This science fantasy piece runs the party through a mostly-scripted story of foreshadowing, destiny, love and such matters, involving various transitions through random dimensional special effects after a mostly irrelevant but reasonably well developed military prologue. Players who found "The Fifth Element" and the more mystical side of Star Wars compelling and don't mind lots of movie steals and a heavy hand on adherence to the plot may well get into this. Editing and word usage are not the best. I found myself wishing for a few illustrations and maps at several points.

A fine example of what third parties can provide for the new edition: flavoursome, edgy but easy to incorporate, solidly designed and well presented. Powers are well suited to warlocks in general as well as those of this pact. Excepting only a couple of mechanical questions and derivative names, this is a good 4 1/2 stars for me.

Mostly a useful survey of the hand-to-hand combat styles taught in the late Victorian period, represented by advanced classes and statistics for implements such as the sword cane and reinforced walking stick, and particularly referring to Sherlock Holmes as the cover suggests. Good treatment of a defensive fighting style (bartitsu) and information on boxing.

I'm not too happy about editing. I was disappointed with the Fencing Master and background information on savate and the 1 1/2 pages spent on fiction pitting Self-Defence Girl against Saucy Jack detracted from the product for me.

This recently updated product presents a caterpillar-like PC race with two very interesting abilities: silk spinning (a utilitarian sort of power that might prove surprisingly useful at low levels) and optional, paragon-level metamorphosis into a choice of flying forms that each to some extent favour one of the basic classes. The flight ability is no more than some classes can achieve with levitation-style effects and generally the game mechanics are well-judged, possibly excepting the usefulness of the mid-leg attack, which doesn't seem like a great option before you spend one or several feats. NPCs, again, show the broad range of vocations and temperaments across the species.

A comprehensive, professional and well-integrated description of poisons as a major sub-system of the game - numerous effects and modifications, harvesting and brewing, antidotes, feats, classes, a broad range of venomous or poison-related creatures and adventure possibilities. It's easily comparable to products like the Psionics Handbook in breadth as well as usefulness.

This fairly trivial encounter is quite unclearly described in places and would be literally half as long without the unnecessary repetition of SRD text. The publisher has gone to a lot of effort to add a nice layout and cartography to not much. The idea of a defective trap is mildly useful and the author has found some combinations worth a second look, such as the Trap of Unreliable Doom.

High-quality material for a number of very interesting games - or, in fact, for any modern or post-apocalyptic system you're running. It's remarkable to see something as good as this available for only the time it takes to read through.

Not a bad pulp treasure-chase with an easily dispensable supernatural scene right at the end. Action scenes and NPCs could have used more specific description and there are one or two potentially awkward connections.

It's always good to see timely updates from a publisher when a product could use a quick fix. If anything, the cover image improves on the earlier releases in the series and there's more quality art inside. The race has many possibilities as shown by a variety of NPCs up to epic levels.

It may be a bit jokey for many campaigns. I still have some concerns about editing and some of the feat mechanics.

Someone's read "Perdido Street Station"? This instalment shows a good strong concept, though a bit one-dimensional and with some frankly far-fetched elements.

I have to agree with the previous reviewer that it's not an attractive option mechanically. The Zizak might make a PC species with some additional strong benefit, perhaps some bonus to technology that (among other applications) could improve their use of powered armour, which seems to be important to them.

Nicely designed and described to present a plant-based creature with an interesting twist to its motivation, with some new magic item concepts specific to plant beings. Mechanics and editing are mostly solid. Attractive art for the price and a well-presented layout. This is an impressive first appearance.

An interesting idea that fits easily into the core rules. The previous release (Heroic Talents) had a lot that seemed useful. This just seems to be a step down in editing and game mechanics, and not noticeably increased in strength to compare with 11th-20th level powers. It almost feels like the leftover material from #4. Although it's free, I think it would need considerable work to get much use from these.

An ambiguous set-up that leads into a series of amusing escapades and reverses, with a fair amount of actual danger (being a converted tournament module) and difficulty, up to the chance of a particularly satisfying finish. A nicely structured scenario.

Use them as is, or take what ideas you want for an elven quarter, an illegal shantytown, a tanners' and stockyards district, and so on. Plenty of interesting development. The timelines of changes in each quarter by age are a particularly nifty idea.

This is a commercial version of Tequila Sunrise's manual, adding a good-looking layout and two more complete examples - very reasonable value added for $2. In turn this collects and cleans up the DMG monster building guidelines, suggests some changes and fills in some gaps. Notably, this manual contains extra information on minions, which unfortunately doesn't match with my reading (but don't take my word for it, check the formula against Monster Manual examples). A useful clarification and contribution to restarting some more open development for 4e.