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NeoExodus Chronicles: Cutting Edge Machinesmith (PFRPG)
by Thilo G. [Verified Purchaser] Date Added: 05/08/2013 05:37:33

An Endzeitgeist.com review

This supplemental pdf for the Machinesmith-class is 9 pages long, 1 page editorial/SRD, 1/2 a page advertisement, leaving us with 7 1/2 pages of content, so let's take a look at this!

This pdf kicks off with two new types of greatworks, the first being the converter, which fluff-wise converts latent energy into effects that duplicate a limited array of spell-like abilities. Converters get 1 +1/2 class level + Intelligence charges - at least that's what the pdf specifies. Which makes me doubt whether this is correct - usually, we'd be looking at an addition of the intelligence MODIFIER - adding the whole stat is something completely different and hopefully just a glitch. From at will powers that don't use charges to those taking up 3 at the fourth and final greatwork update, the converter allows for access to spell-like abilities running the gamut from dancing lights at will to implosion for 3 charges. What's rather odd is that implosion takes up as much charges as telekinesis and reverse gravity, two power-wise rather inferior spells. Also, getting telekinesis at 20th level is too late. On a nitpicky side, the spell discordant blast has not been italicized in the pdf. I don't know, the curve at which the powers become available feels a bit off.

The Converter also gets 4 new augmentations that allow converters to assimilate limited amounts of energy, increase DCs by 1 and may, as the coolest of the abilities, shape one 10 ft. cube per two levels, allowing for really cool ways of modifying non-instantaneous energy effects - walking literally through forest fires, for example or creating holes in roaring blizzards conjured by hostile forces. The final one allows that at 12th level even as an immediate action for double charges.

The second Greatwork would be the Mobius Suit, which is obviously inspired by one particular Mr. Tony Stark - based on an armor, the suit grants armor-bonus and can use its charges (of which it gets 1/2 class level + int modifier) to gain either DR 1/- or energy resistance 5 to one chosen energy for int-mod rounds - essentially, the suit has charge-powered abilities that become progressively more versatile. More's the pity that the basic ability of the suit fails to specify whether it can be used multiple times at once - could e.g. a machinesmith grant him/herself 5 resistance to fire for 4 rounds and on the next round also get 5 resistance to cold for a second expended charge or can only one effect be in place at once? This becomes especially relevant on the first upgrade, which suddenly nets DR 2/- and energy resistance 10. Does the Machinesmith still have to specify which type of energy? I assume so, but the wording is ambiguous. The suit also grants proficiencies with armors and up to 4 integrated gadget-slots as well as the option to retain its AC versus firearms, increase AC versus crit-confirmation rolls and use swift actions to temporarily gain access to evasion for a ref-save.

The Mobius Suit also gets 4 new augmentations, which allow for enhanced str-and dex-based skill checks, lift as if under the ant haul spell (which the pdf fails to italicize), supercharge the suit for a massive +6 bonus to Str and Dex at the cost of 1 hour of not working (cool) and use charges to extend the duration of integrated gadgets.

After that, we're off to 14 new gadgets. We get one to launch snapdragon fireworks over multiple rounds (again, lacking italicization), create temporary Resilient Spheres, Defensive Shocks, temporarily suppressing machinesmith gadgets and dazing constructs (sans save), add firearms to turrets and create a power gauntlet-like device -at least in theory. EDIT: I botched. Impact Knuckles do specify what they're supposed to do, though the entry lacks italicization of the spell effect they duplicate

He may also duplicate the Polypurpose Panacea-spell via an injector, create proximity mines that duplicate blast glyphs and shout non-lethal restraining cables at opponents, enhance the invisibility cloak to follow up with displacement (Imho a great idea!), duplicate excavations via sonic diggers, the battlemind link-spell via tactical communicators (though construction options to widen the network from two presumed participants would have been nice), get a beacon that makes hitting illuminated foes via turrets faster and more reliable (nice!) or suspend him/herself in temporal stasis.

We also get 4 new tricks (though the header faultily calls them techniques): Caustic Refuter stuns those affected by Axiom or counter-science, Drone Expert improves all created constructs (including the pocket army), increase your to-hit prowess with your tools and recycle prototypes (i.e. his/her spells): Upon using a prototype, the machinesmith may for one round change one of his prepared prototypes of the same or higher level into the one he just used.

Next up are two archetypes: The Gadgeteer, who sacrifices his/her greatwork for more spells and a focus on being faster at creating magic items and commanding/enhancing drones. The second one, the Wonderbuilder, does essentially the exact opposite, sacrificing part of his prototype spells for a secondary greatwork (and later even a third one), but at the cost of never having his primary greatwork reach upgrade 4.

