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Contributor. Goblin Squad Member. Pathfinder Adventure Path, Lost Omens, Rulebook, Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Roleplaying Game, Starfinder Society Subscriber. ***** Pathfinder Society GM. Starfinder Society GM. 6,460 posts (7,242 including aliases). 28 reviews. 1 list. No wishlists. 29 Organized Play characters. 4 aliases.



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Solid Talents, Solid Feats

5/5

Wow. Like, seriously. Super Genius Games, you JUST came out with the Talented Fighter like two weeks prior to this product's release date. Give my wallet some time to rest, would you?

Crunch
If you read my review of the Genius Guide to the Talented Fighter, and I certainly hope you did, then you'll remember that I had two major points about Super Genius Games. #1 SGG knows how to do crunch right. #2 SGG's Lead Designer knows how to balance a talents system. Neither of those two facts have changed from the previous review; the talents are all solid, and honestly I'm excited about this one because there are NEW talents in this one. As in, talents that weren't taken from a previous archetype. It is a breath of fresh air, that's for sure!

There are some new, interesting mechanics but the document feels surprisingly short in the crunch, and I know why. In my family, we call this the M&M Paradox. According to the M&M Paradox, the better quality something is, the faster you will consume it, so the less of that something you perceive there being available to you. There are TONS of talents in this document, but they're a quick read so it doesn't feel like there are that many. I guess that means that Owen is just going to have to sate my hunger for his talents by making more of them. 5 / 5 Stars.

Flavor
SGG products aren't really known for their flavor, which refers to their overall style and theme. Surprisingly enough, this product has a theme; dirty fighting. Lots of stuff that interacts with combat maneuvers, lots of stuff that interacts with plain old fighting dirty; a good example is a talent that allows you to attempt to infect your enemies with filth fever. The art even supports this direction with its gritty, imposing characters. I was very surprised by this, and I'm hoping that future products will keep even this subtle bit of theme. 5 /5 Stars.

Texture
Sigh. This is a lot of talents. A LOT of talents. It can be a bit of a pain to sort though, as there is no improvement to the categorizing of talents in this product over the previous one. I'm disappointed by this because I absolutely loved Star Wars Saga's talent trees, which were a quick, easy, and awesome way of knowing exactly what you wanted. This is by no means insurmountable, but little tweaks like that can make all the difference to a reader, especially organization OCC readers such as myself. Aside from that, this document is much cleaner than its predecessor (thank you for removing all of that needless archetype text!) and doesn't have any true flaws, but I'm still going to dock it a point because I don't see its presentation as being perfect. 4 / 5 Stars.

Final Score & Thoughts
Crunch: 5 / 5 Stars
Flavor: 5 / 5 Stars
Texture: 4 / 5 Stars
Final Score: 4.8 / 5 Stars

Talents should be a defining part of whatever class uses them. You cannot think of a rogue without thinking of their unique pool of abilities, rogue talents. The part of the problem with the Genius Guide to the Talented Fighter is that it was safe. It claimed that the old fighter class wasn't the perfect representation of what it meant to be a fighter, but it didn't offer us anything new to make us say, "Oh hey, this is what it means to be a fighter! The Genius Guide to More Fighter Talents starts moving away from this. There are many new talents, most of them you've never seen before. Those talents that do look familiar (such as the Quick Combat Maneuver talents) all have some mechanic that trips you up and makes you think to yourself, "Oh, since they're Fighter-only, the talents aren't equivalent to feats. They're a little bit better than them." That's what this product was missing, and I honestly hope that it is a lesson kept in mind going forward.

Before I peace out, I want to make a shout-out to exactly what made me decide to round up for this product. First, there is a talent that takes the Aid Another action and makes it awesome. Its somewhat easy to game, but I like the concept; I've always felt that aid another was never expanded upon as a viable special action like combat maneuvers were. Second, one little rule completely sells this product for me; "Any fighter can select this talents as a fighter-only feat." It then goes to list the levels you need for each talent if you choose to take it as a feat. That rule alone makes this product (and the previous one) worth it to every player, because even if you don't want to use the talented fighter, you can use its talents as feats. Anyone who has fighters in their world (hint: EVERYONE) should consider picking up this product.

— Alexander "Alex" Augunas


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Interesting mechanics held back by silly flavor and nomenclature.

3/5

I once had a character whose entire backstory was based around being a chef. He was a fighter with cross-class skills in things like Craft (alchemy) and Profession (cook) for giggles. He was an awesome character, and this product reminded me of him immediately, which is why I picked it up. Does the class live up to my fond memories? Stay tuned for more!

Crunch
For a product like The Battle Chef, its appropriate that all of my categories are named after food qualities. When we talk about a product's crunch, we're looking at its rules. This product comes included with a new class, the Battle Chef, the rules to play the class, some new weapons, and some new feats to round it out. Not bad for a 12 page product. The problem is that these rules are just plain bizarre to read; I'm still not entirely sure how this class is meant to be played. It looks like you prepare food, and then shrink it down, and then you eat it when you attack I guess and it adds on special effects to your attacks.

The problem is that this product is not very well balanced. You can pick up a two-round haste effect for yourself for one round. At first level. The other odd part about this document is that it introduces all of these cooking styles, and when it starts talking about recipes you think, "Man, this is going to be a deep and complicated system!" and its really not. There are a handful of flavors and each flavor has one way to cook it and one effect, which might scale with the battle chef's level. The primary mechanic is triggered when you make a full attack, and while it sort of plays like culinary combo breaker, the system itself lacks depth, it lacks the true "mixing ingredients" feel of cooking, it lacks depth, and the rules describing the class aren't written very well. Once you get past the cooking rules, most of the class feels like a series of joke powers based on puns and stereotypes, such as the class feature that gives the chef a bite attack. Why does she need that? Because she's a cook ... which means she bites people? What if you wanted to play Sanji, from One Piece, who kicks people to death? Overall, this is a product where the crunch seems to have been tossed into the back seat for flavor. 1 / 5 Stars.

Flavor
A product's flavor refers to its style or theme, and this is honestly where the Battle Chef shines. A lot of work went into the flavor of the cooking rules, that much is certain. The rules give a very nice breakdown of real-world cooking styles, and I thought the general combinations of flavors was very insightful. The problem is that the cooking styles only mesh up with real world cooking styles, so while I can learn about how to play a cook with an American or German or even a Vegetarian style, that doesn't help me figure out how a goblin or a hobgoblin might prepare food. It would have been nice to see something that was more fantasty-oriented, with the real-world styles included in a side bar. Between that and the choices of weapons and attacks, it really cements this product's feel as more of a "for the lols" product instead of something to take seriously. 3 / 5 Stars.

Texture
Last, but not least, we look at a product's texture. When we're talking about texture, we're looking at the product's layout and design. The Battle Chef's design is very straightforward. Its not particularly bad, but one thing I found jarring is that it randomly interjects the rules for crafting food in the middle of the class's description, and then expects you to remember the class's other features when it moves back to class features. It would be like if the Wizard class in the Pathfinder RPG Core Rulebook randomly stopped in the middle of the Spells class feature to give you a run down on exactly how spells are cast and then include a list of every spell in the game and their statistics before returning to Wizard class features. Yes, this product isn't AS severe as that would be, but this example just about sums up my confusion. 2 / 5 Stars.

Final Score and Thoughts
Crunch: 1 / 5
Flavor: 3 / 5
Texture: 2 / 5
Final Score: 3 / 5 Stars

Around the time I played my fighter that I mentioned above, I also stumbled onto one of the most debated books ever to be published in the 3.5 Era; the BoEF. Yeah, that book was cheesy. The art was horrible. Some of the rules were downright terrible in design. But I honestly enjoyed it because it went with a very sensitive, easy-to-make-silly topic and handled it seriously. I felt like the authors of that product knew that people who bought their product wanted a serious look on how to handle that topic in their games.

When I sat down to write my final thoughts, I almost gave this product 4 stars. That's a phenomenal rating in my opinion. However, what really killed that 4 star rating, what really made me stop and say, "Would I actually recommend this product? Would I actually want my chef to use these rules?" was the silly portrayal of the class through its nomenclature. Anyone who is seriously into cooking will tell you that it is as much a science as it is an art, and honestly this class could have probably been handled better as an alchemist alternate class. But we're not looking just at the rules, because any class can be strengthened into something special if multiple products are devoted to it. (See SGG's Godling line or even the Barbarian class before the Advanced Player's Guide.) Based on its fluff alone, this class is silly. And how can you seriously roleplay a chef that gains a bite attack? Maybe if this was a monster-only class and you were playing a cannibal or something. I don't know, but more than anything that's what turned me off about this product.

— Alexander "Alex" Augunas


Excellent Product, Needs a Little Polish

4/5

This will be my second Raging Swan adventure that I've reviewed, and I've had the pleasure of actually playing with this one, so hopefully I can be a little bit more insightful. (Though I am not going to spoil ANYTHING for all of you sneaky players looking to get a one-up on your GMs!) With that, BEGIN!

