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An excellent addition to a DMs toolkit. I have published a full review here:
http://canadianrpgguy.blogspot.com/
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Brutal Barbarians is another great product in the Class Options series. Four appropriate and cool pieces of artwork, bookmarks (not something you always see in a 12-page PDF), and lots of good options for building alternate barbarians.
Black Rage is an alternate Rage similar, but different from, the old Frenzy option. The Wild Shaman feels something like a Barbarian-meets-Cleric or Druid, granting orisons, the domain powers of one nature-themed domain, and either Command Undead or Turn Undead instead of gaining the standard rage benefits. It's not an option for every character, but it definitely fills an interesting niche mechanically and flavor-wise.
Several new Rage Powers are introduced, including Brute Charge (count as one size category larger when bull rushing or overrunning), Enchanter's Foe (bonuses against a foe that tried to use an Enchantment spell against the Barb), and War Cry (grant self and allies an effect similar to the Bless spell with a shout). Great Hands may be a little too powerful, allowing a Barbarian to wield a weapon one sizes larger while raging, but this will depend how loose your group is. There are also a few options for a barbarian who wishes to have a mount here.
Which is good, because the very next thing we get is an alternate class feature called Horse Lord, adding to the movement speed of any mount the Barbarian rides instead of the Barbarian himself. Other options here include a weaker version of Favored Terrain or bonuses to Handle Animal, Knowledge (Nature) and Survival instead of Trap Sense, which always felt a bit weird on the Barbarian to me anyway. Mage hunting Barbarians may prefer Spell Resistance to Damage Reduction, and as in previous Class Options, we get alternate capstones. Painless, Spell Breaker and Battle Weaver are all very cool alternates to Mighty Rage.
The next idea is very interesting - Barbarian Bloodlines. Basically lists of specific rage powers based on the idea of a monstrous ancestry such as Basilisk, Cyclops, Genie or Troll, they also have Heritage Marks that are active even when not raging. I'm sorry to say I have to reduce my rating to 4 stars because some of the Heritage Marks seem too good, a +1 to natural armor or Cold Resist 5 for no apparent trade-off. I suppose the downside is that you HAVE to take a Rage Power associated with your Bloodline, which sometimes include subpar options like Low-light Vision or Raging Climber... actually you know what, forcing me to take Raging Climber in exchange for +2 AC at 11th level is totally fair. 5 stars it is.
Finally we get some feats, some relating to the bloodlines. Interesting ones include Iron Vitality (increase Str and Con even further while raging, but take Str and Con damage at the end of the rage), Naked Savage (intelligent foes take a penalty to hit you if you wear no or light armor), An Ancient Heritage (a bonus to knowledge skills for Barbarians?! I like it.) and a few more options for mounted Barbarians.
All in all, a great product, with lots of useful and flavorful options.
EDIT: Also a few nice options for unarmed Barbarians, if you're into that kind of thing.
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I've gotten to the point where my biggest complaint about Gun Metal Games is that they don't release Class Options more often. Then again, maybe the long time between releases is part of what makes these PDFs such high quality. Rangers Renewed in particular includes options to make a LOT of things possible that I've either always wanted, or didn't know I wanted until I saw it.
First are a series of alternate class abilities, including Favored Companion (get an animal companion from first level, but no Favored Enemy), Favored Weapon (focus on a combat style to the exclusion of a Favored Terrain - powerful, but very cool), Urban Rangers, alternate options for Hunter's Bond, options to focus on a single Favored Enemy or Terrain for additional bonuses but less variety (again, maybe a bit powerful if your campaign is very centered, but probably a fair trade for the lack of versatility in most games), and several others. There are also two alternate Capstone abilities, which means this PDF provides good options for all 20 levels of a Ranger's career.
Next we're introduced to some new combat styles, something I've always loved to see for rangers. Greataxe Fighter, Rapier and Spear-Fighter each open up a new specific weapon for the Ranger, Mounted Combat will be great for any plains outrider types, while Beast Master and Runner each focus on less combat-specific applications of the Ranger. There's also the Trapper for bolos and nets, a Mage Killer, and the Wild-Born Ranger which actually gains a bite attack.
