EZG reviews 30 haunts and OT: A place beyond Hell

Hey everybody,

as you probably can gather from my reviews, I love horror-elements in my gaming and thus, today I have two rather creepy books for you:

30 Haunts for Ships and Shores

This pdf is 17 pages long, 1 page front cover, 1 page editorial, 1 page SRD and 2 pages of ads, leaving 12 pages for the haunts.

This pdf kicks off with an IC-introduction to the haunts and some nice background, a definite plus in atmosphere over the last installment of the series. 1.5 pages explain how to use the haunts as well as that some may be tied together or used stand-alone. These so-called associated haunts, introduced in the last installment of the series, are a good proof that RiP is listening to its fans and provide what we ask.

Mutinous Manifestations:

-Star-Cursed Sky (CR 11)

-Mutiny's Shadow (CR 10)

-Grumbling and Grief (CR 7)

-The Sound of Munity (CR 6)

The Sea Devil's Attack

-Drunk Crew (CR 6)

-The Deep One Rises (can be tied to Drunk Crew) (CR 11)

Blood in the Water:

-Common Cry Haunt (CR 2)

-Common Drowned Man (can be tied to Common Cry Haunt) (CR 2)

-Feeding Frenzy (can be tied to Common Drowned Man) (CR 8)

Bellfall's Haunts:

-Blasphemer’s Bell (CR 1)

-Bloody Tide (can be tied to Blasphemer’s Bell) (CR 5)

-Wrath of the Wrecked (Can be tied to Bloody Tide) (CR 11)

Flooded Hold:

-Flooded Hold (CR 12)

Stormy Weather Haunts:

-Common Biting Wind (CR 6)

-Head Strong Wave (Can be tied to Common Biting Wind) (CR 6)

-Hungary Sea Haunt (Can be tied to head Strong Wave) (CR 4)

-Raging Squall (Can be tied to Hungary Sea Haunt) (CR 8)

More Haunts:

-Dreaming of a Watery Grave (CR 9)

-Driving Sleet (CR 4)

-Exhausted Crew (CR 8)

-Fog Reavers Rock (CR 6)

-Jaws that Bite (CR 8)

-Past Sin (CR 3)

-Sailing Blind (CR 5)

-Shadowy Tentacles (CR 8)

-The Hailstorm (CR 6)

-The Hunger (CR 10)

-The Northern Lights (CR 11)

-Worms and Maggots (CR 3)

-X Marks the Spot (CR 1)

The pdf also features a new NPC, Pers Veilbron, the writer of the IC-introduction. The NPC takes up 2 pages and uses the channeler class from "Secrets of Divine Channeling". All rules to use him without the book are provided, though.

Conclusion:

Editing and layout adhere to the RiP-two-column standard and are of the usual high quality. I didn't notice any typos or glitches. The mostly B/w-artwork is nice and I love the cover. I also really enjoy how the book uses some haunts from "30 Haunts for Houses" to expand some of the associated haunts, providing even more content. The IC-introduction to the content and stories of the haunts make it extremely easy for the DM to use them in his/her campaign. I even claim that it is easily possible to make an adventure out of the haunts contained herein. The content is plain awesome and e.g. "X marks the Spot", a haunted table that draws maps on the flesh of deceased people, is just so iconic I immediately wanted to implement it. Not all of them are as awesome, but there is no filler in this book. What's my final verdict, then? I don't have ANY complains whatsoever, this book is a great progression from the already excellent last haunt book and I hope to see more of them in the future. In combination with the low price point, I practically have to rate this 5 Rudii - an excellent purchase for just about any DM out there.

As some of you have probably noticed, I liked the premise of LPJr's Obsidian Twilight-setting, but had some issues with the books up until now: The following sourcebook, while still having some minor problems, shows that the setting has potential and might become awesome: Without further ado:

Obsidian Twilight: A Place beyond Hell

This pdf is 32 pages long, 1 page front cover, 1 page SRD, leaving 30 pages of content.

It should be noted, that although extensively bookmarked, the bookmarks don't work in my copy of the file.

The full-color book kicks off with 3 pages of artwork/introductory quote, adhering to the OT-layout.

After a bit more than 1 page of introduction to the H'laqu, featuring exciting and cool prose, we already dive into the creeping corruption of the H'laqu in the form of new Taint and Ritual feats. (~4 pages)

The feats are:

-A Stitch in Time (Ritual): Close an extradimensional rift. Damn cool feat, but I would have loved to see DCs for concentration checks to maintain the ritual while under attack, as this is exactly what I'd do with it: Make PCs defend the ritualist.

-Bait: With a Bluff check vs. Will save, you can anger enemies and provoke them into attacking you. Nice feat.

-Black Blood (Taint): Makes you immune to poisons and diseases, but the DM may choose a drawback. This would be totally OP, but due to the drawback as well as the fact that in OT, poison and disease are ever-present, this feat works.

-Black Whip: Use whip-like rifts in reality as weapons. Stats for the weapon are provided and the point is: Black Whips ignore armor and only the +X bonus of magic armor provides any benefits against them. While not entirely conform with PFRPG-design, this is also a nice throwback to the days of second edition and thus I can't really criticize it. If you're diehard-set on "new" rules, note this.

-Cult of Black Glass: Become a member of the cult and gain access to its resources. Standard membership feat.

-Empty of Life: You are soulless. Nice rehash of the "Hollow"-feat from RL.

-Experiment (Taint): H'laqu experimented on the character, giving him/her a monster ability, but also disfiguring him/her. This is actually a nice storytelling device as well as versatile as hell. Due to being subject to DM's approval, balance is fine, too. Great idea.

-Eyes in the Darkness: Gain true seeing due to a traumatic experience, but your will save may never be higher than your level. Due to Prerequisite: WIS 18+, this feat may actually work, although true seeing is still quite powerful.

-Eyes of Darkness (Ritual): Summon Corvidim to do your bidding. Nice.

-Fugue: Enter a trance-like state that grants bonuses, but after completing a set task, the DM gets control of your character untill the end of the Fugue. Awesome idea, nice mechanics (although I would have prefered them to scale with levels) - nothing to complain about.

-Full of Life/Unlife: Gain more HP, be repugnant to the H'laqu

-Hag-ridden (Taint): The character is inhabited by a contained fragment of the H'laqu, drawing on its power. Great roleplaying potential there! Two thumbs up.

-Hand from beyond (Taint): Gain an additional, incorporeal tendril-attack.

-Hidden Knowledge (Taint): Tap into H'laqu knowledge for bonus in skill-checks or augury. I like it.

