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Post by Gilvan Blight on Feb 15, 2010 9:19:08 GMT -5
Cthulhu 101 by Atomic Overmind Press rpg.drivethrustuff.com/product_info.php?products_id=70123&it=1&SRC=newsletterPrice: $4.95 Rating: 5 out of 5 stars (from Christopher Heard) Review If you take your Cthulhu mythos really, really seriously, this book isn't for you. But if mixing the Great Old Ones with cheeky humor and a heaping helping of scorn for August Derleth appeals to you, stop reading this review and just buy this accursed PDF. (I mean "accursed" in a good way.) Kenneth Hite, undisputed master of all things Lovecraftian, takes readers on a rollicking good tour through the Cthulhu mythos and other corners of Lovecraft's eldritch universe. The book has more nuggets of actual good information than your average scoop of chocolate chip cookie dough has chocolate chips, and the tone is anything but tenebrous. Where else, I ask you, can you find half a dozen different "canonical" pronunciations of "Cthulhu," fourteen misspellings of the blasphemous name, and a top 40 countdown of Cthulhu-related music, not to mention Drew Pocza's whimsical drawings? Hite writes with amazing verve, zest, and foetid humor (or is that "fetid humour"?). In the time it's taken you to read this far in the review, you could have already covered the first four or five pages of the book, and had a lot more fun. On the negative side, I must admit that, despite my enjoyment of this book, I could find no reasonable way to work the words "rugose" or "squamous" into this review without making up libelous and completely unfounded statements about the author's physical appearance. So just buy this book already, and read it at once. Or Cthulhu will eat you. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- How to Host a Dungeon by Planet Thirteen rpg.drivethrustuff.com/product_info.php?products_id=63696&it=1&SRC=newsletterPrice: $5.00 Rating: 5 out of 5 stars (from Mark Meredith) Review How to Host a Dungeon, by Tony Dowler, is a fantastic example of an easy to use game tool. As described in the introduction it is, “…part solo game, part toy, part toolkit for creating dungeons in the style of the Dungeons and Dragons role-playing game.” Even though it refers to it as a solo game there is no reason this cannot be used with 2 or 3 people. Not so much as a ‘game’ in that instance, but as a toolkit. The directions were very easily followed, and the supply list consisted of things typically found around the house. As long as you can find some blank paper, pencil, some dice and a few token counters you are set to go. Oh and one must not forget you need a hand; however, we can assume if you can hold a pencil then you indeed have one to use! The game/toolkit is split into four ages: the Primordial Age, the Age of Civilization, the Age of Monsters and the Age of Villainy. To begin with, a simple line is drawn towards the top of the page. During the Primordial Age, you begin to roll dice, and where the instructed die drops on the page is where certain physical characteristics appear. They might be Mithral deposits or caverns and the like. Not to mention the introduction of an Ancient Wyrm or two. Once this stage is complete you move onto the Age of Civilization. This first begins with the introduction of a Dwarven mine shaft. Note that you do have the option of choosing the Drow instead of Dwarves. The Dwarves expand, as they do, underground. With some more roles of the die and using a finger or thumb for the required measurements you begin to create a whole Dwarven empire; complete with Great Halls, Workshops, Barracks and Treasure Rooms. Next in the line is the Age of Monsters. With a few more rolls of the die you create castles, farms, cities, wizard towers and begin to send expeditionary forces into the underground caves. Some adventuring parties return with treasure and help to continue the building of life on top of the ground and others meet their fate at the hands of goblins who have been breeding deep beneath the surface or a Giant Spider or two! The Age of Villainy would begin when the previous stages are complete. We actually didn’t continue into this stage for two reasons. Reason number 1: It was getting to be pretty late in the evening. Reason number 2: We actually thought that it would be a fanstastic place to throw in your own adventuring party and use the map we created. This is a perfect game to sit down with a friend or S.O. who plays and do some plotting on a quiet afternoon or evening. I also found this to be a very creative way of randomly creating a dungeon for your gaming group to adventure in. Overall, I would highly recommend this to someone who likes to run the show and especially wants another great tool that they can use to enhance their current or future campaigns. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue by Empty Room Studios Publishing rpg.drivethrustuff.com/product_info.php?products_id=59881&it=1&SRC=newsletterPrice: $4.99 Rating: 3 out of 5 stars (from Shane O'Connor) Review Most of the time, I try to keep my own prejudices out of the reviews I write, trying to stick purely to discussing what a product’s contents are, along with some fairly objective thoughts on them. I do so because I recognize that my opinions are just that – my opinions, which likely won’t mean much to someone else with their own opinions when they read what I’ve written. As such, I attempt (with relative success) to not let these reviews become my own personal sounding boards. However, I find that I can’t help but do just that with Empty Room Studios’ product, Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue. Before anything else, though, let’s cover the book’s technical aspects. Weighing in at just under three hundred pages, the Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue dedicates almost all of its pages to its contents, having only two pages of ads (one at the beginning and one at the end) and the front cover. There are helpful bookmarks that link you to each alphabetical section, and notwithstanding the covers and ads, the only illustrations here are the very light grey images of intertwined vines along the sides of each page. The major problem I had with the Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue is that, strictly speaking, it’s not a dictionary; it’s a glossary. Simply put, each page has a listing of terms (spelled out in capital letters) with the definition written after it in lowercase. Rarely, a definition will have a SEE reference to another term, or even explain the term’s derivation. But for the most part there is only page after page of terms, all listed in alphabetical order, with a sentence or two explaining what the terms mean. That’s it. There’s no pronunciation guide, no word derivation, no part of speech indicator, no alternative spellings for how the word appears as other parts of speech, no synonyms or antonyms… no anything else that you’d find in a real dictionary. Perhaps I’m being pedantic, but that undercuts a lot of usefulness here. For example, given that all of these are slang terms that people once actually used, it’d be cool to know the derivation, as well as the time and place, that they were used so that you could tailor these to similarly-themed countries in your campaign world, lending it greater verisimilitude. But there’s none of that information here, so you can’t. Another aspect of this book that I took issue with is how you’ll quite likely want to use it in the opposite manner from how it’s laid out. That is, I found myself with a specific definition in mind, and wanted to find slang terms for it, but being a glossary, the book is laid out via the terms, making a definition-based search difficult at best. For example, if I wanted to find a slang term for “prostitute,” I’d basically just have to read through the book until I found terms that had that as part of their definition. I was able to do a word search, but my results changed depending on if I searched “prostitute,” “hooker,” “streetwalker,” or any other similar term. This product is much more useful if you have a specific word in mind, rather than a specific meaning. The Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue isn’t a bad book, per se. Rather, it runs up against issues that have plagued definition-based lexicons for centuries, and these sharply limit its usefulness. More could have, and I think should have, been done here – without this extra work, the resource value of this book is lessened, to the point where I think calling it a “dictionary” is giving it too much credit. Trying to make this book return the information I wanted it to often gave me a vulgar tongue, and hence the score I gave it. