Ragwaine's page

I thought this book sounded like a great tool for DM's and it turned out to be just that. You've got the NPC's, random NPC creation tables and 4 settlements to use in a crunch or to further develop yourself for use in your own campaign. So someone obviously thought the project through and came up with some value-added stuff to make it more than a book of npcs.

I really hoped for some "out there" and therefore "memorable" npcs but these characters seemed pretty stock to me (except Quig, she seemed like a lot of fun). They are definitely very usable but they didn't "pop" for me. The art for the npcs was very cartoonish and not my style at all, though I did like the settlement art a lot. Also many items priced at this level usually have no art or "free" art off the internet that doesn't totally match what's being talked about so it's definitely better than that.

All in all not a bad product, just don't expect to be overwhelmed with originality or a beautiful layout.

I liked most of these curses. Some of them were just standard and seemed well developed (mercurial, impatient) others I liked more like deliberate, hyperactive and ponderous). Mute is a tough one, I saw it done in another product but I like this one better although if anyone can understand the sign language (5th level power) then the curse pretty much goes away (other than times you need to yell out a warning or are in complete darkness etc...). The big difference is that the author gave ideas about how to make it playable.

I think renowned should have been divided into famous and infamous with different but similar powers/defects.

Some "scaling" suggestions would have been good for Dependent.

Feeble was strange they take more damage but heal faster. It sounds like it probably balances but would have maybe knocked it down to a d4 extra damage. This one is doesn't really work story wise for me, although it could be kind of funny if your character kept getting knocked out every time he got hit only to spring up again the next round (finishing his sentence) cast a spell then gets knocked out again.

Overall it was great. The format was very minimalist. But this guy (the author) sounds like someone I would really want in my game and maybe more importantly someone I would want to buy/read more stuff from.

I've just recently started purchasing PDF products because I'm hoping to publish something in the next couple months so I'm trying to get an idea of what's out there and what kind of quality stuff is being produced. So far I haven't been very impressed but this one was pretty good. Really I'm thinking more like 3.5 stars but why not err on the high side.

Formatting was fine, bookmarks good. Art was okay, most of it looked like uncopyrighted stuff taken from old mythology texts (which definitely fits the theme).

Curses - I had problems with most of these and would probably modify them for my campaign.

Mute and Drunkard - NPC only
Coward - too powerful - perception and Init used constantly, fear checks not so much - ALL my characters would take this if they could.
Echo - didn't make sense to me. I felt like it needed a lot more description. Can they repeat anything that was EVER said to them? That would be a record keeping nightmare.
Grotesque - seemed too weak. -5 to many skill checks for +5 to 1 check.
Unstable form - cool but too much record keeping (recalcing).
Wanderer - as someone else mentioned I would give it a duration. Plus not sure how to define "place you have visited". Is it a store, a house, a village, a country? Can you just not return to the places you actually stood or is it you can't return within 50 miles of a place you actually stood/slept/ate etc...
Illiterate and souless (especailly) were cool.

Mysteries. I liked these a lot more.
Clockwork - Incorporation needed more detail. Is there a recovery time - Is there prep time, material components? How long does it take? I mean you are replacing body parts here?
Wine - Not sure why raise dead was included in the spell list.
Snakes - seemed like a really cool idea but seemed under powered and more combat oriented. The visuals of a human making a bite attack or slithering like a snake really didn't work for me.
Moon - had cool powers
Loved - Old Gods (especially By My Name You Shall Call Me - very original and cool power), On Dark Wings, the fact that The Next Day includes modify memory.

Also thought the Summon Avatar feat was really cool.

So overall, definitely worth the price but missing some key details and some of it didn't work for me but you can't please everyone all the time.

Since True20 started with Blue Rose and Blue Rose had a "companion" book that added a lot to the arcane spell system I guess it makes sense that the True20 magic companion (this book) would cannibalize much of the Blue Rose Companion. But that doesn't mean I'm really all that happy about reading the same stuff.

Maybe I'm a stickler but I found some of the wording inconsistent in this book and since I'm using parts of it in a book I'm writing it was glaringly obvious. I think some of the powers are way over powered, others so specific that they are really only usable for narrator characters because many players would never choose to give up one of their slots for them.

But I got a bunch of cool ideas and it had many powers and feats that I didn't have to create. Loved the philosophies of magic and the more detailed description of supernatural item creation. So definitely worth it, especially if you have never seen the Blue Rose Companion.

Since True 20 is a multigenre system it's pretty hard to fill a book with things that will be useful for everyone. I play mostly fantasy and horror so a list of new modern weapons or devices is pretty much a waste of space for me but I realize it might some other gamers very happy. So maybe to make everyone happy a separate "Fantasy Expert's Handbook" or "Sci-Fi Expert's Handbook" could be released. But that's not what happened.

In the end this book had a bunch of stuff I wouldn't use but it also had some great stuff I would/will use. I thought the rules for creating Organizations were pure, true 20, perfection. I also loved all the extra skill challenges. Poison information was great. Some of the feats seemed to overlap a bit and became very confusing (along with the table that was supposed to help), but there were great new feats too.

Eagerly awaiting the arrival of my copy of the Adept's Handbook.

I received and read my copy over the last couple weeks. This edition DOES drop out the example settings that were originally included in the Companion.

True 20 rocks! It's so much simpler than 3.x d20 but it keeps many of the concepts so people familiar with 3.x can jump in fairly quickly. I don't really like the wealth setting for a fantasy setting (and that's usually what I play) and I also keep using experience points but other than that it's exactly what I'm looking for in a rpg.

I haven't tried 4th edition D&D yet but it sounds like Mr. Kenson was way ahead of the game and that they have taken many of his ideas for the newest version of "the world's most popular role playing game"

My only complaint about this book is that I think they should have spent some time and combined things like Powers and Feats into a single section instead of having them spread out throughout the book. Also some of the concepts seem to contradict each other a bit and maybe reuse wording for two different concepts.

I've been playing D&D for over 27 years. This book blows them all away. I like this better than the original Fiend Folio. The art is absolutely amazing, even (or maybe because) it's in black and white. The lore sections are a great addition to the normal format and should be a new standard. Also included with every monster are adventure seeds and a background written as an encounter with an adventurer famous in the Iron Kingdoms.

The prestige classes are also interesting and original. BUY THIS BOOK!