3rd Ed Trashes & Treasures: Older 3rd Party Sourcebooks, a Walking Tour [Archive]

Saintheart

2021-03-25, 12:53 AM

Arms & Armor, Bastion Press

https://images2.imgbox.com/d7/c8/qekj5uTr_o.jpg

Summary:
This is an equipment catalogue similar in concept to D&D’s Arms and Equipment Guide, but deals only on armor and weapons in particular (with a smattering of gear for casters as well). It covers both mundane and magical items, introduces new weapon and armor qualities (albeit with a little overlapping or outright duplicating some from the Magic Item Compendium), materials, and brings in unique items things like Racial Masks (magic items for certain species) and Martial Servitors (which allow weapons to wield themselves). Also included are new constructs like Guardian Servitors and the Silver Steed of Anariel.

Date of Publication and Page Count:
Originally 2001, so definitely a 3.0 document. Unlike a lot of 3rd party, though, it was updated in a second edition in 2004, which conformed its contents with 3.5. This summary is, roughly speaking about both. While the 3.0 version was in full colour and shorter, the 3.5 edition was published in black and white. As at date of review, the 3.5 book was available on some large RPG market websites. 176 pages.

Notable Features:
(In no particular order of rating):
(1) Silver Steed of Anariel. Mounted builds rejoice, no more need to go finagling Monster Manual entries to replace your weedy warhorse! DR 50/+3, Construct type, and therefore Construct immunities, Flight, self-repair, MAGIC IMMUNITY. Looks like they forgot to fix up the DR to 3.5 standards.
(2) Axe of the Berserker. Barbarian in a rage gets a +4 enhancement bonus to STR, +2 deflection bonus to AC, no fatigue when the rage ends as long as the axe was in hand the whole time!
(3) Mask of the Dwarves: SR 15 and +3 to Will saves for 48,000 gp isn’t bad.
(4) Executioner’s Sword and Battle Staff: Both martial weapons! Executioner’s Sword, 1d12 damage bonus, x4 critical multiplier! Battle Staff contains – hooray! – 1d8 damage dice on a quarterstaff with no EWP or Mighty Wallop shenanigans! Also special mention to the Pike: 15 foot Reach, but you can’t AoO with it, but can also use it as a longspear.
(5) Chainblade: Exotic Weapon, sure. 1d8 damage, sure. But a one-handed 17-20 NATIVE CRITICAL THREAT RANGE.
(6) Ferocious weapon quality: +1 luck bonus to attack and damage for every +1 enchantment(maybe this was meant to be enhancement bonus instead) bonus imbued into the weapon, enchantment bonus/day, runs for 1d6 rounds. So basically double your weapon’s enhancement bonus during fights for a +2 price, which isn’t too damn bad at all.
(7) Forceful weapon quality: +1 price, just increase the weapon’s standard damage dice by one. 1d10 becomes 1d12 and so on. No changes in size or weight, and if you really want to this same quality can be put on the same weapon 3 times maximum, i.e. weedy gauntlet’s 1d3 can be made 1d8 native before you start the size, Heavy, or Mighty Wallop shenanigans.
(8) Weightless, Spellcasting armor qualities: cut your Arcane Spell Failure chance by 20%, take out movement reduction, increase your Max Dex bonus and reduce your AC penalty by 2 each.
(9) Sneak Attack, Jagged, Interfering weapon qualities: 1/day True Strike on a sneak attack only for a +1 bonus on the weapon, what more do you want?! Oh, I know, how about just give me a +1 to the critical multiplier of a weapon and a +1d6 damage for ordinary strikes at a +1 bonus price?! Or how about a +2 to force a target to make DC 17 Concentration checks in order to cast a spell, which can even be put on ranged weapons!

Dreadful Features:
(1) Precision weapon quality: “grants a +5 luck bonus to a roll that determines whether a hit is a critical hit or not.” It says the enchantment provides no bonus for normal attack rolls, but I don’t understand why they didn’t just say “+5 to critical confirmation rolls”, which is what this should be. As it is, it’s wide open for abuse as a +1 weapon quality.
(2) Kinetic weapon quality: remember how Thor spins Mjolnir around in circles before kicking noobmaster69’s butt? That’s this weapon quality! The more rounds you spin it, you get more +1 to attack roll and +1d6 to damage on the strike! … oh, rats, the maximum bonus is +3d6 damage and +3 to attack. Sigh.
(3) Intense weapon quality: duplicates the Impact quality, i.e. double your threat range for a bludgeoning weapon.
(4) Quick Draw weapon quality: overridden by Least Crystals of Return.
(5) Reproduced content from the SRD and Unearthed Arcana. Again, this isn’t a problem in the 3.0 version, but good grief it’s annoying to have to flick past all the gear you already know from those books.

Who it’s best for (Player/GM/Both):
Both. It’s an armoury of features, players can use it, but DMs can use it even better.

Comments, thoughts, and rating out of 10:
On mechanics, I find it pretty solid to good. The original 3.0 version had about 70 new weapons on a rough count, and not just refluffing standard weapons. In particular it adds a lot of interesting Simple and Martial weapons to the mix – this is apparent if only from the critical stats, which even in the Simple category are not infrequently 18-20 ranges and sometimes up to x4 multipliers, features that 3.5 is pretty stingy with. Generally you’re not wasting a feat on Exotic Weapon Proficiency to pick up a weapon that does something interesting out of the box - not given the Simple and Martial weapons available. That’s just the mundane weaponry; it stays at that level or better as you make your way through weapon qualities, armor qualities, and everything else; lots of stuff here that is at least mechanically not awful, and sometimes beautifully exploitable with the right class or build. The only drawback, and it is a minor one, is that the 3.5 version contains a reasonable amount of padding in that a fair amount of content from the SRD and Unearthed Arcana is reproduced here, both weapons and rules. My guess is that this was out of a desire by the makers to have weapon rules readily available in the pre-tablet or SRD days, but either way, it’s a point against; the 3.0 version at least was almost entirely original and didn’t have to reproduce whole sections of text on how critical multipliers work. However: I don’t want to overstate the minor inconvenience this is; there is still a metric ton of original stuff, essentially the entirety of the 3.0 version ported in, and there’s a lot of stuff very clearly slanted at classes like paladins, rogues, tanks (the Retribution weapon quality) and so on. 2/4 in this category.

On concepts and fluff: the book is built as a generic armoury of stuff usable in most standard campaigns, so it’s not as though you’re getting a lot of really inventive gear that falls outside the classic fantasy setting (notwithstanding the odd product placement for other Bastion Press products). That said, what they have managed to do is build stuff that’s more interesting than the bog-standard SRD weapons and magic items, or bridges a gap that was visible, or adapts a historical weapon that Oriental Adventures didn’t get around to. One example: the Scarf Chain, a thin weighted chain sewn into a silk scarf, which can be used like a spiked chain, trip as well as suffocate on a Grapple check. Another, the Angel’s Blade Greatsword, which allows you to switch out a cold iron, silver, or adamantine strip down the fuller that makes it count as a weapon made of those substances for DR purposes. In the magic items area, the Reaver’s Net, which (provided you meet certain prereqs), allows you to paralyze opponents for 3d6 minutes rather than just entangle them. And then there’s stuff like Death Oath weapons, which basically sets up a set of weapons as a type of Suicide Squad/47 Ronin thing where the weapons get more powerful as the oath-takers die. Not the most mechanically powerful, but inspirational at least. 3/4 in this category. It might not be the most inventive gear catalogue ever made, but it’s certainly inventive within its limits.

On presentation: obviously the intent was to ape the look of the Arms and Equipment Guide, right down to the rough structure of introducing new mundane stuff first and then leaving the weapon qualities and magic items to the back. So it’s about as readable and presentable as your average 3.5 D&D book. That said, I wish they’d kept the 3.0 version’s table of weapons, because that one showed you at a glance which weapons were tripping weapons and how much the bonus was, making the comparison a lot easier on that front. The armor table had similar helpful changes. However, as said, they went with black and white for the 3.5 version by the looks of it, which makes it a bit harder to read as there’s no colour to break up the relentless two-column Serif fonts. So it gets a 1/2 for that.

Overall: 6/10.

Saintheart

2021-03-25, 12:54 AM

Forgotten Heroes: Paladin, Malladin’s Gate Press

https://images2.imgbox.com/63/34/gaAlH0q3_o.jpg

Summary
It’s a resource to widen the range of options for paladins. It introduces five ‘subclasses’ of paladin – (actually five new paladin-ish base classes) -- and 14 prestige classes for paladins (and others if you can meet the prereqs), new feats, spells, some new uses for old skills, and then a big group of what could be classed as variant rules meant to diversify what smites, lay on hands, and a paladin’s weapons can do. Essentially, it is designed to make the paladin more versatile, not just the archetypical good guy on his horse.

Date of Publication and Page Count:
2002, and therefore 3.0. Never had an update as far as I know, and there are elements of it that would need adaptation if used for 3.5. And given the early publication date, it looks like the designers weren’t aware of or didn’t seek to squarely address the most notable issue with the paladin, i.e. his multi-ability dependency. Heck, the opening paragraphs of the book proclaim the paladin as one of the most formidable classes a player can use in D&D. Now, I don’t believe it’s fair to rip an indie designer for not detecting issues like these so early in third edition’s run (especially when it’s apparent WOTC didn’t see any problem with it even when they updated to 3.5), but this is certainly a point to be aware of when looking at this thing. As at date of review, this book was available on some large RPG market websites. 62 pages.

Notable Features:
Warrior Monk (base class): Yawn, it has the word ‘Monk’ in it, how good can it be … wait a sec. Full BAB and Paladin saves, d10 hit dice, 1st level spells from level 2. Oh, I can prepare spells off the paladin list and off the lists of any two domains I select. Wait … really, any two domains? Sure seems so by RAW, two domains ‘from the clerical spell list’, though RAI it should be 2 from my LG or LN deity. Okay, that’s levels 1-9, what about … really? 5th level spells at level 10, 6th level spells by level 12? From where? Well, gosh. For my 5th and 6th level spells I can prepare a domain spell from any of my ‘patron’s’ (deity’s) domains. Hello Warrior Monk of Mystra, picking up the Spell domain for Greater Anyspell, and then stuff off the Illusion and Knowledge domain lists! Or good old Warrior Monk of Torm, casting Righteous Might, Divine Power, and going to town! But what about weapon and armour proficiencies … oh my, all simple and martial weapons, all types armour and shields, this isn’t a monk, this is a gish!
The Gallant (PrC): Be a DEX-based paladin, right down to needing Weapon Finesse and Weapon Focus in rapier as prerequisites, but can’t wear armour full stop. Over 5 levels, pick up Dodge and Mobility, add CHA to AC, Initiative, and attack rolls, get a really interesting bonus to attack rolls equal to your enemy’s armor check penalty, and can’t be flanked. Full BAB, Fort and Ref get 4/5 save increases.
Divine Aura (Paladin 4 spell): 60 feet radius from Paladin, use turn undead to turn all evil creatures within the radius (You can’t destroy non-undead with this, but the creatures do take 1d4 damage for every 2 paladin levels.) And it’s an Abjuration spell, meaning if you wanted some sort of interesting Abjurant Champion build, it would be affected by that.
Holy Shield (Paladin 2 spell): Give your shield an enhancement bonus of WIS modifier +1 so long as it’s held ready or used. Assuming you’ve been boosting your WIS and sword-and-boarding it, this actually isn’t too damn bad. And it would appear to stack with the Paladin 1 spell Blessings of Insight from the same book which gives “a bonus” to the Paladin’s AC equal to his WIS modifier for the spell’s duration.
Stand Together (Paladin 3 spell): Allies can use the paladin’s saving throws instead of their own if they’re superior. IMHO this is just a gorgeous spell, whatever its real effectiveness, sums up the entire book’s philosophy working with the paladin class: it’s both mechanically useful and perfectly in keeping with the whole idea of the paladin as an exemplar of loyalty and sacrifice.
Shield of the Faithful (feat): 10% chance any blow hitting the character from an evil opponent is deflected using the character’s shield. If so, the shield takes the damage in accordance with the rules on damaging objects. RAW doesn’t necessarily require that you’ve actually got the shield equipped at the time, though that was the clear RAI, and nothing says a natural 20 bypasses this either. At the very least it’s a 10% concealment or so, albeit you’ll be buying shields a lot (unless you stump for that adamantine shield, of course!)
Heal (new skill use): At last, you can actually diagnose a disease with the Heal skill! DCs include a quick guide to what you can learn about the disease.
Ride (new skill use): DC 25 Ride check with a Lance and the Weapon Focus (Lance) feat doesn’t incur the -2 to AC on a mounted charge.
Heart of the Pilgrim (feat): Pick 2 Knowledge skills; they’re now class skills. And have a+1 bonus to all the Knowledge skills you’ve now got. Handy for Knowledge Devotion at least.
Divine Smites (Variant Rules): Use your Smite Evil more flexibly:
- Cut the CHA bonus to the attack roll and pick up bonus damage of class level + CHA.
- Spend a Remove Disease to attempt to give a target contagion and some bonus damage
- Ignore DR
- Smite as a RANGED TOUCH ATTACK.
- Cause Wisdom drain (tricky to set up) or cause fear.
- Blow spell slot, do character’s class level + up to 2d6 in bonus damage.
Divine Channelling (Variant Rules): burn Turn Undead attempts to do different things such as replenishing spell slots, casting Restoration, overriding different forms of DR, use your AC and/or shield bonus against magical touch and incorporeal attacks from negative energy creatures such as undead, turning it into a Wraithstrike weapon, and so on.
Slayer (PrC): Begging for multiclassing with a spell-less ranger given it basically takes one type of chosen foe and then, in 5 levels, gives it a stackable favoured enemy bonus, picks up more smiting that enemy, turning, tracking, and an extra attack at highest attack bonus against that enemy.
Peacebringer (PrC): 3/5 casting, similar to and about as odd as the Apostle of Peace from Book of Exalted Deeds, but just a little bit more playable for the paladin who wants to be the party face.

Dreadful Features:
Defender (base class): Oh dear God you tried to make a tank that specialises in getting in the way of enemies’ blows to allies’ heads. And to do so, you gave him a d8 hit dice, a +15 BAB at level 20, Improved Disarm, a sort-of “add my CHA bonus to your AC, fellows” and domain spells … scratch that, one domain’s spells, the Healing domain. Have fun being able to Mass Cure Light Wounds at level 14, I guess…
Dauntless Hero (PrC): Well at least it’s 5 levels rather than the 10 of the Dwarven Defender it strongly resembles, and they let you make attacks of opportunity against charges without carrying a Reach weapon, to go with all the immunity to fear you grant to everyone around you.
The Lord (base class): No-spells Paladin with and Aura of Courage and five bonus feats across 20 levels, which are confined down to a short list heavily slanted at the feats in the book.
Horse Knight (base class): You’ll get momentarily excited by the indication that this guy’s special mount isn’t a magical beast, it’s classed as a ‘celestial’. Which uses the “Celestial Creature” template. Unfortunately, that only happens at Horse Knight level 20. You get the Mounted Combat feat for free at level 1 while on your mount, but why would you?
Divine Warding (Paladin 3, Cleric 4, War 3(?) spell): Initial impressions are hopeful. 50% of all damage the paladin takes from evil sources, including spells, is stopped. But it then says “the maximum total damage stopped in this way is equal to the paladin’s Charisma ability modifier/level”, which doesn’t make sense since this is going to be fractions of a hitpoint anywhere above Paladin level 5 or so. The example in the spell description doesn’t help at all, which is infuriating given how solid and on-theme this spell could have been.
Test of Faith (Variant Rule): I love the idea, but the cost is just too high. Basically it’s Iron Heart Surge for Paladins: overcome any condition preventing them from acting as they wish, e.g. charm, compulsion, dominate, and so on. Roll 1d20 + Paladin Level + WIS vs the DC of the original effect +5 … and pay a cost of 50 x Paladin level in XP. And if you fail the roll, lose what looks to be another 500 XP, permanently.
Vow Quests (Variant Rules): Arrrgh. So close. These basically allow you to pick up extra powers for specific use on a quest, which you vow to complete (or suffer big bad XP losses). You’re subject to a Geas whose severity and conditions increase as you ask for more powers: e.g. Pick up SR 15 for the duration of the quest, but you cannot use any magic items and cast no spells. It’s possible to pick up permanent/at-will spell-like abilities, and therefore open to abuse … but on balance, assuming the session sociopath is not playing the party paladin, this actually is another really flavourful variant rule. The problem? They forgot to tell you what penalties you pay if you fail the quest. Which makes the option unuseable, though the system is probably complete enough that you could make up your own table (noting that the Test of Faith option above sweats you for hundreds of XP, and the cost is meant to be fairly heavy if you fail the quest.)

Who it’s best for (Player/GM/Both):
In its favour it does contain a section expressed directly at the GM which tries to help guide how the various options should slot in, but really this thing’s explicit and stated intention is for players who want more options for the PHB paladin. And therefore it’s likely a lot more for players than anyone else.

Comments, thoughts, and rating out of 10:
Mechanics: Look, whatever else you can say, they at least had a red hot go at making the paladin a lot more versatile or able to fill the role of a party buffer. There are no options in here that are obviously gamebreaking or overly powerful; it feels like these things probably give the Paladin a bit more staying power in the level 6-14 range, which is 3.5’s sweet spot. Particularly good is that most of the variant options are not hidden away behind useless feats for the most part, you can snap them onto your current Paladin and just keep going. Of particular note, and a big point in favour, is that the prestige classes are virtually all 5 level classes that give you the good stuff at reasonably low levels and then allow you to move on. Very few dead levels in there at all. But they, and the base classes, have the usual mix of interesting to unworkable choices that we’ve come to know and love from most WOTC books. In some areas – Vow Quests is an example of this – there clearly needed to be a bit more editing or QA, though you could probably RAI your way through it without it generating huge problems for balance. And whilst some features capture scaleability over the levels, these aren’t that common. Call this 2/4.

Concepts and fluff: A 3/4 here. This book unashamedly leans into what a paladin is or should be, and proceeds to expand the concept considerably, giving paladins of all stripes a deeply heroic, evil-smashing, self-sacrificing, party booster streak that often goes missing from standard D&D in all the arguments about Code of Conduct and multi-ability dependency. I love the Vow Quest idea, I love the Soul Weapon (basically Ancestral Relic for paladins, not mentioned above), I love the different takes they have on the paladin, and I love the additional spells they give our favourite boys in white. It’s just the mechanics that let the side down.

Presentation: Sorry, but ugh. Straight black and white, no colour. They try to use a layout and line spacing to make it a little more readable, but with the size of the text Serif fonts – some sort of Hollandse maybe – are just eye-watering to read. That said, some of the “short stories” in between sections are interesting and in one case pretty moving to me. 0/2 on this one.

Overall: 5/10.

Saintheart

2021-03-25, 12:56 AM

Staves of Ascendance, The Game Mechanics.

https://images2.imgbox.com/db/9c/zTjPszWX_o.jpg

Summary
Basically this is a sourcebook containing better magic staffs and rods than usual, and some prestige classes which can wield them. Essentially the desire seems to have been to make a better class of magic staffs than those in the original books, as in, the sort of staff that stays with a character through their whole career.

Date of Publication and Page Count: 2003, so definitely 3.0. As we’ll see, the main thing that really hobbles the book is the extent to which later publications rendered it obsolete or not particularly useful … but we’ll get to that. There apparently is a 3.5 update around, but I haven’t been able to get hold of a copy, so I can’t compare if they did any proper work upgrading it. As at date of review this book doesn't seem to be casually available for purchase as a PDF on large RPG market websites. You may have to go looking for this one elsewhere in the virtual world or the real world. 39 pages.

Notable Features:
Spellstaff Scion (PrC) + La Sombra (Magic Item): Spellstaff Scion gives you pretty much nothing but 10/10 arcane spellcasting progression. The staff, though, over 10 levels, gives you just about every shadow ability out there: Shadow Conjuration, Greater Shadow Conjuration, Shadow Evocation, Greater Shadow Evocation, Shadow Walk, Silent Image, Shades, Shadow Jump, Project Image, Simulacrum, a +20 Hide skill bonus, Shadow Companion, and the staff becomes a Ghost Touch weapon from early in the PrC. The usage of these abilities is mostly based around caster level, for which there are numerous methods of raising it artificially high. Not bad for a PrC that gets you out and done by level 15.
Battlestaff Scion (PrC) + Bramblethorn (Magic Item): Let’s see, I’m a martial type who wants to wield a staff weapon, and accordingly I’m going to need TWF feat chains like nobody’s business. I take this prestige class which gives me, at level 1, Two-Weapon Fighting and a bonus feat from a short list of the basics (think Improved Bull Rush, Improved Trip, Power Attack, Combat Reflexes, Combat Expertise, and so on). For the rest of the progression I only pick up a feat once every 3 levels, i.e. it’s literally no better than a fighter feat progression over 10 levels since either way I pick up TWF +4 feats. To qualify I basically have to at least dip ranger, given the prerequisites include Endurance, Track, Survival ranks, and a Favored Enemy (“as the ranger class feature”). Is it worth it? Well … maybe. That’s because of the Legendary Staff, Bramblethorn, that’s meant to be your weapon throughout your career, which grants a bunch of other abilities on top of those the Scion prestige class.

A simple comparison to illustrate it is Ranger 4/Battlestaff Scion 10 vs. TWF Ranger 14. First problem is that the changes in Ranger from 3.0 to 3.5 cause some wonkiness, because Battlestaff Scion 1 grants TWF, but you’ve (presumably) already got that at level 2 of the 3.5 Ranger. (Alternate Ranger Combat Styles I guess could be the solution here. Or you could just have a free Rapid Shot for those few ranged attack occasions you might choose to go with. Either way, let’s leave the grant of TWF to one side.)

The default 3.5 Ranger, from character levels 5-14, picks up Woodland Stride, Swift Tracker, Evasion, Camouflage, 2 more favored enemies, Improved TWF, Greater TWF, and 4th level Ranger casting.

The Battlestaff Scion, in the same character levels 5-14, picks up: Woodland Stride, Evasion, 2 more favored enemies, Improved TWF, Greater TWF, 4th level casting (divine WIS-based casting, but an extremely short list, nowhere near as wide as the Ranger list, albeit almost the same number of spell slots as default Ranger 14), favored enemies take increased damage of +2d6, +6 bonuses to CON and STR, the staff’s two ends gain +4 enhancement bonuses (and the staff can be transformed to a +3 longspear as well),… and four open feat slots from the PrC, as said. BAB is the same, Ranger’s saves are +9/+9/+4, Scion’s are +11/+7/+4, the Scion gets a d10 Hit Dice against the Ranger’s d8.

So to my mind, if you’re content to be a TWF Ranger concentrating on the quarterstaff and not cast spells (or you’re okay casting from Ranger list wands) this is actually an okay prestige class. You’ve got feat slots out the wazoo with 4 from Battlestaff Scion to deal with basic foundations like Combat Reflexes and so on, and all your character feat slots open for more interesting stuff. Dipping Ranger 2 and then going Fighter 2 (depending on your feats) may give you a couple more as well, hell, even a Martial Monk might be useful here. Or even Mystic Ranger. But I think pretty much any other martial concept is not going to get real value out of this.
Swiftstaff Scion (PrC) + Astuto, the Sly Rod (Magic Item): If the Battlestaff was for Ranger, the Swiftstaff is for Rogues. The Rod and the PrC together provide a decent-looking grab bag of stuff. So once again the simplest comparison is Rogue 14 vs. Rogue 4/Swiftstaff Scion 10. (The prerequisites are atomised out to basically beRogue 4, so we won’t speculate on other entry paths at this point.)

Rogue 5-14 picks up another 5d6 in sneak attack, +3 in trap sense, Improved Uncanny Dodge, and 2 special abilities (the most powerful of which are likely the 2 bonus feats, but which can include stuff like Improved Evasion, Opportunist, and/or Slippery Mind.)

In the same time, the Rod picks up another 3d6 in sneak attack, Improved Uncanny Dodge, +6 in DEX (albeit this isn’t clear on the RAW. It may actually be +12), Improved Evasion, +10 competence bonuses to Hide and Move Silently, Opportunist, Slippery Mind, increased critical threat range to 17-20 (doesn’t stack with Improved Critical), cast Passwall twice per day, cast Shadow Walk twice per day. And the rod can turn into a ladder. On top of this, the Scion PrC also grants 3 new class skills, TWF, and 3 special ability slots, which can be used for to increase sneak attack by another 6d6 maximum, or increase your speed by about 20 feet unarmoured while still raising sneak attack by 2d6 and thus matching the default rogue’s 5d6.

The BAB is the same by both paths, as is the hit dice – 1d6. The base saves for Rogue 14 are +4/+9/+4, for Rogue 4/Scion 10 it’s +4/+11/+4. There are probably better rogue builds out there, but this would seem to suggest a Swiftstaff Scion build is a little better than default Rogue anyway. You’re basically giving up better trap sense and access to the 2 bonus feats in place of a better sneak attack ceiling and a couple of other sort-of useful abilities.
Faithstaff Scion (PrC) + Bonegrinder (Magic Item): Gives a low-level cleric entry TWF, 2 iterations of Extra Turning, +8 to CHA, Enhancement bonus of +4 to each end of the quarterstaff, Heighten Turning, Empower Turning, Quicken Turning, Invisibility to Undead (in a radius), spend Turn Undead to increase your base speed by 10 feet and get +2 to CON, +2 to Will saves within 30 feet of him, cast Searing Light, Consecrate, Daylight. And the PrC preserves full divine casting. If you’re planning on an undead heavy campaign, or hell, even if you’re planning to CoDzilla it using Divine Metamagic, you could do worse than this.
Faithstaff Scion (PrC) + Rod of the Inquisitor (Magic Item): Bunch of random abilities related mostly to investigator-y stuff (Arcane Sight, See Invisible, Symbol of Persuasion, True Seeing, +6 to Intimidate checks, that kind of thing) but most significantly, a +8 to WIS across 10 levels. And once again, full divine casting is preserved.
Swiftstaff Scion (PrC) + Etincelle, the Rod of Shock (Magic Item): This one is very clearly meant to be for monks and monks only, though really it’s probably a lot better to just dip Monk. Monk 2/Fighter 1 would qualify for this and you’re out and done at level 13 to do other stuff. Similar-ish approach to most of the staves: it basically gives you a few feats for free and some abilities which are questionable to okay. In this case, the staff gives you +20 movement speed when unarmoured, Combat Reflexes, Improved Initiative, Deflect Arrows, Improved Disarm, Improved Trip, Improved Evasion, and then a bunch of Lightning-based abilities (think Shocking Grasp, Lightning Bolt, Chain Lightning). The Swiftstaff Scion, though, then adds more interest to it, since it does something similar to high-level Rogues: grants TWF, 3 additional class skills (from a short list), and then 3 bonus abilities from the following: an additional level of caster, Bardic Music, Bardic Knowledge, Leap of the Clouds (as the monk), add +10 to base movement, improved unarmed damage, Improved Evasion, Uncanny Dodge, or raise your Sneak Attack by +2d6 damage. Not a lot of synergy here, though you could get yourself a hilarious 80 feet of movement base speed combining the Scion and the staff. And you could pick just about at random from this lot and you’d still wind up better than a Monk of the same character level.

Dreadful Features:
Spellstaff Scion (PrC) + Staff of Doors (Magic Item): How does castingGreater Planar Binding, Maze, Phase Door, Plane Shift, True Seeing, Dismissal, Contact Other Plane, Blink, Dimension Door, Dimensional Anchor at will sound? How about Freedom, imprisonment CL/day as well? How about Gate or Etherealness once per day as well? Well, that’s Spellstaff Scion 10 using the Staff of Doors, which happens around character level 17 for a default Wizard 7 entry. And remember it’s a full arcane progression PrC. And bear in mind you’ve been steadily picking these up as the levels in the prestige class go on. And yeah, these are special abilities, not spells, so it’s questionable whether there’s any material component cost at all. And did I mention that it autodetects secret doors from the first level in the PrC with the staff? Stupid broken.
Spellstaff Scion (PrC) + The Puissant Rod (Legendary Staff): Well, the Spellstaff Scion gets 10/10 spell progression, so that’s not bad. Also gets TWF for some weird reason, but anyway. The Rod (I refuse to further use the word ‘puissant’) basically works like a +1 club (it increases to +4 over 10 levels), and allows you to store a few low level spells and cast them on an opponent if you hit them with the rod and do damage with it. Oh, and it also gives you Dodge, Mobility, Spring Attack, and Combat Expertise over the 10 levels, look out world, here comes the mage with Whirlwind Attack. That said, some levels in this could help out bridging to Swiftblade or Spelldancer. And come to think of it, this might not be too bad as a PrC for a Duskblade, since the spell storing aspect synergises nicely with the Duskblade’s channelling abilities. But it has serious competition, namely, any other short PrC like Abjurant Champion which advances your spellcasting and grants some useful abilities. And the BAB is awful, 5/10.
Swiftstaff Scion (PrC) + Balade, the Trickster Staff (Legendary Staff): This was clearly meant to be the staff for bards, but it just doesn’t stack up compared with what a bard with decent sourcebook access can do (and it tries to make the bard into a TWF fighter, which just isn’t going to work, not with the lack of CHA increases). It adds Color Spray and Phantasmal Killer to the bard’s casting list, and a total of +12 to Perform checks, but if you’re optimising Inspire Courage or Inspire Awe I’d look elsewhere.

Who it’s best for (Player/GM/Both):
Players. Which is part of the problem, but I’ll get to that.

Comments, thoughts, and rating out of 10:
On mechanics: initially this book annoyed the hell out of me. The main source of that annoyance was realising that you’re not being sold prestige classes and items that are separate from one another, they’re pretty much a package deal, because unless you take a prestige class (scratch that – the prestige class for that particular type of staff) – then the powers of the item simply don’t unlock. That is, this is basically a book that gives you a total of 13 staffs based very closely off Unearthed Arcana’s Legendary Weapons (EDIT: Fizban rightly notes that UA was first printed in 2004, which would suggest these actually pre-date Legendary Weapons). (By contrast, there are one or two staves that are ludicrously overpowered, albeit that’s likely from people not appreciating how the words ‘at will’ combined with ‘8th level spell’ can be game-breaking).
But.
The ones in this book are actually better than the Unearthed Arcana prestige classes and weapons, mainly because while the mechanic is identical, the weapons are available at a much earlier point than the comparable Legendary Weapons, and the abilities are, IMHO, better than those granted by the WOTC weapons. The Battlestaff Scion prestige class, when compared point-by-point against its very clear template, the Battle Scion, comes out a feat ahead in the grant of TWF. And at least they don’t have the insanity of ruling that if you leave the PrC you can never come back. The drawback, though, is that the staves are a lot narrower in application than they might first appear. Whilst it is theoretically possible for classes other than those intended to gain one of the staves, there seem to be significant opportunity costs for doing so. They’re more interesting and less stupid than Legendary Weapons, but they’re of pretty limited application outside their intended classes – at least, not without a lot of optimisation thought and time going into the builds I would guess. And it doesn’t reeeeeally do much mechanically about the fact quarterstaffs are (paradoxically) too versatile a weapon to meaningfully compete in the great game of specialisation that D&D 3.5 all but forces one into. At least, by virtue of the publication date, they wound up doing a close copy of Legendary Weapons and not Weapons of Legacy! So - a 1.5/4.

On concepts and fluff: I regard it as unfortunately pretty weak and generic. As you might guess from my sig block, I have a penchant for quarterstaffs, and it is refreshing to have a whole book devoted to them, but as said what you’re basically getting here is a slightly improved version of Unearthed Arcana’s Legendary Weapons. There’s nothing really that inspiring in the fluff as such, or anything that really ties a weapon’s history to how it’s used in the present day. And particularly annoying is that there is no guide or direction given to the DM to create new weapons for the PrCs to use – something that’s a similar problem with Legendary Weapons, and a big oversight given how the writers went to all the trouble of creating four different PrCs to use different types of staff. 1/4 here.

On presentation: the layout of the book was irritating. Serif fonts at small text sizes again, which doesn’t make it easy to read, and sometimes tables were on pages where they didn’t match the weapon they were addressing. This might sound a bit picky, but good layout design takes account of this stuff and thinks about how someone is going to use the book. In particular I thought the whole design of the book could have been done easier by laying out the prestige class alongside the weapons it was intended to wield, rather than have a whole section of PrCs and then describe the weapons – it made it a lot harder to assess whether taking the PrC and the item was worth it. That, in turn, was part of the poorly-executed, or incomplete, concept of having multiple staves that could qualify for one PrC. It wasn’t necessary, particularly given the Battlestaff Scion has only one weapon in the book he can use, and the Faithstaff and Swiftstaff Scions have 2 and 3 respectively, with 6 for the Spellstaff Scion. 0/2 here.

Overall: 2.5/10.

Fizban

2021-03-25, 02:18 AM

based very closely off Unearthed Arcana’s Legendary Weapons.
I'm seeing a first printing of 2004 on Unearthed Arcana, which would suggest it went the other way.

Saintheart

2021-03-25, 02:27 AM

I'm seeing a first printing of 2004 on Unearthed Arcana, which would suggest it went the other way.

Interesting, so either they anticipated the design or maybe there were some writers in common - I haven't gone to check.

PoeticallyPsyco

2021-03-25, 10:00 AM

Cool resource!

Initial impressions are hopeful. 50% of all damage the paladin takes from evil sources, including spells, is stopped. But it then says “the maximum total damage stopped in this way is equal to the paladin’s Charisma ability modifier/level”, which doesn’t make sense since this is going to be fractions of a hitpoint anywhere above Paladin level 5 or so. The example in the spell description doesn’t help at all, which is infuriating given how solid and on-theme this spell could have been.

I think the intention here is not "+ (Cha modifier divided by CL)", but "(+Cha modifier) per CL". So a CL 10 Paladin with 16 Cha will absorb up to 30 HP of damage.

Kalkra

2021-03-25, 11:42 AM

It's nice to see some of those older obscurer books get some attention. Personally, I've always enjoyed looking at stuff that was written by people in a time when nobody had any idea what was good or bad. I remember reading something somewhere about the Leadership, the "forgotten feat".

I hope you'll cover some Mongoose stuff. They have a reputation for being unbalanced, but in my opinion most of their books are actually pretty good, with only one or two utterly unbalanced things here and there. Far more common is abilities which are unusable due to poor writing/editing not making certain things clear and requiring a lot of work on the DM's part. They were also clearly only written with the core rulebooks in mind, so they don't really play well with spaltbooks, or with each other. Despite all of that, there's a lot of really good stuff there, some of which made it into WOTC stuff. My personal favorite is probably The Quintessential Samurai, which basically had maneuvers, but with a much less caster-ish feel. Suffered a lot due to a lack of clear delineation between boosts, strikes, and stances, though.

And then on the other end of the spectrum there's stuff like the absolute mess that came out of Skortched Urf', which just makes me appreciate how well-written and well-edited everything else is. Good times.

Palanan

2021-03-25, 04:58 PM

Originally Posted by Saintheart
We are uncovering dusty, forgotten texts that are going for a fraction of their retail price.

To paraphrase Palpatine, we will be following this thread with great interest.

:smalltongue:

Originally Posted by Saintheart
The only exception to this – if I can find them – will be Kenzer and Company’s Kingdoms of Kalamar books….

Do you not have copies of these yourself, or are they just hard to get at right now?

Coidzor

2021-03-25, 06:47 PM

This is a neat idea. Kudos! Also, good luck!

Saintheart

2021-03-25, 06:50 PM

I think the intention here is not "+ (Cha modifier divided by CL)", but "(+Cha modifier) per CL". So a CL 10 Paladin with 16 Cha will absorb up to 30 HP of damage.

That would be a straightforward house rule to cover it, and you can see how they made the error, but again - editing.

I hope you'll cover some Mongoose stuff. They have a reputation for being unbalanced, but in my opinion most of their books are actually pretty good, with only one or two utterly unbalanced things here and there. Far more common is abilities which are unusable due to poor writing/editing not making certain things clear and requiring a lot of work on the DM's part. They were also clearly only written with the core rulebooks in mind, so they don't really play well with spaltbooks, or with each other. Despite all of that, there's a lot of really good stuff there, some of which made it into WOTC stuff. My personal favorite is probably The Quintessential Samurai, which basically had maneuvers, but with a much less caster-ish feel. Suffered a lot due to a lack of clear delineation between boosts, strikes, and stances, though.

And then on the other end of the spectrum there's stuff like the absolute mess that came out of Skortched Urf', which just makes me appreciate how well-written and well-edited everything else is. Good times.

I do have Mongeese :) and so I do intend to be covering it, and I'll move some of them up the list since that's where the interest apparently lies with my adoring audience right at the moment :smallbiggrin: :smallbiggrin: As said this'll be a slow tour since I'm not made of money nor have unlimited time on the hands, and I don't have everything, but I'll try and push a book out as regularly as I can. So far at least I think I've lucked into products that aren't truly hideous, which is encouraging, but one of my aims for this is to try and cast a light on stuff which is unfairly maligned because of its third party status. The other reason I think third party likely gets a bad rap is just because not everyone is going to have the book involved. That was more of an argument back in the pre-PDF days, especially now that this stuff is getting on 20 years old and so generally can't command exorbitant prices at the bookstore or online.

Do you not have copies of these yourself, or are they just hard to get at right now?

I do have access to some Kenzer & Co., so I will be doing a bit. A fair amount of these 3rd party books are still around, it seems on smaller RPG bookstores like RPGGeek. But for example The Game Mechanics (which wrote Staves of Ascendance) seems to have gone completely out of business - there were some references to their stuff being published via Green Ronin (themselves having a pretty decent reputation in this area), but I'm really not sure if the business even still exists.

thorr-kan

2021-03-25, 07:25 PM

The Game Mechanics has mostly gone on to other things. That resulted in most of their stuff being pulled.

I can't find my cites right now, but I did some digging on them a few years ago.

sreservoir

2021-03-25, 07:38 PM

That would be a straightforward house rule to cover it, and you can see how they made the error, but again - editing.

It's not an error, it's fairly normal to write multiplication with a slash, cf. "10 min./level".

Saintheart

2021-03-25, 07:42 PM

It's not an error, it's fairly normal to write multiplication with a slash, cf. "10 min./level".

Yes, but the wording in the book is "the maximum total damage stopped in this way is equal to the paladin’s Charisma ability modifier/level”. I thought they were giving us a figure, not a rate or ratio.

Thurbane

2021-03-25, 08:33 PM

Great work Saintheart, another thread I'll be following.

thorr-kan

2021-03-25, 10:22 PM

I can't find my cites right now, but I did some digging on them a few years ago.
Got it. Discussed here, actually:
https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?528717-d20-Modern-Does-any-body-know-what-happened-to-these-Companies

Short version: day job keeps TMG from being active.

I, too, am looking forward to some Mongoose reviews. Will you be keeping it to supplements for D&D or other game lines as well?

Saintheart

2021-03-25, 11:11 PM

I, too, am looking forward to some Mongoose reviews. Will you be keeping it to supplements for D&D or other game lines as well?

No, likely sticking to D&D, because that's about all my sanity can withstand. I might be convinced to evaluate a d20 Modern Martial Arts title somewhere though :)

Mongooses coming soon!

Saintheart

2021-03-25, 11:22 PM

Book of Familiars, Troll Lord Games

https://images2.imgbox.com/17/28/G1EsQeoq_o.jpg
Summary
Well, if you were ever dissatisfied with the paucity of options or usability of familiars, this would be one of those occasions where you’re gonna be familiaring so much you’re going to get tired of familiaring, you’re gonna be saying “Please, Troll Lord Games, no more familiaring, I can’t take it anymore.” This is a near 200-page book devoted to, you guessed it, familiars. But not just the little ones who sit on Wizards’ shoulders! Oh no! Every SRD class can now burn a feat to summon a familiar … yes, including the Paladin, but we also added more options for Special Mounts too in case you’d rather just have the Special Mount instead! There are now three grades of familiars available, the latter two designed for higher levels of play – Standard, Greater, and Supreme - and the array of creatures available as familiars is hugely expanded too (a freaking Shadow as a Rogue familiar! Wyrms for Sorcerers, Homunculi for Wizards, Ancestral Spirits for Monks! The Bard gets a MUSE!) And all classes can now summon an Animal Companion with a feat, if they want. And that’s before you get to the new feats, powers, tricks, and (a few) prestige classes for them too.

Date of Publication and Page Count:
March 2004, 186 pages, and thus in the era of 3.5, which was published July 2003. However, the book still retains bits and pieces of 3.0 terminology – there are still references to partial actions, for example. This edition is not to be confused with the Book of Familiars from Troll Lord Games’ Castles and Crusades titles or with the 2011 edition by the same company, which was specifically built for Pathfinder. As at date of review this book doesn't seem to be casually available for purchase as a PDF on large RPG market websites. You may have to go looking for this one elsewhere in the virtual world or the real world. Let’s get into it…

Notable Features:
Dispel Magic (new Greater Familiar ability): Familiar can cast Dispel Magic, 30 foot radius, centred on itself, at will!
Disenchanter (new Greater Familiar ability): Familiar who touches creatures affected by enchantment, transmutation, curse, petrification, or other magical transformation, can convey the break enchantment spell on the creature touched!
Darkness (new Greater Familiar ability): Familiar can plunge an area within 20 feet of itself into darkness as the spell. At will. Pretty good if your strategy is to blind the opposition and then take advantage of your darkvision.
Shadow Familiar (new creature): specific to Rogues only, basically your own shadow turns into a familiar. Not to be confused with an undead shadow, it isn’t the most powerful of creatures, but it’s incorporeal and therefore hard to hit, is invisible in a shadow or area of darkness, has its master’s feats and other stuff that a familiar normally would. In other words, it’s a fantastic resource for setting up flanking for the rogue. (Also, note that the standard rogue familiars can actually sneak attack, getting the same bonus dice as the master does!)
Muse Familiar (new creature): specific to Bards, the Muse provides a decent number of effects that either boost the bard’s effectiveness with his own songs, or provide bard-related effects, e.g. the bard can literally blind people with his performance under one of the muse’s songs, or indeed penetrate silence effects. The control on this is that the Muse, who is normally invisible, has to ‘manifest’ in order to use this stuff, i.e. they become vulnerable to attack.
Fey Companion (new creature): specific to bards who take the Fey Companion feat, a bard can summon a fey as his companion (how powerful depends on the Bard’s Perform ranks against the fey’s CR). Given the fairly significant spell-like abilities that a lot of fey have, this is an option that’s near the top of Notable Features at risk of blowing right through to Dreadful Features. I mean, the list of available fey companions includes Treants, Unicorns, Pixies, and even Nymphs. The latter means you’ve got a 7th level druid as a companion, before you start looking at the spell-like abilities. It’s a DC 15 Perform check for that. Admittedly, the Fey Companion feat imposes some balance in that you have to have a certain number of Perform ranks to call a fey of given CR, and it costs you 1,000 gp and 200 XP to do so, but it’s a pretty potent option for a bard.
Defense of the Familiar (feat): If your familiar is within 5 feet of you, and either you or the familiar takes the Fighting Defensively or Total Defense options, then both of you benefit from the dodge bonus to AC. This is one of the better general-use options the book creates, and a really good reason to actually use your familiar in combat.
Strike of the Familiar (feat): If you full attack, and your familiar is within 5 feet of you and attacks the same opponents, then both of you get another attack at your highest BAB, albeit with a -5 penalty. More attacks are good attacks, and bear in mind the familiar doesn’t actually have to hit anybody to get the benefit of this.
Nature Fetish – Hummingbird (new creature): This is basically the Barbarian’s unique familiar, and very elegantly ties into the idea of tribal animals, or tribal spirit animals. These tribal spirits grant the Barbarian certain abilities. Now, most of the abilities are reasonably pedestrian, but then there’s the Hummingbird, which, when you get down to it, provides the Barbarian Flight at the Hummingbird’s speed and maneuverability, i.e. perfect if it’s as the hummingbird familiar, 1/day as a standard action and lasts a number of rounds equal to the Barbarian’s level. Alternatively, the Hummingbird can grant a 1/day Cat’s Grace.
Guardian Cloak (Sor/Wiz 1 spell): If your familiar is attached to you, resting at your feet, or on a perch or staff, your cloak, robe, or cape billows about to grant it soft cover (+4 to AC). Awwww, thanks, master!

Dreadful Features
Meditative Conveyance (feat) + Improved Meditative Conveyance (feat): Why have one set of pointless abilities when your familiar can have them too? The combination of these feats allow you – so long as you place yourself helpless in a trance state – to grant your familiar, and I quote: stunning fist, evasion, deflect arrows, still mind, slow fall, purity of body, wholeness of body, improved evasion, ki strike, diamond body, abundant step, diamond soul, quivering palm, timeless body, tongue of the sun and moon, empty body, and perfect self. (Albeit you have to actually have the abilities yourself to convey them on. And yes, all of them can be granted at once. I mean, this could be a whole new world of roleplaying, where the Monk stays at home in a vegetative state while the familiar goes and does all the adventuring with all of the Monk’s salient class abilities.)
Distracting (new Familiar ability): Or, as it should be named, Trolling. At will, as a standard action, the familiar can cause all living creatures within 30 feet to take -1 to attack rolls and skill checks. The master and the familiar are immune to this ability … but the rest of the party, by RAW, is not.
Sensory Familiar (feat): See, feel, touch, taste, and otherwise experience the world through the familiar’s eyes (but can’t control or communicate with the familiar beyond how you ordinarily could, which all but removes any potential for scouting via the familiar, which is pretty much the only reason you’d contemplate wasting a whole feat on this).
Detect Magic (Sp) (new Familiar ability): “At will, the familiar can detect magic, as per the spell. The familiar can use this ability once per day per 2 levels of its master.” Sounds like someone had last minute thoughts on balance but failed the last minute editing.
Familiar Rage (Ex) (new Familiar ability): I’m sorry, but unless you have a seriously strong familiar then the ability for your familiar to go into a Barbarian rage is just a Leeroy Jenkins option for most familiars and a guaranteed XP loss for you. That said, the sheer lols of giving this ability to a Red Panda or a Turtle (or the sheer awesome of giving this to a MEGARAPTOR DINOSAUR, yes, you can, from Character Level 11) make it worthy of notation here.
Joined Turning (feat): If your familiar is within 5 feet, you get +1 effective level per familiar for the purposes of turning undead. Honestly, why do people still think turning undead is actually going to be used for turning undead anymore, and why do people think you’d blow a whole feat on something like this?
Communion Familiar (new creature): This is one of the cleric-specific familiars available, and you can tell even the writers were tossing up about whether to include this given the big “DM BEWARE” paragraph they include with the section on the creature. And that’s because the Communion Familiar is intended as a direct conduit between a cleric and his god. And the mechanical way this is achieved is by giving the familiar 1/day Commune, and 3/day Augury. (It also includes the standard cleric familiar ability which is Healing/Inflicting Touch: 5 times per day, a communion familiar can heal 1d8+1 points of damage at a touch, which is basically a Healing Belt’s capacity for out-of-combat or emergency healing.
Night Lord (Prestige Class): Ah, the children of the night, vot vunderfully awful PrCs they mech. Over 10 levels, most likely starting at 5, pick up +5d6 sneak attack, a fearful presence that can induce Frightening, summon a dire bat as a familiar, get Multiattack and TWF only on your claw attacks with their 1d6 unarmed damage, and command bats.

Who it’s best for (Player/GM/both):
Oh, definitely for players, with a little guidance to DMs.

Comments, thoughts, and rating out of 10.
On mechanics: I’m a bit conflicted on this one because I understand the reasons the designers went with what they did. Mechanically, I’d say familiars on D&D standard are improved from a C minus to solid B to B plus in terms of power and useability. Are the rules useable by all base classes? Yes. Are they customisable? Definitely yes, albeit controlled on theme (because Fighter familiars can’t necessarily get the abilities that Wizard familiars do). Are they well-balanced? Yes for some classes, no for others in my view. And the main problem in my view comes down to virtually every element of your new and improved familiars being hidden away behind feat prerequisites. It is pretty clear the designers were following WOTC’s philosophy that if you want to do something good in 3.5, you have to suck up feat taxes to do it.

Now, for some of these options, I actually think this is okay. For example, the Bard’s ability to summon a fey familiar has the potential to be hideously powerful if you know what you’re doing. It is fair and reasonable that you pay some sort of cost for that. Same with the feats that allow you to get an additional familiar ability beyond what the normal progression of familiar abilities is. And maybe it’s okay that the Fighter, Monk, Rogue, and Paladin have to stump up a feat to pick up their own familiar or animal companion but the Wizard doesn’t; that’s an advantage of the arcanists, and at its most basic the familiar amounts to a Skill Focus (some appropriate skill) feat.

However, I don’t think the same thing can be said for requiring more feats just to pick up the stronger familiar options. To get the strongest familiars in the game, you need three feats: Summon Familiar, Summon Greater Familiar, Summon Supreme Familiar. As it is you can’t get the most powerful familiars until you’re at or above a certain character level anyway, so that in itself is a fairly potent control mechanism keeping the party from picking up Megaraptor Dinosaurs at level 1. Imposing additional feats on a character in that situation is in my view overkill since those feats are basically just dead ends, with no synergy to the class otherwise. This is particularly so given the feats can’t be taken in bonus fighter feat slots, so there’s no argument back that non-caster characters have more feats to play with. The writers do try to address these concerns by basically saying that when you pick up the Summon Greater Familiar feat, you keep the familiar you already had with the prerequisite feat, but I don’t think this solves the problem; even if action economy is king, a low-powered familiar at level 20 is still a walking target that can’t contribute that much.

I think this balance concern is met by the character level prerequisites for better familiars, without having to take another feat. (On the other hand, I also think that requiring an extra feat to pick up a second familiar is entirely reasonable too. I’m guessing that the designers didn’t want level 20 characters running around with three very young dragons in their wake, albeit given level 20 characters can more or less pick this up via other methods, I don’t know that the concern was that valid.)

Also, while the book covers a lot of ground in terms of animal companions, it doesn’t do a hell of a lot for Special Mounts than standard D&D 3.5 does. The barbarian’s Special Mount can Rage and that’s about it. The paladin gets some stronger Special Mounts – Elephant, a Giant Wasp, a very young gold dragon, and a group of others. The Greater and Supreme Special Mounts pick up better Spell Resistance and 2-4 special mount abilities (mostly personal stuff like Bull’s Strength, Cat’s Grace, and so on) but not much is really done to make the mount particularly survivable or make mounted combat any stronger per se. And the Fighter’s Hero Weapon is not especially impressive, though not useless either.

Weighing all of this up, I wanted to give them 3 out of 4 on this element, but the near-obsessive desire to gate everything behind feats pulls this back to a 2/4, which is to say, the balance of the average WOTC book if you ignore the brokenness of spellcasting in general.

On concepts and fluff: This book blew me away on this element. It really did. Basically the writers took just about every concept of a companion spirit or creature in literature and adapted it for use with all base classes of the SRD. We are literally covering everything from ancestor spirits for Monks through to a hero’s weapon for Fighters. It is an ambitious piece of work that just sets the imagination on fire, and it just makes the default familiar of the wizard or sorcerer look like a puny little afterthought by comparison. They even include guidance on what familiars are appropriate for different climates, terrains, or races. More than 100 new powers for familiars, more than 200 possible familiars, including stats for 70 new animals and monsters, everything from skunks and flying squirrels to freaking Dark Familiars (hell, you can even get That Damn Crab!). They have worked hard to try and make familiars for all classes credible, and at least in concepts and vision, they succeed, handily. Don't mistake my list of Notable Features as all the book has to offer, it is just a quick list of the stuff that jumped out at me, the whole book is well worth a read if you can get hold of it. 4/4 on this one.

On presentation: Oh, small Serif fonts, how I hate you, all 190-odd pages of you. That said, the layout and the line spacing is just slightly better than the average of third party books I’ve seen so far. It’s mostly black and white within, but the tables are done with a different font and are images, breaking up the tedium somewhat. Call this a 0.5/2.

Thus: a total of 6.5/10.

zlefin

2021-03-26, 09:00 AM

This thread looks very interesting, reading through it now.
One small request: could you include in your reviews a Page count? I'd just like to know roughly how big each source is. You could also mention if the size of each page or word count per page is unusually high or low for a DnD book.

Saintheart

2021-03-26, 10:04 AM

Kalkra

2021-03-26, 10:26 AM

Gonna have to check out the Book of Familiars, wasn't familiar with that one.

Saintheart

2021-03-26, 10:29 AM

Gonna have to check out the Book of Familiars, wasn't familiar with that one.

https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2Ftse1.mm.bing.net%2Fth%3Fid%3DOIP. RB74iJItS_nMfutRuYCi_wHaEK%26pid%3DApi&f=1

Saintheart

2021-03-27, 02:13 AM

The Quintessential Monk, Mongoose Publishing

https://images2.imgbox.com/31/23/nNitSl4I_o.jpg
Summary
This is a book designed to give the monk a lot more options. New character concepts, weapons, feats, new skill uses, legendary forms, and rules on how to build a monastery, as well as RPG-ish stuff like getting into duels and even Lion Dances.

Date of Publication and Page Count
2002, 128 pages. So it’s early third edition. Mongoose Publishing gets a lot of controversy if not hate for some of its products, which I haven’t experienced personally and so I hope I can set those concerns aside evaluating the book. It is worth noting that Patrick Younts, the sole author of this book (most of the books I’ve seen so far have multiple authors) has claimed in interviews (https://www.flamesrising.com/interview-with-freelance-author-patrick-younts/) that he was only with Mongoose Publishing for 6 months, that The Quintessential Monk was his first major work in gaming, and under the publisher’s dictates, he had one month to write this – 128 pages per month, without exception. (Younts turned in 7 of Mongoose’s books over that 6 month period.) As at date of review this book doesn't seem to be casually available for purchase as a PDF on large RPG market websites. You may have to go looking for this one elsewhere in the virtual world or the real world.

Either way, Mongoose did release a second book – The Quintessential Monk II – which I will be looking at separately. That book did not specifically update this one, rather, Mongoose doubled down and called the second book a sequel and companion to this one, implying that you could still use both products even with 3.0 shifting to 3.5.

Notable Features
Eunuch (character template): -4 to CHA checks involving members of the opposite sex; Iron Will for free and +2 to Sense Motive and Bluff checks. Put it this way, I’ve seen other classes amputate lots of, er, essential features to pick up a free feat that also often turns up as a pointless prerequisite for more desirable classes, and unless you’re really into third party, it’s not like we’re playing with the Book of Erotic Fantasy here…
Temple Orphan (character template): 8 bonus skill points to go into monk class skills and Profession or Craft in return for -4 to Bluff, Sense Motive, and Intimidate (which penalties disappear by fifth level). This is solid.
Pressure Point Attacks (Variant Rule): Finally something that looks like what we saw in the Night Fight scene of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon! Luckily, because of the lack of specificities in this system, it’s possible for characters other than the Monk to use this. In essence, make an attack (at a certain penalty depending on the party of the body involved) against a creature in light or less armor (and with <= +4 in Natural Armor) and you can impose penalties on STR, movement, impose (near) blindness and so on. Fortunately you only need to have Improved Unarmed Strike and Stunning Attack to qualify for this, so a dip in monk followed by some sort of martial adept using things like Emerald Razor or similar works too. Indeed the way it’s written doesn’t exclude multiple pressure point attacks in the same full attack or flurry, so this could be a reasonably potent way of debuffing an opponent, even with the substantial penalties to striking.
Throw (feat): When making an unarmed trip attack, can cause opponent to land prone in any direction “within your threatened area”. Are you holding a Reach weapon and therefore threatening squares not adjacent to you, thus creating an AoO chance? I knew you were!
Choose the Poison (feat): When using a stunning attack, YOU CHOOSE WHETHER THE OPPONENT HAS TO MAKE A FORT OR WILL SAVE. If you’re going to go around stunning people, then it helps a hell of a lot to be able to force the big beefy bruiser with the IQ of 40 to use his single-digit Will bonus rather than him grin at you with his Fort save in the teens.
Finesse Trip (feat): You know how your opponent gets to use his DEX or STR, whichever is greater, when opposing your trip attack? Well guess what, now you can do that too … or at least, you use your DEX rather than your STR when attempting to trip an an opponent. Arguably this might extend to the touch attack that sets off the Trip, too, given the wording…
Hammer Blow (feat): Give up the extra flurry attack and add damage to the first blow equal to the BAB of the sacrificed extra attack, minus the Flurry of Blows penalty. This is a stronger ability under 3.5 given flurry penalties disappear by level 3 monk and the attack bonuses just keep building up.
Monkey Taunts the Emperor (feat): If you’re looking to try and tank in battle, this might be useful. Bluff check forces an opponent to charge you on his next action, and if you ready an action to meet his charge, your unarmed damage is doubled. Can only be used once per opponent per combat.
Grappling Throw (Variant Rule): Hurl people around the battlefield if you get a grapple check off, and render them prone 10 feet away from you.
Chokehold (Variant Rule): Pin an opponent, force a CON check and make the target unconscious. Beats the weird ground game you have to play with grappling and pinning people normally.
Falling Rock (Variant Rule): Actually use your Slow Fall in tandem with the fact you are a falling object and can be rather painful as you hit!
Lion Dance and Push Hands Competitions: Not much mechanical benefit, but beautifully in keeping with Eastern cultures – Push Hands comes to us from t’ai ch’i, or at least the martial arts form of it.
Heal (Acupuncture) (New Skill Use): Heal check can allow you to negate Hold, Slow, ghoul’s touch, restore sight/healing, reverse fear effects, stop a character raging. Again, finally something similar to what we saw in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon with Li Mu Bai.
Knowledge (Arcana) (New Skill Use): FENG SHUI! Arrange furniture and orientation of house to grant small Luck bonuses to skill checks, Appraise checks (Prosperity!), Harmony, Health!
Meteor Hammer (weapon): the martial ball and chain, also see how it was used against the Bride in Kill Bill Vol. 1.in the showdown against the Crazy 88. Finesse weapon, can flurry with in, threaten a radius of 10 feet, but you can only attack using the full attack action. 1d6 damage.
Mad Devil Staff (Legendary Form): when wielding a quarterstaff, forego all other attacks and resolve a single melee attack at your highest BAB as a touch attack. Damage inflicts quarterstaff + unarmed damage. Looks a lot like Emerald Razor, could be very interesting combined with the Decisive Strike ACF for monks.
No Shadow Kick (Legendary Form): +2 to hit with all unarmed attacks when attacking an opponent with a lower Initiative than your own. +4 when it’s a flatfooted opponent.
Iron Legs Kickboxer (Prestige Class): Jean-Claude Van Damme, the prestige class. Well, sort-of. Continues monk progression, most significantly raises the threat range of your unarmed attacks to 18-20, i.e. down to 15-20 with Improved Critical, and thus possibly down to 9-20 if can convince your DM to allow Impact via a Necklace of Natural Attacks to apply. Also raises your critical multiplier to x3.

Dreadful Features
Pirate of the Eastern Seas (character template): Restricted to Evil or Neutral alignment on character creation, and for this … uh … bonus, you don’t have Diplomacy, Knowledge (Arcana), or Perform as class skills, and you must always keep your Swim skills maxed. Don’t know what went wrong there.
Blunted Blade (feat): +1 Dodge bonus to AC when wielding a one or two-handed weapon. You can’t attack with the weapon but may strike with unarmed attacks at no penalty. Also has ridiculous rules on fighting with more than one weapon. So you’re literally harder to hit standing around with a claymore but can only headbutt people (Huh … I think in Scotland they call that the Glasgow Kiss…)
Crushing Blow (feat): At the end of a charge, if you move less than your standard movement, +1 to damage per 10 feet of movement remaining. “Wow, with Longstrider I can—“ Not so fast, they thought of that. Extra movement from magic items or spell effects don’t add to damage. Which ruins our fun.
Clever Monkey Spins the Branch (feat): as a move equivalent action, adjust your grip on a Reach weapon to allow you to attack close-range foes. No, you can’t use this to attack someone from Reach in the same round as they’re adjacent to you. No, that includes AoOs too. For all this trouble you might as well just step five feet and smack the person with a full attack.
Frog on the Lilypad (feat): YES, YOU CAN WALK ON WATER. Dunno why you’d take a feat for it, though.
Flying Guillotine (weapon): … what?
Iron Legs Kickboxer (Prestige Class): Yes, this is in the Dreadful Features section too, because it grants the Toughness feat … though you qualify for the PrC by having Toughness or Great Fortitude as one of the prerequisites. Sigh.

Who it’s best for (Player/GM/both)
Players, definitely.

Comments, thoughts, and rating out of 10.
On mechanics: This is probably the biggest failing of the book, and it is not really inflicted by the book’s mechanics being wonky. It comes from a lack of system mastery and because of flaws inherent in the 3.0 and 3.5 monk. I felt a little sigh escape me when I saw the introduction assert that ‘as a class, the monk has always been a cut above’. Added to the issue is that this is very clearly a 3.0 book which has to compete against the whole range of 3.5 including Tome of Battle. That being said, this isn’t bad, and that’s mainly because a monk built with the options here feels a lot more like an actual martial artist. As with the Forgotten Heroes: Paladin book, it’s the optionality that saves it. But it doesn’t provide too much in the way of stuff that’s really powerful or could move the monk up another tier of usefulness; it’s more like some of the ideas (Choose The Poison, for example) go some way to remedying some of the monk’s weaknesses. I also particularly liked the character templates mechanically; sure, it can be used to mine a free feat here or there, but it also makes you think a bit more about what sort of person you want the monk to be. Sadly, though, and mostly because the monk’s a weak character and the author (maybe understandably) didn’t have a deep understanding of the problems that monks have in D&D, it doesn’t make the Monk much more powerful. The prestige classes are marginal at best (but only 5 levels in each case – well done recognising that dead levels are evil), and the Legendary Forms are only kind-of useful. Most of the options in the book simply could have used a bit more oomph. But it does make the monk a little less sucky, and that’s the way to look at this book. 1/4 here.

On concepts and fluff: Even on a casual read of this book you can tell that the author was tremendously passionate about monks and unarmed fighting in the Eastern tradition. (Younts actually was, and still is, a martial artist, and said he had about 10,000 different works, fiction and nonfiction, from the genre to draw from in building this book.) That passion is reflected in what comes across as a very strong attempt at bringing in just about every major, recognisable form of unarmed martial arts into the book. As said, this book contains everything from Sumo competitions to Tai Chi to Feng Shui use to Lion Dances (from Chinese New Year) to even building your own monastery. It takes a lot of time to sink the reader into character concepts first, to get the reader really thinking about the type of monk they want to play. It is very clearly an attempt to make the D&D monk much more strongly resemble the Eastern martial arts movie character most people who play the monk want to be. And it introduced some pretty solid new concepts for the time, those being outright replacement of monk special abilities with suites of other, more martial-ish stuff, in the form of martial fighting schools. WOTC was already doing something similar in Oriental Adventures from 2001, but Younts tunes the concept to at least make it more thematic ...and doesn't lock everything up behind feats. Sadly, the fighting schools still aren't great. Does the book fix or turn the monk into a seriously powerful character? Not even close. Does it make the monk more fun to play? Yes. So it does deserve I think a 3.5/4 on this field.

On presentation: Nice layout that isn’t hard on the eye, nice artwork. Yes it’s all black and white aside from the cover, but the reams of text are broken up with an eye to a reader’s sanity. It gets a 1/2 for this.

Total score: 5.5/10.

Next time: Quintessential Monk II!

Caelestion

2021-03-27, 07:22 AM

I bought all the Q books back in the day, in hard copy no less, and whilst the content was definitely variable, on the whole I didn't feel like I'd wasted my money (except on the rare occasion that one of the books was a definite dud).

Kalkra

2021-03-29, 10:51 PM

Saintheart

2021-03-29, 11:36 PM

It's been a while since I read the Q. Monk, but I recall it having a lot of stuff that was good for characters who aren't Monks, or at most who took a 1-level dip. Monkey Taunts the Emperor, for instance, can be very good for a Crusader lockdown build. Also, I'll mention that I'm pretty sure Clever Monkey Spins the Branch was functionally reprinted in some WotC splatbook with a much more generic name, as a surprising amount of Mongoose stuff was. For that matter, one could argue that the Divisive Strike ACF was inspired by some of the stuff in this book, although who can really say.

There are certainly inspirations that seem to be taken from parts of this book: the closest thing to Monkey Taunts the Emperor is similar-ish to the Goad feat from Races of Stone. Clever Monkey Spins the Branch was very similar to the PHB 2 feat Short Haft. And yeah, the Mad Devil Staff immediately made me think of Decisive Strike too.

I didn't really look into the possibilities of how the book's features could be dipped or used in classes other than monks, but I'll be focusing more on that in future. And maybe there is some marginal utility in some of what I saw for dipping or similar.

Kalkra

2021-03-30, 12:09 AM

I didn't really look into the possibilities of how the book's features could be dipped or used in classes other than monks, but I'll be focusing more on that in future. And maybe there is some marginal utility in some of what I saw for dipping or similar.

I think I remember that some of the Quintessential books had a line about how the new uses for skills and whatnot were only meant to be used by that class, while some didn't. Regardless, for the most part the stuff in the books works best with the intended class, but IIRC the feng shui stuff is just generally good, and Monks are so bad that the usual way of evaluating any of that stuff is to wonder how you can make it work with something other than Monk.

Saintheart

2021-03-30, 10:40 PM

The Quintessential Monk II, Mongoose Publishing

https://www.dandwiki.com/w/images/8/8a/QMonk2.jpg
Summary
As indicated in my review of the original, this book is a sequel to and companion to Quintessential Monk. Again the idea is that it is meant to be a book that expands options for the monk – feats, class abilities, prestige classes, and the like. It also functions as something of a strategy guide for playing monks throughout the levels.

Date of Publication and Page Count
2004, 120 pages. This is dated to and explicitly made for 3.5 edition, and right here I have to correct what I said in my earlier review. Namely, Quintessential Monk 2 does update and overwrite some of the elements of Quintessential Monk 1. Which actually turns out to be something of a pity, because these overwrites don’t always help the actual options. We’ll talk about what in due course, but insofar as there’s good news, it doesn’t overwrite everything, just those elements that crop up in both books. Once again Patrick Younts was the sole author and provides an epilogue about what brought him back to this series, but at the end of the day, well, it’s the same author, so at least there's a bit of continuity there. As at date of review, this book was available on some large RPG market websites.

Notable Features
The Enlightened Wizard (multiclass option): If for some mad reason you decide to multiclass with Monk, this book provides you with certain extra abilities depending on which combination of SRD classes you pick. For the Monk/Wizard multiclass, it’s at least interesting: rather than your monk bonus feats, you pick up bonus metamagic feats instead … and just like the oversight with Martial Monk, it doesn’t look like you have to satisfy any of the feats’ prerequisites for these either. In addition, in exchange for flurry of blows, evasion, and improved evasion class features, you can use your WIS and not your INT score when determining bonus spells. This might actually be worth a dip into Monk and then run like hell with Wizard for the rest of the journey.
Cat Stance (new skill use, Balance): When someone tries to Trip you, make a Balance check of DC 15+opponent’s STR mod+size modifier. If succeeds, opponent loses his STR and size modifiers to the opposed trip check; if fails, monk takes a -2 to his STR or DEX check to resist being tripped. One suspects the language that “a monk, and only a monk character” can use this ability was because of annoyance over characters other than monks using good stuff like this, but nowhere is a multiclass Monk ruled out and this’d be an added bonus if you’re dipping Monk for some other reason.
Leaping Kick (new skill use, Jump): Make a long jump as a move action and land adjacent to the opponent. If conditions met, single unarmed attack as a standard action, gaining attack bonus of +1 for every 10 feet of distance leaped and +1 damage for every 5 feet of distance travelled. Says ‘a monk,’ but doesn’t say ‘only a monk’, so, again, multiclass or use freely. Appears to work by RAW with Leap Attack except for the question of whether a charge is “a single, unarmed attack”.
Tumbling Leaf (new skill use, Tumble): Tumble in place, gaining a bonus to AC of 2 + 1 per 5 points you exceed a DC 15. Can attack as a standard action as normal, bonus stacks with fighting defensively and Combat Expertise.
Light Step (new skill use, Balance): This renders obsolete the somewhat questionable Frog on the Lilypad feat from QM1 – walking across water and such is now a Balance skill check (albeit high).
Secret Symbol (The Void) (Variant rule): Basically something like a martial adept stance, although this, the highest symbol attainable, isn’t awful: for 1 round per 2 points of WIS mod, you are immune to mind-affecting spells and spell-likes, add WIS to initiative, substitute WIS for STR on attack and damage dice with unarmed attacks, WIS mod to skills and saves rather than other ability modifiers. Exhausted when the effect of the secret symbol ends.
Climb Giant (new skill use, Climb): What it says on the can. You can try to climb up a Huge, Gargantuan, or Colossal creature. You have to take an AoO, and then make a Climb check, and lose your DEX bonus to AC while doing so. While climbing, can attack using a one-handed Light weapon (I know, I know … I presume that was meant to read ‘Light weapon provided it is wielded in one hand at all times’…) and the climbed character “loses its DEX mod” (one presumes to AC) against those attacks. Which would presumably mean sneak attack triggers. In conjunction with Underfoot Combat (RoTW) this might be interesting, but the fact it’s limited only to Huge targets and above means it’s of limited application.
Blunted (weapon quality): if you’re critfishing and you’re interested in bypassing forms of energy resistance, this might be worth thinking about. For a +1 price, all the weapon’s damage is nonlethal ( but does ‘no extra damage’ beyond its enhancement bonus, which could be badly used against you without DM interpretation) but the critical multiplier is raised by 1. Nonlethal damage bypasses energy resistance.
The Magic of Enlightenment and Surviving to Enlightenment (tactics discussion): Basically these are meant to be the strategy guide for monks to choose magic items and a more general tactics guide. There’s some refreshing candour: ‘In a high magic game, meaning one in which magic items are even more common than they are in default Core Rulebooks, the monk and the martial artist are in serious trouble.’ There’s even an all-but-explicit acknowledgment that Mobility sucks. And there is some fairly straightforward advice about how to play a monk (if you’re feeling like suffering in this way.)

