It seems that with the release of every supplement from Fifth Element Games, they seem to further break down and reinvent the 3.5 gaming system. With A Skill for Everything, the publishers once again create another intelligent benefit to the gaming world.

Ability rolls have always been like the duct tape of the d20 stat world. If nothing else fits use the ability. However, as 3rd edition goes into its 7th year, we pretty much have defined what most ability rolls are. If I need to break down a door I am rolling strength. If I need help with a puzzle a wisdom check may do.

A Skill for Everything gets rid of ability rolls. For that matter, it can get rid of saving and attack rolls (along with their accompany stats) as well. Instead, it replaces the ability rolls with the five basic sub skills, called secondary skills, that the ability roll is normally used for, creating 14 well written catch all sub skills. These are not treated as normal skills, as their price is different. This allows for a player to build a character that shows for once ?he is strong? despite his 14 strength score and maxed ranks in jump.

The product also replaces saving and attack rolls using a similar system. The saving throws are pushed into the secondary skills and the attack skills are broken down as if they are their own skill system. So instead of having one base attack that determines your ranged, melee, touch and other attacks. You instead receive skill points and place them into the various attack categories. There are eight skills and each class is provided a table line of what is its class and cross class attack skills. For instance, you can place up to the level of skill points in a wizards touch attack because it?s a class skill for him, but you still have to use more skill points to get him 1 rank in regular melee attacks. Finally, a system that doesn?t penalize a wizard?s touch attack roll or a ranger?s ranged attacks.

For the Player The system offers choice, which always plays into the players power. There is an exurbanite amount of customization by incorporating the 18 secondary skills and 8 attack skills. This dynamically changes character design and makes characters feel closer to how a player imagines them. You also can get frisky and throw in secondary skills you don?t think are covered.

For the DM The designers did a great job by including tables for the current character classes, prestige classes and even racial paragons that cover each classes cross class, secondary skills and attack skills. Another important DM reference is the tip boxes for how DMs can use this system and not have to redesign every NPC in the game or module.

The Iron Word Despites its low price and plain layout features, this is a product that could have a serious impact on the d20 world and future edition design. In the 19 pages it pacts a compact system that you can easily incorporate into your game or design an entire game around. The book does lack a character sheet that incorporates their system which I hope someone will develop and pass around the net soon. Other than that this is a must buy for players looking for more out of d20. <br><br> <b>LIKED</b>: -thoughtful design that includes the dms needs

• honest marketing text on the product. It is simple in design, no layout just a complete system<br><br><b>DISLIKED</b>: - needs a character sheet accompanied with it
• The only skill i didn't like was perception, i felt spot pretty much covers this one. <br><br><b>QUALITY</b>: Excellent<br><br><b>VALUE</b>: Very Satisfied<br>

Let us get the meat of this review out of the way.

Dispoable Heroes: Harp Set 1 is a nicely designed set of fantasy minis that you can print and use for any campaign in which you need some cheap miniatures and do not have the time to put paint to pewter.

There are 40 miniatures in this collection, more than I have seen in most similar products. The product is labeled for the Harp system but, considering that they are just minis, they will fit into any fantasy setting you wish. Though the artwork is not crisp and realistic, each one is well drawn and contains some nice fantasy elements. The set is broken down into six races with each race having its own subset of five base classes: warrior, fighter, mage, rogue and cleric. For each race/class combination, there is both a male and female version. The races themselves are what you will find in traditional fantasy with the exception of the Gryx, whom look very similar to half-orcs.

The PDF includes very detailed instructions at the beginning to help you print out your minis, which for the most part is self explanatory. There are two versions of the minis allowing you to print them as flat tiles or stand up figures with a front and a back. There are also some really neat customary things you can do with the PDF, which include numbering them, replacing images with fronts and backs and printing off a certain number.

All in all, this is one of the better tile sets I have seen. Of course, the hard part is seeing it. Unfortunately, Politically Correct Games, places their PDFs under a stern lock and key clamped with a chastity belt. Even after you buy the product, you must then sign up on their website with all of your personal information to receive the actual product. Why the company needs to know your address and phone number is beyond me. And do not try to put in a dummy e-mail address, as most people often do for these types of spam things, you can not receive your product if you do not put in the same e-mail address you used at RPGNow. For the typical PDF buyer this is extremely annoying. Obtaining the product feels like a serious invasion of privacy. I usually register my $399 Vista Operating system, but not my $5.99 collection of paper minis. Imagine this. You buy Madden 2007 at Gamestop, only for them to tell you that before you go home, you must go travel upstairs to the KB Toys, fill out a long form, and get your product up there. Why go through all those steps when I could just pick up a similar product that does not require the hassle.

For the DM The minis are nice fantasy pieces. Again, the artwork is really geared towards fun fantasy and not extremely detailed in coloring. Still these were nice if you need a mini to represent female and male versions of each of the base races and their classes.

