The Mad Doctor's Formulary (PFRPG)

Woo, first post! Come and get it.. if you dare!

(No, really, you should dare. It's awesome.)

Great to see tbis here! Just dropping this comment as a reminder, I'll have the time to do a (hopefully memorable) review of this astounding tome later.

Suffice to say for now that this could be called "The Essential Alchemist (Vivisectionist) Sourcebook" with no hyperbole. I mean, rules for giving lobotomies?

I look forward to it. But come on, lobotomies are the least of your worries! If the good doctor is really hardcore he'll be implanting a couple of entirely new personalities!

Just posted my review here, and I'll be off to stick it up on RPGNow too. I just hope it's good!

EDIT: Ach, I forgot, I'd have had to buy it there to post my review! Sorry about that.

Say, is anyone else buying this one? Because it really is something good for fans of less-mystical horror in their games.

Somebody is; 30+ copies in two days - not too shabby. :)

Keep on coming and getting it!

Landscape version of The Mad Doctor's Formulary now available by direct email order at makeyourgamelegendary at gmail dot com as well as for download on the d20pfsrd webstore and at DrivethruRPG, and submitted on Paizo.com and should be approved and ready for download by the end of the day.

Landscape version of The Mad Doctor's Formulary now available by direct email order at makeyourgamelegendary at gmail dot com as well as for download on the d20pfsrd webstore and at DrivethruRPG, and submitted on Paizo.com and should be approved and ready for download by the end of the day.

NOOOOOOOOO!!! (he said, dramatically)

Is there a way to upgrade to landscape if you've already purchased the portrait? I much prefer your landscape format!

Landscape version now available here!

Jason Nelson wrote:

Landscape version of The Mad Doctor's Formulary now available by direct email order at makeyourgamelegendary at gmail dot com as well as for download on the d20pfsrd webstore and at DrivethruRPG, and submitted on Paizo.com and should be approved and ready for download by the end of the day.

NOOOOOOOOO!!! (he said, dramatically)

Is there a way to upgrade to landscape if you've already purchased the portrait? I much prefer your landscape format!

Sure, it's called "email Jason at the above address and he'll send you the landscape version." :)

You've certainly been a loyal enough fan of LG for us to take care of you!

In return... write us a review!

Say, is anyone else buying this one? Because it really is something good for fans of less-mystical horror in their games.

Hehe yeah I buy everything Legendary Games produce. Fortunately, there's just so much gaming goodness coming out these days and so I haven't had a chance to dive into the latest offerings yet. They've been purchased and downloaded but they're currently in my to-read pile. :)

If you're using the Mythos madness rules... I really think "surgery" should be exempted from that.

As painful as it may be in a setting where anaesthesia is highly dubious, actually operating on someone to remove a tumor or stitch up a wound really, really shouldn't inherently expose them to Lovecraftian cosmic horror.

Should a Vivisectionist be able to use Skill Focus (Knowledge (Nature)) as a prerequiste for Anatomical Precision?

If you're using the Mythos madness rules... I really think "surgery" should be exempted from that.

As painful as it may be in a setting where anaesthesia is highly dubious, actually operating on someone to remove a tumor or stitch up a wound really, really shouldn't inherently expose them to Lovecraftian cosmic horror.

Well, sure, if you learn it from a reputable medical practitioner maybe. You learn it from the deranged scrivenings of generations of mad scientists, you're taking your chances even if you're only removing infected hangnails! :)

Seriously, though, it's entirely reasonable to exempt Surgery from the Madness-potential of the other chirurgical procedures in the product.

Should a Vivisectionist be able to use Skill Focus (Knowledge (Nature)) as a prerequiste for Anatomical Precision?

I think I'd stick with Skill Focus (Heal) as being the most generally applicable thing to learning the best ways to focus on the helping or hurting process of anatomies of all kinds.

But Heal is useless for Vivisectionists, considering they get the ability to use Knowledge (Nature) instead.

I suppose it's mostly true. Any viv likely to learn the feat is probably at least 3rd level, and while a viv isn't required to ever take ranks in Knowledge (nature), why wouldn't they? Int is their main stat and why not double-dip on the skill bonus?

