 
Sign in to create or edit a product review. Beasts from the East is Legendary Games mini-bestiary in their Far East line of products. It is a beautifully illustrated and well detailed bestiary that doesn’t fall in the East=China/Japan trap. What’s inside?
-Flame Naga (CR5, NE): These large, red nagas have the head of an Eastern courtesan, as seen in the book’s cover. They have modest sorcerous abilities and a fire damage-dealing poison. They are often found near nagaji. They can be good as a low-level “boss” or as a crony of a more powerful evil naga. Kami, Neak Ta (CR8, NG): These cute, small kami with a proto-smiley wooden face protect their wards (normally small buildings) with their magical powers. While they can be on the player’s bad side if the group needs to destroy the Neak Ta’s ward for whatever reason, these cute outsiders work better as allies. Maybe the Neak Ta wants to leave its ward but can’t do it until an evil Oni or undead is destroyed, or maybe it is missing. -Kmoch Pray (CR11, NE): These evil, nightmarish intelligent plants have scythes for “arms” and have a caustic sap that damages those that strike it, and it can fling a blob of it. Interestingly, they can be harmed by positive energy, since they are animated by the dead of a mother and/or child. These guys are true monsters, most of the time solitary, but I can imagine a cult of evil druids forming around the tree (maybe with a penchant for acid spells?), maybe started by the spouse/father of the mother/child that died near the tree? -Kting Voar (CR4, N): This one is bullsh… No, this bull is the sh… Yeah, these animals have amazing, extraordinary natural abilities that represent how to make a cool, legendary animal without having to resort to magical beasts. Every druid is going to love this beasts, since they make for amazing animal companions AND crafting materials, since they horns have the qualities of adamantine. You can treat them like modern-day ivory, where it is questionable to have items made of it, but they are awesome. How about a Kting Voar cemetery? Druids would kill (oh, the irony) to go to a place like that! -Oni, Bakeneko (CR3, CE): I love Pathfinder Oni, but like many fiends they don’t make good adversaries for low level characters. Bakeneko fill that niche, being a cool tying of the traditional Japanese creatures with the Pathfinder race of fiends. Like most Oni, they have some magical abilities and can change shape, along with the awesome “Mark of Envy”. Unlike other Pathfinder Oni, Bakeneko aren’t tied with a humanoid race (sorry catfolk, no Oni version of you… for now). -Oni, Yeren (CR6, NE): Another intriguing Oni, these guy also aren’t tied to an existing humanoid race. Think of them as fiendish, thieving Bigfoots (or Bigfeet?) that, unlike other Oni, don’t dwell in cities and prefer natural sites, which they overexploit. Excellent opponents for druids, rangers and the like, since they are like parasites of nature but fight well in it. -Quyrua (CR6, N): Forget about stones or lakes, real heroes get their magical weapons from giant Galapagos-sized turtles! These turtles ooze potential (ninja levels optional). A paladin, samurai or other worthy hero could get so many quests from one of these intelligent turtles! -Srin Po (CR7, LE): These undead were nobles who died a shameful death. They get cool fear-inducing claw attack and a wisdom-damaging bite to lower those will saves, and they get more powerful when in presence of a fearful opponent. Of Note: The art, crunch and fluff galore! Wait, that’s most of the book, isn’t it? Yes! You see, there are two types of monster books. One that crams as much as possible in whatever pages it has, sometimes without depicting the monster, and one that devotes a whole page to each monster (like in the old days). This book, however, takes a radical approach of having A FULL PAGE MONSTER PICTURE! The art alone would be cool for tattoos or posters, but as intended it does the game master’s life easier by not making him show the picture while covering the stats, or having to take a photocopy or picture of the art. Anything Wrong?: There is some blank spaces in some entries. I would have loved encounter ideas and adventure seeds here. What cool things did this inspire?: That damned acid scythe tree gave an idea for a whole campaign! Imagine an evil ghoran kung fu druid (monk dip for the AC bonus LOL, if the players do why not the GM?), who leads a cult of evil druids venerating erosion, dies in a climactic battle with the PCs, and then the second in command recovers the ghorus seed. After regrouping, the new cult leader attacks the PCs, and in the middle of the fight he EATS the seed and transforms into a Kmoch Pray! What? The ghorus seed doesn’t work like that? I never let something as banal as rules get in the way of a nice adventure, and it looks like a videogame multi-stage boss. As did the Srin Po, but I won’t spoil my adventure seeds here. Do I recommend it?: Unlike the Treasury of the Orient, this one gets a little away from Japan/China and borrows from many Eastern cultures, so yeah, this one is a winner. Even with the blank space and the modest number of monsters, there is no filler “kung fu elves with funny hats” or the like, so I wholeheartedly recommend it. 5 demonic half-oni stars for this one! Treasury of the Orient is a collection of magical items with an Eastern theme by Legendary Games for Pathfinder, for use with the Jade Regent adventure path in mind but usable in any campaign with the right mood. What’s inside?
-1 Alchemical item, which is a red paste that makes you stink like a troglodyte for an hour. Nice inclusion in a magical item book! -2 Armors: Bestial Haramaki can store spells, but when one of the physical enhancement spells are stored, it gets a physical motif of the animal in question (bull hide, cat fur etc.), and gives the user the enhancement bonus of the spell continuously. Unraveling Silks is an awesome ceremonial armor that lets you change into a tangle of silken threads! This armor is just plain awesome and you can build an entire adventure around it (the legend of the moth vampire, here we go). -7 Weapons: The incredible Beheading Blade is a fantastic version of the Flying Guillotine (youtube it, it’s a movie and there’s an old and a new version, they are outrageously awesome), and it is more useful in the hand of a ki user. Biting Blade of the Ten-Thousand Blossoms is a garish pink holy katana that explodes into sakura blossoms when it crits. Bloodthirsty Blade, also called the Muramasa (again, google or wiki it for cool ideas), is a version of the infamous cursed berserker axe but in katana flavor; it is a really good interpretation of the legendary blades. Laughing Spirit Bow is kind of weird, since it makes incorporeal creatures hit by it to laugh (hence the name), which is cool; the spell this is based on, however, is a mind-affecting effect, so incorporeal undead wouldn’t be normally affected, but the bow doesn’t mention it; cool weapon but it should note if it affects undead or not. Ronin Blade grows in power the more opponents the wielder faces, which is very cool but I think it is too pricey since the max bonus is +4 and a +4 weapon costs… Not much more. Here I would have preferred the ability as a + ability, or reduce the cost since it is really circumstantial. Stalking Serpent is a cool-looking naga-headed flying blade, with some bonuses when making AoO. We finish the section with the iconic Typhoon Fan, which can create powerful winds to attack foes in a line. I would have loved to be able to spend ki or spell slots to create more powerful winds, or use the fan more often. -3 Rods: The Rod of Butterflies allow the user to appear old, or to change literally to another age category; the name comes from the other ability, however, which is summon a “harmless” butterfly swarm, which just hinders a target. I say “harmless” since trying to damage the butterflies can change you into one! The Rod of the Monkey King is awesome, as it should, since it can change from the size of a needle to the size of a weapon accord to the wielder size! The coolest ability of course is the traditional ability to elongate, adding to the user’s reach. Finally, the Rod of Shadow Puppetry lets you paralyze and the control foes! A few times per day only and again, I would like to be able to spend ki or spell slots to use it more often but one can only dream. -19 Wondrous Items: Since there are too many of these, I will mention the ones that I liked the most. Ghost food is an encounter gold-mine and a hilarious item to present to undead characters or characters with undead pets/cohorts what-have-you. It is missing its DC however, but I would use DC 13 because of the caster level. The Ink Set of Shifting is one of those items everybody has seen the effects of somewhere, but here you have it ready to be used in many adventures. Ki Capstan is a magical items FOR SHIPS, and needs to be imbued with ki points to function (really easy if you have Legndary Games’ The Way of Ki). Kimono of the Honored Ancestors let you commune with your linage spirits and has an awesome benefit for Samsarans. Koto of Ki Shards is one of those items inspired by wuxia, letting a performer unleash devastating sonic attacks, and the user can use his ki instead of the items charges! Noh Masks are similar to scrolls and potions in the sense that they come in many types and powers, and they have enough details to give an enterprising game master tons of encounter ideas. Papercraft Sheets let you origami anything you want, making objects as strong as mithral but lighter and weak to fire, and they can be further enhanced! Here I would have preferred this item as a Special Material instead. -3 Magical Teapots: This group of items basically let you cast specific spells and grant their powers to a group of individuals, excellent for starting adventures. -1 Powerful Item: The White Peacock Crown is variant Helm of Brilliance, but with more flavor and it doesn’t explode with fire damage. It is a reprint from the “Under Frozen Stars” adventure from the same product line, so if you are a collector like me, one less item, but one which took a column from an otherwise novel product. -1 Minor Artifact: The Lucky Mallet is a fairly weak melee weapon but with the powerful ability to create miracles. It includes a clause for destruction that can work very well to make an adventure around it, following the mallet around. Of Note: The extra benefits for ki users is very welcome especially for owners of the amazing The Way of Ki which lets most characters into the ki fun. Some items are weird in a good sense, since they are example of the sometimes not-so-mysterious-anymore Orient. Anything Wrong?: Beyond the minor bugs here and there, I could only complain about the repetition of the Crown, but I won’t. There are also too many items from Japanese and Chinese cultures and the Asian continent is so big I would have loved more Korean, Thai, Mongol and Hindu-inspired items. What cool things did this inspire?: I know I want to make an adventure around the Lucky Mallet’s destruction and the Ghost Food! Do I recommend it?: Yes, but only if you want to introduce exotic Eastern items. Some could work for other cultures but a couple are too Oriental. I would give 3.5 or even 3 stars for such a niche product, but it does SAY in the title they are from the Orient and a couple are worthy adventure seeds, so I will settle for 4 ninja stars of the shinobi. The Primordial Dancer for Pathfinder is Interjection Games take on the Dancer class. Surprisingly, there have been many dancers in the history of D&D, from the Kingdoms of Kalamar 3.X base class (variant bards) to elven blade-dancers. There have been WAY MORE magical dancers in videogames, but most are just gimmicky classes, best among them being Mog’s unnamed class from Final Fantasy 3/6, which was kind of a Geomancer that summoned effects via elemental dances. Be it in tribute or just a coincidence, Primordial Dancers have this cool, Mog-y feeling that just plainly makes me smile. What’s inside?
-The Primordial Dancer base class: With a chassis weaker than a Bard’s (regular BAB, good Ref save), less skilled (4 skill points to spend on 14 class skills), and only proficient with simple weapon proficiencies and light armor, Dancers don’t look like a class to build a front-liner. They are also medium spontaneous spellcasters with access to part of the Druid spell list: Dancers can only cast Conjuration, Divination, Evocation and Transmutation spells. Their main power, however, comes from Dances. These are supernatural abilities activated by mystical dances. You start knowing two Dances and learn a couple more over you career, to the maximum of 9 Dances at 18th level. Unlike bardic performances, Dances have individual rounds of use, so you have to take extra care not to burn out your favorite Dance. They also have subtypes (cosmos, land, life, sea, sky, subterrane), and the system rewards specializing in a dance type with extra rounds of use to all dances of that type! All dances but Tangos have a passive ability and three active abilities unlocked over your career (1st, 6th and 12th level unlocks). Dances are very powerful and difficult to resist, having a DC of 10 plus class level plus Charisma modifier! Yeah, not half, full class level, and you can increase this via feats! At 1st level Dancers can only activate one dance at a time, but at 5th this increases to two dances, and 3 at 11th. They get From Sea to Mountain at 4th level which lets a Dancer to, once per day (and more times later), activate two abilities of two different dances you are performing with only one dance, which is strange since you can’t perform two dances at the same time until 5th level. They receive evasion and improved evasion a bit higher than other “swift” classes, and as a capstone they receive a pool of points to expend as “dance rounds” on their favored dance subtype. Finally, all races have the same favored class bonus: an extra round of one dance known. -2 Archetypes: Primalists lose one dance known at first level, are prohibited to learn the Rhythm of Life Dance, and lose the From Sea to Mountain ability; in exchange, they have one extra round of each known dance, plus the ability to create (not summon) a small elemental, upgrading over time to elder! This created elemental follows commands as a summoned creature and can learn one dance taught by its Primalist master. Weavers also lose From Sea to Mountain, but get the awesome ability to re-write creation, changing one energy “instance” to another by expending associated dances’ rounds. Think of this as a kind of metamagical effect that affects any association with that energy type! Suppose your pyrokineticist friend is feeling down because he got his ass kicked by a red dragon. No worries! Just spend 2 rounds of a sea dance and look as how his kinetic flames change color and do cold damage! At first they can affect only willing targets, chaining to unwilling later on (Will to save), and even ONGOING EFFECTS! This is an encounter goldmine waiting to happen! Finally Weavers can meta-element their own spells, which is cool and all but the previous ability just stole this abilities capstone’s thunder (hehe). -13 Feats: Most of the dances pertain a specific dance, while a few are a bit more open, like increasing DC of one subtype of Dances, increase the range of Tangos, or get more rounds of a particular Dance per day. Believe me you will suffer with your feat choices! -36 Dances: Each subtype of Dance has exactly 6 Dances, and 1 of these are special Dances called Tangos, which benefit an ally that is within 10 feet when the dance starts, and that ally remains your dance partner for as long as you dance and the ally is within 30 feet. To give an idea of the power of the Dancer’s namesake ability, I will cover two normal dances and 1 Tango of different elements. Beat of the Deep lets you emit Obscuring Mist at increasing range, and later this is treated as Solid Fog. This fog you emit doesn’t impede your vision. As active abilities, you can extinguish all non-magical light sources in your fog’s range, later becoming magical darkness; later you can double the dance’s radius by spending another round, and this dance culminating ability lets you, for two dance rounds, to deal your class level in fire damage (Fortitude negates), gaining a few temporary hit points as part of the deal. Cantering of the Medicine Man gives you fast healing starting at 1, and finishing at 4. As active abilities, you can share this fast healing to allies within 10 feet; later you can spend 1 round to augment this fast healing for a single ally within 60 feet by d10 per point normally granted. This Dance capstone lets you heal ability damage or dispel an effect to one score, and lowering fatigue levels for two dance rounds. Now on the Tangos, the author specifies that all share the same passive text so he doesn’t have to repeat himself, but he DOES REPEAT the text in each Tango’s passive ability! No matter, Aquatic Tango’s active ability let you move your ally 5 feet for free without him provoking AoO, effectively letting you shimmy your ally into full attack range, for example (you do provoke AoO, but see next ability). Later you can ignore one or all AoO of your own movement, and finally, by spending two rounds on the final ability, your weapons (yours and your ally’s, that is) become frost weapons that also inflict non-stacking fatigue for one round (Fortitude to save). Your weapons remain frosty for the duration of your Tango. Of Note: The design decision to use another class’ spell list may seem lazy at first, but this way you save space on the spell list and it increases with each and every spells book you own. I would recommend Rite Publishing’s landscape-themed books of spells if you want to continue with the Geomancer’s theme. The Dances themselves are intriguing and I would like to see a Master of Forms archetype that can learn only one element and instead do Dance-like katas, or something around those lines. Anything wrong?: Beyond the glitches on the abilities mentioned and the embarrassing reprint of the passive text of the Tangos, there is nothing else to complain. I think we can “forgive” the author since everything is just plain awesome, even the mistake for the LOLs. What I want: To play one NOW? Unlike many other books by IG, I have little in the “want” list for this one. I WOULD love to have a small main spell list, with different dedicated spell lists tied to the subtypes, gaining a level worth of access for each dance of that subtype you know, so you would have to master all 6 dances to cast the higher levels spells, but that is something I can do on my own. I would also like the option to have a variant Dancer that has a Dance pool to fuel all dances, and learns them like a wizard, so a single Dancer could know all Dances and prepare a few of them, but then again that’s just personal preference and something I can do myself. What cool things did this inspire?: A type of fey, similar to veelas, dryads and nymphs, that master one subtype of dance. They could be mentors of PC Dancers and maybe know a unique Dance. Also, a Dragon with a Weaver cohort could be a nasty surprise to a prepared group of adventurers. Do I recommend it?: I felt a little blue when the author told me this one wasn’t one of his best sellers, since it’s plainly awesome! If you want a much more dynamic artsy PC beyond Bards, or you want to do the Moggle dance, do yourself and your group a favor and give Dancers a chance. 5 steps of the Dance of the Dead for this! The Onmyoji for Pathfinder is Interjection Games' take on a real-world concept, an old type of nature priest from Japan’s past. There have been many more Onmyoji in D&D that I can recall, but all of them were just either a cleric or a wizard with a funny hat. As with many other versions by IG, THIS Onmyoji is made from scratch, combining point-based casting, pet and temporary item creation to present something completely new, all stepped in Japanese flavor and tradition. What’s inside?
