3.31.2011

Legendary Items by Purple Duck Games

This product is 28 pages long. It starts with a credits, toc and intro. (1 ½ pages)

Legendary Items (19 pages)
There is 13 legendary items in this section. This is like the two previous legendary weapons books by Purple Duck Games. These are magic items that grow in power as the PC levels up. Below is a list of the items, I will give you a rough idea of the types of powers they have.
Aleowine’s Brooch – defense, social, disguise, hiding ones nature.
Blessed Book of Arboga - knowledge
Carpet of Worlds – flying carpet, plane knowledge, finding planer gates.
Copple Torg’s Phylactery – faith, keeps one from violating alignment, true seeing.
Dale Wind’s Harp – charm, dance, wake the dead.
Gof’s Hat – disguise, mimicry, detecting thoughts.
Horn of Discordance – sound attacks and bonus to sound music checks.
Phase Spider Cloak – spiders and stealth.
Soldier’s Bag – bag of holding, items in bag.
Sublime Boots – stealth, balance, swift, air walking and attacking.
Tesseract Stone – uber ioun stone.
Toolik’s Eagle Eyes – sight bonus, ranged weapon bonus. There is two version of this, other one has – animal shape, sight, attacks.
Wings of the Heaven – flying, resistance, smiting, detecting.

It ends with a OGL. (7 ½ pages)

Closing thoughts. I really liked this book. The art is black and white and nice. Layout and editing are good. The items where well done and interesting. There was also 2 stat blocks for creatures, 6 new spells, 1 new song domain all buy the items they are relevant to. I think I would have preferred the item referenced all that stuff and then put all the extra stuff in the back of the book myself. This is a clean simple text PDF with little color so very print friendly. Some of the items where mostly just items that just mostly did the same thing just better and better. Those was a bit meh. They was ok but I wanted more. Most of the items though had some nice variety to them which made them much more interesting.

Now I do have some bit more critiquing to say. This isn't bad this is just a personal opinion on the topic. The weapons had 10 levels of powers, these have 5. Which I liked to a point. But now that I have seen the two ways they are doing it. I would like to see some more variety. Like 5 levels for weapons, 10 levels for items. Also on the 5 level on they could be done in levels 1-10 or 10-20 instead of always broken up over 1-20. Basically I am saying more variety. I really think some of these items in this book would have been much color if they had been done like the weapons with 10 powers, most only needed the 5. So what's my rating? Well this is a well done book and if you like magic items your players won't replace as they get higher levels like me, then you will want this book. With that said, it is a good book, but it could have been even better. So I am settling on a 4 star review. I look forward to more such products with hopefully even more variety.

Trust me, I'm a Succubus.



3.30.2011

EZG returns to the Great City I

Ahhh, Great City, how I've missed you - how I missed the perfumes and the odors of the canalisation, forever entwined in a glorious cacophony of scents. Too long have I strayed from these streets and today, I'm going to return to them. To be more precise: I'm doing them. All.

Today, I'll start with

Urban Creatures & Lairs




This pdf is 103 pages long, 1 page front cover, 1 page blank inside of front cover, 1 page editorial, 1 page ToC, 1 page back cover, 1 page ad, 1 page SRD, leaving 96 pages.

We also get three pages of monsters indexed by CR, alphabetical order and a wandering monsters-table.

After one page of foreword by Tim Hitchcock, we are introduced to the creatures and lairs. The best of monsters provide the GM with a plethora of ideas for adventures or encounters once being read and this book goes a step further - it also provides "lairs". Which is actually a misnomer - this monster-book goes far beyond just providing lairs for the monsters and instead often provide mini-adventures or at least encounters. I won't spoil the encounters/adventures, but I will comment on the best ones. That being said, let's dive in!

-Arrbiong (CR 2): Urban fey that feeds off dreams with a nice twist and some great roleplaying potential.

-Bay Zombie (CR 4) & Bay Zombie Leviathan (CR 18): Necromantic experiments gone wrong these creatures feature tentacles and claws. The leviathan makes for a great mystery/campaign arc/seed that is further enhanced by the lair.

-Bone Hag (CR 8): Urban hag with a flexible anatomy and a great, disturbing artwork the made me reminiscent of my old Solomon Kane stories and comics. The legend provided along the lairs also rock and this one just screams to be used.

-Corpse Rider (CR 4): A disturbing, tiny fey (think tooth-fairy gone horribly wrong) that can take over dead people and animate them. Their hooks rock and make for great conspiracy-potential.

-Earwig, monstrous (CR 1) & Earwig Swarm (CR 4): The lair for these monsters is actually a supremely cool sketch of a low-level adventure. Two thumbs up!

-Fabricata (CR 1/2): A creature worthy of China Mièville in its imaginative potential, these self-aware constructs are animated pieces of cloth that have their own society and secret wars. Awesome!

-Ferals include Feral Dogs (CR 1/2), Feral Cats (CR 1/4) and a Feral Cat Swarm (CR 2). Cool, but no lair/sample adventure is given.

-Devil, Gutterkin (CR 5): Manipulative little devils that push addicts and people who are down on their luck over the edge. Despicable and cool.

-Harvestman (CR 6) and his Harvesters (CR 2): Arachnid construct that, as a local boogeyman, hunts and drains arcane casters. The lair/mini-adventure is cool.

