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Good stuff

4/5

I don't subscribe and will just pick up what interests me or to support the game I'm running. I really liked the caravan pack and have used that to great effect and options presented for various vehicles and steads seemed like a good match.

1. Cut-outs. I've never had to cut anything with the map-packs before so this was a first, but knew it going in. I used a model cutting board and exact-o knife for the most part, and a pair of scissors on the smaller pieces like the dogs.

2. I personnel like the flat mounts. The game I'm running (Castles & Crusades A-Series Assault on Blacktooth Ridge) has the players moving in caravan as guards. Some use mounts and I've mixed it up with Pawn mounts and WOTC token mounts. It's easier to use the flat tokens with the characters together. So this gives me more options for Calvary in the future.

3. The various animals are good variety. Gives me some options to throw weirdness into the game with a spider pulled chariot in battle, perhaps a caravan in the Darklands (Underdark or Cyclopean deeps for you WOTC and FGG gamers)pulled by lizards, or an Ogre riding a rhino.

4. Lots of wagon and chariot options. From fortune tellers, to farmers it's all there. Smaller versions of carts and the oxen give you some additional options for the game.

5. The boats are ok, but it looks like Paizo could have fit 2 rowboats on the single sheet. Not sure why they didn't as this was the product to add in cut lines and having more that one rowboat would come in handy for sea adventures and the abandon ship moment.

6. Snow/sled/sail stuff and Hang-gliders. Interesting stuff, along with the sled dogs, might have use later.

7. The steam/clockwork thing seems very specific, and of little use to me, but YMMV.

Overall: Good-stuff, and well worth it if you don't mind about 10 to 15 minutes of cutting. Recommend a few baggies for the mounts and animals. 4 Stars.


Not bad...

3/5

I'm running a Castles & Crusades game set in a home-brew of Ahirde and in the midst of the Adventure: Assault on Blacktooth Ridge. We don't have anyone flying yet, but I see it coming and figured I'd give these a try.

1. Comes in a small resealable baggie. You'll get 2 full flight stands, by the time I glued it, I realized (after looking at the picture that all the pars are used), oh-well.

2. Compared to the plastic in the invisible figure stands, this is much better. Slots all fit pretty nicely and had slight lean, as the tabs go past the bottoms of both figure holding areas, which is used for the other parts. My initial thoughts were that these will work well, until I went to disassemble and put in the baggies. The middle piece on one broke off at the base.

3. At this point, I simply used some Zzap and glued it all together. The broken piece is holding, but not sure if this will hold up to the antics of the gaming table. Certainly a tumble of the table will end these quickly.

Overall: Not bad - 3 stars due to the flimsiness. Would probably not buy again. I think Paizo should re-look at some other options using their pawn set-up and transparent plastic of the same consistency as their base (if possible).


Good fun

5/5

I've had these for a while and finally figured I'd post a review. I mostly run Castles & Crusades using my own homebrew setting and the Troll's default setting - Ahirde, along with their A-Series Modules (Assualt on Black Tooth Ridge, etc). C&C is my Fantasy Game of choice, and being OGL, I figured I'd give the Criticals (along with the fumble deck) Deck a try to see how it worked out. I run my game with a natural 20 being a critical and a natural 1 being a fumble. There is no confirming or threat. You roll it - it happens. In the past what this meant for a critical, was simply double damage (and for a fumble it meant you roll to see how much damage you do to yourself). Not very imaginative, but it got the job done. Well, this deck added a new dimension to the whole RPG experience for me and my players. Rather than simply double damage, now when a player or NPC rolls a Mr. Natural, the deck comes out and it becomes a fun event to see what will be drawn.

What Paizo has done is broken down each card into four differnt types of damage - Bludgeoning, Piercing, Slashing or Magic, based on what the character used to attack with. The one card I drew just now, interestingly enough, had Double damage for each type of damage but had additional effects such as Knockback, bleed, etc. The magic effect caused normal damage to the target but everyone adjecent to the target got hurt too. Anyway, pretty good stuff and everyone looks forward to drawing from the critical deck (and the fumble deck, especially when I as the CK roll a fumble for an NPC!).

As a C&C Player not all the stuff is applicable - Fortitude Saves, Conditions, etc. But those or easy to convert on the fly and haven't had any issues with theme in my games.

Anyway, well worth it for adding something bit different to your games.


Good Stuff

5/5

SO WHY DID YOU GET THIS:

Normally I use a 2 x 2 vinyl map, but after a brief stint overseas, all my gaming stuff is spread across the world or in storage waiting to get back to me. I had looked at the Game Mastery maps for some time, and figured as I didn’t know when I’d see my stuff again, and I had a Mutants & Masterminds game going on where the DM was using graph paper and we had minis, I took the plunge.

PROS: Wet & Dry Erase capable, along with in theory just about every other writing ink type thing you could possibly use means I don't have to worry about what I use to write on it with. (Although I have no intention of finding out whether Permanent marker does erase) It folds up rather nicely, which is makes it a tad bit easier to cart around than the bo-staff that is my vinyl mat. Two sided is nice with a decent color contrast. After it has been marked up with all the stuff from our M&M games, clean up is easy and I was presently surprised to see no echoes of old combat haunting the mat in the form of inerasable lines.

CONS: Really the only thing so far is that it takes a bit to lay flat, but I’ve got same problem with my vinyl mat. I do want to point out for you hex based fans, this is strictly squares, so forget about drawing that awesome battlefield in dry erase marker for your Classic BattleTech game. (Yeah, I know they’re going back to just ‘BattleTech’ but I like the sound of Classic BattleTech)

SO WHAT DO YOU THINK?
I highly recommend it - so get it, as it will help out your game. If you're a DM and you already have a map – get it anyway. You can always have that surprise encounter pre-‘mapped out for when the players throw you for a loop. If you’re a player get it anyway, and surprise your GM with how awesome it is, you never know, the GM might throw an action point/hero point/EXP bonus your way.


The Prequel to Clue

5/5

You've played the mystery detective game by Hasbro called Clue, since you were a kid. This time instead of discovering the killer, Paizo presents the opportunity to be the killer. You can read about them mechanics of the game elsewhere. All that being said, the game is big improvement in quality over Cheapass Games version. The varient options offered, like the spite tokens are pretty cool as well. The only thing, I would have liked to have seen would have been actually minis for the rest of the players verses pawns. We tend to use Hero clicks miniatures instead of pawns anyway with Mr. Fisk, aka 'The Kingpin' as Doctor Lucky as taking out that guy with the tight hat, seems more reasonable than poor old Dr. Lucky...


Gamemastery Combat Pad

5/5

SO WHY DID YOU GET THIS:

I wanted something to track initiative and keep it straight instead of using a piece of paper or writing it on the game mat, which tends to get messy

PROS: Wet & Dry Erase capable means I don't have to worry about what I use to write on it with and there are plenty of Magnets for NPCs, Monsters, and PCs. The product is sturdy (IMHO) and has space to write durations of spell effects, feats, etc.

CONS: I play both d20 & Palladium stuff. In my d20 games there is a lot less change of initiative, whereas in the Palladium games we roll every round. The magnets make it easy to change the order, but they are a bit small to grasp and the writing tends to get wiped off when I move them, which gets a little frustrating. I've run into the same issue as others mentioned below with size as more space to denote each round would be good.

SO WHAT DO YOU THINK?
I highly recommend it, the CONS are minor, and the PROs are huge, so yeah if I were you I'd get this, it will be a big help to your game.