|
|
|
 |
| Other comments left for this publisher: |
|
|
|
|
|
Sometimes there’s an idea so awesome in its simplicity, you find yourself saying “now why didn’t I think of that?” That was the reaction I had to Little Red Goblin Games’s Grey Alien Racial Guide, a free mini-supplement for adding the “classic” grey alien to your Pathfinder game.
While the idea might initially seem like an odd one – after all, the Greys are usually thought of as the province of science fiction, travelling in technological spaceships and performing scientific experiments – it’s not that hard to see them in a fantasy setting. Leaving aside the issues that come with spaceships in a fantasy game, your average Pathfinder world has so many sentient species, many of them with origins in other planes of existence, that it’s not really disruptive to add the Greys into the mix.
The book is only four pages long (with one page for the OGL, though there’s no declaration of OGC or PI), it does a fairly good job of explaining why there might be Greys on your world. For example, many of them are colonists there to explore and study the world for several generations. Likewise, they’ve visited enough world and gathered enough data to know about the existence of gods and magic, so there’s no real issue with Grey clerics or wizards.
The Grey racial write-up is nicely balanced, giving them no greater or worse penalties than other standard races while still preserving a unique flavor for them, such as denoting how they’re used to fighting space-born monstrosities, and so gain a bonus to damaging aberrations. As a bonus, this notes their Race Point total (from the Advanced Race Guide).
Several favored class bonuses are presented, and while most of them were quite good (e.g. fractional bonuses to alchemist discoveries known) others were odd. For example, why gain fractional bonuses to conjuration (teleportation) spells for the wizard class? Given how few of those spells there are, I’m not sure that’s the best choice for a favored class bonus. Or how the fighter gains a bonus to damage with firearms…and yet there’s no favored class listing for gunslingers.
Two new class archetypes round out the book. The first is the cleric of the Supreme Ideal. This is mentioned in the flavor text as being the Grey version of the standard cleric; since they can’t quite bring themselves to worship deities, the closest they can come is to worship an idea, which is what this archetype represents. However, there’s little actual text regarding what this means in a practical context – as it is, the major changes are a restriction on their domains, and that their channeling grants a short-lived untyped bonus (or penalty) to an ability score(!). I’m not sure if that’s too powerful or not, though I suspect that the severe limit on its duration, and that it has to be the same score for everyone, will help out there.
The Star Explorer ranger archetype doesn’t have quite as much exposition, sadly. In fact, it’s little more than its mechanical changes, which require taking the planes as a favored terrain, and switching medium armor proficiency for firearms proficiency. Needless to say, much more could have been done here.
Overall, the central idea of this product, bringing the Greys into your high fantasy Pathfinder campaign, is one that’s handled surprisingly well. The exposition stumbles a little, and the mechanics could use some tightening, but overall this is an excellent starting point for bringing a well-known but rarely-used race into your game. Given that it’s free, there’s really no reason not to pick this up and add these bug-eyed little guys to your game world.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 |
|
|
|
Ok, well, I don't have to tell you this but Primal Host is absolutely going in the direction Pathfinder should go.
Reinventing things and making new things to make everything exciting an fresh. That is the Primal Host in a nutshell. From the many hooks a GM can use to motivate a Primal Host to the sheer fact of having the host roleplay your symbiote instead of the player to add that added sugar, this class will make things more exciting around your game table for sure and the relationship you have with your symbiote ACTUALLY affecting play is magnificent.
If you haven't already picked up this wonderful third party book I strongly suggest it. I am not graceful with words but it is quite a breath of fresh air. 5/5 stars for your LRGG.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| |
|
|
|
This book is 27 page book with three different classes and a prestige class. It is a nice size for a good quality product.
The Dimensional Knight was by far the most ingenious ideas that LRGG has created right next to the Primal Host, which I will be discussing in my next review.
The way that they set the class up is it is basically a reworking of the Magus with a more limited spell list but gains the ability to cast portals for awesome effects. Think Portal Ray gun except you can eventually have multiple portals, then add a guy with a short sword who can attack through those portals. That is the Dimensional Knight.
