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This is one of those products that has already been discussed to death so I'll focus on my general impressions instead of a deep analysis.

I was not originally sold on the idea of Path of War. Looking at it's predecessor, the Book of 9 Swords, the whole idea seemed too much like Vancian Martials which turned me off from the concept of a system of spells/maneuvers for mundane classes. I was even more put off by the idea of new, more powerful, classes eating up the niche of mundane martial classes.

So what sold me? Nothing actually. I have little experience with GMing these characters and classes so I'm still waiting for options that aren't just a feats for paizo martials to really get in on the action. What sold me on actually purchasing was that the classes are actually pretty fun to play, (I purchased the Stalker separately before buying the whole thing) and there are expansions on the horizon.

There are three classes. The Stalker which while annoyingly gets a ki pool at first level while the monk gets his at 4th is a fun class. Its kind of a ninja with maneuvers. There is the Warder who's most interesting class feature is a built in Combat Patrol effect giving it an aura of tanking. Then there's the Warlord, the most smack happy of the trio who probably has the most proactive means of regaining maneuvers. They are sweet classes although I'm not too in favor of the Stalker getting a Ki pool and maneuvers but it has about the same accuracy of a Rogue so I guess that knocks him down a peg.

We also get some new feats. Some of the feats are pretty game changing, like the generic dex to damage feat. People will take it even if they don't touch the classes or maneuvers in the book.

The maneuver system itself is less cumbersome than I imagined. Sure I was upset that maneuvers are per encounter abilities at their default but the Inquisitor class forced me to define what the beginning and end of combat was so it didn't hurt that much. There are some weird ones that lock you into some skills if you want to dedicate yourself to using it effectively but the maneuvers functioned well enough and didn't feel completely like spells of another name. Also combined with the new classes they aren't all that powerful, especially if you already strive to buff your martials with other third party things, and really especially since they can't really rely on anything that martials use for power. In the end they do more stuff and less damage, or at least that's how I've been building them. Don't hinge on ALL the maneuvers to make logical sense though. You can explain them away in the same way you can explain how a guy can practice martial arts so hard he shoots lasers from his hands so some points aren't for everyone but it's not an awkwardness that can't be overcome with rule of cool.

The prestige classes are, I didn't read them.

There are a series of feats for other martials to have up to six levels of maneuvers at the cost of up to six feats. Fair but I don't feel like this exactly helps other martials come up to par in versatility and just converts them to a state that's still less valuable than either not taking maneuvers at all or just taking a maneuver class. That said taking one or two of the feats is worth it for the stances.

I forgot, the Maneuvers are divided into different schools of fighting which is my favorite part of them. Each style is distinct and interesting giving a lot of flavor for what kind of maneuvers you're doing.

Overall I'll give this five stars. I felt awkward about it at the start and I refused to leave normal martials in the dust but I liked my play experiences and it flows pretty well.

This book starts off by introducing some new uses for skills and I don't care. New skill uses are cool and all but none of the new skill uses do anything I wasn't already doing only with different numbers and skills (for example to analyze an opponent's Prowess I've used knowledge checks instead of Sense Motive) so the thankfully short section is useless to me.

But now we get into some feats. Some unfortunately interact with some of the new skill uses but there are some pretty neat gems in here. Unfortunately there are also feats that allow you to do things that I already allow skills to do. I feel the need to pick a good half of these feats out as things I want in my games but after that I just don't like a significant portions of this book. I also feel like it offers less given that some other products I have cover some similar territory making some of this book redundant but I won't hold that against it leaving me at three stars. This has it's uses and I'm sure it will be more useful to someone out there, but there are too many quirks against it for me to find it particularly useful. Personally I took what I wanted in my games out of it and dumped the rest.

I didn't like it.

This book introduces Skill Talents. Skill Talents are pseudo-feats that can be purchased with skill ranks. They generally have to do with a knowledge check and have some mild effect. The idea is interesting although a bit flawed in execution. The talents are all once a day effects that aren't really worth precious skill ranks and don't do anything that really help in a real way. I got this book in hopes that there would be more things to do with skills its been a dud product with weak options.

I'm giving it one star. I don't give these often so I feel like I should explain my criteria for one stars. This is something I don't feel like I can recommend or use or pick apart for scraps of crunch or see someone with different tastes enjoying it.