Dreadful Features
Career Paths (variant rule): This basically is a case of taking a good idea – the Character Template from QM1 – and overbalancing it to the point where it’s pretty much unuseable. One of the frequent complaints about D&D 3.5 is that it’s hard to grow a character organically, one wrong feat choice at an early stage and your character is borked for effectiveness at higher levels. The idea of the Career Path actually leans into this horrible phenomenon. It places what amounts to a further template onto the character’s progression. Whilst this is touted as giving ‘more direction’ to the character (and maybe that might work for a certain kind of player) it’s just needlessly complicated and restrictive for a book that’s meant to be about trying to give people more options to play with, not less. I mean, to go on a Career Path, whenever you level up, in effect, you have to pick a feat from the Path’s advancement options or take an ability increase towards the minimum ability for that path, or increase a skill from that path’s advancement options. When you enter the Career Path, you pick up a benefit but also suffer a disadvantage. For me that was the straw that broke the camel’s back, you’re already suffering a disadvantage in the opportunity cost of keeping to the Path, you shouldn’t be hit with a disadvantage on top of that. Unless you’re very careful about how you build your character, most of the benefits are heavily limited on uses per day and matched with some bothersome penalties that typically are hitting you all day long. I mean, hey, 1/day add your WIS mod to attack and damage for 1 round … in return for losing your WIS bonus to AC for that round. And it really feels like this system was built to stop people dipping Monk, since if you don’t follow the Career Path at each level, this benefit and disadvantage go with it. If you’re going to force someone to stick to a given set of feats, skill selections, or ability increases, the damn benefit had better be good when it first comes online and it had better retain its usefulness across the character’s whole career. I cannot see, amongst any of the benefits given by this variant rule, anything that justifies this.
Fighting Styles (variant rule): When you get down to it these are essentially feat trees. If you pick all the feats for a given tier in the Style, you get a bonus which doesn’t require a feat slot and/or the effectiveness of some of the feats is improved. First problem: ‘Without specific GM approval, only monk characters can select style technique feats, though any multiclass character has has at least as many monk levels as levels in other classes can select style technique feats freely.’ We’re going to weigh you down with monk levels even if you try and multiclass your way out of this trail of tears, peasant. And the hair-tearing frustration is that absent that stricture, some of the benefits actually aren’t that bad for someone who wants to go unarmed without going monk:
-- Double Hammer, admittedly for the price of six feats, offers unlimited standard action unarmed touch attacks, stun on a critical hit. Although you have to have a flurry of blows ability. (Particularly annoying is that one of the style feats, Crushing Blow, seems to have been updated from QM1, see my review of that book. Now the feat can likely use magical gear to enhance the movement bonus, but the feat is hidden back behind a couple of prerequisites, making it irritatingly inaccessible.)
-- Drunken Boxing, for the price of about 7-9 feats: DR 3 when drunk, full flurry of blows at end of charge action, use a full attack to trip multiple people, drink alcohol as a free action, not flankable without less than 3 opponents’ threatened areas, +2 to STR and DEX and no ability score penalties for drunkenness, no matter how sloshed you get
--Smoke Sword, for the price of 8 feats: add half DEX mod instead of STR mod to all attacks with your chosen weapon (EDIT: I am assuming that was a typo in the book, since Weapon Finesse - one of the required feats - already gives this and more. The RAI was likely half DEX to damage rather than STR mod, which isn't uncommon in default 3.5 space either). Full DEX mod to damage on a critical hit. Improved Initiative gives you +5, not +4. Any single melee weapon is deemed a special monk weapon and can also gain the benefits of Weapon Finesse.
All the prestige classes in the damn book: No. They occasionally offer something mildly interesting – once per day be treated as if you rolled a 20 (Olympian); use your WIS mod for a class skill rather than any other mod it normally works with (Enlightened One); but the prerequisites for these invariably require a bloody Monk class feature, meaning you generally have to suffer through Monk or find advanced shenanigans to use these. Avoid.
The Natural Brawler (multiclass option): So if you multiclass Monk and Barbarian (yes, you can here) in a particular way, you pick up (if the DM allows these variant rules) a couple of abilities: raise your DR at Monk 5 or Monk 10 by 1; pick Power Attack or Endurance as the Monk bonus feat (big deal, Martial Monk gets you to do this); or an alternative form of Rage which pushes DEX by +4 and increases your movement speed by +10 feet, but -4 to STR. Because I totally want to be the Angry Dancer who slaps people rather than punches them hard in the face.
The Street Performer (multiclass option): You’re a Monk 11/Bard 9, does that sound like anything remotely strong to you? I mean, the freaking ‘Recommended Options’ notes for the character say “The street performer is not well suited for direct combat, nor does his strength lie in dungeon exploration…,” you might as well just put “Abandon All Hope, All Ye Who Level Here” and be done with it. But wait! When you multiclass you can pick up an extra ability! Wow, I can Michael Jackson things by being able to stun people with a shout rather than Countersong? Too bad it’s a radius effect centred on me and my allies are not immune to my sudden desire to kiai everyone into a stupor for a round.
Divine Fist (multiclass option): Monk 11/Cleric 9. You know that kid whose mother was really smart and his father was really dumb? Yeah, that’s this guy. And hey, if you break your code of conduct, you lose your cleric abilities AND your monk abilities as well! He does get a custom domain – Enlightened Warrior – at first level, with the domain power of Skill Focus (Concentration) and True Strike as the first level domain spell, and frankly, he’s gonna need it.
Explosive Egg (new weapon): Bet you thought you were going to get a slightly more useable Eggshell Grenade with no blinding, huh? Well, you do … it’s dazzling rather than blinding, and the Reflex and Fort save are low. But … each time the bearer of an egg is struck in combat, there’s a 20% chance the egg explodes. Great odds, don’t you agree?
Stunning Clap (Variant Rule): use Quivering Palm – if you stayed in Monk long enough to get it -- as a cone effect out to 50 feet which causes those in the area of effect to make a “save” (what kind is not specified … sigh …) or be paralysed for 1 round.
Disgorgement Fist (new skill use, Heal): ‘A monk, and only a monk character’ can undo ingested or inhaled poisons in others on a standard action of preparation and then an attack, or cause an opponent to be nauseated for 1 round. Provokes an AoO from the opponent. No retry. If this updated pressure points from QM1 (it doesn’t say) then it very stupidly nerfed the ability.

Who it’s best for (Player/GM/both)
Players, once again.

Comments, thoughts, and rating out of 10.
On mechanics: If you hadn’t already detected it from my ranting, the Career Path and Style Feats in particular are just horrible. It’s not like the damn things give over at-will Wish or even (shock horror) give the Monk full damn BAB, they’re basically minor benefits at best and they often come with not-insignificant drawbacks. The prestige classes are also subpar at best and some are bloated at 10 levels rather than 5, with pretty uninteresting features or features that are only of any significance if you actually have a lot of Monk levels, which you won’t. The best elements of the book remain those features that can be utilised by other than monks, or where it’s just a new skill use and not locked behind 5-8 feats. I’ll give it a 0.5/4, and that’s mainly because the good features in the book appear to have happened by accident rather than design.

On concepts and fluff: The book starts with a caution: ‘the Advanced Tactics series (which QM2 is part of) will not necessarily allow players to make their characters even better but they will be able to do a lot more than they ever thought possible before.’ It helps to keep that idea in mind when reading this thing, because once again insofar as there is a benefit to these 2 books, it springs mainly out of the additional options rather than making the monk any more significantly powerful.

But to be honest, I was really disappointed by this book in fluff terms, mainly because whilst the desire might have been to try and improve on the ideas from QM1, the result overall is to overload what were good ideas into needlessly complex structures with overly heavy prerequisites that do not produce the returns justifying that structure. The worst exemplar for this was the Career Path, with the Style Feats a close second. Honestly it felt like the author had been shown a bunch of Monk-dipping martial builds built by optimisers who said ‘lol monks suck’ too much, and decided to get even with features that can’t be easily multiclassed out of. The desire to create more ‘focus’ and ‘options’ results in a set of features that are just not interesting enough to take in spite of their mechanical weaknesses. 0.5/4 here, this was just very disappointing compared with QM1.

On presentation: This is about the best part of the book, albeit it’s no more impressive than QM1: basic readable layout, but still black and white with some nice, evocative pictures. 1/2 here.

Total: 2/10.

Next time: The Advanced Bestiary, by Green Ronin Publishing!

Kalkra

2021-03-30, 11:28 PM

I'm pretty sure that Oriental Adventures had martial arts styles, and that was back in 2001, so it seems like Q Monk 2 was reinventing the wheel a bit with the fighting styles.

I'll also mention that IIRC all of the Quintessential II books had the career paths, so that at least probably wasn't just the author trying to make people take more than one level of Monk, although some of the other stuff might have been.

Also, while Monks are bad, and this book doesn't change that, there are people in the world who play them (or so I've heard), and if I were to be playing such a character, I would probably use some of the options presented in this book, although maybe not as many as in the previous one. In other words, while the book doesn't give you a reason to play Monk, if you are playing a Monk, you might want the book. It just felt to me like you were being a bit harsh on the book just because Monks are bad.

On the other hand, I think I remember one of the Q Wizard books having a 2nd- or 3rd-level spell that granted a whole bunch of Monk abilities, so maybe you have a point.

Saintheart

2021-03-30, 11:38 PM

In other words, while the book doesn't give you a reason to play Monk, if you are playing a Monk, you might want the book. It just felt to me like you were being a bit harsh on the book just because Monks are bad.

I'll certainly agree that if you're playing a Monk you might want the book, if only for the reason than that you can't get much worse than vanilla SRD monk :smalltongue: , but even then the optionality available out of other 3.5 books really overshadows what you get from this one. I don't think I'm being harsh on the book just because Monks are bad, my main problem with QM2 is that it introduces fairly significant opportunity costs of getting (many of) the options in the book, and those options, while not terrible, are heavily weighed down by said opportunity costs. But I do appreciate the feedback and the different perspective nonetheless!

Saintheart

2021-04-01, 09:24 PM

The Advanced Bestiary, Green Ronin Publishing

https://images2.imgbox.com/89/db/eyz65RxK_o.jpg
Summary
The title is a bit misleading; while there are sample creatures within that I suppose comprise the bestiary, this book is basically as a repository of templates that can be applied to monsters designed for the d20 system. The templates are themed along a number of different lines with different intents. Primarily designed for DMs, it is intended to increase the variety of monsters that parties meet.

Date of Publication and Page Count
2004, 254 pages. This version was explicitly for 3.5 – I am not sure if any 3.0 version ever existed. There was also an edition prepared for Pathfinder, but we’re leaving that aside. Once again we have a sole designer responsible for the work, Matthew Sernett (https://dnd.wizards.com/articles/interviews/matt-sernett), who as at 2004 was deeply-sunk into third edition. He’d come on board with the inception of 3rd ed, he was the editor-in-chief of Dragon magazine from 316-326 (i.e. right in 3.5’s run) and moved to Paizo with the magazines. He has design credits on a number of third edition works from around the same time this was written – Fiend Folio, MM 3, Spell Compendium, and later on Tome of Battle. How exactly he had time to do all that and write this book for Green Ronin I’ll never know. Either way, in approaching the work I would have expected at least some system mastery from it; in the interview linked it’s indicated that he was keen on just giving players what they wanted in Dragon magazine, which one would hope translated across into this work that’s primarily designed for GMs by the look of it. As at date of review, this book was available on some large RPG market websites.

Notable Features
Time Seer template: Apply this template to make a creature able to see imperfectly into the future. Pick up 1/day true strike, augury at will, low Concentration DCs to use. DC 15 Concentration check, 1/round as a free action, potentially get a +4 on its next attack roll, check, or saving throw. DC 10 Concentration check gives it +4 to initiative, Uncanny Dodge (no loss of DEX bonus to AC), WIS +4, CHA -2, +2 dodge bonus to AC, and some racial bonuses on Knowledge and Search checks … although the sting in the tail is that it takes a -5 to Concentration checks, Sense Motive, and Spot checks. It’s also an inherited or acquired template, meaning it’s not hard to pick up as a a player … and it only carries a LA +1 in effect on the base creature. That series of abilities is pretty damn good for a hobbling by one level. One of those templates you’d want to keep off PCs if you can.
Amalgam template! Slap just about anything together with anything else to make an amalgam creature. The sample creature is an Arrowhawk crossed with a Minotaur for crying out loud. This is the most complicated template in the whole book, but it has been built to take the load and the possibilities may not only be limited by your imagination, but they are amazingly wide, or have contemplated just about every combination you can think of.
Bipedal Creature template: Not at all a powerful template, but immediately evocative. “Huh. So a four-legged creature can gain arms and stand upright, gets its land speed altered, can wield weapons normally, ho-hum … oh. Wait. The sample creature is quite literally a WALKING NIGHTMARE.’ This is so simple and just so great an option for changing stuff up!
Broken Soul template: It’s horrifying. Imagine something that is literally covered in scar tissue and which has been tortured and beaten so badly it takes on this template. The special attacks are nothing to sniff at: touch attack and (absent a Fort save), take 2d6 slashing +1d6 DEX. Gaze attack (Fort save) does 1d4 STR, CON and CHA drain. And the gaze can be used again 1 minute later, meaning this is a seriously dangerous beast to have harrying the party over a period of time, say as the haunt of a large ruin where the Broken Soul template can just wear the party down with hit and run. The only saving grace is that it nerfs the CHA score (on which the gaze and touch attacks depend) by 6. CR +2 to base creature, LA +4, which I think is a little much, but the +6 to CON it gives the template sure makes it a good candidate for some sort of bruiser too.
Celestial-Blessed Creature template: The template is not bad on its own – basically a good outsider inhabits your form and gives you certain powers - but the cool part is the sample creature, where an evil creature basically is inhabited by a hound archon spirit and does terrible things specifically to cause the hound archon deep sorrow. Revulsive, yes, but cool original thinking. And there’s a corresponding Demon-Possessed Creature template too.
Creature Swarm template: Basically take any Tiny, Dimunitive, or Fine creature and give it the swarm template. Yes, even a swarm of tiny incorporeal ghosts, the book calls this possibility out directly.
Devil-Bound Creature template: Want an easy-bake Dr. Faust? Here’s how you do it to just any creature with a soul. Contains differing powers depending on which devil a bargain has been made with. Most of the powers come down to doing things that a Devil can and picking up better ability scores depending on the creature chosen. (Also compare the Genie-Bound creature, which is talking about templating up Aladdin!
Divine Guardian template: Give a monster a scalingly larger list of spell-like abilities for the purpose of guarding a particular site. Double speed, +4 on Initiative, Dimension Door, Fast Healing 5, immune mind-affecting effects, but it loses its template if it leaves the area defined as the holy site it defends. The designers appear to have anticipated Acorn of Far Travel abuse by players, though, so they raise a base creature’s CR by 1 and the LA is +4, which should discourage that sort of silliness.
Force Creature template: CR +1 and LA +6 should give you some idea of whose hands they wanted to keep this one out of. All of force creature’s natural attacks now do [force] damage. Its natural armor bonus becomes a deflection bonus. And it can negate all magical effects with the force descriptor in 30 feet, provide a sort of retributive strike feature, +20 on Jump checks. The sample creature is a Force Gelatinous Cube, try that one on for size boys and girls.
Fortune-Spurned Creature template: There’s the Fortune-Blessed template which does some minor rerolls and true strike per day, but this is far more entertaining to contemplate as an easy-bake curse put on the PCs. Lolnope a natural 20 on a saving throw, drop your weapon on a natural 1, take a -2 luck penalty on opposed checks and saves and a -1 luck penalty on attack rolls.
Four Horsemen: Yep, the four horsemen of the apocalypse … or, possibly, the one horse-elf, the one horse-chuul, the one horse-wight, and the one horse-titan of the apocalypse. Themed templates for war, famine, pestilence and death.
Gigantean template: It’s Kaiju time! You can stack the template with itself, so here comes the 90-foot-tall Sprite!
Transforming Construct: AUTOBOTS, ROLL OUT! And yes, the sample creatures do include a Galleon which is a Construct and can turn from a ship to a swimming form.

Dreadful Features
None.
No, really. None at all. There’s nothing here that really boggles the eye or the mind.

Who it’s best for (Player/GM/both)
Well, it’s pretty clearly aimed at GMs, although I suppose some player capable of twisting his DM’s arm might be able to get access to this. Still, given Level Adjustment rules are fully in effect with these, one could expect the cost of playing these things to be fairly brutal, so again, much more of use to a GM than a player in general.

Comments, thoughts, and rating out of 10.
On mechanics: When looking at this stuff I think it’s important to remember that the process of advancing monsters under D&D 3.5 rules is hard for beginners or even journeyman DMs. Or at least, it is not intuitive, simple, or transparent, and it has a lot of steps at which a DM can get it wrong. Making it worse is that the mechanism meant to best inform how tough or dangerous a monster is – Challenge Rating – is seriously wonky in 3.5, albeit enough time has passed that even the original designers are cool enough to admit now that the original way in which CRs are calculated has a hell of a lot of thumb-ruling and not a lot of mathematics behind it anyway. Let alone the fact that, given the sheer optionality of 3.5 with just the PHB and DMG, it was never going to be anything more than a very rough guess.

This book does not set out to fix the CR system or make over the template system, so in that very narrow-minded way it is not original. However – and it is a massive however -- what it does do is benefit from having one of the guys who was knee-deep in 3.5 at its helm, and, being a sourcebook, it spends considerably more time than the default books walking a DM through the process of adding templates, and unashamedly offering advice in what are the inevitable grey areas that arise. 12 full pages are spent on how to add templates, alter templates, and create new templates. The specificity gets right down the order of application of changes consequent on the template. Also helpful is that the book rates how difficult its templates are to apply to a base creature, on a scale of 1-3. This is a great feature to help DMs in a hurry. The CR increases are not large – for the vast majority it’s <= +3 to CR, with four templates that go higher. And more importantly, it makes a heroic effort at putting new concepts into game stats that already exist in 3.5.

I decided to take a small dip into creation for the purposes of this review and by way of comparison. More or less at random, I decided to take a poor, unsuspecting kobold and slap the Swamp Lord template on him. A Swamp Lord is an evil plant creature that inhabits a fen or quagmire. Its body is a mass of vines, moss and pond scum, and has a strong symbiotic relationship with the swamp, demanding the allegiance of any thinking beings in its domain. So maybe our kobold is a degenerated green dragon or something. Anyway!

Type: Humanoid
HP 1d8, INIT +1, Speed 30, AC 15/Touch 12/FF 14
BAB +1, Spear +1, 1d6-3/x3, Ranged +3 1d3-1
Space/Reach 5x5
Darkvision 60 feet, light sensitivity
Fort +2, Ref +1, Will -1
STR 9 (-1), DEX 13 (+1), CON 10 (+0) INT 10 (+0), WIS 9 (-1) CHA 8 (-1)
Craft Trapmaking +2, Hide +6, Listen +2, Move Silently +2, Profession (Miner) +2, Search +2, Spot +2
Alertness
CR 0.25

Type: Small Augmented Plant [Aquatic subtype]
HP 1d8+2, INIT +0, Speed 20, Climb 20, Swim 20 AC 16/Touch 11/FF 16 (+2 Natural Armor)
BAB +1, Spear +2, 1d6+1/x3, Ranged +2 1d3-1/x3, 2xTentacles +2 1d4+1
Constrict: automatic tentacle damage on a successful Grapple check.
Engulf: Can engulf Tiny creatures if not wearing armor and already grappling them
Improved Grab: if hit with a natural attack, can start a Grapple check as free action.
Spell-like abilities: Entangle 2/day, Obscuring Mist 2/day (CL 1)
Space/Reach 5x5 (Tentacles: 10 foot reach)
Darkvision 60 feet, Low-light vision, light sensitivity, immune mind-affecting effects, poison, sleep, paralysis, polymorph, stunning, critical hits; trackless step.
Amphibious: can breathe water.
While in Marsh, can learn facts as if casting Commune with Nature.
Fast Healing 5
Energy Resistance 10 (electricity, sonic, and fire)
Fort +4, Ref +0, Will -1
STR 13 (+1), DEX 11 (+0), CON 14 (+2) INT 10 (+0), WIS 9 (-1) CHA 8 (-1)
Climb +8, always take 10 on Climb checks, Hide +12 (in woodland or marsh), Listen +8, Move Silently+5, Search +0, Spot +8, Knowledge Nature +5, Survival +5, Take 10 on Swim checks, use Run action while swimming.
Alertness, Track
CR 2.25

So how did it turn out on pure CR?

Well, given how CR is a seriously wobbly metric, the only real way I can make comparisons is to the overall average statistics of monsters by CR (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?623578-3-5-Average-Monster-Stats-UPDATED-TABLE&highlight=average+monster+AC+BAB) under 3.5. By that reckoning, this creation is below the average CR 2 creature on hitpoints, initiative, Ref and Will saves, and BAB. On the other hand, it has Fast Healing 5, and the Energy Resistance 10 means most +1d6 energy weapon features won’t touch it, so the hitpoint count at least is a little misleading, and a kobold is below the average on saves anyway for a CR of 0.25. The 10 foot reach of the tentacles at least allows it to slap characters as it comes in, and the Entangle and Obscuring Mist capabilities give it some good capacity for battlefield control at these levels, and the Plant traits make it a lot harder to bring down with common ECL 2 abilities like sleep or stuns and whatnot. I don’t know if I’d quite rate it CR 2, and in a fight I’d support it with a few very low-level CR thralls; it’s just hard to work out a focus for the creature given what it can and can’t do. That said, this might just be that the template doesn’t work well for small creatures, it’s much more designed for big beefy bruisers it would seem. Still, it was an interesting exercise for creativity if nothing else, and what else are you going to do, hit the party with Greenbound kobolds that can steamroll a level 5-6 party with ease?

Weighing all of this up, I think they made a pretty solid set of templates. It’s useable fairly easily and there’s a fair amount of guidance to a DM in building a creature with these templates. 3/4.

On concepts and fluff: As a preface, some of the templates might sound familiar – Unseelie Creature and Dust Creature – but they in fact are not the same as the Unseelie Fey template or the Dustform Creature template. Indeed pretty well every one of the templates supplied is new and unique, i.e. hasn’t been re-used by a later 3.5 book as far as I can tell. So all of them can certainly be described as original, and the Notable Features I’ve mentioned above are not anywhere near the full range of interesting stuff the book sets out. I was particularly delighted with the Feral Dragon template, which is meant to weaken a powerful dragon so you don’t have to wait until the teens in character levels to take on the older dragons. There isn’t a massive amount of fluff attached to each one, leaving it flexible enough to be adapted to campaigns, but the ideas at least are pretty distinctive and aren’t just a case of “Werewolf with a few more hitpoints and a Sonic attack” or similar. They strike me as slightly more complicated or slightly more niche ideas that likely weren’t vanilla or simple enough to go into the run of a standard 3.5 book. It is wholly my supposition, but I would not be surprised if the author originally shopped these ideas at Wizards, they said ‘cool, inventive, but these are blueberries and bran and we publish oatmeal, no thanks with regrets,’ so he decided to find another route to get them published. They really are … well, advanced templates. It’s an advanced bestiary. And it does the best it can to squeeze these concepts into D&D template terms. 3/4.

On presentation: Black and white interior, colour cover with people fighting stuff. Serif fonts again, and the font for the headers is particularly annoying on the eye. But the layout is pretty clear and the text isn’t too small. Thoughtful inclusion of tables listing the template by CR increase and sample creatures by CR if you just want to do a drag-and-drop of one into a campaign. 1.5/2 on this one.

Total: 7.5/10.

Next time: Three Arrows for the King: The Archer's Guide, by Ambient Inc.

Troacctid

2021-04-01, 11:08 PM

Now that's the first one of these that I would actually consider adding to my stable. With DM-facing books, I don't have to worry about how they affect character creation for my players, and a collection of interesting templates to use as ad-hoc adjustments to monsters could be very useful.

Saintheart

2021-04-02, 01:05 AM

That's great to hear - I'm glad this is providing some benefits :)

Troacctid

2021-04-02, 02:23 AM

I don't know how you could leave this part out of your description of the Fortune-Spurned template, though.

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/467192850862571522/827442553221283850/unknown.png
That ability. That picture. It's so good.

Saintheart

2021-04-02, 03:34 AM

I had to leave some surprises :smallwink::smallbiggrin:

Kalkra

2021-04-02, 10:40 AM

Man, it's nice to see some creative templates. Most WoTC templates are just +numbers and either a few special abilities or scaling 1/day SLAs, and it all just feels very cookie-cutter for the most part. Not that there aren't a few good ones, but most of them are just boring, at least from a fluff standpoint.

One thing I'm curious about is if Fortune-Spurned has negative LA, because I've seen that before in some 3rd-party templates and it's pretty much never not broken.

Saintheart

2021-04-02, 07:51 PM

One thing I'm curious about is if Fortune-Spurned has negative LA, because I've seen that before in some 3rd-party templates and it's pretty much never not broken.

No, it doesn't. Has no CR increase or LA adjustment, up or down. And my suggestion that it could be put on a PC is, admittedly, speculative - the book doesn't suggest it, it was just a thought I had if you wanted to annoy your players :smallcool:

Saintheart

2021-04-05, 12:33 AM

Three Arrows for the King: The Archer’s Guide, Ambient Inc.

https://images2.imgbox.com/01/8d/jAmXbIZ4_o.jpg
Summary
It’s basically a book of new base classes, feats, prestige classes, and equipment for archers. Not a lot of new subsystems introduced, but basically its intent is to bring ‘everything you need’ for archery in d20.

Date of Publication and Page Count
2003, 50 pages. Now, where it gets interesting is that it seems in virtually the same year Ambient Inc. published a revised edition to cover when 3.5 came out. Ambient Inc. itself seems to have gone out of business. The revised version is distributed by EN World Publishing. My guess, and it is only a guess, is that the author didn’t realise 3.5 was coming out and thereby shafted himself financially by having to publish an update to keep up with the changeover in rules. We’re going to be looking at the original and the revised, because there are some changes … and not necessarily for the better. The lead author, M Jason Parent, seems to have had one credit on an issue of Dungeon. As at date of review, this book -- the revised version -- was available on some large RPG market websites. Not so much the 3.0 version.

Notable Features
Archer 4 (base class): Across 4 levels, you pick up +3 BAB; a +2 competence bonus to your attack rolls which stacks with all other competence bonuses so long as you use your chosen ranged weapon; Point Blank Shot; another archery feat; and a feature that allows you to take full-round actions to line up a shot (Pinpoint Accuracy – see below in Dreadful Features). However, the 4th level flat-out gives an archer a second attack at his highest BAB so long as it’s with his chosen ranged weapon, no penalty like Rapid Shot at all (though it explicitly stacks with the Rapid Shot feat if taken). The author’s own notes in the book state this was a deliberate choice to make the Archer stronger than other characters at low levels with a bow but useless with all other weapons. Unfortunately – and the full story is in the Dreadful Features section below – that is just about all that the Archer has to recommend it. And note the pre-revised version of the Archer gave you most of these features in 2 levels rather than 4, making it a hell of a lot more dippable. An effective +2 to all bow attack rolls across two levels, free Point Blank Shot, and an extra attack on a full attack, at the price of a single BAB, is the sort of option you’d expect recommended in Dictum Mortuum’s Archery Handbook or similar. If you want to play an archer and you can get the pre-revision version in particular, consider yourself both lucky and advantaged.
Thunderstone (new weapon quality): For a +1 price, turn every stone you fling out of a sling into a thunderstone. Let’s remember thunderstones go for 30 gp each, weigh 1 lb, and are normally just thrown items with a piddly range increment of 20 feet which you would normally waste actions drawing and hurling at a spot on the ground. Every shot you take now forces Fort saves in a 10 foot radius or be deafened. This is notable to the point of almost being dreadful for balance, for a +1.
Stirge Arrows (new magic item): +2 arrows. When they hit, “the basic damage of the arrow (not including sneak attack, weapon mastery and other bonuses provided by the wielder of the bow) is dealt again each round for 1d4 rounds.” Doesn’t work against creatures immune to critical hits, but good grief, there are no rules about what happens if you do critical-hit something, arguably it’s critical damage again in the next round at least! Let alone that it’s not clear what “the basic damage” is – the damage dice maximised? Do you roll again? Whatever the answers here, I can’t think of any bleeding effect under any magic item in 3.5 which allows you to just smash the target with the same damage dice again quite like this. They’re 800gp each, but if you can get one with a solid enhancement bonus, or some way of recovering the arrows afterward (returning – nothing says the arrow has to stay stuck in the enemy), this might actually be worth considering.
Akaelos (named magic item): +1 Longbow, but perhaps should be known as “what you use in the first round if you win initiative and the opposing mage hasn’t cast yet.” It’s a spell disruption missile weapon, which (apparently) triggers a counterspell upon any spell within a 5 foot radius for up to 1 round after impact. Nope, no max level, no limit to arcane or divine, just lolnope the first spell. Don’t even shoot at the mage, shoot at a patch of ground behind him at AC 5.
Stabiliser (new item): Mounted on the front of a bow. Using a bow (not crossbow) reduces “the penalty for shooting at long range” (presumably the range increment penalty of -2) by 1. Depending on the RAW this might well mean all your range increment penalties are in effect halved, which would make it pretty damn good on its own, and even on the likely RAI of “-1 instead of -2 on the first range increment”, I’ll take a -1 over a -2 to get a long shot in any day of the week for 75 gp.
Armour-Piercing Arrow (new martial ammunition): If a target has any kind of armor bonus – natural, armor, or shield – this arrow gets a +1 to the attack roll. That counts most big horrible creatures and most martial targets, and by RAW spells like Mage Armor which confer an armor bonus may trigger this effect too.
Far-Seeing Scope (new Wondrous Item): 18,000gp. Did you think this thing would just let you Spot at long range increments or something? Oh, no. First, it grants Far Shot. Second, when you use it with a full attack, you can substitute your weapon’s range increment for the normal 30 foot range limiter “for feats and abilities such as sneak attack and point blank shot.” So now your Point Blank Shot benefit applies outside 30 feet, and you can sneak attack targets at out to 100, 110 feet if you’re using a bow. I have not even begun to go looking for any other abilities that have the 30 foot limit to see how this could be ab/used more widely. This single item, with that single ability, makes it possible for rogues to actually function as snipers since they’re good at Hide and a lack of awareness means a target is usually denied its DEX bonus to AC. It also has the amusing effect of largely obviating levels if not entire prestige classes in this book, specifically the Sniper and to lesser extent the Bloodhunter, i.e. those which allow sneak attack to function at longer ranges.
Ultrasonic Whistling Arrow (New martial ammunition): Similar to the signal arrow which tells your friends about trouble ahead, this one can only be heard by dogs, who’ll bark ferociously and pursue them, or go quiet (if trained to react to a dog whistle.) 1d4/x3. Not much use, but love the concept.
Broad head Arrows (new martial ammunition): -15% to the range increment, but you’re rarely fighting at a distance where that’s an issue; on a standard longbow this is 85 feet rather than 100. And this might well be worth it, because broadhead arrows do 1d10 damage rather than 1d8.
Forked Arrow (new exotic ammunition): Using exotic ammunition requires its own feat, which the book supplies … one feat per type of exotic arrow, so choose wisely, -25% range increment, thus, only really good out to 75 feet on a longbow … but they do 1d12 damage each on said longbow, and shortbow forked arrows do 1d10. Interesting fluff, too: also known as ropecutters or frog-crotch arrows, used for decapitating game birds in some cultures (!). That said, the critical multiplier is lower than a standard arrow at x2.
Bola Arrow (new exotic ammunition): Hate the whole ‘get all my friends mixed up in plants’ thing with Entangle? Here’s your solution: it’s a Green Arrow-style projectile that separates into a bola when fired, which entangles the target on a hit (NO SAVE). Making a STR or Escape Artist check (DC 18) frees the target, but this is almost worth the price of the Exotic Ammunition feat to use it properly. Shorter range, though, -50% on the range increment. 5 gp each, but it’s a Craft DC 20 check to create one, which makes it even more profitable.
Alchemist’s Arrow (new exotic ammunition): Can hold any alchemical substance from the Core rules, e.g. Alchemist’s Fire or Acid. Requires only a touch attack to hit, does no damage of itself, but delivers the alchemical weapon to the target.
Knife-Bearer (Assn 1, Sor/Wiz 2, Archer-Ranger 2 spell): Hour/level, 1 weapon/level, free action draw of a weapon, i.e. it’s Quick Draw in a spell. The Archer-Ranger is a base class introduced in this book, though it’s decidedly mediocre because it tries to graft the Archer (above) onto a 3.0 Ranger chassis and comes out not looking good at all. The book says these spells could be added to the Core ranger’s spell list without a problem, so basically, think of them as new ranger spells.
Perfect Camouflage (Archer-Ranger 4): 10 mins/level, Invisibility for rangers but it only ends when the duration expires or after the second time the target attacks.
True Camouflage (Archer-Ranger 2): 10 mins/level, again, invisibility for rangers but only functions outdoors in the wilderness; doesn’t function underground or in urban locations.
Improved Crossbow Handling (feat): An advance on Rapid Reload, basically any crossbow or crossbow-styled weapon has its reload time dropped by an action type: move action to free action, full round to move action. Also, the penalty for firing a crossbow one-handed drops from -4 to -2.
Distant Sneak Attack (feat): Ranged weapon sneak attack can happen at 60 feet, not 30. Heavily implied that you can get further +30 feet if you take the feat more than once. Only to be considered if you can’t get the book’s own Far-Seeing Scope.
Quick-Loading Wrist Crossbow (new exotic weapon): I’m Boba Fett, baby! Move-equivalent action to load, fire with one hand. 1d4/19-20 x2, 30 foot range increment.
In the Groove (feat): Never get less than a result of 10 on a roll for Initiative ever again. Yes, it’s that simple and that good. Yes, your bonuses still apply to the 10 after that, and given Improved Initiative is one of the prerequisites, perhaps this should read “Never get less than at least a score of 14 for your Initiative ever again.”
Threaten Zone (feat): When wielding a ranged weapon, you threaten an area up to 20 feet away as if you had reach, able to flank and deal AoOs to opponents in that area with a ranged weapon. Never mind the bow, anyone who has a melee weapon with the throwing weapon quality has a ranged weapon. Mix with Stormguard Warrior as enemies charge in towards you for optimal results. And then take the feat Improved Threatened Zone to increase this by another 10 feet. Can you use this with the Far-seeing Scope and threaten AoOs anywhere in your range increment? No, because the Far-seeing Scope only confers its benefit on a full attack action.
Perfect Shot (feat): Limited application, but still of interest for sniper archer builds with access to Dragon magazine. Basically, sacrifice your additional attacks in a full attack to get +1d4 damage per attack you give up. (If you take the feat twice, the damage goes up to +1d6 per attack instead). This synergises with one of the most commonly-recommended features of the variant Fighter Targetteer from Dragon 310, which does the same thing but increases the critical threat range of the first shot. In that sense it’s not a bad bit of insurance if the shot is a hit but not a critical hit. And it’s an enhancement if it is a critical hit if your DM agrees this bonus damage is also multiplied on a critical – “if this attack hits, it deals an additional 1d4 damage” is the RAW.
Bone Archer 1 (Prestige Class): This one is right on the edge of being in the Dreadful Features section for balance, because it might be worth dipping if you’re keen to craft 2 arrows per day that hit at a guaranteed +10. Basically, bone archery allows you use bones as your arrows. Said bone arrows then deliver certain effects that are basically spells. The range of spells are not wide and mostly underwhelming, with a few exceptions: True Arrow at level 1, which confers a +10 profane bonus on attack rolls; Hold Person Arrow at level 3 which, duh, hits you with a Hold Person; Shadow Shaft at level 3 which deals 1d4+1 STR damage and a -2 morale penalty on saves, attacks, and skills for a few rounds; Enervation Arrow at level 5, which confers 1d4 negative levels for 1 hour per Bone Archer level. But of these it’s really the True Arrow which is the standout. The class requires the ability to cast at least 1 level 2 “necromantic” spell and does not advance spellcasting in any other form – and doesn’t allow you to prepare bonus bone arrows per day based on your ability score, the set table is the set table and that’s it. (However, the class also doesn’t specify whether you can prepare an arrow and hold onto it indefinitely, which is why it might be worth dipping and then using in downtime periods to create big batches of True Arrows. The RAI was probably yes, given the ingredients for the bone arrow are free so long as you have a decent supply of bones, which adds a whole new entertaining element to hunting undead at least. The only restriction is how many bone arrows of a given level you can make per day, it does not provide a maximum number of bone arrows craftable.) As said, it’s likely only good for a one level dip, because in 10 levels you get 3 feats drawn from the basics of archery feats, a +3 to your attack rolls, 7/10 BAB and 3 dead levels, which is blech.

Dreadful Features
Archer 5-20 (base class): You know it’s going to be a rough evening when the first thing you see for a full martial class is a d8 hit dice and a level 20 BAB of +15. Let’s remember that there’s basically two ways to build an archer in D&D: one-shot critfishing/sneak attacking terror which relies on massive damage on one shot, or volley archery, which relies on getting as many attacks as possible. The way the class tries to mitigate the BAB issue is to give the archer a scaling competence bonus with one bow that’s chosen at the first level in archer, which stacks with Weapon Focus and any other competence bonuses the archer may have, and which gets to +6 at level 20. So really our foundational attack bonus is +21, not +15. And the level 4 (2 in the original version) class feature is making an additional attack at your best attack bonus if you make a full attack action, i.e. that’s the foundation for the volley archer. The problem is that the rest of the class really comes down to little, incremental bonuses – a few points off an enemy’s AC derived from cover, take full round actions to pick up a +6 to an attack roll, Point Blank Shot effectiveness rises to +2, that sort of thing. It probably tells you how little the problem of martial scaling was appreciated given there’s 4 dead levels from 10 to 20, Ranged Disarm is provided at level 18, and the capstone abilities are to get an extra 2 range increments on your shot and that last +2 to your competence bonuses.
Young Soldier (character background): Similar to Mongoose Publishing’s character backgrounds where you pick up a benefit for a drawback at character creation, this astonishingly balanced feature provides you with 76gp of ranged weapon and ammo, studded leather armour, and a light simple weapon … in return for zero Martial weapon proficiency beyond the ranged weapon he used in the service and a Simple light weapon.
Pinpoint Accuracy (feat): This damn thing turns up so often as a prerequisite or a class ability in this book you would have to conclude the author thought he was introducing something fantastic to the world. Its usefulness is at best very marginal, albeit maybe if your thing is stealthing and picking fights without getting seen (i.e. practically never). Anyway, if you spend a full-round action during which you do nothing but aim at a target with a ranged weapon get a +2 bonus to attack roll on that target the with the ranged weapon. You can aim for up to 3 consecutive rounds to push this benefit to +6 at maximum. “Oh, great, so all my attacks next round in a full attack get a +6—” Not so fast. Firing after aiming requires you use the full attack action, but you only get to make a single attack. And if you’re threatened or attacked while aiming, you have to start over. So basically blow two rounds of actions for a +2 to one attack roll.
Master of Intuitive Archery (Prestige Class): Why can’t anyone in D&D seem to make a legendary archer PrC work? Order of the Bow Initiate is horrible, Arcane Archer is horrible-r. This attempt on its face has some very nice features to play with: full BAB, arrows pick up +4 enhancement bonuses, at first level substitute WIS for STR to damage (whether it’s a composite bow you’re using or not), reroll miss chance on concealment, ignore first +4 of AC that comes from cover, double damage on a hit when using Pinpoint Accuracy, True Seeing for 1 minute, inflict 2d6 CON damage in addition to normal damage 3/day, and – the capstone – take a move-equivalent action to add a +20 insight bonus to your attack roll and ignore miss chance due to concealment. The drawbacks, though, are that it takes 10 levels to get all this stuff. And the prerequisites are massive: BAB +8, 7 feats (admittedly mostly the sort of stuff an archer would likely be taking to qualify for archer-y things anyway) and 10 ranks in Concentration. Hilariously, the book’s own Archer base class can’t actually gain all 10 levels in this, since it only gets BAB 8 at level 11!
Elven Treehunter (Prestige Class): Oh boy, oh boy, we finally get around to the elven stereotype of elves as legendary archers! Yes, it’s only 5 levels! Yes, it’s full BAB! Yes, it’s limited to elf or half-elf! Yes, it only needs 3 feats to qualify! Oh … it requires the ability to cast pass without trace and treeshape and it’s a 2/5 casting class … never mind, what are the abilities? Hmmm. +10 competence bonus on Balance and Climb checks taken in trees, move at full speed in the treetops. +1 bonus to missile attacks when attacking from higher ground, i.e. from tree branches by RAI, but could include anyone flying. +2d6 Brutal Shot when I shoot from above, which stacks with Sneak Attack. If I have a Brutal Shot I can extend the maximum range out to 60 feet … wait, isn’t there some item that helps me out with this? And I also get a spell called transport via plants 2/day as a spell-like ability. Hmm. Probably not enough to blow 5 levels and spellcasting on.
Sniper (Prestige Class): When you first read it, you get excited. The level 1 class ability, Extended Sneak Attack: a sneak attack can be done with his chosen ranged weapon at up to 5 range increments out. And then you read the ability closer, and realise a rogue’s sneak attack only stacks with the damage off Extended Sneak Attack when you’re shooting at less than 30 feet. So whilst you can sneak attack from literally hundreds of feet away, you’re only doing – at maximum -- +3d6 in sneak attack damage at that range. Argh.
Bloodhunter (Prestige Class): Pick up CHA-based arcane spellcasting with a very, very limited list (4 spells at first, 3 at second, 2 at third and 1 at fourth) … but given True Strike, Shield, Glitterdust, Greater Magic Weapon, and Improved Invisibility are on that list, it’s not bad I guess if you want very limited casting for some other prestige class. The rest of the features are very pedestrian (and the table simply doesn’t match what the text descriptions say about it). About the only notable feature is that his sneak attack can be pushed out (over 5 levels) to 90 feet rather than 30, but this is completely obviated with the Far-seeing Scope from the same book. D10 hit dice which is better than most prestige classes in the book, and it’s only 5 levels, but I still wouldn’t take it.
Divine Huntsman (Prestige Class): 5/10 divine spellcasting for Full BAB and gaining Weapon Focus, Pinpoint Accuracy, +1 to damage, Improved Critical, and increased threat range of 2. Pass.
Siege Artillerist (Prestige Class): Maybe some Large or Huge type character could do something hilarious with this, but as written it is utterly useless unless you’re playing Artillery Officer: The Game.
Double Nock (feat): Put two arrows on your bow rather than one, at a -5 on the attack roll for both. They must not have heard that the Splitting weapon quality does this for no penalty and doesn’t cost you a feat, which is why it’s the number one recommendation for archer builds.
Triple Nock (feat): All right now this is just getting stupid.
Legendary Sharpshooter (Prestige Class) This thing is a sort-of prestige class. It has all sorts of prerequisites including a quest to prove yourself literally the greatest archer in the land before you can qualify for it. But anyway, you need BAB +12, 7 feats (including a Fighter-only Weapon Mastery, haha), and Spot and Craft of 10 and 12. And what mighty, puissant abilities can we access once we ascend to this lofty height? … … … +1 to DEX, +1 to WIS, +4 to Spot checks, +4 to Hide, range increment increased by 30 feet, sneak attack can be taken at +10 feet out, 2/day automatically confirm a critical hit. Although the longer you go in the level, these value increase depend on when you take them: take the DEX option at first level and +1 is as high as it goes and you can’t pick it again, but take the WIS option at third level and you get +3 to WIS. So, restrain yourself for 5 levels and you can push your DEX or WIS by +4 and +5 (or vice versa), and that’s the maximum benefit the class offers. It also doesn’t help that they printed the wrong level/BAB/Save table for the class, so we have no idea what these might be alongside.
Release (new item): Hand held tool to pull a bowstring back and nock an arrow. Increases your reload time to a move equivalent action on a bow, so it’s already bad. Worse is the benefit: if you have the sparkly Pinpoint Accuracy feat, it increases the maximum aiming time allowed by 1 round (although it doesn’t say by RAW that you get another +2 for this, so it arguably has no effect.) Better and more interesting would have been to make this the sort of thing that allows a weedy type to use a Composite Longbow, as a sort of mechanism that gets around the higher STR needed to draw the string but slows down the reload time, similar to a crossbow winch.
Staff of Missiles (magic item): Staff that casts Magic Missile, Melf’s Acid Arrow, Flame Arrow. Very cheap at 9,375 gp, and that’s likely because the caster level – breaking the rules for building staves – is 5, not the minimum of 8 that the PHB and DMG specify.

Who it’s best for (Player/GM/both)
Look, it’s mostly going to be of use to players since archers traditionally get pretty short shrift in D&D and this book seems to be meant to remedy that. The Bone Archer might be interesting as a sort of one-shot villain, but given the way this is written it’s really more for character builds than setting or mook design.

Comments, thoughts, and rating out of 10.
On mechanics: the dominant theme of this is a seeming failure to appreciate the problems that martials generally and archers specifically have when they start hitting the character level teens. I say a seeming failure because I can’t read the author’s mind; it might be that he actually was of the Monte Cook mind that martials should fade into obsolescene as against the magic users, that it was a feature and not a bug. Whichever it is, there seems to be a lack of understanding – common in D&D 3.5 -- that it takes more than just adding a few random +1s to keep a martial competitive outside the sweet spot of levels 6-10, and in particular giving up full-round actions for a +2 to an attack roll is just looney tunes. For archers in particular, it needs a method to get around Wind Wall, a method to scale damage similar to Power Attack (e.g. Peerless Archer’s Power Shot), a method to SAD your combat ability to DEX, and a method to get over Damage Resistance (the latter of which otherwise is a huge pain in the quiver for our typically 1d6+WhoCares arrows). I cannot think of a single item in this book which meaningfully addresses any of these issues deliberately (accidentally is another matter). It is, by and large, all about raising the attack roll.

At low levels the designs are on a range of not bad to playable, as said. The intent of the Archer is to outright outshine the Fighter with a bow, and if +2s and extra attacks don’t do that I don’t know what will. But it is pretty apparent that the author hasn’t seriously tried these designs anywhere in the high teens. This is particularly a problem with the prestige classes, which are kind-of meant for those levels.

The equipment and spells in the book are somewhat better and a lot more useful, as the Notable Features section above should indicate. But as said I really doubt the author fully understood the implications of some of the things he was putting together; some of them by bad editing or bad concept are utterly useless, others are so significantly powerful I cannot see how they were written by the same guy. Like I keep saying, the Far-seeing Scope has capacity to basically turn a rogue into a proper sniper, especially if that rogue pumps the range increment of his weapons by using things like Dragonbone Bows and Flight Arrows or similar. But the fact this single item obviates whole prestige class features makes me think the author did not think it through. More balanced is the ammunition that does 1d10, 1d12 damage; it costs you a feat and a lowered range to take it, which might still be overkill on prerequisites. And some of the more general feats I think are pretty unintentionally powerful (Into the Groove, for example.) Weighing all this up, I think it’s not mechanically very well balanced. And I say that with gritted teeth, because I personally love archers and they need a lot more affection in D&D 3.5, no matter what whingers say about how ranged combat makes melee combat useless. A very regretful 0.5/4 here.

On concepts and fluff: the only thing really note here was the Legendary Class, which at least tried to do something interesting with prestige classes. As in: you can have your +1 to an ability stat now, or if you can survive a few more levels, you can have +4 or +5 DEX instead. But doing so means you have to take other features now, and once taken, they can’t be taken again. This has some capacity to make your character a little more custom and force some hard(er) choices about your character, especially where the abilities chosen are functionally equivalent. It’s a pity we don’t see more of that in D&D. (But hey, the night is young and I’m traveloguing third party, who knows what I’ll turn up?) The author also modified a Mongoose Publishing subsystem for called shots (properly credited, I might add), which I’ll probably get around to when I review The Quintessential Fighter, from where the original derived. The one in this book isn’t particularly strong.

Otherwise, though, this was all pretty generic and uninspiring. There was a lot of time spent on multiclassing without real ultimate point, and the author spent a lot of time fluffing simple +1 weapons (absent the Akaelos, which is a legit good mage-frustration weapon). There is a short history of real-world archery which is nice and all, but I just didn’t find much of it that inspiring. Again, a very regretful 0.5/4 here.

On presentation: rejoice, someone remembered sans serif fonts exist! The book is supplied in printable and screen-intended form, which is good, and in a landscape format, allowing three columns per page and therefore more information in the 50 pages of the book. There’s colour headers and footers which also make it easier on the eye. Uninspiring art, but this is one where the readability is actually better than the average WOTC book. 1.5/2 here.

Total: 2.5/10. Which is a massive vote for style over substance, but I’m all about encouraging readability and useability of a book as much as the math and fluff.

Next time: Secrets, Alderac Entertainment Group.

thorr-kan

2021-04-05, 01:55 PM

Aleolus

2021-04-05, 02:26 PM

I am thrilled to see this thread, and will be eagerly following it :smile: One comment, Saintheart, will you be reviewing any of the multitude of AEG books out there? I personally have both Feats and Relics, and I think they would both deserve a spot on this list (Especially freaking Kinslayer from Relics. A dagger that can literally rewrite all of history, causing two people to swap places, and no one but those two people ever know it happened. Even Greater Deities are fooled by Kinslayer)

Caelestion

2021-04-05, 05:39 PM

AEG's Evil and Undead are also worth a read, if only for the large quantity of ideas.

Saintheart

2021-04-05, 09:44 PM

I am loving this thread. Thanks Saintheart.

If you've got a copy, Necromancer Games Tome of Horrors might be an interesting read for a monster book.

Some of the early Kobold Press materials are specifically d20 and not Pathfinder.

And I'm said Raging Swan Press's materials are all PF. There's some great stuff there.

I'll have a look at Necromancer Games and see if I can find some of that stuff.

I am thrilled to see this thread, and will be eagerly following it :smile: One comment, Saintheart, will you be reviewing any of the multitude of AEG books out there? I personally have both Feats and Relics, and I think they would both deserve a spot on this list (Especially freaking Kinslayer from Relics. A dagger that can literally rewrite all of history, causing two people to swap places, and no one but those two people ever know it happened. Even Greater Deities are fooled by Kinslayer)

AEG's Evil and Undead are also worth a read, if only for the large quantity of ideas.

Yes, I have several AEGs, so I will be looking at them in due course. :)

Saintheart

2021-04-06, 09:00 AM

Secrets, Alderac Entertainment Group

https://images2.imgbox.com/93/e0/oDtnRSHQ_o.jpg

Summary
“Inside this 160-page book you’ll find the collected works of half a dozen dangerous men.” So sayeth the back cover, and I immediately flipped to see whether there were 6 authors credited as writing the book. Sadly, no. Essentially, it’s themed as a series of secret tomes which supply GMs and players with new races, classes, feats, prestige classes, and five adventure sites to work with.

Date of Publication and Page Count
2004, 160 pages. Thus, a 3.5 book. There is the odd accidental reference to a 3.0 feature which doesn’t take away from the work, but it would suggest this had been in the works for a while. Nine authors … and three playtesters, which I’m starting to think is a bit of a bad ratio. As at date of review, this book was available on some large RPG market websites.

Notable Features
Barbarian of the Frozen Wastelands (base class): If you’re playing using Frostburn, this is better than the wussy adaptation they give you in that book’s rules for barbarians. The main differences from the standard barbarian come down to: extra bonuses to Survival, Hide, Listen, Move Silently in cold terrain; and moving through snow and ice at normal speed; increasing Resist Cold to 18 maximum; and a variant rage. This rage trades away the CON increase from a default rage in return for keeping the AC intact, +4 to Will saves, and adds an AoE fear effect. Interestingly, the feature says “Those who have witnessed this rage before gain a +2 bonus to their Willpower saving throw”, i.e. the barbarian’s party get a +2 to their Will saves since they’ve been around him before as well!
Bard of the Black Crow (base class): Why inspire courage in your audience when, like Cacofonix, you can inspire fear instead? “But Saintheart, the Inspire Awe ACF from Dragon Magic …” Well, the Black Crow doesn’t just induce fear (though he can do this, too, as one of his forms of bardic music), he outright demoralises people. As in, if your enemies don’t make a Will save (DC 15 + the Black Crow’s level) then they suffer at least a -1 morale penalty to attack rolls and AC. The progression of this ability basically matches Inspire Courage, i.e. -4 by level 20, and anything that boosts bardic music generally will boost this too. Inspire Competence, Inspire Greatness, Suggestion, are all gone in place of Instilling Doubt (-1 to saving throws); Confusion (as the spell basically); Spook (-2 to attack rolls, damage, AC, and -4 to Will saves, and if he had any temporary HP, they are instantly lost); Croak of Fear (cast fear spell); and Inspire Guile which boosts a party member’s INT and CHA by +4 and gives them +2 to Bluff, Diplomacy, Intimidate, and Sense Motive. And Mass Confusion. If your bard’s going to be a fear-blaster then this might be somewhat better than just ACFing Inspire Awe.
Seasonal Druid (base class): I’ve put this one in Notable Features being very aware that the moment I start to tell you about it mechanically there will likely be foaming at the mouth. But, if you have any sort of soul, the title of the class alone should tell you what I found inspiring about it: the druid is the defender of the wild, and, being attuned to the wild, the seasonal druid’s powers wax and wane with the seasons. I don’t think you can get a simpler and more thematic idea. But as said it’s the mechanics that are controversial, because seasonal druids don’t get Wild Shape. At all. Or an animal companion. In place of these abilities, they get an Energy Resistance (max 30, becomes immunity) and capacity to summon increasingly more powerful elementals, the type of which are keyed to which season they selected to start with. Summer druids get Fire Resistance and summon Fire Elementals; Spring Druids get Acid resistance and summon Water Elementals; that sort of thing. The elemental acts as the druid’s servant for a certain number of hours per day (20% of the druid’s level + CHA mod, minimum 1 hour) and eventually an Elemental Swarm or Elder Elemental can be summoned. Caster level (only for spell effects, not for determining bonus spells) increases with the favoured seasons and drops to +0 in the opposite season. Druid spellcasting is otherwise left intact. As said, this likely isn’t a fair tradeoff of abilities, but if you hate the near-brokenness of Wild Shape but you still want to preserve some of the druid’s best strengths, forbidding SRD druid and allowing this type instead might mollify players, because it’s thematically a lot more inspiring than the bog-standard druid.
Charred Chameleon School Monk (base class): Basically it’s a Monk but (from fifth level) can make unarmed sneak attacks, which explicitly function as the Rogue’s sneak attack except useable with unarmed strike. Also gets some Fire Resistance and WIS bonus as an Insight bonus to Hide and Move Silently, which means it stacks with DEX. Maybe some sort of Monk/Rogue multiclass could do something with this.
Neutral Paladin (base class): Some interesting alternatives: turn outsiders (good, evil, or chaotic) rather than turn undead; some Diplomacy bonuses; remove paralysis, remove curse, immune to fear, +4 to saves vs. undead and chaotic outsiders.
Ley Lines (variant rules): I find ley lines a bit awkward as a game concept, mainly because it has a lot in common with Node Spellcasting out of 3.5: PCs usually aren’t fixed to one location and as such usually don’t have the opportunity to make frequent use of geographical features that heighten magic. And generally the effects of fixed position stuff like ley lines or nodes aren’t consequential enough that one really needs to lay down a lot of mechanical certainty around them. That is, they’re more like GM scenery or something to change up the odd encounter like a wild magic zone or similar. That being said, if a GM did want to really utilise ley lines as a worldbuilding point, this section of the book probably isn’t a bad foundation either to build on or to provide guidance for building your own system. Ley lines in this one are very rarely the kind that stretch across continents, or rather these are the most powerful ones; the weakest ley lines go only for a quarter of a mile and are 10 feet wide. Ley lines also need to be fed and supported; they are created by the mass will of animals at least all travelling in the same direction (or intelligent beings, provided their intent is very strong and focused, for example a pilgrim route to a very sacred tomb or similar). Where ley lines cross, they are typically places of random magic, places of great power in and of themselves. Clerics of the Travel domain in particular keep a close eye on such places. The powers available as said tend to boost some power that functions only while on the line. There’s a number of themes for ley lines; the Death one is probably most of use to a DM, since any living creature dying from a magical effect on the ley line is under the control of its killer, gains turn resistance, and all summoning effects summon undead. All regeneration effects are negated and attempts to raise the dead fail while the corpse is on the ley line. Death ley lines are the most common because death strikes regularly. One can see the campaign hooks in here presumably.
Past Life (feats): Hooray, your past life echoes down to you via your feat selections. Probably the strongest optimisation element to the past life feats are for the skillmonkeys: Past Life -> Mastery of Mind -> Inspired Past -> Avatar grants you 6 cross-class skills in which you’re assumed to have 4 skill points (and which increase with the levels); Craft, Knowledge and Profession become class skills and 6 skill points to put into them +2 per level; and finally, all skills become class skills for you and you get 4 more skill points per level to put into them. Other selections (hidden behind at least a feat prerequisite or two) allow you to pick up the odd class-specific ability without having to take a level in it, or other random bits.
True Names (variant rule): No, not the Truenamer. Simply put, spells cast targeting a creature can use the creature’s true name as an additional Verbal component. When they do, the caster’s WIS modifier is added to his casting level for the spell. Also add the WIS modifier to a skill check on all Bluff, Intimidate and Sense Motive checks when you speak the person’s true name as part of the skill use!
Chaplain I and II (base classes): Healers without divinities. Not a lot more to be said than that.
The Keeper of the Pass (NPC): Sorry, but this was a high moment in what was otherwise a pretty pedestrian if not boring adventure site. Keronus, the Avoral Guardinal who happens to inhabit the main pass to a small spring which is the site, doesn’t actually guard the place. The pass is just his home as he spends all his time on the Prime Material Plane. “If anyone wants to get past him to visit the spring, he simply shrugs and lets them pass, not caring one way or another.” For some reason I got a belly laugh out of that.

Dreadful Features
Pure Elf (new race): The higher than High Elf. +2 DEX; +2 WIS; +6 CHA; -2 CON; +4 to Will saves; +4 to Listen, Search, Spot, Diplomacy, Sense Motive; Spell Resistance 11+WIS+class levels; lowlight vision; darkvision … along with all other elf traits. Pure Elf with CH 16 or higher can use geas/quest and mass suggestion 1/week. Also, 1/day obscuring mist, see invisibility, detect thoughts, detect magic, read magic. It’s LA +3 and they seriously talk about Pure Elf adventurers, but even then I’d have grave doubts about allowing this bag of features to work as a PC, mainly because it’s too strong for level 4 (where it would be a level 1 Paladin presumably), and probably too weak for level 10 (where it would be a level 6 sorcerer presumably).
Acts of Faith (Variant rule): Another one where the idea is good but the execution is a bit lacking. It’s something a cleric can do, and at low character levels it’s basically a form of spontaneous casting; blow your top domain slot and be able to do something like Air Walk (Chaotic Good) or Discern Lies (Lawful Neutral). These are okay in that at least you don’t have to spend feats on it, but you get further abilities later on which are much steeper in cost. As an example, Chaotic Evil’s Acts of Faith: if you’re 15th level or above, blow your highest level domain spell and suck 1d4/2 cleric levels of hitpoints out of all living creatures in a 30 foot radius to become temporary hitpoints. Sound good? Sure – until you realise you have to pay 50 XP per living creature to do this. And if you’re a 20th level CE cleric, by blowing your top domain slot for the day, literally kill (no save) any living creature with a melee touch attack. Sound gooder? Sure-r. Until you realise it costs you 100 XP per hit dice of the creature killed to do this. The other alignments have the same model of doing something mildly impressive but costing you big wads of XP to do it.
Endemic (new race): A species that’s said to have escaped an interplanar prison and via its (limited) shapeshifting abilities is said to be reigning above most of society in a cabal of conspirators I think is probably really punching above its weight to have done all that on +2 INT, +2 CHA, -2 STR, undetectable alignment, +2 to some social skills, a +2 to the casting stat for the purpose of determining bonus spells and DCs, and a couple of random energy resistance qualities.
Superior Damage Reduction (feat): Question: As a 16th level single-class Fighter, who’s already being laughed at by the magic-users and who can only really look down on the Monk as even more disadvantaged than he is, do you think DR 8/- is worth a total of five feat slots, CON 19, and a grand total of 2,000 XP? No? How about if we remove the Fighter minimum level and CON requirement for several thousand more XP?
Superior Maiming Strike (feat): Followup question: as a 20th level pure class Fighter, who’s being laughed at because he spent five feat slots and 2,000 XP on DR 8/-, do you think it’s worth DEX 19, INT 15, six feat slots, and 3,750 XP to be able to do a maximum of 1d4+1+STR mod damage to one of an opponent’s ability stats (STR, DEX or CON, pick one, another stat requires another 5 feats) assuming you are wielding a two-handed martial or exotic weapon, or 1d6+1+STR on a critical hit and possibly cripple the target for life (1 ability score point lost permanently?) Oh, bearing in mind you forego doing any normal damage from the blow?
Distracting Stance (feat): 3 feat slots plus 400 XP and make your opponents in threatened squares suffer -8 to Concentration checks and -2 to Will saves. Sorry, but there was just something about the way this one was written that makes me imagine a Fighter with significant genitals on show in the middle of combat.

Who it’s best for (Player/GM/both)
The book is marketed to GMs, and the lion’s share of the book is probably more to motivate, inspire, and feed GMs information. GMs are explicitly told by the book to only dish out the contents of this book in little snippets at a time, typically by a NPC wielding the characteristics against them. And that’s probably the way it should stay for the most part.

Comments, thoughts, and rating out of 10.
On mechanics: On this one, along with apeing the WOTC book layout and format, I think they managed to too-successfully ape the WOTC 3.0 and early 3.5 balance, i.e. bleed the Fighter and pretty well every martial class you can find with feat prerequisites until he’s basically dead. Don’t get me wrong, it’s all useable and all very balanced, to the point where you’d wonder why someone would take some of these options at all other than out of inexperience, for the lolz, or because they really, really wanted to play on feel rather than mathematics? Most of the time I’ll be telling you the Notable Features are only a small sample of the stuff I found, but honestly, with this one it was more like anything outside the Notable Features was just so blah or not useful that it didn’t warrant mention either as horrible or good, +1 to caster level for a feat just isn’t good enough to distinguish an option in my book. It’s got the balance of your average WOTC book, which is to say, it deserves a 1/4 in my view.

On concepts and fluff: When I first read the introduction I admit I smiled. The intro to the book draws the reader’s attention to the fact there’s a chapter missing (or so it seems) and some stuff is not in order where the contents page says it should be. It then says that was deliberate to give you the feeling of looking through a dry, dusty tome for partial secrets here and there, that each major chapter was written in a different style deliberately to reflect a different learned author/madman writing bits and pieces. On reflection, that was a hell of a bar to set for themselves, because this implicitly tells you, the reader, that this is going to be a fun reading experience to inspire you into bringing this sort of stuff into the campaign. And unfortunately, on that score, they failed.

Maybe it’s because they all but Simulacrum'd WOTC's formatting for the book, right down to big slabs of italics comprising the fluff and the mechanics in very, very similar fonts. It would take a pretty good writer to draw me in under those circumstances, and I’m sorry to say these guys were just not good writers. It was all very bland, very cliché, and very expected, and the black-and-white interior didn’t make the reading much easier. I found myself very quickly exhausted going through this thing. To be fair, this could just be my jaded nature after leafing through dozens of WOTC books formatted a similar way and with the same boring archetypes – maybe a newbie might get more out of this than I did.

There are occasional nuggets of inspiration. I guess that’s the best you can say about what they do in this book. The question is whether you want to go through all one hundred and sixty pages to find them. I just felt like there wasn’t a lot of effort to really make the concepts shine or feel different, it feels basically like a collection of ideas shuffled together and then with some artificial cobwebs sprayed over them to make them look interesting. Even the five adventure sites are pretty freaking boring, they’re pretty much self-contained worlds with no indication about how a DM is meant to create some conflict out of them or what purpose they’re meant to serve in a campaign. They’re just like little dioramas not really needing an adventurer to trespass on them at all. 1/4 on this one.

On presentation: They manage to replicate the look and layout of the average 3.5 book, without anything more impressive than that. 1/2 on this front.

Total: 3/10.

Next time: When the Sky Falls by Malhavoc Press.

Palanan

2021-04-06, 09:31 AM

Originally Posted by Saintheart
But, if you have any sort of soul, the title of the class alone should tell you what I found inspiring about it: the druid is the defender of the wild, and, being attuned to the wild, the seasonal druid’s powers wax and wane with the seasons.

I like the concept, but it sounds as if the execution is a little underwhelming. Is there any justification for why a druid would focus on one season to the exclusion of all the others? What does a summer druid do all winter?

Also, is there any allowance for different arrangements of seasons for different geographical regions? Say, a monsoon druid?

Originally Posted by Saintheart
Endemic (new race): A species that’s said to have escaped an interplanar prison and via its (limited) shapeshifting abilities is said to be reigning above most of society in a cabal of conspirators I think is probably really punching above its weight to have done all that on +2 INT, +2 CHA, -2 STR, undetectable alignment, +2 to some social skills, a +2 to the casting stat for the purpose of determining bonus spells and DCs, and a couple of random energy resistance qualities.

Is the race on its own underpowered, or are you classifying it as dreadful based on their backstory?

Saintheart

2021-04-06, 09:46 AM

I like the concept, but it sounds as if the execution is a little underwhelming. Is there any justification for why a druid would focus on one season to the exclusion of all the others? What does a summer druid do all winter?

Also, is there any allowance for different arrangements of seasons for different geographical regions? Say, a monsoon druid?

There's no allowances for the tropical druid like that, just the classic four season -- but that in itself is really interesting as a concept. As it is, it's really that the druid simply has stronger powers in one season as opposed to the others - in essence, a +4 to caster level in their favourite season, +2 to one of the "sidebar" seasons (like Autumn or Spring as to Summer, for example), and +0 in Winter. The fluff introduction indicates that the reason for the focus on the seasons springs (haha) out of a focus on the flora rather than the fauna of the world (i.e. why they don't get Wild Shape I'm guessing). But this isn't reflected in, say, being better at casting plant-ish spells like Entangle or Plant Growth, it is reflected in the strength of their casting in different seasons and that's it. The concept is not worked through in a lot of detail.

Is the race on its own underpowered, or are you classifying it as dreadful based on their backstory?

A bit of both, to be honest. Secret Shapeshifting Masters Of Society is a well-worn concept, but this one just had nothing out of the ordinary, it's just all "We as a race escaped our interplanar prison ages ago, spurned all our gods, and wormed our way to the top levels of your societies where we puppetmaster events for our own benefit. INT +2, CHA +2, -2 STR, your primary spellcasting stat counts as +2 for calculating bonus spells and caster level, Energy Resistance 5, LA +1, and hey, for some weird reason Endemics are rarely a PC race." In a genre where you're at least a Reptilian Overlord or from Beta Reticuli, this was just ... blah.

ManicOppressive

2021-04-08, 09:32 PM

I really appreciate this thread. I'm going to pull some of the dusty gems, kicking and screaming, out of that trash fire of an archery book for my upcoming rework of archery in my system.

Saintheart

2021-04-09, 08:49 AM

I really appreciate this thread. I'm going to pull some of the dusty gems, kicking and screaming, out of that trash fire of an archery book for my upcoming rework of archery in my system.

Hope it's of use to you, and thanks for the kind comments. :)

Saintheart

2021-04-09, 09:18 AM

When the Sky Falls, Malhavoc Press
https://images2.imgbox.com/56/e8/d8K3do6w_o.jpg
Summary
I know every DM has the inclination to pull a ‘rocks fall, everyone dies’ on his campaign from time to time. I don’t know if it inspired this book. Either way, this book basically gives you a framework for building a campaign around a meteor impact on your campaign world. This is one of Malhavoc Press’s ‘Event Books’, i.e. they had three of these meant to help DMs out with planning and worldbuilding for three events that crop up a fair bit in fantasy fiction of the time but which are usually beyond the grasp of most DMs to do fully: a meteor impact; the death of a deity; and the coming of a war. The book provides DM advice on staging one of these cataclysmic events, involving the PCs, and making changes necessary to the campaign as consequences of the event. The book also contains new NPCs, prestige classes, rules, spells, magic items and monsters involved with the event.

Date of Publication and Page Count
2003, 66 pages, and from the copyright information seems to be a late 3.0, early 3.5 book. That said, it doesn’t suffer much from the 3.5 update by nature of its content. The author is Bruce R. Cordell, as in, the Bruce Cordell who wrote The Sunless Citadel that many of you either ran or played, as well as the Psionics Handbook and the Heart of Nightfang Spire. Malhavoc Press is essentially Monte Cook’s publishing business, though his books also bear the sigil of Sword & Sorcery, which was basically White Wolf Publishing. The distinctions are more or less meaningless at this point. As at date of review this book doesn't seem to be casually available for purchase as a PDF on large RPG market websites. You may have to go looking for this one elsewhere in the virtual world or the real world.