Spell-less Rangers are another personal favorite of mine. Rangers Renewed presents an option reminiscent of something I once saw a 3.5 3PP: the Ranger gives up spells to gain additional abilities related to their Combat Style. Each option is very interesting, great flavor and appropriate power, and are rarely something that can easily be reproduced by just another feat. On the downside, they don't kick in until 11th level, leaving a Spell-less Ranger between 4th and 11th levels in something of a lurch.
Finally we get new feats, mostly animal companion-related or to fill out combat styles such as Spear Fighter or Wild-Born Ranger that didn't have enough appropriate feats in core. That said, there are options for traditional rangers as well, including a few fun things for archers.
There's only three pieces of artwork, but all three are PRETTY. Format's clean, wording is clear, and overall this is just a great product. I HIGHLY recommend it.
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Rangers are one of those classes that have made a success story out of taking two different ideas – the strong martial fighter and the skilled wilderness survivalist – and fusing them together. While on paper the ranger may seem like a mish-mash of ideas, in play the class makes them work quite well. The only real weakness of the class is its inflexibility – you can choose your favored enemy and combat style, but other than that one ranger is pretty much the same as another.
Gun Metal Games aims to fix that issue with the aptly named Rangers Renewed, the third book in their Class Options line for Pathfinder.
A ten page PDF, Rangers Renewed – written by the prolific and inimitable Stefen Styrsky – makes a very strong showing of itself. The PDF has nested bookmarks, which is praiseworthy, along with several pieces of high-quality full color illustrations. While aesthetics aren’t the most important thing in an RPG product, they help a lot, and I was quite pleased to see that such care was given to such a short book.
Before we get into the nuts and bolts of what Rangers Renewed offers, there’s an elephant in the room that must be addressed – since this book came out before Paizo’s Advanced Player’s Guide, with its plethora of new options for all classes, rangers included, we have to ask to what degree the ideas in this book overlap with that one.
The answer is: surprisingly little. There is some conceptual overlap to be sure, but not as much as you’d think. Two or three of the new combat styles are the same, and some of the alternate class abilities resemble those in the APG’s ranger archetypes, but that’s about it. The only other similar idea is that both books present spell-less ranger rules, but they handle them very differently.
So just what is here? First, we’re given a big list of new class abilities. Unlike the packages of alternate abilities that are APG archetypes, these are singular abilities which can be swapped in for normal class abilities (though the choice, once made, is permanent). Sixteen are presented, ranging from things like being able to gain a swim speed instead of woodland stride, intimidating animals instead of befriending them, or growing more skilled with a weapon (that is, gaining bonus feats for their combat style) instead of adapting to a new terrain.
After this, we’re then presented with two new alternate capstone abilities – new abilities that can be taken at 20th level instead of the normal master hunter ability. Essentially, these are also alternate class features, but they’re presented in their own section, something I thought was pretty cool, since capstone abilities are the rewards you get for playing a class through to the end. The first ability, veteran hunter, lets you be immune to one power of one specific sort of creature, while undying hunter keeps you alive despite hit point loss while fighting a favored enemy.
Following this, we’re given nine new combat styles that rangers can take. In a display of innovation, not all of these are actually focused around combat – rather, some let a ranger focus on doing something particularly well. The “beast master” combat style instead grants feats (several of them from this book) focused around connecting and bonding with an animal companion much closer. The “runner” combat style focuses on being quick and nimble.
This isn’t to say that there aren’t more traditional combat style choices here, however. From spear-fighter to mounted combat to mage-killer to trapper (using a net and bola), there are plenty of great options presented.
The section on spell-less rangers follows. These rules focus around a ranger giving up all spellcasting progression, in exchange for which they gain increased abilities with their combat style. That is, they gain several new combat-style class abilities at 11th, 13th, and 16th levels. Such new abilities are given for the nine new combat styles presented here, as well as the original two-weapon fighting and archery combat styles.
The book closes out with twenty-nine new feats. I found myself wishing that they’d included a table that listed them for easy reference; one of those things that you don’t realize how helpful it is until it’s not there. That said, the feats do a good job in presenting new options, with many being focused around animal companions – A Second Set of Eyes and Ears lets you add a bonus to your companions Perception checks, or to yours, or example. Companion’s Stride lets your animal companion use Woodland Stride. There are a number of great feats here.
