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LURCH! The Zombie Chess Game
Publisher: Creative Mountain Games
by Shane O. [Featured Reviewer]
Date Added: 10/22/2011 16:06:02

There are certain things that can make almost anything better. Most foods are better with salt. Most action movies are better with slow-mo. And most games are better with zombies, even when the game is as simple as chess. It’s that last idea that forms the basis of Lurch! The Zombie Chess Game, from Creative Mountain Games.

Lurch! comes as a twenty-one page PDF with everything you need to play. Ideally, you’ll already have the 8x8 chessboard, and ideally some zombie miniatures or other counters that you can designate, but if you don’t the game takes care of that (see below). There isn’t really a need for bookmarks here, but they would have been nice.

Visually, the book has a simple feel to it that complements its game design – chess, of any stripe, is not a game that demands an ostentatious presentation. There are a few black and white pictures of zombies presented throughout the book, and one or two even have captions, but nothing that your printer shouldn’t be able to handle. Similarly, there are a number of diagrams that showcase how various moves work, something I was quite grateful for.

As it’s presentd, Lurch! is a fairly simple game – certainly moreso than mainstream chess – as all of the zombies (playing pieces) are identical, and each piece can only undertake one of four possible moves (though you can move up to three pieces per turn). There is a way to make your basic zombie into a clever zombie, which is the equivalent of getting a pawn turned into a queen, but that’s about it…except that it’s not.

If the above sounds simple, then rest assured that it is, but that’s also just the foundation of the game. The beauty of Lurch! is that it’s highly customizable, so much so that the book not only presents three different advanced rules, but also twenty-six “scenarios” each of which are also variant ways to play.

The beauty here is that each way is modular, and while some of them are mutually exclusive, most can be mixed and matched. Hence, what sounds like a very simple game can quickly be made into one with quite a bit of intrigue behind it. I also enjoyed how each scenario is presented alphabetically by name, which leads to some rather amusing titles (“Foosball Zombies”).

Following a brief note on sportsmanship – which seemed rather unnecessary (and can be summarized as “be a good sport”) – there’s an interesting note of making Lurch! a game that’s played in the game world of your role-playing game. I enjoyed that idea a lot, and it’s clear that Creative Mountain Games knows who their audience is likely to be. I particularly enjoy the thought of this becoming the game of choice in a zombie-apocalypse setting (“zombies are just everywhere these days”).

Some quick notes are given on constructing a game board and pieces, which are helpful but not anything that shouldn’t be obvious. Still, it was nice to have it overviewed, as it shows a cognizance that this isn’t quite a game that’s playable out of the proverbial box…unless you have a good printer.

The remaining pages of the PDF virtually everything necessary to construct a Lurch! game. Specifically there’s a board (or, to be more precise, half of one), and a lot of zombie tokens, in white and gray-scale (so as to denote which pieces belong to which player). Nicely, there are tokens for every different type of zombie discussed in the book, as well as a few tokens to mark spaces on the board for those scenarios that call for the board to be altered.

Overall, Lurch! is a very fun game if you’re bored with chess but still a fan of it. Being exceptionally quick and easy to learn, and having many different ways to play, makes this a very entertaining game. Perhaps its one flaw is that it’s limited to precisely two players, no more and no less, but considering its parent game that can’t really be helped. So put aside those dusty old rooks, bishops, and pawns, and sit down to a game of Lurch! Because everything’s better with zombies.



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
LURCH! The Zombie Chess Game
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Ancient Warriors: Sons of Sparta
Publisher: Necromancers of the Northwest
by Shane O. [Featured Reviewer]
Date Added: 10/15/2011 13:20:45

Spartans have been in vogue around the game table ever since a certain movie gave us tailor-made gamer quotes like “Tonight we dine in Hell!” and “Spartans! Prepare for glory!” The archetypal real-world warrior culture, the warriors of Sparta are icons for those who want to play a martial class in their Pathfinder game. Canny players and GMs know, however, that there’s more to playing a Spartan warrior than the occasional tagline. That’s where Necromancers of the Northwest’s book, Ancient Warriors: Sons of Sparta, comes in.

Sons of Sparta comes in two PDFs, one being the main file and the other being the printer-friendly version thereof. The printer-friendly version is notable in that it removes the parchment-colored background that’s in the main file, and does away with a one-page advertisement for other Necromancers of the Northwest products. Otherwise, the two are identical.

The main file is twenty-eight pages long, though there’s one page each for the front and back covers, the OGL, and a page of ads. Full, nested bookmarks are present, so props are due there. However, for whatever reason the copy-and-paste function still returns a lot of gibberish in with the text, making it nigh-unusable. This is slightly better if you copy-and-paste from the printer-friendly version, but it’s still somewhat annoying if you want to copy a lot of what’s here (such as, say, for a character sheet). The few pieces of artwork in the book are public-domain images of Spartan warriors or other pieces that evoke a similar theme.

But enough with the technical overview, let’s review of the meat of the book itself. Onward, to glory!

After the introduction, the book opens with a transcription of a historical conversation between the Persian god-king Xerxes and a deposed Spartan king at the beginning of the Battle of Thermopylae. It’s an evocative story that sets the tone for most of the book.

Subsequent to this, we’re given an overview of historical Sparta itself, outlining things like the social classes of the people who lived there, their religious attitudes, how their economic and political systems worked, etc. Following this, some discussion is given to what Sparta would be like in a fantasy game world, with discussion given to questions of magic, demihumans, and monsters.

If these sound boring, or like wasted space, rest assured that they aren’t. What’s interesting about these is that the “fantasy Sparta” section flows smoothly after the “historical Sparta” one. In other words, both sections work together to present how Sparta would appear in your Pathfinder game, with the two overviews divided but clearly working together to paint a single picture. (And if the idea of putting Sparta in your Pathfinder game seems awkward, it shouldn’t; taking real-world cultures and putting an analogue of them – perhaps with a different name – into a campaign world has a very long tradition in tabletop RPGs.)

Following this, the book presents us with a base class for the archetypal Spartan warrior: the hoplite. It should be pointed out that the base class has all of the necessary information to make it playable (skill points, etc.) but also includes notations for things like their starting gold and usual starting age, which all too often are overlooked when new classes are introduced.

A full-BAB class, the hoplite’s main class feature is the Spartan Discipline ability that functions much like rogue talents in that, at every even level, the hoplite can choose from a list of abilities (with some advanced abilities being selectable at 10th level and above). Having looked closely at these abilities, none of them are particularly over- or underpowered. In fact, a great deal seem to be inspired by existing abilities in other classes, such as being able to re-roll a failed Will save, a +10 increase to base speed, immunity to fear, etc. Admittedly, there were one or two powers that seemed on the high end of the power scale, but only relatively so – yes, a +1 to all attack rolls is generous, but not game-breaking.

The other class features of the hoplite are similarly balanced and colorful. I found it exceptionally appropriate, for example, that hoplites can use the spear and longspear one-handed at 1st level, for instance, since that’s how those spears are handled in real life. Likewise, there are a number of shield-based abilities here as well, mostly gained by being adjacent to an ally – helpfully, these allies do not need to be hoplites themselves (something I was worried would be required). It was also nice to see abilities to make the tower shield more viable in combat (because, in all my years of play, I’ve seen the tower shield used exactly once, by a guy who was all defense and no offense).

