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'Scions of Evil' is a collaboration of many creative minds from the Raging Swan Press stable, a compilation of thuggery and villainy with a staggering collection of stat-blocks, back-stories and brutal bad guys and gals. This is, simply put, a massive collection of antagonists rife with crunch and flavor alike; from minions and fodder to full-on organizations, the spread of creativity and challenge ratings presented throughout make this a robust library of adversaries for adventurers at all levels of play--and foils for more storied plots as well.

While primarily 'Scions of Evil' is a compilation of previously released Raging Swan Press supplements under the same vein, a considerable amount of potent bonus material is included with some seriously wicked and powerful foes; that aspect combined with having everything collated into one well-organized package makes this supplement a fantastic resource for expanding upon adventures and campaigns or building the foundations of the same.

In execution, the crux of 'Scions of Evil' is coupling the clever and cruel with sound crunch by way of well-made stat-blocks--and in this regard, the supplement is a fine sum of its parts. There is certainly a distinction between different challenge levels--as generally speaking, minions and low-level miscreants are somewhat limited in the complexity they can be afforded while high-level villains have much more flexibility in this regard.

That said, one of the things that I have traditionally enjoyed about the component products of this collection is that even 'simple' foes are presented with variety. For example, in the stead of just generic 'goblin' minions, we have four flavors of goblin: adepts, with a smattering of magical talent, raiders, scouts--skirmishers with tanglefoot bags and champions, tougher and better-equipped than most.

Villains arrive with an even more robust offering, presented with varying additional material such as adventure seeds, encounters (e.g. possible combinations of a given villain + minions with encounter level), lore for adventurers to unearth, tactics for battle and plot hooks. Some of the entries also include GM notes with suggestions and advice for running a particular villain--and throughout the whole of 'Scions of Evil', each of the named adversaries also come with their own back-story, of course.

While the staggering spread of stat-blocks overall are solid and competently crafted, the higher level villains are definitely my favorites when it comes to raw mechanical crunch. Gahlgax Atarrith (who appears for free in Pathways magazine #16 if you'd like an example stat block) is a vampiric balor fighter and servitor of Orcus who arrives at a whopping challenge rating 23--and to make facing him all the more daunting, he is presented alongside 'Swords of Orcus'--graveknight marilith antipaladins (CR 21 themselves) who pack a considerable punch. It's foes like these that would make excellent opponents for high-level adventuring parties--and could also fit well into grand campaigns such as the 'Slumbering Tsar Saga' by Frog God Games.

Others among the villains present similarly potent combinations. A Memory of Allwinter is an awakened demilich druid (CR 19) with wicked signature abilities; Vaerosk Ixuzygax is an aasimar half-fiend antipaladin (CR 15) and so on. From liches to witches, barbarians to balors--there is a breadth of bedlam-wreaking adversaries to machinate grand plots, orchestrate schemes and place adventurers in perilous predicaments; as suggested at the beginning of the product, one could approach the progression of power levels as a wheels within wheels sort of endeavor--a ruthless rabbit hole through which a party follows a trail climbing through the ranks of an evil organization along the way.

It's hard to go wrong with 'Scions of Evil' when it comes to bang for one's buck; the library of ready-to-use stat blocks alone are legion (135, for those keeping score) and the collected back-stories and pre-made organizations can suite a broad range of levels of play from low to high plateaus of adventuring.

While there are certainly plenty of fairly straightforward foes throughout the product, the presented 'persona' villains are cleverly written and boast personality--and the methods and machinations these foils and antagonists could bring to a given campaign are well-realized and often inspiring. Adventure seeds, plot hooks, info-gathering lore and combat tactics all serve to add extra shine to the villains and personas--providing much flexibility for tailoring each into an existing story.

Overall: 'Scions of Evil' is 201 pages, with 9 occupied by the cover, credits, forward, OGL and catalog--leaving us with 192 pages which form a veritable annals of antagonists! Raging Swan Press is well-versed and practiced in the editing room--and their high standards remain present here. Formatting largely adheres to a clean two-column layout, with a staggering number of stat blocks and reference points for game mechanics presented in a fashion that is concise and easy to work with.

Additionally, plenty of artwork is interspersed among the many malicious individuals throughout the supplement--and finally, the PDF is thoroughly bookmarked, a must for navigating such a large compilation. Printing this beastly collection would be an endeavor, but the product is nevertheless printer friendly beyond being quite voluminous. Very well done on the whole.

'Scions of Evil' is an impressive product, formed from the union of a number of Raging Swan Press' already released and well-written GM resources. A collection of the works of many authors, this supplement is more than simply a compilation--re-organized, polished and presented in a fashion which serves as a powerful workshop for flavorful foes. It would have been simpler no doubt for Raging Swan to simply offer a discounted bundle of the prior products--but between the bonus material and the re-alignment of the elements gleaned from each of its sources, 'Scions of Evil' stands well on its own.

For one who may have already purchased the various components included in this compilation, re-acquiring them here may prove less desirable--but the added content is quite solid and I feel that having everything neatly organized in one source is a value unto itself. Whether perusing in a pinch to drop-in devious variations on simpler adversaries (spice up that pack of gnolls, goblins or kobolds with those of different roles, etc.) or pored over to plan a grand over-arching network of continent-spanning villainy, this supplement can serve as a powerful resource in any GM's collection--and is one that I would definitely recommend picking up.

Five stars!

'So What's The Spellbook Like, Anyway?' by Landon Bellavia serves as another sister in the series of 'So What' supplements, this time bringing about an open invitation into libraries of grandeur. Whether elaborating upon and imbuing detail into the prized possession of a villainous wizard, populating an ancient arcane study, or even simply seeking to add progressively more intriguing nuances to an adventuring arcanist's most precious of possessions--the many tables and reference resources herein embark to bring so much more to the scene than 'You find a spellbook, here are the spells in it.' Let's crack the arcane lock, dodge the lightning bolt and summoned spiders and see what's inside!

Utilizing 'So What's The Spellbook Like, Anyway?' will depend largely on just what you're aiming for--as there are thirteen sections altogether with different tables and functions for detail. If one is keen to put together an ancient and venerable compilation penned by a legendary wizard, the results could easily span a paragraph filled with great detail--while likewise, there's tables present to accommodate quickly generating lightweight books with their spell contents and cost ready to go at a moment's notice. Much comes down to simply deciding on degrees of detail--particularly since several of the tables presented could apply multiple times to a given tome.

For an example, the first section begins with spellbook titles--beneath which there is a table of descriptions coupled with another for subjects and a third for sample books; from this, one might come up with the Astonishing Ivory Folio of Heavenly Musings with five hits. Truly weird combinations could arise, but I found it entertaining puzzling out just the right feel here. The second section provides Wizard names and Epithets--so perhaps it is Hunstar the White's Ivory Folio. Next we're on to distinguishing features, where things really start to pick up. Did Hunstar affix his folio with ornate brass rivets? Perhaps there is silver wire stitching along its binding, or it has a quill holder built into its spine.

Of course, there's need for a proper cover for a spellbook--and the fourth section covers such amply. Hides, leathers, scales and all sorts of curious options are presented here--from the wyvern hide to the bizarre such as a cyclops' eyelid. Accompanied here is a quick chart for the condition of the cover, too, if one is so inclined--with 20 entries, as opposed to just 'mint, fine, good'--instead there may be water spots, small holes or a musty smell for instance. The fifth section offers further detail for the cover as well, proceeding into much more elaborate entries; for instance, entries on the 'Makers' table offer a paragraph apiece, such as one from a master taxidermist (explaining the exotic materials used, no doubt!)

Paper follows in the sixth section and was also one of my favorites--I particularly loved parchment laced with ashes from a vampire destroyed by sunlight. Cool! Another condition table accompanies, before we're off to the seventh section: ink. From holly berry concentrate to devil blood, emerald dust in iodine to phosphorous suspended in a potion of cure light wounds--the imaginative variety here is most excellent! After seeing to the makings of a given book, there's still quite a bit more material available; in the eighth section are preparation rituals a la those presented in Ultimate Magic--essentially boons gleaned by preparing spells from a given book. These tables present levels, costs and schools of magic and each offers an augment to casting.

The last three sections for the toolkit cover contents other than spells a book might contain (such as a map, contact information for a hobgoblin mercenary and other curious finds), potential histories for spellbooks and their authors (with basic and tough knowledge categories) and finally protection a given spellbook might have to secure its contents. This latter-most segment is particularly nice, providing a breakdown with level rangers for appropriate wards, locks and traps as well as the costs involved for each--making it an accessible resource for shrewd adventurers as well!

After so many fine details, the final two sections of the supplement buckle down for mechanical crunch in a very good way: with random spellbook costs and contents and pre-generated spellbooks. Here there is an exceptional breakdown for gold value, the number of spells of each level present within a given book and even the cost for scribing additional spells at each level on a single sheet which could be printed off and tucked in with other treasure generation resources if so desired. The thirteen sample spellbooks offer specific spells and value and could function as a baseline for starting off a more elaborate spellbook project.

More than just a collection of random tables, I feel that this supplement could serve as a powerful spellbook construction kit--and in that regard, could be enjoyed by GMs and players alike. Throughout each section are a great many interesting and inspiring offerings both curious and evocative--and really, entertaining to piece together to boot. Because of the scalability of the sections presented, the material is well-suited for everything from fashioning a villain's iconic volume to outfitting a worldly adventuring wizard or filling out an arcane library with multiple treasured tomes on short notice; the flexibility is considerable.

Overall: 'So What's The Spellbook Like, Anyway?' is 25 pages, with 7 occupied by the cover, credits, forward, OGL and an advertisement--leaving us with 18 pages to comprise the arcane intrigues of the magical tomes throughout. Raging Swan's high standards of editing and formatting ensure that the work here is solid and accessible. A clear two and three column layout presents tables and information neatly and is interspersed with nice black and white artwork of tomes; as well, the PDF is well bookmarked for easy reference and the whole should prove very printer-friendly. No complaints here!

'So What's The Spellbook Like, Anyway?' is a compelling assemblage of a la carte wonder which wizards and their ilk everywhere are apt to want to get their hands on. Details abound, both clever and bizarre--easily scaled for as much or as little elaboration one is apt to present with a given tome. This is an imaginative and well-realized endeavor which author Landon Bellavia has clearly crafted with care. I made several spellbooks running the full run of the supplement to see what might result and was entertained and pleased with each--they're liable to show up at the table before long.

While the writings and tables herein are ready for random rolling, I feel the real treasure comes in tailoring together stylish and intriguing thematic tomes--and with the nature of the material's presentation, even players of spell-slinging adventurers could well find much inspiration for their personal book. This is a fantastic resource which can serve as a tool kit for both GMs and players looking for inspiration. For something as iconic as a wizard's spellbook, scribing nuance and history for such is an excellent goal for added flavor in a given campaign. If you've ever been disappointed by spellbooks serving as tear-away pages of spells, with this one might once again make such tomes a more exciting find!

My hat is off to Landon and Raging Swan both--this is definitely a supplement that I would highly recommend. 5 stars!

'So What's The Hoard Like, Anyway? III' by Ben Kent brings its line to a high-level close, a collection of ready-made and flavorful finds for high-level adventurers (15th through 20th level, in fact) to purvey, appraise and plunder as hard-won spoils of battle. If after a long and glorious campaign you find yourself feeling a bit tired of turning to randomly-rolled baubles and trinkets to hand-wave away at straight gold value, the third and final entry of the Hoard series from Raging Swan Press could be just the ticket to really spice things up and catch your players' eyes--containing the sorts of treasures which inspire their collection rather than simple sale!

We've an introduction to the premise along with a reference for appraising and assessing the value of treasures--after that, we're off and running to the meaty content throughout the rest of the pages. I'll start off by saying that this is an imaginative and thorough resource for adding flavor and style to the spoils of higher-level encounters; with each ready-designed to suit mechanically for per-encounter loot at each of the five levels covered herein, every encounter can reap something new and interesting--while the flexibility is also there to tweak or combine hauls for truly memorable hoards after climactic showdowns as well.

Mechanically, 'So What's The Hoard Like, Anyway? III' is very straightforward and easy to work with: each of the five levels of loot covered herein are organized into twelve caches of interesting prizes. Every hoard included has been ready-calculated to be of an appropriate overall value for a single encounter at its level (e.g. the 15th level hoards average around the base value of 19,500 gp for a single 15th level appropriate encounter.) This value breaks down between coinage, gems and jewelery, objects of art or magical items in varying measures. A hoard could be selected at random with the roll of a twelve sided die or hand-picked at one's leisure--and naturally it's easy to combine sets for larger hauls after a particularly big battle if one is so inclined.

