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Wow. Just wow. So good. A+++ WOULD BUY AGAIN. If you like alchemy or herbalism, buy this book, even if you aren't intending to use it for tabletop gaming (I'm using it for LARP source material.)<br><br>
<b>LIKED</b>: A Ken Burns-like level of detail about alchemy, alchemical processes, alchemical products, herbalism, herbalism methods, etc. <br><br><b>DISLIKED</b>: This book is so full of awesome I felt sad when I finished reading it all. :(<br><br><b>QUALITY</b>: Very Good<br><br><b>VALUE</b>: Very Satisfied<br>
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excellent product, very handy and informatic on the overall stuff of herbs and such things for use in many campaings<br><br><b>QUALITY</b>: Very Good<br><br><b>VALUE</b>: Very Satisfied<br>
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This book contains so many enhancements to weapons and armor that it will keep the PCs (or the monsters) on the edge for years of game play.
The product is well-structured and is easy to use, being based on self-explanatory tables and alphabetical lists of descriptions.
It is a pity that the art of the PDF does not print properly, it is all "bitmap-blurred". It is also a pity that the book does not expand on weapons in order to propose a rule such as the old "adjustment to hit AC" of the 1st edition ADD: nowadays people choose their weapons for the greatest threat range or critical multiplier, but historically weapons were designed to fight specific armors. Modifiers for each weapon against each armor might be painful to use in a basic game, but it would definitely add flavor. This product could have provided such a system, it is a pity it does not.<br><br>
<b>LIKED</b>: Huge choice of properties, allowing unlimited inspiration and countless surprises.<br><br><b>DISLIKED</b>: No weapon speicalization against armors
Poor quality of printed artwork in the PDF<br><br><b>QUALITY</b>: Very Good<br><br><b>VALUE</b>: Very Satisfied<br>
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Loved the print 3.0 version; love the expanded 3.5 electronic version. The be-all end-all for lists of magical alchemical/herbalist items (though the extra class and crafting rules in the book should probably be dumped).<br><br>
<b>LIKED</b>: The herbal/alchemical items.<br><br><b>DISLIKED</b>: The extra crafting rules (multiple feats, prestige classes, etc.) that they require in this book to create the alchemical items.<br><br><b>QUALITY</b>: Excellent<br><br><b>VALUE</b>: Very Satisfied<br>
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I love Bastion Press books. This has the quality of their printed books, with full color art throughout.<br><br>
<b>LIKED</b>: The writing is exellent.<br><br><b>DISLIKED</b>: The rules options are a bit low powered, or maybe perhaps just very specific.<br><br><b>QUALITY</b>: Acceptable<br><br><b>VALUE</b>: Satisfied<br>
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I have a hard copy of the original, and while I liked many of the more asian flavored weapons, there was a great deal of errata, and that hurt the product a great deal in my eyes.<br><br>
<b>LIKED</b>: The variety and novelty of all the weapons.<br><br><b>DISLIKED</b>: Still some over or underbalanced weapons.<br><br><b>QUALITY</b>: Very Good<br><br><b>VALUE</b>: Very Satisfied<br>
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I had the 3.0 version and thought 3.5 would never be released. Still has great information for both herbalism and alchemy.
Wish there were more books like this one.
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<b>LIKED</b>: Everything. Prestige classes, various plants are two of the things I like most.<br><br><b>DISLIKED</b>: Nothing to dislike.<br><br><b>QUALITY</b>: Excellent<br><br><b>VALUE</b>: Very Satisfied<br>
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Wildwood
Settings can be an odd thing as the books come and come and the place starts to really get defined. Sometimes the original writers are not able to stick to it or other times new blood is brought in that changes the feel of the place. I know there are some setting where I have read books and just wonder where the heck the stuff is coming from as they go against what was written about in the main setting book. Other times the setting supplements feel like they are tacked on. Like they are all just pieces of a puzzle, but if one does not have a few pieces it really does not seem to matter. There seems to be great fears from companies to have books build off of other books. Everything has to use only the basic rules and cannot refer to other books even in the same product line. I know some older gamers took that to a great height and that bother a lot of customers, but at the same time it would be nice if some publishers wrote books that acknowledge that other books in the same line exist. It can cause the settings and games to feel like piece male that has no interlocking parts. They all hook to the main books but not to each other crating a bit of a disjointed place that has a lot of loose ends that cannot fit together. Luckily, Oathbound does not have that problem. Oathbound is the setting that the book this review is about lies in. And quite frankly this is the best Oathbound book to date.
