I generally don’t agree with the sentiment that spellcasters, particularly wizards, are overpowered. To me, that’s something that’s true more on paper than in actual game-play. However, it’s undeniable that contemporary spell-design does think this way. Simply put, spells are designed to have one specific effect and no other; indeed, many spells will devote considerable space to telling you what they can’t do. That’s understandable, but ironically it takes some of the magic away from spellcasting. What’s happened to spells that have wide and creative applications?

The answer is simple: they’ve all migrated to Advanced Arcana II, by Necromancers of the Northwest.

Okay, the above sentiment is an exaggeration, but only slightly. Whereas most supplements that introduce new spells are just a hodge-podge collection of spells thrown together, Advanced Arcana II, like its predecessor volume, has several new themes to what it presents. We’ll go over these, but first let’s take a look at the book’s technical construction.

Weighing in at just over a hundred pages in length, Advanced Arcana II hits all of the checkboxes that a PDF should. It contains full, nested bookmarks. It allows for copying and pasting (I’m pleased to say that there are virtually no errors with pasting copied text here). Moreover, there’s a printer-friendly version of the book, which is always a plus. That said, the printer-friendly version eliminates the page backgrounds, removes one page of ads near the end of the book, and sets the remaining colors to grey – however, it does keep the interior illustrations, simply graying them. I’d have preferred removing the artwork altogether, something I’m presuming they didn’t do because it’d require a ne layout.

In terms of artwork, the book makes a fairly good showing for itself. All of the pages are set on a cream-colored “parchment” background, which makes it look as though the book is an actual tome. Periodic full-color illustrations break up the text, all of which are CG stock art pieces (oddly, each piece is captioned with a copyright notice for the original creator – I’d have thought it’d be enough to note them in the credits page).

The book opens with a one-page in-character introduction, and then a four-page opening (which is also in-character). It’s after this that we’re given an introduction by the actual game designers. Advanced Arcana II, they tell us, is different from its predecessor volume in that it wants to deal with the mutable nature of spells. To this end, its largely concerning itself with three “types” of spells – the first of these are “modal” spells, which allow for spells to have different effects, but you can only choose one when you cast it (a la fire shield). The second are conditional spells, where the local conditions determine how effective a spell is (e.g. a spell that causes fear is more effective in dim light). Finally, we see the return of segmented spells here; spells that have to be cast multiple times in rapid succession to have their effect take place.

This is last idea is turned on its head, however, as it puts two new variations on that theme: the first are segmented spells that can be cast a differing (instead of a set) number of times, with the number of casting affecting the spell’s efficacy. The variation allows for layering effects to manifest with each casting of a segmented spell, allowing for stacking effects per casting.

Interestingly, the book then goes on to detail another theme that many of its spells deal with: age. Specifically, there are a number of spells here that deal with adding or draining age from a creature – it should be noted though that none of these spells have aging as a “cost” of casting the spell (something from older editions of the game, which I sort of miss). I have to commend the designers here, as they delve into the mechanics of aging in Pathfinder and make sure no aspect of this is overlooked. They deal with questions of aging modifiers to mental ability scores and physical ones, with how different sorts of creatures age (e.g. what to do if you’re uncertain of how a monster lives).

While it doesn’t call it out as its own section, per se, the book then delves into a series of optional rules, mostly in regards to adding new spells to your game. The book cogently notes that it can be awkward to have new spells just suddenly appear in your campaign, particularly for divine spellcasters who have access to the whole of their spell lists. To that end, the book presents several ideas, such as having rare spells costing more or being harder to scribe, to having a “spells known” like ability for divine spellcasters using non-Core spells, to just having an in-game Advanced Arcana II be available to peruse. There are a lot of good ideas here that are worth exploring.

Full spell lists are presented next, which make sure to cover all of the spellcasting classes in the Core Rulebook, APG, and Ultimate Magic, before we finally move on to the spells themselves. I should mention here that while most of the spells fall under the themes described above, there are still a handful that are presented that don’t match with any of them, something I thought was great for rounding out the material in the book.

If Advanced Arcana II had ended there, that would still have been a lot. Instead, however, the book has several appendices where we’re actually given even more material to work with. The book’s first appendix is another in-game treatise describing several of the spellcasters whose names appear the spells given earlier. It’s a slight shame that this section is entirely in-character, as I would have preferred a stat block, or at the very least an abbreviated line detailing their race, class, and levels.

The second appendix, however, was much more fun. Here we’re given a truly expansive section on customized spellbook designs. These allow for three basic parts: customized binding (the hardness), customized paper (the hit points), and customized inks. Customized ink represents changing the spells scribed in the spellbook, so that there are altered effects whenever such a spell is prepared. For example, if you scribe a spell in alchemical mercury, when you cast that specific spell after preparing it from that spellbook, you get a +2 bonus to beating spell resistance. I should also note that the sections on binding and pages also have several special abilities depending on the material used, in addition to altering hardness and hit points. The balancing mechanism here, of course, is that these are all expensive, all the moreso if you use multiple options.

The book’s third appendix presents a half-dozen new familiars. I have to admit that I really enjoy new familiars, so I was tickled by what was here. Some of these were mundane animals that were rather oddly overlooked until now (a dog, for example), while others were creatures you wouldn’t ordinarily think of (a goldfish), and others were outlandish (a swarm of magical flies). Each has a full stat block, an expansive description, and a notation on what their familiar benefit is (as these are all standard familiars, and not improved familiars).

Appendix four presents four new arcane bonds for wizards. These are an elemental bond (sub-typed by what element is chosen), a bond to a location (which can be changed, though not quickly), a bond with a particular spirit, and a bond to your spellbook. This last one, in particular, seemed apropos – I’m amazed it wasn’t offered in the Core Rulebook.

The book closes out with a final appendix of thirty optional material components that can be added to a spell to lend it some extra power. Most of these come from specific creatures, and likewise only affect certain groups of spells. For example, a kraken’s eye allows for any conjuration spell, affecting it as per the Widen Spell metamagic feat. A handy chart lists how much these can be purchased for.

Overall, Advanced Arcana II actually managed to top the high bar set by its predecessor, something I didn’t think was possible. While the book presents so many new spells, its innovations come from the fact that it stretches the boundaries of what its spells can do, from being augmented by local conditions to packing variable options into its effects to the sheer brilliance that are segmented spells. Add in things like the variant spellbook construction rules and the new familiars and arcane bonds, and there’s so much great stuff in here that it’s hard to justify not using this book in your game. I say, five stars to this book – it deserves every one of them. Pick it up and advance your game’s spellcasters!

I’ve always been a fan of cheesecake fantasy artwork. Of course, that’s to be expected, as I’m pretty well the target demographic for such material. For better or for worse, images of scantily-clad sex-fantasies go hand in hand with fantasy (and, to be fair, other genres as well) and I appreciate it when such artwork is released. I suspect that it’s in that spirit that Stainless Steel Dragon released Reflections of Voldaria, a collection of fantasy-themed pictures of sexy women.

Just over a dozen pictures make up Reflections of Voldaria. I was tempted to abbreviate the title as RoV, which is the file name of the PDF of these images; I’m not sure that’s correct, however, as the storefront calls it “AoV,” which was slightly confusing. Which is it?

As I said, the pictures are released as a single PDF, which while not bad is still somewhat inconvenient if you want to manipulate these pictures in any way. Sure, you still can, but it would have been much easier if there had been a collection of individual JPG or PNG files. Still, I have to give the book credit for having full, nested bookmarks so that you can at least easily zip to each page.

The book is surprisingly forthcoming regarding the mechanics of these pictures, telling you the best way to print them out and the dimensions of the images. This is the text that you see on the book’s storefront, but it’s actually the bulk of the introduction.

The bulk of the twenty-five photos here have some sort of photo-manipulation, usually of the background. In this area, there is some slight room for improvement; while the artist clearly tried to minimize a sense of disconnect between the foreground and background images, it still comes through. The scenes feel flat in most cases, as small things that you couldn’t name but still register reinforce a sense of disconnectedness…I imagine this is due to an intrinsic understanding that we all have about how lighting and shadows should look were people actually in the areas depicted.

Each picture has a full-page lead-in, which is an entire page that gives the picture’s title and a two-stanza rhyme describing the picture. This was my biggest complaint about the book – not that the rhymes weren’t very good (though there were some real groaners), but that so much space was wasted with these intro pages. What’s here could easily have been tacked on as a caption to each image, rather than being set in the middle of a huge expanse of white space. There’s just so much more that could have been done to fill it. Personally, I would have loved to have gotten game stats in these pages, as this would have (more than) doubled the book’s practical usefulness; now you have fully-illustrated NPCs!

In regards to the subjects of the photographs, virtually all of them are beautiful women. The rare male does show up, but it’s always in conjunction with a girl, and the guy is always dressed in practical outfits. By contrast, most of the women are nearly-naked, save for the occasional girl in a chain shirt. Personally, I had no problem with this whatsoever, not only because I like sexy women, but also because I find it impossible to complain about “realism” and “verisimilitude” when most fantasy has magic and other perfectly viable explanations for why an adventurer could go around wearing almost nothing and still have a high degree of bodily protection. If you could have a magic spell that protects you as well as a full suit of armor, without the weight or maintenance that the latter requires, then why not?

