Cerulean Seas

Cerulean Seas by Alluria Publishing

This product is 290 pages long. It starts with a cover, credits, and ToC. (4 pages)

Chapter 1 – Undersea Basics (22 pages)
It starts with a IC introduction explaining what has happened and why 99% of the world is covered in water now. It moves onto a OOC explaining how and why the book was made, followed with advice on using it and common terms in the book. Next it gets into the environments of the sea. The different zones in the ocean, close to land, far from it. How deep one is from the surface, including how much light there is, the effects of the tides etc It gets very in depth and covers everything very well.

Next they get into buoyancy, it goes into great deal of the effects this has on characters and creatures under the sea. It also gets into drag effects of pulling a object or person along underwater. Followed by the effects of pressure has on living things. Next is current's riptides, and undertow, swimming speeds, terrain above water and at the bottom of the ocean. I don't know how realistic all of it is, but it is well written and seems like it would work very well and makes sense.

Next it gets into perils like poisons, diseases, blood in the water drawing sharks, water conditions like murk or whirlpools etc. It ends with a short section on undersea combat, with some differences. Like it being a 3D environment.

Chapter 2 – Undersea Races (20 pages)
This chapter details the undersea races one can play in a undersea campaign. They are all done in enough depth and detail to easily pick one up and start playing with them, giving you everything you need just like the main races in Pathfinder core rule book. The are broken up be species type and then by individual race. It finishes with a whole host of half bread combinations. Since many of them are egg laying races it is far easy to get cross breeding as any male can fertilize the eggs.
Anthromorphs
-Karkanaks
-Mogogols
-Pisceans
-Sebek-kas
Feykith
-Elves, Sea
-Naiads, Viridian
-Nixies, Deepwater
-Selkies, Lochgelly
Merfolk
-Cindarians
-Kai-lios
-Nommos
-Seafolk

Chapter 3 – Undersea Classes (34 pages)
At first it talks about how you can adapt the existing Pathfinder classes to use in the game, including the APG classes. Some are pretty minor changes some are a bit more complex. It also introduces two more domains, undersea Flora and Steam domains. It also has a table of 27 deities, domains weapons etc, more details in chapter 7. The druid has 18 new animal companion options. There is several new Eidolon evolutions to choose from. Plus 12 more familiars for the witch and wizard.

Next it introduces three new classes. They replace the niche of some of the existing classes in new and interesting ways. There is nothing stopping you from using both classes in the same game though.
Kahuna – replaces the Druid
Mariner – replaces the ranger
Siren – replaces the Bard

Next it gets into PrC's and which ones fit and what you need to change if anything and the ones that don't. It also includes three new PrC's as well.
Beach Comber – They go up on some of the little land left and spend time there.
Glimmerkeepers – Honestly to hard to explain but very cool.
SeaWitch – a PrC for the new Siren class.

Chapter 4 – Aquatic Skills and Feats (14 pages)
It starts off talking about all the skills that are different and how they are different. Next it moves onto existing feats that need to be tweaked and what they do now to fit. Next it introduces 45 new undersea flavored feats that all fit very well.

Chapter 5 – Money and Equipment (20 pages)
First it gets into the new money system, since most metals tarnish or rust underwater it makes sense. They use small shells, gold, pearls and such. Now on the shells they really should have made it clear they had to have stamps to make them valuable or people could just go kill the creatures and take their shells for money.

It follows this with a section on weapons, armor and undersea gears. There is simply way to much to list or even high light. They did a good job with the gear for the most part. Other than a few minor issues like Spiked Chain which honestly just would not work underwater. It even has a section on sailing ships. There is several new weapons, armor and a couple of dozen new gear items, not to mention many of the old stuff tweaked to fit the setting.

Chapter 6 – Magic of the Sea (34 pages)
It starts off talking about how spells will work differently underwater. It is followed by a table of aquatic material components in place of the existing ones. I thought that was very cool as some stuff just wouldn't exist underwater. Next it has a chart of spells and their new names, while not needed it was very cool and makes sense. I mean no one would call a fireball and fireball underwater, instead it is mageboil as it makes the water boil instead.

Next it details all the new spells and spells that have changed such as fireball to mageboil. I tried counting but I lost count. There is around a 120-130 spells, I am honestly unsure how many are new and how many are altered. At a glance I would say close to 50/50. It ends with 9 new magic items and a few new magic item properties.

Chapter 7 – The Cerulean Seas (25 pages)
This section gets into the campaign setting, it has the gods, cities, etc, it is a campaign gazetteer for the default setting of the book.