-Hollow Man (Taint): Gain +2 AC and +5 HP, but be destroyed when you reach 0 HP due to being only the shell of what you once were. I can see this a consequence for resurrecting a PC in my homebrew campaign - Another great feat!

-Horrific Countenance: Gain a Fear Rating. This feat is problematic, as its only benefits refer to a mechanic originally from "Darkness & Dread", reprinted in "Horrific Fears". If you don't own one of these books, the feat won't do anything for you, as the Fear Rating rules are not summed up in this book. Usually I wouldn't be bothered if that's a part of the setting, but the rules are not in the Campaign Setting book for OT, which somewhat limits their availability to OT players and DMs.

-Mark of Darkness (Ritual): Only for H'laqu cultists, this feat lets you call the attention of the dread H'laqu.

-Numb the Mind (Ritual): A ritual to steel one's mind against the darkness, this unfortunately also uses the Fear rating mechanics.

-The Bitter End (Ritual): Prepare a shard of Obsidian to summon a Abyssal Arm. Nothing to complain, cool concept.

-The Gap of Worlds (Ritual): Ritual that helps H'laqu create a new breach.

-The Gone (Ritual): Summon a black man of the H'laqu.

-Withering Stare (Taint): Stare at an enemy to give him penalties. As there is no save against this penalty and no drawback, this feat seems kinda strong to me.

After that, we get new spells:

-Antilife Bolt (Wiz/Sor 3): Temporarily reduce maximum Hitpoints of enemy. Cool spell!

-Antilife Ward(Clr/Pal/Wiz/Sor 4): Create a warding zone antithetical to creatures of this reality.

-Become Shadow (Sor/Wiz 6): Sperate one's shadow from the body and send it towards enemies.

-Beyond Alignment: Ignore alignments and its restrictions for some time - might have consequences. Unfortunately, this spell only lists as level 8, but does not say for which spell-lists it's supposed to be.

-Black Meteor Shield (Sor/Wiz 4): Gain a shield that damages attackers and gives a bonus to AC.

-Black Meteor Strike (Sor/Wiz 6): Damage spell that creates damaging terrain.

-Black Pit (Hiding place between the Planes) (Sor/Wiz 6): A sanctuary that might be invaded. Cool spell.

-Black Sand (Sor/Wiz 5): Engulf and suffocate enemies in damaging sand. Cool terrain control/battle magic.

-Black Talons (Druid/Ranger/Sor/Wiz 3): Ignore the additional protection offered my magic items. This spell can, depending on the setting, be extremely powerful. In OT it works, but I'd caution anyone to use it in another setting.

-Dark Eye (Sor/Wiz 5): Nice Scrying spell.

-Emptiness (Brd/Clr 2, Sor/Wiz 3): Automatically fail the next will save or save against H'laqu infection.

-Face of Fear (Brd/Clr 3, Sor/Wiz 4): This spell once again utilizes the Fear Rules mentioned earlier in the review.

-Immaculate Dissection (Brd/Sor/Wiz 4): Gain a bonus to damage and attacks against a creature. more importantly: Be able to look up the write-up of the creature. I hate metagaming feats, spells and mechanics like looking up critters, knowing the abilities of enemies etc. and thus loathe this spell.

-Insignificance (Clr/Sor/Wiz 8): Makes one experience the horror of one's insignificance, temporarily shaking the target and planting suicidal tendencies in them. Great concept for a spell, cool execution.

-Life Sign (Clr/Pal/Sor/Wiz 4): Essentially a circle of protection against H'laqu.

-Mind Trap (Brd 4, Sor/Wiz 5): Create either the illsuion of a fighting challenge in one's mind or a puzzle for the recipient to solve. Quick and dirty rules for the fight and puzzle are also given. NOW we're talking. This is what a spell should be: Iconic, cool and versatile and full of nice potential.

-Planar Shears (Clr/Sor/Wiz 5): Shear connections of planar creatures - Great storytelling device and useful in battle, although stripping planar creatures of all supernatural abilities, albeit temporarily, might seem a bit harsh.

-Shardstorm (Drd/Sor/Wiz 5): Both shield and a way to attack enemies.

-Squirming Maw (Clr/Sor/Wiz 9): Combination of Swallowed by Darkness and some Abyssal Arms. I like it.

-Sterilize (Clr/Drd 3, Sor/Wiz 4): Kill all germs in an area, curing diseases, but also weakening the immune-system of the recipients.

-Swallowed by Darkness (Sor/Wiz): Massive Annihilation spell that DOES conform to PFRPG standards and instead of insta-killing recipients, deals massive amounts of damage. This spell rocks.

-Void of Despai (Clr/Sor/Wiz 5): Grants penalties to enemies, does not specify which kind of penalty though. I guess that's the reason for this spell being such a high level - it's supposed to stack with other spells.

-Whirling Void (Clr/Sor/Wiz 8): Burst Swallowed by Darkness with a sucking effect. Nice.

-Whispering Madness (Brd/Sor/Wiz 6): A curse that slowly drives the target insane. Very cool.

There is also another nice sidebar with aptly written prose, granting us more glimpses at the world of OT.

We also get new monsters, prefaced by the H'laqu creature type, which is surprisingly well-thought out: They are susceptible to normal weapons, but resistant to spells and magical weapons. Nice idea to make PCs drop that killer blade and take up the pitchfork. I really like that each monster comes with three quite extensive adventure seeds that are more detailed than "Kill X" - a nice innovation I hope will continue in future books of OT. Each monster comes with its own, original and simply gorgeous artwork. Even for the beautiful OT-line, these artworks rock and are on par with Paizo and WotC.

-Abyssal Arm (CR 6): Thorny, dark appendages that seek to crush and draw the mortals to their doom. The seeds are very good.

-Bacterial Macrobe (CR 3): Giant floating bacteria. How cool is that? Oh yeah: The adventure seeds rock, too!

-Black Glass Mites (CR 2): Actually a swarm, this vermin is a nice way to slowly introduce the H'laqu at lower levels. Their adventure seeds are nice.

-Black Man (CR 8): Fully infected creatures, these could work as a kind of H'laqu boogeyman. Their adventure seeds are once again, top-notch.

-Corvidim (CR 2): A take on crows with a hivemind. Ok and has some nice story-telling potential.

-Infected Land (CR 5): A quite versatile piece of H'laqu-tainted land, this mobile piece of corruption ranks among my favorite critters from this excellent bunch. The adventure seeds once again provide ample inspiration.