I personally would have preferred to see some APG-style follow-up to this class, such as alternate favored class abilities, or some archetypes for this class, but those are extras whose lack of inclusion doesn’t detract from the class. Likewise, the book does provide some extras in terms of looking at what it means to play a hoplite in the game, including how they tend to relate to other classes and races, how NPCs view them, notable (fantasy) hoplites, and even a table of what you know about them on a Knowledge check.

Alternate class featured are provided in the following section, covering twelve classes (all but two of which, the cavalier and the oracle, are Core Rulebook classes). Interestingly, these aren’t presented as archetypes, but rather are collections of alternate class features, something I was slightly disappointed over – I’m of the opinion that alternate class features work better in packages than they do by letting players cherry-pick the best materials. But again, that’s a small complaint.

It’s in the favored class abilities that we see things swing a little wider on the balance scale. Again, I have to stress that none of these are broken nor unplayable – just that there are a relatively scant handful of options that are notably better or worse than existing options. For example, the bard can swap out their 20th-level power, deadly performance, for an ability to grant all allies +4 to their AC, attack and damage rolls, and saves. That’s great for everybody else in the party, but I doubt that the bard would want to give up a save-or-die effect for buffing everybody else, particularly when they already have (less powerful but still not-inconsiderable) buffing abilities. On the other side of the scale, the new sorcerer bloodline has, for its bloodline arcane, the sorcerer using a d8 Hit Die and a ¾ BAB, without having to give anything up. I haven’t playtested that, but it seems too good compared to other bloodlines (in 3.5, when Unearthed Arcana introduced that option, it lowered the sorcerer’s spells per day and spells known by 1 each, for example; though to be fair, 3.5 had a lower power level than Pathfinder does).

Having said that, most of what’s here is great material. The cavalier, for example, has a new order introduced, which among other powers lets them – just a few times per day – survive an otherwise-fatal blow, which instead reduces them to 1 hit point (and can’t be used for 1 minute after it’s been used). Balanced and effective. The cleric can lose channeling healing or harming energy to channel buffs or penalties instead (to their allies or enemies, respectively). The monk can swap out evasion for a power that’s identical but applies to Fort saves instead, etc.

To summarize all of the above, these alternate class abilities allow for a character to be much more martial than they’d otherwise be; in accordance with a character from Sparta.

The book’s last section covers new traits, which was fun to see as traits are one of the new parts of the game that I enjoy the most. Three general traits are presented, along with traits for each of the three social castes in Spartan society.

Again, there are good and bad points to these. Most traits (like feats) that I’ve seen usually provide a small bonus – having them provide too large of a bonus is too generous, while having them provide a bonus and a penalty is flavorful, but not beneficial enough. Again, those are the upper and lower ends of the zeitgeist of trait design, so breaking it may not result in a weaker character, but it makes some of these traits seem, on their face, sub-optimal.

And again, that doesn’t apply to most of these traits, either. Of the eleven traits here, having one that grants proficiency in leather armor, the buckler, and the longspear, for example, is perfectly in line with what traits should do, as is one that gives you a +1 Fort bonus to resist fatigue and a Strength 5 points higher for encumbrance purposes. It’s when a trait has you losing skill points to gain increasing weapon and armor proficiencies that these become sticky.

The traits, it should be noted, are the last section of the book, which is odd because the introduction says there’s also a new prestige class. Perhaps it’s dining in Hell?

Overall, Ancient Warriors: Sons of Sparta presents a good sourcebook for ideas on having Sparta – or some version thereof – in your game. More than just a new class, its holistic presentation encourages having an entire region like the historical warrior city-state in your campaign world, and does a good job presenting how it’d function in a high-fantasy setting. The new base class is a solid presentation that stands alongside the fighter, paladin, barbarian, and other martial classes in terms of how viable it functions. The alternate class features and traits may require some oversight, but for the most part are great new additions that helps to present how everyone would be in a military nation. If you want a martial character that will fight in the shade, make him one of the Sons of Sparta.



Rating:
[4 of 5 Stars!]
Ancient Warriors: Sons of Sparta
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#1 With a Bullet Point: 13 Witch Hexes
Publisher: Rogue Genius Games
by Shane O. [Featured Reviewer]
Date Added: 10/08/2011 15:33:53

It’s funny how sometimes, less really is more in an RPG book. For all that we gamers love to talk about beautiful art budgets and long page counts, an artful idea remains artful, even when it only takes up a single page. Hence the #1 With a Bullet Point line from Super Genius Games. In this particular product, Owen K. C. Stephens turns his attention to my favorite class from the Advanced Player’s Guide: the witch.

The witch’s hex power, a set of supernatural abilities, usable at will, is expanded upon here, with thirteen new hexes presented. These are all lower-level hexes; no dire or grand hexes are to be found here. In terms of balance, all of them fall artfully within the limits set by the standard array of witch hexes.

While it’d be impractical to cover all of the hexes in this book, there are a few that are notable. The Seal Wife hex isn’t your typical hex, for instance, because instead of producing an at-will effect, it grants movement ability in the water that escalates as the witch levels up. Dead Sexy allows for mind-affecting effects to be used against the undead. Wound Drinker lets the witch harm herself to cause equal healing to an ally. That’s just a sampling, but it’s a good representative of what’s here: nothing that completely alters the class or its hex power, but instead adds a dash of versatility.

If you want to expand what your witch can do, these thirteen hexes make for a good way to widen the options of their signature power.



Rating:
[4 of 5 Stars!]
#1 With a Bullet Point: 13 Witch Hexes
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101 New Skill Uses (PFRPG)
Publisher: Rite Publishing
by Shane O. [Featured Reviewer]
Date Added: 10/01/2011 19:44:43

I’ve been waiting for this book for a very long time. Skills are one of the most underutilized parts of a character, often being ignored entirely save for the occasional Perception check to notice a clue or spot an ambush. Yet there’s much more that skills can offer a character, and with Rite Publishing’s 101 New Skill Uses, that list just became much longer.

The one hundred and one new skill uses are distributed across the existing skills of the Pathfinder RPG; no new skills are presented. This was a wise decision, since introducing new skills tends to be problematic at best (e.g. what classes treat them as class skills?). Full bookmarks list the individual skills, though I wish they’d had a list of what the new uses were simply to create a nice at-a-glance reference for all of the new tricks that the book presents.

The distribution between the skills is fairly uneven. Some skills (e.g. Perform) have only a single new uses presented, while others (e.g. Diplomacy) gain more than a half-dozen! Still, there’s something here for every skill in the game…with one exception. It’s a pity that Profession was overlooked so completely, particularly since it desperately needed some expanded uses to make it more practical. Still, it’s a minor omission, all things considered.

The new uses themselves introduce a great deal of additional versatility into the game. The bulk of these are useful outside of combat, such as covering any tracks you leave (Survival), sliding down a surface (Climb), or blending into a crowd (Disguise). Several, however, do lend greater options to combat, such as a leaping charge (Acrobatics), blood-kissed threats (Intimidate), and throw rider (Handle Animal). There’s something here for your character, no matter what part of the game he excels at.

One of the best features of this book is also one of the most obvious, but one that I feel needs to be called out: its modularity. While this is true for most sourcebooks, its especially helpful here, as you can pick and choose what skills to allow these new uses for (and even what new uses to allow for a given skill) as you like. If you think Handle Animal and Survival are too limited, but other skills are fine, now you can beef them up without increasing the power of other skills. This book is exactly as useful as you want it to be.

