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Buck-A-Batch: Magic Masks I
Publisher: Creation's Edge Games
by Charles J. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 08/28/2004 00:00:00

About a month ago I reviewed a PDF product called Facades: Masks of Magic by Heyoka Studios. It was a book about magical masks. A few weeks later, Creation's Edge Games delivers us Buck-A-Batch: Magic Masks I. It's another book about magical masks. It's interesting to see two different design philosophies going into books that are essentially the same concept.

Appearances - Magic Masks I differs in a lot of ways. For one, it lacks the ugly photographs of real world masks that Masks of Magic had. In fact it lacks any pictures altogether aside from a quarter page sized drawing on the cover. Some illustrations would have been nice but the lack doesn't detract too much from the product. The layout is very nice.

Content - At 50% of the price, Magic Masks I delivers 2.5 times the number of magic masks that Masks of Magic contained. Fifty, to be exact. The descriptions of these magical masks are straight forward mechanics. There's no fluff here, leaving the background of these items to the imagination. The masks don't tend to be too terribly powerful, with the highest market values being around the 10,000gp area. There are no earth shattering artifacts here. The masks rarely have more than one or two powers.

In Conclusion - At a buck, this book is a pretty good value. It'll add a little something different to your treasure hordes without much risk of breaking the game. If you want magic items with a little background to them, however, you're going to be disappointed. The magic mask descriptions are as completely dry of flavor as the magic items in the DMG. It's a fairly solid product, but I can't really think of much reason to recommend it over any other collection of magic items other than the price tag. Hence, I give this product a strong three star rating. I'd give it three and a half if I could.



Rating:
[3 of 5 Stars!]
Buck-A-Batch: Magic Masks I
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UNORTHODOX Rangers
Publisher: The Le Games
by Charles J. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 08/26/2004 00:00:00

I was pretty pleased with the review copy I received of Unorthodox Druids, so I went ahead and shelled out $2 for Unorthodox Rangers. The Unorthodox series has been a series of products presenting five alternate versions of a base class. Unorthodox Druids was fairly good. Let's see how the ranger fairs under similar treatment.

Appearances: We get three different files in the downloaded. There is a landscaped PDF for screen viewing, a portrait PDF for printing, and an RTF file for those who want to edit in a word processor. This variety of formats is a real plus in The Le Game's favor. The cover art is cool in a really rough style sort of way, depicting a green cloaked figure firing an arrow at point blank range into what looks like a skum (a humanoid fish monster). The interior art is clip art and it does its job, though the portrait they use for the Partisan class is butt ugly.

Content: There are five new classes and nothing else in this book. The first thing I notice is that none of these variants on the ranger have spells. I know that a lot of people like the idea of rangers without spells, but I was disappointed that there weren?t any ranger options with spellcasting ability.

  • Beast Lord: This concept is fairly common among rangers. It's sort of like a fighter who gives up some feat progression and the ability to wear armor for some animal related abilities, favored enemies, natural AC bonuses and damage reduction, and improved unarmed attack damage. The class seems to balance out okay in the end, but I think it would have been more inspiring if it seemed like they had any special ability regarding the beasts they presumably lord over besides a few petty things. They do at least get the Druid's number of companions rather than having their limit halved like a normal ranger. Over all this class is kind of ho-hum...usable but dull.

  • Hunter: Hunters specialize in bringing things down, usually animals but also monsters and intelligent creatures. They can even use their favored enemy ability against their own race without being evil, which makes perfect sense (there's a lot of good reason to make a living hunting ones own race). They're good at finding their opponents weaknesses and exploiting them. There isn't really anything about them that's terribly nature specific...they're basically just killers with the tracking ability. Obviously, they'd make great bounty hunters.

  • Outdoorsman: This is a survivalist class, focused on being able to stay alive in the wild. They are fairly uninteresting. They're one of those classes that would be handy to have around but not really much fun to play since their abilities, aside from some defense bonuses, won't come into play much.

  • Partisan: These are theoretically guerrilla warriors, taking full advantage of their environment. For something one would expect to be rather formidable, they really feel hobbled. Their abilities feel a little haphazard and one of them is called "Fast Enough for you, old Elf" which is the lamest name for a special ability that I've seen in a long time, which is a shame since it's the most interesting ability the Partisan has (being able to avoid generating an attack of opportunity with a reflex check).

  • Trapper: Some people hunt, other's trap. Trappers have some interesting abilities that make them good at taking people alive, but they certainly do seem to give up a lot for them.

In Conclusion - I'm really disappointed in this product. The classes in Unorthodox Druids were really well designed and interesting. The classes in Unorthodox Rangers don't hold a candle to them in terms of quality. The word kludgy comes to mind. All these classes feel like they give up too much for the abilities that they gain, which feel rather haphazard. If you give them the normal ranger spellcasting, a lot (but not all) of the underpowered problem goes away, but it still feels like sloppy design. While not completely worthless, these classes will require too much tinkering to make worthwhile for me to justify giving this product more than two stars.