There are many ways to augment your portals with your Arcane Pool like making them bigger or hitting someone against their internal AC, which mind you is basically saying, "I'm going to cut you from the inside ok bye." That is by far an amazing and unique idea for a class ability.
As you level up you can make a whole nexus of exit portals with one entry portal and attack, AoO, and manuever wherever you like as if you were in the square of the other portal and with a 30 + 5 ft per level that eventually makes you ALL over the field without even moving. Take that mobile fighter.
All in all I think that class is the shining feature of the book. The rest are a bit bland in comparison.
Creating the Spellslinger Prestige was kind of dull for me because they already have one of those in a core Paizo book but I can say that they at least spiced it up and gave it a new twist. Otherwise though nothing of true merit since the Spellslinger Wizard Archetype already comes pretty close to the same.
Finally we have the Thunder Chief, a class that gains the ability to harness the storms fury. It is a pretty cool concept but as I read through I noticed that it seems to have a couple downsides. The downsides are, you really don't gain much, as far as I know, until you are third level. At first level you can gain a +1 to damage by expending a storm point but that really isn't all that spectacular since by gaining a single feat. The class really pays off later though once you hit level 3.
At level three you can pick cool stuff like Lashing Winds, which increases your threatened range by 5 ft per 4 levels or something like that, very Anime feeling with that one and it is pretty cool. Frigid Cold is also good with it's ability to give cold resistance and deal cold damage and on top of that you can even have the enemy make a save or slow to 10 ft movement for a round, how cool is that? Pun kind of intended.
Over all the Thunder Chief definitely gets better as levels go on but it sure as hell doesn't suck me in at first or even second level. It is definitely one of my picks for dying first at those levels honestly even with its 1d10 hit dice.
Overall I give this book 4/5 points because I know that they have done better. Good Job LRGG, here's hoping you guys make something as ingenious and moving as The Primal Host again, which is my next review coming soon.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| |
|
|
|
It's called swords AND sorcery after all, so why should you have to choose between chucking spells and swinging a sword when creating your character? If a mix of both takes your fancy, this product holds some interesting suggestions.
First up is the Dimensional Knight base class, fully developed up to 20th level. His aim is to be omnipresent on the battlefield, using mastery of spatial manipulation to dart around, open portals and the like to mount attacks in the most unexpected places. Spell-casting is sorcerer-style, without need for preparing the day's spells in advance, but subject to the usual level-based limits as to the number and level of spells that can be cast. The range of spells available is quite specialised and limited, but caters to the particular needs of the class well.
Next a prestige class, the Spellslinger. This is appropriate for games in which firearms are permitted, and caters for both magic-using characters who want to carry a gun for protection or a gunman who wants to harness arcane power: for the spellslinger uses a handgun to launch his spells and can even develop the ability to spit arcane energies rather than bullets from its muzzle!
This is followed by another new base class, the Thunder Chief who is a front-line fighter capable of calling down weather, specifically storms, to aid him on the battlefield. He is gifted in manipulating the weather and in particular harnessing the power of lightning, and is also capable of limited divine casting using a special spell list, which is provided, and also creates and wields a special 'stormblade' weapon embued with mystical power.
You may find these all fairly niche classes, and it is probably wise to consider the campaign style carefully before choosing any of them. If, however, epic largescale battles feature, both the Dimensional Knight and the Thunder Chief could be quite potent on the battlefield, although it's hard to imagine a Thunder Chief being very happy with extended dungeon delving. Innovative players will soon develop ways of using their powers off the battlefield as well.
The product rounds off with a good range of new feats, spells and magic items. Most are aimed at the new classes, but at least some might find favour with other characters as well. An interesting and thought-provoking work.
|
|
|
|
|
|
| |
|
|
|
This 28 page (27 + cover) pdf features 6 dragon crossbreads including the oft stated Orange and Yellow Dragons. But you also get the Blade, Steel, Rust and Gray Dragons. These dragons are pretty interesting and for the game I have coming up I need a lot of interesting dragons. The book also includes the Dragon Blooded "class" though it is also sort of a race. They are humanoid dragons. Plenty of things you can do with this class as well as alternate versions depending one where the blood came from.
In a neat little feature you also get the art from the book in a seperate file. So now you can show your players exactly what a Yellow Dragon looks like.