The Iron Word This is a good product. But a product is more than the pages within it, customer service and attention to detail are also wrapped inside it. When you buy a product, you expect to receive the product relatively promptly with few hoops. The hoops I had to jump through here made me thinking I should be talking to detectives Stabler and Benson. Minus the hurdles, this product could have easily been a 4. I wish there was a three dimensional version and a bit more colors in the artwork, but the amount of features made up for them. The product does kick itself with its name as well. ITs a set of fantasy minis that could easily fit into anygame system, why hamper it down by saying it is "for this particular system." <br><br> <b>LIKED</b>: - nice artwork

• great print options for pdfs
• lots of minis for the price<br><br><b>DISLIKED</b>: - naming is not as marketable as it could have been
• no complete 3d printing
• the artwork gets repetitive
• artwork is more friendly fantasy than gritty fantasy
• All my other quips are minor when i consider that I had to jump to through many hurdles to receive the product. <br><br><b>QUALITY</b>: Very Good<br><br><b>VALUE</b>: Disappointed<br>

The Weapon Rack: Daggers, takes Dungeons and Dragon?s most simple weapon, and gives it a blown out celebrity treatment that surprisingly makes the weapon more attractive.

Daggers, by Dark Quest, LLC, is a 51 page, 3 chapter, expose of the basic weapon. It is the second in the Weapon Rack series, and the first to focus on a single weapon. The book is well bookmarked and layed out with flavorful artwork that livens the feels of the book.

Chapter 1 provides a well researched history of the dagger and provides the reader with several versions of the dagger throughout history. There are also some made up daggers thrown in towards the end, though the realistic ones are more enjoyable. Chapter 2, my favorite chapter, gets away from weapon and provides some good advice on how each class can use the weapon as is. Too often these types of books recommend their own prestige classes or feats, however, Dark Quest takes a different approach here. Not to say that Daggers does not have PrCs and Feats. There are six feats and four prestige classes. There are also five spells and a domain for spellcasters and clerics that want to add a martial feel to their spells.

Chapter 3 refocuses on the dagger by detailing material and instructions on how to make a dagger. The authors did a great job of distinguishing and analyzing the abilities between flint, steel, primitive and bone materials. This chapter also lists magic and wondrous items, several artifact daggers and, out of no where, a fully statted NPC.

For the Player More than just a book for dagger enthusiasts, there is enough material included that this book can be helpful to those whom just want to maximize the use of their weapons. Whether it?s a spellcaster or heavy fighter, Daggers can really beef up your playstyle. Of course, making a dagger or blade oriented character is a peace of cake as well. The fighting motifs offer players an adopted fighting style. Each one gives the player instructions on how to build up their skills and personal abilities to bring out he fighting style.

For the DM Open Daggers and scroll to the back and you will find a nice little surprise, a weapon master NPC. I believe DMs hoping to layer some flavor into their treasure will like the different types of daggers in the first chapter and the special materials in the later chapters. There are also some artifacts in the chapter that can provide a unique opportunity for quests.

The Iron Word Weapon Rack: Daggers is a good weapon book that does a few things different. There are not a ton of anything in the book; a good thing. Too often these types of books compact too many feats, classes, and weapons into them. Instead, you get four or five good spells, good weapons, good PrCs and good magical items. Those seeking to build a blade oriented character (no matter what class) will be quite pleased. Those whom are not will find this a good reference for one of the most common tools in the game. <br><br> <b>LIKED</b>: - by concentrating on a few of everything, they produce good versions of everything

• the artwork of daggers and old style ruins brings out the exotic flavor of the dagger
• there's an npc :)<br><br><b>DISLIKED</b>: - I wasn't too much a fan of the tunneler and blade artist prcs
• same with the feats, some remind me of feats I've seen elsewhere<br><br><b>QUALITY</b>: Very Good<br><br><b>VALUE</b>: Satisfied<br>

Permafrost, by Valent games, is what happens when you think your homebrew world of mish mashed ideas will eclipse established settings such as Grey Hawk and the Forgotten Realms and no one utilizes the smelling salt to awaken them from this delusion.

Permafrost is not as much a bad campaign setting as it is an incomplete one full of plot holes the size of a glacier. It does not introduce anything that a half dozen other better written and edited books have on cold environments. It begins with a fairly crass introduction from the author detailing how there will be no other books and how the reader should either live with rules such as psionics are find something else. The background of the world is as sketchy as it is in the marketing text. We do not learn what type of planar disaster happened or how it happened. We are left wondering what type of planar example would freeze a world and how could they populate. This breeds more questions and at some point you just have to stop being logical else you will find yourself in the frozen fractal that is Permafrost.

After the Intro, the book gets to the meat of itself, which is the classes. This is somewhat boggling considering the PDF is classified as a campaign setting. There are 10 classes that seem moderately balanced to one another. Servant of death seems a bit overpowered considering the lack of turning in the book. The remainder are merely tweaks of core classes with an elemental flavor to them.

The adventure hooks are really just blurbs of what ifs that any DM could think of in such a world and are not as fleshed out as adventure hooks in other mediums.

For the Player The Planar Initiative is a decent psionic scholar alternative that will fit in well as an alternative class in a psionic campaign.

For the Dungeon Master There are some nuggets that are worth looking at. If you are looking for some crazed coot?s class for your campaign, the Mad Hermit is a bizarre mix of the barbarian class with this archetype. Class abilities include an Invisible friend and Sanity levels. The Knight of the Snows works well if there are cold areas in your campaign and you want to build fighters specific to the cold element.

The Iron Word Not everyone is a writer as Permafrost shows. The language used is not the formal type of language you read in a book. There is also serious lack of editing throughout the book. Add to that the lack of any bookmarks or navigation features and it becomes a very difficult book to traverse.

