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An Endzeitgeist.com review
The final installment of the anachronistic adventurers-line is 19 pages long, 2/3 of a page front cover, 1 page editorial/SRD, leaving 17 1/3 pages of content, so let's take a look!
Rules-wise, the Sensitive gets d8, 7+Int skills, proficiency with simple weapons, good will-saves, 3/4 BAB-progression. Over the course of the 20 levels, they may choose from 6 sensitive talents and from 4 limited talents - these are also sensitive talents, but the selection is more restrictive. At first level, the Sensitive gets the Intuition ability, which allows the class to class-level + wis-mod times per day substitute a intuition check (d20+ class level+wis-mod+3) for the skill-check they'd usually make, making the class potentially quite formidable in the skill-area. The aforementioned talents span a range of 22 different ones that allow a sensitive to have an animal companion, a reverence of an object that translates to favored enemy-style bonuses, gain improved defensive fighting capabilities, may act in surprise rounds, may take 10 in chosen skills even while under duress, add wis-mods to a variety of rolls, have an augury-style gut feeling, gain improved uncanny dodge and better aid another, be a pacifist (which translates to a penalty to lethal attacks, but bonus damage when dealing non-lethal damage at higher levels), realize when afflicted by negative conditions, spells etc.
Among the more interesting talents, we get trivia for the learned jack-of-all-trades, which allows the sensitive to know obscure and helpful pieces of information, coming with a fitting short table of sample DCs and pieces of information to allow the DM to properly judge the difficulty of information gleaned thusly. My favorite ability, though, would be Body Language: By succeeding at a sense motive check versus 10 + target's HD + Cha-mod or 10+bluff bonus, the sensitive knows what the respective target will do this action and may use a readied action to preemptively take a standard, move, swift or free action, acting before the target. VERY cool, that one!
As with other Anachronistic Adventurers-pdfs, we also get a selection of anachronistic archetypes that can be applied not only to the sensitive, but to all classes in the line. These are chosen at first level. We get first the Esper, who is particularly adept at using the new psychic powers (more on those later). The second is the Profiler, who may take the measure of his foes, thus gaining bonuses to social interaction. 7 talents provide exclusive additional benefits that include being able to read animals, assess creatures by deeds and not by interacting with them, expertly fool creatures into believing he has strange powers, glean the true desires of those subject to his reading. The archetype unfortunately also features an alternate version to read body language, duplicating detect thoughts - unfortunate because it is called like the same ability of the base sensitive class - different names would have helped keep the abilities apart.
Finally, the Volur archetype gains penalties to BAB, but also access to spells of up to 6th level and may choose a spell-list at first level: Bard, cleric/oracle, inquisitor, druid, magus, sorceror/wizard or witch can be chosen. They cast these spells spontaneously via charisma and depending on the class, their spell-selection is restricted by e.g. not being able to learn hex-modifying spells etc and thankfully also specifies which type of spellcaster the respective Volur counts as.
It should be noted that adapting classes not from the base-rules and using SGG-archetypes is covered as well.
Beyond these, we are introduced to psychic abilities - available to both base class and especially to e.g. espers. Psychic abilities take standard actions unless otherwise noted, provoke AoOs, and when interrupted, require a DC 20 concentration check to properly activate. Characters that otherwise would not have a concentration check use 1d20+HD+wis-mod. Psychic abilities put a strain on the user and each time the user fails a check, he incurs stacking penalties and may fatigue the user. The abilities per se, 7 to be precise are interesting in their mechanics - they are based on respective skills. Distant Viewing requires e.g. a Perception-check and can be used to see far away creatures and objects - with a complex barrier making spying into secluded areas still complex. Dowsing for materials, mesmerizing others, seeing creatures in the ethereal plane or otherwise concealed, a very limited psychokinesis - the options are neat. Gleaning knowledge from objects via psychometry (gold for investigations) deserves special mentioning, in no small part due to the synergy with distant viewing and a limited telepathy is also among the cool powers. The pdf also features a feat to gain access to a psychic ability and provides information on making the supernatural psychic abilities extraordinary to e.g. properly set them apart from psionics.
Conclusion:
Editing and formatting are top-notch, I didn't notice any significant glitches. Layout adheres to SGG's 3-column landscape presentation and the b/w-artworks, while stock are very well-fitting. The pdf comes with no bookmarks, which is a detrimental factor for me.
I like the Sensitive and its ideas - the talents are complex and intriguing, the archetypes interesting and well-crafted and especially the psychic powers are smart: Without invalidating psionics, they deliver a more down-to-earth take on extra-sensory perception and abilities that fits very well with not only "gifted" characters, but also could conceivably work well in a modern/post-apocalyptic context or even a CoC-based game. Kudos for not dividing the market and instead doing something that feels mechanically distinct. That being said, this is also perhaps the Anachronistic Adventurers-pdf that feels like it's slightly less involved than it could have been - essentially, the mechanic foundation of the class is very similar to e.g. the Daredevil, which per se is nothing bad. But e.g. the doubled talent-names hurt it slightly.
Furthermore, I couldn't help but feel that a slightly tighter focus on the psychic powers, with more of them and a more pronounced access for e.g. Profilers etc. to them might have made this even better. Now don't get me wrong - I still very much enjoyed this pdf and consider it a good buy indeed - the psychic powers alone are glorious and can be scavenged to grant interesting abilities to characters. It's just that this nagging feeling wouldn't stop, this distinct impression that more interesting talents (like the first body language...)instead of the more straight ones would have made the class more distinct. On the Presentation-side, I also felt that some highlighted base concepts (perhaps in bold print) among the psychic power-rules could have made them slightly easier to comprehend - while complaining at a high-level, I can't help but feel that e.g. the psychic frequency-topic could have used some further elaboration - in the powers-description it is briefly touched upon as a concept with regards to the psychic powers, but a concise definition of it, whether it can be blocked, modified etc. - is not there. A pity since per se the concept could have imho carried several interesting abilities to find out peculiarities about the missing person x etc. -Especially relevant since the write-up does not specify a degradation of this imprint over time, making it possible to read ancient artifacts, but also hard to hide from - after all, who'd expect something like that?
In the end, I consider this installment both great and slightly below what it could have been - a tighter focus on psychic powers, with perhaps more mundane options for not-necessarily-psychic sensitives like the Profiler, could have improved this further. As it stands, it is still a very good buy, clocking in at 4.5 stars, rounded down due to aforementioned minor issues and the lack of bookmarks to 4 for the purpose of this platform.
Endzeitgeist out.
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This pdf is 23 pages long, 1 page front cover, 1 page editorial, 1/2 empty page, 1 page SRD, leaving us with 19 1/2 pages of content, so let's take a look!
Dex-based combatants have always been popular in style, but it is a fact that in d20, the fencing/duelist/swashbuckling characters often felt a bit off. Dervish Dance might be powerful, but it is limited in both fluff and execution and does not manage to offset the investment when compared to a similar str-based build. The Swordmaster seeks to remedy that by providing a dex-based front-line fighter. Does it succeed?