-Jacke-in-the-Rafters (CR 7) and the Weitheryn template (CR +1): An old Goblin who cheats death by killing other people in its stead. Not only does the template and creature rock, but the adventure is great, too. Especially the ideas for further adventuring.

-Mokkahl (CR 11): A bulette-turned-ooze by necromantic/arcane waste, this thing is not only disturbing, but might make for a terrible encounter with the PCs. Nice!

-Penumbra Bride (CR 9): Shape-changing aberrations, these brides make for a disturbing twist on the doppelgänger-trope. Their lair is a great location, too.

-Plague Lichen (CR 3): A virulent fungus that rapidly and virulently spreads when in contact with flesh. Disturbing fungi, but you only get a very short encounter, which is a pity, I have some great ideas for this one...

-Saaran (CR 10): Once a pure and noble gladiator, this giant now is a broken thing that still clings to his former principles and would make for a great "right wrongs-adventure".

-Screegie (CR 1/4) and Screegie Swarm (CR 2): Eye-picking, impersonating birds, their mini-adventure once again rocks.

-Shi (Sin-Eater) (CR 13): An extradimensional earth-aligned junkie dependant on souls, these creatures may unintentionally raise the dead and, by consuming souls, get into conflict with undead or work as a medium for the deceased.

-Siluri (CR 3): Croaking monstrous humanoids, they are unique and disturbing.

-Stone Gouger (CR 1/2): Miniature gargoyles, they live in the walls and attics. Unfortunately we don't get a lair/mini-adventure for this one.

-Tillochann (CR 14): Extremely cool owl-like outsider with bizarre abilities to use silk and cocoons. The lair is ok, although it is not up to the supremely cool critter. Believe me, you haven't seen one like these before.

-Zaelemental (CR 13) and Zaelemental, Greater (CR 16): Filth and muck-aligned creatures of all the negative, tainted dark things associated with cities, these creatures make frightening and yet cool enemies. The lair rocks, too.

Conclusion:

Editing and layout are great, the b/w-artworks rock, the file is extensively book-marked and the lairs/adventures rock. The creatures are all killer, no filler and quite frankly, each and every one of them made me immediately come up with either an additional encounter or even a whole adventure or campaign-arc revolving around them. The sheer quality and the imaginative potential of the writing is supreme and the content is just stunningly well-crafted. While I encountered 2 minor editing glitches, for the low price and the exceptionally awesome content, I'll settle for 5 Rudii.




That's it for now, next time I'll take a look at "The Sinking" as well as another Great City product. As always, thank you for reading my ramblings,

Endzeitgeist out.

3.18.2011

EZG reviews Raging Swan's adversaries and Mosquitofolk

Hi everybody,


today I'm going to take a look at the excellent adversary books put out by Raging Swan Press as well as Zombie Sky Press's awesome

Here be Monsters - Mosquitofolk : Aching for Blood


This pdf is 22 pages, 1 page front cover, 1 page, 1/3 of a page editorial/ToC, 1/2 page SRD, leaving 20 1/6 pages of content, so let's dive in!

Apart from the fluffy and crunchy content, we get 1 full-color cover-like world map page, 1 regular world map page and 1 beautiful full color encounter map page.

The pdf kicks off with approximately 2 pages of introduction to the new critters, which just plainly ROCKS. I just can't describe it any other way, the writing is evocative, supremely cool and made the jaded bastard of a reviewer, yours truly, immediately want o implement the Mosquitofolk. Now, that's quite a feat! After that, we get extensive statblocks of the different kinds of Mosquitofolk:

After being introduced to two varieties of common mosquitoes, we get a plethora of stats for Mosquitofolk for low-CRs till the upper echelon of mid-levels, providing a multitude of possibilities to torture your PCs with an extremely disturbing new kind of adversary.

-Mosquito, Giant (CR 1)

-Mosquito Swarm ( CR 2)

-Mosquitofolk, Hollow (CR 2): Undead Mosqutofolk

-Mosquitofolk, Blood Jumper (CR 4): Rank and file hunters

-Mosquitofolk, Secret Sting (CR 6): Agents and poison-using killers

-Mosquitofolk, Blood Blade (CR 7): Fighter-champions

-Mosquitofolk, Cage Glider (CR 8): Huge terrible mutations that catch enemies

-Mosquitofolk, Swarm Spewer (CR 9): Swarm-vomiting elite-mosquitofolk

-Mosquitofolk, Woundmage (CR 10): The casting, bloodmagic-using apex of Mosquitofolk society

we also get 5 new items common/alchemical items against Mosquitofolk.

After that, we get a beautiful full color map and 3 scenarios for the map, featuring different premises for the camp presented, including texts for the respective areas. Thankfully, we also get a version of the map without the map key and annoying letters. We also get a full color version of the world map and another full color page of another world map that is ripped asunder by a kind of rip.

Conclusion:

Editing is top-notch, I didn't notice any mistakes. Layout adheres to the horizontal three-column standard and is beautiful. In contrast to other ZSP-titles, the file is (relatively) printer-friendly, although there is, as of yet, no b/w-version. The pdf is also extensively bookmarked.