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Exalted Second Edition: Storytellers Companion by White Wolf rpg.drivethrustuff.com/product_info.php?products_id=3672&it=1&SRC=newsletterPrice: $24.99 $12.50 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars (from Megan Robertson) Review The Introduction sets the scene without ado: there are many threats facing the Solar Exalted chief of whom are the other kinds of Exalted, and the purpose of this book is to enable the Storyteller to create quick yet effective representatives of all other Exalts to serve as allies or - more likely - enemies in the course of the chronicle that is to be told. More detail on both the five kinds of Exalt and on creating antagonists in general than is to be found in the core rules is presented,along with information about the high-level politicking that goes on which can be used as background or even as something for the characters to get involved with if the thought of mixing diplomacy and intrigue with warfare appeals. Chapter 1 looks at the Dragon-Blooded. Often implacable foes, they are motivated by the belief that the Solars can only accomplish their objectives by trampling the Dragon-Blooded, underfoot. Due to their origins and links to one of the five Elemental Dragons, each Dragon-Blooded Exalt's skills and abilities are based on their affliated Dragon rather than societal role. Their whole mindset draws upon their links to the Dragons and their role in history as prime agents in the overthrow of the Solar Exalted, and the Immaculate Philosophy of reincarnation that forms the core of their beliefs. There's a wealth of information here about the educational opportunities and careers available to Dragon-Blooded, plenty to enable you to imagine their society and approach to life, and why they find the resurgance of the Solar Exalted such a threat to their very existance. The chapter rounds off with a selection of sample Dragon-Blooded and a list of Charms that they - or ones you create yourself - are likely to know. Next is Chapter 2: The Lunar Exalted. The Lunars appear as past masters of the art of running away, but their actions are motivated by what they perceive as their duties to Creation itself, to Luna who bestowed their powers upon them and to their descendents. Survival against a time when they can ascend to positions of leadership drives them in all that they do. They have a loose organisation which enables them to achieve specific objectives and retain social cohesion. Due to their habits, they are less likely to be encountered by the average Solar Exalt except by chance. Against that chance, the information necessary to create a Lunar Exalt is presented here, complete with examples and notes on the notable powers and other abilities available to them. Chapter 3: The Sidereal Exalted looks at the Chosen of the Five Maidens, the stars that rule over all others and control Fate... or try to! As chosen, the Sidereals are mainly employed as agents of the Five Maidens and rarely engage in deep meditation on their purpose as they are given their orders. Duties are clearly laid out from the moment of Exaltation and involve planning Fate and sorting things out when they don't go according to plan. Naturally, not all Sidereals agree about the best method of accomplishing their goals and so different factions have arisen. Again, sample Sidereals and a list of charms available to them are provided. There is also a fascinating explanation of Sidereal astrology which rather than predicting the future creates it - powerful magic indeed. Next, Chapter 4 looks at the Abyssal Exalted. In service to the powers of the Underworld, they're often called deathknights and widely held to be evil - or at least inimicable to Creation and most of the creatures therein. Their re-emergence coincides with that of the Solars, and some say that for every Solar you get an Abyssal or even that they are the same individual at different points in their overall existance, light and dark sides of the same coin. They are commanded by 13 Deathlords, of whom 9 are described here (the intent being to leave some slots to be filled by Deathlords of the Storyteller's design). Sample deathknights and the charms available to them are also listed, along with some notes on necromancy. The final type of Exalted to be examined are the Solars themselves. This chapter will give a good idea of how they appear to others, and how wider Solar society will appear to the characters. However well-meaning, they attract trouble like a pot of honey attracts flying critters and so can always prove amusing additions to your story. Some samples are provided, along with a list of Solar Artifacts, often long-buried in tombs of Solars from millenia ago but very useful if you manage to unearth them. Finally, the appendix Mandate of Heaven covers the game of statecraft as played amongst the Exalted, particularly the Dragon-Blooded on the Blessed Isle. Various texts expound the theories and are studied by those who wish to excel, much as the Art of War by Sun Tzu and Machiavelli's The Prince can prove beneficial in the real world. Here, though, is presented a system to model the game of statecraft as a plot-generation device or to provide a backdrop to your own stories. It's an abstraction of the constant manoeuvering between states vying for advantage or struggling for survival and can be played out as a down-time activity if so desired. You can keep it as a player thing, or involve people's characters in what is going on and so link things tightly to your ongoing plot. A neat system with the scope for making things very interesting in your interpretation of this alternate reality, determining the fate of nations in a style fitting with the rest of the game as a whole. (It's also available as a stand-alone PDF for groups with a Storyteller who wishes to restrict some of the information herein!) Overall, this is a useful book for the Storyteller, to aid him in understanding more of what is going on within Exalted societies and specifically in creating worthy adversaries and allies. The Mandate of Heaven provides a powerful tool for creating dynamic events between nations and domains, allowing player contributions and even character involvement in moulding a storyline unique to your game. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Blackdirge’s Bargain Bestiaries: Hybrid Horrors – Dragon-Blooded by Blackdirge Publishing rpg.drivethrustuff.com/product_info.php?products_id=68870&it=1&SRC=newsletterPrice: $1.49 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars (from Joe Kushner) Review Written by Aeryn “Blackdirge” Rudel and illustrated by Jesse Mohn, this barbain bestiary provides four monsters to throw at your 4e campaign. Some of these are classics like the dracosilk. It's such a classic that a miniature company looking to please the old school community even made a great version of it. This one however, is a combination of green dragon, not black. Makes a nice nod to the old school version while providing a new variant.The dracosphinx is another old school variant given new 4e life. This version hailing from a red dragon father. Jesse Mohn's art is solid line work. The exterior cover illustrations are the same as those found inside. If you like the cover, you'll enjoy the interior. The writing is solid. Rudel has done enough 4e work that, without extensive playtesting, I'm willing to throw these beasties into the mix and see what happens. Monsters are detailed with a quick background, lore checks with appropriate skills, monster stats, and encounter groups. Four monsters for $1.49, ready for your 4e campaign.
