The latest installment of RiP's free e-zine, this pdf is 48 pages long, 1 page front cover, 11 pages of advertisement and 1 page SRD, leaving a total of 35 pages of content, so let's check this out!
After a nice editorial by David Paul about NPC personalities and ways to think about them to enhance them, we are introduced to this issue's template, created by RiP's mastermind Steven D. Russell, the Hellfire creature: AT CR+2, the creature can deal hellfire damage, gain breath weapons etc., including a nice full color artwork of Claudio Pozas and the CR 17 hellfire creature Marut Damnation's End.
Thomas LeBlanc's "Ties that Bind" introduce the new terrain bond option for the druid enable a druid to get terrain-based bonuses (including the elemental planes, the underdark and underwater) and even an advancement of the options. Nice options!
Creighton Broadhurst of Raging Swan Press includes a sample encounter, which includes Arathan Wersten, a poor dwarf (fully detailed) on the run from a troll and 2 trollhounds.
Ron Lundeen of Run Amok Games-fame also provides us the conclusion to the Scattered Sheaves-trilogy of sidetrek modules.
This being a mini-adventure, the following will contain SPOILERS, potential players should jump to the conclusion after the second line.
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Still here? All right! In the printing shop called Wordsmiths (fully cartographed in full color via dundjinni), the PCs are to find the last missing pages of the manual - if they can best an animated printing press, not fall prey to some cleverly vicious traps and finally a swarm of imps and a rather inexperienced contract devil. Cooler yet - the devil is not up for a fight and rather is buried in paperwork - too much for the infernal being to handle. One could almost pity him. Almost.
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Adventureaweek.com's contribution to this issue of Pathways is Relliumm (or Rellumm, as the text calls it - a rather obvious glitch), by Tim Tyler and Will Myers: A being of vast destructive capabilities, this cthulhoid enforcer of madness and destruction, this weapon forged to destroy gods, may be imprisoned, but it can break lose by its tie to an artifact-like ring - and woe to those who unleash the eldritch terror (with its CR of 24) upon the world. VERY cool!
Thomas LebLanc (edited by Will McCardell) has more in store, though: The new Temple Warrior archetype for the inquisitor focuses on solo-tactics, gains a monk's AC-bonus and has to performa Tai-Chi-style set of Katas every morning to access her specific powers. In return, bonding with a weapon enables them to perform certain unique and rather powerful maneuvers. § new feats build upon the material in the stellar "Secrets of the Inquisitor"-book by RiP - one to paralyze brigands, one to enhance your capabilities against known foes and one especially awesome one to track a creature's health on which you've put a tracer. There also are two new solo-tactics-feats, both based on the use of Perform (kata)-checks.
Mike Welham has another special goody for us - the Sage-NPC-class, which represents the wise men, women and other beings players tend to consult without making them masters of the arcane. Useful! Can we now get a Sage PC-class? ;) (And yes, I know, there are already quite a bunch archetypes doing something like that!)
Next up is this issue's interview, this time with Gary McBride of Fire Mountain Games, the mastermind behind the critically acclaimed and ennie-nominated Way of the Wicked-AP - a great and worthwhile interview to read indeed!
The pdf closes with a slew of different 5-star reviews from yours truly.
Conclusion:
Editing and formatting can still be considered good - while a I did notice a couple of glitches, noen were actually serious or detracted in a major way from my enjoyment of this pdf. Layout adheres to RiP's 2-column standard and the original piece of cover artwork as well as the piece of extremely detailed cartography for the side-trek-module are nice. This installment of the e-zine provides a lot of cool, quality content and whether it's the new NPC-class, the new fodder for the inquisitor or the cthulhoid monstrosity - I wager just about everyone will find something he or she enjoys in the pages of this book. Since the pdf is free and a price of $0.00 is hard to beat, I'll gladly recommend this installment of the e-zine once again with a 5-star verdict.
Endzeitgeist out.