Notable Features
Engram Arks: The three main types of meteor impact the book considers (whilst leaving open lots of other possibilities) are: impact of bog standard space rock; thaumaturgical meteorite, i.e. impact of bog standard magic space rock; and impact of an Engram Ark. Now, I’m a big sucker for ark-style stories, whether it be Battlestar Galactica, Passengers, Superman, or the Autobots’ Ark from Transformers, so in me they got someone who was primed for this, but the Engram Ark is not an alien invasion … as such. The Engram Ark instead contains engrams – memories – patterns of mental energy coded to represent the memories, abilities, and qualities of individuals. The Ark’s homeworld was threatened with a catastrophe and due to space limitations these were the only representations of themselves refugees could hope to survive it. When the ark’s homeworld was destroyed, the Arks were hurled away at random into the void, and when one impacts on a world, the Ark’s precious cargo survives in a structure that is perhaps as magical as technological, a Rune Sea. This Rune Sea is, and I quote, “a morass of glowing engrams, each as intricate and unique as a snowflake. These millions of “runes” (as characters are liable to think of them) merge, separate, leap, flow, and boil within their basin, each no larger than half a hand-span, but in sum making up a sea. Instead of the sound of dripping, lapping water, the Rune Sea gives off a low, basso chant, as if many voices were murmuring and echoing some alien, foreboding refrain.” I love this whole concept. Absolutely love it. Engrams themselves are also useable game effects, which the book sets out in mechanics.
Memekeeper: Stop giggling, internet memes weren’t a thing back in 2003 when the book was written. The Memekeeper is the guardian of the Rune Sea, a 5 foot spherical construct made of floating crystal and metal shards suspended in orbit around a central sphere. A shattered version of its original self, the Memekeeper can’t reconstitute the minds of the engrams but can communicate with visitors that enter the chamber containing the Rune Sea. Another great concept.
EMP (effect): No, not electromagnetic pulse – Ethereal-Material Pulse, as in what happens on the impact of a Thaumaturgical Meteorite. The EMP ripples through the Material and Ethereal Planes for a (standard) 30 miles, and hits all creatures and objects in range that isn’t protected by 10 feet of earth and stone or 1 foot of iron or metallic alloy. It hits as if it imposed a targeted Dispel Magic with a Dispel check of 1d20+20!
Falling Star Rush (new feat): For Knockback Bull Rush builds in particular, this is awesome. You’ll lose a feat on Star Emblem and this one, but the prerequisite otherwise is just Improved Bull Rush. And maybe you only get to use it 0.5xCharacter Level per day, but. But. Get a +4 on the opposed check for the Bull Rush. Nice. If you succeed on the Bull Rush, you push him back double the normal Bull Rush distance. Nicer. And you deal him 1 point of plasma damage, for each. Foot. You. Push. Him. Back. Every square contains 5 feet. It’s not hard to get enemies flying 20 feet through the air without this new benefit, and you literally do him damage as he’s flying through the air, before you start taking into account the hilarity of things like Dungeoncrasher or Shock Trooper which add more damage and utility to enemies billiard-balling around the battlefield.
Engram Cloak (Clr 8, Sor/Wiz 7) (new spell): There’s a small host of spells related to or triggering off engrams in the book, but this one at least isn’t bad. 1 minute/level, give yourself flat out DR 15/everything and lolnope any spell that targets you (bar Dispel Magic.). It takes Spellcraft checks (DC 25 against melee or ranged attacks, DC 30+spell level in the case of a spell, which allows you to ignore the spell as if you had spell resistance).
Tap Engram (Sor/Wiz 2) (new spell): Round/level. Casting time is (sigh) “one action”. Next spell you cast has a +4 engram bonus to its save DC.
Summoning Auxiliary (Clr 0, Drd 0, Sor/Wiz 0) (new spell): Free action spell that gives you permission to summon some of the meteor-born monsters in the book.
Starmilk (new material): Weapons made from Starmilk inflict targeted Dispel Magic effects (1-2 per day) in addition to normal damage. Armor made from it hugely discounts Arcane Spell Failure chance: -15% for light armor, -30% for heavy armor.
Plasma (new energy type): You’ll see this come up a lot in the book, both because there’s a fair number of creatures, spells, and feats that allow you to fling around many d6s of this stuff. This form of energy damage is a combination of [fire] and [electricity]. Plasma counts as both when deciding whether a creature has resistance to it, i.e. fire resistance alone doesn’t affect plasma, and neither does electricity damage on its own. Where a creature benefits from one type and is harmed by the other, both effects happen (which could result in a zero sum hit.)
Lord of Silence (Prestige Class): This is a rogue-themed prestige class, where the rogue has learned the Discipline of the Void (fluff requirement only). Only +3d6 sneak attack across 10 levels, but it’s a full-BAB class and has a few not-bad abilities: first, the ability to auto-generate Silence effects out to about 10 feet which are shapeable and dismissable as a free action, class levels/per day. Second, if the Lord of Silence attacks within one of these zones (or indeed any zone of complete quiet, including spell-based Silence) he gets a +2 to his attack roll and his class level to damage, class levels/day. Third, when he hits with a Sneak Attack, he can send the target mute. Fourth, an effect that basically is a move-action teleport, up to a maximum of [move speed] x 30 feet in one move, class levels/day until the tenth level, when you can use it freely. Upper level abilities amount to 15d6 damage against one target (no save), a self-centred Darkness effect, and finally a +4 to all saving throws. It probably doesn’t warrant taking all 10 levels, but full BAB for a rogue isn’t awful and it might be a little more exciting than vanilla Rogue 6-8 if you can find Improved Uncanny Dodge somewhere else and like most rational people you don’t care about Trap Sense. (Also note you don’t have to enter by rogue. It just requires “Sneak Attack +1d6”, an Assassination weapon or some other form of non-class feature might be enough for that.)
Stone of Durkon’s Demise: Nah, I just mentioned it because it’s highly unlikely to relate to the Order of the Stick :D
Checklists! No player benefits here, but really, really good GM assists. Every section has a checklist of stuff you need to think about or at least should think about when you’re introducing something like a meteorite strike into your setting. These are something you simply don’t see in standard WOTC products and the first real, overt attempt to try and help a GM write an adventure featuring the concept, not just sell you a setting.

Dreadful Features
Ruin Priest (Prestige Class): You’re a spellcaster who worships the evil powers that sent the campaign’s meteorite down on the world. And for 7/10 spell levels (and full BAB) you can get an extra spell to cast if you sacrifice an intelligent living being. No, you can’t use summoned creatures. No, it has to be INT 5 or above. Capstone ability is to have a seven-day-long ceremony with your buddies and invoke a meteor strike on somewhere you’ve been and haven’t liked. Whilst this probably seems appropriate for a fine Biblical ending to Las Vegas following that weekend you’d like to forget, good grief this is stupid. Oh, and if your spell brings a creature to 0 hitpoints, ‘the priest gets an immediate extra spell attack’ against a creature adjacent to the first, i.e. it’s Cleave for damaging spells. Nope.
Astromancy (new feat): Star magic and astrology never seems to work out well in D&D. Leaving aside that it’s a gateway feat to other pedestrian feats, it basically allows you (character level/4 times per day) to make a DC 11 flux check (unmodified d20 roll, it’s not a skill, so your odds will always be slightly less than fifty-fifty) to see if your effective caster level is +2 for the current round. Also grants access akin to a domain of unique meteorite spells from the book. However, these are for the most part just direct damage spells of increasing power, i.e. half-decent Mailman builds will outclass them.

Who it’s best for (Player/GM/both)
GMs. This is basically a different take on a setting book; it gives you all the bones and muscles of the idea but doesn’t set out how things must be. It is a really interesting mix of worldbuilding assistant and mechanical resources, quite literally a how-to book for bringing on a meteorite impact into the game. As such, it’s for Game Masters more than players.

Comments, thoughts, and rating out of 10.
On mechanics: These I found a bit hit and miss. Where it really shines is in the most inventive stuff, which is how it sets out the consequences of an actual meteorite impact (right down to hitpoint loss at a given distance from Ground Zero and even water impact scenarios), changes in how schools of magic operate as a result of a Thaumaturgical Meteorite impact, and how the Engrams work. The rest, however, feels like standard 3.0: hide everything behind feats and believe that multiple d6s of direct damage amounts to something significant in game mechanical terms. The prestige classes (with some possible exceptions) are pretty pedestrian at best; dead levels proliferate, 1 use/day or SomeFractionOfCharacterLevel/day is common on the abilities, and lost caster levels also show up a lot. If it wasn’t for the new concepts and ideas I’d have rated this a ¼, but instead I rate it a 1.5/4.

On concepts and fluff: And it’s here I give the book a lot of credit. It’s great at introducing inspiring concepts and also taking the GM though a lot of the big questions to be asked when doing the worldbuilding around the event. Sure, you could probably think of many of these questions yourself, but many you wouldn’t, and at the very least it will trigger off ideas or questions about how to build your world ahead of the campaign. For that, then, I rate this a 3/4.

On presentation: Layout was a lot easier on the eye than the standard WOTC book; lots of white space to break up the textblocks. Serif font, but again the line spacing and kerning makes it easier to handle. Art was black and white but didn’t make me want to claw my own eyes out. Indeed several of the pictures were pretty nice indeed. 1.5/2 here.

Total: 6/10.

Next time: Midnight, Fantasy Flight Games.

thorr-kan

2021-04-09, 09:38 AM

Nice review.

Next time: Midnight, Fantasy Flight Games.
Oh, shiny! Main book, main book revised, or the whole dang line?

Saintheart

2021-04-09, 09:50 AM

Nice review.

Oh, shiny! Main book, main book revised, or the whole dang line?

Good lord, man, my eyes would cross if I tried to do the whole line at once. :) Main book revised, i.e. Second Edition.

Kalkra

2021-04-09, 09:52 AM

Saintheart

2021-04-09, 10:00 AM

Does Casting Time: One Action mean a full-round action, or is it just unclear? Also, does the book give options for averting the meteor, or otherwise preventing it from falling and causing damage, or it purely a survival thing?

It's unclear whether it means full-round action or any other kind of action. I would be inclined to say a standard action, but there's no way to really tell. This happened sometimes in the transition from 3.0 to 3.5. Historically, I think 'one action' was meant to mean 'one of the two actions - standard or move - you get each round'.

As for avoiding the meteor, no, it's pretty much baked into the setting that a meteor hits. You don't have to run a survival game, the book covers any number of possible scenarios including that you're campaigning in the wake of the meteor's hit and the societal changes that hit has caused. The meteor impact generally isn't meant to be a global killer given most of the new materials are stuff that comes from the meteor itself (whatever kind you choose to use, that is.)

Thurbane

2021-04-09, 05:00 PM

I think 1 action in 3.0 = 1 standard action in 3.5, usually.

Endarire

2021-04-13, 05:26 PM

The third party 3.x books that got my attention were generally those from Mongoose: Monte Cook's Eldritch Might series. (I remember the bolt of conjuration spell which did guaranteed single target damage: No save and no SR and no accuracy roll!)

Thankee!

Saintheart

2021-04-13, 10:35 PM

Saintheart

2021-04-13, 10:44 PM

Midnight, Fantasy Flight Games (Second Edition)

http://images-cdn.fantasyflightgames.com/filer_public/ce/d6/ced636cd-3c22-44c1-b174-66d355f7d241/mn11_main.png
Summary
This book is an original campaign setting which (in a way that carefully avoids the publishers getting sued by the Tolkien estate) basically asks: “What if Sauron and/or Morgoth won?” It is set in a world where the archetypical group of four heroes (an adventuring party perhaps?) not only failed to stop the evil god who was the setting’s chief antagonist, but were corrupted to serve him. The PCs play in the century following that defeat as guerrilla fighters against the darkness, the flickering candle flames of hope in a setting where the bad guys have, unquestionably, won. New classes, spells, equipment, full setting is included in this book.

Date of Publication and Page Count
2005, 406 pages. The book we’re looking at is the second edition, which specifically upgraded for D&D 3.5, although once again you’re looking at a setting which heavily retools the class, character, and magic rules for the purpose of its setting, scope, and mood. Insofar as it’s any sort of signal of quality, Midnight was popular enough to spawn 17 splatbooks for its specific setting (not counting the original 3 that were produced under 3.0, nor a direct-to-video movie, Midnight Chroncles which was probably hideous to watch at low budget but by virtue of existing was probably more watchable than the average D&D movie.) Why did the setting die out? For much the same reason most 3.5 third party splatbook makers died out: WOTC dropped the edition to go to fourth, Paizo was a slow-burn success rather than a big one in keeping 3.5 going, and Fantasy Flight Games (likely) found there was more profit in board games than in RPGs. As at date of review, this book was available on some large RPG market websites.

Notable Features
Not as much to note this time around, mainly because the system is significantly different from default D&D. That is, I think it'll be difficult to extract a lot of transferable options from a Midnight book, mainly because they presumably were built with an eye to Midnight’s idea of balance. Still, for those like me who trawl books for nuggets, there are couple of interesting things:
Drive it Deep (feat): Power Attack for light weapons. Can’t get two-handed weapon wielding bonuses, but it at least helps keep up a little bit.
Devastating Mounted Assault (feat): when riding a mount that makes a single move or charge during the round, you may still perform a full attack … at -5 penalties on the full attack.
Shard arrows (new Simple ammunition): These are brutal on their concept and description. 1d6 damage, with a critical hit range of 16-20. But here’s the thing: on a critical hit they don’t deal any extra damage … rather, if the target has an armor bonus of <= +4, the arrowhead shatters inside the body. The excruciating pain makes sudden movements impossible. Fort save 10 +1 for every shard arrow he’s been hit with, or lose 5 feet of movement and suffer 2 points of DEX damage. Concentration checks are also forced when casting or using spell-like abilities. These are nasty little buggers for a critfishing archer to consider, mainly because of that insane threat range, which means all it takes is either Improved Critical or similar and you’ve got a guy who can just spam attacks with a threat range of 11-20.
Icewood Longbow (new weapon): Yeah, good luck getting it, but it’s worth mentioning basically because it’s a Composite Longbow that doubles your STR bonus to damage, up to a maximum of +6.
Elven Raider (Prestige Class): Finally a not-bad archer sniper prestige class. Prerequisites are not specific to Midnight, so more transferable than most. Over 10 levels, +4d6 sneak attack damage, which can be done at maximum 130 feet out. Arrows can be used as light melee weapons. If you aim for 10 rounds, your critical threat range of the first ranged attack is increased by 5 maximum. Sounds bad, but combine this with something like Targetteer from Dragon and you have a decent opening sniper shot. If the target’s got concealment from vegetation, a Spot check knocks this down by 10% for every 5 you exceed DC 10. And lastly, if you declare an intimidating shot, can force an Intimidate check with a circumstance bonus equal to one half the total damage caused by the attack. Harder to capitalise on in Midnight, but has some possibilities. Lastly, its Disarming Shot ability is significantly better than the standard.
Barter economics! Yes, they have a pretty decent system for this, which is really needed since basically most of the world is an occupied prison camp.
Wildhunter (new class): Basically the retooled ranger of the setting … but with more optionality. Rather than lock the character down to one of two combat styles, the Wildhunter gets about seven ‘trait slots’, which can be filled up with thematic stuff like what amounts to a favoured enemy bonus, or increased speed, or Wild Empathy, or Woodland Stride, or an Animal Companion, and so on. I find this a really good feature mainly because it allows you to customise your ranger in either the default ranger direction or in rogue-lite or in some other direction. In passing, the most powerful class feature is the Hunter’s Strike: up to 5/day at 20th level, after an attack roll is made, decide whether to double your damage on the hit, or, in the case of a confirmed critical hit, the critical multiplier of your weapon goes 1 higher.
Avenging Knife (new prestige class): So it only adds +3d6 sneak attack across 10 levels. For low-powered games, this one actually has the feel of a deep cover agent in an urban area. Basically it has mechanics for picking up insight bonuses to attack and damage or to AC while studying a target, allows use of Gather Information checks to find weaknesses in a site’s security, develop a cover story, that sort of stuff. Not strong, but very flavourful.

Dreadful Features
Defender (new class): Even if you key the DC of a Stunning Attack to a monk’s STR rather than WIS, it would appear the Monk still sucks over in grimdark worlds too.
Fighter (new variant class): Not only do they not fix Fighters, but they force them down one of four or five ‘Warriors’ Way’ paths, akin to the Ranger’s Combat Style at levels 4, 10, and 16. Presumably your other feat slots are open to standard fighter bonus feats, but at these levels you’re reduced down to two or three narrow choices depending which warrior’s path you chose. The only grace, and it’s not a saving grace, is that you generally can take the feats offered without having the prerequisites for them.

Who it’s best for (Player/GM/both)
Everyone. It’s a campaign setting, read it already.

Comments, thoughts, and rating out of 10.
On mechanics: The book significantly retools the class and level advancement system to suit the mood and scope of the setting. Basically only the Barbarian and Rogue are left untouched, which might provide a clue about the power level they were aiming for. It’s not just a simple Greyhawk or Forgotten Realms reskin.

Unlike a lot of third party authors, it looks like FFG figured out early that for a dark, grim setting to hold out against 20th level characters, the default 3.5 magic system simply could not be used. So they dropped a bomb on it. First: no bards, rangers, wizards, sorcerers, clerics (NPC only, and that means NPC only here), or druids. Wizards and druids come back, but only as prestige classes, and even then, significantly nerfed. Second: the spell points system from Unearthed Arcana is used -- you get [Your Spellcasting Stat] spell points, casting a spell uses up spell points by level, e.g. 3 spell points consumed for a level 3 spell. (You can ‘overclock’ it by taking CON damage, but this is explicitly not able to be healed by Lesser Restoration, and only comes back after 8 hours rest). So spells per day are low, even at high levels. Thirdly: available spells are Core only, lumped into the one list (Cleric-only spells are banned to PCs). You take feats (any class, not just mages) to access each school of magic. And fourthly: certain types of magic are outright impossible (e.g. any magic that requires planar travel, i.e. so long everything from Dimension Door to Plane Shift to Rope Trick to Bags of Holding). Stuff like Summon Monster and similar also works a bit differently as well. Item Creation is also heavily altered, so this won’t be the standard ‘Characters Travel the World As Sparkly Christmas Trees’ campaign you’re used to, magic items are decidedly minor in most cases.

However, and as said, if you do want to learn schools of magic, any class can take the feats for them. If you want to be a full-BAB Fighter who casts spells from the Necromancy school, take the Spellcasting feat. Done. (That said, Conjuration and Evocation are split into Lesser and Greater schools as well. Lesser Conjuration is explicitly ‘all Conjuration spells except the Calling or Summoning subtypes’; Lesser Evocation is only those evocation spells with a Darkness, Light, Sonic, or no descriptor. And in reality it costs you a couple of feats to cast properly, not just one.)

The exception, of course, is the cleric. Long-suffering DMs can take a little vindictive pleasure in its use, because it is only available to the Bad Guys, i.e. the Shadow, i.e.e. the DM. And the cleric class, of course, gets all the Core cleric spells and the supplement spells, and doesn’t use the spell points system. So a standard-ish Codzilla build is now frighteningly dangerous against a party of PCs who have nowhere near the resources to fight one on even terms. And that’s before we get to the fact that even casting spells or carrying magic items is punishable by death under the Shadow, being the Big Bad’s government. Detect Magic becomes a whole lot more dangerous to PCs.

Having ripped out capacity to easily magic up any buff a character wants, the authors then compel the starting character to begin with an archetype, which cannot be changed. This archetype then provides certain abilities as the character grows from level 1-20, independent of any class or prestige class chosen. For example, Giantblooded: starts off considered Large for the purpose of weapon sizes, gains some Intimidation bonuses, gains the ability to perform rock throwing (at character level 2, rock throwing 30 feet range increment for 1d10 damage) and so on. At level 10, he flat-out gets the Holy Grail of Big Beefy Bullrushing Builds – outright Large with all the mechanics that come with it. And so on, to natural reach of 15 feet at level 20. Compare the Healer, who basically gets a capacity to cast all of the usual heal spells, remove disease, blindness/deafness, Heal, on a frequency of about 1-2 per day, and finally raise dead 1/day at level 20. Generally the character templates give you the essentials of a concept, but they never allow the power level to become great. And at least there are no dead levels with this concept either. And then, in case it wasn’t obvious, you get your classes and prestige classes on top of it. And the prestige classes in particular – because the system has been rejigged significantly – have a lot more oomph than the standard ten levels of oatmeal you get out of a 3.5 product.

The overall result, on my rough assessment, is that the floor of martial and mundane characters’ capabilities is significantly raised, and the casters’ ceilings are significantly lowered. Much more evenness without descending to the Procrustean Bed of fourth edition D&D. Does it solve all of 3.5’s magic problems? No. Some spells are just broken in Core even at first level; even if you can’t cast them all day long, most of the time you don’t have to. It’s a system where the casters are still going to come out more powerful, albeit not utterly consigning all the martials and others into insignificance. But I get the feeling that FFG had to strike a balance between significantly altering the availability of magic and proceeding to alter the entire system. I think they got that balance pretty close to dead right; indeed it's about the best balance struck of any third party source I’ve seen so far. For someone out to powergame through it I suspect their job would be significantly tougher. They very clearly set out to suborn the power of 3.5’s magic system to the mood and feel of the setting, and in that respect they were an outstanding success. This is not going to be the archetypical campaign where the casters are supreme all the way through, but that is by design, and for that reason, I rate this heading 3/4.

On concepts and fluff: In the grimdark fantasy future of the Fourth Age there is only E6. Nah, it’s not that bad. Now, this is partially my own taste at play, but I did find the setting in all its grimdarky nature much more palatable in concept than the world of Warhammer 40,000, which I class as a setting so damn hopeless you literally can only play wargames in it. Yes, civilisation is breaking down, there’s no strong force of resistance to the Shadow, and life across most of the conquered realms is pretty damn miserable, but it’s still a setting with a lot of scope for adventure and entertainment. There are thorough descriptions of the forces resisting and how they work, and the regions are described one by one with a level of flair, passion, and distinction that puts the average Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting to shame.

The setting has the epic feel of Tolkien without being a Tolkien expy. Different races, even human subraces, along with a prestige class that is quite literally devoted to the character being a trueborn inspirer and leader of men, a scion of the Former And Dessicated Line Of Men. Descriptions of the four Nazgul, er, the Four Princes , without stats which I actually think is a good thing: you shouldn’t be fighting these guys, and if they do show up, it should be curbstomping by the party. Also, a concrete goal for the Dark God, which is a lot nicer than just Orcus On His Throne. There is a strong match of mechanics to fluff: divine magic doesn't work at all (except for the Dark God) because of a magical disaster which blocked out all contact with the Celestial Realms (except for the Dark God). Most horrifying, but interesting, is that people who die don't go to their final rest. If their bodies are not dealt with properly, they come back as types of undead. This also explains the block on all planar magic too, and why summoned creatures operate a bit differently.

When you weigh it all up, there are damn good reasons this thing won awards in its first edition, and I heartily agree with those accolades. 4/4.

On presentation: Beautifully done. Colour for decent chunks of it, decent sized text. High production values all round. Only minor niggle is that the fluff is usually the standard massive clunk of paragraphs which are really more designed for reading enjoyment than to convey information that is really necessary to run a campaign. One might note that this second edition version of the setting is actually two books in one, with a lot more detail about the Shadow and world regions, so it is an improvement there. That said, it isn't really designed for beginner GMs, this is the kind of book you encounter when you're heartily sick of the Forgotten Realms kitchen sink and want to try something different.2/2.

Total: 9/10.

Next time: Into the Green - A Guide for Forests, Jungles, Woods, and Plains, Bastion Press.

PoeticallyPsyco

2021-04-13, 11:30 PM

Now that's interesting news: not only does The Lord of the Rings meets Mistborn exist as a D&D setting, it's quite good?

Saintheart

2021-04-13, 11:50 PM

Now that's interesting news: not only does The Lord of the Rings meets Mistborn exist as a D&D setting, it's quite good?

It's pretty solid, though when they started talking about planar barriers and the gods being locked out my thought was Ravenloft, though it's not quite that either.

thorr-kan

2021-04-14, 09:45 AM

NB: I've never played Midnight, but I bought every supplement I could get my greasy little paws on, and I enjoyed the hell out of reading it.

"The War of the Ring is over. Sauron won."

Great review! The setting is a lot of fun to read.

Some additional details: I wonder if the items of power (magic that grows with the user) is where WotC go the Weapons of Legacy idea from.

The herbalism and charms subsystems can be poached for users looking for more low-magic options.

There is *one* SRD sorcerer in Midnight; he's one of the Dark Four. They all eventually get stats in subsequent splats. But you're not going to beat them without 20th level characters of your own, an army, surprise, and several plans for victory.

Saintheart

2021-04-14, 09:51 AM

Some additional details: I wonder if the items of power (magic that grows with the user) is where WotC go the Weapons of Legacy idea from.

So far as the third party stuff I've seen is concerned, the idea of items of power growing with the user seems to be relatively common: a few of the books I've reviewed have some version of it. I haven't really mentioned it because they usually aren't really that much to write home about. Insofar as Weapons of Losers had a progenitor, I suspect they really were trying to do an upgraded version of Legendary Weapons out of Unearthed Arcana, but good grief they muffed it badly. As far as Midnight is concerned, the second edition came out in 2005 and that's the same year WoL was published - so I doubt they got it from there.

thorr-kan

2021-04-14, 09:57 AM

So far as the third party stuff I've seen is concerned, the idea of items of power growing with the user seems to be relatively common: a few of the books I've reviewed have some version of it. I haven't really mentioned it because they usually aren't really that much to write home about. Insofar as it Weapons of Losers had a progenitor, I suspect they really were trying to do an upgraded version of Legendary Weapons out of Unearthed Arcana, but good grief they muffed it badly. As far as Midnight is concerned, the second edition came out in 2005 and that's the same year WoL was published - so I doubt they got it from there.
They were included in the original, 1E Midnight. But the idea's a common enough trope that I don't insist on it. Midnight is just where *I* first ran into a mechanical version of it.

Kalkra

2021-04-14, 10:09 AM

The premise kinda reminds me of Escape from the Bloodkeep, if anybody here's watched that.

Also, I'll mention that I've been on a bit of a Monk kick lately and I think I could actually make a decent character with the stuff from the Quintessentials.

StSword

2021-04-14, 03:27 PM

Now that's interesting news: not only does The Lord of the Rings meets Mistborn exist as a D&D setting, it's quite good?

And unlike the majority of books this thread has covered, you can just go to drivethru and get the pdfs thanks to edge studio getting the rights to Fantasy Flight Game's old stuff.

Whereas everything this thread has made me curious about it's "nope, not for sale, go find a dead tree copy."

So you are luckier than I in that regard.

Unless you prefer to buy print copies rather than pdfs.

Endless Rain

2021-04-14, 04:31 PM

And unlike the majority of books this thread has covered, you can just go to drivethru and get the pdfs thanks to edge studio getting the rights to Fantasy Flight Game's old stuff.

Whereas everything this thread has made me curious about it's "nope, not for sale, go find a dead tree copy."

So you are luckier than I in that regard.

Unless you prefer to buy print copies rather than pdfs.

Hmmm? The only ones I've been unable to find on DriveThruRPG are Book of Familiars, Staves of Ascendance, Quintessential Monk I, and When the Sky Falls.

A full list of legally-available PDF copies from books listed so far can be found here, if you were trying to find one of the others:

Arms & Armor (Bastion Press): https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/1426/Arms--Armor-v35

Forgotten Heroes: Paladin (Malladin’s Gate Press): https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/16592/Forgotten-Heroes-Paladin

The Quintessential Monk II (Mongoose Publishing): https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/1658/The-Quintessential-Monk-II

The Advanced Bestiary (Green Ronin Publishing): https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/18896/Advanced-Bestiary-d20-35

Three Arrows for the King: The Archer's Guide (Revised) (EN Publishing): https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/16754/Three-Arrows-for-the-King-The-Archers-Guide-Revised

Secrets (Alderac Entertainment Group): https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/3533/Secrets

Midnight (Fantasy Flight Games): https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/477/Midnight

Into the Green: A Guide for Forests, Jungles, Woods and Plains (Bastion Press): https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/28059/Into-the-Green-A-Guide-for-Forests-Jungles-Woods-and-Plains

StSword

2021-04-14, 05:56 PM

Hmmm? The only ones I've been unable to find on DriveThruRPG are Book of Familiars, Staves of Ascendance, Quintessential Monk I, and When the Sky Falls.

Yes, and that would be the list of books that include the books I looked for. Lol.

Even without glowing reviews, some of those books sounded worth picking up as old "outdated" pdfs on the cheap to stripmine for ideas.

Although now I see it was Murphy's law and not weight of numbers that caused the problem.

Oh well, not the end of the world.

Saintheart

2021-04-14, 07:35 PM

Yes, and that would be the list of books that include the books I looked for. Lol.

Even without glowing reviews, some of those books sounded worth picking up as old "outdated" pdfs on the cheap to stripmine for ideas.

Although now I see it was Murphy's law and not weight of numbers that caused the problem.

Oh well, not the end of the world.

Speaking of Staves of Ascendance, I have a funny feeling I've found where the 3.5 update for it actually went. I suspect it was wrapped into this product (https://rpggeek.com/rpgitem/54338/artifacts-ages-swords-and-staves), which still has some limited copies around in print by the look of it. I might put that on the list for review later down the track, though I suspect I'll just get something on a par with Legendary Weapons from UA as I did with the first book.

EDIT: Maybe I should have an 'ease of acquisition' rating in the reviews, on a scale of "Plutonium From the Corner Drugstore" to "Indiana Jones". :smallbiggrin:

EDIT THE SECOND: What I think I'll actually do is incorporate warnings on availability into the 'date of publication and number of pages' section, which will basically be one of two indications:

(1) Where you can't find a purchase site easily on a Google search: "As at date of review this book doesn't seem to be casually available for purchase as a PDF on large RPG market websites. You may have to go looking for this one elsewhere in the virtual world or the real world."

(2) Where you can: "As at date of review, this book was available on some large RPG market websites."

Mainly so I don't give the impression I'm recommending DriveThruRPG over anyone else.

EDIT THE THIRD: And done. All reviews now have these indications contained in them.

Saintheart

2021-04-15, 11:21 PM

Into the Green – A Guide to Forests, Jungles, Woods, and Plains, Bastion Press
https://images2.imgbox.com/9d/70/a9DDBCKX_o.jpg
Summary
This is basically a DM’s toolkit for making the four types of biome in the book’s title – forests, jungles, woods, and plains – interesting and hazardous places all their own. These environments tend to be overlooked in D&D 3.5, little more than just an entry against the ‘environment’ category on a monster’s stats. This book is designed to breathe life back into these four types of environments, with material as to climate, plants, animals, new environmental hazards and monsters for each. In concept, it’s similar to WOTC’s Frostburn, Sandstorm, and Stormwrack.

Date of Publication and Page Count
2003, 96 pages. It appears to date from before 3.5 came out in July of that year since the text talks about Wilderness Lore checks (rolled into Survival under 3.5), but the changes don’t make a lot of difference. The design and playtesting teams were pretty large, but principal design was credited to a Thomas Knauss. I can’t find out much about the author on a simple Google search, but he appears to have been active in RPG design and/or adventure design since at least third edition – he’s published for Pathfinder as late as 2018, though his own project seems to have been Bastion Press’s Oathbound setting which died somewhere around 2008. Either way, he wasn’t a one-hit wonder and seems to have done a few environmental and class books for Bastion Press in particular. As at date of review, this book was available on some large RPG market websites (and indeed from Bastion Press itself, which is still operating.)

Notable Features
Crop Circle (Drd 1, Sor/Wiz 2 spell): 40 foot radius spread, hack all grasses and underbrush to the ground instantaneously, leaving nothing but an empty circle. and deal 1d6+CL (up to +5) to any creature or inanimate object within the spell’s area of effect. Main interest to my mind on this one is that it might work as a useful way to counter Entangle.
Hidden Lore (Clr 2, Drd 2, Sor/Wiz 2 spell): Basically allows you to work out that body parts have magical ingredients for creating items. But the mechanical effect is basically that you cut the XP cost of creating a magic item by 10% and up to 20% depending on caster level.
Lumberjack (Drd 3, Rgr 3 spell): All together now: Iiiii’m a Lumberjack and I’m okay, I get insight bonuses all day. Specifically, +1 insight bonuses to attack rolls, AC, and saving throws when fighting plants, up to a maximum of +4 at 20th level, and my weapons do +1d6 fire damage, with plants vulnerable to fire taking an extra +2d6.
Resin (Drd 3 spell): It’s slow for druids, albeit it takes a ranged touch attack and the creature can bust the resin by a DC 18 STR check. Also destroys 1d6 of Armor Class granted by metal armor and shields, despite its fluff basically saying that it eats away at metal, which might suggest that you’re not destroying your loot if you use this on an enemy.
Slapstick (new magic item): Normally a +2 quarterstaff. 5/day, conjures a Grease spell below an opponent in melee combat. If the opponent fails the usual DC 11 Reflex save, he falls over. And if he falls over, the quarterstaff starts giggling at him. And forces a Will DC 14 save due to the sarcastic laughter that imposes -1 circumstance bonus to AC and -2 WIS “penalty” – not damage, “penalty”. And additional failures stack. This very trolly item is the work of the Ubi, a race who are among the smallest fey and the biggest @$$pains in the forest.
Grimdeath Arrows (new magic ammunition): Hit by this, Will DC 16 or your adversaries seem to be the physical manifestations of your darkest phobias. If your enemy hits you in the next 1d4 rounds after that, Will DC 16 save or die of fright.
Elderwitch Wood (new substance): Weapons and shields crafted from the elderwitch’s wood act as +1 weapons and shields for 5d6 days before losing their enhancement bonuses, and permanently grant the wielder a +1 to initiative. However, it’s vulnerable to fire. Still, an excellent candidate for Unguent of Timelessness ab/use, which blows out that 5d6 days to months or even years since Elderwitch Wood is necessarily a substance that was once living.
Rosewood (new substance): Make a wooden musical instrument out of this, +1 circumstance bonus to Perform checks with it. Handy backup if you have a DM who rules that a masterwork instrument doesn’t count as a masterwork tool for the +2 circumstance bonuses to skill use, and a masterwork lute is (a) a wooden musical instrument and (b) offers other bonuses to the bard.
Brown Snake Venom (new poison): Fort DC 19, or take 1d8 CON and DEX damage (!) primary and 1d4 CON and DEX damage secondary (!!), and because the bite area swells to five times its normal size, take 1 CHA temporary damage (!!!).
Running Man (new substance): Grants the Endurance and Run feats(?) for 2d4+1 hours. Suffer fatigue for a period of time. Prolonged usage of the drug causes 1d4 temporary CON damage. Chemical feat prerequisites anyone?
Clikkit: It’s a relative of the common cricket, but only chirps whenever it’s within 30 feet of a magical aura (such as from a spell or an object). Here’s a cheap Detect Magic device! The book is just full of these sorts of creatures, stuff that has just a little, original spin on the bog-standard creature and isn’t just about the trundling lump of hitpoints.
Malaria, Yellow Fever, Loosegut (new diseases): Finally we’ve got chances of exposure and DCs for these very common diseases (well, apart from Loosegut, which is pretty much what it sounds like). Nasty effects.
Wild boar: Yes, you can use them to hunt 2d4 truffles!
Bracken Corpse (monster): Look, there isn’t much to say mechanically about this low-level undead, but it just appeals to me in concept: it’s the shambling body of a murder victim who’s been dumped in the wilderness, and who rises searching – erratically, and ineffectively – for its killer, repeating the killer’s name over and over. If asked questions it’ll respond with simple and confined answers about its killer, i.e. have a sort of Speak With Dead conversation while the monster tries to kill you. At the very least it’s a nice alternative to the standard skeleton or zombie.
Thornclaw (monster): Good for a bit of a fright. CR 1/4 is probably about right when it’s on its own, but thornclaws – tiny evil fey who fly and swarm people – have an interesting mechanic for their poison attack: at base it’s very low, and even if the target gets hit by multiple Thornclaws it only makes one Fort DC save for the whole round … but the DC rises for every successful hit by a thornclaw made against the target in that round, i.e. if 6 thornclaws hit the one target in the same round, the DC rises by +5. The poison causes paralysis for 1d4+1 minutes, and thornclaws explicitly swarm one target at a time. Combine that with their Spell Resistance 16 and this has a pretty damn good chance of laying out multiple party spellcasters, or even party beefsticks if enough thornclaws hit them at once. And I really like the design because it’s the sort of creature that you can use tactically as a DM and beat tactically as a player: they have 1 hitpoint each, and are only ever doing 1 hitpoint of damage on a hit, so you can cut back on the Power Attack for accuracy and maybe start Cleaving. Or you can try and fight them ranged. Or you can send in a partymember with a heavily boosted Fort save as quite literally the tank while the rest attacks from the fringes. They’re not really fluffed as the kind of creature that allies up with bigger bosses, but this would be an interesting idea to pursue as well. I’ve used these guys specifically, and it was kind of fun to watch the party summon a hippogriff to attack them, which was taken down in one pass by virtue of being paralysed for the duration of the summon.
Autumnal Mourner (monster): Lingering spirits of the neglected dead. Deprived of a proper burial, they mourn the summer’s annual passing and the death of trees’ falling leaves. In autumn they’re not dangerous, but in winter they attack savagely. Incorporeal, but only at +1 attack rolls, they do 1d4 +1d6 cold damage and can give themselves half concealment. Again, the concept is really nice, especially the idea of a creature whose aggressiveness changes depending on the season.
Arborgeist (monster): What happens when a treant suffers a gruesome death due to fire at the hands of great evil? This thing does: a spirit of unthinking vengeance. If you’re within 20 feet of it, you take 2d6 cold damage each round (no save, though cold resistance applies). It can command plants 3/day as a 20th level druid. It’s incorporeal. Any living creature that gets within 60 feet of it and sees it makes a Fort DC 22 save or permanently loses 1d4 STR, DEX, and CON. Any individual struck by it makes a Fort DC 22 save or has 1d4 WIS drained. (Mind you, it also does 2d8 damage +2d6 cold damage and hits as touch attacks, +9. Fire holds it at bay, and it has a low AC, but I hope you’ve got some big damn Wraithstrike axes, because it’s got 130 hitpoints. Did I also mention it has a Will save of +18? CR 14 is still a bit high I think, but this is not the sort of creature you want to tick off easily. (Not that you'll get much of a chance: it has a stupid good Move Silently check and it ambushes people by using its Tree Stride ability. (I must say I do like the slightly different mechanic for how it's afraid of fire. This is both thematic and gives you a chance to throw it at a lower end party and them have a chance of fending it off and running for it.)
Fierling (monster): Want to spice up the environmental hazard of a forest fire? Add this creature, which is a woodland spirit burned to death in a forest fire and turned into this creature which lasts only a few hours and which usually is leading the flames of an advancing fire.

Dreadful Features
Nothing I can really point to. Honest.

Who it’s best for (Player/GM/both)
This is primarily and mainly a DM’s tool. It’s basically there to fill the niche that wasn’t completed by WOTC with their environmental books. There are some random spells and some equipment of interest, but primarily this is for DMs. I have this book and I use it, and I'm happy with it.

Comments, thoughts, and rating out of 10.
On mechanics: I think the book is stronger on fluff and twists to basic builds than it really creates new and inventive creatures as such. Also, although this thing was billed as having monsters to challenge parties at all levels, that’s not entirely true; the range more or less tops out around CR 14 or so, it doesn’t have quite as large a range of monsters as something like Frostburn or Sandstorm. Buuuuut it is covering four separate biomes rather than one, which I think makes up for lack of monsters from CR 1 to CR 20. And the mechanics themselves are solid, in that I couldn’t find anything gamebreakingly powerful or stupid in it. It is also detailed on random encounters – it contains new tables for all four biomes, incorporating its own monsters and those of the SRD. Lots of new and distinct plants too, virtually all of which have some mechanical balance or benefit, and none of which will try to eat you. (There's a really lovely vine, though, which grows around quicksand patches. When someone falls in, they grab the vine, whose sharp thorns then suck some of their blood out, giving the plant sustenance.) It’s also more helpful on weather, where (in the case of the jungle) it’s specific down to the level of humidity and therefore the extent to which Endure Elements is necessary. High and low temperatures, humidity, chance of rain/snow, thunderstorm, hurricane, and blizzard are all provided … for winter and summer seasons. The mechanics are really small-ish upgrades in power or utility because of twists on old concepts, as the Notable Features section above should give you a flavour for. They’re useable, they’re balanced, and the new substances, diseases and items really fill in big gaps that WOTC left. Call this a 3/4 on this one.

On concepts and fluff: I really like thinking of this book as the missing environmental book that WOTC should have published. As a start, it takes a short but detailed look at each biome and how these environments function in reality. I learned a few things reading it, which was really helpful – the real-life structure of jungles are more subtle than you might think, and I honestly didn’t appreciate the real and significant differences between forests and woods. So that in itself was an eye-opener and helps campaigns, because it’s easier to visualise and describe the environment if you know more about it than what you’ve seen on a TV screen. Particularly nice was the rendering of some real-world diseases into game terms; hit your players with their first bout of malaria while in the jungle, in a world without quinine, and they may start to appreciate the things they take for granted these days.

Then there are the extensions of these environments into fantasy concepts: monsters, hazards, animals, the lot. And these extensions are just as inventive and on-theme as the hard fact that grounds the book. The book is heavy on new fey, new undead, new magical beasts, but I am biased because the concepts they presented are pretty nice on that front. It’s also heavy on new alchemical substances and encouraging players to go hunting defenceless animals for their various body parts – most animals in the book have something semi-useful or saleable that can be harvested from their corpses, which doesn’t get a lot of attention in D&D, but at least that was nice to have added.

If anything I’m frustrated because the book wasn’t longer. It’s only 96 pages and it covers 4 different biomes, so I’m guessing a compromise had to be made between book length and available concepts to go into each area. Any of these biomes could have been expanded out into longer single books in my view, apart from maybe the Forest and Woods biomes perhaps. I hope the reason all four were put in one book was because they had to stop, not because they ran out of ideas. 3/4 on this one.

On presentation: Here’s where the book fell down. Like I said, it’s 96 pages, and it covers four different biomes. Probably as a result, the text is pretty damn small even at 100% in a PDF on a computer screen, and it’s pretty densely packed. This was also apparently Bastion’s first foray into black and white, and it shows, and it’s not great. I give it credit for at least having an index despite the book’s brevity, which a lot of WOTC books don’t do. This should have been a larger format or should have been at least two bigger books. 0.5/2 on this one.

Total: 6.5/10.

Next time: The Quintessential Fighter, Mongoose Publishing.

PoeticallyPsyco

2021-04-15, 11:37 PM

Running Man (new substance): Grants the Endurance and Run feats(?) for 2d4+1 hours. Suffer fatigue for a period of time. Prolonged usage of the drug causes 1d4 temporary CON damage. Chemical feat prerequisites anyone?

This one jumped out at me as fantastic for Frostblood (Half)-Orcs, for whom it's any feat they qualify for (+ Run).

Kalkra

2021-04-16, 09:28 AM

Saintheart

2021-04-16, 11:07 AM

The Quintessential Fighter, Mongoose Publishing

https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2Fimgv2-1-f.scribdassets.com%2Fimg%2Fdocument%2F331041849%2F original%2Fb0367093f0%2F1589360347%3Fv%3D1&f=1&nofb=1

Summary
Quintessential Fighter is designed to expand the options for Fighters in particular. Explicitly the authors admit that this may not make the fighter a lot more powerful, but it does offer him the opportunity to do a lot more with his stuff. As such, there are a large number of character backgrounds, feats, fighting styles, variant rules, and even rules on mass combat and building strongholds to try and expand what a fighter is. The rough structure of the book is similar to the Quintessential Monk I, so I am assuming as we plough through the Quints, we’ll be seeing similar sorts of things in others as well.

Date of Publication, Page Count, and Availability
2001, 130 pages. And it sure is 3.0; all the glorious references to Expertise and Ambidexterity are intact. As with Q.Monk, a second text, Quintessential Fighter II, was published when 3.5 came out, and we may get to that at some stage. And while Quintessential Monk was written by Patrick Younts, this one, Quintessential Fighter, also had a sole author credit: Matthew Sprange, the guy who founded Mongoose Publishing and who started with the various Slayers’ Guides before branching out into this area. Sprange has a long backlist of titles in D&D and RPGing more generally; 50 freaking titles that he has writer or design credits on, everything from RuneQuest to Lone Wolf to Traveller to Babylon 5 to Judge freaking Dredd and Starship Troopers. But this book was when he was first starting out in the industry. Anyway, Q.Fighter doesn't seem to be readily available from RPG market websites, so you may have to search elsewhere in the virtual or real world to find this one.

(Note: Quintessential Fighter has a Web Enhancement which isn't hosted by Mongoose anymore, but can be found on Wayback Machine here (https://web.archive.org/web/20120916...ed_Fighter.pdf). I've included references to it as well since some of the features are actually worth a bit of a look - I have identified which ones are from the Web Enhancement below.)

Notable Features
Fop (character background): Automatically get Weapon Finesse or Weapon Focus in the rapier, proficient only with light armour. If you’re going DEX-based anyway and you’re picking features or prestige classes that only work in light or no armour, this isn’t a bad tradeoff for a free feat you’re likely to need or use – indeed if one wanted to multiclass with Monk this could be an interesting start out in life for a Buddha-style character, who begins as a hedonist and then becomes an ascetic.
Fighter Assassin (character background): Hide and Move Silently are class skills for you, -2 to CHA-based checks. No, the Thug variant Fighter from the SRD doesn’t give you these … and it synergises beautifully with it for that very reason.
Nomad (character background): Start your career only proficient with a small array of weapons: spears, lances, daggers, scimitar, and shortbow, but pick up a permanent +2 competence bonus to Ride checks, which is always handy for the mounted types.
Outlaw (character background): +2 competence bonuses to Hide, Move Silently, and Survival, only start with light armour proficiency.
Thug (character background): Going Zhentarim Fighter, Imperious Command, fear-blasting via Intimidate checks? Start your career out right with a +4 competence bonus to Intimidate and a -4 to Diplomacy.
Swashbuckler (Prestige Class): In 5 levels, add class level to AC when (omitted – presumably not in armour from the fluff text); +4 to Balance, Climb, Jump, Tumble, gets Evasion, gets Uncanny Dodge, and – in what is surely an error in editing – is never able to be stopped with effects that limit his mobility, e.g. Slow or web spells. Yes, because he may re-roll any failed saving throw in those instances. Which means he can re-roll the re-roll. And keep re-rolling until he succeeds. However: requires Dodge, Expertise, Improved Disarm, and Mobility.
Distract (Fighter only feat): Similar editing problem to Swashbuckler and therefore probably unintentionally gamebreaking. If you can succeed on a CHA check vs. DC 10 + opponent’s character level/hit dice, he’ll only take partial actions (3.0 term) in the next round of combat. Only problem? Use of the feat is a free action. No other qualifiers provided. And yes, other feats in this book do contain limits like “only once per combat” or “only once per enemy per combat.” Ergo, keep on rolling until you get that 20, nobody’s stopping you. Only works on opponents with an INT score of 3 or more, which is to say whoever edited this thing is probably immune to this feat’s effect. I’m not sure if the fact the picture right below the feat is of a girl with no T-shirt on has anything to do with this.
Expert Marksman (fighter only feat): Make called shots (see below) with any ranged weapon that you’ve got Weapon Focus in.
Acrobatic Fighting (feat) (Web Enhancement): Tumble becomes a class skill for you, forever, and you get +1s when using it to avoid AoOs "or while engaged in melee combat", which is interesting.
Exotic Mastery (feat) (Web Enhancement): Its base effect is to give you +1 with an exotic weapon you're proficient with. More interesting is if you've got Weapon Focus and Weapon Specialisation: if you have both, it's a +2 to damage and the weapon's critical multiplier increases by 1. Kaorti resin weapons, of course, are exotic weapons. So are Goliath Greathammers. This is not too damn bad at all for critfishing builds since it normally takes a fair amount of stretching to pick up flat increases in critical multiplier.
Massive (feat) (Web Enhancement): Skip all the negotiations and argument about whether Jotunbrud and/or Goliath Barbarian turns you into a Large character when you want it. Just take this feat and bang, you're Large for all intents and purposes. Now go and get on with that Hulking Hurler build already.
Beast Master (character background): Pick up the Animal Companion class feature of the druid, start with nothing but a dagger, spear, shortbow, 20 arrows, and proficiency only in these weapons and light armour.
Gladiatorial Slave (character background): Okay, you start the game with only 1d6 gp. But you also get three Exotic Weapon Proficiencies, and two of said exotic weapons for free. And in what puts this teetering on the edge of Dreadful Features, you also start with, and I quote, “any light armour of his choice.” I think they really meant to say any non-magical armour of his choice, but a suit of Ghost Touch, Invulnerability, Improved Shadow, Spell Resistance leather armour is therefore available to you at first level. Hell, even if you just say he starts with mithral chain mail and then sell it at the first shop that comes along, it’s a net profit on starting gold. (Or, if you want to directly cheese things up, have one of your EWPs in a Heavy (Gold) Goliath Greathammer, your second EWP in Goliath Greathammer. You get both those weapons to start with. Then go sell the gold weapon head. Forty pounds of pure gold ought to net you something.)
Last Survivor (character background): pick up a favoured enemy as the ranger class feature. Don’t start with proficiency in any armour or shields except light armour.
Living Blade 3 (Prestige Class):Very hefty prerequisites. Weapon Focus, Weapon Specialistion and Whirlwind Attack, making a total of 7 feats, of which roughly half are useless to minimal. That being said: at 3rd level, you’re given the ability to deny a melee enemy’s attack at the expense of one of your own, both being at the lowest BAB possible for each combatant. “This ability must be declared at the start of the combat round.” Simplest way to game this? Quarterstaff. You have more than one attack via fighting with two weapons (as distinct from TWF, which isn’t needed for this trick). The monster has to close and (assuming it doesn’t get Pounce) only has one attack. You declare you’re losing the extra attack you’d normally get from TWF. The monster loses its capacity to attack. You then announce you’re attacking with the quarterstaff as a two-handed weapon, which suffers no TWF penalty since you’re not fighting with two weapons. Proceed to Power Attack the attackless opponent into the ground. This would probably get a DMG thrown at you, but you’re already taking Fighter all the way basically for the lulz, so why not? Or indeed, why couldn’t you synergise it with other abilities to give up attacks for bonus damage, attack bonus, blah blah blah?
Blackfeather (fighting style): Fighting styles are similar-ish to the styles used in The Quintessential Monk, as in, if you take this particular feat-and-other-prerequisites tree, you are given these additional (Ex) abilities which don’t cost feat slots. Blackfeather is the one devoted to the longbow, and applies only when you’re using said longbow. Altogether, to pick up all of the fighting style’s bonuses, it takes nine feats, BAB +16, Concentration 2 ranks, Hide 4 ranks, and Survival. The capstone, and why we did all this? With a longbow, you only make ranged touch attacks to strike a target. The other benefits below it: once per round, all penalties for range, size, and movement are halved; a limited Power Attack (take a -2 on the attack roll, get a +2 to damage); sacrifice all your attacks bar one in a full attack to halve a creature’s movement speed (Fort DC 20); and be treated as being in one level better cover than you are when firing from cover. This is not a bad bunch of side benefits for a martial archer to pick up if he’s going to have to take feat after feat anyway. The feats are mostly what you’d have to take to make archery work or qualify for decent prestige classes anyhow: Point Blank Shot, Far Shot, Precise Shot, Rapid Shot, Weapon Focus, Shot on the Run, Combat Reflexes, Weapon Specialisation, Improved Critical. Some sort of Fighter/Warblade mixture might work for this, moving to Deepwood Sniper and Peerless Archer. And as said the abilities themselves don’t take up feat slots, this is something akin to a phantom prestige class that sits alongside your other features.
Eagleshaft (fighting style): The equivalent of Blackfeather for crossbows, including the capstone of using ranged touch attacks rather than ranged attacks. The abilities below are a +2 to attack and damage, Ranged Disarm, reduce reload time for heavy crossbow to move equivalent action (a generous DM would allow Rapid Reload to stack with this), +4 to initiative if your crossbow is loaded and in hand when combat begins. The feat prerequisites here are Quick Draw, Point Blank Shot, Precise Shot, Lightning Reflexes, Alertness, Weapon Focus, Weapon Specialisation, Profession (Bowyer) 10 ranks, BAB +13. Probably just a shade less useful than Blackfeather due to the useless feats, when crossbow archery is already heavy on them.
Orask (fighting style): Blackfeather was the style for longbows, this is the one for two-handed melee weapons. Unfortunately it’s not a strong a set of abilities, with one exception: the fourth level ability, Wounding Retribution. Whenever a melee attack causes damage to the character, he may make an immediate AoO against the enemy that struck the blow. It’s silent on whether this AoO is counted against your total for the round. This is where one stops, though, because the capstone is just being able to hit stuff within 10 feet on Whirlwind Attack. Orask is a little lighter on the feat prerequisites than Blackfeather – it focuses instead on having the right Fort save (+12), BAB (+12), hitpoints (40+) – but the feats are more useless: Combat Reflexes, Toughness, Endurance, Weapon Specialisation, Weapon Focus, Cleave, and Power Attack.
Rain of Blades (fighting style): have to be using dagger and rapier, and light or no armour. Feat prerequisites are not too bad: TWF, Weapon Finesse, Weapon Focus in dagger and rapier, +6 BAB, INT 10+, Bluff 8 ranks. However: on a full attack, +2 deflection bonus to AC if you don’t use your dagger. And when doing said full attack, roll twice for your first attack, accepting the better of the two results, which is not too damn bad at all. The capstone of the school is basically like the Double Hit feat: when an opponent provokes an AoO, you can attack with both rapier and dagger, and only 1 AoO is counted as having occurred.
Style of Cordun (fighting style): Finally some love for the sword-and-boarders! Capstone ability is get +2 AC for every attack you forego that round. Below abilities aren't bad either: once a round ignore an AoO for an action of his choice (yes, just flat-out lolnope an enemy's AoO without a roll); move at full base speed for 1 minute while in heavy or medium armour; +1 cover bonus to AC against one opponent, and no Armor Check Penalty on his shield; and lastly, on a full attack, make an additional shield bash attack without a TWF penalty. Easiest prereqs of all of them, Weapon Focus with a one-handed sword and some proficiencies you’ve likely already got, albeit you have to be wearing armour, using a small or large steel shield, and using a sword in one hand.
Stoneholm (fighting style): For ****ing dwarves, laddie, and very few ****ing prerequisites since dwarves get proficiency with the Dwarven Waraxe, which this style focuses on. Tha’ said, ye still ha’ t’ take useless **** like Leadership an’ Great Cleave and Weapon Specialisation. Most o’ th’ abilities are aboot things like fightin’ in small spaces and singin’ in battle, bu’ th’ last abilities are not too ****ing bad: ignore half an enemy’s DR, just like tha’, no ****ing aligned weapons required, ye got DR 20, well, **** you, ye banana, it’s actually DR ****ing 10 now. And when ye do a full attack, forego some o’ yer useless -10, -15 iterative attacks and just gi’ yerself a +3 to damage for every ****ing attack ye give up!
Bloodsteel (fighting style): The fighting style for the much-ignored orc double axe. The first three levels are actually not too damn bad for a double weapon (the fourth and fifth are useless). The third level ability, Linked in Slaughter, basically says: “whenever you hit with an attack with one end, immediately make a follow up attack with the other end. Has the same BAB, modified by the penalty for striking with a second weapon. Uses up an AoO.” Now, the reason this is interesting is twofold: (1) normally you have to commit to a full attack to get an extra swing out of the south end of a double weapon, and it’s only one. This one allows you – so long as you have the AoOs available, which you will since Combat Reflexes is one of the prereqs – to double up your number of attacks in a round, not just get one extra. “But what about the TWF penalty it imposes?” Ah, that’s where we come to (2): the second level ability of Bloodsteel says “cut the penalty for fighting with two weapons by 1 when attacking with both ends” … which we are, since this is a followup attack. With TWF and a double weapon, your penalties are down to -2/-2 already, and therefore the penalty on the free, followup attack you get from the third level ability is at a -1, and the primary attack is at no penalty at all, since you made it declaring that you were attacking with one end of the double axe. And lastly, the first level ability of the weapon says if you choose not to use both ends of the double axe to attack, you get a +2 to AC by blocking with one axe head, which is better than a kick in the said head. This is basically a free Defending effect. The prerequisites are also right up the alley for TWFers: EWP, Combat Expertise, Power Attack, TWF, Weapon Focus, Combat Reflexes, Improved TWF, Weapon Specialisation. If I had to use the orc double axe, I’d seriously consider this. It allows you to basically use the orc double axe as a two-weapon fighting device without having to really take the penalties of TWF to your first, primary attack, and being able to still use Power Attack to its fullest extent on that first blow.
Quisane (fighting style): Odd but interesting! TWF with a whip and a longsword. Boosts to disarming, tripping, and entangle an opponent on a ranged touch attack with the whip, picking up a +2 to attack and damage with the longsword. And finally, deal normal damage with the whip, not subdual, and threaten an area 15 feet out.
Fegrin’s Pair (fighting style): use a pair of short swords or daggers. Capstone ability is to give you sneak attack outright as the Rogue class feature, which sure beats negotiating with the DM over whether that bloody Assassination weapon of yours grants it or not.
Ironstar (fighting style) (Web Enhancement): Very important to note that unlike Q.Fighter itself, the Web Enhancement adds an XP cost to attaining each level in the fighting style, including this one, which is aimed at combat with a spear or lance, but is particularly focused on mounted combat. Getting all levels in one of the Web Enhancement's styles costs 4,350 XP as well as the training time and all the prerequisites. What do you get for all this? Well, at the top end, if you charge with a spear or lance - or even if you make a single attack after a move action via Ride-By Attack - you get a single attack at your full BAB on each opponent you threaten during the movement. This could be really, really interesting if you start galloping around the battlefield with a Reach weapon like a longspear, which stops the enemy easily smacking you back with an AoO. The lower abilities include being able to Trip and Disarm without invoking AoOs (and using your lance as a Mage Hand), add a Shield Bash to a charge attack, use your shield as a defensive, counterattacking Sunder and stun attack in very particular circumstances, and finally automatically succeed on a Ride of DC 15 or less, as well as removing impediments to Ride checks higher than this. If you're going mounted combat, this is actually a really good bunch of sprinkles to put on the sundae.
Storm Razor (fighting style) (Web Enhancement): Greatsword only, wielded two-handed. The top ability might be a lot more powerful than it appears because of a RAW oversight. Every time you hit someone with the greatsword, the opponent has to make a Fort save (DC of the damage of the attack) or be moved back 5 feet. (Also, helpfully, counts as killing someone for the purposes of Cleave. However, since the movement is not a 5 foot step of the kind that is free of AoOs - it generally doesn't happen during the creature's actions in the round, or it may have happened after the creature's already moved, which means it's not a 5 foot step - then it's moving out of a threatened square. That is, it possibly provokes an AoO from you as it leaves a threatened square. The lower abilities also aren't anything to sniff at: once you're not flatfooted anymore, you can't be flanked; +2 on saving throws against effects that halt or impede movement; pick up a 10 foot reach with the Greatsword, albeit anytime you actually use it, you trigger an AoO; take a -5 to attack, do maximum possible damage if the strike hits (and if it's a critical, it isn't maxed, but the critical multiplier goes up by 1), CHA mod/day; if an opponent has no DEX bonus to AC -- has no DEX bonus, not denied DEX bonus, though that might qualify too -- then it takes another -2 to AC. But the prerequisites to pick all of these up are ridiculous: Weapon Focus, Weapon Specialisation, Power Attack, Sunder (I guess Improved Sunder), Dodge, Mobility, Spring Attack, Combat Expertise, Improved Initiative, Whirlwind Attack, Cleave, and Great Cleave. 12 feats, and that's before the (relatively low) skill requirements, BAB and ability score requirements. That said: a Human Fighter all the way taking 2 flaws could pick all of these up by level 9 and then have four feat slots (character and bonus fighter) to pick up Combat Brute, Improved Bull Rush -> Shock Trooper, and have one left over for Leap Attack before he hit BAB 13 and picked up the last ability in the tree. And at least it favours a weapon that works for flat-out Power Attacking ownage. It might not have the optionality of Warblade, but it's not awful either.
Mercenary hiring tables (variant rule): A lot simpler guide to hiring mercs by type (archer? Shock trooper? Mounted Knight? Battle Mage?) and by race (everything from bugbears to minotaurs).
Open Mass Combat System (variant rules): Mentioned mainly just to point out it’s there. This is a system for a unit-on-unit battle at a much larger scale. It’s pretty simplified and abstract, and it won’t impress the wargamers with its complexity.
Called Shots (variant rules): When you score a critical threat against an enemy (hey, he got the terminology right, good going Matt!) you can declare a called shot to a certain part of the body. If you do, you forego the extra damage from the critical, but instead you impose a condition on the opponent (although note you need a certain BAB to be able to pull some of these off). The effects actually aren’t too bad, and can be summed up as follows:
- To the Arm: automatically disarm them, 1d4 damage, -4 to all checks and attack rolls with that arm.
- To the Eye: 1d6 damage, -4 to attack rolls and REF saves, DEX-based checks, lose 10 feet of base speed. If you’re lucky enough to call an eye shot twice, the opponent is blinded.
- To the Head: Stunned, 1d4 damage, lose DEX bonus to AC, can’t take any actions, +2 to your attack rolls vs. the victim. And the stun shot will last 1d4 rounds, which is better than a Monk’s stunning fist at literally all levels.
- To the Leg: 1d4 damage, halve your base speed. Climb, Jump, Swim checks at -4.
Having done a little chronicling in the critical hits area (see my sig for details), my feel for this is that this stuff is probably most useful if your threat range is pretty wide but your damage is low-ish and your critical multiplier is the default x2. (And of course it’s ideal if you have an automatic critical confirmation effect like Bless Weapon or similar.) The reason being that by definition a critical multiplier of x2 isn’t actually getting you more than you already have; you still have to make 2 attack rolls either way (the critical threat and the confirmation roll). If the idea is to put the enemy down as fast as possible, then if you’re doing decent damage with a melee weapon and you’ve got a critical hit of x3 or better, you’re likely better off just pulverising the bugger than imposing a status condition; leave that stuff to the mages, if you’re a Fighter your job is generally production of tomato sauce in outsize quantities, not throwing onions in people’s faces. But this is not a bad bunch of effects for the 18-20 threat range crowd, and it sure makes your martial more versatile.
Heavy Mechanical Repeating Crossbow (new exotic weapon) (Web Enhancement): Repeating crossbow that does 1d10 damage with 120 foot range increment.

Dreadful Features
Noble (character background): Start the game with 8d4 x 10 gp on starting equipment. Apart from that initial purchase, until fifth level, all your equipment costs 20% more because you insist on the finest quality. That would mean all your magic items are 20% more as well. I thought the character background ‘Fell victim to a loan shark’ was more descriptive.
Explorer (character background): Lose 1st level fighter bonus feat. Pick up 8 extra skill points! … which can only be put in Handle Animal, Heal, Survival, Knowledge Nature, Ride, Search and Spot.
Berserker (Prestige Class): Eeesh. It’s 5 levels, but if you want to do barbarian rages, be a barbarian already. Six feats to qualify (including useless Iron Will and Endurance), and 1/day enter a barbarian rage. Only interesting feature is Berserker 4, which says, 1/day, while in a Berserk Fury, ignore all damage “from any one single source”. Guess who’s going first into the Ancient Red Dragon’s lair?
Master Bowman (Prestige Class): Hahahayeahno. For seven feats and BAB +12, you get +5 max to your bow shots, threaten 20 feet around you (single feats from Dragon will do this and more), +1d6 to all bow attacks so long as you don’t move, cut concealment bonuses and can’t be flatfooted against a ranged attack. Cut the number of feats and the BAB by half and you might have something interesting.
Noble Defender (Prestige Class): you need to be a lord already, so we’re already calling on DM fiat. The capstone of this five level class just gives you 100,000 gp to start building your own castle or upgrade your existing one.
Officer of War (Prestige Class): Shouty Sergeant, the prestige class, with all the Shouty and none of the Bad@$$.
Breaking Weapons (variant rule): … um … it’s called … Sunder?
Ralix (fighting style): Capstone ability is threatening 10 feet in all directions, not five, with a polearm, but I’m still not taking Whirlwind Attack just to get that.
Improved Dodge: the +1 Dodge bonus applies to everyone, not just one target. But pretty much everyone plays as if Dodge did this already, don’t they? (If they don't, then this feat becomes significantly better ... and more significantly illustrates how daft the original Dodge feat was...)
Two-Handed Power Strike (fighter only feat): “You may add twice your STR bonus to damage when using a two-handed close combat weapon with both hands. This feat may not be used in conjunction with Improved Initiate or Lightning Initiative and may only be applied when you are using the full attack combat option.” … k …
Pretty well all the other feats: With one or two exceptions, I couldn’t find a single feat at least in this volume which didn’t either closely resemble a feat that already exists in 3.5, or which just gave effectively a +2 bonus (or just made a +1 bonus into a +2, e.g. Improved Weapon Focus which, you guessed it, takes Weapon Focus’s +1 and makes it a +2; Power Charge, which says +4 to attack rolls during charges, not +2.) Maybe if you’re in a very, very tightly-confined game with low magic this sort of stuff might make sense, but generally feats that only apply +2s to statistics aren’t worth taking except as prerequisites, even for fighters with feats out the proverbial.
Blackpowder weapons: No, just no.

Who it’s best for (Player/GM/both)
Mainly for players, though GMs might get some use out of the Strongholds section, as well as the rules for jousting, duels and mass combat.

Comments, thoughts, and rating out of 10.
On mechanics: Looking at this thing, I am acutely conscious of the title of this thread, Trashes and Treasures. The latter I think is a pretty apt description of this book. It is early 3.0, and as said I’m a little hesitant to smash indie publishers who didn’t have a lot of system mastery over a newly-built system. And a fair proportion of what’s in it has become obsolete or outright duplicated in other WOTC products through no fault of the writers, which could either be just the facts of life or a backhanded compliment in some ways. Mechanically, the feats and prestige classes are most showing their age: I’m not saying I have any instinct for this, but it’s getting to the point that if the feats section of a third party book contains a lot of +2ing to attack rolls, and the prestige classes have dead levels, I generally have a good idea what I’m in for.

That said: as you’d probably tell from the Notable Features section, there are elements here that have managed to survive the test of time like a good V8 that’s been serviced and kept oiled even if it’s only been around the block in the past 20 years or so. They’re the elements that do not get in the way of the Fighter qualifying for his feats and which fit transparently over the top of the system. In short, the fighting styles and the character backgrounds, similar to those in Quintessential Monk 2 and 1, respectively. There is actually stuff in here, especially in the archery and double weapon areas, that I would consider using in my own builds, that I would consider wringing builds to find feats for, because by and large the fighting styles enhance an obvious build. They don’t force you to go out of your way for something that’s equivocal or situational like so many tiresome WOTC capstones or feat trees. Certainly some of the capstones for the dual weapon styles are more powerful than useless rubbish like Bear Fang Style or Crescent Moon Style from WOTC’s own Complete Warrior. Hell, by making the capstone for Blackfeather the ability to just make ranged touch attacks for longbows the book does more for archers than entire sourcebooks have (and indeed you can strongly smell Q.Fighter’s influence in Three Arrows For the King, well beyond the Called Shot system in that book). And the character backgrounds, with some exceptions, produce some worthwhile tradeoffs. I’ll give the author kudos for actually trying to do something with sword-and-board, hell, that was like a breath of fresh air.

Mechanically, I think the character backgrounds are pretty nicely balanced (well, most of them.) I think the fighting styles are stronger than Q.Monk II, because they got right out of the way of feat-gating. It’s not perfect, there are still a lot of damn useless prerequisite feats in there, and I have a feeling these decent features were produced more by way of luck than thoughtful design as such, but the fact they recognised, consciously or unconsciously, how they had to get out of the way of the Fighter’s feat options, is enough to give this a 2.5/4 on my view.

On concepts and fluff: It’s here that I think the book compares less favourably to Q.Monk 1. Although there was clearly a lot of work put into this to bring it to life, and you’ve got a lot of interesting subsystems introduced – everything from jousting to duelling rules to building strongholds to a mass combat system – it just doesn’t feel like it had the variety and passion put into it that Quintessential Monk did.

But on the other hand I give Sprange big props for giving love to stuff like whips, orc double axes, dwarven waraxes, and dual-wielding daggers and short swords … you know, the sort of stuff that other players look at you strangely for using in an actual campaign. All it took was a half-decent attempt to do something interesting with an obscure weapon like the freaking double axe and, for one precious, beautiful moment, I was back opening my 3.0 PHB for the first time and feeling my eyes widen as I first saw those strange and enthralling weapons.

The book sets out explicitly that this may not make the Fighter more powerful, but it does give him more options. I actually think it does a little of both. I’ll give this one 2/4.

On presentation: Looks like the Quintessential series had a certain house style, which is stuck to and which isn’t terrible on the eye. As such, it gets the same score as Q. Monk 1 did:1/2.

Total: 5.5/10. Yep, same score as I gave Quintessential Monk I, the irony has not escaped me. I liked these the same for different reasons.

Next time: Book of Eldritch Might I, Malhavoc Press

Troacctid

2021-04-16, 12:03 PM

Looks like the cover image for Into the Green is broken.

Kalkra

2021-04-16, 12:25 PM

As I mentioned earlier, I've been making Monk builds lately, and there's a martial arts style in Tome of Magic which grants total concealment from the target of your Dodge feat, and Improved Dodge would make that a lot better.

Also, if you think that this Improved Dodge is bad, IIRC Q. Fighter II has a much worse one, as part of its system for generic Improved versions of feats.

Saintheart

2021-04-16, 07:26 PM

Looks like the cover image for Into the Green is broken.

Fixed now (I mean, c'mon, Bastion, I was only linking the image from your own damn publisher's website...).

As I mentioned earlier, I've been making Monk builds lately, and there's a martial arts style in Tome of Magic which grants total concealment from the target of your Dodge feat, and Improved Dodge would make that a lot better.

Also, if you think that this Improved Dodge is bad, IIRC Q. Fighter II has a much worse one, as part of its system for generic Improved versions of feats.

Interested to see one of the builds! :)

Saintheart

2021-04-16, 10:07 PM

Huh, I just read Into the Green a few days ago as part of going through all the stuff that this thread reminded me of. Yeah, good stuff all around, also read Black and Blue, Black made me want to made a diamond sword. I don't know how, although I suspect lots of Fabricate would be involved, but I want to turn DnD into Minecraft.

Good calls. (For those of you who came in late: Bastion Press has two other environmental books like Into the Green. These are Into the Black and Into the Blue, which deal with Underdark and underwater environments respectively. I haven't got to them as yet and it might take a while to get there, but I presume Into the Black is going to have some competition from Drow of the Underdark and/or Dungeonscape, but I'm looking forward to Into the Blue when I get the chance, because whilst there is Stormwrack, that's more about the perils of open water adventures rather than undersea ones as such.)

Endless Rain

2021-04-16, 10:27 PM

Anyway, Q.Fighter does seem to be still available on RPG market sites, and Mongoose Publishing still has a website where they’re selling this book, so it seems to be available for purchase.

Where? Mongoose is selling Quintessential Fighter II and most of the other Quintessentials, but The Quintessential Fighter appears to be missing like Quintessential Monk I and Quintessential Psion.

Saintheart

2021-04-16, 10:56 PM

Where? Mongoose is selling Quintessential Fighter II and most of the other Quintessentials, but The Quintessential Fighter appears to be missing like Quintessential Monk I and Quintessential Psion.

That's odd, I was sure I'd seen it there. Nonetheless, a Google search confirms what you're saying, so I will adjust the review accordingly. EDIT: Done.

Kalkra

2021-04-18, 12:23 AM

Interested to see one of the builds! :)

EDIT: Completely rewriting this post.

