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The Braggart is a new practitioner class that uses the Spheres of Might system. For those who don't own that system, or aren't familiar with it, this book includes a selection of abilities and options from it so you don't need to buy Spheres of Might in order to make a viable character.
But your Braggart is going to be viable pretty much no matter what. The important thing to know about this product is that it's made for City of 7 Seraphs games, which tend to be significantly higher-powered than most Pathfinder games. For example, the Braggart essentially gains the Paladin's bonus to saving throws and the Monk's bonus to AC in one ability, and can later spread that to their allies. They can also duplicate and extend morale boosts, and there are some very powerful morale boosts in the game.
However, I don't actually agree that it's overpowered. I know experienced players who read the above statement are probably raising their eyebrow right now, but the Braggart is mainly a powerful martial combatant. Being really good at combat isn't the same kind of narrative power as a Wizard with 9th-level spells. It's still stronger than I'd suggest for most games because it could overshadow many other combat types, but it's not actually as game-breaking as it might look at first glance. Also, any GM allowing this should know what they're expecting and be adjusting things accordingly, so there's that.
That's the reason for my score here. It's stronger than other practitioner classes, but it's also intended for a high-power setting and actually is kind of appropriate for City of 7 Seraphs stuff. I can recommend it for high-power games, but not regular games. If you're looking for a strong combat class, this more than meets that criteria, especially if you have even a mild amount of system mastery. If you're looking for a flavorful class that's about the same power-wise as existing options, this is not the right choice.
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In 2020, Back To School is frankly more horror than the way kids usually treat it, which makes this product for the TinyD6 system even more appropriate than usual. If you're familiar with TinyD6, this product is basically more of what you'd expect - that alone should be enough to tell you if you want to pick this up or not. For everyone else, this is essentially a rules-light product designed for fast games, which makes it a good filler between a longer set of games, or something to enjoy if someone can't make it. Not a product for everyone, but fun on its own merits if you enjoy these sorts of themes in a game. Might be fun to play with kids, too.
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This is less of a proper review, actually, but I would like to clarify a few points I've seen in some of the other reviews. That is, before you buy this product, you should know what it's trying to do and what you should expect from the contents.
Essentially, this book is a collection of premade items created using the crafting rules in Ultimate Spheres of Power, plus a smaller number of original items that aren't made using the basic crafting rules. The main purpose of these items is to provide a single source so players and GM's don't have to spend as much time using the rules to make common items - doing the work for you, basically. Not every group wants to have to spend time calculating things and pricing individual effects, so this book offers literally hundreds of premade options throughout its categories that you can simply grab and start using in your game. Some of the chapters are pretty basic reworks of common items (stat belts and headbands, etc.), while other parts are significantly more diverse applications of the crafting rules that demonstrate how to use the system. Wholly new bits include new options for scaling items, crafting traditions to make items more unique, and a much-needed boost for Spheres of Might characters using stuff like the Alchemy sphere.
I saw another review mention the metamagic, which is a pretty big chunk of the early book, and how they thought it should just be a paragraph describing the different costs. I disagree. Many existing metamagic options do not work with Ultimate Spheres of Power as written, and the ones in this book have been modified and updated for compatibility. You couldn't get that if you just described the different costs, and this saves people from the issue of trying to figure out how to apply many types of metamagic to spherecasting if they want to use anything that wouldn't normally work as-written. It's easy to miss details like those if you look at an item name, assume it's the same as something you've already seen, and move on - but this book has a lot of little details like that if you look closely, all designed to make things work better with spheres content.
In short, if you want easy access to premade content made using Ultimate Spheres of Power's crafting rules, this book is a good choice for your table. It's very comprehensive in that regard, and offers an incredible number and variety of items for the price (seriously, it's like four or five times as long as one of DDS' regular handbooks, and at just a slightly higher price point). If you're happier doing conversions and making new items yourself, you won't get as much value from this tome because it's mainly an application of the existing crafting rules, although it still has a bunch of samples that you can use to base new items on when figuring out how to balance things.
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The Youxia's Handbook is one of the most interesting updates for the Spheres of Might system. With new high-wire kung-fu style options, this book is geared towards games with fantastic martial action, rather than just guys in armor hacking at each other with swords. Also, Strength to AC (within reasonable limits). Overall, definitely one of my favorite add-ons for Spheres of Might, and a worthy addition to any collection.