Then, there's the writing. Once in a while, when reading a monster book, you encounter a critter that just blows you out of the water, that is just so disturbing and cool that you practically HAVE to implement them into your games. A critter so iconic you won't forget them in quite a while and just continue to use them or even base a campaign around them. Mosquitofolk are such creatures - supremely disturbing and cool, these blood-addicts that brought their own civilization down via magical engineering of their young just rocks HARD and made me reminiscent of the wonderfully detailed "monstrous arcana"-series of the 2nd edition days of old, to be more precise, of the wonderful books on Sahaugin and Illithids. However, there is one aspect that marrs an otherwise perfect pdf - the artwork. It's comic-style. And not creepy or on par with the other ZSP-artworks. That being said, this is still not enough to pull down an otherwise stellar book - be sure to check it out, I guarantee you won't be disappointed. My final verdict is 4.5 Rudii.





Next up on my list today is Raging Swan's


Fellowship of the blackened Oak



This book is 23 pages long, 1 page front cover, 1 page blank inside of front cover, 1 page title header, 1 page editorial, 1 page ToC and SRD, 1 page back cover and thus leaves 17 pages for the fellowship, so let's dive in.

What is the Fellowship, then? It's actually a fully written group of adventurers that makes for interesting adversaries for the PCs - either as foils or rivals. The first two pages give us and introduction for the group as well as a how-to-use and 5 sample encounters.

After that, we get to the group: Each of the members gets the full Raging Swan NPC write-up, complete with mannerisms, personality, hooks, distinctive characteristics and so on. The NPCs also come with their own b/w-portraits you can show off to your players -nice! This should, in my opinion, be the standard for NPCs and is just awesome.

Major Spoilers ahead, so players beware and skip to the end!

Still here? Good!

The fellowship is:

-Aurakraul (young adult green dragon, comes with a fully detailed hoard she wants to reclaim; CR 11): Nice twist on the greedy dragon trope.

-Dhoean Talthar (half-elven bard 4/ranger 4, comes with a hawk-animal companion; CR 7): Sociopathic mastermind of the Fellowship. I LOVE this character. Seriously, this guy is thriller-movie-villain material.

-Holg (half-orc ranger 8, comes with a wolf companion; CR 7): Holg has a nice twist to him that can be summed up in "Reincarnation gone wrong".

-Lafithel Traivanna (elven sorceror [gold dragon] 8; CR 7): Beautiful, pampered and petty, she is the spoiled, yet driven capricious member of the fellowship and comes with loads of roleplaying potential.

-Vola (half-orc druid 8, comes with a wolf companion; CR 7): A great twist on the "evil" druid, Vola actually desires to be the smart predator and takes an impassionate stand towards her deeds.

The fellowship, as presented, is rife with potential for roleplaying, tragedy and internal strife. They can act as foils or even allies for the PCs. Or, you could just throw them at the PCs as cannon fodder. you don't want to do that, though, as their write-ups are simply cool and very, very detailed, coming with a plethora of potential ideas to use them.

As a great form of bonus content, we get a two-page IC-journal entry of adventurers who slew the dragons hoard as well as an appropriately-scribbled-looking map to the unclaimed hoard - it's one-step-beyond content like that, that makes a pdf truly shine.

The pdf closes with the obligatory page to introduce DMs to reading the stat-blocks.

Conclusion:

Editing is good, I only noticed one minor typo. The pdf is extensively bookmarked and layout adheres to the beautiful and printer-friendly b/w-Raging Swan standards. The artworks for the NPCs rock and their detailed write-ups are well-worth the low price of the pdf. Due to the amount of praise I heaped on the characters, you can already gather that this is going to get a good rating, thus the following suggestions should be taken as being extremely nit-picky: I would have loved to see a a section on their group-tactics in a sample encounter. One of the encounters mentions how complex an encounter with the whole group would be and thus I would have loved some detailed round-by-round-sample tactic of them as a group e.g. ambushing the PCs. While not necessary, this (and minus the one typo) would have crowned the book with the full 5 stars - my final verdict will thus "only" be 4.5 Rudii





Finally, we'll take a look at Raging Swan's

Antipaladins


This pdf is 23 pages long, 1 page front cover, 1 page blank inside of front page, 1 page editorial, 2 pages titles, 1 page SRD (also containing reprinted info on the Antipaladin), 1 page ToC (also containing 3 demonic patrons) and 1 page back cover, leaving 15 pages for the Antipaladins.

The Antipaladins herein all get their own b/w-artwork as well as the whole Raging Swan NPC-write-up complete with hooks, personality and mannerisms, including nice adventure-seeds.

The Antipaladins are:

- Aelire Maiaral (Half-elf Antipaladin 4, CR 3) Spurned love gone wrong.

-Petrok Uren (Human Antipaladin 6, CR 5) Former Aristocrat with psychotic urges.

-Steren Wearme (Half-elf Bard 4/Antipaladin 4, CR 7) Nihilistic, beautiful bard.

-Duerrin Thramek (Dwarf Antipaladin 6/Fighter 4, CR 9) Violent dwarven leader.

-Eseld Cass (Human Barbarian 5/Antipaladin 7, CR 11) Female leader of a savage tribe.

-Tharon Zaspar (Drow Antipaladin 8/Rogue 3/Shadowdancer 2, CR 13) Ice-cold, savant-style killer.

