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A clever method of creating first-level multiclassed characters (with two apprentice levels or "half levels") for Pathfinder. This supplement is clearly written and great for bringing some variety to your campaign.
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This pdf is 9 pages long, 1/2 page front cover, 1page SRD, leaving 7.5 pages of content, so what exactly is this?
Pug seems to be a distant relative of Kragnar in that he is an enterprising goblin vendor and thus, this pdf contains some of his wares. A cool unique feature is that all entries are prefaces by the goblin merchant actually praising his wares in character, helping you rp the act of purchasing the items and spells.
The first item we get is the vial of so-called Dragon's blood, which essentially is a vial of silvery liquid that, once poured from the flask, turns into some constructs that serve your whim, making for a neat take on the traditional legend of the army from a dragon's remains. The entry comes with stats for the constructs.
The Lucky Tortoise shield is up next - a specific shield that makes for a nice low-level reward and comes with a nice narrative. It should be noted that all items herein come with information on auras, construction etc. Each item/spell also includes an adventure hook.
The next offer included is the eavesdropping spell, which grants you limited clairaudience in 120 ft. I'm usually quite wary of divinations, but this particular one feels like investigative/espionage gold. Nicely done!
A nice iconic item is the iconic seeing stone: A stone with a hole inside - glimpse through it to see invisible creatures without making the benefit permanent - a nice solution that helps keeping magic feel magical.
In contrast, the vampiric chakram is rather bland - it's a returning chakram can hits its foes with vampiric touch. Ok, I guess.
The Draconic Servant-8th level spell is probably what high-level shadow-illusionists have been clamoring for, finally delivering a way to create a quasi-real draconic servant to unleash upon your foes.
Faerie Mist is another item that is a boon to spies/infiltration adventures - once smashed, the vials unleash a confusion-inducing fog cloud. Neato!
Lycanthropic bite is a spell I'd consider a great plot-device - via a short ritual, you enable an animal to spread lycanthropy! I won't have to explain to amount of plots you can craft from that, don't I?
Next up are the 3 Canopic jars of KHasekenej, which essentially are undead in a bottle. Ähem...urns. They can be reused, btw.
Finally, prismatic blade offers an extremely cool new spell option for arcane casters and magi especially by bringing an enchantment similar to the iconic spells, but less powerful to one's melee weapons.
Conclusion:
Editing and formatting are top-notch, I didn't notice any glitches. Layout adheres to a printer-friendly no-frills b/w-2-column standard and the b/w-artworks, as far as I could tell, are original and capture the items well - plus, we actually get 6 pieces of artwork. Nice! The pdf also comes with bookmarks. Pdfs like this live from their content and Pug's Bazaar actually offers you more killer than filler. While I was not necessarily blown away by the vampiric chakram (item with standard quality + spell-like ability equals lame in my book), I enjoyed the IC-narratives, the adventure hooks and like how the items and spells potentially create their own adventures. My benchmark to compare this pdf against is the Loot 4 Less line by SGG and this offering by Tessa Maria Cavagnero holds up quite well.Taking the very fair and low price into account, my final verdict will be 4.5-stars, rounded down to 4. Nice first offering!
Endzeitgeist out.
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This review was written by Thilo Graf and published in G*M*S Magazine
This pdf is 10 pages long, 1 page front cover, 1 page SRD, leaving 8 pages of content, so let's check out the second installment of Tricky Owlbear's line of achievement feats!
I really like the premise of using special feats as a kind of reward for player characters, however, the fine line between tracking individual deeds and pedantic book-keeping is all too easily crossed and benefits might feel unbalanced. The first achievement-feat book did a fine, though not perfect job of walking said line, so let's check out how this second one fares. The basic idea of these feats herein is that each player starts with an achievement slot: Once they've completed the required task, they can fit one of the achievement feats into the slot. Each PC can only have one of these achievement feats active at any one time, unless they take the new extra achievement feat or a new alternate human racial trait.