This is actually a class book for a cold world campaign setting, but not the actual campaign setting. If you are looking for a few cold whether classes there are a couple of good ones hidden in here that may be worth it if it is something you need. However, if you are searching for an artic world, dynamic cold rules and a non-class thoughout idea, look elsewhere.
<br><br> <b>LIKED</b>: - The hermit, snow knights and planar initiative <br><br><b>DISLIKED</b>: - bad editing and crass writing. I don't need to know what you will and won't be doing with the series.

• no bookmarks, no navigation
• mostly classes yet claims to be a setting book. Sadly I know good setting books that include no classes
• most of the classes are either too powerful or small tweaks to the core classes
• <br><br><b>QUALITY</b>: Disappointing<br><br><b>VALUE</b>: Ripped Off<br>

After my first time flipping through Octavirate Entertainment?s Libris Personae, I asked myself, where were you at last week. There was just a lot more variety of NPCs in this book than I have seen in other publications.

NPC books can be helpful in a pinch and depending on which one, you have your good ones with useful NPCs and your bad ones that are a majority of creative mistakes. Libris Personae falls closer to the good side of that line. What makes it different is that instead of producing individual NPCs, the 106 page PDF presents you four very distinct mercenary groups with 36 NPCs between them. The NPCs within the group are fairly different with the kind of minor distinctions that have the potential of giving an NPC staying power. The writing emphasizes the character of the NPCs, and whereas the stat builds are decent, it is the personalities of the characters that make them more useful.

There is not too much emphasis put on setting which makes most of them easy to drop anywhere. The builds of the characters are decent, with a number of PDF only content used to make them distinct. The good thing is that nothing is over the top. All too often with a book of NPCs, there are a ton of good mega villains or mega heroes, but few basic adversaries, rivals and allies.

One of my favorite features of the book is not the NPCs themselves but the artwork attached to them. Though there is not a consistent art style, all of the art is consistently good. I would say a few pictures border on work appropriate, but you really get a lot from the personality of the characters with them.

A cool thing the writers added with one of the appendix. Sure there?s a cool appendix of monsters and spells, but it is the second appendix that is eye catching. There is a chart that of the NPCs and various stats for variants applied to them. For instance, I use armor as DR in my Egyptian campaign, there is a column listing each NPCs AC and dr under this variant. I also use a spell point variant which it also contains. They also contain stats for wounds/vitality, defense bonus, action points, magic rating, reputation, honor, taint, sanity and sanity loss.

For the Dungeon Master

There are a lot of niches these NPCs can fill in a campaign. Obviously the rival mercenary group is a given, but they also can be used as spot villains, helpful tavern folk and personal guards (what I used one of them for). Though I was not too much a fan of the Cult of the Gnoll, Vortaelen Cartography members more than make up for them. This was a very creative idea. It is an adventuring company that sets up shop in various libraries across the planes, making them useful and accessible in almost any location your PCs may find themselves. I have already snagged one for my players whom are venturing in the Astral Plane for the first time. The writers seemed as excited as I would about this group as they have a lot more print space and a ton more detail. In all honesty, this book could contain only this group and the adversaries and still be worth it. Consider the other three groups thrown in for good filler.

The Iron Word

Publishers whom are just putting books out using the same ole formats and mega NPCs should take notice. You do not have to invent personal classes and items for every NPC in the book and you certainly should try to think outside the box.. Octavirate has managed to ink out a unique publication in a crowded market by making innovations on the product in both style and artwork.

<br><br> <b>LIKED</b>: - artwork has a lot of personality. It is not just an addition but apart of the character write up

• a chart of variants is the kind of out of the box idea that really makes a publication stand out
• the npcs are not over the top and are very usable. <br><br><b>DISLIKED</b>: - the additional spells and monsters did nothing for me
• some of the earlier mercenary groups are not as written as the two latter ones<br><br><b>QUALITY</b>: Very Good<br><br><b>VALUE</b>: Satisfied<br>

Ancient: Mesopotamia is two things. On one hand, it is an amazing book that takes you on a fantastic journey into a fantasy realm very much similar to the historical Mesopotamia land. On the other hand, it is also a difficult to navigate PDF that often muddles the enjoyment of the book.

For some reason, settings based on more exotic lands such as the middle east and Africa just seem grander than more traditional cookie cutter dungeons and dragons settings. Mesopotamia is no exception. Beginning with the cartography maps that lay out a large desert kingdom to the fun exploration adventures in the back, the 178 page 15 chapter is a monster of a book with rich detail on every page. The book is written by Morten Braten and published in print by Sword and Sorcery. The PDF form is presented by Necromancer games. Braten made a serious attempt to enrich the setting with as much cultural significance of the ancient Middle East as it could.

The first chapter is a hefty flying red carpet intro into the land of Mesopotamia featuring the worlds geography, languages and other cultural things. The second chapter introduces readers to the classes and races of the book. One of my favorite chapter it features an all human race ensemble race, explains the role of each of the PHB base classes and presents some new magical variants, spells and items. Because religion always plays a big part in these types of books, the third chapter is solely dedicated to the subject. The fifth chapter explains important details to running a campaign in Mesopotamia. After this chapter, the remainder of the chapters in the book, some 100+ pages, is an adventure module that takes the PCs through various adventures from exploration to dungeon crawls as they venture in Mesopotamia. I found this slightly disappointing, as I would have liked to see the book divided equally between setting and adventures. It?s a bit misleading to say the book is the Mesopotamia setting and two/thirds of it is one adventure module.

