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Mark Hyzer is an amazingly talented artist, who has worked for WoTC on MtG and draws some of the the creepiest monsters I know, always awesome. A full color pick like this would normally run someone $45+ at a minimum and to get it from somone like Mark for $3.00 is a steal. I ended up using this in 101 Not So Random Encounters: Winter and it fit perfectly.
Special Thanks to Mark Gedek of PDG for making this stock art line available.
Steven D. Russell
Rite Publishing
| Wertung: | | [5 von 5 Sternen!] |
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Poking around deserted ancient dwarf complexes is standard dungeon crawl fare... but this one has a fascinating twist to it that ought to make players sit up and take notice.
The backstory presents the familiar ancient dwarf community amassing fabulous wealth, coming to grief when attacked and leaving mysterious remains behind... but these dwarves had invented the magical equivalent of the subway or underground railway, the remains of which survive to baffle present-day (in the campaign world) adventurers who stumble across it.
The means of ingress are pyramidal stele that dot the landscape and are, unbeknownst to all, ventilation shafts leading to the depths below. A few reasons, from mere curiosity to small creatures falling down them, are given for the characters to explore in the first place but once they do there is a well-detailed and fantastical world, copiously supplied with monsters (just because the dwarves are long gone doesn't mean the place is deserted) and quite a few treasures to loot... and the dwarves' patron deity is taking an interest.
Perhaps a short excursion or the gateway to more extensive underground adventures, this is a thoroughly entertaining 'crawl.
| Wertung: | | [5 von 5 Sternen!] |
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The Dragonblood are a new race - even if it's a long-standing concept - which exists in Purple Duck's campaign world of The Land of Porphyra... and should you wish to play one, you will find everything that you need here.
We begin with a short piece of fiction that sets the scene of an individual almost haunted by an otherness, something that marks him out from everyone else; and as we read further we learn just how unusual dragonborn are. It is a little unclear just how they arise, although they apparently display traces of a draconic ancestor - just how that happened is a matter for genealogists, geneticists or the gossip columns! Be that as it may, dragonborn are found amongst humans and elves, occasionally half-orcs and very rarely in dwarf or halfling communities.
On to specifics: they tend to be tougher and more striking than other sentient beings, but maybe a bit headstrong as shown by the ability modifiers. Otherwise they vary little from the norm except for an affinity for magic, a naturally tough hide (which may show signs of scales) and the ability to withstand poisons. It's not clear if the dragonblood modifiers are to be applied 'cold' or if you first apply those of the racial stock that your dragonblood comes from and then apply the dragonblood ones. They tend to be imposing individuals, taller than the norm for their race with sharp features, distinctive eyes and large canine teeth - the sort of person who turns heads when they pass by.
Socially, they are often outcast or at least regarded askance. For a start, they are pretty uncommon - many folk haven't even heard of them - and sometimes they are mistaken for other hostile reptilian species. Even those who know what they are can be wary of them, never quite sure where their allegiances lie or what their powers might be. Racial traits and characteristics, and a selection of feats, follow, while the notes on attitudes and how they cope as members of and in dealings with the various classes give plenty of food for thought as to how to make them different - indeed, several plot ideas spawn for things that might happen to a dragonblooded should he come into my game!
An interesting race, a potent and fascinating concept, worth considering if you want something that little bit different - but, as always, work with your GM to ensure that a dragonblooded has a place in his game.
| Wertung: | | [5 von 5 Sternen!] |
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An Endzeitgeist.com review
The first of the Porphyra-region books is 53 pages long, 1 page front cover, 1 page editorial/ToC, 2 pages of SRD, 1 page advertisement, 1 blank page, leaving us with 47 pages of content, so let's take a look!
After a short, fluffy introduction into life in the swampy triarchy, we kick off with new races: Power-wise, they are built with 10 to 12 points via the flawed ARG-guidelines, which per se does not bode particularly well, so let's see how significant the power-fluctuations/levels will turn out to be, shall we? The first race would be the boggards that get +2 to Str and Con, -2 to Int, slow speed, dakrvision, low-light vision, can hold their breath 4xcon score rounds, get a secondary attack with their sticky tongues, may ignore natural difficult terrain in swamps and emit the terrifying croak of boggards. Per se an ok race, though for my tastes slightly too strong - making tongue and croak available via feats instead of generally and getting rid of one of the senses would have made them imho balanced with the base races.
Next up are the feykissed - those with fey blood i their veins. The flavor text mentions a settlement called "MacCool", which I SO hope will be renamed in the final setting -seriously, what next? The hamlet DocAwesome? Bodacialisciousson, the metropolis? Yes, it's a name, but one I consider jarring. Crunch-wise, they get +2 to Dex and Cha, -2 to Str, count as fey, get low-light vision, DR 5/cold iron, escape artist and perform as class skills, +2 to stealth and perception and may use charm person 1/day. A solid race, though I consider the DR MUCH too strong at low levels - dagger + commoner couldn't even hurt a feykissed at level 1! In my game, I wouldn't allow these, though I can see them work for other campaigns.
The Grippli are also covered - basically, we get the base race from the ARG (which imho is already stronger than the core-races, albeit only slightly) and add MORE powers: They HALVE falling damage, are always considered to have a running jump, ignore difficult natural swamp terrain AND get a toxic skin usable 1/day - all in addition to the ARG races already considerable powers. Not gonna happen in my game, though I'll probably take some of the rules and make them alternate racial traits, but balanced, imho, this race as written is not.