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Post by Gilvan Blight on Feb 15, 2010 9:33:08 GMT -5
Tendril's Oak Inn by Encompass www.rpgnow.com/product_info.php?products_id=59857&it=1&SRC=newsletterPrice: $6.95 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars (from Christopher Heard) Review Even if you already own some other miniatures-scale tavern map, as I do, you still might find Tendril's Oak Inn to be a good purchase if, like me, you don't want every inn or tavern your PCs visit to look the same. As the product description and the cover illustration show, Tendril's Oak Inn sits along a road running alongside a wood—a classic fantasy trope useful in almost any fantasy RPG campaign. The artwork depicting the inn is very nice and seems to have been created using Campaign Cartographer (or a similar tool). The product includes several different types of maps—battlemaps (in black and white, color, or color with a white background), overview maps, and "scratch maps" suitable for adding DM or player notes—though I'm not quite sure why Encompass found it necessary to distribute so many different PDFs; I can't see any good reason, for example, why the scratch maps come in four one-page PDFs instead of one four-page PDF. (Personally, I also don't like having animals depicted statically on the maps. I can just hear it now: "We'll hide our loot under the third pig on the left. He never moves.") If all you want is a good map of a woodland inn, this product will serve you well. But the author goes beyond that, and supplies a key to the inn's layout as well as notes on NPCs, plot hooks, and so on, all of which the DM can use or ignore as desired. Tendril's Oak Inn was my first experience with the Encompass line, and I certainly like it well enough to check out other offerings in the series. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 0 HR: Sailing Ships by Ki Ryn Studios www.rpgnow.com/product_info.php?products_id=76432&it=1&SRC=newsletterPrice: $3.95 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars (from Christopher Heard) Review As a DM running a campaign based on a sailing ship, I was very excited to receive a review copy of these printable miniatures-scale sailing ship maps. I already have a miniatures-scale map for the PCs' ship, and I use ship tiles from other manufacturers (SkeletonKey Games and Wizards of the Coast), but this product adds depth and variety to my collection of ship maps and gives me quite a few more options than I had before. The artwork on these maps is quite attractive. To be sure, the various stock element objects get reused quite a bit, but it doesn't really hamper the battlemap if all the coiled ropes are just iterations of a single rope object. I appreciated the attention given to lighting on these maps; the gradual darkening as stairs descend, for example, is a very nice touch. The maps do, however, have a very noticeable case of "the jaggies," especially evident on long curving lines like the ships' outer hulls. Other DMs might consider that a relatively minor thing, but I found the "jaggies" quite noticeable. More importantly, I do wish that publishers of ship tiles, including but by no means limited to Ki Ryn, would stop illustrating small launches right on the main decks or even suspended beside the main decks of ships, and would instead draw that space empty and provide a small boat map elsewhere that could be cut out and used separately. (I further wish that Ki Ryn had spelled "dinghy" correctly in this product.) It gets a bit annoying during a game to have to remind players, "No, that dinghy isn't really there; you pitched it overboard in round 2 of the fighting." I'd much rather be able to remove a dedicated tile stacked on top of the main tiles. A little launch map separate from the main map would also be useful when PCs themselves use such a vessel. One great strength of this product, and its advantage over similar offerings from other publishers (as far as I know), is its versatility. SkeletonKey Games's High Seas Dragon Ship and High Seas Warship look great on the gaming table, for example, but it's hard to "shrink" those ships without compromising the layout. With the Zero Hour Sailing Ships, you can choose between a 100-foot ship, a 50-foot ship, and a 30-foot sailboat, with varying numbers of decks. I personally won't use the cannon variants in this product (at least, not in my current D&D campaign), but GMs running games where such weapons are appropriate will appreciate having that option. This variety sets Sailing Ships apart from any other product that I know about at this time. I also benefited from the writeups about each ship layout as well as the side view diagrams. Finally, I should add that in addition to being system-neutral (as most maps are), this particular set is largely genre-neutral as well. There's nothing in the maps that requires a fantasy setting. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Mech Tech 'n' bot: Fighters and Small Ships by Jon Brazer Enterprises www.rpgnow.com/product_info.php?products_id=65879&it=1&SRC=newsletterPrice: $9.99 $6.99 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars (from Shannon Appelcline) Review Fighters and Small Craft is a very good book of small craft for Traveller despite its stylistic issues. It's biggest obstacle will probably be that Mongoose has already produced a lot of small craft designs in its own Supplement 2--though these new designs could surely complement the ones already in print. This summary is drawn from a more complete review available at RPGnet: www.rpg.net/reviews/archive/14/14676.phtml-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Restless Souls (PFRPG) by Rite Publishing www.rpgnow.com/product_info.php?products_id=78479&it=1&SRC=newsletterPrice: $3.75 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars (from Shane O'Connor) Review The oldest conundrum in fantasy role-playing games is what to do about a player-character that’s just bit the dust. Is resurrection quick and easy, making death more of a speed bump than a major event? Or is death final and irrevocable, leading to a player who then has to spend the rest of the session sitting out (often while rolling up a new character)? There’s no good answer to these questions, and for decades different DMs, groups, and games have gone back and forth between the two extremes. Rite Publishing, however, says that you can have your cake and eat it too with their Restless Soul supplement for the Pathfinder RPG – a supplement that lets you keep playing your character after they die. Notwithstanding the covers, Restless Souls is a book that’s entirely in black and white, with many shades of grey in between; very apropos for a book of this nature. The product page notes it as being seventeen pages, which is the length of the PDF file, but also lists thirteen – this is the pages that deal with actual content, and so doesn’t count the covers, the credits page, or the OGL. The pages are all surrounded with an opulent border on every side, giving the product a rather opulent look. Two full-page interior illustrations show what a typical restless soul looks like, and there are several smaller illustrations that show some very disturbing-looking monsters. There’s no printer-friendly version, but given not only the relative brevity of the product, and the caliber of these pictures, you probably won’t need one anyway. In regards to the product itself, it opens with a first-person description of a restless soul; told by a restless soul herself, in fact. I was of two minds about this introduction. The character’s voice comes through very clearly, and does a great job of evoking a feel for her. Likewise, the actual descriptions are very nicely constructed, such as not giving too specific a reason for why some dead people come back as restless souls (was it a need to fulfill a quest? Would no afterlife have them? Or something else altogether?). The part I didn’t like was the continued references to the city of Questhaven. For those who don’t know, Questhaven is the setting in which pretty much all of Rite Publishing’s Pathfinder material is set. The problem (at least for me) is that this means that all of their products refer to Questhaven in the flavor text. The narrator for the first part of Restless Souls talks about the history of her kind in Questhaven, how people there react to them, where they congregate, etc. While some people may appreciate the added background, particularly if you want to tie it in with other Rite Publishing products, I found it to be a bit of a burden, since it’s continually referring to things I don’t know about (and can’t know about, since there’s no campaign book as of yet). So personally, I could have done without that. Beyond that is the actual mechanics of how you can play a dead person. For this, Rite Publishing wisely takes a “simple is best” attitude. “Restless soul” is a template that can be applied to pretty much any living creature, letting you come back as your own incarnate soul. There’s surprisingly little to it. You’re an outsider, not an undead creature, though (despite not listing the extraplanar subtype as one you gain) you’re now native to the plane that’s the afterlife for you. I cringed a bit at this, since it means that smart villains will know to use a banishment or similar spell to send you back – that’s a pretty cheap but effective way of making a PC irrelevant for the rest of the session; I’d have made them native outsiders myself. And that’s about it. There are a few other, minor adjustments, but by and large you’re pretty much playing the same character you were before you died. Of course, coming back to life isn’t quite a clean break, as you suffer the same penalties as if you’d been subject to a raise dead spell (that is, prepare for two permanent negative levels). While I heard some people grumble over this, I think it was the right decision, since coming back from the dead without any penalty is the province of very high-level magic, and coming back as your own returned soul should be somewhat traumatic. Of course, being dead doesn’t have to mean that you’re still (almost) exactly the same as you were when you were alive. There are a number of new feats here, almost all of which can only be taken by a restless soul (the sole exception being one that guarantees that you will become a restless soul when you die). I liked most of these, but wondered if some were perhaps too powerful – you only need to be 3rd level to use a once-per-day ethereal jaunt, for example. Likewise, most require that you spend components on a special ritual to take the feat, but what this ritual is and why you need to take it isn’t expounded upon. Ten new spells, levels 0-9, round out the book. While these aren’t directly tied to restless souls (and, in fact, I seemed to recognize them from other sourcebooks), they all had some thematic connection (even if that was thin sometimes). Overall, this book is a terrific answer for what to do in the event of a character dying, and you want to keep playing them when resurrection isn’t available. The flavor and mechanics for playing a dead character are simple and innovative, while still colorful and evocative at the same time. I didn’t care for the Questhaven material, and the spells seemed like a bit of a stretch, but the former didn’t bother me too much, while the latter was a nice addition. Even so, together those make the product feel a bit less than fully focused, and that’s why I gave it four out of five stars. Beyond that, the next time your PC dies, have their soul be restless and keep them in the game. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Game Geek Issue #1 by Avalon Game Company www.rpgnow.com/product_info.php?products_id=76439&it=1&SRC=newsletterPrice: $1.00 Rating: 3 out of 5 stars (from Megan Robertson) Review Initial impressions are a delightful ramble through a fellow gamer's head... starting with a muse from Robert Hemminger about the start of his gaming obsession (somewhere about the same time I began role-playing), and moving on to talking about the history of the micro-game concept beginning with things like Ogre and Melee (oddly enough I picked said games up in the past week, the originals having long vanished!). Next is what's promised to be the first 'Map of the Month' - a fine tower just waiting for a wizard to move in. Unfortunately, while it looks good the 'map' is just a cut-away sketch, if you need an actual floorplan of the place you will have to make it for yourself. This is followed by a comic strip called 'Junkyard Wars' - not quite sure what that's all about. Things look up a bit then with the opening of a story which it is intended will be serialised in future issues of this magazine. The Coral Thrown is a fantasy novel, and while it is a bit reminiscent of work done in a creative writing class, it has sufficient appeal that I'd like to know what happens next. No author is credited, alas. Next, continuing the theme of a collection of material about games of all sorts, comes a battle report from an S&G miniatures skirmish. A well-detailed one, following the action play-by-play, lacking in analysis but describing what transpired clearly. Sometimes it's a bit unclear what is article and what is advertisement - the next page explains how PaperMakeiT's onscreen map generation program works, but I think it's a ad from them rather than an article about them. You see, next comes some equally detailed explanations of a new character card for Battle Axe, the Avalon Game Company's table top skirmish game, but the main clue that this is an article rather than an advertisement is by checking who publishes this journal! Next comes a piece about another Avalon Game Company product, the Arcana Fantasy RPG World... which would be easier to follow if not written in white on a very pale background. Even my usual trick with a spot of inverse video doesn't get further than eye-strain, an improvement on illegible but not by much. Pity, it seems to be a nice cavern system to explore... This is followed (in black type on a darker background of course) by a good review of a miniatures skirmish game from Wyrd Miniatures, best known for making miniatures but making a successful foray into game design, and an article about podcasts in true pulp style from the Canadian group Decoder Ring Theatre - quality productions with good voice talent and scripts. Next is a rundown on new and forthcoming product from Avalon Game Company, chiefly the Arcana Fantasy World and a new minigame - monster steam-powered 'land ships' to send out to do battle... sounds fun! There's also some clip art, Orcs for Battle Axe and a couple of rather good-sounding books about fantasy sailing ships. Just in case you are still bored, there's also a solo game Armageddon Hour where you play a mutant-hunter prowling a complex looking for a mutant about to set off a mutation-inducing bomb, with one hour and minimal equipement to get the job done... and more, a board game where aspiring mages set their own victory conditions and attempt to achieve them to win the game. Ahhh... and now comes what was mysteriously labelled 'Free Section' on the contents page. Bigger and better copies of maps shown earlier - including better pictures of that wizard's tower (although still no floor plan!), the map for the cavern-exploring Arcana adventure, and a Goblin Fetish Maker for Battle Axe complete with several cards for the items he can supply to your troops. The whole thing ends with a comprehensive round-up of Avalon Game Company product lines, which should help you decide which are of interest depending on your gaming tastes. A (mostly) well-presented and visually appealing mix of personal reflection and company brochure, with enough to hold the interest, several goodies if you already play their games and sufficient to let you decide if you want to play the ones you haven't tried yet. Promising start, keep it up...
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Post by Gilvan Blight on Feb 28, 2010 1:04:10 GMT -5
Strange Aeons by Bailey Records rpg.drivethrustuff.com/product_info.php?products_id=65338&it=1&SRC=newsletterPrice: $0.99 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars (from Jason Corley) Review "Strange Aeons" is a very interesting track. Although it is advertised as "Dark ambience for any Eldritch horror-inspired setting", I don't quite see (?) it for that purpose. It's a highly rhythmic 3:41 track with a strong, accelerating beat, featuring an Arabian-inspired sound. To my mind it brings images of night-time caravans crossing cool desert sands or shadowing someone through a busy Byzantine city into a full-on chase scene. At around 3:15 or so, it discards the beat and ends with similar ambiance to how it began, so it could conceivably be looped, though the driving beat may become monotonous if kept up too long. At 99 cents, the price is exactly right, so I'm reviewer tilting up one star for that. I definitely will be using this one in an upcoming game soundtrack, though perhaps not as advertised. Thousand Suns: Transmissions from Piper by Rogue Games, Inc rpg.drivethrustuff.com/product_info.php?products_id=60524&it=1&SRC=newsletterPrice: $24.99 $6.99 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars (from Jason Corley) Review Thousand Suns: Transmissions from Piper begins with the following words: "Written by H. Beam Piper..." Although other authors are listed, those words alone made me sit up and take notice. H. Beam Piper is one of the most important science fiction authors who ever lived. (James Maliszewski's introduction is very good for the uninitiated.) His amazing stories influenced some of the greatest sf writers and visionaries of the genre. And this supplement takes these terrific stories and adapts them to gameplay for the Thousand Suns game. The Transmissions include three full stories and adaptations: Naudsonce, Last Enemy and Ministry of Disturbance. The adaptations for each story include specifics on how to adapt Thousand Suns to the requirements of the stories, which (for example) predated modern understandings of the ubiquity of computers and therefore use other technologies to accomplish what we today would expect to see spacemen use computers for. Naudsonce describes the difficulties of dealing with an alien species with unusual cultural and communications. The Last Enemy is an astonishingly well-crafted view of assassination in a world where reincarnation is a scientific fact. The Ministry of Disturbance takes history as its main subject, and what one leader decides to do when he sees his galactic empire beginning to stagnate. Each of these stories is accompanied by different sorts of science fictional problems from linguistics to reincarnation, and optional rules for how to handle each of them are well-detailed in the supplement. These rules are intended to help GMs further explore the ideas of each story, and they succeed admirably. Rather than being a hodgepodge, as so many science fiction games are, these explore one idea quite thoroughly - like the source material itself. As a story-oriented gamer, this approach has no equal. There are some minor typos, though nothing game-killing. There are no bookmarks or hyperlinks to jump directly to the material desired. However, I am so in love with this material, the format, and the stories, good lord, the stories, that I'm reviewer tilting this one up, up, up. This is exactly what should be done with the amazing stuff that is falling into the public domain now. Thought-provoking adventure and great gaming ideas! Shadowrun, First Edition by Catalyst Game Labs rpg.drivethrustuff.com/product_info.php?products_id=78877&it=1&SRC=newsletterPrice: $8.00 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars (from Berin Kinsman) Review The original Shadowrun broke ground for genre-blending, taking standard fantasy tropes (elves, dwarves, wizards) and dropping them into the then-hot cyberpunk genre. It's a weird mix, but it works. The die pool-based mechanics are easy to learn and hold up well. The newest edition has advanced the timeline quite a bit and thus altered the setting, so this would still make a good sourcebook for those interested in the world's back story. Classic Spycraft: Spycraft Espionage Handbook by Crafty Games rpg.drivethrustuff.com/product_info.php?products_id=24692&it=1&SRC=newsletterPrice: $34.95 $10.00 Rating: 5 out of 5 stars (from Berin Kinsman) Review While Spycraft 2.0 is an excellent "toolkit" style system that lets you play just about any sort of modern military or espionage campaign, I still prefer the leaner, cleaner first edition. A very nice, straight forward adaptation of the d20 system geared toward James Bond/Mission Impossible high adventure "espionage fantasy". You're not going to get a lot of grit and realism, but you'll have fun. No Dignity in Death: The Three Brides by Lamentations of the Flame Princess rpg.drivethrustuff.com/product_info.php?products_id=64178&it=1&SRC=newsletterPrice: $6.00 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars (from Berin Kinsman) Review This is a "systemless" adventure intended for any of the "Old School Revolution" games. It's written largely in the style of, and with comparable production values to, adventures supplements written in the mid-70s. This makes it quite enjoyable if you're into that era and style of gaming, but may be less attractive to those used to "slicker" adventures.