-The Onmyoji base class: With a chassis similar to a wizard (bad BAB, good Will save), but more skilled (4 skill points to spend on 14 class skills, of note being linguistics, 4 areas of knowledge, and even use magic device), and only a little over simple weapon proficiencies and only shields, we don’t have a front-liner. The Onmyoji has an interesting armor restriction where abilities are costlier if you don armor that you aren’t proficient in, so 1 level of fighter or something will let you cast in full armor sans penalties. Like clerics, Onmyoji derive class abilities from both wisdom and charisma, so this makes them neither SAD nor MAD. Onmyoji have three defining class features: Prayers, Petitions and Shikigami. Among their other assorted class features they get access to a couple of cycle-able wizard and cleric cantrips, and a Charisma-based Spirit pool to empower some basic abilities of their talismans, and their Petitions. Talismans can be thought as temporary magical items. The Onmyoji starts knowing two Prayers to place on the Talismans, and 1 more at 3rd and every two more levels (11 prayers at 19th level). Talismans can be made in two ways. O-fuda are placed and emanate power in a 10-foot radius, while Omamori are placed on 1 creature and only affect that creature. Onmyoji can place a number of Talismans equal to their class level plus their wisdom modifier. Petitions are the Onmyoji “spells”. They learn their first at 2nd level and learn another every two levels. Since they are granted abilities, the Onmyoji uses charisma as the casting stat. Each Petition has a Spirit point cost, but only a few have a level required and most scale with level. Shikigami are the “pets” of Onmyoji. They are kami bound to tiny origami paper constructs, so while they are treated as a construct, they are intelligent. As tiny creatures, they are not really combat able, but damn they are though. They work more like wizard familiars and even give the Onmyoji the ability a familiar of their form would grant. They can activate talismans (albeit a bit weaker) that count towards their master’s maximum, and they have their own spirit pool they can use to affect talismans it placed. -Favored Class Bonus: As always, these cover the core races plus a few others, and they give abilities beyond the old “extra something”. A lot of these enhance the Shikigami beyond a hit point or a skill point. You can get extra feats for it, give it hardness or even heal it a little for free after using a petition. Other bonuses interact in interesting ways with talismans and petitions, from making them tougher, deadlier or just plain meaner. -Feats: This section include 26 feats, in three categories: Onmyoji, Shikigami and Friendship. Onmyoji feats start with 4 “Aid” feats that improve their minor magical abilities, getting more cantrips and from more lists and a specific 1st level spell once per day from said list, improving to twice per day with another feat, which rewards specialization; this mini-feat chain culminates in one that interacts with a couple of “Gift” petitions tied to said “Aid” feats, reducing the Spirit point cost to 0 the first time you perform the petition. Then there are two feats that interact with one another, one giving you an extra petition and the other extra Spirit pool points, but you can’t get the later feat more than the former, demanding commitment (which is nice). Extra talisman prayers, reduced petition and a feat that basically gives your shikigami a bonus feat cost round up the Onmyoji feats. Now, Shikigami feats ARE NOT for the Onmyoji, but for the Shikigami itself to buy with its own feats: from getting magic item slots, to learning petition from its master, to being tougher physically and spiritually. It is nice to see the new pet getting this much love. Finally, Friendship feats are a collection of 7 feats that lets you be favored in the eyes of one of the 7 Lucky Gods of Japanese mythology. You can only take one, and all have a specific petition as a prerequisite. The powers are flavorful and varied, but some are more powerful than others. -33 Onmyoji Petitions: All of these are steeped in Japanese mythology and are so flavorful that after running an Onmyoji expect all wizards and clerics in such a campaign start retraining. Kami of the Morning Dew summons a creature composed of dew (seems to have been pulled straightly from a Ghibli movie!), that explodes and heals the recipient of the petition after it receives an attack or a minute passes, whichever comes first. Not only this ability is more tactical than say, Cure Wounds spells, it feels more immersive and magical. On the Spring Breeze could just be a Fly spell, but the Onmyoji surrounds the recipient in ethereal cherry blossoms that lift the target. It could be argued that a Fly spell could be flavored like that, but not all players and game masters are gifted at descriptions, and this could make new players feel the magic of fantasy roleplaying. -29 Talisman Prayers: Now these can come in two versions, Omamori and O-fuda, but not all of them have both. You can use Censured Warding to protect a place with continuous force damage, or maybe use the Foresight talisman to either give a substantial insight attack bonus to allies in range of the O-fuda, or the recipient of the Omamori a similar bonus, but huge. Of Note: Everything. That’s right, every single part of the class is just plain awesome, evocative and really captures the feeling of the Onmyoji. My favorite part are the talismans, since these temporary magical items are something no other class does! They can be attacked and destroyed, which create unique encounter possibilities (we have to destroy that thing!). Anything wrong?: The Onmyoji’s greatest strength might arguably be its only weakness. If you are in a campaign that is far away from fantasy Japan, or that doesn’t even have one, it could be a bit difficult to justify the existence of this class... But only a bit, since you can re-flavor the class as a fetish maker, witch doctor, or other practitioner of older folk magic. It wouldn’t be an easy task, but you HAVE that option in case you need it. What I want: Since this is a Japanese-flavored class, I would like more interaction with parts of that region that are already in the game… Mainly Kami and other Japanese monsters, but also Monks and divine casters. How can Spirit pool interact with Ki? Granted powers? Finally, I can’t complain with support for the class itself, since it is going to be part of Strange Magic 2 and there is already a short follow-up with two archetypes. What cool things did this inspire?: If you have ever seen the movie Onmyoji and its sequel, Onmyoji 2, you WILL want to play an Onmyoji, maybe of the Kitsune race, that’s part of the court. I was also going to run a Japanese-themes campaign with dark tones using the Kaidan campaign setting, which is almost out by another awesome company, Rite Publishing, who by the way have their own Onmyoji archetype for wizards, but this one mops the floor with that one. Do I recommend it?: If you are tired of Vancian magic and it’s squalid presentation with 0 flavor text or descriptions, and if you want a tactically compelling caster that requires more from you than just reading an on-line guide on how to “win” at Pathfinder, I fully recommend this little great book. I offer 5 elemental star-shaped magatamas! I just wrote a review for The Assassin by IG. This cheap, short expansion is just 3 pages long, but it contains a 4th cold technique tree that, while not undispensable from the original, expands the character concepts you can build. A couple of techniques come from the "contacts" mini-tree, starting with a choice from alchemist, blacksmith, beggar, that sort of things. The more Integration techniques you learn, the more contacts you get. (maximum of 4). With a follow-up you can make your contacts move to another part of the city, and with the highest ability you make it a kind of cohort that is also an assassin with exactly the opposite technique trees you have (the 2 cold and the 2 hot you didn't choose at 1st level). Another mini tree is the Mark. The first technique give you extra Technique points against the target of your mark, and the follow-up lets you keep a memento of the victim that prevents them to be raisen as undead or from the dead, giving IG assassins the one cool ability of the core PrC. Other abilities get you accostumed to gore, fear and even poison. All in all an interesting technique tree (weren't this categories? I prefer tree by the way) for just a meager dollar. If you already bought the assassin and read it, you will know how cool it is and you will want this book, so shell out that dollar already! The Animist is a martial base class for the Pathfinder RPG by Interjection Games. It gets its powers from the communion with animal spirits. It uses a mixture of mechanics similar to pact magic and Incarnum. What’s inside?
The Animist base class: A full bab, good will save, 4 skill points per level class with proficiency in simple weapons plus some others, light armor and shields, who derives its powers from communing with the animals, called “Animism”. Apart from the main ability, animists can change their unused minor Aspects (more on this below) a couple of times per day, and as a capstone they gain a wildcard major aspect slot. Animism is divided in Major and Minor aspects and slots. 3 major and 3 minor Aspects are learnt at first level, but you learn one that you meet the requirements for at every level. You prepare a few from the ones you know, similar to wizard preparing his spells, but instead of studying a spellbook you do a kind of ritual where you paint yourself; unlike wizard, you can opt to not bath and keep the same abilities for the next day, and apart from stinking your ability uses refresh after eight hours of resting. However, what makes this class awesome is that you can stack Major slots into one aspect, called “Prominence” (starting at two but increasing up to five), and gain greater communion and thus bigger, better and sometimes new abilities to make up for the loss of the Major slots; of course, you can change the aspects you commune with each day. Do you specialize in one aspect? Or do you prefer versatility while looking like a freak even in a fantasy context? The closest among Paizo classes to this would be the medium. Aaaaaand… that’s it, really, a “simple” class by Interjection Games with exactly 1 class feature (well, 3 if you count the once mentioned before), which makes for incredible ease of play but rewarding, interesting and unique at the same time. -Favored Class bonuses: This include core plus some others, and add new aspects, higher DCs, interaction bonuses and some others, all fitting and flavorful for the race in question. -Feats: 4 of these, gaining new aspects, more uses of Minor aspects, and juggling with the Prominence of the aspects. And finally, we have one feat that lets you dabble in one of IG base systems, of course the system being Animism! -Two archetypes: Tatooists lose the ability to change their Minor aspects a couple of time per day for “pigments”, which are meta effects that last for a week, but you can’t change the pigmented aspect for that time. While very cool, this archetype is a must if you just want to dip, since you get a first level ability in exchange for a fifth level one, effectively gaining something for nothing for the first four levels of progression. Verdant Heralds are forced masters of versatility since you can have an aspect have a higher Prominence than two; Instead, they get an Equality pool at fifth level that can wildcard uses of Minor aspects you prepared, or pay more to use any Minor aspect you KNOW. Another archetype for dips, since you gain the pool at fifth but can’t have a Prominence higher than two before seventh. Don’t get me wrong, the archetypes are very cool and I’m just nitpicking. -Aspects: 21 Major aspects (plus one more in the free expansion) and 30 Minor ones (three more in the expansion) make for a very varied list of abilities at the Animist disposal. We start with the Major aspects that each take almost half a page! I will cover one Major and three Minor aspects to give the idea of what to expect: The Scorpion aspect makes you chitinous, and fuses your fingers into pincers that are treated like secondary natural attacks but give you penalty to Dex checks. The pincers ignore natural armor up to the number of slots you devote to the Scorpion aspect. At two slots your pincers can deflect attacks, which is an opposed roll with a bonus equal to your Prominence. I’m not really a fan of opposed rolls but you can just rule you get a stacking deflection bonus to AC equal to Prominence. At three slots you treat your pincers as a primary natural attack (normally they are secondary). At four lots you get special combat manoeuvers to crush an arm or a leg (or similar appendage), impeding movement or inflicting penalties to attacks. Finally, at 5 slots you grow a poisonous stinger as a primary natural attack. The Bloodhound gives you scent, the Chameleon lets you cast Vanish as a spell-like ability a few times per day, and the Cornucopia lets you speak in Tongues, as the spell, with natural beings. Of Note: For an Interjection Games class this one is easy to grasp, and it gives players who like martials the versatility of a casting class. The variety of the aspects is also very nice, enough for many kind of builds. It is also very good for game masters who want to create monstrous humanoids, fey or even outsiders on the fly by just giving them effective Animist levels and just rule they can’t change aspects. Anything wrong?: If I want to be an ass, I can with the right aspect ROFL! Kidding aside, the only thing I dislike beyond what I mention under archetypes is the "Prominence each" ability’s NAME. What I want?: More aspects of course, and more support. Why not a prestige class that “theurges” herbalism with animism? It would rock! Maybe aspects that let the Animist dabble in one of the other IG systems. Death for the assassin, Sun and Moon for antipodism, the elements themselves for the Master of Forms, etc. What cool things did this inspire?: Sometimes cliché is good. A Drow who always slots Spider, Dwarf Mountain, Vishkanya Viper, Catfolk Lion, Flumph Jellyfish… Maybe an Ifrit with Decay, representing the rebirth of the phoenix. Beyond this, an alien Android who communes with an AI god to run “programs” learned from creatures native to “this strange planet” to adapt, changing the flavor of the class (an Int-based archetype perhaps?). Also, seasonal templates for fey based on the 4 seasons aspects, since fey have 4 courts in my campaign. Do I recommend it?: If you are old like me and liked Bravestarr, or maybe Incarnum Totemist, or even the manga/anime Terraformars, and was wondering how to play that in Pathfinder, this is the book for you. I offer 4 seasonal spirit stars, plus 1/2 for the rainy season, rounded up since there are no half stars here at Paizo. If you DO buy this book, get the expansion for free! The Assassin for Pathfinder is Interjection Games’ version of the assassin concept but in base class form. Assassins have been part of D&D for a long time, since there was a class back in the day of D&D (Read my trivia section at the end for more history). Roguish classes have always had it rough, even with all the improvements over the years. Even with classes like the slayer from the controversial Advanced Classes Guide, or the Prestige Class in the core, (which do the Ezio well enough) one needs to wonder why we have yet another assassin class. Well, the concept is so broad and previous executions so focused (limited really) that there is always room for more. And, if you have, or at least read about, the Master of Forms by the same company and the wonders of its system, it is used here but retooled as to better represent the class concept. What’s inside?