Crunch
Adventures are sort of weird, because there usually isn't much crunch for you to look at. Especially not in a microadventure like what Raging Swan puts out, because they aren't particularly long. There isn't room for much rules content or the like. So instead I'll be looking more at what rules content the product draws from. Like you would expect from Raging Swan, this product is very well laid out crunch-wise. The stat blocks are sound, and I like that this one took the time to remind GMs about what each of the monster's special abilities do. There isn't much content in this books, and I would have preferred if the magic item that is in this adventure had its abilities in the book as well; I could be a bad GM, but I have no idea what a phylactery of faithfulness does off of the top of my head. Still, what we do get looks nice. 4 / 5 Stars.

Flavor
This adventure is ... weird. Its not weird in the sense that the adventure makes no sense, but it occupies a weird moral area. Personally, this adventure worked well for my PCs, but I had a couple PCs who REALLY wanted to kill this one character in the adventure. I could see the wrong group of PCs slaughtering this guy and losing out on all the RP he brings. However, that's a player problem, not an adventure problem.

What is an adventure problem is that the entire adventure boils down to two encounters, with a handful of potential RP scenarios. I liked the set-up, don't get me wrong. But this is really an adventure idea that could have been more. Without spoiling too much, the plot revolves around a marauding band of orcs, but when you go to confront them, the PCs discover something else entirely. The problem is that the adventure has the PCs come in AFTER all of the towns people have been attacked by the orcs. Personally, I knew that the PCs would get more invested in the adventure, and therefor would have been more shaken up by what's actually going on, if I had them actually encounter the orcs. I ran an orcish raid against the town that the PCs helped thwart, and the weakening of the clan is what allowed the set up to happen. This might not have been the set up the authors wanted, but its much more interesting then a yellow exclamation point side quest (see: go do this optional objective that you're not really invested in for me). As a GM, I'm perfectly capable of doing this, but the RP sections of using Diplomacy to get information out of the towns people is sort of lame. Gathering Information is easy to wing; encounters are not, so products like these should be more encounter-focused because that's what takes a GM a long time to prepare. 3 / 5 Stars.

Texture
No complaints about the layout; its a very good layout and it looks great. I like how Raging Swan seems to have taken a page out of Paizo's book and has the adventuring sites divided into clearly labeled sections, each with a letter that corresponds to the visual aid (the map). Very nice, very clean. I love when publishers make my quick-flipping easier. 5 / 5 Stars.

Final Score & Thoughts
Crunch: 4 / 5
Flavor: 3 / 5
Texture: 5 / 5
Final Score: 4 /5

This is an awesome product, and in terms of the layout I honestly think that this one is better than the last one I reviewed. I do, however, think that Gibbous Moon had a slightly more interesting storyline and it had better encounters; even though the creatures in Dwellers Amid Bones are high CR and tough, stacking all of your XP into one basket isn't always a good idea, and the most challenging encounters for the PCs are often ones where they have to split their actions up amid multiple targets. Raging Swan constantly delivers on great mechanics in this product line and their layout is noticably improving; all they need for these adventures to be great is to improve the natural flow of the encounters.

— Alexander "Alex" Augunas


Interesting Idea, Poor Layout

4/5

Rewriting the entire Fighter class? Ambitious. Let's see if the Geniuses pulled it off, and make sure you read the whole review for this one; I have a lot to say about this product; the good, the bad, and the ugly.

Crunch
While evaluating a product's crunch, we're looking at the product's game mechanics. This product is about 12 pages long, and it has a LOT of rules material in it. The GG2: Talented Fighter focuses on an alternate class for the Fighter that is based on the concept of rogue talents. If you've ever seen the Star Wars Saga Edition RPG, you know what this product will look like, and that shouldn't surprise you considering that Owen K.C. Stephens, the lead Pathfinder Designer for Super Genius Games, was also one of the Lead Designers for that game system. Star Wars Saga was praised for that particular talent system; looking through the various talents confirms that Owen has not forgotten how to balance a talent system.

99% of the fighter talents presented in the book are rehashed versions of existing fighter abilities from various archetypes. This isn't a bad stance to take, but since all of the abilities are also labelled with each archetype that the ability comes from, it gives the reader the feeling that there is nothing new in the product. Ultimately, SGG would have been better off omitting those lines; they don't serve much point instead of a cursory, "We didn't make up this ability! Paizo did!" statement. 4 / 5 Stars.

Flavor
Traditionally, Super Genius Products are flavor-lite, because when we talk about flavor we're talking about the overall tone and feel of the product. SGG Products tend to focus more on "crunch" over "flavor," and that's not really a bad thing given how strong their rules usually are. The Talented Fighter does not possess much flavor, aside from being a "fighter rehash." Several paragraphs are dedicated to SGG explaining to the reader why they felt that the product was a necessary addition to the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game; you don't need to do that, dudes! Chances are you already convinced us because we have to pay before reading your product in the first place. The product itself is a fighter, and it certainly feels like a fighter. 3 / 5 Stars

Texture
This is where the product falls apart for me. This is one of the most disorienting rules documents that I have ever had to read. Its not particularly pleasing to look at; the table looks like something I could have made in Microsoft Word rather than a professional document's table. There are several minor editing errors throughout the document; for example, there are spaces missing between words here and there. This is forgivable when considering the massive amount of rules text in the document (as an author, I recognize that this is probably the hardest part of a rules document to edit). However, the worst part of this document for me was the Fighter Talents. Maybe this is what caused me to review them so poorly under the other two sections, but by god, it honestly looks like Super Genius Games went into every Paizo Rulebook they could find, cut out every ability any fighter or fighter archetype could receive, jiggled the text around a little bit to make them roughly as powerful as a feat, and then pasted them all back into the product. In alphabetical order. If there were headers that said things like this, I wouldn't be complaining.

Crossbow Fighter
The following Fighter Talents increase a character's skill with crossbows.
~ Talent 1
~ Talent 2
~ Talent 3

Ultimately, the product's layout is messy and while I want to see how this product plays in a game, I'm not sure if I can justify using it given how hard it is to actually digest mostly because of its layout. And given Owen's background in the Star Wars RPG, which had every talent organized by theme called Talent Trees, I'm surprised that he was okay with the product looking like this. If this sort of layout issue seems minor to you, that you probably won't mind the document for a whole but as a compulsive organizer, this killed The Genius Guide to the Talented Fighter for me. 2 / 5 Stars.

Final Score & Thoughts
Crunch: 4 / 5
Flavor: 3 / 5
Texture: 2 / 5
Final Score: 4.5 / 5 Stars (round down if layout is important to you, round up if it isn't).

Okay, I realize I just spent 3+ paragraphs picking apart this product, so let me say some nice things about it. I like the general concept. I agree with the product's statement that the Fighter should be able to be built as the most diverse class in terms of its fighting style, and that archetypes cannot deliver on this. I like the comparison to Rogue Talents, and I like that everything is balanced around the cost of a feat. That said, this product does not go far enough and it is not laid out for a reader in mind. I cannot think of a single player I know who would be willing to wade through this unorganized sea of talents when trying to build a character; they'd go for the easier option every time, even if it was less powerful or didn't fit their character as well. The lack of new goodies for the fighter doesn't help this problem much either, and overall the product leaves me with the impression that I'm reading a story I've already read before, except the pages are made from cut up pieces of magazine glued onto the book's pages.

EDIT: There is a talent that allows you to take bonus feats, so my previous comment of going from 11 bonus feats to zero was not accurate. As a result, the product's crunch score was increased from a 3 to a 4.

EDIT 2: A recent errata fixed many of the spelling errors and layout issues I had with the product. I still don't like how all of the talents are lumped together without any "talent trees" for quick search-and-finding, but the little changes do help. As a result, the product's texture score was improved from a 0 to a 2.


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The standard by which all monster products will be judged by.

5/5

By now, there are several Bestiaries out in print, but when this book first came out you arguably needed to own it to play the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game. Was it worth the purchase? Decide for yourself!

Crunch
When we talk about a book's crunch, we're looking at its game rules, mechanics, and similar stats. As a monster book, the Bestiary is 99% crunch, and for Paizo's first real Bestiary, it is absolutely fantastic. There isn't a whole lot you can really say about monster stat blocks; they work perfectly and there aren't any monsters that feel ridiculous for their challenge rating (CR). The book also includes several new races that are appropriate for player characters; in this book, we have aasimars, the tieflings, and drow, as well as the applicable but seldom appropriate deurgar, drow noble, and svirfneblin. The book stays true to the rules of its predecessors; when you look at a drow, you recognize it as a drow from previous games. Because of the significant power up that the core races received these classically "OP" races aren't very far out of line with your traditional player characrers, and as a result we don't see the Level Adjustment system in Pathfinder. If you're unfamiliar with the term, in older editions of Dungeons and Dragons, some races were deemed so powerful that you had to actually forgo class levels in order to be a member of the race. For example, if you wanted to play a drow, you had a LA of +1, meaning that your race counted as 1 class level when determining your party's level. This either meant you were more powerful than your friends or (and more commonly) your GM had you start at a lower level to compensate. And believe me, it is not fun to be a sorcerer of an LA race because of how far behind your party is! The racial benefits seldom made up for the loss of character levels and it was a pretty terrible mechanic all around, so good riddance.

