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This campaign setting is 258 pages long, 1 page front cover, 2 pages editorial, 1 page ToC, 1 page advertisement, 2 pages of SRD, 1 page back cover, leaving us with 250 pages of content, so let's take a look!
Kicking off with a general introduction, we are introduced to the central topics of Vathak - the land of the native Bhriota-humans has been conquered by the monotheist forces of the Vindari, who have established a rather xenophobic colonialism that has been met with a response truly dreadful - from the bowels of the earth of Vathak, the Old Ones are awakening, their spawn having already eliminated slowly but surely most subterranean cultures and now they are pouring into the land, serving as a twisted infection of reality itself.
As with most campaign settings, we kick off this pdf by introducing the stats for the respective races:
Bhriota get + 2 Str and Con, -2 to Cha, +2 to intimidate, a bonus feat at 1st level, familiarity with axes and Bhriota-weapons, providing a set of racial traits for human ethnicities, something I usually tend to do in my home-game as well to make non-human races stand out more as weird and different beings, both in mindset and culture. If you are a fan of Ravenloft, you will be familiar with Calibans, the deformed beings that have been exposed to twisted magics in the mother's womb, deformed in various ways. Vathak has an analogue race in the cambions, who get +2 St and Wis, -2 Cha, +2 to intimidate, are slow, get darkvision, count as monstrous humanoids, stealth is always a class skill with a +2 bonus for them and they treat their cha as 2 points higher with regards to their sorceror abilities and spell, if applicable.
Dhampirs, the half-blood scions of the almost exterminated vampire lords of Vathak, get +2 to Dex and Cha, -2 to Con, +2 to Bluff and Perception, +2 to saves vs. diseases and mid-affecting effects, light sensitivity, are treated like undead when it comes to positive/negative energy, can detect undead 3/day (though the spell is not in italics) and take no penalties from energy drain, but can still be killed by it. The Romni take a cue from Ravenloft's Vistani in that the race gets skill-bonuses depending on the clan they belong to. They don't gain an additional skill point at first level or whenever they gain a level, but do receive one bonus feat at 1st level. They get +2 to Dex and Cha, but -2 to Int and are set apart by an interesting fluff that has them a race of beings with heterochromia - they all have one golden eye, which, aesthetically-speaking, I consider rather cool.
The quiet and sneaky svirfneblin are the survivors of the onslaught of the Old Ones' spawn and get +2 to Dex and Wis, -2 to Str, -4 to Cha, are small, get +2 to AC, darkvision 120 ft. AND low-light vision, +2 to stealth while underground, +2 to Craft (Alchemy) and Perception, stonecunning, SR of 11+class level, +1 to the DC of illusion spells they cast and are under constant nondetection and may 1/day cast blindness/deafness, blur, disguise self at their class level. If this list doesn't make it abundantly clear: These are essentially the sloppily-converted ECL+3 or 4, I can't remember, race from the 3.5 days of old - at this massive array of powers, the race can in NO WAY even be considered rudimentarily balanced and is completely and utterly BROKEN. My advice: Ignore them and substitute regular gnomes, who generally disguise themselves as street-urchins in Vathak. And yes. I'm aware that the ARG-svirfneblin share these traits. Which is my point here, btw.: Paizo sometimes gets it wrong - hardcore. And the ARG-svirfneblin are just such an example. I'd really be interested in knowing what the designers smoked to consider the race balanced in contrast to even the other ARG-classes... But back to Vathak.
The final race fully described would be the Vindari, essentially the colonialist dominant force in the lands of Vathak. It should be noted that all of these races come with extensive favored class options and age, height and weight tables and that other races like the rare and all but extinct dwarves and elves also are covered.
After that, we're off to the new classes included for the setting - 5 to be precise. For brevity's sake I'm not going into my usual details regarding the respective classes and only provide you with a short overview each. All right? Let's go! The Apostle is a servant of Vathak's One True God and as such must be Lawful good (though the domain write-up features a glitch that mentions lawful neutral... which would be the more interesting option, thinking about medieval Catholicism...). They only get a few skill points and access to spells of up to 6th level, but they gain access to a linear progression of hymns (which can be used a limited amount of times per day) and they also get access to an array of prayers that are organized in four categories (lesser, moderate, greater, true) that must be prepared like spells but work as spell-like abilities and are interesting, though for my tastes a bit too close to spells in format and presentation - opting for a more courageous alternative and all-out banning the cleric class would have perhaps been the more prudent thing to do.
Blade Slingers are imho a base-class no one needs - an agile throwing weapon specialist. Boring and better off as an archetype. The Eldritch Conjuror is Vathak's take on cultists, i.e. casters that dabble in the madness of the Old Ones and are blessed with madness and changes to their anatomy. He spontaneously casts from the summoner-list and gains bonus abilities depending on the Great old One-Idol s/he chooses. Okay class, but honestly not sure how appropriate this is - would have been better off as a summoner-archetype instead of a full-fledged alternate class. Rifleers are rifle specialists that gain bonus damage versus flat-footed and helpless opponents as well as access to a wide variety of trick shots. If you're thinking they'd use gunslinger mechanics, you'd be wrong - and honestly, their mechanics are not better, so a wasted chance and an unnecessary incompatibility there. The final new class is the Sword Dancer, a class that uses sword dance in a mechanic similar to a barbarian's rage, including an array of abilities that work like a momentum/movement-themed version of rage powers.
All the base-classes sans ninjas and samurai and the new classes also get new class options/archetypes in the chapter, ranging from patrons and hexes to aberration-hunting paladins etc. Beyond these class options, which mostly are solid, though nothing that blew me away, we also get a wide variety of feats that allow cambions to succeed at amazing feats of strength, spew acidic bile or use your cloak-fighting skills to get a 20% miss chance versus foes etc. Overall, the feats are solid, though none particularly stood out as brilliant to me. Perhaps I've simply seen too many feats by now.
The equipment-section provides an array of firearms as well as local weapons, most of which actually come with an artistic representation and feature some weird weapons like spigots that drain your blood - though probably not, as suggested, via a vacuum. Various interesting mundane tools are covered as well, as are numerous cool drugs that provide tangible bonuses for the risk of addiction. Two vehicles are part of the chapter as well as an array of sinister magical items. The obligatory spell section provides along-side thankfully comprehensive spell-lists that cover all casting classes a variety of magic that seeks to evoke themes of horror and dread. Unfortunately, many of the spells are simply not that iconic, falling into the been-there, done-that-category and if they manage to evoke cool imagery, are sometimes undermined by the writing: A spell that infects a target with hatching barbed worms s/he has to vomit up has a rather awesome imagery, but sentences like "The stomach of a touched victim begins to rapidly swell, and within their lower intestines, there begins to form thousands of worms.[sic!]" (SoV, pg 129), rip me right out of the setting.
by now, we have taken a look at 126 pages of crunch and delve into the setting itself. Vathak is essentially a small continent that could be plugged into other campaign worlds and the respective write-ups of the lands, complete with heraldry, city-statblocks, haunts and hooks galore are actually a joy to read and both interesting and inspiring. So much so, that I consider them to somewhat offset the relatively weak crunch so far. Indeed, for idea-mining purposes, this chapter is a joy to behold and paints an interesting panoply of lands with rather excessive issues and in dire need of any heroes they can get. Especially jarring then the fact that the writing, while generally rather good, sports faulty prepositions and conjunctions here and there as well as several other, minor glitches that detract from the otherwise interesting setting.
The section on religions is rather short - as it should be, for there is but One True God. Taking a cue from Christianity and the behavior of monotheist religions throughout time, Fat Goblin Games is doing the courageous thing and resist including a whole pantheon of gods, instead opting for this One as a counter-point to the Old Ones also featured in this chapter. While my heart cringes when I see alignments attached to these elder beings, overall I applaud Fat Goblin Games opting to go a route that is less thread. Kudos! Secret societies and factions are also introduced here before we delve into the Gamemastering chapter.
This was what I was looking forward to the most, to be honest: Beginning with an introduction that offers tips for inexperienced horror-DMs, we move on to an actually useful adventure-generator that delivers the idea-starved DM a base foundation to craft an adventure from. Okay, I guess, if you need one. The Fear and Sanity-system included in the book works thusly: Each character has character level+wis-score sanity points they can lose by encountering terrible events or delving into forbidden knowledge, resulting in insanities from the GM-guide. No new ones in here, though we at least get a sample list of appropriate san-losses for events and creatures and for studying tomes of forbidden knowledge. As a personal nitpick of mine: Sanity can be regained via high-level magic and at a RAPID rate, 1 point per level, sans magic, making insanities at best a laughable inconvenience. When compared to how hard it was in Ravenloft (or CoC/ToC) to get rid of insanity, that's almost insulting. On the cooler side, we get an array of weather hazards as well as a nice selection of diseases, some of which sport multiple phases as well as an ok trust-system.
We also get advice on creating settlements as well as 50 different hooks before delving into this book's bestiary-section, where a wide variety of creepy creatures await, some of which you might know from Creature Monthly #1 - unfortunately, a glitch in one of the creatures taken over has not been addressed, reeking of cut-copy-paste. On the plus-side, the artworks ranks among the finest most disturbing PFRPG-artworks I've ever seen and being b/w actually works in their favor. Gloriously twisted. The setting also provides a list of setting-appropriate critters by bestiary (nice) as well as multiple encounter tables, but no index, which is a mayor downer for a campaign setting of this size.