Personally, I can’t wait to introduce this book into my campaign, and if you wish that your PCs got more mileage out of their skills, then you likely won’t be able to wait either. Pick up 101 New Skill Uses, and bring the most underutilized portions of your characters front and center!



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
101 New Skill Uses (PFRPG)
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Divine Favor: the Druid (Pathfinder RPG)
Publisher: Kobold Press
by Shane O. [Featured Reviewer]
Date Added: 09/25/2011 19:24:46

Druids have long been known as the potentially strongest class in d20 games, Pathfinder included. While the latter game does tone them down some, it more tries to counter their dominance by bulking the other classes up more than it nerfs this one. But for all its strengths, there’s still a lot the druid can’t do. Divine Favor: the Druid, by Open Design, aims to give nature’s defender more versatility.

Divine Favor: the Druid is a nineteen-page PDF. While I can’t hold it against Open Design too much, it’s something of a shame that there’s no printer-friendly or ePub options available, though the PDF itself is laid out quite nicely, allowing for copy and pasting and having full, nested bookmarks.

The book’s introduction covers some of the basics of the druid class, talking about their wild shape abilities, their spellcasting, and viable feats for them. It’s a good overview, but didn’t feel as holistic in the ones in the Advanced Feats series, which analyzed every portion of the classes they covered.

Two variants for wild shape are given next, one which allows the druid to turn into multiple animals, the other of which allows the druid to become some sort of actual swarm. At first I thought there abilities were similar enough that they should have been one, but there was a subtle distinction that I overlooked. The first power lets the druid become an actual set of singular animals that need not remain contiguous, whereas the second one is a swarm that stays together. It allows for some interesting ideas on what the druid can become (though as alternate class abilities, you can’t choose both).

Unfortunately, this is where I noticed some errors creeping in. The nature’s multitude alternate class ability functions as per beast shape II…except when you use it to become a small animal at 6th level; then it’s as per beast shape I. It’s a minor problem, but it is a problem, and it’s the sort of problem that happens again and again throughout this book.

A single variant option for animal companions continues with the theme of multiplicities of animals, as the flock companion lets you have several animals of a given type.

Nine new druid archetypes are presented, divided into three overarching categories: moon druids (archetypes for full, new, and phasing moons), the greenmen (green wardens who have power over unnatural creatures, and forest children who have power over natural creatures), and elemental shamans (one archetype for each classical element).

It’s unfortunate that these archetypes are the weakest part of the book. Certainly, there’s nothing wrong with them per se (though the air elemental shaman’s bonus language is wrong, and its elemental transformation power is poorly explained), but rather most of them seem like slight variants of the other. The elemental shaman archetypes, for example, are one archetype with four slight variations between them. Ditto for the moon druid archetypes, and even the greenmen archetypes. You can see why the book put these into three categories – these are really just three archetypes, with a few changes between them.

The five new domains do a pretty good job of presenting some new options for clerics and druids. Where they utilizes spells from the Advanced Player’s Guide, alternate spells from the Core Rules are provided in parenthesis in case you don’t have the APG. I can appreciate the sentiment there, but it seems like a wasted effort since the APG is in the Pathfinder SRD now. Oddly, they then mention that several subdomains from the APG are applicable here…and then don’t reprint the alternate subdomain power, but do reprint the alternate spells (with, I should add, no parenthetical alternates; and in a few cases, leave out an alternate domain spell or two).

Five new animal companions are presented next. These are in animal companion stat blocks only, with no monster stat blocks or even exposition on what exactly these creatures are. I’m unfamiliar with brain oozes and green slugs…this really feels like an afterthought that was added to fill up space. There’s nothing truly wrong, here, but nothing makes these creatures anything more than stats on a page.

Ten new feats close out the book. Some of them are inspired, such as Healing Tongue, which allows a creature to lick you for a successful Heal check. Most of the others, however, seem fairly lackluster, such as Primeval Counsel, which gives you a +2 to some knowledge checks when in a natural area.

Overall, Divine Favor: the Druid seems like a product that underlines how a book can be good without being great. It’s never poor – though I wish that the small errors I kept seeing had been caught before it released – but it never goes the extra mile to really make what it presents unique, or give any context to show where this can fit into your game. It shows you what its got and walks away. These alternate options for the druid aren’t bad, but as a book they, like nature itself, are rough around the edges.



Rating:
[4 of 5 Stars!]
Divine Favor: the Druid (Pathfinder RPG)
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The Depravity War Companion
Publisher: Dakkar Unlimited
by Shane O. [Featured Reviewer]
Date Added: 09/17/2011 21:02:51

Any production has ideas that get left on the proverbial (though sometimes literal) cutting room floor. While there once was a time when such things disappeared altogether, nowadays it usually gets presented somewhere. DVDs have their bonus features, graphic novels have sketch pages, and RPG materials…well, presumably they get reused somewhere down the line. Sometimes though, not often but sometimes, there’s enough left over to make a whole new book just out of the cut material.

Welcome to the Depravity War Companion.

A 76-page supplement for the Hot Chicks RPG, the Depravity War Companion doesn’t technically require you to have Inner Darkness 2: The Depravity War…but it really helps. A lot. The best way to summarize this book is that it’s the RPG version of a movie’s commentary track on the DVD; using this without having read Inner Darkness 2 is likely to be somewhat confusing.

The book opens up by noting that their books sometimes have too much artwork to squeeze into them, and that in this case there was so much that it was a shame not to share it all, hence this product. It’s an interesting take on making an RPG book – and a surprisingly frank one, if nothing else – particularly since the designers felt little need to round out the pictures with actual game mechanics. Some slight discussion of the rules creeps up here and there, but it’s only incidental. This book’s text is simply the author talking to us about his characters, and what’s going on with them.

Needless to say, the book is resplendent with artwork, almost all of which is in the full color CG style that’s Dakkar Unlimited’s signature style. There are a few black and white pencil sketches though, which seem oddly out of place alongside the rest of the illustrations. To be fair, some of the CG material is recycled from Inner Darkness 2, but the vast majority of it is new (though some of it is the same picture from a different angle).

The major technical complaint I have with this book is that there’s no easy way to navigate through it, besides just scrolling. The lack of bookmarks here is really inexcusable, since there’s a table of contents (without hyperlinks) for the book’s clearly-defined sections.

So what does this book cover? Exactly what was in Inner Darkness 2. There are sections on each of the three major villain factions, and a quick overview of the heroes who got pretty well wiped out in the framing fiction for the aforementioned book. There’s also a section examining how the bad guys go about invading and abducting people, and a concluding chapter on what happens to those so victimized. Almost every page has a large, beautiful illustration, with the narration running along the space left at the bottom. This is as much an image gallery as it is an overview of the major players in the Depravity War.

Make no mistake, the book isn’t for the faint of heart, either. While never truly explicit (in that there’s no gore or sex actively depicted in the artwork), the book doesn’t shy away from the darker nature of its villains. These are the guys who play towards what we fear, namely sessions of physical, psychological, and sexual torture, which are often carried out in such a way as to keep the victims not only in a state of suspended terror, and also alive, for as long as possible. The text makes no bones about thoroughly presenting what these guys do (though, like the artwork, it doesn’t revel in it).

Of course, you likely knew that if you’d already read through Inner Darkness 2, but that doesn’t make it any less skin-crawling to read about.