Chapter 8 – Mastering the Sea (10 pages)
This is the game master section of the book on how to run games underwater. It gets into greater detail of some of the previous stuff like buoyancy etc. About how to find depth tolerances for creatures, by what they are. The most interesting section is on 3D combat and how to make your own 3d combat mat to use with mini's if you like. It ends with a section on how the planes interact with the sea.

Chapter 9 – Cerulean Sea Bestiary (72 pages)
This chapter is just a monster bestiary for the setting but also a great one for anyone that ever wants to run a undersea adventure. There is 95 new monsters including new sound based dragons which all looked different and where really interesting. Many had more than one stat block like the dragons. There was also 5 new templates.

Appendices (6 pages)
There is a few Appendix in this section, monsters listed by CR, pronunciation guide, index of tables and index of art.

It ends with a OGL, 2 page character sheet, 4 cardboard mini's, hex sheets to make the 3D battle map with, a full page map, indepth index and back cover. (17 pages)

Closing thoughts. This is a very well written, very pretty book about undersea campaigns. The art work is mostly color and very good high quality art. The editing, layout and production values was top notch. Simply put if you ever wanted a book to help you run a undersea campaign THIS is the book to get. Even if you don't want to, this would be a great tool if you ever wanted to just run some adventures underwater.

Now the book is not perfect, there is a few minor issues where and there with it, like the spiked chain or the shells I mentioned. But most of them are pretty minor issues. My only real critic is honestly the price. I understand Alluria publishing is a small company and art is very expensive, after seeing the art in this book I am sure they spent a bundle on the art budget. But it is a bit high priced at 29.99 for a PDF. If that was the print price I would say fair price, for a PDF though? I felt a tad high. So whats my rating? Well just on the book it is easily a 5 star product, with the price I would say a 4.5 star. I know the price is a little high but I don't think you will be disappointed picking this up, if you find undersea adventures interesting at all.

EZG reviews Legendary Blades and goes 4th Dimension

Hey everybody,

In these closing days of 2010 I thought I'd post some reviews for your perusal - without further ado: Enjoy!

Legendary Blades

This pdf is 42 pages long, 1 page front cover/editorial/ToC, 4 pages SRD and 1 page of thanks for the feedback. That leaves 36 pages of content for $3.00! That is an awesome bang-for-buck-ratio. Now let’s take a look at whether the content suffers from the low price.

The pdf kicks off with a one-page introduction on how legendary weapons work and adds a variant optional rule for weapon jealousy. Nice.

The weapons follow a two-page format including b/w-artwork, requirements of the weapon, all the abilities and a table listing the weapon’s progression. The weapons are:

-Alieywishia, Orc Scourge: A bane curved scimitar-like weapon that helps slay and track Orcs.

-Asterion’s Soul: A brutal sword inhabited by the sould of a minotaur.

-Counter: A cool main-gauche for duelants.

-Crusader’s Sword: A holy consecrated blade for clerics, paladins and Inquisitors to kill evil outsiders.

-Diamond’s Edge: An incredibly sharp blade that is said to be connected to the mythic diamond dragons

-Ebon Whispers: A lethal Assassin’s Throwing Dagger

-Endless Winter: Ice-cold blade of a barbarian legend.

-Gladiator’s Response: A showman’s blade to kill beasts etc.

-Guardian: The sword of a heroic last defender.

-Lion of Iskander: A holy sword for the leaders of men.

-Mitra’s Blade: Undead-slaying sun-themed falchion

-Moon’s Vengeance: Anti-Lycanthrope side-sword

-The Red King’s Judgment: A fiery greatsword worthy of a villain (or an anti-hero)

-Sandman’s Blade: Rapier with time-abilities for bards and arcane casters.

-Sorrow: A creepy, tragic sword. One of my favorites.

-Summoner’s Tool: A Summoner’s tool to make his Eidolons stronger.

After that, we get one page with two alignment templates and a new combat maneuver: Parry. We also get another two pages containing three new feats and three new spells.

Conclusion: Editing and formatting are top-notch, I didn’t notice any typos or the like. The writing and prose are concise and do a great job of making the blades interesting in spite of the limitations in space and the setting-neutral background.

For the very low price, you get excellent blades and a HUGE amount of content. While the abilities could have been a bit more on the far-out side of things for me, I can’t help but like what Mark Gedak and Stefen Styrsky have done here. I love leveling weapons and this file provides them for an extremely fair price. I have high hopes for the sequel. (Which has just been released!) And a file for leveling armors. For now, I’ll rate this a very good 4.5 Rudii due to the fact that I would have loved to see some rather far-out abilities. (Like the Fiery Discorporation of “The Red King’s Judgment…)

Skill Encounters – Non-combat challenges: Basic Rules

This pdf is 21 pages long, 1 page front cover, 1 page ToC/Editorial, 1 page advertisement, 2/3 page SRD. That leaves 17 1/3 pages of gaming content.