-Vaerosk Izuzygax (Aasimar half-fiend Antipaladin 13, CR 15) Corrupted celestial paragon.

Conclusion:

Layout adheres to the printer-friendly b/w-standard of Raging Swan, the pdf is extensively bookmarked and I didn't find any typos or editing glitches. On to the fluff and crunch:

The Antipaladins are just simply awesome - each is distinctive and goes beyond "I'm an evil foe!" - They are, quite frankly, top material and all have their merits as villains that make you want to implement them in one's campaign. Especially Steren caught my attention and drove and expanded the concept of what one would expect of an Antipaladin. The content is plenty, the quality of the NPCs is top-notch and quite frankly, there is nothing negative I could say about any of the Antipaladins apart from "I want more!". Thus, my final verdict will be a full 5 Rudii - go get these nasty guys and make your PCs rue the day they met them!





All right, that's it from me for this week, next time I'll have some monsters for you!


As always, thank you for reading my ramblings,

Endzietgeist out.


3.08.2011

EZG reviews the scaled TRIBES

Hey everybody,


today, I'm going to review the scaled TRIBES of the aptly named line by Raging Swan Press - enjoy!


Kobolds of the Fallen Halls



This pdf is 25 pages long, 1 page front cover, 1 page blank inside of the front cover, 1 page editorial, 1 page back cover, half a page SRD, leaving 20.5 pages of content.

This installment of Raging Swan's excellent TRIBES-series adheres to the same clear and printer-friendly layout, b/w-artwork and presentation. The TRIBES-series, at least for me, is always defined by going a bit further, by including that extra hook, that extra idea, that extra comfort for the DM to implement the critters. The first thing I noticed, was that under the statblocks-by-CR table, on the page with the ToC, we get an excerpt from a song or poem about the Kobolds - great idea to set the mood and already an adventure hook in disguise. That's a promising start!

After that, we get the obligatory one-page introduction for novice DMs on how to read the statblocks and then, after the chapter title page, two pages on the history of the Kobolds of the Fallen Halls, which already shows that this file somewhat differs from the premise of the other TRIBES-files - we get two Kobold tribes and their draconic masters, embroiled in a subterranean trench-war over a once great Dwarven stronghold, with a hapless group of adventurers quite possibly being the able to tip the precarious balance of power between the feuding factions. This aptly written history once again conveys the great old-world-atmosphere laced with decay I've come to appreciate in Raging Swan products. On the downside, I found the first typo in any of their products here, in the section on appearance, Kobolds should "smell" of something instead of "small".

On the next page, we get 7 new feats of the new [Battle]-type, a type of feat representing tribal combat tactics. All the feats come with two lines of fluff text, something I quite frankly think should be standard. The feats are:

-Dazing Shot: When you hit a flat-footed opponent, he has to make a fort-save or be dazed. Great idea for guerilla tactics.

-Hit and Run: Use a 5-foot step, even if you have moved this round.

-Improved Flank: Gain +3 instead of +2 when flanking.

-Nauseating Shot: When you hit a flat-footed opponent, he has to make a fort-save or be nauseated. Great idea for guerilla tactics.

-Spider Handler: You have a close Bond with a giant spider, can handle it as a free action or push it as a move action. You also get a bonus on saves vs. poison.

-Spider Rider: Gain +4 to ride checks on spiders and +1 to atk for every 4 levels you possess.

-Sniping Strike: As long as you are at least 10 ft. from your target, you only suffer from -10 to obscure your position after shooting.

As a great example for Raging Swan listening to their customers, we also get new Adept spells for this often neglected NPC-class (1 page):

-Darken Scales (Adp 1): +4 to stealth and +1 to AC for scaled beings

-Enervating Shadows (Adp 3): Grasping shadows cause exhaustion

-Furtive Step (Adp 1): + 4 to stealth, become harder to track.

-Occlude Trap (Adp 2): Hides traps and gives you a mental alert when the trap is triggered.

This section also includes an expanded adept's spell-list for one of the Kobold tribes who have the upper hand, magic-wise.
The next page features two fully detailed dragon hoards for the respective dragons.

After another header page, we get the statblocks for the Kobolds as well as some paragraphs on the customs of the respective tribes, making them more unique. The statblocks come with the number of respective Kobolds of the type the tribe can muster.
They are:

-Blackened Eye Warrior [warrior 1](CR 1/4)

-Blackened Eye Champion [warrior 3] (CR 1/2)

-Blackened Eye Scout [warrior 2/expert 2] (CR 1)

-Blackened Eye Adept [adept 2] (CR 1)

-Weasel Familiar

-Blackened Eye Miner [expert 4] (CR 1)

-Dire Rat Pet (Cr 1/3)

-Alaeix's Concubines [warrior 3/expert 2] (CR 2)

-Alaeix, Blackened Eye Champion [warrior 7] (CR 4)

-Dereghwyr, Draconic Master of the Blackened Eye [juvenile green dragon] (CR 9) The dragon gets the Raging Swan NPC-treatment I enjoyed in the adventures and "Brethren of the Crimson Altar", i.e., we get information on personality, mannerisms, hooks and distinguishing features. I would have loved for Alaeix to get this treatment, too, though.