One of my favorite things about the hoard sets is that not only are they packed with evocative flavor--but many boast a cohesive theme among their contents. A great example of this is one of the collections with a draconic artistic direction which includes a platinum brooch of a dragon's claw, an oil painting depicting a blue and silver dragon locked in mortal combat, an elaborate woven tapestry with near to a dozen dragons battling over a burning city, a set of crystal wineglasses with stems resembling dragon tails, a silver statuette of a dragon and a magical glowing falchion with a hilt of blue hide.

Together, this makes for a very cool set of treasure and just the sort of thing I could see players finding and going 'Cool! We keep it!' By the time you're fifteenth level and beyond, one ought be collecting decor for the forthcoming floating sky-castle the party's bound to commandeer. The magical items interspersed among the hoards are befitting the level of play they'd be found at as well, of course--and each is presented with descriptive text to make them a bit more than 'just another ring of protection' and so on.

I'll also note that there is great ingenuity in presenting some of the objects of art as particularly challenging to -recover--the sorts of things that could leave adventurers pondering and bringing their cleverness to bear to retrieve their prize (such as a 6'x10' wall mirror worth a handsome sum intact, but a tenth of its value in pieces.) This is an element I particularly enjoyed throughout the product--and anyone who has experienced one of those gaming moments where the party becomes -determined- to have the giant platinum monkey statue that was never intended to be moved might enjoy this element (and those who haven't, ought!)

I very much enjoyed the variety and flavor of the findings throughout the collections presented here--and with 72 hoards to choose from, the challenge in presenting such is appreciable. A few particular examples of treasures that I found quite cool: a crystal pitcher sculpted to resemble a pear tree with crystal goblets fashioned to look like plump peaches. A six-volume collection of leather-bound manuscripts dealing with the very beginnings of magic, as annotated by their original author. An amulet of natural armor which is presented as a small chunk of adamantine ore dangling from a steel chain. A BARREL of holy water bearing a holy symbol (400 pints!)

These are 'typical' to the treasures in the book here, a very fine par in my opinion; even beyond utilizing the lot of the findings herein as ready-to-go rewards after encounters, one could just as easily peruse the contents to hand-pick individually interesting goodies to custom-build an evocative hoard, decorate a lair, start plot threads or more.

Overall: 'So What's The Hoard Like, Anyway? III' is 19 pages, with 6 occupied by the cover, credits, OGL and an advertisement; this leaves us with 13 pages of terrific treasures to unearth after a fight accessible easily at a glance. Raging Swan rarely disappoints when it comes to editing and formatting--and the final installment of the Hoard series is no exception. Clear two-column layout work is supplemented by nice black and white artwork of treasures along the way in a clean presentation; as well, the PDF is nicely bookmarked for easy reference and the lot should prove very printer-friendly. No complaints here!

This supplement stands out marvelously as a supplement for adding variety and wonder to any game at high-level play; Ben Kent has done a superb job bringing to life an impressive variety of wondrous treasures for adventurers to covet and cherish--and I could certainly see a great many of the finds throughout this product ending up as permanent fixtures in the homes of those same-such heroes. It would have been easy to make a product of this nature simply churning through random rolls to populate lists as a simple time-saver for GMs--but reading through this supplement it is clear that care was taken to ensure that everything read and felt compelling.

In closing, I give the final entry in the hoard line five stars and a high recommendation. If you've ever tired of trying to inject life and intrigue into randomly rolled finds, you owe it to yourself to check it out--these levels of play are when cool treasure matters more than ever! For a campaign at these levels of adventuring, this is a must have for making the prospect of finding what goodies foes have hoarded away an exciting prospect again.

Ruins of the Dwarven Delve marks part II of Purple Duck Games' dungeoneering through their labyrinthine lair: the Purple Mountain; serving as either a standalone romp or the awaited continuation of the Temple of the Locust Lord, this time the torch has been taken up by David Nicholas Ross as the megadungeon continues. Grab your haversacks and ten foot poles and let's take a trip beneath the surface to see how the dungeon fares!

We open up with a bit of back-story about the Delve, which serves as the second level to the mountain; dwarven settlers seeking fortune were foiled by yellow musk creepers and gremlin jinkins--the pair of which prove to be the primary menaces lurking within the dungeon. After an adventure overview and recaps including likely avenues which may have brought adventurers to the location, we get a collection of quest objectives to entice and reward heroes and heroines making the delve.

As with the first Purple Mountain installment, we're provided with sections for Standard Features and Dungeon Populations to help with descriptive prep and dungeoneering flow; I'm fond of how Purple Duck Games handles presentation in these segments, particularly for prospective DMs new at the table. Then we've got a breakdown of the random encounters on this level of the dungeon and with that, we're off and running!

Through the Ruins of the Dwarven Delve, each room gets a nice clip of flavored box text (which may seem a minor thing, but having such present persistently is nice just the same.) Creatures, traps and treasure are offered up accessibly and PDG is very thorough about documentation and references--so it's easy to track down appropriate resources and when utilizing the PDF for dungeoneering there's even ample active links, which is another nice touch.

Down to the dungeon itself, as mentioned much of the encounters shake down between the yellow musk's remnants, reside and zombies and the jinkins--with extensive booby-traps in between; there are a few outliers such as an otyugh (it's PDG, how could there not be!) a poltergeist and a blindbraun--a new undead monster provided in detail at the rear of the product. Generally, it's the traps which are liable to prove the most dangerous component of the delve--especially if a party of adventurers isn't properly prepared for such of cautious in their exploration.

While overall the encounters are fairly straightforward--and the heavy dosage of traps may prove frustrating for some parties depending on their composition--there are still some fairly entertaining set pieces to be found here. The waterworks room in particular is inventive, with jinkins utilizing a combination of pumps and steam jets in their maneuvering and the prevalent jinkin-cursed water itself is a keen element with its random effects; there's even a riddle to solve, which is always a welcome change of pace.

Following the rooms of the dungeon the adventure closes out with appendices for unique enemies, the new blindbraun and a section with all of the dungeon denizen stat blocks collected for quick reference. Finally, we close out with a record of the experience and noteworthy treasure available throughout the dungeon which I found to be a particularly nice, helpful touch for DM prep and reviewing any tweaks or changes to suit for a given party.

Overall: Purple Mountain II - Ruins of the Dwarven Delve is 28 pages long with the cover, credits, OGL and catalogue occupying 6 pages--leaving us 22 for the dungeon and its dressing. While there may not be a fight as memorable as the Worm that Walks from the first floor, the second level of the Purple Mountain is nevertheless solidly put together and still avoids over-used adversaries for relatively low-level adventuring parties to tangle with.

Due to the trap-heavy nature of the delve, some party compositions may have heightened difficulty making an expedition through these environs--which in turn may make the endeavor a much longer one than most as well. I'd have liked to have seen a bigger finale, but there's still certainly fun fights to be found just the same and by and large the traps are fairly neat as well (looking again to the waterworks room in particular for staging.)

Something which bears particular note is the treasure present in the delve, much like the monster menagerie, boasts some unconventional goodies to be discovered by dungeoneering adventurers; a glowing glove and a cowardly crouching cloak are among the finds, for example. Having a new monster included in the mix was a nice perk as well, as this is a fine element to ensure both new and experienced adventurers find something unexpected to face and puzzle out.

In closing, I liked Ruins of the Dwarven Delve--it's just tough to beat the first floor's finale; what we have here is solid, if potentially tough, with some interesting encounters, trials and treasures for low-level adventurers to enjoy. I'll settle on four stars for this one, and look forward to the next delve to come!

Returning to the field with weapons at the ready and maneuvers in mind, Steven D. Russell of Rite Publishing once more enters the breach to bring feats which expand existing chains further and open up new options for fighters and their martial ilk. 101 Combat Feats follows a similar vein to 101 Barbarian Feats in that it supplements existing options smoothly and seamlessly--a fine avenue of approach sure to appeal to all manner of mighty combatant. With much grit, guts and gusto, let's take a look at just how these feats fare!

Right off the bat we wade into the reference tables for the material herein and it's easy to see: 101 Combat Feats is bristling to the brim with a veritable arsenal of new options; there is tons of variety which can serve to satisfy anyone fond of arms and armor on the battlefield. Large feat compilations can often end up with entries which feel like filler or, worse-yet, unbalanced--but such is certainly not the case with this collection. Particularly in regards to martial characters, providing interesting, engaging, and mechanically meaningful options is crucial to the appeal of any supplement of this sort--and here Steven D. Russell does not disappoint.

While there are some outliers in the mix, the majority of the feats included here generally fall into one of four foci--weapon specialization, attacks of opportunity, combat maneuvers and grappling. I note grappling separately from combat maneuvers simply because there is a more fine-tuned focus there--essentially wrestling maneuvers chaining off of successful grapple attempts to inflict a variety of status effects or special follow-up maneuvers on opponents who have the misfortune of coming into a martial character's grasp. For example, Painful Pin can cause a foe to become sickened for a number of rounds equal to your base attack bonus.

Feat effects functioning off of base attack bonus and the like is a rather interesting angle to this supplement on the whole--as not only do the options here provide new ways in which a warrior might control the flow of battle, but having such mechanics ensures these choices continue to scale and remain useful as a character grows in power. In a similar vein to a magic user's spells growing more potent, here too a martial character might match a similar stride--especially once you look to the later options in each of the newly presented chains, many of which could serve nicely as capstone abilities.

As far as weapon specialization, there are rather interesting options for devotees--particularly those fond of bludgeoning weapons. A series of 'crush' feats allow you to debilitate an opponent's movement, dizzy their own attacks, bypass a shield's armor class, daze or sow confusion; or, perhaps you'd like to throw your hammer such that it ricochets about? If pole-arms are more your style, there's new versatility available for getting more mileage out of bracing, lunging and intervening to protect allies from an opponent's charge. Thrown weapons, shields, and double weapons get love as well--on the whole, there's plenty of great flavorful feats which broaden options beyond merely making full-round attacks of swings.

Providing added effects to attacks is one of the main themes throughout, and one which is sure to appeal strongly to any martial combatant; all too often the name of the game in melee boils down to full-round attack or bust. Being able to sow status effects on top of damage while maneuvering around the field goes a long way to improving on this predicament. Those fond of exercising battlefield control will find much interest in the feats focused on opportune moments; Opportune Focus kicks off a sizable series of duelist-flavored moves for finesse weapons such as Bold Riposte, which allows you to respond to an attack of opportunity with one of your own (very cool!) while other options like Press the Opportunity--allowing you to reposition in lieu of an attack of opportunity--are present.

Finally, the feats oriented around combat maneuvers are among my favorites of the offerings here, flavored strongly around tactical control; take Strikedown to add a trip attempt to blows modified by Power Attack--or Leap into the Fray to augment a charge attack to overrun your opponents and bowl them over in a blitz. As well, one might get more mileage from Combat Expertise by utilizing Close Quarters Shift to swap places with a foe, or fight with follow-ups based from Dirty Trick like Blinding or Bloody Assault. Needless to say, there are plentiful options available to open the door to a greater engagement of martial mechanics in battle!

As mentioned before, there are feats which would serve well as capstone abilities and truly bring a feeling of awesome power to a martial character's presence; Destructive Power brings to bear the option, once per day, to force an opponent to make a fortitude save (based off of base attack and strength bonuses) or suffer an additional 10 points of damage per base attack bonus possessed. Fearsome! Bear in mind that the prerequisites include seven feats and 18 levels of fighter. I definitely feel that these feats provide a valuable breadth of appealing options for characters which will grow alongside them on their adventures and serve to add a bold impact at higher levels as well.

Overall: 101 Combat Feats is 32 pages, with 5 occupied by the cover, credits, OGL and advertisements; this leaves us with 7 pages of fine feat tables and the remaining 20 to cover the many martial masterstrokes herein. Rite Publishing's two-column standard of formatting is present and ever neatly organized; after the feat tables there's art on every page, a mix of full-color and black and white which match the material well. The artwork accompanying throughout has popped up among other products, but each piece fits nevertheless.

Layout and spacing are good, I did not notice any egregious glitches or typos during my reading; if I had one complaint, it would be that since a number of these feats are at the end of such long chains of prerequisites that at times it can be a bit daunting to pore over everything required for a particular pick--but there's not a whole lot that could be done in this regard. The PDF is bookmarked for groupings of feats by letter, which is serviceable.

101 Combat Feats provides a fantastic spread of specialty feats to fine-tune and tailor any fighter and their ilk; there is a considerable variety to the offerings here which both bolster the potential of existing chains of character focus as well as inspiring new kits. From combat maneuvers both offensive and defensive to mobility and opportunity-based options, there's plenty of excellent synergy to help martial characters master the battlefield around them.

