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True20 Adept's Handbook -- I really like True20: with that said, however, I am not really happy with T20AH. Although it IS a thorough examination of the arcane, the profane, and the occult, my games tend to treat magic as "mysterious" and "intriguing" -- not macabre and gothic. You will find much information pertaining to the darker side of magic: witchcraft, rituals, necromancy, sorcery, talking to the dead, etc.*
I bought it to supplement my super-hero and Star Wars (TM) games that I run with True20, but it did very little to help me with those games.
However, I rate things based on value, so I am giving it a 4 / 5 stars, the rating that it deserves for being a detailed and entertaining booklet.
If you like to run authentic magical campaigns, then this book is for you -- if you want to run comic heroes, stick with True20 rules or M&M.
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I'm getting tired of reading reviewers bagging on Dragon Age the pen and paper RPG just because it is based upon a video game and associated with a big company like Bioware. From this vantage point, if you don't like the video game you can complain about it (saying that CRPGs and RPGs are different animals and never the tween shall meet), or if you liked the video game you can complain that it's NOT ENOUGH like the video game.
Also, people are complaining that the rules are incomplete. Duh. It's for levels 1-5... an introductory set. I think this is a brilliant marketing tactic that we are seeing other companies doing in order to attract both nostaligic and new gamers. Kudos! I can get a a working game for half the cost of just one book in another system. I don't need 300 spells and 400 monsters to get started having fun.
Gimme a break.
I come from an old school background and dislike having too many rules and too many books. I'd rather spend my time actually playing than reading, organizing, and collecting vast arrays of adventures, skills, and splat books that I will never actually get around to using. I adore the Dragon Age tabletop pen and paper RPG and here is why:
- I've played it, unlike many of the reviewers with real live gamers, most of them experienced and sophisticated.
- We just have played Labyrinth Lord, Savage Worlds and 3.5 for years and I have to say, so far the reaction if extremely positive. By comparison to Labyrinth Lord, this is rules light with an actual world and a unified system that doesn't seek to recreate the past but instead seeks to streamline the advances in the hobby. Compared to Savage Worlds it has much greater flavor, is not a generic system, and has something that was a deal-breaker for us: Health points. Savage World soured on us because of it's wound system and how Bennies always just were used for soaking damage. Finally, compared to 3.5 it has about 1/10th of the rules to keep track of, and the world feels more "old school" / European rather than high fantasy bordering on science fiction.
- It hits the sweet spot with rules lite - with stunts and the dragon die concept it it elegant without being overly simple. With just the three classes and several backgrounds, combined with Talents and Weapons Choices, you can create a great variety of characters.
- The magic system is mana based, which I like. No more fire and forget!
- The world of Ferelden is full of very interesting takes on the classic races of Dwarves and Elves. There is a rich, detailed history of the cataclysm known as The Blight and how it shaped empires, religions, and cultures. This is probably the greatest connection it has to the video game. To me it feels like the Celtic culture during the dark ages.
- The tone is dark, gritty fantasy. This seems to be the trendy flavor we've seen in other products and I can say that it seems to work here very well.
- The 3d6 dice mechanic works great and with the curve is much more interesting than d20. Add in the dragon die concept and you've got something new and exciting, where each roll actually contains three levels: total score, if there are doubles, and how strong the dragon die is.
- The stunts system just rocks. SOOO much less complicated than feats, edges or other similar mechanics.
- The layout and art are strikingly good. I don't feel like I'm playing a generic system somebody whipped up in their basement, nor do I feel like I have a glamorous coffee-table book that is too pretty to get pizza grease on.
That's it. For the price of admission, this game will appeal to people looking for an elegant, rules-lite system that contains a deep, compelling world. If that's the sort of thing that you're after, than you'd be missing out if you didn't give it a shot.
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TRUE20 EXPERT'S HANDBOOK
DESCRIPTION: True20 Expert's Handbook is a supplement of the TRUE20 game system, expanding the available functions of playing the Expert class. (True20 Revised core book is needed to use this book.)
