1001 spells is the type of resource that both dms and players can really appreciate. It can add fun, grant new combat options (consuming line of acid), offensive spells (giant boulders), aid negotiation (zone of parley) or sabotages an enemy’s roll (utter failure). There is a lot of flavour here, and even if you don’t want to add all of them in, you will find some that are useful and others that you just have to let into your games (wildblast, when you want the element of a blast spell entirely randomized).

I question that some may be over-powered (a level 1 cleric spell that grants +2 bab to a target); but this is always inevitable in these types of books. I say this because the typical 3.5-pathfinder spell list, is a bit bland and some spells are better than others, so good new spells with effects we aren’t familiar with may seem too powerful. The standard spell list, after a few years of gaming is old, regurgitated and boring. Add over a thousand spells, and magic gets interesting. Because of these new spells, they may not always be the right level or may be more powerful than a group or dm is used to. So when introducing these spells, I recommend a dm takes care and chooses which ones come in and adjusts spell level as need be. This doesn’t have to be done though, as it is well organised and there are sections for alchemists, witches and magi spells.

With all these spells there is certainly plenty to add as scrolls or in old wizard books in long sealed away dungeons. Or, to make available only to secret orders (until the players kill them and take their stuff). Some like wildblast are begging to be added to wands, and others could be attuned to amulets (wall of light), gloves (unarm foe, a disarm via blast spell), or even a musical instrument (stunning note). I was surprised there wasn’t a section discussing the spells or making suggestions on which ones would make excellent magic items, but it is the type of book to give you the tools and let you experiment.

If spellcasting is getting a bit repetitive with the same old spells used over and over, 1001 spells will liven up spellcasting in your games. You could also try to use this book to the fullest and throw out the standard spell list and only use what is in here. Ha! That will make the magic of a game original, that is for sure. Now I just have to work out which ones I am going to add in.

In the Company of Monsters is a book that has background & fluff, mechanics and options. It is all about making monsters playable at first level, trying to balance them and presenting monster or “racial paragon” classes to enable monster-pc play. Organized into six parts, providing new options to take monsters from levels 1 up. Not all go to 20, but most do. Steven D. Russell is the main contributor (there are others); and it is a solid book for playing monsters with their special abilities and bonuses developing as you level, without having to worry about leveling in specific classes (unless of course you want to just level your jotun giant for three levels and then hop over to barbarian), although of course you can mix the paragon classes with existing classes and other homebrew options.

As I read this, quite a few things caught my attention. The spells in the gargoyle chapter could make a potent stone sorcerer. There are magic items, feats and other options. In the giant chapter, the feats like stomp, quick at hand and night stalker could help a DM to make ogres or other giants a bit more dangerous. Pinning throw could be very strong and allow giants to use more in-depth tactics than charge, full round attack or grapple. These feats suit giantkin quite well, and can make such monsters a little more appropriately designed rather than just having the same feats as other monsters and the same build load-out all the time. Beware of the giant foot ogre clan, all with stomp and whom may truly challenge a party of tanks.

The minotaur and giant chapters are my favorite, but I have high praise for the diverse feat options for the restless souls. The customization options are high, and then they have a small collection of spells to make use of to boot!

Curiously, the illustrations are black and white. This gives the book an old school feel. The pictures are largely consistent in style, being dark and foreboding and some with plenty of action being shown. I especially liked the minotaur vs. centaur picture in the minotaur arena. Good illustrations like this can give a DM plenty of ideas. Unfortunately, they aren’t the best color designs out there.

The book comes in at 94 pages, and I heartily recommend it. It isn’t very large (a slight flaw, there could have been some more monsters) so reading through it won’t take very long for a dm or player eager to design a new monster paragon pc from the options within.

Rite Publishing brings us a template for the headless horseman, and a CR 11 headless horseman to challenge your players.

I firstly have to acknowledge the perfect choice in the scary pumpkin background of this pdf. I like it a great deal. On the template, the vorpal ability is pretty nice and ensures there will be plenty more heads being lopped off. The others are very thematic and related to the fluff, but I don’t want to give them away here.

Concerning the headless horseman of CR 11, he can certainly kill. The hellfire is a nice touch. The vulnerabilities are the AC and the hp weakness of the Sygian mount—making dismounting the headless horseman a very real possibility. A dm may want to improve the horse. It isn’t bad offensively, but a horseman and horse against a party may lack the AC and HP to last long. There is also some lore and description which leads into feats and the spell to create the horseman.

This was a very enjoyable read, allowing the headless horseman to quickly be placed into a mid-level game, or for a player to assume the role of the horseman following their demise.

5/5. It has a central idea and runs with it, fully realising the headless horseman for pathfinder games.

This product begins with a story on the origin of the medusa, and a gm could make use of this to create the medusa as a force in their world. The early parts of the book on how a medusa should behave according to a matronly medusa is a welcome addition. The idea that snake control marks the entrance into adulthood for the medusa is a fascinating little idea. There are further sections on medusa society, the ways of the foremothers and even a section on reproduction and medusa seduction.

This is a short and inexpensive document, and the writing is quite good. Effort and care has gone into the expression and serpentine and predatory metaphors have been placed inside. I found it enjoyable to read; and this direction in the provided background material is designed to help gms get in the mood to run medusas.

Mechanically there are the stats required to run or play a meduse pc or npc. There is some choice across traits, meaning different medusas can be created. This gives the dms some options. Archetypes follow and I quite like the Gorgon shaman for the druid, with earth powers, stone sense and a whole lot of flavour (this was definitely well thought out). There is a bit more, and levels 1-20 of a class, but that is enough noted here. This is a very inexpensive product, so if you like medusas and want to build them into a world and setting with a bit more flavour and abilities, go for it.