You know, I was rather disappointed when I bought and played 4^th edition. I don’t say it’s a bad system because it simply isn’t – it works awesome for the thousands of people who enjoy it, it’s just not made for me. However, I absolutely loved the idea of skill-encounters and had been using a similar concept in my home campaign for years. This pdf brings skill-encounters to PFRPG.

The pdf kicks off with three pages that explain how to read a skill-encounter and how to write them.

The first skill challenge presented is the all-time classic, the chase (3 pages). The encounter includes information on how spells affect the encounter, with several complications like quick changes, escapes to sewers and rooftops and the like and results for failures. We also get a sidebar for combat during the chase.

I enjoyed reading this one.

The second skill-challenge is gathering information (4 pages). This one also has a huge one page box detailing contacts (barkeeper, wenches, etc.) for the PCs to ask. I’ve been looking for a pre-made encounter for this as I always hated the generic “One-roll-you get the-info-approach”. Well-made piece.

The third skill-challenge is haggling (2 pages). Due to the nature of the challenge, this one is rather timid and not too suspense-laden, but well done nevertheless.

The fourth skill-challenge is research (3 pages). This is probably one of the coolest skill-challenges within this book – at least for me. If you happen to have an investigation-heavy campaign, this section alone is worth the price. The complications like other scholars, library holidays and the like are both generic and cool. Nice work.

The fifth and final skill-challenge is wilderness travel (2 1/3 pages). While the default is a forest here, we get a sidebar on other terrains and how to implement the complications presented. Another great skill-encounter.

Conclusion:

I really love skill-encounters, if only because they give PCs a chance to roll the bones and build suspense without resorting to bashing. Thus, this pdf has a rather easy standing with me. Especially the gather information, research and chase encounters are gold for my campaign. The pdf itself is beautiful and full-color, the artwork is okay and presentation is concise and precise in its wording. I didn’t notice any editing glitches. However, there are also some drawbacks that I feel I have to mention: While the pdf is beautiful, the page are yellow and there is no printer-friendly version out there.

While the pdf is not large, I think it would have benefited from a printer-friendly version, as b/w print-out it just doesn’t look as great. I also would have loved to see bookmarks, as there are none. In the haggling section, I missed a complication for another bidder for the item. The pdf is priced $5.00, which is ok for the quality, but not too cheap.

It’s quite hard for me to rate this pdf: On the one hand, I LOVE skill-encounters and that they have been brought to PFRPG and the utility of this product. On the other hand, I have these minor criticisms and thus can’t rate it 5 Rudii. I’ll shoot for a very good 4.5 Rudii instead, with the notice that, if you don’t care about the yellow pages or the lack of a competing haggler, this is a must-buy for you. These rules should be part of the standard Pathfinder canon. Here’s to hoping Paizo will implement them.

Skill Encounters: Deadly Challenges – Traps

This pdf is 24 pages long, 1 page front cover, 1 page editorial/ToC, 1 page SRD and one page advertisement. That leaves 20 pages of content.

The pdf starts with a short chapter explaining skill encounters and how to run them. (5 pages)

After that, we get the first encounter/trap. Before I get into reviewing this product, I have to admit something: I love traps and I hate how they are treated most of the time: The rogue goes ahead, tries to disarm it and there we go – one roll while the rest of the PCs waits for the rogue to do his job or die trying. This little pdf introduces traps that have something for the whole group to do and can’t be overcome with one single roll.

That being said, let’s delve into the first encounter, the classic vicious spike pit. (3 pages) The skill-encounter features two complex sets of checks to deal with the trap: Escape & Disable. Both are fractured in the encounter, spells are dealt with, etc. However, one of the complications e.g. mentioned churning blades, which aren’t factored into the stats of the trap, somewhat rendering them a bit strange. The same goes for exploding spikes. I know that the DM is supposed to scale them, but I nevertheless would have liked that being done for me.

The next trap is the poisonous gas chamber. (4 pages) This encounter features a sample map of the room, including grids and the like. Once again, two ways to solve this are presented, “smash it” and “plug it” – both are interesting, but I personally preferred the complications for plugging it.

The next trap is the sucking vortex. (3 pages) This skill encounter is interesting due to being both individual skill encounters and a group encounter to shut down the vortex as well as a sample map with a grid for the corridor with the vortex. While being an iconic and simple idea, I really loved the presentations and complications of this one. Nothing to gripe about here.