This book covers a pet peeve of mine, a new number to track. Once you start using this product a lot of things suddenly need a Psychology DC, which is kind of an AC for your brain. If you get annoyed at older Paizo modules where you have to calculate CMD or do some other kind of conversion you may have difficulties but luckily it's not that bad. Its just 10+HD+Wis. Now that your brain has AC the book introduces some new ways to attack the brain. most of these are skill checks to do things the game already does but with a new condition and in a more standardized fashion. In a few pages the book gives you a way to influence NPCs mentally in a mundane and fair way and also use it in combat. These rules are accidentily compatible with the sanity rules in Legendary Games Gothic Compendium and LPJ's Obsidian Apocalypse so you can also break someone's mind mundanely if you want to use sanity rules at the same time. Overall the pdf gives some neat rules to do mess with heads and have your head messed with, which is nice and all but what does that actually do for games? Well it gives Charisma a bit more combat purpose and the new condition effectively becomes a tanking effect that attracts attacks. And all without needing a feat chain just to flip someone off. So it's a solid product for three bucks.

But wait, theres more. You also get new archetypes, class options and feats that interact with the whole system, including mythic feats. For a pretty skinny book this has a bit of a punch. It's concise and gives some new options and despite my earlier pet peeve I see myself using this as precedent for a lot of game events and using it in my future games. But that pet peeve is still there and I know a lot of people that aren't that big on psychological stats like this, so while I'm giving this five stars it comes with a warning, if you aren't into things like what I described above you will mildly like or hate this book. If you are into things like that this book is mandatory for your games, it is simply the best way I've seen this played out and it works well with too many other psychological subsystems I have on my third party Pathfinder shelf.

Want to play an animal? Well this book will let you do it.

This comes with racial stats for around 70 different animals plus some special rules for how they work. They seem as balanced as you could possibly make a system where an elephant and a mouse can be in the same party, which is not very but it makes enough sense. Some of the species have their own mini-paragon class which can grant some universal monster rules and whatnot.

Then you get to how to handle animals in your basic classes, which is where the hilarity begins. Non-core classes don't get any support but the changes set kind of a precedent for how to handle further classes. Most of the time Craft is switched out for Survival as a class skill, they use runes instead of spellbooks and will use blood components instead of material components for spells. Also if you would gain an animal companion or familiar, you can instead get a Humanoid Companion or Humanoid Familiar. (I cant wait to play my Wizard Mr Peabody with his little boy familiar Sherman.) There is even a new base class where you can play a familiar yourself, and prestige classes including becoming a Rise of the Planet of the Apes intelligent ape.

This is followed by new skills and skill uses for animals and new feats. Then feat-like boons that can be bought with experience points (boo!) New spells, and rules on old ones, and some NPCs to work with.

Honestly this will be a blast for your goofiest players. Having animal PC rules on hand is incredibly useful. If you're into that thing. The rules themselves feel kind of dated with some weird terminology every now and then plus the boons being accessed by spending XP is terrible and outdated. The book opens a lot of possibilities and a lot of comedy and wonder but being kind of an old book it doesn't cover things like how a dog can use alchemist's extracts but it covers enough to be useful when the subject of 'Can I be a bear' comes up your options are open.

The Deed section sucks too much and the book itself despite being a resource that opens up so much potential it has dated language and a lot of tweaking needs to be done to get your animal up and working and some of it conflicts with more recent paizo rules, making me want to pass this book on three stars. Its useful for what it is but I wouldn't bet on just anyone liking it.

I didn't know what to expect here. I've felt the need to buy exactly one other product from LPJ Design, the Machinesmith, so I wasn't sure whether this book was mostly fluff or mostly crunch. For the most part its kind of both.

The first few chapters are the most coherent. We first get some detailed fluff that I skimmed because once I got the gist I didn't care. Not that the fluff throughout the book is bad but since it's kind of scattered and sometimes littered with pieces of crunch I kind of latch on to stuff in chunks. I don't think I'd use all the fluff in a game at once.

Then we get to some races. Some of the races feel like they retread some ground well traveled by paizo's products. There is an evil outsider race, a good/evil outsider race and a good outsider race plus some barely different core race traits. The remaining races range from obvious (Werewolf race/zombie race) to the bizarre (parasitic goo race)and overall all the races, even the retreaded ones feel useable for the purposes of a magical post apocalypse.