Having said all of that, there are still some legitimate critiques to be made here. For one, all of the characters are clearly posing for the camera; there are no “action shots” of people engaged in adventuring. A few of these take this to an extreme example, as there’s a close-up of one woman’s face, while a different picture offers us a close-up of a girl’s thong-clad ass. Again, not a big deal, but there’s not even a pretense of this being anything other than blatant sexiness.

Overall, I enjoyed Reflections of Voldaria, but that’s because, as I noted at the beginning, I’m the sort of person who’ll forgive a lot if it means I get to look at sexy, scantily-clad girls. If examined in a technical sense, there is a lot of merit here – the photographs are fairly professional in the sense of the shots conveying what they’re meant to. It’s when you move beyond the technical aspects of the actual photographs of the girls that we see the need for improvement. From the photoshopping to the lack of image files to the huge tracts of white space, there’s more that could have been done in how these images were packaged.

Still, if you’d like to reflect on some lovely ladies, you could do much worse than to check out the Reflections of Voldaria.

It’s been said that “simple is best.” This is a fairly universal axiom that can apply to almost anything, including games. Of course, it can also be fairly ironic in that it’s also easy to take too far, in which case the simplicity is no longer what’s best. It’s in this vein that Postmortem Studios has released their game – I’m not sure if I should call it a role-playing game or not – The Little Grey Book.

The Little Grey Book is a two-page PDF file. Each page is divided into three columns, with the first column of the first page being the cover image, and the last column of the second page being a “character sheet,” as it were.

I keep equivocating about whether or not this is a role-playing game because, as a game, it lacks a lot of the traditional trappings of most RPGs. There is no randomizer, for instance (e.g. dice, drawing cards, etc.) nor is there any sort of referee or Game Master. The Little Grey Book is more of a storytelling game than anything else, and the quality of the stories are…well, read below for more on that.

The premise of The Little Grey Book is that it takes place in a utopian society. Everyone is equal in every way, and society is run by the Consensus. All permutations of sex and sexual identity are accepted, all ages are accepted, and even names have not only had surnames removed entirely, but the remaining personal names are all gender-neutral.

The game-play here involves each player (of which there need to be at least three) creating a character based on choosing a name, age, and gender/sex. Each player then describes one typical day in their character’s life, from waking up until going to bed. The remaining players collectively play the role of the Consensus; each Consensus member can describe a troubled situation that happens during the day (e.g. someone flirts with you), and the player needs to describe how they resolve it before continuing on with their day.

The rub here is that the (non-Consensus) player gets a black mark from the other members of the Consensus each time he does anything that violates the equality of someone else. This is incredibly easy to do. Frowning at someone is passing judgment on them, for instance. Using a gender-specific pronoun is making an assumption on their sexual identity. Offering a tip to a waiter is a comparative insult to other waiters. In other words, differences (both real and perceived) still exist between people, but every time you fail to pretend that such differences don’t exist, you get a black mark. Hence, virtually every time a Consensus member introduces a troubled situation into your day, you’re going to screw up somehow; it’s a given.

Each player takes a turn as the person describing their day, and all of the other players operate as members of the Consensus, until everyone has had a turn. Consensus members tell the player why they got the black marks they did, but there’s no arguing these judgments. The explanations are final. The game ends when the person with the most black marks is taken away for “adjustment” (which isn’t defined, though you can probably guess) and the person with the least black marks gets off with a warning…making them the de facto winner.

That’s literally the entire game.

It’s clear that The Little Grey Book is presenting us with a minimalist critique of political correctness. However, how much of fun you’ll get out of playing this game is debatable – like all instances of minimal presentation, what’s here is so little that it invites you to fill it in with your own interpretations; you can’t help but imbue this game with your own thoughts and prejudices on the exaggerated premise that it lays down. Likewise, the real fun also comes from just how bastard-ly your friends feel like being when they come up with troubles for you, and how try to wriggle out of the situations they invent.

I do think that there could have been some greater emphasis on some of the unique aspects of the setting, such as noting how the Consensus seems to be a borg-like collective governance, or that the troubles that arise during your day are caused deliberately by the Consensus as a test of a random citizen’s perception of social equality (though how they caused such issues to happen would be a bit tricky to answer).

Ultimately, there’s little to do here, which is sort of the point. Nobody will get through a day without a black mark, but the real fun is in trying. The game here is a very basic framework, and the play style is similarly basic. It’s a simple game, but as they say, sometimes simple is best.

Calendars are one of those projects where they seem like a no-brainer. After all, you just make twelve pages, one for each month of the year, and have each page list the dates for that month. No big deal, right? However, calendars are one of those areas where the devil is in the details. What holidays do you list? What about other events, such as the phases of the moon? Perhaps the biggest detail, however, is what theme will your calendar have?

In the case of Stainless Steel Dragon’s 2012 Fantasy Female Calendar & Print Set, the theme is beautiful, scantily-clad women.

At twenty-eight pages long, this calendar’s basic construction is pretty much what you’d expect. Given in PDF format, there are twelve sets of calendar listings and an equal number of photos; the array listed is in the standard one photo followed by one month arrangement.

The file opens with an introduction which is the product page information, telling us how these pictures were configured and giving us the default methods of printing out this calendar should we want a hard-copy. It’s fairly boilerplate, but it was nice to have the information listed just to be on the safe side; I doubt I’ll be printing out this calendar, but for those who are interested in doing so, there’s some good, albeit basic, advice here in that regard.

The pictures are, as mentioned, all of beautiful girls in skimpy outfits. The pictures all have a fantasy theme to them, with the outfits having a fantasy-medieval theme, and many of the pictures feature the girls wielding various medieval weapons (e.g. mace, crossbow, etc.). The artwork here is all tasteful, and while titillating doesn’t ever rise to the level of softcore porn – a few pictures are slightly risqué though, such as how Ms. February has most of her ass uncovered, and Ms. August seems to be naked (though positioned in such a way that nothing naughty can be seen).

I should note that full bookmarks are given for this PDF, which makes it very easy if you’re using the file as a calendar for your computer. Interestingly, the bookmark for each month has a nested entry to that month’s picture; it’s here and only here that you’ll find the name of the picture, something I thought was a very fun easter egg.

Likewise, my mention of using this file as your computer calendar was no off-hand remark. As the introduction notes, each day’s entry has been formatted to allow you to post a sticky note there, giving this product an edge of practicality. The calendar days also note the phases of the moon, the solstices and equinoxes, and most major holidays as well.

A few extras are here that should be noted. Each calendar page has small, abbreviated listings for the previous and next month at the top, which is convenient. A fun addition is that, while the days of the week are listed along the top of each calendar’s dates table, it also lists the corresponding deities each day of the week is named for along the bottom.

Overall, I quite liked the 2012 Fantasy Female Calendar. Beyond the delicious cheesecake, the ways in which this product took advantage of the digital format, rather than being held hostage by it, were quite refreshing. From the picture titles in the bookmarks to the sticky notes when you right-click a day, there was comparatively a lot here to enjoy. From sexy images to functionality, this calendar makes 2012 look like it’s going to be a great year.

I’m always impressed when something new proliferates quickly. As ideas and concepts are around longer, the successful ones tend to spread around and gain general acceptance, but that usually takes time. It’s when something spreads rapidly that it becomes notable. Such is the case with the catfolk, who only recently made their Pathfinder debut in the Bestiary 3, now having their own supplement in Racial Ecologies: Guide to Catfolk.

Nine pages long, with one page for the OGL and other legal information, the Guide to Catfolk is PC-oriented in the options and information it presents, though nothing stops an enterprising GM from using it for NPCs and world-building as well. The book has no PDF bookmarks, but as its page count remains in the single digits this is forgivable. Similarly, there’s no printer-friendly version, but this can be overlooked for the aforementioned reason.

In terms of its presentation, for such a short book this is fairly graphics-heavy. I was surprised that a nine-page book was over eleven megabytes in size, but looking at the page styles I can see why this was so. The light grey shading on the back of each page is subtle, but impressively detailed, and there are red borders (in a “smear” style) along the top and bottom of each page. There are several full-color illustrations in the book of various catfolk, which were impressively detailed, but which I thought were also slightly off-putting. Partially this was because in most of them their heads seems slightly too large for their bodies.

The opening sections of the book detail the “soft” portions of catfolk; that is, it covers things that aren’t defined by game terms – their history, psychology, society, and so on. The picture this section paints is about what you’d expect, in regards to them being mercurial but loyal, having a nomadic culture that is being assimilated by its neighbors, etc. Much like the artwork, this section presents itself ably, but I found it slightly off-putting; in this case, the writing didn’t present itself as clearly as it could have – while it’s hard to articulate, the text seems to be written in a style wherein the information it delivers is already known, and merely being synopsized for the reader. I suspect that this is due to the author, naturally, already knowing what he wants to say, and so unintentionally not presenting things in a style for someone who isn’t already as familiar with the material. It’s things like this that an editor, which this book didn’t have, would have caught.

The book’s second half deals more directly with new crunch for catfolk, opening with two new mundane weapons that they (or anyone else) can use, and, much to my amusement, presenting catnip as a drug. This last one alone makes me want to run a catfolk character just so I can have him getting high while smoking some ‘nip.

A few magic items are presented before we’re given the standard catfolk racial traits. I was quite glad for this last one, since without the base stats for catfolk, you’re pretty well unable to use this product’s spotlight race unless you already have the Bestiary 3. I commend the book’s author for including this here. Following are a few alternate racial abilities, some traits, and feats (though, in what was perhaps an oversight, no new favored class options).

