort of Great Machine they serve? Sounds like it needs at least a little bit of elaboration.
For the reasons above, and because I hate to give extreme ratings when I'm barely qualified to give any, I'm giving this a 4/5. Great work!