Then we get to the Feats and spells which are appropriate for the theme of the book. Nothing particularly useful, powerful or game changing but if you have goofy players that like to play up the tropes of the campaign these will be pretty useful.

After that the chapters fall into descriptions of sub apocalypses, each with it's own listing of hazards, feats, traits, fluff, subrules, templates and all kinds of stuff. The organization of having all these things all over the place is jarring feeling like several splat books bound together instead of one book covering these things. Expect for this book to be mostly for GMs because players are not going to navigate this thing, and why should they. These aren't options that you just throw at your players. These are options that players stumble upon and options you don't want to use all at once.

Chapter 10 brings up some boss monsters. Literally just final monsters to fight at the end of a campaign. Like CR 30+ kind of threats. They are followed by new monsters and a parade of everything that's not a monster that wants you dead in a magical post apocalypse.

Lastly there are tips on how to handle some Obsidian Apocalypse games.

This book was kind of hard to read. Throughout I had a hard time determining whether this was a hodgepodge of different ideas for different kinds of magical hell-holes or one single campaign setting. In the end I assumed it was the former because of how the crunch is organized. while I complain about the organization, once I decided on what was going on in this book the table of contents became the most helpful table of contents I've ever seen and it became easier to reference and digest. On a given campaign I probably use about 5% of this book. I have yet to play a post apocalyptic fantasy campaign but this is probably the first book I'd grab. Other than that it is kind of useful in bleaker horror and Victorian and steampunk campaigns. As I said above, no player has touched this book. This is the definition of a box of GM junk to throw at players and inspiration for homebrew games and for that its a pretty valuable book. I've certainly seen less dense books for a bigger price tag. I like combining it with Legendary Game's Gothic Compendium for my homebrew horror campaign. The only ground they both cover is Sanity rules so they feel like the compliment each other. This has more bang for your buck but ultimately more awkward to read so I'm giving this book 4 stars.

This book introduces Incantations. What are incantations? They are basically spells. Not any spell where you have to take a class and gain levels to cast it. Instead you have to spend time, money and make skill checks to perform a ritual to cast the spell. This means anyone can cast it if they do it right and the ritual and spell can get pretty elaborate. The hard copy describes how incantations work and has rules for how to design your own before moving on to sample incantations based on real world faiths.

These aren't the kind of things to just give to your players and let them run wild. This is the kind of thing that can be the center of mystical mysteries, the precedent for campaign ending schemes or weird magic found in dusty books at the bottom of a dungeon.

This product gives a concept and applies a lot of fluff and flavor to it but how much you value the concept is going to make or break it for you. Personally I think this is the kind of magic that can make entire campaigns and it is presented with detail, flavor and solid crunch so I'm giving it five stars and would insist that this is one of those 'must have' books. Even if you have Kobold Press' Deep Magic, which also introduces the exact same rules, this product is still valuable for the sample incantations you can put into your games.

This is probably the best book I barely use.

Why is it so good? Well before I reviewed another product that had more uses for skills and I loved it. This book has a similar effect by describing effects you get by combining skills multiplying skill uses, often with underused skills. Plus it applies the same logic to feats, spells, crafting and class features. Because the feats and skills chapters take up more room and product the most significant effects if you think that Feats and Skills are underpowered under the watch of spells then this book is a significant buff to classes that rely on feats and skills to do things.

So why do I barely use it? Well its a lot to keep track of. There are so many effects produced that not every party is willing to deal with the book, plus it encourages using the feats in the book making it difficult to introduce third party feats that could be interesting. In the end I wind up using it for the skill effects and as a basis for what happens when some things happen at the same time every now and then but for the most part this book collects dust.

This is a great book. Its well written, its well organized, the ideas are great and everything works but its ultimately impractical and makes the game more complex and cumbersome. If you can successfully implement it without doing that, let me know because I have yet to do so and it leaves me giving this three stars despite the feeling in the back of my skull that it's unfair. If you're like me and you want new and interesting options but not ones that all the players have to remember from now on, this is definitely not for you. Everyone who can successfully make this mandatory reading for you players without them complaining or asking every five minutes whether or not they can do something, this is one of the best purchases you can make.

This book made me feel dumb. There isn't much too it, because it's a simple concept. Give rules to terrain to make it more interesting, but that's why I feel stupid. This makes games amazing. Instead of monsters and traps over and over, make the environment interesting. Not just describing it but making it do stuff.