All in all a fun book. I only wish it had some more.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| |
|
|
|
This is an interesting look at the concept of symbiosis, by creating a character class defined by the presence of a symbiote. In this interpretation, the symbiote confers combat advantage to its host through possibilities of morphing the host's body to generate, for example, claws or fangs (or for that matter, armour).
The development of this concept is good if marred by sloppy grammar, particularly abuse of apostrophes, and by calling the symbiote itself the 'urge' when that term would appear to be better applied to whatever it is that the symbiote wants out of the relationship. This idea, that the symbiote wants something specific, is well handled as a concept, with a rule mechanic to measure if it is getting enough of whatever it wants - neat!
There is plenty of scope to take symbiosis as an idea further - there are many different kinds of advantages that having a symbiote could confer, and it is not something that necessitates a complete character class - a wizard, say, with a symbiote that boosts his intelligence could be a formidable character... no matter that his symbiote is so curious that the poor wizard starts each day tired and red-eyed, because the symbiote was using the wizard's body to read magic tomes all night! The upside is that the wizard can access the knowledge, the downside is that he has not had sufficient rest to function well physically.
As a start in looking at this fascinating and unexplored area in fantasy gaming, this is a good one! Food for thought indeed.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| |
|
|
|
Iron Nugget
War Journal, by Little Red Goblin Games, is a beneficial supplement for DMs who are aiming to get a little more cohesion out of their gaming group. I have had issues with team feats in the past, in that they require every player to take a team feat slot. Asking a player to give up a team slot to be apart of the team seems to sprout the opposite of what you’re aiming to do. War Journal fixes that by creating a party feat in the name of a Party Tactical Archetype. The ability allows a special action for specific tactical formations by the PCs. To balance things out, each party receives a weakness. Neither the action is ever too powerful nor the weakness to harsh.
War Journal also continues two other additions to the game. Heralds allow players to use Heraldry to boost their character and their allies. These symbols that the PCs can create can be placed on armor, flags or shields. There are two classes associated with it. One of which, the Veteran adventure is a pretty neat idea when building a jack of all trades kind of character.
The other system is a new crafting system that allows mundane weapons to be more finally tuned. There are a number of additional modifications you can place on it, and it feels far easier than the normal crafting system.
The Iron Word
The War Journal is a great buy for any DM trying to add some teamwork to a party.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| |
|
|
|
This interesting little supplement feels as if it had been rushed out the door, I'm almost checking the ink to see if it's still wet! You see, there is no introduction, no sense of direction. Just a brief bit of 'flavour' fiction that doesn't seem to connect and straight in to the first of three oriental-style classes.
The first is possibly the most fascinating and unusual one. The Tao is a spontaneous divine caster with a novel take on maintaining balance: TWO spell lists. The Ying spells are offensive, the Yang more gentle, tending towards curative and similar effects... and each time one is cast, the Tao's internal balance shifts in that direction. As the class is required to be neutral in alignment, it is quite important not to lose your balance! There's a neat chart provided to keep track.
The street samurai reads like he's been ripped straight out of a Shadowrun book and reskinned for Pathfinder. Somehow he doesn't fit in a mediaeval fantasy world, never mind the quasi-Japanese setting predicated by the rest of this book.
The third class is the Warrior-Poet. Fundamentally, he's a bard with attitude and suitable for those who want to play a more robust role than that of a minstrel. He'd fit well in standard fantasy as well as the oriental style and is worth a look if you find bards a bit wimpy for your taste.
An interesting addition is some martial arts styles: real-world martial arts forms written up as a series of feats that you can take if your character wants to develop in that particular direction. Whilst you are probably thinking 'monk' at this point, with care any character who wants focussed unarmed combat skills could make use of them. Aikido, Boxing, Tai Chi, JuJutsu, and Muay Thai are given this treatment and if the ones I do know are any example, these are about as good a table-top abstraction of each style as you're going to get.
I'm torn. This is a four-and-a-half-star book. The lack of coherence at the outset and the street samurai stop it being a five-star product, everything else is well up there!
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| |
|
|
|
If your campaign ever involves the odd brush with the law, you may find this product of use...