A surprisingly-detailed adventure outline comes next, and I have to admit I didn’t suspect it to be quite so intricate. No level guidelines are given, but it seems to assume that the PCs’ levels are in the high single-digits. Slightly oddly, it gives stats for a dire tiger that features in the adventure; I say “oddly” here because the base stats for a dire tiger are in the Bestiary 1, which is to say that they’re in the SRD now; a reprinting here wasn’t strictly necessary. Following this we get a full stat block and description for a catfolk NPC, one with double-digit levels.

Overall, the Guide to Catfolk is an adequate expansion for those who want to play a catfolk PC. If you’re looking to play a catfolk in your Pathfinder game, this will scratch that itch. The book doesn’t break any new ground in terms of its presentation, but it’s still commendable for offering options that Paizo (as of this writing) has not. The problems with the book are largely stylistic, and more in terms of tightening up the presentation moreso than anything being truly lacking (save only for the aforementioned favored class options). Had I the option of giving this book three-and-a-half stars, I would have, but I’ll round up to 4. This book may not quite be the cat’s meow, but it’s certainly worth a look.

In over two years since its debut, Pathfinder hasn’t tried to stretch its wings very much where the genre of the game is concerned; it’s all high-fantasy, all the time. While many gamers may not miss this, those looking to take their favorite rules into another style of game likely feel that they’re missing out. It’s with those gamers in mind that Eridanus Books presents their sci-fi Pathfinder RPG, Veil of Truth. Let’s peek behind the veil and see what’s waiting there.

At twenty-eight pages long, Veil of Truth’s presentation is something of an exercise in minimalism. There are no bookmarks here, nor hyperlinks. The interior art is all black and white, and is passable, though a few of the illustrations of the alien races were slightly pixilated. All of the pages have plain white backgrounds, with no borders of any kind, making the book mostly printer-friendly as a default.

The text here is notably dense. While I wasn’t sure if the word font here was smaller than in other books, it may be that a lot of the visual presentation is helped by the pictures, tables, and sidebars that frequently pop up. It was only in the book’s last section, when most of these went away, that I felt like I was being shown a thick wall of text.

Veil of Truth takes the design principle that Pathfinder is, as far as a sci-fi RPG goes, mostly complete save only for some additions, subtractions, and re-skinning certain things. The first chapter reminds us of this in regards to races, even as it presents seven new ones. These races are presented with full Core Rulebook-style treatment, and do a good job of describing them. In terms of how they “feel,” six out of seven are humanoid in body type (though they’re apparently all of the humanoid creature type), so there’s little here that is too far removed from the old “humans with funny hats” meme.

It’s at the classes chapter that we start to see just how much Veil of Truth acts as a supplement to Pathfinder. There are six classes available, all of which are essentially archetypes of existing classes. The engineer, for example, is a variant of the Advanced Player’s Guide’s summoner, while the psion is a sorcerer, etc.

By itself, this is a pretty good idea. However, these go a bit further than most archetypes, to the point where it’s almost more worthwhile to call them alternate classes, a la the ninja and samurai. Unfortunately, given that this is the case, the book’s minimalist style works against it here, as there are no class tables to codify what class features are earned when; it’s all descriptions. It’s also notable that the relative power of the classes is altered somewhat in these new presentations, largely because “spellcasting” (which is really the use of psionic powers, nanites, and retroviruses) is devalued here – a lot of the more blatant attack spells (e.g. fireball, lightning bolt) simply aren’t available. The default assumption seems to be that because of this, classes that give away their spellcasting altogether (e.g. the aforementioned engineer), need less-powerful alternates to replace them. As such, while only the psion is a true caster class, you may appreciate the reduced overall power a lot of the classes have here.

Unfortunately, the book seems to be missing a section or two, and it’s in this chapter that we first get a clue as to that. The psion’s psychic manifestion abilities make reference to spending psionic power points, for example, but while it says it refers to these more in the book’s “third chapter” (and even references a table found there) said chapter is nowhere to be found; it doesn’t help that there are no chapter numbers here anyway. I also took issue with how the psion is supposed to gain a discipline power every odd level, but some of the disciplines had less than ten powers to select to begin with – that’s just poor design.

The book’s third section is a one-page coverage of skills in Veil of Truth. There’s no discussion of what skills are deleted here, save for noting the alternate applications of a few skills (e.g. Fly, Ride, etc.) and bringing in a few alternate skills (e.g. Psionics rather than Spellcraft). I should mention that the Psionics skill, which is barred from use by characters that don’t have it as a class skill (there’s a feat for that, by the way), actually lets you pull off some abilities that replicate actual spells (e.g. detect thoughts, cure light wounds) though only a few times per day. This is a notable bump in power, enough so that even with a feat-tax on most characters, it’s a must-have skill (especially since all of its uses are against static DCs).

Feats are similarly single-paged in their display, and while several are replacements for normal Pathfinder feats, a number are specific to the new races presented earlier.

The equipment chapter may be the most fun part of the book, simply because it’s cool to see a bunch of high-tech guns, and other items, in Pathfinder. These all fall into one of three new types of weapon proficiency, and all have a description, but there’s no listing as to whether they’re one- or two-handed, which is an oversight. There are also notably few armors, simply because most guns attack your touch AC at closer ranges anyway (a la the gunslinger).

It’s after these that the book begins to show some real innovation, as it then introduces us to ultratech items. It may sound odd to call these innovative, as they’re essentially re-skinned magic items, but there are some interesting spins on them here. For example, the armors here all have various spells that can be used on the wearer, but only so many before they have to be recharged; other ultratechs also need recharging, but are so large that they can only be mounted on a vehicle or be found as part of a building.

The last section of the book presents the Veil of Truth campaign setting proper. I found it to be a nice change of pace from the typical campaigns where humans are a dominant power. The gist of this is that Earth was basically treated as a nature preserve by aliens that were already aware of us, and gave us time to develop not out of altruism, but simply because they knew that most races that managed to make contact with galactic society tended to self-destruct from the extreme culture shock. Humans nearly did, but have managed to avoid total self-annihilation, and are slowly coming back from the brink. There’s more nuance than that, of course, and more information on the greater backdrop, but it’s still a pretty minimalist presentation – all the better for GMs to fill things in as they go along.

Overall, I found Veil of Truth to be a book that was defined almost as much by what isn’t here as what is. There’s nothing regarding starships or starship combat, for example, let alone things like planet-busting weapons, robots and cyborgs, genetic engineering, etc. I can respect that they stuck to adapting the Pathfinder rules as much as possible, but there are some things that aren’t so easily brought into a sci-fi game by just re-flavor-texting something from a fantasy genre. The fact that there are also problems with some missing things (mostly related to the psion’s use of psychic powers and abilities), and this book seems to serve more as a template for a sci-fi Pathfinder game than a fully-fledged game unto itself. Ultimately, there are a lot of ways to do sci-fi, but I wish there was a little more truth behind the Veil.

Epic level gameplay – that is, advancing beyond twenty class levels – has long been the sticky wicket of Pathfinder. Ever since Third Edition’s attempt at epic-level gaming turned out so underwhelming, Pathfinder has been unwilling to venture beyond 20th level, and while many are fine with never going back to such heights, there are still plenty of players who want to take their game beyond this final boundary.

Now Little Red Goblin Games has answered that desire, presenting Legendary Levels as the first product for the Pathfinder RPG to allow for characters to continue advancing beyond the 20th-level barrier. Let’s crack the covers and see just how legendary this book is.

Exactly seventy pages long, Legendary Levels hits most of the technical specifications that we hold for an RPG PDF. It presents full, nested bookmarks, as well as a hyperlinked table of contents. It does lack a printer-friendly version, however, which may be an issue for your printer given that the pages are set on a grayish-tan background. I didn’t care much for the book’s interior artwork, which has both black and white and color pieces; I found it to have too much of a “rough” or “unfinished” look about it, as though more clean-up could have been done. It’s a minor point though, as there’s comparatively little art here.

It’s also worth noting that the book didn’t clearly identify its Open Game Content and Product Identity, something the OGL requires it to do (and the Section 15 was barren, too). I mention this only because this becomes a problem if anyone else wants to use what’s here in their own Pathfinder-compatible products down the road. Hopefully there’ll be an update fixing these issues.

After a brief introduction to “legendary levels” (as a note, I liked that the book’s authors decided to rename the entire concept of post-20th-level as “legendary” rather than “epic”), the book’s first section acts as an overview of some of the major game mechanics that legendary game-play utilizes. Of particular importance are divinity scores and legendary damage.

The divinity score represents the character actually manifesting a divine spark that can, if grown, transform them into an actual deity. I personally applaud this integration of legendary levels and gaining godhood, since I think that once you’ve reached such a high-level of gaming, having your characters start to become divinities is a natural progression. However, you don’t HAVE to increase your divinity score…some classes, mostly the spellcasters, have this increase incrementally as they level. However, you can also boost it with specific feats, or by gaining followers (that is, people who revere/worship you).

It should be noted that this is very different from Third Edition’s divinity rules, in that having a divinity score has little mechanical impact on your character, something I think a lot of players will appreciate. Interestingly, an accompanying chart shows how much your divinity score increases based on how many followers you have, and what sort of gods are found with what scores (e.g. a low score is like a regional deity, a higher one is like a primal force, etc.). Having said all of that, I noticed that it’s hard to get your divinity score high enough to start earning followers if you don’t have legendary levels in a spellcasting class.