The pdf also provides us with 6 prototypes to revisit the topic of drones, which had been scrapped from the original class-pdf. Two of the prototypes allows you to grant limited mobility to your turrets or grant them climb speeds respectively, while the other 4 create small assisting drones - at level one drones sans combat capabilities, at 3rd level conjure up swarms of nauseating drones, create at 4th level spying drones to track foes and provide visual feedback and at 5th level finally create deadly extermination drones with melee and ranged attacks. My only gripe with this one being that it does not specify what action a reload of the ranged weapon is and how much ammo the drone gets. Other than that, the concept of drones has been quite adeptly been salvaged.

Conclusion:

Editing and formatting are not that great - apart from nitpicky issues like non-italicized spells, the pdf also suffers from a missing sentence in one of its gadgets. All in all, this feels like it could have used another pass at editing in order to properly unleash its potential. Layout adheres to LPJr Design's beautiful two-column standard for NeoExodus and we also get an additional version that is slightly more printer-friendly. The pdf features a beautiful new piece of full color artwork and is fully bookmarked for your convenience - nice! The pdf also comes with spell-deck cards of all the new prototypes - very nice if you use them, especially for the very fair price!

I love the Machinesmith-class to death - it has seen some justified support by Super Genius Games and Rite Publishing and deservedly so - the class rocks hard and is a great treat to play. Unfortunately, much like the first iteration of the class it's based on, this expansion by Wendall Roy suffers from several issues - nothing too significant, but quite enough to drag down the actually REALLY cool, glorious concepts. Without glitches, I'd gladly give this 5 stars - but as provided (and I didn't mention every glitch), I can't for the life of me, rate this higher than 2.5 stars, rounded up to 3. I'm hoping for a revision I can rate higher and truly recommend.

Endzeitgeist out.



Rating:
[3 of 5 Stars!]
NeoExodus Chronicles: Cutting Edge Machinesmith (PFRPG)
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Treasures of NeoExodus: Scepter of Perpetual Sacrifice (PFRPG)
by Megan R. [Featured Reviewer] Date Added: 05/07/2013 09:10:59

What a refreshing change! Not, I hasten to add, a bloodthirsty and cannabalistic cult that produced this treasure; but the statement that "No true minister of the dark god’s teachings considers his own blood too sacred to spill" - it is good, if that's the appropriate word, to hear that the priests are as ready to mutilate themselves for their god as they are to spill other people's... there are far too many such that will sit back and expect others to do all the bleeding and dying for them!

Herein there are all the materials you need to create and run an entire nasty cult worshipping a deity called Kahyne, who demands blood - plenty of it - from followers and enemies alike, as well as a powerful artefact created by a devoted preacher of the cult. Acting as a +2 keen flaming burst spear, this sceptre lusts for blood to the extent that if its owner does not use it to spill the blood of an intelligent creature at least once a week they suffer mounting impairment to intelligence, wisdom and charisma until they either kill something or manage to get rid of the thing.

Perhaps your characters will have to face cultists led by a blood-crazed cleric wielding the sceptre, or they may find it lurking innocently in some treasure hoard and discover its dark secrets the hard way. A neat (and nasty) thing to have around, enjoy!



Rating:
[4 of 5 Stars!]
Treasures of NeoExodus: Scepter of Perpetual Sacrifice (PFRPG)
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A Place Beyond Hell (PFRPG)
by Megan R. [Featured Reviewer] Date Added: 05/07/2013 08:52:28

Do you want to have something really weird going on in your campaign world?

If so, you might just find the resources, the tools to arrange for some serious oddness here, especially if you like Lovecraftian-style weirdness. Apart from a few references to the world of Abbadon, on which it is assumed this infestation of alien beings has landed, it is not tied to a specific location so it could come to a campaign world near you.

The resources provided are rich and varied. The core aliens, the H'laqu, that are bringing about the weirdness are gone in to in quite a lot of detail. There are new feats, traits and spells galore; even a new cult based around misperception of their almost god-like abilities deluding people into thinking they deserve or even want to be worshipped. A real gem is the array of 'new monsters' each of which has not only the usual bits and bobs you expect with a monster listing, each one also has its own selection of plot seeds to help you incorporate them into your game.

There's also an illness that can be contracted, and the way - through 'breaching points' - that the aliens arrive on your campaign world in the first place. These too come with masses of ideas on how to weave them into your plots or create whole adventures around them as the characters - and no doubt just about everyone else - battle to save their world from the infestation.

There's a lot of magnificent stuff here... but it lacks any overall coherence (hence 4 rather than 5 stars... it's so almost a 5* product!), rather its a toolbox that you'll need to sift through and work with to attain your desired outcome.



Rating:
[4 of 5 Stars!]
A Place Beyond Hell (PFRPG)
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Treasures of NeoExodus: Infinite Fury (PFRPG)
by Thilo G. [Verified Purchaser] Date Added: 05/01/2013 04:18:46

An Endzeitgeist.com review

This pdf is 4 pages long, 1 page SRD, leaving us with 3 pages of content, so let’s take a look!