Basically, it presents three character classes that have some connection with law and order, as well as a framework for conducting a formal trial. There are quite a few ways in which you might wish to incorporate this material into your game.
First up, the Judge base class. It's a rather 'Judge Dredd' inspired character, who has the capability of both detecting a crime and delivering judgement on the perpetrator once caught. He's probably as potentially uncomfortable a party member as a paladin, but could provide a strong lead if you have decided to run a campaign where your characters are champions of justice within the setting. Alternatively, it could make for a powerful featured NPC irrespective of whichever side of the law your characters choose to operate: a mighty ally or a long-standing adversary. The Judge has both combat and spell-casting abilities, as well as skills honed towards detection and information gathering.
This is followed by a section on trials. Whilst the Judge can pronounce his own judgements, playing out a trial can prove entertaining. Here is presented a system for Divine Trials, where the opinion of whichever deity you have called upon is paramount, even if it flies in the face of local manmade laws. Two judges (it is beneficial if they are actually members of the Judge character class, but they don't have to be) present the case, one acting as prosecutor and one as defender... but the deity decides on both the outcome and, if a conviction results, the penalty - which has to be appropriate to the crime, with the reminder that gods tend to be on the cruel side. It's a nice change from the quasi-mediaeval style legal systems presented in most game literature, and would be particularly appropriate in an area of your campaign world that's governed by a theocracy!
The next class presented might come into play as the result of an unfavourable judgement... it's the Convict. This is designed as a 'substitution' class, in which the character loses levels of his original base class replacing them with levels of Convict as a result of incarceration. Some people relish playing out time spent behind bars, but unless the whole party has been banged up for their misdeeds (or the adventure revolves around the rest of the party working to engineer a gaol-break), this could prove a good mechanical substitute, with the incarcerated character being replaced with a temporary character until his release. Or you may choose to handwave over a few years in which the rest of the party undertake 'downtime' pursuits - studying, trading, farming and so on - then reassemble as adventurers later on.
Whichever way you choose to play it, use of the Convict class depends on the character in question being a dyed-in-the-wool villain. If that doesn't fit your party, even if one or more of them has ended up in prison, don't use it... at least, not as a player-character. It could still make for an interesting villainous NPC. The class confers a wealth of dirty tricks and attitudes that a character can pick up behind bars.
Finally, there is a retooled Kinslayer class. It's a prestige class that can reflect anything from a revolutionary activist approach to challenging injustice all the way to a cold and calculating serial killer... it's all in the underlying motivations and the way in which you choose to play it. Best suited to a character-driven and introspective game, at least if player-characters are involved; again it could make an interesting NPC, be he a terrorist (er, freedom fighter) or a serial killer, an ally or adversary. Take a look and decide how it will work for you.
An interesting collection with quite a lot of potential to add depth to your game.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| |
|
|
|
Champions of Magic and its description was misleading. The book seems to promise customization of some sort that would make
a spellcaster stand out....but simply presents one base class and two prestige classes. The presentation and artwork was excellent, but the content was a miss for me. If one is a collector of the d20/3E system, these classes are not unique and can already be found in various books already. There are literally thousands of base classes and prestige classes out there, so there is gonna be some similarity. I was glad that I got this when it was on sale, because it was not worth the full price.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| |
|
Publisher Reply: |
|
Hi Michael!
Thanks for the review! I'd be happy to offer you a full refund if you'd like! Sorry to hear you did not enjoy the product :-(
We lay out exactly what is in our books in the description. We felt the novelty of the mechanics presented in the Time Mage (the ability to literally roll back time) and the adaptable nature of the studied spells of the Maven warranted the description given. Sorry if we created any sort of confusion :-D
We really appreciate you taking the time to review our product!
Happy gaming,
~Little Red |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Three new magic themed classes for the Pathfinder (or 3.x) game.
The Wytchblade is something like a spell-sword or magus only related to witches. It is a full 20th level class, but I think I would have enjoyed it more as a prestige class.
The Maven is a prestige class that warps and changes the spells it casts. They trade off total number of spells they can cast for flexibility on their remaining spells. I like the idea, but I'll have to see how it plays. In game terms they are metamagic masters.
The Time Traveler is another Prestige Class. This one manipulates time and it's assorted effects.