Legendary damage, by contrast, is essentially damage so powerful that it can be instantly fatal. Dealing legendary damage to a creature is the same as damaging it normally, but the damage includes a Fort save which, if failed, reduces the target to 0 hp. There’s no single way to gain the ability to inflict legendary damage, but rather it’s found in the abilities of various legendary classes and prestige classes.

The book introduces a few concepts here that it goes into more detail on later (such as true dweomers), but there are a few other aspects to this first chapter that I wanted to touch on. For instance, it also reintroduces legendary uses of skills. This is, much like the old epic level rules, a table with various skills listing very high DCs for greater effects. It’s also the first part of the book that rubbed me the wrong way. I can recognize the problems with super-high skill DCs to achieve effects that magic can pull off at very low levels (e.g. a very high Acrobatics check allows you to be effectively weightless…which I suppose is okay if you can’t just fly), but I consider that to be a problem inherent to the mechanics of Pathfinder, and so can’t really be helped very much.

What I really didn’t like about these legendary skill uses was that, as with normal skill uses, a lot of these present static DCs which, once you can meet them, allow for abuse. You know how Diplomacy has the old problem of, once you’ve got a high bonus, you can make anyone your friend? Well, hit a DC of 40 plus the other guy’s Charisma modifier, and you can make him literally worship you. I can tell you that I’d never allow that in my game.

Beyond this, Legendary Levels does keep presence of mind enough to give us the necessary (but easily-overlooked) basics for leveling our characters beyond 20th level. We get XP progressions to 30th level with the fast, medium, and slow advancements, as well as a listing of GP values by level, and iterative attack values (which, interestingly, allow for more than four attacks if your bonus is high enough to gain more iterative attacks).

Note that all of these expansions stop at 30th level. The book never actually says this is as high as PCs can possibly go, but it seems to be the default assumption (it also briefly mentions gestalt play, but this seems like an extended sidebar more than anything else). Likewise, there’s nothing said about advancing existing classes. Even the basic eleven classes aren’t advanced so much as they’re given a ten-level supplementary class…

It’s on that note that we move into the second section of the book, which presents the legendary classes. These eleven classes are legendary mirrors of the eleven classes from the Core Rulebook. Somewhat oddly, as I mentioned before, these are considered separate classes from their non-legendary counterparts, but they go out of their way to make sure they function as extensions of them (e.g. levels in legendary barbarian are treated as levels in barbarian for all barbarian class features). Once again, the book breaks from Third Edition’s epic level conventions as these all present standard (for their class) progressions for BAB and saves.

The classes themselves are too many to go into detail here, but some major themes are notable. A big one is that legendary damage is a major facet of class advancement, both in terms of dealing it and being able to protect yourself against it. Some of its uses seem better than others, but not egregiously so. There’s also a very clear attempt to increase the power of martial characters versus their spellcasting counterparts; these characters seem to get more over the course of their levels, and have greater emphasis on legendary damage.

To be clear, there are no legendary classes specific to the new classes from the APG, UM, or UC (though those classes are occasionally referenced in areas like the new spells). Likewise, there’s no mention of archetypes here. The book does present legendary classes to the three new base classes given in other Little Red Goblin Games’ supplements, though, which will be of limited use to anyone not owning those books. Five new prestige classes, which seem to be for those who can’t take legendary class levels, are also given; these cover a broad enough array to be fairly generic (e.g. juggernaut or lord of war for martial characters, archmage for arcane spellcasters, etc.) in terms of what classes they’ll appeal to. I do wish there’d been something built more towards multiclass characters here, but at least those characters get a nod in the feats section.

The feats section (which was annoyingly lacking in a summary table) did present a fairly robust set of feats to round out what can be done at legendary levels. The aforementioned multiclass characters are noted in that there are feats that grant limited access to some of the class abilities from the legendary classes. The bulk of the spellcasting feats are impressive for what they offer (High Magic puts an automatic Intensify Spell effect on all spells below 5th level that you cast, for instance, to keep low-level spells relevant), but once again, the combat-focused feats get the most emphasis, though it’s more equitable. It’s a bit of an easter egg that we’re given summary charts for the bonuses and penalties given by Power Attack, Combat Expertise, and Deadly Aim at the end of the section.

True Dweomers are presented next. Most of the basic information on them is presented earlier, in the book’s first section where it goes over legendary spells; in this case, spell levels top out at 12th, and full-progression spellcasting classes automatically gain access to those slots as they level up. However, for true dweomers (which don’t have a spell level per se) you can only use one per day, and learning EACH ONE requires taking a feat! The Sacred Spells presented next are slightly more generous, not having the once-per-day restriction, nor requiring feats; moreover, they have spell levels, and so can be prepared by legendary clerics and oracles. Both types of spells only have about a half-dozen examples presented, however, which I thought was rather limited.

Legendary encounters is presented next, and this short section of the book was also disappointing for how sparse it was. Leaving aside the possibility of legendary NPCs, this section had far too little for characters that have surpassed 20th-level. There are four templates here: the legendary creature template (which, ironically, is a simple template; though for all its bonuses it doesn’t seem to live up to its +20 CR adjustment), the deity template, the godspawn template, and the colossus template (which can only be applied to constructs, and is where the rules for colossal+ creature sizes are found). Unfortunately, the authors’ diligence from before isn’t to be found here, as not only do these latter three templates not have CR adjustments, but there’s no listing of the XP values of creatures with a CR of higher than 25.

The book’s final section covers legendary magic items. Not artifacts, these are magic items (specifically armor and weapon properties, rings, rods, and wondrous items) taken to legendary levels. To its credit, the book does talk about the rules for crafting these (and even legendary mundane weapons), and does present us with bonus pricing for legendary weapons and armor. The magic items themselves aren’t bad, but I found some (though not all) of the weapon and armor properties a bit dull – a crushing weapon does double damage, and enemies take a -2 on attacks and damage for 1 round on a critical hit. Much more fun is a volcanic weapon, which is a flaming weapon that spews frickin’ lava on a critical hit!

The rings, rods, and wondrous items are where the real fun is at. Rings of Immortality, the Trident of Pressure, the Godly Vessel (trap the soul of a dead god inside, and when you wear it, you can grant spells and answer prayers as that god!) are all very fun items that are more what I think of when it comes to legendary gear. A brief section on scaling up normal magic items with varying bonuses (e.g. bracers of armor, cloaks of resistance, etc.) ends the section.

Overall, Legendary Levels is a good book, though not without its flaws. Its strength is clearly focused on the mechanics of taking the PCs above 20th level, and it does a surprisingly good job of it. From the de facto level thirty limit to the prestige classes and feats to help out multiclass and non-Core-class characters to its attempts to rein in spellcasters as it boosts martial characters, there’s a lot to admire here. However, the book does have some problems (overlooking the occasional spelling or grammar error), such as a lackluster skills section and an anemic section on legendary-level enemies.

Still, possibly notwithstanding the need for an expanded CR-to-XP table, none of its problems can’t be taken care of by an enterprising GM that knows what to exclude and what to prepare beforehand. Likewise, for players that want to extend their game beyond 20th-level, what’s here is invaluable, simply because it presents a framework that’s workable and fun. Legendary Levels gives you what you need to take your game into truly legendary territory. Just be sure to keep a close eye what needs to be tweaked, and you’ll have a lot of fun with what you find here.

I can’t tell you how long I’ve waited for this.

I think that at some point, every GM (and quite possibly every player too) has entertained the thought of running an evil campaign, or at least playing an evil character. After all, who could resist the temptation of being the uber-cool arch-villain, unbound by moral codes and social niceties, doing what you please and may the gods have mercy on those who cross you? Of course, this flight of fancy tends to run headfirst into some very real problems when put into practice, and so no one’s every really marketed an adventure – let alone an adventure path – for Pathinder (or its ancestor game).

That’s all changed with Fire Mountain Games’ new adventure path, Way of the Wicked. It all begins here with book one, Knot of Thorns.

Let’s cover some of the technical aspects of the book first. The single PDF file is exactly one hundred pages long, making it a fairly substantial work. Bookmarks are present, but only to each of the book’s major sections; you won’t find nested bookmarks to more specific parts of each section, so you may need to do a bit of scrolling.

The artwork in the book is notable for its quality; something all the more impressive for the book having had but a single artist. Each piece is a full-color illustration that is clearly professional in its detail; this is especially true for the maps, which I found to be quite pretty (and wished that there was a map pack available as well). My only complaint about the maps was that they use a scale of having one square equal 10 feet, which I always find slightly off-putting, since Pathfinder uses a default 5-foot square assumption. If you’re redrawing these, make sure to scale the locations appropriately.

The pages themselves are nicely decorated, being set against a dark background and having page borders on three sides. Having said that, there is no printer-friendly version of the book available (nor, for that matter, an epublishing version), so this may be a strain on your printer.

Following a single-page introduction where the author exhorts conquering the world rather than saving it, the adventure opens with a background for the course of the campaign. Set in the island nation of Talingarde, where the faith of the sun-god Mitra has become the state religion, a deposed prince turned worshipper of Asmodeus seeks to subvert the current order and have the Devil God’s faith ascend to become the religion of the kingdom, complete with a new king on the throne. For this, he has crafted a diabolical plan utilizing nine teams to create unrest and thwart attempts to solve the problems he’ll create. It’s with these teams in mind that he turns to your PCs.