-Bloodied Tail Warrior [warrior 2] (CR 1/3)

-Bloodied Tail Adept [adept 4] (CR 1)

-Bloodied Tail Trap Smith [expert 4] (CR 1)

-Bloodied Tail Spider Rider [warrior 2/expert 2] (CR 1)

-Hunting Spiders (CR 1)

-Unurnyth, Bloodied Tail Adept [adept 8] (CR 5)

-Irix (Familiar of Unurnyth)

-Sygax, Bloodied Tail Chieftain [warrior 6] (CR 3)

-Bloodied Tail Bodyguards [warrior 4] (CR 1)

-Antharuthux, draconic master of the Bloodied Tail [juvenile black dragon] (CR 8) The dragon gets the Raging Swan NPC-treatment I enjoyed in the adventures and "Brethren of the Crimson Altar", i.e., we get information on personality, mannerisms, hooks and distinguishing features. I would have loved for Unurnyth and Sygax to get this treatment, too, though.

On the next page, we get a d20-list of odds and ends Kobolds carry in their pouches (great idea) as well as two statblocks for non-combatants.

-Female Kobold [commoner 1] (CR 1/4)

-Young Kobold [commoner 1] (CR 1/6)

What would a pdf on Kobolds be without traps? Exactly! That's why we get 4 new traps:

-Crossbow Bolt (CR 1)

-Hidden Pit (CR 1)

-Falling Jars (CR 1)

-Tumbling Block (CR 3)

The traps come with nice lines to read when they are triggered (once again, great idea) as well as 3 augmentations for them in the form of brown mold, skeletons and spikes.

On the final page, just above the SRD, we get the racial information necessary to design more kobolds.

Conclusion:
Layout editing are great, the pieces of b/w-artwork are nice and I only noticed the one typo I mentioned. The writing is concise and atmospheric and the feats and battle-tactics enabled by them scream "Kobold" to me. However, I also have some points of criticism: While I really liked the feats and new adept spells as well as the idea, that the bloodied tail has spider-cavalry, I was not to impressed by the blackened eye. In contrast to the bloodied tail, they felt rather like common kobolds, possibly also because their fluff and feats do not lend themselves as well to being iconic. I also would have loved the for the named Kobolds to get their own personality, hooks and the like. From the fluff I gathered they have their own agenda. The traps, at least in my opinion an integral part of Kobold battle tactics could have used some expansion and I think the pdf might have benefitted from a section discussing their guerilla-warfare tactics. While all of this is optional and the pdf provides plenty of content for a very fair price, it still doesn't quite reach the heights the series has set for itself. What's my final verdict then? This pdf is a very good book, though not as stellar as the other TRIBES-books I've read so far. Thus, I'll settle for a solid 4 Rudii and a hearty recommendation.







Next in the line of scaled tribes are the


Troglodytes of the tentacled One



This pdf is 23 pages long, 1 page front cover, 1 page blank inside of front cover, 1 page editorial, 1 page back cover and half a page SRD, leaving 18.5 pages of content.

This installment of the TRIBES-series once again features an great poem/excerpt from a song to serve as an additional hook on the page with the ToC, that also lists statblocks by CR, the new feats, etc.


After that, we get the obligatory introductory page on how to read statblocks for novice DMs and after another page chapter header, we are introduced to the Troglodytes.

Their history, ecology and so on take up 2 pages. The troglodytes worship an elder evil at behalf of their aboleth master. A side box is given explaining the tribal art of the troglodytes and Amon-Pyr, said elder evil, is also given a short portfolio (including domains, favored weapons etc.).

On the next page, we get 6 new battle feats (including nice fluff-lines for each feat) as well as two alternative class features. The feats are:

-Cavern Stride: In caverns, you can treat 10 ft. of difficult terrain per round as normal terrain and 5-foot step in it.


-Dark Knowledge: Gain the spell-like abilities to cast death watch and doom once per day. However, no caster level is given for these. I guess the prerequisite caster level 1st could be a hint that the feat uses the same casting ability as the primary casting class.


-Greater Cavern Stride: Move 30 ft. through difficult terrain in caverns as if it was normal terrain.


-Greater Dark Knowledge: Gain Darkness and Death Knell as a spell-like ability. Same problem as with Dark Knowledge, though: I don't know which caster-level the new spell-like abilities get.


-Greater Rending Claws: If you hit enemies with both claws, one of the attacks deals 2 points of extra damage. Stacks with Rending Claws.


-Rending Claws: : If you hit enemies with both claws, one of the attacks deals 2 points of extra damage.


The alternative class features are:


-Barbarian: Cave Dweller, replaces fast movement, grants +2 Ini, Perception, Stealth and Survival, increases +1 at 8th level and 5 levels thereafter.


-Fighter: Unarmored Warrior, replaces Armor Training, gain +1 dodge bonus to AC and CMD, +1 every 4 levels thereafter.


On the next page, we get 4 new cleric spells (I'm not entirely sure why they are cleric spells, not druid, witch or adept spells, which would have felt more natural to me):

-Aura of the Grave (Clr 2): Shield of negative energy punishes people attacking you.


-Greater Weight of Ages (Clr 4): Temporarily age character up to venerable age, with cumulative penalties. Nice idea.


