where are the backbreaker, twin lock, and crushing embrace abilities??? I am tired of buying these books and finding content missing and poor editing. There is much in this book that is great fun, but I paid money for this because Paizo has made some god tier stuff (adventure paths mostly) and I wanted to encourage them to continue. I think I've done my fair share for a while. I'm not buying another book from Paizo until I have read every word in a [LEGALLY OBTAINED PDF COPY].
EDIT: this review had more stars the first time I wrote it, but it was removed for some reason.
This is a hard book to read through. I have an entire laundry list of complaints, but I have narrowed it down to 3 of the bigger (least whiny sounding) ones:
1) The introduction is 100% flavor text, 0% introduction.
2) The History is entirely unsatisfying. It is a timeline of esoteric events that seem largely unrelated. Too much info in not enough space.
3) I agree with some of the other reviews here that suggest a reorganization of the content into a different format.
There is definitely a ton of good information in this book, but I'm hoping that I will be able to find a wiki somewhere that presents it a little better
There are multiple cards of each condition so I can let the status ailments flow as freely as I like. I just place one of these in front of the afflicted player with a dedicated die (d20 if a check is made each turn or d10 to track turns remaining) No one loses track of who has what condition...Especially me! :D
Edit: I WILL be purchasing the critical decks and any further deck you guys come up with that makes GMing seem like play again instead of work... THANKS
I have recently received this item and had an opportunity to try it out in game. The players thought it was nice to have a physical representation of their items, and I tried handing them out in envelopes after a significant encounter which they also seemed to like... But all of us failed to see the utility of these cards beyond that initial "oooh cool!" reaction.
Players still need to keep track of item stats on separate paper (because there is zero chance of them scribbling all over my new cards :P) and I still have to write numbers on them and make an item index to keep track of things. It doesn't sound like a lot of work, but it really is if you just don't have a lot of time to prep every week.
These cards are beautifully drawn and it certainly doesn't hurt my game to have them included, but I would be more willing to spend money on a deck of cards that had cards associated with actual equipment in the core rulebooks with base stats on the back or even just a unique numerical identifier printed on there.
(As a side note: if you are looking for cards that really make your life as a GM easier pick up the status deck or the critical hit deck. Those two are solid gold!)