EASY TO UNDERSTAND: True20 books are very simple and straight-forward. If you can understand D20 rules, then True20 will come as almost second nature; the rules are based on the system used for Mutants and Masterminds.
FUN TO PLAY: This is a detailed game supplement for a detailed game system; if you like to play detailed rules for your RPGs, then this would be a good system and supplement to have -- it's definately simpler, and more fun, than D20.
LAYOUT / DESIGN: Black and white art and type. All major subjects are easy to find; the book is easy to peruse.
WORTH THE MONEY?: It's a little over-priced, but it is worth the money if you really like True20. True20 Expert's is jam-packed with information, and the description listed in rpgnow is accurate and fair.
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Freeport has had a rich production values from the very beginning and as such is a perfect addition to the Pathfinder setting. Whilst you can clearly see that it’s release ‘coincides’ with the new Adventure Path offering pirates and nautical adventure galore; you can’t fault the quality of the product. It offers new races, equipment (especially the integration of firearms into your game) and a whole new setting for you to explore. The book is very heavily geared to offering a range of NPCs and this section does take up what I would consider to be an overly large portion of the book. That said, there are plenty of adventure hooks to be had from this section.
I’d highly recommend this for anyone wanting to set an adventure (or even a portion of one) on a coastal area and include seafaring and pirates of any description. The fact that is now compatible with one of the best role-playing games on the market is just a sweetener.
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The Freeport Companion: Pathfinder RPG Edition (affiliate link) does a great job of translating Green Ronin's classic setting into the Pathfinder RPG system. I also have the Savage Worlds version of the book, and somewhat prefer the Pathfinder implementation.
The first chapter of the PDF discusses race in Freeport. In addition to the standard races, there is a gnome variant and the azhar, a race descended from the efreet. The azhar may best be described as proud and loud, but they are also loyal, if not terribly far-sighted. The azhar are much like the fire genasi from my D&D 3.0 Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting, in fact. I like the PFRPG azhar somewhat better than the Savage Worlds azhar, and they seem to fit well with the tone of the setting.
The second chapter of the Pathfinder Freeport Companion is about classes in Freeport. The writers went to great lengths to offer some customized classes especially fitted to adventures in Freeport. This is one section that I think is better done in the Savage Worlds edition, since the book offers archetypes, rather than statted-out classes. I don't have any real objection to the new classes (in fact, I love new classes), but for the most part they feel like slightly reskinned base classes.
Despite the fact that most of the new classes feel somewhat superfluous, each does have at least one unique class ability that makes it worth considering. The assassin, for example, has been done many times for many different campaign settings. The Freeport Companion's assassin is done better than most, and I especially enjoy the system for handling assassinations away from the table. The would-be assassin can make a roll to determine the success or failure of his assassination attempt when such an action would distract from the overall narrative or is a regular part of every session. Some outcomes result in success and an improved reputation, while others involve failure and even death.
My final word on classes is that if I were going to use new classes, the first place I'd look would be the Genius Guides. The ever-popular shadow assassin in particular would be well suited to life in Freeport.
Chapter three covers additional rules, like skills and feats, in Freeport. The skills require little adaption, but the few changes made are well-placed. There are also some new languages, which always add fun and depth to a game (says the psycholinguist). The feats are, for the most part, excellent. With so many new options it would be hard to get them perfect every time, but the writers of this particular game get pretty close. It's all about flavor, my friends.
Adventuring is a nasty business, and it often involves brushes with Things Man Was Not Mean To Know. As such, I'm glad that the writers included an insanity mechanic in the Freeport Companion. There are even tables of symptoms that you can choose from or roll on to create fun and nutty PCs and NPCs. You could also use Scott Gable's insanity mechanic from issue 11 of Kobold Quarterly, but I think the Freeport Companion will work just fine.