The next challenge is the flooding room. (3 pages) I really did like the encounter, the complications and so on. However, I’d have loved to see a twofold variation here: One mechanical trap and one magical flooding room – they also would have made a great combination trap.

The final trap derived from a tried and true statement in gaming, the classic “Rocks fall, all die.” – The last skill encounter is the collapsing dungeon! (3 pages) This skill encounter is by far my favorite among the ones presented – not only because it is iconic and cool, but also because it is lethal, it’s mechanics are simple, yet interesting and due to an added “Buried!”-mini skill encounter.

Conclusion:

As I’ve already admitted in my first skill encounters review, I’m a sucker for them: I e.g. immensely enjoyed the collapsing dungeon and the vortex. However, there are still some minor problems with this pdf: While the artwork is ok and the whole file is full color, I would have loved to see a printer-friendly version without the yellow background and with less pictures and more mechanics – both with the poisonous gas chamber and the flood chamber, I think that we could have had more complications/ideas instead of pieces of artwork. Editing and formatting is concise and makes running the encounters easy. I’d really like to give this a full five Rudii, but some of the skill encounters made me want more out of them or just didn’t strike me as too interesting. Combine that with the lack of a printer-friendly version and I’ll settle for a good 4 Rudii rating. I really hope to one day see a massive tome of skill encounter traps, with more exotic and far-out traps intermixed with the new take on classics. If you’re a DM who is sick and tired of the one-die-roll-trap, be sure to give this a try, you probably won’t regret it.

Alright, as in the classic Warner Bros. cartoons, "That's it, folks!" - at least for 2010. I hope to be of assistance in 2011 again and wish you all the best for the new year! Thanks for reading my reviews, talking to me online, your feedback, etc.pp. - I'm doing this for you guys and without you, I would have never written so much. A special thanks to all the great people I've met during the last couple of months, to the nice designers, to Dark_Mistress for encouraging me to picking "serious" reviewing up and to Lou for offering me this blog to post my reviews as well as for encouraging me to write reviews in the first place. My thoughts go out to all of you, wherever on this blue globe of ours you may be located - Here's to a great 2011!

As always, Endzeitgeist out.

P.S.: Next year: Some big reviews that took FOREVER to write. :)

Endzeitgeist reviews TRIBES & a Monsterbook

Hey everybody,

today, I'm going to take a look at two TRIBES-installments and a fine monster book, so let's dive in!

Brethren of The Crimson Altar

This installment of the TRIBES-series is 34 pages long, 1 page front cover, 1 page blank inside of front cover, 1 page overview, 1 page editorial, 1 page ToC and SRD, 1 page introduction on how to read stat-blocks, 1 page ad and 1 page back cover. That leaves 26 pages of content.

The first chapter (6 pages) gives us an introduction to the 4 vastly different Brethren of the Crimson Altar. It is here that I have to insert a kind of disclaimer: I love vampires, I really do. And I’m in team Dracula, I.e. I think that vampires a) should never, ever sparkle and b) have very specific ideas on what vampires should be able to do, power-wise and how they should not act. (Like morons à la in John Carpenter movies.) To cut a long story short, I love my vampires intelligent, crafty, strong and devious. It’s hard to satisfy me in that regard. The different vampires presented here succeed flavor-wise in that endeavor. We also get a statblock for Kulan-Wyr guardians, lvl 11 skeletal champion monks and the intelligent, malevolent crimson altar. The chapter closes with one page that neatly sums up the particular things to consider when battling a vampire – change shape, create spawn and vampiric weaknesses – all compiled on one page. Nice.

The next chapter (10 pages) details the Brethren in the complex manner one has come to expect from Raging Swan, i.e. complete with mannerisms, distinguishing features, hooks and even favored disguises! It should be noted, that in contrast to other Raging Swan TRIBES-supplements, these statblocks are almost Rite Publishing-level complex, which is VERY NICE. We also get statblocks for Bat and Rat-swarms and each Brethren gets his/her own artwork.

The final chapter (10 pages) of the pdf features encounters with the Brethren 5 sample encounters, one of which is actually a smear-campaign against the PCs. This chapter also features 7 stat-blocks and has some neat ideas as well as artwork. The final page of the pdf collects the statblocks by CR and type with page-references.

Conclusion:

I'm very hard to satisfy when it comes to vampires. This little book did it. It is extensive and provides a sufficiently deadly cabal of bloodsuckers with ample roleplaying potential for your perusal and features excellent editing, formatting, writing and b/w-artwork to boot. For the very low price, you practically can’t ask for more. It’s the best installment of the excellent TRIBES-series as of yet and will be nigh impossible to surpass. An excellent resource. My final verdict practically has to be 5 Rudii.