On the whole, the options presented herein are flavorful, cool and mechanically interesting and prove very sensible when weighed with existing mechanics; I've got to give Steven D. Russell praise for managing such care and thoughtfulness in balancing such a sizable spread of new options while constructing so many choices for characters. To me, these feats feel mechanically in-line with those found in the core--they could easily be included as part and parcel with the official line, which is a simply fantastic benchmark for any 3PP supplement. With that said, the choice is clear: five stars from me and a hearty huzzah!

'Barroom Brawls' by Creighton Broadhurst provides quick, concise and easily accessible mechanics for a given gaming group to throw down, flip tables and get into a bawdy brawl at a moment's notice. With a variety of fun prompts and at-a-glance inspirations, the material herein could be used for a planned out plot and introduction of hooks or characters--or simply spontaneous mayhem after a hard adventuring session for rowdy rabble-rousers to cut loose and let off some steam. Let's take a look at what it entails to really get the fisticuffs flying!

It's likely safe to say that there is a frightening drought of drunken brawls in most adventuring circles--and that for all the origins of organized groups springing forth from gathering at a tavern, far too few fisticuffs accompany most tales as they unfold. Tongue-in-cheek aside, like as not folks generally don't delve into such situations simply to avoid flipping through books to round up the appropriate mechanics--and thus Creighton's endeavor to bring together a nice collection of the lot makes for a very practical product.

We begin with a general overview of the elements of a barroom brawl--which breaks down into the Brawl Trigger or catalyst for the coming chaos; a collection of twenty triggers are provided with descriptions of prompts which might begin a given fight, which one could simply pick or roll randomly. After this are Brawl Events, sudden and unexpected twists which might change the 'terrain' of the tavern, shift the fight out into the streets or simply see some random sod smashing a chair over the back of one of the PCs--these serve to add a lot of spice and flavor to a given bout of fisticuffs. Again, these could be picked or rolled at your leisure.

Of course, the brawls can't all be fun and games--for next comes the Brawl Aftermaths, potential consequences and outcomes for once all the dust and chandeliers have settled. Some of these are simple enough--damages and expenses as a result from rowdiness in a given establishment--while others offer potential hooks or opportunities for characters; perhaps the brawl served as cover for a robbery, or the proprietor was so impressed by a particular PC that they're then offered employment! This was one of my favorite sections of the supplement.

After these flavorful sections we have on tap a collection of sample brawlers for ready use; an iconic barkeep, a merchant, a member of the town watch and a sergeant-at-arms are offered as potential participants. We're also presented with collected rules for non-lethal damage and maneuvering about a changing 'battlefield' as tables are overturned and drinks are spilled--Barroom Brawls also includes an amusing set of new conditions by way of Tipsy, Drunk and Hammered to toss out to tavern-goers at the table.

Finally, we wrap up with sections on taproom features and improvised weapons--both of which are suggested as print-outs for brawl participants, such that a given player can quickly eyeball their options before wading in tankards akimbo. On the whole, the mechanics are simple and straightforward, but no less sweet because of it--not only are there readily available references for a variety of improvised weapons to be found about a taproom melee, Creighton's gone and put together furniture presented as terrain features.

Alongside the spontaneous events to start a tavern brawl or to occur during a brawl in progress, the sheer novelty of having these sorts of mechanics grouped cleanly and concisely makes for a fast and fun experience--while avoiding headaches (though the same cannot be said of the brawl's participants!)

My only complaint regarding the mechanics herein is more a minor wish--I'd have loved to see the premise taken as an opportunity to include a set of new combat maneuvers flavored for pub-bound pugilists (e.g. a dirty trick splash of ale, etc.) Nevertheless, the mechanics are well thought-out, very functional and quick to pick up--introducing the system to a given game should prove a snap.

Ultimately, Barroom Brawls is added fun--easy to implement and use and a nice change of pace from pounding (or being pounded by) ogres and their ilk. Personally, I'm fondest of the proposition within to utilize a good old-fashioned tavern brawl as a means of introducing rival adventurers to a party of players--but at the end of the day, it's precisely the sort of affordable supplement that serves splendidly in any GM's toolbox for a rainy day.

Overall: 'Barroom Brawls' is 15 pages, with 7 occupied by the cover, credits, introduction, OGL and an advertisement; this leaves us with 8 pages of pugilistic prompts, props and purveyors spread between example brawlers, a few easy to use random charts and ready reference to print for participants to make a throw-down easy to orchestrate. Raging Swan's high standards for editing and formatting continue in this concise mix with some nicely flavorful black and white artwork interspersed with the material presented (including of course frothy tankards aplenty.) The layout is unsurprisingly clean and professional--and as always there are very welcome elements of convenience, from thorough PDF book-marking to the material being nicely printer-friendly. Top marks.

'Barroom Brawls' is short, sweet and entertaining in its offering of easy-to-use rules for ruining the taprooms of beleaguered barkeeps everywhere. While more powerful adventuring parties would require a bit more prep if the intent is to give an equal challenge (though certainly sometimes, a given group may just enjoy mopping the floor with patrons), inside are handy inspirations and reference material for chaotic bar 'battlefield' conditions and improvised weapons from tankards to table legs. This is a shot-glass-sized supplement that packs a punch; Creighton Broadhurst has done a fine job of bringing together a thematic and functional collection of rules that are apt to bring a breath of fresh air to any table's adventures.

If you're looking for an interesting way to introduce new hooks or characters with a classic approach or just keen for an unexpected change of pace, this is a fine way to pull it off. Pound for pound, the material herein serves to expand options for entertainment at a very affordable price; grab it, print some quick reference sheets for your players and embrace a bawdy brawl! Raising a pint to cheer Creighton's creativity, I've got to give Barroom Brawls an enthusiastic five stars.

Throughout the Legendary series Purple Duck Games have brought to the table a variety of magical arms and armament which develop and grow alongside a player character; while three of the prior entries covered a veritable arsenal of weaponry and one for shields (and one a collection of wondrous items made more so), at long last we're presented with an armory of legendary leathers and mails to bear into the field and protect aspiring heroes. Let's take a look at how Marc Radle has done in the smithy, yes?

If you're unfamiliar with the series, the premise is similar to the Legacy Items of before--magical gear which grow in power and special abilities provided you meet certain prerequisites with a given character. These prerequisites can range from satisfying a particular class, ranks in certain skills, access to given feats and so on. Unlike Legacy Items, the Legendary series has taken an approach which generally eschews leveling penalties on a character in exchange for their new-found benefits.

Legendary Armor opens up with a brief introduction and an explanation of the advancement and bonus feat mechanics presented within. After that, it's right off to the running with the armory, kicking off with the Assassin's Chain--which certainly lives up to its namesake. With each entry there's first a back-story which explains an origin of these pieces of powerful equipment (though as one can imagine, such could and ought be tweaked and tailored to fit into a given game smoothly.)

From incredible stealth and shadowy powers to several potent and deadly spell-like abilities, the Assassin's Chain would work well with an appropriately themed character. There's a bit of a boost to sneak attack near the beginning of the progression, some of the expected augments--but what is probably the most interesting part is the capstone ability, Clandestine Perfection, which serves as a veritably epic version of invisibility such to circumvent many of the traditional means of seeing a character obscured by such. Mind you, it's at 20th level--but still, pretty flavorful and cool for this sort of concept.

Battlecaster Armor is next, and both it and the Assassin's Chain I think could've used more evocative names--but as with the first entry, you get a pretty immediate idea as to what you're in store for. This suit has augments for a magus or similar such class of character and beyond boosts to casting while armored and bonus feats, augments meta-magic usage and empowers arcane pool abilities. No signature capstone ability, but very solid and well-rounded utility overall; if you are into this sort of character, you'd probably love to secure a suit like this.

Beggar's Feast follows--now there's a keener name; it also sports a fairly meaty back-story to sink your teeth into! Here we have curious padded armor which provides stealthiness and evasion alongside luck bonuses. However, the wearer can also create food and water, can gain benefit a la a ring of sustenance and can even eventually fashion heroes' feasts. Pretty unexpected, but I like it--there's some really good flavor to this one.

Blood Drinker is our first evil offering if you turn a blind eye to the Assassin's Chain, a menacing suit of spiked plate that's all about various ways of introducing more bleeding into your combat repertoire. Somewhat curiously, you can actually end up firing the spikes off of the armor shooting them all over the place. Fitting for its mien, the armor also bears Dread for its wearer and provides several fearful effects for foes.

Champion's Plate serves to shift the scales to the other end of the spectrum, a masterful and gleaming suit of full plate perfect for any character fond of mounted combat and heavy armor. Some of the bonus feats and abilities may end up overlapping in certain class situations, but the theme of the armor's spread stick strongly to fearlessly charging with a couched lance astride a mighty steed. I liked this one a lot, but I am a big fan of knights as characters.

Healer's Hand is the final solution for a character who is absolutely devoted to healing in all combat all the time. From tossing out cure spells as swift actions (limited uses per day), having breath of life on backup, augmenting additional healing on top of any spells named for such and ultimately busting out its own built-in mass heal--this breastplate starts and stops at keeping battlefield companions up and fighting the good fight.

Kama-Xia shifts us to a more exotic tempo with a very cool set of mountain pattern armor themed around being able to stand one's ground and potentially upset an entire battlefield. This suit is quite cool (though mountain stride on mountain pattern armor was a little on the nose!) Determination is quite potent--once per day when the wearer would hit 0 or fewer hit points, a breath of life is triggered automatically; yet this is just one of a very wide variety of neat abilities, from granting allies tactical bonuses to halting enemy movement. This one it one of my favorites overall.

Kelgror's Ghost is splint mail imbued with a great spirit of smithing while its bevy of abilities primarily orient around ghosts and spirits in general. From providing its wearer ghost weapon (and functioning against ghostly attacks as armor!) to spiritual weapons and facilitating speaking with the dead, there's fairly cool style here. Eventually, one gains ghost sight and ghost walk--seeing the incorporeal and invisible and moving incorporeally respectively; I had a little bit of an issue with these aspects, but otherwise Kelgror's groovy armor might finally give someone incentive to wear splint mail over plate.

Landshark's Hide--now we're talking! This crazy suit of hide armor is fashioned from a bulette, everyone's favorite landshark terror! Easily one of the most bizarre magic raiments of the lot and a whole lot of fun. You get Bulette's Leap which is a special 'pounce' attack (though not like a cat's) to hurtle yourself around enemies and from there, have augments to both bull-rush and overrun maneuvers and even tremorsense and a savage bite attack. Frankly, this is just a really fun suit of armor and encourages you to jump and shove and dive all over the place, turning any battle into a brawl.

Mage Hunter's Armor is half-plate with all the tools you'd expect to supplement smashing magic enemies. Spell resistance coupled with activated spell immunity and dispel magic and then backed with bonus feats by way of disruptive, spell breaker and so on. This is another entry that pretty much declares what you're out for and then delivers a backpack full of tools to make it happen, much like the Healer's Hand.

Minstrel's Boon is leather armor unsurprisingly tailored for bards, with augments for performances and checks of knowledge and lore. More or less everything packed in serves to help better a bard at the things they do best with the added boon of helping to shield them against efforts to silence them--and what performer would not pay dearly for such a cuirass against critics?

Oak Heart's Armor is wooden armor and empowers its wearer to turn into a tree! Its utility spread covers much for tending to potential forest calamities, with quench and fire resistance coupled with animating other trees and striding among them. The signature ability here is the Spirit of Oak Heart, allowing the wearer to bring in a ghostly treant to help them explain to their enemies why their clear-cutting of trees is not the healthiest of decisions they might have made. I certainly liked the visual of calling in celestial treant backup.

Seducer's Silk is silken ceremonial armor with a significant power of suggestion--both literally by way of the same spell and by an aura of personality to woo those nearby. Mass suggestion and domination come further along, while 'Desire to Please' might have others compelled to hand over valuables to the wearer. Having a built-in mind blank at higher levels is curious--but seduction aside, the armor also boasts Commanding Poise which could conceivably assist in leading troops or rousing crowds to action. This suit could see quite a bit of mileage in a Kingmaker-style campaign I suspect.

Triton Scale arrives just in time for high seas adventures, a fishy suit of scale mail and has everything you need to go diving without a bathysphere. Cold resistance, some sparing freedom of movement--both useful tools for any character--but for the aquatic bend we go further with slipstream and aquatic adaption, making its use in water considerably easier. From there, be a child of the sea and gain a swim speed--or later even a watery form until one day one can even bring about a tsunami. Maybe it's just me, but there ought to have been a little nod to make this kit immune to rust effects!

Vrithmytrix's Bane is the final offering and it is an imposing suit of black banded mail fashioned from a black dragoness! With dragon's claws and breath alike and even wings later, coupled with acid resistance and then immunity--one can start to grow into black dragon fashion themselves. Add to this Dragon's Mind which provides improved saves against charm, sleep and fear effects and the ability to cast darkness and it really rounds things up tidily. It's certainly a very cool looking suit of armor!