Mechanically, the class comes with d8, 2+Int skills per level, proficiency with all simple and martial swords and the quarterstaff as well as light armors, but not shields, full BAB, good fort- and ref-saves and two values - the intelligent value and the magic value, with the former beginning at 500 GP at second level and going up to 42K GP and the latter starting at 2000 GP at third level and going up to 200K GP at 20th level. These values are crucial, since swordmasters use a partnered blade. They start play with a masterwork sword of their choosing that gains sentience. While usually in line with the swordmaster, it may up to 3 rounds subvert actions of the swordmaster (and vice versa). Changing partnered blades results in 2 negative levels that cannot be cured (but also don't kill the swordmaster). As soon as it becomes intelligent, the blade also gains enhancements to mental attributes whenever its magical "plus X bonus" is enhanced. The blade also gets an ability akin to rite publishing's enhancement of the bladebound archetype, to have the blade devour magic from items it destroys- the second value I mentioned before reflects the blade's capacity to store this power and translate it into enchantments. Also rather interesting is the fact that the swordmaster may, starting at 5th level, treat all swords as intelligent items (There's a hidden darkness in this blade...).
If d8 and the minimalist list of proficiencies were not ample clue for you, swordmasters also start the game with two abilities that are designed to keep them viable on the frontlines, both tied to wearing light or no armor and no shields and only a single sword (sorry, no two-weapon fighting). Tactful Deflections allow the swordmaster to add +1 to AC per swordmaster level as a deflection bonus, up to a maximum of his Int-modifier. This bonus does not work when flatfooted or stack with the duelist's canny defense, though. Tactful strikes allow the swordmaster to use his dex-modifier instead of his str-modifier on attack rolls with swords. Instead, the class may not add their str-modifier to weapon damage, though if they incur a str-penalty, half of that is applied to attack rolls. It's an interesting choice to not have dex apply to damage as well - at least to regular attacks. Sword Arts deal additional damage equal to dex-mod or in the case of a 2-handed sword, 1 1/2 times dex-mod and may not apply str-mod/power attack bonuses to their sword arts damage.
The true meat of the swordmaster-class, though, would be his sword arts. At first level, they start with three of these special attacks and every level after that, they learn a new sword art (or advanced sword art starting level 8). Sword Arts require different actions, from none to a full round and some, though not all, require a trigger to be set off and/or a performance on your part, i.e. for example a 5-foot step, an attack with a -2 penalty etc. Many of these sword arts also have a window, that is upon meeting the performance criteria, they have to be used in a specific window of time. Now the sword arts per se are interesting - they are grouped in three different categories: Openers, Sequiturs and Finishers. Unless otherwise noted, to perform a sequitur, the character must have successfully hit the opponent to be targeted with an opener, and to perform a finisher, he has to follow up on a sequitur. To give you an example, let's take a look at the initial three sword arts every swordmaster starts with: The opener allows as a move action to feint a creature within reach that can see you. This opens a window for you until the end of your next turn to follow up with a sequitur that is an attack versus the feinted opponent and deals the sword art's damage (i.e. with the dex-modifier). Succeeding at the sequitur allows the swordmaster to have another window until the end of his next turn and follow up with a finisher as a full-round action that is resolved as an attack that deals double the sword art's regular damage. Attentive readers may glean where this is headed - openers are usually weaker than regular attacks, sequiturs are usually on par with them and finishers are more powerful than regular attacks to offset the requirement of setting them up via two attacks.
Design-wise rather interesting, especially due to the fact that the 10 openers provided include ways to get the opener out of the way faster: Opportunist's Feint, for example, allows the swordmaster to feint a creature hit by an ally that flanks it with the swordmaster as an immediate action. Cunning Swordplay allow you to make an opposed intelligence check versus a foe - if the target attacks you or provokes an AoO from you, you may execute a readied sequitur against the foe before the attack is resolved. Another interesting one is "Press in" - as a reaction to being hit by a creature within 10 foot, you may opt to make the hit a critical hit against you to move 5 foot towards the target. It also counts as a opener as a free action, allowing you to perform a sequitur versus the enemy. Also interesting: If you manage to use move actions for 2 rounds to talk with a foe and bait a foe, you may on the third round execute an immediate sequitur, while still allowing you to perform other sword arts while talking to the foe. Also interesting: "Whirling Defense", while not stacking with combat expertise or total defense, allows you to use a standard action to gain +4 deflection bonuses to AC and an additional +4 AC against the creature that missed you. Have I mentioned the option to throw swords?
Among the 10 sequiturs, we have the option to move half your speed through threatened squares of a target with a bonus of 1/2 class level to acrobatics, allowing for quick repositioning that does not provoke AoOs. Measured Strike also features an interesting tactical choice - attack foes at +2 and increase the critical modifier by +1, but only inflict half sword art damage. Another sequitur allows you to react to killing a creature to make 3 5-foot steps toward another opponent. Shallow Cut is yet another intriguing sequitur - upon a successful hit, the target may opt to take a 5-foot step to avoid the damage, but if he/she/it does so, you gain +4 to atk and AC against the target until the end of your next turn. A thus dodged attack can still counts as successful, meaning it can be followed up by finishers...
10 finishers are provided and allow e.g. to do an attack that deals half sword art damage as a free action, add half class level bleed damage to your hits and if you manage to drop 10 feet on your target (Up the walls-psionic warriors will love this) ad incur an AoO from all except the target, you may deal triple damage, but also become staggered for one round. Other finishers allow you to make a bull rushing finisher that doubles as a sequitur for yet another finisher. There are also full attack-based finishers that allow the swordmaster to stack +2 damage bonuses, CMD & CMB, AC and initiative-increase, with the latter potentially allowing you to act twice, by coming in at the bottom of the initiative-ladder.
Among the advanced sword arts, we get 11 openers, 11 sequiturs and 11 finishers - and they are interesting and advanced for a reason. The arcing draw opener for example allows the character in question to draw the partnered blade from a sheathed position to make an attack roll and apply the results to up to 3 creatures, then make a 5-foot step. And just as I get ready to yell "unbalanced", I read that the opener only does half damage. Also damn cool: The opener deathless resolve lets you stand up and arm yourself with a slashing/piercing object in range, allowing you to ignore the disabled, unconscious and even DEAD conditions until you fail to hit and deal damage to the target. Again - the potential for abuse is offset via clever balancing - during this time, you cannot regain hitpoints! Have I mentioned the option to impale foes with a sequitur (potentially abducting them via shadow walk etc.) and allowing them to inflict con-damage to themselves to break free from the impaling? Where I'm honestly not 100% comfortable is with Keen Strike - the sequitur must follow a critical threat or hit and increases your weapon's threat-range by your int-mod. This is slightly too much for my conservative tastes when combined with wide threat-range builds, at least for a sequitur. The more powerful advanced finisher Dance of Storms feels more appropriate for this benefit - it grants the same crit-range enhancement as well as the bonuses from the non-advanced Dance-finishers, provided you have them.
The pdf also offers advice on choosing sword arts, has an expansive two-page table of the sword arts and a sample page to show how to organize sword arts.
Conclusion:
Editing and formatting are top-notch, I didn't notice any glitches. Layout adheres to Dreadfox Games' 2-column standard with its thorn-covered borders and the pdf comes extensively bookmarked. The original full cover artwork and two 2 b/w-line drawings are nice.
