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Trade Routes: Expanded Caravan Rules Sourcebook (PFRPG) $2.29
Average Rating:3.9 / 5
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Trade Routes: Expanded Caravan Rules Sourcebook (PFRPG)
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Trade Routes: Expanded Caravan Rules Sourcebook (PFRPG)
Publisher: LPJ Design
by Rodney H. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 02/28/2012 09:45:30

I bought this knowing that the material was repeated from the Jade Regent's Player's Guide but with additional goodies. The additional goodies are fair and give some catalysts for creativity but nothing was a "wow, I would have never thought of that" piece. What really fails with this product is the lack of editing of the repeated information from the Player's Guide. Page numbers reference the original document, not the new page numbers of the current document for example. If this is to be a generalized expansion on the Caravan Rules, then references to the Jade Regent should be omitted entirely. Someone reading this blindly is going to wonder who the heck "Sandru" is and why some PCs start with three wagons. The most irritating aspect of the product is the omission of the caravan month salary table! I went to look up the cost of an additional cook and ended up having to dig out the Player's Guide which seems to be contradictory of what the LPJ product should be doing. For $3 spent, I would have gotten more bang for my buck out of a cup of java at the local coffee shop.



Rating:
[2 of 5 Stars!]
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Trade Routes: Expanded Caravan Rules Sourcebook (PFRPG)
Publisher: LPJ Design
by Peter P. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 11/23/2011 12:47:39

My full review is here: http://canadianrpgguy.blogspot.com/2011/11/review-trade-routes-expanded-caravan.html I guess my take on this supplement is different from the other reviewers. I didn't find this supplement to be much use. It repeats material found in The Jade Regent Player's Guide and the amount of new information just doesn't warrant the price. This was my first LPJ purchase.



Rating:
[2 of 5 Stars!]
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Trade Routes: Expanded Caravan Rules Sourcebook (PFRPG)
Publisher: LPJ Design
by Alexander L. [Featured Reviewer]
Date Added: 09/09/2011 07:02:33

Originally posted at: http://diehardgamefan.com/2011/09/09/tabletop-reviews-trade-routes/

Travelling in D&D has always been a haphazard affair. Even after the Wilderness Survival Guide, I was never really able to get my head around it. When Paizo released the Jade Regent Player’s Guide, which you can get here for free, and added caravan rules to Pathfinder, I was able to finally make heads and tails of group travel. LPJ Design released the Trade Routes: Expanded Caravan Rules Sourcebook soon after, which expands on the Paizo rules.

At a slim 15 pages, Trade Routes jumps right into things. You must have the Jade Regent Player’s Guide in hand to make the most of it. The first three pages are dedicated to new wagon types. These wagons range from the obvious, but useful, Bordello Wagon, to the odd Reliquary wagon carrying religious icons. There is some neat stuff here, like the Steam Engine and Giant Beast Train. One down note is that the Conestoga Wagon is not explained at all. A quick Google search reveals that this is a boat shaped wagon for fording rivers, which a single sentence could have clarified.

A page and a half of Caravan Equipment follows. There are, once again, some neat ideas on display. There are about two pages of Caravan Feats. These Feats really make Caravans come to life and give them character. A Caravan with the Hair Harvest feat will feel completely different from one bearing the Phantom Drivers feat. A page dedicated to Real World Logistics is pretty skimmable.

The four and a half pages of Plot Hooks and Threats to the Caravan are the real value of the book. From the few LPJ Design products I have read, it seems that their calling card really is quality plot hooks. There are a couple sample Caravans to demonstrate the included rules, which is a real luxury in such a short book.

Trade Routes is a product with a pretty narrow audience. If you play or GM Pathfinder, this is a pretty handy book to have at hand. Even if you play a different flavor of fantasy RPG, there is useful material here. Unless your campaign is purely dungeon crawls, Trade Routes is worth picking up.