For all of these builds, I'll be assuming no ACFs, no maneuvers, and no significant spells. I'm including Greater Mighty Wallop, because Monks need it.

Raw damage:
Warforged Monk with Beast Strike and a Battlefist. With Shock Trooper and Improved Natural Attack for unarmed strikes and slam, and with Greater Mighty Wallop cast on both at CL 20, your unarmed strike will do 16d8 + 8d6 + 15 + Str + double whatever you've enchanted your Battlefist with. If we assume you've gotten it's enhancement bonus to +5, slapped five +1d6 special qualities onto your Battlefist, and added a greater Crystal of Energy Assault, that's an additional +12d6 + 10 damage per strike. With a strength bonus of +5, that's an average of 172 damage per strike, if I did my math right and understood all of the interactions correctly, which I probably didn't. You can add in whatever you want after that.

Can't touch this:
This one's trickier. Anthropomorphic Bat Monk 4/Shou Disciple 5/Disciple of the Word 1/Dragon Descendant 10. Not necessarily in that order. With Word Given Form, VoP and a isS of 20 (before modifiers), against the opponent designated by Dodge you have total concealment and an AC of 46, plus whatever you get from Dex, which gets +6 from VoP, +5 from Combat Expertise and +2 from fighting defensively, if you feel you need it. You also have DR 10/Evil and DR 5/cold iron, and you can AoO anybody who attacks you, regardless of whether or not they hit. The thinking with this build is you get attacked as much as possible, and hopefully do more damage to your attacker than he does to you. I'm skeptical if this would actually work without some serious cheese. Notably, you can fly, which is the main disadvantage to VoP.

Cheese:
If you can transfer enchantments from unique weapons, Scorpion Kama and Manyfang Dagger are good options, particularly with Kaorti Resin and the Scourge from Dragon #275 and the Braid Blade from Dragon #120. Also does weird things with a Battlefist.
Also, the Shield Companion spell from Dragon #308 allows you to gain the benefits of the shield without any of the penalties. Monk with a Tower Shield.
Also, while not Monk-specific, with an Aptitude weapon and Roundabout Kick and/or Lighting Mace, you can get a ton of extra attacks.
Also, while not cheese, the Spell Hero's Blade from Eberron grants, among other things, a keen effect which stacks with Improved Critical, the only way to do that which I know of. Sadly, it's a 9th-level spell which is only available from two obscure domains.

Critifishing with the Quintessentials:
Q. Monk I has the Iron Leg Kickboxer, which increases the critical threat range of your unarmed strikes by 2, and the critical multiplier by 1, and stacks with keen. Q. Monk II has the Ki Swordsman, who can summon a keen greatsword that counts as an unarmed strike but deals damage as a greatsword. It's weird, but with Iron Leg Kickboxer that means you'll have a crit of 13-20/x3. If you can cast Weapon Shift on it (which isn't clear due to the ambiguity of how much it's a greatsword and how much it's an unarmed strike) then you can get the threat range to 11-20, meaning you'll threaten half the time. The greatsword has keen and brilliant energy, so I'm not sure if something like a Necklace of Natural Attacks would work with it. You could still cast Weapon of Energy on it to make up for some of the lost damage. Regardless, Q. Monk II also has Mighty Blow, which has a lot of the same prereqs as Iron Leg Kickboxer and Ki Swordsman, and basically gives you a free stunning fist whenever you crit, which with the above build will basically let you stunlock anything not immune. Also works nicely with any source of extra attacks, particularly Roundabout Kick. Works really nice if you can Weapon Shift your Ki Sword into a Scourge.

Other nice stuff from Q. Monk II:
The wicker shield, which Monks can use without losing their monk stuff.
Weightless, which let's a Monk use any shield for the price of +2.
Blunted, +1 bonus, +1 crit multiplier.
Enlightened, +2 bonus, does unarmed strike damage on a crit. If you can't put the Scorpion Kama enchantment onto another weapon, this is your next best thing. Pop it onto a keen Kaorti Resin Manyfang Dagger and deal x7 unarmed strike damage on a crit.
Martially attuned, +2 bonus, grants proficiency and makes it a Monk Weapon.

All of my math could be wrong, and probably is.

Thurbane

2021-04-18, 12:28 AM

Isn't there a 1st level only feat in Quintessential Fighter that permanently gives a size increase? Or was the from QF II?

[ediy] Was from the Quintessential Fighter web enhancement:

Massive (General)
You are much larger than normal members of your race.

Prerequisite: Str 14+, Con 14+, original size category of Small or Medium.

Benefit: You are one size category larger than others of your race. This brings with it all of the normal penalties and benefits associated with the larger size, including increased unarmed damage, Armour Class and attack roll penalty (if any), and the ability to use larger weaponry. Equipment may be more expensive and more difficult to find in your size.

Special: Must be selected at 1st level.

Saintheart

2021-04-18, 12:34 AM

EDIT: Nvm.

EDIT THE SECOND: For the interested, on my quick look the web enhancement doesn't seem to be readily available from Mongoose Publishing - another one of those mysteries - but it does seem to be available on Wayback machine. I found it here: https://web.archive.org/web/20120916185103/http://www.mongoosepublishing.com/pdf/Revised_Fighter.pdf

...and on a quick look the Web Enhancement also introduces some stuff that merits some extra consideration, mainly because there's another three fighting styles introduced there directed to greatsword, mount-and-lance, and shield bashing. I'm going to briefly run these down in the Q.Fighter review before moving on to Book of Eldritch Might I, I'll update the review so it doesn't clutter up the first posts or this area further. Maybe the first thing to note is that unfortunately Mongoose does something stupid out of the WOTC playbook and requires XP to earn the (Ex) abilities of these fighting styles rather than just training time and finding a teacher. To pick up all elements of a fighting style, it's 4,250 XP altogether, which is just a **** move to just keep the Fighter down. Plus the training time on top.

Caelestion

2021-04-18, 05:51 AM

At 10th-level or higher, that amount of XP is essentially meaningless. XP is a river and all that.

Kalkra

2021-04-18, 08:34 AM

Kalkra

2021-04-18, 12:47 PM

Completely rewrote my previous post about Monks. Just looking at it bothered me.

Saintheart

2021-04-19, 08:32 AM

The Book of Eldritch Might I, Malhavoc Press
https://images2.imgbox.com/c1/fb/TWdW3axc_o.jpg
Summary
It’s a collection of feats, classes, spells, and magic items for arcane spellcasting. The author says specifically that any amount of it can be used without having to depend on other parts, i.e. it’s a collection of ideas that can be snapped on or snapped off without having to pick up the rest of it. The author also says at the start that this stuff is meant to go beyond traditional fantasy, but either way, it’s mainly for arcanists.

Date of Publication and Page Count
2004, 43 pages. The version we’re looking at is the upgrade made consequent on 3.5. The book itself comes with its own history of gossip, of which the salient bits follow. First, the sole author of this book is Monte Cook, one of the guys with his name on the original third edition of D&D along with Jonathan Tweet and Skip Williams. Aside from the DMG, the other main design he created is the Book of Vile Darkness. Cook left WOTC in 2001, because, in his own words, (https://www.mtv.com/news/2629729/monte-cook-numenera-kickstarter-interview/) WOTC weren’t doing sufficiently weird stuff with D&D and weren’t pushing out books at a satisfactorily laxative speed. Anyway, he immediately started up Malhavoc Press. This book – or rather the 3.0 version – was Malhavoc’s first publication. At least according to Monte Cook (http://www.dyingearth.com/rpgsuccess2006.htm) it was the first commercial book published exclusively as a PDF from a print publisher. Around the time this, the 3.5 version, was published, Cook started selling his d20 productions through DriveThruRPG, which back then only used encrypted DRM PDFs. Eventually, both he and DrivethruRPG relented – and indeed this product is still available in large market RPGs.

Finally: there are volumes in the Book of Eldritch Might series. Each covers different subjects. Malhavoc published the Complete Book of Eldritch Might that just slaps all 3 volumes (the 3.5 ones) all into one 206 page text, but I’ll be looking at each of the three volumes separately so I can be a bit more detailed. The Complete BOEM doesn’t add anything to the three volumes other than what amounts to a 10 page advertisement for Arcana Unearthed, Cook’s first attempt at a competing RPG system to D&D.

Notable Features
Graven One 4-10 (prestige class): Most of the class is very pedestrian and limited in power, mainly because it’s a 5/10 class and mainly relies on Tattoo-y effects which don’t especially make up for the lost caster levels in particular. The one possible exception is the Graven image class feature. You scribe an image of an animal or magical beast on your body (takes 10 minutes), and activate it as a free action at any point after that. When activated, the image leaps from your body and becomes a real version of the image, and remains 1 minute/level or until slain, obeying your mental commands as a free action. The maximum HD of the creature involved increases with the class levels to a maximum of 20 HD. The main utility of this ability presumably comes down to knowing your Magical Beasts. As an example, a 12-Headed Hydra is only 12HD. A Unicorn is only 4HD. Right at the top, there’s a Phoenix (MM 2) at precisely 20HD and which can pull Summon Nature’s Ally IX of its own. The rest of it as said is fairly pedestrian.
Acidic Curse (Sor/Wiz 1 spell): Feels like a Spell Compendium version of Seething Eyebane from the BoVD. It’s on the Sor/Wiz list, operates at range, but only blinds the target for 1d4 rounds, not permanently.
Arcana Form (Sor/Wiz 9 spell): 10 mins/level, make yourself into a being of pure magical energy. Incorporeal, immune critical hits, fly speed of 100. Use energy to cast spells, 5 hitpoints per spell level, no loss of prepared spells or spell slots. If you enter an antimagic field, you cease to exist … for the spell’s duration, which might be useful for some odd purposes.
Bolt of Conjuring (Sor/Wiz 3 spell): Pew pew spell … that simultaneously summons an outsider as if Summon Monster I had been cast.
Chains of Vengeance (Sor/Wiz 4 spell): Wrap chains of fire around the target that do 2d6 fire damage per round. If the creature tries to break free, it takes another 2d6 of fire damage.
Conditional Spell (Sor/Wiz 6): Cast this spell as well as another spell of 3rd level or lower to be stored. When a specific spell you name is cast on the subject, the stored spell releases in a preset manner. This is Contingent Spell-lite, but could be handy for getting useful spells on a friend (“True Strike on my ranger buddy when he becomes the subject of a Hunter’s Mercy spell”).
Dragonskin (Brd 3, Sor/Wiz 3): Acid/Electricity/Fire/Cold Resistance 10 and +4 in Natural Armor bonus – i.e. stacks with Mage Armor -- lasts 10 min/level.
Mantle of Egregious Might (Sor/Wiz 8 spell): 10 mins/level, grant +4 luck bonuses to AC, attack rolls, saving throws, and ALL ABILITY SCORES. Also known as the “Rewrite Your Whole Character Sheet In The Middle Of The Campaign” spell!
Mark of Death (Sor/Wiz 8 spell): Hour/level, grant a creature the power to fire a Wave Motion Gun. All right, all right. Give the creature the power to be immune to death effects, and discharge the spell by firing a ranged touch attack at a target, which must make a Fort saving throw or die.
Primal Release (Sor/Wiz 8 spell): 10 minutes/level, give a creature a +10 inherent bonus to STR and CON, +2 to DEX, -6 to INT and CHA, -2 to WIS. BAB becomes +1 per HD. Creature can fight as thought it has the Power Attack, Cleave, Great Cleave, and Improved Sunder feats!
Teleport Redirect (Sor/Wiz 5 spell): Sick of Scry-and-Die tactics? This says if the area of the spell is the target of a teleportation spell, the destination is redirected to a location you choose. Is “the surface of the Sun” a valid location? (For what it’s worth, when Monte Cook first produced these spells there simply weren’t any counters to teleportation magic. The SpC now has Anticipate Teleportation and Greater Anticipate Teleportation, though these ones are still cool.)
Zone of Speed (Sor/Wiz 5): In this area, nothing can move faster than your chosen speed, minimum 1 foot. Any speed less than 100 feet stops all ranged physical attacks functioning (arrows are slowed down so much they can’t reach their target.) Characters can’t move faster than the rate you decide.
Wandwrap: (Magic Item): Wrap this cord around a wand, which has 50 charges, and any charges from the wand drain the wrap, not the wand. Ridiculously good if you can convince your DM to let this apply to a magic staff and you’re using Eilservs School.
Mirror of Vanity (Magic Item): slotless +2, +4, or +6 to CHA, since it grants the enhancement bonus whenever the mirror is in a character’s possession.
Spellstealer (Magic Item): If you touch a spellcasting creature that steals spells, this gauntlet rips one off them at random. The gauntlet holds the spell, allowing the wearer to cast it as if she had prepared it. Gauntlet holds only 1 spell at a time.
Magic Poisons (new rule): Basically, administer something akin to a spell’s effect when you poison someone. Some of them are solid, one – Swarmdeath – is horrible in the sense of inducing nightmares. It imposes a Fort DC 17 save or be killed instantly by a swarm of insects that burst out of them. Candyman, Candyman, Candyman, C—
Liquid Power (minor artefact substance): drink this, get 6d6 x 100 XP useable only to create magic items or cast spells with an XP cost. Alternatively, dip a charged item – wand, staff or other – and it’s fully recharged.
Random Rune Generator! (table): three d100 lists that allow you to generate a description of a glyph, emblem, rune, or arcane marks. Mine, according to the dice gods, is a sword inside a rose within an ouroboros.

Dreadful Features
Conjure Mastery (feat): +2 to STR, DEX, and CON of my summons. Augment Summoning out of the PHB gives me +4 to STR and CON and doesn’t force me to have CHA 17 and CL 17, though I guess you could stack the bonuses.
Etch Object Rune (feat): It’s basically a cheaper scroll. Rune Magic out of the FRCS runs rings around this.
Embermage (prestige class): 5/10 arcane casting, 5/10 BAB, for a set of abilities that are either equivalent to, or worse than, a Reserve feat that allows you to hit people with [fire] damage. The fluff is intriguing – the mage’s blood is literally burning – but the mechanics are pedestrian at best.
Guilt (Brd 1, Clr 1, Sor/Wiz 1 spell): Go home and rethink your life, the spell. Well, okay. For 1d4 rounds a nongood creature can’t take any actions except to defend itself. I’d rather the Inhibit spell.

Who it’s best for (Player/GM/both)
The introduction addresses GMs, but this is at least partially useable by players and GMs alike. It’s pretty much okay for anyone.

Comments, thoughts, and rating out of 10.
On mechanics: I’ve got to say, I was expecting better. When we get down to it the mechanics are about as balanced as your average 3.5 book, which is to say, favouring casters and thinking a handful of d6s of extra damage matters at high levels. It does fill some niches and some of the spells are interesting, but I didn’t find a huge lot to inspire me out of this beyond what’s above in Notable Features. I might be hard on this book given I have the advantage of 20 years of watching 3.5 and watching the system’s failings get picked apart repeatedly, but it’s not like this book was ever updated for strength or reviewed for power and balance past the 2005 days. Also limited is that while there are a few spells which can be used by Bards, Rangers, and friends, it’s pretty much entirely for Wizards or Sorcerers. I’d class this one about on par with a WOTC book, call it 2/4.

On concepts and fluff: Some of this stuff is interesting, it’s true. However, most of it is really more a collection of ideas and concepts than that it really does a lot that’s different with the D&D system. There isn’t a unified whole here; I thought a number of the concepts could have been fully fleshed out. The Mirror Master prestige class – which I haven’t mentioned above – was an interesting idea at least, in that the mage focuses on mirrors and picks up one or two unique spells, but if you thought you’d be getting something like the magic system in Stephen Donaldson’s two-book series Mordant’s Need (‘The Mirror of Her Dreams’ and ‘A Man Rides Through’), well, unfortunately the ideas aren’t developed that far. The strongest elements are in discrete magic items or in spells: the idea of magic poisons was appealing, and the Wandwrap is just great (although prohibitively expensive at 20,000 gp). Unfortunately, a fair proportion of the stuff in this book is stuff that WOTC books-of-the-line address indirectly or duplicate. Give it a 2/4 at this heading.

On presentation: It has Malhavoc Press’s house style, which is to say the layout is not eye-watering but it’s all in black and white. This was done specifically to save ink when printing. Call this a 1/2 as well.

Total: 5/10.

Next time: Book of Eldritch Might II, Malhavoc Press.

Fizban

2021-04-19, 05:30 PM

I keep coming back to to see the updates 'cause I like the idea of the thread, but I'm just going to keep being annoyed with the analysis until I say something. So a brief piece then I'll buzz off.

Arcana Form (Sor/Wiz 9 spell): 10 mins/level, make yourself into a being of pure magical energy. Incorporeal, immune critical hits, fly speed of 100. Use energy to cast spells, 5 hitpoints per spell level, no loss of prepared spells or spell slots. If you enter an antimagic field, you cease to exist … for the spell’s duration, which might be useful for some odd purposes.
No mention of how spending hit points to cast spells allows one of the most obvious and easiest infinite loops of "get a spell that heals more than it costs and you're done" ?

Wandwrap: (Magic Item): Wrap this cord around a wand, which has 50 charges, and any charges from the wand drain the wrap, not the wand. Ridiculously good if you can convince your DM to let this apply to a magic staff and you’re using Eilservs School. . . .
and the Wandwrap is just great (although prohibitively expensive at 20,000 gp)
Yes, the item that only works on wands is ridiculously good if you completely ignore that fact and allow it to work with staves. Shocking. And 20,000gp is prohibitively expensive, even though it's actually 1,000gp less than the standard minimum cost of a 4th level wand, or almost exactly the price it should be as long as one assumes nothing but minimum caster level wands, not that any such stipulation is in the item.

Etch Object Rune (feat): It’s basically a cheaper scroll. Rune Magic out of the FRCS runs rings around this.
So this is entry is rated dreadful because it happens to lie between the power levels of a standard foundational item, and something which "runs rings around it?" I suppose I am to take the meaning that standard scrolls, despite being a foundational item, are so bad that "basically a cheaper scroll" is still dreadful?

As much as I like the historical/contextual commentary, the mechanical evaluation constantly flip flops between nuanced and lol char-op, in every entry. It's dissonant. If you're evaluating based on char-op, why bother with the context? If you care about context, why do you evaluate things based on context-less char-op logic?

Saintheart

2021-04-19, 07:41 PM

As much as I like the historical/contextual commentary, the mechanical evaluation constantly flip flops between nuanced and lol char-op, in every entry. It's dissonant. If you're evaluating based on char-op, why bother with the context? If you care about context, why do you evaluate things based on context-less char-op logic?

First thing to say, and this goes for everyone: don't be shy about providing criticism or indeed even just a contrasting viewpoint. I already know how good I am, I have no idea how bad I am :smallbiggrin: More seriously, I do appreciate the feedback so I can tune the reviews a bit if there's a persistent problem with them, so - thanks, it's appreciated.

Next thing to say is that insofar as I have any sort of rough approach to these reviews, the 'Notable Features' I am trying to make as a sort of list of stuff that pops out at me like a particularly inviting eyeball to a passing crow. It may be intriguing on its own, it may be what I perceive as strong or interesting on a short read, but I'm not consciously following a particular methodology in mentioning particular items (if I am unconsciously doing so, well, that's a different story and I might need to edit a bit better). The 'Notable Features' section is more an attempt to draw people's attention to interesting things in the text even if the overall evaluation is that the book is poor. The 'Dreadful Features' is my very unsuccessful attempts at comedy. The mechanical and fluff evaluation section are a lot more rule of thumb and a holistic look.

It's a 'bit of everything' sort of approach and pretty casual. You may be right, I could be a bit inconsistent on evaluation of some features as opposed to others. If that's seen as a deficient approach, then I'll try to address it in future reviews. But my reviews by definition are limited by what I'm most experienced with and will no doubt be lacking on areas I'm not as experienced with. Some stuff will excite me, some stuff won't, whether because of my ignorance or just that's what floats my boat. If people have a different view, I am more than willing to hear it. I said right at the start of the thread that my reviews will be highly subjective and very general in approach. If people think a feature is more valuable than what I've put on it, and they think they make better use out of it, say so, or even better, use it! - because I'll still have achieved an aim of this book, which is to bring old stuff back to light.

No mention of how spending hit points to cast spells allows one of the most obvious and easiest infinite loops of "get a spell that heals more than it costs and you're done" ?

Fair point and well observed.

Yes, the item that only works on wands is ridiculously good if you completely ignore that fact and allow it to work with staves. Shocking. And 20,000gp is prohibitively expensive, even though it's actually 1,000gp less than the standard minimum cost of a 4th level wand, or almost exactly the price it should be as long as one assumes nothing but minimum caster level wands, not that any such stipulation is in the item.

That's probably my reflex at play; if it has five figures in the gp column I tend to feel my wallet scream. :D

So this is entry is rated dreadful because it happens to lie between the power levels of a standard foundational item, and something which "runs rings around it?" I suppose I am to take the meaning that standard scrolls, despite being a foundational item, are so bad that "basically a cheaper scroll" is still dreadful?

Etch Object Rune was probably a victim of my brevity and my bias because I've spent too much time looking at runes and the Runecaster, and I tend to think of FRCS options as likely more available at tables than they generally are. In terms of utility as compared with runes under FRCS's rune magic, I regard Etch Object Rune as inferior, but I'll certainly concede the point that in a more Core-y campaign, the option is still a pretty solid one.

Endarire

2021-04-23, 05:04 PM

Notable for arcana form (Book of Eldritch Might I) was that you could theoretically cast heal or mass heal while in it and outheal the spell damage.

Also, bolt of conjuration last I checked had NO SAVE and NO SR! Metamagic that baby and just win! Beware spell turning!

Saintheart

2021-04-25, 01:31 AM

Book of Eldritch Might II: Songs & Souls of Power, Malhavoc Press

https://images2.imgbox.com/c9/ca/3XPjPsWC_o.jpg
Summary
Continues the theme of the first volume, Book of Eldritch Might (BOEM from here on in), in that it’s a collection of new alternate classes, feats, prestige classes, spells (and things like spells), and magic items. Once again the idea is to expand the range of options available to arcane casters.

Date of Publication and Page Count
2004, 73 pages. Once again we’re looking at the updated 3.5 version of the book, not the original 3.0 version. It’s also Monte Cook’s work once more. As at date of review it was available on large RPG market websites.

Notable Features
Anavar’s Anticipated Attack (Sor/Wiz 1 spell): This is like the reverse of True Strike. I consider it on the line of being broken for balance. 1 round/level, the first time you’re attacked during the spell’s duration, that attack suffers a -20 luck penalty (spell expires right after). Doesn’t distinguish between melee, ranged, spell, you name it, just “the attack” suffers a -20 penalty. Standard action casting, so can be fired off if you’re in a surprise round. A wand of this would cost what, 750gp? Last you up to 30 fights? Eternal Wand of it for 820gp does it twice a day, buy a few of them and just pick up the next one between encounters? “It doesn’t lock out natural 20s!” No, but it does lock out critical hits in effect, since any critical confirmation roll by definition is made ‘with all your usual bonuses,’, i.e. at the -20 luck penalty. And anyway, natural 20s are why you’ve got concealment effects. :D It sure seems to makes an Elan approach to armour (https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0025.html) a lot more practical!
Harassing Weapon (Sor/Wiz 1 spell): Create a melee weapon of pure force, which hits for 1d8 damage, uses your BAB as its attack bonus … wait, are we getting an arcane Spiritual Weapon here? Well, no. This thing follows a foe you choose as long as it’s in range, and 1 round/level, occupies the same area as the foe, making attacks of opportunity whenever that particular foe provokes them. One presumes that this not only covers situations like retrieving items or such … but with a DM’s ruling possibly includes AoOs when the creature moves towards you and therefore moves out of a threatened square.
Prohibit Kind (Sor/Wiz 7 spell): Social Distancing, the spell. Within a 30 foot radius, pick a race or humanoid subtype, or a type for non-humanoids. That race is the only type that can take actions in the radius. Everything else is frozen within an energy field … but can’t be harmed or affected in any way. No saving throw, though spell resistance applies.
Thief of Spells (Brd 5, Sor/Wiz 4): Touch range, but you get to yank multiple spells off a target you touch and apply them to yourself, starting with the highest-level spell active on the target, up to your own (character?) level. This seems a natural choice for Smiting Spell or the Spellsword prestige class in particular.
Utter Thrall (Sor/Wiz 8): More powerful version of Dominate Person. As in, permanent, and the subject will even do self-destructive things, including giving their own lives for the controller even if not commanded to do so.
Vivid Discharge (Sor/Wiz 2): St. Elmo’s Fire, the spell. 1 minute/level until discharged, the next time you get hit in melee, the attacker takes 1d6 electricity damage per level, max 10d6.
Lace Spell: Spellripper (feat): Cast an offensive spell on a target, and in addition the highest-level spell on the opponent is hit with a Dispel Magic effect. Won’t auto-nope a summoned creature or a Wall of Fire or similar, but free Dispel Magic also targeting the enemy’s highest-level spell isn’t bad. Have to be a 17-level spellcaster, though, INT 17+, CHA 21+.
Lace Spell: Unravel (feat): More available and gorgeously versatile. A spell laced with this effect attempts to suppress, for this spell only, any spell effect on the target that directly interferes with the spell taking effect – e.g. it’ll try to knock out protection from fire when you hit the opponent with a Fireball. Works from spellcaster level 10+.
Knight of the Chord 1-8 (prestige class): It’s basically the only gish option for variant bards in the book, but for reasons set out in the Dreadful Features section below, you can and probably should qualify out of normal bard. Or better yet, qualify out of another arcane spellcasting class if you can pull Sculpt Sound onto your casting list via Extra Spell. Why on Earth would you do this, given this is a 5/10 casting class? Well, there’s a few reasons. Number one, it’s full BAB. Number two, it’s at least a d8 hit dice (and looks like it should’ve been d10 before editing changes.) Number three, no arcane spell failure chance if your Armor Check Penalty is no bigger than -5. Duskblade eat your heart out, that’s casting freely in masterwork full plate, and yes, the Knight of the Chord is proficient with all armours. Number four: as from third level, 1/day per class level, GET AN ADDITIONAL MOVE ACTION IN THE ROUND. Explicitly allows move up to your speed and then make a full attack. Explicitly allows you to move your speed, cast or attack, and then move again. And so on. Number five: sing to your weapon and give it up to four abilities, which basically amount to: Weapon Finesse even if it can’t be so used; Combat Reflexes even if you haven’t got it; cut offhand penalty by 2; 1/day per class level, daze a target for 1 round; Wraithstrike quality; Blind-Fight; +1-+2s to things like Total Defense, damage, disarm and sunder attempts. Number six: 1/day, 1 round per class level, add luck bonus to attack rolls and AC equal to CHA modifier, i.e. if you can get CHA mod to these in some other way this will stack with it. The last two levels give you an AoE vs. stun and some resistance to sonic attacks, but these levels could be skipped for the saving of a lost caster level.
Song Mage (prestige class): Once again, can qualify via normal bard or by pulling sculpt sound onto your class list. The prerequisites include “one feat with the word ‘song’ in the name”. Throughout 3.5 these are mostly bard feats. However, there is, as always, one exception: Dragonsong, from the Draconomicon, which doesn’t require any bardic music. This prestige class needs ranks in Perform (Sing) which might be a bit trickier. But once again, why would we do this? Well, leaving aside the casting is 10/10, there are a couple of other interesting tools it offers. First up, once per day +1 for every 3 class levels, a spell with verbal components gets a different effect depending on what school it comes from. The strongest of these are that Abjuration and Necromancy spells have doubled durations. Transmutation’s range doubles; Divination gives a 25% chance the spell won’t actually be used up when cast; enchantment and illusion have their spells DCs increased by 1. He also gets to create a shield spell once per day; at fourth level, he gets a 3rd level or less DIVINE spell to cast as a spell-like ability 1/day. Cast fly, various other minor effects, and at top level, cast summon monster IX or greater planar ally once per week.
Eldritch Warrior (prestige class): Its mechanics generally are very similar to the Warrior of Darkness out of Book of Vile Darkness (also authored by Monte Cook), so I’ll leave you to have a look at that. As with Warrior of Darkness, the prerequisites are mostly skill-based and very modest; two feats, Weapon Focus and Magical Talent, which is from BOEM 1 and gives you a +2 to Knowledge (Arcana) and Spellcraft. It advances no casting, but on the other hand doesn’t require any spellcasting ability to qualify. It varies from Warrior of Darkness in two key ways. First, that the Eldritch Warrior picks up the ability to store (once per day, 24 hour duration maximum, and only following a 1 hour ritual for each and at least 50 gp each time) a single 2nd level arcane spell, and a single 1st level arcane spell, in his weapon and armour. These can then be cast with no arcane spell failure chance using Eldritch Warrior class levels as the caster level. When they’re cast, the runes fade, and you start all over again. Secondly, at 8th level, the warrior can pick any spell which can be made permanent for a character (i.e. anything under the permanency spell) and tattoo it for themselves on their body, though this takes a week. In what is likely an oversight, and distinct by its omission, it doesn’t say that the character is limited down to one permanent tattoo. It also doesn’t speak of any XP costs, which the permanency spell would otherwise impose. By RAW, then, and so long as he’s got a lot of downtime, the Eldritch Warrior can sport pretty well all of the person-only permanent spells on himelf. This list is larger than the SRD would appear to suggest. (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?226682-Splat-It!-Permanency-Support-(Work-ALWAYS-in-Progress)) This benefit kicks in about character level 13 or so.
Grace (armor quality): For a +1 bonus, no max DEX bonus on your armor.
Greater Maneuvering (armor quality): For a +2 bonus, no armor check penalty on your armor.
Karmic (weapon quality): When you hit something, get a +2 to attack and damage for your next attack, which expires after that attack, but if you hit with that attack, the +2 to attack and damage continues! But if you miss, it’s a -1 to attack on the next attack in the same way. +1 bonus.
Knockback (weapon quality): +1 bonus. Small Bush Rush for ranged weapons only. Hit an opponent, make a STR check. Fail and you’re knocked back 5 feet.
Chain of Supernatural Might (wondrous item): +2 armor bonus to AC, +2 damage to unarmed or natural attacks, +2 to DC of all of the user’s supernatural abilities. 30,000 gp.
Helm of Alacrity (wondrous item): Add insight bonuses to AC in the head slot (4,000 gp for a +1 bonus and so on upward). Not bad if you’ve got nothing else to do with that part of the body.
Lens of Focus (wondrous item): 20,000 gp, cast a ray spell through it, get a +2 to the ranged touch attack roll. Spellwarp Snipers could certainly use this.
Lute of Charms (wondrous item): Player uses charm person AT WILL. DC of the effect depends on the person’s Perform Check result (max 19 for a check of 26 or more). 6,000 gp, this is pretty damn good for Bards.
Soul Magic Spells (new rules): Not really of any use to PCs, but it’s an interesting few pages spent on the idea of spells that demand they cast themselves. Basically, magic is in some cases sentient, and a spell if intelligent enough can force itself to be cast, causing ability damage to the caster. PCs can construct these things, but it’s largely without point – think of these mostly as more complicated spell traps.

Dreadful Features
Mindthorn (specific magic weapon): +2 rapier which, when you hit, inflicts 1 point of INT, WIS, or CHA (wielder’s choice) on the target. Um, okay, but that’s all it inflicts if I understand it rightly.
Variant Sorcerer: (variant base class): This one’s a regretful entry in the Dreadful Features section, for reasons I’ll get into. The longstanding rumour about Monte Cook is that he hated sorcerers under 3.0, and did all he could to nerf them as compared with Wizards. I’ve heard other stories that it was actually Skip Williams who disliked them and added the rule of metamagic taking longer for them. Whichever is the truth, the variant sorcerer is almost identical to the default SRD sorcerer, the ‘almost’ being pretty significant:
(1) Effectively: free Eschew Materials. Sorcerers explicitly do not require material components. However, for costly components the variant sorcerer also doesn’t have to have the component; instead, they can pay 1/25 of the gp cost of the component in XP. Spells that need a focus still require the focus. Yes, XP and gold is a river and all that, but one wonders which of these is the easier to obtain. It looks as though it’s still open to be able to provide the material component and not have it locked to XP.
(2) By RAW: a much smaller spell list than the default sorcerer, assuming splatbook access outside the PHB. Under Variant Sorcerer’s Spell List, we have: “The spell list has been rebalanced with the idea that the sorcerer can and will cast his spells over and over in a given day, rather than once or twice like a wizard.” The list of spells that then follows is basically the PHB Sorcerer spells from level 1-9 with some additions from BOEM Volume I and II. And when they talk rebalanced, this also goes to spell access and some spell levelst: Spider Climb becomes a level 1 rather than level 2 spell, Mount and Enlarge Person are omitted entirely … and that’s just at level 1. That is: it’s heavily implied if not outright RAW that the variant sorcerer can only pick from the spells in that list, not from any of WOTC’s sourcebooks. Even allowing copyright and the OGL likely preventing the authors from referring to splats outside the PHB, I found it surprising that there wasn’t an attempt to address this in the 3.5 update – remembering that dozens of WOTC books had been blowing off their presses up to 2004.
(3) EDIT: I only just realised this: the Variant Sorcerer gets more spells known than a default sorcerer does. It's about 1 more spell per level from about 6th level onward.
Oh, and it gets a d6 rather than a d4 hit dice.
The result is basically a sorcerer who has 90% PHB-only spells and Eschew Materials, in effect. This is not to say it’s unplayable, but you’d have to go in knowing those limitations. Especially given the spells in BOEM I and II are almost without exception Sorcerer/Wizard spells, which means the Wizard gets everything the Variant Sorcerer can cast and more.
Variant Bard (new base class): I don’t know if Monte Cook hated sorcerers, but this variant seems like potent evidence that he didn’t like bards. Or at least he really didn’t like the way most people optimised their bards, maybe. For a start, let’s drop all but one of the bard’s unique features. No Inspire Courage, no Inspire Greatness, no songs, bang, gone. Oh, we still get Bardic Knowledge, hurrah I guess. Second, let’s abolish the bard’s spell list, and give him back about 60-70% of his spells in a slightly different way. No Glibness, no Grease, no Glitterdust, no Summon Monster, no Alter Self, no Dispel Magic (okay, there is a Dispel Magic effect way up at the end. By the way, did I mention that silence effects are basically Antimagic Fields for this class?) See, variant bards don’t cast arcane spells anymore. They cast Spellnotes, Spellchords, and Spellmelodies, which are basically neutered versions of the Core bard spells and which are differentiated mainly by whether they take a swift action, standard action, or full round to cast. (You do get Inspire Courage back … as a spellnote. Meaning it’s a swift action to start, and a free action to maintain. However, unless I’m missing something, this will never get higher than +1 morale to attack and damage rolls for your allies. By RAW none of the common optimisation strategies for Inspire Courage will work because it’s no longer a class feature, and probably few to none of the common prestige classes like Sublime Chord either.)

Now, the bard does get some capacity to sort-of metamagic these notes, chords, and melodies, based around giving up slots; give up two spellnote slots and you can make a spellnote with 50% increase in duration and range, or +2 to DC, or 50% increase in damage. Similar applies to spellchords and spellmelodies the higher you go, but the same sacrifice can be made. Also, spellnote slots can be used up to grant additional spellchords per day, at a rate of 5 to one. And – apparently – multiple bards can contribute spellnotes (or spellnote slots, I presume) to create a spellchord they all know, though the mechanics for this are not in my view complete. So Leadership or cohort abuse now becomes a fuel tank of additional music for the day, or maybe for some of the unique feats of the book … but these only increase DC, duration, or range for the most part. And bard spell damage under this is mostly based around d4s. Some of the effects aren’t bad on the most powerful spellmelodies, but in particular the fact they can be turned into magic items explicitly under item creation feats means they’re likely more useful as items you go looking for than class abilities you necessarily want. At least he can still skillmonkey to some extent (and for some odd reason the Survival skill is added to his class list.) His combat capacity is also slightly altered: now he’s proficient with medium armor, and he suffers no arcane spell failure chance so long as the total armor check penalty he suffers is no higher than -3. This at least makes a breastplate possible depending on the material being worn, which is nice.

I really think this Variant Bard is about a tier down on the default bard’s effectiveness. Absent everything else, most notably that he’s not a spellcaster anymore, he simply doesn’t buff anywhere near as hard as he did, and that’s the primary strategy for the class in the current world.
Diplomancer (prestige class): Yes. He went there. Unfortunately, standard Diplomacy-ab/using builds probably outstrip this thing. 6/10 arcane spellcasting. Random +1s and +2s to stuff related to messing with minds: charm person 1/day as a spell-like ability, maximum +3 to the DC of enchantment spells, +1 to CHA, +2 to CHA-based checks that relate to being physically attractive, +2 saves vs. Evocation spells, +1 to caster level on any language-dependent spell the character casts (not clear whether this means all spells with verbal components), learn a personal secret of someone to whom the diplomancer is talking (which is heavily affected by DM fiat, in that the DM can just plain grant a +2 to Diplomacy, Intimidation, or Sense Motive checks. It’s not bad, but it’s not a patch on the sort of builds that can be pulled on a Google search out here.

Who it’s best for (Player/GM/both)
It’s a bit of a mixed bag, and so really a bit of something for everyone. GMs could probably best use it by introducing it bit-by-bit.

Comments, thoughts, and rating out of 10.
On mechanics: You can probably see from the features above that, again, it’s a mixed bag. The variant base classes whether by intention or in effect nerf the bard and sorcerer in terms of spell selection at least. I’d have less of a problem with this if anyone was saying the bard in particular was way overpowered and needed nerfing. I’d also have less of a problem if a variant wizard had been produced locking down the spell choices and even ripping out some PHB spells. I don’t know why that was and I guess we’ll never really know apart from the ghostly rumour that keeps floating around that Monte Cook loves wizards and hates all other spontaneous arcane spellcasters. The prestige classes are at least not terrible, too. Knight of the Chord is actually a half-decent choice for a bard who wants to go frontline, or at least has some intriguing possibilities for combining with something like a White Raven crusader. Eldritch Warrior is probably a bit better than a Warrior of Darkness assuming you can ab/use the permanent tattoos option; Warrior of Darkness is one of the not-terrible, non-martial-initiator prestige classes for martials out there, and unlike horrors such as Arcane Archer or Arcane Duelist, it doesn’t require you to waste feats on actual spellcasting levels. Song Mage is okay in that at least it doesn’t take any spellcaster levels off you and it has one or two interesting doodads added to the progression. In short – a not-bad group of options mechanically which is roughly on par with a WOTC book again. Thus, 2/4.

On concepts and fluff: Well, we can see where the bard options all went, they’re in this book. And I’m inclined to be a bit more lenient on this one than I was on BOEM 1, mainly because, ironically, the bard variant is actually interesting. Even if it does really cut down the bard’s available spells and therefore reduces its power, it does make the bard something more distinctive than just another arcane spellcaster. The idea of combining spellnotes, spellchords, and spellmelodies might not be much more than just giving up lower spell slots to power higher ones, but it did grab me intuitively. As said – it only really suffers from the competition of the builds that can be achieved in default WOTC books and the fact it locks out most of the options available to bards. I’d pay good money to someone who took this idea and expanded it to bring back the bard’s buffing capacity. I will also give Cook credit for the idea of spells that really, really want to cast themselves; the mechanics are not really useable by PCs as said, but they’re just really inventive ideas and yet another way to screwjob the PCs expand the wonder of their world. I also give them credit for the Knight of the Chord, at least they were prepared to try and build an actual bardsader in a prestige class. Call this one a 2.5/4.

On presentation: Standard Malhavoc Press format and layout which I’ve spoken about in other reviews, so a 1/2 here.

Total: 5.5/10.

Next time: Book of Eldritch Might III, Malhavoc Press.

Fizban

2021-04-25, 03:33 AM

Eldritch Warrior (prestige class): Its mechanics generally are very similar to the Warrior of Darkness out of Book of Vile Darkness (also authored by Monte Cook), so I’ll leave you to have a look at that.
I figured it was something like that.

Secondly, at 8th level, the warrior can pick any spell which can be made permanent for a character (i.e. anything under the permanency spell) and tattoo it for themselves on their body, though this takes a week. In what is likely an oversight, and distinct by its omission, it doesn’t say that the character is limited down to one permanent tattoo. It also doesn’t speak of any XP costs, which the permanency spell would otherwise impose. By RAW, then, and so long as he’s got a lot of downtime, the Eldritch Warrior can sport pretty well all of the person-only permanent spells on himelf. This list is larger than the SRD would appear to suggest. (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?226682-Splat-It!-Permanency-Support-(Work-ALWAYS-in-Progress)) This benefit kicks in about character level 13 or so.
Given how all the other abilities are one and done I think the intent is pretty clear, but indeed it does lack an explicit statement. Though most of the hugeness of that is going to come from a bunch of Savage Species and other spells that pretty obviously shouldn't have been added to the Permanency list, and had nothing to do with BoEM either (I really, really hate that part of Savage Species).

Grace (armor quality): For a +1 bonus, no max DEX bonus on your armor.
Which is fairly bonkers compared to 1st party giving +1 max dex for +1. There's even a thread on the front page now about what to do with massive dex bonuses and armor. Shifts the burden of AC expectation management from the armor system, to the DM.

Lute of Charms (wondrous item): Player uses charm person AT WILL. DC of the effect depends on the person’s Perform Check result (max 19 for a check of 26 or more). 6,000 gp, this is pretty damn good for Bards.
Notable as both an example of a "1st level spell at-will" item that still costs far more than 2,000gp- and yet also a massive basically free DC boost.

Variant Sorcerer: . . .
(2) By RAW: a much smaller spell list than the default sorcerer, . . . Spider Climb becomes a level 1 rather than level 2 spell, Mount and Enlarge Person are omitted entirely … and that’s just at level 1.
I've never got around to properly analyzing this list to figure out what, if any, guiding principles are *actually* involved. Never even read it in detail- last time I was thinking about it was right before I realized the best and easiest Sorcerer fix, after which there's no point.

(3) EDIT: I only just realised this: the Variant Sorcerer gets more spells known than a default sorcerer does. It's about 1 more spell per level from about 6th level onward.
The key feature here is not in the totals, but in the practical level-by-level use. Instead of getting only 1 spell of their new level when obtained, this spells known table grants 2. Which is huge. Like, PHB-only Sorc vs this, I'd probably take this with barely more than a glance, since it's almost certain that none of the truly expected spells have been removed and double the spells of your highest level is double the spells.

Variant Bard (new base class):. . . For a start, let’s drop all but one of the bard’s unique features. No Inspire Courage, no Inspire Greatness, no songs, bang, gone.
Great, I've kinda grown to hate those features :smalltongue:

Second, let’s abolish the bard’s spell list, and give him back about 60-70% of his spells in a slightly different way. No Glibness, no Grease, no Glitterdust, no Summon Monster, no Alter Self, no Dispel Magic (okay, there is a Dispel Magic effect way up at the end. By the way, did I mention that silence effects are basically Antimagic Fields for this class?)
Glibness was a 3.0 Specific potion that is only a Bard spell because they decided to abolish Specific potions (same for Heroism). And considering the cuts made to the Bard's list from 3.0 to 3.5, removing the rest of those spells is really more in line with what the Bard was becoming anyway. That those spells remained seems to have been arbitrary fickle fate.

They cast Spellnotes, Spellchords, and Spellmelodies, which are basically neutered versions of the Core bard spells
Which is basically the whole problem with the system: It's a really, really cool system, a much better compromise between the sort of "freeform" modifications and psionics-style augmentation that people want, and the demands of a game that is balanced around a set number of X slots of Y level. But it's tied to the Bard concept, which means it just has a list of everything they could think of that's "sound" related, and that's it, rather than actually taking a sweet concept and doing anything with it.

Frustrating.

I’d have less of a problem with this if anyone was saying the bard in particular was way overpowered and needed nerfing. . . I’d pay good money to someone who took this idea and expanded it to bring back the bard’s buffing capacity.
Overpowered, depends on the table, but I nope out of threads that rattle off a slew of Inspire Courage buffs just as fast as I do those relying on uberchargers or various magic cheese. Fundamentally broken? Yeah, the PHB has essentially zero optional buffs (either item replacement/overlap, expected survival, or expected Haste). So the underlying game has no real concept of "buffing", and the Bard's buffing creep is thus fundamentally broken (they also don't fill a primary role, so they're a force multiplier either added on top or precluding an expected function). Add to this the fact that I actually kinda do find uber-buffers offensive (they make you feel infantile, force everyone else to keep track of stuff they did not choose to use, and ruin the concept of characters who are supposed to be independent), and yeah, go ahead and nerf that Bard. Or rather and better, replace it with a similar class with a better custom-built spell list and casting focus (I'll get around to writing the list eventually, it's easy fun and I wanted to try some more difficult stuff first).

But I would pay good money to someone who took the "spellchord" system and built it up to "replace" full casters, as in fulfill the two main caster roles and have sufficient variety to spare.

Saintheart

2021-04-25, 05:01 AM

Which is basically the whole problem with the system: It's a really, really cool system, a much better compromise between the sort of "freeform" modifications and psionics-style augmentation that people want, and the demands of a game that is balanced around a set number of X slots of Y level. But it's tied to the Bard concept, which means it just has a list of everything they could think of that's "sound" related, and that's it, rather than actually taking a sweet concept and doing anything with it.

Frustrating.

Overpowered, depends on the table, but I nope out of threads that rattle off a slew of Inspire Courage buffs just as fast as I do those relying on uberchargers or various magic cheese. Fundamentally broken? Yeah, the PHB has essentially zero optional buffs (either item replacement/overlap, expected survival, or expected Haste). So the underlying game has no real concept of "buffing", and the Bard's buffing creep is thus fundamentally broken (they also don't fill a primary role, so they're a force multiplier either added on top or precluding an expected function). Add to this the fact that I actually kinda do find uber-buffers offensive (they make you feel infantile, force everyone else to keep track of stuff they did not choose to use, and ruin the concept of characters who are supposed to be independent), and yeah, go ahead and nerf that Bard. Or rather and better, replace it with a similar class with a better custom-built spell list and casting focus (I'll get around to writing the list eventually, it's easy fun and I wanted to try some more difficult stuff first).

I admit when I first glanced over the variant and saw the references to bards being able to combine their abilities I thought I was going to get into something where you could take multiple spellnotes you knew and turn them into something that was a mixture of both, like (without looking) a spellnote that could hit for 1d6 damage played together with a spellnote that would normally daze the target and get a spellchord that did (say) 1d4 damage sonic but also increased the DC for the daze by 1.5 or similar. You know, actually leaning into the idea that notes played together create chords, which have a different effect on the listener than one note played on its own. Really sad that the system didn't go anywhere near that, but likely that was probably very math-y and beyond the scope of what they meant to do...

Kalkra

2021-04-25, 08:28 AM

zlefin

2021-04-25, 11:04 AM

Off the top of my head, I can't think of a single 3rd-party sourcebook that gives Sorcerers nice things. Bards occasionally, but never Sorcerers. It's like all the conventional ways of making spellcasters better plays to a Wizard's strengths, and if you try to play to a Sorcerer's strengths, it's just not good.

really? that's surprising with just how much is out there.
What about the homebrews? There's so much homebrew on this forum there must surely be some that plays well for sorcerors. It seems like it wouldn't be hard to make some.

Miss Disaster

2021-04-30, 01:05 PM

really? that's surprising with just how much is out there.
What about the homebrews? There's so much homebrew on this forum there must surely be some that plays well for sorcerors. It seems like it wouldn't be hard to make some.

I have quite a few 3.5 3PP books still as well. Sorcerer-themed books are definitely in short supply. Mongoose did do a Quintessential Sorcerer book, but I never bought that one.

OTOH, there are a number of Pathfinder 1e 3PP books that are sorcerer-themed (as PF did pretty-up the class quite a bit).

Dr_Dinosaur

2021-05-01, 04:21 AM

OTOH, there are a number of Pathfinder 1e 3PP books that are sorcerer-themed (as PF did pretty-up the class quite a bit).

This is true! If I were going to run 3.5 again it would be seriously tempting to backport the PF Sorcerer and one of its Spheres of Power archetypes, to really give their "innate magic" flavor some backing. Still weaker than Wizards at higher levels, but who isn't?

Fizban

2021-05-01, 05:12 AM

I have quite a few 3.5 3PP books still as well. Sorcerer-themed books are definitely in short supply. Mongoose did do a Quintessential Sorcerer book, but I never bought that one.
It's. . . meh? Has a couple cool spells that are kindof reverse augmentable such that by learning the X level version you also get all the versions below that, which may be completely different spells roped in by a theme. Biggest thing is probably a True Name system where learning true names is mostly the DM making up a wacky fluff idea of where to go and what to do, and then knowing it lets you *actually do things*, but the things are still very limited 1/X time and the scale of quests they suggest for the more powerful things don't match what you actually get to do with them.

But most of it is the same sort of stuff you could find elsewhere. The author's notes at the end say that they didn't like sorcerers because they're just wizards with a thing for explosions, but the book doesn't actually change that. The most notable mechanics aren't really tied to being a sorcerer. Most of it is the same sort of stuff found in plenty of other books for arcanists, but leaning a bit more on a concept of "legacies" rather than fixating on wacky bloodline powers (except when they do).

It does beg the question of: just what do you need to actually do, to make a class feel like it's channeling the power of the universe through sheer force of will? 'Cause the wizard is already doing that, and these are the spellcasting mechanics we have. How do you actually make a Sorcerer Book, when the sorcerer is in fact just a spontaneous wizard? Really the only thing I can think of is getting rid of spells known, since that's what people actually want when they say those sorts of things: they want to respond to a situation by deciding or even making up a response on the spot, not having to refer to a set list of things they're allowed to do. Which is obviously broken in a game that expects you to, ya know, have to actually play the game and not have all the answers all the time. Giving the sorcerer more spells known than the wizard would be a start (which goes directly against what the game actually does with them), and just passes the question back to what the point of the wizard would be then.

The concept of metamagic and modifying spells is solid, and indeed 5e has metamagic existing only as a sorcerer main feature, but in 3.x it's just feats anyone can take. If you wrote a sourcebook from a stance of core only/ignoring inconvenient published content, and made options that allow spontaneous casters (and only them) to reduce metamagic costs and/or get access to a "advanced" metamagic that can do way more things and stuff like reversible or multi-function spells, all of which can be added up to a character that can do a ton of things at once, maybe that would do the trick. But if you're working alongside WotC content, all the best metamagic feats and PrCs and everything are already wizard, or even cleric, or just everyone. You can't make the sorcerer cool for being able to learn shaping to multiply their effective number of spells, when everyone is already allowed to take Sculpt Spell.

PoeticallyPsyco

2021-05-01, 02:42 PM

Hmm, I guess you could give them a bonus feat progression purely for [Metamagic] feats. A much better one than the wizard already has, I mean. Really lean into the idea of Wizard v. Sorcerer being a battle of more spells v. more versatile spells.

noob

2021-05-01, 05:44 PM

I quite liked spells and spellcraft: it mostly added a ton of weird mechanics and weird spells(such as a spell that animates pictures: it is nearly at the level of oddity of ad&d spells) and a bunch of alternate rules(However it had no balance whatsoever and most of the added mechanics were broken in three different ways)

Saintheart

2021-05-04, 08:07 AM

Book of Eldritch Might III: The Nexus, Malhavoc Press

https://images2.imgbox.com/3d/2a/wzmSx42A_o.jpg
Summary
The final part of the Book of Eldritch Might, this time the book centres is options for spells, feats, magic items and abilities around seven distinct locations, adventuring sites that are designed to be dropped into the campaign with their options. That said, it is not intended that the character options can only be used in these places, and the material can be extracted and used in a regular game. 111 spells, 45 feats, 97 magic items and abilities.

Date of Publication and Page Count
2004, 98 pages. It still appears to be available on large market RPG websites. Monte Cook once again was the sole author.

Notable Features
Intelligent Items (variant rules): This isn’t really about something that can be exploited, it’s more a miniature system for creating better-fleshed-out intelligent magic items as NPCs, right down to a half-decent selection of their own feats, spell-like abilities, and a character progression. This includes stuff such as granting characters enhancements to their own spell-like abilities, picking up certain weapon or armor enhancement bonuses, capacity to influence other characters, the whole shebang. If you’re irritated by the half-job that WOTC did with default intelligent items, this might well be for you.
Item From Beyond (Sor/Wiz 3 spell): More for the lolz than anything else, scry-and-die now become scry-and-email-death. Once you’re scrying on something, transfer an object from your location to the subject’s location. Item can’t be wholly magical (so no glowing bead of a delayed blast fireball, soz) but can be a magic item (e.g. a set of Blast Globes from the MIC, which do much the same thing anyway, or a magic trap).
Ki Channel (weapon quality): +1 bonus. On first glance looks like the ki channel quality from WOTC, i.e. channel your stunning attacks and ki strike ability through a weapon with this quality. However, it adds the words “and any other ability with the word ‘ki’ in the title”, which might be interesting for something else…
Battle Touch (feat): Only prerequisite is DEX 15. Cast a touch attack spell (not ranged touch) and use it on more than once for multiple attacks in a round, because the touch spell lasts a full round, not just the one touch. Can’t use it on more than one creature, but this is a pretty nice way of getting reroll chances on any touch attack spell you might want to hit a target with when it makes its save. Would be even stronger for gishes if your DM allows it to work with channelling classes like Duskblade.
Deflection to Attraction (feat): 1/character level 1/day. Takes a standard action to charge up, but your weapon (or unarmed attack) not only ignores the target’s deflection bonuses to AC but also adds that deflection bonus to your attack roll. So if the opponent is using Protection from X, Scintillating Scales, Shield, or similar, this in effect nerfs their AC by double the value of their deflection bonuses. Personally I’d have preferred to see this one as a swift-action spell or similar, although it could be ROFLworthy when combined with Pierce Magical Protection maybe.
Precise Touch (Metamagic feat): Your AoE Evocation spell now becomes a single-target, Instantaneous, and touch range spell. Which is okay I guess if you’re fighting in close quarters, or you’re a Duskblade who’s stuck with touch spells, but the eyebrow-raising bit is that a Precise Touch Spell “is as difficult to prepare and cast as a spell one level lower than itself, with a minimum of 1st level. You must be able to cast the spell normally, however.” Which seems to be trying to say that it’s a -1 to spell level to place in a spell slot, i.e. free metamagic reducer, not that there’s likely a lot of Evocation spells that you’d want to pile up with metamagic I’d have thought.
Fuse With Item (feat): Basically take a magic item and turn it into part of you, which doesn’t then need to be drawn or wielded to be used. Can’t fuse with magic weapons, armour, potions or scrolls, but anything else is available. Bonus types don’t change on fusion, so you can’t use this to just fuse with a bunch of Headbands of Intellect or similar. However, fused wands allow you to cast the spell in the wand as a spell-like ability 50 times, which can then be synergised with stuff like Quicken Spell-like Ability out of the MM IV. Takes a 10th level caster, though, so doesn’t help out the martials very much.
Detoim Nar (Guided Strike) (Sor/Wiz 2 spell): It’s for those with the Dragon Magic feat specifically (i.e. a gateway feat for spells which are normally dragon-only), but the spell basically duplicates True Strike but extends the duration out to 1 round/level or until used, i.e. you can hold off the attack until you choose rather than have to hit in the next round In theory at least Extend Spell applied to True Strike can exist, but it still wouldn’t match the duration of this one.
Ferrod Adul Vestorimin (Vestorimin’s Golden Aura) (Sor/Wiz 6 spell): Dragon Magic only again, but it’s an antimagic field that suppresses only magic with the evil descriptor. No saving throw, no spell resistance.
Margul (Dreaded Freeze) (Sor/Wiz 1 spell): Dragon Magic, but for 1 round, the target freezes helpless, as described in Hold Person. Main attraction here is the fact it’s a first level spell for a helpless condition.
Gauntlet of Arthanath (magic item): 5,500 gp and gives you the Dragon Magic feat in effect and allows you to speak Draconic. Better than using up a feat slot for the spells above.
Ilrosos Tobor (Roses of Life) (Sor/Wiz 4 spell): Dragon Magic again, but produce 1d8/caster level of healing roses that can be held onto for caster level x hours and applied as needed. Costs 300 gp, and therefore inferior to Healing Belts, but in a pinch…
Alikaba’s Theft (Sor/Wiz 3 spell): Whatever someone else has in their hands is now yours. Includes a creature grappled by another creature. Doesn’t include a ring they’re wearing. Sure makes the disarm action even less useful to melee than it was.
Alikaba’s Gift (Sor/Wiz 3 spell): Whatever you hold in your hands is immediately transferred into the hands of a creature you designate. The commentary in the text suggests a delayed blast fireball as the item you transfer into the enemy’s hands.
Gird the Warrior (Sor/Wiz 4 spell): Grant someone a +10 AC and a +4 enhancement attack and damage bonus to their melee weapons.
Plunge Deep To The Core (Sor/Wiz 2 spell): Hour/level, ignore DR of a specific type (magic, good, etc) chose at the time of casting. So just cast multiple iterations to cover different kinds. Fantastic choice for archers if they can get it. Also, touch range, so arguably persistable.
Armor Piercing (weapon quality): Only on ranged weapons, and expensive at a +3 bonus, but ignore armor and enhancement bonuses to AC provided by the armor.
Mage Tuned (weapon quality): +1 bonus, if the weapon is in the hands of a wizard or sorcerer, the character gets a +4 luck bonus to attack rolls with the weapon. Even more reason to multiclass or argue to your DM that Magical Training makes you one. This is absurdly good at the price.
Change Weapon (Sor/Wiz 1 spell): Alter one weapon into another weapon of your choice with the same quality and magical abilities. Specifically can increase a weapon’s size by up to 3 categories, e.g. dagger to dire flail. Whilst the RAI is pretty clear, by RAW they didn’t think about what happens when qualities that can’t go on certain weapons are transformed into others. And it’s certainly a hell of a way to cheaply get a damage dice increase, the level of the spell is probably the most attractive thing about it for folks who want to dip Wizard and then beefy-bruiser the rest of their career using wands of this.
Skid Boots (magic item): If you’re only moving in a straight line, add 10 feet to your movement by sliding part of the way. -2 circumstance penalty to Balance checks … but for 800 gp this isn’t bad if you can’t get other similar increases to movement speed.
Devlin’s Ring (magic item): Never track your mundane arrow ammunition again. It’s not Hank’s Energy Bow, but it nocks an arrow ready to fire if you pull back an empty bow of any kind.
Betray the Years (Adp, Brd 1, Clr 1, Drd 1, Sor/Wiz 1 spell): One object becomes immune to the effects of time … albeit it has to be a non-magical object no bigger than 10 lbs. per level. Are people objects? So long as you keep your figure, at 20th level you might become immune to the passage of time maybe. Permanent spell. And, just as with Unguent of Timelessness, the question immediately becomes what happens to a spell cast on the object at the time this spell is cast. Or what happens when Time Stop is thrown at a character with this spell on them.
Power Craft (Sor/Wiz 2 spell): Create the automobile and the motorboat a thousand years ahead of time. A source of locomotion is provided for a cart, wagon, boat, or ship. 10 minutes/level.
Champion Detecting (weapon quality): +0.5 bonus. Identify the highest CR foe within 60 feet and within sight. No, literally, that’s what it does.
Roguefriend (weapon quality): +0.5 bonus, and the wielder can make sneak attacks as a rogue. Or get his sneak attack damage increased by +1d6.

Dreadful Features
Paraden, Blade of the Nexus (artefact): +5 keen greatsword can cut holes in the fabric of reality, i.e. free use of the spells Window to Elsewhere and Doorway to Elsewhere, which basically allow one-way Gates to other locations, i.e.e. eat your heart out portals from Forgotten Realms. This is clearly not the sort of item you can ever allow to fall into the hands of, shall we say, less mature, or “funny” players.
Armor Shattering (weapon quality): At the low price of a +4 bonus, if you hit someone with this, they make a Fort DC 19 save or their armour is destroyed. Yes, magic armor too. Because we’re all about better ways to destroy your loot!
Subliminal Spellcasting (feat): Still Spell and Silent Spell in a can basically, but the fact you’re casting can still be detected and the spell takes 10 times the normal casting time.

Who it’s best for (Player/GM/both)
Likely more for players, really. GMs can get something out of the locations, but it’s basically another book of character options at the end of the day.

Comments, thoughts, and rating out of 10.
On mechanics: Well, as you’d see, mixed bag again. There’s a wider variety of stuff available, and at least we get into a slightly more diverse field of options than just another set of feats and spells. Some of it is at least a bit interesting and some of it is reasonably strong. I’d give this about a 1.5/4.

On concepts and fluff: This time the book is set around seven rough locations, mini-settings if you will, that have particular themes. None of them are fully fleshed out, but they’re at least interesting, ranging from a classic city in the clouds to a fey kingdom to an endless battlefield to the Nexus, which is basically a hub for transport between worlds and scrying on said worlds. There’s a fair number of adventure seeds placed in each, but none of them are particularly new or inventive as such. Maybe because the creatures and items had to fit into core games, it’s all reasonably generic and not really that inspiring. On the other hand, the section on more fully fleshing out intelligent items I thought was pretty well done. Call it a 1.5/4 on this one.

On presentation: Standard Malhavoc Press house style, so a 1/2 on this one.

Total: 4/10.

Next time: The Little People, a d20 Guide to Fairies, Avalanche Press

Kalkra

2021-05-04, 10:18 AM

I interpreted Precise Touch as actually letting you cast the spell at a lower level, with the restriction being that you can't get early access to spells. Unclear, though.

Also, interestingly in Dragon #308 Monte Cook wrote an article with Dragon Magic, which had some unclear wording and two good spells, Fly Like an Arrow and Shield Companion. I'm guessing he didn't reprint those spells in BoEM, so there was probably some sort of licensing issue or something. Still, WoTC reprints stuff from Dragon Mag, so go figure.
The article said something about any creature with the dragon type getting the Dragon Magic feat for free, which in theory means you can just cast Essence of the Dragon, or alternately your Dragonwrought Kobolds get a free feat to retrain into something more useful. I'd be interested to see if BoEM has that same wording, or just lets dragons cast the spells without needing the feat.

Also, Change Weapon seems like a better alternative to Morphing for shuriken cheese.

On an unrelated note, I recently discovered that Distant Horizons has some free stuff which you might want to review, because it's pretty good, and more importantly, free. Eclipse changes so much that it's basically a different game though, so you may not want to do that one. Cool concept, though.

Saintheart

2021-05-04, 10:34 AM

Also, interestingly in Dragon #308 Monte Cook wrote an article with Dragon Magic, which had some unclear wording and two good spells, Fly Like an Arrow and Shield Companion. I'm guessing he didn't reprint those spells in BoEM, so there was probably some sort of licensing issue or something. Still, WoTC reprints stuff from Dragon Mag, so go figure.
The article said something about any creature with the dragon type getting the Dragon Magic feat for free, which in theory means you can just cast Essence of the Dragon, or alternately your Dragonwrought Kobolds get a free feat to retrain into something more useful. I'd be interested to see if BoEM has that same wording, or just lets dragons cast the spells without needing the feat.

I'll have a look at Dragon magazine and see what it has to say. For what it's worth, BoEM has slightly different wording: "Dragons gain this feat for free," not creatures of the dragon type.

Kalkra

2021-05-04, 10:44 AM

I'll have a look at Dragon magazine and see what it has to say. For what it's worth, BoEM has slightly different wording: "Dragons gain this feat for free," not creatures of the dragon type.

How are you interpreting "dragons", if not by type?

Saintheart

2021-05-04, 08:28 PM

How are you interpreting "dragons", if not by type?

...by MM entry? :smallbiggrin:

Seriously, I get it, but I was just noting the difference for the sake of the hairsplitters out there.

Fizban

2021-05-05, 02:33 AM

Book of Eldritch Might III: The Nexus, Malhavoc Press
I like some of the fluff in the Nexus stuff, and a lot of the little "filler" spells for things WotC never bothered to do, but it seems that even a 3rd party single author series must succumb to destabilization and power creep.

Item From Beyond (Sor/Wiz 3 spell): More for the lolz than anything else, scry-and-die now become scry-and-email-death. Once you’re scrying on something, transfer an object from your location to the subject’s location. Item can’t be wholly magical (so no glowing bead of a delayed blast fireball, soz) but can be a magic item (e.g. a set of Blast Globes from the MIC, which do much the same thing anyway, or a magic trap).
The level is the most ridiculous part here.

Battle Touch (feat): Only prerequisite is DEX 15. Cast a touch attack spell (not ranged touch) and use it on more than once for multiple attacks in a round, because the touch spell lasts a full round, not just the one touch. Can’t use it on more than one creature, but this is a pretty nice way of getting reroll chances on any touch attack spell you might want to hit a target with when it makes its save. Would be even stronger for gishes if your DM allows it to work with channelling classes like Duskblade.
This feat just seems borked- it says "try to touch more than one target," and then it says "cannot target more than one." It brings up both Chill Touch and Shocking Grasp, which work in drastically different ways. I find this unusable as written, there's no way to tell what it's actually supposed to do.

Precise Touch (Metamagic feat): Your AoE Evocation spell now becomes a single-target, Instantaneous, and touch range spell. Which is okay I guess if you’re fighting in close quarters, or you’re a Duskblade who’s stuck with touch spells, but the eyebrow-raising bit is that a Precise Touch Spell “is as difficult to prepare and cast as a spell one level lower than itself, with a minimum of 1st level. You must be able to cast the spell normally, however.” Which seems to be trying to say that it’s a -1 to spell level to place in a spell slot, i.e. free metamagic reducer, not that there’s likely a lot of Evocation spells that you’d want to pile up with metamagic I’d have thought.
Since it doesn't multiply per feat, it's actually far less broken than other metamagic reducers. And since it specifically has to reduce area spells and down to instantaneous, it ends up creating gap-filler spells for core-ish lists, or when compared to increased no-save damage of later spells, means you're actually getting a worse spell.

Still, since there are few touch spells to begin with, friendly fire is always a potential problem, and spells known are a thing, I could easily see someone making heavy use of this. Particularly a spontaneous caster if they didn't have to deal with metmagic slowdown.

Fuse With Item (feat): Basically take a magic item and turn it into part of you, which doesn’t then need to be drawn or wielded to be used. Can’t fuse with magic weapons, armour, potions or scrolls, but anything else is available. Bonus types don’t change on fusion, so you can’t use this to just fuse with a bunch of Headbands of Intellect or similar. However, fused wands allow you to cast the spell in the wand as a spell-like ability 50 times, which can then be synergised with stuff like Quicken Spell-like Ability out of the MM IV. Takes a 10th level caster, though, so doesn’t help out the martials very much.
Also takes Cha 19. This feat is just, what even? Makes your items un-stealable, but costs a ludicrous amount of xp (and multiple failable checks!). This smacks to me of excuses to let NPCs break the rules, though a PC could use it to remove the item slot requirement for a cheaper item and carrying around minor wands.

Gauntlet of Arthanath (magic item): 5,500 gp and gives you the Dragon Magic feat in effect and allows you to speak Draconic. Better than using up a feat slot for the spells above.
Ah yes. Make a whole point of a set of spells that are deliberately more powerful than normal so they require a special feat, then sell that feat for less than the price of a +2 sword.

Ilrosos Tobor (Roses of Life) (Sor/Wiz 4 spell): Dragon Magic again, but produce 1d8/caster level of healing roses that can be held onto for caster level x hours and applied as needed. Costs 300 gp, and therefore inferior to Healing Belts, but in a pinch…
Considering that Healing Belts are deliberately underpriced to make them superior to everything, I feel it is disingenuous to compare anything to them. But yes, arcane healing spells that cost gp is a long tradition full of just bad spells. If you're going to charge the cost of a healing potion, the spell should make a healing potion- that doesn't expire. But the ridiculous cost of higher level healing potions means that any spell for an arcanist that heals more than a few hit points is given huge costs and penalties. Except when they're not.

Alikaba’s Theft (Sor/Wiz 3 spell): Whatever someone else has in their hands is now yours. Includes a creature grappled by another creature. Doesn’t include a ring they’re wearing. Sure makes the disarm action even less useful to melee than it was.
Alikaba’s Gift (Sor/Wiz 3 spell): Whatever you hold in your hands is immediately transferred into the hands of a creature you designate. The commentary in the text suggests a delayed blast fireball as the item you transfer into the enemy’s hands.
I find the various levels given to spells for forcing people to drop, hand over, or just bampf to you something they're holding, fascinating. The Gift version not only puts an item (or creature) in their hands, but also forces them to drop what they're holding if they were using both hands, and the item is moved even if they make the save. That's like two spells at once.

Plunge Deep To The Core (Sor/Wiz 2 spell): Hour/level, ignore DR of a specific type (magic, good, etc) chose at the time of casting. So just cast multiple iterations to cover different kinds. Fantastic choice for archers if they can get it. Also, touch range, so arguably persistable.
A pretty flagrant violation: an arcane spell for helping with DR could be reasonable, but the core spell for DR is Align Weapon. Which is 2nd level, only deals with alignment DR, and lasts 1 min/level.

Gird the Warrior (Sor/Wiz 4 spell): Grant someone a +10 AC and a +4 enhancement attack and damage bonus to their melee weapons.
Love the idea, hate the execution. Hey, how about more than double Mage Armor's Bonus and also cl 12/16 GMW for a single 4th level spell that doesn't even need to target the weapon? This is one of those paradigm shifting buffs if it's actually used.

Mage Tuned (weapon quality): +1 bonus, if the weapon is in the hands of a wizard or sorcerer, the character gets a +4 luck bonus to attack rolls with the weapon. Even more reason to multiclass or argue to your DM that Magical Training makes you one. This is absurdly good at the price.
Seriously, how does one even think this is a good idea?

Devlin’s Ring (magic item): Never track your mundane arrow ammunition again. It’s not Hank’s Energy Bow, but it nocks an arrow ready to fire if you pull back an empty bow of any kind.
This is another fascinating one. WotC material eventually puts out spells to let casters get away with lacking nearly all the things they're supposed to have (components, divine foci, instruments), and there's a summon weapon spell, but no summon ammunition that I've ever heard of. To the point that it seems a very intentional point being made that ammo is never free and infinite. But compared to the stuff they print all the time, a cantrip that conjures a few arrow and an item that does so automatically forever, would seem so innofensive as to not even warrant comment. So, why not?

I wouldn't list it normally, but if a player asked for something like this, I'd have little reason to refuse.