Overall, this book is something of an extra to its parent work. If you want some added insight into the major players of the Depravity War, and the people it affects, this book will do some good. I’ve knocked a star off due to the lack of bookmarks and the all-but-total lack of game material; there’s nothing wrong with an art book, and I like art books with commentary, but I went into this thinking it had game stats – that it doesn’t is something the book’s sales page needs to make clearer. Having said that though, this book is one that will let you peer even deeper into the darkness within the world of Hot Chicks.



Rating:
[4 of 5 Stars!]
The Depravity War Companion
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[PFRPG] Achievement Feats: Volume 2
Publisher: Fat Goblin Games
by Shane O. [Featured Reviewer]
Date Added: 09/10/2011 20:06:25

There’s something to be said for doing something truly epic in your game. I don’t mean in the sense of getting more than 20 levels (though that’s certainly impressive), but rather those actions that are above and beyond the usual course of game-play. Killing an enemy and healing your wounded ally is par for the course; leaping onto the flying enemy mage from the top of the tower, slashing his throat, and riding his magically-flying corpse to the ground just in time to heal your dying companion is epic. It’s with that sort of thought in mind that we have Achievement Feats: Volume 2.

It needs to be noted that the “volume 2” here is a misnomer. This book is unrelated to the previous Achievement Feats. Instead, this is a different take on the same idea. Whereas the first Achievement Feats book was based around the Xbox-style achievements where you do enough of something to get a special reward, this book takes a different tack; as stated above, it’s about doing something truly impressive.

The book tells us that each PC has a single “achievement slot.” This means that you can only ever have one achievement feat (which is gained automatically when you meet the prerequisite) – if you later qualify for another achievement, you have to choose between the new one and the one you have, and if you trade your old one in, you lose all its benefits. You can gain a second achievement slot (via a new feat, or an alternate human racial trait), but you can never have more than two.

As for the achievement feats themselves, over thirty are present here. While some of these have prerequisites that don’t seem too over the top (e.g. spend all of your skill points on one skill when you gain a level), most of them range from “damn, that’d be tough to do” to “are you freaking KIDDING me?!” Seriously, there are achievement feats here for taking control of a major world religion, slaying the ruler of Hell or a similar plane, or killing everything in an entire plane of existence.

Yeah, you read that right. Killing everyone on an entire plane of existence.

Now, pound-for-pound, the benefits you get from an achievement feat are quite a bit stronger than what you’d get for taking a normal feat. But given the prerequisites mentioned above, I’m almost tempted to think they sound positively miniscule in comparison to what you have to do. Still, these are pretty hefty bonuses. Take control of a major world religion, for example, you get free Knowledge (religion) ranks, free extra spells, and can never lose class abilities due to personal conduct. Not too shabby.

The book ends with a surprising, and surprisingly-helpful, section discussing making up new achievement feats. It divides such activities into ad hoc feats (made up to suit something epic) and pre-made feats (made ahead of time for something epic that you think the PCs will do). It also talks about if you should let the PCs know ahead of time what these feats are and how to get them – there’s pros and cons either way, making it interesting to consider.

Ultimately, this book’s takes on feats of achievement is that less is more; it’s not about how often you do something, but about how epic a stunt you pull off. And that’s something I can absolutely respect; if your PC accomplishes something uber-impressive, why not give them a powerful reward for being just that awesome? If you want your characters’ achievements to have a tangible impact on what their character can do, pick up Achievement Feats Volume 2.



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
[PFRPG] Achievement Feats: Volume 2
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Faces of the Tarnished Souk: Belladonna, the Face of Love Unrequited (PFRPG)
Publisher: Rite Publishing
by Shane O. [Featured Reviewer]
Date Added: 09/05/2011 16:18:09

“Oh dream weaver, I believe you can get me through the night.” Woe betide the man who says that about the subject of this book, the eponymous Belladonna, the Face of Unrequited Love.

This 18-page PDF is for the Pathfinder RPG, and is specifically meant to work with the Coliseum Morpheuon adventure/sourcebook from Rite Publishing. It doesn’t take much work to port this character to another setting, though, so don’t be put off if you don’t own the latter book.

Opening with a brief summary of her past and her current outlook, Belladonna is a literal living nightmare, but not one that causes terror so much as one that causes despair; she’s the literal incarnation of unrequited love. Her rules for dreamburning are presented rather oddly though, as they seem to describe what her hope, goal, and aspirations look like rather than telling us what they actually are. It’s not hard to figure out the meaning, though, so it’s not really a point against the product, just a slight oddity.

We’re told a little about her place of business, as well as given some DCs to find out more about her, and a sidebar on how to get her to interact with the PCs, before we move on to her stat block. Now, I personally don’t think that Pathfinder is all that complicated of a game, but in this instance I had a slight bit of sympathy for those who think it is. To put it simply, I don’t have Secrets of the Taskshaper, which presents the class that Belladonna has levels in (that is, the taskshaper class). This made reading her stat block slightly more difficult than I’m accustomed to.

Now, to be fair, all of the class abilities that Belladonna has are fully written out, so they’re usable in the game, and a careful read-through will dispel pretty much all the confusion you might feel if you’ve never read that sourcebook. Make no mistake, you can use this character as-is; it just feels like you’re playing with a bit of a handicap. And of course, none of this applies if you have Secrets of the Taskshaper.

Seven new feats are presented, four of which are taskshaper-specific, with the other presenting some nice utility abilities (e.g. sense magic naturally). Two new magic items round things out before we come to the next major section in the book: magical alcohol.

I have to admit that this was by far my most favorite part of this book. Almost a dozen new drinks are presented here, and all are very colorful in their names and abilities. From ambrosia itself to juggernaut juice to pixie clover wine to good old rotgut whiskey, these are drinks your PCs won’t soon forget! Especially since each has a specific effect (though not always a good one – it’s a poor fool who wants to prove their mettle by drinking rotgut). Interestingly, each of these drinks has two ways to create them, one via Craft Wondrous Item, and the other with Brew Potion. Prices are given for various quantities served, and there’s a handy chart noting how much each size contains. A sidebar notes that you should also enforce whatever intoxication and addiction rules your game uses.

Following this we’re given two lower-level stat blocks for Belladonna (which, interestingly, have different titles – a touch I found to be a fun little extra), and the Nightmare and Nymph Child templates.

Overall, Belladonna’s character is one that’s rather obliquely described; I’m not sure I totally understood what it was for her to be the incarnate nightmare of unrequited love. Similarly, there are some gaps in regards to the tavern and gambling hall she runs, with mostly the liquors being the main drawing point. None of these are terrible omissions, however, and are easily filled in. Moreover, once you dig into Belladonna’s stat block, she really has the potential to become almost any nightmare a character has, with a lot of options in combat. Add in the role-playing potential inherent in her character and the establishment she runs, and she’s got a lot to offer your game. The latest face at the Tarnished Souk is a pretty one, but don’t get taken in by Belladonna, the Face of Unrequited Love.



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
Faces of the Tarnished Souk: Belladonna, the Face of Love Unrequited (PFRPG)
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Legendary Races: Rakshasa (PFRPG)
Publisher: Purple Duck Games
by Shane O. [Featured Reviewer]
Date Added: 08/30/2011 15:44:40

It’s no secret that I’m a fan of rakshasas. They’re among the most versatile monsters, so in addition to the inherent customization that goes along with their spellcasting abilities, their special powers work equally well in combat as they do for deception and subterfuge. Given that, I couldn’t resist taking a look at Purple Duck Games’s new Legendary Races supplement devoted to the tiger-headed fiends. Let’s peel back some layers and see what’s here.