Rating:
[2 of 5 Stars!]
UNORTHODOX Rangers
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A Dozen Necromantic Machines
Publisher: Ronin Arts
by Charles J. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 08/26/2004 00:00:00

Having enjoyed A Dozen War Trophies as much as I did, I decided to try out A Dozen Necromantic Machines...or is it A Dozen Necromantic Devices? The titles says "Machines", the introduction says "Devices". I prefer the latter, as the word "Machines" actually almost turned me off the product, fearing that it was either modern or steam-punk in nature, which doesn't float my boat. However "Machines" is how it's listed in RPGNow so I'll assume that is what it is supposed to be. Anyway, suffice to say that this product is about a dozen items of a necromantic nature.

Appearances - This product is in landscape format, which I'm notorious for despising. Such a fact doesn't bother me so much in such a short product, though, as there's very little chance that I'd bother printing it out as a whole rather than simply cutting and pasting what I intended to use from it to usual stat blocks and treasure references I print in preparation for my games. There is no art, just thick black borders running down both sides of each page to waste the ink of anyone who actually does print it out. The text layout is very tasteful and easy to read.

Content - In addition to the twelve necromantic devices, this product also contains a new alchemical material (Caoutchouc), a new type of metal (Grave Steel), and a new spell (Legion of Zombies). The devices are all fairly cool and don't really have as much of a technology feel as the introduction seems to think, a few exceptions aside. My personal favorites include the Shadow Flask, the Grail of Zombies, and the Devouring Engine. Much awesomeness. The new alchemical material isn't too interesting, but Grave Steel is interesting and the Legion of Zombies spell should be a part of any self-respecting necromancer's repertoire.

In Conclusion - At barely more than a buck in price, this is a must have for any DM who makes use of necromancers as villains and several of the items aren't terribly illogical for PC use if they can get past the dark nature of their magic. The only way this product could have been better is if some of the more mundane devices like the Ghoul Stone (a rock that explodes with a paralyzing gas) were left out in favor of more story inspiring devices like the Grail of Zombies. As it is, this product is a four star one that only fails a five star rating by inches.



Rating:
[4 of 5 Stars!]
A Dozen Necromantic Machines
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Template Troves, Volume I: Serpents, Spiders & Godlings
Publisher: Silverthorne Games
by Charles J. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 08/25/2004 00:00:00

When I first heard about Template Troves, Volume 1: Serpents, Spiders & Godlings my first thought was "Wow, what a really long and awkward title.? Then my next thought was "It sounds really cool, though. I want it." Of course, the facts that I'm a fan of templates, a fan of Silverthorne Games, a fan of PDF products in general, and a fan of Sean K Reynolds all added up to this being a must have for me. So lets see how the end product lives up to my high expectations.

Appearances: The cover piece is great. Too much black to be worth printing out with the rest of the book, but gorgeous none the less. If it this were a print book, it would certainly catch my eye. Of course, I have a thing for women with snakes growing out of their head. The rest of the art is decent but a bit dry. I wish artists of this kind of material would put a little more oomph into the illustrations rather than making it really feels like the monsters just stood there while the artist just drew their portrait. Fearsome monsters shouldn't look bored or as though they're mugging for a camera.

The layout of the book is very well done. The border image is tasteful, the information is well organized, and the text formatting is quite professional. The PDF file is well bookmarked, except that it is missing links to Hobart's Grayman and the Chemdrake.

Content: What we have here is twenty templates. Sure, it starts off with a long explanation of how to use the templates and all that jazz, but all that matters are the templates. Everything else is just icing. Let's take a look at them individually.

  • Arnrach - What happens when Aranea (one of my favorite monsters) are zapped stupid my magic and end up heading natures call with monstrous spiders? The Arnrach happens, and for a template that can only be used on monstrous spiders, it's pretty cool. These will definitely find use in my games eventually. The sample creature is an Arnrach large hunting spider.

  • Behirling - Another example of crossbreeding, the Behirling is the hybrid children of a behir and something else. These fellows have a pretty nasty set of abilities that tacked onto the right creature would give just about any party a pain in their buttocks. Another thumbs up. For sample creatures, we get a behirling ogre and an Ankhir, which is a behirling ankheg.

  • Chemdrake - Through an alchemical process involving the essence of black dragons, we get the Chemdrake. Reptiles with a lot of acid based abilities. I can see a lot of potential here...especially when we factor in the joy of dinosaurs. Our sample critters here is the chemdrake monitor lizard and the chemodol, which are chemdrake kobolds that I can't wait to use.