This pdf is not a cheap supplement for a new class, but the Dreadfoxes have learned - we get more content than in e.g. the Gypsy and Ritualist-supplements - though comparatively still not that much. I didn't expect to like this class - I bought the Tome of 9 Swords back in the day and loved the idea, but hated the execution. The Swordmaster is not as mystical, being in fact rather down to earth and potentially fitting for low-magic settings (just get rid of the blade's intelligence) and honestly impressed me: The building on attacks, the sequence of openers, sequiturs and finishers should make the swordmaster not only immensely fun to play, it also brings added tactics to melee you wouldn't expect, making it closer to how actual sword fighting works - and I happen to have some experience in that regard, so kudos indeed!
Better yet, the sword arts lend themselves to further expansions that should make adding more to the fray to represent different schools easy. I could e.g. see more magical schools as their very own book beyond the upcoming supplement for this class and the puppetmaster. And then there's the fact that only one of the numerous arts rubs me the wrong way, meaning that I actually not only consider this class a rewarding and intriguing gaming experience, but in fact also consider it balanced. This is, hands down, my favorite Dreadfox Games-product so far, offering a long overdue, smart and complex melee class that should fit the tastes of many players out there. My final verdict will reflect that I consider this class not only smart, but in fact brilliant and clock in at a well-deserved 5 stars + seal of approval.
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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An Endzeitgeist.com review
This installment of Rite Publishing’s free e-zine is 41 pages long, 1 page front cover, 1 page ToC,11 pages of advertisement and 1 page SRD, leaving us with 27 pages of content, so let’s take a look!
Dave Paul’s editorial this time around is all about tricksters and Steven D. Russell’s creature also complements well this April’s fool’s theme – at CR +3 we get the deadly prankster who can make floors slick, create deadly, obscure booby traps, curse beings to suffer when kicked throw burning hot pie at foes, curse foes with diarrhea (players will HATE creatures that do that to their characters!), curse inappropriate beings to fall in love and finally, make people run into damaging walls. The template is deadly and will be LOATHED by players – nice job! The sample faerie dragon creature also fits in nicely with this template.
Thomas LeBlanc has a short, but oh so sweet article for us that features 11 non-magical weapon qualities master blacksmiths may add to your weapons, including an easily navigated, comprehensive table of prerequisites, cost and DC-increases as well as a feat to become a master weaponsmith. A glorious article, especially for people like yours truly who prefer the grittier side of fantasy and don’t use that many magical items. Two thumbs up – I hope to see more!
Creighton Broadhurst, mastermind of Raging Swan Press has something different from the usual go-play encounters this time around and features an article based on camping in the wilderness. A total of two tables with 50 entries per table provides dressings and minor complications around campfires and sites and makes for a nice little mini-dressing installment. My one gripe here being that the first table, due to some weird reason, is really pixelated and not exactly crisp – no idea what happened there, but printing it out resulted in quite a smudgy end-result as well for me.
Now Rite Publishing’s lord protector Steven D. Russell has more up his sleeve and provides DMs with a list of new abilities for zombies, each of which increases the CR of the base creature by one. Unless I’ve miscounted, a total of 23 of these await us – from leaving a bloody trail that makes combat slippery, but the undead also easy to track to limited energy drain, channel resistance,turning channel energy back upon the foe and faster spawn generation – there are some nasty surprises here and if you want some quick modifications to e.g. Raging Swan Press’ “100% Crunch: Zombies/Zombie Lords”-pdfs, then this article is a great way to fix one of the weaker spots of the two books. Nice to have indeed!
After that, we’re off to this issue’s interview, with perhaps the man who provides one of the most useful services I ever encountered – John Reyst, the owner of d20pfsrd.com. If you ever used this extremely useful site, do yourself a favor and read this interview as a minor means of thanking the man.
Finally, we have a rather big array of reviews by yours truly, featuring the highest rated pdfs of the last month.
Conclusion:
Editing and formatting are very good, I didn’t notice any significant glitches. Layout adheres to RiP’s 2-column standard and the cover artwork is rather appropriate for the issue – I’m quite a fan of the gimmicky way the faerie-dragon has messed up the logo. The pdf comes fully bookmarked for your convenience.
This issue was a surprise to me – I didn’t expect the template to be this maliciously deadly. I didn’t expect to like yet more mini-adjustments for zombies. And most of all, I didn’t expect to like the article on weapon qualities – but that one is my favorite for this issue – elegant, simple and yet so damn cool. Two thumbs up for Thomas Leblanc! Creighton Broadhurst’s article comes in as a close second – though I hope the table gets fixed with a crisper version. All in all, an enjoyable, nice issue for a price of…diddly-squat! It’s hard to beat this content as a non-existent price-point and hence, I’ll settle for a final verdict of 5 stars, omitting my seal only due to the strange pixelated page.
Endzeitgeist out.
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This pdf is 4 pages long, 1 page front cover, 1 page SRD, leaving us with 2 pages of content, so let's take a look!
First, we kick off with 4 Gillmen-feats:
-Arcane Inheritor: Cast a 1st level sorc/wiz spell 1/day at 11+cha-mod DC.
-Deep Sight: Low-light vision as long as underwater and the ability to see through murky and opaque water. Nice!
-Improved Deep Sight: Darkvision 60 ft and see invisible creatures while under water. (They don't get the usual concealment.)
-Sunken Legacy: For Hybrids, count as both gillman and human, choose an attribute that then gains +1 on related attribute & skill-checks.
There also are 2 new Character Traits:
-Eldritch Obsession: Gain UMD as class skills and +5 to blindly activate items.
-Terrestrial Curiosity: Survive twice as long snas water immersion. Nice for player characters.
Gillmen may also choose from 3 new alternate racial traits:
-Deep Thrall + to fort saves, but be susceptible to enchantment.
-Muckdweller: Slower swim-and land-speed, but you're not water-dependant.
-Pass for Human: Be more easily disguised as human (bonus feat), but have your aboleth-ties weakened, for better and worse.
We also get a new archetype, the Deep Dreamer, which is a summoner archetype that has the summoner seeking to recreate the shape glimpsed in dreams via their eidolon and thus are resistant to dream-related spells. At higher levels, they may take evolution-points from their eidolon to increases their own physis and become potentially rather frightening. A cool and imaginative archetype!
Conclusion:
Editing and formatting are excellent, I didn't notice any glitches. Layout adheres to Abandoned Art's 2-column standard and the pdf has no bookmarks, but needs none at this length.
This is so far my favorite installment of the Amazing Race-series, offering cool options in line with the Innsmouth-flair and cthulhoid connotations associated with gillmen. Add the excellent summoner-archetype and we get a great addition that makes the race work better as an adventuring race - my final verdict thus clocks in at 5 stars + seal of approval.
Endzeitgeist out.
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All right, by now you know the drill: 3 pages of pdf, 1 page front cover, 1 page editorial/SRD, 1 page content, this time for 8 feats for animals, so let’s take a look!
The feats are:
-Bloodhound: When tracking by scent, you get +4 to survival. When tracking creatures with hp damage or a bleeding wound, you get +1 to melee attacks versus that foe. Weird, though, that bleed is specifically mentioned – does incurring any form of bleed damage, even if it’s to attributes, not require hp damage?
-Empathic Beast: Animal/familiar gets the alignment of the owner.
-Great White: You are a white animal (-2 to stealth in any environment but snow and ice), but +1 to all saves and +1 hp/3HD. Nice one!