Overall: 33 pages, of which cover, credits and OGL occupy 4--leaving 29 pages to fill with our offered armor. Legendary VI: Legendary Armor continues to follow Purple Duck Games' clean two-column formatting and keeps things fairly clean to read and the mechanical crunch accessible. Where this product absolutely blows the doors out is art--every piece of armor presented in the material here has a consistent, sharp and really evocative individual piece of art to really bring them front and center in the imagination. Tamas Baranya did a fantastic job with the suits of armor and making them stand out!

I've been very fond of the entire Legendary series on the whole simply by being a fan of the premise. At the most basic level it's really just gear that gets better--and it's the sort of thing that a given group might love or hate; but if yours is one which enjoys storied treasure to grow alongside your characters or if you liked the Legacy Items experience, it's hard to go wrong with Purple Duck Games Legendary offerings in general.

Personally, I had been hoping for this particular product to hit the line-up since for me, it seems there's never a shortage of cool magic weapons but armor is so often left lacking. There is a curious conundrum with armor mechanically in that generally speaking, folks almost always end up using certain staples in each 'class' of light, medium or heavy armor--so having something like this provide really compelling offerings of those which don't so often see the field among adventuring parties is nice.

There's a lot of value here between very solid artwork and cool stories and powers; if you're in the market for interesting treasure, you've found armor lacking in the past or even had peaked interest in employing just a few of these entries into a story or campaign, I'd definitely recommend this one. Marc Radle has done a stellar job and I look forward to seeing what comes up next from Purple Duck in future Legendary entries (hopefully more treatments for wondrous items!) A solid five stars here.

My review for this is too large to fit here, so please see the discussion section for the meat!

In this continuation of the ongoing Raging Swan Press series of 'So What' supplements, author Richard Green provides a collection of ready references for GMs to utilize for inspiration--this time making what might ordinarily be mundane gems and goods a more interesting and flavorful find. Whether put on the spot unexpectedly or pondered up during prep, 'So What's That Shiny Thing, Anyway?' sets out to add spice to a session's sweet rewards--so let's take a look and see how this twist on mundane treasures measures up!

Given the nature of this product, the main meat to make or break it is in the tables themselves--and those presented do not disappoint. While the title denotes all things shiny, there are more goodies included than just gems and coins--and the full gamut breaks down to coins, gems, jewellery, books & scrolls, art objects and miscellaneous objects. Each of these categories is presented with multiple tables with individual entries providing their cash value and a distinct description for flavor. The range of value spans as little as a few copper pieces and as grand as twenty-thousand gold--which needless to say, ought to satisfy mundane finds at all levels of play.

Beyond the tables themselves--which are quite thoroughly chock full of evocative details--two sections of goods include additional layers to further tailor these findings. The coins include a table for what is printed on their reverse side, while the gems section provides reference tables both for appraising and identifying their value and for assessing the magical properties of gemstones (an especially neat table.) A few of the entries include minor mechanical effects, such as a bowl with mushrooms which provide a fortitude bonus versus disease for an hour if eaten--a nice extra inclusion among the mix.

Finally, at the tail end of the product is the Hooks & Complications section, which is really quite neat; here a table provides 'looks and hooks' (quite catchy) for gemstones, such as being marked by a wizard's sigil or being the missing eye from a statue of a demon, while another table denotes 'previous owners' for the goods found herein, boasting a nice collection of potentially quirky or precarious encounters to be had should said owners cross paths with a party of adventurers. From start to finish, all of the tables presented include plenty of detailed information about the entries.

I make no secret that I am a fan of supplements which provide a GM tools with which to spice up their adventures--and one which helps bring more memorable finds among mundane treasures certainly satisfies this calling. 'So What's That Shiny Thing, Anyway?' goes a long way in regard to providing plenty of alternatives to simply waving a hand and announcing the discovery of fifty gold of this and seventy gold of that--which in and of itself suits nicely for mechanical purposes.

Beyond just flavor however is another underlying element: these descriptions could also just as well serve as inspiration for adding additional hooks to a given story and its characters--and that is really where the 'shiny' begin to shine. Many of the entries provide enough of a curiosity that they have the potential to spark a given player's interest--and an attentive GM could certainly feed off of these piqued regards to further flesh out a particular find into something more meaningful still. It's these little perks that I feel help supplements such as this to bring lasting value to the table.

Overall: 'So What's That Shiny Thing, Anyway?' is 21 pages, with 6 occupied by the cover, credits, OGL and an advertisement; this leaves us with 15 pages purveying descriptive tables of precious goodies and a plentiful variety therein. Raging Swan Press' two-column standard is shown here crisply and cleanly, continuing to boast a nicely professional presentation. Eight pieces of black and white artwork are found herein of a nice quality and suit to flavor the material well. Layout and spacing are handled consistently--and given that much of the product is presented in reference tables, that these are found to be neatly formatted is apt. I did not find any editing glitches--everything appears ship-shape! The PDF is thoroughly bookmarked and broken down to individual tables underneath each category of goods, making it a fine electronic reference as well.

This is a very straightforward supplement, but one which is swift to seize its purpose well. One needn't necessarily be exhaustive in utilizing its contents--and whether you're apt to toss a few dice to quickly pitch parcels of loot or are keen to construct hooks from curios and curiosities, the supplement suits such a spectrum neatly. Frankly, for simply having come up with such an exhaustive collection of distinctly different finds and providing each with an interesting description as well warrants kudos and a tip of the hat. It would be one thing is this were merely varying degrees of differently colored collectibles, but Richard Green has flexed a lot of creativity in providing a considerable variety here.

On the whole, whether you're a GM seeking a swift solution for mixing it up with your players' mundane finds for sake of a change of pace or keen to ply stories from snake-skin scabbards, creepy porcelain dolls and mysteriously flickering gems--there's ample material herein for all manner of inspiration which could serve for a great many adventures without running scarce on your supply. Given the great amount of well-written material both practical and inspiring, I found this to be a nicely satisfying supplement--high marks to Richard Green and Raging Swan Press! 5 stars.

Entering among the stable of excellent variety of supplemental tools available for prospective GMs, Purple Duck Games has put together a rather curious offering here--with a focus specifically on interestingly presented trapped chests for spicing things up in a given game. But to simply regard this collection as 'merely' twenty new traps would do a disservice to the creative contraptions herein, so let's take a look at just what one can find when opening this suspicious trunk!

As stated, there are twenty trapped 'chests', but the entries are much more than this; each is presented first with a catchy tag-line that summarizes what to expect, followed by a nicely written description of the chest in question, how it might be used and how its mechanism operates. Alongside the operation of these mechanisms, many go into detail about what disarming them actually entails--nice added flavor beyond a target number and a disable device roll.

Right off the bat, these entries are rife with flavor--and the tag lines serve very nicely when thumbing through the pages pondering what you might wish to implement; as well, many of the mechanisms include additional tidbits e.g. abilities which might help identify a particular trap, or circumstances in which they might not be sprung.

Here is a breakdown of our twenty selections:

-'Fiery Destruction' is a small secure container for important documents and the like rigged to destroy its contents to ensure they don't fall into the wrong hands or end up before prying eyes; simple, straightforward, and quite cool--especially handy for an espionage-friendly or urban sort of adventure!

-'Red-Handed' is just the sort of thing you might expect to find employed by a successful merchant seeking to secure their wares; quite simply, it works just as you'd expect from its moniker--rendering a prospective thief quite literally red-handed such that the culprit may be identified. Nice!

-'Scent Trap' may draw a wince or two, utilizing its mechanism to spray would-be burglars with rather foul materials. The remnants of such would make tracking via scent considerably easier. As an added bonus, one might consider utilizing the trap here in a variety of other circumstances--or even as the crux of a practical joke.

-'Empty' is so simple it's a wonder it isn't a standard staple in core content; an illusion makes the chest in question appear empty. What more need be said?

-'Shoplifter's Peril' is one of my favorites, featuring one of the especially cool extra perks of this product: the minimimic, a tiny new creature which tries to form friendly relationships with humanoids rather than hostilities. In this case, the minimimic poses as merchandise and remains hidden when handled by prospective customers--only acting when someone attempts to steal them away. Not only is this exceedingly neat critter presented with a full stat block--but also included are potential mutations and even some nice full color art. Awesome!

-'Chest That Knocks You Out' fires toppling magic missiles in the form of screaming minotaur heads, barreling over nearby targets; the visual image of this alone should be enough to sell someone on employing one of these chests in an adventure!

-'Electrified Chest' employs the neat new uncommon spell 'Defensive Shock', which deals damage reflexively when touched which scales down with subsequent contact. Simple, but pretty nifty.

-'Spray of Acid' is pretty self-explanatory, albeit with the interesting twitch that its trigger condition is actually sound rather than an attempt to open the chest; as such, this could certainly be retrofitted as a regular trap quite easily--making adventurers quite wary and leery of statuesque heads in the future.

-'Wizard's Bane' presents a new poison called 'Mind Hammer' which deals intellect damage; the chest serves as a vehicle to demonstrate it, but like Electrified Chest it's a nice little bonus to have along for the bundle.

-'A Small Problem' targets whomever triggers it with a greater version of Reduce Person, attempting to render them diminutive--before loosing a 'heat swarm' upon them; that's when things get really entertaining, because the resultant pairing turns into a separate fight with the equivalent of a bunch of medium fire elementals. Very stylish! Both Greater Reduce Person and the Heat Swarm are included as a new bonus spell and creature respectively.

-'Chest of Wolves' is another simple yet very entertaining offering, for once it's opened a small pack of wolves is summoned to assail whomever trigger it.

-'Ooze!' is not a trap in the traditional mechanical sense, but is nevertheless a 'trapped chest' for contained within is a slithering tracker, waiting to be freed. Once the chest is opened, the tracker lies in wait--before beginning to track whomever let it loose thereafter.

-'Silent Death in the Dark' looses an iron cobra on unsuspecting burglars--but what makes it truly menacing is it emerges with darkness and silence already cast on it. Ouch!

-'Poison Gas Urn' would be right at home in any desert tomb, with pressurized ungol dust loosed in the air once opened. Straightforward, but full of flavor (and terrible poison gas!)

-'Madness Contained' triggers a dose of nightmare vapor, but features a fairly neat disarming mechanic.

-'Memory Thief Chest' is a combination of a fireball and a modify memory which, when coupled together, leave those in the vicinity hurt and not remembering why. Bizarre, but entertaining--though using it with player characters could be tricky.

-'Body in Green Glass Chest' appears to be a coffin wrought of green glass with an aasimar cavalier interred within; once triggered, the trap attempts to trap the soul of the individual who triggered it (per the spell) which loosing the cavalier to do battle--for the body becomes filled with an evil soul in turn. Potentially a fairly nasty combination, but very neat!

-'The Terrible Thing in the Box' conjures up a terrifying visage for all present when it is triggered, potentially reaping very deadly consequences; this is one is weird, literally!

-'The Button' may remind you of a certain story or film, sporting a large red button set beside the locking mechanism of a chest. When pressed, someone nearby other than the individual who pressed the button becomes the target of a finger of death. Ouch!

-'Chest to the Abyss' is a double-whammy trap which wheels out a Vrock alongside two Glabrezu demons bound to make someone's day go south very quickly; the latter pair attempt to abscond with a character after stuffing them into the chest itself.

Finally, at the very end we're presented with The Duckaxe, a legendary weapon with a treatment like those found in Purple Duck Games' line of legendary goodies supplements. The Duckaxe is a battleaxe which brooks no guff from magic users and works wonders and giving them a hard time--and as an added bonus, it's made out of a new material called noqual complete with all new mechanics for magic-resistant gear. Awesome!

Overall: 15 pages, of which cover, credits and OGL occupy 4--leaving 11 pages absolutely crammed with cool content. A Score of Trapped Chests adheres to the clean two-column format Purple Duck Games employs as standard and everything is crisp, clean and easy to read--with mechanical crunch readily available at a glance. Four pieces of art are also included, two color and two black and white (with a fifth piece at the very tail end of the supplement as part of a promotion).

I'll just come right out and say it: I -loved- this collection and was thoroughly surprised and pleased with the variety of content that Purple Duck Games has managed to squeeze into eleven pages. Not only do you get -twenty- excellent traps to add flavor and spice up any dungeon or adventure's treasure, but a vast majority of them could easily be utilized as traps independent of their protected stashes and each is wonderfully realized.

On top of the twenty traps, both of the two new creatures are quite cool (especially the excellent minimimic in particular) and to top -that- off you've got new spells, new poison and a well-done legendary weapon as well (which itself includes a brand new crafting material!)