-Meteor Golem (CR 15): Quite powerful and cool take on the Juggernaut-from-the-stars-trope.

-Nyxsus the Surgeon (CR 30): This is it. The major player of the H'laqu. The one to stand up against Calix Sabinus and the like. Of all the high-CR-major-players of OT, this is by far my favorite. Why? Well, because his mechanics are interesting. This CR 30 guy has an AC of 10. And under 200 HP. And is still a credible and terrible threat due to the cool defensive abilities and the feeling that he is truy unique. Great job! His seeds rock, too.

-Viral Macrobe (CR 4): Big, bad flying viruses that can reproduce. Fast. With your HP. Damn, I love them. Once again, the seeds are inspiring.

-Void Elemental (CR 5): Free floating holes in reality that are sentient. Nice, but my least favorite of the critters. The seeds, again, are imaginative, though.

After that, we're introduced to the cult of black glass, the aforementioned H'laqu cult with information of the H'laqu as deities for clerics as well as three more adventure seeds.

The H'laqu-infection their very presence may bring to mortals, is detailed in a three-stage process, resulting in verious bonuses and penalties and culminating in a kind of new racial template, the so-called "Shattered". I like how the infection is handled and how at the last stage, there is a sliver of hope to retain a piece of one's personality when becoming one of the shattered. Once again, rules for immunity as well as adventure seeds are provided.

The final two pages of the book detail breaching points and their mechanics, I.e. places where the H'laqu have rent time, space and magic. Characteristics are provided and sufficiently creepy, as are the adventure hooks.

Conclusion:

This book is beautiful and follows the nice Obsidian Twilight layout and the monster artwork ranks among the best I've seen in any 3pp's books and even on par with some Paizo/WotC-artwork. Editing and formatting have improved significantly in contrast to the older OT-books, I noticed no formatting errors apart from the one spell and almost no typos. More importantly, though, there is content: Expertly written fluff that gives one glimpses of the world of Abaddon and the H'laqu. Plus: This book actually IS rather horror-themed and the monsters reflect this: PCs have to fight intelligently to defeat these critters.

So let's get to the crunch: Some of the feats, especially the rituals, can be considered plot-devices and I actually like them for what they do. They would have benefited from more concrete rules to disrupt the rituals/keep them up while being attacked/shot. I would have liked to see more taint-feats in place of the ones that use the Fear Rating mechanic, which I quite frankly think, shouldn't be in this book, as it's not part of the standard OT-rules. What I was missing, were psionics as an established part of the world of Abaddon that just, at least to me, scream H'laqu. Now, with Psionics Unleashed out, it would have been awesome to see them get some Lovecraftian love. Perhaps in an additional pdf? The spells are vastly superior to those in the campaign setting: They have their unique flair, some are downright clever and I enjoyed most of them. The true stars of the book, though, are the new monsters, the new H'laqu-type, the information on the cult and especially the adventure seeds that are enough to design a whole campaign on the creatures. The biomechanics of the H'laqu are iconic, cool and use some very imaginative mechanics, especially in the case of Nyxsus. I would also have loved to see more biomechanics. The prose is great and I'm looking forward to reading more.

So what's my final verdict? While I love most of the content of the book, I have to acknowledge that there are some glitches and some of the feats as well as the metagamey spell don't appeal to me. However, what really irked me, was the usage of the per se great Fear mechanics without specifically mentioning it or including it in the basic OT-rules canon. Considering these downsides, I'd settle for 3 Rudii, but the amount of adventure seeds, the quality of the prose and the inspiring artwork, I'll settle for a 4-Rudii final verdict. If you're thinking about a semi-lovecraftian (in the pulpy style) invasion of strange beings into your campaign setting, give this a try. For the low price, it's worth it.

All right, that's it from me for now, as always: Thank you for reading my ramblings,

Endzeitgeist out.

EZG ctaches up with some Rite stuff

Hey everybody,

While writing some other reviews, I found myself diverting from what I planned and thus, you'll get this intermission: I've been thinking about it for quite some time and finally managed to decide that, yes, I will do at least some, probably all files of 101 spell-series by RiP.

In today's post, I'll take a look at the Taskshaper, Minotaurs and, of course 101 1st level spells. I'll try catching up with some of my other reviews soon, so expect to see more these days.

Secrets of the Taskshaper

This pdf is 10 pages long, 1 page front cover, 1 page editorial, 1 page SRD and 2 pages advertisements, leaving 5 pages for the new base class of the taskshaper, so let's dive in.

The pdf starts with the trademark quality prose I've come to expect of Rite Publishing books, an IC-told story about how Auberyon, Soltice king of the fey, abducted people and changed them, altered their memories even, to become taskshapers and how they escaped from their bonds.

The Taskshaper-class gets d8, 6+Int skills per level, can select 10 skills at character generation to be class skills, can use any weapons, armors and shields and can use any spell-trigger or spell completion item as if the spells were on her list. The Taskshaper also gets medium BAB, a good Fort and Ref save.

We're in for a jack-of-all-trades-like class, which becomes apparent when reading e.g. the Moment of Change ability: Starting at first level and improving each level, they get the ability to use change-points from their pool to change one of their feats for one round into a feat whose usage he has witnessed in-game. Mechanics to properly understand a feat for purpose of this ability are given. They can also use these pool points to gain minor plus 1 bonuses or temporarily change skills.

Furthermore, they can choose from a list of 9 shaped capacities that range from being better at emulating others over improved skill- and feat-changes to mimicing class abilities.

Later, they also get consecutively better at shapechanging, starting with alter self and culminating in the ability to use form of the dragon III and giant form III.

If that were not enough, his modularity is expanded upon by the option to select from 8 different so-called Ability Shifts that range from the possibility to negate one incoming attack via an opposed attack roll, over being very agile and fast to transformation attacks to be delivered via touch.

The taskshaper does not stop there, though: At 10th level, the taskshaper can choose from another set of 8 abilities that range from a chance to negate crits, doubling her range as well as the ability to change her mind as well into the person/creature she impersonates. Especially this ability, Become the Mask, has the potential to be roleplaying/storytelling gold.

Finally, the capstone ability is a devastating touch that may dissolve almost everything, befitting of level 20.

The pdf closes with a sidebox telling the DM to insist on PC-taskshaper bookkeeping.