The equipment section of the book is another fine addition to the Freeport Companion. The firearms are done well, and I especially love the bit on drug addictions. Once again, adventuring is a nasty business and all kinds of peril to life and limb can result. The drugs and poisons offered here will give depth to pretty much any character, though I caution against relying on narrative crutches. When used well, these items will cause - ooh, butterflies!
The spells and magic items of Freeport are equally important. There are few new spells, but the hoard of magic items on offer just make my mouth water. The Reaverbane will make any corsair or privateer tremble with fear, while Ring of the Boar will turn even the most lily-livered tripe into a fine fighting specimen!
The rest of the book is filled with prestige classes, sample NPCs, specific NPCs, a bestiary, and an adventure to start you off in Freeport. The prestige classes fight the general context well without being too specific. You could drop them in just about any nautical fantasy setting or region and it would work just fine. The NPCs and creatures of the bestiary are similar. These are resources that can be used in almost any campaign, but when brought together they make Freeport pop right off the page.
The introductory adventure, Fury in Freeport, is a great way to get started with your new Pathfinder campaign. It's a good introduction to the people and places of Freeport, though it's by no means comprehensive. That brings me to my one quibble with this book. In order to get the full benefit, you have to have the core book. While that's not a huge hardship, it seems silly to require two books to get things going. It does have the advantage of allowing the core setting to remain system neutral, though, so I won't complain too much.
On the whole, an excellent production from Green Ronin. If you're thinking about running an Eberron game in the Lhazar Principalities or just want to try Freeport, you can't go wrong with the Pathfinder Freeport Companion (affiliate link). I give it 5 out of 5 stars. I would dock a few tenths of a star for a couple of minor issues noted above, but in general I recommend this book for purchase! Green Ronin also has a nice print/PDF deal, so I recommend taking advantage of that.
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The Quick start rules explain the basic core mechanics that both Mutants & Masterminds and DC Adventures utilizes (easy since they both use the same roll a D20+ Modifier vs Target Number mechanic). Basic combat and damage is covered, stats for both Comic Book Versions of the current Superboy and Knockout, and a scenario revolving around a Smallville Town Fair.
DC Adventures will be 100% compatible with Mutants & Masterminds 3rd edition, and honestly is usuable with Mutants & Masteminds second edition with no conversion.
Most of the changes from 2nd edition revolve around Attack and Defense being renamed, Skills being consolidated, and some power reorginization and power pricing adjustments, but if you've played the Award Winning M&M 2E than you can pick up and play DC Adventures wihtout even reading the rules.
The Quick Start is Free.
Has characters currently available nowhere else (Until the Heroes and Villains Supplement comes out in December)
Has a scenario/adventure easily adaptable to any characters you have.
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DC Adventures Hero's Handbook is a fun game.
I should probably preface this by saying that I'm not a M&M guy. I can't tell you what's new in this and what's old.
However, I can speak for this: It's a full game set in the DC Comics universe. There are various blurbs on setting and characters, though you'll probably already know this as a general rule (since most of the target audience consists of people who have at least been exposed to the likes of Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman).
More impressive is the sheer volume of the game. It's huge. 281 pages, lots and lots of pictures, and giant walls of text (which are admittedly broken up a fair deal).
While it's a lot to read in even 5 sittings (it took me 7, and generally I get in 100-150 pages a sitting), it's got nice solid rules, though it feels very different for a veteran D&D or Shadowrun player expecting walls of rules for things. Pretty much everything is handled by a single d20 check. Look through the giant text, and you'll find that maybe 50 pages max are devoted to plain rules, and the rest focus on content.
The downside to all this content is that it's massive and takes a lot of comprehension. Quick reference? I'll believe it when I see it.
All in all, my only real gripe with it would be the incredibly massive modifiers on a d20, but I state that gripe for almost every game that uses 'em, and in a superhero setting, this is more forgivable (after all, why shouldn't Super-Tough-Character be able to shrug off a paltry bullet 24/7?).