Pazuzu's Fury

This pdf is 24 pages long, 1 page front cover, 1 page blank inside front cover, 1 page overview, 1 page editorial, 1 page ToC and SRD, 1 page explanation on how to read the statblocks, 1 page advertisement and 1 page back cover. That leaves 17 pages of content for the harpies of Pazuzu’s Fury.

The first chapter (6 pages) details the fluff of this particular tribe (or is it flock?) of harpies, offering e.g. a particular myth for the origin of this particular flock of harpies, which I definitely liked. While I admit to really liking Pazuzu’s real-world mythology background, I like how he is supposed to have acted in this myth (if the GM decides the origin story is correct) and how something new is done with the harpies. We also get 6 pages of new tribal feats, some of which enhances the deadly songs of Pazuzu’s Fury, some of which could be used for any airborne creature to devastating effect. None seemed overpowered or too weak. One, though, “Death from Above”, might be considered to be potentially fatal for PCs, so be warned. Pazuzu’s Fury also gets 5 new spells, many of which interact with bardic abilities and might interest players playing bards. The chapter ends with a page with the new exotic weapon of choice of the harpies, the aptly-named gutripper and 3 new magic items, of which none really impressed me. In fine Raging Swan tradition, they get their artworks, though.

The next chapter details stat-blocks, allies and encounters (10 pages).The chapter kicks off by providing 4 sample encounters as well as a side-bar on aerial combat, 8 stat-blocks of different harpies (casting and non-casting, from CR 6 to CR 10) as well as the corrupting aspect of Pazuzu, a kind of minor avatar-like creature (CR 10). Two pages are devoted to a sample lair, albeit without a map and some ideas for other lairs. The final page of the products features 5 adventure hooks, one of which “The Ugly duckling” is absolutely awesome. I’ve got three words for you (or 4, depending on how you count the compound): HALF-CELESTIAL HARPY PALADIN. ‘Nuff said.

Conclusion:

I’m starting to feel like a broken record – here before you is yet ANOTHER excellent entry of Raging Swan’s TRIBES series. An intelligent, cool revision of a tried and true old creature, mixed with interesting mechanics, old-world-style fluff, nice tie-ins into the lonely coast and beautiful artworks. While I was missing a map for the lair and would have liked to see the aspect at a higher CR, it seems hardly fair to detract a whole star for that. Thus, my final verdict will be 4.5 Rudi, continuing the trend of extremely high quality Raging Swan has set for itself. Well done!

Book of Beasts: Monsters of the River Nations

This pdf is 36 pages, 1 page front cover, 1 blank page inside of the front cover, 1 page editorial, 1 page ToC/Monsters by CR, 1 page back cover, 1 blank page inside the back cover, 1 page SRD, 1 page advertisements.

That leaves 28 pages of monsters.

-Addanc (CR7): A cross between a crocodile and a beaver, this could be goofy, but actually works. Death Roll (Ex) is a cool ability.

-Autumn Death (CR 8): A deadly undead creature with autumnal abilities. Has two cool signature abilities.

-Avowed Reaver (CR 5):Touched by elemental powers, this is a set of 4 CR+2 templates in one.

-Bog Scum (CR13): Aquatic, climbing deadly ooze.

-Fly Trap, Giant + Dire (CR 2 and CR 6): Cool plants, but lack a way to enthrall their victims.

-Forest Giant (CR 12): A Giant with some spell-like abilities to escape and polymorph others.

-Frost Mite Swarm (CR 10): Terrible insects of icy cold, these critters are quite creepy.

-Garmunchi (CR 6): Ugly, strong, slug-eating Ogre-like Humanoids.

-Hatethrall Demon (CR 6): Flame-clad skull-demons that shoot fiery rays.

-Hydrus (CR ½): A poisonous aquatic lizard that invades others to eat them from the inside. Great critter!

-Lemkin (CR 9): Creepy blow-gun using fey.

-Nightcaller (CR 1): Deadly Raven-like birds that can mimic voices.

-Piranha, mature and Piranha Swarm (CR 1 + CR 2): Iconic fish. Lacking in lethality, though.

-River Dragon (2 pages, two sample dragons provided, CR 7 + CR16): Aquatic dragon with boiling-abilities – want your adventurers medium?

-Riverswell Spirit (CR 7): Drowned spirit with drowning touch.

-Shrine Stone, Animated (CR 7): Guardian golem of Druids and Fey.

-Silver Bell (CR 3): Supremely creepy and cool plant creature.