The blade Infinite Fury was crafted by the legendary Cynean arcanist Kal-Dor upon mastering (at least in his perception) the arcane arts and turning to physical combat. The Cynean saw the end of his lifespan approaching and tasked the entity within the blade, one Sana-Dol he created, to continue to track the progress of wielders in order to one day accomplish mastery of the martial arts. The blade has since, guided by the intelligence, changed hands multiple times and is an intelligent item.

Rules-wise, the blade can cast 1/day Tactical Acumen. While the write-up features a minor glitch (“insight” has slipped one word ahead of where it’s supposed to stand), the blade can bestow a +2 insight bonus upon identifying creatures. As a full round action, the wielder can even focus on a creature within 60 ft. to gain a +10 bonus to identify the creature and the weapon gains the appropriate bane quality for the type/subtype for the respective creature. You can also use Transformation at will – rather powerful – and lacking the italicization in the text. The blade is a +2 defending transformative mithral longsword, btw.

The final page of the pdf is devoted to beautiful weapon-cards of the sword.

Conclusion: Editing and formatting are not up to the recent standard of the line – two (minor) glitches in such a short pdf could have easily been avoided. Layout adheres to LPJr Design’s drop-dead-gorgeous 2-column full color standard and the blade’s artwork is awesome. The pdf has no bookmarks, but needs none and the pdf comes with an additional, more printer-friendly version.

I really like this blade- not only does it allow mages to stand in the front-lines, should they choose to do so, it also makes for great roleplaying/questing goals – perhaps the PCs need the knowledge of the blade. And what if it deems its task complete? That’s narrative potential there. The glitches still somewhat weigh this pdf down, unfortunately, and make it impossible for me to rate this the full 5 stars. Instead, I’ll settle for a final verdict of 4 stars – author Loren Peterson has done a neat job.

Endzeitgeist out.



Rating:
[4 of 5 Stars!]
Treasures of NeoExodus: Infinite Fury (PFRPG)
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Ultimate Spell Decks: Ultimate Combat Spell Cards (PFRPG)
by James K. [Verified Purchaser] Date Added: 04/27/2013 02:25:35

I love these cards, they make tracking and preparing spell so much easier. My preferred way to use them is to keep my spells known in a deck box, and use a set of card-holder sheets to store my prepared spells. Then I just cross off each spell with a whiteboard pen as I cast it. This makes storing, preparing and reading up on my spells quick and easy.

My one complaint is that it can be very tiresome putting together a large number of spells at once. For example, if you want to print out all the level 1 cleric spells, its simple enough if all you want are the core rulebook spells, but to get the APG, UM and UC spells you have to compile a list of spell names then search out each spell one at a time, until you have a list of page numbers for each spell. It would be really helpful to get updated version of the class-specific pdfs with all the spell from the Core book right through to UC.



Rating:
[4 of 5 Stars!]
Ultimate Spell Decks: Ultimate Combat Spell Cards (PFRPG)
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Image Portfolio Platinum Edition 24: Storn Cook
by Leland S. [Verified Purchaser] Date Added: 04/26/2013 19:00:46

Great stuff... as always, great images by Storn and a great value!



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
Image Portfolio Platinum Edition 24: Storn Cook
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Image Portfolio Platinum Edition 24: Storn Cook
by Sean F. [Featured Reviewer] Date Added: 04/26/2013 16:19:56

SEAN'S PICK OF THE DAY: Storn A. Cook is not just a friend and one of the first artists I ever worked with, he's one of the ~finest~ RPG artists anyone's worked with. The Portfolio packs are awesome for publishing, or if you just want to do some fun fan stuff!



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
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Adventure Path Iconics: Path of Jade (PFRPG)
by Thilo G. [Verified Purchaser] Date Added: 04/26/2013 04:10:54

An Endzeitgeist.com review

This collection of pregens for the Jade Regent AP is 29 pages long, 1 page front cover, 1 page SRD/editorial, 1 page caravan-sheet, leaving us with 25 pages of content, so let’s take a look!

Now this is the second set of pregens that a 3rd party publisher has released for the Jade Regent AP and hence, I’ll compare how it fares with Imperial Heroes by Legendary Games. That out of the way, we get a short introductory page that explains how Paizo’s intellectual property is maintained before providing us with the first character – Chan-Ona, a cynean wizard who may seem ponderous, but in fact is a brilliant scholar with a good heart. Cyneans, btw., are one of the races introduced in the NeoExodus campaign setting by LPJr Design – Essentially, Cyneans are magically-adept crystalline humanoids with a rather massive physical build. Now, half of the characters se these NeoExodus-races, while the other half are human characters. Whether you like the new races or not somewhat influences thus how you useful this pdf is for you as the races per se are not per default part of Golarion and is something you should be aware of.