Wildwood is a new book for Oathbound. It is published by Bastion Press and written by Thomas Knauss and Darrin Drader. The PDF is two hundred and fifty four pages long. The files are also pretty big as far as PDFs go. The book comes in a zip file that is over thirty five megs. Un zipped there are three files here one that is most of that. The cover is a great picture by Shawn Ye Zhongyi. It is a really nice action picture in the woods. It is one of the better covers I have seen in a while. The book is in two formats. One of them, the big PDF file, is full color with great colorful borders and a real gem to read. The book is nicely book marked and has a very complete table of contents and as great index. The smaller version doe not have the page borders though the art and maps in it as still color. Printing this out is not that bad with the borders removed but can still be a bit hard on an ink based printer with the sheer size of the book and all the art. The art in the book is really well done. In the past some of the art inside Bastions books was not really well liked by gamers. The full page images and partial page art they have is just really good. Bruce Colero, Christopher Pickrell, Jason Engle ,Jeff Ward, Terry Pavlet, and Todd Morasch all need to be complimented on a very good job with the art in this book. The art compliments the book very well and it really makes the book look great. There are maps in here by Jeff Visgaitis and Jason Rosenstark who did a very nice job of show casing the Wildwood.
The book starts off with a nice preface. This is just a nice introduction to what the book is. One of the nice things the book comes out and says, and I can verify that it is true, is that this book stands alone. The Oathbound campaign setting book is not needed as all the important information on the setting is in here. That makes this a very good introduction to the setting for people that are not that familiar and may have been interested in Oathbound before. The Wildwood is one of the most interesting and highly anticipated sections of the world to see in print. The section also gives a nice chapter by chapter overview. There are some spoilers of the setting overall given here and I am not going to reveal them on the off chance that people are not aware of them.
The first chapter gives a good overview of the Forge, the land Oathbound is called. It talks of the seven different domains of which the Wildwood is one of them. It gives a good overview of all of them and should be enough to give people a good grasp of the setting. It is an overview so it is a quick picture of the places but the feel and depth really come across in the descriptions. There is also a very nice color map of the Forge and all the domains. As a PDF it does not come out quite that well in that there are two halves on separate pages and one has to scroll up and down to get a good look at it all. These are two pages that are much better to just print out and see them side by side as one map. That is a pretty small complaint though as the map looks great. There are new races of Oathbound that first appeared in the original Oathbound book and are reprinted and updated here. The races feel like unique races. They do not have the feel of being an alternate of an existing race or a sub race like is a problem with many other settings. The races here are nicely described and detailed. They have racial class levels for these races in this section. These are nice additions and are a bit different then the paragon levels from Unearthed Arcana though they are of a similar vein.
The next many chapters really cover this place like I want it covered. And that means they have great details but also plot and adventure ideas in the writing. The Wildwood is a place swarming with conflict and adventure hooks for a creative DM. This place has monsters and animals, great ecological information, lost civilizations galore, and many predators that will hunt anything. The Wildwood is not a safe place to travel but for people wanting to explore and have a wide variety of potential encounters and adventures the Wildwood will really deliver. The bulk of the book is setting details. It really comes alive. And it is not just the Wildwood. This book and setting can really be used for any great forest type area in other settings. The Wildwood can easily be separated from Oathbound with a bit of work. The races are the biggest thing to pull out but inserting other races is pretty easy. The Wildwood can make a good addition to other campaign settings.
