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This is a community project well worth the read, and as far as free products go, not at all bad. Lots of good people contributed to the making of this pdf and they did it because they love the game!
It's just a shame that another issue wont following it.
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The artifacts are ok, the artwork is good. But the overall feeling of getting your money's worth is totally lost. If you want a few weapons that have some positive potential all with draw backs and penalties then this is what you want.<br><br><b>DISLIKED</b>: The price for the content leaves a lot to be desired.<br><br><b>QUALITY</b>: Disappointing<br><br><b>VALUE</b>: Disappointed<br>
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Much like the fruit cake that grandma gave you Christmas, Artifacts of Legend is colorful, impeccably designed and well intentioned but many of the pieces are so compressed with material a few of such pieces are hard to digest.
Artifacts of Legend by Mindforge Games is the latest ?power up? my magical item book. This book contains 14 different magical items, each of which contain at least 10 levels that allow the artifact to grow in power over the course of a campaign. This is one of the most gorgeous PDFs you will see in your time. Each page is fine colored and the text is a readable old font. The designers spared no expense at making the reader feel as if they are reading a book of 14 ancient artifacts.
The artifacts themselves are treated better than I have seen NPCs treated in most supplements. Each one has about 4 pages of text detailing its history and abilities. This is not just some blurb. The history is so well thought out that you can base a campaign around just one of them. Again, you get the feeling that you are reading about something special, separating this book far from similar books. The artifacts gain special powers at each level, but along with those powers they are balanced by Stigma, which is a negative (in some cases) for wielding the artifact. The Stigma?s are very creative and are not your run of the mill loose a hit point every day kind of thing such as, eat two lbs of elf flesh a day.
The book also has feats and prestige classes centered around the concept of the artifacts of legend. The feats are nice at reducing some of the negatives of the weapons and enhancing them in many cases. The Prestige Classes are decent, with the Stewart of Legend making a good organization if you are building a campaign around one of the artifacts.
The problems with the book come in the power of the weapons. Most of them are far too powerful and a good many of them are aligned evil. Even if your players could wield one, they could not be able to build up because of the massive xp sacrifice needed. Sadly the rules for xp cost of the weapon is only mentioned once in a brief paragraph in the beginning of the book and from the text. The math is dismal on some of these weapons, as I do not even believe that it is possible to level of some of these weapons in some cases. Each level you want to raise the weapons power, you have to sacrifice an exponentially increasingly amount of XP. Take the first weapon, the Amenorian. Just to level it to level 8 and gain greater cleaving for the weapon you have to sacrifice nearly 20,000 xp. The ability does not balance with the sacrifice as you would have to risk 8 levels of yourself advancing to raise this object. I?m pretty sure that the 200,000 needed to level up the weapon just to 20 is neigh impossible in any game as you will never level up. This weapon has the biggest increase among all the weapons in the book, but, the cost is still in the ballpark with few being reasonably acceptable.
For the Dungeon Master
These artifacts are primarily for the DM to hand out as they are far to powerful for any Player to reasonably think his DM may just include in the next treasure horde with the +2 dagger. That is not to say that it this is not fixable. The only thing messed up is the math, and that means a bit more work to calculate a cost that works for your campaign.
The Iron Word
Its hard giving an average score to such a magnificent looking product and great concept, but many of the objects are unworkable in many a campaign. It takes a bit of tweaking to get it right for your campaign. Of course, once the math is fixed, this is a wonderful product of artifact weapons that grow in power. The idea of stigma that gets worse as the weapon grows in power is also a neat concept that I have not seen pulled off so well as they have been in these pages.
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<b>LIKED</b>: - stimga is a good little checks/balance way to balance the weapon with the pc using it
- this book is beautiful and enhances the concept of the book.
- each artifact is well written and unique. There are not just a bunch of weapons and armor here, but all types of things from rings to bags.
- smart writing from the author creates campaign ideas out of every entry<br><br><b>DISLIKED</b>: - the artifacts xp costs feel as if they are a bit too much and impossible for a pc to sacrafice if they do not want to remain at level 1 their entire career. Tweaking the cost does fix this problem but it is a bit of work
- There appears to be too many evil artifacts. Over 1/3 are evil and another 3 are neutral. Another problem making them unusuable in a campaign. <br><br><b>QUALITY</b>: Excellent<br><br><b>VALUE</b>: Satisfied<br>
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Artifacts of Legend
There has been a few different ways of balancing out artifacts. Artifacts either never seem to have enough power being out shined by simple magical items. Or there is a cost that is just too cumbersome and too steep for most players to want to bother with them. Artifacts of Legend takes another approach to these items of marvel.