Conclusion:

Oh boy. Doing the math to look for balance concerns for this class really made my brain hurt and I can only imagine how designing/balancing it must have been. Editing and formatting are top-notch, I didn't notice any typos and formatting adheres to RiP's two-columns standard. Layout is ok, as is interior art. The cover is not one of my favorites, especially when compared to other RiP-covers. What to make of the class, then? Well, this is probably the most versatile class I've seen so far for PFRPG and an extremely ambitious design goal. While, as far as my math-skills go, I didn't notice any way to abuse the hell out of the taskshapers abilities, it should be noted that a DM willing to let a player play one HAS to enforce the perception-rules to use class abilities/feats and shapechanges and NOT handwave them. If a player who is known for shoddy book-keeping on his/her character sheet plans to play one of these guys, strongly discourage him/her. Bookkeeping is necessary to balance this class and due to the shapechanging abilities, some work is required on part of the player. The pay-off, though, should be worth it - this class features some very nice ideas and its other-worldly flair can lend a cool new experience to your game. On the downside, though, I think that the book might have profited from either even more abilities, racial feats or the like - alternative capstone abilities would also have rocked. Alternatively, I would have loved to see a section on their psychology and customs expanded, as they surely have some interesting RPG-potential. Or a critter who hunts the escaped taskshapers for Auberyon...something along those lines. Thus, while the taskshaper succeeds at its design goal, it left me wanting a bit more out of the pdf - not much, but I missed something. It just didn't feel as well-rounded as some ther race/class-books by RiP and thus, my final verdict will be a solid 4 Rudii.

In the Company of Minotaurs

In this installment of the "In the Company of ..."-series, we'll meet the minotaurs. The pdf clocks in at a meaty 22 pages, 1 page front cover, 1 page editorial, 1 page SRD and 2 pages of ads, leaving 17 pages of content.

Layout follows the RiP-two column-standard, the book is b/w so that out of the way, let's dive in!

The book begins with an aptly-written, very cool IC-introduction to the race that sets the tone for the book in accordance to the old-school-style cover : We get an ancient Greek mythology style origin myth to lead in to the very unique society of the minotaurs: The most interesting part is actually how a clearly lawful evil society has justified its discrimination and systematic murder of their females and a people that delusionally proclaims themselves not raiders and/or rapists of the female slaves they use to mate with. While it is possible for their claim to be true, it is very unlikely and that is what makes the fluff herein so compelling - the moral uncertainty. The society is vividly fleshed out with even a sample insult, customs, nomenclature and the like. (8 pages! - I just loved it!)

We get two racial trait-sets for the minotaurs:

Pure Taurians get +2 to Str, Con and Wis and -2 Dex and Cha, Darkvision 60 ft., always know where North is, +2 to perception and intimidate, immunity to magical confusions, a gnatural 1d4 gore attack and familiarity with Taurian weapons.

Mereitaurs (the impure ones) get +2 Con and Wis and -2 Cha, Darkvision 60 ft., always know where North is, +2 to Craft and Profession checks as well as any research-based Knowledge-checks, are immune to magical confusion effects, familiar with Taurian weapons and finally can choose two of these three: To gain +5 ft. movement, the 1d4-gore attack or +2 to pereption.

We also get 7 alternate racial traits:

-At home in the Wild: +2 to Survival in exchange for the +2 to Perception

-Bestial: Additional +2 to Str for another -2 to Int, this is supposed to bridge the gap towards bestiary minotaurs and not necessarily available for players

-Divine Life: Exchange immunities against confusion effects for a +2 to saves against necromantic effects

-Dwarven Heritage: Proficient in Dwarven weapons instead of Taurian ones.

-Orcish Heritage: Proficient in Orcish weapons instead of Taurian ones.

-Quickfooted (only Mereitaurs): Base speed 40 ft. and +4 to acrobatics when jumping/leaping. Replaces Taurian Heritage.

-Surefooted (only Taurians): +2 to CMD against trip and bull rush, but base speed becomes 25 ft.

We also get Age, height and Weight tables, something unfortunately absent from some other 3pp's race books. I was really excited and loved that the section on Taurian adventurers also talks about the Advanced Players Guide classes in detail. Support goes further, though:

We get a list of favored class options, 2 for the Barbarian, 2 for the Bard, 1 for the Druid, 1 for the Fighter, 2 for the Inquisitor, 1 for the Paladin, 1 for the Ranger, 1 for the Rogue, 2 for the Sorceror.

We also get two Taurian Archetypes: The first one is a rather obvious choice, a barbarian archetype, that focuses on horns. The second one, though, is rather cool and not what you'd necessarily expect: The Disciple of the Red Horn is a Minotaur-monk archetype and rocks. Sorcerors also get a Taurian bloodline that focuses on making you tougher and stronger. Uncommon choices, but I liked them nevertheless.

The crunchy heart of the book, though, is the new racial paragon class, the so-called Rog-Kalem (Scion of the Horn). The class gets d10, 2+ Int skills,proficiency with simple and martial weapons and his gore attack, good Ref and Will saves and a fighter BAB. No good Fort save for a rather melee-centric racial class? Yep, and it makes sense, as the class gets Evasion, grows to size large and gains bonuses to charges, a more powerful gore attack (from 1d4 at 1st level to 3d6 at 20th level) and finally culminates at an outsider-transformation at 20th level. The Rog-Kalem also gets some bonuses to Str and Con, somewhat offsetting the fort-save defficiency. All in all, the Taurians, whether Rog-Kalem or not, make for a surprisingly good and interesting choice for e.g. the monk-class.

We also get 7 new feats:

-Axe Thrower: +10 ft. range with throwing axes and +2 to rolls to confirm criticals

-Bloodlust: Bonuses to make your charge attack more lethal

-Horned Charge: Combines charge with gore attack with bull rush benefits

-Horned Trip: Lets you trip with horn-attacks

-Improved Natural Armor: +1 Natural Armor

-Taurian Follow-through: If you miss in melee, you can incur a -2 penalty to AC to attack a foe adjacent to the one you missed

-Trapworker: +3 to checks to notice taps and +1 to checks to craft or disable them.

We also get 5 new Taurian weapons, all of which are cool weapon choices and don't feel overpoweredm but have their own distinctive appeal. Finally, we get 3 new items, Dark Chalk (Chalk that can only be seen in Darkvision) as well as two Taurian gas bombs, one potentially lethal and explosive, the other rather a smoke bomb. The new items come with associated costs and craft DCs.