Unfortunately, there are some problems here too. A few feats, like Death From Afar – which lets you coup-de-grace an enemy with a ranged weapon, so long as they’re unaware of you and flat-footed, from two ranged increments or less away – seem too powerful. Others make mistakes, like Sundering Critical letting you critical hit objects or constructs, despite the latter being vulnerable to crits already in Pathfinder. And a few just make what seem like simple errors, like several feats having “Expert Cast” as a prerequisite when it’s likely they mean “Expert Weaver.”
Still, despite its weaknesses Rangers Renewed does a lot to live up to its name. Even with the APG presenting quite a few new ranger options, most of the alternate combat styles and class abilities are innovative and present new options that aren’t found elsewhere. Alongside more than two dozen new feats and an interesting new way to have spell-less rangers, there’s a lot in Rangers Renewed that really does renew what the ranger class can do. Pick this book up and try something new with your ranger, instead of being another Aragorn knock-off.
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The Good:
- Amazing new layout.
- The "Declassified" sidebars are hilarious as well as insightful regarding the "ground view" o the city.
- The new City Trappings mechanic are a top-notch addition.
The Bad:
- Not as much new "mechanical" support as some would surely like.
- Stat blocks, both generic and specific, are spread around the book, rather than collected.
For my full review, please visit: http://mostunreadblogever.blogspot.com/2011/05/tommys-take-o
n-boston-broken-cradle-of.html
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The Package is a six page adventure (two pages are NPC stats, but there is little art, so it is almost all text) for Interface Zero that was released by Gun Metal Games late last year. As the name implies, it's pretty much an errand job for a group of PCs, easy cash for the delivery of a basic package. Not surprisingly, a mix-up between the PCs and another courier complicates matters...with the PCs winding up in possession of some very sensitive material, and thus targeted by some Very Bad Guys.
On one hand, ensuring that the PCs fall prey to the hook may require a bit of GM fiat, the adventure definitely makes up for it by leaving the resolution entirely in the hands of the PCs, giving them multiple options in which to resolve the situation. A good adventure (with an odd editing issue, such as one line towards the end that disappears into abrupt punctuation) that sets up the situation and lets the PCs do what they will. Great stuff, especially for the price.
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Interface Zero is a great setting and a fine addition to Savage Worlds, but Boston: Broken Cradle of Liberty is one of the best Savage products I've seen in a long time. The setting is evocotive and B: BCL adds a few handy optional rules to the Fast! Furious! Fun! system of play that makes Savage Worlds such a joy to play and run. In particular, the City Trappings are a brilliant idea and are a great example of an optional rule that adds to the flavor without slowing the game down at all - it should be (and probably will be) copied for other SW settings.
The PDF is an excellent production and better than many e-books put out by major publishing houses. The layering allows you to have a full-color electronic version while also being able to select options for a stripped down printer-friendly version, with everything in between. If you like cyberpunk, post-cyberpunk, or even just appreciate fine game writing, this is an excellent value.
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I'm a cyberpunk fan from way back, and this sourcebook is classic cyberpunk. Boston: Broken Cradle of Liberty is a fun, fast read. It's filled with nice plot hooks for a Boston campaign, and has enough local flavor to avoid being a generic near-future setting. The layout's clean, the art is excellent and the concepts within are well done.
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Savage Worlds is among my favorite roleplaying game systems and I was quite happy when I heard that Gun Metal Games was going to release their excellent Interface Zero setting for it. Interface Zero is a modern cyberpunk setting which takes the technological advances of the last decades into account. The problem of most available cyberpunk setting is that they are based on an early 1980s understanding of computer technology. When William Gibson wrote Neuromancer he probably couldn’t imagine the wireless computing we have today. But I digress.
The 301-paged book not only contains a highly detailed cyberpunk world set into the year 2088 but also adds several subsystems to the Savage World rules. So even if you’re not going to use the implied setting, you still can make use of the cyberpunk rules for example. Alas these new rules add an additional layer of complexity to the Savage Worlds rules which may not be to everyone’s liking.
The book itself has a full-color cover but the interior is black-and-white only. The layout is clean and the artwork is quite nice and has a consistent style.