There are no new spells or feats, just the classes.
The layout is good. Nice and clear, easy to read so the product looks great.
|
|
|
|
|
|
| |
|
|
|
There’s a particular aspect with post-twentieth-level gaming that doesn’t get discussed very much: that the outliers tend to get screwed. What that means is that, for the usual reasons that level 20+ material doesn’t get supported, what support is given is usually to the baseline classes of the game. If you’re playing some sort of exotic class, you had better hope that you can find some generic options that fit your character, otherwise you’re just out of luck.
It’s that sort of problem that Legendary Levels II, from Little Red Goblin Games, seeks to address.
Before going any further, there’s one thing that should be made absolutely clear regarding this book. You need to have the first Legendary Levels book in order to use this one. While the legendary classes and feats are fairly self-explanatory in what they offer, there are some fairly important aspects of this book, such as legendary damage or divinity scores, that are introduced in the first book that aren’t explained herein; you’ll need the first Legendary Levels book for that.
With that said, let’s move on to the book’s technical presentation. This book was rather awkward in that it included a separate JPG file for each of the book’s interior illustrations (with one being presented twice), and a composite work of all of those illustrations together and in color. Why do I call this awkward? Well, beyond having almost twenty additional files included with the book, these pictures are large. The file size on most of them is around five megabytes, but that composite I mentioned before? That one weighs in at over sixty-five megabytes! The PDF of the book itself is just over a dozen megabytes in size.
Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy that LRGG decided to include separate files for the pictures, but the size of these is somewhat prohibitive; maybe my computer is showing its age, but opening these files seemed to strain my CPU. Moreover, it seemed to me that it called attention to this book not having a printer-friendly version, something I still think all PDF products should offer. The book itself is presented against a light tan “parchment” background. It does what a PDF should in that it allows for copy-and-paste, and has full nested bookmarks.
Moving away from the technical presentation, let’s take a look at what’s in Legendary Levels II. As with its predecessor, this book offers a series of legendary classes designed to take your game from 21st to 30th level. Whereas the first book covered the core classes, this one covers all of the base and alternate classes from the APG, UM, and UC, along with one of Little Red Goblin Games’s own original classes from their book Tome of the Bizarre.
These classes aren’t presented as “extensions” of the original class so much as they are as special prestige classes; I say “special” here because they have no prerequisites – obviously you can take the corresponding legendary class if you’ve hit 20th level in the base class (e.g. if you’re a 20th level witch your next class level would be 1st-level legendary witch), and that these levels stack with the base class’s level for numerical purposes (e.g. most class abilities). The book also notes that you can allow for these classes to be taken by a character that’s thematically near the legendary class (giving an example of a rogue 15/assassin 5 could still take levels in legendary rogue).
The classes themselves are all ten levels in length, and for the most part offer a parcel of original powers and abilities, though a few (such as the oracle) are based around expanding lower-level class abilities; e.g. more mysteries and revelations. It’s worth noting that quite a few of these powers are based around dealing or protecting yourself from legendary damage (e.g. being reduced instantly to 0 hit points), though there are still plenty that do not.
The new mechanics themselves are something of a mixed bag. While I generally liked what was here, minor errors cropped up with disappointing regularity. Some of these were issues of formatting, such as something that should have been indented or emboldened but wasn’t. Still others were small errors that were easily fixed (e.g. an ability that says it works on a 3-in-6 chance, and then says it works if you get a 3, 4, 5, or 6 on a d6 roll).
Still, if you can get past the fact that this book should have been through editorial polishing a bit more, there’s a lot to like here. Many of the class abilities are quite fun; I particularly loved the gunslinger’s Russian Roulette deed – blindly loading your revolver, or other firearm, you point it at yourself or your enemy, and have a 50% chance of firing or not, with a special result each way; or the legendary summoner evolutions, such as being able to get a gargantuan eidolon. There’s a lot to like here if you want to take your character beyond what 20th level can give you.