Artifacts of Legend is written by Robert Wheater and it is published as a PDF from Mindforge Games. The PDF comes in an on screen version as well as a version to be printed out. There is a very cool cover in full color done by Les Edwards. There are many interior illustrations done by Mark Allen. The art and layout of the book really do a nice job of making the feel of these artifacts truly grand. The PDF has very nice selections of book marks as well.
Artifacts of Legend is a book all about legendary artifacts. These are powerful magical items that can be given to characters at low levels as the power of the items grow with the character. The character places experience into the item to unlock new powers as the character gains levels. Some items have powers that can go up to tenth level and the most powerful of them go all the way to thirtieth level. There are not new abilities revealed at each level. Some it is possible the character will invest experience and nothing new will happen. There are occasions when that will happen for two consecutive levels and that may frustrate a player as they would invested a few thousand experience or more at that point and not much new is happening. There are also artifact stigmas that get unlocked. These are drawbacks the legendary artifacts have and serve as an additional cost.
One area the book excels out is creativity. There are fourteen legendary artifacts in the book and each are very well described. Each has a unique name is full described. All have non legendary statistics. This is how the item appears when it is not bonded to a person and has additional powers. It is its base abilities basically. There are requirements listed for what one needs to bond with the legendary artifact and be able to use it more effectively and have its power grow. All legendary artifacts are intelligent items in their own right. There attributes for intelligence, wisdom, and charisma are listed as well as the skills they have and what they are at. There are also assisted skills. These are skill the legendary artifact can assist the character on and what bonus the artifact gives that character for those skills. Each artifact can also communicate with their owner in different ways. The history of the items is where the creativity really shows forth. And again there is much creativity with the powers and stigmas of each item.
There are no tables or rules for creating items. The powers of each item seem tailored specifically to it and do not seem like they are generic off of a randomly rolled table. Some of the powers are a bit more mundane like the enchantment bonus increasing or the gaining of powers listed in the DMG. But they seem to really fit together rather well. It is really nice that they took that approach to the legendary artifacts and gives them a very good feel. But it also makes it so there are no rules or easily followed guidelines for a DM to create his own. I would have liked to have seen a bit on using the legendary artifacts in the book as examples and talk a bit about how more can be created.
In addition to the legendary artifacts there are some basic game mechanics in the book like feats, skill uses, and prestige classes. The feats are ways of taking advantage of the legendary artifacts and using them with greater ability. Some of the feats need revised to make a little more sense. One of the worst is artifact power attack. It allows half the damage dealt to ignore damage reduction, but the other half does not. There are some very nice feats like Legendary Leadership which gives a bonus in combat to ones followers as they are inspired by the legendary artifact.
There are two prestige classes. Steward of Legend is a character that has taken an oath to never bond with an artifact. They are served with the duty of finding someone worth while to accept the artifact they carry. It is very interesting class with many cool ways to use it on a campaign as a PC or NPC is carrying around an item of great power they have taken an oath to never really take advantage of that power. The other class is the Artifact Thrall. This is a person that is at the mercy of the artifact and its goals. It can be a willing person who gladly does so to serve a cause of good or evil. Or it could be someone who just was not strong enough to resist the weapon. It is also a class that has some very cool role playing potential.
Artifacts of Legend is a nice collection of new and interesting powerful items. The experience cost and the stigmas serve as a nice balancing factor for the power though not everyone likes that type of cost. This is not the answer that will make everyone happy but it does a good job for the people that do not mind the way the mechanics work. Even if one dislikes those mechanics the history and the items themselves is nicely done and should be able to be used with whatever artifact rules ones likes.
<br><br><b>QUALITY</b>: Very Good<br><br><b>VALUE</b>: Satisfied<br>
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Artifacts of Legend is a book of (what else) artifacts from Mind Forge Games. The zipped file is eight megabytes in size, and contains a single PDF file that?s slightly larger. The book is sixty-five pages long, with a non-hyperlinked table of contents and full bookmarks.
Much like their first release (Shadow of the Tower), Artifacts of Legend is overflowing with beautiful artwork. The cover image is stunning in its visual quality, and most of the interior art is full-color work of comparable appeal. Further, all of the pages have had the backgrounds shaded to a sort of tan-gray that suggests some sort of vellum, as though this were an actual book, which greatly makes even the plain text seem easier to read. Of course, the flipside to all of this is that there is no printer-friendly version, meaning that trying to print this out could be a major ordeal.
Artifacts of Legend presents fourteen new artifacts for you Fantasy d20 game. The term ?artifacts of legend? has a specific connotation here, as these artifacts use slightly different rules than most. Artifacts of legend all have levels, like characters, and the more levels they get, the more powerful they become. All of them are also alive and intelligent, having mental ability scores and skills, some of which can be used to help their wielder. Finally, instead of having ego scores, all have an associated curse called a stigma, which grows in proportion to their level and powers gained.