-The Assassin base class, who here has an unusual chassis: medium BAB, good Fort and Ref saves, d8 HD, but only 4 skill points. They get a broad enough class skill list, but you have to think what you are going to focus on to know what skills you want/need. They are proficient in light armors, simple weapons and a fitting assortment of martial and exotic weapons. Apart from this basics, Assassins get sneak attack at a reduced rate than rogues (up to +7d6), and evasion. This is all well but expected. Where this Assassin truly shines is in its novel, unique tricks. They get to chose 4 assassination techniques at first level, coming from 2 broad types called Hot and Cold, which are further subdivided into Categories, kind of “schools”. Assassins are trained in 2 of hot and 2 cold schools, but can learn and use techniques from other schools at certain levels, albeit executing them (hehe) at reduced efficacy. They also learn the basic universal techniques of assassination, getting some toys to function properly even if you screw up during character creation. All techniques’ DCs are based on Int by the way. Hot techniques are further divided in Acupressure, Execution, Initiation and Magehunting. They are the most similar to Master of Forms abilities, but instead of filling a Focus pool, opponents near the Assassin get their own Presence pool at 0, representing a kind of nervousness, dread and acknowledgement of their possible killer. This pool empties over time when out of the assassin’s range, based on his charisma. Cold techniques (divided into Infiltration, Intuition and Poison) are more traditional. They are fueled by a technique pool, but a lot are passive. Apart from active abilities, some are called lukewarm and can be fueled by either the presence pool of an opponent or the technique pool of an Assassin. There are also a couple techniques that don’t have a cost and passive and always active. -Favored Class Bonus: As always, these cover the core races plus a few others, and they give abilities like extra-speed, extra poison points, higher DC vs. specific foes, a free alchemical weapon attack with a specific technique, extra hp after executing powerful techniques correctly, etc. -Feats: This section include 19 feats. Many of them are specializations, with increased DCs, category-only pools, or increasing the spell stealing of magehunters. There are two techniques which lets you train others in the killing arts, although only for a short period of time, which is an awesome way to introduce the Assassin’s engine. -Assassin Technique Summary: This a list of the categories’ techniques. You will notice that there are a few that require a certain class level, but beyond that, you don’t really have to mind anything else when choosing. The techniques are followed by their Presence change and a short description of their effects. -Techniques: They are divided by category with 15 each (plus the Toxin Mixology base ability of the Poison Category), so if you add the 5 universal techniques you get a grand total of 111 different techniques! They are presented in a format similar to spells. After the name, the techniques mention if they are extraordinary or supernatural, followed by category, Pool compatibility (if they can be fueled by the technique pool), range, target, presence source, presence required, presence change, execution time, duration, and requirements (if any). Since there are tons of forms, I will cover one per category with no requirements at random. Reflex Trigger makes the target attack itself, Lacerate deals additional bleed damage, Steady Snipe increases your weapon’s range, Rattling Presence require target magic-users to succeed at concentration checks to cast high level spells with an extra cost to cast any spell, Kong Vault (actual name) lets you ignore some feet of difficult terrain per round, Anticipate makes the opponent provoke an attack of opportunity after targeting you with an attack or ability, and Bilious Edge transforms your poisoned blade into a magical and later aligned weapon. And these were only 7 random abilities available at first level! Just imagine the higher level abilities! Of Note: The customization. The sheer amount of options at character creation, from race, feats, skills and even ability score arrangement, plus the choice of 4 categories and 4 techniques will make it very difficult to have similar assassins, so even if two players want to play one no biggie. The categories themselves are cool (intuition and acupressure are so ninja), but of course the magehunting is the dopest thematically. Finally, the out-of-combat presence of the assassin denotes an improved design ability of the author from the last “momentum” class, the Master of Forms, who outside of combat is not that good (better than fighters but that’s not saying much). Finally the Presence pool feels videogame-y in the best possible sense, and I will use poker chips under my minis to denote presence pools of enemies (which would be a bar over the enemies heads in most cases). Anything wrong?: There skill points seem too low IMHO, but the fact that they need high Int to get the best DCs for their techniques mitigates this. The Poison category could use ranks in Craft (alchemy) instead of assassin levels, since this poison crafting is completely disconnected from standard rules. The name “categories” is too plain and it looks like a missed opportunity (traditions, schools, disciplines… some are taken but is better than “categories”), and in the technique entry they would look better (and save some space) as a school/subtype like spells do, for example: Rattling Presence (magehunting). Finally, the technique presentation sounds complex and looks worse on paper but are really easy once you play one or two combats; I think there may be a way to present the engine in a more player-friendly way. An example of this would be the pool compatibility and presence change for cold techniques, which by the way doesn’t interact with presence. Why not just a Technique pool cost entry that, if present along presence change, denotes a technique as “lukewarm”. This may seem like too much complaining but in fact, it’s quite the contrary. What I want: As always with IG, more support. In this case, I was hoping the feats would let other poor stealthy classes to dabble in assassination, but they will have to retrain I guess LOL. Apart from this, magical items that interact with the many categories would rock. Also some crossover, how does a Monk, Ninja or Master of Forms archetypes (or tricks, talents, ki powers etc.) with some acupressure and intuition? An alchemist with poison? Also the author can read minds since there is a 4th cold category for interaction (that’s what my other wish saw). What cool things did this inspire?: More than anything, this book inspired me to play a solo campaign, either as a player or gamemaster. While I have had games where all characters are ninjas or part of some sort of order, I think this class has enough oomph to do it, maybe increasing skill points and techniques per level. As a gamemaster, I have had the itch to make an adventure where the main enemy is an assassin, and I think IG’s assassin will be the one I chose. I want to see my player’s face when I describe how the guards start sweating, then trembling and suddenly the assassin strikes and delivers Tenchu to the poor blokes, and then the PCs start getting nervous themselves. Do I recommend it?: Fans of games like Tenchu, Shinobido or Assassin Creed, and maybe even Metal Gear, will feel in Disneyland with this bad boy. Even if I had several disagreements with the nomenclature or the rules presentation, IG takes a concept nearly as old as the game and makes it fresher than the Fresh Prince (lord I’m old). So, 5 deadly poisonus stars. Trivia: There have been assassins in D&D for a long time. Thieves themselves were not one of the first classes! After the first version of D&D, Thieves appeared in Supplement I (Greyhawk), and Assassins later in Supplement II (Blackmoor). Later on they were part of the core game in AD&D. Also for 1st edition, the Oriental Adventures book introduced the gestalt-y Ninja class, which let you play stealthy “Warriors”, “Wizards”, “Clerics” and extra-stealthy “Thieves” (I use quotation marks since these roles were called by another name in OA). Later for 2nd edition, Assassins (and Monks) didn’t appear as a base class until the dawn of that edition; they were, however, represented in the base Thief class via the “backstab” ability (which sucked), the base Ninja class found in the “Complete” series, and later as many “kits” (think archetypes). The best in this regard was the Holy Slayer kit in Arabian Adventures, which line included the Assassin Mountain boxed set, which rocked (try to get it even in electronic format, the fluff and art is amazing). In 3rd edition things got weird. Assassins became part rogues, part wizards (with spell book and all), as a Prestige Class, which later became a spontaneous caster in the 3.5 revision. There were many other base and prestige classes that stole the Death Attack of the Assassin Prestige Class. Finally, Pathfinder took out the nonsensical casting of the assassin and exchanged it for many flavorful abilities, my favorite being Angel of Death. After this, there have been many books trying to reinvent the wheel, but everything is from “kind of OK” to “very nice”, but nothing as awesome as this one. Now, on the Magehunting category. There was a Spellthief base class in 3.5 D&D whose main shtick echoes in IG assassin, but before that we had the Spell Slayer kit for wizards, coming again from the awesome Al-Qadim game line for 2nd edition, specifically from the Sha’ir’s Handbook. Spell Slayers were wizard who didn’t cast spells, and instead gained many spell-like and supernatural abilities to counter wizard, their main ability being spellslay, which was similar but way more powerful than the Rattling Presence magehunting technique. The spellslay ability prevented wizards (maybe all arcane magic?) to cast and, depending on the saving throw result, lasted from hours, to days, to weeks! This book is the awesome follow-up for The Master of Forms for Pathfinder by Interjection Games. It includes a fully supported 6th element (and kind of a 7th), pluse four archetypes. (even my review's title is the follow-up of the previus book's review's title) What’s inside?
-The Shadow Element: This 6th element for the master of forms is special. While the other five elements are described as the building blocks of the cosmos, the shadow would be what binds the others together. It includes a shadow stance that makes it easier to shift to other elemental stances. Like the other elements, shadow has 2 secret arts, one that wild cards 3 other elemental forms, and another that impedes supernatural powers (think pressure points). Finally, shadow has 16 forms to choose from (one more than the other 5 elements, who does he think he is?). Like in my past review, I will choose two at random. Imitation is an advanced form that requires the full four Focus points to use and it uses all 4; in exchange, you can activate any form that you meet the requirements for, even if you don’t know it. This form has a duration of one round, but you can perform an extra form (meaning you use the extra form to use the temporary one). Reckless Retaliation can be performed in response to an attack of opportunity, giving you damage reduction equal to half your level against it. If you are damaged anyway, the attacker provokes an attack of opportunity from you. -4 Archetypes: While not really missed from the original, more options are always good. Drifting Ones are masters that avoid focusing on one element. They in fact don’t gain stances, since repeated use of same element forms makes them lose focus. Instead, they get a Drifting Stance that comes into play after activating 3 forms but of different elements. They also can’t learn Secret Arts, since they can only be activated during an elemental stance. Instead of them, they get unique abilities that let them imitate or manipulate other elements, even able to enter a stance momentarily and at high level even perform any Secret Art once per day! They are not thematically compatible with the other archetypes, but you CAN be a drifting one and a Partisan and/or Unbalanced Master. Elemental Partisans focus on one of the 5 elements (not shadow) and eschew another specific element. Unlike Greek, they are not diametrically opposed to another element, instead following a kind of circle. They can’t learn forms or Secret Arts from their opposed element, which bars them from entering that element’s stance and activating its Secret Arts. To make up for the lost element, Partisans get access to three elemental forms unique to their specialization, upping the available forms to 18 per element (take that shadow!). Unbalanced Masters similarly specialize in one of the 6 elements (shadow gets some love). However, instead of locking out one element, they can’t access the most powerful forms of all the other elements (those that require -4 Focus change), and the +1 Focus change forms of other elements don’t work after having 2 Focus. In exchange, they get a pool of points equal to their level, which functions differently according to the elemental specialization. Earth, Fire and Cold (should have been Earth, Wind and Fire but oh well) can use these points to pay for the costs of their forms under certain circumstances, allowing them to get out the big guns without too much preparation. The other three elements can use their points for especial, thematically fitting abilities. The last archetype, Vessel of Darkness, can be considered a variant class since it changes the base class so much. They can be thought as specialist on Darkness, which would be the anti-element and they are kind of possessed by a dark being called an “Observer” from “Elsewhere” (both TM). They can’t learn standard forms, which bars them from entering Stances and thus activating Secret Arts. Instead of Secret Arts, they get a Gift from Elsewhere at 2nd, 7th and every 5 levels thereafter, which are strange darkness based abilities (17 in total). Choosing at random, Baleful Observation gives them a damaging gaze attack, while Fortified Vessel, a high level ability with another gift as prerequisite, gives the Vessel medium fortification. They get a Darkness/Escalation pool (it is called both ways in the text; I would use another name since I THINK they share a name with pools from another class by the same author) that is used by some of the forms that can be escalated. They also loose Purity of Body and Diamond Body in exchange for having their Observer exert some influence and giving more power to the Vessel, similar to an intelligent item. Walker in Darkness forms (shouldn’t it be vessel? The author sure juggles with his own creations) are similar to other elemental forms, but some have an escalation cost that is paid with the previously mention escalation pool. There are 25 darkness forms, which makes even shadow jealous. Again peering at random, Dust to Dust starts to disintegrate its target (!), dealing ongoing damage for 3 rounds, and 6 more when escalated under certain circumstances. Groin Shot (ROFL) staggers the target if he has external genital, but even if not, it can be staggered via escalation (kick that ooze's… no, not nuts, jellybeans?). Of Note: The addition of the shadow element may make some players crazy at character creation but is a welcome addition to the Master of Forms repertory. The archetypes make for very interesting player experiences, even when we have 2 specialist archetypes. The Vessel of Darkness is basically the antipaladin of the Master of Forms, a distorted, bizarre mirror image of sorts. Also, there are two character images that look from Al-Qadim books' artist Karl Waller, who is amazing, but I'm not really sure. Anything wrong?: The few erroneous names irk me because the rest of the book is so amazing, and the again, I don’t like the Vessel of Darkness name, especially since I use the Vessel class from Everyman Games. I ALSO don't like the names of the new elements, since they overlap with the Antipodism magic system (taking inspiration from Eastern elements, I will call them Ether and Void). Also, the feat Overflowing Elements from the last book, what type of damage does it do when in a shadow stand?. Apart from that, all is well. What I want: This is the kind of support I like. While magical items and monsters would be cool, there is enough material already to play. I would like some crossover action between Interjection Games classes, like an archetype for the Edgeblade that gives access to some forms, or the other way around. What cool things did this inspire?: Vessels can be the perfect boogieman in a wuxia campaign. You could also rule that Elsewhere Observers are actual outsiders, maybe Aeons, Psychopomps or even Sakhils! What about kami or genies with access to forms? Or better yet, reimagine genies to have 7 races based on the Master of Forms’ elements? Finally, in a full bender/wuxia campaign, using both specialist archetypes could work to make 5 npc’s that are each a master of one element, plus a drifting one secret master that abused the extra form feat to know many, many forms and with a high level ability to mimic any secret art, which could be roleplaying gold (oh noes! The fire master died and I’m his successors, but I went remedial on secret arts! Fret not, search for the legendary master of shadow who can teach you any secret art LOL) Do I recommend it?: If the base rules of the Master of Forms were reprinted, I would recommend it as a standalone jus for the Vessel of Darkness. However, if you are already shelling those 5.50 for the original, shell the 10 bucks for the whole package of martial arts goodness. I assure you you won’t regret it! The Master of Form for Pathfinder is Interjection Games take on “bending”, popularized by the Avatar cartoon. Beyond multiclassing or taking specific feat chains and archetypes for the monk, this was not really possible before, but we are talking about the monk here, who has a lot of problems. This offering changes that by stealing the best parts of the monk, flavoring it with elemental bending, and seasoning it with amazing design. What’s inside?