Whereas the writing of this book is engrossing, the presentation still could use some work. As with some other publications that are transferred into PDF by Necromancer games, Mesopotamia does not include bookmarks and, for that matter, does not even have a table of contents. This is a necessary requirement if you are attempting to navigate a book of 40 pages or more. Even worse, the security on the PDF does not allow you to make your own bookmarks even if you own the full copy of Adobe Acrobat. Sure the technologically savvy can work around it with a generic PDF writer, but why make it so complicated to read the book. It seems that if the only job of Necromancer is to make the book a decent PDF, navigation should be at the top of things to do.

For the Dungeon Master

This is a beautiful setting that wets the appetite for a Middle Eastern campaign. The most important chapter to read through is the one on the magic variations, which introduced concepts such as mundane magic, witchcraft and astrology. Not to be outdone, the adventure in this book, though lengthy, is good with each chapter broken up well and allowing you to take breaks from it at your leisure.

For the Player

If you are currently in an Egyptian or Middle Eastern campaign, the character options from chapter two can make an excellent addition to your character. I am usually not a fan of prestige classes but the ones here are infused with so much culture it really adds bite to a character. Clerics will enjoy the feel of the Ashipu-Priest and Baru Priest, rare quality for cleric prestige classes.

The Iron Word Rich in culture, writing and flavor, Mesopotamia is in the upper echelon of source books of this setting. Though there should be more material on the setting alone, there is enough here and in the appendix to make an exotic campaign. The adventure that covers the majority of the book pretty good and its cuts between chapters makes dungeon masters feel as if they are in charge of the campaign and not following a linear line. If you do not mind the lack of navigation, Ancient Kingdoms: Mesopotamia is a good foundation to take your adventure to another land.
<br><br> <b>LIKED</b>: - rich flavor that captures the era

• good adventure that gives game masters a break here and there from that main storyline <br><br><b>DISLIKED</b>: - just enough setting, but not as much there as in many, many other books
• no navigation hurts a DM who wants to read through the entire book without having to find their place again and again <br><br><b>QUALITY</b>: Acceptable<br><br><b>VALUE</b>: Satisfied<br>

The latest thing in the PDF world is to take one item or spell and to delve as much into the analysis of it as you can, diagnosing every legend, nook and cranny. Adventure Essentials: Holy Water is the first in a series of books taking this concept to the world of the mundane adventuring items.

Holy Water is 7 pages long and focuses only on Mundane (though that is debatable) item of Holy Water. The book is well laid out with colorful art that would make excellent handouts. You find out quickly that seven pages dedicated to one item provides a lot of good generic fluff. The first three pages informs us of the history of holy water and then dissect the ingredients that make up holy water, settling the debate as to whether it is just a normal prayer or a bless spell. The next few pages lay out different variations of holy water, from mundane to magical.

Normally, I thoroughly enjoy material like this. By analyzing one item, you become a better player as it teaches you how to use your wits instead of your 5th level spell slot. However, instead of telling me about tactics for normal holy water, it begins to introduce variations of holy water, thus making me believe that normal holy water must not be essential enough. This detour from my expectation of the product was slightly disappointing. That is not to say that the variations are not good, they can be quite useful. But my hopes was that the product concentrated more on the original Holy Water.

For the Player As said, there are some pretty nifty variations of Holy Water. The Water of Health is a cheap way to stop those pesky energy drains and water of solitude should be helpful against any creature whom is constantly summoning reinforcements.

For the Dungeon Master If you are looking to tone down the magic in your campaign a tad, a few of the new magical variations of holy water can be substituted as treasures in your campaign. The Aspergillum is a mundane item that sprinkles holy water like the peppershaker at an Italian restaurant. The Mace of Heaven is a weapon form of the device.

If you do not want to add more items into your campaign, you could always apply the tweak that I did and say that performing the required spell for the special items even after it has already been turned into regular holy item still turns it into its enhanced version. By expanding the use of Holy Water to outsiders and demons, it increases its effectiveness.

The Iron Word Whereas it does not offer any useful tactics for regular old Holy Water, it does provide some useful variations of the substance that, if kept mundane, can really add some non-magical alternative to your game. With a slight tweak, you could figure out a way to apply the tweaks to normal Holy Water. <br><br> <b>LIKED</b>: - the alternative holy waters are creative and not overpowered in the least. They are also inexpensive.

• the art is very nice for a $2 product. For that matter it beats some $8 and $10 products
• The history and creation of holy water is generic and effective. <br><br><b>DISLIKED</b>: - There were no tactics provided for regular old holy water which was what i was expecting. <br><br><b>QUALITY</b>: Acceptable<br><br><b>VALUE</b>: Satisfied<br>

Like many of you in the summer of 1999, I eagerly sat through one of the most intense and gripping movies of our generation, roller coasting through the plot hoping that our future drunk-driving convicted and poster child for washed up kid star Haley Joel masters his powers to speak with angry spirits with obvious father issues. And even when we were about to walk away pleased with a refreshingly good movie, that was when we found it. It was something that had been missing for a while, maybe even since Hitchcock.