The book opens with a history of the rakshasas, one that was fairly different from most other takes on this particular monster’s origin. The section on their physiology notes that (like what’s in the Bestiary) a particular rakshasa’s animal head is purely a cosmetic different; however, the following section on their society does state that rakshasas feel a closer kinship to other rakshasas with the same sort of head (inasmuch as they feel kinship at all.

Subsequently we have a little over a page discussing rakshasa magic. Rather interestingly, there’s a rakshasa-specific school of magic for wizards. The implication seems to be that only rakshasas can take this, though the section’s opening implies that others can learn it as well, though that seems iffy. Still, it’s an interesting development, and lends itself nicely to the idea that certain races have a different “take” on arcane spellcasting. Likewise, there’s an alternate rakshasa sorcerer bloodline – the author notes that this bloodline is in Ultimate Magic, but this one is for characters who inherit more of their ancestor’s physical prowess, rather than magical.

Following this is a ten-level racial class for those who want to play a rakshasa PC. I’ll say upfront that this class is powerful, moreso than most of the base Pathfinder classes (particularly since you can freely multiclass from this as well). The descriptive text could have done a better job here covering the nuances of a racial class progression (like stating that this class must be taken at 1st level if you want to take levels in it), but overall it wasn’t bad. Still, the author’s note saying that the trade-off for the class’s power is its lack of flexibility rubbed me the wrong way…the class features are pretty well set in stone, it’s true, but they’re still strong and come with spellcasting.

After a sample character of the aforementioned racial class is showcased, we then come to a surprisingly burly section dealing with a new half-rakshasa PC race. I call this burly because this race gets the full treatment, Advanced Player’s Guide-style. In addition to the normal description and racial traits, there’s a full section on half-rakshasa adventurers of every class (up through Ultimate Combat) along with alternate racial traits and favored class options. A sample half-rakshasa character, perfect for pick-up-and-play at 1st-level, closes this section.

An “Eastern Options” section presents a new subdomain (for the Knowledge domain) and four new class archetypes, which did a good job of presenting a “mystical India” sort of flavor. The first two felt somewhat tame to me, but the second presented much greater options for changing the feel of the classes that they modified.

A single page describes a specific magic sword. More than just a standard magic weapon, this is a Legendary Blade, from the Purple Duck Games sourcebooks of the same name. If you don’t have those, however, this part of the book may be of limited usefulness to you.

Finally, the book presents four new monsters. The asura is a powerful creature that’s presented as being a sort of “super-rakshasa,” and is the only double-digit CR monster here. The darba, by contrast, is a rakshasa-like creature that lacks the true creature’s power; similar is the ravenna, a creature that’s a weaker offshoot. Finally, the vetala is an undead that, rather oddly, seems to be created solely by a rakshasa’s tortures.

Four pages of additional material follows, which is the Open Game Content used from other books that was added here; things like archetypes and spells used for example characters are presented fully here, which is a nice nod towards making sure we get the most out of the sample builds used.

So overall, how does Legendary Races: Rakshasa do for itself? Overall, the product is a good one, but seems split on whether it wants to be a GM or player resource. Things like new monsters and a legendary blade suggest that this is for GM’s who want to up the rakshasa presence in their campaign. On the other hand, the rakshasa racial class and new half-rakshasa race clearly lend themselves to PC usage.

It’s this dichotomy, more than anything else, that stopped the book from reaching its full potential. True, everything here is thematically consistent, and it’s quite possible that splitting it up would have made the resulting products too small to stand on their own…but at the same time, that’s what should have been done. They would have needed some fleshing out, certainly, but this would have been much better if it had known precisely who it wanted to market itself to.

Having said that, there’s still a lot here for players and GMs who enjoy rakshasas, and the new options here will help make them a greater staple in your game.



Rating:
[4 of 5 Stars!]
Legendary Races: Rakshasa (PFRPG)
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Tome of Ingenuity
Publisher: Little Red Goblin Games
by Shane O. [Featured Reviewer]
Date Added: 08/27/2011 22:15:01

There’s a certain irony in calling new products for role-playing games “supplements.” That’s because when one hears “a supplement for a role-playing game,” it’s easy to think that it’s something that’ll enhance the “role-playing” aspect of the game, when in fact it’s usually presenting new rules that have little to do with playing a role. In fact, most books are content to ignore that aspect of the game and happily present new mechanics with barely a nod towards actual role-playing. But every so often you find a sourcebook that actually tries to take thing in a new direction…that bends things back towards actually playing the role of your character. Such rare supplements present what can only be called ingenuity.

And from Little Red Goblin Games, we have the Tome of Ingenuity, for the Pathfinder RPG.

Sixteen pages long, the Tome of Ingenuity hits several of the high-water marks for a professional PDF product. It has full bookmarks, albeit fairly simple ones to major sections only. Copy-and-paste is fully enabled. The product’s layout is fairly well-done also; only rarely is space wasted on a page.

The book’s visual design was aesthetically pleasing; the pages are set against a tan-grayish background, and there were several pieces of full-color interior art that were quite stylistic (and certainly a welcome change from what seems like the same recycled packages of stock art that appear in a lot of third-party products these days). It’s worth noting that there’s no printer-friendly version of this book, nor one optimized for other formats (e.g. your e-reader, etc.), but those are forgivable oversights.

After the (helpfully hyperlinked) table of contents, the book opens with a brief introduction, wherein it rather boldly declares that the classes it presents revolve around the creativity of the player, “creating a meta-level of gameplay” for Pathfinder. It’s a rather audacious claim to make, so let’s take a look at what the book offers and see if it backs it up.

The first major portion of the book deals with a new base class, the noble. An opening notation discusses how this class is intended for players who really enjoy getting into character when they play, and that the GM is encouraged to assign bonuses or penalties to their Charisma-based skill checks depending on their role-playing.

The noble is a medium-BAB based class that is a decent combatant, but is a master of the non-combat situation. Their skills and skill points don’t quite live up to the rogue (especially on points), but it’s worth noting that the list could easily have been smaller – a certain subset of skills are highly important to this class, primarily Diplomacy, and the rest take a distant second.

The thematic power that the noble gains, right at first level, is their ability to inflict morale damage. I’ll go over the morale damage mechanic shortly, but here I’ll say that their primary method of inflicting morale damage seems a bit too powerful for me, dealing 1d4 points of morale damage per class level, plus Charisma modifier – it’s limited in that it’s a Diplomacy check versus an enemy’s DC, but pumping up a skill bonus is incredibly easy in Pathfinder. Add that this is a standard action (though it provokes) and can be used an unlimited number of times per day…that just seems too powerful. I’d have brought down the damage and/or limited its uses per day, had I been designing this class.

The majority of the noble’s remaining class powers tend to focus on expanded and improved skill checks, but there are some combat-centered ones, mostly based around further uses of morale damage, and (somewhat oddly) teamwork feats.

The use of morale damage itself is worth mentioning, because the Fourth Edition of a certain popular fantasy RPG has brought this issue front and center. Unlike that game, which has morale damage being simple hit point damage alongside physical damage (and, in doing so, changing the nature of what hit points represent), morale damage in the Tome of Ingenuity is tracked separately, and in most respects is basically the same as nonlethal damage.