That out of the way, the characters all come with original, full-color mugshots, a sample quote and are structured thus One the first page of a character’s depiction, we get the mugshot and crunch information/statblock. On the second and third page, we get advice on roleplaying advice, background, physical description etc. as well as level progression advice of up to 4th level and information to scale the 20-point builds up to 25-point builds or down to 15-point builds. The final page of a character usually has some free space as well as a transparent version of the character’s mugshot enlarged in the background. As a final note to Cahn-Ona – I’m not a fan of his name. The -chan-suffix is usually belittling/familiar in its use in Japanese and if my very rusty and rudimentary Japanese doesn’t deceive me “Ona-” as a suffix denotes something akin to honor, which doesn’t fit together that well for the character. I know, that’s nitpicky, but -chan is one of the most recognizable syllables in the Japanese language and its inclusion in the name slightly bugs me.

The second character is one Chelish alchemist named Colm Durban, who has a nice easteregg-nod in his background story to a certain event involving giants as depicted in Rise of the Runelords -nice! Not particularly versed in social graces, he is a brilliant bomber nevertheless – compelling character! Dorozan Alned Jawal is a Gevet, NeoExodus-nomenclature for Tiefling – and he looks the part: Horns, black and red eyes, he looks extremely badass and that contrasts nicely with his lingering childhood crush, heretical views (which are explained – a plus!), witch class and included scorpion familiar-stats.

Horse-Breaker is next up, an Enuka fighter. Enuka are beast-men of NeoExodus that may sport an incredibly wide variety of mutations, this one looking somewhat simian and coming with an increased physical stature that makes using large weapons possible -OUCH! I quite like this character, but his final age is only his scaling information – a bit of a pity, I would have enjoyed slightly more information on this character.

Saiyeth Inissi, best friend of the destined empress and Taldan Zen Archer monk, makes for the next character and an interesting combination of stemming from a wealthy family and being kind-hearted as well as a monk. Neat combination!

The Prymidian cleric of Desna, Talar Meda belongs to a race of beings suffused with linguistic powers and arcane polyglots and she combines this ancestry with being a rather forceful personality, often cursing in her obscure native language.

Valentina Yeris, a Varisian rogue (acrobat) is next up and her artwork and cheerful manner should make for a nice character especially if you’re not that into the brooding hero type – reading her entry, at least, made her sound fun to me. The final character in the collection is one Vash Kandar, whose artwork reminded me of Mitsurugi from Soul Blade/Calibur – and that is a good thing, for the man is a Varisian Samurai – how that works? Well, after a youth of crime, he was taken in and schooled by an aging samurai, again tying hsi background-story in with the history of Sandpoint via a traumatic incident. Also rather neat: We get a fully-described code for Vash and a cool discrepancy between his honorable samurai-class and his somewhat crude utterances. Nice one!

Conclusion:

Editing and formatting are top-notch, I didn’t notice any significant glitches. Layout adheres to a glorious, original and professional full-color two-column standard and as mentioned, the artworks are glorious indeed and make for beautiful complements to the pdf, bringing the characters to life. The pdf comes fully bookmarked with nested bookmarks and in two versions, with one being more printer-friendly than the other one. Sooo…how does this stand up to Legendary Games’ pregens?

Now let’s compare the formal criteria, shall we? Whether you prefer Imperial heroes’ full-body artworks or the mugshots of this pdf, artwork-wise, they both range in the highest echelons – you’ll rarely see this well-crafted artworks in any publication. While the Legendary Games-product has slightly more detailed progression-suggestions, a big pro in favor of Adventure Path Iconics is that we get advice on scaling the characters up to 25-point-buys, something absent from legendary Games’ offering. That one, though, has slightly more archetype usage – but LPJr Design’s iconics uses the more interesting races. Both pdfs feature characters that deserve the name – with codes, complex personalities, easy tie-ins into the AP that link them to the characters and both have characters I wouldn’t hesitate using as a DM. Adventure Path Iconics has no hyperlinks, though it features a samurai code.

I honestly didn’t expect this, but in the end, both are on par with each other, delivering top-notch content for a fair price and if you’re looking for pregens, your class preference will probably be the deciding factor.

For this collection of pregens, my final verdict will also be 5 stars.

Endzeitgeist out.



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
Adventure Path Iconics: Path of Jade (PFRPG)
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NeoExodus Chronicles: Quartermaster’s Handbook (PFRPG)
by Thilo G. [Verified Purchaser] Date Added: 04/18/2013 07:15:25

This pdf is 27 pages long, 1 page front cover, 1 page SRD, leaving us with 25 pages of content, so let’s take a look!