  • Couatlan - When Couatl get their freak on with other snake-like creatures (including nagas), we get the Couatlan. My first reaction was kind of blah, but after thinking a bit on it a few interesting story ideas spawned so ultimately a thumbs up. We also get a new spell, Minor Invisibility. The only sample creature is a couatlan constrictor snake.

  • Devourer Survivor - Had your soul devoured by a devourer and spit back up? Well, then you might qualify for the devourer survivor template. They have a handful of handy abilities that would perfectly suit a really creepy NPC and it could make for an interesting PC too. The sample creatures are a dwarven 6th level fighter devourer survivor, and Amurath, the Ghost Bear, who is a dire bear devourer survivor.

  • Dragonmongrel - It's always nice to see romance overcome racism, and the dragonmongrel is testament that even dragons can get over their pretentions of color superiority in the name of love (or lust...given the number of half-dragons around, dragons apparently aren't as discriminate about their lovers as their arrogance might lead one to believe). Dragonmongrels are the result of dragons of different colors mating. For an example we get the union of a copper dragon mother and a red dragon father in the form of a red dragomongrel juvenile copper dragon.

  • Fenrirrin - Much like dragons and...well, most creatures in d20 since the advent of templates...Fenris, the monstrous wolf-son of Loki, is quite the lecher. Unlike dragons, though, Fenris at least has apparently limited his loving to other canine type creatures. There's not much to them besides being more potent combatants with increased strength, better natural armor, and a few bonus feats. I would have hoped for a bit more out of the grandchildren of Loki. Still, they're not bad. The sample we get is a fenrirrin dire wolf.

  • Flashbeast - Flashbeasts are either really cool or really dumb depending on how you look at them. I think they're neat and as reasonable as your typical fantasy monster. Its main ability is to blind its opponents with a burst of light. If nothing else it's a new way to make PCs appreciate the blind-fighting feat more. It also includes a new treasure, the flashblister. The sample is a flashbeast large monstrous centipede.

  • Gullinburstin - Descendants or Gullin-Bursti, the boar servitor of Frey, the gullinburstin have a goofy name and are pretty limited in that the template can only be applied to "boars or boar-like" creatures (like Shredder's minion Beebop), but they do fill a niche. The sample critter is, logically enough, a gullinburstin dire boar.

  • Hobart's Greyman - About the time that this book came out, I was renting The Suffering for the PS2. Hobart's Graymen immediately reminded me of the Slayers from the game, though quite different at the same time. Basically Greymen are zombies with oozes living in their chests and weapons replacing their forearms and hands. Really creepy stuff. There are some variants, creature stats for the ooze itself, and a new treasure, Hobart's Notebook. The sample is a medium zombie greyman, which was kind of inevitable since they're the only creature from the SRD that qualifies.

  • Jormugandrin - More grandbabies of Loki, this time through the serpent Jormugandir, the jormugandrin are reptiles that become venomous, fast healing reptiles that have the spiffy Death Throes ability that will give PCs fits. The sample is a jormugandrin lizardfolk.

  • Lenkag - The Lenkag are kind of hard to explain, but they're basically evil snake creatures that originally burst out of Lillends tortured by fiends with transmutive magic. The template can be added to any snake of Medium-size or less and their main abilities are their nightmare poison, various resistances, and captivating song. The example is a Lenkag small viper.

  • Medusan Creature - Basically non-humanoid half-medusa creatures. Toned done versions of the medusa's abilities tacked onto something else. Probably the least inspired creature in the book, but still fairly cool. There's also a spell that's used to make such a creature, a feat to give more uses of its petrifying attack, and a bit on using the head of a medusan creature. The sample is a medusan dire wolf.

  • Murmouth - The murmouth is essentially a gibbering mouther that has a humanoid form. They're pretty nasty, and that's always a good thing in my book. The sample is a murmouth bugbear.

  • Oxeph Host - At a first glance, these seem like a poor man's half-mind flayer, but really when you get past the goofy image of creatures that have octopuses for heads they work pretty well as creatures that take over the bodies of other creatures. There are also creature stats for the Oxeph itself, a new spell, and a psionic version. The sample is an oxeph host human.

  • Poisonflow - It's good to see a template for both oozes and elementals. It's a pretty simple concept...their essences are poisonous...but it's cool for giving oozes and elementals a little something extra. The example is a poisonflow air elemental.

  • Shulgspawn - An insect-like creature that multiplies by implanting eggs in other creatures that are turned into similarly insect-like creatures. I know I've used the adjectives before, but they both bear repeating for this template...creepy and nasty. These are the stuff that nightmares are made of. The sample creature is a shulgspawn elf.