Rating:
[4 of 5 Stars!]
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Trade Routes: Expanded Caravan Rules Sourcebook (PFRPG)
Publisher: LPJ Design
by Thilo G. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 09/02/2011 07:31:24

This pdf is 17 pages long, 1 page front cover, 1 page editorial & SRD, half a page advertisement, leaving 14 1/2 pages of content, so let's check out this expansion of Jade Regent's caravan rules.

If you're like me and only today got the first installment of Paizo's new AP, this pdf will be cutting edge and significantly expand the available material for your caravans, but what exactly do we get?

First, we get 13 new types of wagons and draft animals that range from wagons that add a bonus to resolve for crossing rivers to bordello wagons, snake-oil herbalists (with d8-mini-table ranging from healing several points of damage to being temporarily blinded/deafened) to mobile stages, nursery wagons, passenger carriages and reliquaries. On the draft animal side, we get the speedy, yet very hungry mule teams, the expensive steam-engine if you want some steam-punkish elements in your caravan and even skeletal horse teams that don't eat and can't carry riders.

Of course, that's not where the new material ends - caravans also can buy from a selection of 13 new equipment pieces that range from cargo balloons and sledges, driver's compasses, land sails and letters of passages, a special kind of allowance to trade poisons, drugs, etc, repeating crossbow turrets and even a super heavy ballista.

No general crunch-book would be complete without new feats and 19 new feats for caravans are provided - From cargo unit-expansion to better unrest resolution to more useful beasts (either fighting or offering friendly animal attractions), to desert nomad-caravans, finding a oasis whenever you need one to essential powers to slave traders and slave caravans for the morally corrupt, there are a lot of cool ideas.

The slave trade in particular could make for a great way to jumpstart a campaign and introduce the caravan mechanics- have the PCs start as slaves, work and then take control of the caravan and lead it to freedom - very iconic and cool.

And hey, thankfully feats to let you ride the sides of wagons and dig latrines to minimize danger by disease are also included. Next up is a rather informative piece of writing dealing with real-world logistics of running a caravan, offering some neat ideas like royal roads and the concepts of dry camps. Special mention should go to the 9 sample plot hooks: One of them e.g. has the idea of sheltering and escorting a fugitive dragon from his pursuers...

That's a lot of new material, but we'll also need some threats for the expanded caravan, now, don't we? 21 new threats to the caravan are presented over the next couple of pages. The dangers range from marauding teams of humanoids to hunting dragons, an encounter with a dim-witted giant's herd, bad winds that carry gluttony with them or seek to whisk the caravan to the astral plane to bad road conditions, tengu tinkerers and kobold cave-ins - enough to keep your caravan busy!

Finally, there are 5 sample caravans to drop into your campaign, though all are somewhat small suitable for low-level caravans and ready to expand - from the perfume guild's candor and pleasures to the royal mail, players are sure to find a caravan to join on these pages.

Conclusion: Editing and formatting were top-notch, I didn't notice any explicit glitches. Layout adheres to the two-column standard, is easily readable, and while it comes with red boxes, still belongs to the very printer-friendly category. The pdf has no bookmarks, which is a bit of a pity, as it would have improved the user-friendliness, but at this length I won't detract a star for this omission. Artwork is stock and fitting. The rules are concisely-presented and written and you get exactly what you signed up for - easy rules-options and more material for your caravans. While some of the options are exactly what you'd expect and closes some omissions from the original rules, several of the options are both cool and imaginative. The hooks and sample campaigns are nice bonuses and add even further dimensions to the book. I also like that the pdf is mature about handling themes like bordellos and slavery and includes them for their narrative potential. All in all, apart from the lack of bookmarks, I have nothing negative to say and like several of the new options presented herein and the very fair and low price serves to counteract this minor blemish. Thus, my final verdict will be 5 stars.

Endzeitgeist out.