Conclusion:

Of all the excellent racial books RiP has published so far, this one actually stands out due some cutting edge additions I hope will be continued in future installments, namely that several of the cool innovations of the APG have been added to this fie: We get favored class options, the cool new classes are taken into account, alternate racial traits are provided etc. I LOVE that and hope it will be continued. Furthermore, even more than in previous installments, we get a very compelling IC-narrative that introduces us to the race, managing to walk the line between being a cool introduction to a rather LE-society and still managing to make this society seem coherent and understandable in its questionable social conventions. The fluff is plain awesome and succeeds in capturing the spirit and narrative of ancient Greek legends in the creation myth, while also providing a ego-driven, arrogant narrative of the Taurian character. On page 7 is unfortunately one of the few blemishes of the book, when in the section on Alignment and Religion, the IC narrative gets a bit jumbled with 3rd person information. I really love how the very extensive information is given IC and can't stress enough how much this adds to my enjoyment of the pdf. The fact that the crunch of the race does not gravitate to the "savage brute"-archetype and is rather versatile helps even more and while there are some classes Taurians might be more suited for, I felt the race to be sufficiently versatile to be a valid choice for any class. IM going to especially enjoy building Taurian Monks and Rog-Kalems or respective multi-classed combinations of both to make PCs suffer. the b/w-artwork, while simple, manages to underline the classic feeling of the race. So, what's my final verdict? I'd be inclined to detract a star due to the fact that the racial class is a bit more on the conservative side than e.g. in the "Gargoyles"-file and the narration-jumbling in one of the otherwise beautifully-written passage. However, due to the wealth of material provided as well as the APG-support and the wealth of options for the Taurians, I'll settle for 4.5 Rudii - an awesome buy and probably one of the best racial book out there.

Finally, there it is, the first of 909.

101 1st Level Spells

This pdf is 28 pages, 1 page front cover, 1 page editorial, 1page SRD and 2 pages of ads, leaving 23 pages for 101 spells.

The pdf kicks off with a one-page introduction to the series.

The spell-lists take up 3 pages.

The spells are:

-Adjust: Resize clothes, armor etc.

-Alter Liquid: Turn Water to Ale

-Alter Poison Damage Type: Change e.g. Str-damage to Dex-damage in a poison.

-Animate Element: Animate an element as a small elemental

-Animate Skeleton: Self-explanatory

-Animate Tattoo: Lets your tattoo attack at your normal range

-Animate Wood: Animate wooden object as an animate object

-Astute Fighting: Grants competence-bonus to BAB depending on the level of the caster

-Awesome Strike: Imbue your blows with the power to knock an enemy back and knock him prone

-Bee Sting: minor damage and possibly minor con-damage

-Bleeding Wounds: lets the enemy bleed from wounds he receives

-Blossoming Footsteps: Creates plants for usage with other spells and just plain looks cool

-Borrow Skill: Borrow Skill from another character for 1 round

-Breathtwist: Change the energy of a breath weapon

-Briefly Visible: Cancel Invisibility for a short period

-Brimstone: Throw a glowing stone with acrid smoke to damage your foes

-Brilliant Arc: Electric Arc damages enemies and has minor secondary bolts

-Clarity of Faith: Bonus to Knowledge (Religion)

-Clarity of Thought: +4 to Concentration

-Clear Conscience: Lose 1 min/level of memories prior to casting this spell. Awesome idea!

-Cock's Crow: Awaken sleepers

-Contingent Minor Healing: Contingency 1-point healing, minor damage to undead

-Color: Permanently alter the color of a creature or object

-Contrariness: -10 to Diplomacy

-Crop Circle: Use incorporeal scythes to cut crops and enemies

-Curse of Ineptitude: 50% failure to do stuff for one round (OP imho)

-Cutting Flame: Basically a way to cut through inanimate objects, this spell could be the safecracker's best friend

-Deep Shadows: Increase concealing properties of shadows

-Discerning Eye: Determines exact monetary value of one item

-Dispel Magic, lesser: As Dispel Magic, but the max bonus is +5. (I've been using this spell in my home campaign for years and designed it just like the people at RiP did!)

-Distract: Flat-foot an opponent

-Divine Beacon: When the target is within range, the caster knows any negative conditions on it

-Down and Out: +10 to the next CMB to disarm or trip

-Draw on Faith: Scaling Bonus up to +5 to either one attack roll, a save or check in the next minute.

-Earth Charger: Grant mount +4 and trample-damage

-Energy Missile: Shoot missiles of an energy type

-Energy Weapon: Sheathes weapon in energy type, dealing more damage

-Escape Grapple: +5 to check to escape a grapple

-Flashy Defense: Gain DR 1/ or Resistance 5, depending on the attack

-Foul Flesh: Makes own flesh nauseating for enemy bite attacks

-Foe's Measure:: Learn class or creature type along with level and HD. Disguised creatures are exempt. While the disguise-clause is nice, I don't like metagamey spells.

-Flank Shield: Prevents being flanked, unless flanked by a rogue with 4 lvls more than caster

-Glamour: +5 to Diplomacy and Bluff

-Gloomlight: Lets creatures with darkvision see in color

Guilt: Force enemy to think about past misdeed

-Harden: Increase objects hardness by half or +1.

-Heat Lightning: Lightning that may dazzle and set on fire

-Hesitation: Reduce initiative count of enemy by caster level

-Hey of the Bull's Eye: This spell makes it 20% possible for a missed attack to hit. Quite powerful for a 1st level spell.

-Hex Weapon: Succeed a Will-save or drop weapon

-Hidden Shelter: Magically create shelter that is hidden by your Stealth-check

-Ice Arm: Gain touch attack and minor ability to resist Fire

-Id Seizure: Affected creature can take only move actions

-Ignore: Make creature suffer -5 penalty to perception

-Illuminated Weapon: Disrupt undead enemies hit by the weapon and give them a penalty

-Inflict Pain: Deal non-lethal damage

-Invisible Familiar: Self-explanatory

-Inspired Initiative: +2 on next Ini-check

-Keen Senses: Gain/expand low-light vision

-Lash Fey: Damage Fey with Iron

-Malicious Intent: Penalize saving throws and a school of magic

-Mental Sentinel: Enhanced perception and Initiative

-Minor Lasting Image: Very small immobile illusion

-Missteps: -10 ft. movement and -2 to Dex

-Mistsight: See through fog

-Overcompensation: Lets weapon grow to the size that barely makes it wieldable

-Pearl of Brilliance: damage and dazzle foe, especially powerful against undead

-Peephole: Create a peephole

-Pins and Needles: Distract enemy, minor penalty, hampers spellcasting

-Poison Weapon: Adds weak poison to weapon

-Potent Weapon: grants weapon bane quality

-Precipitate: Conjure rain, sleet or snow, depending on the temperature

-Pressure Spray: use a blast of water to knock enemies back and quench fires

-Quill Skin: Damages constricting or swallowing creatures

-Reactive Armor: +2 to AC, can be cast as immediate action

-Righteous Strike: +1 to attack and damage and bypass all DR for one strike. (Paladinspell and as such limited and not op)