  • Skoth - Essentially, they're half-skum and they are pretty formidable...the highest CR adjustment in the book, unless I'm mistaken. If you dream of having PCs shredded by humanoid fish monsters that look like they crawled out of the black lagoon then this is the template for you. They are slightly more powerful than their skum ancestors (thanks to controlled breeding by their aboleth domitors). The sample creature is a skoth dwarf monk. We also get the true skoth creature.

  • Sleipnirrin - Yet another descendant of Loki, this time through the stallion sleipnir. This template can be added to any equine creature, from standard horses to centaurs to hippogriffs. Their main virtue is its increased speed and movement over ice and water. The samples are a sleipnirrin light warhorse and the Sleipnirrogriff, a sleipnirrin offshoot of hippogriffs that breed true.

  • Twilight Hagling - Half hag, half something else. I'm not a real big fan of hags myself, but there are some interesting story possibilities here. The sample creature is a twilight hagling grimlock.

There's also a handy appendix which basically indexes the material in the book.

In Conclusion - There's not much I can say bad about this book. My only genuine complaint is that there's a bit too much half this, half that type templates. I prefer templates that have some basis other than defining what happens when a creature breeds outside of its species. Still, that's a minor grumble that is easily lost among the sheer amount of use that I know I'm going to get out of this product. Not only for things to fight the PCs in my campaigns, but the inspiration for storylines. It is as near to perfect as any product of its type that I've seen, thus it gets a quite hearty five star recommendation.



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
Template Troves, Volume I: Serpents, Spiders & Godlings
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A Dozen War Trophies
Publisher: Ronin Arts
by Charles J. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 07/21/2004 00:00:00

A Dozen War Trophies was an impulse buy. My campaign setting is rather war torn so I figured that I could use a few inspiring items to mix into treasure piles to reflect that. A Dozen War Trophies delivers exactly what the title promises and I found most of them to be just as interesting as I was hoping for.

Appearances - It's a 7 page landscape formatted PDF without any art at all. The layout is good but the purple border running down the left of the page is kind of annoying from a printing perspective, but the fact that it's landscaped pretty much muddles the idea of printing it anyway.

Content - There's a brief introduction about why war trophies make cool treasure, then we get the twelve items of interest. The war trophies are pretty cool and a couple are downright brilliant. My particular favorite is the kobold war basket, something I can see getting a lot of use out of in action, not just as treasure. Most of the other items aren't quite as interesting from a perspective of actual use, but they would all contribute to the goal of adding special flavor to those often dull treasure piles.

There are also a couple of sidebars on role-playing and a new magic weapon quality, blood-bound. The blood-bound quality is interesting from a flavor standpoint but is pretty weak so it's more of a role-playing quality than a really useful one.

In Conclusion - For a little over a buck, this PDF delivers the goods. While not a must have by any means, a lot of campaigns could benefit by treasure with this much history and flavor. I give this product a solid 4-star rating. It would be a five star-product except for the fact that a fair percentage of the items, while cool, also felt kind of obvious.



Rating:
[4 of 5 Stars!]
A Dozen War Trophies
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Facades: Masks of Magic
Publisher: Heyoka Studios
by Charles J. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 07/21/2004 00:00:00

Facades - Masks of Magic is a 17 page PDF detailing 20 magical masks. I actually picked this up quite some time ago but it kind of got buried amidst other PDFs I bought at the same time. I pretty much bought it only because it was cheap and sounded somewhat interesting. It recently caught my curiosity again and I finally gave it a good read through.

Appearances - I remember one of the things that put me off this product when I first opened it way back when was the fact that instead of artistic representations of the masks described the book uses photographs of real world masks. While not a bad idea in theory, the execution comes off a little poor because most of the images are too large and too close up. I imagine such images were thought to be more dramatic, but really it just makes each page seem gaudy and clashing. Then again, most of the masks themselves are pretty tacky looking so maybe that was unavoidable. I get the impression, since the photos aren't credited, that the writer just downloaded some pictures of masks off the net and wrote stats for them. I don't know if that is actually the case, but that's the way it comes across.

On the plus side, the layout and editing seem competent enough.

Content - After being turned off by the photographs...one of the rare instances in which I felt compelled to hold a products "art" against it...I had to remind myself that content is the really important measure of a products worth. The descriptions of the masks are a little long winded for my taste, but not too bad and what they described was interesting enough. The abilities granted by the masks were also generally imaginative, though there were a few that were just a little too obvious, such as the Wealth of Station mask that gives a +6 enhancement to Charisma...essentially being a Cloak of Charisma that you wear on your face. Still, that sort of thing is the exception rather than the rule.

In Conclusion - While the product grates on me a bit, it does what it sets out to do. Here are 20 magical masks, with horrid photographs and decent abilities and descriptions. If I look past the quality of the photos used, this book feels pretty average to me. Nothing really jumped out at me and made me want to use it, but I can imagine scenarios where a magical mask might be interesting treasure. A rating of three feels right to me.