With all of this packed together for a mere two bucks, you absolutely cannot go wrong with this product--the variety is considerable, the crunch is solid, the contents are entertaining and a prospective GM is bound to find plenty of value over any number of adventures and locales. Definitely five stars, Mark and Stefen have done a truly awesome job!

'Beserker' Steven D. Russell of Rite Publishing has set out to provide a plethora of flavorful feats meant to ensure enemies are both crushed and driven before you--and one needn't contemplate overlong 'neath the tree of woe to find a satisfying selection at hand. 101 Barbarian Feats includes a wide variety of fun new options to further define and fine tune a given barbarian's play style; as an added bonus, the material herein offers functionality among rage powers as well--and a number of entries may even make their way to the sheets of fighters and other martial combat characters with the right inspiration.

Included here among the feats there is a fairly even spread between those that are wholly new and those which provide 'improved' and 'greater' versions of current mechanics; this serves well to not only open up new avenues of barbarian styling but to also continue to empower those which one might already be fond of. Each of the new offerings tend to balance off of a combination of expending rounds of rage or limited usage per day, which serve to keep things in line while offering a chance for barbarian characters to prompt powerful, cinematic moments.

Among the new entries there are a few which prove quite elaborate and at times a bit dense as well, but one pairing in particular really stood out: the Demonic Rage feats break down into a variety of different fonts of demonic power each with their own extraordinary or supernatural power which they grant while raging. These powers are derived from different demons contained within the barbarian which introduce a number of potent elements; the 'possessing' demon can communicate with their host telepathically and generally attempt to exert their wills and desires--but most poignantly, they are able to take control of their raging host at the GM's discretion.

The Demonic Rage feats could certainly lend to an interesting role-play situation, but would definitely require consideration from all parties involved before introduction to play. Beyond this arbitration, the one thing that I found ponderous was the mention that upon the barbarian host's death a given demon would appear in their square--which as one might imagine, could introduce a host (ho ho!) of new problems. Nevertheless, a very inventive mechanic upon which an entire character could be based.

As with any supplement of character options it will ultimately vary in personal preference for what you are comfortable introducing to your game, but on the whole I found the mechanics presented within 101 Barbarian Feats to be very manageable and thoughtfully balanced in line with existing character options.

One of the biggest values to me in this product is that various barbarian archetypes receive feat support here which can broaden their functionality. For example, the 'Hurler' archetype ordinarily starts and ends at the 'Skilled Thrower' ability; included here are a pair of feats to augment this class feature--but additionally one might take 'Covering Throws' to inflict morale penalties on enemies, or 'Perfect Pitch' to gain further range and damage on thrown attacks. Having these new options to augment existing archetypes is quite keen and handled in a very sensible but flavorful fashion!

Since many of the feats included may also be utilized as rage powers, there is considerable flexibility and ease in introducing them to new or existing characters; some of the feats included also serve to help strongly define a character's background--such as an origin as a pit fighter involved in deadly blood sports or a seaborne raider pillaging from port to port. Not only might these spark the inspirations for entire character concept--but they might also be employed to simply solidify an homage to classic tropes.

Between all of the background options, archetype augmentations and the various chains and trees presented here one might comprise an entire party of distinct individual barbarians to go cavorting and conquering together!

Overall: 101 Barbarian Feats is 27 pages, with 4 occupied by the cover, credits, OGL and an advertisement; this leaves us with 4 pages sporting sizable reference tables while the remaining 19 cover the broad and meaty spread of barbarian goodies herein. Rite Publishing's two-column standard of formatting is present, with plentiful full-color (a mix of stock and public domain) artwork throughout--nearly one piece on every page.

The artwork is suitably flavorful for the feats each piece accompanies, with most adding nicely to the feel. Layout and spacing are good on the whole, though there are some minor glitches and inconsistencies e.g. italics among the flavor text and a few typos among the mechanics--but ultimately nothing is glaring enough to detract from the otherwise solid presentation. The PDF is bookmarked for groupings of feats by letter, which is serviceable.

This is the sort of supplement where you might find yourself reading along and wondering aloud: 'Why wasn't this included in the core material?' Here Steven D. Russel has provided organic options for the continuation of current options and archetypes which feel perfectly in theme and balance with their roots; from there, we are also presented with a great many new avenues of exploration for barbarian character concepts not previously offered by the rules.

Between background seeds, extension and expansion on existing archetypes and mechanics and finally the character-defining, cinematic capstone abilities--101 Barbarian Feats could certainly serve as the foundation for a 'Complete Barbarian' style of product. Even as it stands on its own, I was thoroughly impressed by the material's creativity matched in equal measure by carefully considered crunch--which together in tandem serve to stand as a stellar offering of character options.

On the whole, if you are a fan of playing barbarians and enjoy having a bevy of customization choices available to you, this really is a must-have supplement; if you're a GM with players interested in pursuing barbarian characters they're apt to love the offerings here. As well, one could create rather interesting NPCs--or even compelling barbarian villains--utilizing the options included here. 101 Barbarian Feats is an excellent tool kit to tailor together truly iconic barbarian characters!

I'm going to go with 4.5 stars due to editing glitches, but rounded comfortably to 5 stars.

In what began with woodland environs, Raging Swan Press has further expanded their line of rich random encounter sets--now presented here with the theme of hills and dales. The goal presented with each of the entries in this series is to provide for flavorful alternatives to what might ordinarily be randomly-rolled encounters during the course of your campaign. Rather than resorting to '1d6 hill giants harangue you with horticulture, roll for surprise!'--ideally, we've more memorable scenes in store for us. Let's take a look at how this issue pans out!

Included here are 8 pre-staged encounters, ready to play out on and about hills and their surrounding environs; each begins with an introduction behind the scene's backdrop and a quick stint of 'box text' to set the stage. As well, you'll find a breakdown of tactics, any terrain or environmental features to take into consideration and spice things up and options for scaling each given encounter to either raise or lower the CR easily. As the other entries in this series, these aspects go a long way towards ensuring you've got everything you need to run a given encounter quickly and easily--making them quite accessible even if they're needed on the spot.

One of the elements which I was pleased to discover continues with this entry in the series is that many of the included encounters offer opportunities for interesting roleplay--while even those that are more 'straightforward' combat situations still offer unusual opponents and circumstances in turn. The only wholly 'standard' encounter herein is found in Savage Rage, pertaining to the Savage Wolf tribe of orcs--but this makes up for a relatively vanilla fare by presenting four different bands of orcs with a mixture of different styles, lending a fair bit of utility and practicality.

Of the eight encounters, I feel that Multi-Legged is one of the coolest and certainly the most unusual of the lot. Here at first blush you have a fight with an infested shambling mound which has a symbiotic relationship with a centipede swarm, alongside a basilisk which it considers to be its pet. Creepy imagery abounds with the wriggling centipedes peeking out from inside the rotting mound--and this is a weird trio to go up against. As an added bonus, the entry also includes a template for symbiotic swarms.

The fight with the basilisk and infested mound is interesting enough--but the real prize here is the very unexpected Chandry, an intelligent handy haversack with the demeanor of an inquisitive young girl. Chandry loves to be helpful but is easily distracted and might inadvertently offer a random item instead--she makes a very entertaining find after a fun fight that is bound to bring a smile to the table. Top marks!

Beyond this, we have the Barrow of the Sleeping King which offers a very short and sweet delve with a potent pairing of cairn wight and skeletal champion--two foes which I find fairly cool. There is a nice map included with this entry and on top of that Raging Swan has released additional alternative maps on their website as a free web enhancement--very nice!

I liked the flavor of this encounter but would have really liked to see some sort of opportunity to more bring more peaceable resolution to the disturbed fellow; I know adventurers are generally apt to scoop up treasure as they go, but there was a solid chance here for divergence from the norm that I feel was missed. Nevertheless, it serves for a bite-sized 'dungeon'--and one could easily pop a trap or haunt in the space provided as well to further spice things up.

Mercenaries is a curious encounter with a band of such by way of the Irregulars--led by Kyrim Pain, a hobgoblin fellow with impeccable decorum even in combat; making a pointed effort to be presentable and amenable to prospective contracts, the Irregulars are liable for congenial discourse with a given party and available for hire to those with such an inclination.

As presented, the Irregulars could similarly be incorporated into an existing goal of the party--as rivals perhaps, or kindred spirits in cause. Kyrim's demeanor alone is enough to make this an interesting and very usable entry for flavor, even if only employed for roadside conversation in the course of a party's travels.

We've also got the Sentinels of Thor-Dilak, a grim patrol of dwarves who recently suffered casualties as the result of an orcish ambush; dour and suspicious of any party they might encounter, the sentinels could provide a segue into the Savage Rage encounters also presented in this product as well as serving as an attaché for a dwarf-related story segment. The funeral dirge angle is an interesting one and this encounter could be fairly promisingly worked into interaction with the Thor-Dilak or a similar community.

Sound and Fury comes next, a run-in with an ogress and her hill giant companion. Both of the pair are fairly meaty combatants, bolstered by cleric and barbarian / fighter levels respectively--but what could have been a fairly vanilla fight is made much more interesting by its introduction. Rather than immediately launching into combat when the pair emerges before the party, Ing the ogress hoists her holy symbol and quickly yells for parlay--not having expected to stumble upon the force of nature that is a party of adventurers.

I liked this encounter and I think Sound and Fury strikes a particular chord with me because of the level in which it comes into play; at EL 12, a gang of PCs could are ostensibly really coming into their own in their level of capability. Having a run-in where that prowess is readily recognized makes for a fun and unexpected change--and because of it, I really think that a group of players might get a big kick out of having the chance to effectively 'be' the random encounter themselves, in a manner of speaking. On top of this, Ing's presentation is a nicely flavorful vie for diplomacy--hitting up a party at this level for fifty gold is funny; I think this one deserves special attention.

Next up is What Goes Around, which entails coming across a forlorn merchant surrounded by a score of slain guards and the wounded survivor of such; panicked, desperate and deeply upset, Ulwen provides for a role-playing encounter which could easily set up a longer-term relationship with the party. Helping Ulwen could lend an ongoing source of mercantile support throughout a party's future endeavors.

As this is staged for beginning adventurers, I think this is a fine offering for giving them a chance to be good Samaritans as well as to gain friends and allies to meet again in future circumstances. Rather than a combat encounter, there are essentially a set of skill challenges here which is a nice touch. While fairly simple, there is a lot of charm in the presentation--poor plump Ulwen hoarse-voiced and waggling a bastard sword clumsily about strikes an evocative visual to set the scene.

Finally, we come to Wyverns?--which lends itself to the age-old conundrum of dragons spreading their templates all over the place as they are want to do. This is a pretty straightforward and potentially tough fight as presented--but the unusual mixed breed and included lore entries serve to make things more interesting.

Perhaps the most promising part of this encounter is the implications it carries with Burnfyre, the red dragon sire of these curious creatures--prompting a potential ongoing antagonist for a party and sending future threats their way. Just how resourceful or powerful the dragon himself may be is up to you to discern, but nevertheless it could be a promising adventure seed.

Overall: This product is 23 pages, with 8 occupied by cover, credits, copyrights, OGL and the like--leaving 15 for the encounters presented. There are five pieces of good black and white artwork, one of which is a nice map for the Barrow of the Sleeping King. I did not notice any glaring errors or typos and the formatting is both very crisp and professional. I did find a few minor inconsistencies--for instance, the entrance to the barrow above prompts a DC 30 Perception check, yet it is then said to be easily visible at the base of the hill; this does not detract from the product overall however.

In fine Raging Swan fashion, you receive both a screen and printer-friendly version of the PDF--as well as a third PDF with a compilation of all the stat blocks for easy reference. Not only that, there is a free web enhancement available with additional maps from Raging Swan's website--altogether making this a very nice, quality package. If you consider the variations of the Savage Rage encounter, there are technically eleven encounters rather than eight--with three variations for each with the ad-hoc CR adjustment options presented.

Raging Swan Press once again provides excellent material for a prospective GM--with the random encounters series continuing to improve on an already high standard of quality. The material here is both easy to read and utilize and provides ample explanation, making it quite accessible. To this end, I'd say that this makes the series especially helpful for someone who is new to GMing! There is a page for reading stat blocks which could itself serve as a nice cheat sheet in this regard.

Between the inclusive stat blocks, summarized environmental variables and other information available at a glance, this product's presentation is exceptional. Considering the broad variety of flavor found in the included encounters and the additional perks, such as a fun intelligent magic item--Random Hill Encounters does a fantastic job of turning what might ordinarily be a random mishmash of fight-fodder into what could be memorable experiences for any given campaign.

Ben Kent has done an excellent job writing interesting and flavorful scenes sure to please at any table--and I feel that this is one of the strongest offerings in the series thus far. As what may be one of my favorite purchases yet among supplements of this sort, I've got to rate Random Hill Encounters a very solid five stars and encourage any prospective GM to give this a look--especially those who might be new to the role. Kudos, Raging Swan!

