Legendary Blades 2 by Purple Duck Games
This product is 46 pages long. It starts with a credits, ToC and introduction. (2 pages)
Legendary weapons are weapons that get stronger as your PC levels up. The weapons have a base ability and then every two character levels the PC can activate one more power level of the weapon. There is ten such power levels. Meaning to access the final level the PC must be 20th level. This book is a follow up to the first book, this just has new weapons in it.
Legendary Weapons (39 pages)
There is 14 new legendary weapons.
Apocalypse Hammer - This is a weapon bent on destruction, it is inspired by the Norse myth of Ragnorok.
Gambit – A roguish short sword, grant some rogue like abilities, blink and the ability to store the weapon within their own body. I would have liked it if it appeared as a tattoo but it doesn't say in what way it is stored.
Giant Killer – Not what you would think, this is for small people only. Gnomes and halflings and it's bonuses work against anyone bigger than themselves, the bigger the target the more bonuses they get.
Heartwood Staff – A quarterstaff with druidic abilities. Can become a bane weapon at times, can also use it's bonuses to heal the user instead of adding to damage on attacks.
Hysteria’s Chosen – A morning star of confusion and madness. From Hideous laughter, disorienting, confusion and causing madness in others struck.
Mischief’s Bow – ability to use grease, luck, turn others gaseous, use it as a musical instrument. A bow for those that like to play pranks.
Night Axe – A norther great axe of night. Powers that deal with the cold north or the night.
Reaper’s Scythe – Originally appeared in a previous product Horrors of GOW. This scythe is inspired by the four horseman. It does bleed dmg(war), famine, plague, and death powers.
Shadowblade of the Dark Mistress – A short sword with powers of shadows and charm abilities. This blade was well inspired by me apparently by some comments I made about the first Legendary Blades book.
Spear of the Four Winds - deflection based spear with wind powers.
Spirit Glaive – A necromantic glaive. It offers protection vs necromantic magic, protection against dieing, ability to suck up souls of the slain and use them as short term buffs.
Stargazer – A wizards staff, some divination magic, star magic, and bonus is used by those with a low BaB, a +4 luck bonus on to hit. Letting a wizard or Sorcerer actually be decent in melee with the weapon.
Temple Sword – A temple sword of the temple of the moon. Can summon minions, a few magical effects like confusion, remove fear etc, and can add to defense. (I am not sure what a temple sword is or where it comes from. It needed a side bar listing the stats of the weapon and preferable where it came from)
Woodman’s Axe – A nature based handaxe. Can speak with plants or command them. Also has bonuses against wood and plants.
It ends with a OGL (5 pages)
Closing Thoughts. Tired of finding a magic sword only to dump it when you find a better one? Wish magic items where a bit more wondrous? Well this is the product for you. I personally love weapons and magic items like this. Ones that when you find them, they are different and grow in power with you. Something your PC's will likely always keep. Each weapon beyond listing all their powers and such, all have at least one page of history about the weapon. The fluff is well done and the art is pretty good. Each weapon has a piece of art. The rest is simple black and white text with no borders making it very print friendly.
Unfortunately it is not all good, there is a few errors and issues I had with the product. There is a couple of layout errors that I noticed, at least I felt they was errors. In Giant Slayer the table is listed last unlike the rest and it doesn't make great use of white space. There is a large gab between some of the weapons abilities and the rest. Mischief’s Bow has the table in the middle of the abilities. There is a couple of others like that as well. The layout style is not bad, but I would have preferred if all the charts had been first and all the powers listed after the charts. The final thing is near the end but between Stargazer and Temple Sword is a ad for another Purple Duck product. Then there is the temple sword and not listing it's base temple sword weapon stats or saying where it comes from.
This is a good book despite the few errors. It is bookmarked to each weapon which was nice. The only true blunder I would say is the temple sword, which is a shame. So whats my rating? I am giving this a 4 star, while the layout is annoying it doesn't detract from the value and the weapons are nice and I felt well balanced. I am looking forward to the next installment.
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