-The Master of Forms base class, who has a chassis similar to unchained monks: good BAB, Ref and Will saves, d10 HD and 4 skill points. They get a nice enough class skill list, with a couple of stand outs like Fly, Intimidate and Use Magic Device, the last being cool on a Charisma-dependent class. Apart from this, the Master of Forms steals the monk’s fu: they get the same unarmed damage and AC bonus, this last based on charisma; they also get similar weapon and armor proficiencies. They later get some other monk class features: Evasion, Slow Fall, Purity of Body, Diamond Body and Diamond Soul There’s where similarities end. Masters of Forms don’t have an alignment restriction. For class features, they get Forms, Stances, Deep Focus (the ability to perform a second form in the same round as a free action a couple of time per day), Secret Arts and Stance Savant as the capstone. Forms are their main feature. They are extraordinary or supernatural abilities with an elemental theme, further distancing the inner contemplation and mastery of the monk with the “be the world” philosophy of the Master. To empower their forms, they get a Focus pool which, unlike others like ki or arcana pools, begin empty at the start of combat and get filled in the heat of battle, with a hard maximum of 4 focus points. Each form require certain focus to function, and each form has a focus change that fills or empties the pool. This in-battle management is what make this class cool and a blessing for melee-ers who don’t want to go Vancian. All forms that require a save use the old formula of 10 + ½ class lvl + Cha modifier. The base class give you bonus, universal forms that give you enough oomph to prevent your character from sucking by choosing forms at random. Beyond these, you start with three elemental forms of your choice and get another at every level. The elements here are not standard: Earth, Fire, Ice, Lightning and Wind, with a sixth (shadow) if you have the expansion. If you perform 3 maneuvers of the same element within one minute, you automatically starts a Stance and stays in it until performing a different element’s form. The capstone, Stance Savant, gives the Master of Forms the stance of his favored element (the one he knows most forms of) as always active. This ability is on top of the normal stance, so the Master effectively is in two stances at once, but can’t be in the same stance twice so no stacking. Stances are a special kind of form that doesn’t require actions to work. Once active, they give their bonus to the Master of Forms. Don’t expect lame fire or acid resistance here: each element has very different ability, from bonus to speed to damage reduction to temporary focus. Secret Arts are special, powerful forms that have some special rules. They are the only form that can be started during a turn, and if they are not instantaneous, you can’t perform another form while the duration lasts. One Secret Art is gained at 5th level, with a new one gained every 4 levels thereafter. Each Secret Art can only be performed once per day per time chosen (yes, you can re-learn them to use them more frequently). There are two Secret Arts per element, so you have plenty to choose from. -Favored Class Bonus: As always, these cover the core races plus a few others, and they give abilities beyond the old “extra something”. Some of them depend on your current focus and give you an armor bonus, damage reduction or energy resistance. They will be useless outside combat, however. I also would have loved what the “genasi” races would have gotten. -Feats: This section include 4 feats. One that lets you use Deep Focus an extra one time per day, Extra Forms, Elemental Focus to increase the DC of one element and a little extra elemental damage when in a stance. -Forms Summary: This a list of all element’s forms. You will notice that there are a few that require a certain class level, but beyond that, you don’t really have to mind anything else when choosing. The form are followed by their focus change and a short description of their effects. -Forms: They are divided by element with 15 each, so if you add the 7 universal you get a grand total of 82 different forms! They are presented in a format similar to spells. After the name, the forms mention if they are extraordinary or supernatural, followed by Focus required, Focus change, duration, and requirement (if any). Since there are tons of forms, I will cover one per element with no requirements at random. Seismic Surge deals damage and trips at range, and leaves difficult terrain; Spark the Inferno changes one single attack’s damage to fire (nice against creatures vulnerable to fire), and you can expend extra focus to maximize it. Cumulative Exposure reduces all speeds of the target and it stacks. Streaking Strike makes a melee or thrown attack ignore damage reduction or hardness. Wow, just wow. And I chose at random! Of Note: Everything. You will want to play all kinds of Masters with this book and you will make kineticists and elementalist wizards/arcanists/oracles jealous. In particular, I liked lightning and wind the most, since they are the ones who share a “standard” element and feel really different. Anything wrong?: I don’t like the name LOL! I have always preferred one word class names, even if they are made-up like bloodrager. Just call them benders ;) Apart from this, I have always disliked the association of earth and acid in D&D/Pathfinder and here, where the author distances from tradition, would have been the perfect opportunity to rectify that. I mean, the feat that gives extra elemental damage uses slashing for air, why not bludgeoning for earth? Aaaaand, that’s it, one single part of a single feat I can homerule and the name. As always, I would have liked more support (basically feats, items, archetypes, monsters or templates that let players and gamem asters to dabble in the system), but maybe I was left spoiled by old books that introduced new systems like Psionics, Incarnum or Pact magic. What I want: More support for the class! Of course there is the expansion that introduce another element and archetypes, but I would like multi-element forms. Magma? Storm? Steam? Dust devils? I think that could make for at least a couple of nice forms! What cool things did this inspire?: Beyond clichés like dwarves who master earth and fire, I would like a catfolk or another fast race specialized in lightning, since it is the element who uses speed the best. Also, a friend wanted a fire genasi (ifrit in Pathfinder) who was an ice elementalist wizard. Well, I think it would work wonders with an ice master. Also, an elf or even a suli that dabbles in all elements is thematically fitting. As a game master, an Aeon, Asura , Manasaputra or Oni with Master levels or abilities as either a teacher or a foe for a PC with the same class. I would also love to play or game master a game where all characters are masters, maybe gestalting a bit or with variant multiclassing to further differentiate PCs. Do I recommend it?: If by any chance you like Avatar, Naruto, fighting games or high-fantasy wuxia movies, this book is a godsend. I offer full five deadly poisonous stars! And do yourself a favor, if you buy this, shell some more bucks for the sequel, it’s really worth it! Trivia: Among my favorite hobbies beyond role-playing is playing fighting games. It is very difficult to convey the excitement of games like Street Fighter in a tabletop game, and I have seen many attempts without success, except for this book! The same can be said for high-fantasy wuxia like The Storm Riders (do yourself a favor and look for some comics, or the first live-action movie), since they are high-octane action pieces that are difficult to portrait on tabletops. Again, look no further! Ultimate Antipodism for Pathfinder is a reimagining of the shadow magic system, from the old 3.5 book Tome of Magic (and maybe a prestige class in the old Tome of Battle, called the Shadow Sun Ninja), by Interjection Games. The original had amazing art and flavor plus enough support to stand on its own, but it was flawed mechanically. It includes all the content from two other class books (The Edgewalker and the Antipodist, plus the Mote Bringer), plus a 3rd class, the Edgeblade, and expanded content for the original two. Interjection games’ products are perfect for people who are bored of the same Vancian magic and spell lists, the same 3.5 sub-systems. What’s inside?
-The Antipodist base class, who are the “wizards” of the antipodism world. They are kinda like commoners (worse BAB, saves and skill points possible and only simple weapons proficiency, but nice skill list though and they can increase all saves later) with strange powers. They get access to two pools of energy, radiant and shadow, to empower their abilities, both equal to their class level but one adding wisdom modifier and the other intelligence. Their “spells” are called loci, but they can be extraordinary, supernatural or spell-like. They come in 3 broad types (light, dark and both), and are further divided into 9 philosophies (4 dark, 4 light and one both). There is an important distinction mentioning antipodists as philosophers, not spellcasters; while basically the same, they can’t take spellcaster-only feats or access prestige classes. Some loci don’t cost anything to activate, are passive, and always active. Powers that do have costs are active, require a specific type of action to activate, and use specific DC formulas that scale better than spells, since there are only four levels of power. The antipodist has a kind of in-class specialization called a philosophical leaning, where you can devote to radiance and almost double your light pool, loosing access to the 4 shadow philosophies. You can do the same for shadow, or you can devote to twilight, the most versatile of the three specs; this choice also dictates your capstone ability. Later on their careers, they get some other abilities. They get a kind of cantrip (more at higher levels), an active 1st level locus that costs 0 points but works at reduced power, and later can treat higher level loci in this way a few times per day. They can also increase one or both of their pools and get a save bonus, depending of the philosophical leaning. Finally they get an ability dictated by their most-studied philosophy, ranging from miss chance, to bonus hp, to extra pool points. The class finishes with favored class bonus for the core races plus some others. One thing of note is that, while the philosophies themselves are not tied to alignment, there is a lot of roleplaying potential in the Antipodist progression, like getting away from the light and embracing the darkness, and it is supported by the author! You could further this with the re-train rules but are not needed, and you could always surprise your friends when your pacifist healer suddenly throws a vile darkness attack! The Antipodist gets access to two archetypes. The Extremist is like a 4th philosophical leaning, one that embraces the difference between light and darkness and rejects twilight, and is barred from choosing twilight loci! They get a third pool, albeit empty, that has its own rules to fill and spend. The second archetypes is the Specialist Philosopher, whose choice of preferred philosophy dictates many of the normally versatile class features. In exchange for this narrower focus, they get extra loci from their specialty and a different capstone ability. Now on the loci themselves, they are tied to either light or darkness (some both), in theme and metaphorically, since they cover things like dreams, illusions, illumination of thought etc. The effects are so varied that you won’t miss arcane magic schools. As mentioned before, loci are divided in 9 philosophies with 4 levels of power. There are 6 1st level loci per philosophie, 5 2nd, and 4 3rd and 4th each, for a grand total of 171 loci! (19 per philosophy) -The Edgeblade base class, people of action and warrior philosophers. They are the “warriors” among the antipodism classes, and as such are the most combat able. Like the other two, Edgeblades get two pools to empower their abilities. Unlike the others, they get two empty residuum pools that are filled by using non-finisher waypoints (the powers of the class), but start emptying if no waypoints are used, to a minimum of a so-called stability score that starts at 1 but doesn’t go up by simple level up. This residuum points are used to power residuum abilities, which come in the by now familiar light/dark/twilight flavors and are either extraordinary or supernatural in nature. The Edgeblade starts with 1 of each, and while they learn more as they level up, they have to prepare exactly 3, one of each type, from among the ones they know (they can prepare 4 as a capstone). Some of this are passive abilities that give an incremental bonus based on the size of the residuum pool, while others are active and spend points from it. Since many of their abilities depend on wisdom and intelligence, Edgeblades receive an incremental insight bonus to both, for the purposes of calculating DCs only. They also get a bonus to their pools like the antipodist, and also bonus feats (they’re warriors after all). Now, waypoints are the powers of the class. Like loci, there are dark, light and twilight (meaning both light and dark) waypoints, but they are not divided by philosophies or levels, though some have level or other prerequisites. A total of 12 waypoints are learnt by Edgeblades during their careers (2 at 1st level, plus one every even level). At 5th, 10th and 15th levels they unlock greater waypoints, which are more powerful but otherwise are and function as waypoints. From 6th level on, when a single-classed Edgeblade would gain their first iterative attack, they can use a non-finisher waypoint in place of their first attack each round, or a finisher in lieu of all attacks of the round (important if the Edgeblade somehow got the pounce ability). We finish the base class section with favored class bonus for the core and some other races. Like antipodists, they receive two archetypes. Dawnblades focus on the light, losing access to darkness pool (though they almost double their radiant pool), darkness residuum pool and abilities, and the ability to learn dark waypoints. In exchange they get access to exclusive residuum abilities, their residuum pool doesn’t empty by itself, and they reduce the residuum cost payment of finishers by 1. Duskblades are the dark counterparts of Dawnblades, but focus on darkness instead. They aren’t just mirror copies, though; on top of all the mirroring, instead of cost-reduction they tie their residuum abilities with 4 phases of the moon (each with different abilities), which have a 1 in 5 chance to cycle to the next phase each round, giving the Duskblade a kind of chaos magic feel. -The Edgewalker base class, the shadow dancing, thieving monks of the antipodists. They have medium combat abilities, two good saves (supposedly) and 4 skill points per level (which would normally irk me, but they are infiltrators, not facemen). Like other roguish types, they get sneak attack (up to 7d6), evasion and uncanny dodge and later the improved versions of both, and hide in plain sight. They get the same radiant and shadow pools and access to waypoints and greater waypoints of the Edgeblade, sans residuum. As a capstone they can expend radiant points to empower dark waypoints and vice versa. We finish the base class section with favored class bonuses for the core races and some others. Like the Edgeblade, we have two specialist classes for Edgewalkers. Mote Bringers would be the light specialists, almost doubling their radiant pools and losing access to darkness-only waypoints. Their unique feature is the ability to craft a shawl made of light itself. As it is made of light, it gives penalties to Stealth checks but gives a small dodge bonus to AC, but the creator can deactivate it losing all bonus and the sole penalty. The shawl is infused with mote points, which power “Infusions”, magical abilities learned by the Mote Bringer. At the beginning of the day, the creator infuses the shawl with as many abilities as he can pay for. The Shadowfriend would be the darkness specialist. Instead of a versatile magical item, Shadowfriends are friends of their shadows! Lameness aside, this in game terms translates to having the shadowy remnants of yourself from an alternate dimension as your “pet”. They become dynamic allies, making for completely different playing and tactical experiences. -Feats: This section include 15 “antipode” feats, which is a way to denote them as antipode classes only. Edgeblades and Edgewalkers can get a first-level locus from the Antipodist, treating it as a waypoint with the Compatible Philosophies feat, and this becomes a mini-chain of feats. Other feats increase pools, residuum stability scores, give a bonus when alternating loci, among other things. No toys for other classes though. -Waypoint List: The original “antipode” magic before loci were introduced. These come in a format similar to spells, starting with the name, their types (Ex, Sp or Su, as well as Dark and/or Light and if it is a Finisher), followed by range, area, duration, cost, requirements and compatible classes noted before the effect. There are many different abilities available, from a simple dodge AC bonus to blasts of light, from a perception bonus to a shadow illusion that fools attackers into wasting their abilities, from a little sneak attack bonus to the ability to coat your weapons in liquid light. Most of the abilities are accompanied by awesome visuals, ripe to give descriptions that give the feeling you are in a fantasy world. Of Note: Having looked at tons of base class designs, it is easy to play it “safe” and just use what is there with maybe one or two “new” things, which is not a bad thing, as seen in the Occult Adventures book or other 3pp books like Path of Shadows (all classes but the kineticists are spellcasters). Not so with most if not all the material from Interjection Games. There is just this feeling that you are not in Kansas anymore, that you are playing with something really new, a feeling I got when playing 2nd edition psionicists, or 3rd edition warlocks and totemists. The best thing this book has is its novel design with compelling and intriguing design choices. Beyond that, the Edgeblade is my favorite of the base classes, even if you have to juggle with many concepts at once. Anything wrong?: The author must be a swimmer, because he surely like pools (…). Awful jokes aside, the Edgeblade alone has 4 pools to juggle. Also, leveling up can be a bit painful since there are so many options to choose from. Finally, while it is understandable, there is not a single character art, not even on the cover. I should be grateful I have this book, since after reading the individual parts’ reviews I was left salivating and I FINALLY could get a compilation at a good price, but at least one illustration on the cover would have been nice. There are many repetitions in the book, and I think this is a side effect of the book being a compilation with months between the designing of each individual part. I know Wizards and Paizo do it, but I don’t particularly like it. The worst offenders are in the archetype section, since normally you don’t see repetitions there, especially grating was the Mote Bringer, since it is the only archetype sporting a full class table progression, while all the others don’t. Why is it special? What does it have that the others not? Why do you love my brother more, mom? Er… The PDF lacks an index, which makes navigating it a pain in the donkey (I used two readers for easier navigation) and, as I mentioned, the editing suffers a bit from repetition. The book also retains a problem I mentioned when I first bought the book like a year ago: The Edgewalker is supposed to have TWO GOOD SAVES! It is still missing a good Reflex save. What I want: I would have liked some kind of nomenclature for the waypoints, something that made the creation of characters a bit easier (the players in my group are lazy). Maybe something as simple as passive, active, reactive, like the original Tome of Battle did, or maybe divide them into schools, akin to the antipodists’ philosophies. I would have liked the author to run with the all-bad-saves-but-with-bonuses-later feature of the Antipodist for at least the Edgeblade, it makes for further diversifying of “builds”. Also some way for other classes to dabble in antipodism; I mean, psionics do that, incarnum does that, why not antipodism? Maybe some archetypes for other classes like bards, sorcerers or oracles. Maybe some hybrid prestige classes that mingle antipodism and traditional magic. Also a couple of items, or monsters (light, dark and twilight monster template?). More support in general. What cool things did this inspire?: From the players’ side, I’m gonna make a twilight specialist Antipodist with a homebrew race called a “Rilmanar” (basically the neutral version of aasimar/tiefling, borrowing the name from the original true neutral outsider race of DnD), which doesn’t necessarily descend from Aeons; in my character’s case, he is the son of a reformed tiefling witch and a disheartened aasimar paladin. Also, a witchwolf (skinwalker variant) duskblade is thematically fitting. A dhampir shadowfriend is also intriguing, giving that vampires normally don’t have shadows and suddenly a vampire-descendant is friend with one LOL. From the game master side, I have been wanting to hack one of Paizo’s adventures, with different encounters, and the “end boss” of the Ruby Phoenix Tournament presents a pair of Wizards, one master of air and the other of earth but with some Monk levels. I’m gonna change them to a pair of Antipodists, one focused on light and the other on darkness but with Edgeblade levels (or hungry ghost Monk? Or GURU sin-eater from Akashic Mysteries). Finally, a type of Efreet sun soldiers with locus-like abilities instead of spell-like will be a perfect addition to my Return to Al-Qadim adventure (with Pathfinder rules). Do I recommend it?: Hell yeah! I bought the book after reading End’s review, and I don’t regret it. Even with the conservative, Paizo-like editing and the lack of art, this is a book that oozes awesome. As always from the publisher, don’t come expecting Paizo or Legendary Games level of art, and don’t come expecting yet another tasteless class which basically is a variant of another but with Vancian casting. With those two caveats in mind, I would grade the book with 4.5 morning stars, but since this website doesn’t support half, I will round up. The quality of the material and design deserves it. DISCLAIMER: This review is based on a free PDF provided by the author and the publisher, which in no way had an influence on the final score. Magitech Archetypes is a sci-fi/fantasy fusion-themed book by Legendary Games. As all books by the publisher, this one includes amazing layout and art, but they are not only beautiful; they are handy for players because of the many electronic links it includes, so you get a lot of information interconnected. What’s inside?