Conclusion:
Editing and formatting are of a varying quality - ranging from very good to problematic, the excellent writing is oftentimes interrupted by aforementioned wording issues that rip one slightly out of what could have easily been a thoroughly joyous read. Formatting issue like spells that are not in italics and lines that aren't bold but should be can also been found throughout this book. Layout on the other hand is a feast for sore eyes. I am not engaging in hyperbole when I say that this is the most beautiful b/w-layout I have seen since reading the Monsternomicon by Privateer Press. It's just fun to look at this book and thankfully, the team of Fat Goblin Games has opted for a two-column standard over the more cluttered 3-column one that some of their pdfs sport. The same holds true for the artwork - we all know by now that Rick Hershey is an immensely talented artist, but seeing his b/w-drawings makes me honestly wish he'd go more often for this route over color - the artworks herein rank, hands down, among the most gorgeous I've ever seen and the cartography is top-notch as well.
On a downside, while this pdf is bookmarked, it doesn't sport nested bookmarks, which in combination with the lack of hyperlinks or index, makes navigating this book harder than it ought to be.
Damn. this is yet another book where I curse being a reviewer - for I want to like this setting and its great ideas. But really, I can't. Because it sports some compromises that hurt it. For a setting all devoted to Lovecraft's mythos, this campaign setting sports a remarkable lack of understanding where the horror comes from. Let me elaborate: Lovecraft's appeal lies in the indifference and futility of the struggle versus the cosmic forces that at best are indifferent to our existence. Understanding actually unhinges. Adding wisdom as a BONUS to sanity points runs directly contraire to the central tenet of Lovecraftian horror, namely that ignorance is bliss and that the reality behind our perceptions is a horrific place. Both in sanity rules and in the tweaking of PFRPG-rulesets, Shadows over Vathak fails to capture this feeling. The mythos is not to be fought, it is to be survived - at best and only temporarily. In a setting where the creatures are actually well-known, they lose a huge chunk of what makes them scary. Furthermore, we have a problem of systems: While I get that Golarion wilders in the mythos as a pulpy sojourn to have players battle icky tentacle-things once in a while, this is not Golarion. To truly live up to the idea of Lovecraft as the setting purports to, it would have required some massive tweaking of the base mechanics.
Having some experience with a d20-based mythos-game (no, not the terrible d20 CoC...), I would have expected the following: Alternate Hp/health-rules. Barbarians with 200 Hp+ will not be frightened by rats with human heads. Player characters in PFRPG are much too powerful to remain afraid at higher levels in a horror-sense (as opposed to fear of powerful foes). If, however, your level 5 character has 23 health, the whole thing changes - after all, 3 attacks could be the end. Second, the issue of magic. In a world where the Old Ones rise, we'd need some magic that is tainted - Ravenloft and Darkness & Dread followed this concept and I've run numerous campaigns where the corrupting nature of magic, first a ground for complaints by my players, has greatly enhanced the roleplaying potential. It also explains why there's no local wizard academy to blast those aberrant horrors to kingdom-come with a barrage of fireballs. Speaking of wizards: Make arcane magic inherently alien and potentially maddening. I did in my home-game and it worked well - explaining also why not every damn town has its local mage and being much more in line with the Mythos-notion of spells eroding sanity and being WRONG.
Third, the Fear- and Sanity-system herein is almost an afterthought and insulting in its lack of complexity, especially when there are so many interesting and great systems out there that beg to be converted to PFRPG. Fourth: I love the inclusion of monotheism but would have considered a more radical solution a better way: No clerics, no druids, no divine casting. Oracles only (for the One True God and the Old Ones) - and that class should be stripped of just about all spellcasting, with healing being reserved to divine prayers that are not always granted. Using magic to offset disease, poison, parasites, madness etc. ruins many types of horror and in a setting devoted to the spirit of utter futility of the struggle versus the alien creatures - divine magic feels much too common, too alleviating. If it was as rare as accounts of medieval wonders, then this would work.
Fifth: Where are the Incantations? Much more in line with how spells work in the mythos, incantations and rituals, as well as research rules are yet more crucial things missing from the pages of this book.
All of these variant rules suggestions, all a staple of horror gaming, would have greatly complemented this book, offering true mythos-style horror-fantasy while at the same time allowing for more pulpy/mainstream-usages of the setting. Instead, we essentially get a standard fantasy setting - a dark one, yes, but one I maintain that is less horror-themed than Ravenloft because it fails to grasp what makes horror work - either the personal or them impersonal level. There is so much space devoted to classes, spells and feats, of which about 90% is in my opinion superfluous and not particularly interesting or fails to utilize e.g. gunslinger rules. If all of this space had instead been devoted to provide more fluff, more rules to set this setting apart and make it work as HORROR, then this could have been the best setting ever for me: The potential and ideas are there, but as written, the rules almost guarantee that a game set in Vathak will sooner or later devolve into a PFRPG-slugfest instead of a desperate struggle for crucial information to stop a dread ritual.
Mind you, in spite of great research rules (SGG's Anachronistic Adventurers: The Investigator) and Ritual-rules (Zombie Sky Press' Incantations) already existing for PFRPG. Hell, even a more appropriate holy character exists with Necromancers of the Northwest's Priest from the "Book of Faith". So much potential, so much wasted potential.
If you're looking for Lovecraftian horror, then this setting does simply not deliver. If you're looking for a dark fantasy setting with aberrant primary foes and can see beyond all the issues and don't expect all the rules that this setting would have required to make its premise work or just an idea-mine, the this still might be worth checking out. When all is said and done, though, this campaign setting imho still fails to do what it sets out to do. My final verdict will thus be 2.5 stars, rounded down to 2 for the purpose of this platform.
Endzeitgeist out.
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The latest issue of Pathways is 37 pages long, 1 page front cover, 1 page ToC, 1 page SRD, 10 pages of advertisement, leaving us with 24 pages of content, so let's check these out!
David Paul has an interesting editorial this week about violence in real life and games, about keeping kids safe and about the potential for learning life lessons.
This issue's template provides us with the Divine Champion Creature template (CR +2) that allows a creature to essentially go super-saiyan and turn into an avatar-form and we get a CR 5 sample ettercap using it. Neat!
Will Myers has a new magical beast for us, which comes with a nice artwork - the CR 15 Mutah that can breathe different colors of deadly mists with different effects and may even change skin colors to duplicate spells.
Creighton Broadhurst of Raging Swan Press has a sample encounter for us - the Grave of the Mad, in which the players may encounter some poltergeists and the sample artwork provided is also neat - the best thing, though, is the rock-sliding hazard that accompanies this pdf.
Mike Welham provides us with new foes that ufortunately feature an editing glitch - the Screaming (Cr 6), which is called Screaming C in the creature's text, but just "Screaming" in the header. Per se, the screaming undead with its sound-based attacks is neat, though. The CR 9 Dischord may warp words and are spawned from botched countersongs and the like. Cool!
Daron Woodson, head of Abandoned Arts, answers 20 questions in this issue's interview regarding his neat Bullet Point-length pdfs.
The pdf concludes with reviews of some of the best PFRPG-pdfs out there by yours truly and Joshua "KTFish7" Gullion, fellow reviewer and all-out great human being, who has suffered a stroke. If you find it in you, do me a favor and send some positive thoughts in Joshua's direction. Thanks.
Conclusion:
Editing and formatting are not as good as in other Pathways-issues, though still good. Layout adheres to RiP's -column standard and the pdf is fully bookmarked, which is neat.
This issue of Pathways is, like all of them FREE and as a free file, it is definitely worth being downloaded and read by you. However, this time around also lacked this one component I'd consider truly brilliant, truly awesome and thus, due to this and the minor glitches, I'll settle for a final verdict of 4 stars.
Endzeitgeist out.
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This pdf clocks in at 18 pages, 2/3 of a page front cover, 1 page SRD, leaving 16 1/3 pages of content, so let's take a look, shall we?
This is the book that almost broke SGG's 1-product a week-stride and it has been in development for a LONG time - justifiably so, as e.g. I recall Mongoose Publishing's rather ill-fated take on Chaos Magic back in the 3.0-days. That being said, I loved the chaos mage in 2nd edition and one of the most memorable characters of my campaigns during that era was one, so I was rather pleasantly surprised to see the crunch-specialists of SGG tackle this particular field. After a short introduction on the basics of chaos magic, we are introduced to a central concept to this particular brand of magic, so-called chaos surges.
Chaos Surges are the result of a chaos mage failing a concentration check or new spells, closely emulating other spells and are determined by the type of targeting of the attempted spell and the surge effect. A d20-table is rolled to determine the modified target and the surge effect does not consume material components, foci etc. required, though the spell that prompted it still consumes them, if applicable. A spell created by a chaos surge cannot be dismissed by the caster. Depending on effect, area, target and you-type spells are covered and the chance for the DM to get creative is also part of the basic options for chaos surges.
A new type of spell-descriptor is introduced as well, the bedlam-spell that can be enhanced, but at the chance of potentially resulting in a chaotic surge - great to see that this avoids confusion with the already existing [chaos]-descriptor. The spell-lists by classes are properly organized and provide new material for all classes, though druids admittedly get the short end of the stick and summoners are completely left out. A total of 18 new spells are part of the deal, allowing chaos mages to make blades anarchic (and confusing enemies for short periods of time, if cast with chaos magic). Bewilderment ranks among the more interesting spells as well, rendering you immune to mind-affecting effects, but at the cost of confusing you. This page also features the rare Super Genius Games-glitch - the spell's header is not bold, instead a part of the prior spell's text is and there are a couple of words in italics that shouldn't be. Cursing foes with failing on any natural 1 on a d20 roll is also rather neat. 9 of the spells are devoted to chaos surges for the varying levels.