There is so much imagination stemming from this small product and its all things that come up too but it just gets ignored in favor of moving the game along. This one product will enrich your games immensely. If you don't have a similar product get this. You need it. Five stars.

This is a weird product. Its weird on a lot of levels too. Its weird that I can't play ponies in D&D despite it being a Hasbro property but the OGL somehow allows for this product, which bends over backwards to not violate copyright, to get ponies in Pathfinder. The weirdest part though is that by bending over backwards to avoid copyright problems this product does generate quite a bit of interesting lore to explain why the heck we're playing with ponies in the first place.

This book introduces a new ponykind race which is a kind of fey that get marks on their flanks that divine their destiny. They come in a ton of subraces, including Pegasi and Unicorns and robots (huh...). And they're not alone. there are goats, cats, griffons and a ton of fluff to explain all of this. Detailed are games Deities, and rules to put this all together. And we have crunch in the form of new familiars, spells, feats, magic items, and even archetypes and alternate rules to make a fully functioning magical pony campaign.

Look I know that the concept of ponies will drive people away. I had players walk right out the door when we decided to have a session of Ponyfinder. But if this setting was not inspired by a show about anthropomorphic pony cartoons for little girls this would be a vibrant, detailed and interesting feywild setting, and honestly it still is. And if your girlfriend is the type to buy My Little Pony tshirts and dolls (mine is) this the best Pathfinder product you will ever buy.

I'm giving this five stars. Ignoring brony and little girl pony stigma this is quite fey setting and gives you a lot of tools and ideas for your own adventures using the options inside.

This was a disappointing buy for me. Not because it's bad, it's not bad, I just expected more crunch in the form of equipment and vehicles. So curb your expectations as this product isn't a science fiction product, a genre more defined by technology and thus equipment and technology, this product is an outer space product, something totally different.

Inside you'll find new races, each which will definitely add some flavor and delight to your spacefaring games, two new classes which are deceptively varied and clever. You'll also find some new spells and a space suit vehicle and a few items, as well as really fun feats that represent mutations granted by a symbiotic entity inside of you. Gross.

However the more valuable sections are in the remainder of the book. Environmental rules for different alien landscapes, a few weird monsters to play with and a few adventures to start you off. All of these things, particularly the Alien landscapes chapter will inspire entire campaigns of worlds to visit.

Now if you're thinking of putting your Starfinders into outer space, this is not the only book you need to get. They still need some technology and transportation to get there in the first place. But this book will add a lot a lot of flavor and ideas when you get there especially if you want to get a bit weird and a lot fun. Despite my disappointment that this book didn't offer the tech and fluff that I craved it does grant a lot of tools to create fluff and creatures to wield tech so it does a miraculous job nonetheless, so I have no choice but to grant it five stars.

This is a fat 200+ page book that found itself on my shelf for a lot of reasons. Its a compilation of a lot of Rite Publishing material that has a lot of reviews with a lot of details so I don't have much new information or opinions to share.

The first three chapters are around three new base classes. The Divine Channeller, The Luckbringer and The Taskshaper. The Divine Channeler is the one that will probably give you the most bang for your buck. At it's core it's a cleric with more domains, more channeling and more domain spell slots at the cost of slower spell progression, fewer cleric spell slots, worse armor proficiencies and no spontaneous cure spells. It seems not that different but the more domains and more channeling fuel what the class brings with it, which is domain channeling. Most of the domains and subdomains in the game get some three degrees of effects that are used by spending a use of channel energy. They aren't that great compared to spells but can pull of a lot of fun effects that make domains very different from each other. The best part is that access comes by feats, meaning that it effects every other class that gets channel energy expanding the possibilities.

The Luckbringer is a concept that I hadn't seen before this product. There are a lot of kind of characters that can be made. Its pretty much a dice roll manipulator. There's also the Taskshaper, a shapeshifter class which is cool but I'm not that big of a fan because it has the potential to shift feats and skill ranks so much that it takes way too much book keeping to be an attractive class.

After the classes there are Tactical Archetypes. I have not had the chance to play with more than three but overall they are pretty interesting archetypes. It takes a lot of thought to use some of them but I guess that's the point.

Then there are chapters on options for Gunslingers, Inquisitors, Magi and Oracles. There are a few misses but almost all the options add to the game and open up new concepts that couldn't be done otherwise.