The feats herein, quite simply, blew me away: Where the first achievement book still had some feats that could have been considered a bookkeeping nightmare for the GM, most of the feats herein center on TRUE achievements: Samples include gaining rulership of a kingdom, commanding a fleet, becoming the prime cleric of a god, destroying (or saving) a world, slaying the infernal ruler of a plane etc. The feats mostly center on true achievements, i.e. acts that only rarely are accomplished and can be considered...well...achievements. While most of them are rather grand ones (and grant corresponding benefits), e.g. Unkillable (which saves you once from death) and Jack of all Trades (which slightly enhances all your capabilities) are neat. Fans of psionics may enjoy the fact that some feats also have effects on the arts of the mind while remaining usable when no psionics are used in a given campaign.
The pdf also includes advice on how to create ad.hoc achievements and pre-made achievements yourself.
Conclusion:
Editing and formatting are top-notch, I didn't notice any glitches. Layout adheres to a printer-friendly two-column standard and the artwork is stock, but fitting and ok for the low price. The pdf unfortunately has no bookmarks, but at this length, that's still ok. I was quite frankly surprised at the quality of this pdf. While I liked the predecessor, this one blows it out of the water - the feats rock and feel sufficiently epic and grand in scope and the restrictions help keeping the benefits in line. Design-wise, I have nothing to complain and evil achievement feats are included as well. If I had one complaint, it would be the lack of bookmarks, but that's not enough to scale this pdf down. My final verdict will be 5 stars.
Endzeitgeist out.
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This review was written by Thilo Graf and published in G*M*S Magazine
This pdf is 17 pages long, 1 page front cover, 1 page SRD, 1/2 a page editorial, leaving 14 1/2 pages of content for Tricky Owlbear's monastery, the Abbey of the Golden Sparrow, so let's pay them a visit, shall we?
The first of Tricky Owlbear's location sourcebooks kicks off with an aptly-written IC-introduction that serves to introduce us to the daily life in the monastery via two sympathetic characters.
The main text of the location write-up begins with a no-frills map of the monastery, which essentially consists of some caves hewn into a mountain, comes with a detailed write-up of the respective rooms and the particulars. Local myths containing adventure seeds as well as a genesis are included as well, amounting to a commendable array of background information to use and detail the monastery. Even cooler, we get a detailed doctrine with zen-like doctrines that are explained as well - very cool and flavorful.
After this nice, awesome fluff, we are introduced to 8 new regional traits for characters raised in the abbey, most of which are best-suited for monks or the new ninja/samurai-classes. 10 new feats for martial styles focusing on air and cold are presented and offer a nice, unique fighting style for the monks to adopt.
Of course, we also get new items, from the Obsidian-material to enchanted shuriken, the order's medallions and a unique, intelligent, rather debauchery-inducing headband.
The pdf closes by providing 2 sample characters, a lvl 1 initiate and a lvl 12 monk, one of the leaders of the abbey.
Conclusion:
Editing could have been better, I encountered some punctuation errors as well as missing blank spaces between three words. Formatting is top-notch, though. Layout adheres to a printer-friendly 2-column standard and the b/w-artworks are ok. The pdf comes with extensive bookmarks. The abbey of the golden sparrow is an interesting location and the martial arts presented herein, while powerful, make for an interesting, concise, local style. The traits also are neat and the doctrine, extensive fluff etc. are neat, as is the rather dangerous intelligent magic item the monks guard. However, not all is well with this pdf, there are some unnecessary glitches and while the doctrine, feats etc. are cool, I maintain that something is missing - perhaps stats for the order's holy book, more doctrines, something along those lines. The distinct feeling that the pdf could have included this final piece that would have made it awesome never really left me. Thus, my final verdict will be 3.5 stars, rounded up to 4 stars.
Endzeitgeist out.
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This adventure is 18 pages long, 1 page front cover, 1 page editorial, 1 page SRD, leaving 15 pages of content, so let's check this out, shall we?
This being an adventure-review, it contains SPOILERS. Potential players might want to jump to the conclusion.