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Post by Gilvan Blight on Mar 20, 2010 17:14:08 GMT -5
The Genius Guide to the War Masterby OtherWorld Creations rpg.drivethrustuff.com/product_info.php?products_id=78828&it=1&SRC=newsletterPrice: $2.99 $1.99 Rating: 5 out of 5 stars (from Shane O'Connor) Review In my experience, battles in Pathfinder tend to be somewhat chaotic. I don’t mean that in terms of mechanics or organization, but rather that most fights are, from an in-game point of view, brawls. Everyone moves off into little groups which proceed to whack (or blast) each other until someone falls down, at which point the victor goes to whack someone else. There’s nothing wrong with that, but it’s devoid of any particularly intricate tactics, to say nothing of teamwork (can you remember the last time someone aided another in combat?). Worse, a lot of classes with buffing abilities tend to have them at the expense of doing something cool – no one in my group wants to be a bard, for example, because who wants to spend every round just using bardic music? The aptly-named Super Geniuses’ answer to this is found in The Genius Guide to the War Master, for the Pathfinder RPG. This new base class is a full-BAB class with tactically-focused options that benefit the entire party in various ways. As with most other Super Genius products, this is fairly short, being a total of eleven pages from start to finish. It has no bookmarks, but doesn’t really need them at this length. The art is full-color, compromised of stock art from Cerberus Illustrations. The war master is, as mentioned, meant to serve as a buff-based character that grants tactical options to others in the party. This is primarily done through two major features: battle tactics and talents. Battle tactics are a series of static class abilities (that is, they’re set; you don’t choose which ones you get) gained over various levels. Only one can be used at a time, and you can only use them for so many rounds per day. The best part of these, however, is that while starting them (or switching between them) takes an action, maintaining them is a free action. More than just providing bonuses, this provides a surprisingly broad series of options, such as granting enhancement bonuses to movement during a double move or charge (called “deployment”) or letting other characters use the war master’s CMD. Talents, as you may have guessed, are variable class features. Gained every other level, these let you choose from possible options, with some being restricted to higher levels. A number of these are based around the Leadership feat, such as granting extra followers, a special kind of cohort, or having followers be “contacts” in various settlements and cities. Of course, others focus on the war master himself, such as letting him cast minor clerical spells. These are the major features of the class, though a few others round it out. Interestingly, one of these remaining abilities focuses on using masterwork equipment. While this is self-explanatory for weapons and armor, a section rounds out the book (after a few new feats) on the benefits of masterwork equipment, giving rules for what it means to have, say, a masterwork backpack. This was a nice little bonus for the book to have, and it really lent something extra to the class, since that helps to drive home the image of the well-schooled general who uses the best hardware on his missions. The war master is meant for someone who wants to lead in combat, not only by example – full BAB and fighter-like weapon and armor proficiencies make this a front-line class – but also by coordinating what the rest of the party can do. With variable class abilities, possibilities for Leadership, and even new feats to round it out, this book presents a great new class that doesn’t feel like a second-tier choice because it enhances other characters. Play a war master, and take control of the battlefield the next time combat breaks out. Four-Color to Fantasy (Revised)by EN Publishing rpg.drivethrustuff.com/product_info.php?products_id=17823&it=1&SRC=newsletterPrice: $9.95 Rating: 5 out of 5 stars (from Jason Corley) Review Four Color to Fantasy was one of the first superheroic games to come out during the d20 boom and it showed a bit in its earlier edition. This, the Revised Edition, cleans up the system and presentation quite a bit, while expanding it further. Essentially, 4C2F is a bolt-on system to D&D Third Edition. It can be used as a standalone or in conjunction with the 3E class rules. The core engine that 4C2F introduces is the "hero" class, which gives the character points which can be spent on superpowers, similar to many other point-buy superhero systems. Thus, if you want to introduce superheroics into your fantasy system, you might have a Fighter 3/Hero 6, to reflect, say, an experienced soldier who was given an alien power ring after rescuing a crashed pilot. Fantasy in the D&D mold and superheroics have a lot in common - the heroes may or may not be paragons, but they are a cut above the common folks, and they take it on themselves to protect the innocent. Often they have magical powers and loads of cash. And the setup for most adventures is similar: here is a problem, it threatens people who can't protect themselves, and there's an opportunity for you to do good. The "hero" class can also stand on its own, allowing a more modern-day presentation, with some substitution of skills. Impressively, this purchase contains two versions of the material: first, a landscape format with graphics and bookmarks, intended to be used on-screen for those that use laptops at the table. The second is a more printer-friendly, bare-bones format without graphics, bookmarks or color. Rather than try to adapt a single file to two purposes, EN Publishing has really embraced the idea of customization for different methods of use at the table. 4C2F is a classic, with all the good and bad that entails. At ten dollars, you really owe it to yourself to see how d20 superheroics got its first nod, and the versatility of the purchase at the table is a major plus. I'm giving this one my highest rating because it has stood the test of time and I still reach for it when I'm thinking of superheroic fantasy. Shadowrun: 10 Jackpointersby Catalyst Game Labs rpg.drivethrustuff.com/product_info.php?products_id=79178&it=1&SRC=newsletterPrice: $4.95 Rating: 3 out of 5 stars (from Justin Mohareb) Review A product that will appeal mostly to Shadowrun completists, 10 Jackpointers delivers exactly what the title promises: brief biographies of ten members of the JackPointer network. A Brief History of Gnolls: Anthropophagy and Emeralds from Wales to Wisconsin and Beyond by Skirmisher Publishingrpg.drivethrustuff.com/product_info.php?products_id=54944&it=1&SRC=newsletterPrice: $2.99 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars (from Berin Kinsman) Review Gnolls are one of my favorite fantasy bad guys, and this PDF traces their origins from a parody of a 19th century Welsh rugby team to OD&D gnome/troll hybrids to fungoid ghouls to cannibalistic hyena-men. That's right, gnolls aren't based on any known mythology, and have evolved from a 19th century satirical short story into a roleplaying game standard. An interesting look at how these creature came to be. Includes the original story, "How Nuth Would Have Practiced His Art Upon the Gnoles", and a lot of wonderful illustrations of hyena-men. The Pugilist Class and NPCby Wordcasting Entertainment rpg.drivethrustuff.com/product_info.php?products_id=79341&it=1&SRC=newsletterPrice: $3.50 $2.99 Rating: 3 out of 5 stars (from Sean Holland) Review The Pugilist - Class and NPC is a 25-page PDF (21-pages less covers, credits and the OGL page) compatible with the Pathfinder RPG system designed by Ryan Stanford and published by Wordcasting Entertainment. This is Wordcasting’s first product. The layout is two deep blue covers between which are single column pages of text on various backgrounds. A more efficient design would allow for more information to be packed in, which is primarily important if one is printing out the material. Unfortunately, there is not a printer friendly version without background. There are also a few typos in the text which is distracting. The only art is in photographs used as page backgrounds. The Pugilist is a full twenty level base class focusing, naturally, on unarmed combat. They combine good HD, a moderate base attack progression, two good saves and reasonable access to skills for a firm foundation. But like all such focused class, they will succeed (or not) by their abilities. The Pugilist’s fists are treated as weapons, eventually gaining an enhancement bonus but never alignments or other aspects that would allow them to overcome damage reduction. While restricted to light armor, they gain a limited natural armor bonus and, later, the ability to roll with blows acting as damage reduction. A few other abilities round out the core of the class. The real customization comes in as each Pugilist specializes in one style, of which there are eight presented, which gain bonus feats and other abilities specific to that style. The styles range from Bully (intimidation focused) to Victor (Inspirational leader), to the technique focused such as Boxer and Grappler. The styles provide a wide range of abilities leading to some interesting builds. However, the bonus feats granted by the various styles ignore usual prerequisites and are not restricted to only being used with the Pugilist’s unarmed attacked. As the class’ abilities are a bit front loaded as it is, the potential for abusive combinations may be there. A game master would have to keep a close eye on such. Bare bone NPC versions of each style at 5th, 10th and 16th level are provided for use as opponents or general combat NPCs. Overall, the Pugilist has a lot of potential but it could stand to be cleaned up and some issues clarified. Equally, a few class appropriate feats and magic items would have helped to round out the class as would have an organization or a few fully described NPCs to help established the place Pugilists could occupy in a campaign. Still, even with those flaws it is still an interesting class with potential. If you want to explore some new paths for unarmed fighters, it could be worth a look. Disclosure: As a featured reviewer for RPGNow/DriveThroughRPG, I received my copy of this product for free from the publisher for the purpose of this review.