One nice update the book does is it revisits the prestige race concept from the earlier campaign book. In that edition that prestige races were extra abilities characters could gain that cost experience points. It was power that was gained outside the level system and there were a lot of proponents to system. Now, they are basically very small classes that offer the same abilities as the old system but these go along perfectly with the class system and work even better.
Wildwood does a very nice job of showing how a section of a campaign setting should be described and detailed. Bastion has had a slow year or so in producing books and I am hoping that books like this are in their future. I do not mind getting few books from a company as long as they look and read like this one. This is just a fabulous book.
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<b>LIKED</b>: Just very well done in all areas<br><br><b>QUALITY</b>: Excellent<br><br><b>VALUE</b>: Very Satisfied<br>
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This product is an update to one of Bastion's oldest products. It looks at alchemy and herbalism as sciences that have skills that are feat based rather than reagent based (in other words the PC doesn't have to worry about the ingredents of the substance to be produced). There are a ton of examples to act as guidelines for those who want to create their own concotions. The PrCs are, and obviously should be, very narrow in scope as they relate to item creation. There are 3 for the alchemists- one for unliving items, one for living items and one that creates items for both. Herbalists have two PrCs- one that deals with healing and the other will all forms of herbalism.
The only reason I am not entirely pleased with it is some information that is still confusing. The item creation feats mention xp costs and that only applies to the magical items created with them (they act as a limited form of craft wonderous item for spellcasters but still are mostly used for non-magical alchemical items). A chart mentions how some feats are optional (which I like) and yet the chapter on feats indicates they are required. DMs shouldn't have much trouble with this at all if they read the book and make rulings to the players who want to use it before the book is allowed in the DM's campaign.
Even with all that, I still love it and consider it one of Bastion's best works.<br><br><b>QUALITY</b>: Excellent<br><br><b>VALUE</b>: Satisfied<br>
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The book is all about arms and armor but it provides a well rounded approach to them. It is not just a bunch of new items and magical enchantments even though that is the bulk of the book. It has the rules on weapons like the proficiency rules, what a reach weapon and other categories are, differences between one and two handed weapon, and good definitions for sizes and improvised weapons. While these rules are basic it is useful to have them here. There are two pages of regular weapons and it does include the ones from the Players Handbook. Being able to see all these weapons side by side should really help compare and show people if there are any problem ones. Not all weapons are equal to each other. There are some that are obviously better then others. It will be up the DM to decide if he wants to include all of these in a campaign. I can mention some that might be problems like the two handed martial weapon Ogre Maul that does 2d8 damage and has a critical range of 19-20 / x3, though it does need a 20 strength for a medium size character to use it. But most of the weapons shown here should be fine in any campaign, and of course there are games that the Ogre Maul is perfectly fine as well.
New weapon qualities might be one of the more popular chapters. It is filled with many new powers some of them with a market price as high as +8. That gives a nice variety of qualities and support for the higher level of play that many books do not do. There are abilities like alterable (minor and major) that allow the weapon to change into other weapons. There is a really cool one cascading that gives bonuses to hit and damage in the same round with successful hits. There is class bane that works like normal bane weapons except work against a certain class instead of creature type. One of the powerful qualities is Holy power that does +3d6 damage to evil creatures plus can give them negative levels. The damage and negative levels increase on a critical, too. Not all the weapon qualities are combat oriented either. There is the muse power that increases Bardic Knowledge and craft checks.
There are many specific weapons listed as well. Some are class specific like Black Thresher. It is a heavy flail +2 that is a unholy heavy flail +4 in the hands of a Blackgaurd. Some of them are designed for high level play like Chaosbringer that is a +6 great axe of anarchic power with ability to rage. There are some useful items for clerics called Domain Rods. There is one for each domain. They function as a weapon and they help with turning and casting. There area few really interesting artifacts as well like the Skill Blade. It gains ranks in skills that the user can use for each creature it kills. A little bit of paper work involved but a really creative idea.