In Interface Zero the characters can not only be plain old humans but also androids, genetically improved humans called Humans 2.0, hybrids (which share some traits with animals), or simulacra (which are basically biological constructs unaware of being vat-grown). The addition of these various player “species” adds a bit of transhumanism to the mix, which fits the modern interpretation of the cyberpunk genre nicely.
Aside from a couple new skills and skill uses, Interface Zero adds quite a few new Edges and Hindrances like Gun-Fu Disciple or Advanced Programming. And no cyberpunk game would be complete without an extensive list of gear for your characters to purchase. In the extensive equipment catalog in Chapter Four you can find everything from a simple boot knife to power armor and experimental energy weapons.
Interface Zero doesn’t contain a plot point campaign but Chapter Seven of the book contains enough short adventures to keep a group of adventurer’s busy for months if not longer. The last and eight chapter of the book consists of an extensive bestiary. The book’s appendix contains not only a very detailed 6-paged index but also a plethora of sheets including a very stylish character sheet.
If you are a fan of the cyberpunk genre and Savage Worlds you definitely should check Interface Zero out. Even if you don’t want to use the included setting, the new rules and the extensive equipment lists may be worth it.
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Wanna play Shadowrun? Know the Savage Worlds system? Don't wanna learn a new system? Get Interface Zero. This book is every bit as detailed and immersing as Shadowrun, but runs under the Savage Worlds ruleset. That means it is fast, furious, and easy to get into. Don't think that means it's light on worldbuilding. There is a TON of history of the world and information on how things got to be they way they are.
Similar stuff is going to appear in this book as in the above mentioned game, minus trolls I guess. You can be crazy hackers, futuristic weapons gurus, and smarmy face-men looking for the next job. Oh, you can also get mechs. Yeah, mechs. So yeah, I can't wait to run this and see how my players like it. Overall, it takes some time to get through the book at 300 pages, but not hard to get through the mechanics if you've played Savage World before. This is an impressive setting book.
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The Good:
- Very nice alternate Powers system.
- Very good options for Edges and Hindrances as well.
- Some nice new equipment options.
The Bad:
- Doesn't quite live up to the promise of the Interface Zero book.
- Zeeks feel more "essential" to me than some of the alternate races in the main IZ book, to the point that I think I would have largely preferred this material (the mechanics, especially) being in there instead.
- The Occupations section opens up some new options that make the occupations from the main book feel a bit lacking in comparison.
For my full review, please visit: http://mostunreadblogever.blogspot.com/2011/02/tommys-take-o
n-zeeks-psionics-in-2088.html
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The world of Colonial Gothic using the True20 system instead of it's normal house system. Typically when a product is converted to a "generic" system some of the style and feel is lost. Though I will say that CG survived with much more of it's soul intact. The system is normally a very easy one to learn so the conversion here does not sacrifice complexity. The game is still same, one of a supernatural New World as it becomes a new country, America.
The conversion does highlight many of the pluses of the game including it's atmosphere and style of play. It also allows you know to bring other True20 that might be helpful. In some ways I prefer this to the original.
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I was so excited to learn that an RPG treatment of the sanity-blasting horror of H. P. Lovecraft had been made available using the True 20 rules that I went online and bought a copy within days of the discovery. Shadows of Cthulhu, designed by Russell Brown and published by Reality Deviant Publications, is a great way to introduce D&D gamers to a taste of something different without forcing them to learn an entirely new game system. In that vein its important top note that Shadows is not a complete game in itself: a copy of the Green Ronin Publishing’s True 20 Revised Rules will be required in order to play Shadows of Cthulhu.
It should come as no surprise that nearly the entire book offers a rehash of information provided in the various Call of Cthulhu-related tomes. This is precisely as it should be; one cannot assume that a person picking up this book for the first time will know everything they need to regarding the background and 1920s-era setting. I offer this as a warning to the already initiated to be patient, and to feel free to skim the background chapters at first. Where True 20 differs here is in the three character roles – Adept, Warrior and Expert – that players’ characters will adopt. It is recommended that players only choose Adept as a starting role with the consent of the Narrator or GM; frequently in this setting, the mantle of Adept is taken by either cultists or by those experienced in the ways of the Mythos. It would be commonplace for a character to grow into the role of Adept during the course of one or more campaigns, but rare that one would start out that way.