Half-elves get also a slight power-boost, with an added +2 to sense motive and +1 to DCs of sleep and divination-spells they cast as well as the option for half-elves of Cha 15+ to cast dream1/day. I actually like this slight power-upgrade for the half-elf, since I always thought the base race needed something distinct that sets them apart from their respective parent-races. Humans born in teh Triarchy can traverse hedgerows faster and suffer no penalties to acrobatics and stealth while in bogs and may use survival to detect quicksand even while running. What's rather cool - there's a chant of the reedlanders depicted and reciting it flawlessly by heart is suggested to provide a circumstance bonus to get rafts unstuck - this kind of information is what makes a given culture come alive and feel distinct, so kudos and two thumbs up!
The final race covered by the book would be the lizardfolk, who get +2 Con and Wis, -2 Int, can hold their breath longer, get 1d3 bite and 1d4 claws as natural attacks, +4 to acrobatics and +2 to AC. Honestly my favorite of the races, execution-wise - while I'm not a big fan of the natural attacks, they remain not particularly strong and honestly - I can actually see myself allowing this race in my VERY restrictive home-game, so yeah - nice job there! It should be noted that each race I mentioned comes with at least one new trait to anchor them in the triarchy.
But enough on the topic of races, what about the triarchy itself? Well, we kick off the gazetteer-like section of the book with an overview of how lordship, an elected, non-hereditary title, is determined as well as that there's the Triarch, a kind of high lord overseeing the whole triarchy, but also on an elected basis. We also get an AWESOME full-color map of the triarchy that is player-friendly to boot and which should enhance immersion in the region before we delve into the write-ups of the different settlements, all of which come with a full-blown settlement statblock, a short piece of aptly-written prose as well as several settlement qualities - and guess what: Apart from the stupid name, MacCool is actually a cool settlement! I'm now hitting myself for this dumb pun. We also get a full color player-friendly map of a typical village in the triarchy, based on one of Raging Swan's b/w Village Backdrops - the color does add to the maps appeal, though.
Next up is the section on new archetypes, wherein barbarians may elect to become warrior poets, who may grant morale bonuses to allies upon critical hits or take 1/day 20 on a knowledge check or take 10. Rather nice - each one of the archetypes comes with a sample character - including a nice piece of fluff. The otherworldly druid is limited in domain-selection via nature's bond and may opt to gain a fey animal as companion instead of a regular one. Furthermore, their wild-shape form is modified by further bonuses to reflect their closer ties to the realms of the fey - it should be noted that the sample character comes with a companion - something all too often neglected in publications.
Two new traps for the Trapper ranger archetype lead into the Wild Huntsman ranger-archetype, exclusively intended for the feykissed race. Escaping from these is problematic, since they may react as an immediate action to a withdraw by moving their double movement rate in pursuit a limited amount of times per day, making them pernicious foes indeed. Worse, their horns may strike fear into the hearts of mortals and the most powerful see their companions turn into unseelie creatures (as per the new template also included). Rogues may now become whisky runners, experts of drunken boxing that may fuel their grapples and dirty tricks via the alcohol they consume.
Wilders (as per Dreamscarred Press' superb Psionic Unleashed) may now take up the Cunning-folk's method, netting allies temporary HP when surging and we also get to see a new Vitalist method (from the APG of Psionics, Psionics Expanded - an imho must-have book...): Gaining endorphin surge as a power, the Taseck is interesting indeed - upon transferring wounds, they grant the target a massive, but short-lived bonus to Str and Con, but leave the target fatigued after the initial rush has waned. An issue here is that the ability does not specify how the temporary hit points gained from the con-increase are handled: Akin to the barbarian's rage? I assume so, for another cool option for the Taseck may trade powers for rage powers and use endorphin surge to enhance barbarians by letting them treat endorphin surge as their own rage. If you opt to choose rage powers, you don't have to multiclass, btw. - they are available to you while in psychic frenzy or under the effect of the signature power of this method.
The final new archetype would be the bog witch, a witch that replaces her familiar with a bog mummy, making her companion more powerful, but for the tradeoff of a higher risk of losing the mummy to fireballs, foes etc. After that, we get a new 5-level spanning prestige class, the Vate of Chiuta, who gets d8, up to +2 BAB, +2 fort- and ref-saves and +3 will as well as full divine spellcasting progression. These clerics may choose whether to channel positive or negative energy anew each day, breathe underwater and learn to automatically reincarnate and sense their bodies for 7 days- making it possible to potentially reclaim the original form. Dying anew within this time-frame, though, permanently ends the life of the Vate. Nice little PrC that lives very much from its great fluff.
We also get 4 new feats, all of which are interesting - what's more exciting, at least for me, is the section on herbalism: 19 new herbs, complete with value, perception DCs to spot them, DCs to use them and side effects are covered - and I love them! From prolonging life to curing damage incurred by electrical attacks, duplicating eagle's splendor or making the rejuvenation from fatigue faster, the herbalism-section is cool, oozes flair and just rocks!
Via 11 new spells, you may now gain a bird's eye view, create seelie and unseelie henges to guard against aligned and summoned creatures and quicken natural HP-recovery, create mires or obscure a road. All in all, a nice, flavorful array of spells. 3 new magic items, 2 new psionic ioun stones, 3 new artifacts (one of which is actually a psionic tattoo - damn cool!) as well as 3 new psionic powers complete the deal before we get a massive array of equipment tables that not only cover Ultimate Equipment, but also the stellar Inkantations and Luven Lightfinger's Gear and Weapon Shop before closing with two pages of cool, new mundane items.
