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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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 :)
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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.
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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.
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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.
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This simple work contains everything that one could want for what's advertised, and then some.
NPC books have always been a big part of my gaming experience, since I learned that by personalizing all aspects of conflicts players get much more involved in the experience. So I've read a lot of good and bad NPC books. The bad ones either don't tell you what the NPCs should do in your game, or give you NPCs that don't do what the creators say they will.
The good ones, like Memorable Townsfolk, pursue a game role for the NPCs and explain clearly how they will work at your table.
The 12 NPCs in Memorable Townsfolk will never overshadow PCs in adventuring roles - they are tied up in their own agendas and situations. Yet they each have some significant thing they want from the PCs or that the PCs want from them. They each have simply expressed personalities, along with tips for the GM in portraying them. They each have gossip and rumors about them that may or may not be true, which may lead to further adventures or opportunities for the PCs.
What raises Memorable Townsfolk above other NPC supplements, though, is that after the NPCs, there are several sample settlements to help put the NPCs into a particular context, showing you how to put them in your campaign. This was a welcome surprise. It's rare that a supplement goes the extra step of putting its characters in the context of a setting element.
I was especially pleased to see that there were significant Pathfinder-specific materials in the game such as the witch class and the settlement rules. Why mark something as a Pathfinder supplement if you're just going to give me D&D3 stuff?
There's also a few fun tables about randomly generating personality traits or tics to make any particular NPC stand out more. (Honestly I don't see why a random table is a good idea for this, since you could conceivably roll the same entry on the table and end up with 20 people who always talk with their arms crossed - wouldn't it be better to put it on a list where I could cross them off one by one as I use them? But there always seems to be a random table. Oh well, nitpicky.) This is a fun addition to the supplement as well.
Layout is solid and clear., bookmarks are used throughout. The "completist's checklist" at the end would be a lot better ad for Purple Duck if the names of the supplements actually linked back to DTRPG or the Purple Duck website!
All in all, this is an excellent supplement that you should pick up if, like me, you like to put NPCs at the centers of your games.
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The second installment of Monstrous Bloodlines is 9 pages long, 1 page front cover, 1 page ToC/editorial, 1 page (and a bit) SRD, leaving us with 6 pages of content, so let's check out these new bloodlines!
This time, the bloodlines are WEIRD with a capital "W" - the first being the Couatl-bloodline that nets access to minor divine magic, a weak poison, telepathy and rainbow-hued wings. Nice!
The second bloodline is the eidolon-bloodline (who may not multiclass as summoners) and, let me spell this out: This is the COOLEST bloodline I've read so far for PFRPG. The bloodline nets you access to evolution points - you may spend these points and maintain these evolutions for 1/2 character + cha-mod rounds. Versatile, smart and glorious - and well worth the low asking price for this one alone. We also get a nice list of available evolutions for convenience's sake.
And then we get another supremely cool bloodline I never thought I'd see - the poets of the underworld, Flail-Snail-blooded sorcerors that come with a VERY interesting ability: Spell specifically targeted at the sorceror has a 10% + 5% chance per level to be warped. Spell failures and rebounds are possible - for beneficent and hostile magic, making the ability change the overall playing experience, which is interesting indeed. You may also exude sticky or slimy slime to modify terrain and entangle foes etc. AWESOME! What author Perry Fehr has done with this one is GLORIOUS.
The Flumph-bloodline is also interesting, featuring a cool, interesting background to explain the origin of the bloodline. Ability-wise, sorcerors get access to a spray of stench, acidic flesh and the ability to fly slow, but with perfect maneuverability, culminating in interesting high-level abilities to combat aberrant threats.
The Phoenix-bloodline is more conventional/what you'd expect - fire-touches, flame resistance, and flaming wings. The issue the bloodline had at first has been cleared up.
The Pugwampi-bloodline is also interesting: At first level, they may force foes to roll twice a d20 and take the lesser result. The ability does not work for characters that have a luck bonus and now the bloodline has been stripped of its ambiguities, it works rather well!
The final bloodline is the Time bloodline and its abilities are unconventional: These sorcerors may shunt targeted creatures into the future, taking them temporarily with touch attacks (that thankfully allow saves) into the future and thus out of the combat for some seconds. The bloodline also gets a more powerful mirror image that always is hit instead of the sorceror - powerful, yes, but also damn cool and something no other bloodline has done. Nice! The final abilities are not that exciting, though the option to negate damage done by a single foe slain by you is cool! This bastard has killed all of your adventuring companions? As long as you manage to defeat the adversary, you may unravel him from time and get them all back. Also: Can you see the narrative potential not only for this, but also for the repercussions of the foe being unraveled from time? NICE!