Still here? All right. The adventure opens with the PCs getting an invitation to claim an inheritance at a farm in the idyllic town of Shadowfield. Once they have ventured into a carriage and gotten there, they'll have to contend with a rather unpleasant discovery - the originator of the letter is rather dead and musk-creeperfied and some force wants revenge - turns out, the PC's ancestors have brought a heinous serial killer to justice and now his revived form (an undead scarecrow) has prepared an extensive gauntlet of traps and assaults to settle the old score.
While the town is detailed and even all of the NPCs get their own statblocks (and background stories including adventure hooks!), the basic plot is rather obvious from the beginning, as are the myriad ways open to the PCs finding the cave system beneath the farm that hides the sanctuary of the foe. The caverns, though, are rather interesting, as the traps they contain tend to be on the smart side and all of the encounters use environments stacked against the PCs for tactical combat situations as well as mood-setting elements. The adventure has the distinct possibility of the villain being defeated prior to the final encounter, but offers advice on his rejuvenation for the showdown.
Conclusion:
Editing and formatting are top-notch, I didn't notice any glitches. Layout adheres to a printer-friendly two-column standard. The pdf comes with extensive bookmarks and includes all stats necessary to run the adventure. Artworks are b/w and ok. We get 3 maps, 2 of which (the farm and the town) can be handed out to the players, as they contain no spoilers or annoying numbers that spell out the locations for them - excellent service and adds to the value of the pdf.
I like this adventure in that it's simple, can easily be run almost spontaneously and offers a nice first level introductory scenario. That being said, while the writing is atmospheric, I can't see the horror-aspect working well with regards to my players. Why? Because this adventure is very easy. While the traps are rather devious and not to be taken lightly, the main adversary is rather weak and the fact that a special rejuvenation beyond the first per se is not included somewhat drags down the scariness of the foe. Also, the adventure serves the background story/truth behind the assault to the PCs on a silver platter in the first encounter, essentially invalidating any need for investigation and thus depriving the adventure of the phase of rising tension. While this enables the adventure to be run very fast-paced, it also means that veteran players will not be particularly challenged by this module. I know that my players would be done with the adventure in under 4 hours. While you always can complicate the plot, as written it felt too simple for my tastes.
That being said, "Sin of the Fathers" still makes for a nice evening of roleplaying that probably won't see too many PC-deaths and a neat introduction to a new campaign, especially for less experienced players who want to delve into the horror genre without facing the often rather deadly horror-modules out there. My final verdict will take this into account and be 3.5 stars - round down if you have rather smart/experienced players and round up if you're looking for a scenario that goes easy on the PCs but still offers a creepy atmosphere.
Endzeitgeist out.
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Sin of the Fathers by Tricky Owlbear Publishing
This product is 18 pages long. It starts with a cover and credits. (2 pages)
Adventure (9 pages)
This is for 1st level characters. It starts off with a background for the adventure. At one point in the past the village had a series of murders, the murderer was eventually caught and hanged. As the killer was about to die he swore vengeance against those who had captured him. Now years later it seems he might get his chance.
Part 1
The PC's all receive a letter to ask them to come to the village of Shadowfield. This is followed by a brief overview of the village, including a map.
Part 2
A carriage is sent to pick up all the PC's so eventually if they are not together they spend some time in the carriage going to the village. Once they arrive at their destination they find the house has smoke pouring out of the windows. The rest of the short adventure is about investigating the farm and the locations around it.
Monsters and NPC's (6 pages)
This part has full stat blocks for all the monsters and NPC's in the adventure.
It ends with a OGL. (1 pages)
Closing thoughts. The art work is black and white and ok. Editing and layout was pretty good. It is a fairly short adventure, with a very gothic/Halloween feel to it. I really only have on compliant about the adventure. The main villain is a new monster which is pretty cool and neat. Now the problem is there is a chance the PC's will fight and kill the main villain early in the adventure, the adventure suggest that he come back and be at the end to fight again. Which is all well and good from a gothic horror point of view. My problem is since the monster was new they could have made it so it could only be killed a certain way. It would have made more sense and it could have easily been added to the creature with out changing anything else in the adventure. Other than that it is a short, well done mini adventure. I would have liked to have seen more focus put on RPing with the NPC's in the village before heading out to the farm though. So what's my rating? This is a solid little adventure that with just a bit more effort and tweaking put into it, could have been very good. As it stands I am giving it a 3.5 star review. Nice but to make it really shine takes a little GM effort.