Although the book's theme is classic monsters, Paizo manages to add its own spin on fantasy games by including weird and amazing monsters. A perfect example is the froghemoth, which is basically a giant aberrant frog-monster. As a huge Lovecraft fan, I was ecstatic to see monsters like the shoggoth creep up in Pathfinder as well. For a first Bestiary, the spread of monsters is well-chosen and you could definitely run a game with only this book if you really wanted to.

What probably amounts to the best change of all, in my opinion, is the changes to the rules for building your own monsters. These rules are difficult to comprehend and enact in other games, but the Paizo team does an excellent job of laying out step-by-step every detail in crafting your own monsters by including handy charts and tables. For a game that knew it wasn't launching with much material and that it wanted to be backwards-compatible with older products, it was a very wise choice to streamline monster-making as much as they did and its probably the best reason to keep a copy of Bestiary I in your library alongside future monster tomes. 5 /5 Stars.

Flavor
When we talk about a product's flavor, we're talking about its fiction content, its style, and its overall feel. This section is always very opinionated, because even though I whole-heartily enjoy Lovecraft and his works, there are those who don't like their minds thrust into insanity and the mere sight of a shoggoth or whatnot. When you read the Bestiary, the one thing that becomes very clear is that there simply is not much room for flavor. Most monsters get a paragraph and a half of descriptive text and a beautiful picture, but that's about it. Honestly, however, that's all this product needs. The monsters that are detailed are classic monsters, so the information provided about them tends to be enough that classic gamers can recognize the creature for what it is and new players can get a sense of wonder and learn enough about the monster to be on the same page with the veterans. The art is fabulous in this book and supplements the descriptions perfectly, even when the monster concept is weird text-wise a beautiful illustration helps to sell it to you personally.

The elephant in the room is that Pathfinder wants to have its own identity as much as it wants to follow in the footsteps of its predecessors. This means that every so often the Paizo team completely re-imagines and redefines the traits of a specific monster. Usually this happens to a relatively unknown or under used monster (we'll talk more about this in Bestiary III), but there is one monster in particular that is relatively well-known and got the Paizo makeover in a big way. That monster, which has become Paizo's mascot of sorts, is the goblin. To give a little bit of background, traditionally goblins have admittedly lacked character; they were little more than evil halflings in most settings. Paizo's very first adventure path, Rise of the Runelords, shook this up by drastically changing the image of the goblin; they were now psychotic savages who were obsessed with fire and scared of dogs and horses. They sang Children of the Corn style songs about death and murder and often filled a role as comic relief in many of the adventures they have been featured in while simultaneously managing to inspire fear and terror in many a party. In my experience, you either love or you hate the new look of goblins. Many classic gamers that I've played with deplore the "new" goblin if only for the art design; big heads, small bodies. Honestly, however, it doesn't bother me much; my gaming generation includes Warcraft's techno-suicidal goblins and Warhammer's hordes of insane, suicidal goblins; next to those, Paizo's take on the goblin fits in rather nicely.

For being limited to several paragraphs of text per monster, the Bestiary gives you everything you'd expect and more flavor-wised. Its a book of monsters that feel threatening and believable; there's nothing too dumb or too far out there unless you're a hard-core medieval traditionalist. 5 /5 Stars.

Texture
When we talk about a book's texture, we're talking about its grammar and layout, among other things. As someone who has actually sat down to try and write a bestiary, let's be clear that if there's one thing I get, its that stat blocks are HARD. They're hard to format, they're hard to standardize, they're even hard to spell check because of the sheer amount of text that a book like the Bestiary has. All of its complex jargon, half of it made of surreal naming conventions. With all this mind, if there's one place that the Bestiary is amazing, its the texture. There is almost no errors of any kind in this document. Perfect grammar. Perfect spelling conventions. Perfect formatting. Everything is perfect.

As you can see in the picture I included, the Bestiary breaks from traditional monster books in that it limits one monster page, with only a few exceptions (mostly animals and familiars). There is extreme attention to detail in the text placement, and its very impressive that the book manages to be as descriptive as it is with as little space as it has; almost every monster is illustrated, after all, so not only are you juggling stat blocks, but you're also juggling them with text descriptions and illustrations. This book is a marvel of editing and layout and nothing less. 5 /5 Stars.

Final Score & Thoughts
Crunch: 5 / 5
Flavor: 5 / 5
Texture: 5 / 5
Final Score: 5 / 5

This book does everything right. It is the shining star by which all monster-based products should be judged. For a first attempt, Paizo smashes their monster book out of the park, past all expectations. It makes me excited to start looking at the future Bestiary products.


Worth Checking Out

4/5

So, its like a mini-adventure path? Okay, I can get into this.

Crunch
When we talk about a product's crunch, we're talking about its game mechanics, and an adventure path certainly has game mechanics to look at; abet not much. The monsters are acceptable and the game's map is very passable, although I'm not fond of how the map is designed to allow the players to essentially skip right to the penultimate encounter right away. The one thing I really don't like about this adventure is that it doesn't really offer the players any monetary rewards; you can find a couple of small-fry treasures in the adventure, but it basically leaves the GM to come up with dribble like money. If this adventure has a strength, its that every encounter is designed to be scaled up one CR or down one CR, which is nice. You could easily service a much wider array of PCs with this adventure than the cover proclaims, or you could make it a much more difficult challenge. Crunch wise, the product is passable, even better than mediocre. 4 / 5 Stars.

Flavor
When we walk about a product's flavor, we're talking about its story and its overall style. Basically, the Adventure Path is about a group of PCs getting hired by a village to investigate the theft of their livestock and stumbling onto much more than they bargained for. This product is small, but honestly I've seen people fit a surprising amount of style into smaller documents. This product lacks style. Even though it talks about keeping secrets from the players, I think most PCs (even without metagaming) are going to be able to figure out what is going on in the adventure fairly quickly, especially when they stumble into the dungeon. Few characters are in this story; the "village" that sends you to deal with the thefts isn't really detailed at all aside from an overall air of unrest over the thefts. It lives a lot open to the GM to decide, perhaps too much open. I would have loved to see a section like, "Incorporating this into your adventure," or the like. In addition, both of the characters who are mentioned in this story aren't particularly likable, and I think most of my characters would opt to flat-out kill them then rescue them. Size is certainly a constraint here, but I think most people will find that they would have gladly paid another dollar for another five pages of content and story-weaving or so. 3 / 5 Stars.

Texture
When we talk about a product's texture, we're talking about its layout, grammar, and overall presentation. Raging Swan as a publisher tends to take a very minimalist approach to its products. There isn't much art, there's no crazy page boarders, and the cover is black with white text. Can't get much more minimalist then that. But honestly, this works for the product line. Raging Swan designs their products the way they do so the common Joe and print them out on their printer without paying $30 in ink costs and because of its minimalist design, Gibbous Moon looks like it could have been plucked straight off of the desk of a master GM, which is pretty cool. The author / publisher is English, so sometimes I have to remind myself that things like 'civilisation' aren't spelled wrong on his side of the pond, but other then my brain getting boggled at cross-Atlantic spelling differences this product is basically error-free. The one thing I really don't like about this book's texture is the lack of transition from prelude to adventure. Seriously, you're reading the prelude and out of nowhere, Gibbous Moon's like BAM! ITS ADVENTURE TIME! I see this being very confusing for GMs and I pity the GM who ends up wandering through the same three pages several times looking for where his adventure starts before his players. 4 / 5 Starts.

Final Score & Thoughts
Crunch: 4 / 5
Flavor: 3 / 5
Texture: 4 / 5
Final Score: 3.5, rounded to 4 / 5 Stars

Let me be clear on this; this is not a bad product. I can see myself using this as a random addition to an encounter table. One-shot and then never mentioned again. Unless of course my players REALLY like the characters in the story, which I find incredibly doubtful. While I feel like the Adventure lacks content if only to keep itself short and sweet, perhaps my biggest problem with the Adventure is that the characters aren't memorable. They're not likable, they're not dastardly evil; they end up coming across as being somewhat obnoxious. You don't really feel sorry for them and you don't really care about what happens to them in the end, which is a shame. The story has the potential of being a tragedy, but in order for it to be tragic, we have to identify with the characters and care enough about them in order to feel sorry for them. I couldn't find that in this product, but considering its $3.00 for four encounters, plus the story threads to string it along (and possibly to future adventures) I would recommend this product to anyone looking for a fun little romp.