Conclusion:
Editing and formatting are good, though not perfect - I noticed a couple of minor glitches here and there - nothing too glaring, though. Layout adheres to PDG's printer-friendly two-column standard and the full color artworks are nice - especially since, at least to my knowledge, several of them are new. The pdf comes fully bookmarked with nested bookmarks for your convenience.
Let's start with the bad - I don't like the races - while not as broken as other races based on the ARG I recently reviewed and at least mostly balanced among themselves, they feel too powerful for me when compared to the core races. MacCool is a terrible name for a settlement and the new archetypes, with the exception of the vitalist method, didn't really excite me that much.
On the plus-side, this pdf has a great map, interesting settlements, a flavorful PrC, cool spells, nice equipment both mundane and magical (though I wished we also got magical whiskeys in addition to the non-magical variants featured herein...) - and the excellent herbalism-section is a boon for my eyes. The archetype-sample NPCs are also a great innovation - I wished every archetype had such a sample creature - it would take a lot of number-crunching from DM-shoulders.
When I started analyzing this book, it first looked like I wouldn't get warm with the Triarchy, but as a region with interesting and uncommon race dynamics, it works rather well and could easily be plugged into a given world. However, I still feel like the pdf falls flat of its own potential: Beyond the aforementioned complaints I can muster against it, I also feel that if this book had focused more on the fluff, the region, its cities, its flora, its produce - it could have been even better.
When rating this, I was rather stumped and didn't really know what to settle on. In the end, I decided that the pros outweigh the cons, that the races, while not perfect, at least won't break a game and that the great fluff, characters, statblocks and ideas contained herein still warrant a verdict in the upper echelons. hence my final verdict will clock in at 4 stars - with the caveat that those as picky with regards to race-balance as I am should consider themselves warned, though not warned away - spurning this pdf based on said grounds would imho be a mistake. Author Josh McCrowell has done a nice job and I look forward to reading more Porphyra-supplements by PDG.
Endzeitgeist out.
| Wertung: | | [4 von 5 Sternen!] |
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This is a fair-sized PDF document offered free of charge. I do not remember if "Porphyra" refers to a certain fantasy universe. Without spoiling the experience, the "Godmetals" of the title are drawn from divine essences. This seemed intriguing, but I became disillusioned. The names (one was related to "stone", therefore not a "metal" in my mind) and characteristics (proving player character tactical combat benefits) didn't fit with the kind of adventures and stories I would like to create. I attempted to use write a small list of the names/characteristics to spur my own creativity, but stopped because this simply wasn't useful to me in any fashion. However, it is provided free of charge.
| Wertung: | | [2 von 5 Sternen!] |
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Fantastic art. Dead Goblin games is glad to have included this in our latest module, "The Slaver Caves of Dorden". Well done..this art rocks!
| Wertung: | | [4 von 5 Sternen!] |
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An Endzeitgeist.com review
This pdf is 19 pages long, 1 page front cover, 1 page SRD, leaving us with 15 pages of content, so let's take a look!
This being a review of an adventure-module, the following contains SPOILERS. Potential players may wish to jump to the conclusion.
Still here? All right! Many a world features massive remains of underground dwarven subterranean city complexes and this pdf details one such complex or at least a part of it - the titular waystation, which features hammer-handed, old dwarven guardian-beings as well as an infestation of fungous, acidic ambush predators. PCs may also find an ancient, powerful magic hammer (with deeds to unlock the powers) or find multiple entries on donations from days long past - but do you know what makes what would otherwise be a relatively good, but not too exciting dungeon-crawl really stand out?
One word: Railway system. Essentially, the now defunct empire once featured magical rail cars the PCs can ride through the depths and battle on. This idea alone is imho worth the very fair, low asking price and any even remotely talented DM should be able to properly craft from this framework a more massive set of vehicular encounters - not only in the DCC-ruleset.
Conclusion:
Editing and formatting are top-notch, I didn't notice any glitches. Layout adheres to PDG's printer-friendly 2-column standard and the pdf comes fully bookmarked and with both a player-friendly map and a DM-map for your convenience. The pieces of b/w-artworks, all original btw., greatly help enhance the unique mood of the set-piece dungeon locale.
I'm impressed - while short and sweet and more locale than adventure, author David Przybyla has crafted an iconic, interesting place that can easily be expanded and add some speed to your underdark explorations with not only the content it features, but also with the ideas it introduces and leaves for the DM to develop. A prime example of an inspiring supplement, I'll gladly rate this 5 stars and can recommend this to DMs of other rules-systems for idea-mining just as well.
Endzeitgeist out.
| Wertung: | | [5 von 5 Sternen!] |
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An Endzeitgeist.com review
This free pdf is 7 pages long, 1/2 page editorial/logo, 2 pages SRD, leaving us with 4 1/2 pages of content, so what do we exactly get?
Well, we get one short encounter for EL 1, which is based on a hilarious assumption – set in the seeding season, a generic village (with statblock) has had its local doom-spouting madmen tell of a vision of dread horned ones and scales. No horror to be found, though – in fact, a bunch of goatmen herding flying koi (!!!)via specialized fish-whistles (!!) are just en route towards a place where they can sell their animals. Unfortunately, said fish are ravenous and would spell doom for the upcoming harvest as the fish’s path would scour the seeds of the future harvest. It’s up to the PCs to negotiate a solution for both factions and avert hostilities.