The first chapter details the ins and outs of character creation, adapting the game for the True 20 rules toolkit. Chapter two gives a general overview of all aspects of life in the 1920s, and chapter three offers advice and information for the GM on narrating Shadows of Cthulhu. Chapter four covers True 20’s rules for insanity, dealing with the inevitable plunge from reality – a plunge all too common to all investigators of the supernatural and other-worldly.
Chapter five converts the character abilities from Call of Cthulhu into the Skills, Feats and Powers lexicon of True 20. Chapter six – everyone’s favorite – is the bestiary of critters from the Cthulhu Mythos. Chapter seven – titled “Terrible Things” – details in game terms the places, books and artifacts associated with stories from the Mythos. Chapter eight discusses NPCs -- cultists, Adepts and ordinary people. Chapter nine offers the village of Dunwich and its environs as an appropriate setting for adventures. The setting for “The Dunwich Horror,” Dunwich is a mythical New England village seemingly frozen in time in the latter part of the 19th Century (or earlier), and was the site of horrific events resulting from several inhabitants’ close involvement with Things Man Was Not Meant To Know. Chapter ten closes out this book by covering in greater detail True 20’s rules to govern the use (and abuse!) of sanity in the game setting.
The art by Jason Walton is excellent. Scattered throughout the book, it is sparse enough to not overwhelm the text, but frequent enough to maintain visual interest and to help set the tone for the game. My favorite piece is a full-page illustration from page 33, depicting a town at night as mist begins to creep in. The pre-19th-Century architecture of the town indicates it is either in Europe or a very remote area of the Eastern United States. There are no monsters, or any other living beings present -- merely the suggestion, through the use of shadows and judicious placement of obscuring mist, that there may be more to the scene than meets the eye. Imagination is given free reign in this image, which is what role-playing games are all about.
A couple of very small quibbles; why is page two entirely blank? Most likely this is to facilitate printing the full-color cover page, either for the consumer directly from the PDF download, or to prep the product for eventual conversion to a commercial print run, if product sales indicate the need. Another problem is the two-column format. While standard for commercial printing, in electronic form it is a cause for aggravation as one has to scroll up and down several times to read information on a single page. This isn’t issue for those who take the time and toner to print out a hard copy of the PDF.
All in all, Shadows of Cthulhu is a welcome addition to any Lovecraft aficionado’s store of Mythos gaming lore. The 124+ pages are well worth the price of the download, even for those anachronistic types like myself who prefer a printed, bound book to caress and scan. It’s a cohesive, well planned coverage of the Cthulhu Mythos using a rules system other than Chaosium’s fine Basic Role Playing system. I would be remiss if I didn’t mention that, in my role as Sales Manager for Green Ronin Publishing – publishers of the True 20 RPG – I’m somewhat less than unbiased. That in mind, True 20 is a strong tool to offer fans of 3.0 to 3.5-era D&D a solid option for using a familiar game system to play other games in diverse time periods and settings. Having such an excellent product available in support of the True 20 product line makes that part of my job a lot easier.
--Bill Bodden
This review originally appeared at FlamesRising.com
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Reign of Discordia (RoD) is a setting book with very few new rules. In some cases, too few rules (so just how do these new star drives work?). As a setting, RoD has a little bit of everything. A decent sandbox to play in that is NOT the Third Imperium of the Mongoose Traveller Universe.
Given that RoD started out as a True20 product and this is a translation into the Traveller system, what I find most surprising is the number of very obvious spelling and format errors (changing fonts) in the product. For a text that was mostly imported from another product I think this is inexcusable. I would like to give this product four stars, but the lack of attention/care to the text fores me to knock it down a level.
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Excellent setting. Rules cover all you need to run a Cyberpunk style game using the Savage Worlds. Excellent details on hot spots around the global, a sufficient list of foes to throw at the PCs, and a workable cyberware system that gives the GM and players control on how the way to do it.
Indexed and Layered PDF, saves the old printer on printing but lets you see the excellent layout on the screen.
The artwork is great and conveys the feeling of th world, but felt that some of it could have been tightened up a bit.
Overall I would recommend it.
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