Excellent Product for a Niche Consumer

4/5

So this is my first time looking at a Dungeon Dressing product, or a Raging Swan product for that matter. This is normally the sort of thing I shy away from, because I am never at a loss for over-winded explanations for my players. But $2 is tempting, so let's see what you get for your money.

Crunch
When we talk about crunch, we're referring to game mechanics, and as you might expect for a product called "Dungeon Dressing," there's not a whole lot here in that regard. The final three pages of the product are devoted to traps that can be affixed to an alter. There's a table that lists quick-and-easy spell traps, but let's face it; we all want the nasties that Raging Swan has cooked up for us. There are three custom traps in this book, and I must say that they are all very inventive. I'm not usually a traps sort of guy, but I could see myself using the amazingly awesome spiked roof trap, which is exactly what it sounds like. The other two traps are less interesting in my opinion because they are basically dressed up spell effects while the ceiling trap was actually something new and inventive. I'm not a fan of the Cursed Idol trap, mainly because it includes an alignment change as part of its effect and I loathe anything that unwillingly changes a character's alignment (that's why you don't see any alignment change in spirit influences in Pact Magic Unbound, Vol. 1 anymore). While I suppose I knew what I was getting into with a product called "Dressings," I felt like the crunch that was in this book wasn't very new or exciting. Except for the spiked ceiling, of course. 3 / 5 Stars.

Flavor
You wouldn't think a product completely devoted to describing an alter would be very interesting, but by god Raging Swan does an excellent job of making it interesting. The product starts with a little bit of background on what an alter is, basically setting up the stage for the rest of the product. I basically rolled my eyes and said, "Well DUH," during this entire intro, but its important to establish what you're talking about when you do a product like this, so I don't fault it for that. There are some handy little charts and tables for giving some extra character to your alters, and I was very impressed personally with all of the different ways Raging Swan figured out how to customized and add functionality to an alter. Overall, the flavor of this product is very, very strong and just reading those tables can set your mind up for some very interesting encounters. 5 / 5 Stars.

Texture
When we talk about texture, we're talking about layout, formatting, art, and editing. The art in this book is almost non-existent, but at a little over a dozen pages I'm willing to let that slide. After all, omitting art is an awesome way to keep prices down so its a necessary evil. The product has a very minimalist approach to it, from its all-black front cover to its equally all-black back cover. Despite its appearance, it really works for the document. I'd imagine this would be extremely printer-friendly as well, which is a mega bonus for a PDF product in my book. There are several wonky grammar mistakes, such as improper use of plurals throughout the document but they're scarce enough that they don't affect the reading experience much; even for a grammar-crazed teacher like myself. 5 / 5 Stars.

Final Score & Thoughts
Crunch: 3 / 5
Flavor: 5 / 5
Texture: 5 / 5
Final Score: 4 /5 Stars

When I purchase products, I personally prefer a bit of meat on its bones. I like new ideas mechanically because I'm not the type to run out of ideas creatively. However, I am well aware that I am in the minority in this regard and I honestly think that this product is worth your money if you need inspiration on creating and detailing your game world's alters and if you're like me, you might find a little bit of . This is a niche product that is not going to appeal to everyone, but if the other Dungeon Dressings are half as good as this one, I'd definitely pick up another the next time I'm running into designer's block.


Dead Purchase in Name Alone

5/5

An entire product detailing corpses? How ... sticky.

Crunch
When we talk about crunch, we're talking about the product's game mechanics and rules content. As you might guess from a product in the 'Dungeon Dressings' line, there isn't much game mechanics in this product, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. If you're buying a product because you want to be able to add detail to your game, then you're probably not looking for content, are you? That said, the content that is in this particular product is ... okay. There are some very clever rules tied into corpses, such as giving them the stench special ability based on how decayed they are. Continuing down that route, there are rules for corpse decay and Heal skill check rules for identify the cause of death in a corpse, which is also very neat. There are a few very neat, inventive traps in this product and there's a rather chilling set of rules for being buried alive. The only thing I was disappointed in is that several entries in the random description tables mention specific types of creatures (such as violet fungus and centipede swarms) and it would have been nice to have references to the Bestiary book that those creatures are from to help the GM. All in all, I found myself really liking what little bit of crunch this product had. 5 / 5 Stars.

Flavor
When we talk about a product's flavor, we're discussing its style, its fiction, and overall what sort of tone the product is trying to give us. And man, I have to say, this product is literally oozing flavor. David Posner, the author, clearly put a ridiculous amount of time in researching exactly what happens to a body after death; at least, I HOPE he had to research this stuff! The random rolling tables for the different types of corpses are nifty, but man, its the descriptions included in the decay rules that really sells this topic. You think you're getting a small little product focused on describing dead people and BAM! Out of nowhere you're getting these amazing little tidbits of rules. 5 / 5 Stars.

Texture
When we talk about a product's texture, we're talking about its grammar, editing, and overall layout. This product is fairly standard for what I've seen from Raging Swan Press. It starts with a forward, it jumps into the rules about decay, and then it gives us tables followed by a few traps. Overall, its very well-organized and I like this about the Dungeon Dressings line; it manages to take its layout style and fit it simply into whatever the product is talking about. 5 / 5 Stars.

Final Score & Thoughts
Crunch: 5 / 5
Flavor: 5 / 5
Texture: 5 / 5
Final Score: 5 / 5

This is an amazing product for its cost, especially considering that the topic is one that the author could have very easily gotten lazy with. Personally, I think this product is worth $2 for the traps and the decomposition rules alone; the creative descriptions and rules for these descriptions are just violet fungus on the maggot-ridden corpse. Which in this case, is a good thing.

— Alexander "Alex" Augunas


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Absolutely Gorgeous

5/5

You're always kind of skeptical when you watch a company produce something for the first time. In the case of the Rune Giant, this miniature is Wizkid's first attempt to make a Gargantuan miniature. And when you grab this model, it really works. The paint job is absolutely gorgeous, the detail is incredible, and overall it is an excellent crown jewel to the Rise of the Runelords miniature set.

Now, there has been tons of comments on this miniature's leggings. For those of you who aren't caught up on the "discussion," basically, the miniature's leggings use a flesh tone, and if you look at the miniature from a mole's eye view (that is to say, from the bottom looking up) the miniature gives the impression that the Rune Giant is pantsless. I thought this was ridiculous reading the conversation, but now that I have the miniature in-hand I can confirm that its absolutely ridiculous. Sure, the tone is flesh-colored but would you make the same accusations of a lady wearing leggings? Of course not. The Rune Giant has ebon-black skin, so the idea that he is "pantsless" simply because his leggings are colored similar to a Caucasian's skin tone is laughable at the absolute best, and somewhat insulting at its worst. I can't see anyone with more maturity then a 12 year old making that claim about this miniature personally, but that's merely my own opinion on the topic and it certainly shouldn't stop you from owning the crown jewel of this miniatures set.

— Alexander "Alex" Augunas


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Review - Advanced Race Guide

5/5

I'm a little late reviewing this one, but here it goes! The Advance Race Guide is here, and its definitely an interesting book. Wizards of the Coast had a few books dedicated to one to three spotlight races in the past, but as far as I know no one has tried a book on the concept of race itself before Paizo. Let's take a look at how well they did with this one.

Crunch
As an overview, the mechanics, feats, and just about everything else in this book are extremely sound in design. Most everything feels very connected to each of the races and it leaves a very cool impression overall. That being said, one of the things I don't like is the concept of racially-unique archetypes. Its one thing to offer archetypes that are "typically found among members of X race," but I don't like rules that say, "You absolutely cannot use this if you are not race X." A great example is the Wave Warden archetype for the merfolk. For every 1,000 copies of the book that sells, I promise that only 1 player will ever get to play a merfolk. True statistics made up on the spot right there.

I'm not docking any points from the book for this, however, because there is a note that says that GMs should let their players mix and match archetypes when their character history is appropriate. I like that; I just feel badly for any PFS players who are bound to much more tightly woven rules then this. 5 / 5 Stars

Flavor
Honestly, the Advanced Race Guide suffers here for several reasons. Many of the archetypes simply don't know how to be members of their race. For example, there is a half-elf witch archetype that allows you an arcane bond instead of a familiar. While that's an awesome idea (think Hocus Pocus, where the witches use a book as their familiar), it doesn't really fit as a half-elf only archetype; it would feel better if it was available to everyone. Ultimately where this book falls flat is that it doesn't really work as a settings neutral guide; when designing new material it often focuses on flavor themes instead of existing game mechanics which means you get broad generalizations that may not apply to your world. The witch example is one of many, and the ultimate problem is that when your theme is too broad (for example, demoralizing people with a whip) than you ultimately create feats and archetypes that players of other races stop and look at, thinking to themselves, "Gee, why can't I take this too?" I've never really liked the idea of "Your GM can change it if she wants to," because that way of thinking simply doesn't work with strict by-the-books types or even in PFS. And in both of those cases, finding a new GM isn't always an option.