The book opens with an in-character description of Amenorian, the Blade of Hope, by Amenorian herself, before the book launches into descriptions for its rules. Careful attention is paid in the first section of the book to things such as the saving throws, AC, and hit points of these artifacts. It is, in fact, possible to break these artifacts through hit point damage, but that won?t truly destroy them (that requires a much greater quest, which isn?t elaborated on in the book). It then covers several artifact feats, at least one of which is required in order to bond with an artifact at all, so that you can make it gain levels (by investing experience points in it, though it can usually never be of a level higher than your character level).
Two new prestige classes are also given: the Steward of Legend, and the Artifact Thrall. The former is committed to containing an artifact without being controlled by it, while the latter has submitted to an artifact utterly for even greater power. While both prestige classes are interesting in concept and design, both have minor flaws. Each one notes that certain levels in it cause you to gain the class features of whatever class you had prior to taking that prestige class. This should have a notation that this only applies to the features of a single class, otherwise it?s open to abuse as multiclassed characters mix and match advancing class features as they take levels in this PrC. Worse, neither prestige class lists their hit dice advancement.
Finally, we come to the artifacts themselves. The section covering them opens with a note that all of them have a power called The Calling, wherein they can draw suitable wielders in the nearby area to them. The artifacts are grouped into four different categories ? lesser, great, greater, and greatest (though one artifact, Long Tread, is mislabeled as a great artifact when it should be a lesser one). The difference is in the number of potential levels they can gain: lesser artifacts of legend can gain ten levels, great can gain fifteen, greater can gain twenty, and greatest artifacts can be raised to a whopping thirty levels. As they gain levels, their powers improve and their skills grow, but their stigma also becomes worse. The price of power is often high indeed.
Altogether, Artifacts of Legend is a great resource for powerful items that can range from being merely a catalyst for a few adventures, to being truly world-shaking in their scope. However, the minor flaws that crop up throughout (the Embraced of Amenorian template, for example, gives you the Outsider type, but doesn?t say whether you gain the Native or Extraplanar subtypes, or if you gain the Augmented subtype), and the lack of a printer-friendly version, hold this back from being a five-star book. That said, this is still an excellent resource full of material that, if used in your game, will have a major impact. Your characters won?t be the same if they wield any of the Artifacts of Legend.
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<b>LIKED</b>: The rules presented about the artifacts were very cohesive, covering the little things that most other books ignore. The complementary feats and prestige classes helped to round out the material, and of course the artifacts themselves were excellently done. And lest I forget, the artwork was truly spectacular.<br><br><b>DISLIKED</b>: Minor errors came up in various parts of the book. The prestige classes needed to clarify their "class features" power, and list their hit dice. The Embraced of Amenorian template needs to say what subtypes it grants. Long Tread needs to be a lesser, not great, artifact. And of course, the entire book really needs a printer-friendly version.<br><br><b>QUALITY</b>: Excellent<br><br><b>VALUE</b>: Very Satisfied<br>
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Creator Reply: |
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We have addressed the minor errors and already posted an updated version. The new update contains a printer-friendly version, the Hit Dice issues have been addressed, class features for prestige classes have been addressed, and several other minor fixes have been made.
We like to put out the highest quality book we can, that meant a fast update when these issues came up in a review. Thanks, for the review and I am glad you liked the book. I love it and use it in my games.
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This is the first issue of ?Shadows of the Tower,? a free e-zine spinning out of the Barroks-Tower.net gaming community. This is a dense document (lots of artwork, a good deal of it full-color) that focuses mostly on material you can use in your Dungeons & Dragons game. After an introductory letter-from-the-editor presenting the e-zine, and a few pages devoted to what?s happening within the Barroks-Tower.net crowd, the d20 material begins.
?Things Are Not What They Seem? is featured in the ?Need an Encounter?? column. There isn?t much build-up here; instead, this encounter with Lionel Arcan, a high-level human wizard king and his followers could best be used to cap the end of an adventure. The characters ? Lionel, his concubine followers, and his ogre fighter champion (named Legbreaker) ? are given enough background and motivational information that a DM could use this material to supplement his or her existing game.
The ?Slice of Life? column is devoted to the NPC Duragar Brandhammer, a clean-shaven dwarven smith self-exiled from his people. This single page isn?t designed to be a full encounter, but a brief character description and adventure hook are provided.
Three prestige classes based around a sensory theme are next presented, and of them, the aesthetic eye (a blind character who has developed his or her other senses to higher levels to more than compensate for the loss of sight) is the most promising. The other two ? the sentinel (a rogue-like class who?s trained his or her senses to become aware of pending danger before the danger finds the sentinel) and the sensory adept (a near-monk-like class devoted to expanding all the senses) ? are well-balanced, but the aesthetic eye just seems like more fun to play.