The Chaos Surge spells are meaty indeed - they offer you the chance to cast a spell you know of the spell-level of the surge or lower if you succeed at a concentration check of 11+ caster level (retaining the risk and properly scaling with your levels) -the surge transforms into the desired spell. You may even, at DC 16+caster level, try to e.g. cast a second level spell via a level 1 chaos surge! The level 9 version even allows for the use of level 7 and below spells you do not know! You can also incite movement, cancel morale bonuses and aiding one another and teamwork (Loss of Order is such a great spell!), conjure up chaotic maelstrom clouds, massively hamper spellcasting, force foes to reroll and take the lower result and duplicate rod of wonder effects.
Beyond spells, we also get two new archetypes that differ from traditional archetypes in that they are not class specific: Bards, Inquisitors, Oracle, Magi, Clerics, Summoners, Witches, Sorcerors and Wizards may e.g. pursue the path of the Chaos Mage. The central mechanic of this archetype is overcasting - they may cast spells at lower spell levels than they'd usually be if they succeed at a concentration check of 10+caster level+ original level of the chaos spell+ difference between original spell level and spell level used to cast x5.Ona failure, the spell can manifest at half power or manifest as a chaos surge. prepared spellcasters may furthermore opt to unprepare chaos magic and replace one chaos spell with another chaos spell, whereas prepared spellcasters can use overcasting only when they have depleted their resources of a given spell level. The second archetype, the spellstorm, represents the unbridled power latent in the character and allows them to enter a casting-enhancing eldritch fury - though at the potential of creating chaos surges while in the mode. A total of 12 fury powers, analogues to rage powers in how they work, are also provided and allows for knowledge of the type of chaos surge effect a cast will entail, improved accuracy etc. The editing here is also not as tight as I've come to expect from SGG, as the respective entries refer often Stormspell, potentially confusing readers. I also noticed a reference to the barbarian base-class, a remnant of cut-copy-pasting.
The pdf closes with a new hazard, the Zone of Arcane Ataxia, a more limited wild magic zone that makes the magical energies harder to control. 10 variants of this zone with respective DCs to control the magic are provided. The pdf also features extensive advice for DMs regarding the introduction of chaos magic and how to balance it.
Conclusion:
Editing and formatting show that this pdf did not have the luxury of a second pass at editing, sporting numerous glitches that are atypical for releases by SGG and could have been easily avoided. While they never reach a point where they make the rules harder to understand, they remained a distraction throughout my lecture of this pdf. The pdf adheres to SGG's 3-column landscape layout and the mostly full color artworks are dazzling in their beauty. The pdf comes fully bookmarked.
I may be the wrong guy to review this pdf, since I admittedly have a positive bias to Chaos Magic - I love the concept, and moreover, I absolutely adore the execution: Chaos Surges rock, make combats more exciting for the characters and if you're like me and once had a character succeed at a series of dice-rolls that had a about a 1: 10000000000000000-chance to work in his favor, then this is the book for you.
If your group still talks about legendary rolls of the bones like that and if you want to add a sense of unpredictability to your magic, then this is a REQUIRED purchase: It adds a sense of wondrous danger to magic that I enjoyed in 2nd edition's chaos magic take, but with MUCH more concise rules. I LOVE this pdf to death. Concept, execution, all awesome - though perhaps not for every group. If your players are afraid of characters dying due to chaos surges, of potentially friendly fire or if immature and dangerous uses by the chaos mage player would crop up, then this could be problematic - as the pdf acknowledges. I maintain, though, that in the hands of a mature group and moderately skilled DM, this pdf can bring tons of fun and excitement to your game. Were it not for the uncommon amount of minor glitches, this would be a straight 5 star + seal of approval file, but as provided, I can't go there, as much as I'd love to, forcing me to settle instead for a final verdict of 4.5 stars, rounded down to 4, but still with my seal of approval. This is one glorious supplement that manages to tackle a topic that is extremely hard to balance design-wise and succeeds at that nigh impossible task.
Endzeitgeist out.
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This pdf is 12 pages long, 1/2 page front cover/editorial, 1 page SRD, leaving us with 10 1/2 pages of content, so let's check this out!
First of all: What are hauntlings - well, the theories for their origin differ from speculations on ghosts replacing an unborn's soul to residual resurrection-magic-radiation gone awry, but the result is a peculiar breed of beings with a close tie to ghosts. As such, they can be born from any parent-race and the hauntlings can expect to be ostracized by most cultures. On the mechanical side, hauntlings get +2 to an ability-score of their choice, count as humanoids with the half-undead subtype, get darkvision 60 ft., +2 to saves versus mind-affecting effects (also to spells? The pdf does not specify...) and diseases, react to negative energy as if they were undead (i.e. are harmed by positive energy), don't incur penalties from energy drain (but can be killed), get +2 to two Knowledge-skills of their choice and treat them as class-skills and can create a silent image that only exists for a single living being.
The race also comes with 5 alternate racial traits that allow them to conjure up mists 1/day, become incorporeal (though the text contradicts itself - is it 1 minute per day or HD rounds per day?), get +1 to DC of their phantasm-subschool illusion and cast 1/day dancing lights, deathwatch, ghost sounds and prestigidation, 1 /day make one opponent shaken on a failed save or emit a howl 1/day that shakens all non-(Half)-undead .
The hauntlings also get 4 racial traits that represent their close connection to undead - nothing to complain here. Neither is there anything to complain about the favored class options available that span all the different Paizo-classes minus ninja and samurai. A total of 9 feats for the hauntlings are also included in the pdf, offering interesting options: From tapping 1/day into the knowledge of the dead to make an int-based skill-check as if you were trained in it and gain HD-ranks as well as the option to take 10 to making an invisible sensor to spy on others 3/day. However, the feat, on a formal level, does not provide the necessary information whether the sensor is magical, can e detected etc. and also features a minor formatting glitch with the "Special"-line being not bold. Other feats allow you to extend your phantasms to multiple creatures and even include sound, smell and thermal components and even modify memories.
The memory-implanting includes a weird line that has me puzzled, though: "You can only change the details of an event the subject actually experienced, or implant a memory of an event the subject never experienced." Come again? I don't get this restriction, even after reading through multiple times. Does it mean that not both can be done in one application of the ability? Also, regarding thermal components: Can these potentially damage those inflicted by phantasms? I wager no, but again, I'm not sure. On the cool side, you can also use your phantasm to make yourself invisible to a living creature and have your phantasm spread via touch of those inflicted with it. How this viral phantasms interact with mass hallucinations and modify memories: If I modify the memory of a creature and add the viral component, does the modification spread to others?
Aura Sight as a feat hits a pet-peeve of mine, it allowing you determine attitude, creature type, subtype class and level/HD of a creature by studying it for 5 rounds. While there's a save against the ability, I still don't like metagamey information like that and even with the study-caveat, the amount of information gleaned is too much for my tastes. Finally, you can take a feat to gain an animal companion-like bond that looks like a globe of light that get perfect fly-speed 60 ft. and uses TOUCH-ATTACK rays. Two of them. WHAT? Animal companions are already powerful boons, but adding a touch attack to their arsenal is downright broken - don't think so? Build a summoner or hauntling druid and get this as A FEAT and see balance take a nose-dive.
We also get 4 nice mundane items, with ghost salt coating making damaging incorporeal adversaries possible, a cloak that is harder to steal from, bone-enforced leather armor and a book on funeral practices of a particular region. Unfortunately, the ghost salt lacks a DC to create it as an alchemical item.
We also get a total of 7 different magical items that range from gloves that confer the ghost-touch property to an oil that makes regular armor to work against incorporeal attacks, a ghostbuster-style bronze coffin that can suck undead in, an undead-detecting torch, a vial that contains positive energy to damage haunts to 3 types of essentially ouji-boards. What slightly upset me here is that of the magic items are straight reprints from Super Genius Games' "4 Ghostbusting Items" - that wouldn't be that bad, were it not for the fact that they imho are the most iconic ones. Oh well. In a formatting peculiarity, the last two items (which share a page) deviate from the layout of the book, suddenly switching to a 2-column standard.
Two pages are devoted to variant hauntlings that can replace the traditional hauntling abilities/racial traits, allowing you to play descendants of banshees, ghouls, reapers and huldrefolk.
Finally, the pdf offers us a table with unsettling hauntling characteristics, providing 48 (not counting roll twice/thrice) entries that include heterochromia, drawing flies and gnats, strange birthmarks etc. Nice to add further flair to the hauntlings.
Conclusion:
Editing and formatting, as much as I loathe to say it, are subpar - there are numerous instances of text that should be bold, but isn't, spells not italicized and even rules contradicting one another. Since the issues in my opinion impede the usability of the race, this will reflect heavily in the rating.
Layout adheres with one exception to a 3-column portrait-format, which feels slightly crammed - especially since the one page that adheres to a 2-column standard is much easier to read. Why this decision to mix two layouts has been made, I don't know, but I do know that imho, the latter is superior for everything but entries like the final table. Now it is no secret that artist Rick Hershey is a core member of Fat Goblin Games and it shows - especially for such a small pdf, the artworks are staggeringly beautiful and add A LOT to this pdf's appeal in their full-color glory. Especially at this price-point impressive indeed. On the downside, though, the pdf is not bookmarked, which would have enhanced its user-friendliness.
This is one of the pdf where I HATE being reviewer. Why? Because the Hauntlings are a GREAT race. their phantasm-hallucinations that only certain people can see and the idea of expanding upon them is GREAT, glorious even. The race hits a nerve with me and I really, really like the race's concept. That being said, unfortunately, the pdf also suffers from various glitches that make me cringe, prime of which would be the contradictory durations of turning incorporeal in an alternate racial trait. Unfortunately, these glitches that influence directly the usefulness of the whole race, are a theme for this pdf - there are numerous abilities that would require some additional clarification, from the nature of their spying sensors to how multiple of the phantasm-feats interact. Which is a DAMN PITY, for idea-wise, these are GLORIOUS. No, really - things only one person can see? And then suddenly multiple ones? Infectious hallucinations? AND the modification of memories? This is narrative GOLD, especially for horror-themed scenarios or DMs wanting to run an unsettling gas-lighting plot, making PCs doubt PCs, eroding belief into one's sanity. The potential is VAST. Concept-wise, I wouldn't hesitate rating this pdf 5 stars + seal of approval.