Trust me, I'm a Succubus.
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There’s something to be said for doing something truly epic in your game. I don’t mean in the sense of getting more than 20 levels (though that’s certainly impressive), but rather those actions that are above and beyond the usual course of game-play. Killing an enemy and healing your wounded ally is par for the course; leaping onto the flying enemy mage from the top of the tower, slashing his throat, and riding his magically-flying corpse to the ground just in time to heal your dying companion is epic. It’s with that sort of thought in mind that we have Achievement Feats: Volume 2.
It needs to be noted that the “volume 2” here is a misnomer. This book is unrelated to the previous Achievement Feats. Instead, this is a different take on the same idea. Whereas the first Achievement Feats book was based around the Xbox-style achievements where you do enough of something to get a special reward, this book takes a different tack; as stated above, it’s about doing something truly impressive.
The book tells us that each PC has a single “achievement slot.” This means that you can only ever have one achievement feat (which is gained automatically when you meet the prerequisite) – if you later qualify for another achievement, you have to choose between the new one and the one you have, and if you trade your old one in, you lose all its benefits. You can gain a second achievement slot (via a new feat, or an alternate human racial trait), but you can never have more than two.
As for the achievement feats themselves, over thirty are present here. While some of these have prerequisites that don’t seem too over the top (e.g. spend all of your skill points on one skill when you gain a level), most of them range from “damn, that’d be tough to do” to “are you freaking KIDDING me?!” Seriously, there are achievement feats here for taking control of a major world religion, slaying the ruler of Hell or a similar plane, or killing everything in an entire plane of existence.
Yeah, you read that right. Killing everyone on an entire plane of existence.
Now, pound-for-pound, the benefits you get from an achievement feat are quite a bit stronger than what you’d get for taking a normal feat. But given the prerequisites mentioned above, I’m almost tempted to think they sound positively miniscule in comparison to what you have to do. Still, these are pretty hefty bonuses. Take control of a major world religion, for example, you get free Knowledge (religion) ranks, free extra spells, and can never lose class abilities due to personal conduct. Not too shabby.
The book ends with a surprising, and surprisingly-helpful, section discussing making up new achievement feats. It divides such activities into ad hoc feats (made up to suit something epic) and pre-made feats (made ahead of time for something epic that you think the PCs will do). It also talks about if you should let the PCs know ahead of time what these feats are and how to get them – there’s pros and cons either way, making it interesting to consider.
Ultimately, this book’s takes on feats of achievement is that less is more; it’s not about how often you do something, but about how epic a stunt you pull off. And that’s something I can absolutely respect; if your PC accomplishes something uber-impressive, why not give them a powerful reward for being just that awesome? If you want your characters’ achievements to have a tangible impact on what their character can do, pick up Achievement Feats Volume 2.
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An interesting idea. The "Behind the Music" or "Ecology of" a particular spell. It gives you some fluff and background material on how the spell was created and used and even has a couple of newer spells. This will not be everyone's idea of a good supplement, but certainly helps keep the magic fresh and interesting in the game. Plus it is a great idea for researching new spells or even finding "lost" spells.
Every spell has a story, this one costs you a buck-50.
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An interesting idea. The "Behind the Music" or "Ecology of" a particular spell. It gives you some fluff and background material on how the spell was created and used and even has a couple of newer spells. This will not be everyone's idea of a good supplement, but certainly helps keep the magic fresh and interesting in the game. Plus it is a great idea for researching new spells or even finding "lost" spells.
Every spell has a story, this one costs you a buck-50.