For $20, this is a lot of bang for its buck, and the plentiful art and well-designed game work well together. A must for any comic book aficionado or a GM/player in need of a superhero game.
And, despite the name which might hint towards the book being oriented for a player rather than a GM, the book does do both, it actually has quite a few pages devoted to the GM.
5/5 in my book, because its quality and setting are top notch, and the art is premium.
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Green Ronin has produced a superb Pathfinder expansion to their system agnostic A Pirate's Guide to Freeport.
I always like to look at the layout of a book as I'm looking at the content. I feel that RPG books should be something of a standing work of art in their own right. The artwork in this book ranges from good to outstanding, with the front cover being an excellent example of what you will find (although all work inside is black and white).
The layout itself is clean, easy to read, well set up for finding what you need and bookmarked throughout, which I always find extremely handy.
What you'll find inside the Freeport Companion is everything you'll need to launch a Freeport campaign in the Pathfinder RPG system. This includes descriptions of all of the Pathfinder core races and how they fit into the world of Freeport, and Azhar, a new race of outsiders who travel the waters around Freeport. The Azhar as PCs are akin to the Efreet and carry a number of abilities appropriate to these races.
The Freeport Companion also boasts a number of new character classes. The Assassin, Corsair, Monster Hunter, Noble and Survivor are all available as player characters. The Cultist is a new NPC class. Along with these classes come a number of new skills, feats spells and prestige classes.
With mentioning the Cultist NPCs, we get in to the aspect of Freeport that makes it very interesting. This campaign comes with two things not normally found in the Pathfinder system - guns and a huge nod to Lovecraftian horrors, complete with it's own madness system.
The introduction of firearms is handled very well. They're treated as something new to the world and as such are expensive and unreliable, but can be very effective. Think muzzle loaded pistols, rifles and small canon in your favorite swashbuckling movie and you've got a good idea as to how firearms are used here.
The horror aspect is also very well implemented and gives Freeport a nice edge on other, less gritty aspects of the Pathfinder universe. Your characters can deal with some pretty scary things, and eventually go insane doing so. Of course, being a high magic world, there are cures for this.
What Green Ronin have done best is allow the GM and players to decide how much of each aspect introduced in Freeport they wish to include in their game. You can emphasize buckling swashes, or the horror of unearthing ancient gods, or none of the above and simply use the setting as a standard Pathfinder campaign. Brilliant!
Freeport Companion is full of interesting NPCs to throw directly into your game, another big bonus. And when you've finished reading through the book, there's a good 1st level adventure included in the Appendix for you to launch your campaign with and get a real feel for Freeport.
Clocking in at 172 usable pages (a page of licensing and a blank page are also included) you will not be disappointed with the Freeport Companion.
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When you take the world'ss best superhero game and combine the world's super heroes you get a combination of pure awesome that looks exactly like DC Adventures from Green Ronin. Based on the next version of Mutants & Masterminds DCA is not only a great game for Supers play, it is also a great introduction to Supers RPGs for the DC comic fan. All the iconic characters are included, Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman and more. Plenty of powers, traits, feats and skills to make any character you would want. It improves on the Mutants & Masterminds 2.0 design with some elements of True 20 and some nods to some designs of supers RPGs of the past. Plus the art is fantastic.
The powers are better detailed in this version, giving better examples and explanations.
In general all the rules seem to be clearer and designed with an eye towards getting up and running fast.
I loved the campaign guides and the History of the DC Universe. Green Ronin always did a great job with their own super-hero history, but this is the real deal with 70 years real-world time behind it. Over a dozen heroes are stated up and a dozen villains, (with plenty more for future books) you can either get going by the rules, use one of the templated characters or grab your favorite DC character and go.
I have played, and enjoyed, all sorts of DC based supers RPGs. I have played and enjoyed Mutants and Masterminds. This is the best of both worlds! Can a DC/Freedom City crossover be too far behind?