-7 archetypes: Astrologers are mesmerist who study the stars, and exchange many of their tricks for star-flavored abilities, even creating miniature satellites to attack their foes or travel to and survive in another planet! Delvers are wizards who are very at home in the underground and, in exchange for their arcane bond, get many abilities useful in dungeons and ruins, and can also summon some underground creatures (ending with neothelids!). Engram channelers are spiritualists that summon not a restless phantom, but the encoded memory of a dead being that presents as a hologram; a flavorful and very strong class hack that gets away from the undead and becomes closer to technology; Nanotech infusers are sorcerers who replace several bloodline powers for some abilities that derive from your nanites, without overspecializing on robots or technology; while this archetype doesn’t replace your bloodline, it does replace many bloodline powers and I wonder if it couldn’t have worked better as an aberrant bloodline, but to be fair, some of the abilities are so strong that they replace bloodline powers AND feats! Necrotech masters are vile, unliving (construct or undead only) kineticist that focus on the vilest portion of the new machine element mixed with void; these guys aren’t that player oriented, but work wonders for enemy NPCs; Penumbral arcanists focus on darkness and shadow, gaining access to many appropriate spells and to some exclusive exploits and at the end of their careers they can create darkness so powerful that not even true seeing can penetrate, and only those that can see inside magical darkness will be able to see you; finally, Robot fighters are rangers who specialize at hunting constructs, especially robots, losing many nature-themed ability for more appropriate abilities. -1 kineticist element: Machine, with a heavy focus on interacting with the technology rules, also work with metals and other constructs, with many abilities to enhance the user’s own body, and even others’! While many abilities work and interact with machines, I can see a technokineticist character built for campaigns without technology, robots and the like, but they shine and have wider options in games that include such. Later in the book we find an elemental saturation, a place of power, with a greater benefits on technokineticists. -7 Feats: 4 of them are available only to necrotech masters, 2 of them interact with technology and grant a weird telepathy/hacking ability to interact with computers. The final feat gives you the ability to spontaneously summon junk golems of increasing potency. It is worth noting that this last feat is open to technokineticist (they can even ignore prerequisites), but they can’t use it as is since they can’t cast spells. I suppose the summons could have a burn cost but I can only wonder (unless they multiclass). Of Note: Engram channelers are a roleplaying goldmine and a nice tool to have as a game master to give hints to the PCs. Robot fighters sound lame but are anything but, they are urban warrior that could work in steampunk campaigns. I was expecting lame bonuses to attack and damage, but believe me, these guys rock! Anything wrong?: The astrologer mesmerist archetype is cool, but the abilities don’t mesh well with the base class flavor; I would have preferred the archetype for wizards or psychics. Delver wizards and penumbral arcanists are cool and flavorful, but also don’t really scream “magitech” to me. These three feel sci-fi but not magitech, which is a shame in a book called “Magitech Archetypes”. Also, no magus? No occultists? No summoner? These three classes would have rocked in a magitech campaign with an appropriate archetype. Maybe for the sequel? (wink wink) What cool things did this inspire?: Necrotech master androids or, better yet, ghouls with class levels, could fuel an entire campaign of technofantasy horror. What about undead giants with class levels? Something like Attack on Titan meets Tetsuo? I would play/run that! I would also LOVE to play a samsaran engram channeler whose engram is his past life or past life’s love! (you seem strangely familiar). An android kinetic shinobi who uses the new element sounds too obvious but awesome at the same time. Also obvious but cool: a ghoran, elf or any sylvan race robot fighter in the same party as an android technokineticist would bring several roleplaying opportunities for intra-party interaction, or would be perfect as a good-aligned enemy for a techno-heavy party. Do I recommend it? Yes! I have yet to be disappointed by a LG’s book, but I must say the title of the book is a little misleading. I rate this book with 4 ½ stars, rounded down for plain blend-y, magitech campaigns but rounded up for sci-fi meets fantasy campaigns. DISCLAIMER: This review is based on a free PDF provided by the author and the publisher, which in no way had an influence on the final score. Legendary Kineticists II is a sequel for the critically acclaimed volume 1, by the same author and master of all things kinetics N.Jolly. What’s inside?
-8 archetypes: Bestial Kineticist for animal companions, which mean you artic druid can have a cold-breathing wolf, or a sky druid an air-blasting eagle etc. Metakinetic savants are kineticists who get different, more varied metakinesis ability, and a metakinetic buffer that has more points but are only usable for metakinetics. Nihilicists are weird, using the power of nothingness itself; their blasts dealing a new type of “nihil” damage; they lose any access to other elements and getting only universal talents, but are their own breed of awesome. Onslaught Blasters are multiple targeting kineticists, able to throw myriad of weaker blasts. Order of the scion is not really an archetype, but an order for the cavalier and samurai classes; they devote themselves to an element, gaining a minor blast ability, and enhance the power of certain powers and spells related to their element. Planar Custodians are druids whose devotion to an elemental plane becomes a blessing, in the form of kineticist abilities. Planestouched Oracles lose both their mystery and revelations in exchange for kineticist’s toys. Telekinetic bladeshifter are the true warriors among the kineticists, getting a full BAB and getting a normal Ref save; they control their blades with their mind! -6 general infusions: Two manipulate water-related blasts to dehydrate their targets, two other counter spells, one affects them with the masochistic shadow spell and one makes blasts ricochet. -13 wild talents: These include basic abilities for cold and electricity, while the others mostly focus beyond the basic 5 elements presented in OA. -11 Feats: some of them focus on multiclass kineticists, while others enhance archetype’s abilities. -4 Spells that interact with the burn mechanic, forcing it on targets, delaying its effects etc. -1 Prestige Class: Kinetic Mystic, a 10 level “theurge” class that mingles kinetics with either arcane or psychic spellcasting. -1 variant class: Legendary Kineticist sport many changes, but the biggest one is how burn affects the LK. They also get a special, temporary “battle burn” that instead of weakening the kineticist, weakens the ability it enhances. This class hack may sound too strong, but it is still ok when compared with what wizards or clerics can do. -1 variant multiclassing for the kineticist, perfect for Avatar-like campaigns where everybody who is somebody does the kinetics. -1 NPC: Trueno, Herald of the White Sky, an 8th level middle-aged female half-elf onslaught blaster legendary kineticist who focuses on wind and aether. Trueno has ties with Mindfang, another NPC from the previous Legendary Kineticists book. She is different in the sense that she LOOKS like she has been in some serious adventuring, sporting a missing arm and eye. As always with the author, the NPC can bestow a boon, but in this case it is a tad too strong for my tastes. Of Note: The nihilicist archtype is awesome in concept, while the non-kineticist archetypes and options are perfect introductions for the kineticist system. The NPC looks like a true adventurer, with scars and even missing body parts to show it. Anything wrong?: This book is not really about kineticists but about “kinetics”, their unique magic system. Many of the kineticists toys are used by many a class, which is good in my opinion. The only thing I’m missing is the class template for monsters. I would love an efreet fire kineticist, or a dryad wood kineticist… You get my drift. Also since there is an archetype for animal companions, why not familiars? Eidolons? Elemental eidolons with a kind of minor magic evolution but with kinetics. What cool things did this inspire?: A dhampir or tiefling nihilist is too obvious to not try one. A sylph telekinetic bladeshifter makes my wuxia boil. And man, I really want a dwarven planar custodian druid with an earth badger. Do I recommend it? If you really like the kineticist magic system, yes. If you just wanted more options for the kineticist, you might be disappointed. So, 4 stars if you wanted more Kineticist-only stuff, full five if you wanted more kinetics in your games. DISCLAIMER: This review is based on a free PDF provided by the author and the publisher, which in no way had an influence on the final score. Legendary Hybrids: Yakuza is Legendary Game’s hybrid for the Cavalier and Ninja classes. It includes a new base class with supporting material. What’s inside?
-Yakuza hybrid class: Yakuza get medium BAB and a d8 HD, with good Ref and Will saves and sporting a nice 6 skillpoints per level, with a vast enough class skill list to cover different roles. Their gang choice supposedly increases this, but no gang offers additional ones (not needed anyway). They get proficiency in all simple weapons and light armor, with a short list of martial and exotic weapons. Here I would have preferred the option for the game master or player to choose, or maybe that the weapons were dictated by their gang. They start getting access to new game tech, in the form of contacts from Ultimate Campaign, which may or may not be from the same gang. The choice of gang is similar to how cavaliers become members of an order, with the option of changing gangs which is, in the case of a criminal organization, much more dangerous. Also like cavaliers, Yakuza get free teamwork feats that they can share with their allies. From their ninja class parentage, they get a charisma-based ki pool but with different, more appropriate benefits; they also gain sneak attack a slower rate than ninjas. Later they get access to ninja tricks, which is a good decision instead of making their own list of poached class talents and also increasing the options for yakuzas for every other ninja class book available! Unique to the Yakuza, they treat “urban” as a ranger favored terrain; get tattoos which make them fearsome and fearless; are adept at dealing with black markets and get one of the new feats from this book for free; are better at flanking (which makes a lot of sense since they are going to deal with a lot of other classes with Uncanny Dodge); later, they become very good at using their ki to enhance poisons, drugs and alcohol. As master gamblers, they are better not only at that but at luck in general. As a cool capstone, age doesn’t affect them anymore and can even become “younger” using ki! -5 Yakuza Gangs,which are formatted in a similar manner to cavalier orders, having edicts, situational bonuses to sneak attacks (similar to challenge bonuses), situational bonuses to skills, and three specific abilities gained at 2nd, 8th and 15th levels. These include the Black Rain, information specialists adept at metaphorical backstabbing; the Blood Tong, “honorable” loansharks who are devilishly able at making deals, getting mystical abilities to ensure getting their end of the deal; the Dragon Lords, loyal as Hell (or Nirvana?) and better at fighting with their gang brothers/sisters; the Jade Triad, terrorists supreme and masters of intimidation; and the White Tigers, which are the only gang that have abilities with one theme (pack hunting, immobilizing) while having a completely different outlook (gang above all), which is not a bad thing in itself. -8 archetypes: the Absent Bansho is the solo Yakuza, who get the dual identity and other toys of vigilantes in exchange of all gang abilities, especially nice for adventurers. Flying Tigers are wuxia criminals who fight both unarmored and unarmed (well, mostly), getting many monkish abilities; this one is especially suited to characters who want to play a non-standard, un-sneaky, flashy criminal. Gun Runners fuel their poached gun-slinging abilities with ki, and lose their gang’s special techniques in favor of being better shots; sadly, they don’t get shot on the run for free (they are called Gun Runners after all). Junk Pirates are especially good at smuggling and fighting on board, and even gain a pet! This archetype changes a lot of the base class and sports one of the funniest names out there (junk being, you know, a type of old Asian vessel); Pack Rats are those funny rogues who have a pet trained for larceny; Serpent Chemists are the poisoners of the yakuza world, getting even mystical abilities to help them with making and administering drugs, poison and alcohol; Tatooed Ones get help from the magical tattoos they wear, getting the ability to summon illusionary allies, this one is cool but maybe too fantastic for some games. Triad Enforcers are strong at demoralizing, even denying morale bonuses and uses of resolve (a samurai ability), getting a resolve ability of their own. -Favored Class Bonuses for the Core and Featured races -3 Feats, including Black Market Dealings (you are able to buy more goods from a settlement when you get access to their underworld market), Mind Trick (which give charismatic characters an edge at finesse activities) and Overflowing Ki (perfect for any character with a Ki Pool). -1 NPC: Shinsuke Tatsu, an 8th level human tattooed yakuza. This fellow has ties to another NPC from the book Legendary Villains: Vigilantes, who is the murderer of his lover. One thing I really liked is that the sex of the lover is left vague and Japanese names can sometimes be given to both sexes, so if you are OK with gay relationships in your games, you can go that route. If not, simply rule that the lover was female and end of the story. Unlike some other NPCs in the series, you can use Shinsuke just as he is as an emergency PC, story an all, since he has a reason to adventure! Of Note: Wow, what is there not to like? All the gangs and archetypes are really flavorful and present many opportunities to play criminals. My favorite archetype being the Flying Tiger, Tatooed One and Triad Enforcer. They are just plain cool! Anything wrong?: While I appreciate the Pack Rat, it is the weakest archetype, specially next to the Junk Pirate since both get a pet. It is, however, not a bad archetype. Also, as I mentioned under the class entry, the weapon proficiency is a missed opportunity. Finally, I would have appreciated an archetype that changed your ki pool for panache, grit or luck, especially for non-Asian campaigns. Maybe more archetype for other classes belonging to gangs, but that is beyond the scope of a brand-new class’ book. What cool things did this inspire?: I was just planning on running a fantasy campaign in modern Mexico, and this class is perfect for some of the villains I had in mind, being Maras Salvatruchas (Google them if you dare, they are scary). Apart from that, I’m planning on adding to the gangs, with a Geisha-ish, female only sisterhood coming out of the top of my head. Do I recommend it? Yes, especially for grittier, down-to-earth campaigns even in a fantasy context. The underworld can be a difficult topic to run for some gamers, while being pure gold for intrigue-heavy campaigns. Don’t get fooled by the Japanese name, Yakuza can just as easily represent triads, mafia, narcos, hashashin, and hooligans! The unique roleplaying opportunities separate this hybrid class from both of its parents, and in some cases being better representations of ninjas than, well, the ninja class. So, my veredict is 5 poisoned shuriken of death! Trivia: The Yakuza have been part of D&D since the Old Oriental Adventures, where it was a bit different that your base thief. It had a ki power where you could halve any damage a few times per day (which suspiciously sounds like certain rogue talent). You could also be a ninja at the same time, since any human character of any class in the old OA could be a ninja (it was sort of a multiclass). As someone native of a country with another type of glorified criminals (narcos), I really appreciate adventurers that are part of a “criminal” organization. These type of characters are humans, and they can represent some of the most complex characters out there. Recently, criminals started giving away free gasoline, which of course was stolen, to the common citizen, as a result of the government suddenly increasing the price. But then you cannot trust them, since they stole it in the first place so… DISCLAIMER: This review is based on a free PDF provided by the author and the publisher, which in no way had an influence on the final score. Legendary Villains: Vigilantes is Legendary Game’s antagonist entry for the Vigilante class, which first appeared in Ultimate Intrigue. Like all LGs products, this one has excellent electronic features (for the pdf), and awesome art! While this book has “Villains” in its name, very little content is restricted to evil characters, so you can play a standard or anti-hero. What’s inside? 29 pages of content, which include:
Of Note: This book has a lot going on for it. It gives not only Game Masters but also players a vast amount of content, increasing the type of vigilantes they can make. The archetypes, while some being hybrid-y, are very flavorful. The vigilante class feels very “Gestalt” as it is, so adding other classes to the mix is genius! This is particularly true for the variant multi-classing rules! Anything wrong?: Some of the borrowing talents make you better than the original class, which can be an issue if a vigilante uses one talent to gain 3 feats worth of abilities with just one talent while another party member has to spend all three feat slots. Also, while not exactly a “wrong” aspect of the book, few of the options in the book are vile and villainous, which one may hope to find inside this product line. What cool things did this inspire?: A hobgoblin samurai crimson dreadnought as the sub-boss (or accompanying the main boss) of a military invasion by hobs. A dread (from Ultimate Psionics by Dream Scarred Press) with the variant vigilante multiclass, having a Scarecrow (from Batman comics) as the inspiration. A jackal-headed (or vulture, or both) rakshasa with the plague scion archetype as a high-level adversary in one of the campaigns I am planning. Do I recommend it? Yeah! In fact, this book is so stacked with content that I would recommend it over the companion volume if you can only afford one. 5 full ninja stars! DISCLAIMER: This review is based on a free PDF provided by the author and the publisher, which in no way had an influence on the final score. Legendary Vigilantes is Legendary Game’s entry for the Vigilante class, which first appeared in Ultimate Intrigue. Like all LGs products, this one has excellent electronic features (for the pdf), and awesome art! What’s inside?
