#30 Alchemical Gadgets (PFRPG) PDF

I own a number of products by Rite, and until now I have never been disappointed by the quality of their products. So this book was a sad surprise. I bought it on the basis of Endzeitgeist's 5-star review, and he is ALSO a reviewer who has never let me down, until now.

My gripe with this book is: I expected to get alchemy items - things mixed together with an alchemy set. Instead, the book contains nearly nothing but technological gadgets with just a hint of alchemy smeared onto them. :-(

Examples:
The Alchemical Fire Projector is a fantasy flamethrower. We already have alchemy fire, and this item is nothing more than a mechanical gadget to spit said substance.

The Crossbow Auto-Loader is also a mechanical device - the only thing alchemical about it is its 'alchemically-treated springs'.

Griptread Boots is another mechanical item that allows you to walk on slippery surfaces. Nothing about alchemy in the item description - except that the +2 bonus on Acrobatics is an "alchemical bonus".

The Manytool Rod is probably the one I dislike the most - a mechanical Swiss army knife. The only thing alchemical about it is - again - that some metal components have been 'alchemically treated'.

There are a few really cool genuine alchemy items in the book that I really loved; like the Arcane Atomizer and the Liquid Gold Condenser, but they are few and far between.

It is probably clear from the above text that I feel sorely cheated by the title of this product. Had it been "30 Gadgets" - no problem. But these items have so much emphasis on the mechanical aspects and so little on the alchemy side that I feel I must warn potential buyers.

If you are looking for fun gadgets for your game and don't really care about how they are constructed, this is a great product. But if you are a GM looking for alchemy items or a player looking for items your PC can create with alchemy skill - look elsewhere. :-(

This pdf is 14 pages long, 1 page front cover, 1 page editorial, 1 page SRD, 1 page advertisement, leaving us with 10 pages of content, so let's check this out!

If you're a regular to reading my reviews, you probably are aware by now about some of the idiosyncrasies of my preferences. I'm conservative on the power-scale, need a VERY good reason and excellent fluff to get excited about new races, am pro-psionics and prefer rare magic gaming on the lower end of magic-item frequency. I'm also all for weird fantasy/sci-fi/gunpowder/steam-punkish elements in my games and thus, it should come as no surprise that I really like alchemical gadgets:
Alchemical gadgets with their semblance of being items that could exist in our own world for me create a deeper immersion and serve another important function: They prevent the dilution of magic - after all, anything that is common loses its sense of wonder, something that should be inherent in magic. This does mean, though, that at low levels players will require to use their wits and use items like alchemical gadgets improve their odds. With that out of the way, can this pdf stand up to my lofty demands to the item-class?

The pdf kicks off with an aptly-written IC-prose and then goes on to describe on how to create these gadgets herein: Essentially, the items herein require both Craft (alchemy) and Craft (Engineering) and use the respective lower skill when rolling. (Adherents of the Midgard campaign setting may wish to substitute Craft (clockworks) for engineering....) Simple, but what can one craft? Well, the first item in here is the alchemist fire projector: Essentially a low-tech flame-thrower. YEAH! Now that's what I'm talking about - while taking up multiple slots makes this item not too useful, it has a capacity of 10 shots and the image of a unit of expansionist dwarves torching elven woods with these is awesome, isn't it? The Arcane Atomizer in my game, will replace all those effin' annoying detect spells - spray it in the air - when contact with magic auras is made, the aura glows silver, thus not indicating which type the magic was. Again, awesome! We also get beast horns attuned to certain animals (essentially dog whistles) and a cylinder you can throw to destroy underbush and damage plant creatures.

Want a device that helps reloading crossbows? It's in here, as is a box that dazzles its onlookers with its flashing lights when activated. For more brainy characters, you might like to know that we now also get forensic lenses to analyze evidence. Frog Gloves are also interesting, developing a membrane when put in contact with water, enhancing your swimming-checks. On the spy's toolkit's side, you also get glass with gel that temporary makes woods grainy and translucent from your side, allowing you to look through doors. We also get boots to move through slimy surfaces, spikes that ground electricity damage, a globe that can emit lights that make ethereal creatures visible but is unstable.

If you're a bit of a simulationalist or sometimes spring smuggling encounters on players, there's also a device that turns gold into a liquid state and makes it movable and lighter, while lodemarkers and lodefinders should help versus getting lost in the depths of mazes. Speaking of lodes - magnetic glove to disarm? Bingo, there! The manytool rod is the big brother of a Swiss pocket knife, which is awesome, as is the overcaulker that has 4 different substances with different properties. Neat!

