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The supplement is good, but it would be even better if the temperature could appear too in Celsius and speed in metric system.
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I have read several attempts to fix Craft. This one is spot on. I compliment Mark on his ingenuity and simplicity. Keep it up!
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Publisher Reply: |
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Thanks for the kind words, Timothy. :) -- Mark L. Chance |
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Great value. The three were a nice cross-section of Mark's work
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Publisher Reply: |
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Thanks again for the kinds words, Timothy. :) -- Mark L. Chance. |
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This is a basic template to use to make your own random encounter charts for your use. The PDF is well laided out and clear to read. the example is easy to follow and shows how to use it as more then just a wandering monster table by adding a few details to some of the entries and making them more a part of your world. It also shows how to add depth to such a encounter chart.
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Publisher Reply: |
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Thanks for the review, Benjamin! Hope the PDF helps. :)
-- Mark L. Chance |
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A simple guide, written with lighthearted humor, on preparing a medieval celebration meal, including tips on what food to serve (including a few recipes), how to decorate, and even how guests are expected to behave. Great fun if you are preparing a dinner party to coincide with a Pathfinder session (or any medieval fantasy game, really). Includes game stats for a new Pathfinder class, the Trencherman (though I can't say if the recipes are Pathfinder compatible...)
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Publisher Reply: |
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Thanks for the review! :) |
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This pdf is 8 pages long, 1 page front cover, 1page editorial/ToC and 1 page SRD, leaving 5 pages of content.
The pdf kicks off with an introduction to this pdf version of the great Quid Novi-newsletter (which I've been receiving for the better part of a year by now) and then goes on to the gaming material. Each section is prefaced by a cool, aptly-written short IC-text.
The pdf includes an affliction that is quite amusing: Boogie fever. We also get a cool leather gauntlet with positive energy abilities, a nice new haunt and of course: Penguins!
An encounter with an emperor penguin, penguins as animal companions, little penguins and a cool magical trap with... Penguins! We also get a nice new cantrip-spell for bards and a cool list of recommended reading.
Conclusion:
Layout adheres to the two-column standard and is printer-friendly b/w, editing and formatting are top-notch and I didn't notice any glitches. Content-wise, this issue walks the thin line between being funny and usable and succeeds at both. Due to the fact that the file is free, I can unanimously recommend the file: You literally have no reason not to download this and should in fact do so. My final verdict will be 5 stars.
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This pdf is 3 pages, 1 page SRD, leaving 2 pages for the free critter, so let's give it a closer look.
Tha baykok is an undead hunter suitable for mid-to medium level parties that has a tremendous potential to be both creepy and memorable. Why? It has 2 cool signature abilities I haven't seen before: It uses invisible arrows and is invisible, even while attacking, to all but the target of its attacks. Now this makes for very cool predator-like encounters and awesome horror-potential. What about PCs trying to protect a target from a whole group of them? Awesome work. And it's free.
Conclusion:
Editing and formatting are top-notch and while there is no artwork, the fluff-text makes sure to adequately convey the coolness of the creature. Layout adheres to the printer-friendly two-column standard. Plus: This is FREE. You get a critter that is cooler than a lot of creatures you usually have to pay for and for the price diddly-squat. You have NO reason not to check this out. If there ever will be a Spes Magna monster book with foes of that quality, I'll be sure to pick it up.
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Quid Novi: Perilous Penguin Edition by Spes Magna Games
This product is 8 pages long. It starts with a cover, credits, and ToC. (2 pages)
Introduction (1 pages)
Explaining how this came about, what inspired the series and some of the stuff in this product.
Collection of things (4 page)
There is one new disease, one new magic item, one new haunt, a new animal Penguin, with 3 sets of stat blocks. One for the little ones, one for the Emperors and then information for one as a familiar. One new trap and one new spell. The section ends with half a page on suggested reading.
It ends with a OGL. (1 pages)
Closing thoughts. The art is black and white and good. Layout is decent and editing is all and all good. This is mostly a free showcase to show what the company Spes Magna can do. Up until now it was only as a email, now you can get it this one as a PDF. I must say I really like the PDF format and hope all future and honestly all the old ones eventually get turned into PDF's. It makes them much easier to store and use.
So what's my rating? I am going to give this one a 5 star review. I mean it is free stuff, that is well written, good editing and layout and decent art. There is no reason at all to not pick this up.
Trust me, I'm a Succubus.