-Wall of Water (Clr 3): Both available as dark water, blocking sight, or turbulent water, making it hard to cross the wall. Unfortunately this spell features a typo, it should read "several effects", not several affects".


-Weight of Ages (Clr 3): Temporarily age character up to venerable age, with cumulative penalties.

On the next page, we get two new magic items, both including their own artworks, lore sections, personality & background, requirements and anything else you might require:


-Abrul's Bane: The fluff text at the top speaks of a whip, when this is clearly a longsword. An editing mistake that could have been avoided. Other than that, a nice weapon.


-Black Whip of Amon-Pyr: A dark whip with an entrapped priest's spirit. Nice.

After that, we get the next chapter (including the chapter title page) of statblocks and encounters. Three sample encounters are provided, lone scout (EL 4), scavengers (EL 6), scouting group (EL 8) and raiding party (EL 10). There are also modifications for each encounter provided. The beginning of the chapter also features the statblocks for the tribe's non-combatants:


-Ebon Lake Young (CR 1)


-Ebon Lake Female (CR 2)


After that, we get to the main meat, the statblocks, which also feature a nice little fluff-text for the DM to read to the players as well as a short little extra block for all critters with barbarian rage, showing their changed statistics:


-Master of the Ebon Lake, Irfel-Thoth [elder aboleth] (CR 9): Perhaps due to me loving Aboleths to death, perhaps due to "Sunken Empires" or "Darkness without Form: Secrets of the Mimic", I somehow felt this Aboleth rather lacking. I would have loved for him to have some special abilities or at least get mannerisms, hooks, something to make him stand out more. As written, it's "just" a cool Aboleth.


-Acolyte Guard [Degenerate troglodyte cleric 3/barbarian 2](CR 7)


-Ebon Lake Warrior [Degenerate Troglodyte barbarian 1](CR 3)


-Ebon Lake Hunter [Degenerate Troglodyte barbarian 1/ranger 1] (CR 4)


-Ebon Lake Champion [Degenerate Troglodyte barbarian 3] (CR 5)


-Garix, Ebon Lake Chieftain [Degenerate Troglodyte barbarian 2/fighter3] (CR 7) Unfortunately the chieftain is not given his own block on personality and behavior.


-Lesser Acolyte of Amon-Pyr [Degenerate Troglodyte cleric 3](CR 5)


-High Acolyte [Degenerate Troglodyte cleric 7] (CR 9)


We are also given a new template, the degenerate creature template, including sections on ecology, combat & tactics of degenerate creatures and their lore.


Finally, we are given the CR2-basic statblock of the Degenerate Troglodyte as well as the necessary information and stats to design more tribal members.

Conclusion:

Layout is, as always with Raging Swan products, great and printer-friendly. I encountered minor typos (see review), something that didn't happen in the first installments of the TRIBES-series. The b/w-artwork is of the high quality I've come to expect. Anybody who has been following my reviews knows that I'm a total sucker for Aboleths and anything remotely Lovecraftian and thus I've been quite hyped about this installment of the TRIBES-line. While the pdf conveys the old-world-flair I've come to love about Raging Swan books and thankfully (as btw. all of their files) doesn't fall into the magic item-inflation trap, I've mainly had one impression, namely the one of untapped potential. There is an alternate class feature for the fighter, yet apart from the chieftain no troglodyte has fighter levels. How did he get them? Does he have any goals? Why does the Aboleth have no special characteristics byond being a big bad Aboleth? Why don't we get e.g. the stats for the artifact he is looking for? Why are the troglodytes tactics so...boring? Swarm the enemy and beat them to pulp might work for the degenerate creatures they are, but e.g. under the direction of their Abolethmaster, they might e.g. use their walls of water to their advantage. What about underwater tactics? If e.g. the space for some of the rather boring and rules-ambiguous feats would have been used for a section like that, the book could be better. Don't get me wrong, this is still a nice book, just not on par with the rest of the TRIBES-line. Due to the editing glitches and the rules-ambiguous feats, I'll settle for 3.5 Rudii.




And the final one for today:


Lizardfolk of the Dragon Fang

This pdf is 23 pages long, 1 page front cover, 1 page inside of front cover, 1 page editorial, 1 page back cover and 1 page containg SRD and ads, leaving 18 pages of content.

As with all recent TRIBEs-installments, we once again get some lines from a poem/song/prophecy about the tribe on the ToC-page - nice. We also, of course, get the obligatory page introduction to reading the statblocks for novice DM.

After the one-page chapter title, we get 2 pages on the history, religion, nomenclature and tactics of the tribe. Some potential for strife within the tribe is also given here.

Then, we get a page containing 3 new battle feats for use by members of the tribe:

-Pierce: You may use a ranged attack to attack an enemy within range increments of your weapon as a standard action. If you hit, make another attack at -2 against a target no more than 10 ft. away from the first one. The second target also has to be within the first range increment of your weapon.

-Great Pierce: You may use a ranged attack to attack an enemy within range increments of your weapon as a standard action. If you hit, make another attack at -2 against a target no more than 10 ft. away from the first one. The new target also has to be within the first range increment of your weapon. You can continue to make these attacks until there are no more valid targets or you miss.

