RPG Superstar 7 Season Star Voter. Organized Play Member. 322 posts (331 including aliases). 4 reviews. No lists. 3 wishlists. 4 Organized Play characters. 1 alias.
Medical Marvels is the first follow up to the Starjammer Core release, and it's a great one! It's loaded with crunch, and useful optional rules that add some cool modern flavor if you're looking for it.
First, we have a little blurb about economy and legality, which adds a 'credit' system to replace gold pieces. It's nice to have some sort of modern-ish currency, and there's even extensive tables for technological goods, but the values are murky and don't make much sense. Regardless, it's a nice set of optional rules to utilize!
There's new Cybertech, and some of it is really nifty! The Magnetic Hand is one I'm a huge fan of, and want to be able to utilize it myself! There are two new optional rules involving cybertech as well; Spirit and Cyber-Sickness.
Spirit is a phantom 7th ability score that grants you a modifier that you use for your 'save', that reduces implantation value of said cybertech, which can be really cool.
Cyber Sickness is a neat way to allow for some alternate drawbacks for implantation value!
Finally, there's new pharmaceuticals, along with rules for addiction, lots of neat stuff here!
Highly recommended, whether you're running just Starjammer, or for your Iron Gods campaign!
I am a fan of cross-genre material, Iron Gods being one of my favorite AP's, and was deliriously excited for Starfinder, and likewise this product. I will say, I love it, seriously love it. The style is sleek and clean. It's lore-light, offering a good chunk of fluff, but not so much that you can't add your own easily.
Pros: Ship system is simple to use, haven't finished learning it yet, but still pretty accessible. All current pathfinder material seems to be 100% compatible, which is really nice. Planetary crunch and ship based material is really cool, as is the new races.
Cons: Some minor editing issues (found at least two "pg. xx" in the book), and the material, while good, is cluttered a bit. It feels like there should be more general gear. The only new weapon in the core book is a grenade, the game assumes you are using the technology guide to use a chunk of the book, which clocks the book in with at least 3 books needed to utilize this book.
All in all, I love it, and plan to run a homebrew game using it! Thanks guys at D20pfsrd!
The underground world has always been an allure to me. The 'wilderness' is always more dangerous, and the creatures are like something the animals of Australia would have nightmares about. The longest campaign I was ever a part of from my 3.0/3.5 days, about half of it took place in the 'underdark'.
The Darklands of Golarion are very interesting. There's some traditional stuff there (Drow and Duergar) and they're societies are given a little more info here, and even provides some interesting plot ideas for players interacting with these races, and reminding us why they're so terrible.
I really, REALLY like the addition of more detailed information of species in the Darklands that actually have what some would consider a form of 'society'. Morlocks, Gugs and Intellect Devourers to name a few.
The addition of the Munavri is awesome to me. The Darklands have always been a desperate place, but the closest things we've had to a 'good' species down there are Svirfneblin, and they're more like 'leave us alone' not evil. I LOVE the albino, psychic, Darklands-sea-traversing swasbucklers! My only downside is they're way too good for play in some games, but I guess they have to be powerful to do what they do, where they do it! :)
I mentioned the Gug earlier, they and the Neothelid give the 'dark tapestry' love to the Darklands, and honestly, it's cool. The more detailed on how Neothelids are more than just big magic worms, and have a semblance of a hierarchy and society is really cool.
Finally, I love the emphasis on use of the Occult stuff. That's something I felt wasn't done as well before Pathfinder; including new concepts into an existing setting.
I'd love to see a Darklands focussed AP, or even an anniversary/updated Second Darkness!
We don't have enough of material like this! Golarion is a huge world, just the inner sea region alone shows us this, but when it comes to other regions, all we have is roughly a paper back book, and a few paragraphs on different regions.
Before this book that is. Distant Shores gives us a fair bit of information about other areas within Golarion, and some of which offer just as much broad flavor as the Inner Sea itself.
Aelyosos - My personal favorite. Heavy Mythological inspiration, with a touch of Mythic rules. Could make for a fantastic setting for a second Mythic adventure path, or even a module. The flavor of the realm really promotes diverse heroes whose personalities can clash, but at the end of the day, they fight for their home, and the lives of the common folk.
Anuli - This section offers some cool information about a very different society than many of the ones we're treated to in the Inner Sea, a kind of Matriarchal Theocracy, but something more.
Dhucharg - Something I've wanted, a Hobgoblin based area. Love the militaristic and regimented feeling this one offers. I also noticed that Samsaran are common(ish) there, a rare occurrence to even see them represented somewhere!
Ular Kel - I've always loved a good 'trade city', or a city where everyone is welcome, because the city belongs to 'no one'. Ular Kel feels very similar to a less chaotic Kaer Maga, lots of intrigue, and adventures to be had there.
The other regions/cities mentioned are all good, but I wanted to touch on the ones I loved the most.
The more we learn about the other regions on Golarion, the better, and this book offers a lot to digest.
The only downsides I really have with this book, is that it offers only a taste of the regions/cities described. Tian Xia had a whole book about this size, which offered quite a bit of info. Many of the ones I've mentioned here could have so much more!
Totally recommend it, books like this are why I keep up my "campaign setting" subscription!