Power Craft (Sor/Wiz 2 spell): Create the automobile and the motorboat a thousand years ahead of time. A source of locomotion is provided for a cart, wagon, boat, or ship. 10 minutes/level.
This spell is hilarious- can you see the joke?

What everyone wants, is basically a tank. A mobile fortress. Or at least, a self-driving car. A vehicle that they climb aboard and will take them where they want to go without them actually having to drive (preferably while asleep even), an extension of the desire for pets, minions, AIs, etc. Things that serve you in times of distress and/or when you're at rest.

This spell, like every single other spell I've found that provides a wind that can push a boat, fails. It only lasts 10 min/level. It doesn't take you to your destination unless your destination is somewhere in the same town. The spell duration ensures that unless the DM allows a continuous item, nothing actually changes, and learning the spell doesn't actually do the thing you want. You need Mord's Carraige or Caravel to actually do the thing.

Champion Detecting (weapon quality): +0.5 bonus. Identify the highest CR foe within 60 feet and within sight. No, literally, that’s what it does.
No-save CR detection is on my Significant list, yup.

Roguefriend (weapon quality): +0.5 bonus, and the wielder can make sneak attacks as a rogue. Or get his sneak attack damage increased by +1d6.
The evolution of sneak attack weapons is also amusing, with earlier books seeming to make it clear that there should be no such thing, then making it a thing, then making it a thing with extra benefits. This book giving it out as a half-bonus is just funny.

Some more CBoEM spells I find interesting (several of these are probably from the earlier two, but yeah):

Fey Storage: Hammerspace, the spell. The 1st level unlimited use spell. A spell I kindof want to exist, but also don't because storage is supposed to be important, and this is one of those spells justified by a magic item which was justified by spells etc. I've written an altered version, but it's not in my main brew doc.

Hunter Serpent: This spell only exists as a way to dramatically tell the enemy where you're waiting for them, but it's kindof awesome at that.

Jisgus Sepa (Disguise Soul): A no-cost year/level spell that makes basically anything not directly cast on you target someone else. Has ramifications on world-building similar to or greater than Mind Blank.

Kin Curse: A 5th level combat-capable spell that forces the target to immediately go murder a relative, some BoED stuff there. Deserves an Evil tag.

Mark of X: A series of spells much like the Heart of X in Complete Mage, passive buffs with discharge effects that end the spell.

Minor Ward: An actual low-level, cantrip even, magical trap. I like stuff like this, since it shouldn't require a 3rd+ level caster possibly with a specific crafting feat, to do a lot of things casters are known for. Placing a little trap on something shouldn't be that hard.

Missive Token: A 3rd level spell that actually lets you have a spy network all over that can notify you of things happening immediately- something people might ascribe to spooky spellcasters, but they can't actually do. Except now they can. Costs 25gp per cast, and would be viewed as a better stored Sending if there weren't other 3rd level communication spells that also blow Sending out of the water.

Object Loresight: Notably this sort of thing can be found in the psionic Object Reading power, and either version's mere existence is a DM headache waiting to happen. I don't see how this keeps getting printed as a low level effect when it gathers information unstoppably, often including esoteric stuff you'd never be able to find out otherwise, and requiring the DM to track a ridiculous amount of information. Secondary mention to Recent Occupant.

Private Conversation: Maybe it's only common in Wheel of Time, but this is one of those things that seems like it should be everywhere as well. A 1st level spell that stops eavesdropping, without being a Bard and using the giant hammer of Sculpt Sound.

Prorogate Death: Hey, it's Delay Death more or less. But at a 6th level arcane spell for some reason?

Slay Illusion: The coolest way to death with illusions, you send your own illusion to tear them apart, even if you don't know they're there (5th).

Spelltrap: So, this 4th level spell lets you make yourself, or someone else, or a place, immune to as many spells as you want of any level, up to the number of 100gp gems and amount of pre-casting you do. I suppose you could say it has a drawback in leaving an explosion waiting to happen? But it's a 4th level spell that just flat out negates any spell of any level, and sticks around indefinitely until triggered. That's ridiculous.

Undaunted Fixture: For the people that think every situation can be solved with Sovereign Glue, it's a sticking spell! Permanent, with DC 30 Str to tear apart. I kicked it up to 3rd and rewrote it so it's very clear that any amount of movement foils the bonding, 'cause as written you will have people trying to stick stuff to enemies during combat.

I think there's probably some more notable items too:

Starsword: Uh, this is just the Nightblade of Arvandor, isn't it? Except way cheaper, and not being touch attacks or having to do with good/evil.

Tentacle Blade: A greatsword with +5' reach for +2,000gp? Seems pretty huge, and ridiculously underpriced.

K'Teron Witchblade: And an even more underpriced no-HD-limit Daze Monster on every hit.

Potion of Evasion: Good 'ol Specific potions, yeah this is one certain people would jump over themselves for.

Message Rods: Notable as another source of cheap long-range "Sending" items to compare Sending Stones to. Made using Whispering Wind, even though they don't actually work that way, which was fine back in the day.

Rod of Fears: Would appear to be a 5,000gp way to give people Shaken with no save at-will, since they didn't mention a save. At-will permanent curses at that cost, not if you ask me.

Scabbard of Venoms: Seems superior to most, possibly all similar WotC items. 5,000gp for 10 doses per day with a good 16 DC, the d4s aren't that much lower than the usual d6s.

Paraden, Blade of the Nexus (artefact): +5 keen greatsword can cut holes in the fabric of reality, i.e. free use of the spells Window to Elsewhere and Doorway to Elsewhere, which basically allow one-way Gates to other locations, i.e.e. eat your heart out portals from Forgotten Realms. This is clearly not the sort of item you can ever allow to fall into the hands of, shall we say, less mature, or “funny” players.
Considering how some literature seems to think portals and remove viewing are things high level casters just spam everywhere with no effort, theses Permanent Window and Door spells could be considered more in line with the given settings- even Teleportation Circle+Permanency or Create Crossroads/Backroads don't come close. Even the cheapest limited function portals take at least a week or two to set up. And It's not like there aren't WotC things that could be abused with juvenile humor either. An artifact that gives two high level spells at-will, which are themselves Permanent, is obviously either world-shattering or mild convenience the DM expected you to have. The Portal Key from ELH basically does the same thing, though it has a creation limit of 60 permanent portals for its 378,000gp cost.

Saintheart

2021-05-07, 06:37 AM

The Little People: A d20 Guide to Celtic Fairies, Avalanche Press
https://images2.imgbox.com/78/53/b8GfG6OD_o.jpg
Summary
While this book was written as part of Avalanche Press’s ‘Celtic Age’ setting/sourcebooks, it functions on its own as a sourcebook. It’s designed, for want of a better word, to make more authentic fairy characters and NPCs. It basically takes the historical view of fairies in the cultures that believed in them – and indeed how different cultures viewed them – and provides a means for incorporating them more fully into D&D 3.0 games. As the blurb for the book says, “Not a book that simply rehashes old tropes or someone's "bold, new vision for an old legend," The Little People presents fairies as they were seen by the people who believed in them.” Includes new templates and statistics of more well-known fairies, feats, magic items, and other notes about including these in your campaign.

Date of Publication and Page Count
September 2002, 84 pages. So it’s certainly 3.0 and never got an update. The publisher is intriguing in that Avalanche Press seems to be primarily a maker of tabletop wargames rather than a RPG creator. It still exists, with a venerable age-category website that must date back to the early 90s or so but which still seems to be in production. From a sampling of the articles on the site, it looks like Avalanche decided around the time of third edition to get into the splatbook business along with every other man and his dog, and as a result produced a number of books which were – apparently – well-received in terms of awards.

Unlike a lot of publishers, though, they look to have decided that they just wouldn’t make new print runs if one of their games or books sold out, and they don’t appear to have ever gotten into the e-book business. (They actually have a page on their website -- hilariously the page is called Valhalla (http://www.avalanchepress.com/valhalla.php) – where they list their books and games that are now out of print. Some of the descriptions for these products are charmingly frank, such as the one for Noble Steeds: “ At a time when d20 books on stupid topics were appearing almost daily, we had truly filled a useful niche and failed to market the book very well.”) As at the date of this review, the book doesn’t seem to be available on large market RPG websites, likely because it’s a print-only edition. However, it does still seem to be on Avalanche Press’s catalogue.

The author was a John Phythyon. He’s still active as a fiction author, but seems to have left RPG design back in the early 2000s or so (albeit having won a couple of Origins Awards back in the day, and apparently a number of Avalanche’s books were finalists in those awards around that time.) He wrote a number of Avalanche’s d20 books by the look of it.

Notable Features
Before you start picking through here, go down to the mechanics section first. Go on.
Polymorph Self (Sp): You didn’t go there, did you. Sigh. Fine: this is 3.0 Polymorph, only hideously better because it’s at will. This is an ability that all fairies have across the board. Arguably it doesn’t have to observe the restrictions on creatures that even 3.0 Polymorph imposes. But it’s difficult to tell exactly what features of Polymorph were in or out since this was published after 3.0 Polymorph was adjusted in Tome and Blood. Even if you read this as 3.5 Polymorph it’s still pretty damn powerful.
Enlarge, Extend, Quicken Fairy Power(feats): essentially as the metamagic, but applied to fairy powers.
Trip (feat): Fairies can trip a character regardless of size. No AoO. Defender has to make a DEX check at DC of 15+fairy’s DEX bonus. Target doesn’t get bonuses for size. Defender doesn’t get to make a retributive attack if the trip fails.
Cobweb (magic item): Net weapon, basically. Get caught, Fort DC 20, or be paralysed. Even if you save, take 1d3 STR damage every round you struggle. (You’re still caught, i.e. you’re still considered pinned. Escaping takes a STR DC 20 check. That is, the longer you’re stuck, the less likely you’re going to escape, which is just cool.) 30,000 gp though!
Oak (plant!): A twig of oak offers protection from magic; +2 circumstance bonus to saves against spells. Not too damn bad! And two such twigs bound with red cord in the home function as though a Protection from Evil spell had been cast by a druid.
Hawthorn (plant!): A branch protects a house from storms, and it functions as Protection From Evil on a whole house.
Ash (plant!): 10% less to craft a wand from ash wood. In addition, a wand of healing crafted from ash wood heals 1 extra point of damage per dice rolled on the healing spell in the wand. So an instant +1 to +3 or more on your cures, which is at least thematic and better than nothing.
Fairy Protection: A person ringing a bell or sounding a clapper can attempt to Turn a fairy as turning undead.

Dreadful Features
Glamour (Spell-like ability): I’m being a bit childish here. The glamour is basically 99%-functional invisibility for faeries all the time. It’s given without exception to all fairy characters. Unfortunately, by RAW it only works on humans. That said I expect this oversight was because the setting contemplated is Celtic Europe, i.e. where the only playable race is really humans.

Who it’s best for (Player/GM/both)
Really this is much more for DMs.

Comments, thoughts, and rating out of 10.
On mechanics: Let’s be clear, fairies are rendered pretty powerful compared with garden-variety (heh heh) D&D fey. I don’t know how else you class a race with at-will Polymorph by RAW as one of their standard abilities, and then optional add-ons such as imposing “any condition that comes with a lifetime guarantee that will cause the human to suffer”, granting Wishes (“only one to a given mortal”), or a more potent verson of Dominate Person with DC 20+fairy’s WIS modifier saving throws. Or some of whose racial variants (i.e. Sidhe) allow you to start off with a free STR +2, DEX, CON, INT, WIS +4, and CHA +6. So when I started reading those entries I did feel my eyes start to roll towards my forehead at a proportional speed to my palm heading in the same direction.
But.
Then I caught this: “Whatever you decide, proceed with a certain amount of caution. The fairies designed here are all powerful in their own respects. They may not be dragons and they might not have a lot of Hit Points, but they do have some powerful abilities. Fairy Powers operate on an at-will basis, and most fairies have at least three. This is in addition to Fairy Sight, Glamour, and Polymorph Self, which are innate to most of the Little People presented here. An enterprising player can think of all sorts of practical means to use Polymorph Self to his or her advantage. In short, do not underestimate the power of a fairy just because it is a Tiny or Diminutive creature. Adding Class Levels to it will make it a formidable character indeed.”

That is, and unlike a lot of third party publishers, the author knew full well that he was arming his creations with nukes. This was at least consistent with the vision he had for fairies, describing them from the start as well and truly more powerful than mortals, but not as powerful as gods. Yes, that’s still a pretty wide range of creatures, but you get the idea. A DM who proceeds to let the players actually pick up fairy characters can’t say they haven’t been warned, albeit maybe the warning could have been written in neon for inexperienced DMs.

Fairies, in short, are given access to a reasonably potent stack of abilities because the idea is to make characters (if not just humans) be damn wary when they go interacting with one. Most fairies in Earth cultures are seen as mischievous at best, a few (the Unseelie, Gwyllion) are outright evil, but all of them are seen as beings of considerable power who can abduct, kill, or otherwise massively affect lives. So they need a set of mechanical abilities that reflect that … which these do. It’s actually a solid marriage of mechanics to concept in this case. It’s just not a set of mechanics you would lightly grant to a PC. (And there, too, it’s debatable whether PCs would necessarily take them anyway. The ECL of fairies is specified as somewhere between the +6 and +8 on normal characters.)

Also notable is that the templates for fairies vary depending on the creature’s actual size. That in turn derives from the general observation from history that the bigger a fairy was in sheer size, the less likely they were benevolent or had good temperaments. I couldn’t help a smile crossing my face when I read this. Tiny Fairies’ attack is a pinch. Awwwww!

So is it balanced? Not in the sense that you can easily use fairies as PCs generally. But it does strike me as balanced for the purposes the sourcebook puts on them, which is fairies as quirky, potentially hideously dangerous NPCs who are a bit different to the standard lump of hitpoints you run into. The CR ratings for these creatures – up to 3 – are hideously off by reason of the Polymorph alone, but otherwise they’re basically okay. Call this 1.5/4.

On concepts and fluff: This is one of those books where the author came at it hard trying to squeeze historical realism into 3.0’s occasionally wonky ideas about how reality functions. At least the author certainly showed his research. He wasn’t content to just try and stat out some classic, stereotypical fairy, he classified and took account of English, Gallic, Irish, Scottish, and Welsh fairies. Everything from brownies, trooping fairies, goblins, hobgoblins (not the MM ones, I hasten to add. The word comes from two words put together: “hob” for hearth, “goblin” for spirit. As in, house spirits), korrigan, lutin, gentry, sidhe, seelie, unseelie, ellyllon, gwyllion, Tylwyth Teg. And you can see the author was determined to try and corral choices such that different templates for different fairies had different feels and abilities. For that alone, this sourcebook is to be applauded. There is an awful lot of generics to standard 3.5 edition, an awful load of mince produced from rich and delicious steaks. Even if you’re not going to use this sourcebook as part of a D&D game run in Celtic Europe, the historical, mythical fairies are actually a lot more distinctive than the sometimes-dreadful stand-ins WOTC’s come up with over the years for them (the Feywild, I’m looking at you). This book stands a good chance of influencing how you run your faerie characters at least, or at least it’ll make them more distinctive. It’s not perfect, but it gives it a better go than most WOTC books. Thus: 2.5/4.

On presentation: Pretty much all black and white, serif fonts, but they aren’t at eye-screeching size and some attention is paid to breaking up the text with other boxes. Some flipping back-and-forth required now and then. Call this 1/2.

Total: 5/10.

Next Time: The Assassin's Handbook, Green Ronin Publishing.

Kalkra

2021-05-07, 10:00 AM

It nice to see non-generic fairies, although I can't help but feel that giving them stats at all kinda defeats the purpose. I mean, measuring something and defining its limits demystifies it to an enormous degree. I've always felt that the fey were sort of a precursor to Lovecraft-style eldritch horror. I mean sure, they looked human enough, but the assumption is that they weren't even remotely similar, and more importantly that they didn't care about the humans, and might cause them harm not out of malice but out of apathy.

Tangent aside, if the DM is the only one with access to the book, then its fine, but I just can't imagine that a PC would be able to feel like a classic Celtic fairy in any kinda of normal game. No fault to the authors for that, though.

thorr-kan

2021-05-07, 11:39 AM

Ah, Avalanche and their soft-core covers. I wouldn't read them in public w/o a plain brown cover, but I *did* read them.:smallcool: I may even have a few still.

They are still in business, and quite willing to sell any back stock they have. A lot of 3.0 content wasn't ever updated to 3.5.

But I would swear a lot of these were available as pdfs, even from the Avalanche website, once upon a time. But I don't seem to have any in my pdf library. So maybe I'm wrong.

Particle_Man

2021-05-07, 01:48 PM

It nice to see non-generic fairies, although I can't help but feel that giving them stats at all kinda defeats the purpose. I mean, measuring something and defining its limits demystifies it to an enormous degree.

That is an old problem. Like when they started giving stats for gods in early editions of (A)D&D and some players took that as a license to get powerful enough to take them out, Xena-style (although it predates Xena).

Saintheart

2021-05-07, 04:35 PM

It nice to see non-generic fairies, although I can't help but feel that giving them stats at all kinda defeats the purpose. I mean, measuring something and defining its limits demystifies it to an enormous degree. I've always felt that the fey were sort of a precursor to Lovecraft-style eldritch horror. I mean sure, they looked human enough, but the assumption is that they weren't even remotely similar, and more importantly that they didn't care about the humans, and might cause them harm not out of malice but out of apathy.

I'll say this, I found the concept fascinating and it was worth the look just to see how there was variation even across cultures for how fairies were seen. But I do agree, fairies as a historical concept are seriously ambivalent, more like a force of nature to be placated or dealt with very carefully. Most of them were said to be friendly to mankind, but some weren't. And even then, all the stories of how they abduct children and substitute changelings in their place is there and intact and disturbing in its own way. They were decidedly amoral.

Saintheart

2021-05-08, 01:43 AM

The Assassin’s Handbook, Green Ronin Publishing

https://images2.imgbox.com/e7/d5/pHsvLHZw_o.jpg
Summary
This is basically an attempt to rework and enhance the Assassin prestige class. It provides a new base Assassin class, some character classes, feats, spells, the whole shebang. And then adds on something of a miniature setting to give the whole thing some background. Green Ronin has a few of these, generally steering clear of base class handbooks such as Mongoose Publishing did.

In that respect, it’s worth thinking about the class they’re focusing on. If you’ve been around a while you’ll know the Assassin doesn’t quite get a bad rap so much as a “meh” rap. For a start, the concept is not a natural fit in the orthodox D&D party, being generally a solo stealth type who is focused on taking out particular targets for money. The Assassin’s mechanics also fall a bit short in the sense that its primary class feature – the Death Attack – was probably a bit overbalanced by WOTC for fear that it would be used too easily, being locked behind a 3 round charge-up time and then a Fort save which keys off class level and the Assassin’s INT modifier, which isn’t great. The most potent evidence for this being Deathsight, an Assassin spell that removes the 3 round study time, introduced a few years later. The assassin also gets poison use, but poisons are a bit subpar as an option mainly because the effects of a poison usually aren’t significant in combat and often have DCs that take a lot of work to pump up. (Not that it’s impossible to optimise. Look for Arsenic and Old Lace, the Poisoner’s Handbook (http://minmaxforum.com/index.php?topic=2714.0) on this subject). He gets spells, but these aren’t generally fantastic, and he also doesn’t get the same skill points as the rogue. So with all of those in mind, let’s see what the little green masterless samurai has for us…

Date of Publication and Page Count
2002, 66 pages. So we’re dealing with a 3.0 book, one that doesn’t seem to have had a 3.5 update. Though there were a couple of developers, two people are credited with design: David ‘Zeb’ Cook and Wolfgang Baur. Baur was around for a while already in the RPG industry when this was written, and went on to have writing credits on Frostburn, some of Kobold Quarterly’s adventure design magazine, and eventually, Pathfinder. “Zeb,” for those of you who came in late, has a very big back catalogue … and a long history. He worked at TSR for 15 years, he was the lead designer for AD&D and on the Planescape setting. He wrote the original Oriental Adventures. He was the guy who developed the ‘E’ in the BECMI for crying out loud. However, by the time third edition came out in 2001, Cook had already left and was working in videogames (most notably on Fallout 2.) So what we might hope for here is a mix of old and new. Green Ronin’s well-established in RPG world, and the book is currently available on large market RPG sites or direct from Green Ronin itself.

Notable Features
Shadow Mage (prestige class): 10/10 casting. If you like Assassin-only spells without wanting to play an assassin, dip this. Takes being able to cast 3rd level arcane spells to qualify, but immediately gets access to the Assassin spell list. And if your thing really is being Shadowy McShadowface, this has a number of interesting toys across the 10 levels: +6 to Hide, spell-like darkvision, deeper darkness, shadow walk, teleport without error, plane shift. Oh, and a new familiar … with the ghost template and the manifestation and corrupting touch special attacks.
Fida’I 1-2 (prestige class): Heavily inspired by the medieval hashishim. No sneak attack included. Mechanically the most prominent features are its full BAB and that on first level it gains proficiency with the kukri, which is an addition to a rogue’s list, and is martial weapon proficiency maybe for Abjurant Champion. Also picks up a +2 to Will which is nice. The only other prominent features are an ability to pick up DR 5/- and +2 morale bonuses to attack/damage/saves/skill checks for 1 round, once per day, which would get to 4 rounds, 3 times per day if you went all the way in this class. Really not worth the other 8 levels though, and even the dip is highly situational.
Houri (prestige class): Would be a lot more powerful if it advanced caster levels. Over 10 levels, pick up +6 to Bluff, Diplomacy, Gather Information, Sense Motive. Grants spell-like abilities 3/day: charm person, suggestion, charm monster, dominate person, mass charm. Can also deliver an enchantment spell or effect by delivering it as a kiss. The spell is treated as a touch attack, with a range of Touch, which might be useful for other shenanigans I haven’t looked into. Lastly, can also make a single-target spell work on all valid targets in a 40 foot radius … albeit this takes 1 full minute to complete. And on the RAW, it doesn’t require the Houri to cast the spell as such, which could be a very useful way of pulling off mass buffs outside the Mass X spell. Maybe. It’s very firmly a seduction-ish class, which, even moreso than the Assassin, only really suits certain campaigns.
Shadow Armor (Assn 4, Sor/Wiz 4 spell): Self only, but it’s basically Greater Mage Armor with a further +2 to the armor bonus, albeit one level higher than GMA.
Ghost Blade (Assn 3 spell): Make your weapon a Ghost Touch weapon, 10 min/level.
Martyr’s Death (Assn 4 spell): This spell makes every creature within 30 feet make a Fortitude saving throw or die. What’s the saving throw DC? Not specified, but presumably the standard, i.e. DC 14+. If you don’t die, you still take 1d12 damage per character level of the caster. Reasonably potent since as an assassin you’re at least level character level 12, but probably better as a raised middle finger for a Big Bad than to be given to PCs, given you have to kill yourself as part of the spell (and can’t be raised or resurrected, per RAW).
Part Crowd (Assn 2, Sor/Wiz 2): Crowd of up to 50 Small or Medium creatures part to make way for your passage and immediately close ranks again after you pass. You can full run through them “with no penalty”. This is a round/level spell. No saving throw. This thing is just not fully thought through, it wouldn’t be hard on the RAW to be a stupidly potent way to charge through enemies (or retreat through them) with no attacks of opportunity as you go, and you can cast it at the start of combat and use its powers for the whole damn fight.
Death From Above (feat): When you jump onto a melee opponent as part of a charge attack, get +2 to attack and damage for that attack. Synergises perfectly with Leap Attack and all the other beefy boinging bruiser stuff you know and love.
Glib Tongue (feat): First time you try to bluff a specific individual, get a +6 insight bonus on the opposed check. Normally I wouldn’t recommend a feat for a one-off, non-scaling bonus like this, but particularly for Bluffs in combat you generally aren’t looking for more than one bluff to succeed. And it amounts to 2 x Skill Focus (Bluff), so it is two feats in one.
Craft (Poison): (New skill use): Provides an easy way to vary how a poison works. Turn an ingested poison into a contact poison, vice versa, cause permanent damage, and so on. Just very mild increases to the DC of crafting the poison.
Poison Focus (feat): Pick a type of poison (ingested, inhaled, injury, or contact). +2 to DC for all saving throws for that poison type. Given it only takes a +2 to the Craft DC to shift a poison’s type under these rules, this is close to a +2 to all your different poisons, if you want to go down that path.
Weapon Panache (feat): CHA instead of STR on attack bonus with a chosen type of weapon. Pretty good for combat bards or similar given the alternatives (according to X Stat to Y bonus (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?125732-3-x-X-stat-to-Y-bonus) anyway) tend to be limited to usage time or a uses per day mechanic. May even be worth thinking about for high-CHA Paladins, since Smite Evil allows you to add and this is a straight substitution.
Curare (new poison): A number of real-world poisons are statted out in the book, everything from Death Cap to Digitalis. While most of them put out some pretty potent whacks – most do something in the order of 1d8 – 2d8 initial damage to a particular stat – their usefulness is distinctly limited in that almost all of them have onset times. One of the few exceptions is curare, the archetypical poison dart from South American vines. This stuff is a DC 17 save, and does 1d12 DEX initial damage, with another 1d12 DEX 10 minutes later.
Cyanide (new poison): Cyanide has different types of administration and does different damage. The one we’re most interested in is the inhaled version, which has no onset time, and which does 2d8 CON damage immediately.
Sword of God (new magical poison): I mean, initial damage of 1d20 WIS. Injury poison, so can be applied to weapons, DC 20 save. 1,500 gp a dose though.
Marching Powder (equipment): 50 gp to get a +2 enhancement bonus to WIS and CON for 2 hours. Will save to prevent becoming addicted at the end of the 2 hours, but addiction can be overcome by lesser restoration, thus entirely negating the limit entirely.
Hashish of Paradise (new substance): Incense gives a +4 morale bonus to all saves, -2 to INT and WIS-based skill checks. Subject is also immune to fear spells and effects. Lasts 1 hour. 1,100 gp a dose.
Shadow Sword (magic item): +2 longsword from the Plane of Shadow which adds +4 to … the target DC of the book’s base class Assassin’s killing blow, i.e. normal assassins can’t use it for Death Attack.

Dreadful Features
Assassin (base class): Sorry, but if this – as the introduction says – is meant to replace the assassin prestige class as a base class and resolve most of the rogue/assassin’s difficulties, it fails hard. Rogue’s BAB and saves, so no improvements there. Assassin casting, yes, but spread out over 20 levels rather than 10, so at character level 20 you’ve got the same Assassin spells you’d have had at level 15 under a prestige class entry. No freaking Use Magic Device, so we can’t wand our way to victory like the Rogue and SRD Assassin can, not to mention we’ve still got the Assassin’s 4+INT skills all the way through our career. +3d6 Sneak Attack over 20 levels, so again, way short of what a Rogue/Assassin could put out. No Evasion, Improved Evasion, Uncanny Dodge; we get 6 bonus feats which can be drawn from a short-ish list that are mainly weapon or combat feats or some of the feats contained in the book. No Death Attack; instead we get an ability that permits us to make a coup-de-grace as a standard action anytime the target is denied DEX bonus to AC or is flanked. We have to make a standard attack roll, and it looks like we can use this at least at Reach range because there’s no specification of having to be adjacent, only that the assassin flanks the target. The problem? Over 20 levels we can only do this five times per day tops … with the fifth iteration granted at 18th level. Did I also mention this assassin doesn’t get the can’t-fumble-your-own-poisons feature that the SRD Assassin does? Very disappointing.
Shadow Blade (Assn 4 spell): All attacks with the weapon are made as touch attacks, one round/level. Too bad Wraithstrike is an Assassin 3 spell and does exactly the same thing.
Maximise Poison (feat): Editing mistake here, they give you an Empower instead of Maximising.
Extend, Empower, Maximise, Quicken Poison (feats): All of these feats could be far more powerful than they first appear by RAW. Surmising the RAI, the writers used the word “prepare” in relation to a poison when they should have used “apply”. The RAI is that, basically, if you take a full-round action to apply a poison, you can variously maximise its numerical effects, delay its onset, empower its damage, and so on. And thus the RAI would be decidedly subpar since what one generally wants is to speed up the application of poisons, not slow them down. By RAW, though, “prepare” might refer to the initial creation of the poison, which might be much more palatable. Maximise Poison might still be worth thinking about anyway, since the payoff – larger slabs of ability damage rather than hitpoint damage – is much greater.
Taint of Shadow (new magical poison): Initial damage of 1d3 negative levels, , DC 20 save. But at 4,200gp a dose why wouldn’t you just put the money towards an Enervation weapon?

Who it’s best for (Player/GM/both)
Really it’s mostly for players. GMs are given a decent wad of fluff to give the assassin some context and a couple of feuding organisations to belong to, but this is mainly for players.

Comments, thoughts, and rating out of 10.
On mechanics: As said, pretty disappointed all round. Possibly most of it is because the book was from early in third edition, and maybe we would’ve seen some changes if they’d updated for 3.5, but if your base class is weaker than the SRD Rogue/Assassin itself, that’s a hell of a whiff to open the game with. There are a couple of nuggets here and there as you’d see, but very little reason to take any of the base or prestige classes at all I’m afraid.

The feats and equipment sections are a bit stronger, but not terribly much. Whether missed in editing or due to a certain ignorance of the game system, some of it just isn’t useable, although there are one or two bits a poisoner might be able to bolt onto his build. That said, the use of real-world poisons seemed to be a decent or acceptable translation into D&D rules. But, due to the fact they make the Assassin weaker, I’d have to rate this one 0.5/4.

On concepts and fluff: In sheer page numbers, the authors spend more time on fluff and organisations than they do on mechanics. Just over half the book is spent on creating a couple of organisations for player assassins to be in, and the material could be mined by a GM for setting details. Even so, the pastiches for the two warring assassin guilds are pretty clearly Renaissance killer vs. Hashishim fanatics, which isn’t the most inspiring of groups. Call this a 1/4.

On presentation: Decent enough presentation. Black and white throughout. Green Ronin uses serif fonts but they don’t cram the information in under tiny font sizes, although I really hate the font they use for their headings and subheadings. (It's the same font used on the front cover of the book, if you're curious to see what it looks like.) 1/2 for this one.

Total: 2.5/10.

Next Time: A Magical Medieval Society: Western Europe, Expeditious Retreat Press.

Caelestion

2021-05-08, 04:47 AM

Oh, MMS:WE. The book that got rave reviews and (I think it was) Monte Cook saying it was so good that he wished he'd written it himself. I own all three editions. :)

VladtheLad

2021-05-08, 06:22 AM

Variant Bard (new base class): I don’t know if Monte Cook hated sorcerers, but this variant seems like potent evidence that he didn’t like bards. Or at least he really didn’t like the way most people optimised their bards, maybe. For a start, let’s drop all but one of the bard’s unique features. No Inspire Courage, no Inspire Greatness, no songs, bang, gone. Oh, we still get Bardic Knowledge, hurrah I guess. Second, let’s abolish the bard’s spell list, and give him back about 60-70% of his spells in a slightly different way. No Glibness, no Grease, no Glitterdust, no Summon Monster, no Alter Self, no Dispel Magic (okay, there is a Dispel Magic effect way up at the end. By the way, did I mention that silence effects are basically Antimagic Fields for this class?) See, variant bards don’t cast arcane spells anymore. They cast Spellnotes, Spellchords, and Spellmelodies, which are basically neutered versions of the Core bard spells and which are differentiated mainly by whether they take a swift action, standard action, or full round to cast. (You do get Inspire Courage back … as a spellnote. Meaning it’s a swift action to start, and a free action to maintain. However, unless I’m missing something, this will never get higher than +1 morale to attack and damage rolls for your allies. By RAW none of the common optimisation strategies for Inspire Courage will work because it’s no longer a class feature, and probably few to none of the common prestige classes like Sublime Chord either.)

Now, the bard does get some capacity to sort-of metamagic these notes, chords, and melodies, based around giving up slots; give up two spellnote slots and you can make a spellnote with 50% increase in duration and range, or +2 to DC, or 50% increase in damage. Similar applies to spellchords and spellmelodies the higher you go, but the same sacrifice can be made. Also, spellnote slots can be used up to grant additional spellchords per day, at a rate of 5 to one. And – apparently – multiple bards can contribute spellnotes (or spellnote slots, I presume) to create a spellchord they all know, though the mechanics for this are not in my view complete. So Leadership or cohort abuse now becomes a fuel tank of additional music for the day, or maybe for some of the unique feats of the book … but these only increase DC, duration, or range for the most part. And bard spell damage under this is mostly based around d4s. Some of the effects aren’t bad on the most powerful spellmelodies, but in particular the fact they can be turned into magic items explicitly under item creation feats means they’re likely more useful as items you go looking for than class abilities you necessarily want. At least he can still skillmonkey to some extent (and for some odd reason the Survival skill is added to his class list.) His combat capacity is also slightly altered: now he’s proficient with medium armor, and he suffers no arcane spell failure chance so long as the total armor check penalty he suffers is no higher than -3. This at least makes a breastplate possible depending on the material being worn, which is nice.

I really think this Variant Bard is about a tier down on the default bard’s effectiveness. Absent everything else, most notably that he’s not a spellcaster anymore, he simply doesn’t buff anywhere near as hard as he did, and that’s the primary strategy for the class in the current world.

Do note the book was released in 2001 unless I am mistaken. Bard had 4+int skill points and his inspire courage didn't scale.

But yes I feel monte didn't like the bard and sorcerer and in his book of experimental might he suggests not using the bard at all or using his variant and the same goes for the sorcerer, which in the sorcerers case its even more weird since in that specific book he has changed the spell slot system.

Saintheart

2021-05-08, 06:37 AM

Do note the book was released in 2001 unless I am mistaken. Bard had 4+int skill points and his inspire courage didn't scale.

The edition of BOEM I've reviewed in each case is the 3.5 update Monte Cook released in 2004. From my sampling of books thus far, it looks like most third party authors, including Cook, didn't actually do a comprehensive review and update based on how people were playing and optimising builds back then. They preferred to just switch out feat names as WOTC more or less did, and basically leave everything else untouched. That said, the internet was nowhere near as widespread as it is now and I wonder whether they were that interested in really getting to grips with the problems 3.0 and 3.5 gave us.

VladtheLad

2021-05-08, 08:09 AM

The edition of BOEM I've reviewed in each case is the 3.5 update Monte Cook released in 2004. From my sampling of books thus far, it looks like most third party authors, including Cook, didn't actually do a comprehensive review and update based on how people were playing and optimising builds back then. They preferred to just switch out feat names as WOTC more or less did, and basically leave everything else untouched. That said, the internet was nowhere near as widespread as it is now and I wonder whether they were that interested in really getting to grips with the problems 3.0 and 3.5 gave us.

I am not sure what changed between editions of BOEM, but I don't consider Monte updating his bard to compete with the 3.5 a fair expectation. These books are totally remaining in the 3.0 framework Monte at that point didn't like 3.5 much and that goes for arcana evolved too. I think the only books that take the 3,5 seriously (the core books not the splatbooks) are his books of experimental might.
Also I don't expect these books to be balanced with the splatbooks from 3.5 or even 3.0. Not that doesn't leave a lot of stuff that are patently over/underpowered. The spell that grants +4 luck bonus to everything including abilities for 10 minutes per level is such a direct example of this.
In any case I am liking your reviews and the threads idea in general, so don't stop. :smallbiggrin:

Kalkra

2021-05-08, 11:22 PM

Saintheart

2021-05-08, 11:42 PM

I feel the need to point out that the Hashashin probably weren't so named because they did hashish. They might not even have don hashish at all. Not that it matters, the book isn't going for historical accuracy. [/pedantic rant]

Also, I'd be interested to know which of the poisons mentioned can be made with PMC, although I wouldn't expect the book to mention that specifically, and I found the Wikipedia page for cyanide to be confusing.

You're right, by hashishim I'm only referring to the rough sketch of fanatic followers of the Old Man of the Mountains, which the book basically rips off.

PMC - I assume that's talking about Psionic Minor Creation. Luckily, given it produces nonliving plant matter, from the book that seems to qualify the real-world poisons Curare, Amanita (Death Cap/Destroying Angel - also has a really low Craft, DC 9), Digitalis, Dumb Cane, Hemlock, Ricin, and Wolfsbane as obtainable by that method. The magical poisons in the book don't describe their sources or composition - save one, Sword of God, which is said to be a "milky white sap." Cyanide in the book is said to be made from a mineral (it's used to extract gold), so it's out.

Saintheart

2021-05-09, 10:33 PM

A Magic Medieval Society: Western Europe, Expeditious Retreat Press (2nd edition)

https://images2.imgbox.com/be/81/GkHv8q5R_o.jpg
Summary
It’s not a setting book, and it’s not another character option handbook. Not one new feat, spell, or class is listed herein. Rather, this is a book that guides the DM on how to marry the historical medieval Europe with the magical ones depicted in D&D. More specifically, it reconciles the city wealth system of the DMG with how those things work applied to how medieval Europe actually worked. That is, it’s designed to export the feel of the medieval period without being tied to the history. Not only is there a thorough but concise guide to pretty much all of the major components of medieval society (including how magic affects them), but there are tools to create buildings, settlements, and kingdoms in much greater depth than the DMG aims at.

Date of Publication and Page Count
2006, 167 pages, which therefore places it smack-bang in 3.5 territory, and (so far) it’s therefore the most recent of the books I’ve reviewed so far. There is also a third edition which contains two more chapters: on warfare and on properly naming places. I’m not looking at that edition, but the third edition comes in at 208 pages over this 167 page one, so judge that as you will.

The authors appear to have been a husband and wife writing team, Joseph Browning and Suzi Yee. They’re still active and writing fiction together by the looks of it, having left RPG book writing behind it seems. However, their output wasn’t just limited to this book – there are other “Magic Society” books still out there from Expeditious Retreat Press, and this book is still available on large RPG market websites.

This is the second edition of the book. The original won a 2003 GenCon ENnie Best Supplement Award. I can’t find the source of the quote, but supposedly Monte Cook said that if you’re a DM and running a D&D game, you should have this book. Period. It apparently was a quote from his first perfect 10 review. I say that ahead of time just in case it’s influenced my review.

Notable Features
N/A, see the sections below.

Dreadful Features
None, which is a good thing.

Who it’s best for (Player/GM/both)
This would pretty much have to be mainly for GMs. It might be for a certain type of player who really wants to build stuff or start businesses but doesn’t want to use the thumb-ruling of the Stronghold Builders’ Guide and the like, but in general, this is a GM’s treasurehouse.

Comments, thoughts, and rating out of 10.
On mechanics: It takes guts to start your back cover blurb with this: “No new spells. No new feats. No new classes. 100% open.” But, as you’ll see from the concepts and fluff section below, what we’re dealing with for the most part isn’t affected by character options as such. The mechanics are more about generating demographics, income, etc, etc. And the stated intent is to reflect heavily the economic and agricultural realities of medieval Europe.

It’s not that crunchy, merely comprehensive and with a lot of capacity to get really granular in some instances. On creating settlements with these rules, the mechanics are begging for someone to knock together an Excel spreadsheet or similar to make the procedural generation easier. I decided to take a spin out on the book’s rules by randomly generating a settlement, which happens to be named Saintheartville.

We start with p.137 of the DMG. Roll 52, so I have a small town. Adult population we’ll make 1000 for ease of reference, and the GP limit is 800gp. Wealth on hand in entire small town is 40,000gp. Under the book’s rules, this means 400 gold per year goes to the town’s lord, and about 2,000 gp of the town’s wealth is in magic or magic items.

Now we turn to the book and how it fills out the city concept. Physical size of the town in acres is population/pop density = 1000/30 = about 33 acres. This doesn’t include the fields for growing food. I deem for no good reason that it’s a high number of structures on average (within the 15-20 the book sets out), so the number of structures in the town is 33 x 20 = 660 structures in the place.

How are these structures – buildings -- divided up into proportions of different businesses or types of quarter? Over to the wards section of the book! It’s basically 1 ward per acre, and we have 33 acres to play with, inside or outside the walls. Average number of structures in a small town per acre is 15-20. This is a 5 point spread over the 12 different ward types, which have different densities. Based on this, the shantytown in the town will have 20 structures per acre, being the most densely populated ward, and the merchant ward 15. So just taking some creative assignments based on the descriptions of wards:
1 Merchant ward @ 2 acres x 15 structures per acre = 30 structures.
1 Oderiforous Business (tanners, etc) ward @ 4 acres x 17 per acre = 68 structures.
5 Craftsmen wards @ 5 acres x 18 per acre = 450 structures.
1 Bridge ward @ 3 acres x 19 per acre = 57 structures.
1 Market ward @ 3 acres x 20 per acre = 60 structures.
Total: 665 structures. Saintheartville is a burgeoning mercantile town dominated by crafters and tanners of all kinds, with a bridge over the river that brings their trade, and a large, 3 acre market area. The elite of the town are its big merchants, who have their own merchant ward.

Each of the structures within a given ward can then be assigned actual buildings, which in turn have a given variety of building styles, from derelict or rough right up to luxurious or imperial. There are d100 and d1000 tables for generating structures. You get the idea – it is possible to be incredibly granular about this if one wished. In my Merchant Ward alone my 30 structures turned out as diverse a set as Workshops, Cemetries, Plazas, a University (medieval universities were very small), Bathhouses, Administration buildings and so on. (And within the workshops definition, you can then specify the type of artisan working in it: once again, a d1000 table covering everything from scabbard makers to bookbinders and literally everything in between.)

Now we move on to Power Centres. This is where we start to depart more completely from the DMG version and get down to generating power centres based on the size of the community. The book admits that this is a pretty laborious process in particular for larger cities, but it’s very thorough and precise as well. In essence, while the DMG basically stops at determining what type of power centre is in the place, the book assigns an average number of influence points, 180 in the case of the small town of Saintheartville. Random generation says there are 2 power centres in the place. Every level of adept, aristocrat, barbarian, bard, cleric, druid, fighter, monk,paladin, ranger, rogue, sorcerer, and wizard is one influence point. Levels of commoner, expert, and warrior are 1⁄2 influence points. The idea is that dividing these influence points up among groups of individuals establishes the pool of people under the influence of the power centres, whether they are groups or individuals.

We have some guidance on maximum and minimum levels of people in a settlement from the demographics tables. Again, we can get very granular about this, and we won’t for this exercise; suffice to say it’s pretty easy to define the upper and lower bounds of levels of NPCs in the community and how much influence (expressed as a percentage of the total of 180 points) a given faction has in a town. This has direct implications for how much of the town’s wealth the power centre controls, and that percentage could easily be used as a factor in social skill rolls depending on whether you support one power centre or another (for example).

So what you can get from this is that I ran out of motivation to more closely-define the town, but the mechanics and framework are certainly all here for getting you to a more historically-realistic generation of how many and how levelled people there are in the community. I find these sorts of things personally useful since I like to know where my boundaries are and then work within them.

The next thing I found attractive was the economic simulator, which layers the issue of supply and demand over the standard prices for items. This is a lot more simple, useable, and intuitive, and got me smiling. The basic assumption is that there isn’t a set price for items; every transaction is between a buyer and seller, and prices for items vary … i.e. people bargain, and not everything is available everywhere. And the way they do it is to assign a base DC for purchase of an item, modified by how common the item is, how much it cost, the size of the community in which the item is being purchased, and the amount the buyer is willing to pay. The book DCs reflect a generic medieval society and they outright encourage you as a GM to mess with the DCs – e.g. the prices for fish in the middle of a continent may be a lot higher, so the DC is higher. The actual roll to make against the DC is a standard d20 with some modifiers. (I can think immediately of stuff like the Mercantile Background feat which might allow one to make modifications to it).

I’m in the market for a hand crossbow, normal price of 100 gp. The base purchase DC for something rare like this is DC 20. (If I was in a drow city, maybe the DM would set it at DC 10 since it’s a far more common item down there.) Anyway, because I’m plumb out of options, I go shopping at the local hamlet … which means when I’m rolling, my modifier is 1d20-2, i.e. odds are zero I’m going to pick it up at that price. But the local blacksmith seems a bit shifty and shows some interest when I mention this fairly rare piece of weaponry, so I decide I’ll bite the bullet and offer him twice the normal price for the item. This gives me a +4 to my buyer’s modifier and thus a total of 1d20+2, and, the RNG being the RNG, I natural-1 it, so he shakes his head. I draw blood from my bottom lip and go all out: I’ll pay four times the normal price, so, 400 gp for the hand crossbow, and as a result, I’m now rolling at 1d20+4 instead. Amazingly, I pull a 16, which hits the DC of 20, so the smith grins and hands over the hand crossbow while I hand over four hundred gold pieces, wishing I could just hand over four hundred hitpoint damage a la Schwarzenegger at the gun shop in the original Terminator movie. If I’d rolled a 10, I wouldn’t have hit the DC anyway, and the item simply wouldn’t have been for sale.

On the other hand, if I’d been smart and waited around to go to a bustling metropolis like Waterdeep, I’d have been initially rolling at 1d20+12 against a DC of 20. If I threw the money around again, offering four times the standard price, it’d be 1d20+18 against a DC of 20. Not impossible to screw up, but practically certain that I’d get what I wanted … or get it at a price closer to the default.

Important note here that the table which controls price multiplier-to-buyer modifier relationships, Table V.3, is borked on its wording. It appears to reverse the modifiers, so that if you went by the table you’d get a -24 to your modifier just for offering four times the price of an item. I think that’s because the first column of numbers are reversed. If that’s correct, then the implications are that it’s a hell of a lot easier to pay four times the price for something than it is to get the same thing for half price (On the other hand, the table as borked works perfectly if you’re selling something, which we’ll get to below.)

It isn’t perfect, sure. The authors do warn people about players using skills or ability stats to buy stuff at below cost price. As it is the rules offer a little bit of … um … let’s call it capitalism … for players against hapless merchants: the table incentivises you offering below-default prices for low DC items. E.g. Winter Blankets have a Purchase DC 5 and a default price of 5gp. If you’re a cheap bastard, you might well turn up to the merchant’s stall in the big metropolis with a smart-alec grin and offer to buy the winter blanket for thirty percent off, i.e. about 3.5 gold rather than 5, which gives you a total buyer’s modifier of 1d20+12 (Metropolis) -16 (0.7 purchase price) = 1d20-4, which is still more than even odds of getting yourself a nice discount on a DC 5 blanket. As said, your buyer’s modifier compels you to take a -24 penalty to get something at half price, but in a metropolis that translates to a total buyer’s modifier of 1d20-12, i.e. hard but still not impossible for common stuff.

While it’s never a good idea to think through real-world implications of a game mechanic over which the authors explicitly say “watch for RAW abuse, we know we can’t defeat the real Math Nerds out there”, this phenomenon alone compels the conclusion that it makes no financial, or even common, sense for a vendor to be based in a city offering commonly available goods, they’d be driven out of business by the sheer psychic force of one buyer after another coming in at low price points and trying the luck of the RNG until the vendor for no sane reason agrees to sell his goods at below standard price. The only other possible explanation for this situation to continue would be that, in the city, merchants are secretly marking up their prices way past the cost price. Whatever the fiendish explanation, it’s still better than standard D&D economics (https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0135.html) anyway and it keeps out Diplomancy or other tactics to screwjob the local merchants.

The authors also allow one to use the system for selling stuff. The default ‘sell for 50%’ is taken to be selling to guild members who’ll then resell at the standard price. If the PCs try to sell products at full value, they are selling to an end purchaser. And if they do, they invoke the wrath of the local guild for bypassing their monopoly on the system.

(Indeed, the selling system seems to work with the same modifiers if you come up with a ‘sell modifier’. Finding a willing buy is easier in the city, and gives you a +12 to the sell roll. Getting a buyer to accept higher than normal price, though, is a hell of a lot harder, although again not impossible.)

These are great rules all round, albeit they’re much more for the determined DM with a fair amount of time on his hands. Some of them are a little unwieldy and really probably aren’t for session use, but rather out-of-session calculation. The economics rules are probably the simplest to bring into actual play. I rate this heading 3.5/4.

On concepts and fluff: Man, these guys showed up. Now, my education in medieval history consists of one year back in university and scattered books since then (“Cathedral, Waterwheel, and Forge”; “Life in a Medieval City” by the Gies husband and wife team, some random others). But this book is as much a short course in how the average medieval society hung together as it is a DM’s tool. It cites a decent bibliography. It has an extensive glossary for most of the terms in the period. If you’re a GM and not content with the stage-dressing approach to putting together your medieval towns, villages, and kingdoms and you have any mild interest in this sort of thing, then prepare to descend into the orchestra pit, stop by the lighting desk, consult the security staff, and talk to the cleaners.

Let’s talk about how they see magic’s impact on a medieval setting, i.e. the sort of subject which takes about five posts for the Tippyverse to be cited and/or the yelling to start on Internet forums such as ours. For these issues, the book simply makes a few key assumptions, and explicitly tell the GM to not read Internet postwars that some basic core assumptions of third edition integrate poorly with medieval society, and that GMs ultimately have to make these calls for their campaigns. On magic, the key assumptions they make are these:

Society developed and evolved alongside magic. It isn’t just a recent discovery. The book is based on extrapolation of historical information and trends.
Most magic practiced in this sort of society is mundane, not adventuring magic. Most people stay rooted in their community and don’t wander; therefore a real society focuses on magic that builds crops, medicine, craftsmanship, labor, and entertainment far more than spells appropriate to dungeon delving.
Magic is basically viewed as a form of technology. High-level magic is a great mystical affair in the society, but low-level magic is familiar to all but the most isolated (hence the NPC classes such as adepts or witches.) It’s not going to be understood intimately by everyone, any more than smithcraft is fully understood by people not in the craft (the authors remind us that smiths carefully guarded their secrets and sometimes would be called on to heal the sick by laying their hammer on the ill person).
Magic brings social change to these societies. It establishes another source of power, and is threaded through all the normal divisions in medieval society (basically between those who toil, those who pray, and those who fight.)

Some of the authors’ cited assumptions outside magic are interesting, though:

Gender basically doesn’t work the same way as it did in medieval history, if only for the charming rationale that D&D presumes equal stats whether you’re male or female. Ergo, female rulers and workers in every strata of society are much more common, but go ahead and keep your serving wenches and damsels in distress if it suits your table and your campaign.
Unlike the medieval historical reality, communication is effective and ubiquitous, given everyone speaks Common (with or without obligatory Scottish accent in the case of the dwarves). So no more comic scenes of kings and queens from different countries in arranged marriages trying to speak each other’s language. Also, and possibly more significantly, by virtue of being classed, a much larger percentage of society is literate than was in the medieval period. Even thorps, not including barbarians and commoners, have on average 15 literate people. Therefore: a more educated society, trade and cities arise more easily and are more pervasive.
Assume the base alignment of a magical medieval society is Lawful Neutral, since law and order keep those societies functioning; therefore moral implications arise based on maintaining structure; therefore there is reluctance to chance. Good maintains order, and change always upsets order. (I find this a neat, if unstated, rationale for medieval stasis too!)

The creation of cities, buildings, and kingdoms is calculated against these assumptions. And it’s done pretty well. Spells like Wall of Stone are taken into account, how solo spellcasters live is accounted for (typically, vassalage), the fact the religions tend to be pantheons rather than single gods is accounted for, and prominent magic items like the Lyre of Building are factored into it. (There are even rules for aristocrats acquiring magic items as part of their ‘taxes’ on fiefs.) The balance leans toward staying close to how medieval Europe worked on the records we have available, but I do think the authors understood how magic really would change the whole setting and decided to strike a balance between historical reality and a society where magic is ubiquitous. You can argue about where they put the balance point, but that’s their chosen balance, so either take it or leave it.

There’s a wide variety of material covered. Everything from day-to-day life on the manors to punishments for crimes through to ecclesiastical courts through to taxation through to agricultural production through to royal precedence from an Emperor down to the younger sons of knights. It has an economic simulator designed to try and weed out some of the more egregious screamers in the equipment guide. It includes adventure hooks from the smallest disputes on manors right up to standard kingdom-breaking plots. We have everything from beekeeping income through to scutage through to a template for a medieval king!

In short: this is one of those books where once you start reading it you wonder why you ever did without it if your campaigns are in Generic Medieval Land -- as most are. And it’s right there that perhaps the mildest criticism can be made, and it’s probably not even a fair criticism: although these details are awesome and well-thought-out … well, in most cases, as a GM, do you really need them to make or run a good game?

That’s because when you get right down to it, this book is pure, gorgeous verisimilitude. It is for a campaign where the DM (and the players) want a setting that feels a lot like medieval Europe and where things such as the absolute number of people in a settlement makes a material difference to the campaign. The tables are designed to create manors and kingdoms and towns and give rules for building stuff, but absent a specific kind of campaign these are generally more for the DM’s enjoyment and reassurance than they are strictly necessary to the game. The trick is using this stuff without boring the hell out of your players or without taking away from the experience of the game. That’s something the book doesn’t give you any advice on. It is something you have to consider for yourself as a DM.

My guess is that the best sell of this book would be to a playing group who’re complaining about how the equipment tables in the PHB are completely out of whack with reality, or want to realistically do something like build a cathedral. I suspect this book would probably have its best use in open-world sandbox games, because it provides a very solid grounding to generate any number of ideas and plot hooks without going to the old generic “Go here and kill this monster that’s harassing the rubes”, or “Go there and keep the thousand-year dynasty from collapsing because the youngest son of the king likes dressing in black and doesn’t like primogeniture.”

But as said: this book is practical, applied history. It’s history that can help DMs run campaigns. It is a beautifully-realised sourcebook that opens up what’s going on in a medieval society with beautiful detail. With the caveats I mentioned above, I rate this a big 4/4.

On presentation: The first edition printed in sans serif font, and the second edition unfortunately went to small serif fonts, about the same size as Bastion Press’s Into the Green which is a point against it. However, the layout is a bit more tolerable and there’s a lot of illustrations in this one to break up the text. Decent glossary, kudos for a bibliography, lots of tables, no frigging index which is just cheap and should not happen in a book this dense. I wanted to give it a 1.5 out of 2, but sadly we’re back to 1/2 here.

Total: 8.5/10.

Next Time: Beyond Monks: The Art of the Fight, Chainmail Bikini Games.

Particle_Man

2021-05-09, 11:23 PM

It sounds like a great idea for a computer program to generate towns, etc. based on the books random generation tables.

Saintheart

2021-05-10, 01:52 AM

It sounds like a great idea for a computer program to generate towns, etc. based on the books random generation tables.

I know, right?! You sit down and you read it and you get started trying to generate all this and although it's exciting and full of potential for setting off ideas, it's just a massive job if you want to create an entire city with power centres and all. But then I tend to find random generators really helpful as plot or story prompts, you roll up two random things next to each other and immediately you start thinking about possible associations between them - that's hacking our own brains' meaning engines to do a bit of good. But yeah, I have zero computing skill, but even looking at it it is ripe for Excel spreadsheet entry and even some sort of simple app or program to procedurally generate a city.

Troacctid

2021-05-10, 01:58 AM

You could try Chartopia (https://chartopia.d12dev.com/). That's what I used for my random warmage generator.

Saintheart

2021-05-10, 02:42 AM

You could try Chartopia (https://chartopia.d12dev.com/). That's what I used for my random warmage generator.

Thanks - I'll go and check that out!

Caelestion

2021-05-10, 05:16 AM

The quote from Monte Cook was (I'm fairly sure) from a review posted on his website, way back when.

The third edition still retains a subtle serif font, but the typeface is larger and everything seems slightly better spaced, which is part of why the third edition is 40 pages longer.

Kalkra

2021-05-10, 10:38 AM

Thinking about it, medieval stasis actually makes a bit more sense in DnD given polytheism. The whole scientific revolution was predicated on the assumption that the rules by which the world runs are consistent both temporally and spatially, which basically requires monotheism (or atheism, but that wasn't really a thing).
Ironically, you can see this just by reading the sourcebooks. DnD is a classic example of a what a world would look like if it were created by multiple deities, who clearly don't always agree with one another. While the BoVD and BoED are probably the clearest examples of this, there are plenty of other examples, and that's just on the players' end. On the characters' end, the world actually is subject to the capricious and unknowable whims of various deities. Nobody's going to be a scientist when it's raining toads.

Endless Rain

2021-05-10, 05:51 PM

RexDart

2021-05-10, 06:55 PM

I think D&D presupposes the existence of a single supreme deity who rules over all others, the embodiment of the Lawful Neutral alignment. Unknowable but with unfathomable power.

Virtually everything in the world adheres to a carefully constructed grid, figuratively or literally. A standard Fireball spell, though made with the raw unorganized material of fire, will always affect people within a 20-ft.-radius spread. No more, no less. Stand within the spread and you can be burned to a crisp in an instant. Five feet away and you're absolutely, perfectly safe.

And even the metamagic that lets spellcasters "cheat" is carefully and precisely bounded. Widen spell can be used to change the above rule... but never in a way that makes it go beyond a 40-ft.-radius spread!

There are countless other examples demonstrating that the cosmology of the D&D world is where Law ultimately reigns supreme.

Kalkra

2021-05-10, 06:58 PM

Yeah... no. Polytheists can, and do, assume that the laws of physics are consistent.

I think D&D presupposes the existence of a single supreme deity who rules over all others, the embodiment of the Lawful Neutral alignment. Unknowable but with unfathomable power.

Virtually everything in the world adheres to a carefully constructed grid, figuratively or literally. A standard Fireball spell, though made with the raw unorganized material of fire, will always affect people within a 20-ft.-radius spread. No more, no less. Stand within the spread and you can be burned to a crisp in an instant. Five feet away and you're absolutely, perfectly safe.

And even the metamagic that lets spellcasters "cheat" is carefully and precisely bounded. Widen spell can be used to change the above rule... but never in a way that makes it go beyond a 40-ft.-radius spread!

There are countless other examples demonstrating that the cosmology of the D&D world is where Law ultimately reigns supreme.

Maybe I was unclear. My point was that when so much of what's observed is a result of the will of some specific entity at that moment, people just won't get into the mindset of determining the fundamental rules.

Particle_Man

2021-05-11, 01:07 AM

By the way, an excerpt (Chapters 3 and 4 from "A Magical Medieval Society (the second printing))" was released by Expeditious Retreat Press for "pay what you want", and entitled "A Magical Medieval Society: City Guide", if people want a taste before deciding to buy:

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/55264/A-Magical-Medieval-Society-City-Guide

Saintheart

2021-05-14, 08:03 AM

Beyond Monks: The Art of the Fight, Chainmail Bikini Games

https://images2.imgbox.com/51/8b/awLcGOpB_o.jpg
Summary
For those who aren’t satisfied with the monk’s defensiveness, or looking for an unarmed fighter that looks more like a martial artist without the spiritual aspect as such, this book is designed to satisfy your cravings. Leaving aside the new base class of the Martial Artist, the book gives us 10 new prestige class,s new feats, new archetypes, new combat options, skill uses, and other stuff. It is a box of tools to bring the martial arts to life in your campaign.

Date of Publication and Page Count
2002, 64 pages. It’s 3.0, though, so it would need some adjustment when used in 3.5. Chainmail Bikini Games seems to have long gone out of business, and only had two titles: this one, and a Paladin sourcebook called (I kid you not) Call of Duty which was done under 3.5. The writer, James ‘Gargoyle’ Garr, doesn’t seem to have gone on to anything else, and the only other guy listed as assisting with design only shows up as a playtester for obscure products later.

Originally the book was distributed as a PDF (apparently), and the print version (at least as at 2003) was published through Goodman Games. An online search tells us it got an Honourable Mention for Best Rules Sourcebook in the 2002 GenCon ENnies, for what it’s worth. The author made a few posts over in ENWorld around the time the book was released, but didn’t stick around. The book doesn’t seem to be available on large market RPG websites, and while Goodman Games’ website does refer to it, they don’t appear to stock it anymore. You may have to look elsewhere in the virtual or real world to find it.

Notable Features
Martial Artist (base class): Full BAB, which is good. D10 hit dice, i.e. matches the Fighter. +12/+12/+6 on the Fort/Ref/Will saves across 20 levels, which isn’t as good on Will as Monk, but matches it otherwise. +6 Dodge bonus to armor over 20 levels which is better than the monk’s equivalent ability, albeit he doesn’t add WIS to AC like a monk does. His unarmed damage gets to a base of 4d6 at level 18. Unarmed damage is more or less on par with the Monk from levels 1-10, but from 11 onwards the Martial Artist starts picking up 2d8, 1d20, and finally 4d6 damage. He can’t wear any armor at all, though, and he cannot use a non-finessable weapon, although all monk weapons are always considered finessable weapons. Any part of his body can be used as a weapon, like the monk, but when fighting with a one-handed weapon, he can only make an unarmed attack with the off hand, and it has to follow the rules for TWF. (This is likely a leftover from the 3.0 days). The martial artist can also flurry with any light weapon or any monk weapon as well. (However, once again you’re dealing with the 3.0 version of Flurry, which imposed a -2 penalty on all attacks, and that penalty never went away.)

And then we start getting into the martial artist’s answers to the random swag of abilities the monk gets. First, a sort-of barbarian rage: +20 feet to your base speed (up to maximum of 50 feet), +2 haste bonus to AC, attack roll penalties in a flurry are reduced by 1. Lasts for 3 + CON bonus rounds, fatigued afterward. However, you only get these 3/day even at level 20. Second, Finishing Move: once per round, sacrifice your DEX bonus to AC and dodge bonuses to AC for 1 round, and make a single attack (attack action) to hit someone harder. If it succeeds, bonus damage which is added last, after any critical hits. This starts at +2d6 at second level, and goes no higher than +5d6 at 18th level. There’s four bonus feats from a limited list, and five Martial Secrets, which can be selected from a list of about 36, and which range from minor to interesting. Some of these Martial Secrets duplicate monk abilities. Some are obsolete due to the changes to monk weapons and monk flurries in 3.5. And some are still interesting: the ability to ready a full attack rather than just ready a standard action; utilise spears as a finessable, bludgeoning/piercing double weapon; pick up Point Blank Shot and Precise Shot when throwing shuriken; Toughness for free; make an extra-high jump during combat which gives you +1 competence bonus to attack rolls for every 5 ranks you have with the Jump skill; make two extra attacks in a flurry of blows instead of one; gain more bonus feats; increase base speed by 10 feet; 4 free skill points; +1 to attack for another -2 to AC when charging with an unarmed attack; flurry of blows with a spiked chain; finesse with bastard sword, katana, or two-bladed sword; add WIS to attack rolls instead of STR. That said, some of these have substantial feat requirements attached to them. Lastly, 4+INT skill points.

When it comes to multiclassing, there’s an odd mechanic where you stack your Monk and Martial Artist levels together for the purposes of working out the unarmed damage, but it’s the Monk’s unarmed damage that counts. However, if the Martial Artist levels alone result in a higher unarmed damage dice, the Martial Artist dice is used instead. This makes it a bit trickier to play the old Monk’s Belt + Monk’s Tattoo game of increasing your levels for unarmed damage, but it does make a case for dipping Monk now and then maybe. Very unfortunately, and it may have been an editing oversight, every prestige class in the book advances monk unarmed damage rather than Martial Artist damage progression. It’s annoying when the base class can’t play well with the prestige classes from the same book.
Blade Artist (prestige class): It’s only 7/10 BAB, but for people using dual daggers this could have some very nice synergies with stuff like Invisible Blade or Master Thrower. The first level abilities – which might suffice for a dip –flat out give the character Weapon Specialisation and denial of DEX bonus to AC if you draw a dagger and immediately make a melee or thrown attack with it (albeit applies only to the first such attack in a combat.) This takes a little of the pressure off the Flick of the Wrist skill trick which is otherwise de rigeur for this sort of build. Second level’s most significant ability is to grant you Rapid Throw, i.e. make an extra attack with a thrown dagger at a -2. (If you’ve got Rapid Shot already, the throws are at a -1 instead). Third level, intriguingly, provides that your signature dagger “is considered a natural weapon”. Might be interesting for some other prestige classes! And you can use the stunning attacks with it. Utilising this class would probably take a bit more analysis and dipping/multiclassing than I can really do here, but it’s got potential.
Crooked Monk 1-4 (prestige class): Well, at least it demands you have levels in 3 different core classes to qualify, so hurrah to all the LEGO-builders out there. The first four levels give you 2 extra skill points per level in cross-class skills, the monk’s flurry of blows, don’t have to move in a straight line to charge, and +5 feet of reach to your unarmed attacks, i.e. hello unarmed Reach. Rest of it is on par with monk.
Ghost Killer (prestige class): 7/10 BAB, Saves are +7 across the board. From first level your unarmed attacks are Ghost Touch weapons. You arguably pick up the ability to turn undead, and do extra damage to undead. Gain a +5 to all Knowledge checks over 10 levels, which isn’t bad for Knowledge Devotion types. Very limited Contact Other Plane ability, immunity to fear, and one or two random other abilities.
Ki Blaster 1 (prestige class): 5 levels, 3/5 BAB. Basically, give up one of your stunning attacks for the day and, in place of an unarmed strike, fire a ranged touch attack which does an energy type of damage (you have to pick one at the start. However, the types include [Sonic].) The amount of damage is equal to your base unarmed damage, and the action happens in place of an unarmed strike (only 1 per round). Doesn’t provoke an attack of opportunity. The blast has a save for half damage – Fort DC 10+half your character level+WIS – so the wording seems to suggest that you might be able to do this as part of a full attack, e.g. get a bit more use out of those -5 or -10 attacks by making a single ranged touch attack at another target which does an energy ball of damage. The other five levels basically increase the utility of the blast, e.g. stun with it, use another energy type, throw more than 1 blast per round, or turn it into a cone effect. But really I see this prestige class as a single-level dip to pick up a ranged touch attack which inflicts your base unarmed damage … which might be substantial if you’ve managed to optimise it using Monks Belt + Monk’s Tattoo + sizing ab/use. At the very least it’s a nice alternative once the stun-immune creatures start showing up, because this thing does energy damage and works on all creatures.
Psynergist (prestige class): Hey, someone remembered psionics exist! I don’t know the ins and outs of psionics, but the most significant feature to me is that it allows you to convert stunning attack uses into power points, at a rate of gaining 3 points for 1 converted attack. The class also complements Tashalatora: the feat allows you to stack monk and psionic levels for AC bonus, flurries, and unarmed damage, the Psynergist allows fast movement and stunning attacks per day from monk levels to stack as well. In terms of powers progression, I’m guessing it’s pretty limited: +7 power points per day over 10 levels, and new powers discovered of 0, 1, and 2nd level. No bonus power points, and they don’t have a primary discipline. The other abilities are relatively straightforward, consisting mainly of bonus feats and certain abilities like minor increases to saves and (at the top end) a Haste ability if you have a certain amount of power points in reserve. BAB 4 to qualify, and 4+ base power points per day.
Sylvan Monk (prestige class): In the grand tradition of being a defensive unarmed fighter … oh, look, if you’re just wanting to trip the hell out of anything coming at you, then you could do a hell of a lot worse than this. We’ll leave aside the capstone, which twice per day allows you to avoid an attack of pretty much any kind by quite literally ceasing to exist for a round. The 9th level ability, Bend But Not Break, makes you flat-out immune to being tripped or bull rushed. “All attempts to do so fail, and you simply roll with the attack and remain in place.” That therefore counts for any retributive trip an opponent tries on you, too. Then there’s Power Throw: when you successfully make any trip attack, you automatically deal your unarmed strike damage to the tripped opponent. This is on top of the free attack that comes off Improved Trip, I hasten to add. Next, Redirection: if an opponent misses you by 10 or more with a melee attack, they provoke an AoO from you that can only be used to make a trip attack. Oh, and that error margin shrinks too: by 10th level, if the opponent misses you by a piddling 4 or more, instant AoO. This is amazeballs on its own, and that’s before you get to the fact it allows you to use the Leveraged Throw feat in these AoOs, which we’ll get to. The class otherwise grants you Improved Evasion, dodge bonuses to AC scaling with how many Knowledge (Nature) ranks you have (max +5), DR 3/-, Dimension Door 2/day, Defensive Roll like a rogue, and SR 15+Sylvan Monk class level. BAB 7/10. The prerequisites are 5 feats and the Evasion ability, but most are feats you’d actually use with this thing. 4+INT skill points, can’t wear armor. Advances monk unarmed damage, fast movement, and slow fall abilities of a monk. Earliest you could get into this would be level 6 or so, thus, all this stuff by level 16.
Artful Dodge (feat): INT instead of DEX bonus to your AC, which is just gold for Carmendine Monks, Knowledge Devotion fighters, Archivists, and pretty much every Wizard ever.
Bull Charge (feat): Takes speed 40 or greater, but, whenever you hit with a charging attack, you may immediately attempt a bull rush (as a charge action) on the same guy as a free action. No, not a bull rush during a charge, after you know the charge has hit.
Channel Ki (feat): Metamagic. Give up a stunning attack attempt, drop the cost of any other metamagic feat on a spell by one, to a minimum of zero. Can only be used by spontaneous spellcasters, though.
Charge Throw (feat): Whenever opponent charges you, they provoke an AoO that can only be used on a trip attack. If successful, the opponent is prone in the direction of the charge five feet from you and his charge attack automatically fails. Skip that whole ‘ready spears against a charge’ thing and just flip the flacker off his feet instead!
Combat Mind (feat): Choose to take a -4 to initiative roll, get either a +1 insight to attack rolls for the fight or a +1 dodge bonus to AC, at your choice.
Dancing Charge (feat): Don’t have to move in a straight line to charge, so long as you’re in light armor or less. Prerequisite is just five ranks in Perform (Dance)!
Expert Disarm (feat): Ho hum, it’s disarm, what can I … wait. If I disarm and have a free hand, I grab their weapon and can make an immediate AoO against the opponent with it!
Far Strike (feat): burn a stunning fist use and your unarmed attacks can be used as ranged attacks – treated as a thrown weapon attack with a range increment of 10 feet that does damage as a normal unarmed strike.
Flashback (feat): Haven’t got space for a feat? Burn a stunning attack and use a feat from the martial artist’s bonus feat list for 1 round without having to meet its prerequisites.
Flash Attack (feat): If you take the refocus action, next round you get an extra partial action that can only be used to attack an opponent in melee. Might allow you to attack someone, finish them off, move, and then attack someone else.
Flip Kick: (feat): If you use Tumble to get through an enemy square without provoking an AoO, that enemy provokes an attack of opportunity from you, but it must be an unarmed kick.
Leveraged T h r o w (feat): Whenever you make a readied trip attack triggered by a melee attack against you, and the opponent has a higher STR that you, you may use the opponent’s STR score for the opposed roll instead of your own, and the opponent must use their DEX score. They also can’t attempt to trip you if the attempt fails. If they were charging or bull rushing, you get a +4 to the STR roll. Typically your STR is lower than the opponent when it’s a big bruiser; this gives you an immediate advantage. And typically monsters don’t have a high DEX, especially those with a STR and/or size advantage - much of their AC comes from natural armor or armor, so not only are you neutralising their advantage but forcing them to one of their lesser abilities. Also note how the Sylvan Monk uses this feat, it’s not too bad at all for trippers.
Melee Spell (feat): Metamagic, but very easy prerequisites. You can make an extra unarmed strike immediately after successfully casting a spell with a somatic component and a casting time of one action (likely standard, that’s 3.0 wording). +1 to spell level, and can only be used by those who prepare their spells. “But True Strike doesn’t have a somatic component…” I give you Primitive Caster from Frostburn, which requires that you have two hands free to add a somatic component to the spell. Behold, now you can cast True Strike and smash the opponent in the face with your unarmed attack in the same round. Enlightened Fist or Sacred Fist seem good candidates for this option (but sadly, not unarmed Duskblade since they don’t prepare spells; Ordained Champion might be able to use it, but you’d need DM adjudication because of the PrC’s modified spontaneous casting).
Mighty Strike (feat): Take a -4 on an unarmed strike, and if it hits, the base damage is increased by one step; 1d8 becomes 1d10, 1d10 becomes 1d12, that sort of thing.
Mongoose Strike (feat): Give up a stunning attack attempt, and for one round your opponent can’t use any DEX bonus to AC or dodge bonuses against your unarmed strikes. “So if I dip Monk and then go Rogue…” Sadly, no, a Mongoose Strike explicitly cannot be a sneak attack. “But what if I dip Monk, and then go Ninja?” Ah, so! By RAW Sudden Strike is not locked out by this technique, most likely because Complete Adventurer didn’t exist at the time this book was written.
Ponderous Attack (feat): If you delay until you’re the last person to act in the round, your first melee attack gets a +2 to attack and damage. Not a bad option if your Initiative count sucks anyway.
P O U N C E (feat): Forget all that applying to strange barbarian tribes for membership, forget all that class feature finagling and/or shapeshifting. Get Lightning Reflexes, Speed 40 feet, BAB +6, don’t wear heavy armour, and you may use the full attack action to make multiple melee attacks when charging.
Somersault Charge (feat): If you move at least 20 feet on a charge, and make a Tumble check at DC 20, no -2 to AC on the charge.
Strike Through (feat): Give up a stunning attack for the day, and for 1 round all your unarmed attacks ignore the opponent’s armor and cover bonuses to AC (magical enhancement bonuses to AC still count.)
Weapon Handling (feat): Sheathe your weapon as a free action once per round. If you’re going with Iaijutsu Focus, this is a little less silly than Quick Draw and throwing multiple katanas at people.
Elven Fencing (feat): It’s a similar ‘capstone feat’ like the stuff we see at the top end of fighting schools in Quintessential Monk 2 and Quintessential Fighter, but unfortunately it still takes up a feat slot. The prerequisites include slightly useless stuff like Improved Disarm and Analyze Opponent which is weak and from this book. However, if you’re using a rapier (or rather, any weapon, thanks very much Aptitude weapons), then any melee attack roll that misses you by more than 4 provokes an attack of opportunity from you. This isn’t too damn bad for AoO optimisers and works like the Sylvan Monk capstone.
Mage Fighting (feat): Again, capstone feat, but it drops the spell level increase for Melee Casting (above) down to zero. Thus, your standard action spells with somatic components now come with free unarmed attacks on the end of them. Six feats, though, but for a gish it’s worth thinking about.
Curved Death (feat): Capstone feat again, but when hitting with a kukri, you do damage as if it were a (3.0) wounding weapon.
Chain Storm (feat): Capstone feat again, but when using the spiked chain, get Whirlwind Attack as a free bonus feat, even if you don’t have the prerequisites, and you can attack anyone within your 10 foot threat range when using the spiked chain. The prerequisites for this feat don’t include any of the actual prerequisites for Whirlwind Attack.
Focused Attack (new skill use, Concentration): Use the full attack action to make a single, focused attack. For every 5 ranks you have in Concentration, get a +1 bonus to your attack roll. Can’t move during the round except 5 foot step before the attack. Might be of interest to martial adept classes in particular which use Diamond Mind, and it sure has synergy with the Decisive Strike ACF for monks.
Guided Stars (magic item): +1 returning shuriken that ignore cover bonuses to AC and concealment miss chances so long as the target doesn’t have 100% cover or full concealment. 9,000 gp for 3.
Bracers of Blocking (magic item): Once per round, if you’d normally be hit with a melee attack, make a DC 20 Reflex saving throw (any magical bonus to the attack raises the DC accordingly). If your Reflex check succeeds, the attack is blocked. 16,000gp, this is pretty damn good given it doesn’t matter whether it’s a natural 20 or how big the attack roll is, the Reflex save is DC 20 plus spare change.
Headband of War (magic item): 20,000 gp. +2 to STR, DEX and CON and -2 to WIS. People give up racial hit dice or level adjustments for this sort of stuff. (In case it escapes your notice, the headband is a single, red bit of cloth tied at the back … i.e. Rambo or Liu Kang…)
Robe of Mastery: For 26,000gp, pick up use of a chosen bonus feat and a +4 armor bonus to AC while you’re wearing the robe. This is exceptionally good for the price.

