Book of Heroic Races: Reapers (PFRPG) PDF

Early yesterday I got this pdf as a gift. Cool because I'd been curious about the Book of Heroic Races line after using the entry on Seedlings. This is a bit more in depth because there are no reviews on it here on Paizo so I feel the need to give would be consumers useful information.

The PDF starts off with some prose to give you an idea of how the life of a Reaper may go. Then it's off to the race itself, the Reaper.

Reapers are sort of your psychopomp answer to tieflings or aasimar. They have the blood of death in them. The fluff around them doesn't make them really distinct in appearance, so they aren't terribly dynamic but they feel an affinity towards death and it shows in their racial traits. As a whole the reaper race isn't something I would stick in any campaign. They die a round later than a character normally would, they get bonuses to some social skills towards psychopomps and undead and can deal damage to ghosts and haunts as a racial trait. The social skill bonus feels weak since they get a penalty to charisma in the first place but since they can straight up get ghost touch on their weapons, which is situationally overpowered, I guess it's okay. They also can sense anything dead or alive within five feet away which I wonder exactly how powerful it is. They also get a situational bonus to saving throws when wearing masks.

In the right campaign the basic racial traits can be powerhouses or somewhat useless making them kind of slaves to their flavor instead of something that can be shoved in anywhere. The traits and Alternate Racial Traits follow this theme by being really ingrained in their theme while also alleviating some of the more situational abilities.

They get Favored class options (interesting ones) and Height/Weigth/Age tables before getting to some class racial options. A druid archetype I notice has the Associated Class/race listed first along with the replaced and modified class features... Why aren't archetypes listed like this, like all the time? Anyway it's pretty much a death druid which is interesting, with all the nature theme I would have thought that I could think of death themed druid off the top of my head so the archetype is unique and helpful.

There's a new psychopomp bloodline and two new subdomains. All seem pretty worth taking. There's a 5 level prestige class if you're into that sort of thing. Not great, not terrible. Doesn't gain anything terribly interesting. There is also a 10 level prestige class that gets heftier bonuses and is more interesting.

There are a number of racial feats centered around masks and racial/class features that revolve around masks. There are new mundane items that encompass the theme well enough. There two new psychopomp deities that feels sort of like Pharasma divided in two.

The new spells are interesting but nothing that will ruin or really change your campaign although there is an interesting cause fear-like effect for undead.

Then there are new magic items some reaper NPCs and a ton of more lore.

Because of how the race runs the definition of this PDF is flavor, flavor, FLAVOR. I never was interested in introducing a psychopomp native outsider race but if I wanted to this book gives a crapton of things to work with. Racial traits, class options, deities, feats. The race itself borders between powerful and situational. If there is a lot of death, whether or not it's walking around, reapers are at home and have a lot to do. In happy fun time situations not so much, plus their flavor lends more to grimmer campaigns than others. Introducing a race I didn't care about and making it something that I can definitely use in future horror campaigns does deserve some praise and there are no typos-ridden, unclear, broken or fundamentally weak options that I noticed so I feel comfortable giving this five stars. If you aren't into a race who's options are more metal than an auto shop (seriously they take the death theme and run with it. If you use all the options you're pretty much a real psychopomp in later levels.) then this product is for you, but if you want a death/psychopomp race in your campaign I can't think of a race that is as detailed, especially when it comes to the fluff.