I found this to be intriguing, because while it’s a small change it’s also one that just works. When an opponent’s morale damage exceeds their hit points, they’ve lost the will to fight, and basically surrender (though they can defend themselves). Beyond that, there’s a few notes about what creatures it can and can’t affect, but other than that it’s basically nonlethal damage; in fact, I’d have been tempted to just rule that morale damage is nonlethal damage, since the differences are so small, but separating them works just fine as well. As it stands, I’m rather surprised at just how well this innovation functions as its own rule…I just wish the book presented more options to bring it into wider play, but we’ll get to that.

The next new base class is called the skirmisher, and for some reason I had a sort of alternate rogue in mind when I saw this class’s name. In fact, I was wrong, since there’s no easy analogue for what this class offers. Oh, the class’s role is clearly stated to be the guy weaving in and out of combat, lightly armored and cutting a swath through his foes with finesse and guile. So it certainly sounds rather rogue-ish. But in practice, the class is anything but.

A quick glance at its class table shows it looking surprisingly sterile. Most of its class features are bonus feats and expanded ability to score crits. The major inspiration here, however, comes from its Creativity power. This power lets the skirmisher, on an attack roll, voluntarily lower their roll to an adjacent number on the d20 and, if that still hits, gain a special effect based on the new number…presuming they can evocatively describe how they score that special effect. It sounds complicated, but in practice it’s incredibly simple and easy to execute. It’s a power that quite literally demands that the player be able to role-play how his character fights, or the power becomes a liability.

Interestingly, while the skirmisher can use the Creativity power at will, there’s a notation that talks about how ex-skirmishers – which it seems to imply are multi-class skirmishers – take a limitation on how often they can use this power. It’s rather ambiguously worded (which is unfortunate) and seems out of place since Pathfinder did away with multiclassing restrictions. At least…that’s what I thought, until I realized why that particular caveat is there; without it, it’s simply too tempting to dip into one level of skirmisher just to gain Creativity, and then never advance any further in the class.

Following this is a new ten-level prestige class, the kotodama master. For those who don’t know, “kotodama” is a Japanese belief that words have power, regardless of who says them or hears them (at least, that’s my admittedly imperfect understanding). For this prestige class though, which is based around the power of spoken traditionalist values, who hears them is very important.

The kotodama master has a small suite of powers, but the major one is their faux pas ability. This allows them to speak aloud a traditional value, and those who don’t save a value are forced to follow it. Nine such values are given, with things such as “women don’t belong on the battlefield” meaning that female characters cannot directly attack or be attacked, or “men need no comfort” which keeps male characters from regaining hit points. It’s a fascinating concept, and sits well in that virtually any class can take levels in it (though it’s clearly skewed towards being for the Noble base class). My one complaint about the class is that it’s other ability should have been staggered – that is, placed on the even-numbered levels to offset how the faux pas powers are gained at odd levels – which would nicely have avoided this class having four “dead levels” where no powers are gained.

Roughly a dozen new feats follow, most of which serve to boost abilities of the classes presented here. There are some duds though, such as Vixen (giving you a +3 bonus to Diplomacy against male humanoids…why not just take Skill Focus (diplomacy) for more universal results?). This section missed out by not having ways to allow the existing classes in the Core Rules to access ways to deal even a little morale damage (the closest it comes it helping out multiclass nobles deal more), as that mechanic is the one with the widest potential appeal for all characters, regardless of class. It’s an opportunity that wasn’t recognized.

Overall, the Tome of Ingenuity lives up to its name. Oh, it’s an imperfect book to be sure – it has the odd typos and grammatical errors, some sections are slightly unclear in what they mean, neither base class lists their starting wealth, and I’d have retooled some aspects of the classes themselves, but these are all minor issues, and could probably be addressed in an update. What’s far more noteworthy is that these classes do a great job of tightly integrating their mechanics with actual role-playing. From the noble’s bonuses when using cutting words to the skirmisher’s descriptive Creativity, and even the kotodama master’s literal enforcement of conservative values, these are materials that make you get involved in who your character is and how he does things.

What could be more ingenious than that?



Rating:
[4 of 5 Stars!]
Tome of Ingenuity
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A Necromancer's Grimoire: Faces of the Rakshasa
Publisher: Necromancers of the Northwest
by Shane O. [Featured Reviewer]
Date Added: 08/21/2011 16:39:26

Rakshasas are one of those foes that work much better outside of a purely combat-focused scenario, I always thought. More than anything, they seem like scheming manipulators, being more inclined to extort, blackmail, and otherwise make others do their bidding without ever having to spill any blood. Despite their monstrous nature, that level of subterfuge can be tempting to a PC who wants to run the same sort of character. With the release of A Necromancer’s Grimoire: Faces of the Rakshasa, that path is now open to PCs everywhere.

Faces of the Rakshasa comes in two PDFs. The first is the full book itself, and the second is its printer-friendly counterpart. While I applaud the Necromancers of the Northwest for including a printer-friendly version at all – something that gets ignored all too often – its implementation here is imperfect. For one thing, the color cover is kept, as are all of the interior illustrations. What’s changed here is that the full version sets the background to a cream-colored parchment look, whereas the printer-friendly version is set on a while background.

Both files include full nested bookmarks, which is handy. However, the Necromancers still don’t seem to have licked that problem with copy-and-paste. The printer-friendly file doesn’t have it at all, whereas the main file does, but the pasted result has weird symbols and characters, resulting in a copy whose usefulness is limited at best.

After an opening piece of fiction that does an adequate job displaying the evil narcissism of a rakshasa, the book can be largely divided into three sections. The first deals with the rakshasa PC class.

A sidebar covers the basics of how this works, but what’s basically here is a 20-level base class designed to emulate the powers of a standard rakshasa from the Bestiary. Note that it achieves this in about fourteen levels; the remaining six levels add new powers to better make your rakshasa a paragon among its kind.

The second portion of the book is devoted to dealing with rakshasas in society, which spends a good deal of time talking about how to play a rakshasa PC. There’s some good advice here, talking about what to do with a PC that has mad powers to read minds, and also how rakshasas are typically evil creatures. However, I wish at least some time had been devoted to talking about how to play a creature that clearly looks inhuman (with their animal head and all). The rakshasa PC does get some disguise-based ability, but not right from the get-go, and it takes several levels before they can permanently disguised. This is something that should have been dealt with more.

The final part of the book is a bestiary of nine new rakshasas. Ranked in ascending CR, each is given an impressive amount of discussion for their tactics and their caste – this latter idea is one that’s explored more heavily in the book’s previous section, discussing how each rakshasa reflects a various form of sin among mortals, whether lust, greed, sadism, etc.

My major complaint with this section wasn’t about anything that was here, but because it makes the rakshasa PC racial class seem somewhat rigid in comparison. That class will let you advance as a standard Bestiary rakshasa, but what if you want to play as a sadistic makari rakshasa instead? There’s no support for that, and it’s disappointing – this would have been a good place for archetypes to come into play. Hopefully a further supplement will expand on this.

Overall, Faces of the Rakshasa does a lot for these classic foes. It gives depth and coverage to how they function in the game world that you won’t find anywhere else. The nine new rakshasa do an excellent job of fleshing out the myriad forms that these creatures can manifest in, and the addition of a rakshasa PC racial class is excellent for those who want to take a walk on the dark side. It’s unfortunate that the lack of expanded materials, and a few technical failings, hold this product back from being a five-star book, because the potential is clearly there. Hopefully we’ll see another face to these rakshasas to round things out.