I suppose it's fair to give vivisectionists a special exemption and let them use Skill Focus (Knowledge (nature)) instead of SF (Heal).

The fluff on the viv is somewhat odd to me, I must admit; I always thought of a vivisectionist as someone who vivisected PEOPLE, not animals, so I would have expected Knowledge (local), but I suppose it's equally fair to assume they are slicing up animals for practice. In any case, we do try to keep our products abreast of archetypes, feats, and other newer rules, though there are so many corner cases for any potential rule the occasional one is bound to crop up. Alas for growing complexity (to which, of course, we are contributing by making MOAR PRODUKKKTT!!!!).

Just wanted to pass along a little fun nugget from getting to use this product in my own home game. I am running Haunting of Harrowstone, and when the PCs were investigating the infirmary I thought it would be fun to drop in a cyberphrenic tadpole. The reaction on the faces of my slightly jaded group of players (plus my 15-year-old son who started playing with the group last year) was VERY satisfying, as was their abject horror when it tried crawled up the leg of my son's gunslinger character and attached and started burrowing inside him. Fortunately for him, the party barbarian managed to rip it off of him and the party smashed it before it could do any lasting harm, but it was very entertaining seeing a hint of real horror in their eyes! :)

Just for kicks, I also showed them the cranial dissectibot issue. They resolved as one to stay far, FAR away from anything that looked like that. I may have to find a way to slip one into Trial of the Beast. :)

Why is there a separate charge for each version? Other downloads from the same company have included both. I will be skipping this one just out of principal.

Why is there a separate charge for each version? Other downloads from the same company have included both. I will be skipping this one just out of principal.

Actually, there's always a separate charge if you want the landscape or portrait version; each version is sold and tracked as a separate SKU. We have been doing this since we introduced the first double-format product last August with Under Frozen Stars; before that, all of our products were landscape-only, with the exception of Gothic Heroes, which was portrait only.

Most companies produce documents only in portrait format. Our original thought was to produce ours in landscape for greater readability on computer screens. However, some folks early on asked for portrait versions as well and we decided to start offering both, in part as a convenience to customers who liked to choose which version they wanted, and in part as a test-marketing program to let people vote with their wallets as to which format they would buy when given the choice. As it turns out, most people prefer the portrait format, generally by a ratio of between 2.5:1 and 3:1. However, a significant minority (like Joseph Wilson who posted upthread) still prefer and buy the landscape versions. Even though we know they don't sell as well overall, out of consideration for customers like him we still have our layout person do the conversion to provide most of our more recent products in both formats (our "Heroes" pregen products and smaller Gothic Grimoires products are and will remain portrait-only).

What might be causing the confusion is that all purchases do come with two versions of the same document, one in full color, including background textures, and another stripped-down "printer-friendly" version without some of the visual ornamentation of the full-color version that will save you on ink or toner if you print the PDF at home. That's an extra value-added piece we include for the convenience of customers who print vs. those who use our products purely electronically. Still, this is not the same as offering both formats (landscape and portrait) as part of the same download; check our product page here at Paizo and you'll see separate listings for landscape and portrait versions of all of our products that offer both formats.

We would love to have your business and we think this is a great product. If you want to skip this one because you're not interested, I hope our next offering will be more to your liking, but I'd encourage you to give it another look if the separate downloads for each format were the only thing keeping you from it.

Happy gaming, whatever you choose!

Thanks for the reply. I went and looked at my downloads from LG and you were right. I mistook the printer friendly version for the landscape. I somehow thought you included both versions before. I have bought all the others so I will go ahead and buy this one as well. Sorry for the mistake.

Thanks for the reply. I went and looked at my downloads from LG and you were right. I mistook the printer friendly version for the landscape. I somehow thought you included both versions before. I have bought all the others so I will go ahead and buy this one as well. Sorry for the mistake.

No problem! I'm happy to clear up the confusion and happier still to hear that you're a fan of our products. Hope you like this one as well as the others you've bought from us!