The adventure starts out with your characters already being the bad guys. You’ve been found guilty of committing major crimes (not wrongly, either; your PCs being criminals is a major part of the backstory; see below) and sentenced to prison to be executed or sent to a life of hard labor. However, thanks to a mysterious benefactor, and a lax administration, you have a chance to escape.

This first part of the adventure is a fun prison break, not only for the heightened tension in that you’re working from a disadvantage (you don’t get to keep your gear in prison), but also due to the different angles from which this scenario can be run. Are you just trying to make for the exit as fast as you can, or do you take bloody revenge on everyone around you and arm yourself with their equipment?

Following their escape, the PCs make their way to their patron and are given the choice to swear themselves to Asmodeus (which, perhaps appropriately for a devil god, isn’t much of a choice at all) and begin their training. This part of the adventure is heavier on the role-playing, as this part introduces a lot of key NPCs and the chance to build relationships with them, along with internalizing the fact that they’re now serving the forces of Hell.

The adventure’s third act consists of a journey to their first assignment. A long sea voyage, this scenario is broken up by a number of encounters, which are broken up into three groups of making the voyage, completing their task, and after the trip. This is also the most open part of the adventure, as not only can the order of events be shuffled quite a bit, but new encounters can be added or deleted as necessary; this is where a lot of the restrictions on the PCs come off.

The fourth and final part of the adventure is a mission of infiltration and destruction. Outmatched and outnumbered, the PCs have to bring down a fortress filled with soldiers of the forces of goodness. Very cogently, the adventure adopts a method of granting “Victory Points” for various actions, with the end results of their mayhem being tabulated by how many points they’ve achieved via their acts of disruption.

That’s the end of the adventure, and if it sounds short, then it’s only because I’m doing it a disservice. There’s a lot that happens throughout Knot of Thorns, so much so that your characters are supposed to end the adventure when they’ve just reached 6th level. Interestingly, while there’s plenty of bloodshed going on throughout the book, a great deal of the XP the PCs are supposed to gain comes from story-based XP awards for accomplishing various tasks. I’d go so far as to say that I’ve never seen an adventure that relied so much on story awards. This is comforting, as it makes it easy to arbitrarily increase or decrease the XP the PCs are given as they move through the series of unfortunate events they’re causing.

The book doesn’t end with the adventure, however. The last twenty pages or so are devoted to what’s essentially a player’s primer. We’re given an overview of Talingarde’s history, some of its more notable locales, and a quick overview of some of its major organizations. It’s in this last section that I think we come to the book’s single biggest oversight – there’s no information on the sun god Mitra. To be fair, the church of Mitra is covered (albeit briefly), but that’s not enough. What are Mitra’s domains and sub-domains? What is his holy symbol and favored weapon? We don’t know, because the book doesn’t tell us. True, none of that information is directly pertinent, but if GMs want to deviate from the material here and make up their own Mitran clerics (or inquisitors or similar divine spellcasters), the missing information becomes more pertinent. Hopefully we’ll see something on this from Fire Mountain Games soon.

The author then includes a section on how to run a villainous campaign. Specifically, he outlines five problem areas, and how this campaign attempts to avoid them (where possible; otherwise he includes advice for making things go smoothly). This section was, to my mind, very cogent in its reasoning. I’d always held that the major problems of an evil game were PvP conflicts, and someone being so evil that it squicked out the other players. All of these, as well as other problems (“why can’t we just send minions to do our evil for us?”) are covered, with sound reasoning given for why and how to handle them.

Subsequently there’s a short guide on PCs in a Way of the Wicked campaign. Interestingly, goes through the character creation guidelines and recommends specific changes, the sum total of which are to make the PCs more powerful, since they’re evil outcasts in a good nation. I’m not sure that this is necessary, but then I’m slightly biased against increasing the level power the PCs have, since my group includes a couple power-gamers.

What’s most interesting here are the new campaign traits. Remember how the game starts with your PCs being condemned criminals? There are twenty campaign traits here, each of which is a crime – which trait you pick is the crime that you performed, and were caught and lawfully sentenced for. I was really impressed with this simple yet elegant way of bringing the characters background, and evil nature, into the spotlight. This serves as a brilliant method for highlighting what the PCs did to start them on the road to villainy, and why they throw in with the powers of darkness.

The book closes out with a two-page synopsis of the entire adventure path, outlining what happens in each of the six adventures.

Overall, I found myself very impressed with the opening act for Way of the Wicked; this promises to be an adventure path as epic as anything by Paizo. The campaign’s themes are tightly focused, and the tenor of the adventure steers away from the problems that usually come from having a group of evil characters. The challenges are diverse, from infiltration to puzzles to deception to combat. You’ve never seen such a good job of being the bad guy.

Of course, the book isn’t without its flaws. The CR for the triton oracle seems to be off, for example, and the tactics section of Father Donnagan’s stat block seems to be an incorrect cut-and-paste. But the major problem that I think people might have with this campaign is that, even more than other adventure paths, this one is an exercise in railroading.

The first two acts of the adventure basically force the PCs to go in the specified directions, and while the third act – as mentioned above – starts to loosen the tight grip around the characters, it’s never truly removed (though in many cases it’s less visible). The PCs are bound by the goals that are set for them; their only freedoms lie in how to accomplish them – to put it another way, they’re free to do what they want, so long as they want to do what their patron says. In theory they can go their own way, but the adventure talks about what to do if the PCs go off the rails at various points, and its never good (in some cases, it flat-out says that they get slaughtered).

Of course, that may very well be a necessary evil (pun intended) for an evil game, as it’s much easier for an evil game to fall apart. I certainly don’t think it’s a deal-breaker, as the adventure offers a great “us against the world” scenario that’s a great inversion of the usual “points of light” backdrop. Follow the Way of the Wicked, and be the darkness that snuffs out the light.

I really didn’t know what to expect when I downloaded this book. Usually a product goes out of its way to describe what you’re paying for, but the product description page didn’t really present much to go on. Curious, I checked out what Van Graaf’s Journal of Adventuring had to say about what your PC should be doing when he’s raiding dungeons and fighting dragons. The results were an interesting mix of insightful and obvious. Let’s take a closer look.

Before anything else is said, one thing must be pointed out: the page count given in the product description is wrong. This PDF has 142 pages, not 256. Worse, there are no bookmarks here, which I consider to be unforgivable in a book this size. With any luck, these problems will be quickly corrected.

Van Graaf’s Journal of Adventuring takes a somewhat simplistic tone in its visual presentation. The pages have a plain white background, with small borders along the top and bottom. Some black and white illustrations break things up every couple of pages. This isn’t anything that would break your printer, so there’s no fuss there.

The first of the book’s four sections is dedicated to (non-magical) gear. I personally found this section of the book to be the best, as there was a lot of great ideas and new materials here. The book talks about what sort of equipment you’ll likely have/need in various environments and situations, presents a system where you can make a check to determine if you have some incidental item on you (that is, it’s an answer for when your player says “oh come on, I’m sure I’d have an extra bowstring! I’m a ranger! Do I really need to writing EVERYTHING on my character sheet?!”), along with a list of some of the more likely items and what their game effects, if any, are.

Some space is then given over to what classes (from the Core Rulebook only) would use what equipment, how to transport equipment and under what circumstances (e.g. are you going for speed and stealth? Or is this a long trip where you can be weighed down with a lot of gear?), various containers, and how items are carried on the body. This last one deserves special mention, as it’s my favorite part of the book. The authors cogently note that very little attention is paid to how a character stores the gear they’re carrying, and there’s only a basic rule for how long it takes to draw things. To rectify that, they present a system of charting exactly where a character’s items are stored on the body, including how many items can be carried and where, and how long it thus takes to draw various stowed gear. It’s a slightly more complex system than standard Pathfinder, but only slightly, and it adds a level of verisimilitude to the game that I quite liked.

This first part of the book was, as I said, the best part of it, at least for me. Here we got a lot of down-to-earth overviews of things that aren’t usually thought of in the abstracted world of an RPG, even one as relatively-intricate as Pathfinder. The new uses for equipment, along with systems for checking for mundane equipment and personal storage, where very innovative. Groups that enjoy a low-magic, more gritty style of play will adore what’s here.

The book’s second section is where things become disappointingly prosaic. It analyzes the various party roles (e.g. healer, face man, magic offense, etc.) and the various classes in terms of their combat and non-combat roles and how they relate to other classes. Issues of party leadership (not the feat) are discussed, and then things start to get a little better where issues of marching order and party movement are discussed. Keeping watch is given some coverage, along with combat tactics. It’s after this that “tactical templates” are presented, which are various team-based moves that can grant a minor bonus in combat. These take time to learn, but once trained in them a group can pull off some interesting maneuvers. For example, training for 2 weeks in the Flash-Bang maneuver lets you, if you get the drop on an enemy with a bright and loud attack in an enclosed space, keep them flat-footed until the round after the surprise round, instead of just the surprise round.

A fairly lengthy assessment of various terrain types and battlefield condition follows, along with new rules for various party synergies – little bonuses that PCs can gain for using complementary tactics (e.g. if you have 5 ranks in Bluff and are flanking a target, your ally gains a bonus to feinting Bluff checks). The section closes out with a hard look at identifying enemies, defeating them, and dealing with them once they’re defeated (e.g. the logistics of taking prisoners).