The product also features full stats for the doom-sayer, the town’s cleric, the goatmen and their flying koi as well as 5 low-level spells to help herding animals. We also get racial characteristics for the goatmen.
Conclusion:
Editing and formatting are very good, I didn’t notice any significant glitches. Layout adheres to PDG’s printer-friendly 2-column standard and the b/w-artwork is nice. The pdf has no bookmarks, but needs none at this length, but comes with hyperlinks for your convenience.
This encounter is weird in all the right ways and especially when used to foreshadow fey hijinxs or just change the tone after a particularly depressing/dark adventure, this weird encounter will provide quite some enjoyment – for diddly-squat! As a FREE offering that features some neat, far-out ideas, I’ll gladly rate this 5 stars + seal of approval – well worth your bandwidth and HD-space!
Endzeitgeist out.
| Wertung: | | [5 von 5 Sternen!] |
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It’s a truism that heroes are only as great as the monsters they overcome. The reverse of this, that monsters are only as monstrous as the heroes they face, isn’t quite as elegant an idea. Nevertheless, it does communicate the more elemental principle – for RPGs at least – that monsters are meant to be used in the course of a game.
To that end, the Tome of Monstrous Encounters series is an attempt to do just that for the creatures from the eponymous Tome of Monsters from 4 Winds Fantasy Gaming. This first entry in that series, As Likely As A Goat Herding Fish, from Purple Duck Games, showcases a simple encounter for a 1st-level party. It’s an interesting encounter, and simultaneously manages to showcase both the strengths and, at least in this first product, the weaknesses of the idea.
The adventure here is fairly straightforward, with roughly a page of text laying out the entirety of the premise and setup. A farming village sends the PCs to investigate the ramblings of their local “the end is night” doomsayer when the town cleric finds that his current prediction – that some sort of evil will descend on the town from a nearby forest – stands up to her divinations.
In the forest, the PCs find a group of caprians (goat-people; if you need help imagining that, think of catfolk, but with goats instead), herding a school of flying fish to a distant city for sale. Normally this wouldn’t be a problem, but they’re taking them right through the village’s farmland, and the voracious fish will devastate the town’s crops, something that the Chaotic Neutral goat-people don’t care about.
As noted above, all of this is laid out over roughly a page. The rest of the page count is devoted to giving stat blocks. The adventure is surprisingly forthcoming with these; there’s a settlement stat block given for the town (though oddly, it has no name, unless its inhabitants named it “Quiet Small Farming Village”), stats for the local doomsayer and the town cleric, as well as for the flying fish and the goat-people (including PC and NPC stats). While I’m fairly certain that they’re reprinted from other sources, there are also several new spells and even a new settlement quality to be found here as well.
It’s interesting to note that this adventure is nominally set on the Purple Duck Games campaign setting of Porphyra. I say “nominally” here because the game world uses neutral language in describing the setting – a single paragraph is dedicated to where this would be on their campaign world. At a casual glance, that’s all there is, but there’s more here that suggests their campaign world’s touch, such as how the human NPCs have a special racial trait (which is annoyingly referenced, but not expounded upon), and the eclectic nature of little things that the NPCs have, such as the caprians having a dictionary for the catfolk language, or the cleric having a “living steel heavy shield.”
While I can appreciate these little touches – they certainly give the adventure a very distinctive aspect that is completely in line with what I know of Porphyra – they fly in the face of the adventure’s apparent desire to remain setting-neutral. If the adventure is set on Porphyra, eliminate the “On Porphyra” sidebar and let it be set there, but if it’s not meant to be, then campaign-specific elements should be scrubbed from every place except that section. Splitting the difference like this only muddles things.
Another muddling element is the lack of notations for game elements that aren’t from the Core Rulebook. The town stat block, for instance, notes that one of the medium magic items for sale there is an aquatic cumberbund. That’s from Ultimate Equipment, but you’d never know it here, since there’s no superscript with an abbreviation to help figure it out. It wouldn’t be quite so bad if there was a link to the d20PFSRD, perhaps, but there isn’t. Why certain spells were reprinted in full while other materials weren’t even hyperlinked is beyond me.
Ironically, certain other words are hyperlinked to the d20PFSRD, despite having no particular relevance in doing so. The word “wish” appears in the middle of a sentence, for example, having no relevance to the spell of the same name, and yet it’s a hyperlink to that spell in the d20 PFSRD, for no reason that I can tell. Worse, there’s no visual indicator that this is a hyperlink, so you’ll likely click on it by accident.
I should also mention that there are some issues with the layout that I didn’t care for too much. I’m not a fan of having all of the relevant stat blocks for an adventure at the end of the adventure, for instance. That’s not quite a big deal here, given that the adventure proper is a page long, but it’s a preview of coming attractions for the TOME series that made me frown. There are also no maps of any kind. Again, that’s not such a big deal, but it really keeps things on the simple side – there’s a village, and a forest, and that’s it. You start in the village and go to the forest and immediately find what you’re looking for. Much more could have been done here, with additional forest encounters, random encounters, etc. I understand that it’s natural to keep a free product bare-bones, but this is certainly an effort most minimal.
By far the element I liked the least, however, was how the adventure lacks any sort of clear victory conditions. To be clear, it’s obvious that the goal is to stop the caprians from letting their flying fish eat the town’s crops, but the adventure is silent on specifically HOW the PCs are supposed to do that! It does say that killing them is an option, though a poor one, but then completely fails to lay out what the other options are. Presumably a single good Diplomacy check could pull it off, which makes this quite possibly the shortest adventure ever, and also one of the most anticlimactic.