Previously Super Genius Games has provided a broad plethora of resources from across a range of supplements. After guides to feats, archetypes, classes, spells, magic items and more--here we have a most curious offering of inspirations in the form of the quirky 'What's in my Pocket?' It's the sort of supplement one might look at and sort of tilt their head, arch an eyebrow--and perhaps muse about what -is- in one's pocket. Once you've finished taking personal stock yourself, let's see what SGG has in theirs!

I'll start by saying that when I first read about this product it brought essentially the reaction described above before curiosity was sparked; as the second entry in SGG's 'items' category of material following 'Rune Staves and Wyrd Wands' (which is itself a rather interesting offering,) my interest was piqued. At first blush, a passerby might take a look at 'What's in my Pocket?' and figure it to be a random chart or two and move on--but after taking a peek at the contents, I can affirm that there is much more to be found herein!

'What's in my Pocket' begins with a brief preamble on qualifiers for its contents--objects and entries with essentially negligible value and little actual 'functionality' when in the hands of a character. As presented, the intention is instead focused on inspiration rather than a random chart for reference any time a character goes rummaging in said pockets; a GM is encouraged to peruse the entries for ideas--that discovery of these articles might provide story hooks, subtle clues or spark other avenues of interest for aspiring adventurers.

There are 110 entries present and each of them gets at least a sentence description--while many get much more than this. A means of rolling the objects randomly is provided, with those on the tail-end of the chart having an extra rolling method. The majority of the 'oddities' presented are quirky mundane items, but periodically an entry has just a touch of magic--again, nothing which affects mechanics per se, but enough to spark curiosity.

In addition to their general flavor, a number of the entries have prompts for skill checks to glean more from them--while the product suggests masking these rolls from the players. This in particular is part of a section at the end of the product with GM advice on its usage--providing a number of suggestions for the implementation of these odd objects. As well, there is a column on targeting 'fixation' which I found a nice touch; it certainly bears consideration once these interesting findings hit the table!

All of the entries are at fairly inventive and range from relatively straightforward to bizarre or at times even a touch creepy; I feel it's a bit of a disservice to refer to them as 'mundane' objects if but for the sheer charm that they present. Very few are 'simple' (e.g. A vial of blood or A brass ring.) Here are a few examples which I found particularly interesting, to give you an idea of what's inside:

-A drinking cup fashioned from a monster's horn--with suggestion that said monster is looking for it!
-The wooden heel of a boot complete with secret compartment for storing items, perception for discovery, etc.
-A glass tube with a magical blue flame that illuminates as a candle
-A small maroon felt beret
-A magic shard of ice which never melts and can cool beverages. Nice!
-A small notebook full of bizarre poetry about pottery
-A crystal jar containing dust that is the remnants of an evil deity, but is essentially an artifact that doesn't do anything--complete with a hook of obsessed cultists looking for it!

Note that these aren't verbatim, but should just give a notion of the sorts of quirky things herein. There's a lot of variety here and many could serve as a springboard for broader plots (a collection of military badges from different companies, for instance--or a list of names and addresses for various nobles with unknown purposes and so on.) Under the premise of providing inspiration for a GM, these are quite neat!

Overall: 8 pages, one dedicated to the intro and cover and one licensing page, with five pages of objects and oddities and one page of GM advice. There's six pieces of color art in the mix with nice flavor which you may have seen in similar product. Format adheres to the SGG three-column style standard and is clean.

I enjoyed 'What's in my Pocket?' and found it to be both entertaining and to provide a number of surprisingly evocative entries; perusing the more than one hundred offerings here, ideas already began to percolate. In general I'm a fan of supplements which provide flavorful inspiration for a GM and these did not disappoint; I'll admit that at first blush I had expected a 'table of random stuff'--which is what most material in this vein tend to be--but was pleasantly surprised. Not that I'd reason to expect SGG would go light on the content--it just tends to be the nature of this particular flavor of supplement.

At this price point, one may be wary given that this is 'just' a collection of mundane objects--but really the majority of the entries here are detailed, inventive and out of the ordinary enough to really warrant perusal. There's plenty of potential inspiration for a prospective GM to glean from this supplement's contents, some very good flavor and the possibility of spinning short or even long-term story hooks off of any given one of the 110 'oddities' inside.

Frankly, even the 'mundane magic' items with entries like the mug that warms your drink or the panes of glass that transpose conversation over a short distance are worth a buck or two by themselves--they're the sorts of little things I could see players getting a real kick out of and making something memorable out of mere 'pocket loot'. I was very pleased with the collection on the whole and can see its implementation across all sorts of campaigns; I'm going to go with five stars for this one--if you're on the hunt for story hooks or simply spicing up your campaign, this meets that value nicely!

Another entry in the Bullet Points series, here we have a collection akin to the Armiger set--its inception oriented towards an SGG base class (the Archon of course, in this case)--while offering a parallel to other characters if the class is not being utilized in a given campaign. Magus seems the forward-most pick in this regard--but let's take a look at how these feats play out!

Of the six feats presented in this issue of Bullet Points, two are 'standalone' and the remaining four lay focused on the new Spell-Weapon feat--which boasts additional effects for a variety of traditional weapon-oriented magics. But first, the two outliers:

Add Invocation to Injury, in addition to its entertaining name, bestows penalties on an enemy to resist spells, spell-like and supernatural abilities so long as none of the three are utilized at any point during the round--which then lasts until the end of the following turn; this penalty scales up a tad if the possessor utilizes a weapon with a higher critical hit modifier.

I like the intention of this feat, the synergy for swapping to and fro between 'mundane' attacks and magical assault--but feel that it borders on being a bit too convoluted for the small penalty it hedges out; it sets out that you must eschew any usage of the trio of magical flavors at any point during your round to give a save penalty.

Instead, why not present it such that an enemy you've hit with a regular attack but have not affected by magical proves to be a viable target? You might then, for example, alternate between two or more foes doling out your abilities, or provide boons to allies or yourself via magic--while still delaying the penalty to a particular enemy for a round and still dedicating your swift action to it.

It seems to me that encouraging a character whose flavor is based around bundling swords and sorcery together to not utilize the latter every other round is a bit of a punishing exchange for a modest penalty to an opponent; a tweak in this vein would go a long way to making the feat more appealing, in my opinion.

Moving on, Eldritch Insight rounds the opposite approach, providing its possessor a bonus to attack and damage rolls when an opponent fails a save against a spell they've cast; to this end, why not extend the conditions here--adding to CMB or CMD, triggering off of an opponent affected by your spells or supernatural abilities in general (promoting combos e.g. touching for a shocking grasp here and then slashing there, etc.)

There's room to broaden the conditions here for the modest bonus--against affects that did not prompt a save, it could last a round while the failed saves remain or renew the minute duration.

Beyond this pair, we turn to Spell-Weapon and its three follow-up feats: Second Spell-Weapon, Spell-Weapon Charge and Spell-Weapon Gestures. In and of itself, Spell-Weapon provides added functionality to a variety of spells cast upon a weapon to which the possessor has 'attuned' themselves (via a ritual, such that this selection can be swapped about).

The modifiers here vary a fair bit, from greater magic weapon not requiring materials or a divine focus to upping the duration or range of similarly affecting spells. There's the premise of a fun concept here, though I feel the implementation is a bit limiting in that it only identifies a small selection of spells for its purposes.

If instead, the conditions were broadened a bit--increasing the duration of combat-oriented weapon magics (such as magic weapon) by x factor, utility-oriented weapon magics (such as locate object) by y factor, etc.--you could open the door to accommodating forthcoming Paizo or 3PP spells for example.

I'd have also liked to see a callback to the SGG Bell, Book and Candle Loot 4 Less innovation in the Artificer's Rushlight, as it might not be out of place to provide similar flexibility in regards to greater magic weapon for an Archon or similar character--though this could certainly be presented in a follow-up feat with Spell-Weapon as one of its prerequisites.

That said, Second Spell-Weapon is very straightforward--allowing a character to 'attune' to an additional weapon; ostensibly off of the base feat double-weapons are considered one weapon for the purposes of attuning, so I'd imagine this accounts for dual-wielding or swapping to and from a backup, considering how long the attuning ritual takes.

Spell-Weapon Charge allows you to hold the charge of a touch-ranged spell within an attuned weapon as if it were a battery, but specifies that it may not be used to deliver said spell--only that it may be maintained while you cast other spells. I don't necessarily think that it would be too quarrelsome to also be able to deliver the spell later--perhaps offset by a penalty to the attack sequence, or expending it if the intended attack misses, etc.--since you're taking the time and actions to set it up anyways. There's synergy with Add Invocation to Injury here, though!

Finally, we close out with Spell-Weapon Gestures which is also fairly straightforward: an attuned weapon can be used to complete the somatic requirements of spell-casting as if it weren't being held. If this is a frequent problem for a character, I suppose this would be handy--it's another where I feel a little extra oomph could go a long way though. How about also serving to make the fact that the possessor is casting a spell more subtle and difficult to detect (perhaps upping the difficulty of spellcraft to identify the spell being cast?) Is the character just attacking with flourish, or are they preparing to assault you with powerful magics? Just a thought.

Overall: 3 pages, one dedicated to the intro and cover and one advertisement / licensing page, keeping these six 'bullet point' feats on a single crisp page. There's two pieces of black and white art in the mix, both of which are nice flavor. I noticed a quirk or two in wording, but otherwise the format follows SGG standards and is clean.

Regarding the package as a whole, as one can glean I have a lot of opinions on the execution as presented--but overall, even without the above suggestions the feats here are functional as they stand. I suspect that a character balancing both martial and magic is going to be a touch 'feat starved' as it were, which is one of the reasons behind my feelings on the usefulness of each as a feat--but if you or a player in your campaign is playing this flavor of character, the Spell-Weapon feat set could be fun to play with.

At the price point, it's a good value for the inventiveness regardless--if you're on the hunt for this flavor of feat, this issue of Bullet Points fits the bill comfortably. I would rate this one 3.5 stars in that I would have liked to see expansion and tweaking on the circumstances and functionality of the above feats--but to be fair, they're still perfectly usable without my poking under the hood and thus I'll round this to 4.

Alongside the other entries in the Bullet Points series here is another quick, concise collection of tidbits offered at a low price point to further season creature encounters in a given campaign. While many in the series are oriented around feats, here we have a trio of effectively à la carte additions applied similarly to templates.

First off, I'd like to say that the premise is interesting from a mechanical standpoint: flavor a given monster or their ilk with enhanced or unusual abilities in an accessible fashion. You could conceivably toss these into the mix on the fly to spice up an encounter in a pinch--and while it treads very close to simply being templates altogether, I'm fond of the notion of singular special abilities and would love to see the concept explored in a lengthier supplement. That said, let's get started!

Our menu begins with Beguiling Voice, a supernatural savvy by which a creature can attempt to woo its foes with progressively more potent effects until culminating cumulatively into a charm attempt against a given target. As presented, a creature with this ability must first affect it upon all available hostile targets within range before they can focus on swaying an individual fully.

Mechanically, the ability layers penalties on characters attempting to attack the possessor of the beguiling voice ability--with the penalties bestowed scaling on the creature's hit dice and potentially packing a lot of punch; usage of the voice is a move action--and there's a curious balance putting it to practice.

I think this would be a dish best served for scenes with a villain or villainess extolling to our heroes from afar as they fight their way through guards and protectors--slowly but surely attempting to sap their will and sway uneasy hearts. Altogether a neat and fairly inventive ability that has potential for fun use with a bit of pondering. Not bad!

Camouflage is our second course, chameleon-esque in its execution; each round the possessor of this ability makes free stealth checks to potentially gain concealment against its foes. What distinguishes this from conventional invisibility and concealment on demand is that adjacent foes are always able to see through the ruse--while juxtaposed with the fact that magic means which ordinarily overcome such obfuscation are rendered ineffectual. I like this swap, personally--and feel it presents a potentially interesting twist on the convention of adversaries who are tricky to pin down; of course, coupled with -actual- invisibility this could be rather nasty!

We wrap up with desert in the form of Doubling Regeneration which proves to have ample portions; each turn, the possessor of this ability regrows two of any limb severed in the prior round--and presented are mechanics for explaining and accommodating for just when limbs are considered to have been removed. Each of these new limbs grants additional secondary attacks which could lead to quite a bit of mayhem; in standard form with regeneration, acid and fire prove to be dependable deterrents to the mechanic. In practice, I think this one would work best if you prepared a critter with some extra limbs ahead of time before springing the further surprise of more sprouting up.

Overall: 3 pages, one dedicated to the intro and cover and one advertisement / licensing page, keeping the three 'bullet point' abilities on a single concise page. There's some black and white art in the mix which works loosely for the abilities ascribed--but really, you're looking at a printable page you can tote to the table with you if you're apt.