Two prestige classes are also offered, with the designers flat-out telling you that these are for multiclass characters who can’t otherwise take a legendary class, something which I consider to be a big plus. The first is the artificer, which is a spellcaster that deals primarily with magical technology – in this case, the class is based around having a pool of “spark of life” points, as this is the spark within both living things and magic, and being able to choose discoveries (e.g. class abilities) to spend spark points on. I’ll confess I’m not entirely sure what multiclass mix this is supposed to support, particularly as it offers full spellcasting progression. That said, it is quite cool, particularly since it supports “super heavy armor” which is essentially a suit of mecha.
The other prestige class is the dragonlord, which is meant for characters with some sort of animal companion; you basically give up the animal companion in order to get a dragon instead. It’s pretty badass, and the class is a mixture of set class abilities and getting to pick from a suite of abilities (a la rogue talents).
The book closes out with a section of new legendary feats, which means that they can only be taken by 21st-level and above characters. The feats are, rather interestingly, divided into two groups. The first group is roughly what you’d expect of new feats, offering (again, a very mixed bag) of new abilities. Some of these are what you’d expect at this stage of play, such as being able to make a full attack action during a spring attack, while others (particularly the metamagic feats) don’t seem to quite keep pace – I suspect that in the case of the magic-focused feats, this lack of greater ability is by design (as I recall it being in the first book), since legendary spellcasting is already such an advantage, it’s appropriate that feats should play more towards the martial-oriented characters.
The second set of feats are called scion feats, and these are another love letter to multiclass characters. In this case, the feats are designed to allow access to the less powerful abilities of the base legendary classes for characters that, due to multiclassing, wouldn’t otherwise ever be able to reach them. For example, so long as you’re a 21st-level character, with at least 10 levels in samurai, you can take the Bushi of Susanoo scion feat, which gives you the legendary samurai’s death before dishonor class ability. It’s a very elegant way to make sure that the multiclassed characters aren’t left behind.
Ultimately, this book is the necessary follow-up to the first Legendary Levels, covering those classes that were excluded. In that sense, it’s a very apropos sequel, as it has both the strengths and weaknesses of its predecessor. The flaws are primarily based around some necessary editing (Legendary Mounted Combat is printed twice, for instance), and some options seem, at least on their face, better than some others, but none of this ever drastically undercuts the value of what’s here. If you desire to return to the realm of gaming beyond 20th level, and you’ve long since left the core classes behind, lok to Legendary Levels II to dial your character all the way up to 30.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| |
|
|
|
I'm torn here because the rules are actually pretty good for a rules lite narrative game, but it is by far the worst I have ever seen in terms of presentation. The artwork is horrible. The font changes constantly and is next to impossible to read in places. There are no summary or quickstart pages for reference.
the conflict resolution mechanic is to roll a d20 with modifiers, but the interesting part is that the results are compared to a "genre chart" so that dramatic actions have dramatic outcomes, and comedic actions have comedic outcomes. There's another mechanic that is similar to declaring facts to generate backstory on the fly, but I for one would like to see a second edition of this system with more Fate style aspects and good clean layout.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| |
|
Publisher Reply: |
|
We are actually looking at doing a 2nd "full" edition at no charge to anyone who bought our original book :-) |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Although the price of the product was reasonable i was somewhat disappointed for the simplicity of the product i purchased. over all it felt like i was paying for a thought that was not fully developed.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| |
|
|
|
This book, like the first LL, deals with Pathfinder "Legendary" Levels, of levels 21 to 30. What 3.0/3.5 called Epic Levels. I think they picked "Legendary" as not to confuse it with D&D4. There is a Legendary Witch in this book, which is why I got it, but the rest is pretty good as well. In particular I liked the Legendary Samurai and the Dragon Lord prestige class. I Would have enjoyed seeing more prestige classes myself, but the book's focus was "Legendary classes" and note really prestige ones. Plenty of new feats and I REALLY liked the art in this book. So at the end of the day it was worth it to me.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| |
|
Publisher Reply: |
|
Hi Tim!
Thanks for the review!
You don't know how much it helps us to get a good review on a new product!
If you'd like advanced copies of some of our stuff in the future we can probably work something out! (However we want an honest opinion- never something sugar coated :D )
Once again thank you so much!
All the best,
Scott Gladstein
Producer
Little Red Goblin Games LLC |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| 0 items |
|
|
|
|
|
|
| |
|
Log In 
