Mike Welham's page

(Review Caveat: I received a free copy of this book and was asked kindly to review it)

The book presents the gyregnomes, who are fascinated with all forms of technology and like to tinker with various technological items. Their standard racial traits fit this mold and feature a lot of flavorful abilities, including the ability (more of a compulsion) to work faster when creating tech--at the cost of potentially introducing a malfunction. The gyregnome write up includes a couple of nifty archetypes and new technological items, along with a sample enclave.

On the other side are the nature-preserving gremlins known as mogwai, who generally despise technology (except for the rare few who are shunned by the rest). These gremlins can purposefully introduce malfunctions as part of their racial abilities (speaking of which, the race is a build with 11 RP, making the mogwai technically an advanced race, but I'd personally be OK with making them a standard race). This race has nice anti-tech options in a new oracle mystery, gunslinger archetype, and spell. As with the gyregnome, the mogwai section features a sample warren.

The literal centerpiece of the PDF is the malfunction table, which covers 3 pages and has a lot of fun and weird effects. I really like the effect where the device blinks in and out of existence by the malfunctioning object's activator for the rest of his or her life. Even if you don't use the races in the book, the malfunction table makes it worthwhile, especially for a GM who wants to introduce wonky side effects for old/broken/misunderstood technology.

Since this is a "vs." book, I would side with the gnomes in this case. ;)

I ran The Hellknight's Feast twice at GenCon, and I was quite pleased with the amount of roleplaying opportunities the module afforded. The groups I ran this scenario for responded to the different NPC personalities they met during the social situations and enjoyed the combats that rounded out the scenario. Kudos to author Tom Phillips for devising the fun NPCs with whom the characters interacted, and for some truly creepy flavor when things turned sour.

I hope to run more PFS scenarios like this in the future!

The Entropy-infused creatures designed by Steve Russell evoke the old school "negative energy" quasi-elementals, and apply the theme in an interesting and nasty way as a set of new templates.

In 4 packed pages of material, you get the rules to make ash-, dust-, salt-, or vacuum-infused creatures to wreck havoc on your party. Additionally, you get a fully designed creature with the dust-infused template applied, complete with roleplaying tips and a fleshed-out encounter. Finally, the preview presents two new feats which can be applied to any burrowing creature.

The preview features the gorgeous cover art by Hugo Solis (slightly obscured by the "free preview" text, which I would expect), and a fantastic illustration by Grey Thornberry of the frightening dust-infused feirling.

There are a couple of nit-picky issues which should be picked up in final editing ("entorpy" in one place for example), but not enough to detract from the rating.

In conclusion, who doesn't like free previews, especially for something you can put into your game right away?

[Disclaimer: I contributed a template to this book]

This book provides a nice addition to any game and puts an interesting new spin on figurines of wondrous power.

This was marred by some clunky wording in spots, especially in the stats and lore section.

The Hero's Bastard, also known as the morekareth, presents some unusual challenges to the party, and gives the DM some nasty tricks to play. Is that spellcaster standing 50 feet away firing rays? The morekareth can use its "summon foe" ability to bring the spellcaster into melee. The morekareth also hampers healing within 120 feet of itself. With these abilities, the players will have to come up with some clever tactics to defeat the monster.

The morekareth has a well-realized motivation for existing and potentially tracking down someone in the party, and this is backed up by one of its signature abilities, Flesh of My Flesh, which allows the creature to consume a creature of its bloodline to gain more power.

For $2, you get a powerful foe (and an advanced version) that raises questions about heroism. It's not something you'll be able to reuse, but it could easily be the centerpiece of a mid-level campaign.

This is my favorite release from Rite Publishing so far. Not that my game will use all 101 feats presented, but there wasn't a clunker in the bunch. This product makes excellent use of the new Pathfinder Roleplaying Game rules and especially adds more depth to sorcerous bloodlines.

I only had a couple of quibbles--not enough to bring the rating down--for example, there were a couple of feats for negative energy channelers but not for positive energy channelers, and Wisdom is not an attribute I would have imagined for a fire-born sorcerer.

Overall, I felt like I got more than my money's worth, and I look forward to a companion book after the Advanced Players Guide hits the street.