This isn’t some sort of mistake in the adventure so much as it is a complete oversight on the part of the writer. There’s no listing of XP awards, which follows perfectly since there’s no suggestions for how the PCs are supposed to accomplish their goal (short of butchering the goat-people shepherds), and even the monetary rewards that the PCs gain from the village are food and a few rations. Ironically, the PCs will be rewarded by the caprians also (why?) by teaching them a phrase in their language that earns them, when they use it, a permanent +4 bonus to Diplomacy checks with their kind – this has all kinds of narrative problems, such as how exactly do people who already speak that language not have this permanent bonus?
Ultimately, the first adventure in the TOME series isn’t so much bad as it is incomplete. All of the pieces are here, but they seem to have been simply plunked down, with only an outline to connect them, rather than a full scenario. This encounter needs to be fleshed out, have its layout tweaked, and its technical issues tightened before the rest of the series debuts, lest we all decide to close the book on the TOME.
| Wertung: | | [2 von 5 Sternen!] |
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An Endzeitgeist.com review
This pdf is 47 pages long, 1 page front cover, 1 page editorial/ToC, 3 pages of SRD, leaving us with 42 pages of content, so let's take a look!
Without any introduction or wasted space, we are introduced to the new Medium base-class that gets d8, 4+Int skills, 3/4 BAB-progression, good will-saves, proficiency with light armor and simple weapons, as well as spell-like abilities of up to 6th level - and you'd be outrageously gasping by now since they cannot be counterspelled - but: A rather interesting balancing method is being used - a medium can only maintain one spell-like abilities at once, with a new ability immediately ending the first. These abilities also get aligned later and count as spell for item activation purposes starting level 2. The spell-like abilities can be each used 3/day and their governing spellcasting attribute is charisma. At first level, the medium also chooses an influence - but more on that later.
Mediums gain spirit guides that may use guidance on their behalf whenever s/he enters a trance and detect spirits, which include undead, fey, invisible, outsiders and also use this ability to notice and analyze haunts and even keep them from attacking - which is great since they are mostly untapped regarding class abilities. Starting at 3rd level, the medium also gets perhaps one of the most complex and well-executed abilities I've seen in quite a while - Séance. Mediums may call spirits and souls of creatures into their bodies to tap their knowledge and bargain with them planar ally style - including a max HD-table per level.
Now Influences, as I've mentioned before, are important: Mediums may choose from 11 influences that include diabolical forces, angelic hosts, restless souls, elemental forces or seelie and unseelie courts. Each Influence nets the medium a bonus language, a selection of trance covenants and spell like-abilities and a different capstone ability (yes, one for every influence) and also recommended, but not prescribed spirit boons.
I need to address Trances. Mediums may enter a trance that lasts 4+Cha-mod rounds +2 per medium level after the first. While in trance, mediums get +4 to Con and Cha as well as access to the covenants and spell-like abilities associated with her/his influence and may use his/her spell-like abilities associated with influences once per trance without counting against the daily maximum. Essentially, the trance can be considered a caster's equivalent of a barbarian's rage (and no, they are not compatible) and trances do have some restrictions to maintain balance.
Now regarding favored class options... WOW. Blues. Half-Rakshasa.Duergar. Fehr's Ethnology-races. Psionics Unleashed-races. Remarkable Races from Alluria Publishing. And even ARG-races ALL COVERED. Wow. Just wow. 2 pages CHOCK-FULL of favored class options. This goes above and beyond. Nice!
Now have I mentioned spirit boons? At 1 st level, 3rd level and every 4 levels after that, the medium may choose a spoken invocation to gain the benefits of one of (unless I miscounted) 44 (!!!) spirit boons, which include things you'd expect like reading minds and telekinesis and implanting geas, absorb wounds of others via stigmata, add essentially add what amounts to metamagic-like, yet thoroughly unique effects to your spell-like abilities, which include ignoring the miss chances of incorporeal adversaries, prolong them etc. Have I mentioned the option to put psychic shackles on spirits and chain them in your mind, turn incorporeal, possess foes (also only limbs - quite cool!), heal ability damage and raise the dead? Yes - the options are varied and damn cool.
A new spell lets you expel spirits and then, we're off to the topic of covenants - Depending on the strength of the spirit called, a covenant requires the expenditure of money, with access being also predicated on a tree of 5 progressively more expensive feats - though advice for alternate progressions are given as well if you're not sold on the approach. Finding covenants is not only an opportunity for spending character resources, but also for roleplaying and entering covenant examples are provided alongside comprehensive lists of covenants by strength. Covenants are depicted somewhat akin to feats - the power-level of the covenant being included in brackets behind the name, followed by a short fluff description and then the benefits as well as a comprehensive list of patrons that can grant the respective covenant. Dark Arcanas, Archon Wards, the option to temporarily rip someone from death's grip, turn into elemental body II, gaining living illusions as companions, tap into your patron's abilities, manifest blades from the very heavens, immunity to ageing, mitigating dazing and stunning down to being staggered, gain a gaze attack that detects thoughts and may stun those that meet your gaze, cast foes down to the very hells - all these are just the tip of the ice-berg.
The pdf also features advice on creating new covenants as well as guidelines for non-monetary tasks for entering covenants.