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Throughout the many different fantasy roleplaying games there are always a small number of foes, adversaries or monsters that stand as 'classic'. This can be for a variety of reasons, be it a memorable battle or a prolonged struggle against the evil machinations of said creatures. Whenever new fantasy roleplaying games and monster books get produced, a number of these 'classic' creatures are left out. This could simply be a matter of space, or otherwise because one person's 'classic' is not the same as another's. Forgotten Foes attempts to address this 'imbalance' for the Pathfinder RPG, by presenting in glorious formatting a whole slew of monsters that didn't make it into the early releases of the Pathfinder RPG. If you're missing some of your favorite creatures to throw at your players, or simply want to find something you've not seen before, Forgotten Foes is a great place to look.
Let me start and say, right from the begining, that this is an excellent and classy product. It's one of those products that really should be on your shelf if you're GM of the Pathfinder RPG. In its 197 pages you'll find more than a hundred classic and new monsters - ones that you've never seen, or ones that you may have forgotten about. For older gamers this product will bring back to the Pathfinder RPG monsters and creatures that will appeal to your nostalgia, while newer gamers will get to see a marvelous collection of innovative and fun creatures to enhance their gaming experience. This book has it all, really - great monsters, fantastic art, wonderful presentation and attention to detail, buckets of new material in the form of spells and monster abilities; and many tables to help you select the most appropriate creature for your play level and terrain location. Presentation and content are both top notch, and the conversion team have managed to capture the true spirit of each monster very well from its original incarnation. Some of the creatures left out of the Pathfinder RPG are now finding their way back into the game.
Example creatures in this product that are now available for the Pathfinder RPG include many classics such as achaierai, blink dogs, flail snails, howlers, skulks, phantom fungi, trappers and many, many more. The monsters in this product complement the existing Pathfinder monsters very well, and boost the arsenal of creatures available to GMs. Each creature comes complete with a converted statistics block, full description of mechanics and ecology, and wonderful art for every single creature in the product. I cannot recommend this product enough - if you're looking for something special or different, or just wondering what happened to classic creatures from earlier editions, this product is for you. An excellent product all round.
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Learning Curve by Tricky Owlbear Publishing
This product is 12 pages long. It starts with a cover, credits and Intro. (2 pages)
Multi-Class Characters (2 pages)
This section is what the book was really made for. Making a multi-Class character at level one. It has 10 steps involved in making one and then a example character showing how it is done. Really the Intro also helps with this, which is half a page as well.
Core Classes (5 pages)
This section has a list of charts for each character class. For example Barbarian, it will list what you get at apprentice level and then what you gain at first level. Really you are to combine the two apprentice class levels between two classes to get a first level character, then at second level you combine the two first level rows of each class. At that point your character has one full level of each class. It list all the core classes and the new APG classes.
Additional Uses for Apprentice Rules (2 pages)
This section gets into how to use this book if you just want to start the PC's off at level 0 instead of using the book to multi-Class. It also has a section on how this could be used to help balanced a stronger race, but using one of these at the first two levels to balance it out. The final bit is advice for the game master, which offers some suggestions on how to run things using these rules.
It ends with a OGL. (1 page)
Closing thoughts, using this to start off as a multi-Class character are first level seems like it would work very well. It looks like things are balanced fairly well between what you get at apprentice levels and what you get after you get another level. Instead of having you roll for hp, it has set hp you gain. At Apprentice levels you add the hp together of both classes and then again when you level again. Giving you max at first level and a avg for your next level.
The artwork is fair and black and white. The layout is clean and simple. I didn't notice any obvious errors. I did have one minor critic, while the product is written with the idea you will be playing multi-Class characters. It does have a section on how to use it for apprentice levels or 0 level PC's. Which is where the on critic comes in. Since the charts listing the classes have the second hp gain for the level up being a avg instead of max(since with multi-Class you would be 2nd level when you got that). I felt it needed a sidebar in the apprentice level section for using this for 0 level characters saying use the first hp total instead of the second. Minor but still something I felt needed to be added to be clear. Other than that I really have no critics of the book, it does exactly what it sets out to do.
Now some are going to ask how does this stack up to The Genius Guide to Apprentice-Level Characters by Super Genius games. Well they are similar products, but their main goals are slightly different, this more geared for multi-Class and the one by SGG more for zero level characters. Both products can be used for the other. I am not going to directly compare them though, I will say as a whole I personally liked this one better, but you can't go wrong with either one. So what's my rating? Well other than the one minor issue I think it is a well done, simple clean, easy to print product. So I am giving it a 4.5 review. If you like the idea of this product then I recommend it.
