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This supplement is for any fantasy RPG. In 9 pages, it details 7 female NPCs. It goes into their histories, motivations, and gives a few adventure hooks for each, as well as romantic and/or sexual encounters that might be had with each of them. Since it is not RPG-specific, there are no statistics provided, though there are excellent guidelines for how the GM should assign statistics in the needed system.
Don't let the cover fool you, not all of these women are either wanton or wicked. Some are quite nice. Others are just a bit forceful in getting what they want. One is truly deranged, and another is flat evil.
What all of these women are lacking, however, is some kind of drive or desire that would make them real characters. When reading through the descriptions, I was struck with a simple idea: "So what?" Take the kindly beggar woman. Her description is interesting: she is quite charismatic and attractive, and able to use those skills to obtain money. She shares the money she obtains with other beggars at least in part because this keeps them around so that her flirtatious panhandling doesn't devolve into an assault. Well and good. But I am not sure what this adds to my story. Does she have a sinister admirer who is going to take decisive action which the heroic PCs must stop? Does she have a dream of living above her station that she intends to achieve by trickery and seduction? When I come to the end of her description, I don't really know what force she introduces into my story. She's interesting but not really worth spending time on without some drive.
In general, this is a problem for most of the women. Some don't have any adventure hooks at all, and of the adventure hooks presented, most have to do with something happening to the woman rather than the woman taking action of her own volition. It would be hard for me to concoct a true "destiny" for them without any idea of where they're trying to go, for good or ill.
Still, for nine pages, the price is right, and the guidelines on coming up with statistics for the system I want to use are very detailed and effective.
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Not a great deal to this, but it's an interesting idea for an early incident in a conspiracy or thriller campaign and does the job with good technical accuracy. Some detailed NPCs might be handy to have on their own. I think I'd want to change the name of Dr. Samantha Cartier.
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This is another of those books for players and GMs that like a lot of detail in their campaign worlds, focussing on a little thought about aspect of such worlds: cloth and dyes.
The items in the book are divided into three categories. First are exotic cloths, which have no rules benefit attached to them, but which serve to add flavour to the setting. All of these make perfect sense as something that could exist in any D&D world, and are portrayed in a suitably generic way, making them easy to import. A table summarising the costs of these cloths would have been helpful, but the information is there in the text for most (if not all) of them.
Secondly are magical cloths, which can be used to create clothing that grants the wearer some sort of bonus. Mostly these are protective bonuses, and generally quite low level at that, but that makes sense, and at least there is nothing overpowered. There is a table of prices in this section, along with the usual construction stats for magic items. An oddity though, is Spark Cloth, which has by far the longest description of any item in the book, including a whole page of introductory story. Well, OK, although I could have done without the story… but why is this is the only item in the book to have no stats? What, exactly, in rules terms, does it do? This seems a surprising omission, especially given the prominence this particular cloth is given.
Finally come the dyes; alchemical preparations that, in addition to imparting colour to a cloth also grant some sort of magical bonus. Like the magical cloths, most of these seem perfectly plausible for a standard D&D setting (though I’m unconvinced by the nymph blood dye), and they are well described and not over-powered. Again, there is a table summarising the prices.
All in all a good product for what it sets out to do, at a reasonable price. A few minor omissions prevent me giving it a 5/5, but it’s a good, solid entry in this niche corner of the market.
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This is, as the title suggests, a booklet describing different kinds of footwear for use in a fantasy setting. It divides them into four categories, in order of increasing rarity.
First are items of “mundane” footwear. This is a surprisingly broad list of different items from varying human and non-human cultures, all of which are well described. Next come “special” items, which are those used for a specialist purpose (such as snow-shoes), and most of which provide some sort of circumstance bonus for particular tasks. On the whole, these seem quite sensible, and, again, there’s a good range.
Third are the magic items. Most of these are perfectly reasonable, not overpowered, and associated, logically enough, with movement in some way or another. The Moccasins of Berserking seem rather strange, though. If you were going to make an item to make the wearer berserk, why choose his footwear (rather than, say, an amulet or weapon)? Are they especially uncomfortable or something? It’s not ridiculous, but it does seem fairly random.
Finally, there are the “unique” items. These are, perhaps surprisingly, not magical, but items with a distinctive appearance and some sort of special historical significance.
The main question you are left with, however, is what the purpose of the booklet was intended to be. The magic items are self-explanatory, and worth a 3/5 on their own, but the rest of it? The suggestion that this might be a guide for PCs who like shopping doesn’t make sense, since none of the non-magical items have a price listed. Which seems especially odd for the “special” items, most of which grant some sort of bonus that an adventurer might just want to take advantage of.