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Post by Gilvan Blight on Apr 2, 2010 21:51:36 GMT -5
Karma Deck – 4th Edition by Creation's Edge Games rpg.drivethrustuff.com/product_info.php?products_id=80262&it=1&SRC=newsletterPrice: $7.99 $5.00 Rating: 3 out of 5 stars (from Christopher Heard) Review Conceptually, Creation Edge's Karma Deck provides a simple and interesting way to incorporate karma, divine favor, or other boons into D&D 4e. You can hand out "karma cards" as rewards for, well, anything you want. A player can then use a karma card during combat to swing fate to his or her PC's advantage. I've been looking for an additional reward system to add to my campaign for some time. I was thinking about just adding bonus d6s that players could add to any d20 roll, but the Karma Cards provide more variety and therefore seem to present a better option. The cards' benefits do vary in intensity and usefulness, as befits a random pool. For example, one card provides a healing surge, another provides 5 temporary hit points, and another allows you to redo an unsuccessful attack roll. I did not find any of the effects objectionable (in terms of power level or "swinginess"), but of course any DM who likes most, but not all, of the effects can just leave selected cards out of the deck. Creation's Edge provides many helpful suggestions for how to assemble and use the deck, but for some reason these come at the end of the PDF rather than at the beginning. The instructions are also formatted on cards, which means that half of the instructions are printed upside-down relative to the other half—so you'll need to print out the instruction page as well as the other cards. I find this product quite fun, and while I haven't firmly decided whether to incorporate it into my current D&D campaign, I think I probably will. However, I must point out the product's great weakness, its poorly-edited prose. The ratio of grammatical errors and stylistic oddities to word count is annoyingly high. There's no need for me to list all the errors here; suffice it to say that I could not find a single error-free page anywhere in the document. Sometimes, the errors or oddities do affect game mechanics. Most significant are ambiguities like the one on Fortunate Ricochet: "Pick a second target up to 3 squares away"—away from whom? I presume that "away from the original target" is intended, but the card isn't clear. Similarly, some cards increase damage such that "Your die roll is equal to the highest possible die roll result," but what if your damage expression contains more than one die? Again, I presume that the author intended for the card to apply to all dice rolled for that instance of damage-dealing, but the card doesn't actually say that. I'm not sure why the card doesn't just read "your attack deals maximum damage," in keeping with the phrasing used to describe the effects of critical hits (Player's Handbook, p. 276). Other errors don't affect gameplay, but are simply embarrassing, such as the not-infrequent use of "your" where a sentence demands "you're." These grammatical errors will not stop me from using the Karma Deck in my games (though they did bring down the star rating on this review), but they do significantly mar an otherwise well-conceived and well-executed product. War Profiteers by Black Death Publishing rpg.drivethrustuff.com/product_info.php?products_id=65820&it=1&SRC=newsletterPrice: $1.00 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars (from Jason Corley) Review This is an informal adventure. If you're looking for fancy art or polished layout, look elsewhere. However, there's also a lot of things this adventure does right that more "professional" adventures miss the boat on. War Profiteers is a simple adventure for Fourth Edition Dungeons and Dragons. In it, the characters become involved with a group of arms dealers who need a war to become or stay hot in order for their work to remain profitable. The war heats up and then the characters decide to take action. That's it. What sets this adventure apart is the high degree of customization, and specific advice for customization, that it presents. For example, there are two different ways "in" to the adventure, one in which the characters are approached by arms dealers who want their goods protected, and one in which the characters discover a massive cache of magical arms and armor, and must find a customer to buy them. Additionally, once the war has become hot, or heated up, the adventure carefully notes that the characters' actions may be extremely different depending on their alignment and what the players are interested in. They may end up trying to stop the war they helped create, or they may want to take over one of the factions and set themselves up as rulers. Both of these are presented - albeit briefly - as options. A few encounter set pieces are also laid out. The cool thing about these encounters is that you get a mini-map of approximately where the forces will be, and a description of their objectives (and when they'll stop pursuing them), but it isn't tied to any particular level, so DMs can use the excellent encounter generator tools from the base game in order to populate the encounters with the appropriate level of enemies. The final area that War Profiteers addresses that many other adventures miss is that it puts the adventure in context, urging different approaches for a one-night or convention scenario and for an episode in an ongoing campaign. An adventure that serves the real-world needs of the players, who would have thought? It uses bookmarks, though it's probably not strictly necessary for an adventure of this length. There's also a link to the publisher's homepage in the PDF, always welcome. This isn't the greatest adventure on the site. It's very much a sketch of an adventure meant to be fleshed out for the needs of independent groups. But because, especially for the low price, it gives attention where all adventures should give attention, I'm giving it a high score. Huxtropy by Silent7Seven Games rpg.drivethrustuff.com/product_info.php?products_id=64248&it=1&SRC=newsletterPrice: $4.99 Rating: 5 out of 5 stars (from Jason Corley) Review Huxtropy is a Fourth Edition D&D product that incorporates a deck of playing cards into a random, chaotic magic system that adds a new layer of fun and randomness into playing a spellcaster. One criticism I've seen of Fourth Edition D&D is that the system seems very standardized - you use a power, whether it be a spell or an attack, and you always pretty much know what's going to happen. Huxtropy lets a player that looks for more randomness play a character who uses a deck of random cards imbued with magic to sow chaos in combat through drawing cards. As they become more and more powerful and adept at using these magical decks, they are able to manipulate the decks much more effectively, turning bad luck on their enemies and combining cards for additional effects. I'm not what you'd call a game balance guru, but it appears to me that if it's not perfectly well-balanced, the supplement is fairly close. Although powerful, especially at higher levels, huxtropy characters always have to deal with randomness. You can never count on the card coming up that you need, and that makes for an interesting tactical challenge. The material also includes a new paragon path, as the character becomes attuned to randomness and probability. There's a new weapon group as well, "cards", which not only includes the magical huxtropy cards but comic book-ish fantasy cards with razor edges. Cool. There's new feats to bump up people's abilities in these areas and a new skill, Gambling, as well as rules for using it to make dough off the yokels who don't know any better than to get in a game with you. Impressively, the purchase includes the full-color, full-art PDF for view on the screen, a black-and-white, simpler-art PDF for printing, and power cards which can be printed and used, in the same format as the 4e power cards. Bookmarks are well used in the PDF, and there's a full table of contents at the beginning. I'm not a giant Fourth Edition fan, but material like this is always welcome. It's well-made, the layout is clear, the idea is compelling, the balance is good, and when you get done reading it, it passes the ultimate test: I want to play one of these characters right now! d66 Ship Names 2 by Jon Brazer Enterprises rpg.drivethrustuff.com/product_info.php?products_id=68789&it=1&SRC=newsletterPrice: $0.50 Rating: 3 out of 5 stars (from Jason Corley) Review So you thought d66 Ship Names was a good product but you needed 36 more ship names arranged on a table that can be randomly used with two 6-sided dice? Wait no more! It's d66 Ship Names 2! As with the original, some of the ship names are phenomenal ("Bilgewater Baby", that's my ship!), some are misspelled ("Zepher")and some are a little bit inexplicable ("District of Serendip"). The table is alphabetical, and maybe spelling is a bit nitpicky in a world of alien races and languages, but standards must be upheld, so reviewer tilt down one star for that. Fifty cents, as before, is the perfect price for 36 ship names in a 2d6 table, so reviewer tile back up one star for that. If you need 36 MORE ship names in a 2d6 table, this is the perfect purchase. d66 Planet Names by Jon Brazer Enterprises rpg.drivethrustuff.com/product_info.php?products_id=68868&it=1&SRC=newsletterPrice: $0.50 Rating: 3 out of 5 stars (from Jason Corley) Review This is a list of 36 planet names arranged so that a roll of two 6-sided dice will give you a planet name. They're alphabetically arranged. Some are really cool ("Chilidres 3"), others potentially misspelled ("Heinlien"? Pronounced 'hine-lee-en', I suppose?), others flatly bizarre ("Cheney Rew"). Spelling probably doesn't matter much in a universe of alien names and words, but good spelling is the sign of a sound mind, so reviewer tilt one star down for the errors. However, fifty cents is exactly the right price for a table of this sort, so reviewer tilt up one star for that. If you're looking for 36 planet names in a 2d6 table, this is what you're looking for.