Rating:
[4 of 5 Stars!]
A Necromancer's Grimoire: Faces of the Rakshasa
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Otyughnomicon: Northern Waste Otyugh [PFRPG]
Publisher: Purple Duck Games
by Shane O. [Featured Reviewer]
Date Added: 08/20/2011 18:11:59

It’s never been said (insofar as I’m aware) but I’m of the opinion that the otyugh was created either to fill an ecological niche in the game world (as to what cleans up the poo of dungeon-dwelling monsters) or as a nasty surprise when the PCs actually stop to go to the bathroom. Either way, they seemed like a monster that was fairly one-dimensional for what they offered. Mark Gedak and Stefen Styrsky, however, are determined to prove otherwise with their Otyughnomicon series of releases. In this case, we look at the Northern Waste Otyugh.

This book is a short one, being eight pages long (albeit with a six-page OGL listing, thoughtfully included as a separate file). Despite its brevity, full nested bookmarks are present, and copy-and-paste is enabled. There’s only one illustration here, a black and white picture of an icy otyugh, but the pages have a light tentacle in the background, and there are tokens of said otyugh (and, somewhat oddly, a polar bear).

After a quick introduction, the book tackles a topic that’s clearly dear to the authors’ hearts – should the otyugh be an aberration, or a magical beast? The rules say the former, while the authors clearly think the latter. As such, the first sample otyugh for the template (see below) is reproduced twice, once as an aberration otyugh, and once as a magical beast otyugh – all further otyughs in the book are magical beasts.

In all honesty, I don’t necessarily disagree with the reasoning given in this book, but I think that there’s something of a missed opportunity here. If you’re writing your own version of something you disagree with, you should introduce it in-game as something new! Perhaps the magical beast otyughs are a new breed that are edging out their aberration forefathers (in that case, you could even call them…neo-otyughs).

Following this is the new Northern Waste Creature template. It’s a fairly simplistic template (though not a simple template, in Pathfinder parliance), and does a good job of making a creature into an arctic counterpart, though I question the decision not to add the cold subtype.

After the two sample otyughs (and a new variant disease, frost fever, to offset the usual filth fever), we then get a sample tribe of northern waste otyughs – only the two leaders are outlined, as most of the tribe are typical specimens, whereas the leaders have class levels. I wish some attempt, no matter how small, had been made to give us some flavor text about these individuals, as they’re presented only as stat blocks. Another missed opportunity.

Six new icy-themed spells are provided then, though the majority of these seem to be cold variants of existing spells (e.g. hibernate instead of sleep, ice shape instead of stone shape, etc.). I don’t necessarily dislike spells that are variants of other spells, and these did a fairly good job differentiating themselves. But it was the next section that was magical.

The authors note that one of their fans made, on their facebook page, a comment about the sex lives of otyughs. Would that that fan had remained silent, and we’d have been spared the thought of what sort of union would produce the otyugh sorcerer bloodline. The bloodline is just as disgusting as its parentage, and I foresee some truly nauseating villains using it (as well as some gross PCs). Several new spells are presented as part of the bloodline spells, and these were much more inspiring. Spells to curse the land (with disease, undead, etc.), make a creature a disease carrier, or even cause an epidemic, are very much in the theme of the otyugh.

Overall, this is a good book if you’re a fan of the otyugh, but it could have been more. What’s here is solid work, but a little more polish could have made it great. Who are these northern waste otyugh leaders? What makes aberration otyughs different from magical beast otyughs? Still, these oversights don’t diminish what’s here, which are some great options for icy otyughs and those of otyugh ancestry. Pick this book up, and let these otyughs give your PCs all sorts of crap to deal with!



Rating:
[4 of 5 Stars!]
Otyughnomicon: Northern Waste Otyugh [PFRPG]
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Thank you for taking the time to review this product.
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Oracle Curses (PFRPG)
Publisher: Above Average Creations
by Shane O. [Featured Reviewer]
Date Added: 07/23/2011 20:10:11

There’s an old saying – “simple is best.” That’s an approach that’s usually approached with wariness by gamers when it comes to RPG books. After all, we’re usually happier when there are big production values and expansive coverage on a given topic. Products like Oracle Curses, however, the debut product from Above Average Creations, showcase how with good writing and a few select illustrations, a product with a minimalist approach can still produce top-quality results.

Oracle Curses presents, appropriately enough, ten new curses for the oracle class from the Pathfinder Advanced Player’s Guide. The author, cogently noting that the mere six curses were far too few, presents another ten curses here. Interestingly, virtually all of these are curses of personality rather than physical problems.

What I found far more intriguing, however, was the author’s bold admittance that these curses were more to create strong role-playing opportunities than wow us with new rules’ crunch. Of course, that should be true across the board, but by focusing on curses that manifest as quirks of behavior, this is maximized. Moreover, there’s a helpful chart of the ten curses (with a note saying that you can roll randomly for your curse – something I found delightful; really, should a curse be something you choose for yourself?), and notes about their “type” (if they’re physical, mental, etc.) and how “strong” they are (how much they affect the character laboring under them).

The curses themselves are as imaginative as the author clearly wants them to be, ranging from being mute to being too famous for your own good, and more. While all function well mechanically (though to different degrees – taking a skill penalty is one thing, taking bleed damage with every attack is quite another), it’s the notations after them that are what really make this product.

Like all gamers, I enjoy being given glimpses behind the proverbial curtain. In this case, after each curse, there’s a paragraph wherein the author talks to the reader directly; while for a few of the curses he discusses the impact of them in the course of the game (such as how to deal with an oracle that’s mute), most focus on different ways of having the curse manifest in-game. For example, are you a hermit because you’re just a socially awkward, or were you raised by wolves, literally? The virtue of these sections is that they break you out of the more rigid thinking suggested by the curses themselves, reminding you that you can easily reskin many of these to allow for a broader characterization.

From a technical standpoint, the book has little to present, but what it has it presents well. The artwork is all historical pieces that are reused here (with a notation on where to find them and more online on the book’s credits page). There are no bookmarks, but in an eight-page book, that’s not really an indictment.

Unfortunately, the book is not without its share of problems. These aren’t faults of the content (though be warned, one curse does draw on some of the material in the GameMastery Guide, though that’s in the Pathfinder SRD now anyway), but of the book’s technical presentation. To be more specific: copy-and-paste doesn’t work the way it should – the words are copied in columns rather than lines. Likewise, there’s no declaration of Product Identity or Open Game Content; and the OGL Section 15 doesn’t list the Advanced Player’s Guide or GameMastery Guide.

Of course, these are problems with virtually no practical impact when it comes to using this book in your game. If you’re planning on playing an oracle, do yourself a favor and spend a dollar to pick up this product. The material here is as inspiring as it is expertly-presented, and gives some much-needed breadth to the curse of the oracle class. Unfortunately, Above Average Creations may need to change their name, since if this first book is any indication, their creations are excellent.