As there is with weapons so there is with armor. There are many new types presented here. Like the weapons there are some here that people might not want in their game but I find the variety refreshing. There are light armors that provide a maximum dexterity bonus of up to +12 though to be fair it provides no armor bonus and costs a hundred gold. And for the other end of the spectrum there is a heavy armor that provides +12 armor bonus though it has a maximum dexterity bonus of zero, reduces the speed of someone with a base speed of 30 to 15 and costs 3,500 gold. Defiantly the armor one would want their Dwarven Defender to have. There are lots of interesting armors, shields, and extras. While some of it when combined with the right magics might be a bit much, I think the selection of different armors will aid anyone running or playing in a low magic game. One great thing they do have is rules for using armor as DR. They give the DR for each armor type and have the rules nicely explained making them simple to use. They also present an optional rule for using a shield parry.
Armor Qualities like the weapons quality should be a heavily used section. There are many new qualities presented here with them going all the way to a +10 market price. Just to mention that one right off it is Great Reflection with automatically reflects any spell that targets the user. There is the floating enchantment which basically allows the shield to function like a floating disk. Reduction is another one that reduces the user to the next size category lower. There also is Weightless that improves the spell failure, the armor check penalty, and also increases the maximum dexterity bonus. There is one thing I did not like though. They have various qualities that protect against the different energy types (fire, cold, sonic, etc). Each has four different ones increases in the resistance given. For all of them the first three provide just a gold piece amount to market price but the last ones give a +6 market price. I would have like to see a consistency in the pricing of these either having them all with a base gold piece increase or +X market price.
There are of course a wide variety of specific items as well. In here they also include items like the Amulet of Epic Natural Armor and Boots of Striding and Springing. One of my favorites is the Beaded Armor of Odor. It has small glass vials filled with a viscous and foul smelling substance. When the person is hit there is a chance one of these breaks forcing all to make a fort save to not start retching. It might not be the most practical piece of armor as it is a favored choice of undead, but it is defiantly different. There is a the Mail of Faith which acts as better armor the higher level of divine spells one can cast. There area collection of Masks. They have them for a few races as well as like the hunter. There is a small sidebar explaining the use of masks by gladiators in an arena combat. I like the addition of these and the little explanation of a common use of them. There are also a few artifacts listed like the Robe of Transcendent that stops ageing and actually gives back the youthful visage of the person. The Robe provides a nice armor bonus, gives fast healing, and allows the wearing to see as if under a True Seeing spell.
There is a small area of the game in terms of arms and armor that I have really not seen taken full advantage of. That is the area of special material. Special materials in my mind are a great way to enhance items and to make them feel unique. They offer difficult materials to get and work well in a low magic setting or one that wants a wide variety of options. Arms and Armor provides two dozen special materials that can be used in the crafting of weapons and armor. There are materials like Bergasalt that is deadly towards undead. Chromium which is a simple material that just allows steel to resist rust. There are also rules for increasing the durability of normal items and what increase to hardness and hit points it can provide.
While there have been artifacts listed in other sections, they have a full chapter devoted to Artifacts. It starts with a great discussion of what artifacts are. They can be items of great power created by the gods or just a magical item that can no longer being created. There are few examples listed but there are a good amount of ideas. The chapter goes on to discuss legendary weapons and then goes on to the great idea of the Scion classes. These classes give few abilities but allow for a weapon of power to increase in power as the levels are taken. These prestige classes are open to anyone as there is one for the four basic character types. Obviously, not all characters will fit into one of the four. They have the Battle Scion for the fighter types, Faith Scion for clerics and druids, Spell Scion for Wizards and Sorcerers, and Swift Scion for the rogue types. Each class also has a sample artifact complete with the powers it gains as the character gains level in the class. These area great way to introduce an artifact into the campaign and have it grow in power with the character and directing character growth through the artifact. There is also good information concerning intelligent weapons and Outsider weapons.