This section wasn’t quite as inspirational as the first one, mostly because the beginning part dealing with combat roles and the strengths and weaknesses of various classes is fairly intuitive, and veteran players will automatically know what’s here. A refresher never hurt anyone, of course, but it still comes across as something that everyone already knows. Conversely, the elements covering more tactical aspects, such as marching order, setting up watches, keeping prisoners, etc. were much more inspired, because they take place in the parts of the game that – in my experience – tend to be glossed over; these put elements that are typically background parts of the game firmly in the foreground. I had mixed feelings about the new tactical templates and synergies, however, as while they’re a great way to make the group a more cohesive entity rather than a collection of individuals, I wasn’t sure I liked how these were another way to pile on bonuses (something I don’t think PCs need any more of).

The third section is called “Intelligent Spellcasting” and takes up just over a third of the book. It opens with discussions of spells in broad themes (e.g. healing spells, direct harm combat spells, transportation spells, etc.) and includes lists of the Core Rulebook spells that fall into each category. It then discusses the party roles that spellcasters can play (e.g. defender, spy, booster) and – and this is the biggest space-eater in the book – presents spell lists for each of the spellcasting classes in the Core Rulebook based on each of these party roles.

How much you value this chapter will depend on how you view pre-packaged spell lists by (non-)combat role. This chapter is, unfortunately, weakened simply by the fact that a lot of Pathfinder’s magical utility has been expanded, both in terms of spells and spellcasting classes, by the Advanced Player’s Guide, Ultimate Magic, and even Ultimate Combat. Even considering the Core Rulebook-only presentation here, if you’re not interested in the best way to make a healing-focused druid, for example, you won’t have much use for this section.

The last section of the book is “The Home Base,” and primarily focuses on where the adventurers hang their hats. This doesn’t need to be a permanent place to set up kip, but rather is where the party will be resting and generally storing their gear, licking their wounds, and operating out of for a period of time.

This section cogently starts off by noting that the first thing to be considered for a base of operations is provisions, for which it introduces the new Provision Rating, along with various modifiers for said rating. Rules then cover stockpiling provisions, what happens when your provisions are cut off, and rationing food and water.

The book then talks about how to conceal your base, how to erect various defenses (e.g. trenches, fences, etc.), how to guard the entrances, and storage and alarms. A larger section is given for guards and sentries, as the book wisely details the various issues that come with employing such people (e.g. supplying them, paying them, modifiers to their discipline and priorities, patrol routes, etc.).

Temporary settlements are given several pages, examining the different types (such as a gathering of tents, abandoned buildings, basic shelters in the wild), along with permanent bases ranging from manor houses to ships to castles to underground fortresses and more. It’s worth noting that none of these cover costs of construction (it keeps referring the reader to Van Graaf’s Journal of Strongholds and Dynasties, which at the time of this writing doesn’t seem to have been released yet) but rather focuses on the practical implications that such domiciles entail. The book then closes with several pages dedicated to running an institution wherein you handle training students (e.g. if you’re running a thieves’ guild or bardic college).

This last section was much more to my liking than its predecessor, simply because it again focuses on taking some of the elements of the game that are assumed and puts them front and center. The practical considerations food and water, keeping your guards paid and disciplined, choosing where to set up a base and more are all smartly discussed and commented on, with various mechanics given as needed. This is another part of the book that will be irresistible to those who want to delve into the nitty-gritty details, rather than cast a spell to create a personal demiplane and magically bind a few planar creatures as guards.

Overall, I found Van Graaf’s Journal of Adventuring to be a mixed bag, but one which hit more often than it missed. The book does have some not-inconsiderable strikes against it, such as its lack of bookmarks or how it sometimes belabors the obvious of the various class roles. But the considerations it places on the all-too-often ignored practical aspects of adventuring are highly evocative, and make the details of a campaign seem exciting for how fleshed out they are. Sometimes given game mechanics and sometimes discussed solely in terms of the impact on the game world, there’s a lot here for those who want to paint a very holistic, vivid picture of what goes into adventuring beyond the raiding and killing. As the title says, this is a journal of adventuring, with all that that entails.

One of the best things to come out of the d20 rules is, in my opinion, templates. Being easy ways of customizing your monsters helps to make what would otherwise be generic creatures have a special, unexpected slant to them. Of course, saying templates are “easy” ways of customizing your monsters is a relative term. In fact, templates virtually always require tweaking a monster beforehand. Hence why Pathfinder offered us the new simple templates, micro-templates that made comparatively small changes, complete with “quick” rules that told us how to change a monster on-the-fly.

Rite Publishing’s second book of templates goes with this approach, trying to keep the new material in line with existing simple templates…but not everything herein is quite so simple, as the title acknowledges: 101 Not So Simple Monster Templates.

The title’s honesty is slightly undercut by the fact that this book doesn’t actually have one-hundred-one templates in it, but rather ninety-three. You wouldn’t know it unless you actually counted, though, so it’s not like that’s a deal-breaker.

The templates themselves run quite the gamut in what they offer. Some of these templates are indeed worthy of being called simple, such as templates for creatures that are blind, deaf, or missing an arm. Others are based around turning the base creature into another creature-type, such as the Banshee Creature template, or the Lich-Touched template (which gives the base creature the lich’s paralyzing touch).

Some may find the aforementioned templates to be something of a deal-breaker, as these seem like something easily constructed on your own. That may be, but that’s not the fault of the book – after all, this is focused on simple templates, and that will mean that many of the templates take a single idea and implement it. That the book exhibits a range in the templates it offers is a virtue, not a vice.

Speaking of a range, there are plenty of templates in here that aren’t quite so simple, either. The Walking Fortress Creature template makes the creature into a titanic monstrosity with an actual fortress on its back. A Riven Magic Creature not only shrugs off magic, but drains and destroys it as well. There’s a lot here for those looking to put an unexpected spin on their everyday monster. Most helpful is the chart at the end of the book that ranks the templates by their CR adjustment, ranging from -5 all the way to +4.

The book doesn’t offer any example creatures, and in only a few places are there sidebars that discuss what’s presented. Likewise, while the lion’s share of the templates offer both quick and rebuild rules, not all of them do. In many cases, this is because the template is effect-based, and so the quick and rebuild rules are identical. Sometimes, though, the template just offers one or the other. Again, that isn’t particularly bad, but keep an eye out for the templates that assume that you’ll make things like ability score adjustments ahead of time.

Ultimately, this book is overflowing with templates that are simple and not-so-simple. In fact, some of these are templates of such creativity that they could have gotten the full template treatment. Whether you want your monster to have an exceptionally powerful bite attack (Gnawing Creature) or be the personification of death itself (Grim Reaper Creature), look no further than 101 Not So Simple Templates.

My review of the original Warfare for Beginners noted that that product’s strength came from how it eschewed the idea of simulating the actual clash of armies, instead setting the large-scale battles as a backdrop against which the PCs undertook decisive missions which made the difference between victory and defeat. It was a great idea, as it got rid of special rules for playing armies without sacrificing the “feel” of your characters being involved in a major military conflict.

It’s a pity that Warfare for Beginners 2 breaks so thoroughly from its predecessor, even as it depends on it.

At one page shorter than the previous book in the series – having two pages of text and one of the OGL – Warfare for Beginners 2 is, for all intents and purposes, a completely different article from the one it follows. So much so, in fact, that I look askance at this book’s disclaimer of “make sure you have purchased that article first, or this won't make much sense to you!” True, WfB2 uses Victory Points – and doesn’t mention how they work here, clearly expecting you to already understand the concept – but that’s all that this product carries over from its predecessor; everything else here revolves around new mechanics.

Said new mechanics dive directly into the territory that the previous article dodged: the simulation of entire armies clashing. To the product’s credit, its system is simple and easy, but that comes with all of the critiques that go along with that simplicity.

Warfare for Beginners 2 holds to the idea that the PCs don’t simply await for opportunities to arise, but rather are military commanders who decide upon what tactics to have the troops perform, while the enemy responds in kind. In this regard, the book presents eight kinds of military tactics (e.g. ambush, artillery, etc.) with a sidebar briefly overviewing each one.

You can likely guess how things work from there. The PCs and the GM each pick a tactic, and then compare their results to a table on the article’s first page. Depending on the particular combination of tactic-versus-tactic, the PCs can either gain or lose Victory Points (or, in fact, things can be a wash, with the PCs neither gaining nor losing any VPs. This, however, was slightly obfuscated by the table presentation, which presented such results as simply blank squares, rather than a more-helpful “+0”).

Depending on what sort of mass combat rules you prefer, this simplicity is either making you despair or making you cheer. Regardless, it should be noted that the book does throw some wrinkles into the above process. First of all, the PCs can attempt (via a skill check) to ascertain what tactic their enemy will use (though curiously, the GM doesn’t seem to get to attempt the same). Secondly, both sides can attempt an opposed skill check to increase the efficacy of their chosen tactic – success means that the number of VPs gained or lost is increased by 1.

While that’s the sum total of the new mechanics, it is heartening that (also like the previous work in this series) WfB2 does take the time to talk about putting this into a narrative context. For example, it encourages you to put individual faces on the enemy leaders making the opposed skill checks, for example, which is a small but salient detail. Likewise, it talks about the need to dress up the simple comparison of tactics and the ensuing change in Victory Points into something that’s much more exciting.

Following this is a quick note that the scale of Victory Points – that is, the total number necessary to win or lose the battle – is increased under this system.