Then there are a ton of new combat maneuvers. I originally was not a fan because I didn't want a long list of new maneuvers bogging down the game but in general players don't use combat maneuvers unless they have the feat to make it not provoke AoOs so in the end the chapter wound up being a list of new combat feats to take that use CMB.

I was not a fan of the Oracle chapter for being boring or the Taskshaper for being a class that I'm sure will slow the game down if anyone ever wanted to play it, but as a whole this is a spectacular book with loads of things to play with. The domain channeling alone is a worth the price of admission for allowing so much to do with domains and subdomains and letting channelers define themselves more by their deity than clerics normally do. And there's so much more to do than that even. I'm rating it five stars. This has brought a lot of fun to the table and opened up new realms of play.

Well that sucked! Not the content, the content was great but why isn't it bigger?

we're introduced with dozens of herbs, each with one or more alchemical concoctions that can be crafted with them. There are also rules for foraging for them. A simple concept that allows many characters to perform alchemy and use herbs without having to have a class dedicated to it and makes mixing herbs and chemicals a bit more lore and flavor by having specific plants to gather for effects.

Its a great book and I'm giving it 5 stars but I almost feel like I should take it down to 4 stars for just not being that much. I need more herbs that do more things. This is the thing that adventures are made of. How classic is it that a hermit needs to make some potions but the herbs are off in some dangerous place full of monsters. I need legendary herbs and more dangerous herbs. It gives mundane characters something to find and craft without needing a caster around. That level of independence is priceless and flavorful but I fear that this doesn't go far enough. It just introduced new cool items and concepts and just stopped. I know there are more in Herbs of the Jungle but this concept needs to be broadened.

This book introduces several new forms of alchemical items. Which is a huge plus for me! with so many books with all kinds of magical items and spells regular ole alchemy gets left in the dust with very few alchemical items that are mainly useful until you hit mid levels. So what's in here?

Infusions; Injections that give a permament buff but comes at a risk. Infusions require a heal check from the applier to not mess it up and a fort save from the creature receiving the injection or else they suffer some con damage. Also each infusion has some sort of drawback relating to the benefit discouraging players from injecting themselves with everything like a drug addict.

Serums; Another kind of injection that is temporary and has stacking effects per dose but as they stack they gain increased drawbacks. There is even a serum injector that allows you to pull of a Bane from Batman.

Poisons; which work like normal poisons.

Wondrous Items; That can only be crafted with alchemy.

Now you have some late game applications for your alchemy crafting whether you take levels in Alchemist or not and I love it. Alchemy is often just a low level way for mundanes to deal with swarms but now you can go long and far with them. The effects go from mild buffs and immunities to injecting yourself with magical gamma rays and hulking out. I recommend this wholeheartedly to add some pazaz and wonder back into alchemy so I'm giving it five stars.

I took a chance on this product. I had a horror campaign coming up and wanted some tools to make it memorable. I'm not very familiar with Legendary Game's products and never felt the need for them but it was highly recommended so I picked up a hardcover.

So how did I feel? Mixed.

In all reality I could run a horror/gothic campaign without this but it also brings a number of tools to the table and I became more impressed with it the deeper I read. The spells and character options range from things I'll never take to things that are ultimately not that great but I'll take it because it is hilariously spooky. For the GM the rules for Grimoires, monsters, NPCs and the general advice are more than welcome.

Overall this book is about fun anf bringing your fluff to life when I came in expecting a few base classes and other options. So I was a bit disappointed. However as a DM it is much more useful although chapter 6 has a lot of rules that could have been organized differently. In the end I've recommended it on multiple occasions because it does handle quite a few ideas and made my horror campaign more lively so despite feeling a bet 'meh' on my first viewing it's usefulness is undeniable so I'm giving it 4 stars.

Lately I've reviewed a lot of Rite Publishing race books and this book follows a similar theme. Tons of fluff, most likely a paragon class and fairly balanced (tiefling balanced not human balanced) races and lots of addition options like feats.

The book details Gargoyles, Giants, Iron Born, Wyrds, Minotaurs and Restless Souls. The same thing can be said about them as my other race reviews. I love them and they allow me to bring in some new races to my games, however the Iron Born and Restless Souls stand out the most to me for different reasons.

