I'd recommend this resource to anyone running a game with druids, rangers, or that requires spellcasters to collect reagents. I've already found the Verdant World to be useful in my medieval fairy tale setting where spellcasting isn't easy, where characters have to experiment with poultices and potions to achieve effects. I've found that this resource provides just enough detail without overcoming the reader with excess minutiae.

One thing I wasn't as into were the prestige classes; I didn't think they added enough for most PCs to choose them, though I can see them being used to create some interesting NPCs.

The list of plants includes how they are best used: dried, fresh, boiled in water, etc, including when they are poisonous versus edible/spreadable. This adds a great element of playing with concoctions to the world of potion-making. The creatures are also very interesting, ranging from the simplest little fey creature to the most dangerous carnivorous plants!

I highly recommend The Verdant World as a resource to add flavorful spice to your role playing worlds. It's already been useful in mine!

I bought this product thinking it would contain useful material on plants, plant creatures, plant-based spells and prestige classes, and that is exactly what I got! I didn't have the highest expectations buying a third party book, but I was very impressed by the overall quality of this book. Both art and writing are of a professional caliber, which was pleasantly surprising, but was merely the tasteful packaging on what turned out to be a wonderful collection of campaign supplements for a dm or character alternatives for a player. Without giving away the bulk of the contents, I will say that I was not disapointed and I'd be very surprised if anyone else would be.

I was very impressed by the overall professional quality of this product compared to other d20 pdf's I've purchased. The artwork, writing, and content all exceeded my expectations, especially after reading mixed reviews by others. While this book is beautiful drawn and layed out, I'm sure most people are more concerned with the content and how it can improve your game. No dissapointments here!

Feats: a solid number of unique and useful feats. Some fall more in the role-playing area than a sheer utility-based player would want, but I tend to lean that way in my interests and like to have the option. This is true of many parts of the book but there is PLENTY of useful stuff in here for the player hoping to expand his/her arsenal

Presige Classes: All unique and interesting. I especially liked that none were too limiting: it's clear that a wide diversity of characters could fall into any of these classes. Classes like the nature's scourge are obvious choices for NPCs and I found a lot of rich material throughout this book for DMing. I couldn't help writing my own story as I read it, and I can't wait to run a campaign with this content.

Plants: I believe 96 new plants grouped in healing, exotic, and poisonous categories. Many unique properties while also some plants which mimic potions. The rare plant with a unique magical effect is always useful for a plot device and I was definately inspired by this chapter and also impressed by the amount of plants and the system for regulating them.

Plant Monsters: I had to look at all of the pictures here before I did any reading. There is a wide variety of monsters of a variety of CRs, most of which are new and a few of which are particularly useful to work into stories (like the cradle tree, soul harvester, or desert weed).

Spells: While there are a few jokes in here (Such as "Create Vegan Food and Drink" or the description for Invisibility to plants "figure it out"), there are a number of unique, useful, and playable spells. I found high level spells such as drought/irrigation and devastation/vegetation to be particularly useful for intergrating into story lines. I found the spells in general to be well balanced, providing a wider array of options without rendering anything else obsolete.<br><br> <b>LIKED</b>: Just about everything<br><br><b>DISLIKED</b>: This publisher doesn't seem to have any more books yet. I hope another is on the way.<br><br><b>QUALITY</b>: Excellent<br><br><b>VALUE</b>: Very Satisfied<br>

I've always played druids, and I've always had a soft spot for plant monsters. This gives me prestige classes for one and a greenhouse-full of the other. <br><br><b>LIKED</b>: The detailed descriptions of all the different beneficial and unpleasant plants, the prestige classes...I can even put Tarzan in the game!<br><br><b>DISLIKED</b>: I would have liked a few more feats, but other than that everything is great. <br><br><b>QUALITY</b>: Acceptable<br><br><b>VALUE</b>: Satisfied<br>

What's to be found in the Verdant World:

Feats, Prestige classes, and new spells, for some reason, seem to be mandatory for D20- resources. And Fluff. Nicely written story-fluff. Not the reason why I bought the book, but still nice. And of course, the nitty-gritty stuff about plants and herbs.