As an equipment book, we kick off with the section on mundane equipment and honestly, many of them had me wonder why the items had not been covered before – take for example the two versions of ball and chain we get in here or the tracing paper. Among the items, we also get some anachronisms like razor wire, which, while personally I like the idea, will probably not fit in with every setting. The Field Medic Kit deserves special mention, as it allows for the non-magical removal of a variety of minor negative conditions – nice if you’re like me and want to keep a slightly tighter lid than usual on magical healing. That being said, there’s also an item I’d consider problematic in the Burglar’s Bane-powder. By adding water, it emits a rosy glow, denoting those that have tried stealing items treated with it. In the NeoExodus-setting, the powder and its solvent are exclusively available to the Jannissaries, which limits it, but the fact that neither perception DC to notice it, nor easy way to get rid of it (universal solvents do the trick – not helping…) are provided mean that it is VERY powerful and should be handled with care by respective DMs. Speaking of NeoExodus-specific items – Dalreans (the plant-PC-race of the setting) get a type of rope that may regrow after being cut. Nice idea and easily adaptable to one of the multitude of plant-races out there!

Among the general adventuring gear items provided, we get tinctures to get rid of parasites, garbs that help versus pollen (I’d need those irl…), crystals specifically created to torment the crystalline Cyneans, lenses made to burn paper/temporarily blind foes, fungi that consume corpses, welding grenades to destroy animate and inanimate objects (but weirdly doesn’t ignore hardness/golem DR), hand and leg-prosthetics, scent-bane, grappling hooks and waterproof tindertwigs and just a few of the items in here. Not all of them are awesome or new, though, as e.g. the oommphteenth aspergillum, barbed caltrop or items like travelling guides and five-copper novels may work as intended, but not necessarily elicit any form of excitement.

For the less scrupulous and shady characters, 23 new poisons allow them to add anticoagulants to their attacks or use a wide array of deadly poisons to wreck more direct havoc. It should be noted, that among the mixtures, there is one that has death as a secondary effect – not a fan of that. What I’m also not a fan of is the fact that every secondary effect, when applicable, suffers from a formatting glitch and has the “secondary” not in bold. There also are multiple minor glitches beyond that, with the final poison for example having its gp-value listed instead of the number of saves it takes to cure it.

The following chapter deals with alchemical items – from alchemical charges to perfume masks, healing-supplementing brandy, paste that makes blood residue glow etc. There also are pickles that help regaining psionic foci – per se cool – only: In PFRPG, gaining psionic focus no longer requires a concentration check, which renders this item a bad 3.5-anachronims bereft of its intended use. Among the better items, we get oil that bursts aflame on weapons, symbiotes for Dalreans that, while susceptible to cold, allow for bursts of speed, dire versions of coffee, gingko and ginseng extracts, haunt and undead-detecting candles, glass-spheres containing corpses/undead-eating beetles or excrements of beetles that work as a substitute for wood in e.g. desert-regions. A big issue I have with this whole chapter is the fact that we get diddly-squat information on alchemy-DCs to create these items or harvest them – something I’d btw. also consider slightly problematic regarding the alchemical items featured in the first chapter.

12 tools and kits that include poisoned smokesticks, code books, larger bear traps, drillspikes, spring saws and tine wind-up tools to set off traps and an extracting 20 ft. measuring rod provide some interesting items – the poisoned smokestick btw. features the craft alchemy DC absent from the whole alchemy-chapter.

We also get 4 new mounts/cargo-transporters that feature walking trees domesticated by the Dalreans, cargo scorpions and also the new war wagon vehicle, rules for cithin shields and a variety of new materials that include petrified wood. Two new traps, both very generic and 19 new spells complete the offering. Among the spells, the clean-cantrip, which gets rid of dirt in a room, is problematic, since it fails to specify what is considered dirt – viscera? Other forms of incriminating evidence? On the cool side, there’s a spell to blind tremorsense, make finely-crafted texts fireproof, call weapons to you or conjure up walls of mithral. Unfortunately, the pdf also reprints the broken 0-level tripwire cantrip from RiP’s 101 0-level spells.

Conclusion: Editing and formatting are quite flawed in this offering – I noticed a significant amount of formatting glitches, editing glitches etc., some of which actually impeded the usability of the content. Layout per se is beautiful and adheres to LPJr Design’s 2-column full-color NeoExodus-standard and the pdf also comes with the slightly more printer-friendly, no less beautiful version. The artworks per se are drop-dead-gorgeous and two have not yet been featured in another NeoExodus-publication…but. But NONE of the artworks has ANY connection whatsoever to the content herein. There’s not a single artwork of a featured item or creature and the artworks, no matter how beautiful they may be, feel disjointed from the content. The pdfs are bookmarked, but don’t feature nested bookmarks, which make the bookmarks very unhandy to use. Additionally, the final 1/3 of them are suddenly in all-caps. Weird.