Dreadful Features
Armor Pugilist (prestige class): Critical immunity, DR 3/-, immunity to pain, and +3 to natural armor are nice and all, but I don’t think I’d wait 10 levels with 7/10 BAB to get it all, especially given that’s all I can get.
Blood Hunter (prestige class): The fluff is amazing – you’ve learned the secret martial arts of vampires, and eventually will try to murder the vampire you’re pledged to – but the crunch is not terribly strong. Perhaps the most notable elements are that it somewhat accelerates the Martial Artist’s Finishing Move damage when unarmed, and allows you at first level to treat your unarmed strikes as slashing or piercing attacks, and gain a +1 to damage.
Storm Lord (prestige class): Same problem as Arcane Archer and Arcane Duelist, demands that you’re able to cast an [electricity] spell* but then doesn’t advance your spellcasting beyond something that looks akin to a Storm domain spell list which you can pick up as spell-like abilities. At least they don’t make it once per day, you have to burn stunning fist attacks to use it. Can do innate Shocking Grasp spells … once every other round, which don’t attract an attack of opportunity. If you really want this, then dip it for a couple of levels and be done with it.
*Alternatively, you have to have been struck by lightning during an actual storm, which is hilarious.
Tanterist (prestige class): Pressure points, the class. With one exception – disarming touch – it’s all stun attacks and minor ability damage, and it only applies to humanoids or monstrous humanoids. Blech.
Being Elsewhere (feat): Provided you have a base speed of 90 feet, get 10% miss chance due to fast movement. Prrrretty sure there’s an editing problem there…
Combination (feat): So if I score a critical threat on an unarmed strike, instead of confirming the critical I could make an extra unarmed strike using the same attack bonus but at a +4 to the attack roll. But … I scored a critical threat, I already have done damage, I don’t need to confirm it. The only situation in which it makes any sense to take this would be if your fists have a number of effects on them that are not multiplied on a critical hit. Otherwise this is literally no different an outcome than taking a feat with a +4 on a critical confirmation roll, since a critical confirmation roll is by definition an attack roll with all your modifiers intact. Sure, the next roll could be a critical, but you’re literally throwing away the chance of one critical for the chance of … another critical.
Creature Club (feat): Pick up a creature and use it as a club, hur hur hur. I’d be more impressed if swinging halflings around did more than 1d6 damage, although the slightly larger area I threaten is interesting at least. Bonus points, if the target is wearing spiked armour it does more damage.
Double Strike (feat): Like Double Hit, only terribad worse.
Precise Attack (feat): On your turn, before making any attack rolls, choose to gain a +2 competence bonus to melee attack rolls and do half damage. “Ssssso if I Power Attac—” Special: This feat may not be used at the same time as Power Attack. “DAMMIT!”
One Against Many (feat): Get Whirlwind Attack as a free bonus feat when making unarmed attacks, even if you don’t meet the prerequisites. The problem is that the prerequisites for One Against Many include Combat Expertise, Dodge, and Mobility, as well as three other unrelated feats which aren’t really that strong individually or in combination, so you’re basically relieving the person of the need to take two feats provided they take three others. Decidedly mediocre at best.

Who it’s best for (Player/GM/both)
Mostly players. Yes, GMs can use it, but it’s mostly player options.

Comments, thoughts, and rating out of 10.
On mechanics: In broad terms, the book gets better as you read further. The Martial Artist is nice but difficult to multiclass effectively with; the prestige classes are situational but dippable in some instances; the feats have a treasure trove of useable stuff for martial types and gishes, even if a fair proportion of it is pretty low-powered if not ineffective. Maybe the thing I liked best was the way it makes stunning attacks more versatile. Leaving aside that a stun has a couple of gates put on it to actually hit something with it, a fair number of creatures are immune to it. A goodly number of the options in the book do something with this by forcing consumption of stunning attack uses. Building up a substantial number of stun attack attempts might not be as simple as picking up nightsticks, but there are feats for it and in instances like Flashback or Mongoose Strike, you might not need many stun attempts per day to make this worthwhile. There’s a lot of good stuff in here that addresses martial shortcomings, even if it’s unarmed for the most part, and which gives martials more options. Like all feat-based martial books, it has to compete and come up more or less short against Tome of Battle for optionality, but for games that exclude that book, this is a strong book, particularly for unarmed martials. It’s surprising how reasonably balanced this turned out to be. I give this a 3/4.

On concepts and fluff: I have to say I like most of the concepts in the book, even if it’s not quite so gorgeously realised as Quintessential Monk or the like. There’s a bit of wuxia here, and it’s not as though the prestige class concepts are really fully-realised, but some of them are really solid and Sylvan Monk in particular far better mechanises the concept of the defensive martial artist than most of the Setting Sun discipline in Tome of Battle. In addition, you get the sense that an actual gamer wrote this thing with the references to Min/Maxing and other advice. There were real signs here that the writer really got at least some of the issues that the monk has. And to great credit, the author also provides a decent slab of advice for how to better run sessions, i.e. how better to run sessions rather than how to run adventures. This takes the form of a section titled ‘Cinematic Combat’ which gives DM advice on running combat that’s actually not bad: consider forgetting maps, don’t play out pointless combats, use a timer, get the players to help you run the combat, all good basic stuff. The advice is more pragmatic than most. Give this one a 3/4.

On presentation: Sans serif fonts! It’s all black and white Arial for a change. Has an index. The artwork is just eye-bleedingly bad to my taste, and the pages are a little crowded, but at least I could get through the book without feeling like I’m falling asleep. This guy must’ve liked his old D&D modules. Give this a 1/2.

Total: 7/10.

Next Time: The Quintessential Barbarian, Mongoose Publishing.

Kalkra

2021-05-14, 10:33 AM

If I were pulling infinite attack shenanigans with Aptitude weapons and Snap Kick/Lightning Mace, I'd probably include Combination. It seems built for degeneracy and nothing else. Sylvan Monk looks nice, but I'd be interested to see how it stacks up against other tripping builds.

StSword

2021-05-14, 04:41 PM

Actually there's a feat that allows spontaneous casters to prepare spells- Arcane Preparation (https://dndtools.net/feats/tome-and-blood-a-guidebook-to-wizards-and-sorcerers--51/arcane-preparation--100/).

So if it's worth a feat tax, than sorcerers and other spontaneous casters can get goodies that require spell preparation.

And of course another book that I look for and fail to find a non-dead tree version. Sigh.

Feldar

2021-05-17, 02:26 PM

A Magic Medieval Society: Western Europe, Expeditious Retreat Press (2nd edition)

The review made me want to at least read the book, but sadly the book is insanely priced (on Amazon at least).

RexDart

2021-05-17, 02:42 PM

The review made me want to at least read the book, but sadly the book is insanely priced (on Amazon at least).

It's available on DriveThruRPG (3rd edition) for a pretty reasonable price:
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/192370/A-Magical-Medieval-Society-Western-Europe-Third-Edition

Bavarian itP

2021-05-22, 10:30 PM

I just purchased Midnight and A Medieval Society through drivethrurpg, thanks for this thread showing those hidden gems :smallsmile:

Saintheart

2021-05-26, 07:36 AM

The Quintessential Barbarian, Mongoose Publishing

https://images2.imgbox.com/cb/20/75CWCinL_o.jpg
Summary
This is a book designed to grant more options for barbarians. As with the other Quintessentials, it is a significant assortment of features, feats, prestige classes, equipment, and rules designed to make playing Barbarians more fun, if not more powerful (the standard warning of the Quintessential series being that they don’t promise their books will not necessarily do so.)

Date of Publication and Page Count
2003, 130 pages. Once again we’re in Mongoose’s Quintessential series which was pumped out by Mongoose at a rapid rate of knots over the first years of third edition. The book’s 3.0 references lead one to assume it was prepared before 3.5 came out that same year. This was the second Mongoose book for the writer, Robert J. Schwalb. If the name sounds familiar, that would likely be because he went on to write the PHB 2, Tome of Magic (with others), Elder Evils, Exemplars of Evil, Drow of the Underdark, and the Fiendish Codex 2 for WOTC. Moving on to Green Ronin, who he was with for some years, he was the lead writer on their Song of Ice and Fire RPG (which, in passing, has an awesome social combat system, really works for that world). However, all of those works were in his future when he produced this. The book doesn’t seem to be readily available for purchase on large market RPG websites, and so you might have to extend your search further into the real or online world to pick up a copy.

Notable Features
Abandoned (character background): For those of you who haven’t seen this before, the Quintessential series offers a character a benefit matched with a penalty centred around a character archetype. In the case of this, the Abandoned, the barbarian has been literally raised by wild creatures, and they pick up a certain ability depending on the creature that raised them. Variously, the barbarian picks up +4 to Climb, a Climb speed, Scent; +2 to STR and +4 to Swim; 1/day, charge by moving 3xtheir normal speed, +20 feet of movement instead of +10; Pounce, +2 at least to Hide, Move Silently, and Balance; or the Improved Trip feat. Oh, and they also pick up the old 3.0 versions of Animal Empathy and Speak with Animals (of the kind that raised them). The penalty is that they don’t have a language, and have to spend skill points to Speak Language as cross-class skills. They also don’t have the Barbarian’s DR, and a very limited skill list. Leaving aside the character concept is amazing, both simple and intuitive, the mechanical benefits are great: basically you’re paying a few skill points and the barbarian’s pretty piddly damage resistance for some really solid features.
Exile (character background): How’d you like to be cast out of your tribe and have a visible brand of your great crime, in return for Hide, Move Silently, Pick Pocket, and Open Lock class skills? Plus Uncanny Dodge one level earlier, and immune to flank at level 4? Sure, you get your Rage a level later, and you lose Handle Animal, Ride, and so on as class skills.
Explorer (character background): 6+INT skill points per level, can purchase literacy at 1 skill point rather than 2. Diplomacy, Gather Information, Sense Motive, Knowledge (Geography) are class skills. However, no fast movement, and the rage gets nerfed a bit.
Ex-Slave (character background): +1 bonus per level (max +5) against the race that held him captive. Also gets Iron Will at first level. However, only proficient in simple weapons and no armour, and only starts with 1d4x10gp. Not a bad way to pick up a free feat.
Gladiator (character background): Gain Bluff and Sense Motive as class skills, pick up a single Exotic Weapon Proficiency for free. Lose access to Craft, Handle Animal, Ride, Swim and Survival.
Lunatic (character background): +6 to STR, CON and +4 to Will saves during Rage, and gain Frenzy. However, -4 to AC, and only 2+INT skill points per level. And lose access to Handle Animal and Survival, and have the GM select one or two stimuli that trigger him.
Manhunter (character background): Females who’ve escaped their societies and hang out in the deep jungle. FAVORED ENEMY BENEFITS AGAINST THE ENTIRE MALE GENDER, and if they have Favored Enemy from another class, the bonuses stack.
Cold (regional benefit): So on top of the character background features, Q.Barbarian also offers available benefits depending on the region your character is from. This requires work with the DM to know which regions are available, but this (and the technology level – Default, Dark Age, or Bronze Age) provide a small menu of extra benefits. For Cold regions, it’s Cold Resistance 2, +4 to Survival when in the Arctic, unhindered movement when moving through snow, or free EWP in harpoon.
Desert (regional benefit): +4 to Ride checks on camels.
Forest (regional benefit): EWP (blowgun), +4 to Hide and Move Silently checks in forest terrain, Alertness.
Hills (regional benefit): Track as bonus feat, Weapon Focus (Sling) as bonus feat.
Mountains (regional benefit): Cold Resistance 5, Track, +4 to Climb and Jump, +2 competence to Craft checks.
Plains (regional benefit): +5 to base speed, speak an extra language, Knowledge (Astrology) class skill, Alertness, or +4 to Survival
Underground (regional benefit): Darkvision 30 feet, or +30 feet to races that already have it; Alertness, Blind-Fight, +4 to Hide … but always Light Sensitive as a penalty.
Despoiler 1 (prestige class): The Despoiler comes on relatively late – minimum character level 12 – but if you’re looking for Spell Resistance 21 against divine spells, this might be worth the dip. Otherwise grants a little smite and Fast Heal 2, and so not that impressive, but at least it’s full BAB and only 5 levels. The class is designed for barbarians who want to wipe religions off the map.
Devolutionary (prestige class): Only five levels, and at the end you’re permanently in the Rage state … but by that point you literally can’t speak anymore and your INT-based skills are pretty much tanked. Gets you Pounce and Scent and one or two other bits and pieces.
Master of the Hunt (prestige class): Over 5 levels, pick up a pack of loyal Dire Doges Wolves equal to 5+CHA mod, befriended as if you’d cast Animal Friendship. Picks up Scent, share your Rage feature with the rest of the pack. The capstone is the lycanthrope template (werewolf). All this and full BAB. Unfortunately you can’t get any of it without BAB +15 and four useless feats, although it might be more exciting than Barbarian 15-20.
Intimidation (new skill use): Basically, split intimidation into six individual skills, which are still intimidation but key off the six different primary stats. The check is also markedly different from 3.5: you can “change others’ behaviour” with a check of DC 10 + target’s HD, which is markedly easier and more predictable than the opposed roll version in 3.5.
Zweihander (exotic weapon): 2d8 base damage and 18-20 critical threat range. Need 18 STR to wield it at all. Up there with the biggest native damage dice and widest native threat range of all D&D 3.5 weapons.
Focused Rage (feat): Rather than it having to be your STR and CON, pick which of your primary stats are increased by +4 during your rage. (Can’t choose the same stat twice).
Presence (feat): Really good for rogues who can’t, or don’t want to, resort to the standard old Flick of the Wrist + Gnomish Quickrazor attack sequence. Standard action (which doesn’t draw an AoO), roll your Intimidation against the opponent’s Will saving throw; highest result wins. If you’re successful, your next attack on the opponent denies his DEX bonus to AC, but the attack must be made on (or before) your next turn, which means it can also apply to AoOs. Intimidate skill checks scale a hell of a lot faster than Will saves, even against mages, and certainly on beefy martials … not to mention this feat gives a +2 to Intimidate checks anyway.
Punishing Strike (feat): Whenever you make a critical hit on the opponent, hit him again at the same attack modifier as the one that scored the critical hit. Only once per round and therefore a bit more balanced than Lightning Mace, although there’s a few more prerequisites to make up.
Unbeliever (feat): +4 to all saves against divine magic.
Two-Handed Weapon Mastery (feat): when using a weapon in two hands, double your STR modifier for the purposes of dealing damage. +4 to opposed disarm, and always able to take an AoO against an opponent who attempts to disarm you, even if they have Improved Disarm. If you prefer bastard swords and can’t get Exotic Weapon Master as a class, I guess there’s always this.
Peerless Armour (new armour): Basically an improved masterwork armor. -2 to the ACP and +1 to the Armor bonus, though magic enhancements don’t stack with these … but the cost for enchanting this armour is 25% lower than standard, which is a handy saving.
Bone Armour (new armour): +2 circumstance bonus to Intimidation, and -5% arcane spell failure chance when casting from the Necromancy school. However, -4 to Move Silently, and if an opponent hits you with a natural 20, the armour’s bonus to AC drops by 1. And that’s bearing in mind its armor bonus is -2 on the standard armour version anyway.
Iron Armour (new armour): -20% to the cost, but +20% to its weight. Could be worse.
Survival (Chapter, Expanded Rules): Lots more granular rules around subjects like weather, trailing, stalking, hunting, fishing, how much food and water you need, getting lost, all the rest of it, in the wilderness. Admittedly most of these issues will be trivial for mid- to high-level parties, but they do provide a good, meaty way to get into environmental hazards and making the journey to or from the dungeon of interest a bit more interesting and variable. Well worth a bit of a study for the DM.

Dreadful Features
Guide (character background): I like the idea, but I don’t think I’d want a Cleric’s BAB as well as Track and access to Hide, Knowledge (Geography), and Move Silently.
Fetish Warrior (prestige class): Eat body parts, get weak healing. Skin an enemy and pick up its natural armor bonus. Absorb a random spell. Great ideas, stupid execution, especially without full BAB.
Pit Fighter (prestige class): Over 5 levels, +2d6 sneak attack, DR 2/- that stacks with Barbarian’s, and Feint as a move action rather than standard action. Meh.
Planar Savage (prestige class): Elemental Resistance 10, can see into the ethereal plane, can dimension door DEX bonus times per day, 60 feet around you is barred to extradimensional travel, but it’s likely still inferior to Horizon Walker.
Wizard Slayer (prestige class): First level is distasteful to such a point you either go all the way or don’t dip this at all. At level 1, in return for sensing magic and a +2 to all saves on spells and spell-like abilities, any magic item coming into your hands has its powers suppressed: arcane, divine, psionic, even artefacts. This might seem fun until you realise that melee basically only keeps up with magic items, especially around BAB +8 where this kicks in. Magic spells cast by others don’t seem to be bound by this though, so hope you got an understanding caster in your party. The capstone, which thankfully happens in 5 levels rather than 10, is that if you (sigh) make a readied action, and roll an attack roll against the DC of an incoming spell, you can deflect it harmlessly away (critical hit deflects the spell back on the caster). Stupid class.

Who it’s best for (Player/GM/both)
It's mostly for players, but as a GM of mostly low to mid level parties, I love any guidance that’s given about wilderness travel, and this book has a big wad of information on that.

Comments, thoughts, and rating out of 10.
On mechanics: In summary – more toys, not a lot of extra power, but strong attempt to match a concept to a build. Barbarians basically come down to two or three key things: rage, size, BAB, and more rage, size, and BAB. The problem being for barbarians that the character level teens stitch the BAB and rage improvements up with low-powered stuff like trap sense and (low end) damage reduction. The traditional approach, so far as I can tell, to these issues, is to ACF like mad towards the front of the build and focus everything on plain old Hulk Smash.

Schwalb saw this much the same way, and says so explicitly in the book: “So, what does one give a player bent on exploiting the more destructive aspect of Third Edition? Toys. You have to give these guys lots of toys. The concepts section provides players with the tools to get rid of the chaff. It allows players to drop skills or abilities in favour of expanding or highlighting other areas.”

Mechanically the character backgrounds sections pulls this off handsomely. Even if it’s just a free prerequisite feat that you don’t have to waste a precious feat slot on, you’ll likely find something useful, and a flavourful character concept to go with it.

Less successful are the prestige classes. The positives are that they’re all full BAB bar one or two, which is great. And they all hew pretty closely to their character concepts, which have very strong Barbarian flavours to them. But none of them advance rage uses or strength (bar the Devolutionary, which is a very specific character concept) which means you’re foregoing the main Barbarian ability, in place of a series of toys that may not be as impressive as they first appear at the levels they play at. I acknowledge the Quintessentials never set out to upgrade the power of a class, but I don’t think it’s necessarily a wise idea to hobble them either … and most of the prestige classes hobble, whether a little or a lot. (Again, there are exceptions and standouts.) And it’s such a shame, because the prestige classes, as said, are great ideas and much more interesting than bog-standard barbarian.

But the book does recover when it comes to feats and equipment. There’s nothing world-destroyingly powerful, but nothing that’s really, truly dreadful. And as said there’s sorely-needed details for struggling DMs about how to rule the way characters get on in the wilds. All up, I’d rate this one a 2.5/4.

On concepts and fluff: All the Quintessentials I’ve looked at thus far shine like new pennies in the area of character concepts, and this one is no different. It wasn’t until I was going through the first thirty pages that I realised how narrow I’d allowed my mental picture of a Barbarian to go: this book leans heavily into any number of different character tropes we associate with the barbarian, and there is a strong flavour of Robert E. Howard and other pulp writers running through the whole thing. This was deliberate and it’s pulled off beautifully, exploring the concept of the barbarian as thoroughly as the monk was explored in Quintessential Monk. I’d say Schwalb even added a third dimension to the concept by hooking up both character background and regional background and technology level as things that can influence the creation of the barbarian. He goes through all manner of different, more primitive armours, and even contains a special section on barbarian hordes, which plays with how the (broken) Leadership feat functions when summoning a horde of angels barbarians. It’s a really good tour of the barbarian concept and really puts some flavour back in the idea, which is why I give this one 3/4.

On presentation: Standard Mongoose Publishing format. Index is included which is nice. Give this one a 1/2.

Total: 6.5/10.

Next Time: Tome of Horrors (Revised), Necromancer Games.

Kalkra

2021-05-26, 10:06 AM

I pity the DM who has to decide if the eldritch horrors attacking the party are male or not.

On a more serious note, IIRC one of the Q. Barbarians had a feat that gives +10 movement speed and can be taken multiple times. I thought it was the first one, but I could be wrong. Regardless, while movement speed isn't particularly useful, it's notable for making Mirror Move the best spell for flat bonuses to movement speed.

Saintheart

2021-06-04, 09:28 AM

Tome of Horrors (Revised), Necromancer Games

https://images2.imgbox.com/dc/07/5ppyo3fN_o.jpg
Summary
In essence, this is a book of monsters. But with a distinct bias: it weighs heavily on converting old first edition monsters into third edition rules, usually ones that WOTC overlooked when producing splatbooks with laxative regularity. The book features 300 monsters converted from D&D First Edition sources, 25 from other Necromancer Games products, and 100 original creations.

Date of Publication and Page Count
2005, 450 pages. As a reaction to D&D 3.5, this book was revised, lengthened, and the layout redone. Necromancer Games went defunct in 2010 when the two founders Clark Peterson and Bill Webb split up to start separate games publishers: Legendary Games and Frog God Games, respectively. (No, not that Legendary Games. This one went bust a couple of years later because Peterson had other stuff to focus on, namely being an actual judge in a court.) Frog God Games bought out Necromancer in 2012, and this book – the first volume – is still available on large market RPG websites. (Frog God Games actually stocks a compendium volume that has parts 1, 2, and 3 in one book. Also, this edition is not to be confused with the same book from Frog God Games which was produced for fifth edition.)

Necromancer Games’ slogan was “Third Edition Rules, First Edition Feel”, which at least gives us some sense of what they were aiming at, and given the book is essentially a large wad of monsters converted from first edition D&D, well, at least they headed out in that direction. The lead author for this volume, Scott Greene, has a short-ish history with RPG games though he doesn’t seem to be writing at the moment. When first released, Monte Cook’s quote – lovingly reproduced in the foreword to the book – was that “ If a role playing game is a gun, then a monster book is the ammunition. If that’s the case, then Tome of Horrors is a case of hollow point, explosive shells.” Okay then.

Notable Features
Al-Mi’raj (monster): IT’S A UNICORN BUNNY! And likely to tickle you to death with its 1d4-2 gore attack. Has SR 16, can blink at will, but shame on you if your soul ever grows so black and cynical as to even contemplate killing a cute little blinking rabbit with green fur and a gold horn on purpose, especially one at CR 1.
Amphisbaena (monster): “An amphisbaena moves on land by grasping one of its necks with its other head and rolling across the ground like a hoop.” The amphisbaena was actually a mythical Greek creature, and under D&D is basically a poisonous two-headed snake but they could’ve left the hoop snake joke out of it.
Apparition: (monster): Basically like your average undead … except it can convince you you’re strangling (DC 18 Will save) and if you believe it, you die of fright from heart failure (DC 17 Fort save).
Greater Basilisk: (monster): Well, the basilisk was already an annoying bugger to fight, but this one introduces halitosis. Any creature directly in front of a Greater Basilisk takes 2d4 CON damage every round they stay in the area (DC 19 Fort save). And it still has a poison attack that does 1d4 CON as well, at the same saving throw.
Bleeding Horror (template): Main interesting ability of this creature is that when it hits with a claw attack, get heals hit points equal to the damage dealt, which really vampires should have gotten in the SRD, and if you hit with both claw attacks, you do 1d4+2 CON damage, which is kind of brutal.
Bog Beast (monster): Basically a low-er level sasquatch or maybe a Grendel, the main interest is that for some insane reason you can run it as a PC. For this you’ve got Large size out the starting blocks, +10 STR, +8 CON, -6 INT, +2 WIS, -2 CHA, darkvision, +5 natural armor bonus, Scent , a rend and Disease attack, none of which are very formidable. Pretty steep costs though: 5 racial hit dice and LA +3.
Boggart (monster): Really interesting “larval” form of the much-dreaded Will o’ the Wisp. Immune to magic, has invisibility, has confusion, electrical attack, and has an alternative form as a will o’ the wisp. It also has a feature similar to the Dusk Giant’s Cannibalize (Ex) quality in that it can advance its own hit dice depending on how many humanoid corpses it eats. If it hits 9 HD, it immediately becomes a will o’ the wisp.
Buckawn (monster): Main attack method is via the poison they use on their daggers or darts: Moonseed berries, contact or ingested, Fort DC 18, Initial damage is 3d6 CON. Combined with at-will invisibility and 1/day entangle and insect plague, and SR 12 and DR 5/cold iron, then even allowing for only 3 hp I wouldn’t necessarily call this CR 2 – especially when they don’t show up in less than 2-4 at a time.
Caryatid Column (monster): CR 3? Really? It’s an animated stone column with construct traits that is immune to any spell that allows SR, DR 5/-, and imposes Fort DC 12 checks on any weapon – magical or nonmagical – to shatter when you hit it!
Cave Cricket (monster): Good for annoying your players. No real offensive capacity, but creatures within 20 feet of one of these can’t be heard unless they scream. Spellcasters have to concentrate to cast in the area. Chirping increases the chance of wandering monsters by 30%.
Cave Fisher (monster): Well, I do remember Drizzt fighting one of these. Not bad for a low-level party: at least it doesn’t rely on grapple checks to reel partymembers in on its filament, and takes not-low Escape Artist or STR checks to break free.
Crypt Thing/Crypt Guardian (monster): The Crypt Thing is your average undead guardian of a tomb, with the added ability once per day to tell everything in a 50 foot radius to sod off. All right, all right: everything in a 50 foot radius gets teleported in a random direction (1d10x100 feet, including up or down in 3 directions.) The Crypt Guardian, meanwhile, can, once per day, turn everyone invisible and paralyzed … for up to 2d4 days.
Disenchanter (monster): You think throwing Rust Monsters at your party makes you an Edgelord DM? Try this one, which basically is a camel with an elephant’s snout, and when it hits with the snout, it drains one magic item carried or worn by the target (determined randomly by the DM.) The item loses all magical properties it possesses.
Dracolisk (monster): Great, let’s make a dragon that has a gaze weapon as well as a breath weapon.
Faerie Dragon (monster): Awwww. A little dragon with butterfly wings. That said, the most interesting feature is that it has decent chances of replicating arcane or divine spells with a caster level equal to double its HD. Faerie dragons come with 2 HD naturally, but if advanced to 6 HD they replicate spells as a 12th level caster. No limits on the number of spells that can be cast per day.
Mist Dragon (monster): Hey, let’s give a dragon a gaseous form from which it can still cast spells, even if it can’t physically attack!
Drelb (monster): Extraplanar outsider from the Negative Energy Plane. Chief ability is that when it hits with its incorporeal touch attack, the creature drops whatever it’s holding and falls prone shivering for 1 round. NO SAVE. Let’s leave aside it has another ability to render the target flat-footed which requires a Will save to overcome at DC 20.
Dust Digger (monster): Like an ant lion (also in this volume) but better, because it can render a target automatically grappled if you walk on top of it, and then it can Swallow Whole on Medium creatures.
Time Elemental (monster): The lower-end elementals are maybe not that bad, but the Royal and Noble Elementals can pull Time Stop once a day, never caught flat-footed or flanked, immune to time-related magic, have spell resistance, can pull in other manifestations of itself from other dimensions to assist with attacks, can age a character up or down, and pull greater teleports.
Flail Snail (monster): Main item of interest is its Warp Magic ability: cast a spell on it, and there’s an 80% chance it’s not affected and something horrible happens like the spell misfiring and screwjobbing the caster or one of his buddies.
FLUMPH (monster): YES IT’S HERE.
Groaning Spirit (monster): Similar to a banshee, but it also makes undead flee, and a Dispel Evil spell outright kills it if it fails its save.
Haunt (monster): Undead that possesses people and then kills them.
Magnesium Spirit (monster): Does bright light flash damage, can give you negative levels, and also possess you. Really interesting!
Skeleton Warrior (template): Goes on any humanoid creature. Turn Immune, DR 10/magic and bludgeoning, Darkvision, SR 15 + HD. Cool stuff.
Spectral Troll (template): Now, I remember these pains-in-the-@$$ all too well. Here’s the template for making one: Corrupting Touch, ethereal, rejuvenation, turn resistance, and vanish in direct sunlight.
Vampire Rose (monster): Like it says, it’s a rose bush that sucks your blood out. Nice one at CR 3.
Wolf-in-Sheep’s-Clothing (monster): Yep, the good old “Furry rabbit prey sitting on carnivorous log” monster. CR 9 for a creature with a Grapple of +9 is way over the top when the grapple is its primary attack strategy.
Witherweed (monster): Interesting defence mechanism in that if you hit it with a [fire] attack, it creates a cloud of poisonous smoke that fills a 20 foot radius around you. DC 20 check to spot it, this is a good one for plains monsters.
Wizard’s Shackle (monster): CR 1/8 that basically drains magic from an arcane spellcaster’s mind. Would be more dangerous if it could move faster than 5 feet at a time, but the Hide +15 check is not too damn bad to scare the hell out of the smug Tier 1 caster now and then.
Giant Hamster (animal): Go for the eyes, Boo, GO FOR THE EYES!!!! Yes, all right, I know he was a miniature giant space hamster you bloody pedants…

Dreadful Features
Bhuta (monster): Love the idea of a death grip on an undead that prevents the creature in its grasp from casting spells or speaking, and doing automatic damage once it grips, but for a CR 6 rating I’d hope for a better Grapple check than +5 combined with STR 16, especially with an AC of 15.
Belabra (monster: the floating forest jellyfish, and once again the disappointing combination of grappling as the primary mode of attack with a +3 BAB and +5 Grapple modifier. Somewhat interesting feature that if you hit it, you wear acidic blood and get half-blinded and lose DEX bonus to AC, but I still query the CR 3 rating.
Cat Lord (monster): Love the concept: a lord of all cats, there is only one at any time, who shows up in either panther or human form, and he can summon any number of them, including weretigers. Gets improved invisibility at will, greater teleport, haste, etc., at various times. DR 20/magic and cold iron, SR 28, so on. I’d probably be more impressed if, despite his +19 BAB, he did more than 2 claw attacks of 1d6+7 damage for a CR 15 creature.
Clockwork Titan (monster): I mean, I don’t have a problem with the concept, but I think CR 4 might be just slightly low for a creature that has 68 hp, construct traits, 10 foot reach, and a +12 slam attack that does 2d6+8 on a hit.
Dragonfish (monster): Man those dragon types believe in spreading the love far and wide don’t they?
Frost Man (monster): I know the Frostburn Frost Folk when I see it.
Asswere (monster): A kind of were-donkey, but therianthropes are not lycanthropes – different template altogether. Its main power is to bray and cause a confusion effect accordingly.

Who it’s best for (Player/GM/both)
GM, obviously. It’s a bestiary.

Comments, thoughts, and rating out of 10.
Special Note of Disclaimer +1, +3 vs. Oldbies: I was a relative latecomer to D&D. I played stuff like Pool of Radiance and Baldur’s Gate 2, and read the earlier novels like Darkwalker on Moonshae or The Crystal Shard, but I didn’t really get into the hobby until third edition. So I do feel like the kid who accompanies his parents to a Rolling Stones concert and doesn’t quite get why the olds are on their feet cheering the moment the cowbell starts and Keith Richards hits the first G note of Honky Tonk Women. Clark Peterson’s introduction to the book bewails how there were so many missing creatures from the Monster Manuals that didn’t survive the transition from earlier editions, so I’m assuming they were aiming for a nostalgic audience first. I therefore am probably not the best qualified guy to be able to assess whether the monsters provide a first edition feel on third edition mechanics beyond my vague memories of random encounters generated by the computer on Pool of Radiance which featured a good thirty, forty kobolds against a level 4 or 5 party, or look on in horror as the paper version of that adventure – FRCS1: Ruins of Adventure – throws 15 orcs and 35 kobolds at a level 1 party. I can only go on the concepts as provided against the experiences I’ve had in third edition, and whether they work. So if you do detect a sudden gushing over something you’ve known was in D&D for decades, well, what can I say: discovery’s a beautiful thing.

On mechanics: Look, most of the mechanics are actually fairly familiar, but there were a number of creatures that actually did do something different with their abilities, it’s not all just hitpoint or CON damage or the like. However, the most irritating part for me was the failure to appreciate how bad Grapple is. If, necessarily, you have to avoid an AoO and then succeed on an opposed grapple check to actually come to grips with an opponent, then you would expect decent numbers accordingly. Very few such creatures in this thing had that. The notable exceptions seemed to shunt right around grapple full stop. And I thought a fair number of the CR assessments were way off target, whether too low or too high. But then if you’ve been DMing for a while you’ve been eyeballing CR for a long time anyway. All up, call this a 2.5/4.

On concepts and fluff: Really it’s a mixed bag. Some of these creatures I already knew, but it’s not really like you’re getting something truly new, you’re getting a translation of an older creature into third edition formatting. That said, some of the concepts are … well, interesting, and I’m glad they didn’t shy away from some of the more silly stuff like the Flumph or the Wolf-In-Sheep’s-Clothing. There’s a couple of nuggets here which are interesting, buuuut ultimately I have to ask myself whether they’re doing much that’s new or exciting with it, and the answer’s, well, mostly ‘No’, with a decent number of notable exceptions, notably the whole hazards section, which is pretty darn good. Call this a 2.5/4, around the quality of a WOTC book. If you’re a nostalgic for early editions and really want to bring those creatures into third, call it half a point higher.

On presentation: Flat out alphabetical listing, no Dragon, Blue; Dragon, Brass… Each entry specifically credits its source where drawn from an earlier edition, so you can pick up where each one came from. Layout generally good, albeit black and white throughout. 1/2 here.

Total: 6/10.

Next Time: Dynasties and Demagogues – The Sourcebook of Political Intrigue, Atlas Games

Kalkra

2021-06-04, 10:19 AM

I too have relatively little experience with 1st edition AD&D, but if the old Rogue-likes were any indication there was a lot more maiming of characters and ruining of equipment. If 1st edition was like those, I don't know how it would be doable, what with save scumming not being possible in a tabletop game.

Also, are Faerie Dragons playable?

Saintheart

2021-06-04, 10:23 AM

Also, are Faerie Dragons playable?

Afraid not, no. Straight monster, no LA.

Troacctid

2021-06-04, 01:46 PM

Flumphs did eventually make it into 3.5, but I guess this book came out before then.

Thurbane

2021-06-04, 04:43 PM

Tome of Horrors is probably my fave 3rd party 3E book. As someone who's played since 1E, it's a great source for older monsters that otherwise never got official updates.

Fizban

2021-06-08, 02:40 AM

Al-Mi’raj (monster): IT’S A UNICORN BUNNY! And likely to tickle you to death with its 1d4-2 gore attack. Has SR 16, can blink at will, but shame on you if your soul ever grows so black and cynical as to even contemplate killing a cute little blinking rabbit with green fur and a gold horn on purpose, especially one at CR 1.
These are also a mythological beast, but I'll always know them as the main random encounter for the cave out of the first area of Dragon Quest III. Not as bad as the giant millipede Caterpillars, but capable of showing up in large mobs spamming sleep spells and chances of high damage rolls. A classic.

Bleeding Horror (template): Main interesting ability of this creature is that when it hits with a claw attack, get heals hit points equal to the damage dealt, which really vampires should have gotten in the SRD, and if you hit with both claw attacks, you do 1d4+2 CON damage, which is kind of brutal.
I have to disagree on that concept- healing damage equal to that of basic weapon attacks, when the game's initial expectation is basic weapon attacks, is a pretty bad idea. Especially on monsters immune to sneak attack, especially on templates that mean the DM is building and thus optimizing the monster without an official benchmark. I'm pretty sure fast healing/regeneration values were a lot higher in 3.0 and were reduced because having your entire round of effort negated automatically is a major feel bad- something that heals all its melee damage is likely to meet or exceed those old values.

Greater Basilisk: (monster): Well, the basilisk was already an annoying bugger to fight, but this one introduces halitosis. Any creature directly in front of a Greater Basilisk takes 2d4 CON damage every round they stay in the area (DC 19 Fort save). And it still has a poison attack that does 1d4 CON as well, at the same saving throw.
Sounds like they drew on whatever part of the myth resulted in the poison breath of the MM1 "Gorgon," pretty sure all the petrifying montsers draw from a tangle of criss-crossed/re-translated/etc stories.

Caryatid Column (monster): CR 3? Really? It’s an animated stone column with construct traits that is immune to any spell that allows SR, DR 5/-, and imposes Fort DC 12 checks on any weapon – magical or nonmagical – to shatter when you hit it!
To be fair, 3rd is one of the last levels you can be fairly sure the party is still using non-magical weapons, so if you're going to have that ability matter, it does need to land that low. Adding DR 5/- on top isn't a great idea though.

Disenchanter (monster): You think throwing Rust Monsters at your party makes you an Edgelord DM? Try this one, which basically is a camel with an elephant’s snout, and when it hits with the snout, it drains one magic item carried or worn by the target (determined randomly by the DM.) The item loses all magical properties it possesses.
This showed up in Fiend Folio (along with the Caryatid Column), didn't get it there, don't get it here. Camel monster from myths of regions that used camels? Sure. Said monster eating magic? Don't get it.

Mist Dragon (monster): Hey, let’s give a dragon a gaseous form from which it can still cast spells, even if it can’t physically attack!
Excellent, now it has no natural armor! Gaseous Form was maybe a little scary in 3.0 when it gave DR 20/magic, but in 3.5 it's only 10, and either way it gives no protection against magic or magic weapons, and slows you to a crawl unless you've got a special version that doesn't.

I wonder if this Mist Dragon is any better than the others- the iconic scene at the start of Final Fantasy 4 demands a search for Mist Dragons, but the faerun one is terrible (slime breath? ugh).

Clockwork Titan (monster): I mean, I don’t have a problem with the concept, but I think CR 4 might be just slightly low for a creature that has 68 hp, construct traits, 10 foot reach, and a +12 slam attack that does 2d6+8 on a hit.
Dire Wolf has 45hp +11/d8+10 at CR 3. Brown Bear has 51 hp and more than twice that damage at CR 4. Minotaur has the reach at CR 4, less hit points, but powerful charge and two attacks. Aside from the immunities this monster is sounding on par with major monster, and basic construct/undead immunities aren't really enough to take a huge hit in practice, whatever Savage Species might say about it.

Next Time: Dynasties and Demagogues – The Sourcebook of Political Intrigue, Atlas Games
Do let us know if it has a full-party integrated social skill system.

Miss Disaster

2021-06-14, 09:31 AM

Just to note, there's a 3-page errata PDF for Tome of Horrors 1 (Revised). And it includes some of the monsters talked about in this thread. Ex. - Al-mi’raj, Caryatid Column, etc.

Also, there's also a ToH 2 and ToH 3 books for 3.5. Pathfinder version of ToH came in 4 book along with various Web Enhancement and errata files.

Saintheart

2021-06-24, 09:16 AM

Dynasties and Demagogues - The Sourcebook of Political Intrigue, Atlas Games

https://images2.imgbox.com/00/4a/hb9cTNvA_o.jpg
Summary

Date of Publication and Page Count
March 2003, 160 pages, thus, just before 3.5 was issued that same year. Chris Aylott, the author, is still around, though this book looks to have been one of his earlier efforts. He was actually a game store owner when he wrote this. However, he seems to have moved into board game design full time, and maintains a blog over here: http://chrisaylott.com/ Atlas Games is also still active: they seem pretty focused on Ars Magica as their main product of choice (the discussion forum attached to their website actually doesn’t have a single D&D campaign in sight – quite the rarity) but they still sell this book, albeit only in PDF format. It’s also available on large RPG market websites. The book got the 2003 ENnie Gold Medal for Best Rules Supplement. That said, and entirely speculating, but my guess would be that political intrigue was mostly untouched territory when this book first came out – Game of Thrones hadn’t really taken off in the public consciousness until the TV series came out, so this probably came across as a lot newer and more groundbreaking than it now appears with 20 years in the rear vision mirror.

Notable Features
Demagogue 1-5 (prestige class): It might not advance bardic music, but the abilities are not bad for combat, let alone other situations. At third level, when ‘physically threatened’, as a full-round action, make an Intimidate/Diplomacy/Perform (Oratory) DC 15 check. If successful, the audience (as little as one) has to make a Will save against the check result in order to attack the demagogue, i.e. it’s a sort of Sanctuary effect. Also at third level, if you talk for 2 rounds, and make a Perform (Oratory) check at DC 20, the audience automatically succeeds on skill checks to help one another in cooperative efforts and at attack rolls for aid another combat actions (not to mention that the Aid Another benefit is a +4 instead of +2. This effect lasts one hour per class level. Fourth level, get Leadership if you didn’t already have it. At fifth level, the Demagogue can charm a person so thoroughly that only magic in the order of Miracle, Wish, Greater Restoration, or Limited Wish can break the alliance that person has with the demagogue. Did I mention all this stuff is available from about character level 3?
Information Mage (prestige class): 10/10 casting. A few random information-y spells, identify once per day as a spell-like ability, but the strongest ability is probably the two bonus feats and that the XP cost of creating an item can be halved by doubling the gp cost. Also able to use a self-created item such as a rod, wand, stave, scroll, and so on, without actually taking it in hand or producing it. This ability comes up at ninth level.
Bodyguard 1-3 (prestige class): If you ever wanted to play Kevin Costner in a party with Whitney Houston, now’s your chance. Look, it’s something for the knuckle-draggers to do while the high INT and CHA types wander around stealing the limelight. Basically, at third level you can switch your Reflex save with that of your Principal (i.e. the person you’re guarding), or make a Reflex save to take an attack in place of your Principal. Probably of most use for NPC Rogues on Big Bads, since you can utilise stuff like Improved Evasion if you switch out for your Principal. Also grants Uncanny Dodge for what it’s worth.
Spellsense (Sor/Wiz 5 spell): As detect scrying, but really applied to magic cast upon you or “in your presence”. Allows a Spellcraft check to identify the spell (DC 15+spell level) as a free action, lasts 12 hours. If this applies to spells benefiting from Eschew Materials, Still Spell, and/or Silent Spell, it’s a slight improvement on the standard skill use.
Invisible Blade (weapon quality): For a +1 bonus, get a +2 to your attack rolls. The blade of your weapon is invisible … but it doesn’t deny the opponent their DEX bonus to AC.

Dreadful Features
Brothers in Arms (feat): Whenever a character in your army or other organised or hierarchical unit must make a Will save, you may choose to make the save for that character. Or multiple characters, if you can see or hear each other. If you succeed on the save, everyone is considered to have succeeded. If you fail, every character that shared the save is considered to have failed. Not bad, give this to the party mage or cleric and make your beatsticks a bit more resistant to Charm-blasting magic. The author does give the munchkin player the hairy eyeball when he says that most adventuring parties don’t qualify as units which can actually use this feat, but let’s face it, this isn’t that hard to get around. But then we’ve got this howler: “This can cause spells and other effects that would normally affect one person to affect an entire group, but that’s brotherhood for you.” Need I remind you that you can always voluntarily fail Will saves … say, for example, the Will save of a beneficial spell cast at you, which then affects everybody. Look, it’s not a bad idea, but as worded, holy ****, I like Dire Straits too, but not this much.
Patronage (feat): Once per character level – as in, you can only use it once during the whole time you are of a given character level – you can get a +10 to a single Diplomacy, Intimidate, or Gather Information check. This is a real feat, this will actually occupy one of your seven default slots.
Skilled Researcher (feat): Oh dear. “Upon taking this feat, choose any Knowledge skill and add 2 ranks to it.” No mention of maximum skill ranks, it’s not a +2 to the check, it’s a flat-out 2 ranks. Dark Chaos Shuffle this one out and back again presumably leaving the skill ranks intact.
Team Player (feat): This is probably the simplest, most objective, least onerous, and therefore the most ab/useable of the Personality Feats that this book contains. Personality Feats basically attempt to force people to roleplay. Give up one of your precious feat slots, go and behave like the personality feat says you should, and you get an Action Point. However, it’s not SRD Action Points. http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/adventuring/actionPoints.htm These Action Points can only be picked up once per session and can only be used to for two things: adding a measly d6 or two to a roll … or cashed in to get extra experience points. Said extra XP being as if the entire party had faced an encounter with a level equal to the average level of the party. (As a reminder, this is the sort of encounter that the DMG calls ‘challenging’, i.e. 50% of the encounters you should face during the adventure.) If nothing else that’s not a bad XP bank for item creation if needed, and multiple characters with the same feat obviously can stack the XP. This is one handy way of speeding up character progression without having to take the risk of fighting anything or consuming resources. And Team Player as said is the easiest one to satisfy because it hardly requires any DM interference judgment about whether your actions fits your feat’s conditions. By RAW, you perform an ‘aid another’ action to assist a party member with a skill check or attack roll, you pick up an Action Point.
Every other damn feat: +2s, +2s, +2s everywhere to Bluff, Diplomacy, blah, blah, blah. Oh hey once a session you can do a take 10 on one of these.
Appraise (new skill use): I’m sorry, but in a sourcebook designed to create campaigns about political intrigue, where uncertainty or mystery about a character’s motives, positions, or a proposition’s consequences are potent generators of suspense, this is just a stupid idea. A DC 20 Appraise check allows you to evaluate the worth of abstract valuables like trade offers, treaties, and political deals. If you succeed, “the GM must point out all significant benefits of the deal or offer, and the costs or consequences that would result from your character agreeing to it. If there is a hidden clause or consequence that your character might regret later, the GM must inform you of it. The GM must tell you whether this is a “good deal” for your character.” I mean, good grief, take it out of the political arena and to the archetypical ‘deal with a genie/devil’ where the soul’s on the line: this sort of ability sucks all the marrow out of the scene, removes all the tension. Good grief, how much intrigue is there in a scene where you can figure out whether Luciano Borgia is offering you a good deal or not based on your gem-peeking modifier?

Who it’s best for (Player/GM/both)
I’d say it’s mostly for GMs.

Comments, thoughts, and rating out of 10.
On mechanics:

Do let us know if it has a full-party integrated social skill system.
You asked, I looked. Short answer’s no. It might not go downhill from there, but neither does it ascend to great heights.

Let me excessively pay out on the book’s flaws first, so then I can get to the good parts. There is a lack of system mastery at hand in this book. Or more generously, an eye-gouging naivete. Or, maybe, inexperienced playtesters (this book had fourteen of them). Or, maybe, a lack of someone to say “But how is the DM meant to use this book with the 3.5 system as written?”

The book fails to fully appreciate how magic nukes the political intrigue campaign, based as it is on influence, persuasion, knowing stuff, and all those other non-stabby things. I say fully because some SRD spells are mentioned as maybe having some use in a political campaign: Fly, (get your cardboard cutout to a rally) Charm person, dominate person (make friends and convert rivals into allies). “Many politicians rely on augury and other divination spells to tell them how the public will react to their decisions.” Really? That’s the limit of the effect you think a nosy cleric or a Divine Oracle might have on a political campaign? And most crucially missing from the list of spells that might, kinda, maybe affect this sort of campaign, insanely conspicuous by its absence? Glibness. Not a word. None. And yes, I mean that literally. The word ‘glibness’ does not appear in this volume at all. The book blithely traipses into this space with all the guileless innocence of a child putting his scale-model HMS Victory into the path of an oncoming typhoon. (EDIT: And to be fair, one wouldn't really expect it to since Glibness did not exist as a spell until 3.5, which is to say, well after this book had come out. There were potions of glibness - which also don't get a mention here, and really should - but that's a significant point and illustration that you have to take into account the year of publication.)

There is no section in the book where the writer faces you squarely and says “Look. Clerics, mages, and bards can trivialise all sorts of challenges in this type of campaign, so if you’re going to run with this, get prepared for a lot of antimagic fields, Zones of Truth, Scrying, Detecting Scrying, Mind Blank, and stuff like that. Or nerf magic, either outright by running a low-magic setting or just saying ‘Glibness has not been discovered and never will be’ or similar. Or be prepared to have really hard conversations with people who want to run a Diplomancer build ... especially if the reason they built a Diplomancer is because it’s a political intrigue campaign.” If we’re aiming this book at the type of DM who wants to try something a bit different from a bog standard campaign, doesn’t have a massive mastery over what magic can do, and is running the game for people Who Studied (or for grognards), then it needs to have this heart-to-heart with the reader. Which it can’t, because it’s written 20 years ago, and we’ve got the benefit of said 20 years to see how this sort of thing can come unglued.

Also conspicuous by its absence: no discussion about the brokenness of Leadership combined with a decent dose of downtime, which political campaigns often have. To be fair, this sin is common; as if the entirety of splatbook publishers from around 2001 – 2010 forgot how the feat worked, or never actually played with it on the intent of seeing what you could break with it. And yes, the feat blithely appears in prestige classes here and there in this book too.

Next problem is that it never quite confronts the fact a political intrigue campaign generally involves minimal hitting people in the face. The rogue is about the only non-spellcasting guy who’s going to be mildly useful more than 2% of such adventures for his information gathering capacities … and then usually in awkward solo segments of the game trying to break into apartments, rolling to find a Fireball trap, failing, dying, and the rest of the party gets to stand around waiting for him to never show up again.

Oh, the book recognises the problem. It even goes through all the core classes one by one and tries to eke out some ideas for involving the hippie druid in a Game of Borgias or the utterly-useless ranger (simplest band aid? Use urban druid and urban ranger variants) but there seems to be an unsaid admission here that a political campaign involving anyone who’s not a spellcaster of some kind is going to require probably more work than it’s worth. At the very least, it’s going to involve a lot of pandering to martials in the form of encounters tailored to their abilities, (even moreso than a standard D&D campaign, ha-ha). Worse still is the suggestion to bring investigation elements into the adventure. Call me cynical, but nobody knows how to run an engaging or gripping investigation sequence in a D&D adventure. “Investigation sequence” in the average campaign is a tedious rolling sequence of: We’re looking for the Macguffin -> Is it here -> Search Roll -> No -> How about now, is it here? -> Search Roll -> No -> Can we take up this interesting lead we found over here? -> It doesn’t pan out (I didn’t think of you doing that and I’ve got no idea how to handle that inventive line of inquiry which could obviate half the session), return to the crime scene -> Is it here -> Search Roll -> Yes, it’s getting close to wrap-up time, the yoga class has the room at 2 -> Thank ****ing god…

Anyway, point being: again the author doesn’t level with you and say “You know what? If you’re going to run a political intrigue campaign, have the balls to ban fighters and martials of all kinds and just rely on hirelings for the wetwork. It’s better for your sanity, minimises your preparation, and doesn’t leave your poor suffering players bored out of their skulls while the Tyrant Queen of Naboo tells us she will absolutely choose a course of action that will lead her nosepicking peasant people to war.”

So much for the bad. As for the good, well, it does set up a combat-like system for different types of political debates. To someone who’s perused Green Ronin’s A Song of Ice and Fire rules for intrigue these will come across as relatively simple, but as said it is not dissimilar from combat: there are rounds, there is initiative, there’s a political defense score like AC, hitpoints are political points, attacks can be made with certain maneuvers (certain ones require different skills from the Bluff/Diplomacy/Perform/Intimidate quartet) and damage done until one person is defeated (or one of the other victory conditions arises). One interesting element in it is that the effectiveness of a given maneuver is made stronger or weaker depending on what the opponent’s previous maneuver was. As combat systems go it’s relatively simple but has a certain amount of depth.

It also contains a system for running elections, which is also given some abstract rules and covers the small-scale right up to the large. This one is more skill-based and brings in the idea of influencing points, again, not too heavy, not too simple either. I can see this being useful if you’re in that sort of campaign, but again it doesn’t do a lot for the martials or the others. All up, call this a 1.5/4.

On concepts and fluff: This is where the book shines, both on background fluff and guidance to the DM.

One thing regular D&D tends to be short on is any sort of meaty thought about how the politics or governments of other races work. That requires a long, hard think about what the driving forces are for those societies and how they interact with other species. The strongest section of the book is the short dive it does into how a sample dwarven government might operate and how a sample elven government might operate. The elven one is an eye-opener which basically takes the idea that elves, with long lifespans and no chaotic tendencies, can be seriously dangerous political schemers. The elves’ Empire of the Owls arose when, centuries ago, humans raised a great empire that fell when they overworked the land, emptied the fisheries, destroyed the forest, and the elves then intervened to save the starving masses. And thus rose to rule. That’s the legend. The truth is very different: initially driven back by human onslaught, the elves changed tactics and poisoned the land, ruined crops, encouraged barbarity. Once the human lands were at the point of collapse, they returned as welcome saviours and gave the humans enough help to survive … in return for the right to rule.

The book also surveys various different forms of government – from democracy to feudalism to empire to imperialism, and finally, theocracy and magocracy – with good indications about the pros and cons in an adventure for using that type of government. It’s not really that helpful for players, but for those DMs who feel they have to sink themselves into a setting to really be able to adjudicate or build adventures on it, this is good stuff to consider.

As said, the book also provides pretty good guidance to DMs for how to actually put a political intrigue adventure together from the first concept to the finished adventure. It goes into a decent array of detail, down to villain motives and what their power bases are, what their edge is, and things of that description. It also provides rough structures for an adventure and even a campaign, maybe not down to CR, but enough to give a newbie DM at this sort of thing a head start. This one I give a 2.5.

On presentation: Black and white. Serif fonts. Not a bad layout, standard two-column akin to WOTC. Call this one a 1/2.

Total: 5/10.

Next Time: Mercenaries, Alderac Entertainment Group.

Kalkra

2021-06-24, 10:31 AM

Fizban

2021-06-24, 11:31 PM

And most crucially missing from the list of spells that might, kinda, maybe affect this sort of campaign, insanely conspicuous by its absence? Glibness. Not a word. None. And yes, I mean that literally. The word ‘glibness’ does not appear in this volume at all. The book blithely traipses into this space with all the guileless innocence of a child putting his scale-model HMS Victory into the path of an oncoming typhoon.
Might want to reconsider this one a bit- 3.0 book, but Glibness is not a 3.0 spell, it's 3.5.

3.0 Glibness existed only as the potion. A mere 500gp potion that still gave a ridiculous untyped +30 along with full immunity to truth-seeking magic rather than a mere Nondetection equivalent, but something you would need to pay for nontheless (and subject to any limits on magic item availability the DM might have). So rather than a glaring hole on PC class spell lists, it's a tiny little item entry you wouldn't find even if you did do a full accounting of PHB spells.

(And the completely open-ended nature of the "Bluff" skill is its own problem.)

Or be prepared to have really hard conversations with people who want to run a Diplomancer build ... especially if the reason they built a Diplomancer is because it’s a political intrigue campaign.”
To be fair, that's almost entirely a problem with the Diplomacy "system," which I'm pretty sure is almost entirely a problem with one idiot who wrote the "special" line in the 3.0 PHB*. Without that line, the 3.0 DMG's rules for influencing NPC attitudes only call for charisma checks, and the 3.0 Diplomacy skill specifically refers to those- the context might imply that you roll the skill, but the DMG would tell you otherwise. Only negotiations and diplomats explicitly roll Diplomacy, as opposed checks, which skilled NPCs can of course oppose. It is only in that last little "special" line, on the next page, that someone says "actually the NPC attitude system is untrained Diplomacy checks" that any/everything falls apart. And even then, the lack of mention of a skill in the DMG could still allow it to take "primary source" precedent for NPC reactions and remove that.

*Heck- "are generally untrained diplomacy checks?" So what, sometimes they are and sometimes they're not? Does the person writing this line even know what they're referencing?

3.5 of course fully inducted the problem and filled in references to the diplomacy skill and made it explicitly the direct arbiter of NPC reactions, and never took it back. But I have a suspicion that the whole thing traces back to one person making one change for clarity, not knowing what they actually did, and no one really thinking about it until after they'd pulled the trigger a dozen times and swore it was all completely initentional. The NPC attitude table works perfectly fine for PCs rolling raw Cha from Elite ability scores, no cha-boosting races, and no spells that can directly boost the check

Sure, it shows a lack of system mastery for this book's writer to fail to mention it, but I wouldn't paint it as being all that glaring. If you read the 3.0 DMG about NPC attitudes, it says absolutely nothing about a skill check, and points out that a careless word can sour relations instantly without rolling. If you read the 3.0 PHB, even if you notice it says that influencing attitudes is "normally an untrained skill check," it does not reveal that said skill check is anything different from the previous use of opposed skill checks, and anything that refers to the DMG gains the cloak of "oh if it's not being detailed here then the rules must be be solid enough elsewhere." In short, I think it's perfectly understandable that someone without the internet to tell them Diplomacy is busted, would not notice the problem. It's only putting both texts directly next to each other with the intent of breaking it, that the problem becomes visible at all in 3.0.

And WotC did little or no better in their 3.0. . . or 3.5 works either. They explicitly and directly broke the thing with the 3.5 PHB entry, no cross-referencing required. If this writer takes a knock for not noticing, the 3.5 editor should just be fired.

Of course all of that goes out the window if at any point the book does acknowledge Diplomacy skill vs NPC attitude table. Otherwise I would presume they thought that all Diplomacy checks were opposed negotiations, thus there is no reason to worry about a PC's skill: they still can't negotiate any further than the DM deems reasonable, and NPC Experts and Aristocrats can be just as good as them, there's not even any cheaty spells.

Also conspicuous by its absence: no discussion about the brokenness of Leadership combined with a decent dose of downtime, which political campaigns often have. To be fair, this sin is common; as if the entirety of splatbook publishers from around 2001 – 2010 forgot how the feat worked, or never actually played with it on the intent of seeing what you could break with it. And yes, the feat blithely appears in prestige classes here and there in this book too.
Could you briefly elaborate? You need quite a leadership score to get even a couple dozen followers, and anything they do in the world still has to go through the normal channels. Building things costs gp and land rights, equipping an army to fight costs gp, and even passively earning gp can immediately run into taxes and conflicts with the locals- while the amount of gp powerful people are expected to throw around is almost entirely dependant upon the DM, so the relative significance of that passive income might not even matter.

So much for the bad. As for the good, well, it does set up a combat-like system for different types of political debates. To someone who’s perused Green Ronin’s A Song of Ice and Fire rules for intrigue these will come across as relatively simple, but as said it is not dissimilar from combat: there are rounds, there is initiative, there’s a political defense score like AC, hitpoints are political points, attacks can be made with certain maneuvers (certain ones require different skills from the Bluff/Diplomacy/Perform/Intimidate quartet) and damage done until one person is defeated (or one of the other victory conditions arises). One interesting element in it is that the effectiveness of a given maneuver is made stronger or weaker depending on what the opponent’s previous maneuver was. As combat systems go it’s relatively simple but has a certain amount of depth.
Interesting. It does sound quite similar to one I read in. . . Quintessential Samurai? Which would have needed a ton of fleshing out. I guess if I want to read a system to adapt/simplify I should be looking at that Song of Ice and Fire one then.

Next Time: Mercenaries, Alderac Entertainment Group.
Ooh, that's one I've gone back to quite a few times. Some stuff I like the idea of, some stuff I've even pulled for reference, and one thing in particular I was hoping might finally be a good enough answer but instead made me give up and write my own. Will be interesting to see what catches your interest.

Saintheart

2021-06-25, 12:07 AM

Perhaps the most common flaw I've found in 3rd-party books (and some splatbooks) is that they expect to play by the rules. I mean, if you're trying to make a good simulation of political intrigue, it makes sense to playtest it by engaging in political intrigue, but a lot of books don't ask "what if players ignored what they were supposed to do, and just took bits and pieces of the content presented in this book and combined it with other things in order to achieve the best results?"

You see this a lot with abilities which are potentially powerful, but have big penalties for failure. Played fairly, that's an interesting strategic/roleplaying decision. Played realistically, you're gonna make sure you never fail.

I think part of it comes from trying to work out which part of the crowd to pitch the game at: do you pitch it at the audience the original CR system was intended for (game store casuals, weekend warriors etc) or do you pitch it at more experienced players and DMs? To be fair, this one was also from the 3.0 days, so I'd cut them some slack on that, but I think a fair number of splatbooks take that approach because realistically they can't guarantee any other player base. But anyway, bad rules is bad rules.

Might want to reconsider this one a bit- 3.0 book, but Glibness is not a 3.0 spell, it's 3.5.

3.0 Glibness existed only as the potion. A mere 500gp potion that still gave a ridiculous untyped +30 along with full immunity to truth-seeking magic rather than a mere Nondetection equivalent, but something you would need to pay for nonetheless (and subject to any limits on magic item availability the DM might have). So rather than a glaring hole on PC class spell lists, it's a tiny little item entry you wouldn't find even if you did do a full accounting of PHB spells.

(And the completely open-ended nature of the "Bluff" skill is its own problem.)

To be fair, that's almost entirely a problem with the Diplomacy "system," which I'm pretty sure is almost entirely a problem with one idiot who wrote the "special" line in the 3.0 PHB*. Without that line, the 3.0 DMG's rules for influencing NPC attitudes only call for charisma checks, and the 3.0 Diplomacy skill specifically refers to those- the context might imply that you roll the skill, but the DMG would tell you otherwise. Only negotiations and diplomats explicitly roll Diplomacy, as opposed checks, which skilled NPCs can of course oppose. It is only in that last little "special" line, on the next page, that someone says "actually the NPC attitude system is untrained Diplomacy checks" that any/everything falls apart. And even then, the lack of mention of a skill in the DMG could still allow it to take "primary source" precedent for NPC reactions and remove that.

*Heck- "are generally untrained diplomacy checks?" So what, sometimes they are and sometimes they're not? Does the person writing this line even know what they're referencing?

3.5 of course fully inducted the problem and filled in references to the diplomacy skill and made it explicitly the direct arbiter of NPC reactions, and never took it back. But I have a suspicion that the whole thing traces back to one person making one change for clarity, not knowing what they actually did, and no one really thinking about it until after they'd pulled the trigger a dozen times and swore it was all completely initentional. The NPC attitude table works perfectly fine for PCs rolling raw Cha from Elite ability scores, no cha-boosting races, and no spells that can directly boost the check

Sure, it shows a lack of system mastery for this book's writer to fail to mention it, but I wouldn't paint it as being all that glaring. If you read the 3.0 DMG about NPC attitudes, it says absolutely nothing about a skill check, and points out that a careless word can sour relations instantly without rolling. If you read the 3.0 PHB, even if you notice it says that influencing attitudes is "normally an untrained skill check," it does not reveal that said skill check is anything different from the previous use of opposed skill checks, and anything that refers to the DMG gains the cloak of "oh if it's not being detailed here then the rules must be be solid enough elsewhere." In short, I think it's perfectly understandable that someone without the internet to tell them Diplomacy is busted, would not notice the problem. It's only putting both texts directly next to each other with the intent of breaking it, that the problem becomes visible at all in 3.0.

And WotC did little or no better in their 3.0. . . or 3.5 works either. They explicitly and directly broke the thing with the 3.5 PHB entry, no cross-referencing required. If this writer takes a knock for not noticing, the 3.5 editor should just be fired.

Of course all of that goes out the window if at any point the book does acknowledge Diplomacy skill vs NPC attitude table. Otherwise I would presume they thought that all Diplomacy checks were opposed negotiations, thus there is no reason to worry about a PC's skill: they still can't negotiate any further than the DM deems reasonable, and NPC Experts and Aristocrats can be just as good as them, there's not even any cheaty spells.

I'll go and make some adjustments when I've had a chance to look back over the book, but the comment on Glibness is fair and deserves a bit of an edit, certainly. I didn't realise Glibness as a spell was introduced into 3.5 as such.

Fizban

2021-06-25, 12:20 AM

I'll go and make some adjustments when I've had a chance to look back over the book, but the comment on Glibness is fair and deserves a bit of an edit, certainly. I didn't realise Glibness as a spell was introduced into 3.5 as such.
I only did when I was looking at the 3.0 specific potions and realized that Glibness and Heroism were (what I call) Specific Potions, though of course I bring it up now whenever anything close to the subject comes up.

Neither spell existed in 3.0, but 3.5 got rid of potions that didn't duplicate spells, while conveniently dropping those two items and adding spell versions (and Greater Heroism as well). All part of my sort of piecemeal off and on digging into updated spells and mechanics to evaluate whether those changes were actually good or bad. Heroism/Greater gives ridiculous long lasting buffs? Used to cost gp and was only ever +2. Weirdly specific Bard spell that is the second primary problem with the Bluff skill? Well it used to be a wacky potion rather than a free class feature at least. The mentioned Diplomacy changes. Tons of spells and PrC features. Etc.

There are so many changes that are completely overlooked, or have been internalized to the point of forgetting the original, and the default attitude is so strongly on all updates being GoodTM, that it's pretty astounding just how many you can find which are with only a moment's consideration, completely arbitrary, capricious, or indeed just an obvious bad idea.

sreservoir

2021-06-25, 05:06 AM

Of course, the fact that it's a wacky personal-only spell now means that it's not even a legal potion spell anymore! Because who wanted that in the first place, right?

