I think this is a neat addition and will probably allow my players to use it in my future games. The options for elemental breeds are very interesting. I was disappointed in the lack of fluff and the fact that the tiefling options only included the female devils and demons. I would have liked to have seen an Ice Devil or Chain Devil option. Some of the less 'sexy' devils that would give interesting options for roleplay and flavor.

Definitely worth the purchase but not all that it could have been. Thanks for the cool new options!

~Kevin

One thing I think Pathfinder players miss out on are the number of races that the 4E players have. 4 Winds Fantasy Gaming though knows how to solve that. Presented here are various racial templates for new player character races for use with Pathfinder. Now these are not "copies" of the 4e ones, but they are "influenced" by them. Taking races from the SRD we have some very interesting new choices for players. We get 3 types of Aasimars, 12 elemental types and 3 types of Tieflings. With this there is certainly enough ideas to figure out other Plane-descended races. What I felt was nice, and glad to see it was not omitted, was how these different racial templates mix with the various types of Sorcerers. There are also plenty of good feats here for the various bloodlines.

While this is not a long book, it is packed and for the price it is an absolute bargain. I have come to have a high opinion of the 4 Winds products. I have not been disappointed and I am glad to have gotten this one.

Player Options: Aasimar, Tiefling, and Elemental Templates by 4 Winds Fantasy Gaming

This product is 14 pages long. It starts with a cover and credits. (2 pages)

Templates (11 pages) It starts off with a introduction and then talking about the templates. Next we get the Aasimar templates, which we get 3 of them. Followed by the Elemental templates, which we get 12 of them. It ends with the Tiefling templates, which we get 3 of them. It ends with 16 new feats for the planetouched, though some of them could be used for others as well. The templates in the book are as follows. Aasimar Hound Archon Lillend Movanic Deva

Elemental Air-kin Djinni-kin Lightning-kin Azerblooded Efreetiblooded Fireblooded Earthfolk Sandfolk Shaitan-folk Iceborn Maridborn Waterborn

Tiefling Erinyes Nighthag Succubus

It ends with a OGL. (1 pages)

Closing thoughts. The art work is black and white, and ranges from ok to very good in one case. Editing and layout are pretty good. I noticed a couple of minor mistakes. The main concept of the product is to play a elf or dwarf Aasimar. The idea is you just apply the template to the base race and there you go. Which works, except it makes the race noticeably stronger with no real drawbacks. The problem I have with this is, any race with a template is just flat better than a race with out one. I don't think they are strong enough to add a EL but it is enough especially at low levels to be noticeable. Now with that said if you use the templates as just new base alternate races they work just fine and are on power with the existing Aasimar, Elemental and Tiefling races.

I liked all the races really but one. The succubus I am not so sure about. The big reason is they only get one stat bonus but at a +4 but also get a -4 stat. Unlike the rest which get get 2 stats at a +2 and one at a -2. Now the bonus is to Chr, combined with the default +2 bonus tieflings get for Sorcery makes them very powerful Sorcerers, good at bard or oracle but kinda below average at other classes. So that was the one race I think might still need a bit more work. I think I would have rather them had a +2 chr and int and -2 to wis or str.

So I like the product and it works well for templates if you want to use more powerful base classes or have everyone use a template, I don't think it works as well in a mixed group of core races with some with and some without templates though. But it works really well if you are just looking for alternate versions of the aasimar and others. So what's my rating? I am going to give it a 4, I like the product and it is useful to anyone that wants some more variety.

Trust me, I'm a Succubus.

Very good product with some interesting ideas for charectersw. Some editing mishaps and I don;t really like the +2 caster effect on the elements etc associated with the charecter. Too powerful.

This pdf is 14 pages long, 1 page front cover, 1 page editorial and 1 page SRD, leaving 11 pages of content, so let's check them out, shall we?

There is a distinct lack in planar player races in PFRPG as I write this, a lack 4 Winds Fantasy Gaming seeks to remedy by providing a plethora of different racial options to create your very own aasimars, tieflings and genasi. Some general characteristics are provided for every group and the pdf also provides templates to further customize your planar character with different lineages, thus ensuring that Hound Archon-spawned aasimar are different from e.g. Lillend-spawned ones.

In addition to the afore-mentioned two aasimar-bloodlines, we also get one for the Movanic Deva. The respective templates come with attribute-modifier's skill-bonuses, spell-like abilities and physical characteristics, all of which come with a list of 6 options to choose from. Additionally, the templates all provide some kind of special ability that includes abilities like lesser scent and smite evil. Each of the classic 4 elements gets 3 templates that include templates for e.g. the azer-born, marid-folk etc. and even people descended from ice and sand-creatures.

Tieflings also get 3 templates, the succubus tiefling being one rather interesting example, as they get +4 to Cha and -4 to Wis - that's quite a substantial bonus and makes this the only template that adds more than +2 to a given attribute and succubi-spawned tieflings deadly sorcerors indeed.

The pdf closes by providing 16 feats, among which you may find a feat that grants wings, a feat to ignore critical hits/sneak attacks 50% of the time and a feat to roll two dice when saving against gaze attacks.

Conclusion: Editing and formatting in the revised edition is top-notch, I noticed no glitches. Layout adheres to a 2-column standard and features b/w-artworks and the pdf comes with extensive bookmarks. The artworks are neat and the templates per se are cool, especially the physical characteristics that go beyond rules and provide neat fluff. On the rules-side, I enjoyed the unique abilities of the respective templates, but I'm not entirely sure about some of their balances - +4 to an attribute, access to smite evil or bardic performances via racial abilities seems to be rather powerful. Additionally, I'm not entirely sure whether the racial abilities provided herein are supposed to replace any existing racial information for e.g. dwarves - some combinations might be prone to being unbalancing. While this means that some DM-discretion is advised and that some options may prove to be rather powerful. The feat that grants you fortification and the one that lets you roll twice against gaze attacks is also rather powerful. Due to these minor concerns, my final verdict for these player's options will be a 4.5 star-rating rounded down to 4 - a neat, cheap little product that is a bit too high on the power-scale for my tastes.

Endzeitgeist out.

The only thing wrong with these templates is that there isn't enough of them. I love the concept of approaching planetouched characters as templates instead of races and have often wondered why no one's thought of it before. I've always had to do a little creative character building (i.e., cheating) to make my planetouched PCs resemble the specific planar creatures from which they are descended, and now I don't have to. Sometimes, it's the simplest ideas that make the best solutions. I would love to see this book expanded into a larger, more comprehensive volume that contains many more variant planetouched templates and could, perhaps, be offered in print. Well done, 4Winds. You continue to hit home runs!