-Skate Spider, Giant (CR 5) and Skate Spider Swarm (CR 6): Spiders that can walk on water.

-Snapping Turtle (CR 2) + Snapping Turtle,Dire (CR 8): Cool, but I would have expected an expanded threat range.

-Stumble Fish (CR 1): Jumping fish.

The first Appendix features Humanoid Encounters:

-Cursed Brethren (CR 3)and their Bandit King (CR 6) (2 pages): Cursed bandits that share their pain and thus are deadly when acting in concert. Cool ideas!

-Grammy Beshic (CR 9) (2 pages): A Gnome Sorceress including her new “Rings of Rebellion” magic item.

Appendix 2 features 2 new gambling games and a new drug. (1 page)

Appendix 3 presents 6 new haunts (1 page):

Blinding Bushes (CR 6), Chamber of Screams (CR 3), Ensnaring Weeds (CR3), Ice Forge (CR 2), Pool of Betrayal (CR 9) and River Fog (CR 4). They are all cool and feature at least one interesting component to make them stand apart.

The final page contains the last two appendices, containing 5 new mini-templates and 8 new diseases.

Conclusion:

The b/w-artwork is mostly ok and has a nice old-school kind of flair, the editing and formatting are top-notch and wording as well as prose are concise and well-written. The monsters themselves presented herein are great additions to any campaign – most have a signature ability or two, an interesting hook or are just iconic animals and plants. While I personally didn’t care too much for e.g. the Garmunchi, that’s a personal preference. E.g. the Silver Bell is an idea dripping awesomeness and win and there are several of this caliber herein. The new gambling games, drug, haunts, NPCs etc. are great additions (the haunts e.g. singlehandedly surpass any haunts from a haunt-pdf I recently reviewed)to this great book and I can honestly say that this is a no-filler-book and worth every cent. If all monster-books were like that, I’d buy more. My final verdict is 5 Rudii.

All right, I'll be off now. Thank you all for reading my ramblings, I wish you all a merry Christmas or whatever you are inclined to celebrate! My best wishes go out to you,

Endzeitgeist out.

Endzeitgeist reviews some Rite Publishing stuff

Hey everybody,

first of all, I want to thank all the people who have been asking where I've been. To cut a long story short, I'm having not the best of times right now and just couldn't bring myself to writing reviews.

I'll try to get my act together in the weeks to come, but it might still take some time untill I can get back to my usual frequency.

Without further ado:

The Secrets of Martial Mastery

This pdf is 18 pages long, 1 page front cover, 1 page editorial, 1 page SRD and two pages of advertisements.

That leaves us with 13 pages of content, let’s get it on.

The Secrets of Martial Mastery contains a plethora of new combat maneuvers akin to classics like feint and bull rush. (7 pages) The new maneuvers are:

Arm Lock – Deals unarmed damage and causes sickened effect. Initiated in a grapple.

Blind Opponent – You attempt to blind your opponent for 1 or more rounds. (By throwing sand in their face, poking their eyes etc.)

Bypass Armor – You exploit a weak spot in their armor, if you succeed they lose their armor vs your next attack. Surprisingly, this also works against natural armor

Confuse Opponent – You attempt to hit the opponent in a way that is dazes/confuses them. Deals half damage and causes brief confusion.

Corps-à-Corps – You lock weapons with the opponent and move close to them, setting them up for other combat maneuvers.

Create Opening – Lowers the opponent’s AC for your next attack.

Cut Clothing – Do the Zorro! Cut clothing off your opponent, carve your name, attack items etc. – Mages will hate this one.

Disorient Opponent – If this attack works, the enemy takes a -2 to attack, INT and several skill checks based on movement for a short amount of time.

Entangle Opponent – You use an object to entangle your opponent by ropes, cutting branches, throwing furniture etc.

Enemy Cover – You move into the blind spot of e.g. other enemies by moving with the opponent targeted, using your foe as cover against themselves and their allies.

Force Movement – Force an opponent to move 5-10ft in the direction of your choosing without having to run him over.

Garrote Opponent – You strangle the enemy from behind, assassin-style. The attack is sufficiently lethal, causes damage and eventually forces the target to save or fall unconscious and die.

Hinder Natural Attack – You strike at a natural weapon, making your foe unable to use that specific attack for 1 or more rounds.

Hinder Special Ability – Works just like Hinder Natural Attack, but thankfully only works when there is an obvious attack like a breath weapon, webs and the like.

Impede Movement – The little brother of the good ol’ classic “Sever Sinews” - your attack lowers the movement of the enemy by 5ft on a success.