Rating:
[3 of 5 Stars!]
Facades: Masks of Magic
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Regional Settings: Kael'Myn
Publisher: Vintage Sunshine Publishing
by Charles J. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 07/20/2004 00:00:00

Regional Settings: Kael'Myn is the first pdf product by Vintage Sunshine. It's a short region book detailing an area that was once a terrestrial enclave of celestials who eventually left after a nasty war. I picked it up mainly because it was cheap...$2 for 24 pages isn't bad at all for a good d20 pdf. The question that I seek to answer in this review is "Is this a good pdf?? The short answer is "Yes...for the most part."

Appearances - The cover is pretty simplistic...a sketch of an alabaster drake's head set against a green textured background with a thick black border. It looks nice onscreen, though it will drink ink like crazy if you print it. As far as interior artwork the illustrations are pretty sketchy and not very appealing, but I do have to give credit for a decent map...something a lot of PDF publishers just can't seem to get the hang of. The only complaint about the maps is that the image of the full map is a little blurry, making one have to squint a little to read some of the smaller text. However, the "zoomed in" images of areas of the map are pretty clear. The layout is pretty good, but I curse them for not having the chapters bookmarked.

Content -

Chapter 1 - Life & History (2 pages): We're given a brief history and a time line for the region. It doesn't go into too much depth but that's somewhat of a good thing since more history means more baggage for slotting it into one's own world. What history is there is to the point and doesn't waste words with too much fluff, getting straight to the pertinent points.

One minor irritation with this chapter, however, is that the timeline lists several events that aren't even touched upon in the history. For example, we know that a huntress named Nikurae killed the great dragon Klaunthaunil...it's mentioned in both the timeline and in the history...however, the timeline tells us that 94 years later Nikurae kills herself over the death of her daughter with nary a clue in the history about it. This is a pretty insignificant gripe, but I would have preferred that the description of the history have been complimentary of the timeline...otherwise, we end up with a bunch of events marked on a calendar without any context. The significant gripe is that this chapter could have stood to be more than 2 pages. It was interesting enough to disappoint me that there wasn't more fleshing out of the regions past.

Chapter 2 - Characters (4 pages): Here's where we get most of the information relevant to PCs. First we get a run down of the races and how they differ from the standard versions of the races. We also get a new race, the Vunshyr'Kael. They're basically humanoid descendants of the great dragon who bred himself an army centuries ago...being significantly weaker than their ancestors thanks to inbreeding and centuries of comfort. Surprisingly they're a relatively balanced race without any need of level adjustment. I'd have no qualms about allowing them in my games.

Next we get information about how the standard classes fit into the region. Not a whole lot different than how they fit into typical settings, but we're given names to the organizations they might be connected to or locations where they're prominent.

After classes come feats. There are 9 feats. Some, like Viridian Method which just about any Sorcerer would want to take (meager requirement for a great benefit...more known spells of any level the sorcerer can cast), are too good but most are reasonable. One thing I like about the feats is that most are designed to tie directly into the culture and history of the region.

The chapter closes with a couple of new spells. Both are too powerful for their level in my opinion. While Klaunthaunil?s Seeker is a neat concept, Human Bane is rather uninspired (it's a ray that does more damage to humans than other creatures. Whoopee.)

Chapter 3 - Geography (5 pages): This is my favorite part of the book. It describes the region of Kael'Myn itself. Like everything in this book, it earns points for efficiently giving the useful information, leaving most of the fluff to the GM's imagination. It gives me a good feel for the various areas without handholding me or making me feel like the writer is trying to push his vision down my throat. Kael'Myn is a neat chunk of land that is interesting yet generic enough that I can slot it into my campaign world without too much sweat.

Chapter 4 - Organizations (3 pages): In this chapter we're treated to some of the organizations in Kael'Myn. Included are the Ivory Guard (somewhat of a cross between a magic academy and a magic militia), the Company of Gold (A knightly order), the Sidereal Society (sages and philosophers working together to preserve and promote knowledge and art), the Obsidian Sisterhood (a group of female rangers with some odd practices), and Chrysanthemum (An order of creepy druids who seem pretty self-serving). There's also a short list of other organizations with just a name and descriptions as brief as the ones I've given to the organizations I just mentioned. The fully described organizations are pretty interesting despite the brief amount of information given on them.

Chapter 5 - Monsters (3 pages): The Alabaster Drake, the Viridian Drake, and a monster-style write up of the Vunshyr'Kael, the race given PC information in Chapter 2. It's nothing really worth writing home about.

Chapter 6 - Weaving Tips (1 page): A short bit on how the product was written to be slotted into an existing campaign and gives a short list of deities for those who want to use the setting as a springboard for a new campaign world. The list could also be useful if you want the region to have its own religions.