There are two new feats and five spells, as well as a handful of magic items and even a few artifacts. Additionally, there are three new weapon qualities (the ?dusting? quality is the stand out here ? upon impact, a dusting missile weapon releases a fine dust that dulls an opponents olfactory senses, negating the Scent ability). Monsters and a brief piece of original fiction round out this supplement.
There?s a little bit of everything in this first issue of ?Shadows of the Tower? (save anything psionic); gamers are sure to find something of use here. The formatting and presentation is functional, but could use some tightening up in places, and if one isn?t careful while navigating this .pdf, you may inadvertently have your web browser redirected to either Barroks-tower.net or the homepage of Mark Allen, the contributing artist to this project.<br><br>
<b>LIKED</b>: There is quite a range of D&D material available in this issue of Shadows of the Tower (with only psionics not getting a mention - see below). Most of the text is easy to follow, and the artwork is quite good.<br><br><b>DISLIKED</b>: I would have liked to have seen a psionics-mention or two here, especially since the theme of this issue revolved around the senses.<br><br><b>QUALITY</b>: Very Good<br><br><b>VALUE</b>: Very Satisfied<br>
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Shadows of the Tower is an e-zine published by Mind Forge Games. The zipped file is 10.26 megabytes in size, containing a single PDF which is slightly larger. The e-zine itself is twenty-eight pages long, including a page for the cover, a page for the table of contents, and two pages for the OGL. There are no bookmarks.
There is no printer-friendly version of the magazine, which will likely make printing this quite difficult for some people, as the art is plentiful, which much of it being full-color. That said, the artwork here ranges from well-done to incredible, with the full-page cover being truly spectacular in its rendition. Mind Forge Games would do well to use this same artist in future issues.
Each issue is meant to have a theme, and this month?s is the senses. Each of the various articles relates to that in some way.
The magazine, after opening with an editorial and news about happenings on the company?s website, opens with a pair of articles about specific NPCs. The first is about a deceptive and ambitious wizard. By far the larger of the two articles, this details his henchmen, and even outlines an encounter scenario, complete with a map on a grid, for PCs to face off against this character. The second encounter, a dwarf in exile, is shorter, giving his background, stats, and an adventure hook.
The next article presents a trio of sense-based prestige classes. The Aesthetic Eye is a prestige class for characters who are blind, but have honed their other senses to compensate for it. The Sensory Adept is a monastic prestige class for characters who sharpen all of their senses, but at the risk of having them be damaged by being so heightened. Finally, the Sentinels are those who are dedicated to their senses, improving them usually for the purposes of greater skullduggery.
The next section is Barrok?s Bin. This article collects a hodge-podge of other mechanics, lumping them together here. This article presents new feats, spells, magic items, monsters, and more. Because this is a community e-zine, each of the new crunch here is credited to the person who first developed it.
The first chapter of The Last Song of Mothath, a fiction story serialized in this e-zine, is presented next. However, it?s a short chapter, barely a page in length, making it hard to figure out what to make of it.
Altogether, Shadows of the Tower does its job well. It presents new material and highlights the community it?s drawn from, making the reader curious about the site that spawned this publication. The new materials here are useful and interesting, guaranteeing that even if you don?t visit their site, you?ll still have something you can use in your game. Since it?s free, there?s no good reason not to check out Shadows of the Tower.
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<b>LIKED</b>: The new mechanics here are quite innovative, making this easily worth the download. The artwork is also notable in how good it is.<br><br><b>DISLIKED</b>: The lack of a printer-friendly version is acutely painful here, with the abundance of art. Also, the e-zine seems to have quite a few hyperlinks spread around it, meaning you can accidently find yourself clicking open your web browser to the magazine's community page.<br><br><b>QUALITY</b>: Very Good<br><br><b>VALUE</b>: Very Satisfied<br>
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I was not sure what to expect when I downloaded this. This is a very nice looking magazine. I like that the news for the Tower site was in the magazine. (I tend to skip to certain sections of the site.) This is something I will keep coming back to. <br><br>
<b>LIKED</b>: Very professional. I could see this as a magazine on the shelf in my local game store. The encounter is awesome. I want to use this right away. <br><br><b>DISLIKED</b>: The first two prestige classes had the exact same progression table. And the desriptions did not seem to match the table. Was I reading this wrong?<br><br><b>QUALITY</b>: Excellent<br><br><b>VALUE</b>: Very Satisfied<br>
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Creator Reply: |
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I am happy you are satisfied. The second prestige class accidently ended up with two advancement tables. It still has its normal advancement table. Ignore the advancement table on page 12. We will remove it and make an updated version of 'Shadows of the Tower'. Thanks for the input. I really like to hear from readers. It helps me to evolve into a better designer and better understand what people want in their books. Keep your eyes out for 'Artifacts of Legend' coming very soon. |
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