-9 archetypes: Arsenal Summoners call a sentient magical weapon called an Anima; Beast Born get an animal companion and can transform into animals; Dynamic Strikers are powerful martial artists and come in two flavors, the offense-oriented brawlers and the precision-specialized technicians, with access to many monk toys; Exposed Vigilantes lost their dual identities, instead honing their skills while being barred from talents that depend on having dual identities; Focused Hunters replace the power of a Vigilante’s appearance for the ability to focus on chosen terrains; Masked Grapplers are luchadors who focus on grappling techniques, be them submissions or techniques; Noble Souls also come in two flavors, Crusaders and Healers, and both of them borrow toys from paladins, even spellcasting; Outrageous Lyricists also steal toys from another class, this time the bard, with awesome visuals and flavorful abilities; Sentai Soldiers again steal toys from another class, kineticist this time.
Of Note: Each of the archetypes include unique, exclusive talents, and every one of them, with the notable exception of the Exposed Vigilante, is based on being a hybrid. This is not to say they are bland because they borrow toys from other classes; quite the contrary, they offer players and game masters the option of playing with the newest class’ flair using their favorite class’ toys. In my case, my favorite are the Dynamic Striker and the Masked Grappler, which both reaching my interests in martial arts. Anything wrong?: Some archetypes don’t feel like they need the dual identity. However, if you like the ability chassis of the archetype but don’t want to deal with dual identities, just take the Exposed Vigilante and forget about it. Also, there is a clear narrow focus on the talents (both social and vigilante) and feats. What cool things did this inspire?: Well, I know I’m going to make a vanara-trained human vigilante with the Dynamic Striker archetype, focusing on technique and calling himself “The Mad Monkey”, plus an Outrageous Lyricist aasimar who calls himself “Val Hallen” ;) Do I recommend it? Yes if you like the Vigilante but you can’t build the concept you want, or you want to expand the options for your Vigilante players or NPCs, or better yet, you want to run a full medieval Avengers-like Vigilante only campaign! Even with the (IMHO) small flaws, you get a lot from this book, so 4 and a half, rounded up. DISCLAIMER: This review is based on a free PDF provided by the author and the publisher, which in no way had an influence on the final score. Ultimate Herbalism for both Pathfinder and D&D5e is the first part of Interjection Games third Kickstarter project, Strange Magic 2. It is the complete overhaul of another, older project, called simply The Herbalist, and even if you have it (like I do), you get a much more improved version of the herbalism magic system. Unlike many class books or tomes, Interjection Games creates most of their new classes from scratch and, while some systems are inspired in others (antipodism in shadow magic, aether magic in the 3.5 warlock etc.), most are brand new. Interjection games are perfect for people who are bored of the same Vancian magic and spell lists, the same 3.5 sub-systems. This review tackles the Pathfinder version. What’s inside?
-The herbalism magic system, which is used by the three new base classes. Basically, each day the herbalism-user rolls on a terrain-dependent table (called a Biome) to see what herbs he finds, each herb being a kind of “spell”. To reduce the randomness and let players continue use of their favorite herbs, they get an ability called earthenware jars, which let them cultivate herbs or preserve them and other plant products. These herbs are different depending on the Biome, which gives the herbalist unrivaled variety. No matter where you are, each roll gives you access to 10 points worth of herbs (6 in the case of naturalists), with plants having a point value of 1, 2 or 4, which also determine their power. There are no high level abilities here, since all effects increase with the level of the user. The herbs can also be used to prepare recipes and other plant products, depending on certain class or archetype abilities. -The Gourmend base class, a flavorful (hehe) class who specializes on using the herbs found to prepare recipes. They are the least combat able of the classes, but get many weird abilities related to food. They get a culinary pool to power some of their abilities. While this is the only class that doesn’t get archetypes, a sidebar mentions how you can adapt herbalist archetypes for the gourmend; however, they are not really needed, since at first level you get to choose a kind of specialization, culinary skillsets: Baking, Candymaking, Cheesemaking, MEAT! and Brewing. Apart from recipes and skillsets, gourmends get culinary talents, with some restricted to certain skillsets. Finally, they get Culinary Bond, which nets them a familiar made of food. -The Herbalist base class, the original that started it all. An herbalist is a bit better at combat than a gourmand and can also learn some recipes, but they also get the compress ability that mixes herbs in a single usage. They get a green thumb pool to power some class abilities. They also get 9 archetypes, designed for taking more than one. Aromatologists exchange the ability to make compresses to create incense blocks, which basically give personal effects at range. Compounders are healers, who can use poisons to heal ability damage they would otherwise inflict with a chance for failure, and placebo sugar pills that give the eater an extra save against ongoing poison or disease effects, both as a replacement for the compress ability. Entomologists are bug collectors. Bugs are similar to herbs in that they can be found and are terrain-dependent, but need to be fed to be preserved; some bugs have special dietary considerations, and some get more powerful when fed certain herbs. Bugs have a special ability usable once per day, but can be preserved indefinitely. Entomologists loose recipes in exchange for bugs. Flowerchildren give a lot (earthenware jars, recipes and focused foraging) to gain the companionship of a special familiar. This familiar works a bit different from a wizard’s, growing a specific biome’s plants on its back, for example. Gardener are the meta-herbalists. They lose a couple of preservation vessels during their career and the potent poison ability to get the green thumb ability to give infuse the soil of their earthenware jars with a so-called “rare earth”, specific meta-effects that enhance plants. Geologists rock hard! (hehe). In exchange either preservation vessels or cultivation pots for the ability to collect special kinds of rocks which, unlike herbs or bugs, don’t spoil until used, with a hard limit on the number of in possession. Rocks come in three varieties, sharing 3 biomes where they can be found. They are basically triggered area-of-effect mines. Mycologists exchange their first find herbs roll of the day for a special roll in a unique biome, the fungal forest. They can also exchange none or all recipes gained for special combinatory formulae that, like gardener’s rare earth, modify the effect of herbs. Poisoners can’t make compresses. Instead, they learn to combine poisonous plants into increasingly deadly cocktails that are applied to weapons. A short but powerful evil archetype. Zen Cultivators are, you guessed right, monkish herbalists. They replace their green thumb pool with a special ki pool they fill while meditating with the help of a miniature zen garden. This ki pool can be spent on a few abilities and any other class or feat that depends on ki. They also gain some bonus feats. -The Naturalist base class. They have the least powerful herbalism abilities, but make up for it with a giant carnivorous plant! They get bonus feats and their plant gets access to many talents. They can even get the plant time for a short time! They also have access to three archetypes. Creationists don’t get earthenware jars (!) and their plant companions don’t get talents, all in exchange for some druidic spellcasting (0 to 4th level). Overall the weakest archetype in the whole book. Mycologists not only share the name of an herbalist’s archetype, they have their own mini-fungus forest table. Their plant companions can in fact be a man-eating mushroom, which loses access to some talents while gaining some exclusive ones. This archetype doesn’t replace anything, so you can com-vine (hehe) it with the others. Sporekeepers apparently lose their plant companion, I say apparently because apart from the introductory “facts”, it is not mentioned anywhere else in the text. Instead, they get fungal swarms that are planted in terracotta pots. They can be worn in the back or left on the ground, active or inactive. They get many talents that makes this ability very different from plant companions. -Feats: All of this section include your typical feats that enhance your class abilities, including very niche feat available only to specific archetypes. The only one that doesn’t follow this theme is the Verdant Protector feat, which inherited the unique, almost-extinct plants available to an archetype of the old herbalist. -Herbs: after almost 30 pages of tables (9 biomes for the herbalist/gourmand, 9 for the naturalist, and 9 plant summary tables), we get to the meat (hehe) of the herbal magic system. Herbs are formatted with name, followed by the type in parenthesis (be them herbs, fungus or fruit), with some fruits having a descriptor in brackets (similar to spells). They are followed by the biome(s) they are found in, their point value (1, 2 or 4), Duration of the effect, and which recipes can they be used for, if any. -Recipes: these again have an easy to grasp format, with the craft DC being the most important here. Some of this are the most powerful effects an herbalist can create! A poison that damages all ability scores, the ability to shot spines that do more damage than a kineticist blast, a wine that gives you an alchemical bonus to any ability score, things like that. These are balanced not only by its ingredients, but by their craft DC. -Microcosms: Not content with 9 (10 really) biomes, this is an optional ruleset that include special mini-biomes each with new, exotic plants! These include aberrant, anger, arcane, evil, good, graveyard, irradiated, legend and sylvan. Imagine your character visits a jungle where there is an ancient temple of a demon prince. Simple slap the “evil” microcosm to the jungle biome and you are covered. Of Note: The herbalism magic system is advertised as druidic chaos magic, and it shows. Instead of rolling every single time you cast a spell to see if butterflies appear instead of fire, or that your strength spell drains the fighter’s instead of making him stronger, the chaos here happens at the beginning of the day, leaving it to the ability of the player to do with what Mother Nature (and his luck) offers. If the original system wasn’t enough, Ultimate Herbalism includes food magic, bugs, rocks, soil, fungus… so many new things it can make your head spin! It may be hard to believe but, it is very difficult to point at something that is better when everything is top quality. In no particular order, my favorite are the gourmand, the gardener and the entomologist which, when put on top of the herbalism magic system, bring a lot of variety to the game table. Anything wrong?: While the book by no means looks bad, it features little art and to be frank, I don’t mind the little art in the book, it’s the repetition of it. However, when the author can pump layer upon layer of awesomeness not only in his rulesets, but in the flavorful descriptions, art becomes secondary. The class and archetype art, while B&W only and a bit on the simple side, goes well with the tone of the author’s writing: Serious with a dash of cheesy and a sprinkle of humor. I also didn’t particularly like the organization, I would have preferred all “spellbooks” at the end instead of in the archetype entries. Also, a section on how to include a new magic system would have been nice, as well as a section on how herbalism interacts with traditional magic. What cool things did this inspire?: Where do I start? I want a fat she-ratfolk gourmand, cheese maker extraordinaire, from the village of Ash (get it? I AM FROM ASH). An oread geologists who is looking for the philosopher’s stone. A dromite entomologist who wants to create a new race of insect folk. A goran naturalist infected by spores, using both fungi-flavored archetypes. I could go on forever! Do I recommend it?: If you are tired of casting magic missile, flame blade or cure light wounds, and are up to the challenge of learning a whole new magic system, do yourself a favor and get this book. It is also a blast for people like me who used to collect bugs! I kowtow to the author and offer five flaming blossom stars! By the way, anyone who is interested at peeking more about the herbs, please go to Drivethrurpg and download the free expansion for the original class (it's awesomely named Welcome to the Jungle). It will give you a taste (hehe) of what to expect from herbalism magic ;) Trivia: I teach at an agronomy university where you can major in soil, insects, plants or products. I was planning to open a role playing workshop, so I think my students will surely enjoy it more with this book! First of all, what is a hybrid? For those of you that may not know, a “hybrid class” mixes things from two different classes to make something new. The magus class is the first hybrid class, before the controversial Advanced Class Guide came out and made ten new classes, a complete mixed bag. Anyway, kinetic shinobi? At first I thought this was the Naruto class, and in some ways it is, but really, there was nothing quite like this in PF. N. Jolly, famed master of all things kineticist, is the author. So, the kinetic shinobi (KSh from now on) is a class that mixes the ninja and kineticist, with a bit of flavor/visuals from the soulknife psionic class. The KSh gets a d8 for HP, good REF and WILL saves medium BAB, proficiency in light armors and simple weapons, plus some ninjaish ones, 6 skill points and a decent list of class skills, this last one gets a bonus depending on the element chosen. From the ninja, the KSh inherits a ki pool (which power the “burn” cost of their infusions), sneak attack of up to 7d6, the No Trace and Evasion class features, and some others part of the Shinobi Talents selectable class features. From the kineticist, the KSh inherits the Elemental Focus and Kinetic Blast, plus some “Meta” abilities (as if using extend, maximize or persistent spell metamagic feats) and the Gather Power class feature, which reduces the ki cost of infusions. The KSh, however, cannot “blast” normally without using one of two special form infusions (called jutsus) which basically give you a melee weapon that does very little damage, the physical jutsu gives you a physical weapon that targets normal AC, and the elemental jutsu gives you a magical attack targeting touch AC that lowers your sneak attack dice to d4. Since you create a weapon, you can full attack, vital strike and spring attack with both jutsus. New toys for the class come via the ki pool, which gives you a bonus to attack (for physical jutsu) or damage (for elemental jutsu) that increases with level, as well as ye olde huge bonus to acrobatics. Just having one ki point in your pool gives you, at second level, the ability to modify your weapon via Hadou Techniques, which can give you a two hander, dual blades, or a 30 ft with no range increment ranged attack. From there, the KSh gives you at first and every odd levels a Shinobi Talent, a substance infusion via the Ninjutsu Training class feature they receive at fourth, twelfth and twentieth levels, plus a special Ninjutsu Specialist class feature that reduces the ki cost of their infusions incrementally by one point at fourth, tenth and sixteenth levels. Shinobi Talents not only give you options to modify your blast, but also access to some other ninja, kineticist, unchained monk, and unchained rogue abilities! There are many of these and let you specialize or diversify in many ways. Then we go to the archetypes section, first introducing the Arsenal Sniper. This one gives you the special ability of channeling your element through a ranged weapon! Basically you create elemental ammo for it, and you get to use feats and enhancement for the weapon! They also get the studied strike of the investigator instead of the sneak attack, as well as some exclusive new talents. Perfect archetype for sniping! Brutal Assassin is next, gaining more martial and visceral powers. They can only use physical jutsus! You get increased sneak attack damage under certain circumstances. Basically a melee focused BAMF for those who want a melee ninja. The Burglar is a relatively short archetype that gives you a Safe House (as the Vigilante’s social talent) and the Hide in Plain Sight class feature, at the cost of your third level Shinobi Talent and Evasion (ouch!). Elemental Shinobi is next, gaining the elemental defense of their element, Elemental Overflow which works differently for them, and a ki pool that also works differently. Basically this archetype gives you a more mystical character but reduces your combat prowess since you lose Sneak Attack. You do get attack and damage bonuses from Elemental Overflow though. The Fading Shadow is the next archetype, which get incredible powers of stealth and invisibility, at higher levels negating your scent and even your magical aura! This comes at the cost of only +5d6 Sneak Attack (a die every fourth level), and reduced damage when not invisible. The Hand of the Kami would be the unarmed specialist archetype. They have different weapon proficiencies (more monkish). They also lose Sneak Attack and instead get full BAB and a weakened version of the unarmed attack damage of monks. They also get access to more monk toys, basically turning you into a monk/ninja/kineticist hybrid. The Hi-Den Noble mixes the KSh with a bit of vigilante, getting a dual identity and some social abilities and talents, but this archetype comes with a kind of order. You must be member of a Hi-Den clan, which dictates some of your abilities and gives you an in-game relation to the shadow war of the clans. Of course as always you can just forget about the fluff and make your own, but the de facto clans sound intriguing. You also forego the Sneak Attack to get the vigilante’s hidden strike. Metaformer are the masters of metajutsu, or well not really. They can change any instance of metajutsu they get with a form infusion appropriate for their element. They can also apply a form infusion to a blast already modified by the kunai hadou technique, giving them a ghetto version of a kineticist ranged blast modified by an infusion. They can’t get access to any form infusion that works as a weapon, like kinetic blade, kinetic fist etc. Needler is an archetype that again mixes the base with another class, this time with the swashbuckler. As such, their ki pool works like panache, they can expend and regain it during the day. They get less skill points per level