Conclusion:
Editing and formatting are top-notch, I didn't notice any significant glitches. Layout adheres to PDG's printer-friendly 2-column standard and the interior artwork is far beyond what the humble cover would make you believe - we neat full-page full-color artworks, multiple of them, and I have seen none of them in other publications before. The pdf is fully bookmarked with nested bookmarks for your convenience, making navigation easy.
Damn. I'm stupefied. Seriously, honestly stupefied. This class and its material rank for me as one of the most complex examples I've seen so far and it takes a bit of effort to properly get this material and appreciate it. And then, slowly, the potential, the vast friggin' potential of this class and its covenants sink in. Harry Dresden-style deals with fey? Check. Haunted by visions of hell? Check. Scions of the Heavens? Check. Champions of the elemental forces? Ditto. We essentially get a feat-style-ability-suite-style-class COMBINED with unique spellcasting COMBINED with talent-based abilities COMBINED with domain/bloodline-like abilities COMBINED with modes à la rage. And all elements interconnect. Yes, you could just extract the covenants for any class. But oh boy would you miss out.
This may be no class for beginners, but it is G-L-O-R-I-O-U-S. Complex, mechanically innovative, customizable. Oh boy. It's been AGES since I've been this excited about a class and it marries author David Nicholas Ross' mastery of crunch with great production values and we get perhaps one of the best classes, perhaps even the best I've read so far for PFRPG. Yes. That good. Do me a favor, do yourself a favor - get this. The class and covenant magic is so modular, it practically screams to have its already impressive array of abilities further expanded. Even if you're only remotely interested in good crunch, get this. If you want a class with complex customization options that marries these with massive roleplaying potential, get this.
This is worth every cent thrice. At least. This is the new gold-standard for class-design against which all other classes will be judged.
My final verdict would be 6 stars, if I only could - hence, 5 stars + seal of approval and a high chance that this will feature on my Top Ten of 2013-list.
Endzeitgeist out.
| Wertung: | | [5 von 5 Sternen!] |
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Purple Duck always has the best stock art. Usually all I have to do is search RPGNow or DriveThru and they have the very thing I need.
Great art, easy to understand license.
| Wertung: | | [5 von 5 Sternen!] |
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Generally speaking, if I take the time to review it, its because I like the product. Still, after a while, much of it gets to seem familiar. Stars in the Darkness is NOT familiar. There is no deja vu. There is only awesome. Fresh, new, and lethal as all hell. I want to be a player in Stars in the Darkness, and if I survive to the end there will be epic stories to tell. If my character falls, it will be an epic death.
Let me give you the blurb, just to set the stage:
"In millennia past, the ancestors of the elves protected the stars as they followed their courses, for there are wolves in the outer dark. Yet what manner of creature would dare to consume stars as though they were sheep in the field? And what has become of the ancient starherds who once stopped such monsters? For such a monster is back - Urstah, the Star-Drinker. Stars are disappearing from the night sky, and with the loss of those stars, luck is being drained from the world. Your luck. Dare you enter the caverns, face the star-drinker, and release the stars in darkness?
Stars in the Darkness is a DCC adventure designed for four to eight, third level characters, that can easily be dropped into your campaign. In it, characters seek to stop an ancient evil from arising, with possibly devastating effects should they fail. This is our largest, and most epic, adventure for DCC to date."
This most certainly is epic. It is one of those rare adventures that you need to read through three times, write in the margins and use a highlighter, not because it's confusing, but because there is a lot of cool shit going on and you'd want to make sure your players get the full experience.
I want to be a player in Stars in the Darkeness. I want to cross the Bridge Over Infinity, Fight a Mormung and flee from... no, that would give too much away. This is too good to spoil, and I feel like it may be spoiled for me, as I so want to play in this adventure.
Seriously, I can give no greater compliment than I would love to be a player in a campaign where Stars in the Darkness would be there for us. Waiting for us.
Daniel Bishop you done did good. Fucking good. I owe you a beer :)
| Wertung: | | [5 von 5 Sternen!] |
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An Endzeitgeist.com review
The third pdf in the series, detailing Perry Fehr’s take on monstrous bloodlines for sorcerors, is 9 pages long, 1 page front cover, 1 page editorial/ToC, 13/4 of a page SRD, leaving us with 5 ¼ pages of content, so let’s take a look!
The first of the new bloodlines would be the aranea bloodline, which offers the respective sorcerers Spiderman-style spinnerets at the wrists, a spidey-sense (roll multiple times perception-checks 3/day), poisonous touch and at high levels you can ignore the full-round metamagic casting restriction a limited amount of times per day. The capstone is slightly weak, as it allows you to turn into spider-like creatures for 1 hour per transformation until the total CR of transformed spider-creatures equals 20 or less. The problem is, that there isn’t really a monstrous category that defines spiders – are scorpions part of the deal? What about demonic retrievers? Ettercaps? I get the idea behind the capstone, but rules-wise, it unfortunately is rather ill-defined. I also would have loved a tighter wording with the web-swinging usage of the strands and what precisely can be done with them – what are their stats? As soon as you can use them as retractable cables, hp and hardness are REQUIRED. Additionally, can webbed foes be roped in? If so, via which rules? There probably should be a bonus to CMB of the maneuver, but the bloodline doesn’t deliver that. Cool ideas, partially flawed in execution.
