w0nkothesane's page

Thank for Eric Mona for making sure this was published. This book turned me onto Hugh Cooks writing, and my literary life was enriched for it.

This is sword and sorcery at its grittiest, and the writing and plot are superb. I second the notion that fans of the Dying Earth will enjoy this; I read this and Cugel's Saga each for the first time, back to back, and thoroughly enjoyed Cook's bizarre and intriguing world and writing. I'm now in the process of reading the rest of the Chronicles of an Age of Darkness and have yet to be disappointed! If only Planet Stories had a production schedule that would allow them to reprint all of the books in this under-appreciated series....

Let me start by saying that the game itself is pretty fun. As the other reviewer mentioned, it's DEFINITELY beer and pretzels gaming- I can't imagine it being able to support the weight of an extended campaign out of the box. The setting is downright flimsy, leaving the GM to fill in details. This seems inconvenient given that the game is likely to see most of its use as an on-the-fly distraction from another campaign at my table, or else be used for something to do when part of the group can't make it.

The rules are light, bordering on incomplete, but anybody with decent knowledge of 4th edition rules can fill in the holes. I'm personally not a huge fan of 4th edition, but I actually really enjoy this use of the ruleset.

My main beef is actually a combination of pricing and the intent behind it. The box is largely empty- the rulebook is 160 pages, stapled softcover. The character and monster tokens are thick and reminiscent of Fantasy Flight Games- they're decent quality, but still just tokens. Then you get 40 each of two types of cards, one for mutations and one for equipment. For $40 I would expect quite a bit more out of this box set.

I'm tempted to lower my rating by another star simply for the obvious money grab being done here by introducing a CCG element to the game. At $4 per pack, you get 8 random cards; none of the cards have unique art, it's just a bit of flavor text and the mechanics. WotC also sell Magic booster packs, which run $3.50 each for 15 cards which have some pretty stellar art on top of the mechanics and flavor text. I won't let that affect my rating, though, because out of the box the boosters are an optional add-on, not required.

Yet again, I can't think of much to add to Endzeitgeist's and Dark Mistress' reviews. They've covered all the major points, and although the complaint EZG made regarding the lack of an overview map is a sticking point, I don't think it's enough to detract a star. Well done.

There's absolutely nothing I can say that Dark Mistress and Endzeitgeist haven't already said. This is mind blowingly good.

This product details the background/history of Tsar, as well as the denizens and events of The Camp, the only permanent settlement in the area, and likely the home base for your group of adventurers, whether they like it or not. The writing here is fantastic, and it had me laughing throughout the description of The Camp, sometimes because of the entertaining NPCs, other times because of the dastardly tricks and traps laid out to put the PCs through, and often a combination of both.

I recommend this even if you don't plan on running the entire series, just to use as a particularly cruel town from which to launch your adventures. At $2 you can't beat it.

I only just got my copy a few days ago, and after reading through it I'm going to incorporate several of the suggestions and houserules into my home Pathfinder game. A lot of houserules for expanding or simplifying the game, and rules for covering things that normal d20 and Pathfinder don't.

I'd give it 4.5 stars if I could for nitpicky things like a few errors that editors should have caught, but overall the advice, houserules, and crunch are all well thought-out, and even if a GM doesn't use anything as-is it's still very thought invoking. The book has really got me thinking on how I can improve my game, and at $5 it's totally worth checking out. Buy it before they run out.

I really liked this volume. It started things off with just enough plot to get the PCs involved, and then BANG! and things go down, thrusting the PCs into action. Fighting through the first section really presented good opportunities for the players to get into character and react to one another, and my group definitely appreciated being pushed almost immediately into combat.

After having the chance to read through the majority of the Dredan- Realm of Metal and Myth campaign setting, I feel like there are two sides deserving of their own review.

The mechanics for PCs- races, classes, prestige classes- seem balanced but don't grab my attention. The races require some conversion to use as PCs. The first few chapters cover these and are the weaker side of Dredan. The equipment, skills, and feats sections fare much better, and a lot of it is useful for just about any science fiction setting.

Once you get past the first few chapter, though, you get into the setting itself. The setting is interesting and massive. We're talking about over 150 pages of worlds and locations. There is a lot of material here and a lot of places for campaigns to take place. I'd give this section 4 stars.

Overall I'd love to see the Dredan campaign setting be refined, maybe have the character options refined and spiced up. A solid first entry regardless.

I haven't had a chance to use mine yet, but this has just about everything I was hoping it would, all right there on four nicely laid out 8.5"x11" panels. The artwork on the players' side is gorgeous, as is just about all of Paizo's other artwork.

My only complaint is that I didn't get it in time for my most recent session.

This scenario made for a great introduction to the Pathfinder Society. I ran this for a group of brand-new 1st level characters and they had a good time. It's challenging in some parts, and very satisfying overall. The only thing I can complain about was the mist template; I feel like it should have been given a bit more information.

I got this book last night, and I like it, for the most part. The items themselves have interesting back stories that can be modified to drop pretty easily into any campaign, requirements that are easily adjusted for Pathfinder play, and there's a solid array of weapons for all character types.

My problem with the book is the -scion prestige classes. There's one for each archetype (heavy melee, full divine caster, full arcane caster, skill monkey) and they derive their class features from the legendary item they wield.

That just doesn't feel as epic as I would want it to be. If I'm going to give out a Sting, or The One Ring, I want it to be meaningful and powerful in the hands of anybody.

Fortunately it won't be hard to come up with some rules for unlocking the powers of the weapon as you level up and attune to it more. I just wish they had included alternate rules for those who didn't want to use the prestige classes.

Overall, this is an absolute steal at $2. Nice (black and white) illustrations of each item, just under 80 pages, and overall very nice quality.

This book has taken everything I disliked about 3.5, from the emphasis on Prestige Classes that ended up being necessary to be viable at end-game, to the broken and ridiculous builds that were possible (chain fighter, for example) and fixed 95% of those problems.

Single-class characters have never been so viable, and the only class that I thought could use more work was the Bard. Every other class got some update or new set of features that blew me away.

Production value is beautiful, and it's a veritable tome. My 4th edition books are completely dwarfed by this thing. Thank you Paizo.