In Conclusion - I consider this supplement two bucks well spent. The most disappointing thing about it is that it isn't a larger product. The history section could have been expanded just by giving some detail to the events on that timeline that aren't touched upon and the Organizations chapter would have been much better if instead of the list of other organizations at the end they'd actually wrote them up. Some of the crunch could have stood a little more balance tweaking too but no major problems. Overall it was a great recipe that was just a little undercooked. I've decided to let this one barely scrape into a four rating thanks to the amount of imagination and utility one gets for a great price.



Rating:
[4 of 5 Stars!]
Regional Settings: Kael'Myn
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The Village of Briarton (Action!, d20)
Publisher: Gold Rush Games
by Charles J. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 09/25/2003 00:00:00

The Village of Briarton is a PDF supplement from Gold Rush Games. There is apparently a print version of this book, but the e-version is the one I bought. I was in a time crunch and needed a complete village fast, so I thought I'd give this product a chance.

Appearances - The zip file I downloaded from RPGNow.com only had one 62 page pdf file in it. It should be noted that only 45 of those pages are actual d20 product, as the rest of the pages are filled with Action! System crunch which I will not consider relevant to this review. The cover also acts as the credits page, which was moderately annoying since the large white letters that ruin the otherwise attractive black & white cover illustration. Color is used in moderation throughout the book, mostly for the test of section headings and as background for sidebars. What really makes this product hard on the printer, however, is the inch thick border art that runs along the top and outside edge of each page. The interior illustrations, of which there are many, are mostly mediocre. There are a few really nice pieces in the mix, however. The maps are truly hideous color ink eating abominations done with what looks to be Campaign Cartographer. Most of the maps have very blurry key text. The layout of the book is okay, but overall it isn't a very visually appealing product. I would have also appreciated the font size being knocked down a notch to help compensate for the fact that a lot of page space is wasted on those borders.

Content -

Introduction - Nothing exciting here. Just some words about how "a village doesn't have to be a backwater to be glossed over in the rush to get to somewhere more exciting." and some notes on how to use the book, how to tweak it for your own campaign, and a bit on religion. The couple of paragraphs on religion are really the only useful information on these two pages, but introductions are rarely worth anything so I won't hold that against the book.

Overview - This brief three page chapter gives us a short history of the thirty years young village, the settlements stat block, some words on economics and the daily routine. Nothing here really jumps out as terribly interesting, falling mostly into the realms of the generic and the obvious. At the end is the worst map in the book, which takes up a full page. It is of the general area surrounding Briarton and could have had 90% of it cropped down without losing more than a few areas of interest. It could have been cropped to half its size without losing any of the keyed locations at all. There is entirely too much dead space on this hideous thing. So not only is it ugly in the extreme, it is also mostly pointless.

Arundel Manor - Here we get an overview of the residence of the local lord, starting with another ugly map that is at least useful, if hard to read. Fortunately, there is a full page version of this map at the end of the PDF which is much more legible. After a few paragraphs about the house itself (including a helpful set of stats for the walls, doors, locks, windows, and wooden shutters), we get to the meat of the chapter which are the NPCs. Here we get Lord Roderick Arundel himself, his daughter Lady Alianora Fitzhugh, her son Robin Fitzhugh, and Gellir, the only dwarven inhabitant of Briarton who just kind of lives with his old adventuring buddy Arundel. Two other residents of the house, the married servants Dunstan and Rosalind Giles, don't get stats and only get three sentences of attention. Also in this chapter are a couple of magic items and a spell (Allure), and the first of the books "Interaction seeds" which are basically ideas for possible adventures or plots related to the npcs. Not all NPCs get interaction seeds, but they do help bring a little life to otherwise terribly generic NPCs.

The Village - Here we are treated to a fuzzy, hard to read map of the village itself which sinfully doesn't get the better, full page map treatment that Arundel Manor, Greenbriar Inn, and the Shrine of Erilys get at the end of the PDF. Maybe it is just me, but it just seems obvious that if you're going to include full page maps in a product about a village that one of those maps should be of the village itself. And the map of the village, whatever size it is, should be legible.

As for the text of the chapter, we get brief summaries of most of the important shops in the village and descriptions of the locals. As far as crunch goes, this chapter gives us 16 statted NPCs (several more are described without stats), a goddess (Erilys, The Protector...goddess of the hearth), a domain (Hearth), two spells, and a monster (the grass cloaker). There are also nine interaction seeds. Combined with all the descriptions of places and people without stats it doesn't seem like this should be a bad use of 22 pages. Unfortunately, I found it all so terribly dull and uninspiring. I could almost swear I've seen most of these characters in fantasy movies ridiculed on Mystery Science Theater 3000.