5/5

I think this is a great adventure with real potential and a likelihood of being extremely memorable due to the roleplaying sections. There are some problems involving the art and design, so I will address those first.

Problems The cover characters and some of the pictures within, are not high on detail. I like the backgrounds, those are good, everyone likes creepy temples in the moonlight; but not all characters pictures look fantastic. The other design problem is the yellow text on green background choice. That isn’t the easiest thing to read. Dark red or black on white is easy to read, yellow and greens are less distinct. The yellow script and green background paragraphs are intended to be read to the players, or presented to them. This is clear, but the colours were obviously a design choice. The product certainly looks different to other adventure paths, but this was a problem for me (I prefer dark text on pale backgrounds).

The Adventure Now on to the adventure itself. The first paragraph sells the adventure extremely well. Moving from the setting, to enemies, to curses and encounters. The game is meant to fit into the Jade Oath setting, but is notably adaptable across settings and into Asian themed regions, with the note the central city must remain for the adventure to work. The writing is good straight off the bat, and a dm/gm could use parts of this to lure players in for good times—there will be rebels, dancing lions, faen pirates, a kidnapped thief and a cursed city. It makes it sound very attractive.

The first paragraph for the players once they arrive in this unusual city is also quite strong and evocative. Continuing on, there are multiple reasons and adventure hooks given for the players to be in the region when the adventure starts. I especially liked the pirate crew and disciples of the one school here to win the martial arts tournament ideas. The rumours and what can be revealed via knowledge checks are well thought out; this rapidly creates a political and cultural setting for the game, so this will want to be shared with the players.

In the arena, the dragon-lion dance combat could lead to many memorable matches. The players must work together or they lose. They must also, quite hilariously, hold on to the dragon-lion costume (1 hand) and stay adjacent to one another. A lot of thought went into this, and there are variant martial arts rules for the competition.

The dating dragon ritual is not something I have seen before in gaming. It will require real thinking and overcoming awkwardness to pull off and woo a spirit attendant. There are plots afoot and a few things thrown in to make sure the pcs are involved and don’t just ignore it with a blush in their cheeks. I quite liked how this was explained and how it could go.

That is enough! I cannot give it all away. There is a further chase scene, the pirates emerge and battles take place at the moon temple. I have looked this over and I can say, this becomes a more typical adventure later with plenty of combat. Although its starts and develops in a truly original direction. It isn’t all combat or a hack and slash dungeon, there is a high call for skill checks and roleplaying for most of the adventure, which I personally appreciate.

A fine product and an adventure with a difference. It may take 2 to 3 sessions to run, but could be longer if the players spent a lot of time with the courtships. Infernal Romance at Moon Temple deserves 4/5 stars, leaning close to 5.5. It is also quite affordable given the amount of work that clearly went into it.

Red Dragons have always been the hard and heavy hitting dragons for parties, capable of taking all players to an early demise if they are not careful and lucky. Evil and without real flaws, reds are a challenge. I am pleased to report that the challenge continues here.

The reds presented over 31 pages, with added pages for templates and additional material, are not all uniform in appearance. These are not just the same dragon with different stats. Some of the art is rather captivating (Inferna and Fadow), and I appreciate that although the dragons start with the CR of 30, they descend until they reach CR 3. So there is a dragon for all parties, and the real possibility that many dragons could be used over the course of a campaign, i.e. a game to hunt the ten red dragons of doom, for instance.

Some of the dragons have levels, granting them different abilities to the norm. I chuckled at the ninja dragon, the CR 10 invulnerable ranger dragon has some really nice damage, and each dragon comes with description, background material, some notes and points on tactics and special abilities.

I give this 4/5. It should be noted the Unja the dragon on the cover, is not actually the best looking dragon inside the product (I vote Inferna).

Good hunting!

This is the good stuff. A type of add-on book that can lead to completely reconsidering magic items in your setting. Getting away from blandness, the tomes and manuals offer bonuses, but require study, sometimes lengthy study over an adventurer’s career for multiple tiers of granted bonuses and abilities. They allow bonuses and the shaping of a character that has collected any of these magical books (and meets the pre-reqs to unlock the higher abilities). They are confined to specific areas, and there is no “get better overall” book. By default, they are for one use, so no passing them around the party so that everyone has the same bonuses. A DM could of course change this as need be.

A dm can pass these along to a heroic player that has earned a special type of bonus by defeating a specific foe or dungeon. These manuals could be used to improve a character in an area a player is focusing upon and to be perfectly tailored loot, or, they could be used to ensure some players are a little more skilled for something coming up ahead (then spread a few of these into the loot for a party).

I would just go 4/5 stars for a well executed product, but I especially liked some of the books, and the fluff and bonuses that go with them. Examples of the books that I liked are: Ride Out! Which even summons a docile mount and of course improves riding abilities.

Tapping into your Life Energy, which sounds very much like a self help book, but boosts ki points and grants really powerful bonuses to ki users.

Lastly, There Goes Your Sword, which is naturally about disarming and grants some massive bonuses with expert study.

For gunslinger players, there is The Way of the Gun (which reminds me of a chapter in Lone Wolf and Cub), there are also books for spellcasters and druids. Mostly though, it is highly useful for melee classes and skill users looking for a specific edge.

With added humour, nice illustrations and well-thought out items to grant bonuses, I give this product 5/5.