-Sacred Watch: Mental image of subject and whether it is in danger but not where it is

-Scentless: Suppress scent-trail

-Second Change: Retry a saving throw

-Self-loading bolts: Bolts targeted load themselves

-Shadow Hands: More subtle variation of burning hands

-Shadow Weapon: Conjure quasi-real weapon

-Share Sacrifice: Target heals half current HP damage, you gain the same amount of damage

-Skill Lore: Scaling insight bonus to skill

-Songstrike: Sonic damage

-Sonic Dart: Ranged touch attack sonic damage

-Soul Beacon: Bolster against Undead, but can easily be seen

-Spikes of the Locust Tree: Bolster unarmed strikes and makes unarmed attacks against target painful

-Stunning Note: Stun enemy

-Supernatural Ward: +4 on saving throws against supernatural effects

-Summon Weapon: Self-explanatory

-Sword Shock: Lets electricity damage target from held items, possibly causing him to drop them

-Torchbearer: Similar to an Unseen Servant, this spell conjures a creature to shed light

-True Shield: +20 Ac against the next attack With 1hour/level, the duration of this spell is MUCH too long.

-Tunnel: Gain burrow speed

-Undetectable Poison: Mask the presence of poisons

-Unspeakable Tongue: Subject speaks gibberish, but still can cast spells

-Valiant Resolve: Subject gains DR 10/non-lethal

-Ward, lesser: Create either a blast ward or a spell ward of up to 1st level

-White Noise: Target object hinders both sight and sound

-Wind Churn: Inflict Air (never knew this damage type existed...does it?) damage on enemies, force flying creatures that fail the save to land or fall.

Conclusion:

Editing and formatting are top-notch, I didn't notice any typos. This b/w book follows the standard-two-column-layout and the artwork is ok - it's a combination of stock art and Joe Calkin's work. Before I go on any further, let me say that the 3.5.-glut has made me very, very wary on which spells I'll introduce to my game. Combine that with a rather skeptical approach to even more spells and you'll get this review. Most of the spells actually, as I'm happy to report, are not per se stronger than similar spells from the Core rules. Where the book truly shines, though, is with spells like "Torchbearer" and "Undetectable Poison", spells that make me think "Why hasn't anyone made them before?". Unfortunately there are also some spells like "True Shield" that are in my opinion not perfectly balanced. The above example has a duration that simply is too long. Some of the skill-bonus/penalty spells felt a bit like filler to me, but these are few and far between. On the other hand, though, many spells scale with levels and thus stay useful beyond the first level. What's my final verdict, then?

Due to my minor points of criticism, I won't rate this a perfect 5-Rudii but rather, I'll rate this 4 Rudii: Good buy for the low price, but there is still room for improvement.

That's it for now, as always, thank you for reading my ramblings,

Endzeitgeist out.

Krazy Kragnar's Blackmarket Magic Items by Super Genius Games

This product is 15 pages long. It starts with a cover and introduction. (3 ½ pages)

The introduction talks about why Kragnar is now doing blackmarket magic items and it talks about Goblin Markets which to me sounded very much like the one from Hellboy 2 movie. Including rules for finding these hidden markets.

Magical Armor (1 page)
Below is a list of armor properties that can be applied to any armor.
Alluring – armor that makes you look good when wearing it, bonus to social rolls.
Alluring, Improved – same as above only better.
Alluring, Greater – Ditto
Liberating – Lower the dex penalty with the armor, and it is “sexy armor” boob window armor, the armor covers as little as possible while magically drawing blows to what is covered by the armor, so it gives the same protection despite less armor coverage. Yes this is magic armor to explain cheese cake armor, I found it both amusing and something I could see actually existing with magic.
Vengeful – If hit and take enough damage it creates a magical charge, which can be released on a melee attack to cause extra damage.

Magic Weapons (1 ½ Pages)
Below is a list of weapon properties that can be applies to any weapon.
Blasphemous – Gives a short term minor curse to those struck by the weapon.
Blasphemous, Surge – Same as above, in addition on a critic it cast bestow curse on a target.
Random – There magic abilities change every day randomly.
Screaming – It begins to scream loudly when drawn, those hit take a penalty to rolls and on a crit the target is deafened for awhile.
Virle – Allows the user to heal themselves, brutal way to recharge the charges to self heal.

Specific Weapons (1 page)
Blood Knife – Has charges, if a caster expands a charge they can cast any spell they know and not use it up, instead using one of the weapon charges. Brutal to recharge it.
Executioner's Sword – Bastard Sword that does bonus damage in a coup-de-grace.

Magic Rings (2 pages)
Ring of Shadows – Can cast summon monster, but the monsters had a shadow template applied to them. Can lose control of the monsters summoned.
Ring of Whispers – Come in matched sets, get a bluff bonus to pass secret messages to each other. This was the first item in the book I was meh about. I would have rather it let the wears have limited telepathy or something and it sound like they are whispering to each other.
Tantric Ring – Has a list of 0-4th level spells the ring can cast. Cost 1 charge per spell level of spell cast. Nice mix of spells, that mostly deal with healing, charm, buffing the physical body etc. Can be recharged being having sex. Now there is a part in the text I think is a typo, it says the partner must be animate... I am assuming it should mean animate or living.

Magic Rods (1 page)
Rod of Agony – Can cause pain in others, those of lesser HD than the wielder can be demanded a service, if the target accepts they are under a geas to preform what they agreed to. The pain stops and they are immune the the rod for awhile, if they refuse the pain gets worse.
Rod of Pestilence – The caster can give those touched a disease.

Wondrous Items (4 pages)
Altar of Adjustment – Those helpless on the altar must make a fort save if they answer any question less than completely and helpfully honest. If they fail the save the take con dmg, if their con is reduced to 0, their alignment changes.
Bag of Tricks – If one reaches inside they find a ball, if they take the ball out and toss it away a monster pops out. Yes I thought the same think Pokemon.
Tincture of Beauty – add chr bonus for hours per use, can be addictive.
Tincture of Prisms – gains bonus to caster level to one random magic school. Can be addictive.
Tincture of Wrath – Gains the ability to rage like a barbarian of lower level, barbarians gain a additional rage power while in effect.
Rope of Binding – Works like a rope of grappling, but can also attempt to “pin” a target grappled with a very high DC to break free if it works. Basically the rope ties them up.
Slave Collar – Gains bonus to str, dex, con, evasion, darkvision and fast healing. Sounds great right? Well the next person to touch the collar after it is put on, becomes the wearers master. The wearer has a big minus to will saves and skill checks against their master and find it very hard to force themselves to remove the collar. I love this magic item.