Extra feats: There are a number of feats here that might actually be useful, if you want a character who swings through treebranches trusting on his little pouch with herbs and berries for survival, or if you want to up your druid's power a little. There are also a good number of feats in the book that are absolute and total bollocks. Fortunately, these can be easily identified: just skip over all feats requiring x skill ranks in whatever and all item creation feats and you should be fine.

Prestige classes: Mostly useless, but nice as paper fillers. Want to play Tarzan? You could be smart and decide to just give your barbarian the Brachiation feat. Or you could decide to totally gimp your character and become a Woodland Barbarian at level 7. And I hereby solemly vow that my first player who even dares to utter the words "Green Man" will, forsooth, receive ye mighty smacking! Sylvan spellcaster might be nice for an NPC though.

But, on to the Good Stuff! The wilderness areas in my campaigns tended to be sorely lacking in flora. This book is sure to help correct that hiatus. 96 curative, poisonous, and magical shrubberies should be enough to make any forest interesting (of course, some plants here are nothing short of potions-growing-on-trees, but, hey, it's a fantasy supplement) As I mentioned earlier, the item creation feats in this book are a waste of slots, but if you do away with the rules in the Verdant World and allow characters to use regular feats and skills from the PHB to mash, boil, dry, dissolve or grind your forest to little mashed, boiled, dried, dissolved and ground bits, you will make your players very happy!

The list of monstrous plants looks nicely rounded, with enough high- as well as low-CR creatures. Not all of them are completely unique for this book- Most notably, I have seen Strangle Vine appear in quite the number of creature lists and Creep Grass seems to be the same as the Grab Grass that has been in D&D since about 1974- but overall, Brendan McGuigan has been able to gather quite the amount of plant-inflictable nastyness.

I am not really sure about the spells. Some of them seem pretty superfluous (Create Vegan Food and Water, Detect Rare Plants and Plantmorph Self, for example, hardly vary from the PHB-spells they were derived from), but others are fun- I think I'd like to see plants give cover to a ranger of their own accord. And some seem just downright silly. It might be fun for comic releaf to kill an enemy by having a tree grow out of his head, but I imagine that the joke would get old fast.

The Verdant Verdict: This is a nice ebook to have if you want to put just that little extra 'oomph" in your forests, and the really important part seems to be well thought-out. But there is a little too much that more feels like filler and afterthought-additions then anything else, and $12 seems like a tad overpriced for what you really get.<br><br><b>LIKED</b>: The plants.<br><br><b>DISLIKED</b>: The prestige classes.<br><br><b>QUALITY</b>: Acceptable<br><br><b>VALUE</b>: Satisfied<br>

I have bought this product thinking it will contain material regarding plants. creatures, spells, magical items, and prestige classes that are related to plants. That is not the case. <br><br><b>LIKED</b>: It has some nice interesting plants<br><br><b>DISLIKED</b>: The amount of material you get from this product is not worth it. There should have been more info on plants, more prestige classes geared at plants, and not less important: spells that deal with plants! <br><br><b>QUALITY</b>: Disappointing<br><br><b>VALUE</b>: Disappointed<br>

This file has a lot of potential, too bad it has some serious balance issues. The feats are too specialized and the exotic plants are just existing spells in plant form. The art is excellent as well as the plant monsters.

If you really want more plant related material and don't mind taking time to rebalance several parts, I suggest this file to you.<br><br><b>LIKED</b>: Plant monsters, plants for herbalism (healing and poisonous), forager and sylvan spellcaster PrCs<br><br><b>DISLIKED</b>: exotic plants, green man, nature's scourge, overly specialized feats<br><br><b>QUALITY</b>: Acceptable<br><br><b>VALUE</b>: Disappointed<br>