The Twist

And so our favorite cameo loving director and others have attempted to bring the twist back, not just in movies apparently but, apparently, even in RPG PDF, as Eridanus does with their first product, Ten Ideas wit ha Twist.

Ten Ideas is a short, plain 10 page PDF with each page dedicated to a single adventure hook with a twist. Unfortunately the twists are more of Signs than Unbreakable. That is not to say that they are as bad as the Village, but they just are not that twisty. I expected hooks that would involve the PCs being put in serious moral dilemmas after finding out the twist, however, most are just sub plots of the adventure. A twist should take you to a completely different place, not just provide you a minor detour.

The somewhat saving grace of the product, however, are the adventure hooks themselves. Sure the premise of the Twist fails as bad as Lady in the Lake, but the hooks are well written and show some innovation in places. The one page format is very impressive as well doing more for the adventure hook genre of PDFs than hooks you will see in other sources. Each page is broken up into a beginning that describes the setup and basic problem, the event which details what is going on, the twist which introduces a subplot and then the follow up, which is a nice little addition that lays out a course for future adventures outside of the hook.

For the Dungeon Master The one hook I enjoyed the most and that did seem somewhat twisty is the Bloody Circus. Whenever a circus is put in a Dungeons and Dragons community, there is usually some shenanigans, the one introduced here is a bit more surprising than others I have seen before. Hunger Strikes is also fairly surprising and has a slight spooky atmosphere to it.

The Iron Word Though its premise of the twist only shows feint Signs of life, the ideas in the adventure hooks are decent and make this a worthwhile purchase if you are in desperate need of hooks, just do not expect many surprises.

<br><br><b>LIKED</b>: - the adventure hooks are common in dungeons and dragon communities, however, there is enough innovation in some to make them usable.

• the layout of the adventure hooks is innovative for this type of PDF<br><br><b>DISLIKED</b>: - no real effort in the layout or even artwork for the product, I know its cheap but it doesn't have to appear cheap
• the twists just were not twisty, I only found two or three of the hooks really interesting. <br><br><b>QUALITY</b>: Disappointing<br><br><b>VALUE</b>: Satisfied<br><BR>[THIS REVIEW WAS EDITED]<BR>

Forget Mercedes/Chrysler and RPGNow/Drivethru, the Mother of all collaborations, Tabletop Adventures LLC and Necromancer Games, have produced The Mother of All Treasure Tables, one of the most useful products for the hurried DM since the last Tabletop?s last edition of Bits and Shards.

Before this 162 pg jewel came across my desk, I was never much for table books. Whereas a majority of table PDFs and books are content with just listing the items that are randomized, The Mother of All Treasure Tables drives its readers down a different detour, most notability the fact that there are no tables. Instead, you get a list of exceptionally descriptive blurbs about the treasure. Within each description there is also the included values of the treasure and the total net worth of the stash.

One of the best features of the book is not its tables but the meaty introduction that many PDFs nowadays have begun to leave out. The intro recommends the usage of the book and explains why there are no magical items included in any of the treasures. It also suggests that whereas this is ideal for a low magic campaign, it can be a refreshing break from distributing the magical item of the week to parties.

The eight tables of treasures under 10,000gp contain 100 entries and the other two, which contain entries of 30,000gp and 50,000 contain 15. Like Tabletops Bits and Shards, the descriptions are dynamically different from one to another, with each bringing a vivid portrayal whether the player is picking a pocket or ciphering through a wardrobe.

For the Low Magic Dungeon Master This is one of the first accessory products that is geared towards the low magic campaign. If you are a DM whom has had a problem sexing up mundane treasure for your party you will want to grab some duct tape and attach yourself to the Mother of All Treasure Tables. The descriptions are not just lengthy but also have the benefit of producing future adventure hooks and inspiration among the party. If you have contemplated adding a magical item or two to a treasure horde to spice it up, buy the Mother of All Treasure Tables first and rediscover how grand mundane items can be.

For the High Magic Dungeon Master Variation is a good thing, and the Mother of All Treasure Tables is real useful in high and normal magic campaigns to introduce that type of good variety. When you do issue out magical items, most of the entries are written with enough of an opening to allow you to take out any mundane item with a similar magical one. For example, I wanted to use the book right away, however, the PCs recently found a psionic horde. I used entry 99 on the 5,000 GP table which describes a strongbox tucked into a wall to protect it from outsiders. It was very easy to snatch out the sundial and other items and put in a couple blobs of good.

The Iron Word Necromancer?s experience with table products combined with the talented writing from the team at Tabletop Adventures makes The Mother of All Treasure Tables one of the most helpful items to be released this year. With over 600 descriptions of treasures of any value, anyone can find a use for this product. The lack of magical items may seem like a hindrance, but it actually makes it more of a benefit because it allows you to add your own magical items or take out the items all together and add the table entry for description purposes. <br><br> <b>LIKED</b>: - top notch writing

• who would have thought that a book of mundane items would be so useful
• over 600 entries makes this a book you will be using for years
• A solid intro explains how everyone can use the product<br><br><b>DISLIKED</b>: - not much art. I would have liked to see a bit more. <br><br><b>QUALITY</b>: Excellent<br><br><b>VALUE</b>: Very Satisfied<br>

If you are a fan of high violence, low superpower comic books, your options were limited in the Mutants and Masterminds system. Most of the core archetypes (outside of the agent) are too powerful or absurd for a low level campaign, even with some tweaking. So you would either have to settle on them and power them down during encounters or build your own, which is time consuming to say the least.