There is a short chapter on cursed items as well as a nice list of simple curses items can have and a good amount of drawbacks. This is the smallest section of the book as curses seem to be another area people really do not use. I like that many of the ideas here are small and more of a nuisance then something overbearingly deadly.
The last Chapter deals with Martial Constructs. There are a wide variety of Golems here like the Killer Amulet Servitors. What I like about this is it actually attacks one opponent to kill even finishing it off with a coup-de-grace attack. Few creatures are listed with that specific attack mode as a common tactic. There are more then a few interesting and creative golems here.
<br><br><b>LIKED</b>: Lots of great options and creativity expanding the magical weapons and armor<br><br><b>DISLIKED</b>: The art could be better<br><br><b>QUALITY</b>: Excellent<br><br><b>VALUE</b>: Very Satisfied<br>
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You want this. All creatures are intelligently thought out and described, with evocative art and hooks for inclusion into any campaign. I own a collection of creature books numbering in the tens of thousands of creatures and this is one of the few works such that almost every entry rates inclusion into my campaign.<br><br><b>LIKED</b>: Careful editing and clear 3.5 srd knowledge combined with intelligent design and evocative art.<br><br><b>DISLIKED</b>: nothing!<br><br><b>QUALITY</b>: Excellent<br><br><b>VALUE</b>: Very Satisfied<br>
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A very interesting and useful sourcebook for Oathbound and other settings. It has a lot of locations, people, new races and rules for such things as transplants (grafts), hunting (much more to it than one would think), and a total reworking of the prestige race concept- now it is similar to paragon levels. The only thing I didn't like was the adventure- it is a bit odd for the domain.
I find that much of the rules and many of the locations can be used in other settings. The hunting rules, for example, could be used by orcs in Midnight, werewolves in Ravenloft and halfling tribes in Dark Sun. They don't work well with firearms, but I don't consider that a downside as many settings don't have firearms.
All in all, one of the best products from Bastion and one of the best d20 products I own.<br><br><b>QUALITY</b>: Excellent<br><br><b>VALUE</b>: Very Satisfied<br>
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Second only to the core rulebook, this is the most thumbed through source book I own. An absolute necessity for any GM, as it has all of the SRD and most of the OGL armor and weapon properties that I have seen or that are needed, all in one place and, best yet, alphabatized. It also lists damn near every weapon ever created or found in history. I consider this book to be my FOURTH Core Rulebook.<br><br><b>LIKED</b>: the organization and material<br><br><b>DISLIKED</b>: the scion classes...absolutely useless and a waste of space (even if they were reprinted in Unearthed Arcana)<br><br><b>QUALITY</b>: Excellent<br><br><b>VALUE</b>: Very Satisfied<br>
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Having read it but not run it yet, it appears to be a reasonably entertaining module. Unless I missed something, there does appear to be a plot hole in that the "forge" that is referred to does not have its location described in the text; nor does it say how it may be destroyed (possibly a vital part of the adventure.)
The final major encounter has an intereting twist with good potential for roleplaying.
<br><br><b>LIKED</b>: Some interesting ideas, reasonably well presented. Could fit in to a much larger plot in interesting ways.<br><br><b>DISLIKED</b>: Typos; lack of coherency in the plot (admittedly on one read-through); possible plot hole.
<br><br><b>QUALITY</b>: Very Good<br><br><b>VALUE</b>: Satisfied<br>
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looking for a magic ability for weapons or armour? well i'm pretty sure you can stop because it's in here. oh buddy are they in here.<br><br><b>LIKED</b>: the shear volume of magic abilities for weapons/armours. <br><br><b>DISLIKED</b>: seemed very printer heavy. i think my printer had a hernia spitting it out. also the price, this is to expensive for a pdf. period<br><br><b>QUALITY</b>: Very Good<br><br><b>VALUE</b>: Satisfied<br>
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