Conclusion:
EDIT: The pdf has been updated to feature excellent editing and formatting, now lacking any obvious glitches. Layout adheres to PDG's no-frills two-column standard and the cover-artwork (the only one) makes flumphs actually look hardcore. Nice. The pdf is fully bookmarked, a neat feature at this length.
If I didn't know any better, I wouldn't believe that the same author that did the imho rather mediocre first book also made this second Monstrous Bloodline-pdf. Perry Fehr has REALLY found a stride in this pdf - NONE of the bloodlines are boring, every one features at least one, often more unique and smart signature abilities. The Eidolon, Flail-Snail and Flumph-bloodlines are just awesome and the Time bloodline also rocks hard. In fact, I consider these bloodlines to rank among the best released by ANY publisher out there. Yes. They are that good. And now, with the glitches I complained about in my first iteration of the review purged, thisis a glowing 5 stars + seal of approval recommendation - these bloodlines are interesting, smart and will result in unique playing experiences. Give them a try!
Endzeitgeist out.
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For anyone who likes shiny things, or wants a few choice items to spice up a treasure hoard, a feast is in store within these pages. Or indeed you may wish to use it 'as is' for what we have here is a travelling salesman in magical items, complete with a very magical cart and some of his wares.
First we meet Celurian himself. Celurian Iz'zer, a rather dandified half-elf, who collects and trades in all manner of beautiful items, both magical ones and object d'art. He's fully-detailed and would make an interesting NPC, in fact I can think of a few adventures to involve him in already...
We read about his magical mode of transportation, a horseless carriage that is bigger on the inside than on the outside and rather appropriately is painted blue! And then there is a fabulous listing of just a few of the wonders to be found inside. Weapons, rods, rings... and a host of wondrous items. Perhaps you might care for a Rod of Breaking and Entering, which looks like a golden crowbar and adds considerably to efforts to, well, get into places! Or maybe a Beastcloak takes your fancy - of heavy grey fur lined with red velvet, it has a hood shaped like a wolf's head and enables the wearer to shapeshift... Or perhaps a pair of Directional Stones, which have a permanent attraction to each other. Plenty of creative uses for them.
Everything comes with complete game statistics, often a suggestion or two for their use and a charming full-colour sketch. Plenty of scope here, however you decide to use them.
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This pdf is 8 pages long, 1 page front cover, 1 page editorial/ToC, 1 page SRD, leaving us with 5 pages of content, so let's take a look at these new bloodlines, shall we?
The cyclopean bloodline gains perception as a class skill and has its spells focused on ill omens and divination, with bonus feats reflecting the divination focus as well as the toughness associated with cyclopes. Among the bloodline powers, we get a gaze of doom as well as the interesting development that has cyclopean sorcerors turn blind on one eye, hampering depth perception. This is offset by two insanely powerful abilities, though: One allows you 1/day to EXACTLY the die-result of one of your die-rolls. While only working for you, that's an automatic critical threat at 3rd level, a 100 on a d% etc. - I don't need to tell you how broken this is, do I? Worse, the bloodline, starting at 9th level, allows these sorcerors to DOUBLE the threat range for ALL attacks - rays, natural attacks, melee, ranged etc. for 3+cha-mod rounds 1/day. Never gonna happen in my campaign.
The Inevitable bloodline has unsurprisingly diplomacy as well as law-spells in its arsenal as well as e.g. combat expertise and similar discipline-themed feats in the bonus feat selection and gains a limited regeneration (3+Cha-mod rounds per day) that improves over the levels. Nothing to complain here. Medusan sorcerors get disguise as class skill, bonus feats appropriate for her like skill focus (sculpture) or brew potion, a slowing gaze, poisonous blood (that lacks frequency, onset etc. and information on whether it can be harvested) and finally undergo an apotheosis.
Otyugh sorcerors (rather disturbing concept, but cool) gain sickening and plague-based spells and bonus feat-selections based on toughness, fortitude and become progressively a carrier for diseases, increased senses and immunity to diseases but strangely not the ability to draw sustenance/heal from waste-consumption - a wasted opportunity indeed. *Puts two cents into the bad pun-jar...* The full color artwork by Tamas Baranya is worth special mentioning here - a cool Otyugh, though I would have preferred an artwork of a sorceror that has undergone the capstone apotheosis into an otyugh/mortal-hybrid.