BUT: There are so many minor glitches that accumulate to the point where I have to rate it down. And then, there are the major ones - add missing craft DCs for an alchemical item, a completely broken feat (companion with 2 (!!!) ranged touch attacks? WHAT???) and we have the mess. Don't get me wrong - this pdf can easily salvaged by a competent DM and be the 5 star + seal of approval file of its potential. But I can't rate it that high. In fact, for the glitches and issues that hamper actually using the hauntlings, I'd usually bash this pdf down to 1 star. But I can't. Why? For even though this pdf requires work on the DM's side to balance and use, its concepts remain top-notch, awesome and cool, even if you already own the ghostbusting BP.
How to rate this, then? I fought long and hard with myself since I've rarely encountered such a vast, yet easily fixable discrepancy between a product's ideas and their execution. Author Rick Hershey has created a race I actually WANT to play, want to use in my campaign - and will. If you're picky and want a balanced go-play-race, ready to drop in, then steer clear of this pdf, at least until it has been fixed. If you don't mind the glitches and are willing to work to make the wonky bits work, then GET THIS. As a reviewer, though, it would be unfair towards other pdfs I reviewed to look over the obvious problems this pdf has and thus have to settle on a final verdict of 2.5 stars, rounded down to 2 for the purpose of this platform.
I sincerely hope this will get a revision that makes the abilities work sans ambiguity, for it is easily a high-concept, 5-star-potential racial ecology.
Endzeitgeist out.
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All right, you know the drill - 3 pages, 1 page front cover, 1 page editorial/SRD, 1 page content - this time detailing 8 new feats dealing with alchemy, so let's take a look!
-Alchemical Cocktail: Add an ingested alchemical item to a potion and ingest both - to maintain balance, the combined potion has to be ingested in 1 round or lose all potency. Still, a nice idea!
-Cerebral Surge: Reduce Cognatogen-bonuses to gain access to mage hand, detect thoughts and telekinesis, depending on the amount of bonuses you sacrifice. Cool one!
-Devious Trapsmith: Incorporate alchemical items in your regular or ranger traps, making them slightly more deadly. Ok, I guess - but not worth a feat.
-Gruesome Transformation: Sicken intelligent creatures that witness your cognatogen or mutagen transformation. Neat!
-Mad Bomber: This one really cool, as it allows you to maintain up to 3 delayed bombs at once. Nice!
-Mutagenic Alchemy: Mix acid, alchemist's fire, antitoxins, thunderstones or tindertwigs with your mutagen for varying benefits - cool idea, but bad format: that could have been a whole supplement. For a feat, it works, but feels a bit limited.
-Scientific Curiosity: + 1 to Craft (Alchemy, Traps), Disable Device, heal, Profession (Engineer, Herbalist), Knowledge (Engineer, Nature)-checks. Okay, varied skill bonuses, but not too exciting.
-Weird Science: Effects produced by extracts may not be identified with spellcraft. On the one hand very cool, but the lack of other options of identifying means that the extracts could become comparatively powerful. Not comfortable with that one.
Conclusion:
Editing and formatting are very good, I didn't notice any significant glitches. Layout adheres to Abandoned Art's no-frills 2-column standard and the pdf has no bookmarks, but needs none at this length.
This pdf provides some interesting feats with unconventional mechanics - the sacrificing of bonuses for example feeling like a good idea, as does the genius mad bomber feat. That being said, Weird Science screams for abuse and some of the feats herein don't reach the excitement of their fellows. All in all, we thus arrive at a solid addition to the series, providing at a low price an interesting array of alchemy-themed feats and a solid 4 star-verdict, not quite reaching the upper echelons of 5-stars.
Endzeitgeist out.
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This installment of the Treasures of NeoExodus-line is 5 pages long, with 1 page being devoted to editorial/SRD, so let's take a look!
The legend of these two items is intriguing indeed, as they were once wielded by Desert Shade, mythical first Khagan of the Dominion and crafted for him by his bride to be to vanquish a common foe, a wizard of grand notoriety and cunning. Much like the former installment of the series, the writing is actually quite good and adds a nifty legend to the items.
Me using the plural stems from the fact that this installment of the series actually covers two items, first of which would be Wyrmclaw, a +1 keen dispelling burst scimitar that can siphon dispel magic or greater dispel magic from foes hit. A minor gripe here would be that the DC to avoid the siphoning is fixed and does not scale with wielder-levels.
Dragon's Breath is a +3 wyrmsbreath (fire) light wooden shield that, when wielded in conjunction with the scimitar, allows the wielder to burn stored charges in the shield to grant it temporarily the flaming quality as well. Nice duality between the mechanics of both weapons.
Learning from Peace & Tranquility, we actually get 2 pages of item-cards, with covers for either weapons or both of them on one card - very cool!
Conclusion:
Editing and formatting are very good, though the shield's formal powers are not in italics. Layout adheres to LPJr Design's 2-column full-color standard and the artworks for both items are nice indeed. The pdf comes in two versions, with the latter providing a slightly more printer-friendly layout. The pdfs are not bookmarked, but don't have to be at this length.
Mechanics-wise, I have nothing to complain about these two weapons, their combined abilities feeling cool and sound in execution. While powerful, neither is unbalancing and in fact, for such a mythic duo of items, fall a bit on the weak side of things - but that is mainly due to their association with the first Khagan. All in all, this ranks among the best installments of the series, with the improved item-cards adding the slight tip that offsets the italics-glitch. My final verdict will hence clock in at 4.5 stars, rounded up to 5 for the purpose of this platform.
Endzeitgeist out.
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This installment of Rite Publishing's free e-zine Pathways is 34 pages long, 1 page front cover, 1 page ToC, 9 pages of advertisement, 1 page SRD, leaving us with 22 pages of content, so let's take a look!
This issue's editorial features an interesting point made in favor of transformative experiences and how to deal fluff-wise with them - I actually wouldn't mind seeing a full article on the topic covered here!
This issue's template is the lustful creature template that clocks in at CR +2. Steven D. Russell not only have quite literally burning desire inciting strikes and an aura of lust, but also increased enchantment and fertility - their offspring may grow within a year! Furthermore, they have a gaze attack that strips equipment-based bonuses from the targets - a powerful, cool signature ability.The CR 12 rakshasa is illustrated by Ian Greenlee and the unique style is AWESOME. I'd love to see more artworks done in this style in future publications - kudos!
Creighton Broadhurst of Raging Swan Press provides the EL 8 Domain of the Elder Spider - coming complete with extensive terrain information as well as spider statblocks provided for the different spiders at home in the locale. A nice, easily inserted locations.
Thomas Leblanc, one of the recently risen to prominence talents in crunch design provides us with new universal monster rules in the guise of rules for suspendable emanations, monsters that radiate (making grappling dangerous) or granting it protective exteriors à la spines etc. Really nice, short article.
As a prime example of RiP listening to fans and reviewers like yours truly, one of my minor criticism with the otherwise stellar "In the Company of Monsters" is addressed in here by providing 9 alternate racial traits, with one in particular being interesting - it allows a gargoyle access to stoneskin, but only after 7th level. Interesting design-decision and something I wouldn't mind seeing more often! Furthermore, favored class options are tied to one of the alternate racial traits, providing options for alchemist, barbarian, cleric, inquisitor and ranger, but more importantly, also covering armiger, gladiator, divine channeler, stoenwarden paragon, time thieves, witch hunters and war masters. Awesome to see this 3pp-support!
The mastermind behind LPJr Design's unconventional products, Louis Porter Jr. is this issue's interview partner and has some rather interesting things to say, though no beans are spilled regarding anticipated NeoExodus-releases like the Hive and the book on Quickslavers. Still, an interesting read!
Finally, several reviews of yours truly are provided in the final chapter, giving you an overview of several of the better products I've taken a look at in the last month.
Conclusion:
Editing and formatting are top-notch, I didn't notice any significant glitches. Layout adheres to the much streamlined 2-column full color standard of the e-zine. The pdf comes fully bookmarked and, as mentioned, I LOVE the artwork and would absolutely adore it if we saw full-blown products adhering to this aesthetic.
Beyond one of the coolest artworks in the history of Pathways, the overall issue is a rather strong one, with the simple, yet cool universal monster rules and gargoyle-expansions as well as the excellent template offering quite some cool pieces of crunch available all free and honestly, at 0 bucks and with relatively few advertisements, this is a hard offer to beat indeed and well worth your HD-space. My final verdict will thus clock in at 5 stars + seal of approval for yet another great free offering by RiP.
Endzeitgeist out.
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The second installment in the wilderness dressing series is 13 pages long, 1 page front cover, 1 page advertisement, 2 pages editorial, 1 page ToC/foreword, 1 page SRD and 1 page back cover, leaving us with 6 pages of content, so let's take a look!
We kick off this installment of the dressing-line with a table of 100 minor events, much like we did in the installment on woodlands, and much like that installment, the events range from the mundane to the mystical - murders of crows flocking around the carcass of a large animal, half-dug grave-like holes, broken hunter's traps, centaur trails - and even ant hills, creepy pumpkin-like effigies and strange lightning strikes make for a nice array of bits and pieces to flesh out your plains.