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The Legendary Planet Adventure Path is out for everyone now, and let me tell you, $50 for the PDF is a steal. That's less than $10 per-adventure for a completely realized adventure path, not even counting the additional supplementary materials. Even more than that, this book is thick. We're talking Frog God Games thick. I backed this product on Kickstarter and got a physical copy, and while it took longer than expected to finish up, this is a PF1E adventure unlike any other. If you're interested in traveling to different worlds and seeing all sorts of new and exotic creatures, all backed by a future-fantasy feel, this is the AP for you. Solid 5/5, great art, incredible value for the content even if you get the physical version, and highly recommended overall.
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Creator Reply: |
Thanks for taking time to write up a review and glad you love the book! We are very proud of it, and it definitely is a terrific value! I'm running two campaigns of it right now, one right in the middle and one midway through the final adventure, and we've been having a blast. Hope your gaming crew does as well! |
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Ultimate Spheres of Power is the compilation volume for the Spheres of Power ruleset for Pathfinder 1E. This product introduces a modified form of spellcasting where different powers are separated into categories known as spheres that players can pick and choose from in order to create a more unique, thematic character. Additional systems like casting traditions allow for further uniqueness, all wrapped in an easy-to-learn packaging that's friendly even for newcomers.
The original Spheres of Power was a fairly large book in its own right, but this compilation volume that includes material from numerous handbooks and other releases clocks in at over 600 pages of content and represents the definitive edition of the core Spheres of Power rules.
I received this product through DriveThruRPG after backing the Kickstarter campaign that created it, and I have no regrets about helping fund it. Put simply, these rules offer a level of depth and creativity for characters (without making it too complicated to learn!) that other rulesets for Pathfinder 1E simply can't match. If you're looking for something new to refresh your Pathfinder 1E games, or you're thinking about getting into it for the first time but want to create a concept that doesn't quite fit in the core rules, check out this product. There's a reason Spheres is one of the most beloved third-party rulesets for Pathfinder 1E, and this book is more than worth the price. It's not merely a 5/5, it's one of my top recommendations period.
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Not gonna lie, this is a significantly larger supplementary product than I expected to see for TinyD6. That made this interesting for me to review. On the one hand, it's a high-quality product with a lot of content in it, including copious amounts of full-color, page-sized art. It's pretty good at doing what it's designed to do. On the other hand, this is big and complex enough that it's really only a worthwhile investment if you're playing a lot of TinyD6 games. Having a narrow, specific audience is not inherently a bad thing for a product - heck, that's basically the definition of Game Master-focused products for systems that use them - but it's something you should know before you consider buying a product. In the end, I feel that these are ultimately the most important considerations and should be your deciding factor for this product.
Do you play at least a moderate amount of TinyD6 and want one book with a ton of heritage options? This is a great buy, then. You'll get a lot of use out of this if you care about heritages in the game.
Do you just want to play one or two games with your friends? Then you don't need this book, despite its overall quality.
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Tools of the Trade is an art-focused magical item book - by which I mean this was created because the art was there, so each item contained within has a corresponding image that can be shown to players. That's surprisingly rare for magical items, actually, and it helps this 15-page, full-color product set itself apart from others.
This book contains 16 new items (usually 2 per page) of various rarities and styles, with brief flavor descriptions to help give them a little more presence. Some of these items are intended for players, but others are explicitly intended for NPCs and villains instead of the players, and I appreciate giving foes a few more handy tools. $2 is a pretty fair deal for this many unique items (with art!), and I think it's a pretty solid investment if you're looking for some additional magical items with curious effects to surprise your players with.
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With the new season of Stranger Things out on Netflix, are you looking for a fun, easy-to-learn-and-play RPG system to start diving in to your own stories? Voila. Fat Goblin Games has a lot of experience, and Stranger Stuff doesn't disappoint. .....And that, more than anything else, is what to know about this product. It's intended for a very specific genre of gaming, and it does that genre well. I wouldn't say this is a truly long-term system like, say, D&D games often are, but this product is more than enough to offer a couple of good gaming sessions and it's being sold at a very fair price for the amount of time you can spend with it. Overall, recommended to people who like this genre.
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A solid product for the price! This is a 30-page, partially-color (mostly red) product, and as you probably gathered from the descriptive blurb, this is a fairly rules-light game that's very easy to both learn and play. In many ways, Privateers is more of a roleplaying game than a rollplaying one - while the dice are involved, they're not kidding about the focus being on storytelling, which makes this great for creative people and anyone who wants to spend less time staring at their character sheet and more time helping tell a story. You can also use this as an alternative ruleset for games that don't really address piracy - the conversion is easy, and at this price, extremely affordable.