Damn. I’ve said it on multiple occasions and I’ll say it again – LPJr Design products often feature stellar ideas and these genius ideas can be found within these pages as well. Especially when the magical and uncommon nature of NeoExodus is evoked, the entries drip flavor and offer fascinating windows into this compelling setting, offering insights on cultures and customs heretofore unrealized. And then there are the issues. The missing DCs, the glitches – and worst of all, another major issue: For every brilliant item, there is at least one that has been done before. For every great fluff-description of a poison, we get yet another lame attribute-damage/1-save-way out. Honestly, this pdf feels almost like the authors lost interest halfway through it. After having gathered together a variety of cool ideas, they ran out of steam and just kept adding filler upon filler. On the one hand, several pieces of content are great and ooze iconicity and a sense of wonder – on the other hand, there is MUCH content herein that is almost insultingly unimaginative, bland or has not been thought through regarding its logical conclusions/limits. Add to that content (especially among the poisons) that feels like it has been taken from 3.X and 3.Xism like the psionic focus-glitch and we have a pdf, that in spite of its sparks of brilliance shining through here and there, I can’t unanimously recommend. In the end, this pdf feels like it was rushed, in spite of its long gestation period, and like it has simply lost its way halfway through. Another pass at editing and less filler material would have definitely helped this book in my opinion.

I constantly felt myself thinking “but this one idea there is so good…” when writing this review, but I’ve been comparing this pdf to other equipment books I’ve reviewed and the standard I applied then and, as much as it hurts me, can’t rate this higher than 2.5 stars, rounded down to 2 for the purpose of this platform – I have to maintain fairness to comparable books, after all. If you’re going for NeoExodus-fluff or simply are willing to ignore the filler material, then this still might be worth a look for you.

Endzeitgeist out.



Rating:
[2 of 5 Stars!]
NeoExodus Chronicles: Quartermaster’s Handbook (PFRPG)
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NeoExodus: A House Divided Campaign Setting (PFRPG)
by Michael H. [Verified Purchaser] Date Added: 04/04/2013 12:30:11

This is high fantasy in the grandest sense of the term and it will not disappoint your gaming table. The world of Neo Exodus is filled with unique and creative races, interesting spells and a number of feats that have been under the yoke of house rules worldwide for years (I found no less than four.)

What really strikes home is the feeling of authenticity behind the world of Neo Exodus itself. The history of the setting could be a study in sociopolitics and it grounds the truly amazing elements of the world into a reasonable context; in other words, there is no feeling that something has been integrated at random or without a strong rationale.

If you want something fiercely original look no further. Inside are a plethora of new races, feats, spells, magic items and creatures that satisfy curiosity while leaving just the right sense of estranged wonder. This was ten dollars well spent.



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
NeoExodus: A House Divided Campaign Setting (PFRPG)
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Prototype: Vivisectionist (D20 Modern)
by Derek H. [Verified Purchaser] Date Added: 03/28/2013 07:48:51

The vivisectionist is a mad scientist who alters existing life. They are evil, cruel and apparently have no sense of esthetics. The file has the class and a few feats, some of which were later incorporated into Megafeats.

I has high hopes for this file but found it extremely lacking. In the description there is mention of human/animal hybrids, cloned dinosaurs and cyborgs. So let's see how these creatures can be created.

Hybrids come about from the Breeder feat. This is a decent feat that makes making hybrids easy. My problem is it requires Handle Animal as the core skill. Handle Animal isn't a skill that works well with humanoids or other intelligent creatures. The feat works on all the monster types except constructs, elementals, oozes, outsiders, plants and undead. I understand most of those, but genasi prove elementals can breed with mortals, outsiders have many offspring with mortals and plants and oozes are alive and can be used to make hybrids with the right templates. There is another feat that allows the character to make hybrids with constructs and undead. Say what?

Cloned dinosaurs and cyborgs are completely absent. There is a loss of 3 stars right there. You may want to consider construct hybrids to be cyborgs, but there is nothing to indicate that nor any special rules for them.

Back to the class. Its class features allow it to beat the crap out of people and creatures to dominate them. These features provide bonuses to Handle Animal and Intimidate checks. The more advanced feature involves actual damage to increase the bonus. The vivsectionist can also bind people and creatures well (something I don't see as a solitary feature of a specific level), looks terrifying when covered in gore and can perform surgery on themselves, gaining an Extraordinary ability. It would be interesting to see a vivisectionist graft, eyes, bones, skin, hands, etc. on to (or into) themself. Meh to the whole thing. There are much better versions of monster makers out there. Loss of another star.

As for the feats, there are seven. Four relate to breeding monsters and the other three relate to bonuses to various skills (some important to the vivisectionist and some not). I think the Technocrat feat has a huge typo as the recipient skills of the bonus are unlisted.

Overall it is just terrible. The only worthwhile material was added to Megafeats (three of the four breeder feats). Everything else is junk. Even though Moreau and Darwin are mentioned in the description, neither are well represented here.