Unfortunately, the above is the only oblique mention that this article mentions regarding how to use this system in conjunction with the one from the original Warfare for Beginners. In fact, the use of Victory Points is the only thing linking these two products at all – notwithstanding that, you have two separate ways of having the PCs play in a military conflict. That’s a shame, because given the separate foci of these articles (one being commando raids by the PCs, the other being the large-scale movements of troops), they could have been very complementary. They still can be, but it would have helped to address issues that come up when using both systems together. For example, do the PCs need to personally lead their soldiers, or can they issue orders and then go carry out their own mission? Can they launch a small raid that affects the enemy’s use of tactics that day? More could have been done here.

As it is, this book’s system of mass battles is intuitive, but limited. It allows for quick and easy resolution to combat engagements, and even allows for some nuance with its system of opposed skill checks, but it still neglects a lot. There’s no way to incorporate terrain into this system, for example, and issues with more than two units going into battle isn’t discussed, nor is the size of the respective armies, nor their composition (e.g. one is undead, another has cavalry, etc.), though the book’s last paragraph promises that this will be covered in the next in the series.

Wait…the “next in the series”?

I went into Warfare for Beginners 2 under the presumption that it was an afterthought to the original rules, released too late to incorporate into its predecessor – why else would you release a two-page “sequel” that requires the use of the preceding materials after just sixteen days? It was only with the aforementioned promise of new material later that I realized that this was done on purpose, something that rubs me the wrong way.

The problem with Warfare for Beginners 2 is that it sits awkwardly between being its own product and being an adjunct to the original Warfare for Beginners (and subsequent WfB articles). Had the Victory Points information been entirely reprinted, this material could have stood on its own (minus any future products that build on the rules here). Had it gone out of its way to tie itself tighter to the previous product, it probably should have been merged with it into a single book, rather than strung out across a very thin series. As it is, we’re seeing two different ideas presented as part of the same material and THEN divided back into two different pay-for products.

Make no mistake, the mass battle rules presented here are serviceable, but could be much more than they are. For that, however, you’ll need to wait for the release of the next few pages to what’s essentially one book.

Mass combat has never been handled very well in any incarnation of the d20 System, and Pathfinder is no exception. From large and intricate systems that are practically a separate game in-and-of themselves to highly abstract rules-light methods, mass combat has been presented in many different varieties. Unfortunately, all of them are imperfect, tending to be either too complex or too simplistic. Ultimately, a fresh approach to the entire idea is what’s needed.

That fresh approach is found in EN Publishing’s Warfare for Beginners.

A four-page PDF (one page of which is the OGL), Warfare for Beginners throws out the underlying assumption of all other mass battle systems: that you need stats for armies. Instead, it puts the focus squarely on the PCs as individuals and makes them the linchpin for how a mass battle resolves. As the book’s product page says: the underlying assumption is that unless the PCs do something, their side will eventually lose.

It’s certainly possible to take issue with the aforementioned assumption. After all, some may not like the idea that the PCs are ALWAYS on the losing side of a battle unless they go out of their way to turn it around – while the book doesn’t address this, I think it’s important to understand that this underlying default is a purely meta-game construct. It’s designed to set up the system that Warfare for Beginners presents, rather than create an in-character scenario of “why is it our side is always composed of bunglers except for us?”

Warfare for Beginners was originally a 3.5 product that has been converted over to Pathfinder. This is fairly easy to see, since its main mechanic is an original one. The battle is decided by the accumulation of Victory Points. Gather enough VPs and the PCs’ side wins; lose all their VPs and their side loses, plain and simple.

The kicker is that VPs are naturally lost over time…as in, every day of the battle. The PCs must accumulate enough VPs by undertaking missions to bolster their troops and undermine the enemy to be able to win. A d20-based table is presented with various mission ideas, as well as how many VPs they’re worth if completed, and the penalty to VPs if failed. An accompanying table determines events that take place with the rest of the armies, and the resulting changes to the VP totals.

What all of this means in a practical context – and what the book spends about half of its pages talking about – is that Warfare for Beginners doesn’t so much present a system for resolving mass battles as it gives you a series of ideas for encounters that the PCs face over the course of the battles. In other words, if you use this system to determine that the can PCs go out on an assassination mission, you’ll still need to use a battle map, have NPC stats for foes, etc. You’re essentially running short adventures for the PCs, and keeping a tally of how they do.

There are some guidelines given on how challenging missions should be based on how many Victory Points they’re worth, as well as discussion of scaling various aspects of the system (e.g. having things occur over months instead of days). Roughly the last quarter of the book presents some examples of how this would work in actual play around the game table.

Needless to say, how much you get out of this system will depend on what you had in mind for your Pathfinder mass battles. If you want your PCs commanding armies and using large-scale military tactics, then this book isn’t for you. If you want your PCs to be pulling off daring commando raids whose effects change the whole dynamic of the battle, then this product gives you an excellent system for designing short (or even not-so-short) adventures to do just that.

What really makes the difference here is the book’s presentation. While it may be obvious to a lot of GM’s, I give this book kudos for saying “don’t just dryly read off the table results! Present what get from these rolls as natural consequences of the battle! Here’s an example.” This is the sort of advice that’s often overlooked simply because a lot of people just assume this sort of presentation is understood. That’s not the case, however, and dressing up what the mechanics give you is a big part of role-playing, particularly for this book, which is giving you outlines for adventuring during a war.

If you want your PCs to be the ones who make the difference, pick up Warfare for Beginners. It makes them the real heroes of battle.

Introducing new special materials into the Pathfinder RPG – special materials being the materials you make your weapons and armor from, such as adamantine or mithral – is something of a tricky process. The primary purpose of special materials is usually to overcome a corresponding damage reduction. Beyond that, their uses quickly become niche, though they can still be interesting. It’s with this last thought in mind that Wild Hunt Games brings us Archives of Maere: Forces of Nature.

A 13-page PDF, Forces of Nature portrays itself simply but not inelegantly. It has both a hyperlinked table of contents and bookmarks, which is going the extra mile. I thought it slightly odd that the back cover immediately followed the front cover, but that’s a stylistic choice I’ve seen elsewhere, so I didn’t fault it.

The book’s artwork is totally focused on the new magic item it presents. All except the last item have a single photograph (not illustration; an actual picture) of the item presented below it. I found that interesting, since the pictures ostensibly of something else that the author found; still, it’s impressive to see a picture of an aetherite crow figurine of wondrous power, for example.

The book gives us two new special materials: aetherite and draconium. The former acts as a sort of undead alarm, presenting a bluish mist that drifts towards undead who come near deposits of aetherite. The latter material is highly volatile, and explodes under pressure.

Initially, I looked askance at these materials. Having an auto-undead detector seemed like too much, for instance, until I realized that this wasn’t really presenting anything that a 1st-level detect undead spell didn’t already do (and, in fact, does with better range anyway). Similarly, draconium seems like it could be unbalancing if the player’s start carrying it around as bombs, but they don’t deal enough damage in small doses, and larger ones are impractical to use like that anyway.

Following this are a dozen new magic items (the last of which is a minor artifact) all of which use one of these two new special materials. This lends a nice thematic element to the product that really tied it together. Of the magic items themselves, they were fairly useful, having things like a reusable sunrod that can also heat metal, two new figurines of wondrous power, and a bashing shield that lashes out with fire when used. There are also some pop-culture nods in here, which will either make you grin or roll your eyes (e.g. one of the magic items is called dead lights, for you Stephen King fans). It’s worth noting, however, that the devil’s bombard could probably use some tweaking now that Ultimate Combat is out.

The appendix reprints one spell from the previous Archives of Maere book that the minor artifact uses, and also presents a new cavalier order (see the Advanced Player’s Guide), one dedicated to fighting the undead, which is slightly surprising in that it’s the first time I’ve seen such an order. However, I frowned at their 15th-level ability, which chiefly lets them critical hit undead creatures…despite how, in Pathfinder, undead are subject to critical hits normally. A few points off for that.

Overall though, this installation in the Archives of Maere does fairly well for what it presents. The new materials are in-and-of themselves minor additions to the game, but the use of them in a dozen new items helps to boost their presence; it’s a smart move, and an interesting one as well. I’d personally make these very rare materials that are specific to a certain region of the game world, and I think they’d be a lot of fun that way.

Leadership is one of those aspects of Pathfinder that is clearly a nod back to the game’s history, but at the same time doesn’t quite replicate that history perfectly. Back in the day, having henchmen and hirelings was par for the course, though it could cost you quite a bit in funds. Having the feat provide a matrix by which you can calculate the exact number and levels of your cohort and followers can be rather awkward, to say nothing of the problems with a high-level cohort and a horde of low-level followers.

That’s where the aptly-named 2 Options for the Leadership Feat – part of Super Genius Games’s #1 With a Bullet Point line – comes in.

The PDF is three pages long, one for the title page, one for the OGL, and one for the new rules here. Surprisingly, there were no bookmarks, which was deeply shocking since I thought for sure a product of this length would be concerned about its ease of navigation, but I’ll chalk this one up to someone falling asleep at the wheel.

Seriously though, the book presents two mutually-exclusive options for what benefits you gain if you have the Leadership feat. Interestingly, both do away completely with having a second character (or, for that matter, a host of characters) that follow your PC around on his adventures. Rather, these options are both focused around having contacts and connections that you can exploit.