-Homing Sense: Use survival to find, tortoise-style, your way home. You return home to your master’s abode when left unattended for 24 hours and may even take your unconscious master with you. VERY iconic feat!
-Mighty Beast: When adjacent to one who trained you for one trick, that being gets +4 to intimidate.
-Sly: +6 tricks when trained, +3 when untrained. Neat!
-Soothing Companion: When within 15 ft. of you, your master gets +2 to will-saves versus emotion or fear-descriptor spells and +2 to fort-saves versus environmental damage and disease.
-Timmy is down a well!: Learn to distinguish multiple names and learn to convey special meanings via bluff-checks. Awesome!
Conclusion:
Editing and formatting are very good, though not as extraordinarily crisp as I’m used to by SGG. Layout adheres to a 3-column landscape standard and the pdf has no bookmarks, but needs none at this length. Yes! This pdf offers feat for our favorite companions to make them more distinct, matter more and even play pivotal roles in e.g. investigations – just leave e.g. an animal with the Timmy-feat at an inconspicuous location to find out whether those guys over there are talking about killing you. Full of cool ideas, these feats are all killer, balanced and fun and should come as a godsend to each player that wants more customization and options for their favorite pets. Final verdict? Easily given and glad five stars, omitting the seal of approval only because not all of the feats are up to the mind-blown category.
Endzeitgeist out.
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This installment of the wilderness dressing-line is 13 pages long, 1 page front cover, 1 page advertisement, 2 pages editorial, 1 page ToC/introduction, 1 page SRD, 1 page back cover, leaving us with 6 pages of content, so let's take a look!
Following the tradition of the wilderness dressing-line, we kick off with an extensive array of events to spice up your travelling experiences - 100 different minor events are featured in a massive table and range from squeaking cart-wheels accompanied by shouts to wild grapes that are the home of an aggressive bee swarm, abandoned camp sites (though the text reads "abandon[sic!] camp site" - a rare Raging Swan editing glitch) to frolicking grey squirrels and orc bodies. A nice table!
The second massive table provides us with 100 different dressings for hills - small grottos with adjacent miner's cabins, wild strawberry patches, red silk caught in thorny bushes, strangely left alone dishes, monuments that denote burial grounds, earthen amphitheaters and sinkholes. All in all, rather cool dressings, though slightly less imaginative than in the installment on plains and there are less dressing-entries with crunchy tidbits.
After that, we get a page of 12 different sample random encounters for hilly regions that feature an EL as well as a tightly-written fluffy section of notes, in line with e.g. Dungeon Denizens EL 1 - e.g. hobgoblins guarding a rope bridge or swooping wyverns. The final page of the product contains all relevant pieces of information for the DM to run hilly areas: From random hill heights to miscellaneous terrain features and 3 different types of slopes, this page will definitely come in handy.
Conclusion:
Editing and formatting are very good, though not up to the usually flawless track-record of Raging Swan Press. Layout adheres to RSP's crisp two-column b/w-standard and the pieces of artwork included are beautiful indeed. The pdf comes fully bookmarked with nested bookmarks and in 2 versions, one optimized for screen use and one for the printer.
The wilderness dressing line is a joy and extremely useful for DMs - and this installment is no exception. Providing ample details to bring your world to life, the dressings will definitely enhance your game. That being said, when compared to the first two installments, this one feels slightly less brilliant - I wasn't that blown away by events or dressings and missed the far-out entries and would have enjoyed slightly more crunch. I can't really put my finger on it, but this one felt slightly, not by much, but slightly less evocative to me and didn't make me eureka as much as the first two did. That being said, it still is a great addition to any DM's toolkit and thus justifiably can be rated 4.5 stars - though I'm inclined to round down to 4 for the purpose of this platform.
Endzeitgeist out.
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An Endzeitgeist.com review
This pdf is 43 pages long, 1 page front cover, 1 page editorial, 1 page SRD, 2 pages advertisement, leaving us with 38 pages of content - quite a massive bunch of content, so let's take a look!
After a short framing narrative we waste neither time nor space to delve into mystic site qualities. I'd like to go on a tangent here: Iconic battles and modules are not necessarily defined by the adversaries faced or brilliant builds of the foes you pit against your players. As much as these things matter, what makes combats and adventures more exciting even would be often overlooked component - the terrain. Using tables and ravines for tactical advantages makes your world feel more alive and immerses your players more in a cohesive world. Fighting a duelist is cool. Fighting a duelist on a shaking precipice of a grumbling volcano is awesome and so much more memorable. Sneak Attack Press' Terrain Toolbox did a great job of providing a toolkit for mundane types of terrain to make your campaign's encounters more memorable.
Rite Publishing's offering, then, is going one step into the magical world - instead of repeating mundane terrain customization, we get mystical qualities - essentially, these special qualities can be applied to just about any area: From small towers and groves to huge swaths of land, these site qualities modify the basic terrains and can change the way combats play out.
Each of the sites in this product comes with an effect as well as an evocative short example of an application of the respective site that can be considered an adventure-hook in its own right, offering inspiration to use the respective sites. Of course, I can't go through all of the sites contained in this pdf without bloating this review beyond usefulness, but I'll try to give you an overview. Now if you're familiar with Monte Cook's Arcana Unearthed/Evolved, you'll, like me, consider the first site a blast from the past: The Akashic Node - a kind of collected storehouse of knowledge into which creatures may tap to increase your knowledge. Nice to see the cool concept disassociated from the Arcana Evolved base-class and transported into PFRPG, readily available for any class.
Arboreal Home is also a VERY interesting quality that e.g. I'd add in a limited manner to the Margreve: Elves, gnomes, fey, native magical beasts, and native animals in an arboreal home gain a climb speed of 1/2 their base land speed. There are more exotic ones included, like the astral chain - when you enter this site, the respective creatures subject to the site's effects may not leave more than 75 ft. from those linked to them. AWESOME! Of course more common sites are also included - blessed sites, places that induce nightmares, areas that bleed dry those bleeding on the territory, gaining access to spell-like abilities like acid arrows, sneak attack-enhancing sites are part of the deal just like the giant-infested cloudlands known from "Jack and the Bean-stalk", places to establish covenants with otherworldly powers (crossroads demons, baby!) etc.
Or take a site where a powerful servant of death itself was vanquished, resulting in Finger of Death becoming readily available. OUCH! Ethnicity-specific sites grant benefits to chosen peoples and there are even areas, where water can be treated as air and vice versa, allowing for underwater adventures sans the issues of requiring spells to dive into the depths. Some sites are saturated with magic to the point where subjects may tap into the powerful energies of that spot, gaining massive benefits from the sites or even changes the way DCs for your spells are calculated to include a d20, making magic that much more unpredictable.
If you're more inclined to include a mythic Hyperborea-style site, you might wish to check out the endless summer mystical quality and for those who enjoy a little humor, there also is fodder in here: While by no means exemplary since most of the qualities are rather serious, "Everybody was Kung-fu fighting!" is interesting: It makes all non-Asian/monk-weapons miss automatically , but grants people at the site access to monkish abilities - something e.g. the casting classes will quite probably enjoy as a nice change of pace. Wonky? Yes, but some slight humor, as long as it does not get overbearing, is welcome in my game.