Outlying Regions - More people and places, this time of the folk who don't dwell in Briarton itself, but nearby enough to interact with the village from time to time. For some reason the fact that chapter starts off with a wizard named Angwyn ap-Llewellyn made me cringe. On the other hand, the rest of the NPCs described here seem a little less cardboard than those in the previous chapter. They didn't excite me but they weren't so dull that I could only finish reading their backgrounds by force of will. The locations weren't any improvement, though at least the shrine of Vextra gives us a new deity (Vextra, Lord of Pestilence), a new domain (Pestilence), and three new spells (Malaise, Plant Blight, and Plague).

In Conclusion - I was very disappointed with this product. It has severe blemishes in both appearance and content without really having any significantly redeeming virtues to save it from being a mediocre product. It doesn't completely fail to be useful, but the true test is whether I would rather have the money I spent on it back rather than have the product. In this case, I can honestly say that I'd rather have the cash. Overall this book is truly boring, which is sad because I would really like to see a good, well detailed village product. This book falls well short of the mark of good. It doesn't even quite make average. Decent maps could have made this book a 3. That and more originality could have made it a 4. With all those and better layout and art it might have even made 5. As it is, this book marks a solid rating of 2.



Rating:
[2 of 5 Stars!]
The Village of Briarton (Action!, d20)
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Three Arrows for the King: The Archer's Guide (Revised)
Publisher: EN Publishing
by Charles J. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 09/25/2003 00:00:00

[Note: This review is for the 3.0 edition, not the 3.5 revision.]

Appearances - Three files came in the zip. Two of those files are the main 50 pages of the book, one with color and one without. The third file is the front and back cover in full color. This should be the standard for PDF publishing. However, this product does one thing that I dread becoming commonplace. Landscaped layout. I loathe it and if I had been paying enough attention to notice that I was warned of this before I bought it, then I would have skipped right over it. I despise anything that is meant to be read being landscaped, but I was warned and thus I'm not going to count it against the book in this review beyond griping about it here. I do admit that it makes for better reading on a monitor...but anything I'm going to read in depth or use at my gaming table is going to be printed, hole-punched, and put in a binder.

Anyway, not that I am done with that, I will go on to say that the interior art in this product is top notch. A lot of d20 publishers seem to be scraping the bottom of the barrel when it comes to artwork, especially for PDFs, but that's not the case at all here.

Content -

Introduction: Not so much an introduction to the book as it is an introduction to the history of archery. History is not a strong point of mine, so I don't know if what's said here is accurate, but it's certainly more interesting and informative that most the introductions of most books.

Chapter 1 - Core Classes: Here we get the Archer and the Archer-Ranger core classes. Conceptually reasonable enough. I would allow well designed core classes along those lines in my games. The question here, however, is are the classes presented in this book well designed enough to make the cut? Well, the Archer is pretty formidable at range, what with all of its class abilities being centered on archery like Extra Shot and Pinpoint Accuracy, and could end up being the top dog of an open battlefield...at least for the first few rounds before the enemy closes the distance. Of course, that's the point of taking this class and the Archer doesn't have a lot going for it outside of its specialty. The Archer might dominate a certain type of battle, but can only be considered unbalanced if that type of battle is unusually common. So yes, I would allow it in my games.

The Archer-Ranger, however, I don't think I would. A crude summary is that it's a way to multi-class the Archer and the Ranger without losing the Ranger's spell progression. Spells and a few wilderness related abilities and class skills swapped in to replace some sacrificed Archer abilities are really all there is to differentiate the two classes. Balance isn't the problem here. It's concept. The differences at low levels are very minor and by the time there's much difference an Archer with wilderness oriented prestige class is likely to end up on the better end of the stick. The only way I could see myself embracing this class is if I didn't use the Archer or the Ranger. Still, as Ranger variants go...this one is pretty good if you consider archery as an integral part of being a Ranger.

Chapter 2 - Archer Character Backgrounds and Class Paths: This chapter is pretty basic in that it presents some character backgrounds which give advantages and disadvantages, and some examples of multi-classing possibilities. The character backgrounds are pretty uninteresting and are really just ways to twink a character that extra little bit since they're mostly minor sacrifices for modest rewards. The class paths are at least interesting, but don't really add much in terms of real gaming value. They are well described, but not particularly original or inspiring.

Chapter 3 - The Prestige Archer: There of course had to be some prestige classes geared towards archers in here. Unlike some people who would say that while rolling their eyes as if it were some kind of annoyance that a product would make use of a valuable aspect of the d20 system, I will always appreciate well designed, conceptually interesting (or at least reasonable) prestige classes. It's not the fault of the concept that so many products just don't get prestige classes and thus frequently include horrid mockeries that are either exceedingly generic or mechanically flawed to a digusting degree. Anyway, before I go off on a rant on that subject I'll get back on course by getting to the classes themselves.