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Publisher Reply: |
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Thanks for the kind review, D_M! :) |
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Master of Disguise by Spes Magna Games
This product is 29 pages long. It starts with a cover, ToC and forward. (3 pages)
Master of Disguise Class (9 pages)
This part is the bulk of the class. D8, 6 skills, medium BaB, 2 good saves, weapons and armor similar to a rogue, 4 level caster. They cast spells like a Sorcerer and start being able to cast at 1st level if they have a bonus spell or 2nd level. They can start to cast 2nd level spells at 4th, 3rd at 7th and 4th at 10th level. Spell list reminds me a bit of the beguiler class from 3.5.
All of the class abilities help them to disguise and pretend to be other people, they also gain some talents somewhat similar to rogue talents, though mostly again focused on disguise or social abilities. Play the Part is the closest thing they get to a cap stone ability. They get it earlier but it maxs out at 20th. It allows them to mimic skills, feats or class abilities from other classes to pull of a disguise.
Favored Class Options (6 pages)
This has favored class options for this class by race. It also includes one new subdomain Disguise for the Trickery Domain, 7 new rogue talents, expanded uses of Diplomacy, Disguise, Linguistics, and Use Magic Device skills, 4 new feats.
Equipment (2 pages)
This starts off talking about the relevance of cloaks and the purpose they serve. It moves on to talk about why cloaks and cloths are important by pointing out the draw backs to not having any aka being naked. Then it goes into talking about how masterwork style clothes could add bonuses to skills. Such as cold weather clothes etc. It ends with three examples of normal equipment meant to add bonuses to skills. A Blessed Salve that adds a bonus to con checks for stability, Spellcraft for Dummies – bonus to spellcraft checks if you have time to consult the book first before a roll is made, Winter Camouflage Cloak – bonus to fort saves against cold and stealth checks.
Spells (4 pages)
This section has new spells. There is 12 new spells and they include the new APG classes if they can or can not cast them as well.
Magic Items (5 pages)
There is 13 new magic items in this section several of them are masks.
It ends with a OGL. (2 pages)
Closing Thoughts. The class is a very focused class. I think it is a ok class, it seems fairly well balanced but because it is so focused. I think it some cases it will be fairly strong and others a bit on the weak side depending on the campaign. One with a lot of social and more urban focused will favor the class, a lot of dungeon crawls hurts the class. I was disappointed with one aspect of the class, it lacks trapfinding ability. Since it takes the place of a rogue I feel the class should really have it.
The new rogue talents I think add a bit to the rogue and they are fairly well done. The skill section was well done showing more uses for the skills. The Use Magic device is the only one I am not so sure I would use. It lets you bypass some spells like protection spells, It is not a bad ability I just didn't care for it personally.
The class options where all decent, none wowed me but I didn't feel any ways bad either. The new domain was interest and fit well with the theme. I actually really liked all the feats, one is a duelist which adds a bonus on one on one fights, the other three are all about using a cloak in combat. Something we have all seen in movies, there is a few more I could think of that I would have liked to have been added though. The ones there are all good but I would have liked to have seen more.
I really liked what was being discussed about the equipment. I just found it to be lacking enough information. I really wish the section had been expanded greatly, or left out. As it is there is not really enough to make good use of a very nifty idea, perhaps that is something worthy of it's own small PDF with plenty of examples. I liked most of the spells and one seemed overly powerful, they was more fluff style spells, useful spells in interesting ways for the most part. Same can be said of the magic items most of them where well done and I can see myself using many of them.
Which brings me to one of my critics, layout. It is not bad but with the names of magic items etc just being bolded it is hard to tell where they start at a quick glance. On most of the sections with less bold it is easier but in some sections especially the magic item section it is very hard to quickly spot the magic item names. I would have liked them to have been underlined or something as well.
There is no art and very little color other than a few section headers. It is black and white text on a plain style PDF, no borders etc. Which makes it very print friendly but also pretty plain looking. There is little notes on the bottom of some of the pages which explain why the author choose to do what he did. Not really needed but it was nice to read anyways.
So whats my rating? Well on one hand the class is a very niche class, which hurts it appeal some. I think it makes a much better NPC class, it is useful as a PC in some types of campaigns. As a NPC though it is very nice. The other stuff in the book while mostly geared for the class can by used by most anyone and virtually of it is useful. There is a few minor flaws with the product that I mentioned, but it is cheap too. So for the price I am giving it a 4 star review.
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Fencing and Firearms is a fascinating set of variations on the Pathfinder combat system, at times approaching a total reconstruction of them. There is much food for thought here if you like modifying combat systems.
Fencing and Firearms is a 30-page PDF (27 pages if you remove the cover, credits and OGL pages) for the Pathfinder RPG written by Mark L. Chance and published by Spes Magna Games “Ludi Fortes - Strong Games”.
The layout is a standard single column design with many sidebars, with black and white cover and interior art from various open sources that fir the theme of this product. The various tables are clear and easy to read and overall the entire product is easy on the eyes.