With only three abilities, this edition of Bullet Points is rather short--but to be fair, the three presented here are also decently lengthy by necessity in order to accommodate the explanation of their mechanics. All three of the abilities included could make for a very interesting twist on an encounter and since they are presented with quick and easy application in mind there's good fun to be had.

Though one might be deterred by the low ability count, I would argue that the relative complexity of those included justifies such reasonably well; for the very cheap price point at least three encounters could be made more interesting even if only used a single time apiece and there's room for creative use in any campaign. I'd rate this one 4 out of 5 stars--and note a desire to see SGG put together a bigger product off of this concept, as it would be a neat combo to work with existing monster template supplements.

In the Bullet Points series we have short, sweet collections of extras at a low price point to further flavor and enhance the options available in a campaign near you. Here, we've got a set meant for the Armiger class in its inception (which itself is a curious offering, a fairly flavorful)--but helpfully given an out for consumption by traditional fighters as well. Let's take a look!

We've got nine feats to contend with, each oriented around an adventurer very keen on getting the most out of their armor and the premise of stalwart durability; following this concept, most are oriented around combat maneuvers in particular:

Armored Hulk offers bonuses to combat maneuver defense derived from a character's current armor check penalty; this is fairly neat conceptually, since the intention is to reward wearing especially bulky and ponderous armor--but I think a caveat ought to be included to account for special materials and enchantments (e.g. apply whatever the original penalty would have been) so as not to devalue the feat for upgrading your heavy armor.

Brace for Impact allows you to treat all your weapons as if they had the brace weapon feature, and if you brace with one that ordinarily does have the feature you can do so more effectively; certainly allows for more use of something that I feel folks often don't engage, but I'm unconvinced this would be something a player would want to spend a feat on.

Hard to Kill has a peculiar angle in that it converts a small portion of lethal damage taken to nonlethal when wearing heavy armor; this amount 'scales' mildly, but I don't think this one has enough oomph to be particularly desirable as a feat in its current iteration. SGG offers a feat in Feats of Battle which provides DR 2/-- when wearing heavy armor, which is patently better than Hard to Kill in practice; I don't think it would be terribly unbalancing to up the ante with this one a bit.

Helmed Confidence is one I quite liked--requiring Iron Will and a helmet, one wearing the latter gets a bonus to their Will saves which scales with level. I could definitely see a player being keen to pick this one up and the flavor for it is a lot of fun (though I can't help but think of the Juggernaut for some reason...!) This one's a winner.

Push Back racks up steep prerequisites and hedges off of shield usage, but allows a character to bash back against a failed attempt at a combat maneuver and potentially knock their assailant prone; fun mental image and holds potential in the field--this one has promise. On a minor note, though it notes that the failed maneuver provokes an attack of opportunity, this could use with an assertion as to this overriding the Improved maneuver feat suite in their avoidance of provoking.

Shield Crush is very straightforward--upping the damage on shield bash attacks and broadening their critical threat range. I love this feat if only by virtue of it further augmenting the viability of being a shield-bashing menace on the field and offering more incentive to do so over turning to a trusty two-hander for damage. A nice perk for a character devoted to the concept and a feat I'm surprised hasn't surface in core material.

Shield Parry is a further boost to armor class when toting such about, with the added perk of increasing the difficulty an opponent faces in sundering said shield. Very straightforward and likely to get snagged by a character devoted to further hardening their bulwark.

Shrug it Off is fairly neat--as a move action, a character can prepare themselves for an attack in the form of gaining a small pool of temporary hit points; these hit points scale with character level and I could certainly see it adding up in healing saved over the course of an adventurer, making this a pretty practical pick. Nice!

Soak it Up caps us off with a boost to a character's hit point pool retroactively and then converting further hit dice gained by augmenting die rolls with static numbers; the usefulness of this could vary greatly depending on how a particular campaign is handling such rolls, but this could certainly serve to beef a character up over the course of their career. Not bad, just a bit curious.

Overall: 3 pages, one dedicated to the intro and cover and one advertisement / licensing page, keeping the nine 'bullet point' feats on a single concise page. There's some black and white art in the mix, but frankly the product is very straightforward as one can imagine: a page you can print off with the offerings all racked together.

On the whole, I like the feats presented here and could certainly see a character beholden to the concept behind them finding much appeal from the product; while the execution of some of the feats included is a bit curious (and in the case of Hard to Kill, just flat-out inferior to a similar feat from a sister offering of SGG), nevertheless there's enough cleverness and creativity here to certainly warrant a look.

None of the feats struck me as overpowering or as a potential source of imbalance--and enough are presented with an inventive twist that I feel this deserves consideration if you're apt to incorporate 3PP feats in your game. If you have a player that is utilizing the Armiger class from SGG, picking these feats up should be a gimme.

Even if this is not the case, if you have a player that is excited about a heavily armored or shield-loving character, I think they'll be quite happy if these are made available in the mix as well. I'd rate this installment of Bullet Points a comfortable four out of five stars, with the footnote that I'd like to see SGG revisit and reconsider a few tweaks mentioned above.

On premise, the Loot 4 Less series is all about providing low cost magic items for use by GMs in rewarding low level adventurers: minor abilities, perks and utility for a party that is low on resources--while in the process making what would ordinarily be mundane treasures more interesting. I'd had mixed feelings throughout the early portions of the line, but each of the later installments have steadily provided more and more clever entries that have served to grow interest. With that in mind, when it comes to fielding flavorful rewards for fresh-faced adventurers or finding fun accessories for them to ply, how well does Belt One On fly?

As is fairly clear, Belt One On is a collection of belts for a burgeoning adventurer which offer interesting alternatives to the standard fare of the item class--rather than mass produced sources of strength or the monastic implements of monks we get a collection focused on providing a variety of fashions and utility. Presented are eighteen belts, sashes, girdles, straps and buckles to serve as accessories; sidebars are included elaborating on the method behind the pricing of the abilities and to address considerations taken on the balancing of such in the framework of the product's intent. Let's take a look!

After a very brief introduction to the Loot 4 Less concept we dig right into the belts, the first of which is the Belt of Many Uses; a veritable 'Swiss Army Knife' of utilities, this thing contains twenty-seven different components (twenty-eight if you count rope attached to the grappling hook function) from a dizzying pool of mundane tools and weaponry. For the player that likes to go hog wild shopping in the mundane equipment section of a town's wares this is the sort of item they'll have a field day with; that said, while there's a daunting array of articles within nothing is particularly offensive--just very very versatile.

The Belt of Secret Magery provides exceptional concealment of material components for casters which could see flavor use in a story or campaign where the usage of spells is taboo or otherwise restricted; it helps to stave against having components stolen, but as most campaigns played seem to gloss over the inclusion of material components, your mileage on this entry is apt to vary. Still, fairly neat when applicable.

Next, the Coin Belt is an exceedingly cheap, bizarre and entertaining entry: quite simply, you can pull silver out of it every day for free. Fun fluff, if ultimately pretty pointless in practicality (it's effectively several years to reach the value of the belt itself.)

The Comfort Sash shields the wearer from the elements and I could see it being exceedingly popular in any campaign where environmental hazards are a frequent hindrance. A very practical item that players are apt to pine for.

The Crawling Cummerbund, in addition to being fun to say, provides an on-demand viper or giant centipede to the wearer which is renewable each day; personally I wouldn't want to wear a dormant magic centipede.

Next, the Fighter's Gird provides a somewhat situational but potentially prized boon to a given character--limited shielding from effects which damage or drain the wearer's strength each day. If this is a frequent encounter occurrence I could see a player pining for it (while cursing their campaign's stat-hating foes).

A Girdle of Greenland Whispers allows the wearer to hear whispering chatter from the local foliage, a strange method by which to gain bonuses when trying to be stealthy in forests, jungles and the like; you can't actually hold conversations with the plants. Quirky, kind of fun.

Girdle of Mule Strength shoulders a sizable chunk of encumbrance for the wearer, allowing you to get one step closer to re-enacting the treasure haul scene from The Adventures of Baron Munchausen in a campaign near you. You may have a player who will really get a kick out of it.

The Force Cinch essentially provides ghost touch to armor adorning the wearer, making it effective against incorporeal attacks; given that it occupies an item slot for what would otherwise be an armor enchant, this one is a bit of a shrug. I'd have liked to see more flavor in this one's effects.

Heraldic Overbuckle offers a way to proudly display a character's heraldry--with the added boon of supplementing one's Lay on Hands uses per day; the Reversible Holy Buckle follow-up functions similarly with the wearer's holy symbol and the channel energy class ability.

Ribbon of Lies is a shield for the wearer's alignment which might find a happy home in a more espionage tilted story.

The Rope of Fangs continues in a trend of augmenting class abilities, this time boosting one's capacity to rage via a fashionable collection of tusks, teeth and other animal trophies.

The Screaming Purseholder is an entertaining way to thwart would-be pickpockets--and could started the dickens out of a party rogue if worn by a seemingly innocuous NPC.

With the Silver Lyre, a performing bard gains a harmonious accompaniment for their music--augmenting said class ability in a fairly interesting delivery.

Next is the Swim Belt which makes Rings of Swimming envious from afar; though limited to a single duration each day, the wearer gains a swim speed and the ability to breath both water and air making for a considerable boon in short bursts. I could see a higher level group picking up a set of these for their underwater escapades or having them handed out for a very specifically themed episode.

The Thieves' Strap rounds out our espionage offerings, obscuring an item stowed away from discovery before masking the belt itself; there's the potential here for the basis of an entire storyline if used right, so I've got to give it high marks.

Finally, we end with the Wolf's Head Belt which provides the ability of scent-based tracking for the wearer for a period each day; handy, and potentially fairly flavorful for an individual.

Overall: 7 pages, with 1 for credits and half a page for the cover; 3 pieces of color art spied here and there among other products as well, but decent nevertheless. While not as strong as some of the other entries in the Loot 4 Less line, Belt One On still provides a colorful selection of waist-based items which could serve to spice up low-level adventuring.

If anything, I would have liked to see the inclusion of mechanics which scale off of a character's attributes, hit dice or level--this was present in Bell, Book, and Candle from the same series and served to help elevate the usefulness of those offerings over a longer span. I'm a fan of the entries here which offer minor perks for particular classes if only because of the presentation for how they do so; there's solid creativity among the eighteen offerings in this product and some could inspire short scenarios by themselves.

I'd give Belt One On a warm 4 stars for providing a good variety of well-conceived items of a class not ordinarily offered in any quantity; though they may not have the staying power long-term for a given character, the goal of adding spice to lower-cost wealth has been met rather well. If you're looking to broaden the variety in your campaign this is a good buy and a solid addition to your library.

Once more my terminal case of wordiness has prevented the full review from fitting in this space, so please see the discussion thread for my full take on Encounter Pages. Overall, this is a solid product that shows a lot of promise as the first entry of a series and is certainly worth taking a look.

I've had mixed feelings throughout the Loot 4 Less line, but with this entry I really feel that Super Genius Games hit it out of the park. Unfortunately, my review hit critical mass for wordiness--so please refer to the discussion thread for the full contents of such!

Nevertheless, this is a must have for any Pathfinder GM!

After having reviewed the sequel to this product first, my perspective is a bit backwards from the improvements presented there--but nevertheless I wanted to cover my own experience on what I feel is a very solid resource for a Pathfinder GM. The goal presented with Woodland Encounters is to provide for interesting alternatives to randomly-rolled encounters during the course of your campaign; ideally, this helps accomplish more memorable scenes during travel than '2d4 critters stumble out, roll initiative'. Let's take a look at how it stacks up!

Included here are 8 pre-staged encounters which can be incorporated into most any wilderness environs; each begins with an introductory write-up and optional 'box text' to set the scene, as well as initial suggestions for a prospective GM regarding the circumstances at a glance. Following that, you've also got suggested tactics, terrain features that can come into play and finally pertinent stat blocks presented in a concise, clear fashion--as well as quick snap-ins to raise or lower a given encounter's CR. As a complete package, you're left with all the necessary details to run a given encounter easily accessible at a glance, which I feel Raging Swan Press has handled very well.

Several of the encounters as-presented offer opportunities for diplomacy and roleplaying as avenues for your players--with the bandit ambush for instance, ready options are presented for a more amenable parting of ways between parties--and the ghostly remnants of the conjurer Valentin offers a fine opportunity for characterization as well. That said, a majority of the encounters presented would invariably roll right into more straight forward combat (an element the sequel improves upon considerably).