Like: Everything
Dislike: Would liked more characters stated up, but this is hardly a complaint.
Who should buy? Anyone that is a fan of DC comics or Mutants & Masterminds should already have their copy. If you like Supers RPGs then this is a great game to get.
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Finally someone has done a good job on a DC Heros RPG! I have all of the old attemps at this game and they were unacurate. (To say the Least) My only complaint with this new attempt is it appears the characters were done from the TV series. Some of the attributes are a little low and the powers are the same. All in all a well done system. In closing, I do wish the game was a little more compatable with the M & M system. Some of the conversions are a little off. Still 4 stars. It's better than the last ones!
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Excellent introduction to the Mutant's and Masterminds game and Freedom City. Reminiscent of Teen Titans and X-Men you can get your hero up and running, with a background and a "place to be" in no time.
I would have liked some more information on some of the iconic character, but most of what I wanted is covered in other books.
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I collect supers games, from Marvel Saga to Hero System, Brave New World, Aberrant, etc. I collect them because they all have a different take on supers, and a different feel to the game. I like this games, its good, i might even play it, but is it DC? Only in the descriptions, and those don't really matter, so the primary reason for buying the game, the brand, doesn't really matter. Is it worth what you pay for it? Sure, if you want to run supers, or if you really like DC art, but if your looking for THE GAME to run DC Supers, i don't think this is it. In fact, the more i read it, the more i had an idea to use this system to run Marvel supers. but that could just be my personal bias showing
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DC Adventures Hero's Handbook - I've heard a lot about this product on various podcasts and blogs and I was interested in seeing it when it arrived. I've never been a huge fan of the super hero genre for role playing or honestly of the DC Universe. Now that I have this PDF in my hands, my expectations were matched, exceeded and then blown out of the water with a large blast of energy.
Let's start with the very first bit you'll see. Alex Ross doing what he does best with his iconic cover art. The art in this massive 280 page PDF is exceptional. The Green Ronin folks had access to the DC Vaults and they obviously spent their time there well. Speaking of iconic art - prepare to meet some iconic characters as well. Even the most anti-comic book person will know such names as the Green Lantern, Superman, Batman, and the list goes on. One after another icons of the super hero world are detailed for our reading pleasure.
At it's core, the game is a d20 system but there have been some pretty interesting modifications. A lot has been stripped out and it's a smooth and well oiled system left behind. Ability scores have been boiled down to their modifiers, two new stats have been added and feats have been redesigned and renamed as Advantages.
Then there are the powers - the heart and soul of any superhero RPG. Powers refer to all extraordinary traits inherent in the superhero (other than stats). There are a ton of them to choose from. You build up your characters powers by taking "effects" which when combined give you such things as super speed or flight. Each Effect has extras that are relevant to these effects and also flaws that pertain to it. A bit of thought goes into character creation at this point but it works to make unique and interesting characters to play.
This book also contains a good deal of back ground information from which you can build your setting and campaign. There are a ton of well known heroes who's stats you can delve in to and suggestions for playing the game. The PDF is done very well, is completely bookmarked and easy to navigate and honestly, a lot of fun to read.
As someone who's not a major super hero fan, I can easily see myself playing or running a game in the DC Adventures system.
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The Good: Some gorgeous art, a game system with a proven track record, and the first new DC RPG license in years. The Bad: A flavorless, clinical approach that feels less like a DC RPG and more like a license forced into a system. For a full review: http://bit.ly/9TeKDz
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Green Ronin updates their two books covering Demons and Devils to 3.5. This book also includes the Yugoloths/Daemons/Neutral Evil fiends.
Lots of really original fiends that can be used with any 3.5 compatible products. Writen by Green Ronin guru Chris Paramas and d20 expert Erik Mona. Over 130 new fiends and details on their lands.
The only downside is the fiends are not shown in color, which would be great.
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