A second table of, again 100 entries, makes up for the second meaty bit of the pdf, providing e.g. owlbear-bones picked clean, dubious signs proclaiming ownership, shattered wine-glasses at a well-used camp site, vast amounts of brilliantly colored flowers, crossing streams, shed griffon's claws etc to spark adventures or just make the plain more lively. Where did the nobles (peasants can't afford glass or wine...) go? Is the griffon still around? What killed the owlbear?
The 12 sample encounters are also interesting - from wild ponies crossing the PC's paths to a lich that has returned to his peasant parents to exact vengeance for his unpleasant childhood, the respective entries run a sufficiently large gamut to be useful for most DMs out there. The pdf closes with common terrain features of plains, covering hedgerows, fences and trails and the types of undergrowth that can be found there.
Conclusion:
Editing and formatting are top-notch, I didn't notice any glitches. Layout adheres to RSP's elegant, printer-friendly two-column standard and the pdf comes in 2 iterations, with one being optimized to be printed out and one intended for screen-use. Both are extensively bookmarked.
Much like the first installment in the woodland-dressing-line, this offers us not a generator for the respective terrain, but rather things and oddities to populate the area with, adding interesting options and hooks galore, serving as a great way to inspire beleaguered DMs and adding detail to an otherwise bland terrain archetype. Much like for Woodlands, I'd appreciate a generator, perhaps in the "So what's..."- series, allowing for the customization of flora and fauna, trails, hedgerows etc. and much like that one, my final verdict for this well-crafted contribution to the series will clock in at a well-deserved 5 stars + seal of approval.
Endzeitgeist out.
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All right, you know the drill – 3 pages, 1 page front cover, 1 page SRD, 1 page content, this time detailing 10 new feats related to horsemanship.
Without further ado, here are the feats:
-Crash through: Ride your mount through obstacles at +8 to Str-checks and making you not require an action when charging through e.g. doors. Cool!
-Expert Trainer: Add a bewildering amount of feats to those available for your mount. This feat must have been a nightmare to balance – kudos!
-Hitch Up: As long as your mount is one size larger than you, you may get into the saddle when I charges through your space. VERY Cool!
-Intuitive Rider: When your mount/ a mount you’ve ridden once before is adjacent to you, both use the highest initiative modifier between both.
-Nimble Cavalry: Gain nimble moves and feats based on that feat while mounted.
-Magnificent Banner: Increase the range of your banner by 30 ft. while mounted – again, cool!
-Sainted Steed: Class levels stack with paladin levels for purposes of determining your mount’s powers. Also grants your celestial mount +1 smite evil attempt.
-Stealthy Steed: + 1 to stealth for every 10 ft. movement beyond 30 ft., reduce barding penalties by 1 and halve size penalties to stealth for mounts you have ridden before.
-Spur Mount: +10 ft movement speed when spurring mounts as a swift action.
-Wary Companion: When your mount of animal companion perceives danger, get a sense motive check to notice it as well.
Conclusion:
Editing and formatting are top-notch, I didn’t notice any glitches. Layout adheres to a 2-column standard sans frills and the pdf has no bookmarks, but needs none at this length. Clocking in as one of the best feat-books in the series so far, this offering by abandoned arts provides cool feats that are a godsend for every mounted character – while not every feat is brilliant, cavaliers and other mounted characters will still consider this an all but required addition to their arrays. Adding complex feats like Expert Trainer and great ideas like hitch up, I’m happy to all-out recommend this nice collection of feats with a final verdict of 5 stars + seal of approval.
Endzeitgeist out.
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The second in Legendary Games' Gothic Grimoires-series is 8 pages long, 1 page front cover, 1 page editorial/SRD, 1 page how-to-use, 1 page back cover, leaving us with 4 pages of content, so let's take a look, shall we?
We get a grimoire...that is blank. No, really. The Inverse Calculus of Unseen Refraction is a tome with an attached crystal lense, which, even when applied, lets you read nothing on its blank pages - for the book was written with ink laced with phantom fungus spores, remaining invisible. Only with a respective spell can the hidden meanings be unearthed. As all grimoires, this one can substitute access to certain spells when crafting and provides additional bonuses to its students as well as coming with an interesting background story. Beyond these, the tome also contains new special feats and rules, first of which would be the metamagic feat Unseen Spell: At +2 levels, these spells make avoiding them harder, even mitigating e.g. improved evasion down to evasion and the like. Also, alchemical extracts can similarly be enhanced, at only +1 level.
Speaking of alchemy: The tome also contains 6 new discoveries that allow alchemists to create items in powdered instead of liquid form, allowing them to mask them in a variety of different items. They may also use their own level to determine efficiency of invisibility spell, make their bombs invisible, protect versus divination when invisible, modify invisibility to last for a bit even after being dispelled and even create a mutagen that makes for invisible for its lengthy duration to go full-blown invisible man.
Alchemists also get access to 8 new spells/extract-formulae herein: From an alchemist's level 6 mind blank, a sphere that renders invisible creatures visible, but still grants them 20% concealment (usable offensively and defensively), condense willing creatures or objects into a liquid (which you can carry around and then recreate - glorious plot-spell and useful for infiltrations), a combination of invisibility and blur (which might attract hounds of Tindalos - beware!) and a very cool idea: You can now create a well of invisibility that turns every creature that passes through its square invisible - the nasty double-team actions with alchemists, rogues and vanishing spellcaster should be apparent immediately and at least on me, they had the result of me chuckling at the maleficent possibilities this spell has. "Not there" is a means of phasing in and out of visibility and making yourself or allies transparent (again, with a cost...) also ranks among the most iconic, interesting options I've seen in a while. Finally, you may glitterdust/petrify foes, turning them to fragile glass - shards are supposed to be lucky, but your players may disagree...
Conclusion:
Editing and formatting are top-notch, I saw no glitches. No wonder, mind you - they probably are invisible. ;) Layout adheres to legendary Games' drop-dead-gorgeous 2-column full-color standard with a glorious artwork for the grimoire of the quality that makes these pdfs such a joy to look at. The pdf, in spite of its short size, comes fully bookmarked, which is awesome indeed and makes navigation even simpler. The pdf also comes in two versions, one being printer-friendly.
Legendary Games continue their trend of high-class, premium-content, stellar supplements and continue to provide brilliant grimoires as per their innovative concept as originally outlined in their "Tomes of Ancient Knowledge" and "Meditations of the Imperial Mystics"-pdfs. After bards got their due in "Necrotic Verses", alchemists now get a supplement that ranks, even if you just mine the content sans the grimoire (but why would you?) among the best supplements ever released for the alchemist, dripping flair, style and tactical options. Before I'm starting to sound like a broken record of heaping praises and superlatives, I'll conclude this review with the words that this grimoire is worth every cent f the very fair asking-price and thus clocks in at 5 stars + seal of approval.
Endzeitgeist out.
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This pdf is 11 pages long, 1 page front cover, 1 page editorial, 1 page SRD, leaving 8 pages of content for new class and a PrC, so let's check out the Commander!
The Commander class gets d10, 4+Int skills per level, full BAB, good will- and fort-saves, proficiency with simple and martial weapons as well as all armors and shields except tower shields. Beyond that, the class is all about commanding troops in battle and enhancing allies.
Commanders have a commanding presence aura of 30 ft around them, which expands by yet another 30 ft. every five levels and works only if the commander is not paralyzed, petrified etc. and when allies can see or hear him. Allies within the aura also gain a +1 morale bonus to initiative an fear-based saves, which scales by +1 whenever the aura-size increases, which it does by30 ft. every 5 levels.
Now tactical strike is interesting - as a standard melee or ranged attack action, the commander can perform an attack that also acts as an aid another to an ally adjacent to the foe the commander attacked. Now that the ability has been stream-lined, its wording is much clearer and more precise.
Commanders may now also give Speeches - 1 + Cha-mod times and an additional 2 times per level beyond the first. Speeches are a subset of direct orders and their benefits last for one round, which allow the commander to use aid another at range and via Perform (Oratory) versus DC 10 as a standard action. Overall, these speeches are vastly superior in their presentation to the commander's first iteration - their intended benefits are clear and unambiguous. A total of 10 different speeches are provided, with the latter ones requiring a preset number of ranks in Perform (Oratory). My only gripe is that Words of Courage grants the Diehard-feat as well as +2 to Str and Con, but does not specify whether the hit points gained from the con-increase behave like the temporary hitpoints of the barbarian rage or not- here minor clarification would be in order.
Starting at second level and every even level thereafter, the commander now gets access to tactics - these are essentially talents for the class and a total of 23 are provided. Mechanically, most of them allow the commander to add his aid another bonuses to uncommon checks - From helping with the handling of siege engines to concentration of allies to granting an ally an AoO and enhancing an ally's CMB and CMD, they are actually interesting now. Some deviate from the assist-mechanic and two in particular are interesting: One allows the commander the addition of int-mod to all saves, which is a bit powerful for my tastes. Most interesting, at least imho, is Cunning Response, which grants the commander int-mod additional immediate actions per round - which is relevant for battle cries.
Starting at 4th level and every 4 levels after that an additional time per day, the commander may activate the ability as a swift action. Once activated "Battle-Cry mode" lasts until the end of combat. When activated thus, the commander may, as an immediate action, react to himself or an ally in sight being hit by attacks, spells or spell-like abilities with issuing a battle cry - 6 are provided and allow for e.g. a 5-foot movement after killing a foe and delivering an AoO to adjacent foes, withdraw as an immediate action and move towards downed foes.
Starting at 5th level, Commanders may now grant allies access to teamwork feats they possess by either substituting the tactical strike or direct order benefits.
At 8th level, the class starts to become interesting and complex: Press the advantage allows the commander to issue multiple orders, tactics or teamwork orders to their allies with a single application of their abilities - up to 4 at once at 18th level. And yes, they may spread the benefits between allies if they so choose. perhaps the mechanically most interesting ability of the class.