One of the most interesting sites would be Fate's Web - it links all members of a group and evenly divides damage between the recipients, necessitating a massive change in tactics. Speaking of tactics - the PCs will need a lot of tactics and survival-knacks when e.g. visiting a site always haunted by massive amounts of violent weather like storms, earthquakes etc. Infinite Spaces are also part of the deal, as are morphic geographies for unstable locales, sites that prohibit healing, sites that allow you to create druidic cocoons, sites to travel the planes - the possibilities are almost endless.
As another concept I really liked, we also have the sites that actually reward the rightful rulers of a respective area, as is the massive d%-table included for wild magic, which should also work well in combination with SGG's stellar Chaos Magic-supplement. The pdf closes with a sample complex mystical site, including lore-sections and a sample story as well as a new sample curse.
Conclusion:
Editing and formatting are top-notch, I didn't notice any glitches. Layout adheres to RiP's 2-column full-color standard and the art-selection deserves special mention: While stock, the artworks are mind-bogglingly beautiful and evocative of the high-concept crunch contained herein. The pdf comes bookmarked.
Once in a while, a DM comes across a pdf that enriches massively one's campaign for ages - there are some pdfs that fall into this category, but honestly, not that many. This is one of them. Providing an awesome amount of evocative sites, this pdf provides us not only with sites and rules - it inspires. It inspires the DM to mix up the rules. To take these site-qualities and use/combine them to make locales stand out. Fighting in the accursed tomb of Grythax the Reaper will feel distinctly different than a battle in the primal heart of the Kelissara-jungle now - I took multiple qualities from this pdf, added them to the locales and suddenly, these places got completely different, inspiring, smart - requiring the players to use different tactics, offering new options and adding not only story-telling, but also tactical depth to any location. This pdf is one I absolutely loved reviewing, for it is chock-full of gorgeous and wondrous options that belong into the toolkit of any DM. Much like the Terrain Toolbox or Raging Swan's Dressing-line, this pdf is guaranteed to enrich your campaign for years to come. There are not many pdfs out there right now that will provide as much joy for 6 bucks as this one. Whether to add spice to modules lacking the je-ne-sais-quoi or to just make your locations more iconic - this is the universally-recommended toolbox for me and one of the scarce few files I'd rate 6 stars, if I could. This is an all-but required purchase for any PFRPG-DM looking to spice up their areas and well worth extremely easily-awarded 5 stars + seal of approval.
Endzeitgeist out.
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An Endzeitgeist.com review
This installment of Legendary Games' so far impeccable line of weird receptacles of knowledge forbidden and foul is 8 pages long, 1 page front cover, 1 page editorial/SRD, 1 page introduction/how to use, 1 page back cover, leaving us with 4 pages of content, so what exactly are these spellbones about?
When archeologists or anthropologists seek out isolated people in a call-of-cthulhu context, the result is seldom pleasant - so here as well. When the researcher that would be the originator of these spellbones entered a poppy-smoke choked tent to unearth the secret of the dawn people, Muham Shab would be lost and in her mind, a drive for knowledge of the most foulest kind would slowly surface, prompting her to start a killing spree in order to rip the secrets from the strange visions she experience. When she was forced to abandon her research, being caught in the act, she escaped -and started creating years of maddening and painful rigors to make sure no one would ever again take her research from her - thus were born the Spellbones of the Devourer, carved by Muham Shab herself into her own skull, pictogram by pictogram, recording her descent into insanity and service to things that should have remained forgotten. When using the mythos-tome rules, this grimoire may propel the reader on a downward spiral towards a transformation most foul...
Content wise, this fetish allows the possessor to create ghouls and ghasts and also features two new feats - one to reflect that you have consumed one of the dead and thus are hardened by your ghoulish act of cannibalism and a metamagic feat that makes those slain by your magic temporarily rise as flesh-eating fast zombies. Nice!
6 new spells are also available via the study of this grim fetish and all are geared towards a theme of ghoulish dread and cannibalism - whether it's the two versions of devouring maw, which allow the caster to gain razor sharp teeth that not only transmit ghoul fever, but which may also make you swallow creatures whole and grab them. Flensing skin, muscle and tissue from your victims becomes as much an option as inciting a murderous hunger for flesh in undead or even evil creatures. finally, there is a truly horrific spell linked to a new template in this pdf - a spell that makes the subject devolve into a thoul - a living ghoul that is closer to the depictions of the creatures as portrayed in the cthulhu-mythos than the regular PFRPG-ghoul.
The Cr +2 Thoul-template is btw. a beauty to behold - not only does the recipient gaining bleeding attacks, a blood frenzy and bonuses for indulging in acts of cannibalism, they also get a quality that makes them great servants for mythos-creatures - susceptible, yet immune to some of the more debilitating effects associated with eldritch horrors. A special weakness that appeals to the remnants of sanity still left completes what is an excellent template.
Conclusion:
Editing and formatting are top-notch - As I've come to expect from legendary Games, I did not encounter a single glitch within these pages. Layout adheres to their 2-column standard and the full color artwork is, as I've come to expect as well, on par with the quality one would see from Paizo, perhaps even beyond that. The pdf is also fully bookmarked, which is awesome for such a small pdf.
Narrative-wise and concept-wise, this Gothic Grimoire is up to the insanely high standard the line has set for itself, providing a compelling and twisted piece of lore supplemented by neat crunch. The Thoul-template is narrative gold and the spells per se are intriguing - still, when compared to "The Inverse Calculus of Unseen refraction" or the "Sepulchral Swaths of Tanoth-Gha", the spellbones feel slightly inferior. Mind you, there is nothing wrong per se with this installment of Gothic Grimoires - far from it! But the spells contained herein feel slightly less innovative and beyond the template, were mostly what I would have expected from a ghoul-themed grimoire. Does that make the pdf bad or faulty in any way? No. But in a line of superb, drop-dead brilliant book, this is "only" a very good installment. Hence, my final verdict will clock in at 4.5 stars, still rounded up to 5 for the purpose of this platform.
Endzeitgeist out.
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This pdf is 10 pages long, 1 page front cover, 1 page editorial, 1 page ToC/introduction, 1 page SRD and 1 page back cover, leaving us with 5 pages of content, so let's check it out!
This pdf, like many a magic-book, kicks off with spellcaster lists of the new spells, covering all Paizo-base-classes (including the magus, but not e.g. the antipaladin) and introduces us to 10 new spells. And the first spell is already uncommon to say the least: As part of the spell's casting, the caster needs to stab him/herself with a +1 flaming dagger. This additional con-damage may not be mitigated and deals an additional point of constitution damage to the caster, but as a result, a deadly cone of searing blood (1d8 per caster level, up to 15d8) sprays forth, sealing not only its regular damage, but also con-damage to cold creatures hit - con damage they can't negate. A VERY interesting spell with an extremely iconic casting and honestly, I wished that more spells would do such things with their casting components. Campfire Forge is also interesting: It allows you to place weapons in your camp fire and when you draw them forth, they temporarily gain the flaming quality or if they already have that, the flaming burst quality. Interesting spell-mechanics indeed. When compared to these two, the conical fiery blast-spell feels very lame, as does the spell to summon a flight of giant eagles. Fire Mark and Fire Brand allow you to brand creatures, granting the branded +2 to Dex while the spell is in effect and the brand also provides resistance 20 to fire. Beyond that, these two spells can be discharged at any time for a fiery ray touch attack or a 6d6 fireball.