Despite this, the staging and composition of even the combat-pitched encounters does lend towards a more inspirational angle--provided you have the time and inclination to flesh them out. With a bit of love and care one could certainly draw some memorable parlay from Jarla the Ogre Huntress, or paint a scene with the Blood Moon goblins (particularly if you're fond of the entertaining mannerisms Paizo's re-imagining of the little fellows can also lend to this.) It's a shame that a more distinct lore was not included--there's mention of a keep and the like, but I would have liked to see more personality behind this tribe in particular.

Of the included encounters, the Gnolls with their ill-fortunate Pugwampi, the creepy isolated hovel with its ghoulish barbarian Garilax and the Shattered Bridge, haunted by the ghost of the conjurer Valentin are my three favorites; the latter-most of these, the Shattered Bridge, is available as a free sample in its entirety on the Raging Swan Press website--and also happens to be one which I've had the opportunity to work with in our own group's campaign, so I'd like to expand upon it as an excellent example of an encounter.

With the Shattered Bridge, a recent and terrible storm has collapsed the span over a river--and in the process, crushed a hapless conjurer by the name of Valentin Pennanen beneath it. Why Valentin was traipsing about in a storm capable of collapsing a bridge can be left to one's imagination, but the net result is he now haunts the site and is rather unhappy about his present circumstances and keen to blame whomever happens upon it.

As presented, you've got what I feel is a potentially fun battlefield arrangement: the broken up bridge can provide something of a navigable obstacle course of checks and terrain, the river itself and its embankments add additional hazards (particularly given Valentin has a penchant for telekinesis used for combat maneuvers!) and the flying ghost of the wizard Valentin himself throws out a mix of control spells (such as stinking cloud) and augmented summons.

In practice, this can make for an interesting encounter with elements to engage a variety of characters in a party individually while they work to wrangle or appease Valentin's riled spirit; the bridge and river can be a fun challenge in and of themselves provided you keep the spirit in the general vicinity for his haunting. For our particular group, the party was traversing the river in a barge--so the collapsed bridge served as an obstacle which needed to be cleared, prompting for their run-in with Valentin.

Altogether, I feel it's one of the stronger offerings from the product in its variety and usability in framing a memorable 'random' encounter. It -is- possible to talk the poor fellow down from his angry state, but it is a difficult diplomacy check to do so. You can play up the personality or story to the spirit and make for an unusual encounter at the given CR range and provide a challenge without particularly terrible risk of character death or the like.

Overall: This product is 23 pages, with 8 occupied by cover, credits, copyrights, OGL and the like--leaving 15 for the encounters presented. Five pieces of black and white artwork, partly stock from other offerings. Errors were very minor and there were only a few nitpicks I had with the sizing and spacing of stat blocks among the rest of the content--nothing terrible, though. You receive both a screen and printer-friendly version of the PDF which is a nice touch.

Raging Swan Press provides a solid foundation for a very promising series of products and I look forward to future offerings in the series. The material here is accessible and easy to use, the information is readily available at a glance and there is a decent variety of encounter flavor to tailor to a given campaign's travels. Since the intention is to make random encounters more memorable, the offerings here are a solid start in that regard.

While not as strong as its sequel, I feel that you get a very functional and entertaining collection for the price point and with a bit of work even the more standard-fare encounters can be made to shine in your own game. I'd rate Woodland Encounters 4 stars--worth the price and a solid resource for any Pathfinder GM; if you like the material here, I encourage you to check out the sequel.

As an after-note, as with Woodland Encounters II I found Raging Swan Press to provide excellent customer service in answering questions and clarifying content; they even helped with a little bout of brainstorming which helped to inspire integrating an encounter. A very good experience!

For a second review I wanted to show some love for Purple Duck Games and decided to follow in the vein of the encounter workshop style of product--so here we are, with this rather inventive take on creating flavorful 'random' encounters for your gaming group and campaigns. Invariably every GM will find themselves with windows throughout their adventures where the call for random adversaries arises--but this needn't boil down to a toss of the dice, a mishmash of monsters and--as put in this product itself: "announcing what creature suddenly blunders into view" which I loved. So, how does Random Encounters Remastered fare in this regard?

I'll start by stating I feel that any storied campaign ought to turn random encounters into opportunities for memorable experiences and further fleshing out the flavor of your particular game. In what is introduced as the first volume of a forthcoming series, provided here is a rather versatile toolbox for those looking accomplish just that.

The book opens with a brief introduction on the premise of creating more interesting circumstances and environs for otherwise random encounters, encouraging prospective GMs to weave such into the existing story by utilizing them as opportunities to drop plot hooks, reintegrate forgotten characters or story threads or otherwise provide some degree of motivations for the scene at hand.

After addressing and suggesting ways a random encounter might serve the plot at large, what follows are a set of considerations for a GM to question when staging the encounter--such as whether or not it allows all the members of the party to shine in fun ways, if the encounter provides interesting opportunities for roleplaying and what the players might hope for as a result of the encounter. Should an obstacle arise in the staging step, there is a series of suggestions for fixes to potential problems that may arise.

These, among the others considerations, are fine things to keep in mind--and a sidebar included among the material here offers suggestions for the staging of non-combat random encounters. Afterward, the book presents a thorough explanation of how to utilize its remainder mechanically--starting with what I felt was a very clever way of addressing an enormous range of potential CR on charts with near to five hundred entries through the addition of a multiplied average party level to your percentile roll.

Explained in detail as well are encounter elements (such as the disposition of those involved in the encounter and potential terrain features to take into consideration) as well as how to handle the conclusion of an encounter--suggesting that not all combats need necessarily end with the total destruction of one party or another. Sage advice!

Next is the fleshed out dispositions section which includes a variety of inventive wildcards for adding flavor to your generated encounter. Examples range from straightforward twists such as the encounter either pursuing or being pursued by another element to more involved situations--such as a 'watery mayday' scenario wherein one or more NPCs are experiencing trouble on the water (which includes its own random chart if you're so inclined, for potential dilemmas).

Most of the dispositions presented hold pertinence to the environments this volume of product focuses on (eerie wilderness, jungle river, etc.) But many could be extrapolated easily to other environs. There are eight presented here; I suspect future volumes will serve to further expand the options of this section, but those presented here nevertheless are a great start to the concept and can potentially add a lot of flavor!

Terrain Features follows next and are presented with quite a wide variety of options to integrate into an encounter; each entry includes a bit of at-a-glance crunch to help a GM stage a map for the encounter (such as quick dimensions for an alleyway, a cavern or the division of difficult terrain in a section of shrubland.)

There are also modifiers which can be applied to the CR of an encounter included here, some of which may make an encounter either more or less difficult depending on the circumstances (such as lighting conditions which might affect those without appropriate vision), while others serve as battlefield obstacles and hazards (such as noxious fumes).

With nearly fifty terrain features presented in this section (a number of which even include sub-features, tables and other variables), I feel that this could well serve as its own product--and presented with the rest of the included material is an excellent resource. The mechanics are presented in a clear fashion usable easily at-a-glance--a fantastic way to swiftly spice up a scene or add interesting variables to what are all too often 'fight this random critter in a clearing' circumstances. Fantastic stuff which I hope to see more of in future volumes!

At the tail end of the terrain features section you're presented with a new hazard / trap combo in the 'Widowmaker'--a CR 5 collapsing tree which can be spied through survival as well for wilderness-savvy PCs. A nice little bonus--I'd certainly like to see it expanded into its own full section in future volumes as I think combining such a resource with the prior terrain features would make for a great complete package.

Finally, we're presented with the expanded tables--the real 'meat' of the rest of the product. As mentioned earlier, these tables are enormous--clocking in between 360 - 540 percentile results each and ranging from fractional CR to CR 25. Each themed table is precluded by a breakdown of minimum and maximum CR ranges as well as encounter frequency. Accompanying each of the expanded tables are smaller disposition and terrain feature tables appropriate for the associated environs, allowing you to quickly roll through once you've selected the stage.

In this volume there is a rather interesting variety to the themes presented: Eerie Woods, Jungle Rivers, Planar Strongholds, Restless Volcanoes, Treacherous Mires and Underworld Battlefields. For fans of flavor or those seeking ad-hoc inspiration, the collection here is just oozing with opportunities to both--with many of the entries including out of the ordinary and interesting creatures to be included in your encounters.

I was eager to take the material for a spin for my own campaign and to test drive the mechanics, so I went with the Eerie Woods for a more 'straightforward' example to see just what it could come up with. The very first results out the gate developed a Dullahan in a foggy glade--which really to me creates an immediate and compelling visual to set a scene combined with a rather interesting adversary; potential for roleplaying, a tough brawl, the works. Very cool!

Overall: This product is 35 pages, with two for the cover and credits and four for copyrights, OGL and the like; this leaves you with 29 pages which are, frankly, chock full of excellent content! There is minimal wasted space and I did not encounter any glaring editing errors--while mechanically, the formula for conjuring up a CR-appropriate encounter range worked consistently for me in practice. Six pieces of black and white artwork for setting a general mood which were fairly solid--the bulk and meat of the product is in the mechanics.

At the price point, if you're looking for a tool to build more compelling encounters for your campaign I feel that this first volume is an excellent value; the composition is solid and the materials on terrain features alone would have made for a valuable asset in any GM's reference library. Even if you may not foresee a need for some of the more exotic environs presented in the material here there are solid building blocks with which to expand upon a broader variety of encounters.

I give this a solid 4.5 stars, rounded to 5 from finding several fantastic encounters turned story opportunities; more importantly, it was -fun- to use! If you are particularly concerned about not finding a fit for the environs presented or the price, I would instead suggest 4 stars.

Looking forward to the next volume!

This is my first review here for the site and to kick things off I wanted to start with a product which I feel to be an excellent resource for any Pathfinder GM. More or less any campaign will come upon points throughout where a call for random encounters is made—while all too often a toss of the dice and the check of a chart leads to just that: a random mishmash stroke of combat where you duke it out, dispatch a monster and occasionally mark down some loot before heading on your way.

That may all be well and good, but if you’re moving through a storied campaign and the aim is a memorable experience, why relegate a part of that experience to percentiles and a spontaneous band of critters?

Here, Raging Swan Press has put together an excellent alternative in the way of well-made miniature set pieces chock full of flavor and the opportunity to better enhance an otherwise boring trek from point A to point B. Included in this product are eight encounters ready to roll out on the fly.

Each of the eight encounters includes an introductory write-up, flavor text for your party, tactics, area features and other pertinent information. Advice for scaling each encounter to a lower or higher CR is also included, as well as possible developments staged as an aftermath for each. Where this really shines is the presentation of this information: at a glance you’ve got crisp clear stat blocks, environmental modifiers and on-the-fly adjustments for scaling which all lend to being able to utilize these scenes on the spot with ease.

Not all of the encounters are necessarily combat, which in and of itself is a great boon; even among those oriented around such generally offer diplomatic alternatives for parties who are quick on their feet or silver-tongued. There are a bevy of excellent situations to thrust your players into throughout this book--among which I'd like to give a nod towards 'A Fate Worse Than Death', an encounter I've now run in our own group's campaign.

In 'A Fate Worse Than Death', a brother and sister who are the children of wealthy merchants have been assailed by vargouilles, nasty flying heads which deliver a terrible curse via kiss which invites the heads of their victims to join the 'flock'; the bodyguard to the children has succumbed to just such a disease while the poor pair are in the process of the terrible transformation themselves. The party comes upon the two of them terrified in a ramshackle farmhouse while a fiendish melancholic ooze swarm lingers at the front door.

From here, vargouilles emerge from hiding to attack the party and work in wicked conjunction with the ooze--which paralyzed by touch--creating a rather good synergy between the enemies for the encounter. Both also prove more interesting fare than most of what you might usually encounter in the wilderness--and with the staging of the scene as a whole, it makes for both a potentially pitched battle and a disturbing race against the clock while players attempt to save the children from a rather gruesome fate.

Included are helpful instructions for how to scale this encounter to make it easier or more difficult, as well as environmental considerations for the farmhouse and surrounding environs, suggestions for the tactics, and also a nicely written backstory for how the whole affair came to pass (invariably in this bizarre situation, a Wizard did it of course!) I found that this made for a very interesting encounter for my players which was well enjoyed and fit well into the campaign at large, allowing the introduction of the (rather grateful) merchant parents of the children as new contacts, good favor among the small community and so forth.

The other reviews present have already addressed the overall encounters in the book, so I'll leave it with that. I'd like instead to make note that I contacted Raging Swan Press with questions and comments regarding the materials presented in the book prior to running them in my campaign and that the communication there was prompt, helpful and very pleasant; the fact that added inspiration was gleaned from such served to make for a very positive experience with this product above and beyond the material itself.

In closing, whether you’re looking ahead of time to add interest to a party’s travels or are put on the spot for a sudden scene—this product has a solid variety of options at your disposal. I'd rate it five stars, and look forward to incorporating more of the encounters present into my future sessions. As well, Raging Swan Press gets high marks from me for great customer service!