The Iron Born push the boundries on how powerful a race should be allowed to be, not really because they have too powerful racial traits but because they're so varied. There are about 20 ability packages to choose from and a gunch of pretty good feats exclusive to them. This kind of makes them my absolute favorite and only construct race for not being pigeonholed into a corner and defined by their original intent rather than an arbitrary design they're all based on. Although I felt the need, when I used them, to discord the creator fluff and let the breed like Transformers since they seem to be living things.

Then there are the Restless Souls. They encompass so much about reanimated PCs that I don't even use them as a race. I just use the template as something to apply to players when they get resurrected. It has been one of the funnest and interesting additions to my games.

Besides those two the reast of their races do the job adequately enough. Well more than enough. Each one has a lot to work with and a ton of fluff to help you define them. You arent' just getting six races you're getting a ton of tools to bring the races to life inspiring incredible campaign settings. For that I'm giving this product five stars.

The Machinesmith is a fun class. Really all you need in a magi-tech artificer is right here and covers a lot of bases that I could think of and that I desired to play.

It does hit on a few pet peeves. It gains 'prototypes' of six levels that function like spells and it makes me have to explain why this class gets technology and others don't. Balance-wise it makes sense that a mechanic class only has technology that functions for itself the same way that a caster cant grant the ability to cast spells to someone else (wands and scrolls withstanding) but with Paizo's Technology guide it became easy to dismiss what the machinesmith does as personal magitech and leave it at that. There are some points in the font however where its hard to tell where a list of selectable options ends and a new class feature ends but that only required one double take. Also this class feels like it doesn't have a real place outside of campaign that uses high technology in general.

With my nitpicking out of the way, the class itself is balanced, fun and has a lot of options. Whatever you want out of an artificer this class has it. There are also some feats to support it, some archetypes a prestige class and spells that are also compatable with other spell lists.

If you got the print copy like I did you'll be surprised to see two extra goodies. There are the Fleshwraith and Host classes. The Fleshwraith is less machinesmith and more bioengineer. it seems to be missing it's hit die though but I assume it's a d8. The Host, also missing it's hit die, is a symbiote possessed class that gains eidolon evolutions as mutations from the creature living inside him.

Overall the product gives a lot of bang for the buck and the hit die and font problems aside it is my second favorite engineering class. Its easy to understand and varied in it's execution and a lot of fun to play so I'm giving it five stars.

There isn't much to say about this product. Its a bestiary with psionic creatures. Some of them are psionic versions of things that you already find in Paizo's bestiaries such as Aboleth and Brain Devourers, but also there are some unique and campaign inspiring ones. They each come with some useful fluff and lists arranging them by terrain, type and CR.

If I had a gripe I think the book is too short. There are a lot of potential critters that would have been done justice if this book was a lot bigger making for a huge psionic campaigns although that's just a nitpick reflecting my greed for psionic creatures. Honestly I think the real thing missing is a focus on Templates. The Marked Ones template helps a bit but having more templates would have effectively multiplied this book's value by the amount of creatures in every other bestiary.

Those complaints aside this book delivers what it promises and is bound to be used whenever I have any psioncs in my games, particularly some of the converted creatures that feel like they should have been psionic in the first place giving this book five stars.

Way of Ki is a relatively small pdf but it packs a major punch. The basics is that it adds a bunch of ki feats that spend ki to perform different things ranging from mundane bonuses to Street Fighter level stunts. The Monk can take them in place of bonus feats but there are alternate rules for allowing other classes to take them because there is a feat that grants a ki pool for those without one and even ki feats that add to spellcasting. Because Ki is such a limited resource I wound up making all the ki feats grant one ki point in addition to their own abilities but even without it the product gives a lot of things for ki to do, some of the chains give monks the kind of edge that they really need making this product essential for breathing more life and flavor to monks in your game or bringing ki to the forefront of campaigns where ki is important. This little pdf has a lot going for it without any hiccups or glitches so I'm giving it 5 stars and declaring it almost mandatory for games with monks. At this point I cannot make a monk without these feats.

Oh god. I wrote an incredibly long review that the site ate. Here's the short version.

Bottom-line, five stars. There are a lot of good archetypes, a good alternate class, and other options that inspire new characters for me and is well worth the price.

Some of the archetypes pull Cavalier from being a mundane class.

I'm wary of the Briar Knight because I see it's Tanglevine Strike as insanely powerful especially since he apparently gets armor that doesn't appear to give an armor check penalty or reduce speed and grants up to a +17 armor bonus but that's arguably powerful since it can't be enchanted.