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Post by Gilvan Blight on May 4, 2010 17:45:31 GMT -5
Latest RPGnow reviews: [PFRPG] The Genius Guide to Ice Magicby OtherWorld Creations rpg.drivethrustuff.com/product_info.php?products_id=77787&it=1&SRC=newsletterPrice: $2.99 $1.99 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars (from Sean Holland) Review The Genius Guide to: Ice Magic is a 10-page PDF (9 pages if you remove the credits/OGL page) for the Pathfinder RPG written by Owen K. C. Stephens and published by Super Genius Game. This is part of Super Genius Games’ Genius Guide line. The layout is a screen-friendly landscape design, with cover art and 1-column on the first page and three columns on the rest. The list of spells is clear and easy to read. The art is full color throughout and generally supports the ice/snow magic and spell-user theme of this product. Ice Magic opens with a brief introduction about why more ice/cold magic and then moves directly into the spells. Fourteen spells across all levels and something for most types of casters (bard, cleric, druid and sorcerer/wizard but mostly sorcerer/wizard) are included. As usual for such products there are a mix of attack, defense and utility spells with attack spells in the majority. It seems that there are many interesting potential uses for the spells here and a few may be able to be abused, but always a danger when new spells are introduced. To round out the product there are new character options: Frost Bloodline for sorcerers, Cold Specialists for wizards, the Ice Domain for Clerics and a new feat. For game masters there are the Arctic Template, for creatures who live in the cold, and how to build an Ice Elemental. If your campaign is in need of some new, frosty magic, this Genius Guide will serve you and your game in a good stead. Disclosure: As a featured reviewer for RPGNow/DriveThroughRPG, I received my copy of this product for free from the publisher for the purpose of this review. Death Frost Doomby Lamentations of the Flame Princess rpg.drivethrustuff.com/product_info.php?products_id=63592&it=1&SRC=newsletterPrice: $5.00 Rating: 5 out of 5 stars (from Megan Robertson) Review The core concept of this adventure is the classic discovery of a seat of ancient evil - one that is not too ancient to protest at being disturbed, of course. A tough adventure that can work for low level parties (up to 6th-level is suggested, although it may still be challenging for slightly higher levels), playtesters survived in the main by running away and at least in one case by cutting a deal they will probably live to regret! To locate this adventure, all you need is a mountain that nobody dares to climb. If running as a stand-alone game, you can either read out the legend or have the characters discover it in nearby settlements to start them off, or it can be placed in a suitable area of an existing campaign world. It's also suitable if you need the characters to quest for an item... they'll get a bit of a surprise when they go to pick it up! The adventure proper opens with a chance at a bit of role-playing and interaction, with a daft old coot who lives half-way up the mountain and has some passably useful information if the characters have the patience and tolerance to listen. Further up comes the adventure site itself, and from there on, it is classic dungeon crawl time. Plenty to trap the unwary or unlucky, some loot to gather and more undead than you can shake a stick at! All excellent poke around at your peril stuff. As a bonus, there's a brief stand-alone adventure, The Tower, at the end. Who could resist a treasure map and a gold key engraved with a heart? If you go there, you probably will wish you had resisted, after all. Classic 'old school' adventuring, well-presented and atmospheric, and with a coherent underlying rationale: everything is there for a purpose. [PFRPG] The Genius Guide to the Godlingby OtherWorld Creations rpg.drivethrustuff.com/product_info.php?products_id=80467&it=1&SRC=newsletterPrice: $3.99 $2.99 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars (from Sean Holland) Review The Genius Guide to: the Godling is a 12-page PDF (10 pages if you remove the credits/OGL page and advertisement) for the Pathfinder RPG written by Owen K. C. Stephens and published by Super Genius Games. This is part of the Super Genius Games’ Genius Guide line. The layout is a screen-friendly landscape design, with cover art and 1-column on the first page and three columns on the rest. The four charts are easy to read. All of the art is full color and mostly appropriately themed to the quasi-divinty of the godling. The Godling is presented as a full 20-level base class and as a 10-level prestige class, so as to provide a variety of options for including it in a champaign world. The base class diverges into two forms, the physical/combat oriented Mighty Godling and the more skill-based clever Godling. Both types gain abilities (loosely) tied to the divine path that they follow, there are a wide variety of options so many types of Godling are possible. A few of the upper abilities of the divine traits are restricted to one type of Godling or the other, only Mighty Godlings can take the third and forth parts of the battle master power for example. There are seven divine trait paths surprisingly none of them are social or tied to leadership, which would seem to be a natural fit for this class, nor is there a path for directly crafting or making things. The prestige class is not divided along a mighty/clever split and is to some extent more focused and more limited in it options, being compressed into ten levels. It is a compromise in designed between the two version of the base class but may be easier to include, especially in an ongoing campaign. Extensive notes on how to incorporate the Godling into a campaign are included as well as a single Godling feat. While such a character class may not have a place in all campaigns, though the ‘Godlings in your Campaign’ notes make a good argument that they can be easily added to most world, it is a well build and interesting class. If the idea intrigues you, give this product a look. Disclosure: As a featured reviewer for RPGNow/DriveThroughRPG, I received my copy of this product for free from the publisher for the purpose of this review. Lands of Darkness #5.5: The Home for Wayward Minionsby Expeditious Retreat Press rpg.drivethrustuff.com/product_info.php?products_id=60735&it=1&SRC=newsletterPrice: $6.00 Rating: 3 out of 5 stars (from Megan Robertson) Review Despite being billed as an 'April Fool' offering, this is not a ridiculously funny adventure. You may feel that the concept of a training camp for minions is a bit silly, but given that you can study just about anything (and even get degrees it it!) in the real world, why shouldn't the lowly minion go and learn his craft? A few reasons are given to encourage characters to visit this swamp-based training camp. If they do so, they will find a series of huts on raised walkways - deceptively simple but naturally all is not quite what it seems! Everything is laid out clearly, with diagrams showing how the monsters are positioned at the start of each encounter, and notes on setting the correct number depending on the level of your party. The whole thing should prove straightforward to run, if a little basic. And that's the rub: it is very basic. A linear walk-through with monsters that want to fight, only the 'boss' at the end might prefer to talk rather than brawl. It's a nice concept, but much more could be made of it as either a serious setting or, if preferred, a joke one. It doesn't really manage to be either, but could probably serve as something to do with a low-level party if you didn't have time to prepare anything. A minor quibble, one trap is supposedly based on the Fibonacci series... but it's incorrect! (So I can mention it without spoiling anything, as you'll still have to deduce the sequence used!). This could have been much more fun... but there are a couple of undeveloped areas on the map, see what you can come up with for them. The good layout and clear instructions that should make it easy for a novice DM are the best points. Perhaps it's really a training camp for DMs rather than minions? Steamworksby 12 to Midnight rpg.drivethrustuff.com/product_info.php?products_id=55288&it=1&SRC=newsletterPrice: $15.50 $7.25 Rating: 5 out of 5 stars (from Megan Robertson) Review Intended as a guide for