Incinerate Creature deals damage over consecutive rounds and has the potential to panic the incinerated being, while magma wave deals massive damage and can topple those hit by it. Finally, rain of fire may incinerate areas and fill the area of effect with fiery embers and smoke, while repeating fireball is just that - a spell that allows you to throw multiple fireballs on subsequent rounds, directing the follow-up spheres as a move action.
Beyond spells, we also get stats for two new animal companions, the fire ant and the poisonous giant bee (why no bumblebee as well?). Bards may now profit from the new "Melt the Heart with Love" bardic masterpiece, which makes enemies susceptible to emotion and fire-spells as well as making all weapons count as fire for purpose of ending regeneration. Adherents of the divine may now chose from 3 subdomains, the beltane domain (with a great defensive dance), the rainbow-subdomain (including dazzling rainbow light) and the summer subdomain (which grants resistance and later, immunity to cold). Witches may now choose the blood and summer patrons and any class capable of having improved familiars may opt to choose a mechanical owl (including information to build them as constructs) or young phoenixes (not yet able to rejuvenate).
The final new piece of content herein is the Holocaust cloak allows the wearer to sheathe him/herself in flames, getting either fire or cold resistance 10 and dealing 1d6+7 points of fire damage to the assailants if the wearer is hit with natural attacks/unarmed damage. Furthermore, the wearer may use 2 rounds of the daily allotment of activated rounds to emit a 7d6 nova.
Conclusion:
Editing and formatting are excellent, I didn't notice any glitches. Layout adheres to a printer-friendly 2-column no-frills standard and the 4 small pieces of b/w-artwork are nice. The pdfs come with extensive, nested bookmarks. Pdfs? Yeah, for Jon Brazer Enterprises has included an EXTREMELY tablet-friendly version optimized for 10-inch-tablets in the deal, the second pdf clocking in at 15 pages, with as many non-content-pages as the regular pdf. Still, especially for tablet/laptop-users, this is a new level of service and awesomeness and is a definite plus, as are the provided herolab-files and the copious hyperlinks to d20pfsrd.
The content in this pdf is well-balanced indeed, with two spells in particular being brave and rather innovative in what they do, with the rest of the new content seamlessly fitting in the fire-theme. Fire-theme? Yeah. While I get the summer/agility/fire vs. winter/static/cold dichotomy and while some of the spells actually make this connections, not all of them do and a slightly tighter focus on this new style would have made this pdf imho feel more distinct. Also, the creepy aspects of summer (sweltering heat, insect-plagues, virulent growth) have been mostly ignored, which is a loss to the theme - think about the Dresden Files: Summer can be scary. Taking e.g. the eagle-spell out (Yeah, I get the Hobbit nod - I just don't think it fits thematically) would have made room for that. Also, the mechanical owl feels a bit like an odd duck, but that may be me.
More pressing is another thing I feel the need to mention: While the content in this book is great and I don't consider any component to be unbalanced, it is also rather short. As a reviewer, I have to take the superb user-friendliness regarding tablets, hyperlinks, herolab into account as a positive aspect that will offset this relative brevity, but privately, I don't benefit from any of them. Since I figure that more people will belong to both sides, I'll settle for two verdicts: If you want to use these features, then this is a 4-star-pdf for you. If you are in for the content only, then due to the brevity, I'd rate this down to 3.5 stars, rounded down to 3. Since the average of both verdicts is 3.75, I'll settle for an overall rating of 4 stars in the end.
Endzeitgeist out.
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An Endzeitgeist.com review
This pdf is 13 pages long, 1 page front cover, 1 page advertisement, 2 pages editorial, 1 page ToC/introduction, 1 page SRD and 1 page back cover, leaving us with 6 pages of content, so let's take a look!
Following the tradition of the Dungeon Dressing-line, we kick this pdf off with information on bridges and their construction, thankfully including information on drawbridges, rope bridges (including stats to break them) etc. - of course also including DCs to traverse narrow bridges. The pdf provides 43 characteristics and interesting they are indeed - take bridges crafted from web-spell-like magic or gentle reposed huge creatures that serve as macabre bridges and we're in for a great variety.
A massive table of 100 entries is also provided, helping you modify the respective bridges - advanced states of bridge repair, slippery surfaces, statues set on bridge parapets, molds etc. add a nice level of detail and versatility to your bridges and should make sure that your bridges feel unique and relevant for the respective encounters.
Also following the tradition, the PCs may also include up to 5 different new traps/tricks for the bridges - collapsing and crumbling bridges being among the more conventional and general traps, but also spicing these useful ones up with a trap that smashes PCs off bridges, hurricane-style wings showing up and a dread bone bridge that actively tries to kill your PCs. Better yet - most of these traps come with one or more variants to further modify them - two thumbs up.
Conclusion:
Editing and formatting are top-notch, I didn't notice any significant glitches. Layout adheres to RSP's elegant 2-column standard and the pdf comes fully bookmarked and in two versions - one optimized for screen-use and one optimized to be printed out. The pdfs both come fully bookmarked.
The Dungeon Dressing-line is almost always a joy to read - and author Ben Kent delivers another glorious installment that should make sure that your bridges are the stuff your players will keep talking about. Iconic, full of great pieces of information, this is yet another excellent, useful addition to the line, making this a prime candidate for my final verdict: 5 stars + endzeitgeist seal of approval.
Endzeitgeist out.
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An Endzeitgeist.com review
This pdf is 10 pages long, 1 page editorial, ~4/5 of a page SRD, leaving us with 8 1/5 pages of content, so let us take a look at the new options for humans!
This pdf kicks off with two new variants of the basic human racial traits, with the first one being Adopted Humans, who get +2 to an attribute their adopted parent race doesn't get the bonus to, count as both humans and their adopted race, get weapon familiarity with weapons of the adopting race, a bonus feat and an extra skill pint per level. Solid and useful if you want to go beyond background traits to customize an adopted human, but nothing too special. More distinct would be the Wild Child, who gets +2 to a physical attribute score, +2 to Wis and -2 to Int, count as humans, gte +2 to AC in their home terrain, climb or swim speed 30 ft., low light vision, scent and need to learn speaking languages. Both come with starting age, height and weight tables. If you can't see the problem by no - the Wild Child is a good idea, but utterly, completely op. A non-standard movement speed, on par with regular movement, scent and low light vision for the ridiculous payoff of needing to spend some skill points in languages? Come on! Designer Ryan Costello Jr. can and has done better than this not even remotely balanced design-failure.
Next up are 13 new feats for humans - and they are unfortunately of a varying degree of quality. Take "afficionado": Get +1 to all knowledge skills that are class skills for you. Would ANYONE spend a feat for this exceedingly LAME benefits? "Always Prepared" also falls into this category - as a reaction to sundering/disarming, you may make a 5-foot step, draw a weapon and make an AoO. While the AoO looks nice in theory, this feat has two feats prerequisites and its use is predicated on you having your weapon sundered or disarmed, something that usually doesn't happen all that often. Rather specific in its benefits for the investment of a feat. If the wild child is not yet broken enough for you, you may get a bite attack at 1d6+1/2 str. "Hide in crowds" and "crowd assassin" are two interesting ideas - they allow you to hide in plain sight when there are more humans than your HD around and even make sniping attacks from crowds and vanish back into them - these are actually good concepts with a worthwhile execution.