I'm unsure as to what's going on with the Formation Rider's ability.

Other than that I saw no real glitches. Nothing terribly weak or overpowered. Granting it five stars.

This is a goofy book. But it is one of the most useful books I've ever bought and brings to the table things that you'd never think about but once you're use it you can't adventure without it.

There are rules for added flavor and ambiance to inns and taverns, lists for improvised weapons and hazards for bar room brawling. There are prices and rules for the most mundane of mundane items including kitchen sinks, and even the most mundane of magical items.(like an icebox)

There are new and better rules for intoxication, including stats for different drinks.

There are gambling rules, there are feats, there are new NPC classes and even a PC class that's kind of a Super-Commoner.

The best thing ever though is the wondrous and mundane food crafting. Do you know how often I see players including myself the take up Profession(chef) for no reason but flavor? Well now cooking matters! You can even make monstrous food and drink. One of the most important things to staying alive can now actually do things.

The main thing that this book does is make the mundane world of food drink and peasant folk come alive with flavor. If you want your games to have more flavor (in more than one way) then you need this book.

Five stars.

I feel like this book is kind of mandatory at this point. Even though a lot of players don't want to be bogged down with more rules to understand as a GM I use this book a lot to handle a lot of situations that that aren't detailed in the core rules, so players use the book whether they look at it or not which has made my games a lot better. This book makes skills more useful and thus more valuable which is something the game really needs.

You need this book if you want skills to get a buff. Five stars.

Like every other race product I buy Seedlings came from a need. I needed a plant race for a homebrew setting and picked up this book with hopes that I could deliver a satisfying race for the game. So how did this do?

Pretty good actually. The basics are there like Alternate traits and favored class options, plus the race itself is non disruptive and balanced. But this delivers in all kinds of ways. There is a TON of fluff, talking about their magic, technology and art. Even if I didn't use all of it, the fluff inspired a lot of my final write up and influenced my setting. Seriously the fluff is amazing and incredibly useful. There are racial archetypes, a prestige class, racial feats, racial equipment, deities, spells and even NPCs. This book gives you a lot to work with, from fluff to mechanics, and I loved it as opposed to the Ghoron race from the Inner Sea Bestiary. This is my go-to plant race right now. Five stars.

I picked up Bite Me!: Wereblooded after being a bit disappointed about the Skinwalker race from Blood of the Moon. I needed a werewolf race and I felt like Skinwalkers didn't quite do it for me. Partly because they were fairly conservative in power and had abilities that assumed that it was impossible for them to be normalized. They have sort of a place but felt more like the wessen from TV's Grimm than the werepeople I wanted.

So how did it fair in my campaign? Well after reading it I fell in love. There were two kinds of werefolk, a more conservative one and an outright monsterous one and enough alternate racial traits to make a variety of weredog/cat/bear. I was disappointed that weresharks didn't get in there but I just needed the were wolf-folk so I didn't think too much of it.

I didn't get to see too man players use it as they went almost all human or elf. (boring fools!) but this made for some interesting NPCs.

As of writing this review there are a few other Bite Me! pdfs that I don't have which seem to cover fluff archetypes and other things so I don't think I will peg this down for not invoking a lot of fluff and flavor. Its just the basic rules for making your were-people (plus an incantation to were-out) which makes it pretty bland but gets the job done for basic crunch. Four stars.

A while ago I wanted to run a japanese campaign that was populated by Henge-yokai and other japanese monster races. I was stuck refluffing Catfolk, Ratfolk and others as well as making new races with the race builder. Then I came across In the Company of Henge and decided to try my luck.

Like other Rite's race products it starts with a lot of fluff text before getting to the crunch. The fluff, as always, is very nice but the crunch is what sells it to me. Henge are kind of a multi-race. One race with numerous sub categories that represent what kind of animal-folk you are. They also have a list of shared traits. There is a small list of alternate racial trait that can trade some of these out.

The product also comes with favored class options, several archetypes, a paragon class and racial feats.

Now I had to switch out shapechanging for a bonus feat because my homebrew setting had no core races but henge have been a blast to use. The fluff is more useful that I gave it credit for above and really brings the race to life. As with other race products from Rite Publishing you get more than just a race a some options you get tools to make the race really scream it's flavor. In the Company of Henge is now a staple for my Japanese-themed homebrew and if you want to go Kaiden or any other Japanese setting I highly reccomend this. Five Stars.