Pneumatic Vests are probably more for the clockwork/steampunk-aficionados, offering you an option to catapult stored potions directly into your hands. We also get an anti-nausea nose-clamp, a cloak that helps when falling, but makes you easier to blow away, a sonic lockpick and a sonic spike (nice nod!). One of the coolest items herein and one that will probably surface in many, many campaigns is the spell popper - an alchemical compound that makes it hard for those hit by it to concentrate on casting spells, but deals no damage. Very cool!
We also get Spring Batons and Springloaded Shields, a buckler that can catch weapons via tarry padding, alchemical snow shoes a winch rope and finally, a mask that protects from smoke inhalation. Each of the items herein comes with an aptly-written description of how it looks/came to be and price, weight and crafting DC.

Conclusion:
Editing and formatting are top-notch, I didn't notice any glitches. Layout adheres to RiP's 2-column standard and the pdf comes with fitting stock-art. The pdf is fully bookmarked and can be considered printer-friendly.
All right, so did these items deliver? HELL YEAH! This humble pdf is a treasure-trove of stellar ideas, cool gadgets that teem with usable, balanced options and cool ingenuity, making this one of the best item-books I've read in quite a while - author Wendall Roy's first time contribution to the #30-series can be considered a total success and a must buy for fans of alchemists, alchemy, weird fantasy and steampunk aficionados - final verdict? 5 stars + seal of approval! Congratulations!

Endzeitgeist out.

#30 Alchemical Gadgets, yet another addition to the #30 series from Rite publishing offers up an alternative to equipping a playgroup with a plethora of magical items that are typically costly, and usually limited in the scope of who can or can not use them. The alternative is to look to alchemy. Granted there are a few items here that are blatant re-skins, and perhaps a little to “modern” for some tastes when it comes to a fantasy setting (I'm looking at you Alchemical Fire Projector...yes, it's a flame thrower)...but there are some really good pieces in here. The Arcane Atomizer allows for the detection on magical auras by spraying a mist of fluid into the air which reacts via color change to present magical energies. The Firefly Box brings rave strobe lights to fantasy gaming...I kid you not, lol...a good solid explanation for how and why, but at the end of the day, it is what it is, lol. Ah well, I guess even medieval kids need to get their funk on occasionally.

The Forensic Lens gives us game mechanics for the classic multi-tree of lenses that Hollywood has done such a good job of portraying throughout most of my life as those glasses that all “sciency types” wear...you know the type I am referring to, the main lens with a plethora of flip up and fold down additional lenses...well, this would be a monogoggle variety of said eye-wear. Mainly designed for aiding in tracking and investigation alas, so its intended purpose is far more limited I think then these could have been.

Frog Gloves grant webbing to aid in swim checks and speed, and the Grounder Spike operates as a limited form of electrical protection. The Hopelight Globe (while reminding me of a glo-stick) is a fairly cool little device, and one I could easily see making available to my PCs. A globe filled with a charged liquid that is tossed to a point, whereupon the necessary chemical reactions take place within it causing the attached lenses to focus and emit a pale green light. Cool thing there is the light is more than just a means of being able to see, as it makes etheral creatures visible, and damages undead and aberations.

The Omnicaulker is yet another example of an alchemical item skirting the concepts of re-skinning modern ideas, without even trying to hide the fact. It's a caulk gun, pure and simple. You load it with different alchemical substances stored in cartridges that you can then squeeze out in a thin line for a variety of effects depending upon which substance you load....of the worst when it comes to following along with the idea of re-skinned modern items has got to be Superstick...yes, it's super-glue.

OK...Spell Poppers are indeed something we all know, and I imagine most of us have fond memories of playing with them as kids, and yet they are not a modern item, for they have been around for quite sometime. They are the little paper wrapped poppers that you throw at surfaces to get them to explode, totally harmless, but a great way to distract a spell chucker trying to cast, and something so simple in its usage here that it is sheer brilliance.

14 pages total, with 10 of those being the new alchemical items, the PDF is presented in the standard dual column format with embedded artwork. Following the classic Rite publishing usage of classic art this PDF does not disappoint, as there are some truly exceptional pieces of art included. Editing wise I did find a few stray mishaps, the occasional odd wording or dropped letter.

Whereas there are several items within this collection that to me felt like a blatant re-skin of modern tech, in the end that is what the alchemy line is, whether I like it or not. Personally, I am not a fan of the idea, but it is a rather large portion of what alchemy is, the precursor to science and tech. So, having cleared that up, that I am judging this purely on its design merits, and not personal opinions towards alchemy in general, I am going with a 4 star rating. There are a lot of well designed items here that would help any playgroup drastically, at a far easier rate of availability than magical means supply.