Fencing and Firearms begins with laying out the goal for this product: speed up play, keep everyone involved, provide more options and make the combat system easier. Quite a tall order and it involves a rather extensive rewrite of the combat system to do so.
The most interesting component of the change (and part of the keep everyone involved aspect) is that players make almost all of the rolls in combat that effect their character: attacks, defense against opponents, overcoming “saves” to have spells affect their enemies and so on. A fascinating choice that will please some players and not others.
The rest of the changes are designed to simplify and unify various concepts in an easily understandable whole. Combat maneuvers are further standardized and clarified. Armor in the system provides a bonus to armor class and a type of damage reduction. A variety of other small changes are made.
While coherent and internally consistent the Fencing and Firearms rules is a considerable divergence from the standard Pathfinder rule set and could take some getting used to. They are a solid set of rules and for those who would like to try a different take on the combat system, however they are fairly interlocked and it may be difficult to pull just pieces out of it.
The firearms rules run just over five pages and allow the addition of early (matchlock and flintlock) firearms and grenade to the game. The rules are mechanically straightforward and the reasoning behind them well explained. Certainly they are not campaign breaking in any way and should easily fit into an existing campaign.
Disclosure: As a featured reviewer for RPGNow/DriveThruRPG, I received my copy of this product for free from the publisher for the purpose of this review.
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Publisher Reply: |
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Thanks for the 4-stars. I'm particularly pleased with your comments about the firearms section. |
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In one's blood is 25 pages of new Sorcerer bloodlines, spells and abilities which can add some oomph, or ooze, to your game. Done in an easy to print black and white format, light on the graphics but heavy on content, players and GMs will find this expansion to the Sorcerer class fun and useful.
The new blood lines consist of Aquatic, Divine, Giant, Ooze, Plant, Psychic and Vermin. Along with these seven new bloodlines come 15 new spells, a new creature in the form of a Behemoth Pudding, and some exposition in to what exactly one gets by turning into an ooze. Mark L. Chance also makes good use of text boxes to add descriptive and colorful examples of each bloodline.
The layout of the document is simple and straight forward - each bloodline is described in detail, including special bloodline powers, arcana, bonus feats, skills and bonus spells. Speaking of spells, these new additions to the Sorcerer's tool kit are well balanced and fairly implemented. Two favorites that stand out for me are Conqueror Worms and Ocean's Depth. I also found the Ooze bloodline to be a lot of fun. Helpfully embedded throughout the document are links to d20pfsrd.com, useful for quick look ups if you're reading this online.
All in all I think In One's Blood can add more depth to the Sorcerer class. I can't see any reason why these bloodlines and new spells wouldn't fit will with most campaigns. My two complaints with this document, neither of which should be deal breakers for anyone, are the font used for titles, and the overall plainness of the document. The font can be a bit hard to read. The document is very printer friendly, but lacks the pizazz I'm used to seeing in RPG expansions.
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Publisher Reply: |
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Thanks for the kind words! |
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Crafting items is one of those things that just hasn't worked correctly according to the rules, since the advent of the d20 system. Easy crafting tasks, that in game should take a day or two could stretch on for weeks or months of in game time and hard tasks, well, some of them could be completed in a week. Don't even talk to me about crafting plate armor. Who want's to take nearly half a year away from their adventuring to craft some plate? Finally, Spes Magna Games have come along an introduced sane rules for crafting, making us all feel a lot better about making armor, shiny things and alchemical inventions.
What was wrong with crafting? To quote Making Craft Work, "Erlic wants to Craft a one-pound silver ball. His brother Rynook wants to Craft a one-pound gold ball. A one-pound ball of silver is worth one tenth as much as a pound of gold. Even though Erlic and Rynook work on pretty much the same project -- melting metal and pouring it into a mold -- Rynook must spend much longer on his one-pound ball simply because it's made of gold." So the same task, which should take the same amount of time, takes longer simply because of the cost of the material.
Mark L. Chance has come up with a sane system for crafting items based not on cost but difficulty, which simply works much better within the gaming framework. Sure, in real life it may take half a year (or longer) to put together a nice, fitted bit of plate armor. But in game time, who wants to postpone an adventure for that long? Chance's system reduces the time for crafting plate from 28 weeks or so, to one week. Realistic? No, but then neither are dragons or spell chucking. Works well within the frame of the game? Absolutely.
I'd highly recommend this document to any GMs and players who like to craft in game and are looking for a sane and usable system of crafting.
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Publisher Reply: |
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Thanks for the kind words, Ben! :) -- Mark L. Chance | Spes Magna Games |
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