It ends with credits and OGL. (1 page)

Closing thoughts. I really liked this product and hope they do more follow up products. Perhaps do them by theme. For the first time I did notice a glaring editing error in one of SGG's products. Tincture of Prisms is listed twice in a row in the book. I don't know if another item was suppose to be in place of the second one or it just got double listed, either way it is there twice. The art is mostly black and white, I think this is the best art over all of any SGG product to date. While some of the art is suggestive and one one page there is even bare breasts the art fits the items near them.

The items where all well done and interesting, well all but one. There was one that I was meh about. The rest I all thought was great. Some better than others but all good. So whats my rating? Well normally I would give this a 5 but with the editing error I am giving it a 4.5 star. It doesn't hurt having the one object listed twice, but it is a error so must be rated.

EZG reviews Advanced Feats

Hello everybody!

After reviewing some rather big files, I needed a break from huge reviews and thus, today I'm going to present to you the two installments of the Advanced Feats series (apart from Cavalier's Creed, which I already reviewed here) that I consider good additions to any given campaign, I.e.:

Advanced Feats: The Witch's Brew

This pdf is 14 pages, 1 page front cover, 1 page editorial/ToC, 1 page SRD, leaving 11 pages of content.

The pdf, as all advanced feat books, opens with a introduction and discussion of the class.
After this short discussion, we get the meat of the book, 30 new feats for Witches.

The feats are:

Ability Damage Resistance: Reduce all ability damage by 2 points

Counterspell Feedback: Damage casters when countering their spells
Craft Magic Tattoo: Tattoo yourself and others with spell effects

Delay Spell: Delay the effect of a spell

Discriminating Spell: Alter a spell to affect or not affect a chosen race or creature type

Dispel Mastery: +3 bonus to dispel checks

Expert Healing: Heal 1d4 damage using a healer’s kit

Extra Familiar: Summon an additional familiar

Familiar Concentration: Familiar can maintain spell concentration

Familiar Development: Familiar gains abilities as if 2 levels higher

Familiar Feat: Familiar learns a feat

Familiar Focus: Familiar’s abilities are based on your character level

Familiar Range Extension: Familiar’s range extends to 100 miles

Familiar Reincarnation: New familiars know the spells of former familiars

Familiar Training: Familiar can utilize your feats

Guarded Casting: Fight defensively while casting spells and activating magic items

Hexing Familiar: Familiar performs hexes

Improved Caster Level: Increase CL by 4, up to character level

Infer Spell: Learn spells from spell trigger or spell completion magic items

Linked Resistance: Gain your familiars spell resistance for 1d4 rounds

Mass Effect Spell: Single target spells affect multiple targets

Opportunity Counterspell: Counterspell without a readied action

Potent Hex: +1 to hex DC

Rememorize: Change a prepared spell in 1 hour

Robust Health: +4 to saves against poison and disease

Seduction: Gain bonus to Bluff, Diplomacy, and Charm spells

Serve Two Masters: Gain a second set of patron spells

Signature Focus: Create an expensive item that replaces costly spell components

Soul Mate: Sense when your soul mate is in danger and gain a bonus to skill checks used on them

Touch Mastery: Use spellcasting ability score on touch attacks

Usurp Spell: Gain benefits of spell countered

Comments on select feats:

Ability Damage Resistance: Ok, why does this not have a prerequisite? 2 points ability damage less? That's a godsend at lower levels! Why doesn't it explain how this resistance comes about? A little fluff-blurb would have gone a long way to make this feat feel less metagamey.

Counterspell Feedback: Cool idea, neat balancing. I would take it.

Delay Spell: Another very good and strategic idea I like. Players will LOVE this.

Discriminating Spell: Another feat I like, as I use the mechanic already in my rather dark and grim home-campaign, where I've substituted alignment-based attacks with character belief-based ones. Neat.

Expert Healing: A godsend for low-magic campaigns that don't feature your med-kit cleric/druid at every corner.

Familiar Development feats: I liked them, as they make the witch feel more unique and her familiar different from e.g. the Wizard's one. It also forces hard choices on the PC: Use the familiar and risk it being hurt? Etc.
Infer Spell: While I like the idea, I somewhat have a mild disdain for the execution - learning spells from any items with one check seems wrong to me, but that is just my personal preference.

Mass-Effect Spell: Gold for buff/debuff casters and a nice alternative to all the mass X spells.
Opportunity Counterspell: Steep requirements, cool payoff. Never build your high-level caster without it.

Rememorize: Nice feat if you don't use the alternative rules of replacing spells in 15 minutes.

Robust Health: Great idea to help against poisons etc without conferring immunity.

Seduction: Just up my alley, this is a roleplaying feat as in opposed to roll-playing. Plus: I like some potentially adult themes in my games. Nice.

Serve Two Masters: This feat screams "character backstory"-development. I like it.

Usurp Spell: Complimentary to "Parry Spell", this feat is a good idea.

The pdf also has three sample builds, the Arch Witch, the White Witch and the Wicked Witch.

Conclusion:
Editing and layout are top-notch, gone is the parchment-like printer-unfriendly layout of "Secrets of the Alchemist". I didn't notice any typos. The cover artwork is the only one in the file and nice, although it didn't impress me either. All in all, I felt that this installment of Advanced Feats is superior to the one on the alchemist, mainly because I didn't find any feats I considered unsalvageable/broken. While "Rememorize" collides with the alternative rules I use and while "Ability Damage Reduction" still feels plain wrong to me, my overall impression is that this book focuses more on the Witch and making the class more unique, make her stand out more etc - i.e., it is more focused. Due to this focus and the overall improvement of both content and layout, I'll settle for a final verdict of 4 Rudii. While not perfect or as good as "Cavalier's Creed", this is a worthy addition to any Witches arsenal.

The second installment I really enjoyed, was:

Advanced Feats: Visions of the Oracle

This pdf is 17 pages long, 1 page front cover, 1 page editorial, 1 page SRD, 1 page advertisements.

As all pdfs from the advanced feats series, this book beginns with a hort discussion/introduction to the class in question.