Finally there is a fix, literally. Green Ronin Publishing finally gives a nod to the grit and grim street level campaigns for its Mutants and Masterminds system with Street Level Archetypes 2, the second in a series of PDFs that provides low level, yet usable archetypes. Cool archetypes included are the fixer (a person who can get anything done) and the electric hero.

The PDF weighs in small at 13 pages but packs about as much punch as an electrified batarang. There are 10 unique archetypes. Each power level 6 character contains a well laid out statting of the character, a brief discussion and a breakout box of useful tips for the archetype.

For the Player: You sign up for a Mutants and Masterminds game only for the GM to lay it on you a week before session that he game is low-level. The Superman/green Lantern/Punisher character with the invisible jet will have to sit on the shelf a little while longer. Luckily, you got the Street-wise Archetype 2 book on hand for such purposes. This PDF is more for the player than the DM. Each characters unique abilities will give you quite a bit of distinction from other players using the book. Also, since this book starts off at level 6 and a number of street level games begin at 7 or 8 you have at least another power level worth of points to tweak if you wish. I see a lot of good role playing potential in the unretired hero whom has a nice stats for intelligence and wisdom and a decent array of feats and equipment that really defines the character. Image the look on the GMs face when you play a crotchety old batman taking up the mantle at 89.

For the Game Master My favorite archetype from a GM standpoint is a fixer. The fixer comes with a network of people and a means of getting things done, no matter how legal or dangerous. This could be the perfect antagonist for a group of heroes bordering on the law already.

The Iron word Street-Level Archetypes 2 standardizes this PDF series, with a good balance of archetypes with powers, abilities and equipment. Whereas the previous edition seemed to be scattered as far as consistency, the second series not only fixes several minor problems from the first, but it solidifies the user tips and gritty descriptions to create a good low-level product.
<br><br> <b>LIKED</b>: - 10 different good solid classes whereas the last edition seemed to balance too much with equipment, this one uses good combos of powers and equipment

• well bookmarked
• the artwork and writing is consistently good from Green Ronin<br><br><b>DISLIKED</b>: - one too many psychics<br><br><b>QUALITY</b>: Very Good<br><br><b>VALUE</b>: Satisfied<br>

With Hunter and Prey, Arbor Productions allowed us a glimpse into a colorfully creative superhero world called Neos, with the Autumn Arbor Campaign Setting, they carve open the whole freaking gate , full on exposing us to an exciting and unique campaign setting for a Mutants and Masterminds world.

Of course, to say Autumn Arbor is just a campaign setting is not giving it justice. Throughout the power packed 200 pages, you will find suspicious heroes, deadly villains, descriptive city locations and incredible details that are written so vividly, you will find yourself snagging so much material from Autumn Arbor for your established campaign that you?ll wonder why didn?t you just use it as a campaign setting to begin with.

The detail of this book is amazing. At no point do the writers seem to get too engrossed in their dreamchild that they ignore the readers. In fact, with breakout boxes and careful explanations, they draw readers heavily into the world.

Autumn Arbor?s rich imaginative history accents the good writing and helps make the book very plausible. At its base, the city is a city with a large number of superheroes living with in it. You would think in a city that has so many superheroes there would be little need for anymore. However, the writers add good prose and explain that it is because of all the superheroes that the city finds itself involved in many dastardly world plots from alien invasions to superhuman mastermind takeovers.

For the Game Master A city packed with Superheroes may not be everyone?s cup of tea, but I had no problem scaling down the number of Superheroes. This is primarily because the writers rarely ever get bogged down in their own Mythos. They reach that find line of describing a place that allows a gamemaster to tweak a couple of sentences and place Barludi International or the Divine Drive-In in your makeshift city, even if it is a low-powered makeshift Gotham City like my homegrown.

You will also enjoy many of the NPCs in the book. Arbor Productions created a gem with their last product, an NPC supplement, and the ones here share that same type of inventiveness. There are crime families, gangs and smaller organizations, all of which are given the same extent of narrative as everything else in the book. The realistic stats and bios of the crime family will be enjoyed by those into pulp or low power whereas the high powered campaigns will enjoy supergangs such as the Riggers.

Aside from the locations and the NPCs, there is a nice little appendix in the back that explains small but important details like the world of Neo, the local prison and a few more city notables.

The Iron word Arbor Productions has produced a very good campaign setting for the Mutants and Masterminds system that does something very different in terms of organization and detail. One would think that with such detail, the book would be impossible to use elsewhere, which is not the case. Quite the opposite, arbor productions has created a piece that will motivate and inspire established campaigns as well. However, you will find this book so useful and nearly a cut above other such settings, that you will compliment replacing your main city with Autumn ARbor. <br><br> <b>LIKED</b>: - These guys should be writing novels and winning Pulitzers. The descriptions are not redundant and show the effort the writers went through to put time and effort into even the small details such as media stations.

• Though I might not use all the NPCs, many of them were done nicely.

• The artwork is tremendous. They can work for 4-color or a gritty street level.