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Stellar product. Conversions of many old classics, and some very good new ones as well. Every monster also has information that can be gleaned via relevant knowledge skill checks, which is a very nice touch.
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Riddle me this, dear reader: what’s the difference between something old, and something classic? I can’t quite describe it, but I suspect it’s one of those things where you know it when you see it. It’s that principle that makes Forgotten Foes, from Tricky Owlbear Publishing, such a great monster book – it’s a book of classic monsters brought up-to-date for the Pathfinder Role-Playing Game.
Of course, looking at the book’s pedigree, it’s kind of hard to imagine this book not being totally awesome. Written by Mark Gedak and Stefen Styrsky of the Grand OGL Wiki, with a stable of artists from Headless Hydra Games, and of course published through Tricky Owlbear, this book is at the center of a perfect storm of talent. It quite literally had to be just this good.
Just shy of two hundred pages long, Forgotten Foes brings over a hundred monsters to your Pathfinder game. I can’t quite say “new” monsters, because a significant majority of these creatures are ones who were mainstays of 3.5 who were subsequently abandoned during the Pathfinder changeover. Not all of these fall under that category, however, as there’s a handful that are from third-party 3.5 sources, also updated here. And I’m sure that a few totally new monsters are in here as well, though it’s difficult to be totally sure.
The book’s technical aspects do what they’re supposed to do. Full bookmarks are here, and the text allows for copying and pasting. Besides the front and back covers (which display some truly stunning pieces. I don’t know what that monster is on the front cover, but he’s one intimidating bastard), each monster has a black and white illustration (though shading is used far more often than not), something I was grateful for, since illustrations are very important for showcasing monsters. There’s also an alternating border on the side of the pages.
Most of the monsters in the book are given a single page all to themselves, though sometimes this rule is broken. Each has the usual combination of stat block and descriptive text, but as an added bonus there’s also a box showing what you learn about the creature on a specific Knowledge check; it’s one of those little extras that really make a difference. I should mention that the flavor text for the monsters is original, since in most cases the original source didn’t make that part Open Game Content to begin with.
One of the things that might not be obvious on the first read-through, it should be noted, is that the authors sometimes slipped in new additions or other changes to some monsters during the update to Pathfinder. The ravid, for example, now has some variants listed, in case you want a ravid that is more in tune with the life of nature and animates plants, for instance. Titans are mostly the same, but have the ability to assume the form of an elemental; an aspect of how, as near-divine beings, they’re connected to the primal elements of the universe. Little things like that are all over the place.
Of course, some things didn’t make the transition. The tojanida, for example, only has a single stat block, rather than three for younger and older incarnations of the creature. Similarly, it would have been nice to have seen variants on the half-dragon template for the sin dragons.
The book has several appendices, and while these cover the usual ways of breaking down the monsters (by type, by CR, etc.) there’s also a bit of new rules here as well. A new planar trait is given, in reference to a particular monster’s entry. Several new spells are presented, mostly because some monsters use them as spell-like abilities. Interestingly, ten pages are given reprinting the universal monster rules from the Pathfinder Bestiary. Presumably this was done for ease of reference.
Forgotten Foes is one of those books where, having read it, I’m honestly not sure how I was running a Pathfinder game without it. There’s so many monsters in here that were staples of 3.5, it’s shocking they haven’t been brought to Pathfinder before now – the bodak, the hellcat, the formians; it’s past due for them to make a comeback. Pick up Forgotten Foes and let your PCs know that the monsters that they once feared have followed them to Pathfinder.
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I remember how, back in the day, Dragon magazine used to have monster ecology articles that were written as short stories involving a group of monster hunters in search of a particular creature. The ecological section came from footnotes and some expository text after the story ended. And then, for some reason, the format changed; there weren’t anymore short stories, but rather the ecologies were written in a style reminiscent of scholarly papers, directly outlining the monster’s physiology, psychology, society, etc. It was an abrupt shift, and I wondered for quite a while why it was done.