Thrice Dead Cat

2021-06-29, 05:59 PM

Kalkra

2021-06-30, 09:46 AM

This thread has been a treat! It's interesting to see any review of the oft neglected third party books, let alone more than a dozen. It also inspired me to dredge up my old copies of the Quintessential Wizard I and II and give them a quick read through.

I seem to recall they both had some stupidly overpowered stuff, especially the second one. Even in 3rd-party books, casters get all the nice things. Most of the stuff in both books was fine though, IIRC.

Thrice Dead Cat

2021-07-01, 07:09 AM

I seem to recall they both had some stupidly overpowered stuff, especially the second one. Even in 3rd-party books, casters get all the nice things. Most of the stuff in both books was fine though, IIRC.

I'm only about halfway through the 3.0 one and the only thing that jumped out at me thus far has been the Academic Background due to it essentially making all Knowledge skills free to take ranks in and all of the abilities that give access to various Cleric or Druid only spells. None of the prestige classes jumped out at me, besides the ones with easy enough prerequisites and full casting that make them better than Wizard levels ~11-20. My biggest complaint is the lack of editing, ranging from the table not agreeing with the text on which levels, if any, give casting advancements to lack of uses per day (or conflicting uses per day) and even a cone attack with no listed range.

Kalkra

2021-07-01, 10:12 AM

I'm only about halfway through the 3.0 one and the only thing that jumped out at me thus far has been the Academic Background due to it essentially making all Knowledge skills free to take ranks in and all of the abilities that give access to various Cleric or Druid only spells. None of the prestige classes jumped out at me, besides the ones with easy enough prerequisites and full casting that make them better than Wizard levels ~11-20. My biggest complaint is the lack of editing, ranging from the table not agreeing with the text on which levels, if any, give casting advancements to lack of uses per day (or conflicting uses per day) and even a cone attack with no listed range.

Yeah, lack of editing is always an issue, especially with the earlier stuff. I'll refrain from a full breakdown, because then I'd be stealing Saintheart's job.

Saintheart

2021-07-01, 10:21 AM

Yeah, lack of editing is always an issue, especially with the earlier stuff. I'll refrain from a full breakdown, because then I'd be stealing Saintheart's job.

Appreciated, comrade. They pay so little around this joint I have to pick up every spare shift they're willing to offer.

Thurbane

2021-07-01, 04:08 PM

You know what would be awesome to review? Bastards & Bloodlines. Worth it for Lost Tradition, if nothing else! :smalltongue:

Some of the new PCs races presented aren't horrible either. I mean, most of them are, but 1 or 2 are decent. Half-Hobgoblin always caught my eye.

Bullet06320

2021-07-01, 07:55 PM

I'm only about halfway through the 3.0 one and the only thing that jumped out at me thus far has been the Academic Background due to it essentially making all Knowledge skills free to take ranks in

thats what we call exploding skill points, the only drawback is having to keep 4 maxed out, oooooo big deal, lol
thats probly the best thing in that book, and a couple of decent spells too

Endarire

2021-07-19, 06:16 AM

What other arcane tomes have you for us?

Saintheart

2021-07-19, 07:22 AM

Working on it, I had a USB loss and so am having to redo the review. Soon as. :smallbiggrin:

thorr-kan

2021-07-19, 11:22 AM

Working on it, I had a USB loss and so am having to redo the review. Soon as. :smallbiggrin:
Oh, dear. Hate when that happens.

Thanks for continuing this series!

Saintheart

2021-07-23, 09:54 AM

Mercenaries, Alderac Entertainment Group

https://images2.imgbox.com/60/9a/nY5N6v4o_o.jpg
Summary
This book is essentially a sourcebook devoted to mercenaries of all kinds, i.e. swords for hire. New races, feats, classes, equipment, all towards this type of character and campaign.

Date of Publication and Page Count
2002, 255 pages. So we’re dealing with early in the third edition, and 3.5 updates need to be applied. Alderac Entertainment Group (AEG) is a veteran of the RPG scene, predating the arrival of 3rd edition. That said, AEG transitioned to board games and CCGs some years ago. Probably its most significant partnering with WOTC was in its Legends of the Five Rings system; Oriental Adventures took L5R’s setting, Rokugan, as the default setting for that book, and any number of AEG sourcebooks published by AEG featured both L5R and 3.0 mechanics. AEG also published about a dozen setting-neutral, single-word-titled splatbooks for D&D, of which Mercenaries is one. Most of the 10 writers for this particular book were credited on the others, such as War, Undead, Magic, Good, Dragons, and so on. The most significant named writer is Mike Mearls, who was just nobody’s nerd at the time, but went on to work for WOTC; he was the lead developer for fourth edition, and was heavily involved in fifth before leaving last year (2020). Indeed there are a number of names who went on to become mainstays at least of AEG: Jim Pinto, Jeff Ibach, and Douglas Sun (line developer on L5R, most recently working with Matt Colville on the fifth edition third party Kickstarter Strongholds and Followers). But, as with a lot of the books we’ve been looking at, we are seeing these guys at the beginning of their careers, or certainly at the beginning of their third edition involvement. The book is still available on large market RPG websites.

Notable Features
Ashemi (player race): +2 INT, +2 WIS, -2 CON, -2 STR. +1 natural bonus to AC. Not natural armor – ‘natural’ bonus. Gets the dwarven +2 to saves against spells and spell-like effects. Most significantly gets a +2 to attack rolls against creatures of known evil alignment which mitigates the STR loss anyway. Favored class is sorcerer, but this set of attributes just screams CoDzilla or even paladin to me, even with the nerfed CON score. The Ashemi are basically an elder-than-elves race that hates evil full stop, as well as having wings that don’t confer any flight but a wing claw that ‘allows light gripping’.
Bael (player race): +2 INT, +2 CHA, -2 WIS. Bunch of racial bonuses to CHA-ish skills and Spot and Listen, but wizards and sorcerers get a +2 DC to any enchantment or conjuration spells they cast, which is better than a kick in the eye. Basically the hot female humanoid merchant race.
Magirn (player race): sort of a gnomish species. +2 CHA, -2 WIS. Small size, detects magic, reads magic, talk to animals, blah blah blah. The most significant element is that any spell that hits them gains the benefit of the Maximise Spell feat, whether beneficial to the magirn or not. No indication about how area spells work here might be hilariously problematic for people standing close to the magirn or hilariously effective depending on the spell. ECL +1, i.e. LA +1 in effect.
Makall (player race): Sort of an improved kobold? -2 STR, +4 DEX, -2 CON, Small, gets Track for free, can’t be flanked, +4 dodge bonus fighting Huge-sized opponents … but the most powerful feature is that a Makall has telepathy out to 100 feet as a racial feature, which is obscenely good combined with Mindsight from Lords of Madness. And no ECL!
Uldrath (player race): Beatstick, the race. +6 STR, +2 CON, -4 DEX, -2 INT, -4 CHA. LARGE SIZE. +2 natural armor bonus. Sharp claws that might qualify as natural weapons. However, +2 ECL. They’re a cross between an ogre and a grizzly bear.
Continue the Fight (feat): Iron Will prerequisite, but. But. Expend one hitpoint, get an additional “partial action” (3.0 language – this is now a standard action) which lasts one round. This is really, really strong, especially if you’re regenerating, and even more especially if you’re a caster.
Dead Eye (feat): BAB +6 and Weapon Focus and a must-have for ranged critfishing if not ranged in general. Sacrifice your second attack roll, and if your first attack hits, you automatically score a critical (presumably, a critical hit, not just a critical threat). The feat doesn’t confine the conditions under which this can be used down to full attacks … i.e. this appears to be useable with Rapid Shot, and possibly, on the RAW, not even having to suffer a -2 to the attack roll. In effect this feat gives your bow into a 2-20 critical threat range and automatically confirms critical hits, since the attack still needs to be successful, i.e. get over the opponent’s AC. Remembering most bows have a critical multiplier of x3, this is pretty damn good compared with the alternative of hoping for a critical hit on the first shot and a hit on the second attack.
Eagle Claw Strike (feat): Similar to a stunning fist, but more useful since if you damage the opponent with an unarmed strike and they fail a Fort DC 10+0.5*character level+WIS save, they’re considered flatfooted for one round, losing DEX to AC specifically. Welcome to sneak attack town.
Improved Sneak Attack (feat): damage dice for your sneak attack rises by 1, e.g. d6s to d8s.
Superior Sneak Attack (feat): Damage dice for your sneak attacks advances again by one die!
Improved Ranged Sneak Attack (feat): Sneak Attack at range with a ranged weapon rises from 30 feet to 60 feet.
Sniper (feat): From 60 feet to 90 feet now.
Knowledgeable (feat): Any Knowledge skill check can be made untrained as an INT check, though the DC of the check is increased by 5. Leaving aside identifying creatures, the most obvious application for this is Knowledge Devotion. At its worst this is at least a guaranteed +1 to attack and damage against any creature you run into during your travels, and a handy backup for those Knowledge skills you haven’t got round to devoting points to yet.
Mental Combatant (feat): Dodge bonus to AC equal to your INT modifier against one target. Goes well with Carmendine Monk, maybe Wizard…
Natural Born Leader (feat): Handy way for the party sorcerer to fill in as the party bard: provide your CHA bonus in morale bonus to attack rolls for 1+CHA rounds, 1+CHA/day. Admittedly the way it’s worded seems to suggest your CHA bonus has to be filleted up amongst the whole party, but not a bad boost if you’re low on blasting for the day.
Power Throw (feat): When throwing any object, you don’t suffer a -4 on throwing improvised weapons, you get a +2 to attack rolls with thrown weapons, +1 to damage rolls, and your range increment with thrown weapons rises by 10 feet. Better than Throw Anything (in either the 3.0 or 3.5 version) and has less prerequisites too. It might not be Complete Warrior’s Power Throw, but it’s not bad either.
Scent of the Beast (feat): Scent in a feat. Takes 10 ranks in Survival and Track, but otherwise not bad at all.
School Focus (metamagic feat): For one school of magic, can prepare one spell at a slot one level lower than normal. Not a bad metamagic cost reducer.
Signature Weapon (feat): +3 competence bonus to attack rolls with one masterwork weapon (and only that weapon, not even a weapon type). A nonscaling +3 bonus from a feat is debatable, but it’s not often you get competence bonuses to attacks, as well as everything else you can pile onto the weapon. Really on the fence about whether this is worth a feat slot outside a can’t-think-of-what-else-to-take.
Strength of Blood (feat): Max hitpoints at each level you advance. Two feat prerequisites, though, which is probably too much.
Evadne (deity): Interesting mainly because as Lawful Neutral she has both the Knowledge and Travel domains, making her a prime pick for Knowledge Devotion and Travel Devotion.
Goradin (deity): Similarly, has the Battle (below), Death, Travel, and War domains.
Ambition domain (domain): Pick up Bluff, Intimidate and Sense Motive as class skills, and the domain spells include True Strike and Wish!
Battle Domain (domain): The granted power isn’t bad: Power Attack and Whirlwind Attack (once all of the prerequisites are achieved). If your DM could be convinced that this means you get Power Attack without having to take all the prerequisites for Whirlwind Attack as well, then it’s superb. To pick up the equivalent normally would cost you six feat slots; this option means it only costs you four. That said, given you have to have STR, DEX, and INT at 13+, this might or might not be doable.
Conquest domain (domain): The domain spell list is standard-ish command, enthral, suggestion, geas, etc … but the domain power is that these will work on any intelligent being, bypassing normal immunities. This includes powerful undead, magic items (!) and the like!
Desperation domain (domain): “Domain spells” can be cast as if they’d been memorised with Maximise, Quicken, Quiet Spell, Spell Penetration, and Still Spell. However, you permanently lose “one hitpoint” each time. But it’s silent on how temporary hitpoints work with it, and therefore whether you could totally break this by Aid or similar.
Spirit domain (Domain): Can’t be attacked by any incorporeal undead so long as another target remains.
Bisento (weapon): Spear-like weapon with a blade like a scimitar on its end. 10 foot reach, but can be used against adjacent opponents. Can be set against a charge. Exotic weapon, 1d10, x3 critical multiplier, this is one of the few weapons that deserves an EWP.
Claymore (weapon): 2d8 damage that does bludgeoning and piercing, and can be set against a charge. It isn’t often you get this combination in a martial weapon.
Laminated steel (material): +1 to all damage rolls and the critical hit multiplier goes up by 1 for a laminated steel weapon.
Serrated steel (material): Critical threat range rises by 1, e.g. 19-20 becomes 18-20. Nothing says it can’t be laminated as well.
Dwarven-Forged (armor quality): +2 to the armor bonus, -1 to the ACP, but arcane spell failure chance rises by 10%. And yes, you can make Dwarven-Forged shields, which likely stack with dwarven-forged armour.
Elven-Forged (armor quality): Pretty much the reverse. Max DEX bonus increases by +1, -1 to the ACP, and arcane spell failure chance decreases by 10%.
DRACOTECHNICS: … It’s explosives, dude.
Awe (Cleric 5 spell): Turn foes as if you were turning undead.
Battle Knowledge (Myrmidon 2 spell): The Myrmidon is a gish-y base class in the book, but the spell is interesting: lasts 1 minute/level, but pick one feat whose prerequisites you fulfil. For the duration of the spell, you gain the benefits of that feat.
Enchant Weapon (Myrmidon 5 spell): As Greater Magic Weapon … but instead of numerical enhancement bonuses, you can allocate equivalent weapon qualities, e.g. rather than get yourself a +3 weapon via the spell, you can instead get a +1 keen thundering weapon for the duration of the spell.
Forceful Burst (Sor/Wiz 3, Battle domain 2 spell): Gambit, the spell? Turn up to 5 Fine objects into explosive devices, ranged attack, does 2d4+1 “per level” (no maximum specified) of force damage. Can throw all of them at a single target if need be. Magic Missile is no-miss but has a lower damage threshold.
Scarlet Mastery (feat): Can wear leather or padded armor without losing your monk abilities. I know, Swordsage, but anyway.
Assemblage Undine (Prestige Class): This took me a few reads to understand how its spell progression works, and to be honest I’m still not sure I get it. I think what they intended was that as you level up in the prestige class, you cast more spells of the levels you already have, but you don’t gain any higher level spells. Hence the prerequisite is being able to cast arcane spells of third level, but none of sixth level or higher. The payoff for this is metamagic feats every second level, and the spell slot cost increase for each of your metamagic feats drop by 1 every 3 levels to a minimum of 1. So around character level 16 you’re casting Quickened and Maximised first level spells out of third level slots. It seems similar-ish in concept to Force Missile Mage, but unless you have a particular spell that you know and love or you’re really creative with your low level spells at mid-tier play, I think it suffers from way too many dead levels. Maybe a Mystic Ranger or default Ranger with Sword of the Arcane Order could do something with this, but with a BAB 5/10 and d4 HD it’s no gish by any stretch of the imagination.
Clan Kallin (Prestige Class): Now here’s a ****ing dwarven martial class I can get behind! For a start, ye get to throw a one-handed hammer or axe with a range increment equal to 5xSTR bonus. Mauls are one-handed weapons these days, and once your STR is +2 or higher, you’re above and beyond the standard range increment for thrown weapons. Fighter-style bonus feats every second level, keep fighting past 0 hitpoints, anyone attacking you in melee provokes an attack of opportunity, full-round single attack with a bludgeoning or slashing weapon provokes a Ref save (DC 10 + damage from attack, -2 for four legs or sizes) or the person is knocked prone. Oh, and you just double the threat range of the character’s weapon for this attack, so hello critfishing. Indeed, for critfishing, there’s a nice capstone: anytime you threaten a critical hit, target makes a Fort save (DC 10+character level+STR mod) OR TAKES 1D4 CON DAMAGE.
Dune Runner 5 (Prestige Class): A standout class feature for rogues: each round you can designate one opponent who is flat-footed in relation to the Dune Runner. The RAI was probably that this ability was only meant to function in the desert, but by RAW it might function in all environments.
Exile of the Burning Road (Prestige Class): Compared to default Fighter, this is actually pretty solid, and particularly good if you have multiple exiles overlapping one another. Compared to martial adepts, not so much. Has no dead levels, and has a few interesting toys: can intercept an attempt to flank, gets +4 from flanks rather than +2, can drop his AC by any amount up to his PrC level and add it to his attack bonus, and finally isn’t limited to one ally for aid another actions. Enemies in his threatened area can’t make AoOs on other characters.
Man-at-Arms (prestige class): BAB +8, Power Attack and Weapon Focus in any four weapons? A kind DM would let Warblade Aptitude cut this down a lot. The theme of this thing is basically ‘put any weapon in my hand and I’ll kick @$$ with it.’ Starting with: PROFICIENT WITH ALL EXOTIC WEAPONS ... although I think that’s an editing error given the capstone of the class. Anyway, it’s 10 levels of stuff, BAB 10/10, Fort/Ref/Will +7/+7/+5 which is unusual. No dead levels, but no bonus feats, so you’d better have gotten your build mostly down and done. Over 10 levels, pick up +3 to attack and damage in all weapons, dodge bonuses (scaling) to AC if you forego an AoO, Improved Critical, DEX bonus to Power Attack damage, scaling Initiative bonuses, deal CON damage equal to STR bonus on a critical hit, Spring Attack, pick up an extra attack. So … yeah. Ignoring Tome of Battle, this at least gives you a lot of toys to play with as a martial, and at least some elements of it scale with the PrC level.
Initiate of Shattered Steel (prestige class): It’s a monk PrC, so it can’t get much worse anyway. 8/10 BAB which is a bit odd but welcome. It’s mostly themed around breaking stuff with your bare hands. Actually isn’t that bad: over 10 levels, do damage as if you were a size category larger; double your STR mod for breaking inanimate objects; when you disarm, get a free Sunder attack; if you’re attacked, forfeit an AoO to get a +4 dodge bonus to AC. If the attack misses, get a bonus on a Sunder next round; WIS to damage; reroll results of 1 or 2 when dealing unarmed damage; automatically flank without an ally; ignore non-magical hardness; and finally, CON to AC, critical threat range unarmed rises by 1 and critical strikes deal triple damage.
Skirmisher (prestige class): A gem for most martials. Four feats, +5 BAB, and some trivial rogue-ish skill ranks to qualify. 10/10 BAB, which is great. By fourth level you’ve got the equivalent of Precise Shot (though not the feat) since your penalties for firing into melee are cut by your Skirmisher class level. INT mod to AC. Third level would be hilarious combined with Pounce, you can take both a full attack action and then a move-equivalent action in any given round. Fourth level, anytime you attack someone denied DEX bonus or flanked, if you hit, it’s a critical threat. This is amazeballs for critfishing since all it takes from here is a Bless Weapon or similar and your critical hits are all about positioning rather than threat range. Combine with Telling Blow if you’ve got appreciable sneak attack damage, though frankly I’d go with a straight out big honking greatsword and rely on big critical multipliers if I had this option. And there’s more!: never get surprised, and get a bonus to your attacks in a surprise round equal to your class level; Blindsight; any time you get an AoO, you can make two attack rolls instead of one; speed increase by 10 feet, increase your critical threat range and critical multiplier by 1 when you catch an opponent flatfooted; and finally, always catch your opponent flatfooted. And he even has a d10 hit dice.
Spellslayer 6 (prestige class): Magekiller, basically. The most interesting class feature is that when attacking spellcasters and creatures with spell-like abilities, on a reasonably high Spellcraft check, the spellslayer’s melee attack negates a number of spells whose total level is equal to the damage inflicted, although the defender chooses which spells are lost. The prerequisite, though, is pretty hard to swallow for a martial: can’t own any magical items or knowingly employ magical items, though spells cast seem to be okay. There’s a bunch of other Dispel Magic, Spell Resistance, and draining magic items, which has similar problems to Sunder in that you’re destroying not only loot, but typically valuable loot. A low level cleric might be able to get by since they could at least enter the class given its only prohibition is that you can’t be capable of casting arcane spells (although multiclassing would likely offend against this too).
Focused (weapon quality): Arcane channelling of (previously cast) touch spells for the price of a +1, no Duskblade or Ordained Champion required.
Force (weapon quality): +3 bonus, but on a hit, weapon initiates a Bull Rush as a free action. “Any additional bonus to attack and damage can be added to the wielder’s STR in the action”, which is to say, practically-unstoppable bull rushes on every hit.

Dreadful Features
Fists of Fury (feat): Cleave for unarmed strikes … but with more prerequisites. And ignoring that Cleave already works for unarmed strikes because it’s a melee attack.
Expert Aim (feat): DEX to damage with a device missile weapon … but only if you give up all your other attacks and you’re not shooting at something outside 30 feet away.
Perfect Shot (feat): When you hit with a crossbow, a natural 20 is always a confirmed critical hit (but nothing else). Yeah, this is also known as the spell Bless Weapon which doesn’t cost me two feat slots in prerequisites and which actually affects all critical threats, not just the natural 20s.
Clan Champion (Prestige Class): Ratchet Leadership into creating combat allies and followers. The benefits of the whole 10 levels aren’t great – mostly +1s and +2s to Initiative or attack rolls, slowly increasing – with the notable exception of Coordinated Actions which allows the clan allies to Aid Another in combat as a free action … but only one. There’s easier ways to ab/use Leadership than this.
Goridin’s Knights (Prestige Class): The loss in caster levels (5/10) and loss of ability to turn undead hurts for cleric entry to the point where I can’t think of a scenario where this would be a good recommendation for a cleric, and the resultant dead levels and reduced BAB hurt for martial/fighter entry, and with not a lot of goodness in return. The only Hilarious Build I can think of is a Divine Crusader 3 with a high CHA mod, Quick Draw, and a good supply of daggers, because at fourth level, when a Goridin’s Knight draws a weapon, all opponents in his threatened area have to make a Will save (DC of “knight’s overall level + CHA mod + magical bonus of the weapon”) or break ranks and flee for 1d6 rounds. (No, it doesn’t mention shaken/frightened/cowering etc.)
Order of the Sanguine Knight (prestige class): Despite the title, requires no armor. Really meant for ‘good’ rogues, but absent the ‘can’t accidentally poison yourself’ element at 2nd level, even a Rogue 20 outshines this in abilities and feats.

(For more features - have a look over here at Fizban's long supplemental (https://forums.giantitp.com/showsinglepost.php?p=25207516&postcount=209) which talks about stuff I didn't include in the review.)

Who it’s best for (Player/GM/both)
Honestly, I think this is good for both players or GMs. GMs can mine it for details about hiring mercenary troops, or even generating quests around mercenary goals, and it’s a pretty thick vein (albeit martial-tilted) of good stuff for players.

Comments, thoughts, and rating out of 10.
On mechanics:
Leaving aside the notable features above, the book also has some interesting shots at introducing extra rules. There’s some on exchange rates, NPC morale, and availability of equipment (a mechanic similar to the economic simulator of Magic Medieval Society), and skirmish rules for small-unit combat. The skirmish rules aren’t that different from normal D&D combat, understandably. And the part I found most interesting were the attempts to provide limited use of class features in feats – e.g. a limited capacity to provide bard-like morale boosts and so on. You could also see this in certain of the (unremarkable in my view) base classes; the rogue and/or ranger-ish classes are more customisable in that the special abilities gained as the levels go on are more menus of options rather than set features. This was interesting mainly because it tied (for me) into the idea of mercenaries as self-sufficient types who had picked up useful techniques from all over the place. Critical hits get some significant love, or at least access to a better threat range or multiplier isn’t hidden away along with the Ark of the Covenant somewhere. All told, this book’s mechanics have all the hallmarks of early 3.0, but it’s also a cut above WOTC standard in my view. Call this 2.5/4.

On concepts and fluff:
This was reasonably well-done. The book has a decent rundown of mercenary lifestyle, including alignments, interactions with authorities, day to day life, all those sorts of things. It has rules on hiring mercenaries including the negotiation, and a pretty significant number of guilds, mercenary bands or groups that didn’t come across as cookie cutter. I was relatively impressed with this. 3/4.

On presentation:
AEG, as with Secrets which I already reviewed, apes the WOTC layout and formatting very closely. This makes it familiar at least, though it’s still all black and white and serif fonts. Rate this 1/2.

Total: 6.5/10.

Next Time: Bastards and Bloodlines: A Guidebook to Half-Breeds,. Green Ronin Publishing.

Thurbane

2021-07-23, 04:16 PM

Next Time: Bastards and Bloodlines: A Guidebook to Half-Breeds,. Green Ronin Publishing.

Squee! :smallsmile:

Kalkra

2021-07-26, 10:10 AM

Does it give prices for all these fancy mercs? Because IIRC the DMG prices for hirelings don't cover people with PrCs. They're also really low. I remember some thread from a while back about Improved Combat Expertise and Allied Defense which made me realize that a high level character could easily hire a group of 20th-level Warriors and get +20 AC from each of them, and ever since then I've been thinking of mercs as being in the same category as scrolls or potions, often with a better cost efficiency.

Saintheart

2021-07-26, 10:28 PM

They don't get into the hiring rates for prestige classes specifically, no. The book's system for PCs hiring mercenaries flat-out stops you hiring a mercenary over level 6, on the half-mechanical, half-fluff justification that characters above 6th level are generally too independent, powerful, and skilled to hire out as long-term mercenaries (though they might be hireable for a particular task and so on.) And mercenaries are not hirelings: they're considerably more expensive, for one thing. Top of the table level 6 mercenary gets paid 370gp per day and a full share of any treasure collected. And you also have to supply their food and lodgings too, even in the wild.

Nonhumanoid mercenaries go for half the rates, but their morale - a subsystem that determines when they break and run, which they can and often do in their own self-interest - is comparatively a lot less.

And that's before you bear in mind that hiring mercenaries is subject to negotiation on their prices as well, from the mercenary companies they originate from. These have fairly comprehensive rules set out in the book.

The prestige classes are more designed for the PC who wants to play a mercenary, as part of a mercenary-oriented campaign.

Saintheart

2021-07-30, 07:16 AM

Bastards and Bloodlines: A Guidebook to Half-Breeds, Green Ronin Publishing

https://images2.imgbox.com/ba/bb/43xzrS50_o.jpg
Summary
If you’re tired of the standard half-elf or the default 0.5 races in D&D, this is a book for you. Lots of new half-breed player races, half-X templates, feats, some spells, and prestige classes all themed around being a character who mixes two races together in sometimes strange and intriguing ways.

Date of Publication and Page Count
2003, 111 pages. So it’s late 3.0, just before 3.5 came out. The lead designer, Owen K.C. Stephens, was originally brought on by WOTC in 2000 as a designer for their Star Wars RPG, but was laid off a year later in 2001, and went freelance. Stephens would go on to author the Star Wars Saga edition in 2008, Pathfinder’s Bestiary 2, and become the lead designer for Starfinder, but this product once again was one of his earlier ones. Green Ronin Publishing itself started with third edition in 2000, and its founder, Chris Pramas, was involved at least at the sidelines with some of the earlier third edition products. This book is still available on large market websites as well as from Green Ronin itself.

Notable Features
Alicorn (race): Half elf, half unicorn. For a start, unicorns are by default only meant to be cohorts, not PCs, and even then they wear a +4 in LA and 4 racial hit dice. Alicorns draw LA +5. +2 STR, +4 DEX, +4 CON, +4 WIS, +6 CHA, making paladin possible but probably not casting classes. +2 natural armor, darkvision, natural slam attack, detect evil freely, can drop a first level spell to cast cure light wounds, +4 to saves vs. poisons or Enchantment.
Grendle (race): Half-troll crossed with dwarf. LA +3, which is a bit steep. Making it more tenable is the race’s near-invitation to ab/use age categories: Grendles explicitly don’t suffer any physical ability loss as a result of age. Thus, with an understanding DM, the race’s -2 to INT can be countered, its -4 to CHA can be mitigated, and its WIS score (which isn’t penalised) is improved. A venerable Grendle would have +6 to STR, +4 to CON, +1 INT, +3 WIS, and -1 to CHA. That aside, they pick up fast healing … of 1 hitpoint per hour … natural armor +2, darkvision 60 feet, regrowable limbs (so long as not lost to fire or acid), and +2 on saves against spells causing fear or despair. By way of comparison, the default troll is LA +5 and 6 racial HD.
Half-Goblinoids (race): Notable mainly because half-goblins and half-hobgoblins are both LA +0. Half-goblins’ notable abilities are Small size, +2 to Listen, Darkvision out to 60 feet, though they also pay for it with -2 to STR, -2 to CHA and +2 to DEX. Half hobgoblins are more useful and possibly the most feasible, useful race in the whole book: +2 to DEX and CON but -2 to CHA which martials won’t care about, and for some odd but pleasant reason they have darkvision out to 90 feet.
Hill Jovian (race): Half-hill giant. LA +5. Why would I do this when I could just be a Hill Giant from the SRD at LA +4, with better STR bonuses? Well, for a start, I don’t have to take on the Racial Hit Dice of a hill giant, of which there are 12 and which otherwise make me an ECL 16 creature. I also might not have the full STR and CON bonuses of a hill giant, but I also don’t have quite the penalties to INT and I have a positive bonus to CHA. There are Fire Jovians and Frost Jovians too, and the considerations are similar: no racial hit dice from the default species while still retaining about 75% of the monster’s features. Still, even with an effective +5 or +6 you pick up in STR bonus, it’s a massive LA hit.
Piper (race): Crossbreed of an elf or halfling with a satyr. LA +2. In 3.0, this LA adjustment was neutralised for bardic music purposes, because the Piper explicitly has an additional 3 ranks of Perform (even if it’s above their normal max rank), useable only when dancing or playing a woodwind instrument … and “Piper bards can access bardic music abilities more quickly with these virtual ranks.” However, under 3.5, access to new types of bardic music now requires a minimum Perform rank and a minimum bard level -- so only Inspire Courage benefits from this racial feature. The virtual ranks likely help for earlier feat qualification which is nice -- Perform (Dance) crops up more than you might think, especially in Snowflake Wardance -- but it won’t help the Piper get into Spelldancer any faster since that requires 3rd level arcane spellcasting, which the LA hurts. The Piper otherwise gets +2 DEX and CHA, a base speed of 40 feet, Speak with Animals, and a +2 to the save DC of [charm] or spells.
Sthein (race): Elf/Naga hybrid. LA +4 … the Sthein picks up no minuses to any stats but +2 to STR, DEX, CON, and a +4 to CHA; Large size; +1 natural armor; natural bite attack at 1d8 plus a poison that scales with character level, delivering a stun; racial spell-like casting (3 x 0-level, 1 x 1st level off the Sor/Wiz list, once per day); darkvision; Alternate Form (human); some racial bonuses to Listen/Search/Spot; and UMD, Spellcraft, all Knowledge skills are class skills. Decent base for a CHA-based martial type, especially with Knowledge Devotion.
Wendigo (race): LA +2. It’s a crossbreed between a dwarf and a wolf, and we won’t get into the description of how the hell that happens. +4 STR, +2 CON, +2 WIS, -2 INT, -2 CHA. 40 feet base speed which is grand, limited Cone of Cold casting, Cold subtype which might be handy, Scent, +2 to Survival. The fluff says they’re practically guaranteed not to be clerics despite this set of stats being fairly solid for it. I actually think LA +2 is a reasonably just imposition here.
Wyrd (race): Wyrds are elven/ogre mage crossbreeds. LA of +6 which is horrendous on first glance, but if (and only if) you’re running a Sorcerer, is actually more like LA +4. Wyrds “cast spells as 2nd level sorcerers” despite having no spell list or the Ogre Mage’s spell-like abilities. The Wyrd adds his sorcerer levels to his innate spellcasting levels for the purposes of calculating spells per day, saving throw, and other level-dependent effects, i.e. a 3rd level wyrd sorcerer is a 5th level sorcerer for all intents and purposes. For comparison, the default Ogre Mage is LA +7 (and 5 racial HD). Wyrds also get the Ogre Mage’s darkvision, Giant type, and Large size, but only +4 STR, +2 CON, +2 INT, +2 WIS, +2 CHA, and Spell Resistance (10+CHA mod) -- all significantly less than the bog-standard Ogre Mage. Also gets a massive Jump check rather than the Ogre Mage’s at-will flight. They don’t seem to pick up anything of their elven parent’s heritage in terms of racial features. This set of features might suit some sort of gish-y sorcerer, but as said it’s of very narrow application and even a sort-of LA +4 still hurts bad.
Houri (race): Elf/Nymph hybrid. LA +5, but it’s similar to the Wyrd in that the Houri casts spells as a 2nd level druid, and those innate spellcasting levels are added to her druid levels for all level-dependent casting purposes. So, at least for that purpose, the LA is more like +3. +2 DEX, +2 INT, +2 WIS, +8 CHA. Once again we’re looking at something of pretty narrow concept, since druids’ best abilities tend to be in their Wild Shape capacity rather than their casting. The comparator is the default Nymph, which is LA +7 and 6 hit dice, and has its casting level fixed at 7th level druid with no indication it’s ever going any higher even with PC druid levels.
Large (feat): Yup. That’s what you are. You’re Large size. With a single feat. So long as you’re of the bloodline of a race that’s normally size Large.
LOST TRADITION (feat): Choose one spellcasting class. You may change which ability score governs spellcasting with that class. Haven’t got the brains for wizard casting? Use your STR stat instead. Or DEX. Or CON. Or anything. Fantastic for gishes of all kinds, or even for optimising dual-casting theurges. And don’t you dare contemplate what happens when you put this on a Cancer Mage (BoVD) suffering from Festering Anger (also BoVD). (Note this reading has a strong chance of DMGs getting hurled in your direction. In other places the book contemplates -- and names -- casting ability scores as INT/WIS/CHA; the text of this feat was probably meant to be ‘pick from INT, WIS, or CHA’ rather than from any of your stats, but un/fortunately that’s not what the feat says. Even read down like that, it’s good for SADing casters.)
OLD BLOOD (feat): Choose one race other than your own. For the purposes of prestige classes, spells, feat prerequisites, magic items and so on, you count as a member of that race. Take the damn feat and count as a dragon for everything that matters!
Throwback (feat): Become slightly more beatstick. STR and CON increase by 2 each, INT, WIS drop by 4, CHA drops by 2. At least you’re not wearing a level adjustment for it.
Alert (weapon quality): For a +1, make a DC 20 Listen check, and you can still take action in a surprise round even if you wouldn’t normally be aware of the attack.
Angered (weapon quality): For a +2, increase the rage bonuses on STR and CON by +2, and you’re not fatigued at the end of a rage. Not bad and obviates having to stick around until the teens as a Barbarian.

Dreadful Features
Mind Ripper (creature): Half-illithid. +2 DEX, +4 INT, +2 WIS, +2 CHA is a nice set of stat bonuses, but I wouldn’t want to pay LA +4 for it, not even with a 1d8 tentacle attack against helpless targets or a psionic attack that only dazes the target and which does me CON damage. Especially when I can only make that attack CHA bonus/day. And no, the Mind Flayer default actually isn’t much of a comparison in this case, not when Mind Flayers get Spell Resistance, telepathy, Psionics at will, and a more powerful mind blast.
Lurker (creature): Half gnome, half cloaker. +4 STR, +2 DEX, +4 CON, +2 INT, +2 CHA, 20 foot flight speed, natural tail slap attack (1d4) that has Reach, make a scream that can cause a target to be Shaken (no indications on limit use) … but I still don’t think it’s worth LA +5.

Who it’s best for (Player/GM/both)
Probably mostly for the benefit of GMs, and for players it’s of most value if you want to run a monster without the full racial hit dice and LA.

Comments, thoughts, and rating out of 10.
On mechanics:
The main thing that interested me mechanically were the half-breed player races. And that’s because the book for some strange reason got me thinking about SRD monsters a little differently.

The problems with this book’s mechanics are really those of WOTC’s Level Adjustment system, created to allow monsters with high stat bonuses, racial hit dice, and spell-like abilities to run around with first level characters. Striking this balance is trickier than it appears, and LA is about as fit for purpose as a machete is for brain surgery. So it’s with a sigh that one reads the book’s general rule, singing from the same songsheet as WOTC, that anything that can’t be duplicated by a typical PC race is worth at least a +1 level adjustment. Even with the book’s concession that certain features advantageous for low-level characters are practically irrelevant at higher levels, it’s easy to conclude the book is unusable at first glance.

However: if you view half-breeds as discount brands of the default monsters they’re chipped off, and not competing against the default PC races, I think they actually come off as attractive. See if you want to run a SRD monster as a PC, you’re usually smashed by racial hit dice (RHD) and level adjustment. Both of these contribute to a monster’s Effective Character Level (ECL) … and ECL usually has to be close to equal across the party in most orthodox games, which in turn means the troll fighter just can’t be run at level one. Many monsters therefore are unplayable in practice, either because the monster’s RHD and abilities mean the creature is way too strong at low levels of play, or because the overbearing LA on top of the RHD means their racial abilities lose relevance almost immediately.

The half-breed races at least try to solve some of this problem because while they still have pretty solid LAs, none are saddled with racial hit dice … but still have a good-ish percentage of the default monster’s abilities. Meaning they can be run at much lower levels than their progenitors can be, because their ECL is much lower.

Don’t get me wrong, chewing nails is always good to look attractive when the only alternative is having your head cut off, but if you’re determined to play something with a strong flavour of a particular monster and you can’t convince your DM into ignoring LA (you can. I’ve done it, as a DM. The world did not end, it just got a little more complicated) and/or some weird-as progression out of Savage Species, these actually aren’t bad.

For the listed half-breeds, feasible character concepts are limited, but it’s possible to build your own half-breeds and you absolutely should be using similar tricks when knocking them together, e.g. the Wyrd’s boost to caster levels, or strong boosts on martials’ physical stats since they aren’t as badly gimped by level adjustment … sorta. (High DEX isn’t really affected by relevant math here; high CON somewhat ameliorates less HD; high STR arguably somewhat counters lost BAB, although it doesn’t help with Power Attack, which is gated by BAB and is near-essential for martials. And it’s a very different and much sadder story for LA-gimped casters, of course.)

Some feats are pretty strong, though these are exceptions to the rule. Most of the other feats and the Prestige Classes share the quality of complete blah. However, we also have templates for half-Xs here which are reasonably easy to slap on a default monster and make it work. And there are not-bad rules of thumb and guidelines (which is all you really can get in this space) about how to build your own halfies, for want of a better word. This one I rate a 3/4 mainly because the half-breed races are a nice compromise between full ECL and overpowering LA … and because I like how Old Blood renders obsolete 90% of forum threads mentioning Dragonwrought Kobolds.

On concepts and fluff:
Interesting, in short. The book leads with asking the GM to work out where half-breeds come from in his campaign from a fluff perspective, and it does have suggestions for how to deal with the more ‘icky’ details of how you get half-breed creatures. It also suggests character archetypes to get half-racial players into the right mindset, and goes a good way beyond the standard [s]Tanis Half-Elven ‘brooding, conflicted loner’ that you might otherwise conclude was necessary. Indeed even for the half-breeds above some are noble, some are brutal, and some are downright nasty. I mean come on: it contemplates (and stats) half-blink dogs, half-ropers, half-cloakers, half-beholders (which are ridiculously strong) and half-titans. It’s a good selection, and not boring.

And the fact it: it tries (inadvertently or otherwise) to make half-X creatures interesting if not playable. 3/4 here.

On presentation:
Black and white presentation, serif fonts, lots of helpful tables including an index. Passable internal art. 1/2.

Total: 7/10.

Next Time: Book of Iron Might, Malhavoc Press.

Thrice Dead Cat

2021-07-30, 09:31 AM

I'm not sure how much good Old Blood (Dragon) would do for Dragon Only prestige classes. They tend to have absurd or even Epic level requirements, and I don't think you get to count as a True Dragon (TM) to bypass other restrictions.

Lost Tradition gets mentioned from time to time, and leads to some silliness with Strength and Constitution casters. More so on Druids who eventually remain as a big, beefy boi for >24 hours at a time.

This isn't the writer's fault, but some of their races and templates eventually had official releases. Off-hand, I know both Half-Nymph (some Dragon issue, IIRC) and Half-Illithid (either Underdark and/or Lords of Madness) were printed years after Bastards & Bloodlines.

Kalkra

2021-07-30, 10:37 AM

Yeah, there are a while bunch of crossbreed templates which overlap with the ones here. Also, I wouldn't agree that most of a Druid's power comes from wild shape rather than spellcasting, but that's a play style thing, I suppose. As always, the templates for martials look better, because martials are worse. With buyoff, some of them can actually be very good, although there are plenty of better options, like feral and half-minotaur. Still, if I were a GM and I wanted to make a memorable NPC who's father was definitely a Bard, this would be a nice resource.

Thurbane

2021-07-30, 04:28 PM

Nice.

Lost Tradition is (in)famous in it's own right, but a lot of the rest of the book is virtually unknown. I allow LT in my games (and I don't allow much 3rd party), with the modification that you can only chose a mental ability score (Int, Wis or Cha); and you can only apply it to a "dual-stat" casting class (Favored Soul etc.).

I had somehow missed Old Blood altogether, I can imagine a lot of uses for it.

The Half-Hobgoblin race is very nice, IMHO. In addition to the net +2 ability scores (honestly, a lot of classes can dump Cha, so virtually net +4), and 90 ft darkvision, they always have "Intuit Direction" as a class skill (and a +4 bonus on checks), which should parse to 3.5 as always having Survival as a class skill. Can be very handy for entering PrCs etc.

I also like the Wyrd as an NPC race, but unfortunately with no stat blocks, it doesn't have a CR. When I asked about it once (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?558401), I ended up assigning CR +3.

Kalkra

2021-08-03, 09:44 AM

Old Blood usually comes up any time Beholder Mage or Illithid Savant comes up.

Saintheart

2021-08-10, 10:58 PM

Book of Iron Might, Malhavoc Press

https://images2.imgbox.com/f0/f0/3PSelc6i_o.jpg
Summary
Malhavoc published the Book of Eldritch Might for arcanists, and the Book of Divine Might for divine casters, now it gets round to a book of optional rules for combat. This is meant to provide a new set of options for fighters and beatsticks of all kinds.

Date of Publication and Page Count
2004, 60 pages. This book explicitly uses 3.5, so at least it’s up to date on that one. Malhavoc Press was set up by Monte Cook after he left WOTC in 2001. The company is all but dead (Monte Cook publicly put the company on the backburner in 2008; its last book – The Collected Book of Experimental Might, which was literally Monte Cook’s houserules – was released in 2009). However, this book still appears to be available on large market RPG websites. And despite being published by Cook, the sole author for this book was Mike Mearls – as in, the Mike Mearls who would go on to have a big hand in fourth edition and who ultimately became the lead designer for fifth edition, staying with WOTC for the better part of 20 years. Mearls is credited as the lead developer for 2006’s Tome of Battle, though ultimately Richard Baker, Matthew Sernett, and Frank Brunner’s names would end up on the cover. These are more notes for context here since Book of Iron Might is definitely its own thing in concept than ToB or the succeeding editions.

Notable Features
N/A: See below discussions about mechanics and concepts.

Dreadful Features
N/A … fortunately.

Who it’s best for (Player/GM/both)
It’s aimed at players, but really you’re best advised as a GM to consider it carefully first.

Comments, thoughts, and rating out of 10.
On mechanics:
There are a number of bits and pieces in the book, but to me the area to most focus on is the combat maneuver system that Mearls created for this book. Let me say at the outset that it is very, very easy to get into edition wars. If you’re still playing third edition then I can likely guess that’s because you don’t care for fourth or fifth, and Mearls for better or worse was a central part of them both. But you’re not looking at a proto-fourth edition, or fifth, or even an alpha version of Tome of Battle here. What you’re looking at in Book of Iron Might – I think – is Mearls slowly gestating his ideas about the problem of optionality that third edition threw up: i.e. the wizards can solve more problems, more flexibly, and more simply, than martials, and they can do something a bit different every fight. By contrast, martial characters, by and large, were limited down to a fixed number of tricks and approaches, and there wasn’t a lot of flexibility within those approaches; about as innovative as fighters got was Power Attack.

Book of Iron Might provides combat options – called ‘maneuvers’. These are like Disarm or Sunder or Trip: anyone can do them at any time. They’re basically debuffs, you can do ability score damage, blind an opponent, daze them, sunder their weapon as you disarm them, knockback, knockdown, etc. etc. And they’re not locked away behind feats, uses per day, or Vancian casting. The balancing factor on which Mearls hangs the entire system is that using one of these maneuvers requires that you take a large penalty to your attack roll, by default a -20. And a natural 20 is explicitly not automatic success on these rolls.

As said, these are the default options. However, Mearls goes further: he offers players and GMs the chance to make up their own maneuvers, within the framework that he sets out, which comes down to “Find some sort of debuff or hobbling thing that you want your character to do to another. Start with a penalty of -20 to attack roll. If you want to reduce that -20 down to a -10 or -5 or something, add some sort of saving throw and/or stick in an opposed check and/or make yourself vulnerable to an Attack of Opportunity.” I found this interesting since Mearls has to take the reader behind the math and offer some actual thoughts on balance. This is not the sort of thing that you throw at a new DM and his players, and in particular you don’t throw it at a new DM who’s trying to deal with optimising or lol charop types.

On a short Google search I actually found a very detailed breakdown of the various maneuvers and the systems in the book, much more than I really envisaged for these reviews and probably a lot more methodical than I’d be. You can find that review here (https://writeups.letsyouandhimfight.com/gradenko2000/the-book-of-iron-might/) or cached on Google.

Leaving aside that review’s thoughts and comments, the problems I can see with the book’s system come down to these:

(1) It lets mages do this stuff as well as martials
(2) It doesn’t really provide much in the way of power as written

Mearls knows that magic can ROFLMAO the system, since literally the first balance suggestion he has is to ban True Strike for obvious reasons. But I would have said maneuvers should have been explicitly for those who have no levels in magic-wielding classes. The book says quite explicitly that if a spell uses an attack roll, this maneuver system can be used with it, i.e. the spell still takes its normal effect as well as the maneuver’s effect (if the spell hits, that is). Not only does this then fail to make martials more unique or give them a niche that a caster can’t duplicate, it makes casters even more capable of dealing with combat-based issues. Worse still, it’s not made explicit whether, in melee, you add these maneuvers’ effects to your normal damage or whether it replaces them. If it’s a replacement it simply put is not a system that any DM should be putting near his players, simply because these are trap options.

With a couple of very distinct exceptions it’s not mechanically that powerful on the maneuvers as provided, though presumably a good DM could come up with something a bit more puissant. Debuffing targets is an equivocal strategy for standard melee, as demonstrated by the near-universality of taking Power Attack. Power Attack’s idea is that you suck up the chance you won’t hit in exchange for removing the enemy from existence a lot faster than you otherwise would. But the maneuvers in this thing for the most part impose conditions or ability damage: which is to say, even if successful they ultimately only prolong combat (albeit with the prospect of finishing the combat faster or finishing it with you expending fewer hitpoints since the enemy can’t use a natural attack, or a Su or Ex ability or something.)

The other major mechanical innovation Mearls makes is to create a system for doing flashy stuff (swinging off chandeleirs, flourishes, that sort of stuff) by a somewhat different way of using the skills system. This is similar-ish in concept and scope to the maneuver system, but also basically comes down to “assess whether you think what the character’s doing is outlandish or nigh-impossible. Assign a -1 to -5 penalty to the character’s skill roll accordingly.” It’s the sort of thing where, if you’re a new-ish DM but you don’t have sufficient guts to smack your players with a -5 Just Because You Say So, then it’s a useful bulwark.

In general I actually didn’t mind the book’s options mechanically. It’s an alternative crack at balancing optionality with a big penalty, and while I don’t think it does it quite as well as Tome of Battle did, it’s still pretty solid. It certainly encourages players and DMs to come up with their own maneuvers, use a little of their own creativity and mathematical judgement, in making some new technique. This at least is good practice for DMs making the slow climb from module-following to proper adventure creation and the challenge of balance. I just think a -20 base chance at doing something terrible is the sort of thing to really discourage alternative thinking in battle, not encourage it. 3/4 on this one.

On concepts and fluff:

When I think about what Mearls was trying to do with this book, I envision him screaming at his players “Do something interesting during combat, dammit! Swing off a chandelier! Kick a hobgoblin in the groin! Aim at a dragon’s wings with your crossbow! I promise, it’ll have a mechanical effect! Just stop counting 5 foot squares and electing Power Attack every goddamn round, will ya?!”

And that, in turn, is the same old debate that D&D has been having ever since Chainmail: how much abstraction and really creative behaviour can you get away with in a game that depends on mathematical factors like hitpoints, attack rolls, and AC, and – especially from third edition onward -- you advertise as having tactical depth? How do you reconcile those two?

And unfortunately I think Mearls’ attempt was somewhat doomed to fail. For the abstract, creative players, this book tries to create rules by which you can create. This is something of a contradiction in terms. If your DM is seat-of-the-pants, theatre-of-the-mind, and knows what he’s doing, i.e. he’s good at that style of play, then odds are on he’ll by intuition or practice know how to adjudicate your sudden desire to wrap your whip around a power cable and abseil down the castle wall. This book won’t add much but more rules to that. And if your DM is the “RAW-or-die, third party only if I can Monte Carlo machine it and find it is mathematically neutral, cite your rules and count your 5 foot squares, or I don’t care how cool you think the maneuver looks, it’s going to fail because there’s no rules for it”, then this book either isn’t going to impress them or they’re going to insist that you in practice can’t use it. At best, I think the systems Mearls creates here are probably more fun and useful as part of 3.5’s character creation minigame, which sadly is often a lot more fun and interesting than the main roleplaying game itself … but I digress.

So, yeah. Nice idea, doomed in practice. The solution to making people more creative or inspiring typically isn’t to give them more rules by which to be inspiring or creative. 1.5/4 on this one.

On presentation: Standard Malhavoc Press presentation, which is neither here nor there. Black and white, index, somewhat readable. 1/2 on this one.

Total: 5.5/10.

Next Time: Book of Erotic Fantasy, Valar Project, Inc.

YES, WE ARE GOING THERE.

PoeticallyPsyco

2021-08-10, 11:34 PM

Next Time: Book of Erotic Fantasy, Valar Project, Inc.

YES, WE ARE GOING THERE.

The BoEF gets a bad rap, but it's got some good stuff. The races in particular are all pretty cool; I remember really liking the Giant-Born template.

Looking forward to it.

Thurbane

2021-08-11, 12:04 AM

Still annoyed that I never got a physical copy of BoEF while it was at my FLGS.

I tried to order one online, through a shipping agent (from USA to Australia): agent refused to ship, classifying the book as "pornographic in nature". Because I'd already paid the seller and the shipping agent refused to ship internationally, never got the book, and was also unable to get a refund. :smallfurious:

Thrice Dead Cat

2021-08-11, 05:06 AM

As much as I want to riff on BoEF for honestly sophomoric reasons, there's not some bad stuff in it. (Well, okay, there is. There's a short, 3 or 5 level long full caster class that is essentially impossible not to qualify for and gets extra metamagic reduction out of those levels).

Kalkra

2021-08-11, 10:30 AM

Glancing through the Book of Iron writeup you linked, it seems like you could make an interesting build if you have a reach weapon and take the Total AoO with Failure drawback. I'm not sure how it would interact exactly with a spiked chain and Improved Trip (i.e. I'm not sure if you could add effects onto a trip attack you make with a spiked chain, and if you could make a special attack with your follow-up attack from Improved Trip), but it seems like there could be something there.

It also looks like the usual stunlock strategies apply, which can be kinda OP, but that's a problem with any sort of called shots/build-your-own-maneuver system.

When I have more time I'll look into it more thoroughly.

Also, I find it ironic that everybody's bashing the BoEF, and yet everybody's read it, unlike many of the other books mentioned in this thread, despite however much praise is heaped upon them.

PoeticallyPsyco

2021-08-11, 10:58 AM

I also took a read through the Book of Iron review you linked, and I have to say I do like the idea of choosing the drawbacks for your maneuver on the fly.

Endarire

2021-08-23, 05:46 PM

Reading what you wrote about what third parties wrote about Monks convinced me that the people who knew Monks in 3.5 best were the ones who made the Swordsage.

StSword

2021-08-24, 03:23 AM

I also took a read through the Book of Iron review you linked, and I have to say I do like the idea of choosing the drawbacks for your maneuver on the fly.

It reminds me of the FATE/OSR mashup Monsters and Magic system where one sacrifices damage to inflict drawbacks or buy advantages.

So say a monk could sacrifice damage to punch a wizard in the throat to silence them, or a barbarian could sacrifice some damage when attacking a goblin with an axe to gain the "Bloody killer of goblins!" advantage.

But yeah, I like the idea of a more freeform agency for players in DnD too.

Endless Rain

2021-09-07, 11:00 PM

Assuming the thread doesn't get locked over the BoEF, can you do the Creature Collection from White Wolf/Sword and Sorcery next?

I am very interested in learning more about the monster book that was rushed so quickly that it somehow beat the actual Monster Manual to market.

Saintheart

2021-09-08, 12:36 AM

I'll look into it :)

Sorry about the delays doing BoEF, guys, the subject matter means it's not as easy for me to work on it in downtime at my job, which is where I get most of my reviewing done. I'll devote some time to it soon. The intent will be to avoid the sort of content that could result in a threadlock, which hopefully will deal with my more sophomoric humour and non-PG stuff alike :)

Endarire

2021-09-09, 04:15 AM

I await your verdict on the Metaphysical Spellshaper!

Bavarian itP

2021-09-20, 09:48 PM

There's a thread about the BoEF open right now.

Just to say something before the 45 days are over :smallwink:

Saintheart

2021-09-20, 11:27 PM

Again, sorry about the delays guys, I will get on this ASAP.

thorr-kan

2021-09-21, 12:31 PM

Again, sorry about the delays guys, I will get on this ASAP.
When you can.

Alternatively, review BoEF in its own thread, so this one doesn't get locked.

Saintheart

2021-09-21, 10:47 PM

Book of Erotic Fantasy, Valar Project Inc.

Haha, you really thought I’d post the cover to this book here? If you’re really that keen to know what the cover looked like then go and Google in a private browser window or on a burner phone.

More seriously, the cover image isn’t that bad given the subject heading, and it’s positively demure by comparison to some of the interior art, but either way it’s omitted just for the heart health of our mods.

Summary
So, after much ado about nothing, we finally get around to one of the more controversial third party sourcebooks ever published for third edition. This book is all about adding carnal elements (for want of a better expression) to your campaign. Feats, prestige classes, races, gods, alignments, skills, spells, you name it, they’re all covered from the point of view of sex and love in the roleplaying game. It introduces a new primary stat, Appearance, for reasons that become apparent within. Definitely a book aimed at adults, and entirely consenting parties of adults, only.

It bears setting out in a preface that we could get really sophomoric or insensitive with some ease because the subject matter of reproduction, rather like baby jokes, is inherently funny. So I’m going to do my best to try and be as objective as I can. That said, if any body part jokes or double entendres slip through, any offence caused is entirely unintended and you might consider you’re just seeing a remark as bigger than it actually is ...

… yes, that one was intended.

Date of Publication and Page Count
November 2003, 193 pages. Thus, late in third edition, indeed technically a 3.5 book on publication date, but like a lot of third party from this era, it wasn’t updated to 3.5 rules. As you might expect, the book caused something of a kerfuffle on its original release. The full story is even more interesting and murky.

Early in third edition’s history, WOTC allowed the d20 System Trademark – as distinct from the OGL -- to be licensed to companies other than WOTC, meaning that third party publishers could tout their products as officially compatible with the d20 system. The idea being that the more people who published d20, the more WOTC’s products profited. This worked pretty well for the first years of third edition.

However, with a glut of rubbish d20 books published by independents, at some point in 2001-2002 WOTC decided to make the licence more restrictive. Leaving aside requirements for product quality, the d20 licence would be conditional on a third party publication meeting ‘community standards of decency’.

This was of particular interest to Anthony Valterra, who was a brand manager for WOTC and, more importantly, intending on publishing BoEF through his own company, Valar Project. According to forum chat from the time which is still Google-searchable on EnWorld under ‘Valar Project’, it looks like Valterra was fighting against these proposed changes to the licence, and tried to accelerate BoEF’s publication so it’d get out before they changed the rules. As you might guess, it didn’t happen. Valterra (evidenced by his public posting on EnWorld) parted ways with WOTC in May 2003; Valar Project officially announced the BoEF the same month; previews of the book were sold at the Indianapolis GenCon in July 2003; Valar Project’s licence to use the d20 trademark was revoked in September 2003; and Valar published BoEF in November 2003. Valar removed any direct references to D&D and just published the book under the OGL (citing the OGL in 20-point font on the book’s cover, just to be sure).

This turned third party publishers off publishing under the d20 licence, since it showed WOTC was willing to arbitrarily change the licence, and thus leave a Damoclean sword hanging over any publisher who stamped ‘d20’ on his books. Together with WOTC firing off 3.5 edition without letting third party publishers know it was coming, it meant the death of the d20 trademark, at least outside WOTC, in favour of OGL.

Anthony Valterra is still active in the entertainment industry, but only in tabletop games by the look of it. Valar Project didn’t turn out any other books as far as I can see. Perhaps somewhat sadly, the company’s last listing seems to have been as a clothing and apparel company … and its web domain has long since disappeared.

Which is to say the book wasn’t written by a bunch of creepy trenchcoat types. The book’s main credited author is Gwendolyn F.M. Kestrel. (The other author, Duncan Scott, appears to be something of a ghost. Indeed a news release from May 2003 announcing the book, indicate the 'other writer' of BoEF wanted to remain anonymous, so 'Duncan Scott' might well have been a pen name.) Those of you who’ve been paying attention would know that almost uniquely among the generally convex makeup of WOTC’s writing staff of the time, Kestrel is female with multiple book credits: Races of the Dragon, Monster Manuals III and IV, Underdark, Races of Eberron, Planar Handbook, Book of Challenges, Expedition to the Demonweb Pits. She appears to write fiction these days, but for better or worse BoEF is the book her name is likely most tagged with.

It’s probably not a good sign that the book credits more models than it does playtesters.

Valar Project as said is long gone, but it looks as though the book is still being published by White Wolf. In any event, it does appear to be readily available on mass market RPG websites.

Notable Features
Imagist (Base Class): The Supermodel as Sorceress. The Imagist’s primary casting stat is their Appearance score. Spells per day and known are basically that of a Sorcerer, but she casts divine spells rather than arcane. The Imagist spell list is fairly short and mostly Core cleric stuff for the first few levels (and includes good old Divine Power) but also starts to get some of the arcane essentials from around 5th to 9th level (and includes the capacity to cast both Miracle and Wish.) It also picks up some of the better spells unique to this book, and these tend to be at lower levels than other base classes. Abilities otherwise are, well, unique: some Sanctuary, some ability to give others a Smite ability, pick up a Cohort at third level as if she had the Leadership feat. And as you’d expect, she uses her Appearance modifier rather than CHA for her Bluff, Diplomacy, and Leadership score. Probably one step up on the average Buffer/Bluffer/Diplomancer, especially if she's casting Beauty's Caress a lot.
Kundala (Base Class): Leaving aside the fluff, it’s basically a body-focused monk with a paladin casting progression slapped on. The spells draw from a very short list which only goes up to fourth level, but there are a few bits and pieces in here that even a paladin might envy: Mage Armor, Bull’s Strength, Cat’s Grace, Owl’s Wisdom, Bear’s Endurance, Barkskin, Blur. And, as a fourth level spell, DIVINE POWER.
Tantrist (Base Class): Leaving aside the fluff which is, sadly, nowhere near really represented in how the class works, the tantrist is basically a wizard whose casting stat is CON, with the Knowledge domain slapped on as well (we’ll pass over the Body, Perversion, and Pleasure domains.) Tantrists carve their known spells onto their bodies, and interestingly they can learn from both the Sorcerer and Wizard lists. Unfortunately, and the big drawback of the class: to regain his spells, the tantrist needs a full night’s rest and then to bump uglies with someone for an hour. And no, going dancing with Mrs Palm does not count, explicitly. Evocation school spells are cast at +1 CL, -1 CL to Illusion or Necromancy schools.
Metaphysical Spellshaper (Prestige Class): Three levels. Full casting PrC. First level lets you trade off ability damage, in the stat of your choice, for metamagic costs, 1 for 1, on the fly. And no, you don’t actually have to have the higher level spell slots available to cast the metamagic version. Yes, Lesser Restoration allows you to offset this damage, but you have to make a DC 20 CL check, or the spell has no effect. (So you’ll be carrying lots of Wands with you, or you'll be binding Naberius for sweet ability damage healing 1/round.) Second level gives you a free metamagic feat. Third level reduces a spell's final metamagic costs by 1. This is comparable in power to the Incantatrix, which is basically the go-to for “Apply Metamagic To All The Things” in D&D 3.5, and this PrC only sweats you 3 levels for it. Indeed, this thing is even more terrifying when contemplated combined with Incantatrix.
Knot Binder of Kaladis (Prestige Class): Not what you’re probably thinking. These are the guys who enforce unions, contracts and sacred vows, e.g. marriages. Their fluff is superb for clerics of Torm, Tyr, Helm, or any of the stern lawful bunch who are interested in upholding agreements just as much as (or more than) justice. But it’s basically yet another inquisitor, detective-type prestige class that gives you stuff like better abilities to discern lies, cast Zone of Truth, cast Geas as a capstone, and find your true love once per day. At least (a) it’s only 5 levels long and (b) it’s a full casting PrC.
Body domain (new domain): The domain power is just adding Climb, Escape Artist, Jump, Swim, and Tumble as class skills to the weedy Cleric, but at least the domain spells are interesting: it adds Alter Self, Polymorph, Ethereal Jaunt, and Shapechange at the top end.
Submissive Demeanour (feat): WIS 13 prereq, and when targeted by spells or effects, you may make a “contested Will save” with the caster. If you succeed, the caster picks another target (and thus the spell doesn’t affect you). Benefit ends as soon as you take any sort of hostile action, such as attacking or casting spells. This one is right on the edge of going into the Dreadful Features section for potential abuse, but that mainly because the feat is badly-worded and could be abused to be used against traps or similar. The concept is nice -- although most casters will have high Will saves, it’s still another roll that the enemy has to make to affect you, albeit the number they have to hit is not constant. Simplest combination making this feat more useful? Moment of Perfect Mind, your Concentration skill becomes your Will save which is now useable to defeat any spell, not just the ones that target your Will save.
Beauty's Caress (Brd 3, Clr 4, Imagist 3) (new spell): 1 hour/level, so very little Persist shenanigans required ... add 1d4 per 2 caster levels to your CHA (and APP) scores, to a maximum of 5d4. This is outrageously good for CHA-based characters, the moreso that it's pretty low level for Bards, all things considered. I mean, remember this thing can be Maximised and Empowered, for very little costs if you're a Metaphysical Spellshaper.
Magic Probe (Brd 2 Clr 2, Sor/Wiz 2) (new spell): Have to touch the creature, but you instantaneously reveal all spells currently active on the target. As we know, familiars can deliver touch spells.
Miss (Imagist 1, Sor/Wiz 2) (New spell): If it fails the Will save, target’s next attack roll takes a -10.
Peace Aura (Clr 8, Imagist 7, Denial 9) (New Spell): “Wards a 40 foot radius from the touched point so that anyone attempting to strike or otherwise attack a creature in the warded area, even with a targeted spell, takes 1d6 of [force] damage per caster level. And Evil subtype creatures take a -4 on the saving throw. Its range is touch, and might ward a “structure” against violence, so just cast it on a toy house and carry the house around with you for kerbooming shenanigans.
Pheromones (Rgr 3) (new spell): You smell nice. Get a +5 untyped bonus to Bluff, Diplomacy and Handle Animal checks against creatures in a 10 foot radius of you, for 1 hour per level.
Shadow Life (Brd 6) (new spell): 1 day/level, no material components, works like Raise Dead, but at the end of its duration, the target again dies. Interesting possibilities for roleplaying at least, or at least gives you a few days to rustle up a diamond or two.
Spell Meld (Clr 9, Sor/Wiz 9 (new spell): takes two casters, but they can pool their spellcasting abilities. Each participant can cast spells from the other’s spell retinue if their ability stat is high enough. Lasts 10 minutes/level. Surely there must be some ab/uses for this.
Succor (Brd 4, Clr 5, Pal 4) (new spell): And here we have one spell from the same book that arguably gets around Metaphysical Spellshaper’s restrictions on trading metamagic costs for ability damage. The spell, 1 minute/level, prevents the loss of 1 point of ability damage or drain per 5 caster levels, to a maximum of 4. It is not clear whether this is a running total or effectively DR 4 against ability damage or drain.
Confidence (armor quality): +1 bonus to armor which gives you a +2 enhancement bonus to CHA, and allows you to add your CHA mod to all Will saves. Let’s remember a +2 Cloak of Charisma costs you 4,000 gold and still doesn’t match this.
Alternate Spaces for Magic Items on the Body: Doesn’t add extra body slots, but does indicate alternative ways to take up those slots. E.g. why go with boring and nerdy goggles. Try a set of eyelash extensions instead. Or a hair comb, in place of a boring old helmet.
Celestial Argentum (new substance): Spell failure chance drops by 10%, max DEX bonus increases by 2, ACP reduced by 3. A little more expensive than mithral, but not bad at all.
Giantborn (template): LA +2, so it had better be worth it. Type changes from your original humanoid/monstrous humanoid to Giant, which is handy even if you now have to watch out for dwarven enemies. Toughness as a bonus feat, +2 to STR, +2 to CON, -2 CHA, -2 APP if you’re using it, gets lowlight vision, +1 to attack rolls with thrown weapons. If you have 5 or more HD, get enlarge person as a spell-like ability once per day, cast as a second level spell. At 10 or more HD, flat-out get an increase in size by one category with all associated benefits and penalties. This is obviously of most use if you’re already Large size, since it’s a flat increase to size, not an increase to Large in itself. It’s still a substantial whack at LA +2, and more attractive for martials than casters.

Dreadful Features
Divine Celibate (Prestige Class): Five levels long and meant for paladins, but really it’s at best an equivocal dip for clerics desperate to pick up another source of turning, and even then I’m dubious about it. I really wanted to like it, it’s a PrC based on the idea of the virgin who could befriend unicorns according to legend. In five levels it gets full BAB and 4/5 to Fort and Will. Also gets a Unicorn special mount, which is nice, and at the capstone, the supernatural ability to turn non-native evil outsiders as a good cleric of his character level, which is a distinct improvement on paladin turning and almost certainly forms another turning pool for divine metamagic. This is also good since he also gets to cast any spell off the cleric list or from the Good or Protection domains. The problem is that he only picks up second level spells at maximum, and damn few of them.
Pierced Mystic (Prestige Class): No extra spell levels, but your CL goes up, and you can imbue 3 piercings (of the dozens the character has) with one spell you know, which then becomes a spell-like ability useable a maximum of 3 times per day. But they still take up a body slot like a regular magic item.
Voyeuristic Seer (Prestige Class) 3 level full-casting PrC that focuses on scrying and its tagline is “I like to watch.” Yeah, it’s basically all that.
Life Shell (Cleric 5) (New spell): “Ah, so this is the opposite of the Antilife Shell. Nothing nonliving - be they arrows, magic items, or clothes – can penetrated unimpeded, though energy attacks still can. 10 minutes per level. … oh. The caster of this spell must be completely naked. Right, moving on.”
Every other feat bar the ones mentioned above. Basically pages and pages are spent on giving you between +2 and +6 temporary enhancement bonus in a stat if you bump uglies for up to one continuous hour ahead of time. There really isn’t much else in the feat section.
Greater Succubus (monster): This was really just an excuse to post some squicky fluff and a picture of a topless model in a devil costume. The one creature where you would expect there to be some major use of the unique mechanics in the book, seeing as its very nature is all about seduction, and all you basically get is an advanced succubus.

Who it’s best for (Player/GM/both)
Honestly, as a player you’re likely going to get funny looks if you turn up to Session Zero sporting this thing in hand. And it really does warrant a long and careful look from a DM before using elements from it, even leaving aside a DM is specifically warned to get consent from his players before rolling its content out, so it’s really most recommended to DMs to look at rather than players, at least to start with.

Comments, thoughts, and rating out of 10.
On mechanics:
A long-lost internet poster once said about BoEF “balanced, mature, and relevant to the game. Pick 2.” And to be honest that probably still stands as a pretty good overview of what this book’s like mechanically. The notable features above are some mixture of intriguing to just plain overpowered in the right hands. The other stuff, which occupies the balanced + mature but mostly irrelevant area, includes various rules around sustaining the act of love or literally causing the kind of healing Marvin Gaye used to sing about. Yes, you can mechanise some of this stuff, but why would you really want to? Does it assist to add another primary stat, (Appearance)? Well, not necessarily, because without bolting on a reasonable number of feats, it just makes you more MAD since Appearance can’t be used for many, if any, of the foundational rolls like attack or saving throws. Maybe a better idea would have been to replace Charisma outright with Appearance and just say ‘use one freely in place of the other’ on this.

And that’s despite the fact I actually like the idea of adding a new Appearance statistic. “Charisma” has always tried to be this, but the idea that the good old Cloak of Charisma makes you look more like a supermodel has never really quite hit the marks.

Similar goes with the spells: while some are very good in the right contexts, many of the new ones are very situationally useful to the point that your mage likely won’t bothering learning it. The book has a section on how common spells can be used in more intimate situations; I would have gone whole-hog and just used that rather than go with the unique spells the book introduces. Unless you’re running a campaign that will actually make meaningful use of this stuff – in which case your DM’s preparation sessions are going to have been eye-opening as he sets up appropriate challenges – then for the most part it just isn’t relevant.

The biggest problem with the book, mechanically, to me, is that it’s not easy to pull out sections of it for use without having to take on the book’s whole approach to Appearance and sex generally. And that’s a big shame, because this book, perhaps better than other standard sourcebooks, is actually pretty intriguing when you adopt a general ‘leaf and peck’ approach to some of the stuff in it. Some of it could be really good with a little adjustment But generally it’s just … eh. 1.5/4 on this one.

On concepts and fluff:
It’s well known that leaving aside overcoming writer's block, the greatest challenge a writer can face is to write a sex scene that doesn’t make a reader want to apply bleach to his brain. And if it’s that difficult to just describe, imagine the challenges when you start getting into how this mechanically works in a roleplaying game.