Sphinx-bloodline sorcerors get access to a Knowledge skill of their choosing, divination/language-themed spells, may utter confusing riddles and shout deafening battle-cries at higher levels. Nothing to complain here balance-wise.
The Stirge bloodline (featured as an awesome example on the cover) gets stealth as a class skills, bleed/insect-themed spells, grappling and agility/disruption-themed feats grows both wings and draining proboscis as well as act as a disease-carrier and create mirror images of yourself. thematically, the most concise and cool of the bloodlines, its solid mechanics back it up. This one is actually really, really good.
The final bloodline would be the unicorn bloodline that gains access to heal as a class skill as well as curative magic as bonus spells and feats that help with rays, self-sufficiency etc. You may manifest a horn, call nature's allies and later even later emulate the kirin, gaining flight. Though probably my players would never stop making virgin/unicorn-jokes, a solid choice.
Conclusion:
Editing and formatting are good, though I lacked the medusa sorceror's bloodline poison-information. Layout adheres to a relatively printer-friendly two-column standard with some awesome full color artworks I wouldn't have expected at this price-point. The pdf comes fully bookmarked. Oh boy, most of these bloodlines actually have at least one good idea going for them, with especially the stirge bloodline standing out. However, for each idea that stands out, there's also one that would require some balancing imho - the Cyclopean bloodline is utterly broken in my book and e.g. the sphinx, inevitable and otyugh bloodlines all somewhat fall behind their own potential - some more courageous, more unique ideas would have gone a long way there - why can't e.g. sphinx-sorcerors not, gargoyle-style enter a kind of temporal stasis to whether the ages and await intrepid adventurers? Why can't otyugh-sorcerors eat waste to sustain/heal themselves? Why can't inevitable sorcerors swear an oath to complete a particular objective and gain bonuses when seeking to fulfill it? When all's said and done, I feel that quite a few of these bloodlines miss the essence, what makes the parent-creature iconic. Add to that the minor issues here and there and we arrive at an offering that is ok, but not much more, reflected in a final rating of 2.5 stars, rounded up to 3 due to the fair price for the purpose of this platform.
Endzeitgeist out.
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An eclectic mix indeed... sorcerers who trace their powers back to some of these have what can only be described as a very interesting family history!
First up are the coatl. It is quite hard to imagine just how one of them might even want to become involved with mortal beings, but rather than anything tacky it is proposed that when a mortal does a favour to one and receives a feather in return whereby the coatl can be summoned and the coatl later dies, the feather disappears and an image appears on the mortal's skin - and that's when the influence enters the bloodline. Neat, as are the powers this ancestry confers on our budding sorcerer, including telepathy and irridescent rainbow wings.
A weird one next, the eidolon. In forming close associations with summoners, it is not implausible that those capable of such acts might breed with their companions... but the descendants who take up sorcery cannot even dabble in summoning themselves - the resulting paradox leading to an implosion that ingulfs the incautious one. Such sorcerers become more like Outsiders themselves as they gain levels.
Next and more mundane, the flail snail. OK, who'd really want to admit to a gastropod in your family tree? The results are slimy... Rather more strange, the flumph. The sorcerer becomes a bit odd too: able to emit stench and becoming rubbery. Hmm... Perhaps more inspiring would be to trace your bloodline back to a phoenix, with flight and fire powers as the result.
Another ancestor you might be reluctant to talk about is a pugwampi. One of said race's prevalent powers is causing bad luck, and so do the sorcerers descended from them. Finally, and rather strange, is the time bloodline, gained by an ancestor having messed around with the orderly flow of time. Perhaps this is the nearest a Pathfinder character can come to being a Time Lord...
Some entertaining ideas to conjure with here.
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This pdf is 17 pages long, 1 page front cover, 1/2 a page editorial, 1 page SRD, leaving us with 14 1/2 pages of content, so let's check this out!
This collection offers us first of all new skill uses: You may now use the bluff-skill to fast-talk yourself out of combat, feign injuries or deliver quick secret messages. You may also intimidate foes at massive penalties in a couple of rounds or even as a full round action. Perception-rules to use the skill to listen underwater, soil or pinpoint sounds also serve to enhance the skill - especially useful when using the revised Stealth-rules from Drop Dead Studios' Rogue Glory-supplement. Via Sense Motive, you can quickly scan for enchantments or analyze your foes, though the latter hits one of my pet-peeves and does not provide abstract information, but rather precise BAB, feats etc. - and metagamey information like that is banned in my game. Via Sleight of Hand, you may now conceal held items or steal items usually too large to steal or secretly store items. In a nice display of awareness, none of these skill-uses overlap with the ones provided in Rite Publishing's by now legendary "101 New Skill Uses".