Determined Student increases the maximum ranks in class skills to your level +1, which is ok, I guess. "Flexible Training" is something usually houseruled in most campaigns I know, as it allows you to retrain feats that are not required as prerequisites, one per even level. Not really sold on this - while design-wise solid, I maintain that houseruling this depending on your player's foresight/experience might be the more prudent thing to do. There also is a feat that cuts your required sleep down to 4 hours - a feat I guess I have irl and generally a nice idea. Adopted humans may take a feat to better pass for their adopted parent race. "Passing Interest" is also interesting - it nets you 2 ranks of skills you can reassign via 1 hour of study on a daily basis. Great idea, though I wished it would scale with levels - as written, it's incredibly useful at low levels and later loses almost all relevance. Another feat nets you the benefits of versatile weapon training as a swift action - the basic feat allowing you to use a move action to get +1 to atk, +2 to damage or +1 shield bonus AC for one turn. Solid, since it trades action economy for increased flexibility. Finally, there's a feat that nets you +2 to diplomacy and allows you to increase the initial attitude by up to 3 steps.
After that, we are introduced to new flaws (introduced in the rather neat Player's Options: Flaws - which I encourage you to check out!) and the pdf features all necessary pieces of information to introduce flaws into your campaign - a total of 8 new flaws are presented and they are universally neat and offer some nice options. Two thumbs up for this part of the pdf!
The final section of the pdf provides the new simple weapons branding iron & pitchfork, stats for appel pie, lift shoes and a make-up kit - again, a nice section.
Conclusion:
Editing and formatting are very good, I didn't notice any significant glitches. Layout adheres to 4WFG's printer-friendly b/w 2-column-standard and the pdf comes fully bookmarked. The pdf has no artworks but doesn't need any at this length and the front cover is a separate jpg.-file.
Humans are hard to write for, as they are the default race and usually what one sees as the norm against which we judge the other fantasy races - even more so in the context of a rules-supplement such as this that has the additional handicap of not being able to make rules based on campaign-specific cultural peculiarities. That being said, the pdf has me rather neat ideas in its pages, though it is far from perfect - the wild child is every definition of the word "broken" and the vast majority of feats is very specific or simply underwhelming. The crowd-related feats are interesting, yes, and I like the design rationale for the Versatile Training Feats, but most of the other feats did not seem like valid choices to me. The flaws and equipment, then again, are cool and well-written and provide some nice options for the race of humans. Whether that's enough to carry the product, though, largely depends on whether you like the concept of flaws or not. If you do, then this pdf has something to offer you and might offer some nice options. If you don't, then this loses quite some of its appeal.
However, this is no pdf that can blindly be introduced to your table and also features some components that are simply not balanced with existing options. Since the price is low and this pdf still has something to offer, I'll settle for a final verdict of 2.5 stars, rounded up to 3 for the purpose of this platform.
Endzeitgeist out.
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An Endzeitgeist.com review
This first installment of Abandoned Art's new product line is 4 pages long, 1 page front cover, 1 page SRD, two pages of content, so let's take a look!
Each of the issues is focused on a different race and this one provides us with 3 traits - +1 to saves vs. traps and environmental hazards, 1 skill point and one trait that grants +1 to deceive or request favors, the bonus doubled to +2 when dealing with humanoids. Humans may now also opt to replace their skilled racial trait with +2 to cha-based skills when interacting with indifferent, friendly or helpful creatures or alternatively, treat profession as a class skill with a bonus of +4 to skill checks. The latter seems slightly too high for my conservative tastes, but seeing how Craft is generally more useful than profession, I'm still fine with it.
Beyond these, we also get 5 new feats exclusively available to humans:
-Diligent professional: Roll twice when using craft or profession to earn money and take 10 to answer basic questions related to your chosen field of expertise.
-Human Spirit: Based on Defiant Luck and Surge of Success, this lets you recover all daily uses of defiant luck (and inexplicable luck, if you also have it) when rolling a natural 20 on a roll modified by Surge of Success. Since surge of success is already based on good luck, this feat offers powerful benefits - but at a very specific circumstance - 2 crits or 2 natural 20s in one round. A feat for gamblers, I guess, but none I particularly care about.
-Mortal Pride: You don't take a penalty to atk, saving throws and skill or ability-checks for being shaken, but without becoming immune to it.
-Skillful Study: +2 skill points. Boring.
-Who, me?- +4 on saves versus alignment-depending effects and spells. Slightly too powerful for my tastes.
The second page of the pdf features the Siegemaster-archetype for the fighter-class and I LOVE it - the archetype replaces weapon and armor training and bravery with a slew of abilities that makes sure he is a master of siege weapons and that his crew is more efficient. Leadership via Int instead of Cha also makes this more interesting - Great to see the imho much neglected siege weapons/warfare components feature more prominently, especially with the announced mass combat rules by Paizo making the option to run war-campaigns a much more distinct possibility.
Conclusion:
Editing and formatting are top-notch, I didn't notice any significant glitches. Layout adheres to a 2-column, no-frills standard and the pdf has no bookmarks, but needs none at this length.
Honestly, the traits and feats of this installment left me personally rather cold, being a tad bit too specific or not falling 100% within my comfort-zone regarding their benefits - but the Siegemaster is a great idea and something that simply hasn't been done by anyone so far. (Though I'd allow the archetype for dwarves as well...) All in all - this was a mixed bag for me, though one that, at its fair price point, is a solid addition to one's array. Hence I'll settle for a final verdict of 3.5 stars, rounded down for the purpose of this platform UNLESS you plan a war-style campaign - then the siegemaster would make me round up for you.
Endzeitgeist out.
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An Endzeitgeist.com review
This supplement is 50 pages long, 1 page front cover, 1 page editorial, 1 page ToC, 1 page intro/patrons, 1/2 a page SRD and 1 page back cover, leaving us with 44 1/2 pages of content, so let's take a look!
Humans have a desire for legends - they speak on some primal level to our own failings, to our dreams, hopes and aspirations and incite us to be the best we can. They daunt us with impossible tasks, offer symbolic and iconic obstacles, warn us away from the vortex of sins and destructive behaviors and touch us by speaking to the archetypical topics of our existence. In roleplaying games, however, this all too often translates into "Let's stat legendary creature/character XYZ so PCs can kill him/her/it." Not so in this book.
What we get here are legends and as such, they are not necessarily intended to be fought, nor do they have to be beings. Instead, they represent concepts, truisms, truths that resonate within the world of Midgard, supplemented by crunchy pieces of content where appropriate. Take the first legend, the one of Abderus, first wizard of the infamous House Stross, providing three of the spells that made him be known as the devil's commander as well as the lance of Khors, all packed with ideas to spark investigations into the history of the man and the places he left behind. Melathea Stross, the black sorceress, taught by both Baba Yaga and the Moonlit Court, while lost between worlds, remains an echoing force as well, her incantations (2, one to open gates and one to summon fragments of great old ones) and the Fey Waystones being testament to her arcane prowess.