The Asura-bloodline gets some truly powerful spells and its capstone allows the sorcerer to reshape slain foes into CR-equivalent beings to do his bidding. Resistance and DR-granting shields are neat to have and the bloodline also gets a specific force blade they can manifest and direct to attack up to50 ft. away. Unfortunately, the wording of the ability leaves me puzzled – what kind of action is conjuring up the blade? Does it have to travel to the foe to be attacked? If so, can it be intercepted by e.g. force cages? Directing it to attack foes is a move action, but does the blade gain iterative attacks? Does the sorcerer need to have line of sight or line of effect to have the blade attack its victims? None of these questions are answered by the ability’s wording, rendering it imho useless and severely hampering the bloodline’s appeal.
The Behemoth bloodline is interesting in concept, as it makes you essentially a walking doom-speaker – its capstone REQUIRING you to turn into a huge beast for a limited amount of time per day. Unfortunately, the bloodline suffers from MASSIVE wording ambiguities. Take the capstone: What if the sorcerer can’t become that big? What if he’s caught in e.g. a cell/ adventuring in the claustrophobic depths of the underdark? Does he still grow? If yes, what are the consequences? Does this involuntary growth potentially damage the sorcerer? What structure can be destroyed thus? The first ability suffers from similar issues – while cool in its idea of enabling allies to run away and enhancing their movement speed and initiative, the ability fails to specify what kind of bonus the enhanced movement is and whether it applies to all kinds of movement when applicable or only to one mode of movement – a 20 ft. burrow speed enhancement of the wild-shaped druid is a completely different matter from the said enhancement to land speed… Again, a great concept ruined by flawed execution.
The Kami bloodline also has an issue – at 3rd level it grants access to a gaze attack that staggers foes – unfortunately, the save of the ability is only rolled on the round following after that, resulting in gaze attack-blinking: Activate, auto-stagger foes, deactivate. Rinse and repeat and you can keep one foe staggered – sans save. Broken and needs revision. Another problematic ability is the level 15 ability, which lets you increase or decrease age of targets – resulting in 1 point damage to physical or mental attributes. The thing is – at this level, this is rather weak and it is not clear whether e.g. this is true aging – does it drain the years the individual still has to live? Can it be used to prolong life? How many years would be the equivalent of an ageing effect? What if the ability pushes a foe over one age-category threshold, does s/he gain the attribute modifications of an increased age category? Or is it just a fancy way of justifying attribute damage? Again, good idea, flawed execution.
The lamia bloodline nets you SR against divine spells, immunity to curses (Not a fan of that, but that won’t fracture into the verdict) and a wis-draining touch attack. Rather cool: Suggestions and charm can be added to the damage – though, to nitpick, the correct wording would not be “for free”, but as “part of the touch attack” – also, the ability should specify that this effect does not provoke AoOs. The high-level abilities are cool per se, with the capstone sporting acidic blood that damages attackers on a failed ref-save. Unfortunately, again, the wording fails – the ability is not restricted to melee attacks, meaning ranged attackers can be hit by extremely precise acidic blood spurts… ;) Kidding aside, unfortunately, this again needs rephrasing.
The Mi-Go bloodline kicks off with an excellent idea: The sorcerer can create biotech weapons that deal 1d6+ 1 per two sorcerer levels and deal either fire, cold, electricity, acid or force damage, though you must specify which type of damage you deal when making the item. It can only be fired a limited amount of times per day. The idea is so cool, but its ramifications have not been properly thought through: If there is a physical manifestation of the weapon, can the sorcerer hand it over to allies? What about iterative attacks? Could he sell an item and keep it functional, then create a new one? Mi-Go sorcerer-scam artists? Worse yet, there is the level 9 ability which can and will WRECK the logic of your campaign world. Choose any 3 item-creation feats. Items you create via them run out of power after 3+cha-mod weeks. Worse, the items made are considered non-magical, meaning that they work in antimagic fields – and worse, that they CAN’T BE COUNTERSPELLED. Create a wand and BLOW through any mage academy as you watch the archwizards feebly fail at countering your tools. Worse, does this ability’s time-limitation mean that the items have no charges? Anyway, this can and will wreck the internal consistency of your campaign world. If multiple sorcerers work together, they could take on just about ANY lich, wizard academy etc. Hand wands and staves to those grunts and watch the opposition WEEP. Broken beyond repair.
The final new bloodline is the robot bloodline and its laser eyes lack the specification that it remains fire damage at 9th level. At 15th level, you get hp “as a construct would, 10 if small, 20 if medium, 30 if large” – what does that mean? 20 hp per level? A one-time boost? Does it work retroactively? If it does, that would mean280+first level hp+con-mod. Speaking of which: Does that one still apply? I assume so, but how does it affect these hp? If at all? Or does it mean that starting at 15th level, the sorcerer gets these hp instead of his usual hp? What if a sorcerer belongs to a size category beyond large? Again, the bloodline’s ability fails to specify necessary information.
Conclusion:
Editing and formatting on a formal level are good, I didn’t notice any significant glitches. Layout adheres to PDG’s 2-column standard and the pdf comes bookmarked, which is nice to have.
Wow. After the rather excellent second installment of the series, I had high hopes for this one – hopes that were utterly crushed. Don’t get me wrong, author Perry Fehr has managed to pinpoint some cool concepts and uncommon design-decisions and integrate them into the respective bloodlines to make them feel unique. The ideas per se behind the rules are often excellent. But the execution is a complete, utter and absolute TRAIN-WRECK.