If I may be so bold, I'd also suggest picking up the new Cultic Cryptomancia, available NOW on our website (and qualifying for our 10 for 10 promotion), and available later this week at Paizo as well as shop.d20pfsrd.com and DrivethruRPG/RPGNow. Viva la Cult! :)

Reviewed first on Endzeitgeist.com, then submitted to NErdtrek and GMS magazine and posted here, on OBS and d20pfsrd.com's shop. Cheers!

Thanks for the review!

In response to your comment about magically removing the effects of chirurgical procedures, that is always a tough spot to navigate between what magic can and can't do vs. what mundane operations can and can't do. In the end, we decided to go with the notion that magical remedies would work to fix chirurgical procedures, though you had to use the right one.

If you'd like to go the other route, however, and make them more difficult to fix, I think a simple rule addendum might be this:

If you wish to make chirurgical procedures more difficult to remove by magic, and more reliant on finding a helpful chirurgeon to repair the horrors wrought by a mad doctor using chirurgery to harm, you may use the lowest result of the three skill checks used to complete the procedure as the target DC for a caster level check when using the appropriate spell to remedy the procedure. If the caster level check fails, the magical remedy fails as well.

A grimoire or tome detailing the more beneficial side of nonmagical medicine in a fantasy world is on the drawing board, but in our current focus on launching our Kingbreaker AP products it's uncertain when we'll have time to bring it to completion. It's on the list!

Nice solution and analogue to what I would have used as a handwave solution. :)

Cultic Cryptomancia is LG's next one on my list - oh my, I've fallen behind... ._.

As always, End, that's one great review. I'm just glad I got mine in before you wrote yours, else I wouldn't have seen the point in writing one.

I always enjoy your well-considered reviews Eric - they actually belong to the rare ones I actually give credence to and provide often valuable feedback. So never let one of mine be a deterrent for writing your own! :)

Agreed. We get a lot of our most valuable feedback and customer insights from both of you guys. So, keep the reviews coming. You know we're paying attention.

Thank you very much, both of you. I'm quite flattered by the praise.

What Neil and Endy said. Not just the more the merrier, but with our sincere appreciation for every thoughtful review. People do care and pay attention, sometimes a thoughtless review can turn people off to a book or movie or restaurant or gaming product just because they see one star next to it, even if all the review says is "Not What I Wanted!"

The fact that reviews of that sort exist out there in the universe make us appreciate the thoughtful, insightful, and well-reasoned interviews all the more. So, high five to the both of you, and anybody and everybody who takes the time to write one!

I just purchased this and took a look at it, and I quite like it; however, I noticed under the Insert Limbic Reservoir procedure, under Failure, my copy reads:

Failure: The implantation process damages the target's brain, dealing 2 points of Intelligence and Wisdom damage. The limbic reservoir also begins to leak, delivering a dose of the drug every 1d6 hours even when not triggered. If triggered, there is a 50% chance that all remaining contents of the reservoir are released at once. If this occurs,

And it just cuts off there and moves onto the Malpractice section. I checked both the printer friendly copy of the pdf and my own, and it reads the same for both. Is it only my copy that has this minor issue?

That said, beyond that, it seems very well-written, and I particularly like the concepts of the Adjust Appearance, Graft Flesh, and Surgery procedures. Might have to consider a shackleborn tiefling who uses these concepts...

Huh, I never noticed before, but my copy also does that. I think I assumed that Malpractice happened at that point.

I'll look into the source docs after work tonight, but it looks like a little oops that slipped through editing. Thanks for bringing it to my attention!

No worries. I noticed a few other minor errors, but that was the only one that seemed a missed step in how an aspect of the system actually functions...

If you're interested, the other things I noticed were:

...but like I said, those are very minor errors, so I apologize if I come off as nitpicking.

Only 427 errors left before I have to hit the suicide machine. I'd better tighten it up over here! :)

Seriously, glad you are enjoying the product and hope you continue checking out the other cool stuff we have ramping up. We do have a few more horror products coming this October, for fans of the genre. More previews on that to come!