The purpose of the “unique” items is less clear still. One might suppose that they are supposed to be treasure, intended to be exchanged for cash when the adventurers return home. But, again, without any hint of their monetary value, that makes no sense. And it is not as if they *do* anything, other than look pretty.
In terms of physical quality, the booklet uses a lot of colour and shading on every page, making printing a bit of a pain – although at least it isn’t too long. On the plus side, the photographs of footwear are good, and the proof-reading is to a high standard, which is all too rare in booklets of this price range.
Buy this for the magic items, which are properly statted up. But not for the rest of it, unless you don’t mind creating your own price list to go with it. Overall, this feels as if it is half-finished.
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A very early d20 product, it shows to some degree, as several of the features presented in this product have balance issues. However, the great strength of the product is its detailed examination of a goddess, her place in a a pantheon, and a religion based around death. Death cults have many forms in fantasy settings as well as in the real world, and to have one detailed so thoroughly is a great help to a campaign designer. In addition, the organization is very effective, presenting the character of the goddess first - thereby personalizing and making the rest of the book that much more interesting. It's definitely worth a look, especially if you are considering making a death god or goddess for a pantheon of your own devising. This can take a lot of work off your shoulders.
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This book gives a look into a school of magic from many different points of view. The standard character races, religions and gods, and other schools of magic all have their say and even differentiates between wizard and sorcerer approaches to enchantment. This gives a very thorough background for a player or GM wanting to add more detail to the practice of magic in their campaign world.
It would be especially helpful for games with arcane practicioners at the center, including the various "magical college" and "magical explorers" campaigns that have been published by many companies.
The list of spells is evocative and seems well-balanced for the most part. It certainly is detailed enough and if you're an obsessive spellbook-filler like myself you'll want to concoct quests to obtain many of these spells right away.
The file is in good shape but doesn't use any special PDF features. It's a steal for the price.
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One of the first "horseback" supplements to come out during the d20 boom, this supplement remains a solid outing. Combining it with other supplements that perhaps came out later - mass combat, exploration, chase scenes - makes it even stronger. The rules are relatively simple but cover most of the horse-related stuff that fantasy folk have to deal with.
The additional material covering non-horse mounts is a welcome addition. Battle hares ahoy! Everyone loves a good battle hare.
Ever since the advent of wilderness adventures, mounts have been an important but often overlooked part of the game. One area that might have been interesting to explore in future editions is "what to do with them when we get to the dungeon", and other game-related logistical questions that can sometimes bog down the action.
The file is well-optimized but doesn't have any special PDF features. It is well worth the price.
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A useful-looking collection of diverse, sometimes surprising locales and inhabitants of the poorer parts of a city, including shops, taverns, alleys and various other common encounters, with passable art. Unfortunately doesn't seem to include the New NPC Classes mentioned in the Alleyways section.
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A few useful ideas - phasm juice stands out, for me - amid various fairly trivial notions of Rag this, alchemical solution that and ideas that are just not written to be as cool as they might be. Spark cloth, which figures prominently in the introduction, unfortunately doesn't seem to have any stats. I wouldn't want to pay a lot for this, but a DM might find several entries that germinate further ideas.
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This is a cute little addition to my gaming library. Nice layout, good information, and a fun thing to show my players :)
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Very nice, good information, full of little goodies for the discerning GM.
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Gives a great bases for cyberpunk in the D20 Modern system. Very open and portable to almost any game or group of players.
Also I enjoy the the weapons stats, they really try to take in to account that a weapons maybe firing the same bullet, but that does not make them equal.
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I've been wanting to make one of these tables for years but could never think of 100 things to put on it and usually ran out of steam after 20. It's very simply formatted and easy to port into FGII or another DM assistant program which is a must for me to enjoy a product. So many documents have such complicated formatting that they aren't very adaptable but I found all the products I bought from this company were easy to read and port. Cheap is also a huge plus!
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Someone's read "Perdido Street Station"? This instalment shows a good strong concept, though a bit one-dimensional and with some frankly far-fetched elements.
I have to agree with the previous reviewer that it's not an attractive option mechanically. The Zizak might make a PC species with some additional strong benefit, perhaps some bonus to technology that (among other applications) could improve their use of powered armour, which seems to be important to them.
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It is exactly what it says it is...a list of 100 plants. Would have been a more useful product if it includes some sort of description, particularly since most people (like us city folk) would have no clue what half of these are. I suppose I can go troll wikipedia and look up the plants...but if I wanted to do that I don't need to buy supplements. probably should have read some of the other reviews for similar products first to get a better idea what to expect.
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