but gain an expanded weapon proficiency list plus a special elemental main-gauche hadou technique. They also exchange No Trace and Sneak Attack for the Nimble and Deeds class features of the Swashbuckler. They also get some special talents more fit for a swashbuckler than a ninja. This one really changes the mechanics and playstyle of the class, since being able to regain ki is a blast (pun fully intended). Shadow Stepper is an archetype open only to void shinobi. These individuals reduce their skill points and get more caster-y class skills, since they cast spells as a bloodrager of their level. They cast illusion, light, darkness and shadow spells only, drwing them from the wizard and psychic spell lists. They pay for this with 5 talents and the no trace ability. Their ki pool also work differently, gaining the ability to spend a point and a spell slot to cast specific spells. Another crazy mixed archetype that pushes the boundaries of an already versatile class. Shikon is the final archetype, and it is really crazy! It mixes the base class with black blade magus, but doesn’t cast spells. They get access to a spell list (from a sixth level casting class) and have a caster level, so they can use spell completion and trigger items. They get acces to some magus arcana and can fuel them with their ki, and they also get spell strike! But since they don’t cast spells, you can use spell completion or trigger items! Again, this archetype is made for those who wanted to play a kineticist, ninja and magus at the same time, but getting access to spell lists like the hunter, inquisitior or mesmerist is really crazy! I’m amazed and awed! After the archetypes, we get favored class bonuses for ALL races in the Advanced Race Guide! Then we get some feats, three exclusive for the KSh and one that could benefit any Charisma-based class. We finish the book with an NPC, Valerie Jette, a ninth level half drow void shinobi with a tragic past but a very positive outlook of life. As is the tradition of the author, she can give the PCs a boon! This… book is not what I expected, in a good way. I expected a lesser hack of the parent classes, with a non-defined niche, like some of the classes form the Advanced Class Guide. N. Jolly delivers in spades with an intriguing class that plays exactly like a hybrid class should, but with its own unique tricks. The author’s most impressive feat is that it can work with most if not any ninja and kineticist book out there! There are some nice ninja talents from a nice new shiny ninja book you want for your KSh? You can have them! You want to play a KSh with a crazy element like viscera, time, or dream? You can! You want to play with a techno shinbi from the author’s newest element? Yep, you can! Kudos to the author, again showing how much you can stretch the kineticist engine. If you love the kineticist, ninjas, Naruto or fighting games, this book is for you! I have been a fan of all things Asian since I started karate when I was a kid. Later, I discovered Kung Fu cinema by way of the free Dragon Fist RPG by TSR and the internet back in the day. Where I come from, Kung Fu movies beyond Bruce Lee’s are unheard of. When I started playing Pathfinder, I was completely dazed by the monk. As a matter of fact, my first 3rd edition character was also a monk. However, it wasn’t until much later that class option like archetypes or even new classes started to come out. Among the best 3rd party content, I found The Way of Ki. This was the beginning of a long distance, one sided, platonic love for Legendary Games. Their products are amazing: the crunch is top-notch and balanced, the fluff is evocative and the art is amazing, but such quality comes with a fair price that I simply cannot follow. Even then I have bought all the Far East adventure path plug-ins and not once have I been disappointed. Enough preamble, So what do we have here? As the name aptly implies, AAM is a collection of 12 archetypes with an Eastern feel, accompanied by other class options like feats and talents, some items and even an NPC. While the PDF is 28 pages, if we take off all the ads, covers, legal info and stuff we have 17 pages of content left. But we are talking about LG, so we don’t find filler content. Before we start with the content itself, it’s worth mentioning that there are no monk or brawler archetypes and I applaud this decision, since the monk has one of the biggest number of archetypes out there and the brawler, with its class features, can dabble in a lot of style feats, so new content for these classes is not really needed. We start with the Blood Rider cavalier archetype, which is an order-less, banner-less warrior with a Mongol feel, but instead of mounted archery, these guys control the battlefield with a whip! They can make some combat maneuvers with it while mounted, and move opponents along the battlefield. I don’t know you but I would love to play one of these guys, being a martial controller without spells. Get a flying mount and oh boy! The class also includes two feats: Mounted Skirmish, which is similar to Ride-by Attack but without the need to charge, Mounted Sweep, which basically let you do any standard action while moving on your mount. Next in line we have the poor fighter archetype Hyakusho; no, the fighter is not a poor class, I mean, the archetype is poor, not in its design but in character. They start with half the gold and broken weapons and armor! Apart from this cool fluff, they can repair weapons and armor very efficiently, even able to use other discarded equipment instead of gold for repairs. In combat, they gravitate to light armor and have an expanded options for their bonus feats, including a couple of roguish ones, and can even ignore some of the requisites. This archetype is best used from level one, but all in all can be used as bruisers for a thieves’ guild or triad. A good option for dexterity-based fighters. Iaijutsu Adepts are swashbucklers that focus on the art of drawing and hitting in the same motion. If you have ever seen Rurouni Kenshin or other samurai anime, you know what this is about. There is even a samurai archetype by Paizo with the same premise! Anyway, the archetypes have a very different feel since the swashbuckler class is more geared toward nimble, dexterous fighting. Any ability that depends on using light or one handed piercing weapons can only be used with a katana and only two-handed. Does this include when you draw? I mean, traditional iaijutsu uses two hands to draw, but since you use one hand to hold the scabbard and one to attack with the katana, is this treated as a one hand or two hand attack? And another nit-pick, there is no official way to get Dex to damage with a two-handed katana, and you don’t get free exotic weapon proficiency to wield it one-handed (and why would you when most abilities apply only when two-handing) so unless your GM lets you cheat with some of the requirements, maybe you don’t want to focus on Dex. I think the archetype should either give you the ability, or let you cheat the requirements. At the end of the day that feature is not needed but would come in handy, especially at low levels. The other abilities rock, you get better at reacting and gauging your opponents, dealing more damage with that first attack and become better with the katana. A cool, iconic eastern archetype that I think would benefit from a bit of polish. The Imperial Unifier samurai is the shortest archetype, losing two physical class skills, being able to use one daily challenge to get an edge during a verbal duel, and losing their 6th level bonus feat for a weaker version of the Leadership feat that can be improved beyond the base feat by taking it. A nice little hack of the samurai class, perfect for those who like court intrigue but want to play a martial. The Kaiju Hunter ranger is an archetype that really surprised me with its crazy concept. I mean, who hunts KAIJU!?!?!? But the name is a little deceiving, since they are tankier rangers (they get heavy armor proficiency and can use their class abilities in such) that battle large and bigger foes (the favored enemy bonus only work against big targets, as well as other abilities like evasion), perfect for any Adventure Path focused in fighting big things ;) They also dance with an inquisitor shoes, since they lose wild empathy for the Monster Lore ability of said class. They lose a lot of the nature-based abilities of the ranger to become better at fighting biggies. A crazy concept for an archetype but one that scales well with the foes one tends to encounter at every level.
The Kwa No are ninjas with a heavy Psylock (from the X-men) vibe. They get better unarmored defense similar to a monk’s but Charisma-based. They lose poison use but exchange it for the ability to cast psychic significance at-will and getting a small bonus to use psychic magical items. At third level they can make a powerful blade of thought by spending Ki, with later levels getting a more powerful blade. This blades takes the shape of a punch dagger, sai or wakisashi… why not one of those serrated Red antis Blades? I would call my character Psycho Mantis and Yell I CAN READ YOUR MIND! Ehem, this ability costs the Kwa No some sneak attack dice and the No Trace Ability. They can also learn special ninja tricks (called Ki slashes) that give them more options when attacking with their blade, and even more bigger and badder ones instead of master ninja tricks (called Ki thrusts). This archetype will rock your world if you are a Psylocke or Psycho Mantis fan, or want to play a soulknife but your GM doesn’t allow psionics. The Mandarin investigator gives me a Judge Dee (see the movie of the same name) vibe, with alchemy replacing kung fu. The investigators are less adept at dungeoneering, losing all traps abilities and having less extracts per day, but instead of that they gain some useful social abilities for intrigue-heavy campaigns, specially the Favors ability. Since you are supposed to be a member of the bureaucracy, you gain favors among your peers by doing your job, which translates into some downtime activities. These guys rock if you like intriguing character concepts (sorry for the bad pun), but don’t use one in a dungeon-crawling game or you will regret it.
The second vigilante archetype is a reprint from Legendary Vigilantes, but if you are like me and don’t have that book, the Sentai Soldier will leave you in awe. Yes, they are Power Rangers! (well, power vigilantes really). Basically, they are vigilantes that specialize in kinetic dabbling. But they are not a hybrid of vigilante and kineticist, they get their unique talents that have a crazy-loco sentai flavor with mechanics to match. Example? Your Powerful TransformationTM is so awesome that friend or foe who watches your transformation is fascinated for one minute! Don’t worry, it also comes with a way to maintain your secret identity, well, secret. This class is nuts and pushes the boundaries of what is OK in fantasy gaming, but if we have investigators and mesmerists why not a Sentai Soldier? You could even make a WHOLE PARTY if you convince your fellow players, there are enough kineticist toys out there for controlling, damaging, buffing and even healing! The Silversword Samurai made me think of the similary-named X-men villain, but what we get is another social-focused samurai who instead of pledging loyalty to an order does it to his family, gaining free allies and enemies in the process. Like Imperial Unifiers, Silverswords can use thir challenge ability in non-combat situations, to the point where they can challenge themselves! Not gonna spoil how that works, though. On a minor nit-pick, they lose the Mount ability but in the text it mentions a cavalier, not a samurai, but oh well. The archetype then gives you the ability to again enchant your ancestral weapon in a way similar to the Mercurial Duelist, but later you also get to enchant an ancestral suit of armor. The Silversword also gains a Ki pool, which oddly enough mentions it replaces the mount ability, which was just mentioned as not gained a few paragraphs ago. You also gain the Unimpeachable Honor Feat, an ability to deflect arrows and later magical rays, and finally the ability to cut through dimensions, working as a ghost touch blade, dimension door or even a planeshift, all with different Ki costs. I have mixed feelings about this archetype, with the dimensional blade abilities now meshing well in my opinion with the rest of the archetype. I would have loved an Order of the Blood for the family aspects and then the ancestral sword, armor and dimensional cut as an archetype but well, that is my humble opinion. To close the deal with fanfare, we end the archetype section with my favorite archetype, the Sky Dancer duelist. Not since playing a gestalt monk in 3rd edition have I had the opportunity to play a classic Wuxia swordsman! So instead of focusing on light piercing weapons, they focus on light monk weapons, not only gaining proficiency with all monk weapons but also able to use their swashbuckler features with them! They get some thematically-flavored deeds in exchange for others not appropriate to Wuxia swordsmen, and instead of charmed life they get leap of the clouds, which give them those crazy kung fu leaps and later they even can fly! The hack is not that big but even similar abilities get flavorful names. Have I mentioned they are my favorite archetype? No? Well, THEY ARE MY FAVORITE ARCHETYPE! We finish this book with a Silver Blossom: a ninjaish 12th level Aasimar Mercurial Duelist vigilante with a detailed backstory and even a boon! With some changes to the backstory, you could even PLAY as her in the adventure path that deals with becoming the monarch. She is also the cover girl ;) I was left exhausted after writing this review, but I’m happy I was able to do it. It was a worthwhile experience since each archetype gave me many ideas for both PCs and NPCs. I would recommend the book to anyone who wants some eastern and/or intrigue options for their campaign, since remember, some cosmetic changes and the samurai can be mamluks, ninja hashshashin etc., you won’t regret buying it! Even when I didn’t completely like all of the archetypes, this book offers enough variation to leave me without any complains. I will grade the book with a high 5 and would add ½ a star for the Sky Dancer alone, since it is my favorite archetype. I hope to play in my next campaign as, you guessed right, a SKY DANCER DUELIST! So, the author of the Kineticists of Porphyra series comes to Legendary Games and writes a new book on kineticists. If you bought this book, you already know what a kineticist is, so let’s jump into the action! We start with a couple of archetypes, the first one being the Artistic Summoner for water and wood kineticists, and their blasts get a little cosmetic change: water becomes ink and wood paper, and they get the oil infusion for free when applied to their special blasts, even reducing the cost by one and not counting as the one substance blast. The AS gets the summon monster ability of the summoner class, but summon neutral construct version of monsters made from either a drawing or origami, at the cost of a couple of wild talents and all instances of expanded element. They do have extra access to some artsy talents from the elemental lists, getting them as universal and also get access to the other element and blast at 10th level, plus an exclusive composite blast. All in all a weird, anime-y archetype with cool visuals and a completely different playstyle than the base kineticist. Perfect for those who like art but don’t like the bard class. Then we get the awakened bloodrager. These guys lose their bloodline, but in exchange they get a lot of abilities from the kineticist class. A very strong hack of the base bloodrager, but one that lets a full-BAB class to dabble in kinetics. Another class that can dabble in kinetics is the bard with the Evoker Minstrel archetype. These bards can make instruments made of elemental energy and blast with them. They also get some toys from the Soundweaver kineticist archetype. Who’s that? Another high concept kineticist archetypes that dabbles in bard-rery. They get more skills and skill points and the saves of the bard class, but way more than that. They get access to bardic masterpieces and even get some of their own! This archetypes changes so much it needs 3 pages just for it! I’m wowed and really want to play one of these two archetypes, doing the obvious and being a sound kineticist, found in KoP1. After these bard-y archetypes, we get to my favorite one from the book: The Surge Fist monk for the unchained monk. These guys not only dabble in kinetics, they get their own, unique stuff and feel more like benders than any other kineticist or monk archetype out there, with a dash of Street Fighter just like the doctor ordered. Interesingly, they can use their kit to fuel burn costs, which make me wonder if an ascetic kineticist archetype could be done that loses burn but gets a ki pool? Anyway these guys rock! Following this awesome beast is the true psychic, which are masters of the aether and mind elements. Wait, mind? Yes, that is the new element found in this book! They get both from the start and never get access to any other element, but they don’t need to. These guys represent psychics in a way neither Occult Adventures’ psychics nor Ultimate Psionics’ psion can! How? Well, they use the kineticist chassis! As such, they never get tired or run out of energy or spells, but the burn mechanic could represent mental fatigue. I would have altered the base kineticist a bit more, at the very least changing Con for Int for damage and stuff, but this archetype presents an iconic concept through unusual methods so I’m just being spoiled. We finish this section with a more modest archetype, the War Kineticist, whose powers are a bit stronger but more volatile and ephemeral. Perfect for those who have a YOLO mentality.
After talents we have feats, some of these archetype-specific. Kineticists with the Kinetic Chirurgeon archetype get access to channel energy, both positive and negative. After the feats we have a couple of kineticist-themed magic items. From now on, it’s pure neurokineticist. We get to see the new mind element, which of course introduces extra class skills, simple and composite blasts and defense wild talent, and immediately continue with infusions, utility wild talents, a mind elemental saturation and a sample 12th true psychic neurokineticist. Among the infusion wild talents we can find a lot of psychic-y stuff: domination, forced mindlink, amnesia, sleep, confusions, daze… even a nasty save-or-suck lobotomizing infusion that fries the poor victim’s mind so bad that they lose their intelligent score! All of these infusions belong to the mind element, and as such they all have a will save to negate or reduce the effect. While all of these debuffs sound too strong, especially for a blast all day class, remember that they are mind-affecting effects and have a will save, which most other infusions for the traditional elements do not. Also, they all have a huge burn cost, so if you though you could go around lobotomizing here and there, well, bad news for you.