introducing technology to a fantasy setting, this book sets out to explore aspects of how ideas spawned by contemporary technology can be implemented in a consistent way to a fantasy world without distorting its alternate reality too much! The Introduction explains that every society has 'technology' - whether it's a abacus or a computer - but that in fantasy you are not limited to mediaeval levels of technology if you don't want to be. Technology is merely the application of natural laws to create an effect, and needs no magic to operate. However, to fit in with accepted game mechanics, a technological device can be regarded in the same way as a magical item - it will need power (measured in 'charges') to work while using it will require a deliberate act on the part of its operator. And - to make the book 'technology friendly' - as well as a conventional PDF there's also a fully-hyperlinked version in HTML (web code) which runs in your browser. Chapter 1: Technological Classes looks at two types of character who make use of technological ideas - the Tehcnologist and the Inventor. The Technologist is the in-game version of an engineer - building, testing, studying the theory as well as the practise of technology. He fills his days with learning and equiry as well as hands-on in the workshop. A Technologist is limited to the number and complexity of devices he can use at any one time in a similar manner to the restriction of a wizard's use of spells by number and level - and even has to have his notebooks handy when preparing or repairing his devices! The Inventor, on the other hand, is a curious tinkerer usually without benefit of formal training. Also using devices, he can also build a 'contraption' which develops over time as his knowledge increases, and which - like a familiar - also gives him additional abilities and advantages. Next, Chapter 2 looks at Skills and Feats. Technologists and Inventors make use of the same skills as everybody else, although they have new uses for many, especially the Concentration skill. A new Repair skill allows both hasty (jury-rig) and proper mending of broken devices, while Techcraft is the equivalent of Spellcraft giving understanding of what you encounter and Use Tech Device replaces Use Magic Device for those wishing to operate these infernal machines! These skills are followed by a fine array of technology-related Feats to choose from including general, construction, metadevice and metatechnology feats. Metadevice feats are used to alter the device's operating parameters, while metatechnology ones affect things like size and ease of use of a device. Chapter 3: Technology explores the rules governing devices, looking at their construction, charging, readying, use and repair. Nothing happens in a hurry! Next comes the different types, which are armament, chemical, energy and mechanical. There are various sub-categories of armament ranging from protective devices to grenades; while chemical ones are classified by the state of matter: solid, liquid or gas. Oddly, liquids and gases are stated to only affect living creatures - what happens if you pour a corrosive liquid onto metal, or create a cloud of flammable gas, one wonders? This is followed by Chapter 4: Devices, which presents the actual devices in a set of 'device lists' which function in a manner akin to spell lists. All manner of devices are listed, from the useful to the bizarre... including a dark brown liquid chemical device which is a stimulant and makes you slightly jumpy! Oddy, this is called 'coffee' - I could have sworn I had some this morning. Flashpowder is rather fun: it makes its target sneeze violently, and then uses the force generated by the sneeze to power its secondary effect, a blindling flash right under the target's nose! Just in case you thought all this was designed to replace magic in your fantasy world (although I suppose it could be used that way), Chapter 5: Spells and Powers looks at arcane and divine spells and psionic powers which interact in some way with technology. Useful if you intend technology and magic to exist side by side - for example, Druids can now 'turn' a construct in the same way as a cleric turns undead. Indeed, most of the spells are used to neutralise or damage technological devices or repair (heal) the damage they do. Chapter 6: Characters is a collection of five prestige classes which Technologists and Inventors might aspire to. They also make good NPCs in a world where this kind of technology works. The classes are the Automatist (who makes automatons), the Engineer (who sees technology as both an art and a science, and seeks to expand his knowledge), the Technician (who has an altogether more practical approach, but never stops tinkering with things), the Technomage (who loves magic and technology equally and tries to combine the two), and the Wraith. This last is fascinated by cloaking (hiding) technology and studies it obsessively... and I expect they are hard to find unless they want to meet you! There's also the purely NPC class of Tinker. Next comes Chapter 7: Integration, which is aimed mainly at the DM and gives ideas on how to integrate technology into your existing fantasy setting or to build one from scratch in which magic and technology both work. To create a convincing alternate reality, you are going to need to consider not only what technology to have but how it arose and has developed up until the 'present day' in which your game is set. One classic approach is to have the present day technology as a pale remnant of that devised by an ancient and long-gone culture far more advanced than the people of today. This approach calls for yet another class, the Archaeologist, to research what went before. Another idea is to see technological development as either a gradual or a sudden process (and so you might want the Researcher prestige class to push it along a bit...). Probably even more than magic use, technology will vary between different cultures and races in a fantasy world so you will have to decide how people in various communities use and react to it. The level of technology also must be set, and this can limit not only what the technology does but to what extent ordinary people have access to it or even are aware that it exists. The interactions between technology and magic also have to be considered, and it is worth splitting out arcane and divine magic here. Religious institutions in your world might view technology as heretical or as a blessing from the gods, or even as a way to put those upstart arcanists in their place by finding ways to duplicate what they do. Likewise practitioners of arcane magic may be fascinated or repelled by technological advances. It might even play a part in social upheaval, if the ruling class clings to magic (or of course technology) forbidding it to their underlings, who develop the other method of gaining power and advantage as a response. Chapter 8: Technological Items deals with the sort of gear - technological and otherwise - that a Technologist or Inventor character carries and possesses. It also looks at those devices that anyone can use, although they might require activation by a techonologically-skilled individual, and certainly will need one such to recharge them once they are expended... no 'pop in a fresh battery' here! Puzzle-loving characters can find cube, pyramid and sphere mechanical puzzles - and cruel DMs who still have them might dig out an old Rubic's Cube when these items crop up in play. Finally, Chapter 9: Monsters is a collection of automatons, constructs and swarms which can be made. Some are 'cognizant' or capable of independent thought (and so become subject to mind-affecting effects). There's plenty on how to design and customise these creations. Indeed, there's a lot about the how-to within the ruleset to do whatever you want with technology. It is a well-balanced collection of rules to empower you to make technology work within the alternate reality that is your game setting, combined with considered ideas on how it will fit in there. This is a book to read carefully and think about before adding technology to your game, but once you have decided that you want it, you are provided with just about everything you need to both choose what goes in and then make it work during gameplay. It's good to see both well-constructed rules AND a thought-provoking discussion of how to use them in the same book.
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