Other legends are centered as much around personalities as around items of legend, like the legendary Khazzaki Khan Achaz, wearer of the horned crown. Or take the Azure kings - spawned in the coldest of climes, these blue-skinned barbarians have been changed by proximity to a near-deity-level haunt and now their progeny may, via 3 traits and 2 feats, exhibit the vast prowess of these beings, wielding oversized weaponry and fighting with a larger reach - especially awesome if the person in question can come into possession of the evil Menneskelig-død, a huge legendary axe carved from the ice of the haunted Riphean glacier...
If you're more inclined to subtle dealing, be wary of the Blackened Man - offering a life for a soul, pain for pain or mercy for madness, the mysterious figure offers your heart's desire, but forever marks you with the sign of the black sun, condemning the bartering individual, but also providing vengeance perhaps otherwise unrealizable.
When this book was announced, I sincerely hoped that we wouldn't get stats for Baba Yaga - and thankfully, we don't - instead we get the stats for Blood Mother Margase, the CR 26 blood druidess that vies for nothing less than godhood - the insane arcanists that wrought the cataclysm in the West have after all shown that the mortals need her guidance. Speaking of guidance, though of a more benevolent and less extreme manner - Calm-Tongue, a true scholar and gentleman, single-handedly not only spread language and enlightenment and a philosophy of non-violence, he also more or less single-handedly raised the gnoll race from savagery into a status where they may not be liked, but at least often are accepted, raising his kin to a more civilized form. Rules-wise, his teachings reflect an alternative, focused barbarian that replaces rage with a dex and wis-enhancing state of tranquility. Interesting!
In the 7 Cities, there is a bloodline, the bloodline of Jannik and his daughters still can call upon his spirit to help them when near Sperenza, gaining rather significant boosts in power by his vow to forever protect those of his blood. Enkada, whose name shall not be uttered , still guards his name, his shadow being drawn by investigation, covering the curious in poisonous strands and haunting them via his rather deadly shadow - coolest, though in his entry would be the incantation that draws attention if the name of the caster is uttered...
A legendary horse, the questing beast, the lord of doors who guards passages anywhere, the first storm that contains the last remnants of the first cultures of Midgard, the kobold that ruled empires, the fully statted founder of the Mharoti Empire, the lucky man who brings misfortune to all around him, the legendary songraven and his bardic disciples, Saint Vadim to a lich betrayed by her love and so much more, the legends herein cover a broad spectrum of topics. I'll stop spoilering now - if you want to know more about them, you'll have to get this book.
Conclusion:
Editing and formatting are top-notch - I didn't notice any significant glitches. Layout adheres to a beautiful full-color two-column standard and the original b/w-artworks, one for every legend, are a joy to behold. The pdf comes fully bookmarked for your convenience.
These are legends and they resonate. They strike the right chords, the right topics, adding depth, primal concepts and wonder to a world already rich in all of these attributes, without being necessarily restricted to Midgard, though application to another setting admittedly would take some work. This book does not fall into the trap of over-crunching the topic at hand - legends don't need hard rules (though the ones provided herein help to mechanically represent their wonder), what they need is an essence and the writing universally captures this. While the rules are solid, it is the writing and the writing only that decides over weal or woe regarding this product and it succeeds with accolades: Providing hooks and ideas galore, enough to last for years, these legends are Kobold Press/open Design at their very best: Iconic, ancient, suffused with wonder and magic and helping so much more in bringing the sense of wonder to one's gaming round than the oomphteenth selection of feats, traits and spells. Don't get wrong, I have nothing against them and e.g. the traits and feats for the Azure Kings, the incantations and spells etc. all are welcome, but ultimately they should supplement the material, not be its essence.
We need more books like this, books with a heart that put the wonder, the amazement, the tragedy and triumphs in the center and provide the readers not only with great rules, but with ideas and concepts that resonate beyond the gaming table. Even if you don't use Midgard, I wager that scavenging the legends should enrich your game vastly, as it is my firm opinion that no one can read this book without drawing some kind of inspiration from it. A stellar offering and one of a kind of which we require more - I hope to one day see a sequel and other campaign setting should take heed here: this is how you add life and virility to your reader's imagination regarding your setting. My final verdict will unsurprisingly clock in at 5 stars + seal of approval.
Endzeitgeist out.
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This pdf is 7 pages long, 1 page front cover, 1 page editorial, 1 page SRD and 1 page advertisement, leaving us with 3 pages of content, so let's take a look!
Kicking off with a nice, short paragraph of introductory fluff in the high quality we've come to expect from Rite Publishing, we are introduced to the oracle-themed magical items - kicking off with otherworldly disfavor, an armor/shield quality that allows the wearer to 1/day use a spells/he has access to that has the curse-descriptor to inflict it as a reaction to being successfully damaged in melee - one a successful save the ability use is conserved and since the quality is powered by the oracle's spell allotment, the quality actually scales with the curse-spells the oracle acquires. Nice scaling-method!
The Mystical Favor weapon special quality allows the oracle to exchange the enchanted weapon 1/day for a spiritual weapon, whereas the Amulet of Enigmatic Alacrity comes in 3 versions and allows the oracle to activate revelations with activation times of less than a round as a a swift action a limited amount of times per day - nice, also to see the different power levels.
The Gloves of the Sin-Eater allow oracles to expel possessing spirits and break curses via cha/oracle-level checks and aasimar oracles of the purifier archetype benefit even more from their use - something I really love Rite Publishing doing here - support for archetypes. I often wonder why there's not more archetype support out (instead of creating x ones that do similar things...) there and this is a step in the right direction. Good to see the notion used via feats etc. expanded further.
Harbinger's Hood increases the effective level of an oracle's curse and the mantle of mysterious metamagic reduced the metamagic-increase of mystery-spells and the greater variant even grants a metamagic feat that can exclusively be applied to bonus mystery spells. And there's a third, even better mantle here as well...
Rings of Revelation's Eyes also come in 3 versions and oh boy, touch spells get nasty, as these rings expand their range to a limited, yet significant range and allow oracles to use their spellcasting ability modifier as an insight bonus to touch attacks - this would be completely and utterly op, were it not balanced via X/day formulas that render it a powerful, yet cool choice to have. Sandals of the Oracle allow for the retrospective addition of a dodge-bonus to their AC and for additional 5-foot-steps (again, in 3 versions of different strengths).
The Seer's Lenses enhances or gives access to the seer archetypes gift of prophecy revelation or enhances it - cool item. Finally, we have the Vestment of the Divine Prophet, in 3 iterations, which grants resistance against ALL energy types - but no AC/DR. Interesting concept and surely a nice robe.
Conclusion:
Editing and formatting are top-notch, I didn't notice any glitches. Layout adheres to RiP's 2-column full color standard and the pdf comes fully bookmarked - cool to see, as it makes navigation, even in such a short pdf, easier.
What can I say, I liked all of the items in this pdf, none struck me as unbalancing or too weak - they all have something going for them and the support for the archetypes and fact that you actually get, with the variants, much more than the advertised 10 items means that this is a great buy for a low and fair price-point. While not reinventing the wheel, it doesn't have to and can be, in the end, considered a more than solid, nice pdf that deserves a final verdict of 5 stars and my wholehearted recommendation.
Endzeitgeist out.
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