Rating:
[1 of 5 Stars!]
Prototype: Vivisectionist (D20 Modern)
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Races of Fantasy: The Demigod
by Timothy B. [Verified Purchaser] Date Added: 03/17/2013 18:57:41

If you're looking to create a Perseus, Hercules, or Percy Jackson-type PC, then this guide will provide a good start. I found the racial power underpowered in comparison to the "canon" races. It's a daily power, as opposed to an encounter power, and just feels inferior to other races' powers.

On the other end of the spectrum, one of the feats at the paragon tier prevents a demigod from ever failing a death saving throw (unless penalties were in effect on the roll...I'm not even sure such a penalty exists). That could be pretty overpowered, so the DM should take care in what feats he/she allows, even if this race is otherwise allowed in the game.

I found myself wanting a bit more in terms of player options, even if that meant fewer demigod "monster" stats. Perhaps that's because I bought this to allow a player to create a demigod PC, but I would've liked that to be more of the focus. If feats are intended to flesh out the areas that a character focuses on...what makes two characters unique, even if they have the same race and class...then it would be helpful to have more feats to explore different aspects of what it means to be a demigod. Is the son of Thor going to exhibit different abilities than the daughter of Anubis? I would think so, and it would be interesting if a sourcebook explored this further. I also found myself wanting a demigod theme and paragon path for players who really wanted to focus on that aspect of their character. "Sure, I'm a warrior, but I'm the son of Zeus!" In fairness, that's probably more than one could hope for from a short guide at this price, but if an expanded version were made available, I'd be interested.



Rating:
[4 of 5 Stars!]
Races of Fantasy: The Demigod
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NeoExodus Chronicles: Usual Suspects (PFRPG)
by Thilo G. [Verified Purchaser] Date Added: 03/15/2013 05:23:43

This supplement is 51 pages long, 1 page front cover, 1 page SRD, 2 pages of advertisement, leaving us with a whopping 47 pages of content, so let's take a look!

Now the NeoExodus campaign setting has been around for a while and this book fills a niche I think any 3pp who endeavors to create a campaign setting should try to fill. Which one you ask? Well, whether it's the NPC-Codex or the general statblock section in the Gamemastery Guide, any DM needs a selection of statblocks to fall back on. Now the problem, often with 3pp-settings is that there are many cool classes and options - and no pregenerated statblocks for them. "Usual Suspects" is a breaking away from this trend, providing us with statblocks for the elite organizations of NeoExodus and making copious use of the respective PrCs introduced in both the campaign setting and the supplemental pdfs that detailed the secret organizations released so far. CR-wise, the statblocks herein span from CR 2 to CR 14 and each type of character/organization gets 3 statblocks, one at low levels, one at mid levels, and one at the higher ranges of mid levels, though you won't see extremely high-level builds in here.

Additionally, each of the statblocks comes with boons, which of course vary depending on the iteration of the statblock - A recruit of the Caneus High Guard, the bodyguards of the empire's royalty may be game for adventuring, while a CR 10 Aegis may even get the PCs an audience with the empress. It's rather interesting to note that the respective iterations of the statblocks don't necessarily are straight progressions - while the High Guard begins at fighter 5 and the officer is a fighter 5/ high guard 3, the Imperial Aegis is a cavalier (honor guard 6/High Guard 5 build. This non-linear build adds variety and versatility to the respective organisations and is reflected in e.g. the statblocks of the Reis Cofederacy's Panther Warriors and sentinels as well, offering multi-class builds of multiple baseclasses combined with PrC-levels.

The Sanguine Covenant (Catholic Church of the medieval ages meets bloodmagic) gets a variety of inquisitor/paladin-based daemonslayers as well as secret agents and the Dominion is covered as well: Both the Khalid Asad, the elite-force serving the realm and final checks-and-balance-institution versus potentially disruptive khagan and the notoriously powerful wyrdcasters are also part of the deal, making ample use of the mobile fighter-archetype as well as of sorceror and conuror levels, respectively. If you're in need of an experimental field doctor, then Imperial Apothecaries will have you covered and for those seeking to blend monk-training and psionics, the notoriously powerful Janissaries might have you covered - though at least for them, psionics remain mostly a fluff concept.

Beyond these elite forces, we also get statblocks for the men-at-arms of the Imperial Alliance and the civilization-shunning berserkers of the Janus Horde (who btw. get a barbarian/oracle/rage prophet-build at higher levels) and their more esoteric fist of the dragon barbarians that draw strength from their draconic ancestry. Now if the Sanguine Covenant is covered, we of course also need to cover the Order of Kaga and its Augurs and graft-using harbingers. Among the less openly militaristic (but no less dangerous) individuals, we also get phoenix guard terrorists and the men and women that wield teh really big guns with protectorate artillerists that use among others, machinesmiths and gunslingers and combine their talents with the really big guns. The Protectorate also gets new stats for their peacekeepers.