After that, we get the meat of the book, the 30 new feats:
Armed Touch Casting: Deliver touch spells using a melee weapon

Battlecaster: Cast spells as part of a full attack

Charmed: Add +5 bonus to a single dice roll

Concentration Spell: Extend the duration of your spells through concentration

Conditional Curse: Curse class feature Your curse hinders you only about half of the time

Divine Resistance: Gain resistance to divine magic

Dormant Spell: Cast helpful spells that remain dormant until activated

Elemental Boost: Spells of your chosen element are infused with extra power

Extra use: Use any class ability an extra 1/day

Magic Sense: Sense magic energies and identify spells you save against

Meta Spell: Learn metamagic versions of spells

Mystic Retribution: Zap enemies who interrupt your spellcasting using residual magic

Penetrating Spell: Your spells overcome energy resistance

Potent Ability: Add +1 bonus to the DC of your supernatural and spell-like abilities

Potent Divination: Your detection spells are faster and stronger than normal

Preserve Scroll: Cast a spell from a scroll without destroying it

Prophetic Dreamer: Your dreams sometimes echo the future

Quick Healing: Provide first aid and treat wounds and poison as a move action

Savage Critical: Your critical hits strike harder on a natural 20

Scroll Mastery: Gain a +4 bonus to CL and Use Magic Device checks to activate scrolls

Scroll Metamagic: Add metamagic effects to spells read from scrolls

Somatic Weapon: Satisfy somatic components using a chosen weapon

Spell Retention: Never lose your spell when interrupted

Spiritual Armaments: Create spectral equipment when you summon or animate the dead

Strange Revelation: Learn a revelation from a mystery other than your own

Tactical Spellcasting: Move before and after spellcasting

Touch Spell Control: You are less restricted in how you hold a charge from touch spells

Transfer Spell: Change the range of a spell from personal to touch

Two Wand Technique: Activate one wand in each hand as a single action

Wand Casting: Cast spells with a wand in your hand, augmenting spells of the same school


Comments on the feats:

Armed Touch Casting/Battlecaster: Nice options to give the Oracle some Gish-like qualities.

Charmed: 1/day +5 to a single die roll after it is made. This ranks among the most simple, generic feats possible, but in contrast to e.g. +1 to all saves, I can see PCs clambering towards this feat. It's elegant, simple and useable in many a situation without unbalancing the game.

Concentration Spell: Feat that enables the caster to use the iconic Gandalf self-sacrifice à la "YOU SHALL NOT PASS!", among others. Iconic and cool.

Conditional Curse: Makes your curse condition-specific. I don't like this feat at all, as the curse is, at least in my opinion, what defines an Oracle just as much as all the abilities. Allowing a player to weasel out of it, at least under certain conditions, detracts from the feeling of the class. I guess it's a nice feat for power-gamers.

Dormant Spell: A minor version of a contingency, this is gold for tacticians and coercing PCs into the service of dubious oracles.

Extra Use: Use a class ability one additional time per day. While generic, I think this feat might be abused in e.g. level-10-PrC-abilities etc. It's ok, I guess, but COULD potentially detract from the appeal of some signature abilities. On the other hand, PCs could actually use these abilities more often, making their choices matter more. I guess it evens out and works.

Magic Sense: God, I hate this feat. 30 ft. range of sense to identify items that are magical and spells in effect, plus, if you succeed a save, it lets you know what happens if you had failed a save. While the range is not too large, it does not specify whether e.g. doors or walls block the magic sense and makes detect magic as well as some plot-driven usages of magic almost completely obsolete. And don't get me started on NPC-items/non-violent meetings with potential villains/magically disguised/polymorphed enemies. If this had been restricted to blind oracles, I could have lived with that, but as written, I'd ban this feat.

Meta Spell: lets a spontaneous caster learn metamagic spells at their modified level without enhancing the casting time. Unfortunately, e.g. the empowered spell counts as a regular learned spell, rendering this feat useless for spells your character already knows.

Mystic Retribution: If your spellcasting is interrupted, the enemy is zapped via a touch attack. Damage scales with the spell-level lost. Now we're talking! This is both iconic, cool and balanced. Plus: It scales with the level, being useful at all levels. An excellent feat.


Preserve Scroll: Sacrifice spell levels to preserve scrolls. Great idea, balanced mechanics, nothing to complain about.

Prophetic Dreamer: This is a roleplaying feat that is very rules-light and I love it. I've been using a similar feat in my homebrew campaign for years and it has opened whole new venues for me as a DM to tell stories, create pressure and/or give PCs a fighting chance against terrible ambushes etc. I'd love a book with just feats like that.

Quick healing: First aid, treat wound, treat poison as a move action. Another feat that is a boon for non-magical healers/low-magic campaigns that actually do care about non-magical healing. Two thumbs up!

Somatic Weapon: Use a weapon to satisfy somatic spellcasting needs. Why hasn't this been done before?

Tactical Spellcasting: "Shot on the run" for spells with casting time "Standard action" - iconic and cool, this feat enables you to run from cover to cover while casting. Another instance of "Why hasn't this been done before?"

Two Wand Technique: Use a wand in each hand. While the feat per se requires some actions to get the wands into your hands, I can already see the wandslinger builds springing up. Not my cup of tea, but if you're so inclined, go ahead. However: If you also have the Wandcasting feat, enabling you to use somatic components with your wands, this feat quickly becomes danderously powerful and I'd disallow the combination.

After that, we get 3 sample Oracle builds, the Visionary Healer, The Phoenix and the Savage Seer.


Conclusion:

Editing is once again top-notch, I didn't notice any typos. Formatting and Layout are at the peak of the series so far - especially the layout is a beauty to behold. The same goes for the extremely cool cover illustration that somewhat disturbed me - great work! With regards to the crunch presented herein, I have to say that I'm a bit skeptic towards some feats (Two Wand Technique...) and I utterly HATE Magic Sense. However, the plethora of the material presented herein is actually quality-wise at the top and more than once I thought "that's it!" while reading the feats. A gripe I had with e.g. the Summoner-book and the Alchemist-book, the fact that they didn't feel as geared to the class as they could have been is not present herein - while many of the feats may also be of use to other classes, most have a definite "Oracleish" feeling to them and/or are storytelling/style gold. Due to the minor problems I have with some feats, I'll settle for a very solid 4.5 Rudii for this installment of advanced feats.

All right, that's it from me for now, next time, you'll hopefully get another big one.

As always, thank you for reading my ramblings,

Endzeitgeist out.