The difference between the two options comes from how wide, and how deep, these connections are. The first option gives you only a scant handful of connections, but you can get quite a lot from them. The second option gives you a broad spectrum of connections, but these aren’t very specific to any particular individual.

In both cases, the benefits are virtually free of combat utility, and more focused on what the people you know can do for you. Each option has a paragraph describing how this works in favor of the PC, and another describing how it’s easier for the GM. Both make some very good points, and are fairly upfront about the fact that this is to cut down on having to manage what’s essentially a second PC and a useless collection of followers.

Overall, I liked these options, simply because I’ve experienced the problems that Leadership can bring to the game table. Both of these create a stronger “support” role in the mechanics they offer, and have some great material for role-playing the people your character is friends with. If you’re tired of having to deal with cohorts and followers, check out 2 Options for the Leadership Feat.

I picked up Supplement V: Carcosa a few years ago on a whim, and have yet to regret my purchase. Indeed, my sole complaint was that it left me wanting more – while there was a truckload of role-playing potential in Carcosa, I frequently find myself lacking the time and inspiration necessary to craft an adventure there (that, and my players are all scared of the setting – quite rightly so – and are very hesitant to play there).

As such, you can imagine how delighted I was to find out that someone’s written an adventure for the Carcosa setting. Apparently the only one of its kind, I fell upon Cameron Dubeers’s adventure, Obregon’s Dishonor, with relish. What I found after reading through the material was that, although it didn’t have quite the tone I expected, it was still a wild trip through the world of Carcosa.

For those concerned, this review will have some spoilers regarding the outcome of the adventure.

Obregon’s Dishonor is a 39-page PDF. There’s only one bookmark, which takes you back to the first page of the file, something that I found disappointing. Likewise, there are no other versions of the file, such as an epub format. The book is very printer-friendly, however, having only three pieces of art in total.

I personally didn’t care very much for the art in this book. While Andy “Atom” Taylor can draw black and white illustrations far better than I could, I found the subjects to have a very “flat” look to them. While some may think it appropriate to find the subjects of the world of Carcosa to be off-putting, it shouldn’t be because you don’t think the artistry is doing them justice.

One of the major aspects of Obregon’s Dishonor, which must be noted before we go any further, is the tone that it presents. When I read Supplement V: Carcosa, what I took away from it was that this was a very bleak world. The color-coded humans of the planet huddle in small, isolated gatherings, afraid of not only humans of other colors, but also of the pantheon of monstrous creatures that roam the world. What little “treasures” they find are usually technologies that they can’t reproduce and barely understand. And magic is a ritualistic performance that requires highly specific components (e.g. specific times, places, etc.) that usually requires bloody sacrifices to tame or abjure alien gods for a sort time…and always exacts a high price from the caster.

Needless to say, that’s a harsh game world indeed. It’s also not the world of Obregon’s Dishonor. Don’t misunderstand, this adventure is still set on the world described in Supplement V, but the “feel” of the place is very different. Towns have been constructed, with fairly typical shops and trades going on (e.g. barbers, taverns, prostitution, etc.), gemstones are mined, and people of different colors dislike each other, but are willing to tolerate each other’s existence, albeit tensely.

Several of the new rules also help to tone down Carcosa’s high lethality. One of the book’s appendices introduces the new witch class. Unlike the Carcosan sorcerer, the witch class is a more terrestrial thaumaturgist; she has the power to create elixers which, although nonmagical, can replicate several of the more familiar D&D spells (e.g. a healing elixir, an elixir of sleep, neutralizing poison, etc.), something that can help PCs immensely.

Given the presentation of human habitation and the witch’s benefits, this is a different take on Carcosa – one that’s not so much “Cthulhu’s idea of a pleasant place to vacation” as it is “Conan the barbarian’s idea of a really rough place to live.” The latter is still a harsh environment, to be sure, but not nearly as much so as the former. In fact, the author states flat-out that this adventure is meant to evoke the spirit of the old action-adventure pulp stories (which were a strong inspiration on D&D to begin with), which helps to explain the tone of the book.

The plot of Obregon’s Dishonor is ostensibly a rescue mission. The PCs are in the mining town of Jaftgong and answer the call of a purple woman named Bothess. Bothess wants to hire the PCs to help her locate the spell component that will let her free the soul of her lover, Obregon, after he was killed and pulled into another dimension by the Shambler of Endless Night, something that happened after his apprentice, Darsiaas, betrayed him.

The town of Jaftgong is the initial backdrop for the scenario, despite most of the actual adventuring taking place elsewhere. Jaftgong gets a fair amount of description, including a map, and its clear that the author wants the PCs to regard this as something of a “home base” beyond the scope of the adventure – certainly, the PCs should care what happens there.

Interestingly, the other major key to the adventure is the star NPC, Bothess. I had some problems with Bothess, both in terms of how essential she is to the plot (though, to be fair, the text does take steps to help the GM should she be rebuffed in her offer of employment, or slain along the way), and in terms of her sexuality.

The latter point requires further explanation. One of the points of the old pulps that the author says he wants to recreate in this adventure is the lusty babe showing a lot of skin, and Bothess is the incarnation of that aspect of the story (even despite being a cyborg) – the text goes out of its way on more than one occasion to describe her body. (“If Carcosa had its own version of Playboy, Bothess would probably be the most popular centerfold.”)

This, I had no problem with.

Bothess isn’t just pretty, though; she’s highly outgoing in her sexuality. She’s very willing to offer sex as a reward for helping her – and, of course, she’s unconcerned with skin color, is bisexual, and is even willing to have an orgy with multiple PCs at once if that’s what it takes to secure their help. Later on, she’s willing to strip down and tempt one of the major monsters the PCs face if things become bleak (though it’s as a tactical measure, as she has a weapon for the occasion).

This, too, I had no problem with.

Assuming the PCs take Bothess up on her carnal offers, sex with her grants them some attribute bonuses, and a small penalty. But only the first time, and the bonuses are temporary.

This, I had a problem with.

The problem isn’t so much that the PCs gain stat bonuses for sleeping with her. Personally, I think that’s a valid way to make sex tempting for player-characters; most PCs are solely concerned with what improves their character, either in-game (treasure, weapons, etc.) or out-of-game (experience points, levels, etc.). Since sex is supposed to be desirable, having it grant bonuses in the game’s mechanics keeps it tempting to the PCs.

Rather, the problem here is that the PCs only gain these bonuses the first time they have sex with her. This is somewhat penalizing, since the bonuses last for about a day, and presuming the PCs are quick to have their way with her (and why would they wait?) they’ll likely gain and lose the bonuses in doing so before they get to the dungeon-crawl part of the adventure.

It wouldn’t have been unbalancing, I think, to let the PCs gain the mechanical modifiers for sleeping with Bothess throughout the course of the adventure, particularly given the way things (likely) end. Having it be a one-off series of modifiers tends to waste giving sex modifiers at all. Similarly, it’s never explained WHY sex with Bothess grants these modifiers – the implication is that she’s just that good in bed, but if that were the case, surely there’s someone else on Carcosa of equal talent, and they’d also grant similar bonuses? The in-game reason for the mechanical modifiers should have been spelled out more.

The game’s main feature is the dungeon-crawl that the PCs sojourn through to find the necessary spell component to free Obregon’s soul (a spell that, contrary to the non-banishing spells in Supplement V, requires no human sacrifices). Moreso than anywhere else, this is where the adventure is at its most pulp, as they need to battle through an abandoned monastery to find the object of their quest.

For those GMs who worry about maintaining a bleaker feel for Carcosa, this is also the area that will need the most work. The tone of this area is set not only by the creatures fought here (largely a new type of monster introduced in the book), but in terms of the weapons and items found as location-based treasure.

In the same way that the witch class allows for “potions,” the treasure here presents a lot of “magic” weapons. I put “magic” in parenthesis because while these have the mechanics of magic items, e.g. a +1 sword, they’re actually technological in nature – the aforementioned +1 sword is actually a vibro-blade, for example. While it’s true that Supplement V does present a fairly large number of technological items that PCs can find, most of those have only so many charges. It’s entirely possible for a group of adventurers to end this adventure with, not a large bundle of high-tech items, but long-lasting ones.

Speaking of the adventure’s end, it concludes with a twist on the premise, naturally, but attempts to close with a dilemma for which there’s no right answer – do you save the town of Jaftgong, or do you stop the Great Old Ones from being unleashed? It’s an impossible scenario…except that it isn’t, since the book flat-out tells you that the former possibility is imminent, whereas the latter will take a couple years to do. Presumably, the sense of this being an impossible choice is preserved if you keep that particular clause from the PCs, but this still strikes me as being somewhat sloppy. Making that threat much more immediate (a few weeks or even days), would have put much more pressure on the PCs, as it should be.

Likewise, the text sort of sputters out at that point. While I can understand not going into further detail about freeing the Great Old Ones (since that can be long and drawn out), the process for saving Jaftgong is handled awkwardly, with a link to some rules for running mass battles, and very little other information given as to how the battle is supposed to be played out. More could have been done here by far, and it’s for this reason primarily that I’m giving the adventure less than full marks.

Overall, Obregon’s Dishonor isn’t Geofrey McKinney’s Carcosa, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. If you want the game world to be a little less of a desolate wasteland filled with xenophobes just struggling to survive, and instead offer a little more dungeon-raiding, damsel-rescuing, heroic-questing, then this adventure will give it to you, along with providing enough new mechanics and ideas that you’ll be able to better craft further such adventures on Carcosa.