Finally, fans of Dreamscarred Press' psionics system should rejoice, for the secret organization of psi-special-op called Section Omega also gets 6 new stats, making use of the ID Hunter and psychic overseer PrC introduced in that nifty book. And that's it - no frills, about one paragraph of fluff for each organization and the rest is stats.

Conclusion: Editing and formatting this time around are actually very good - I didn't notice any significant glitches and while I didn't do the math on all statblocks, I did it on some and they seem to be sans flaws, so kudos there! Layout is as beautiful as we've come to expect from LPJr Design and adheres to a truly gorgeous two-column full-color standard that is further complemented by an array of at least one full-color mugshot of paizo-level quality of one member of the respective class. While some of these artworks are known from other NeoExodus-books, not all are - kudos at this fair price point. The pdf also features heraldry for the nations and symbols of the organizations to complement them. The pdf comes in two versions, with the second being backgroundless and still beautiful in full color and about 30 MB less weighty. Both versions come with extensive bookmarks.

The title of this product is either ironic or a misnomer indeed - or born from the fact that there's a Frog God Games-book that is called UNusual suspects. Why? For these statblocks are anything but run of the mill - utilizing a broad variety of archetypes and classes, these go beyond what I would have expected. Also, they provide ready-made statblocks that utilize PrCs of NeoExodus for the beleaguered GM and for those not using the setting/who don't have the books, still provide all the pieces of information needed to run the stats from the book. I really hope that some other campaign settings out there will see a similar treatment, for even though these statblocks never reach the level of complexity of e.g. the Faces of the Tarnished Souk-series, they provide a tantalizing glimpse at NeoExodus and provide DMs with statblocks that have abilities distinctively set apart from what you see in similar stat-compilations. Varied, fun, making copious use of both the options of standard Pathfinder and NeoExodus, this collection is all but mandatory for DMs of the setting and useful to get a sneak-peak for those who don't that wish to add some uncommon options to their NPCs. All in all, a professional offering for a very fair price and worth 5 stars - omitting my seal of approval only because I would have loved to see an advanced animal companion/mount/familiar or witch in this book.

Endzeitgeist out.



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
NeoExodus Chronicles: Usual Suspects (PFRPG)
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Treasures of NeoExodus: Wyrmclaw and Dragon’s Breath (PFRPG)
by Thilo G. [Verified Purchaser] Date Added: 03/06/2013 07:32:20

This installment of the Treasures of NeoExodus-line is 5 pages long, with 1 page being devoted to editorial/SRD, so let's take a look!

The legend of these two items is intriguing indeed, as they were once wielded by Desert Shade, mythical first Khagan of the Dominion and crafted for him by his bride to be to vanquish a common foe, a wizard of grand notoriety and cunning. Much like the former installment of the series, the writing is actually quite good and adds a nifty legend to the items.

Me using the plural stems from the fact that this installment of the series actually covers two items, first of which would be Wyrmclaw, a +1 keen dispelling burst scimitar that can siphon dispel magic or greater dispel magic from foes hit. A minor gripe here would be that the DC to avoid the siphoning is fixed and does not scale with wielder-levels. Dragon's Breath is a +3 wyrmsbreath (fire) light wooden shield that, when wielded in conjunction with the scimitar, allows the wielder to burn stored charges in the shield to grant it temporarily the flaming quality as well. Nice duality between the mechanics of both weapons.

Learning from Peace & Tranquility, we actually get 2 pages of item-cards, with covers for either weapons or both of them on one card - very cool!

Conclusion: Editing and formatting are very good, though the shield's formal powers are not in italics. Layout adheres to LPJr Design's 2-column full-color standard and the artworks for both items are nice indeed. The pdf comes in two versions, with the latter providing a slightly more printer-friendly layout. The pdfs are not bookmarked, but don't have to be at this length. Mechanics-wise, I have nothing to complain about these two weapons, their combined abilities feeling cool and sound in execution. While powerful, neither is unbalancing and in fact, for such a mythic duo of items, fall a bit on the weak side of things - but that is mainly due to their association with the first Khagan. All in all, this ranks among the best installments of the series, with the improved item-cards adding the slight tip that offsets the italics-glitch. My final verdict will hence clock in at 4.5 stars, rounded up to 5 for the purpose of this platform.

Endzeitgeist out.



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
Treasures of NeoExodus: Wyrmclaw and Dragon’s Breath (PFRPG)
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Modern Day Maps 2
by Jeff P. [Verified Purchaser] Date Added: 03/03/2013 09:41:34

Black and white, scale varies from map to map, no grid...not very useful for a minis game.



Rating:
[1 of 5 Stars!]
Modern Day Maps 2
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