At 10th level, the speeches last longer and at 14th level, he may designate an ally as field officer and lend one of his direct orders, speeches or tactics to an ally. Very cool!
We also get 5 new feats:
-At them, Men (Teamwork): Charge with an ally simultaneously at the lower initiative. + 10 ft when charging,
-Band of Brothers (Teamwork): +1 to AC and attacks when adjacent to an ally, up to + 3, stacks with shield wall.
-Extra Speeches: +2 speeches per day.
-Extra Tactics: +1 tactics.
-Hold the Line: When you or your ally are being charged by a foe, your weapons gain the brace quality and the enemy takes a -4 penalty to AC instead of -2.
-With your shield or on it (Teamwork): When holding a shield adjacent to an ally holding a shield as well, gain + 2 to saves vs. spells and fear-effects.
The pdf also provides us the Centurion-PrC (not only for commanders - the centurion just needs to have led a unit to victory, have a teamwork-feat and some moderate requirements), who gets d10, 4+Int skills per level, full BAB, medium fort and will-saves, and a teamwork-feat every odd level.
The revised centurion gets access to solo tactics and a command radius that starts at 20 ft and expands over the 10 levels to 60 ft. The allies inside this radius may benefit from his team tactician ability - granting all allies in the radius access to one of his teamwork feats for class level rounds or until he issues a new teamwork feat. This increases to 2 and 3 teamwork feats at levels 4 and 8 of the PrC respectively. At 5th level, in yet another rather cool ability, he may shape the radius of his aura to a cone or line, which is actually a rather neat idea! The capstone lets him choose an ally's initiative and allows him and allies in his aura to act normally in a surprise round.
Conclusion:
Editing and formatting in this revised version of the pdf are vastly improved - I noticed no significant glitches that would have hampered my understanding of the book. Layout adheres to a relatively printer-friendly two-column standard and the pdf comes fully bookmarked for your convenience, which is nice. Artworks are full color, ok stock - nothing to complain about at this price-point.
All right, the first iteration of this pdf was a train-wreck. to cut a long ramble short: This one isn't.
While there are already two classes out there dealing with the concept of the commander, SGG's War Master and DSP's Tactician, both are different: The War Master is slightly dated, having been created before the advent of teamwork-feats and the tactician is focused on psionics. Thus, the commander as a mundane battlefield leader has his place - especially since this iteration of the class has managed to make the expansion of the aid another action and the benefits granted both sufficiently significant and balanced to make this class a viable option. While here and there the wording could be slightly more concise, for the first time Amora Games' pdf manages to get the terminology and rules-language right in a way that is not ambiguous and as precise as the complex rules-adjustments and options that classes like these require. In fact, this revised edition not only feels much more concise, it actually brings some interesting design-ideas to the table in the way how the respective abilities are handled.
Much like Rocks Fall Games recently revised "Dark Totem Part I", this revision has just about nothing in common with its abysmal first version, getting the concepts they tried to get across RIGHT. So much so, in fact, that I'm sincerely hoping that this reflects Amora Games' new quality standard, for if it does, the announced idea of a war-campaign may actually be a very fulfilling experience. Whereas before neither class nor PrC has any reason to exist, this revision made both stand out and me actually consider playing one of the classes herein - I believe they can now be quite some fun, especially if you ever wanted to play concept-wise in the equivalent of a Bridgeburner-like elite unit.
While not yet perfect, this pdf comes at a very low price and delivers in the revised edition interesting mechanics you might wish to scavenge - at the very latest when En World's War of the Burning Sky is converted to PFRPG (they met the KS-stretch-goal, after all!) and as a DM you want to add some oomph to the Ragessian commanders. If the idea of a non-magical commander and expanding the aid another action to make strategist-style warriors work even remotely interests you, then I whole-heartedly suggest you check out this revised pdf - my final verdict will be 4.5 stars, rounded down to 4 for the purpose of this platform.
Endzeitgeist out.
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This pdf is 29 pages long, 1 page front cover, 1 page editorial, 1 page ToC/introduction, 1 page SRD and 1 page back cover, leaving us with 24 pages of content, so let's take a look!
So this is the pdf that allows one to play Half-Faerie dragons. If someone had told me I'd one day review such a book, I would have laughed that person in the face - which is thematically fitting, as few words describe this race's outlook as well as "whimsy". As the superbly amusing monologue that starts this pdf proves, Half-faerie dragons may not be too wise, but damn, they can be fun to play as a race - or can they? Well, let's take a look at the mechanics: Gaining +2 to Int, Dex and Cha, but -2 to Con and Wis, they are fragile. They also get the draconic subtype, slow speed, are small, get darkvision 60 ft., can cast prestigidation cha-mod times per day as a spell-like ability, +2 to saves versus paralysis and sleep effects and courtesy of their butterfly wings, +2 to acrobatics and fly-checks. They can also 1/day breathe a cloud of euphoria-inducing gas that staggers and sickens those hit by it, but also makes them immune to fear-effects, making it possibly to use it both offensively and defensively. Generally, the race feels like it belongs to the upper power echelon, but not necessarily in an unhinging way.
Taking a cue from the first book of the series, we go on to get extensive descriptions on the physical characteristics of the race, relations etc. - all in all well-written and compelling and also links the faerie-dragons with wishing. The 5 new traits allow you to customize your half-faerie dragon to be naturally adapt at magic, good at running away from angry tricked larger folk or better at acquiring things. Also, if you want to sparkle, there's a trait for that - just take care you don't become a vampire if you do! (Or wait, THAT would actually be damn funny...) . The race also comes with 5 alternate racial traits that exchange draconic resistance for the option to cast disguise self cha-mod times/day, for 1d3 claws and if you also lose the power to use prestigidation, you can belong to the dragon type. Alternatively, you can just sacrifice your capability of arcane whimsy for +2 to AC or sacrifice your breath weapon for the power to cast sorceror spells at +1 caster level.
Favored class options for bard, cleric, druid, paladin, rogue, sorceror, summoner and wizard are provided as well, as is a discussion on Half-Faerie Dragon psychology that includes the Art of the Prank, their approach to technology and magic, love and mating, history and lore etc. - all painting a surprisingly logical, well-presented panorama of an uncommon race to say the least. Oh, by the way, age, height and weight tables are also part of the deal.
Three new racial archetypes are presented after that, with the bookwyrm (for the wizard) replacing his 5th level bonus feat with getting half his class level as bonus to all knowledge-checks and providing the option to make these checks untrained. Thieves with Wings replace uncanny dodge and a rogue talent with gaining the fly-skill as a class skill, the feat to allow them flight as a bonus feat and the flyby attack feat. Butterfly Troubadours may boast of their exploit to the extent where they believe themselves to be actually better, mock foes and subtly weave the usage of his breath weapon into his performance, which is perhaps my favorite piece of rules in this context. This chapter also provides the new faerie dragon bloodline for sorcerors, which allows for befuddling touches, the signature euphoric breath weapon, butterfly wings, swap locations at higher levels with other beings and finally become a Half-faerie Dragon/live up to your full draconic potential. Quite nice about the bloodline: Its abilities take half-faerie dragons also into account and expand their racial powers instead of granting them like the bloodline does for none-half-faerie-dragons. The pdf also includes a new PrC for the race, the Dappled Thurge, who gets d6, 2+Int skills per level 1/2 BAB-progression and medium will-progression. What's interesting about this PrC is that it grants full spellcasting progression to BOTH prepared and spontaneous arcane spellcasting classes, taking a holistic approach to both. Rather interesting is the ability to cast progressively higher (starting at first level and going up to fifth) spells she knows (but need not have the spell prepared) by sacrificing a spontaneous spell slot of one level higher. As a capstone, the class reduces the level-increase of meta-magic applied to spells by half to a minimum of +1 spell level Int-mod/day. A thoroughly interesting design and an intriguing PrC, though the editing glitch of "prepares [sic!] spellcasting" in every line of the PrC's table sticks out like a sore thumb to me.
A total of 9 racial feats have been included in the book to develop the race further: Temporarily blinding foes with light reflected from your blade, beast-shaping into a faerie-dragon, chameleon scales that allow you to use stealth even when observed and unable to hide, telepathy as a spell-like ability and at 7th level a fly-speed are some of the new options. Breath weapons may be augmented to use them once every 1d4 rounds and via other feats, add the confused effect to the others AND even get an option to make the breath weapon make foes staggered, confused and sickened for 1 round EVEN if they save. And honestly, that is where the pdf kind of underestimates the power-level: We are speaking of a 30 ft cone every 1d4 rounds that has a save of 10+ 1/2 class level + con-mod and inflicts move OR standard actions (No more full-round actions), -2 to ability, skill checks, saves, atk and damage and the effects of confusion - for 1d6 rounds per application, at least 1 even on a successful save. As a supernatural ability that CAN'T BE DISRUPTED. This is the pay-off of 3 feats. This is insane on so many levels: Once every 4 rounds would be insanely strong even sans the confusion added. Making it apply even if foes save is really, really bad. And offering no way to counter it (it doesn't even count as poison) is just the icing on my personal Broken-rules-cake. Yes, I get that the con-penalty is significant regarding the DC, but for e.g. martially inclined half-faerie-dragons this mini-feat-tree is rather powerful and unbalanced. Either a fixed limit, getting rid of the effects even on successful saves or a way to counteract the breath weapon are required to salvage this. A feat that lets you cast any prepared spell spontaneously by sacrificing one prepared spell of one level higher would also set off my radar, but its limitation to being usable once per day saves it and makes it an actually rather interesting idea.