After this section, we're off to the feat part of the pdf, prefaced by a massive 2 1/2 pages of feat-table. The feats are actually rather interesting in the things the endeavor to do: Using a rudimentary kind of echo-location by clicking with the tongue (behavior btw. exhibited by some blind people irl) allows you rudimentarily determine your surroundings even when you otherwise can't due to e.g. darkness. Active Avoidance is also an interesting option that requires Dex and Int 15 as well as dodge and combat expertise and allows you to, as an immediate action, double the AC-bonus versus the next attack of the opponent. An interesting design, especially for dueling characters.
In fact, many of the feats herein offer similarly tactically-themed options to e.g. goad foes into attacking their allies and belittling foes can grant bonuses as long as you and your allies don't get hit. Using sleight of hand instead of the steal combat-maneuver is also covered, though I've seen better uses of that particular concept n other publications. Teamwork, via aiding one another, evading friendly fire and several social feats that e.g. allow you to place suggestions (thankfully with scaling DCs) and even a feat to offer redemption to enemies (which is a streamlined, updated take on the one from the notorious Book of Exalted Deeds).
Beyond that, the feats in this book can be roughly categorized into different quarters: Some expand the new skill uses introduced in here, some enhance teamwork between members of the party (allowing e.g. the PCs to talk one another through e.g. skill checks), some help with the defensive side of things, some enhance social skill-uses in combat- situations and some capitalize on high Int as well as sense motive to display tactical fighters in battle who can benefit from their genius, much like e.g. characters in battle-of-wills-type scenarios à la Death Note. While especially the latter is an interesting concept, at least in my game, I will disconnect the benefits from gaining metagamey information and had hoped the pdf had done the same. Oh well. There also are some minor filler feats that allow access to low-level domain or bloodline abilities for those not so endowed.
The pdf also offers a selection of new item-tricks for cloaks as well as a cohesive example on how the material in this pdf can make fights more dynamic and less about bashing brains in.
Conclusion:
Editing and formatting are good, though not top-notch - I noticed a couple of rough patches here and there like missing blank lines between feats, minor glitches etc., though nothing glaring. Layout adheres to PDG's 2-column no-frills standard and the pdf comes fully bookmarked.
David Nicholas Ross' Plots and Ploys was a kind of frustrating pdf for me to review: On the one hand, these skill-uses and feats are compelling and serve their purpose - they should help to get groups out of kill-em-all-ruts and add an interesting dimension to combats heretofore untapped. On the other hand, this collection uses metagamey information (something I abhor) and some of the feats could be taken to ridiculous places - some of them could have really used a caveat that they don't work on specific types of creatures. That being said, as a DM I'd be wary of introducing this pdf as a whole without some very close scrutiny for respective groups - while the feats per se are not broken, depending on the group they're introduced to, they may prove to be unhinging and change your gaming experience. Seeing how this is the goal of the pdf, though, I won't hold that versus the pdf.
That being said, I also feel that this pdf is slightly below what it could actually have been - with minor revision and slightly more polish, this pdf could have been even better. As provided, I can see it being useful, though not necessarily great for all types of campaigns. This would bring me to a review of 4.5 stars, but the editing glitches and filler material here and there make me settle for a final verdict of 4 stars instead.
Endzeitgeist out.
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As stated in the introduction, in every sorcerer's family history something... interesting happened, giving rise to the bloodline potential that empowers the sorcerer's magical abilities. Herein are suggested several monstrous bloodlines, along with the specific abilities that they bestow on the sorcerer that has them flowing through his veins.
The monsters which are involved are the cyclops, the outsiders called the inevitables, the medusa, the otyugh (how could Purple Duck Games resist this one!), the sphinx, the stirge and the unicorn. Quite a mixed bag there.
The powers granted are well-developed and linked into the essential nature of the creature involved - for example, the cyclops powers revolve around the sorcerer's eyes as well as involving the brutality, size and prophetic powers that the cyclops is known for - very neat! Those with the medusa bloodline get along with snakes, have poisonous blood and even what amounts to a gaze weapon, and so on.
And as for the otyugh bloodline? Disease is involved, and the sorcerer will eventually start to look a bit like an otyugh as well! As a bonus, a truly delightful illustration of an otyugh is included!
An intriguing take on sorcerous bloodlines, well worth a look if you want to play something out of the ordinary... and they'd make excellent NPCs too, particularly if the characters do not at first know what the bloodline is and are trying to figure out the capabilities of the sorcerous opposition!
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