-Improved Combat Casting: Stacks with Combat Casting, gain a + 2 to Concentration when grappled, reroll one concentration check per day prior to the result of the first one being known. You have to take the second one.
Ok, I'll have to comment this. I think "Pierce" and "Greater Pierce" should also work for piercing weapons, but ONLY against additional targets behind the first one. Otherwise you get a rather comical and ridiculous image of a javelin ricocheting through a party of PCs. That's just my 2 cents, though.

We also get new spells:

-Snake Staff (Clr 5, Drd 5): This spell is reprinted from the APG, courtesy of Paizo, and is marked as such.

-Acid Bolt (Sor/Wiz 3): Either send clinging acid via touch attack to your enemies or coat a weapon in it.

-Bite of the Viper (Adp 2, Drd 2): Grants you a poisonous bite weapon. Why is this not on the Witch's spell list? I think the spell practically screams "Witch". Oh well.

-Swamp Kin (Adp 1, Drd 1, Sor/Wiz 1): Negates some penalties of moving through bogs. Another spell that should also be available to Witches.

-Swamp Kin, Mass (Adp 3, Drd 3, Sor/Wiz 3): As above, only mass. Dito on the Witches.

The page also includes a modified spell-list for Adepts of the Dragon Fang tribe.

The tribe also has 3 unique magic items, complete with lore sections and their own pieces of artwork:

-Blood Spiller: A human bane spear that returns to the thrower and is made from darkwood.

-Dragon Fang: Made from the fang of a black dragon, this dagger may add acid damage on critical hits.

-Staff of the Serpent: The staff can cast poison and snake-related spells, including Snake Staff.

After that, we'll get the statblocks of the Lizardfolk, complete with three encounters (Raid EL 7, Kobold Emissaries EL 4 and Swamp Ambush EL 8 - all with information to modify them). Even better, though, we get a cool sample ceremony of the tribe - exactly that is what makes a tribe come to life in my opinion. Awesome! Thankfully, in contrast to e.g. the Kobolds and Troglodytes, the Lizardfolk get an extensive side-box on environmental modifiers to help you run encounters in the tribe's given environment, the swamp. The stats are:

-Dragon Fang Warrior (CR 1)

-Elite Dragon Fang Warrior [warrior 4](CR 3)

-Dragon Fang Scout [expert 4](CR 3)

-Dragon Fang Shaman [adept 2] (CR 3)

-Lizard Familiar (of the normal Dragon Fang Shaman)

-Dragon Fang Greater Shaman [adept 6] (CR 5)

-Lizard Familiar (of the Dragon Fang Greater Shaman)

Two variant Lizardfolks are also provided:

-Cliffborn Lizardfolk (CR 1): Better climbers

-Unseen Lizardfolk (CR 1): Chameleon Lizardfolk

We also get the war trident weapon as well as all the information to make Lizard Kings.

The tribe also features several important personalities of the tribe and it is here I thought "YES!" to myself: The personalities come with personality, distinguishing marks, mannerisms and hooks. Apart from the King, that is.

-Sesskarr, the Lizard King [Lizardking sorceror (black dragon bloodline) 9] (CR 11): Sesskarr comes with almost half a page of his own tale on how he became what he is now. I loved it and I think it's a nice substitute for the roleplaying information of the other personalities!

-Groth [Troglodyte Druid 10] (CR 10): A twisted, dark Druid, he urges the tribe and its king toward evil.

-Alssarrass [Lizardfolk Adept 12] (CR 8): Peaceful wife of Sesskarr and foe of Groth.

-Brethikk [Kobold Fighter 9] (CR 8): Wielder of Blood Spiller, this former Kobold King now serves as Sesskarr's bodyguard.

Conclusion:
Editing, layout and the b/w-artwork are top-notch, as I've come to expect of Raging Swan products. While I personally don't like the Pierce-feats, that's just a personal opinion. I'd also like to see information/support for the APG-classes and still think that some of the spells should be on the spell-list of e.g. Witches. Apart from that, though, this installment of the TRIBES-series once again goes up and beyond what one would come to expect and finally, we get mannerisms, hooks, etc. for all the important personalities. The items rock, too. I would have liked to see more on the tactics of the tribe, but due to this being my only true criticism of the file, I'll settle once again for a five-Rudii rating - an excellent addition to the series.





All right, that's it for now, as always, thank you for reading my ramblings,

Endzeitgeist out!

3.04.2011

EZG revels with the Fey

Hey everybody!


It should come to no surprise to you fine folks out there that I absolutely love fey. Their mischievous alien nature. Their pranks. Their amoral aloofness. Unfortunately, up until recently, I felt most supplements rather lacking with regards to them. That's why, today, I'm going to take a look at two absolutely gorgeous, full-color books about the Fey, the first being ALluria Publishing's


Fey Folio: Clans of the Fey Realm


This pdf is 27 pages long, 1 page front cover, 2 pages editorial, 1 page ToC and Fey by CR, 1 page SRD and 1 page back cover, leaving 21 pages for the fey.

The first thing you'll notice about this pdf is that it is gorgeous full-color and that it's extensively bookmarked, high hopes, so let's dive in.

The first page gives us an introduction to the concept of the fey as well as a table listing the quick-reference glyph system.