Joint Strike – In contrast to the others, this one is rather bland, it does 1 point of ability damage to STR or DEX.

Low Blow – Strike at the vital areas of male/female anatomy to really make your enemy appreciate you. If you’re successful, the target is dazed for 1 or more rounds. Obviously doesn’t work against all critters out there.

Nauseate Opponent – Karate-chop to the ear or similar attacks cause the victim to be nauseated for 1 or more rounds.

Paralyze Opponent – If you are successful, you can paralyze your opponent briefly.

Parry Attack – This blocks the next incoming melee attack by your chosen target by using one of your AoOs.

Rope-a-Dope –Tire out your opponent for a brief amount of time by applying pressure while keeping your defensive stance.

Sacrificial Critical – Open yourself wide for an automatic crit by your enemy to get an attack that automatically threatens a critical hit if successful.

Sap – A successful hit with this maneuver causes your enemy to save or be knocked unconscious for a brief amount of time, potentially long enough to capture him/her/it.

Scar Opponent – The stuff revenge-stories are made of, this humiliation deals 1 point of damage and a scar that can only be healed by magic. [GREAT for low-magic campaigns or if the DM rules that the scar remains even if the damage is healed…]

Seize Massive Attack – As part of a readied action, you attempt to latch onto a large or larger creature. Ever wanted to latch onto a charging Gorgon or a swooping dragon with one hand while desperately trying to hack it to pieces? There you go.

Taunt Opponent – The “Yo mama!” of combat maneuvers, this causes the targets to attack you for one or more rounds in a fit of rage, potentially ignoring your meek fireball-casting sorcerer-buddy.

Throw Opponent – Initiated as a part of a grapple, you throw an opponent 5ft or more, doing 1d6+STR damage and fling them potentially off of cliffs, balconies, etc.

Torment Opponent – Inflict a traumatizing blow on your enemy, causing massive pain and leaving them with -4 to attack rolls and some skill checks.

Unbalance Opponent – You try to knock your foe off balance, leaving him without DEX-mod for 1 or more rounds or hamper his REF-save.

While some of the maneuvers might seem strong, they are balanced by saves, half damage and a limited amount of time for their effects. All maneuvers have additional effects if you beat the opponent by 10+ or fail by an equal margin.

New Feats (3.5 pages): After the maneuvers, we get a whole bunch of new feats, one general “Improved [Combat maneuver]”-feat-template and several non-generic “Greater”-variants of the maneuvers. Taunt Opponent, Hinder Special Ability, Corps-à-Corps and Arm Lock don’t get their own “Greater”-version though.

Finally, we get a new prestige class, the Master of the Arts, that gets two and a half pages:

The class has d10, 4+INT skills, good BAB, medium FORT save, bad REF and WIL saves and details a teacher of combat maneuvers who can both utilize maneuvers, deflect arrows and the like and even control his/her inflicted damage for training/capture/ whatever purposes. The class also features a short glossary of Questhaven.

Conclusion:

The b/w-art ranges from fair to “meh” and is partly public domain, I found one editing glitch (double sentence) and 2 typos in the book, but not enough to severely detract from its appeal. Why? Because it is so concisely written and because, even though it is setting-neutral, made me envision or remember all the times when I have already house-ruled situations like the ones the maneuvers address. Combat should be exciting, dynamic and cool and fighter-types should have more options than “I attack with power attack +3” and “I trip. Again.” If you’re like me and love swashbuckling, Errol Flynn style, if you are into martial artist flicks from the east, hell, if you just simply want more options for your fighters that are not necessarily just more feats, more options for any character that is even remotely martially bent, this pdf is for you. For the cheap price of 3 bucks, you get a file that is guaranteed to enrich your gaming experience in a more than positive way. Due to the cheap price that almost makes up for the minor editing glitches, I’ll rate this file 4.5 Rudii.

The Secrets of Divine Channeling

This product is 36 pages long, 1 page front cover, 1 page editorial, 1 page back cover, 1 page advertisement and 1 page SRD, leaving 31 pages of content.

In the fine tradition of Rite Publishing, the book starts with an aptly written in-character introduction to the ideas presented herein. The introduction and first chapter take up 5 pages and feature a new trait for minor channeling. The idea of channeling is presented in two ways: On the one hand, clerics can choose the trait to gain access to minor channeling abilities or they could take two feats to get up to 6 new things they can do in combat via channeling their divine energy, which is domain-specific.

However, if that is not enough for you and you want to go all out, you can also play the divine channeler, a new base class. He has d8, 4+Int skills, medium BAB, good fort and will saves as well as some massive channeling abilities – to trade this off, his spell-selection is more limited than the cleric’s and he can’t cast as many spells per day.