NONE of the bloodlines herein work as intended. NOT ONE. Concepts have been taken and worded in a way that is sloppier than my ad-hoc decisions at the gaming table, lacking necessary balancing tools (stagger gaze-exploit), information on how they were supposed to work or just take a concept that sounds “cool” without thinking through ANY of the resulting implications. From the lack of mechanics to spinneret-drag foes and web-swing correctly to the Asura’s malfunctioning blade, the Kami’s ill-defined aging touch, the Behemoth’s issues with size and fleeing, the minor lamia-issues up to the robot’s glitches up to the Mi-Go-bloodline’s potential to utterly and completely destroy your campaign setting’s internal logic, these bloodlines, unfortunately unanimously FAIL. Badly thought through, rushed and amateurish in execution, I can’t find any saving grace for this pdf – which is a damn huge shame, since the basic ideas are superb, but completely and utterly come apart due to the imprecise, sloppy mechanics. My final verdict will be 1 star.
Endzeitgeist out.
| Wertung: | | [1 von 5 Sternen!] |
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An Endzeitgeist.com review
This pdf is 17 pages long, 1 page front cover, 1 page editorial/ToC, 1/2 a page advertisement, 1 page SRD, leaving us with 13 1/2 pages of content, so let's check it out!
The pdf kicks off with an introduction by Hugo "Butterfrog" Solis before we are introduced to Celurian Iz'zer, the trader of strange magical items contained in this book and we actually get his full statblock (he's a half-elf rook 6 from PDG's Legendary Classes: Rook) as well as a gorgeous full color artwork for him and his cart - the cart, a magical item in its own right, comes with a whopping one-page full color artwork and after that we're in the category of new magical weapons:
And the first one is already interesting - a little figure that can transform into an adamantine hammer for a limited amount of rounds per day makes for an interesting weapon/crowbar-style lockbreaker to carry around. There is also a figurine that can be transformed into a dagger coated with greenblood oil for a limited amount of rounds per day. We also get two new weapon special qualities, one of which may ignore up to 4 points of cover-AC-bonus granted by concealment, while the true metal-enchantment ignores 5 points of any type of DR. The latter feels slightly too strong for its paltry +1 price bonus in my opinion.
Celurian has 3 rings in his cart as well - the Archer's Luck Ring is very powerful for ranged combatants: Ignore 5/day all but total cover, 3/day use true strike and 1/day reroll one missed shot. Perhaps a tad bit underpriced for its massive benefits. Chain Link Rings come paired and allow the wearers to transfer up to 10 points of damage to the wearer of the linked ring, but not offensively - killing others this way is not possible. Slightly problematic is the fact that the rings don't specify whether damage-type is retained - if it is, this can be somewhat abused - one character with immunity to e.g. fire, linked to someone then subjected to fire damage could essentially not get any damage thus transmitted - or could he? A slightly more concise wording would help here. Shared fortune rings allow the wearer to 3/day one of their base saving throw bonuses as an immediate action for 1 round.
The pdf also features 2 new rods - one that can be struck in the ground to emit antimagic fields and a rod that is especially good at breaking things like doors etc. and may be used as a +2 mace. Among the wondrous items, we get a scarf that protects you from inhaled poisons and airborne diseases, a sphere you can throw at outsiders to banish them, a vest of magical wood that helps with swimming as well as serving as armor, a cloak to let you beast shape, a belt of ropes that helps climbing and may be animated, paired rocks that attract each other (Awesome for SO MANY occurrences and an item that encourages smart usage of resources), a seed that spawns a tree that offers healing fruits, a scroll-case that can produce a scroll of a given level and school once per day, gloves that allow the gloved arm to become incorporeal to e.g. reach through doors 3/day. There also is a rope that can be awakened, a morale-bonus-granting everburning torch, an headband that alerts you visually to scriers and two new types of prayer beads.
These can be attached to weapons to add effects to your weapons - one granting the power to deal half damage as positive energy damage and bless weapon on their weapons. The second prayer-bead converts half damage to fire and emits light. 2 more tokens can be added to weapons, one increasing harness, one adding minor sonic damage and finally, we have a pen to write limited wishes before we go to the pdf's final item, a minor artifact - the Vessel of Linium, which is a complex clockwork wonder that transforms regular water into increasingly powerful healing effects, depending on how long you let the water rest. Great idea and actually an artifact that is not overpowered for once. Neat!
The pdf closes with a list of items by GP-value and category.
Conclusion:
Editing and formatting are top-notch, I didn't notice any significant glitches. Layout adheres to PDG's crisp, printer-friendly two-column standard and the pdf is fully bookmarked for your convenience. Special mentioning deserves the beautiful artwork - each and every item herein comes with a gorgeous full-color artwork - author/artist Carlos Torreblanca has not only crafted some neat magical items with uncommon benefits, he has also created a great array of truly beautiful artworks that help the items come to life.
Artwork-wise there is nothing to complain in this supplement and rules-wise, the vast majority of items feels interesting indeed - while not all items hit the nail on the head, with especially the archer-ring feeling quite powerful to me, we still get a neat selection of great magic items that can enrich your games beyond boring +X bonuses. Hence, my final verdict will clock in at 4.5 stars, rounded up to 5 due to the ridiculously low price. I'm hoping for sequels by this talented artist/author.
Endzeitgeist out.
| Wertung: | | [5 von 5 Sternen!] |
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This is an excellent piece of art and exactly what we needed to complete a recent release of ours. keep up the good work.
| Wertung: | | [5 von 5 Sternen!] |
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