I think my biggest note for this product is that it's good for players who really like to get involved with the game, rather than observing or focusing on mechanics. They're not kidding about the shared storytelling thing. That's not inherently good or bad (different groups like different things, and that's okay), but it is worth keeping in mind. For what it's worth, I like this product myself, and it's worth serious consideration if you enjoy pirate-themed things.
(Also, this game has a fairly sensible outlook - if things are impossible or practically unfailable, it encourages just handwaving it and moving on with the story. Save the rolls for tense moments!)
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I couldn't bear to resist getting this product, and I'm glad I did - with an outrageous number of puns and some truly ridiculous ideas, this book is pawsitively the most fun I've had with a supplement in a long time. Highly recommended even if you're not planning to use it - it's a great read.
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Disclaimer: I received a free copy of this product for the purpose of this review.
It's bigger! It's badder! It's probably going to result in a lot of Mad Max references, too. This black-and-white product is 110 pages long, most of which are content. Like most of the other vs. M system products, this is extremely easy to pick up and play. Character creation is just a few choices, and from there you're ready to dive into the wasteland. The speed and simplicity of the system means that this product is best played over one or two sessions with friends - it is not, and is not intended to be, a years-long campaign slogging through the grim darkness of the not-so-far future. It is, however, very good at what it is designed to do. It's best played with a deck of cards, but you can substitute a d12 using the provided guidelines if needed. A helpful random adventure generator can generate plots if you need them.
Overall, I like this product. Post-apocalyptic is fun and this is a great way to pass some time with friends or family.
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Disclaimer: I backed the Patreon campaign for this product and paid the full price for it.
We're almost done with the basic handbook series - but The Trickster's Handbook takes the consistently-high quality of this series to a particularly high level. Put frankly, this is a FUN book. Illusion has always been one of the most powerful spheres when used by a creative mind, and this major expansion to its options means illusionists can do more than ever before.
This handbook adds some talent types and errata's most of the original Illusion talents to sort them into specific categories. It also adds many new basic talents, ranging from blurs and skill bonuses to helping allies and creating your illusions faster. Seriously, if you want to be an illusionist, this is probably going to be your favorite expansion ever. The sphere just went from good to great.
We also get quite a few Advanced Talents (with effects ranging from a bonus for UMD to drastically improving the range of your illusions), as well as many new feats. Aside from a slate of Dual Sphere feats, this book introduces Surreal feats, which use or rely on the half-real Shadowstuff. Fey Adepts will get the most mileage out of these feats, but they can be used by any Spherecaster.
This tome more than earns its 5/5 stars, and I highly recommend it for any game featuring the Illusion sphere.
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Disclaimer: I backed the Patreon that helped to create this class, and paid the full price for it.
It's been awhile since we've had a new base class for Spheres of Power - the more recent Spheres of Might and Champions of the Spheres have had their own classes, but the Wraith is a true spherecaster. The Wraith is a mid-BAB, mid-spherecasting class with good Reflex and Will saves.
This class focuses on three powers: An incorporeal wraith form (usable in rounds/day), a Haunt Path (the manifestation of their haunting powers, with many thematic choices), and Wraith Haunts (special abilities gained at 3rd and every odd level thereafter to improve the Wraith's powers). Between the flexibility of spherecasting, the many path choices, and the multitude of haunts, the Wraith is a flexible class and builds can end up playing very differently.
All in all, this is a solid addition to the spherecasting roster - and a great choice if you want to play a character that's on the spooky side.
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Disclaimer: I received a free copy of this product for the purpose of this review.
I won't lie - there are parts of horror I love. In fact, my main 5th Edition character is a Warlock of a Great Old One (albeit a slightly silly one - a homebrewed entity of paradoxes). While I don't play full-on horror with the character, I do like to draw from the tropes and make use of them in various ways, such as by manipulating Dreams to bother NPCs who've offended my character. The point I'm trying to make is that I have a personal interest in any products I think might support that character, especially those from reputable publishers like Fat Goblin Games.
This product is a full-color, 132-page PDF. The artwork is primarily black-and-white, in keeping with the genre, but is generously sprinkled throughout the product. Four pages are used for the covers and general legal information, plus a table of contents - the rest of this product is almost solidly rules and other information.
The interior is broken down into 11 chapters of content, prefaced by an introduction that explains the themes and provides more detail about the rest of the book.