Reading Tricky Owlbear Publishing’s Behind the Monsters: Roper, I think I’m starting to understand why.
A ten-page PDF, Behind the Monsters: Roper is part of Tricky Owlbear’s Behind the Monsters series of products, explaining the history of various monstrosities in the game world. With only a single illustration as part of the product title (and the company logo at the end), the book looks fairly spartan. However, I was quite pleased that it included full bookmarks, despite its brevity.
Told from an in-character standpoint, the book presents a character’s recollection of how he stumbled on some ropers opening a gateway, and accidentally fell through himself. There on another world, he came upon a group of humans enslaved to ropers and helped lead an uprising. This led to him falling through another portal – where he had a psychedelic experience of seeing the roper home-world (home dimension?) and had a vision of an alien god who pressed them into service, making them spread to other worlds like a plague – before finally returning to his native land.
The book then reprints stats for a roper (though interestingly, rebuilt as an aberration rather than a magical beast) along with notes for variant types of ropers, and even a few items made from/by ropers.
Looking back over the work, I’m not quite sure that I’m taking the book in the manner intended. While I can appreciate the desire for an origin story, treating ropers as Lovecraftian aliens from beyond space and time, possibly in service to an unfathomable god (which didn’t get deity information here, unfortunately), seems rather ho-hum now. Most of D&D’s classic aberrations came about this way, and it’s become, if not cliché, then at least understood that all aberrations have some variation on this particular tale.
Unfortunately, while the above isn’t an ecology article for this monster, I can’t help but look at it that way; I say “unfortunately” because it doesn’t do a good job in that regard. Compared to, say, the ecology Paizo wrote for the roper in one of their Revisited books (which gave the chilling summary of their philosophy towards other creatures as, “You do not truly know someone until you have eaten them – slowly”), this just doesn’t hold up. We’re given a story about where ropers come from, but not what they really are – there’s no information here on what makes ropers different from other powerful monsters of their ilk; you could have substituted any given aberration in (such as cloakers, for example) and this story would have worked just as well.
As it is, I’m giving this book a four-star rating because it presents workable new crunch, and because I suspect my disappointment is more in regards to this not being what I expected rather than it failing in its goals.
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Dungeon Masters do not 100% trust players. It is the reason so many of the great DMs call for random character sheet checks and ask for rolls in the open. We were players once. We know that sometimes you get so caught up in the game aspect you forget to subtract that fear penalty or neglect to think about that +13 Wis requirement for that feat.
Achievement Feats is a cool idea that looses its firepower in the hands of the the wrong group. It begins off the back by asking Dungeon Master’s to trust the player. I do not know of a single Dungeon Master who can read that and not think “one or two of players will not be able to use this book”.
Achievement Feats are feats selected by players, but they do not receive the feat until the player performs a specific achievement. The achievements are not all that powered and as is, the system is a little difficult to pull off without some serious manipulation. You can tell that the inspiration for the feats came from the traditional Massive Multiplayer Online Roleplaying Game. In those games, there are many quests where players have to kill something a certain number of times or get the same object multiple times. However, they come off as too mechanical. Either the player is going to track these stats and ask the DM after every kill what the general statistics are, or the Dungeon Master is going to have more record keeping to do.
The feats are very creative in their relationship to what triggered them. And there are 50 of them to choose in the 10 page supplement.
For the Dungeon Master
This is not a players supplement, despite the advertising. Once I fidgeted with the system a bit, I found it to be a fun little add on for a campaign. Select 5 to 10 of the feats for your current campaign and track those stats for the whole party (you can try to track them for each player but that is more record keeping than I want to add on. When the party hits the number, they each get a use of that feat for that combat. Another way you can do it is to have each player select an achievement feat. This is their “special move” and activates only after they have triggered the number.
The Iron Words
Great example of a neat idea hampered by trying to contain it within the current system instead of branching it out into its own system like it deserves. Following the above suggestion, you will get a lot of use out of Feat Achievements as a permanent addon to your campaign.
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