The fey herein are:

-Dullahan (CR 7): A fey take on the headless horseman, two additional stat-blocks are provided: 1 for the Dullahan Dreadknight (CR 9) and for their dark mares (CR 6). Their artwork kicks ass and is on par with what you can see in Paizo products.

-Erlking (CR 2): Kidnapper fey based on the ballad by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, their artwork can be seen on the cover and, again, rocks! They have abilities to shroud themselves from sight and kidnap people. As a German who grew up learning the ballad by Goethe by hard, I love this hommage to the disturbing song.

-Fachen (CR 6): Strong, deformed soldiers of the Fey-lord Jack-in-Irons, I like how they got a weakness for adventurers to exploit: Fighting smart should be rewarded. They also get a CR 9 sorceror. Their artwork first threw me off, but after printing it out and taking it in, I've come to like it.

-Jack-in-Irons (CR 21): An extremely powerful fey king, broken and chained, Jack-in-Irons is interesting due to one fact: He fits nicely in with already established fey lore in your game. Due to e.g. Oberon already existing in my game, I can insert him nevertheless, as his portfolio does not conflict with Oberon's. On the downside, though, his AC is low for his CR and his artwork reminded me more of a giant than of a fey. It's still a good artwork, though.

-Kapre (CR 4): A kind of umanoid treant, this creatures make for interesting takes on the Green Man. Their artwork is nice.

-Nightshade Wisp (CR 3): Poisonous, revenge-seeking soldiers associated with the Nightshade plant. Nice artwork.

-Rarog (CR 13): Not actually a fey, but an elemental outsider, this fire/wind-aligned creature nevertheless makes for a great creature to associate e.g. with the scorching Sirocco. The artwork, again, rocks.

-Lean Sidhe (CR 7) & Bean Sidhe (CR 9): Beautiful, alluring emodiments of cathartic moments, the capricious Lean Sidhe may drain mortals of their creativity. Their dark sisters, the Bean Sidhe, born of grief and misery, get completely different abilities. Both share a beautiful artwork, though I would have liked to see a separate one for the Bean Sidhe.

-Spriggan (Cr 1/3): Ugly little creatures who worship Jack-in-Irons, their picture is actually the first picture of a Spriggan in any incarnation of the game I considered creepy. Well done! They come with information to make Spriggan characters yourself.

-Spring-heel Jack (CR 5): Urban, suave swashbucklers, their artwork is cool and could also be used for iconic Elven duelists. As a fan of urban settings, they'll see some use in my campaign.

-Sylph (CR 2): A cute, butterfly-winged fey, Sylphs actually get another great piece of artwork that makes them look not only cute but resolute at the same time.

-Vodnik (CR 3): An ugly little creature that drowns its victims and has some nice additional information (a mini-template) to make a variant bog-troll/vodnik hybrid.

-Yallery (CR 6): An embodiment of apathy and laziness, these urchin-like fey have some interesting abilities: Beggar's Idle lets them increase the duration of spell-like effects by 1d6 rounds on a successful attack. Nice.
After that, we get 2 pages containing both tips for the DM to properly play fey as well as a hook for a campaign centering on the new fey.
The final page features 5 new magic items.

Conclusion:
I've commented a lot on the artwork and rightly so - this book ranks among the most beautiful 3pp-books I've ever seen. Editing and formatting are top-notch and I didn't notice any mistakes. All of the fey are iconic and feature at least one signature ability that makes them stand out. I'm quite frankly at a loss to say anything negative about this book - the only true criticism I can provide is that a printer-friendly version would have been nice to have. Apart from that, I can only say: I want more! I love fey and this book actually gets them, resulting in a 5-Rudii final verdict. Well done!




While Alluria's Fey Folio is rather crunch-heavy, I also have a great fluff-centric book that could be used for just about any rules setting, Zombie Sky Press's


The Faerie Ring: Along the twisting Way - Prelude

This pdf is 14 pages, 1 page front cover and half a page is taken up by the SRD, leaving 12.5 pages of content.

The pdf begins with 4 pages of introduction to the fey and the series.

After that, we get an introduction to the fey that is written IC and from the perspective of a fey.

The prose is actually well-written and introduces both a new kind of plane and provides a plethora of different ideas to include in your games and serves as a nice preview for the things to come.

This book serves as the introduction to the series and subsequently does not provide new crunch, but rather elaborates on the concepts and does so in a fine way. The wealth of ideas is stunning and cool we get 13 new subtypes for fey as well as some elaboration on their rulers and how they come into being. The book essentially is a general ecology of the fey, including mindset, society etc. Due to this being an introduction, no mechanics are given yet, but I anticipate them in the next installment.

Conclusion:

This pdf is absolutely beautiful and adheres to the ZSP-horizontal layout. While the pdf is among the most beautiful I've ever seen, I think that a printer-friendly version would have been nice. While my color laser printer managed it, I think that other people may find it problematic to print out. The artwork is simply stunning, especially for the low price. Editing and formatting are good, although I've found an instance of a repeated word as well as a minor cut-copy-paste error. Don't let that detract from the wealth of information herein, though: I love the concepts presented within and am eagerly anticipating the follow-up books. Due to the minor glitches I encountered and one piece of artwork that didn't fit in with the rest, I'll rate this book 4.5 stars.





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

Endzeitgeist out.