I really want to like this book, but the flavor is 100% Golarion. That wouldn't be a bad thing if this was Races of Golarion, but its not. Its the Advanced Race Guide, and it should focus on what defines a race in terms of its game mechanics; not its "flavor." 4 / 5 Stars

Texture
This book is laid out into four chapters, based not on divisors such as race, class, magic items, spells, etc., but on how traditional the race is to roleplaying games. The first chapter is called "Core Races," and as you might have guessed it features the seven races from the Core Rulebook. Each core race gets roughly six pages, including new feats, four new archetypes, favored class options for every class, and alternate race traits; some new, most reprinted from the Advanced Player's Guide, and magic items.

Chapter 2 selects races that are "features," and they tend to be legacy survivors from D&D or races that people are already somewhat familiar with. Races like the aasimar, tieflings, and elemental half-breeds all find there home here, and each race gets four pages written up about it. They get a bunch of favored race options, new alternate race traits, feats, and two or three new archetypes as well as a couple magic items.

Chapter 3 picks the rarest races; races that are usually relatively new concepts to Pathfinder or have just been added to the game. The Dragon Primer races, the Inner Sea World Guide races, and many of the races from Bestiary III (which were still relatively new at the time) are all in here. There's also some exotic ones like the merfolk. Each race here gets two pages as well as 1 new spell or magic item and a handful of alternate race traits and favored class bonuses.

Chapter 4 includes the much-talked about race building guide. The basic idea behind it is that racial features cost points and the race's power level is based on the number of points you spend. I could talk for days on this system, so I won't. All you need to know is that when a GM uses it correctly, it is absolutely marvelous.

In short, the new layout works very well once you figure out where the races are located (the Table of Contents is a beautiful thing for that). Instead of lumping everything together, having everything regarding to a single race in one place is not only convinent, but it also does wonders towards suggesting that the pile of content you're looking at is truly related; it isn't just a fate that could be given to anyone or a magic item that could be made by any one. 5 / 5 Stars

Final Score & Thoughts
Crunch: 5 / 5
Flavor: 4 / 5
Texture: 5 / 5
Final Score: 5 / 5

I really like this book, but it is not without its flaws. My biggest fear that stems from this book is that, essentially, it is a retrogression in game design. In particularl, the book's archetypes, spells, and many of its feats. Not long before this book was published, an errata went out that remove elf or half-elf as a racial requirement for the arcane archer prestige class. Why? Because the restriction never fit well with the class, that's why. When you think of a magic-using bow fighter, you don't always have to picture an elf, which is why it doesn't work.

I apply the same logic to many of the archetypes and spells that you can find in this book. If not for the name, many of the archetypes are generic enough to favor a multitude of individuals. A great example is the Foehammer, which is a Dwarf archetype focused around hitting people with hammers. Sure, the warhammer is a weapon highly associated with dwarves, but you'd expect anyone who wanted to be good with a warhammer to learn most of the techniques the archetype offers. Another example is the steal breath spell that the catfolk get; that one has little to no association with the catfolk race. In my opinion, the only archetype/spell that truly feels like it belongs to one (and only one) race is the Cavern Sniper archetype for the drow, because it specifically plays off of the drow's racial spell-like abilities. If we get more racial archetypes like that, then I have no qualms. But if we move towards an idea where racial archetypes are just generic archetypes with a label attached to make them sound "more dwarfy" or "more elven" then I have a problem.

That said, play with the material in this book how you, the GM, want to. Restrict the content or let anyone use it; as long as you pick which option you want, you will not be disappointed by what you find here. By virtue of its crunch alone, this book is as good, if not better than, the Advanced Player's Guide in my humble opinion.

— Alexander "Alex" Augunas


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Ultimate Equipment: The Review

5/5

I've heard a lot of bad things about this product, folks. A lot of bad things. I don't agree with any of them, but you'll have to read on to find out way!

Artwork
Alright, I am going to start off easy. The artwork is absolutely beautiful. The two-page spread that mark between chapters are absolutely wonderful; you know that epic scene from Blood of Angels' cover? Its in the book, and its short story is awesome. Always nice to see new characters that aren't iconics in the Core Rulebook Line (its not something that happens very often, but its happened a lot more between this book and the Advanced Race Guide; I'm sure it'll be happening even more in the NPC Codex).

And despite what you may think about a book filled with weapons and equipment, there is a LOT of art detailing the items themselves too. Lots of original art from older Core Rulebook items returns in this one and it is just as lovely as it was originally. Not every item has art, but you're always thankful for the items that do!

Artwork Score: 5/5

Layout
That's right, I'm going to tease you and look at the book's layout first. The book is divided into roughly 7 chapters, each with its own "theme" of items. There's a chapter on everything from weapons and armor to wondrous items to artifacts. This makes finding whatever you're looking for incredibly easy, and if you know the name of the item you want, there is a massive index in the back of the book that lists where everything is located. I don't know who at Paizo made that index, but it is super useful and they deserve some sort of special reward for it. It is awesome. Perhaps the coolest thing they did in terms of layout, however, was to refrain from using those "half-page of art" pages that Wizards of the Cost, the Core Rulebook, and the Advanced Players Guide uses. Instead, the art is shrunken to about an inch by inch square and attached to each individual item. In addition to this, Ultimate Equipment has a noticeably new style in terms of its lettering and font, to the point where chapters are quite literally color coded for your convenience. And trust me, this too is quite brilliant once you have been using the book enough where you subconsciously remember the colors. And if you're a GM, this will happen.

Layout Score: 5/5

Content
Alright, I'll stop beating around the bush. Time to talk about the content. Its absolutely amazing. There, I said it. EVERY item from the Core Rulebook line returns in Ultimate Equipment. That's right, all of it, even the Eastern Weapons and the Firearms. The book does an awesome job of making sure everyone gets something new, which is especially refreshing when you see all of the awesome magic items targeted at the gunslinger and magus, two classes that did not have the luxury of having magic items printed in the books they debuted in. From what I have seen, not much has made it from the Pathfinder Campaign Setting, so if you see something you've never seen before, its probably brand-new. To be honest, that was my only complaint about the content; there are magic items in many of the older Adventure Paths that I would have loved to see make into Ultimate Equipment, and for the life of me I have no idea while the Agile weapon property wasn't included. Makes a man wish that James Jacobs had more of a thumb in on the Core Rulebook line, I guess. Despite those two very minor complaints, the content is pure gold. There are endless streams of tables to help a GM determine what to give his party as treasure. There are innovative magic items for every class, and some of them even manage to level the playing field for them a little bit (as a sorcerer player, I am thrilled for the page of spell knowledge).

Content Score: 5/5

Total Score: (5 x 3)/3 = 5/5

Anyone with any experience of this kind of roleplaying game will tell you that magic items are literally half of your character's power. This book is awesome. It gives many excellent items with cool powers. I can see many of these items in my campaign already, and I see no reason that anyone; player or GM alike, should be disappointed of having purchased this book.

— Alexander "Alex" Augunas


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Has Potential, Poorly Executed PDF Ruins It

1/5

Character sheets are the most important tool in both a player and a GM's arsenal, and this product attempts to provide its user with a detailed breakdown of all the character's statistics and information. In order to review this, I need to do two separate reviews here, one for the PDF and one for the printed version.

Information
The information in this folio is very well-done. It has plenty of space for virtually everything you could possibly want. Here's a quick breakdown for anyone who is interested:

Page 2) Vital Statistics
Page 3) Defenses
Page 4) Offense
Page 5) Skills
Page 6) Feats & Languages
Page 7) Spellcasting
Page 8) Spells Known
Page 9) Equipment
Page 10) Equipment
Page 11) Companions (Animal / Mount / Eidolon)
Page 12) Companions (Cohort, Familiar) & Leadership Score
Page 13) Background
Page 14) Background
Page 15) Adventure Record
Page 16) Adventure Record
Page 17+) Notes and Reminders

Overall, this folio contains a lot of information. The way it presents this information is very reminescent of the GM Screen; it gives players their own little cheat sheet of information and it does it well. It is a bit on the large side, however, though none of that space feels wasted.

This product suffers the most in that there is absolutely no blank space to put anything that Paizo does not think is important. There isn't any plain old "Notes" pages; just some pages with lines to do what you please. Coupled with the fact that the very artsy background removes any blank space around the margins and this product lacks customization. This is less of an issue with the PDF; when you're printing out your folio copy you can just shove some lines on the back.