Chapter 1 focuses on Horror Roleplaying and how to add these kinds of creepy elements to what is, quite frankly, a heroic fantasy game. The two genres don't mix easily, and it's up to the GM to add horror in a way that works for the players instead of just annoying them. (Tip: Mood music helps.) Helpfully, the book describes several ways to include horror, ranging from the troubles of war to smaller-scale encounters that can provide a dose of the genre without sending the whole campaign into the abyss.
Chapter 2 is where we start to get real rules stuff thanks to its focus on Horror Races. The options here include things like changelings, graveborn (playable undead), shadelings, were-kin, and "wretched" (imperfect undead, in the style of Frankenstein's Monster). This section is mostly focused on rules, and the races only have a short writeup - it'll be up to you to elaborate on how they fit into your world. That's not necessarily a bad thing.
Chapter 3 is the big draw for a lot of people and focuses on Horror Classes. It opens with the Apothecary, a potion-making class similar to a 9th-level caster. It will feel familiar to anyone who enjoyed the Alchemist in Pathfinder, but it doesn't really do Bombs for the heavy offense. It also has a few near-dead levels at 7th, 11th, and 18th - the improvement to their "Byproducts" (Cantrips) at those levels can help, but I think the class could use some minor improvements at those levels to make them feel a bit more exciting - especially 7th and 18th.
Following the Apothecary, we get some additional subclasses (including things like the Possessed Berserker, the Bards' College of Tragedy, and the Paladin's Oath of Light). Note that some of these are anti-horror, making this product more helpful for games that are about overcoming the darkness than just surviving it. Some subclasses may be better for NPCs than players, though - not because of power concerns, but because horror tends to come from the GM's side of the screen.
Chapter 4 adds new Horror Backgrounds. which are suitable for players or NPCs helping them out. These include the Monster Hunter, Investigator, Innocent, Mad, and Survivor backgrounds. Some of these have alternate features, giving them a little more flexibility.
Chapter 5 focuses on Skills and Feats, and this is actually really nice. The main new skill is Monster Lore - but rather than asking people to spread their limited skill proficiencies any thinner, Monster Lore is given to classes that deal with certain types of foes more often and relies on the Derived Skill system to supplement it. For example, Clerics traditionally know a lot about Undead, so they can use Religion to gain more information on them. (This will feel fairly familiar to anyone who used Knowledge checks to identify foes in Pathfinder.)
The next section focuses on new feats. As always, these are optional within a game, but they do provide a variety of thematic new abilities (such as artistic talent, bravery, or acceptance by the undead) appropriate for Horror campaigns.
Chapter 6 focuses on new Equipment. This includes using a variety of improvised tools (like meat hooks of skillets), as well as new equipment packs that support particular things. Following that, we get a collection of new items like a book of lore, a neck guard to protect from vampire bites, and a plaguemask if you really want that classic Black Death doctor look.
Chapter 7 focuses on Magic and Mysteries, including a selection of new spells. This section includes things like a necromancy cantrip dealing necrotic damage, transforming into an undead, reverting lycanthropes to their normal form, and summoning dark hands to grapple foes. There's nothing especially crazy here. This product also presents new rituals, including ways for non-casters to attempt to cast certain rituals (which will, quite frequently, go rather badly wrong - in true Horror fashion).
Chapter 8 ends the focus on player rules as it switches over to Horrific Hazards that GMs can use. These hazards include multiple options each for poisons, diseases, and haunts.
Chapter 9 focuses on Fear and Madness effects, including insanity. Quite a few of these effects are random, helping to mirror the uncontrollable nature of many mind-blasting things. Man, I do wish my Warlock could throw a few of these at people... it really does fit them. Alas, my GM might yell at me if I tried. Oh well!
Chapter 10 offers some suggestions for Creating and Running Horror-based Adventures, complete with a variety of plot hooks.
Finally, Chapter 11 introduces a variety of Monsters and Cults, including many ready-to-run stat blocks you can use for horrific creatures. Some of these are definitely nastier than others, including the CR 15 Aspect of Death and several new types of dragons(!).
Overall, this is a solid product for horror games. It's not focused on Lovecraftian horror, mind you - sorry to everyone who likes the Great Old Ones and their tentacles. Wait for Sandy Petersen's Cthulhu Mythos for 5E if that's what you're looking for. This tome is more about undead, creepy dolls, and haunted locations. It's quite comprehensive, too, offering many new choices and rules for both players and GMs. If you're looking for a little (or a lot) more horror, this product is worth getting.
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