1st off let me state I own almost every Bastion press book ever printed so I am a huge fan but I need to share some frustrations.
I also want to state, You SHOULD buy this book, but I am going to get into a deeper review of it for not just those that are die hard Fans like myself but those that read and write these things in the future.
I own the 3.0 as well as this 3.5 PDF (bought here or I couldn't review it) Although there is a Great addition to content its as the sacrifice of so much detail and information.
The Original was in Color and the artwork was fantastic and the equipment and art was leveraged to that. This new version is in B&W and some of the art work is just HORRIBLE now. Its a color pic that was meant to be Color and is now B&W and looks like crap. Sure this is probably due to 'File Size' of some other junk but in this day and age no one would blink at a 30MB PDF and the Original scanned was 50+ without Boarders and some trimming it would have been manageable. Because if you print this thing out and hold it side by side to the Original you almost want to throw it away.
The book itself has ballooned. From 96 pages to 176 pages. Much more content and much more WORK and detail for things added to the book. Good stuff and well worth this 10$ price. But The problem is some of this is just rehashed material Either from the SRD/DMG or from other Oathbound books. Now I understand why the material is there. For example they have added EPIC Weapons and Armor enchantments and let me say "THANK YOU" for doing that. Someone cares about the high level players.
But, To get to 'Acid warding'(Epic) they included Acid Resistance, Acid Resistance Improved, Acid Resistance Greater. To add one power. So that they can show you the 'progression'. But when you stack that up for multiple elements and other powers. Or just reprint things right out of the DMG like 'Vorpal' Because you need to show it for your version of 'Crushing' that is 'as Vorpal but for Bludgeoning' It gets hacky because there is so much of it.
I would have LOVED to have seen ALL of the Bastion Press stuff get reprinted in this but they didn't do that...they hand picked 1 or 2 from this book or that book. Some from Spells & Magic , Most from Poisoners Handbook and some from the Oathbound ones as well.
So its frustrating for Me to have 'wanted' an all in one resource for all my Bastion Press Content and not have gotten that instead I have more of SRD stuff that I didn't need and everyone int he game has memorized. I would say that a grant total of nearly 10 pages of this book was just copy pasted and reformatted from other books. Not all of them even Bastions.
Also now the power levels are Different. This power used to be +3 now its +4....or it was +4 in Faeries but now its +3 here in this print. I shouldn't have to get out a publication bibliography of all the Bastion press Time line to figure out which is the 'Right' 'New' Level it should me. Attention to detail is what people who love books love, keep that in mind everyone as you roll stuff out for the future.
So that is the Good and the Bad, Still very happy I bought it, wanted the updates and I buy every Bastion Press and Oathbound Book I can. That Opinion Certainly has not changed due to this book and if you dont have alllllll the other Bastion press books, or the 3.0 version this is going to be a Sterling Example of a fantastic book with tones of original content and other content you might also want to see.
4.0 Stars overall.
|