The Corpseshaper's Toolbox (PFRPG) PDF

The Corpseshaper’s Toolbox by Interjection Games is a short product six pages in length that contains 1 page that is the front cover and 1 page that is the OGL, leaving four pages of content. The document is all black and white with a two column layout that is consistent with IG’s other offerings.

The first thing that struck me about the offering was the very cool art that IG chose for the front cover, a skeleton standing next to an altar with what looks like a skull under one hand and his other under his chin and one foot crossed in front of the other in a jaunty impression of Rodin’s The Thinker. I mean what’s not to love about that image.

That being said, on to the content and how that plays out. First off, I have not used any of the material in any sort of playtest, but rather spent time reading through the offering. Now, with a title like The Corpseshapers’ Toolbox, you’re first impression should be undead and necromancers. It was mine. A toolbox for making undead and modifying them. Things to make my undead better, stronger, and more powerful. We can rebuild them. We have the technology, we have the capability. Better, faster, stronger.

The offering starts with a new feat, Corpseshaper as a new Item creation feat. Once you take this, you can grant fresh corpse’s increases in strength, channel resistance and additional hit points and then you can create and use new tools that allow you to enhance the undead even further. Each tool gives you the option to create a lesser, standard or greater version, all for a price of course. Each can be used to affect a certain number of hit dice per of creature at a cost of one hour per each undead affected. So whether you are trying to create an army or just a few select more interesting undead is all a matter of the necromancer deciding what approach to take.

Each tool is well thought out about what part of the anatomy it works and how it works and the benefit it gives. Some of the tools can be used on multiple undead and some become embedded within the undead being worked on. In this case, if the necromancer wants multiple undead to have the same effect, then multiple tools must be created. Each tool has some unique effect that allows the DM to craft interesting and more powerful undead that will certainly cause the average gamer to rethink their knowledge of how the undead work and place them on edge when meeting them, realizing that there is really something different about these creatures.

Knowing that I am planning to use undead and necromancers in my home game, this to me is a no brainer acquisition and will certainly provide my gaming group, all long time gamers, some with an almost encyclopedic knowledge of various editions of the game, with something to think about when encountering creatures modified with these tools.

I am going to have to give this one a 5 star rating based on what I think are new and interesting ways to spice up your undead. I can just hear the necromancer walking through the street with his cart, to gather new corpses and shouting “Bring out your dead!” The only other thing to add, is that I’d like to see either a sequel to this or an expansion with even more clever options. You won’t be disappointed.

This pdf presents us 4 pages of usable material focusing around magical items that allow necromancers of all types to modify corpses before their animation in order to improve upon them. The pdf starts off with a feat tax to use these magical items, but the feat itself is pretty good for any necromancer who wishes to use undead minions anyways, so I don't have a huge problem with that. (I do, however, have a minor problem with it, the feat is written in such a way as to prevent the reanimator alchemist from making use of the tools presented herein, easy enough fix if you're the DM, but it might require some work if you're a player. And really, these ideas are just so flavorful for the reanimator.) Then, it jumps into the 12 magical items that are the real meat of this product.

Now most of these magic items have a solid albeit boring effect, like slightly increasing the undead's natural armor or giving them a bit of turn resistance coupled with positive energy resistance (like fire resistance, but for positive energy which I'm not sure how I feel about). These may help minion type undead remain relevant for a longer period of time (an extra level or 2) but they don't fundamentally change how the encounter will play out.

However, I said most. There are some others, however, that do much, much more. One is a construct that attaches itself to an undead and bestows the undead with any spells cast on it (and it can have any type of spell cast on it, even if it would not normally be a legal target). When that undead is destroyed, or if a better host comes along, it can detach and scurry over to the next in line. A seriously awesome item that can potentially change the feel of an entire encounter. I just wish it came with a bit more umph, like damage when it rips itself out of the chest of an undead or something like that.

Which brings up the other thing I'd have liked to have seen, a guideline about how these items effect the CR of undead. Sure, you can just say that since they count against the necromancer's gold they don't effect the CR, but what if the necromancer isn't part of the encounter at all? But still, this is a fairly minor squabble.

So over all this pdf has some bland but not bad ideas, and then some incredible ideas. Normally, I'd clock that in at 4 stars and call it a day, but there's one other thing that bothers me about this pdf and it is going to cost the pdf a star. The magic items in this pdf all come with an experience point cost. Seriously, from its inception Pathfinder did away with XP costs, and for good reason and I don't think it is too much to ask that a company who is going to publish a book about magic items actually read the rules for the system they're publishing for.

So over all this pdf clocks in at 3 stars, solid if the material presented interests you, and it does have some gems that make it worth the purchase price, but not a must have.

Edit: Interjection Games explained their reasoning for the experience point costs, and while I don't care for it, I do understand it so I will go ahead and add the star that cost them, bringing this up to a 4 star product.

This pdf is 6 pages long, 1 page front cover, 1 page SRD, leaving us with 4 pages of content, so let's check this out!

So what does this pdf do? Well, first we get an item creation feat, which allows you to modify a corpse to optimize its performance when it is revived into an undead state. Furthermore, taking this feat allows you to craft three types of corpsehaper tools.

A total of 12 corpseshaper modifications are provided, each coming with 3 versions - lesser, standard and greater. The respective tools are essentially wondrous items that allow modifications to make your undead faster, file their natural attacks into being keen, act as if under haste for one round due to necromantically infused adrenal glands, enforce them with resistance to positive energy, create a mobile construct that shares its ongoing effects with its host undead, create especially perceptive undead or grant fortification to your undead slaves.

You may now also enhance your undead to deal cold damage, enhance the impact of your undead's bludgeoning attacks, grant basic intelligence to non-intelligent undead, give them a one-use negative energy breath weapon or create particularly disturbingly looking servitors.

Conclusion:

Editing and formatting are top-notch, I didn't notice any glitches. Layout adheres to Interjection Games' 2-column, elegant b/w-standard and the artworks are fitting stock art. The pdf has no bookmarks, but needs none at this length.

This pdf provides poor necromancers finally with some rather cool tools to enhance their servitors - with nasty tricks, nice ideas and overall solid crunch backing cool concepts and disturbing imagery in the writing, I have nothing at all to complain about this pdf apart from the fact that I would have loved to get even more of these tools to modify undead. Hoping for a sequel one day, I'll gladly rate this fairly-priced pdf at 5 stars + seal of approval and will now resume gibbering madly and apply my new tools...

Endzeitgeist out.