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
Oracle Curses (PFRPG)
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Creator Reply:
Shane, thanks for the fantastic review! A positive review is always appreciated, but when it involves a "first effort", it is doubly so. You clearly saw our vision and that's very gratifying. At the same time, you didn't pull any punches on where we made mistakes, which will greatly help us to improve. If you don't write reviews for a living, you should. Again, heartfelt thanks from all of us at Above Average Creations!
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A Necromancer's Grimoire: Secrets of the Witch
Publisher: Necromancers of the Northwest
by Shane O. [Featured Reviewer]
Date Added: 07/16/2011 21:41:08

The most flavorful class to come out of the Advanced Player’s Guide is, in my opinion, the witch. With hex powers and a familiar that’s more than window dressing, along with the rather spooky theme about their patron granting them power, the witch just oozes flavor. And yet, for all the APG offers in this regard, there are other aspects of the classical witch that are largely ignored. Very little is given, for example, to the idea of the witch coven, or how hags interact with that; what is given is brief and somewhat unsatisfying.

Who better to “raise” these issues than the Necromancers of the Northwest, in their witch-themed sourcebook A Necromancer’s Grimoire: Secrets of the Witch.

Secrets of the Witch aims squarely to round out the themes of the witch class that were overlooked in the APG, and in that regard it succeeds magnificently, focusing its attention on five key areas: hags as a PC class/race, coven abilities (as feats), new hexes, new abilities for familiars, and new spells designed to take advantage of covens.

Unfortunately, I can’t be quite so complimentary on the technical side of things. Now, the book does do most things right; it has a screen version and printer-friendly version, both of which contain full nested bookmarks. The screen version is also nicely illustrated, with the pages being set on a parchment-colored background, and every so often a full-color image (usually of a macabre nature) will appear. The problem comes with the copy-and-paste. While large sections of the book copy and paste just fine, there are some areas – areas where the text has a slight but noticeable blur – where the copy and paste won’t work cleanly, with some words being replaced with odd symbols and characters. It’s a persistent problem in Necromancers of the Northwest products, though it does seem somewhat diminished here.

Having said that, let’s examine the book’s content in further detail.

The first section of the book gives us the green hag racial class. For those not familiar with the concept, this is where a race is broken down into a series of class levels, basically combining class and race and spreading the latter’s powers out among the former. What’s different here (though if you’re a fan of the NotNW website, you’ll have seen this treatment for other races) is that while you can usually become a “full” – that is, Bestiary equivalent member of the normal race – green hag at 11th level, this class is extended all the way to 20th level, with new powers enhancing those commonly associated with these monsters.

And there’s little doubt that green hags are monsters. The book helpfully provides a large fluff section on green hags in the game world and green hag PCs, and the tone holds that green hags are monsters and everyone knows it. This is true, but I was surprised that they didn’t devote more time to those rare hags that weren’t stereotypical villains, since PC green hags will likely not be evil. As it is, the green hags as PCs section talks more about the mechanical balance of this class, which is helpful too.

The feats section of the book follows, and this is where covens are spotlighted. Characters that take the basic Coven Initiate feat – open to all arcane spellcasters (with a sidebar noting that certain creatures and classes may naturally have access to this feat) – are able to, when together, able to cast a select number of spells simply by virtue of being a coven. A generous helping of feats expand on this in a variety of ways. Beyond that, several other feats don’t require coven abilities, but instead focus on witch-like powers (my favorite here was witch-specific feat called Blessing of the Three, whose bonus changes depending on your age category in the vein of the Maiden/Mother/Crone trinity).

The hexes section is fairly slim (four new standard hexes, three new major hexes, and two new grand hexes) but again, the flavor of what’s here makes up for that. A hex to fly so long as the witch is riding a broom or similar object, for example. I won’t give any more away, but beware angering the witch with the Form of the Three hex!

Alternate familiar abilities are one of those ideas that seems so obvious it’s amazing no one’s thought of it before. These are like alternate class abilities in that you have a series of powers that replace one of the normal abilities you gain for your familiar as you level up. Instead of speaking with animals of its kind, for example, you familiar can learn how to vocalize a particular language. It’s simplicity itself, and is one of the most elegant ways to diversify familiars, since it requires neither precious feat slots nor temporary spells.

Lastly are the thirty new spells mentioned in the book’s product page. Given on the witch spell list (though many can be cast by other classes), almost all of these spells can be used by a single spellcaster…but that’s not where their real value lies. These spells also have the new ritual descriptor, which means that when cast with the aid of a coven, they have an enhanced effect depending on how many others are lending their power to the spell. For example, the Dread Calling spell calls an outsider (with no restrictions on it) of up to ½ the caster’s spellcaster level. However, if your coven ritual-casts this spell with you, that limit is lifted to ½ the total caster level of all those joining you in the casting.

Some of the best sourcebooks I’ve ever seen are those that serve a specific niche, but make sure to keep a wider applicability in doing so; Secrets of the Witch is one of those sourcebooks. Its material is tightly focused on the witch class, both in theme and mechanics, but almost all of the book can be used for other characters. Your green hag PC doesn’t have to be a witch, for example, and the alternate familiar abilities can be used by any character with a familiar. This book makes your witch more quintessential, or your other arcane spellcaster a little more witchy in presentation. Pick this book up and show the rest of your group just which witch is which.



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
A Necromancer's Grimoire: Secrets of the Witch
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101 Npc Boons (PFRPG)
Publisher: Rite Publishing
by Shane O. [Featured Reviewer]
Date Added: 07/09/2011 15:45:29

I’ve been waiting for a product like this one for a long time. For quite a while now, I’ve been interested in treasures that were something other than magic items or piles of coins and gems. Sometimes favors are just as valuable as gold, if not moreso; unfortunately, there’s been too little discussion of the value of having someone owe you one…something that 101 NPC Boons, from Rite Publishing, aims to rectify.

The book is fairly upfront that it doesn’t use the basic method of boons laid out in the GameMastery Guide. Instead,there’s a brief overview regarding what sort of bonus they can provide on skill checks before the book divides itself into five general regions (e.g. urban, rural, nautical, etc.) and then subdivides each of these into groups you’d find within each one (such as city officials, upper class, and guards in the urban section). These descriptions offer about two paragraphs wherein they name a person and what they can do for the party.

The majority of the time these have no listed gp value, which is slightly disappointing but understandable. It’s hard to figure out the exact monetary worth of having a local judge tell you about the charges that a noble figure managed to dodge, for example. I personally didn’t find this to be much of a handicap, since these act as much as adventure hooks and ideas as they do favors. Given that the characters in these paragraphs are named, there are a lot of potential NPCs here to help you flesh out your towns and villages.

Not all of these are just name-drops, of course. There are eight NPCs with fully fleshed out stat blocks, several of which are from other Rite Publishing products. Helpfully, sidebars include all of the necessary material to run these characters even if you don’t own the books that they’re from. Again, I have to tip my hate to Rite Publishing here, since having full stat blocks for NPCs can often become an issue when the PCs take things in a new direction. These characters range from an awakened deer to a clockwork captain of the guard to a humble beggar, and more.

Unlike a lot of treasure books, 101 NPC Boons doesn’t just present you with a list of items and their numerical value and walk away. Rather, this book provides you with character ideas and favors that help integrate your PCs more closely with the world around them. This book isn’t just filled with a new kind of treasure for your PCs, but for your game world as well – being able to tie your player-characters to your NPCs more closely is something that leads to better role-playing, which is always more fun for everyone. Give your game a boon and pick up 101 NPC Boons today.



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
101 Npc Boons (PFRPG)
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Creator Reply:
I wanted to thank Shane for taking the time to do a review of our product. Steve Russell Rite Publishing
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