• With 200 pages of solid material, you really get a feel that this is an entire city and not just a small slice. <br><br><b>QUALITY</b>: Excellent<br><br><b>VALUE</b>: Very Satisfied<br>

If you are looking to cheesy horror up your Mutants and Mastermind game or provide a comedic fright to your campaign world, you might want to send out an invitation for The Graveyard Gang to haunt your next M&M session.

The Graveyard Gang is a Mutants and Mastermind 18- page supplement that details six ghoulish inspired adversaries to throw at your party. The PDF includes the descriptions and statblocks for the six silver-age style villains. Again the style is more cheesy horror than actual horror The solid writing details some scary descriptions, but nothing that will send you ghasting, and they are not suppose to. The way the villains are written is that of the kind of evil gangs you saw in comic books and on television in the 80s. Most are a bit over the top and their motivations pretty much stop at having fun and causing some havoc.

The author understands the cheesiness of the characters and provides solid writing to match. The link between the six individuals and how they interact is well integrated and creative. The actual villains themselves are not as creative as their backgrounds are, most of which consist of typical powers and abilities seen elsewhere in the Superlink universe. But this is expected when the aim is cheesy rip offs of classic movie villains. The flavor is well crafted to make you forget about the uninteresting statblocks and more on the story of this b-movie gang.

For the DM One of the coolest concepts in the book is the boneyard, a unique dimension where it is Halloween all the time. Though the description is only a few paragraphs its vivid enough to let your imagination run wild with the possibilities for it. It also provides a place where you can insert a cheesy plot line in an otherwise serious campaign world.

There are also several fun adventures at the back of the book. None of them are save the world impact but they will provide a good distraction.

None of the villains impressed me greatly, but I have always been a fan of Jason ripoffs so I?d have to go with ?The Slasher? as the most useful of the bunch.

The Iron Word The Graveyard Gang is not going to provide an overly serious threat most groups, but thye will give a good challenge. The villains range from a psycho witch to an old mummy to a woman with a pumpkin on her head, none of which is going to provide an incredible BBEG. However, if you are interested in inserting some light hearted scary or Halloween fun, take a trip to the Boneyard and pick up the Graveyard Gang. <br><br> <b>LIKED</b>: - good ole fashion campy humor

• the adventures in the back are silly but cool for that kind of campaign
• hilarious artwork.
• It does what it sets out to do, is well organized and comes in black and white and color formats. <br><br><b>DISLIKED</b>: - sometimes the cheese factor was a bit too much. Even for Scooby Doo fans. <br><br><b>QUALITY</b>: Very Good<br><br><b>VALUE</b>: Satisfied<br>

City Guide: Darkside, may not be as dark as expected, but there is enough shining jewels inside it to brighten many a DMs day.

Despite what the name says, City Guide: Darkside, by Dark Quest, is actually quite colorful with a majority of its pages filled with Vivid NPCs. Its biggest strength is the book?s only downfall as there are few really dark places in the book.

The City Guide series is a very popular and useful DM reference series that provides detailed and interesting locations that are easy to insert into your game. The 39 pages of Darkside contains 11 locations and descriptions for 5 streets. For those intimate with the series, you will notice a huge step up in artwork and the latest series entry. The pages seem to read crisper and the flavorful art adds to the read.

Each description contains breakout box text of the location, a description of any NPCs, items or services the person sells including price and adventure hooks to get your PCs further involved.

For the Dungeon Master

All of the locations are located in the seedier part of a city or village. The descriptions are very well written, depicting many of the locations to be decrepit and deprived. From the title, however, I expected more blackmarkets and underground fight clubs, instead we get crazy old men and junk men. In the hands of less capable writers, this could have been a let down, but the good folk over at Darkside seem to have a knack for making the mundane interesting. Each location is very unique in design and the people whom populate the place. I have never thought about putting a roaming junk beggar or a crazy beggar whom thinks he is a king in my games, but after reading the suggestions, I do not see how I can not now.

Though I expected more darker characters as opposed to poorer ones, the dark ones in the book really go the distance. DMs will find a use for the Hostel like torturing guild The Guildhouse of the Sisterhood of the Tainted Spider. This place is dark, and I mean dark in the slow burning off of an ear way. They are hired assassins who mare paid to torture or maim their victims. This is also a place where PCs can find poisons and other banned alchemical items. There is also the Bloody Hand, an interesting place to go if you do not want to get your hands dirty.

The Iron Word Again, though not what you would expect from a title called Darkside, there are enough dark locations in the book to get your fill. More importantly, I enjoyed the usefulness for less fortunate characters. The weakest part of the book is the alleys which are simply descriptions of the poor and rundown streets of a town. The rest of the book, though, more than makes up for this minor annoyance with interesting NPCs, well made places and good writing.
<br><br> <b>LIKED</b>: - good descriptions

• every place is unique, you won't find the common inn or tavern in here
• the npcs are useful. Even though some seem silly they each can provide some type of benefit or adventure hook for a party
• Though i expected all the descriptions to be downright dark the three dark ones are REALLY DARk<br><br><b>DISLIKED</b>: - the alley descriptions seem to run together
• not as many truly seedy places as I expected<br><br><b>QUALITY</b>: Very Good<br><br><b>VALUE</b>: Very Satisfied<br>

I do not online game, but I do use tokens for my projector based games. Even on my crappy 600 buck projector, the lines separating the mummies wrappings and the cracks in the skeletons bones were vivid and really impressed my group.