Among the new items introduced in this installment, we get a kind of hookah that mixes multiple breaths for a more hilarious story-telling, globes containing bottled breath, swords that deal less damage than similar ones, but count as cold iron and have a threat range of 18-20, timed purse-shaped color-bombs to stain potential thieves, laughing poison, patchwork armors and arrows that essentially are stinking bombs of the most disgusting variety. All in all, cool items!
The pdf also includes write-ups of Half-Faerie Dragon theology and 3 racial deities as well as the new butterfly and wish subdomains and 4 new spells that allow you to conjure up butterfly swarms, plaguing victims with a chaotic (and funny) curse that changes properties each day, conjure a phantom crowd to mock your foes and transform just about anything into a pile of apples or a giant apple. Why? Half-faerie dragons LOVE apples, as the flavor-text in the book shows... Thus, we also get 3 magical apple tree tokens and the "Bag of Awesome", a bag of holding that can vomit forth items in a belch of euphoria-inducing gas, has a tongue-like rope (that can be used for rope tricks) and can blast foes (while in rope-trick-form) with euphoria-gas. There is also a foolish cape and a fitting rakish hat you can use to disappear in - when the fickle magic works...
The two artifacts are also neat: One straight-forward crown and one an artifact-level rod-of-wonders-style item that can summon giant squirrels to do your bidding or rain frozen apples from the sky or turn foes into dark chocolate...
Dms daunted by integrating this race into their campaign will welcome the 4 sample communities (sans settlement statblocks or the like, but full of ideas) as well as the advice given for both players and DMs to avoid turning the inclusion of this race into a kender-fiasco V.2.0. Be sure to read this chapter carefully! We also get sample NPCs, with the first being a straight-forward bard level 1, the second being an illusionist/sorceror 4/dappled thurge 2 and the final one being truly interesting: At CR 11, the character is a bard 2/fighter 2/oracle 2/ranger 2/rogue 2/sorceror 2 - a jack-of-all trades, indeed, though one that uses all the broken breath weapon feats.
Conclusion:
Editing and formatting are not as good as in the seedling book - I almost overlooked the header for one of the magic items since a blank line is missing and I encountered numerous minor glitches here and there, some of which (in e.g. the case of the breath weapon-mixing hookah) make the entry harder to understand than it should be. Layout adheres to JBE's no-frills two-column standard and the b/w-artworks (one in color) are to my knowledge original and nice, though they don't reach imho the awesomeness of the seedling-artworks. The pdf comes fully bookmarked and as per the writing of this review, herolab-files have not yet been provided. The pdf is hyperlinked to d20pfsrd for your convenience, but e.g. "Good" in "for good or ill" is hyperlinked as well though it does not refer to the alignment, there are not many of these hyperlink glitches.
I didn't expect to like this pdf half as much as I did. The writing by author Todd Stewart is compelling and makes reading this supplement an actual joy, with all the information provided making the unlikely race actually come to life and feel feasible, intriguing even. I really, really liked this pdf and it would be a 5-star+ seal candidate were it not for the editing glitches and the horribly broken breath weapon-feats that need a serious beating with the nerf-bat.
Still, overall a solid addition to the series and worthy of a final verdict of 4 stars.
Endzeitgeist out.
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This module for the Midgard Campaign Setting is 23 pages long, 1 page front cover, 1 page editorial, 1 page advertisement, 1 page SRD, leaving us with 19 pages of content, so let’s check this out!
This being an adventure-review, the following contains SPOILERS. Potential players should jump to the conclusion.
All right! Still here? This module is all about epic high fantasy – at 2nd level! Simez Rothgazzi, leader of the high order of geomancers, has a proposal for the PCs – They are to visit the island of Karn’lothra, domain of the dreaded lich-queen and secure her permission to open a tomb and secure the Book of Vael Turog. The journey per se will turn out to be as laced with dangers as you want to and several different “random” encounters are provided to help the DM add minor complications: Whether they learn the way to the lich queen’s undead paradise by her undead mermaids or by bargaining with a dragon, they are set for their destination and on their journey may barter with the leshy of a seaweed Sargasso, they may also meet a spark trying to possess them during a storm and have a skirmish with a small goblin warship.
Karn’lothra (which comes with a great map and detailed further in "Journey to the West") should make for a creepy place to visit, with the ominous harbor of last hope, its giant gold/white marble-flecked statues lining the coast and the relative proximity to Nethus’ maw. When evening falls, the ghost of the ankeshelian Mad Prince Deland escorts the characters to the court of the queen, provided they don’t annoy him overtly. There, the audience should be creepy as well and full of tension, since a) an audience requires the adventurers to relinquish their weapons and wands and b) they are hopelessly outclassed anyway. On a particularly vicious botch in diplomacy, the queen may actually take a liking to one of the players – with final consequences for the poor sod.
After securing her permission (or doing it stealthily behind her back), the PCs are off to visit the tomb of the minotaur prince Qoraz, where not only traps, but also red-mist emitting braziers, vampiric mists and a couple of shadows await the PCs – hopefully, they’ve conserved the scroll of protection from undead they got from Simez – or they can try to gain control over and use the lesser sphere of annihilation to waste the undead… The thing is, that the queen, true to the evil of undeath, has sent minions to off the Pcs and claim the book for herself. The book, however, also might be their best chance, for the thing is intelligent and can provide not only a potent protection, but also a summoning ritual that should make the breackneck flight from the island interesting.
When the summoned leviathan island (again, more details in Journeys) makes its appearance, the PCs should be all about going for it, for the mobile island is moving. Braving reefclaws, the adventurers are now stranded again, lavishly with a map detailing Leviathan Island . Only said island is heading towards the end of the world and is inhabited by mongrelmen intent on subduing the PCs and feeding them godsflesh to add them to their ranks. Whether they sit out the time or manage to find godsflesh and commune with the leviathan, they should soon notice that the huge being is actually headed towards the end of the world – whether for spawning, death or rebirth, they probably won’t be able to tell.
A sense of foreboding and imminent doom should be now suffuse them – until the leviathan plunges into the starlit sea, from the very edge of the world. Starbearer-scouts will inform the players that the leviathan is on its way to the star citadel, compelled by the ancient eldritch magics that summoned it – though this by no standard means that the PCs are out of danger – an array of weird creatures ranging from oculus swarms to vargouilles wait in the wings to challenge the brave explorers. The star-shaped citadel awaits them and it is here, they may plead their case before the court of a million stars and its king and queen, for the rulers intend to kill the leviathan, stranding the Pcs in this strange realm beyond the world. In order to seize control of the ancient beasts, the PCs will have to negotiate with Abdiel (an NPC-cheat sheet is btw. provided), the current master of the bridle- unbeknownst to them, though, he wants to control the creature himself and with his ally, a traitorous starbearer, tries to poison and subdue the PCs. The finale, whether it will be trial by combat, varying degrees of success for the villain or the PCs triumphing, should be definitely memorable and result, in the case of victorious PCs, an interesting choice: Do they set the leviathan free or do they steer it back to the western sea? What about the strange egg in the alchemist’s tower?
And by the way, I haven’t even touched on the short sample NPC-list of inhabitants of the strange citadel, not have I yet touched upon the 10 sample events to spice up what is going on in this wondrous place.
Conclusion:
Editing and formatting are top-notch, I didn’t notice any glitches. Layout adheres to a gorgeous two-column full-color standard and the copious original interior artworks are of the same quality as the mind-boggling front cover – this is a premium product in every meaning of the word regarding presentation. The pdf comes fully bookmarked as well, but without a printer-friendly version. Then again – why rob this gorgeous piece of its colors? Also, it's printed version is BEAUTIFUL. Full-color, gorgeous, awesome.
There is a good reason Wolfgang Baur is the legend he is and this pdf shows VERY well how his formidable reputation came to be. Doing adventures that evoke a sense of grandness, of epicness and at the same time trailblaze ahead and provide iconic locales is hard. Doing so at low levels is even harder, especially if you want to keep the players from doing stupid things that could get them killed – like challenging a certain queen, trying to find ways to control a certain beast etc. This module takes an experienced DM with a good mojo to run properly, but OH BOY. If you manage to pull this off, then your players will be talking about it for years to come! The iconic scenes and locales in this module are enough to weave at the very least 3 whole modules from the content and the fact that this much AWESOMENESS fits in these scarce few pages is mind-blowing. And it manages to do it without feeling misplaced in the level-range. This is high-fantasy at its very best and if I had to nitpick one thing, then it would be that the module by design requires almost to be set in Midgard or a similar flat world, since it is so steeped in the world’s contexts. That being said, this still perhaps one of the best low-level modules out there and deserves to be added to your library – especially at the ridiculously low cost. My final verdict? Easy 5 stars + seal of approval. This would be a 6-star-candidate, if that was possible.
Endzeitgeist out.
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This module is 30 pages long, 1 page front cover, 1 page editorial, 1 page ToC, 1 page SRD, 1 page back cover, leaving us with 25 pages of content, so let's take a look!
This being an adventure-review, the following text contains SPOILERS. Potential players might wish to jump to the conclusion.
Still here? All right! The rice-farming village of Kinogasa has seen better times - ever since a failed rebellion versus the rather unpleasant ruling forces of Kaidan, the village has been haunted: A Yokinto priest leading the uprising versus the undead ruling caste was vanquished and subsequently has haunted the local temple. Ever since, a sohei school has been keeping tabs on the populace, while the spirit of the insurgent priest has continued to haunt the local ceremonial bell, which is more than relevant for the harvest. All went well, with corrupt priests suffering the spirit's wrath. Until the last priest died before having time to pass on the means to placate the spirit. Worse, a disgruntled onmyoji-wizard has put a curse on the bell in order to create a problem to rehabilitate himself in the eyes of his superiors - unaware of the spirit, which subsequently chased the minion tasked with cursing the bell off. With the festival approaching, it's up to the PCs to save the village.