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
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Trade Routes: Expanded Caravan Rules Sourcebook (PFRPG)
Publisher: LPJ Design
by Morten J. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 08/28/2011 03:17:09

When I first read the Player's guide for the Jade regent adventure path I immediately fell in love with the caravan rules provided there. The idea of developing and running your own caravan was original and a welcome diversion from the usual dungeon crawl, hack and slash kind of game-play which dominates most Campaigns.

When I first read about this product at the Paizo forums, I was thrilled. While the rules in the player's guide was more than enough to let you get started, there was to many more things to be explored in A caravan based game. I am not to familiar with LPJ design, as I usually don't use to much 3rd party material in my games, but this PDF seemed to fill a niche that no other product has done yet so I gave it a shot. I was not disappointed, this PDF has so many fun ideas and is a perfect companion to the rules written in the Jade regent player's guide. I could run entire Caravan based Campaigns with these rules.

The PDf has 18 pages. The cover depicts a group of Persian looking nomads with camels resting on a beach. The artwork is decent enough, but does not perhaps evoke the feel of a caravan as there is no wagons and little cargo to speak of. The first page has the OGL and LPJ contact information. The next three pages describes the new wagon types.

There are 13 new wagons;

• Bordello Wagon • Chuck Wagon • Conestoga Wagon • Giant Beast Train • Herbalist Wagon • Mobile Stage • Mule Team • Nursery Wagon • Passenger Carriage • Penitentiary Wagon • Reliquary • Skeletal Horse Team • Steam Engine

All the wagons have interesting and useful rules and allows you to create caravans with specific themes like a slave caravan or a performing caravan by focusing on or combining certain wagons.

The next two pages discuss new types of Caravan based equipment. here you find anything from caravan balloons used to lighten the load of wagons to new caravan weapons like the super heavy ballista or repeating crossbow turret. All of the new equipment looks useful and interesting.

Next up are the new caravan feats, there are 19 new feats to customize and enhance your caravan.

The feats are;

• Banker's caravan • Desert nomads • Decadent caravan • Efficient packers • Expert gunners • Fighting beasts • Friendly animals • Find oasis • Hair harvest • Hard working caravan • Latrines • Phantom drivers • Reputable mark • Ride the sides • Slave caravan • Slave trader • Storm tested • Supply caches • Vigilant lookouts

There is also a sidebar about including rules for slavery in your Campaign. The feats do everything from giving you bonuses to your caravans income to increasing it's defense or allowing you to have monsters fighting for your caravan. I didn't find any feat here that i thought was overpowered or boring.

The next part gives a short description on how caravans worked in the real world and a few plot hooks to get your caravan campaign going.

Next is a description of various new threats your caravan might face like avalanches, rampaging dragons and a necromantic horde.

The PDF rounds out with a few sample caravans.

The layout is Ok and it's not very hard to navigate the document. Some sort of index would have been useful, but the PDF is short enough that this isn't really a big issue. There is little artwork apart from the cover, and a few pictures of the new wagons and equipment would have been nice, but at this price it's not very important. All in all I think this product is great, and if you, like me, love the Caravan rules from the Jade regent player's guide, this product is a MUST HAVE.

I would vote 4.5 but given the price I will increase my vote to 5 stars. Good work LPJ



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
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Trade Routes: Expanded Caravan Rules Sourcebook (PFRPG)
Publisher: LPJ Design
by Ed B. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 08/27/2011 15:49:18

This was my first LPJ product; I wasn't sure what to expect. I found the book well laid-out, graphically crisp, and filled with many good ideas. I was a little surprised at the brevity of some of the detail, but what was there was colorful and interesting. My only quibble would be that some accompanying art or overhead-type shots of some of the wagons might have been useful. But overall this is an excellent starting point/idea generator for anyone wanting to incorporate a caravan adventure or setting into their campaign. And, frankly, at $2.99 I felt I got more than my money's worth.



Rating:
[4 of 5 Stars!]
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