Bloodhunter: This assassin type is made interesting by his Crimson Ties class ability and exceptionally potent by Sneak Attack damage that can be done at astonishing range (up to 90 feet at 5th level). This class would have been better served being fleshed out to a full ten levels instead of five so that he'd be making those 90' Sneak Attacks at a more reasonable level. At least the requirements for entry are appropriately stiff, but I think this decent class is denied greatness by the apparent necessity of some designers to give potent class abilities at every level.

Bone Archer: These archers make enchanted arrows that do all sorts of neat things out of bones. This 10 level class has flavor, reasonable requirements, and is well-balanced. Definitely my favorite prestige class in this product.

Divine Huntsman: Divine spellcasters devoted to a deity whose portfolio includes hunting. At the expense of some spellcasting progression, the this class gets what essentially amounts to a lot of bonus feats stretched out across 10 levels and the ability to greatly reduce penalties for shooting an opponent who is behind cover. Not terribly inspiring, but otherwise a pretty well made class.

Elven Treehunter: This 5-level class is one of those prestige classes which plays to a racial archetype. Its perks are divided between abilities that improve movement through trees incredibly and modest archery-related combat abilities. It probably could have been made much more interesting if fleshed out to a full 10 levels, but as it is I find little flaw in it.

Master of Intuitive Archery: A ten-level archer monk class. Somewhat bland and just a little too good at what they do. Especially at 10th level. Unless I'm reading something very wrong, someone who gets that far gets a +20 insight bonus on one attack per round with their bow, on top of the +4 enchantment bonus to attack and damage they get from Ki Shot ability, subtracting -4 from any cover bonuses, with unlimited uses per day. We won't even go into the further bonuses to attack and damage from using Pinpoint Accuracy and Penetrating Shot and constitution damage done by Soul Strike.

Military Archer: yaaawwwwn We finally get to a class that is truly generic. Nothing interesting here. Except for the mystery of the missing Extreme Range ability. What's sad is this class gets 10 levels while the Bloodhunter and Elven Treehunter only get 5.

Siege Artillerist: Zzzzzzzz... Another generic prestige class, though at least this one does fill something of a gap. However, it suffers from editting that can't make up its mind what the name of the class is and leaves out class abilities.

Sniper: Another generic 5-level prestige class. I'm sure someone will use it...but in my opinion it is both boring and horribly unbalanced by sneak attack damage out to five range increments.

Legendary Sharpshooer: The only thing special about this 5-level prestige class is that it is a "legendary class" which basically means it is a prestige class with requirements that keep it out of reach until a level much higher than a standard prestige class. Fair enough. Aside from the ability score bonuses, however, this class doesn't really get much to warrant its legendary status. The Sniper prestige class is a more powerful

Overall, this chapter starts strong then fizzles into dullness.

Chapter 4 - Astounding Feats and Precise Skill: Here we get a new perform subskill, trickshooting, and 27 new feats. That's a pretty impressive number of feats for such a narrow focus, and surprisingly enough most of them are good. I'd allow just about any of them into my game, though I'll probably rename Overpenetrate (an archer's version of Cleave) to reduce the rolls of laughter sure to ensue from my group.

Chapter 5 - The Well Equipped Archer: Here we get a pretty nice batch of archery related equipment and weapons, including spiffy types of arrows like the whistling arrow, nifty contraptions like the dwarven axebow, and accessories like the stabilizer. All in all good stuff.

Chapter 6 - Bows & Arrows of Magic and Legend: While the previous chapter dealt with mundane equipment, this chapter gets into the fun stuff...magic weapons (and some other magical odds and ends). Well, not as fun as you might imagine. Nothing really grabbed me out of this batch. Nothing made me feel anxious to put it in the hands of an NPC.

Chapter 7 - Spells and Magicks: Five new spells. Not bad, not great, but they only take up one page anyway. Just a decent little touch of spice.

Appendix - Specific Shooting: This single page of rules for targeting specifit areas of the body is quite handy. While not perfect, these rules serve this function better than any d20 rules I've seen yet.

In Conclusion: If I force myself to forgive the landscaped format, I can say that this supplement is worth having. The Archer core class, some of the prestige classes, the feats, the equipment, and the specific shooting all add up to quite a bit of material that I'll end up using. If they had made the archer-ranger more distinguished, put more imagination into the prestige classes, and hadn't made the magic items so dull I would be tempted to give this product a 5-star rating. As it is, I'm rounding up the 3.9 stars I wish I could give it and calling it a 4-star effort. If I had to do over again, however, I still wouldn't buy it based on its landscaped formatting.

Did I mention I hate the landscaped formatting?

I hate it. A lot. Seriously.



Rating:
[4 of 5 Stars!]
Three Arrows for the King: The Archer's Guide (Revised)
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