The module comes with information to run this as a convention-one-shot and when the PCs arrive to deal with the Bell-problem, the local sohei are not particularly glad, wishing to deal with it themselves, but off to the briefing: The latest priest, one Maeda Takashi, provides basic information for the PCs to start their investigation and tells them about the sudden influx of terror and sorrow that accompanied the ringing of the bell since three weeks. The fully mapped (in full color) village comes with a settlement statblock - and 10 bits of lore about the village and its past and 8 NPC-bits and pieces the PCs may encounter enrich the location as a valid background and details to flesh out the investigation as desired.
In order to access the bell, the PCs will have to contend with the dead priest's spirit - and potentially find the remnants of the failed onmyoji-curse. If the PCs dispatched the spirit, the problem will actually worsen due to the onmyoji completing the curse if the PCs temporarily dispatch the ghost. Whether by the priestly garments or by other means, the PCs might also research the final resting place of the town's last priest killed by the ghost, buried in an honorless grave. The onmyoji has trapped a jikininki in the cave as a means of dissuading suspicions and PCs will have to explore the place - and find yet another origami-paper, further incriminating the wizard. At this point, it's up to the PCs to confront the wizard, his shikigami-familiar and his skeletal bodyguard, unearthing the means to reversing the curse, which also placates the spirit.
The pdf also includes 8 pregens - enough for larger groups, which is great.
Conclusion:
Editing and formatting are very good, I didn't notice any glitches that would have impeded my enjoyment of the module. Layout adheres to the bamboo-lined 2-column full-color standard and the cartography and original pieces of artwork by the master of creepy b/w-drawings Mark Hyzer are glorious (though the editorial lacks the entry for cover artist and illustration) and well-complemented by a nice array of thematically fitting stock-art. The pdf comes fully bookmarked.
The Tolling of Tears is a nice low-level sandboxy investigation into a none-too-epic problem - but honestly, when compared to the other Kaidan-modules released so far, this one lacks the abject sense of horror, of dread, of psychological gravitas displayed by the other modules. In fact, this sandboxy investigation is VERY simple. While the location is nice and detailed in its depiction, the basic clues to pick up are simple and the resolution of the mystery is practically handed to the PCs without much work, showing more distinctly than e.g. "Frozen Wind" or "Up from Darkness" that this scenario originated from being a convention-scenario and in the end being, at least for my tastes, slightly too simple, too obvious. For inexperienced player that don't usually do a lot of investigations, this might be an appropriate challenge, but veteran players require the DM to create quite an array of red herrings/responses to keep this module interesting. That being said, it is still a nice little offering and thus my final verdict will clock in at 4 stars.
Endzeitgeist out.
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This supplement to the lauded Spellpoint-system by SGG is 14 pages long, 1 page front cover, 1 page editorial/SRD, leaving us with 12 pages of content, so let's check this out!
This is an expansion to Houserule Handbook: Spell Points and as such requires the former to properly work. I'm going to assume familiarity of the "Core"-spellpoint book in this review. So let's check this out!
Alchemists were originally intentionally excluded from the spellpoint system, but the fans have spoken and thus, we herein get an "extract"-point version of Spell Points for the alchemist. He also gets a spell-point infusion variant. Beyond that, this pdf sets out to cover some of the more peculiar issues that sprang up from the spellpoint system: Magi spell-combat had lost the option to use metamagic feat-modifications in conjunction with spellcombat. This is rectified, by allowing for the expenditure of 1 point from the arcane pool to cast a modified spell as a standard action instead of the full round via a new arcana.
The issue that sprang up with handling archetypes with diminished spellcasting is also addressed by providing concise guidelines to calculate spellpoints for them. Other classes with spellcasting access like the ones provided by SGG and other 3pps are also covered with multiple rules: From analogue-progression with existing classes to a complex formula for more esoteric classes with unique progressions, this should have your needs covered, even if the formula used is complex and might require some tweaking since no single formula was used to create the original spellpoint-rules.
It should be noted, that Prestige Classes that grant spell-lists are thus also covered, as are multiclass characters. Essentially, the pdf advocates keeping separate spell point pools for different classes and while it points to the Spell Point Feats short supplement, I can't as of yet comment on that, since I don't own this one and thus can't comment on the Eldritch Blending feat.
We also now may opt to create 1/4 of a spell point per level as an universal favored class option as well as favored class options depending on races that cover the standard races - minus half-orcs, but plus orcs. Many of them use domain-mini-pools to modify your existing spell pools. We also get 13 class-specific favored class options that are interesting, albeit more complex in their benefits that what I'm accustomed to - prepare for slightly more extra-work regarding these.
The pdf also provides us with new Spell Point feats: Eldritch Insight allows you to spend spell points to enhance your wis-based skill-checks and wis-checks and there are two more such feats that essentially do the same for Int and Cha-based skill and ability checks. There is also a class of feats that begins with "infused" that allows you temporary access to a magus arcana, a 1-point evolution that is not "skilled", a bloodline feat or a revelation. Other Infusion feats allow you to spend spell points to enhance class abilities, with one class of feats allowing you to e.g. boost a judgment, performance or wild shape by +4 levels. Alchemists may increase their splash weapon damage via magic, whereas clerics may now opt to improve their channeling in range and effectiveness and for the price of 5 spell points, heal living AND damage undead (or vice versa) for 5 spell points. Witches may in an analogue increase the range of their hexes and damage or, for 5 spell points, use their hex a second time on a character in 24 hours that has already been affected by said ability. Finally, the metamastery feat allows you to ignore the increased casting time of metamagic spells when using the spell point system. Am I correct in assuming that this feat, when taken by the magus, would render the new arcana moot?
The pdf closes with new rules: Overcasting is one of the cooler aspects of the spell point system and to prevent especially high-level abuse, it can no actually be lethal if overdone: When casting with no spell points available, the character may actually die. As an additional option to conserve spell points, casters may now also opt to cast spells with numerical values at 1/2 caster level and effectiveness at a 1 point lower spell cost. It is also mentioned that a feat might be in order to keep balance for this ability and I get why: Casting e.g. a fireball would cost 4 spell points, dealing up to 10d6 damage. Now if you want to wear down players with waves of weaker foes, 10d6 may be overkill, whereas 3 spell points for 3x 5d6 would net a 4th 5d6 fireball and yet another wave vanquished. Granted, eldritch dissonance helps combat the potential issue, but still I feel I can't properly judge the repercussions of this option sans extensive playtesting. Somewhere in the back of my mind, my DM-alarm tingles, though.
Conclusion:
Editing and formatting are top-notch, I didn't notice any glitches. The pdf adheres to SGG's 2-column mostly b/w-standard and the pdf comes thankfully fully bookmarked with nested bookmarks. It also features quite an array of b/w-stock art, which, while not wrong per se, feels a bit more dominant than in other SGG-pdfs, with quite a bunch of space devoted to it, eating up approximately 2 pages of the page-count.
I really like the idea of the spell point system and SGG's original book has had some time to settle by now and it mostly works as intended. While, since the original pdf multiple issue cropped up in play this pdf neatly addresses and fixes them. That being said, this pdf covers some of the more problematic issues that have sprung up and addresses them in SGG's trademark crunch-competence. The feats to further make spell points more versatile definitely seem intriguing, though the arcana/metamagic mastery-conundrum remains puzzling to me.
By all accounts I should love this pdf and its options and yet, it left me with a sour taste in my mouth. It took e some reflection as to why and I've come to a conclusion: It's the same phenomenon as with Mass Effect 2.
Said game is one of the best scifi-games I've ever played - AFTER you buy all the DLCs. Before that, it's story is barebones and lacks crucial hooks and details, rendering the overall experience good, but definitely not up to the awesomeness it is when experiencing the game with its add-ons. Now while functional as intended and fair for the price-point, the original spell point system, much like mass effect 2, succeeds at what it sets out to do, but leaves some intangible rest to be desired. Something similar could be said about the spell point system.
Mechanically sound, I still maintain it is a great system, but honestly, about 1/2 of the content herein should have been part of the original offering. Don't get me wrong, I completely get the laws of demand and supply and that the waters had to be tested - still, options for archetypes, PrCs, diminished spellcasting, guidelines etc. - are not optional. They are not expansions. They are what should have been part of the core-system. That component of the pdf, essentially, is a patch. A patch that has some new content included, content that is nice and evocative and solidly designed, but still a patch. And in contrast to e.g. the massive collector's edition patch of the Witcher 2, it is one you pay for. Yes, I opted to judge this pdf for its new content, but still, a sour taste in my mouth remains and a distinct, nagging voice in the back of my head keeps telling me to rate this down to the abyss. I really, really wished SGG had postponed the original spell-point system, included these fixes/class options in the beginning and then made this a book where the feats and component rules truly are optional.
As written, about half of this pdf is required in my opinion if you all out adopt the Spell Point system and it still has some rough patches at higher levels, but remains still the best option for point-based spellcasting so far I've seen for any iteration of a d20-based game.
That being said, to me as a person, this feels like a patch with some DLC-content I have to pay for. As a reviewer, I can't let that influence me too much, though, and thus will settle on a final verdict that only partially reflects my personal grievance with this pdf and also take the great new content into account, for a final verdict of 4.5 stars, rounded down to 4 for the purpose of this platform due to the bitter taste this pdf left in my mouth and will probably leave in the mouths of others as well.
Endzeitgeist out.
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![Book of Heroic Races: Half-Faerie Dragons [PFRPG]](images/2542/108378-thumb100.jpg)