While awesome doesn’t equal powerful, this is that kind of psychic that sounds like both. We have come a long way since Gygax included psionics in D&D! If there is one flaw in the neurokineticist, is that you will want to focus on the mind element, since its toys are so good! The npc is an ex-slave slaver with an interesting story, and it includes a boon! Closing up, the Legendary Kineticist is a very welcome addition to the game, and one that pushes the boundaries of what a kineticist is or can be. Even if it was only the neurokineticist, it would be worth the asking price! Kudos for N. Jolly and the Legendary Games team! N. Jolly follows up his outstanding design from the two previous kineticist-focused books in ths third entry of the KoP series. Unlike the previous two, this one doesn’t include new elements, which was a good decision. There is so much you can do with new stuff, but there is always more you can do with the old. As usual in the series we get some fluff for the Porphyra campaign setting. After that we get straight to the Archetypes:
The second high-concept archetype would be the Dimensional Ripper. This archetype focuses on small portals that give you tons of tactical options! If you have seen that Dragon Ball where Goku fights a giant monster that attacks him via portals you get the idea of the DR. This archetype is open only to void, aether and time kineticists, but choose wisely for your element since this archetype loses both instances of Expanded Element. This archetype is sooo different from the standard kineticist that it takes around four pages of the book! In this case I would have liked a new element: Space, but maybe Spatialokineticist sounded too silly. But still, it would have made sense since we have Time already, and in that way the rift use could have been expanded upon in the future but we’ll see. Also, telekinesis is already covered by aether, so having teleportation covered would have been nice. In the last book we got a kind of pally hybrid, but with the Dread Soul we get an anti-paladin kineticist IN CONCEPT. This archetypes covers even more space than the Dimensional Ripper, and have some exclusive powers. Note that while you can’t be good, you don’t have to be evil, so you can play a cool neutral anti-hero! We finish the archetypes with the Elemental Brethren, a so obvious idea that it wasn’t done before! This archetype is open to the “genasi” races, in pathfinder that means ifrit, oread, suli, sylph and undine. This one plays a lot with racial abilities and feats, and note that you specialize into the element from your race (you get to choose in the case of sulis), and while you lose both instances of Expanded Element, you instead get ONE improved version at 10th and get a different kind of omnikinecis at 20th. Cool racial archetype! After that we get Elemental Saturations for the new elements of the series. These expand on the idea introduced in Occult Realms, an official supplement by Paizo. Basically, elemental saturations are areas where the element is more present, but apart from being cool vacation places for kineticists, visiting one opens one small ability for everyone and an exclusive wild talent for kineticists. Then we get new composite blasts for many combination of elements, both old and new. This section is interesting because it introduces new mechanical options that deviate from the ones in Occult Adventures, increasing the mechanical niche of the kineticists.
New to the series is a new concept called Elemental Mutation. These are kind of templates for the class that give you not only benefits, but also drawbacks accompanied by suitable fluff. You can only have one mutation, and I suppose you get them at 1st level since it doesn’t really say. There is no mention of being able to lose the mutation also. The book finishes with a feat section (with some directed at Dimensional Rippers), followed by some new magical items with the kineticist in mind, including an artifact. Finally, we have an 11th level Dimensional Ripper NPC, showing a possible build for aether kineticists and including some Porphyra background fluff. All in all, another stellar work by N. Jolly, and one that really shows how far he can take the kineticist class! DISCLAIMER: This review focuses on the problems of the original Magic of Incarnum (MoI from now on) book for 3.5 D&D and the improvements done by Dreamscarred Press (DSP) for their Akashic Mysteries (AM) During the last years of the third (point five) edition of D&D, Wizards of the Coast started getting crazy not only with tons of new classes (must of them sucky), and trying new magic systems (from the everyday blasts of the warlock to the martial magic of the Initiators). One of this was MoI, a system of everyday magic with a few twists. Unlike many of its peers, Incarnum was maligned for specific reasons. When Pathfinder came out, a lot of people started converting stuff, fans and 3rd party publishers alike. One of them was Dreamscarred press, who made a complete revision of the psionic system, much like Paizo did with the core book. Unfortunately, most of the stuff released wasn’t part of the SRD, which dictated what things could be worked on by 3rd party publishers. Some devilish review of the OSR brought the fact that you can’t trademark rules, and that’s the reason we now have binders, initiators and, with the release of AM by DSP, incarnum in Pathfinder! Which in my opinion benefited some of these systems by getting away from the fluff or restrictions of the originals. Ok, so what problems did MoI had? What improvements did DSP make? Read on! FLUFF: Incarnum’s fluff wasn’t that bad, it was the distilled energy of souls from the past, present and future. This was OK unless your campaign didn’t have souls as a concept. Reincarnation? Dual or multipart souls? AM gets away from the souls trap and uses a concept more like Chi or Od. It is a form of truly ancient magic that combines the user’s own magical energy with the magic of the world. Of course, any fluff can get a cosmetic lift, but here it impacted the crunch: Incarnum was tied to the alignment system. A lot of the powers were closed to users just because of their alignment and two of the three classes had strict alignment requirements. Not so with AM. Next we have the nomenclature. While magic used standard fantasy and psionics a kind of sci-fi, MoI was… odd. Meldshaper? Essentia? Chakra? Incarnate? Soulborn? Not very cohesive if you ask me. AM adopts the one Middle-East reference (chakra) and runs with it. We have more flavourful Veils, Veilweavers, Viziers, Gurus, Essence etc. Finally, and MoI greatest flaw is… that it was blue… no, not sad (well in a way yes), but everything from the races to the melds, items and even the frigging FEAT NAMES was a kind of blue! MoI: 50 shades of blue… It is worse when you consider that blue has a Lawful connotation in D&D (see alignment auras), and it’s worse even when you take into account the whole system has most of its weight in alignment. Why not vary the colors? CORE: After the fluff, the core of the rule system, had its share of problems. First we have 3 base classes, which were the Incarnate, a ½ BAB class master of the subsystem, with an ugly alignment requirement: neutral something, so only 4 of the 9 alignments permitted; the Totemist, coolest fluff of the bunch and the only one without an alignment restriction, who had ¾ BAB and derived power from magical beats and yes, even the tarrasque; finally we had the Soulborn, a full BAB class who couldn’t be any neutral, leaving again 4 possibilities from the 9 alignments. The incarnate was ok, but the soulborn sucked beyond belief, even the fighter using its normal feats for incarnum was better at everything than a soulborn, and we are talking about D&D 3rd edition fighter, who also sucked.
Apart from the new classes, we get archetypes for many Paizo classes and some DSP too. There is even an animal companion archetype! Of note are the Dread and Summoner archetypes, who really embrace the new system with high-concept archetypes. The Dread loses all psionic power and gets veilweaving, and the summoner gets a variant eidolon with veilshaping instead of the normal evolutions. This two archetypes really change the way you play these classes! After the archetypes we get the Amplifier PrC, a “theurge” that mixes veilweaving with either spellcasting or psionics, nothing too fancy and one already present in MoI. The second PrC, the Black Templar, echoes the second coolest thing in MoI after the Totemist, the Necrocarnate, by focusing on draining life and control his victim’s corpses. I dislike the name and will use the 2nd edition D&D wizard’s kit’s name from Al-Qadim’s The Complete Sha’ir’s Handbook: Ghul Lord. Next, the races. MoI had three races (four really), two that shared a racial history and had some reptilian origins, but really were humans with scales in the throat or spines in the arms. The third one was a fey race for the sake of being fey. The only salvageable one was a variant human, who had a point of essential instead of a skill bonus and lived less… big deal. AM takes a note on the Egyptian gods and presents us with 3 (9 if you take into account racial variants). The only problem is that they are all furries, so if you have a problem with that, just don’t use them. Here is the only place where I would have liked more variety, maybe a subrace for another more standard one or an exotic versions of races like the Vyshkanya, Catfolk, Tengu or Vanara if you wanted to go the furry way. Then we get to the powers. AM not only gets away from skill bonuses, it really goes wild with what you can do with your characters, and again tinges them with Middle-East flavor. Of course some of them overlap with spells or are even spell-like abilities, but believe me they ooze flavor. Some of them work well for other classes, so if you dabble in akasha via feats or multiclass you are in for a surprise. Finally we get to the monsters. MoI had a lot of sad… sorry, blue monsters that were just plain bad. We had monster entries for the new races, blue incarnum dragon and giant with meldshaping, blue incarnum zombies and oozes, constructs with souls (which sounds cool but campaign dependent) and not much more. The only redeeming grace were the lost, a template for creatures infected by a combination of strong emotion and incarnum. HOWEVER, the monsters from AM run again with the Middle-East motif, my favorite being the new daeva outsiders. They are a new type that, unlike any other outsider race out there, are not related by alignment. They are a race of symbiotic outsiders that feed on emotions, and there are many of them. Since they can make a symbiosis with other creatures, you can get a nasty, or pleasant, surprise after killing/defeating a rival or foe and having one of these appear. Along the many type of daeva comes a single akashic dragon, the amphibian-looking Vitra. The only thing I disliked is that a couple of these monsters were a shade of blue, and gave me some unpleasant flashbacks LOL. The furry theme continues, with at least two of the daeva being anthropomorphs. We at last have Apsaras in D&D, which are a kind of Hindu nymphs. [RANT] The only thing I disliked from the original Psionics Handbook and MoI books AND that DSP maintained is one personal problem I have with feats. Some Pisonic and Incarnum feats were unusuable if you didn’t really invest in them, so if you wanted a taste of psionics or incarnum, taking a single feat was normally a bad idea. Unless you had psionic focus or invested essential in the feats, they did nothing… not even a meager bonus. DSP missed the opportunity to change that, and some feats are worthless unless you really invest in them.[/RANT] What do you get from buying this book? For me, a strong core system of non-Vancian magic with plenty of options for those who just want to dabble in akasha, and three new akashic-focused base classes that really get away from the norm in a good way and a new race of outsiders ripe for storytelling, and all of these spiced with the exoticism from the Middle-East. A worthy purchase and hopefully the beginning of a new series of products by DSP! Now, if someone updated the Totemist and the Lost… Oh Captain Planet how I miss you... erhm, let's not deviate from the review.
Kineticist-specialist author N. Jolly brings us the equivalent of the NPC Codex class section for the kineticist, with a twist. It is designed with the Porphyra campaign setting, and with very minor tweaks here and there it is completely usable in any setting. As in the NPC Codex, we have 1 kineticist per level for a grand total of 20... however, unlike the NPC Codex, N. Jolly uses a wider range of options. From the races we can find an elf, a human, a half orc and a half elf... from that, the author runs the gamut from kitsunes and tengus and oreads to other 3rd party races like elans oaklings and more. The builds also use archetypes from the Occult Adventures book. Apart from the diversity of builds, each NPC has a "boon", obtainable by the players if they play their cards right, a welcome addition to the at time monotonous presentation of the NPC Codex. Also, each and every character has a short paragraph describing a bit of back story. It's a shame that the book limits itself to one page per character, which reduces the amount of background that can be presented, especially in the latter builds which occupy way more space since they have more abilities. Even when we already have 2 more "official" elements, and a couple more from the author's own pen, in this book we find "only" the main 5 elements. Since this Codex already goes above and beyond its immediate homologue, the NPC Codex, this is not really a bad thing and leaves space for a follow-up Codex. All of these great NPCs have only one understandable problem. None of the character has a picture, understandable since it would have increased its production cost, and hence the price of the product. Worse, while all of them are introduced by a quote, they don't have a description! A picture is worth more than a thousand words, but if there are no pictures and no words, well. As a Codex of kineticist characters, this book delivers. It is only hwen you try to picture the characters when you realize there's something odd. But apart from that, the "meat" of the book is ecellent. I would give this book a 4.5 rounded up, but if either a picture or a short description was added, this book would get the full 5. Congrats on the author! One of the most interesting and fresh classes from Occult Adventures is the kineticist. Loosely based on the mechanics of the old 3ed. warlock, the kineticists is your "all day magic, all day blasts" class, but having an elemental flavor akin to the Avatar series. It was the most discussed class in the playtest and I bet my d20s that it is the most used one as well! Even Paizo released more material for the class right away. But well, here we are with a deceptively-called book, Kineticists of Porphyra, that has actually 1 page of flavor for the Porphyra campaign setting, and the rest of the material is mostly setting neutral with a short paragraph here and there about Porphyra. Right away we get a presentation of the new archetypes: Cerebral Kineticist: These guys are Int based instead of Con, and suffer mental conditions instead of reduced HP when they get Burn. They also get acces to all Knowledge skills. Perfect if you want to play a scholar kineticist. Elemental Avatar: Perfect for indesicive players and fans of the Avatar series, these guys start the game having access to the 4 classic elements, including one blast each. They get some extra limitiations and will never dable in any other element, so be aware of that. Elemental Scion: For those wanting to focus only on one element, these people do more damage with their element from 1st level. Perfect for those of us who like the idea of specialization, something the original class should have been able to do. Kinetic Duelists: For those who like to get into melee, this class has it all. Expanded weapon and armor proficiencies pluss greater melee capabilities at the cost of range. Unlike the other archetypes, these Duelists offer a completely different playstyle. After th archetypes we are introduced to new elements: Light, Sound and Time, each accompanied by their respective blasts, elemental defenses and composite blasts, including a focused for those who double-dip in them. Then we get to the biggest part of the book, with tons of new infusions and utility wild talents. Two things of note, most of the infusions and wild talents are for the new elements (as expected), but a couple are for the new elements introduced in Occult Origins. Wood and Void really needed the influx of new toys, but if you don't have access to that book you will have some unusubale ones. We finish the book with a small section on new feats and a sample character. Final Thoughts: All in all an impressive offering of new toys for kineticists. I was particularly impressed by the new elements, since each has a distinct flavor and a mechanical role. If you are interested in the class or want to have a kineticist-only or gestalt campaign, you can't go wrong with Kineticist of Porphyra! Easely 5 stars. PS: If you weren't impressed with the author's other book, the Chi Warrior, this is a completely different beast! This PDF is 2 page long if you don't take into account the cover and legal stuff. So for 1 buck, you get access to 2 archetypes for the Onmyoji. The first one is the Grinning Fox, who in exchange for the shikigami, get's acces to spell-like abilities via the Kitsune Tail racial feat, gaining the full 9 tails by 18th level, or even before if you use your feats to get it earlier. Your spirit pool also gets larger, by 8 points at 20th level and that is the equivalent of almost 3 feats. A fair trade for the pet of a pet class. Something funny/weird about this archetype is that it is not kitsune-exclusive, so you can get a nagaji, dwarf or even android or any monster with class levels sport fox tails. You also receive a weakened version of Aid of the Minor Kami called Kitsune Magic. This is important since it apparently bars the Onmyoji from taking 5 feats (the Aid series) and 5 petitions (the Gift series), and also barring the option of combining this archetype with the next one. The second archetype is the Herald of the Lucky God. You become focused on one of the 7 LG, gaining their petition and feat as a bonus when you meet the pre-requisites, which will be from 8th to 16th level depending on the LG you choose. You also get something oddly called LG's cantrip. These 7 abilities vary in power and usefulness, such as making all Knowledge checks untrained and treating them as class skills, to getting a partial refund when raised from the dead. For all these abilities, the onmyoji gives up the possibility of learning 6 petitions (the ones from the other LG), and the Aid of the Minor Kami ability, which as mentioned before, bars the Onmyoji form taking some feats and petitions. All in all, nice archetypes for the already-awesome Onmyoji. The only problem I have with them is that the Grinning Fox is not Kitsun-exclusive (which will be in my games), and that the removal of the Aid of the Minor Kami ability prevents the Onmyoji from taking some options, which may or may not be intended. I would love to hear the author's word on this. If you liked the Onmyoji, common and shell out a buck for these cool archetypes.
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