Print: 4/5
PDF: 5/5

Style:
Style is going to kill my rating for this product. Paizo is very known for their artsy style in their products; parchment-like paper, big loopy letters for titles, the works. This style simply does not work well for a character sheet, mostly because of the backgrounds. Unlike the first section, this is a problem with the PDF and not the printed version. With the printed version, your $10 is part of the cost to print this lovely folio. But if you're buying this product's PDF, then you are assuming that you are going to be able to print this bad-boy out; Paizo's staff has made it very clear that they're not looking to move into the electronic character sheet business with this product, after all.

The artsy-ness of this product is exactly what makes it a particularly useless PDF. You simply cannot print this out without wasting a ton of ink. The backgrounds, even when printed on a gray scale, are too prominent and suck up ink like a greedy infant at his mother's teat. In truth, it feels like a bit of a step back from the newly established Lite Line of PDFs, which purposefully have no background to speak of. If Paizo were to offer some sort of "Lite PDF" of the Character Folio with a blank white background, I will be more than happy to revise this score, but as is the PDF deserves the lowest style rating I can possibly give it. Sometimes the best style is a minimal one, and when your PDF serves no other purpose than to be printed out (no electronic fulfillment and the strict security locks seem to point this way), then having said document not be printer friendly is a waste.

Print: 4/5
PDF: 0/5

Total Score:
Print - 4 + 4 = 8 / 2 = 4/5 Stars
PDF - 5 + 0 = 5 / 2 = 2.5 Stars

4 + 2.5 = 6.5 / 2 = 3.25

3 Stars

EDIT: They say you can't really appreciate a product until you use it in a game, and in this case it is totally true. I filled out my sheet, sat down to play my new Oracle. Complaint #1 - Under spells known, there is ONLY enough spells for the exact number of spells a spontaneous spellcaster (Sorcerer / Oracle) has at maximum level, as shown on Table: Sorcerer Spells per Day. Add up that 20th level line; that's how many spells you get.

It is not enough.

I had no room for my Mystery spells. No room for my bonus spells for being Good-Aligned. Nothing. I temporarily shoved them on the lines given for prepared spells, but man, I was disappointed in that.

And then my GM asked me which revelations I took. And then it hit me. There is NO space for class features!

A sheet THIS big, and there isn't a space to just write the name of your class features down! You can put them in assorted places (feats isn't a bad one, as it has 28 entries and it is impossible to get 28 feats curretly), but if that was the intent, why not label the section "Feats & Class Features.

If you are going to spend all this time making a "comprehensive" character sheet and claim that you have room to place things like achievements or space for me to draw my headquarters, then the last you can do is give me space for my class features and label where it is supposed to go. It would not be a big deal if the character sheet was free, but it is not. It is $10 printed, and that is a huge oversight for such an expensive character sheet.

Revised Rating: 1 Star

— Alexander "Alex" Augunas


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Quickie Review

5/5

Well, Paizo's Messageboards apparently hate me. I had written this really awesome, in-depth review and now it's gone. So here's a quickie review

Archetypes
Four of them. One's a dirty-fighting pirate, one's an eastern-style gun master, one learns hexes and shoots curses, and one trades all the gun stuff for wand stuff. Wandslinger's very cool, if a bit complicated. Other then that, they're all solid.

Content - 5/5
Mechanics - 4/5 (There are several small oversights that ruin the feel, such as the Buccaneer's familiar).

Feats
LOTS of new feats; all of them Grit feats. They range in usefulness, but they're all thematically cool. It's very clear that the Rule of Cool trumps the Rule of Cheese here, which is always nice to see. Some of the feats have funky wording, but for the most part it's harmless. There's nothing in here that your Gunslinger will die without, and I think that's a good thing.

Content - 4/5 (There are a couple of silly feats, in my opinion, like the one where you shoot someone that's trying to grapple or disarm you and you add the damage to your CMD. That's a little too good.)
Mechanics - 3/5 (There are several poorly worded feats, but it's not so bad that it'll frustrate you. Just take your time and read over things several times.)

Monsters
There's a new monster. It's called the Gunslinger Wraith. It's a temple that you apply to a recently killed Gunslinger under certain conditions, and they rise from the dead to get revenge. Very cool weird wild west feel. Makes for a great, triumphant bad guy return. Pretty well balanced, but like with any template, think twice before giving it to players. Also, I don't like that there's no quick template.

Content - 5/5
Mechanics - 4/5

Conclusion
Totally worth the buy if you're a Gunslinger fan!

Overall Score - 4/5

EDIT: Rite Publishing has just updated the PDF. Scanning through it to most of the archetypes / feats with mechanical errors or awkward language, they've all been corrected. In light of all the changes and fixes, I'm bumping up the score to a 5/5. This is truly a must-buy product now if you consider yourself a Gunslinger.


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I wasn't prepared for this spontaneous buy!

3/5

Alright, so I picked up this new PDF for several reasons. First, I was heavily intrigued by the description of the magic system given in the product information. Second, no one else had commented or reviewed this product, and it’s fairly inexpensive so I said, “The Hells with it! I’ll review me some third party content!”

The Class
The Mage is a fairly cool class that ends up being fairly simple. You know a specific number of spells as you level up; you just sort of know them the way a Sorcerer does, but you can pay a fairly hefty sum of gold to learn additional spells. In theory you could learn as many as, say, a wizard, but you’d be paying ridiculously huge sums of money. Personally, I’m not convinced that using the prices for writing spells into spellbooks is too cheap for the class because of the second way the class is limited in its power.

Basically, you can cast any spell you know spontaneously, but you have to prepare it first. Unless you take a special mage-only power, you can only prepare a single spell at a time, so you get the spell memorized and in your head, then unleash it when you’re ready. It’s very reminiscent of an MMORPG’s “casting time” mechanic. As you level up, your lower-leveled spells can be prepared more quickly. Overall, it’s a very interesting mechanic. It takes a spellcaster and gives them the ability to cast as many times per day as they wish (there is no spell slot system or anything), but in many cases, casting your best spells takes a lot of effort and time.

The class is heavily molded after the wizard in terms of its stats, which is to be expected. There are a couple of oddities, though. First, the Mage has a specific number of known cantrips, like the Sorcerer. It’s kind of odd, to be honest, and the number they get is surprisingly small. Also, there is a section on epic rules for the mage, but to the best of my knowledge, no publisher (including Pazio) has done epic content for Pathfinder.
Overall, the class is interesting, and warrants a 5 / 5 points for this category.

Mage Talents
Mage talents are similar to an alchemist’s discoveries; they add additional powers that the mage can draw upon to alter their spells and spellcasting abilities. In addition to regular mage talents, there are also college talents that belong to a specific branch unto their own. This is the place where the mage both shines and falls on its face. There are some extremely powerful talents here; one of them basically makes your spells scale with your level in terms of setting the DC, which is amazingly good. So good, as a matter of fact, that it’s a no-brain choice. Then there are mage talents that give the class weapon proficiency, but there are absolutely no talents to support weapon use at all. It’s pretty … bad. The “colleges of magic” as they’re called range from “oh my gosh that’s so cool” to “wow … that’s lame.” It’s really kind of sad, especially in the case of the college of self, which had the potential to be really good. I may make some comments about it in on the forums.
Overall, mage talents deserve a solid 3/5 because the ones that aren’t strong aren’t even flavorful. It just ends up being a bit of a mess, and some talents even get a little close to creeping on each other; there are two talents that add two different bonus types to rolls to hit with rays. Which are touch attacks. And almost never miss because of it.

Looks
The PDF has a very clean, crisp look. I'm partially surprised that so much of the art is from open sources, as it all flows really well together. One thing that annoyed me, however, was the table that the class is presented on; it completely abandons the Pathfinder style (which is fine) and uses a really goofy font to designate when the Mage gains a Mage Talent. It ends up looking that the author's kid cut the word "Mage Talent: off of a printed sheet a bunch of times, then glued them back on the chart before Dad scanned the picture back into the computer. That, however, is in terms of its art. In terms of formatting, this PDF is bad. There are huge areas of blank-ness with no text at all; there’s an entire page with only three mage talents on it, and maybe a 4th of the page is covered! Because of that, I can’t give the product more than a 2 / 5. You have the art down; it’s not bad, but the formatting leaving so much wasted space? It’s not about wasting my money, you’re not. It just looks so unprofessional.

Closing Thoughts:
This isn’t a bad document and the class is cool; it just doesn’t feel supported at all. The fluff is very generic and parts of it tread on the wizard’s toes a bit. Things feel incomplete and the PDF as a whole looks like an incomplete puzzle. There’s enough there to know what the finished product will look like, but the big gaps in the picture are distracting.

Final Score:
Class – 5
Talents – 3
Looks – 5
10 / 15 – About 3 Stars.


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The Ultimate Review Part 2: Ultimate Combat

4/5

In the second of their two-part "Ultimate" series, Paizo has officially become the Warbucks to the Monk's Little Orphan Anne. What do I mean by this? Well, read on and see!