The next chapter, feats, takes up 2 pages and features the aforementioned feats for the cleric. I liked the 8 feats, none seemed over-powered or under-whelming.

The bulk of the book (24 pages), though, is taken up by the domains and their respective channeling abilities. Each Doamin features a sensorial image, i.e. how the channeling of the divine energy manifests itself, which I found quite cool, a minor channeling effect, a combat domain channeling effect and two major channeling effects.

I’m going to give you an example on what to expect and, due to being so cheerful, I choose the Madness domain!

Sensorial Image: Purple and scarlet energies, swirling air currents, and a faint stale, musty odor.

Minor Channeling Effect: Imbecile’s Tongue makes it impossible for the victim to communicate.

Combat Channeling Effect: Breath of Madness boosts the combat capabilities of the targets for WIS-damage and could be used offensively and defensively.

Major Channeling Effect I: Wave of Confusion – mass confusion.

Major Channeling Effect II: Madman’s Screech damages opponents and causes WIS-damage to boot.

Editing and formatting is top-notch, as I’ve come to expect from Rite Publishing. The interior art is ok, although nothing to write home about.

Conclusion:

When I first read this book, I have to admit that I didn’t get the hype around it. Yes, it is a fair book, but I just didn’t immediately jump up from my chair, wanting to implement this, possibly because the book is necessarily campaign-setting neutral. I let the idea gestate for about a week. And gradually, subtly, I started to realize what the content in this book does – It makes it possible to customize THE HELL out of any cleric and offers a variant (un)holy-man-class that is closer to the aspects of his deity than the cleric in some regards, without unbalancing the game. The abilities are cool and should help just about any divine caster to greatly diversify the options he has while providing an entertaining alternative to the cleric.

Best of all, channeling makes individual divine casters of different gods much more unique and diversified and should be considered a boon to DMs and players alike, especially those who don’t want to build another “evil cleric” that swats around the same spells as all the other evil clerics. The sensorial images, while being short paragraphs, add A LOT of flavor to the different domains. Sooo…what would I have liked to see that wasn’t there? Well, even more domains. And campaign-setting specific domains with more fluff. And PrCs for the divine channeler. That’s a good sign and I sincerely hope that Rite Publishing expands on this great concept in e.g. their Questhaven project and put out a “Secrets of Divine Channeling II” one of these days. It’s a subtle, humble book, but it will enrich your gaming, I guarantee it.

My final verdict is 5 Rudii.

30 Unique Magical Blades

This full-color pdf is 16 pages long, 1 page front cover, 1 page editorial, 2 pages ads, 1 page SRD, leaving 11 pages for the 30 magical blades. Enough to make them “unique” as per the premise of the book? We’ll see.

The pdf starts with a short table that lists the weapons according to their value, the cheapest being 4,312 GP, the most powerful one scoring at a whopping 175,325 GP. The book features a beautiful, full-color, digital artwork by Sade for each and every weapon in the book, which I definitely liked. The layout is also consistent and very nice to look at. Each of the thirty blades comes not only with a short story that could serve as a hook on how to get the weapon, but also with several abilities that go beyond +2 ice-bursting sword. I.e., each of the blades (There are also spears, btw.) has some distinctive quality besides its primary characteristics.

Editing and formatting very top-notch, I didn’t notice any mistakes.

Conclusion:

Magic item books tend to have a hard standing with me. I’m a sucker for elaborate backgrounds, weapons that level up and PCs with a very limited access to magic weapons and gadgets. I’m quite old-school there, every weapon or magic item in my campaign gets its own background story.

There is obviously not too much space for background-texts for the blades in this pdf, although you get more than in almost all item-supplements I’ve read so far, which is great news – while I love the modularity of recent editions when it comes to magic items, it also made many a weapon or armor a common commodity instead of an awe-inspiring item.

The production values are top-notch, as often a picture of a blade makes it MUCH MORE memorable than it would be without it. That being said, all the blades feature the Rite Publishing style, i.e. they have something rather unusual or special about them – for the low price, that is quite is something!

However, if you’re like me, you would probably have preferred less blades and more background on the weapons presented. I can’t find any serious flaw with this product, though. Thus, for me, this is a 4 Rudii product, probably because it didn’t utterly grip me and make me shout “Hell yeah”. If you’re into equipment books, though, this is gold. For you, this may be a 4.5 or even 5 Rudii-file.

That's it from me for now, to all you fine folks out there a merry christmas in case I don't get around to posting again, I hope you'll find fine gifts under your trees!

All the best,

Endzeitgeist out.