The pack itself is surprisingly well organized. Undead and Oozes are separated into different folders. From there, they are further separated into alphabetical order by type. Even then they are separated by species. I expected their only to be one kind of vampire, one kind of skeleton, one kind of mummy ect., but each type of creatures has at least 2 or 3 different sub species associated with it. Very impressive to say the least. They could have easily repeated had multiples of the same images only resized to bump up the art count to 400, but each piece of artwork is unique. As a matter of fact, the one downside is that everything comes in just one size, the original size of the creature Most newer programs allow you to resize tokens in the game and some company?s, such as RPTools.net, have a token resizer. Still would have been nice to have had copies of the creatures in another size.

The Iron Word

On its own merits, Token Pack #8 is a fantastic program featuring a variety of undead from your typical 3.5 core variety to several I have only seen produced in the Libris Mortis. The artwork is 2-dimensional classic fantasy. Though it does lose some ground against the newer 3-dimensional artwork being produced for play online games, the traditional approach done in here holds up well. <br><br> <b>LIKED</b>: - The artists of Fantasy grounds have been producing some of the best userart in the D and D world for years

• Its very easy to use and works in everything I've tried so far <br><br><b>DISLIKED</b>: - As impressive as the artwork is, the 2-d images do not capture the true 3-d feel of minatures
• few tokens have multiple sizes <br><br><b>QUALITY</b>: Very Good<br><br><b>VALUE</b>: Very Satisfied<br>

There comes a time in every story arch?s life that an epic adventure is sought to bring about a proper climax. Dungeon Crawl Classics 30: Vault of the Dragon Kings is such an adventure.

Vault of the Dragon Kings is one of Goodman Games premium adventures. It is noticeably bigger at 132 pages, well bookmarked and complete with artwork, blueprint maps and plenty of player handouts. I?ve quipped in previous Dungeon Crawl classic reviews about the lack of handouts, apparently they were saving them all up for here.

The suggested level is between 10th through 12th, though I am taking my 14th level party through it and, unmodified, they are having a tough time with it (insert evil laugh track here). Seriously, if you are running this adventure tournament style and do not mind a high death count (or TPK) then you can run it at 10th, else I would suggest this as challenging for a 13th through 15th level group.

Again this is a Goodman?s premium adventure and they have certainly pulled out all the stops. The adventure is designed for the company?s big Gencon tournament and is complete with the team?s names, scores and deaths. Thus my advice in the previous paragraph.

The plot of the adventure is very intricate for a dungeon crawl. A silver dragon with good intentions goes on a quest to find information on his ancestors, the dragon kings. He is manipulated and overwhelmed by the ghost of an evil red dragon, Sunscreech. But the PCs do not know this. As a matter of fact, they believe that the four dragon kings are the ones whom are at fault. The dungeon is designed to provide clues that could lead to both hypothesis?s and there is quite a bit of mystery solving to find the truth.

Vault of the Dragon Kings contains the usual heavy combat action you would expect from Goodman games, but there are also a great deal more puzzles. The adventure does not bash you over the head with the puzzles, forcing players to become Rubik?s cube players though, and failure usually results in a combat as opposed to instant death. Most of the almost 30 encounters are very creative and go beyond the typical obligatory fight scene. Many combats can be avoided through puzzle solving, trap finding or role playing. The descriptions put you in the middle of the dungeon, yet leave enough room to add your own flavor. The plot is tight, but again, allows you to still add your own pizzazz.

For the DM This adventure is complete. It has the right amount of puzzles, traps and monsters and with the different types of encounters, your players will not be bogged down by one meaningless combat after another, instead they will be rewarded for using their 3.5 knowledge and wits.

The last encounter is one of the most amazing encounters I have seen. A fight with the incredibly powerful possessed silver dragon that tests the players intelligence more so than their character stats.

A small tidbit I wished they?d add to their other adventures is the predetermined rolls. Most of the rolls a DM would make, from damage to random rolls are already predetermined, allowing the DM to move quickly through a game as opposed to rolling continuously. I know a lot of DMs would not like this, but it would be a nice aid for the few whom want to skip out on some rolls.

The Iron Word Vault of the Dragon Kings is one of the best adventures produced in the Dungeon Crawl Classics series. It is the kind of adventure that makes me mad I did not sign up for it at Gencon. If you are looking for a climatic adventure, and do not want a very lengthy boring Dungeon crawl, Vault of the Dragon Kings will win you over. The rooms are very detailed, the puzzles are inquisitive but not overbearing and the unique amount of combat is amazing. <br><br> <b>LIKED</b>: - the detail is pretty descriptive. The rooms come out at you.

• the predetermined rolls are nice if you want to skip some rolls
• there are plenty of handouts and unique monsters. There are also some really cool monsters.
• The balance of he adventure is perfect. Not once has my party seemed bored. <br><br><b>DISLIKED</b>: - It is designed for a tournament and is a bit too lethal at points. Not a 10th level adventure unless you want plenty of dead PCs (read the list in the front of the book. I would actually suggest 12th or higher.
• I was a bit confused why the ghosts of the Dragon Kings are usually not ghost dragons.<br><br><b>QUALITY</b>: Excellent<br><br><b>VALUE</b>: Very Satisfied<br>