The Gunslinger, Firearms, and its Archetypes
The Gunslinger is a class that you either love or hate. There isn't a whole lot of impartiality to it, I believe. I'm in the camp that the GM can put whatever he or she wants into their world, however, so I am going to look at the Gunslinger as objectively as I can.

Now, I've had the added benefit of getting to GM for a Gunslinger for the past several months, and here's what I can tell you. The player "sometimes" beats the Two-Handed Power Attacking Cleric in damage. Sometimes. Yeah, I know, a lot of us were all worried about how the Gunslinger can make Ammo without crafting checks (that used to apply to weapons too, but Craft: Firearm is officially in Ultimate Combat). What really ends up hurting the Gunslinger, however, is how expensive it gets to make special rounds for piercing damage reduction. Damage Reduction really stops the Gunslinger in its tracks, and as of now, I do think the price of the materials are one of the major baancing points with the class. Besides that, the flaver is very well done, and there's a lot of attention to detail in the base class, as well as all four archetypes. The abilities that traded work well; you really feel like you're Clint Eastwood or a Musketeer or a Mexican Pistolero. Very well done, Paizo, as far as I'm concerned, you transferred firearms into Pathfinder flawlessly. {10/10}

Ninja and Samurai
Ah, the Ninja and the Samurai. Two of the most controversial Alternate Classes. Here's what I have to say about them. Brilliant move making Ninja Tricks learn-able by Rogues, Paizo. With this change, I think the Ninja veers strongly towards those among Rogue players who want to be Combat-focused, and a book focused on 'ultimate' combat SHOULD have a class like this. The core rogue is, and always will be, better at skills than the Ninja. At least, in my opinion they will. The other thing is that as far as I am aware, Ninja can't take the Additional Tricks feat, which puts a ball in the Rogue's court.

Samurai are in a similar boat as the Ninja. Paizo took a class that was based on Teamwork (Cavalier) and traded all the teamwork away for selfish abilities. All in all, you have a very beastly class in combat. It's extremely powerful, specializing in a fair number of combat strategies. Is it better than the Cavalier? I personally don't think so, but then again, who am I to say that party support is better or worse then personal performance?

All in all, these Archetypes are fairly well done. However, they're lacking the perfect blend of flavor that the Gunslinger has; I really think that of the three classes, the Gunslinger came into its own much better than these two. {Ninja - 7/10, Samurai - 9/10; total - 8/10}

Archetypes
The archetypes in this book are awesome. There are a couple that are lackluster (I'm not a fan of the Daredevil, a Bard Archetype that has a cool name, but doesn't really capture the spirit of someone who takes big risks, in my opinion). Shining Gems here that aren't Gunslinger Archetypes are: Holy Gun, for a great name and a well-balanced idea; Spellslinger, just for awesome artwork and a perfect concept brought to life; and Derverish Dancer, honestly, this class makes the Bard SO MUCH MORE of a badass then it has ever been in its entire span. Ever. Play one. NOW. DO IT. {8/10 - Not having anything for the Sorcerer, while understandable, made me sad, since I am a Sorcerer player and this review is completely objective.}

Equipment
There are four categories of equipment here, and I am just going to say that this section gets a 10. Every weapon is extremely well-balanced, a whole bunch of new weapon rules and abilities were added, and the weapons span such a wide range of topics that you can build a world for any occasion with them. The only thing that I would have liked to see (and thought was supposed to be in here) was suggestions for alternate "martial weapons" for an Eastern Setting. That would have been cool. {9/10}

Alternate Rules
This section is dubbed 'Mastering Combat,' and it scared me because I hated almost everything in the 'Mastering Magic' section of Ultimate Combat. This section is MUCH better done in Ultimate Combat, everything is very cool, very interesting. Vehicles are very well thought out and it really makes players think about taking ranks in Profession for a chance (even if its just for Profession: driver). I really like all of the variant rules; I am still trying to figure out piecicial armor, but Wounds and Vigor is very nicely done, as is Armor as DR. I'm not sure if I'm going to be able to talk my players into trying those rules out; we might have to do a sandbox test to see how they work, but anything that makes the inflict wounds spells extremely powerful is okay in my book! {10 / 10}

Spells
Ah. Spells. Unsurprisingly, the book on Combat doesn't have much on magic. Most of it focuses on this new mechanic called Communal Spells, where you take a vintage spell and divide its duration up against multiple targets. There aren't many jewels of magic in this section, except for one, of course. Pup Shape. This spell is briming with flavor. I rather wish it fit more in lines with Sands of time from Ultimate Magic, to be honest, as I never got the point of all those classes that made you 'immune to magic effects' when there ARE no aging effects, save one monster and one spell. Alas, spells are acceptable, but not memorable. {8/10 I was going to do a 7, but I failed my Will save against the picture of Pup Shape and felt too guilty to kill off the spells.}

Feats
Feats. Sigh. I actually skipped this and came back to it later because there's EASILY over a 100 feats in this book. Looking through them, there's nothing that screams, "EVERY CHARACTER THAT DOES THIS NEEDS ME!" and that is a good thing. The feats in this book are screaming to have characters built around their combos. They are not screaming for every Mary Sue Fighter Build that this week's optimizer crafted to take them. {7/10. Three points are lost because Sorcerous Strike was a tease for me. You are so mean, Paizo. So very mean.)

Score and Final Thoughts
I don't care what you say, this book is BETTER than Ultimate Magic. Not only that, but the errors aren't as bad in Ultimate Combat; there are still a few, but it's a lot easier to figure out the Rules as Intended. It is very well laid out, the art is good, and all of the options feel usable. Nothing in Ultimate Combat is game-breaking, and everything is useful to the players and the GMs. That was one thing in Ultimate Magic that annoyed me; basically, an entire fluffy section on two spells; Planar Binding and Planar Ally. Why, Paizo? Why? Well, nothing like that is in Ultimate Combat! Last note before I sign off; I know I am not the only Sorcerer who is not feeling the Arcane Love from Paizo. This needs to change. I don't know where and I don't care how, but the Sorcerer is a core class too!

Guns - 10/10
Ninjas and Samurai - 8/10
Archetypes - 8/10
Feats - 7/10
Weapons and Vehicles - 9/10
Variant Rules - 10/10
Spells - 8/10
Fluff - 10/10
Style and Grammar - 8/10
Total Score - 8.6/10 = 4.3/5 Stars


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The Ultimate Review Part 1: Ultimate Magic

4/5

In the first of their two-part "Ultimate" series, Paizo hands out presents to all of the good little priests and mages.But did those boys and girls get the goods, or will they have to suffer coal for Charistmas? Let's find out!

The Magus and its Archetypes
Not going to lie here, folks, but I am heavily biased in this part. I absolutely LOVE spellswords, and the Magus and its support in this book delivers in every possible way. While this class easily beats out the Eldritch Knight at low levels, their skills become a subject of heavy debate in the mid to late game. Yup, the class is so good that it gives the old Martial Spellcaster class a run for its money. In my opinion, the book is worth it just for the Magus alone, but there is PLENTY of good stuff in this book. {10/10}

Base Class Archetypes
This section is a little bit hazy. There are some really powerful, awesome archetypes here. The Magus ones are especially awesome. Some of the options are a little lackluster, and the level of support for each class varies heavily; for example, Bards got Masterpieces, Wizards got Arcane Discoveries, Clerics got Alternate Channel Energies, Inquisitors got Inquisitions. However, other classes got a lot less (Paladin only got one Archetype, though it is extremely flexible and they can use alternate channel energies and inquisitions), while some classes got completely shafted (the Sorcerer only got four new Bloodlines, one 'real' archetype, and one faux archetype that only gives a lackluster "subdomain" mechanic to the older bloodlines). This section has a lot of cool concepts. In true SPLAT book fashion, there isn't anything that is game-breakingly good, but the sheer lack of inventive ideas for the Sorcerer in this department is depressing. {7/10. I'm a Sorcerer player. Sorry.}

Spellblights
Spellblights are special diseases and such that a GM can inflict on their players for doing things like losing a spell due to a failed Concentration check or from suffering form Arcane Spell Failure. Its a completely optional system that rocks in every way. Its blights are fun and flavorful, and really add a sense of risk to magic; especially if you can find good ways to implement them. Its definitely a system that is more for the GM; I recommend that GMs set their own conditions for spellblights to occur to make magic more interesting. I don't mean to suggest the current rules are poorly implemented; they aren't. This is a system that, however, is screaming for campaign setting customization, and is therefore sweet. {10/10)

Binding Magic
I love the Tome of Magic's binder classes. Not going to lie. As of now, I'm in the process of refluffing and rebalancing the class for my Pathfinder campaign. I squealed when I saw the name of the chapter and then cried when I realized what it was actually about. This entire chapter offers additional rules for implementing the Planar Aly spell. That's it. Its an interesting concept, but it takes up an entire section of the book, and its mostly for fluff. The bonuses to your Planar Ally check are small (+2) to the point where one wonders if it will ever impact your games. It's a great resource for players who want to ooze fluff in their roleplaying, but it really feels like too much effort went into this section. One can only wish that the Sorcerer received this much attention. {4/10}

Construct Adaptations
This chapter informs a spellcaster on how to upgrade and better equip the constructs they build. This chapter is cool, not going to lie, but it does not feel like it works in this section. It implies that ALL constructs are magical in nature; well what if you run a steam punk campaign? I didn't think my car ran on magic (though at the prices gas stations charge these days, one has to wonder). You can argue the ice golems are definitely magical in nature, but then I ask you, "why are you shoving beakers of alchemical fire into your ice golem?" I could understand why this was here if there was never intent to print another Bestiary every again, but lo! Bestiary 3 was announced TODAY. This would have worked better in there, instead of hogging up whatever fun things could have been given to the Sorcerer. {5/10. This section is cool, but it doesn't fit the book.}

Feats
The feat section is very hit or miss. There are some awesome options and some terrible options. Some options look a little overpowered (for example, I'd be okay with Antagonize if it let my mage target the antagonizer with a spell instead of forcing them to charge into melee a la Spongebob Squarepants) while others seem redundant (Prodigy, why are you in a magical book? All of these guys could just Greater Creation your goods into existence). Overall, though, this is a good addition to the current setup of Pathfinder feats. {7/10}

Premade Spellbooks
I think this was where the magic items would have gone, but spellbooks take up so much room. This is invaluable to any DM who gives out spellbooks as a reward. Players (especially non-wizards or magi) won't care. Even Wizards and Magi might not care because they'd be sad if they saw the same premade spell books over and over again. The biggest problem with this section is that it references spells that either had their names changed or were scrapped from the book; no offense Paizo, but you may want to lash your editors or something. :) {5/10}

Words of Power
The words of power is a new spellcasting system that appears in Ultimate Magic. In a nutshell, you take syllables and combine them into powerful spell effects. The goal of the system that it is extremely flexible in how it creates spells, but it cannot mimic the sheer situtationalness of some of the Core spells. The system is strong, and there are many effects that cannot be duplicated as normal spells within the situation (+4 armor and +2 to three stats comes to mind as being awesome). It is a book-heavy system and is stronger in the hands of prepared casters, who can know all of the syllables. However, it is a cool and unique system for anyone wanting to play a Wordcaster (Tome of Magic) that actually works. {8/10}

Spells
You can't call a Pathfinder Book "Ultimate Magic" without having some spells in it, and boy do Paizo come through on this book. Unlike the Advanced Player's Guide, which has many "scroll/wand spells" but few really good ones, Ultimate Magic has something for everyone. It has spells that affect aging, spells that deal damage as a swift action, spells that heal, spells that harm, it really fills in the spellcasting gaps quite well. While I am still hoping for new spells in Ultimate Combat, if no new spells were printed for a year, at least you can be glad with what Paizo gives us in this book. {10/10}

Score and Final Thoughts
Not everything in this book is for everyone. As the Advanced Player's Guide. This book is fluffy as you can get without making it Golarion specific; I have to admit that even the parts I did not like were very enjoyable to read. {Fluff 10/10} Where this book takes a strong hit to the groin is in the grammar department. There are a LOT of errors in this book; the premade spellbook, and there are a lot of what forum trolls like to call "Copy/Paste Fails." One of the best one haunts the Pip of the book, the Sorcerer, where a bloodline for Earth Genies grants the ability to teleport to the Plane of Water (instead of the plane of earth, which was clearly the intent based on the other genie bloodlines). Overall, this is an excellent book, but there are some illogical choices (why aren't the monster building rules in the bestiary?), bad editing, and unequal support for the spellcasting classes (I will pray for you, oh Sorcerer. Let's look at the total score, below:

Magus: 10/10
Base Class Support: 7/10
Spellblights: 10/10
Planar Binding: 4/10
Construct Upgrading: 5/10
Feats: 7/10
Words of Power: 8/10
Spells: 10/10
Fluff: 10/10
Style and Grammar: 5/10
Total: 76/100 = 76% = 3.8 Stars = 4 Stars

EDIT 9/19/2011: After further playing with Ultimate Magic, I've decided to revise my scoring of it slightly. As a GM, I


Golden's Look at Psionics Unleashed

3/5

I'd say something witty, but this is literally the last sentence I wrote for this review. Let's sink our minds into Psionics Unleashed! Or ... something.

The Crunch
In my opinion, Psionics Unleashed is at its greatest when we look at the rules and game mechanics that the book provides. There are four base classes; the four that originally appeared in 3.5's "Psionics Bible," the Expanded Psionics Handbook. Dreamscarred Press did an amazing job here, managing to update all four base classes so that they are competitive with the Core classes without being overpowered. Parts of me are worried that the Psionic Races may be a little too good without any penalty, but they really only shine on a character devoted to Psionics; really, there's nothing in the book that makes playing an elven psion a better choice then, say, an elan psion. However, this can be said about 3.5's psionics system, where the Psionic Races always had a leg up on Psionics. I think that was an unneeded remnant of a time where the Favored Class bonus was designed as a restriction and not a reward, and I would have liked to seen it leave for the so called psionic races. The book includes a baseline Psionics/Magic transparency rule, major overhauls of various powers that were considered "overpowered," clarification on rules, and what a lot of us like to refer to as "the Pazio Touch," in this class, lots of unique options for the base classes. {Rating: 10/10}

The Fluff
Psionics Unleashed is a tad bit weak on the descriptions, true to its Paizo source material. However, where the good folks with the golem have the entirety of the Golarion Campaign Setting to flesh out how Druids and Monks and Wizards fit into their world, Dreamscarred Press doesn't have that luxury. There is a decent guide on to how to incorporate Psionics into a campaign setting, but there isn't much information on what makes a good Psionics Campaign. For example, what would that world look like? What creatures thrive there? Does magic still exist? Besides this, Paizo doesn't need to give much fluff on the core classes because most Pathfinder Players have known and loved the Core 11 for over a decade, since 3.0 was first released. While the Expanded Psionics Handbook is old, less people are familiar with it because it is not core, and as such you want to be as detailed as possible so that the people playing your product get excited to try the Soulknife or the Wilder or the Psychic Warrior or whatever. Dreamscarred Press definetely comes off having placed a lot more effort into the game mechanics and not as much into the game integration with their book. {7/10}

The Appearance
Ugh. THIS is where Psionics Unleashed trips and falls on its face. I believe the author himself made a statement about how art is subjective, and while that may be from my own opinions, to all the forums I have read, to all of the people I have shown my hard copy of the book to, no one has liked Psionics Unleashed's art. There are many awkward facial expressions, it does not integrate well with the book, body parts (such as the toes on the racial line-up) are little better than boots with shade markings that suggest they are individual digits, and the characters appear static and motionless; not fluid and dynamic as you would expect heroes to be. The racial line-up is probably the worst I have ever seen in any source book and part of the art's failure comes from the book itself; it is a very minimalist style, with no background texture and no page boarders. This effectively makes the art stand out like a sore thumb, like it was an afterthought to include it and that there was no real style involved with the book itself. The book is printed in Black and White, which is not a problem; I've seen the PDF, and the art looks even worse in color. The final nail that seals the coffin on Psionics Unleashed's appearances is the sheer number of misspellings, grammatical errors, and oversights in the text. One of the most common in the first edition printing (which I own) is that apparently when writing one of the Prestige Classes, at one point the name of a specific psionic power had to be hyphenated. The book was later altered, and the hyphenated word came back together on the same line. With the hyphen still in it. So now in the book, there is (or perhaps was) this psionic power sitting in the middle of a sentence with a completely unneeded hyphen. {3/10}

Total and Closing Remarks
This book is well done if you're looking for hard rules on converting a Psionics system to Pathfinder. Besides sheer number of cosmetic flaws in this product, it completely lacks its own identity. There is absolutely nothing in Psionics Unleashed that makes one think "Wow, now THIS is Pathfinder Psionics!" This is 3.5 Psionics, updated to the Pathfinder standard. It works and works extremely well, but it is not the end-all-meets-all quality that Pathfinder players know and love from Paizo, and because of this, it is my personal opinion that a Psionics revamp is not at all impossible from Paizo. Psionics Unleashed reigns supreme as Pathfinder's unoffical Psionics System, but one can only wonder for how long it will occupy this throne.

Rules and Mechanics: 10
Descriptions: 7
Editing and Style: 3
Total {20/3 = 6.7 = 3 Stars}

Final Thoughts: Psionics Unleashed is an acceptable buy, even an amazing buy, if you want someone else to convert 3.5's rules for Psionics for you. It offers little else beyond that. If you didn't like 3.5 Psionics, you probably won't like Dreamscarred Press Psionics either.


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