Because the book dates from the early 2000s, there’s no discussion of some orientations or predilections that are more commonly seen these days. So you have to take its views on sexuality for what they are. It does, however, read as open-minded and is neither a parochial nor permissive take. It’s about as middle of the road and even-handed as I think one can expect given the timeframe, subject matter, and the audience they were writing to. An example that I think does fairly exemplify more or less the book’s whole approach to its subject is the discussion of alignment as it applies to intimate relations. I had grave misgivings going into this section, given the general track record of WOTC and friends with alignment generally, worried that I’d get awful stereotypes on both ends of the conservative/permissive spectrum. And I was very pleasantly surprised. Lawful Good is not – as I feared – just portrayed as the Alignment Of Gilead. Quite the opposite: it is about treating one’s partner with respect within particular rules which are adhered to by consent between both parties, which doesn’t necessarily mean within the confines of a sanctioned state/religious marriage. There was nothing really sniggerworthy about the writing or treatment (apart from the tagline description of Ooze reproduction: One Ooze. Idiot damages Ooze. Two oozes.) I guess this is about as much as you can really hope for when dealing with this subject matter.

The concepts themselves I did think of as fairly inventive. And if you’re interested in interspecies crossbreeding (dragon seems to be universally compatible and interested … albeit the rationales for dragons crossbreeding are chillingly horrifying in some cases), percentage chance of conception, and gestation periods for different races, this book has lots of that sort of stuff. It also has how the basic character races view relationships and intimacy, which I like because it invites you to think about the race’s personality, which is good for verisimilitude if not making your character a bit more than just a cardboard cutout dwarf. There are more inventive … and horrifying … STDs even. The plot hooks the book provides are really interesting too, as are the gods and goddesses which are bit more meaty than usual.

It may not be filled with the most usable stuff that sees consistent use in actual games, but it certainly does try to be inventive and give resources to those DMs who actually want to run a campaign involving a lot of it. It might not be a full campaign setting, but it’s getting there. It contains all the warning labels of “Don’t use this book without having clear consent from your players, and think very carefully about very significant political and personal issues that these rules touch on.” There’s a whole sidebar about how you really need to consider how will-overbearing or enchantment magic is going to work in your campaign given the question of consent, especially in present times.

When you get right down to it, what’s off-putting about the book is really that that sex is, like it or not, a subject of squick for most gaming tables. Most people seem to prefer their sex and violence abstracted in entertainment, or used for effect, not as a primary stat. It might well be that the book’s best value is had in its use for an isolated encounter, or for something a bit different, but it certainly is a wide-ranging take on the whole subject. 3/4.

On presentation: Look, it’s basically set out like a standard D&D third edition sourcebook. The main difference between it and every other third party sourcebook you’ve read is the soft-core pr0n … uh … modelling that comes up every few pages. However, it’s also full colour throughout, though, which is a damned nice change. 1.5/2 on this.

Total: 6/10. Wanted to hate it. Didn’t.

Next Time: Creature Collection, White Wolf, on request from Endless Rain.

Thurbane

2021-09-22, 01:31 AM

Thanks for the write-up, very comprehensive.

Fun fact: AD&D 1E introduced "Comeliness" as a seventh stat. I didn't like it then, and I don't like the concept any more now. D&Ds six stats are a pretty iconic part of the game, and I don't feel adding a 7th does much to enhance the game.

As an aside, I feel 3E has a bit more of an identity crisis of what Charisma represents than what earlier editions did. In 1E and 2E it was, to the best of my recollection, pretty unambiguous that it was a combo of physical beauty and persuasiveness. 3E seems to have conflated force or personality, sense of self and willpower a bit, which means Cha seems to step on the toes of Wis in some regards.

Saintheart

2021-09-22, 02:45 AM

I should also add that there were a few prestige classes and other stuff I omitted from the review, mainly because their concept and execution likely go way too close to what the mods can likely tolerate discussed on here. But more or less without exception those things would have gone into the Dreadful Features section. BOEF, when it's good, it is very, very good, but when it is bad it is horrid.

Fizban

2021-09-22, 03:29 AM

As an aside, I feel 3E has a bit more of an identity crisis of what Charisma represents than what earlier editions did. In 1E and 2E it was, to the best of my recollection, pretty unambiguous that it was a combo of physical beauty and persuasiveness. 3E seems to have conflated force or personality, sense of self and willpower a bit, which means Cha seems to step on the toes of Wis in some regards.

Much like good/evil just needs a reminder that evil can and does have people they care about (just not many), charisma just needs a reminder of all those physically pretty people you've seen who you then instantly dislike and tune out the moment they open their mouths, while a hideous figure can be all the more powerful when backed up by strong speaking. The secondary assertiveness function does seem kinda weird at first, but works really well once you connect how without assertiveness someone simply wouldn't choose to persuade people or believe that the universe will bow to their innate powers, while assertive displays really do have a tendency to sweep people along for the ride.

Efrate

2021-09-22, 08:08 AM

Metaphysical spellshaper I have seen in play, thankfully it was on essentially an evoker which was fine. Kundala I always wanted someone to play, because conceptually it was neat and mechanically it's actually okay.

pabelfly

2021-09-22, 08:29 AM

Xervous

2021-09-22, 11:40 AM

Charisma doesn't seem to correlate to wisdom to me. Think of a pop star or actor or model with trite social opinions, or a more mundane example, a friend that always tells entertaining stories of their misadventures. People that have Charisma but are entirely lacking Wisdom.

Talk show hosts like [redacted]? Getting it straight from the horse’s mouth.

Melayl

2021-09-22, 01:15 PM

Charisma doesn't seem to correlate to wisdom to me. Think of a pop star or actor or model with trite social opinions, or a more mundane example, a friend that always tells entertaining stories of their misadventures. People that have Charisma but are entirely lacking Wisdom.

It's not so much wisdom as it is strength of will or sense of self, in my opinion. That's why it would work for a Will save.

RexDart

2021-09-22, 02:02 PM

Fun fact: AD&D 1E introduced "Comeliness" as a seventh stat.

It did? I don't remember that at all. Where did it appear? Was it added in a later supplement, or as an optional rule or something?

pabelfly

2021-09-22, 02:20 PM

It's not so much wisdom as it is strength of will or sense of self, in my opinion. That's why it would work for a Will save.

Just because you have strong sense of self and strength of will doesn't mean you can't be easily misdirected. I think a Will Save is having the wisdom to discern that thoughts in your head aren't natural and aren't yours, or is directing you in a disadvantageous way.

I'd use a bull as an example - undoubtedly strong-willed, but can be easily misdirected by a man with a red cape.

thorr-kan

2021-09-22, 02:58 PM

It did? I don't remember that at all. Where did it appear? Was it added in a later supplement, or as an optional rule or something?
1E's Unearthed Arcana.

RexDart

2021-09-22, 02:59 PM

1E's Unearthed Arcana.

Ah, that explains it, then. That would have come out after my personal 1e days.

Melayl

2021-09-22, 03:16 PM

Just because you have strong sense of self and strength of will doesn't mean you can't be easily misdirected. I think a Will Save is having the wisdom to discern that thoughts in your head aren't natural and aren't yours, or is directing you in a disadvantageous way.

I'd use a bull as an example - undoubtedly strong-willed, but can be easily misdirected by a man with a red cape.

The same could be said for a wise individual. Wisdom doesn't equate with focus.
Someone with a strong sense of self should also be able to tell which thoughts are their own and which aren't.

Agree to disagree?

pabelfly

2021-09-22, 04:07 PM

The same could be said for a wise individual. Wisdom doesn't equate with focus.
Someone with a strong sense of self should also be able to tell which thoughts are their own and which aren't.

Agree to disagree?

Sure, it's a pointless argument.

noob

2021-09-22, 04:09 PM

Feldar

2021-09-22, 04:16 PM

Ah, that explains it, then. That would have come out after my personal 1e days.

I would have sworn it started as a Dragon magazine article before the UA.

Thurbane

2021-09-22, 05:00 PM

It did? I don't remember that at all. Where did it appear? Was it added in a later supplement, or as an optional rule or something?

1E's Unearthed Arcana.

Yes, I meant to have that in my post, yet somehow missed it entirely.

It's not so much wisdom as it is strength of will or sense of self, in my opinion. That's why it would work for a Will save.

That probably sums up what I was trying to say better than I could.

And every time I've raised this previously, most people vehemently disagree with me, I know. :smallbiggrin:

I would have sworn it started as a Dragon magazine article before the UA.

Fair chunks of the 1E UA were reprints or revisions of dragon articles, so entirely possible.

Sorry if I've started a de-rail. :smallfrown:

Kalkra

2021-09-23, 12:49 AM

Saintheart

2021-09-23, 01:47 AM

I don't remember and I'm not gonna check,

I will. For my sins.

but I think that BoEF had a spell that boosted CHA to a max of 5d4 at CL 20. I could be a bit wrong about the numbers, but every CHA-based caster would want such a thing.

On another look, yep, that's Beauty's Caress, a level 4 Cleric, level 3 Bard, level 3 Imagist spell that does precisely that: +1d4 per 2 caster levels to your CHA and APP scores, to a maximum of 5d4. Lasts 1 hour per level and Maximiseable, therefore, ridiculously good. I don't know how I missed it other than maybe distraction by the interior art and I'll go back and edit it in.

Also, I think that Metaphysical Spellshaper's 3rd-level ability reduces the final metamagic adjustment by 1, rather than from each individual feat.

Also true: "At 3rd level, the metaphysical spellshaper reduces the final spell-level slot required by metamagic feats by one (to a minimum of one). This applies to all metamagic feats applied to a spell."

Pretty sure there was also some +0 LA template that boosted DEX.

That would likely be the Felid template, the quite literal catgirl of which we will not speak of beyond its stats. Yes, it's a LA +0, and yes, it boosts DEX by +2, but penalises WIS and STR by -2. Also gets a bonus feat past 10 HD, but nothing hugely significant - choice of stuff like Lightning Reflexes, Athletic, Improved Initiative, that sort of thing.

Fizban

2021-09-23, 02:07 AM

That probably sums up what I was trying to say better than I could.

And every time I've raised this previously, most people vehemently disagree with me, I know. :smallbiggrin:
For me it's not so much that I disagree vehemently with the added drift having some problems- it's the specific wording. "Force of personality" to me is a nigh meaningless expression, followed closely by "sense of self," but you are correct that "force of personality" is literally the first thing mentioned in the 3.5 PHB's description of charisma. Poor word choice doesn't mean the pivot away from cha as physical attractiveness and towards something else doesn't work, it just means that they picked the wrong words. My choice of 'assertiveness' to describe the support of the cha-based skills and powers and potentially substituting on will saves and implied social tendencies, doesn't run into the same problems as phrases like "force of personality" or "sense of self." I'm pretty sure it's what they're actually going for, the little-used word that the euphemisms are trying to fish up.

Sorry if I've started a de-rail. :smallfrown:
Eh, I'm the one who jumped on.

Speaking of old 3rd party books- anyone interested in hearing about the stuff Saintheart skipped that I was looking forward to hearing about in Mercenaries? Nothing huge, but I've put it off long enough that if I don't know someone wants to read it I'll never get around to it.

Kalkra

2021-09-23, 07:11 AM

Speaking of old 3rd party books- anyone interested in hearing about the stuff Saintheart skipped that I was looking forward to hearing about in Mercenaries? Nothing huge, but I've put it off long enough that if I don't know someone wants to read it I'll never get around to it.

If you build it, they will come. Or at least, I will.

Emberlily

2021-09-23, 04:17 PM

I know it was put in the dreadful features list, but I'm curious about the details of anti anti life shell. Can an intelligent magical weapon enter? Could it be cast by, say, a warforged? I'm sure a resourceful caster could easily find a way to have living clothing (magical plant based of some sort?) so as to cast it in polite society, so is the totally naked part explicit or is it just that nonliving clothing isn't allowed?

Saintheart

2021-09-23, 06:32 PM

so is the totally naked part explicit or is it just that nonliving clothing isn't allowed?

No, it's explicit that you're naked.

Thrice Dead Cat

2021-09-23, 06:57 PM

I don't remember and I'm not gonna check, but I think that BoEF had a spell that boosted CHA to a max of 5d4 at CL 20. I could be a bit wrong about the numbers, but every CHA-based caster would want such a thing. Also, I think that Metaphysical Spellshaper's 3rd-level ability reduces the final metamagic adjustment by 1, rather than from each individual feat. Pretty sure there was also some +0 LA template that boosted DEX. Again, I could be wrong about all of this. I just read some excerpts of the purely non-squick crunch stuff that I found somewhere years ago, so that could have been wrong and I could be misremembering.

On another look, yep, that's Beauty's Caress, a level 4 Cleric, level 3 Bard, level 3 Imagist spell that does precisely that: +1d4 per 2 caster levels to your CHA and APP scores, to a maximum of 5d4. Lasts 1 hour per level and Maximiseable, therefore, ridiculously good. I don't know how I missed it other than maybe distraction by the interior art and I'll go back and edit it in.

The fact that it's such a low level and lasts for hours per level means you can get some silly numbers going with Maximize and/or Empower. Even a minimum roll without metamagic is like having an extra +5 Inherent bonus. It's more than a little silly.

Also true: "At 3rd level, the metaphysical spellshaper reduces the final spell-level slot required by metamagic feats by one (to a minimum of one). This applies to all metamagic feats applied to a spell."

I think -1 overall adjustment is fair. The class is only three levels long, and as others have mentioned, it's easy enough to qualify for on top of Incantatrix (or, really, any other prestige class).

Speaking of old 3rd party books- anyone interested in hearing about the stuff Saintheart skipped that I was looking forward to hearing about in Mercenaries? Nothing huge, but I've put it off long enough that if I don't know someone wants to read it I'll never get around to it.

It makes sense to me to discuss the material already covered by Saintheart - here or in another thread. If no one does, then we're basically just waiting around for the next review, no?

Fizban

2021-09-23, 10:55 PM

Okay, so the review of Mercenaries goes straight from races to feats, completely skipping skills and classes, and then later barely touching on spells. A lot of my reaction is in the sort of "hey look at this thing a 3rd party book did first." Classes was the part I was excited about, but like a lot of 3rd party books there are some potential gems in alternate skill uses too so I'll start there:

Some new skill uses include: "read" an animal to get information from it's behavior (domesticated, injured, master missing, etc), kip up for free action stand under Balance at DC 25 rather than the DC 35 Tumble check we get 1st party (and makes sense for those who like more multi-functional skills, Balance now both keeping you up and getting you back up), Bluff vs Gather Information if you're hiding your background, booby traps under Trapmaking, an explicit blend into the crowd use for Disguise, and Forgery DCs for signets and seals (which if anything should be what the actual base use of Forgery is). There are new skills for the explosives and a bunch relating to the contract negotiations and some I'd flat disagree with, but these are all pretty basic things that either pre-empted, one-upped, or just should have been in 1st party to begin with.

On Classes: a lot of these come off as minor variants on the same theme, because of course they are- the book is all about martial or partially martial characters of mercenary bent. But the weird thing is just how many variations it has, with 2-3 versions of each thing that most books would only include one version of. It makes reading a bit of a chore, but is also a solid 24 pages, 10% of the book and as long as most other sections.

The Alchemist is a gold standard for Dreadful. It's a spellcaster with 8th level "casting," and by casting we mean it can brew that many non-magical potions at once, and by that we mean 1-3 of a single type of a single level at once, which still cost as much to make as normal potions. And that's it. That's their entire main feature: be a wizard minus a few levels, and you have to pay spell level*caster level*25 gp and roll a skill check for every spell you cast.

The Guardian on the other hand, is a 3/4 BAB+ 6th level spells magic warrior type. I suppose they could be patterned on Psychic Warriors if the original Psionics Handbook came out first, since they get a combat/magic bonus feat progression (from a very limited list), but about half of those feats are replaced by Summon Familiar and an "Empower" feature which gives a chosen weapon a very late flat enhancement bonus. They prepare and cast Sor/Wiz spells from a spellbook, but don't gain free spells for leveling up, and have special restrictions on not being allowed to use Metamagic and counting as 2 levels lower for crafting- which itself comes as a silent acknowledgement that Metamagic when used is a direct step up in power and that this change creates a gap between Wizards and Guardians which they intend to be worth something. But most unique, it's a pre-3.5 and pre-Mini's Handbook class which says "screw it, they can just cast in Light armor with no penalty."

So all in all pretty dang mediocre by modern standards, but also doing a number of things right that 1st party classes never did- they seem to have gotten to Armored Mage first, or at least earlier, and give some combat bonus feats for their mage-warrior which "Bards" never get, while keeping to a very normal spellcasting progression with no disruptive burst damage "channeling" features unlike the Duskblade. It's just a 3.0 power level version of what no one else could apparently be bothered to write.

The Myrmidon is the other class I was thinking about, another version of a mage-warrior- but it takes a different and yet still inexplicably novel approach: they simply cast all their spells without somatic components. The Myrmidon has 3/4 BAB and 6th level spellcasting, up to Medium armor rather than Light, casts from a spellbook, gains spells on level up unlike the Guardian, and has a simple series of unspecified bonus feats calling from the Fighter list and starting at 1st level. So what makes this anything but a strict upgrade in every aspect that would make the Guardian a waste of space? The Myrmidon only casts spells from the Myrmidon list of course. Which is focused on self-enhancement and utility (though including some offense at nearly all levels except 3rd for some reason), leaning heavily on spells from its own book, but also just does a bunch of things that are later celebrated 1st party spells. Oh, the Artificer has spells to use weapon properties with a minor gp cost? Myrmidon had Enchant Weapon, only at high levels, but it was there first. Ridiculous OP splitting arrows? Say hello to Storm of Arrows. Give yourself all the benefits of uncanny dodge because class features are for suckers? Combat Prescience, check. And of course Battle Knowledge for that free feat. This is not limited to the Myrmidon spells in the book btw, and a number of spells could be drawing on web articles- the Battle Knowledge spell which gives you a feat, like Heroics, could be based on the same web article that Heroics was based on.

So the Myrmidon has flexibility in armor and feat use for more combat focus, but with a restricted spell list, while the Guardian has to pay for their spells and has fewer features and flexibility in them, but can use the whole Sor/Wiz list. And they're both actual mage-warriors that don't push "channel spell" gimmicks and have their 6th level spells along with bonus feats without being PsyWars. Nice.

The Geurilla goes back to. . . not Dreadful, but certainly different. The Ambush Attack (d4's of Sudden Strike, 2d4 at 4th and 6d4 at 20th) might make one think Rogue, but it's got full BAB and 6+Int skills, so it's actually a no-spell no-companion Ranger with weaker no-flank sneak attack instead of Favored Enemy (a 100% improvement in my opinion, FE on a base class is terrible design). With a series of combat bonus feats (from its own list again), and Evasion/Improved and Woodland Stride/Trackless Step, very late but definitely eventually, it's pretty obviously a non-magical ranger minus the straitjacket combat styles. . . except none of those features was on the 3.0 Ranger, or in the 3.0 DMG PrC's. To the point that I suddenly have to question if they actually ripped a bunch of obliquely referenced features from 3.5 preview material, or if 3.5 swiped some 3rd party ideas, though I'm pretty sure Combat Style is well-known to be rooted in the Lords of the Rings movies.

The Hunter starts my eyes glazing over, but let's stop and read.

Full BAB, all martial, light armor and shields. No silly armor restrictions so you can feat or dip to whatever armor you want.
It has a favored enemy feature that increases crit multiplier, at 1st level, a huge and rare effect that completely changes crit-fishing. Stunning Blow is like Stunning Fist, but you get to use a weapon and your Str, have to strike for nonlethal damage, and they have to be at an effective 1/2 HP- not insignificant if you ask me, on a full BAB class with no restrictions on getting actual armor.
At 2nd, they get the Hog-Tie that the Justicar PrC has to wait until ECL 11 for, and they can do it if an ally has made the pin.
Surprise Attack: Sudden Strike at 1d8/3 levels, no restriction on non-lethal.
Bonus feats every 4 levels, where the only restriction is not being restricted to particular class. They get almost perfectly general bonus feats, take anything you want that doesn't explicitly say X class.
Weapon Spec: because screw Fighters.
Hunter's Sense: -20%, later -30, later all, vs all forms of concealment. Like Blind-Fight but better and it stacks.
Ambush: At 10th, if you study a foe for 3 or more rounds, your sudden strike dice can be multiplied by crits for an equal number of rounds. Weird, obviously no death attack, but this is a class with innate crit multiplier boosting.
Knockout Shot: At 14th you can trade the damage from a confirmed crit for a damage based save vs unconcious. Not spectacular.
Eye of The Unter: at 19th, ignore all illusions and concealment.

So the Hunter is. . . a Fighter, with halved bonus feats and reduced starting armor proficiency, who can dip Fighter anyway, and also has essentially full strength Sudden Strike, and limited Stunning not-Fist, and higher crit multipliers vs chosen foes, and has a stacking miss-chance reduction. That sounds pretty dang solid, yeah.

The Legionnaire: main feature is +2 attack and +2 AC whenever you're fighting adjacent to another Legionnaire, and you still get +1's when adjacent to non-Legionnaire allies. Bonus feats at 4th and every 3rd after, from their own list which includes Weapon Spec, because screw Fighters- they don't qualify until 8th, but this was 3.0 when there was no further scaling so it's just BM. At 9th they get +4/-0 charging, Leadership at 12th, and at 15th a no-save attack+damage+save penalty equal to Cha for any foes they charge lasting 4 rounds. And that's it. None of their stuff scales, no actual wacky team formation abilities, just a dippable bonus, delayed bonus feats, one charge benefit that comes up fairly commonly, and one late-game charge ability that's pretty strong in my book. There may be a bunch of feats in the book that may support such things (or not, I haven't re-checked), but those don't require a whole new class.

On to the Mercenary Ranger. Wow, we've got obvious ranger variants, and then we've got literal ranger variants. It removes spellcasting, adds organization as a favored enemy option, adds favored terrain which boosts skills, reduces overland movement penalties, and keys Trackless Step. Then it adds Ranger Options (2nd and every 3 levels after), which bonus feats from a specified list which only function in Light armor, +10 move speed (no more than once), various flat bonuses, "animal companion" of 2 HD that's a Familiar (familiar benefits delayed based on the level you take it), sneak attack, and finally re-add yourself some spells generated based on the level you take it which I must assume works out to roughly normal, and finally finally a spontaneous casting upgrade which "follows all the same rules as a cleric."

Overall, it's actually a pretty decent stab at turning the Ranger into a Menu Class, which I personally rather dislike but is quite popular as evidenced by just all of Pathfinder. And its no-spell choices of feats and/or sneak attack ought to satisfy. Oh, and then at 20th they suddenly get Leadership as if they were 10th level +Cha only, but they get animals, and pay 1,000xp per HD to replace them when killed. Sure, okay then, whatever.

Keep chugging on to the Nomad: 3/4 BAB, 8+Int skills, some sort of Rogue. They have a "code of honor" which seems to be based on pretty basic cultural norms for pre-"civilized" societies, as in, groups that don't have centralized dedicated law enforcement: don't mess with people outside of a given conflict, pay your debts, give appropriate hospitality, and oh yeah there's an oral history (that has nothing do do with "codes of honor," come on!). As for actual class features: bonus on hiding objects, bonus feats at 2nd and every 4th after (with the same almost complete lack of restriction as the Hunter), pick up cross-class or class-only skills from other classes, encumbrance abilities like I didn't even mention on the Legionnaire but also include reduced sleep and bonus Con, right to call a meeting of the tribes 1/year, hit die suddenly upgrades from d6 to d12 at 16th, permanent Freedom of Movement at 17th, and Leadership (or double if you already have it) at 20th and you get to name your tribe.

So a bit of tribal fetishism in creating a special Nomad class, nevermind that DnD's own demographics clearly state that this PC class will represent only the tiniest fraction of them. It's a Feat Rogue with less feats and more options and some Will save and some barely there slapdash class features. It's pretty much utterly forgettable.

Scout. Seems to be a pretty straightforward Fighter/Rogue mashup that loses a hit point, light armor only with no shields, and has a shorter bonus feat list, to get Ref instead of Fort, +2 skill points, a full round active take 10 on Spot+Listen, full sneak attack with ranged weapons only, low-light vision, Uncanny Dodge/Improved a couple levels after rogue, remove the -5 Hide/Move Silently when moving more than 1/2 speed, sneak attack up to 60' at 14th, +10 move speed at 16th, and finally turn the full round active spot/listen into a "take 20."

It's a better mash up than Sneak Attack Fighter or Feat Rogue. Usual extra Fighter-equivalent class problem of being able to dip for even more feats , no armor restriction so you can just dip for armor, though actual non-magical hiding suggests you want to keep your ACP down. But it's also just one of those pretty much all upside combos, since you don't take it unless you want a ranged-only sneak attacker, and if you do you're just flat better than any combination of Fighter/Rogue/even dedicated PrCs would make you, unless those PrCs have special abilities: full BAB no strings, full sneak attack, full bonus feat progression that almost any DM will expand to any Fighter feat that's not melee. It does definitely cement a trend that's been going on through the book: I'm pretty sure that, Legionnaire and Nomad left aside, the people who write the mechanically intensive base classes were all in the "Fighters aren't good enough" camp. The Hunter and Mercenary Ranger and Scout all beat Fighter easily (if only because they do steal Weapon Specialization, which is the Fighter's only unique feature, while also gaining similar numbers of bonus feats), while the mage-warriors are mage-warriors but at least kept to standard 3/4 BAB. The Legionnaire and Nomad are just short and uninspired with no real ideas, because of course they are, they're one-note fluff concepts based on words that specifically refer to groups of people, not singular characters.

Tattoo Mage. 3/4 BAB, 8th level "casting" on paper but 7th is more accurate as it's 7th at 18th. Wizard weapons, no armor, Wis to AC and determining highest level tattoo, with Con giving bonus tattoos. Bonus feats from a very short list at 3rd and every 3rd, and a multiclassing restriction of monk and arcane spellcasters only, with a non-chaotic alignment restriction that also slaps -10 concentration on you (admittedly more teeth than the Monk's lawful restriction).

Their big thing is that their tattoos can only target themselves, and are all either active for up to 24 hours and then down for 24 hours, or if instantaneous are usable once every 12 hours. They of course have a very specific list of available tattoos, and a whole sidebar of advice saying that the DM is encouraged to create more and here's what you need to think about (and then goes and gives a cop-out where rather than admitting an uber combo should be removed, instead they say it could have/you should make up "dangerous side effects"). The tattoos themselves must also be made, taking 1 day per spell level (so high level adventurers require significant downtime each level up), and a fairly easy but still failable craft check that locks you out of that spell until you level up and forcrd you to wait a month before you can try your next one. The worst part being that apparently literally any interruption or disturbance spoils the multiple-days-long work without fail, which is just an egregious level of failure to put on your basic ability to level up. Note however, that unlike most "magic tattoos" which are various forms of magic items, these class features make no mention of massive gp costs (a hilarious juxtaposition with the earlier Alchemist).

Class features other than that include using your healing tattoos on others at 10th, +2 natural armor and various monk immunities and maximize all future TM/Monk hit dice at 16th, and at 20th you can put up to one 3rd level or lower tattoo on each person who jumps through enough hoops and pays 100xp per tattoo level.

The Tattoo Mage here is basically the ultimate expression of "self-buffer, magic only," could be viewed as a self-buffing Warlock with many more effects. Naturally much of the question lies in their available (24 hour) tattoos, which include: Cures and Restorations with increasing delays, Expeditious Retreat, Mage Armor, Shield, Spider Climb, Alter Self, Blur and Displacement, Bull's Str/etc (note the 3.0 1d4+1, which had hour/level duration), Resist Energy, See invis, Clairaudience/Clairvoyance (an interesting effect for 24 hours, but it's supposed to target not-self so. . . ), Fly (or Air Walk if you want, at 4th and 5th level!), Haste, Blindsight, Death Ward, Divine Power, Fire Shield, Freedom of Movement, Improved Invisibility, a self-only Antimagic Field from one of their other books, Neutralize poison, Polymorph (self, 1 level delay, note that 3.0 allowed multiple form shifts a la Shapechange), Righteous Might, Spell Resistance, True Seeing, Analyze Dweomer (better than you might think), Antilife Shell, Phase Door (that's a spell that can literally only target other objects, come on!), proper Antimagic Field (not that you'd ever want to use it?), a self-into-dragon spell from one of their other books, Iron Body, Mind Blank, Protection from Spells, and then just heck with it full Shapechange. Note that while I've bolded some for particular significance, I'd personally bold way more as Very Significant with 24 hour durations- but that is the whole point of the class, these are just the biggest standouts.

They also have an interesting version of the "1 hour adventuring day," where if they take only one of each of the tattoo effects they desire, they are on for a day and then reduced to only instant effects (heals pretty much) for a day. But if they take 2 of everything so they can function continuously, they get effectively half as many, losing major function in the name of every day adventuring that they spend 99% of their time not actually doing. Combine with the fact that they can be dispelled, and the successful Tattoo Mage is probably much less versatile than the table would suggest, though still loaded with effects a Warlock would kill for if they didn't have to lose Eldritch Blast.

The Tattoo Mage is like a walking version of what a lot of people think should happen the moment you add Persistant Spell (to some sort of free metamagic), but with at least some concept of limits- actually quite a few very big limits. But the standard available spells do absolutely include the obvious "negate all concept of BAB" and "just Shapechange forehead." But they also really do have almost nothing but that sort of stuff, so the character really can't just fall back on "lol I'm a full spellcaster with hundreds of spells I can change every day!" and has to actually make it work with what they've got.

It's a thing. A heck of a thing. A thing I would have expected some comment on- I was originally more interested in the Guardian and Myrmidon, but I'd forgot the Tattoo Mage entirely, and it represents waaay more potential paradigm shift/got there before 1st party. The spells and tattoos sections fail to specify whether they're arcane, divine, or deliberately neither, but they are definitely explicitly spells, so there's quite possibly some gish PrC that would just love to combo with this, or other wacky rules interactions for people that like such exploits.

A finally, I'll make a quick run through of the spells myself:

Arms of Force: grapple at Medium range with +11 and carry over any feats, only limited when you get to the end of the spell and see it has 1hp/cl, though with a solid AC 20, 2nd level.
Arthanae's Age Estimation: a proud member of the "force the DM to come up with all sorts of irrelevant information for every object/creature/etc in the game" tradition, at 0th just to make it as absolutely no-effort spamable as possible.
Arthane's Know Status: get living/dead/undead status for literally any creature you can name, no gp cost. This has massive implications in all sorts of information gathering and signaling. Brd 3, Sor/Wiz 2.
Boiling Oil: a nice little 2nd level AoE, 1d6 and save vs on-fire in a 10' square, though the added Grease effect might be going a bit far for my taste (but that's mostly on Grease).
Death Mist: a 3rd level 10 min/level spell that basically does the DMG's smoke effects, escalating Fort save 15+1 per check, failure leaves you coughing and taking nonlethal damage, though it lacks the line where that escalates to lethal damage.
Elemental Flurry: notable mostly because there are so few published spells that actually do the "damage of multiple/every element" thing, and because some of these 3rd party books have spells that really sound like AoEs but are actually single-target no-projectiles that just feel weird.
Exhaust: like Ray of Exhaustion, but at 5th level so it's less broken :smallamused:
Eyes of the Beholder: a 9th level spell that gives you 10 eye rays of the Beholder, no use limit, full 3 per arc. Notable since Shapechange can do it but is completely broken and also robs you of your form and normal humanoid equipment, while this is at least limited to 1 round/level- Complete Mage's Dreaded Form of the Eye Tyrant is a [polymorph] spell that gives you only 1 use of each ray, at 1/round, at 8th.
Force Bridge: is at least honest about being a force bridge and has a less spammable level than "Dark Way" and whatever the "bridge of sound" spell were (both of which I'm pretty sure are the same spell, originally from a web article).
Force Chackram: is a 3rd level turret spell dealing 2d6+caster level (max +10) at a range of 50', beating most turret spells if you have BAB and Dex.
Forceful Burst: Saintheart mentioned this one, but neglected the part where it does that 2d4+ caster level, times 1 per 2 levels (max 5). And you're explicitly allowed to throw them all at once, and the hour/level duration means you can just pre-cast it. This spell is literal exponential damage, the likes of which are rarely seen and usually at least have some fig leaf of saving throws on at least part of the damage (the only other two I know off the top of my head are Elemental Dart and Dalamar's Lightning Lance, both from Dragonlance, and alongside blatantly powered up electric versions of fire spells).
Forget: a 3rd level Sor/Wiz spell that makes multiple creatures permanently (as in dispellable, but permanent) forget up to the last 1 minute per level. That's huge. It fills in some actual memory modification that's not Bard exclusive (so it doesn't just suddenly show up at 9th level), and enables memory wiping plots that are otherwise flat-out impossible due to the massive restrictions on Modify Memory, but is also so easy to detect and remove that it has to create its own new paradigm.
Handcramp: one of many examples I've seen of cantrip to drop item, which I'd say is worth more than a cantrip, but is the sort of thing a lot of people would like, though the mere DC 10 concentration if readied vs a spellcaster is both not how non-damaging distraction spells work, and very underwhelming.
Minor Restoration: thought Lesser Restoration was already cheap enough to justify completely ignoring ability damage costs? How about a 0th level per point instead? That'll be a cool 7.5gp per charge retail.
Mirror Legion: a Mirror Image spell that actually acknowledges how Mirror Image works, in that your images (which are supposed to be spread out) can make one adjacent foe count as flanked. Myrmidon 3, so an exclusive but nifty little benefit for them.
Psychometry: yet another "tell me about whoever this item was last touched by," though at least unlike the psionic power, this is limited to the literal visible image of only the last creature and thus not completely ridiculous for the DM to run on the fly.
Quickread: hey, it's Scholar's Touch! But only at a mere 1 page per round for 10 min/level instead of a book per round. These speed-read magics have massive implications for all sorts of things and yet are priced all the way down to "literally every noble can afford this," which drives me nuts.
Rearguard: notable for being a spell that lets you retain your Dex to AC when flanked. Which is not how flanking works. And then brings in to question whether all those Sudden Strike features on the base classes are actually supposed to be full-on flanking Sneak Attack.
Sandstorm: the 8d4+10 (~30) damage from this 5th level cone spell is apparently no-save, as in the knock down and knock back, with a 1d4 round blindness that does have a save to negate. Even at reflex half+negates that would be a strong pile of stuff.
Silent Feet: 1st level spell for +10 Move Silently is probably something someone would love.
Smite Foe: buff to let Paladins Smite anyone, kinda weird (I would generally say that if DMs want that to happen they should just change the base feature). And placed on the Destruction domain, even though the Destruction smite has no restrictions.
Storm of Arrows: Arrowsplit, but less random and not a swift action, Myrmidon 3 only.
Summon Sentinel: this spell animates an object, but fails to specify the allowed sizes of object, and can be cast in combat. So rather than providing a Mordenkainen's Faithful Hound-like defender, you could use it to animate a colossal whatever for 2 rounds at 3rd/4th level Clr/Drd. Even a merely Huge object isn't bad for that level.

And I'll also take a moment to comment on:

Continue the Fight (feat): Iron Will prerequisite, but. But. Expend one hitpoint, get an additional “partial action” (3.0 language – this is now a standard action) which lasts one round. This is really, really strong, especially if you’re regenerating, and even more especially if you’re a caster.
Yeah, that description is missing a bunch of exaggerated formatting. You don't need to be regenerating for spending one hp for a standard action to be completely ridiculous. This is quite possibly the most overpowered feat in the history of feats. The fact that you can only use it once per round, every round, at a total hp cost of maybe 3-5 hit points per combat if your combat averages 3-5 rounds, is still nicely paired with the fact that you get to double surprise rounds. This thing is offset by an occasional Potion of Cure Light Wounds. It doubles damage output for any character with BAB less than 6 and is still worth nearly +50% after that, doubles spellcasting, stacks with Haste, multiplies the power of anything that gives you multiple attacks in a standard action like say Manyshot or later Martial Maneuvers, enables move+charge/pounce, enables use of any number of wacky gadget items in combination with full attacks or each other or other spells.

It's so broken I've re-checked the feat text at least 5 times now as I go to post, to be absolutely sure I'm not missing something, anything that would make it make sense and me look like an idiot. It's so broken it makes me doubt my ability to read. If this was in any way tested, it cannot possibly have been above 1st level, with anything other than a no-healing party.

Just, what even.

Saintheart

2021-09-23, 11:35 PM

Added a link to the above supplemental to the original review of Mercenaries, just so this lot isn't missed. :smallsmile:

Endless Rain

2021-10-30, 07:31 PM

It's been around a month since the last update. Are you still planning to continue the reviews?

Saintheart

2021-10-30, 07:39 PM

I am, it's just been really busy at work - will get back to this ASAP.

Yael

2021-10-31, 03:56 AM

Saintheart

2021-10-31, 04:12 AM

Well, you just checked the dreaded (loved?) BoEF. Which I tend to allow mechanic-wise (some options can be refluffed to be less awkward, like the Metaphysical Spellshaper). Great review! But have you heard of the Nymphology 3rd party 3e book? :smallwink:

Mongoose Publishing, 2002, same guys who did the Quintessentials that I've done a few reviews on so far. Massive label on it saying it's humorous and meant for adult readers. I'll add it to the list and probably get to it at some point, and it'll be interesting to see how the quality holds up from them. Interesting that these guys (as with a lot of Mongoose Publishing stuff, those guys were pumping out books like their lives depended on it) actually got the first sexually tilted d20 book out before Valar Project did but didn't draw anywhere near the fire Valar did.

Yael

2021-10-31, 04:29 AM

Mongoose Publishing, 2002, same guys who did the Quintessentials that I've done a few reviews on so far. Massive label on it saying it's humorous and meant for adult readers. I'll add it to the list and probably get to it at some point, and it'll be interesting to see how the quality holds up from them. Interesting that these guys (as with a lot of Mongoose Publishing stuff, those guys were pumping out books like their lives depended on it) actually got the first sexually tilted d20 book out before Valar Project did but didn't draw anywhere near the fire Valar did.

Yeah, lots of books from Mongoose. Some are actually fun to use. Same with AEG's books, "Feats", "Evil", "Mercenaries", so forth. Man, there are just way too much 3.X books running around, you could kick a pebble and you'd hit 3 different 3rd party books.

Also, Book of Unlawful Carnal Knowledge... Not Mongoose (I think), but... Just why?

Efrate

2021-11-01, 07:29 AM

If you are going to do nymphology, do the trifecta with quintessential temptress as well.

Endless Rain

2021-11-01, 01:07 PM

Can we please not do reviews of other sex-focused books? BoEF was relevant because it was popular and had a sizable impact on the D20 license. The Mongoose sex-focused books are gross and irrelevant to anything and moving the thread in this direction is just going to get it locked.

Yael

2021-11-01, 09:22 PM

Saintheart

2021-11-15, 08:18 AM

Creature Collection, White Wolf Publishing

https://images2.imgbox.com/2c/08/4SlUOOTu_o.jpg

Summary
The first book in White Wolf’s Scarred Lands setting, this is basically a third party monster manual with the awesome features of having beaten WOTC’s Monster Manual to the stands. If you want a slightly different take on your monsters, or a whole new set to complement those you’ve already got, step this way for another hundred or more creatures to put your players against (or indeed let your players take as characters, in a number of cases.)

Date of Publication and Page Count
October 2000, 223 pages (Revised edition: October 2002, 250 pages). In terms of writers and publishers, we get into the weird triptych of White Wolf, Sword & Sorcery Studios, and Necromancer Games.

White Wolf was a mainstay of the RPG industry. Formed in 1991, it published everything from Exalted to Pendragon to Monte Cook’s pouting Arcana Unearthed. What it’s perhaps most known for is the World of Darkness series of RPG books, of which Vampire: The Masquerade is probably the most recognisable. In its heyday WoD was second in sales only to D&D under TSR. But White Wolf got out of TTRPGs around 2012.

(By then it had been bought by EVE Online’s makers. Later, Paradox Interactive picked it up. The brand was erased from existence in 2018 due to political remarks made in a fifth edition Vampire: The Masquerade sourcebook. That said, White Wolf still seems to be “publishing” books online, so who knows where that money’s going. I hope it’s towards a decent Stellaris update).

Anyway, when 3rd edition D&D came along around 2000, White Wolf formed a separate ‘imprint’ – ostensibly a department, but really not much more than a label – to publish d20 books. This label was Sword & Sorcery Studio, which in turn labelled their publications “Sword & Sorcery”, likely for branding so their WoD customers wouldn’t get confused about which title they should buy. Making things even more complicated, White Wolf/Sword & Sorcery Studios then partnered with Necromancer Games to put out their first d20 books, because they weren’t familiar with the technicalities of publishing under the d20 licence. (Necromancer was being run by Clark Peterson and Bill Webb – who later published products like Tome of Horrors, which I’ve reviewed elsewhere).

Sword & Sorcery Studio would go on to release several d20/OGL products for third edition, whether on their own or in cooperation with other publishers: World of Warcraft, EverQuest, and their biggest coup, WOTC’s Ravenloft campaign setting (the latter of which seemed appropriate for obvious reasons.)

With the Creature Collection, Sword & Sorcery launched a new campaign setting, the Scarred Lands. The book briefly outlines the setting; the actual campaign setting texts came later. It was a marketing idea tried by a few third party publishers at the time: the book works as a third party monster manual, and might entice players to delve deeper into the setting, without the publisher having to risk writing an entire campaign setting without knowing if it’ll sell. The Scarred Lands was one of the lucky ones, spawning a number of splats and astutely proposing a sort-of-old-school setting with a strong odour of Conan – one where gods and titans raged across the world 150 years ago and there’s still much to be discovered in the aftermath of that conflict.

There were 18 authors on the original edition, including White Wolf’s co-founders, all much more familiar with World of Darkness (and given 3rd ed had only just been launched, it was hard to see how they could have been otherwise.)

Unfortunately, that unfamiliarity was painfully apparent in the original. It’s not a good start when your first listed creature, the Abandoned, has Power Attack but back calculation reveals his BAB is a big fat zero, making the feat unuseable (not to mention a bit pointless on a CR 0.5 creature). And not a good followup when your next creature, the Albadian Battle Dog, has STR 13, DEX 18, no Power Attack, and yet Improved Bull Rush when your main unique attack, lockjaw, doesn’t require a successful bull rush to trigger.

White Wolf issued some errata adjusting CRs and environments, but real fixes weren’t made until a revised edition was put out 2 years later, ostensibly as a 3.5 update. That book is Creature Collection I – Revised 3.5, published October 2002, and that’s the book I’m reviewing. That’s because (a) the mechanics are about fixed (b) no, really, the mechanics are a lot better and (c) it’s longer, at 250 pages and contains extra stuff from later Scarred Lands splats. The revisions are credited to Scott Greene and Jeff Harbeck, who look to have hung out mainly in Sword & Sorcery and Necromancer Games, although Scott Greene is still publishing now for fifth edition.

The book is still available from large mass market RPG publishers.

All features below are monsters unless otherwise indicated.

Notable Features
Abandoned (monster and template): Caveman. Sort of interesting on its own. Gets Power Attack. The character template allowing you to play one is 2 RHD and LA +1, but at least the stats are a bit better than what people usually give to a Big Beefy Bruiser: Large size, 40 feet movement, +5 Natural Armor, +8 STR, +4 CON, -4 INT, -4 CHA, free Track, and a racial stink similar to the Troglodyte (“Musk (Ex) - Fort DC 13 if you come within 10 feet of me or take a -2 on saves, checks, and attacks for 2d6 rounds”.)
Albadian Battle Dog: Good boi who gets to halve slashing damage against him because he’s got loose skin (awwww!). The lockjaw is nice because it’s a source of continuing damage and at least it doesn’t require a bloody Grapple check.
Alley Reaper: Great fluff. It’s the spirit of an assassin who died with blood on his hands, and who stages a reign of terror nightly over the ward or city in which it was killed. It is tied to the weapon and cloak it wielded in life, which are left behind during the day and where it materialises at night. If its cloak is removed, all that’s found is a collection of trophies from its victims. CR 3, not too strong, but has a nice fear-blasting attack and is incorporeal undead, this one works nicely as an encounter or a mini-adventure to track it down.
Asaalth: The fluff is strong. These are the degenerated descendants once a once-powerful snake-man race, and now, as nomads, know nothing but magic and battle in their doomed quest to restore their species to the pinnacle of importance. It’s a really good concept even through most of the stat block. They have a weak poison attack, +2 STR, +6 DEX, +2 CON, +2 INT, +4 WIS, +2 CHA, and cast spells “as 3rd level Wizards”, which is pretty nice given the race’s Favored Class is also Wizard. For this pack of features 3 racial hit dice is very much tolerable … but the level adjustment of +5, not so much. Seems to be intended to push in the direction of a gish, but that LA is just flat-out crushing.
Aquantis: It can walk on water and if the wind’s behind it, it theoretically can hit speeds of 100 feet per round. What’s not to like?
Bat Devil: Man-Bat, the monster. To play one, it takes LA +3 and racial hit dice of 2, which might be worth considering for DEX-based martial types or maybe even martial paladins given the stat bonuses: +2 STR, +8 DEX, +2 CON, +4 WIS, +4 CHA. Also gets a native Flight speed as a monstrous humanoid, which starts at 80 feet (poor), and 40 feet land speed.
Belsamaug: Great fluff once again. These are basically more tanky goblins that can only be seen in moonlight, and which at dawn meld into the Earth leaving behind a vulnerable basalt stone that, if broken, kills the goblin. Improved Invisibility on a CR 3 creature like this is interesting.
Blade Hood: It’s a ten-foot long and five-foot wide cobra that constricts and does 2d8+6 damage on a successful Grapple check. Its check is +12, and they give it a +4 on a charge attack and a 40 foot speed, which is kind of horrifying. Not bad at CR 3.
Blight Wolf: A wolf with (pretty useless) wings, with a DC 19 Fort poison bite that does 1d6 CON damage on initial and secondary, as well as a Howl that can panic if you fail its DC 15 Will save. CR 7 on it strikes me as a little generous for what it can do, its attacks otherwise are 1d8+3 plus poison. Still, 84 hitpoints, some flight, and DR 5/magic. Oh, and it’ll almost exclusively target Lawful Good opponents because it can sense them.
Bloodmare: No, it’s not a nightmare with the serial numbers filed off. These suckers are like the Pied Piper for normal horses, they draw off mounts and then run the horses to exhaustion, feeding on them when they drop. The main thing one might be interested in is their Tireless quality: bloodmares can run fron sundown to sunrise without tiring, though they tire in daylight hours like all other horses. The book suggests the possibility of capturing them and using them as warhorses, and given the DR 5/magic and 105 hitpoint count, it’s not a bad idea.
Butcher Spirit (template): The fluff is awesome. These are the remnant spirits of animals sacrificed to dark gods, who still haunt the places they lived and – depending on the animal – can be even more dangerous than they were in life. Their abilities include a gaze attack that dazes the target, and the spirit can then attempt to possess said dazed target, until sunrise. Also causes a creature to suffer a fear effect if the Butcher Spirit moves through them, “Something just flew in me” style. And, for those interested in charop, some fool said the level adjustment on this thing is the same as the base creature … meaning if you can somehow get yourself the animal type, it’s applicable to your character. Or, less roflworthy but probably more disturbing, sacrifice your wild cohort and in theory it can pick up this template. I can think of a certain section of Red Hand of Doom that could fit these beautifully and scare the hell out of the party.
Carnival Krewe: There’s a group of unique monsters under this category. While the name is eye-bleedingly uncool, the concepts are fantastic: basically taking figures of New Orleans legend and turning them into strong rulers of a bayou-ish area. Their entries contain lots of stuff inviting the DM to Rule Zero attempts to easily kill or frustrate them even if their stats are not mind-blowingly strong. It’s a really good set of concepts and builds, at least to my quick glance-over.
Golems (Bone, Copper, Lead, Mithril, Silver, Wood): The mechanics aren’t that much different from bog standard golems, but the fluff is just amazing for each and at least a little effort is made to distinguish them mechanically from the default kinds.
The Great Swan: Basically a swan … but if you’re really nice to it, it will give you +2 to your WIS score permanently, and gets Leadership without the prerequisites. No mention whether you can get multiple touches.
Manster: Mostly a melee grabber, except for one thing: it’s totally invisible in shadow if it stays still, though stuff like scent still works on it.
Manticora: A sort of wild humanoid with LA +2, but for that you pick up 40 feet speed (while quadruped; you can be biped too at 30 feet), +2 STR, +4 DEX, +4 CON, +2 natural armor, and you treat the Spiked Chain as a martial weapon rather than exotic. A feat saved is a feat saved.
Mill Slug: A giant slug, 20 feet long, 15 foot reach which is more or less meaningless because its DEX is 3 (although it’s pretty solid on attack bonus: +18 at CR 9 for 2d8+15 damage. Moves 20 foot per round. Low AC of 6 which it compensates for by having 184 hitpoints and DR 5/-. Also can crush you underneath its huge body. Obviously intended as something akin to a more dangerous Gelatinous Cube, Shivering Touch will shut it down like most other big solo beefies we tend to see, but absent that and in a relatively confined space this thing could be dangerous unless the party’s damage per round is high. Oh, and the fluff: Mill Slugs are called so because they’re attracted by the noise of windmills turning; it’s almost hypnotic to them. See what I mean about great fluff?
Marrow Knight: It’s an undead centaur skeleton, your argument is invalid.
Miser Jackal: Has nothing that reflects this mechanically, but the miser jackal is like a jackal crossed with a magpie: it loves to steal metal items and precious, shiny stuff, caching them in secret hiding places, and it has a whole hunting strategy based around it.
Moon Hag(template): Those more across theurgical monsters or characters can better advise on this than me, but I like any template/monster which says “you have to cast druid and sorcerer spells to qualify, but your levels stack for determining your spellcasting ability in each class.” So a Sor 5/Drd 4 who becomes a Moon Hag casts as a 9th level Druid and Sorcerer. LA of +7, but I’m a DM, so I don’t care about dirty player considerations like level adjustment 😊
Rumbler: It’s a giant crocodile-ish beast, but while it’s got you Grappled, it can unleash another roar and stun you as well as hit with sonic damage. Oh, and it has a limited form of ventriloquism too.

These are not the only great creatures in here, I might add. I’ve just hit the point where listing them all out would make the article way too long.

Dreadful Features
None, really.

Who it’s best for (Player/GM/both)
Definitely best for GMs, though players might get something out of it. This is a great little volume of new monsters to work with.

Comments, thoughts, and rating out of 10.
On mechanics:
First thing is that the difference in mechanical usability between the original and the revised version is massive. That alone says that if you have to choose between the original and the revised, there’s no actual choice: the revised version is fixed, the original is not. Scott Greene and Jeff Harbeck seem to have really done a full check through of the mechanics, or at least brought into line with being functional. (That said, the revisions were still as at October 2002, i.e. only about 2 years after third edition was unleashed. I don’t want to leave the impression the mechanics were fixed with an eye to the 20-odd years of in-the-field testing and problems detected since then. All I’m saying is that they literally went from nonfunctional to working.)

Next, the writers seem to be aware PCs will want to make characters out of these beasts. There’s lots of templates to make playable characters, which I find a lot simpler than the eye-bleedingly bad set of rules WOTC left us with trying to build a PC out of a monster with nothing but “LA: Some ungodly number” to go on. Putting up such a decent number of templates to me speaks of a set of writers who actually thought about what their likely readers would want, both DMs and players.

Beyond that, though, the book stays reeeeeasonably conservative about using stats or introducing new, gamebreaking powers or stuff that really plays heavily with the 3.5 ruleset or statistics. I don’t know whether that was because of ignorance or – as I’d like to hope – they realised they’d be writing to an audience that they wanted to draw into their setting, so they didn’t introduce too many unfamiliar rules or abilities so as not to freak DMs out. For the most part, each monster has a twist on the standard mechanic you expect for a creature of its kind, and the extent to which you find this strong or not really depends on your campaign and proposed use in my view. If I had any particular criticism on this field, it’s probably that the LA is brutally crushing in a number of cases … but then that’s true of WOTC as well, so that’s more a fault of the system than this product specifically.

All round, 2.5/4 at this head.

On concepts and fluff:
This is where the book really shines. Page after page after page of beautiful concepts and inspiring fluff for monsters. It’s a different feel, a different take on the standard D&D trundling lump of hitpoints. Even better, the concepts and fluff are not left hiding behind a massive, involved setting to absorb like Eberron or the Forgotten Realms. This book was built to straddle the line between setting text and general-use bestiary, and on the second leg at least it’s great: the fluff is compact and stand-alone enough that you can actually drag and drop most if not all of these monsters into any of your generic campaign worlds without a problem. I mean, take another look at the concepts above: we’ve got everything from vengeful assassin spirits to magical swans to damn Dark Carnival types all in the same text. I think it’s probably here the World of Darkness influence is most apparent, if anywhere, because the take on the monsters is flavoured old-school and a more gothic, sharp-teeth approach than most WOTC products ever got to. But neither is it anywhere near the edgelord feel of a Vampire: the Masquerade monster manual either – it is its own thing.

If you want a valid comparison, just take a few fluff entries from the MM I and compare them to the fluff entries from this book. Don’t compare the stats, just the fluff. And then remember that this book – the fluff at least – predates WOTC’s own Monster Manual, they literally got it out before the makers of the damn game did. I believe you’ll be pleasantly surprised.

That said, the Scarred Lands setting doesn’t terribly inspire me that much on a short read. It’s clearly Conan-inspired, low-er-ish magic and in the wasteland aftermath of a titanic war between gods and titans. As said, the book was likely designed as a teaser for future SSS products and I personally didn’t find that much inspiring about it (albeit it does play into the sometimes-unspoken idea that all D&D campaigns are happening in a post-apocalyptic world.) Your mileage may vary. But the book succeeds so well as an independent bestiary that it overshadows the purpose as a teaser anyway!

3.5/4 on this one.

On presentation:
Standard black and white throughout, and the illustrations are mostly line drawings or ink jobs which aren’t terribly fantastic, but then I could understand not blowing the budget on it. Layout is otherwise similar to a Monster Manual, two columns of text, stats in a different, smaller font. None of the fonts are as objectionable as Green Ronin’s eye-bleeding choices, so this one I give a 1/2.

Total: 7/10. More joy in the fluff than the mechanics, but it should be the fluff that we enjoy reading.

Next Time: Monster’s Handbook, Fantasy Flight Games.

Thurbane

2021-11-15, 02:09 PM

Hmm, sounds like Creature Collection may be worth a look as a DM...

Caelestion

2021-11-16, 11:53 AM

I had the original Creature Collection and Relics & Rituals. The latter didn't even bother to include prices for the magic items!

Fizban

2021-11-16, 03:47 PM

Relics & Rituals. The latter didn't even bother to include prices for the magic items!
Not so much didn't bother as they specifically say they made a choice not to include prices because something something. Which means they fundamentally failed to grasp one of the points of 3rd edition, but considering how early the books were it's not surprising that could go over their head (or indeed that the people making 3rd realized themselves just how fundamental they were making that point). It's a setting that doesn't match the game it's in, which for 3rd ed is basically baked into the system. The better choice would have been to remove creation of magic items entirely so that existing items actually are priceless.

I somewhat recently combed through Relics and Rituals to see if there was stuff to add to my list of 3rd party stuff to use. It's not OGC, so naturally that means there was in fact something worth keeping- but it was one spell. One perfectly written spell, and also a bunch of unimportant classes, spells ranging from meh to various levels of broken and many of which can be found elsewhere (though usually with excellent flavor text and history), items that don't have prices which could only be unique based on pricing methods, and a ritual magic system for which there are again plenty of other versions out there and which is inevitably tied to setting expectations. Was a bit disappointing considering it was one of the first splatbooks I ever saw.

I kinda like the setting in the abstract, stuff like the spell draining spear spell which is supposed to have been used en-mass to deplete a fraction of a titan's power so it could be defeated- but that's not how the mechanics work at all. They added a second reason armor messes with arcane magic, a necessary hack since ASF has never really worked, but it also links into the "Conan" aesthetic, if you want to call it that, with arcanists going topless or dumping their clothes every battle to avoid overheat. And so on.

Malphegor

2021-11-16, 06:37 PM

I had the original Creature Collection and Relics & Rituals. The latter didn't even bother to include prices for the magic items!

I got relics and rituals for 50p once online, including postage. Was a mental deal. Some of these third party books are dirt cheap because nobody’s sure if they’re worth anything to anyone, which is great if one wants some oddball ideas

Caelestion

2021-11-16, 07:00 PM

The rituals had some really cool ideas in them, to be fair.

vasilidor

2021-11-16, 08:33 PM

I loved reading through creature collection.

Saintheart

2021-11-29, 09:32 AM

Monster’s Handbook, Fantasy Flight Games

https://images2.imgbox.com/de/ad/fHerkRzi_o.jpg

Summary
This is a book designed to modify monsters. If you thought the monsters in the MM were getting a bit tired, here’s a guide that’s meant to give you lots of tools to change things up a bit.

Date of Publication and Page Count
December 2002, 170 pages. This was out about 6 months before WOTC released 3.5, and as such we’re looking at a third edition book. That said, given the subject of the book, not much really is affected by the book aside from glorious references to partial actions.

Fantasy Flight Games is another of those big businesses whose main draw these days is board games, having more or less gotten out of TTRPGs. Indeed FFG was bought out by a French board game company a couple of years back, around the same time its founder retired from the company. The place has been around since 1995, not many entertainment companies in our part of geekdom have had that sort of longevity.

FFG’s foray into the d20 world was with its Legends & Lairs books, similar to White Wolf having its Sword & Sorcery Studios. Legends & Lairs, at least to start with, also bore the ‘d20 System’ label, i.e. WOTC’s trademark of the d20 ruleset, and which disappeared shortly after 3.5 and the Book of Erotic Fantasy put third party publishers off having to submit to licence requirements. There were a goodly number of sourcebooks made under the Legends & Lairs label, which is not to say that any real changes were made to the ruleset, it was basically just FFG distinguishing itself from WOTC by the looks of it.

So who did FFG get to write this thing anyway?

Well, at least we don’t have to look a lot of people up. The sole credited writer for the book is Mike Mearls, as in, the guy who went on to build fourth edition D&D and guide fifth edition as well, and whose work I had a look at in Malhavoc Press’s Book of Iron Might. Have a look at that review if you want a bit more about Mearls, but suffice it to say the guy has a very long history of credits, and especially in this, the 2000 – 2005 time periods when he was still freelance and about to be hired by WOTC. The book’s lead developer (read: likely the editor), Wil Upchurch, also went on to work for WOTC: he has publication credits on Champions of Ruin and Mysteries of the Moonsea … and co-wrote the original Midnight RPG, too.

FFG’s third edition D&D books don’t seem to be available its website. However, this might just be a case of departmental reshuffles: certain mass market websites reveal the Legends & Lairs books are still being published by “EDGE Studio”, which, when you track them down, describe themselves as “the premier roleplaying games studio in the Asmodee Group” … i.e. the French company that owns FFG. And which seems to be publishing the current Star Wars RPG, the current (5th) edition of Midnight (I reviewed the 2nd edition earlier in this thread), Legend of the Five Rings, and Genesys. So, while it might not be available from FFG, the book is still available on mass market RPG websites.

Notable Features
Adept of the Inner Power (Prestige Class): This is meant for aberration monsters, but the prerequisites do not specifically include that you have the aberration type, and some of its features are potentially solid given the right build. It requires “any innate supernatural or spell-like ability”, 8 ranks in Knowledge Arcana, 3rd level arcane spellcaster. It only advances 2/5 casting … but. But. It’s centred around blurring the line between spell-like, supernatural abilities, and spells. For a start, it allows you to apply metamagic feats to spell-like abilities or supernatural abilities. None of this $#!% around Supernatural Transformation and only being able to apply to (Sp) abilities that map to actual spells, screw it, Empower Spell, you’re outright applying *1.5 multipliers to all numerical values related to the ability, including covering wider areas. And that’s the first level, mind you, you could dip that, blow one caster level, and then go on your merry way picking up metamagic feats and (Sp) or (Su) abilities to your heart’s content. The next couple levels then boost your DCs and CL checks for your spell-like abilities, which is nice. Then we get to third level. If our supernatural or spell-like ability duplicates a spell, we can substitute a different spell of the same school and the same or lower level for that ability. Your Fear (Sp) ability can be swapped for a Blindess/Deafness (Sp) instead, it’s Necromancy school.

Elemental Druids and Rangers! While the options in the Elementals chapter aren’t terribly overpowered, I did appreciate a little bit of love had gone into discussing these poor scions of the classical five components of reality. This bit, on elemental PCs who play druids or rangers, was nice. In particular, elementals can have animal elemental companions: animal friendship can be used to gain planar creatures as companions, to wit elemental druids or rangers can have up to half their HD in elemental creatures that share a subtype designator with them. This, of course, immediately invites one to ask whether a fire elemental ranger of, say, 14 HD can have a wyrmling red dragon as his little friend. Probably not since what’s probably intended is the elemental type, but still – nice touch.

Summon Classed Elementals! Yep, use your summon monster spell to summon an element with a certain number of class levels. Basically, summon either the standard elemental for the spell or one whose levels and base CR equal the standard element’s base CR. Yes, including spellcasters, and the summoned elemental brings material components for its spells. (However, you beady-eyed munchkins, if you take that diamond from the elemental that it was keeping for its Raise Dead spell, the elemental and its components immediately disappear, and the components can’t be shared with them. This is just a lovely, obvious shift in approach for summoning monsters and gives elementals a new lease on life.

GIANT. LORD. (template) Add to any giant. For zero LA and zero extra HD, just pick up +8 INT, +6 CHA, +4 WIS. Oh, and two feats. And four “ranks” to spend on skills as they wish. Just in case you thought the Primordial Giant template wasn’t strong enough.

Half-Titan (template) Add to any giant. Type changes to outsider. At ill alter self, levitate, invisibility, mirror image, DR 10/+1, Spell Resistance 15. +6 to STR, +4 CON, +6 INT, +4 WIS, +2 CHA, gains Alertness and Blind-fight. CR +2, but no level adjustment. Just in case you thought Primordial Giant and Giant Lord weren’t powerful enough.

Pick Up (new combat rule for giants): Finally something akin to what I’ve always wanted to do with smaller creatures one size category smaller! I pick them up while not being foiled by the attack of opportunity made against me (albeit the damage dealt on the AoO can be added to the grapple check to escape my grasp). Then I can squeeze them, or stow them away for later eating, or throw them!

Ardent Protector (prestige class): It’s a quick five levels, but not bad for people who want to play in the “bodyguard” or attack of opportunity space. First level ability is basically Stand Still, use an AoO to force an opponent to stop moving rather than inflict damage. Get +1 AoO per round at the same time, use Deflect Arrows on an ally, make tumbling past him a lot harder, Improved Trip on an AoO, count as full cover, intercept AoOs on allies, intercept attacks.

Distance Disruption (feat): Ready an action to fire a missile weapon at a spellcaster who attempts to use a spell. When the person casts, roll against AC 10. If you hit, the target has to make a DC 15+spell level Concentration check. So you exchange the difficulty of the Concentration check for a much more reliable chance of forcing the check at all.

Creature Modification! In the humanoids/monstrous humanoids chapter we have this subsystem that allows you to stitch viper’s fangs on an orc’s mouth, add to gnoll muscle mass by implanting organs from a carnivorous ape. You know, all very sedate and reasonable stuff. Some of it is useful in giving a humanoid a natural attack (claws, fangs, horns), or granting the ability to scent, breathe underwater, extra natural armor, or wings. Maybe the most interesting is altering a humanoid to give it an untyped and therefore stackable +6 to an ability stat at 40k for each operation, albeit that also raises the creature’s CR by 1. Very cool concept even if mechanically it’s a bit limited.

Godling: Really interesting prestige class that allows an outsider to slowly ascend toward godhood based on the worship of his devoted followers. Not meant for PC use, it’s meant to be the Big Bad of a cult that the party fights over a sustained campaign.

Gate Attack: Well, in case you needed to make summoned beatsticks any stronger, this feat allows you to have those allies gain Pounce on their first action in the encounter, and “the summoning creature opens a gate in such a manner that its allies may leap upon its enemies and attack in one motion”. The prerequisite is “ability to summon allied creatures as an innate ability”. Immediately the response is ‘druids and summoners aren’t locked out by that’, though RAI it’s clear this was meant for outsiders who summon.

Teleport Attack: Prerequisite is ability to teleport via spell or innate ability. Use a standard action to teleport, bampf next to your opponent, make a melee attack as part of the same standard action … and the opponent is denied DEX bonus to AC. Not as good as it looks since it’s specific to teleport, not Ethereal Jaunt or martial maneuvers, but for a melee-focused Unseen Seer build this could be pretty nice.

Gem of Many Shapes (magic item): 10,000 gp. You know the City Wild Shape ACF for druids? Here it is for 10 grand. You can turn into an inanimate object, which is handy for disguise.

Metamorphic Paragon (prestige class): This might not be a shapeshifter’s moist dream, but it’s something. At the top of 10 levels, you pick 3 CR 10 creatures. You can use those creatures’ (Ex), (Su), (Sp) abilities while in their forms and limited use when you’re in your normal form. At the bottom end, it’s pick 3 CR 3 creatures and get to pick up their (Ex), (Su) and (Sp) abilities while in that form. BAB 5/10, Good Will, Bad Fort and Ref. Have to be doppelganger or phasm and have 8 ranks in Knowledge Arcana and Spellcraft … but while it requires a Spell Focus feat, it doesn’t require spellcasting. Doppelgangers get access to Able Learner, which makes these class skills in effect and a pretty decent whack of skill points, meaning qualification could happen pretty early. If you know your monsters this might be worth considering.

Student of 1000 Forms (prestige class): It makes the monk a little better in 5 levels, not that this is high bar to get over. Get reach, get a natural weapon attack, levels in prestige class stack with monk levels for most abilities, get a pool of points to spread among STR, DEX, CON, natural armor, and damage bonus 10+CON rounds per day. The pool is interesting since for example it can be spread across the day – some for combat, some for resisting poison, some for a skill use and so on.

Burst of Fury (feat): Shapechanger plus another useless feat (Rapid Transformation, which allows you to change shape as a free action once per round). Full attack gets squashed into a standard action.

Ultimate Partial Transformation (feat): Lycanthropes only. You gain the animal form’s ability score modifiers, special abilities, special qualities, feats and skills in your humanoid form. Takes a DC 15 Control Shape check. Doesn’t say whether “gain” means your STR mod stacks with that of your human form or replaces it. Let’s hope it’s the former.

Splintered Shapeshifter (template): You can change your class as well as your shape. e.g. a 5th level rogue splintered doppelganger in the form of a dwarf becomes a 5th level fighter. Takes the idea of the skillmonkey to a whole new level.

Fury of the Dead (feat): Undead but can rage. Want your CON score to count as 20 for the purposes of calculating the length of your rage? Well, now it does.

Grim Reaper (feat): Undead. Take a -2 to AC, get a +2 to melee attacks.

Relentless Grip (feat): Undead. When initiating a grapple, the opponent’s AoO doesn’t prevent you from commencing a grapple.

Speaker of the Dead (feat): You have to be undead, and have Spell Focus (Enchantment), but undead are not immune to mind-influencing effects, sleep, paralysis, or stunning caused by spells you cast. (Charm Person still doesn’t work, though, because undead aren’t of the humanoid type).

Bloated (template): Horrible rotting corpse template. Main quality is that when they hit 0 hitpoints, their bodies explode and do 1d6 per 2 HD of untyped damage to everyone in a 20 foot radius (Reflex DC 15 save). And everyone in a 20 foot radius is affected by a 10th level Contagion spell.

Dreadful Features
None, but there’s a fair deal of meh in the book.

Who it’s best for (Player/GM/both)
Definitely GMs. This thing is designed to modify monsters, it’s not really usable by players.

Comments, thoughts, and rating out of 10.
On mechanics:
Context: in 3.0 the dominant philosophy was that monsters should follow similar-ish rules for construction to PCs. They had rules for expansion, meant to make them predictable, and enable a DM to see how strong they were. Build ‘em mathematically and you’ll have a precise idea of how powerful the monster is. This was also the philosophy that persisted through most of 3.5 as well. And, as we’ve seen with 20 years of experience, this assurance was high-priced baloney.

Running 3.5, you’re stuck with the miserable, complex, and unintuitive system of advancing monsters by hit dice. You’re working with concepts like Effective Character Level (ECL), Level Adjustment (LA), Racial Hit Dice (RHD), Challenge Rating (CR), stuff that’s so misunderstood that eventually Ur-Priest from GITP must have screamed in frustration one fine morning and smashed out an entire handbook on how monsters actually work (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?207928-Urpriest-s-Monstrous-Monster-Handbook).

Anyway, Mearls seemed aware even outside WOTC that the CR system resembled a cowpen floor had issues, because early on he introduces the concept of relative CR: there’s flat CR, and then there’s relative CR. Relative CR is the attempt to reflect the fact that not all abilities are useful across the board. The example Mearls puts forward is that casting magic missile as a 1st level sorcerer is a significant upgrade for a goblin, but it’s practically meaningless on a titan. A goblin’s CR rises given such an ability, but the titan’s does not.

This was significant since the book is touted as an easy-modification guide for monsters, but it doesn’t open with a whack of templates and monster prestige classes. Instead, it opens with a point buy system for creating new special abilities.

The book is immediately interesting because it reveals the thinking in mind behind monster design in 3.0: “ To keep a creature balanced, you should almost always grant it additional HD as its CR increases. The creature’s increased CR means it must have the ability to face off against more powerful adventurers than before. Thus, it needs more hit points, skills, and feats to support its new special ability and make it a viable opponent. In the case of a creature with many dangerous special abilities, like the ogre mage, it may be appropriate to keep its HD low since the creature can challenge the party while avoiding damage and combat. As a general rule, for every one point the creature’s CR increases, grant it two additional HD as per the standard rules for advancing a creature.” This one paragraph suddenly makes the whole hit dice formula and calculation nightmare a lot easier to understand, shameful as it is for me to admit that, but even more shameful that WOTC never really spelled this out … or if they did, made the monster modification mechanics so inaccessible that I’ve never seen them actually express it like this.

Mearls reduces various monster special abilities –a lot of them -- down to a measure of CPs, or Challenge Points. In the case of spell-like abilities, the foundation rule is that 100 CP = +1 CR, with adjustments made for how much it’s used, how useful it is in combat, caster level, whether it has a saving throw, and so on. Stuff like supernatural effects, free action activation, touch attacks, etc, etc, are all given CP values or multipliers which allow one to calculate the CR. I was immediately attracted by this system because while the subject of creating new templates is passed over briefly in default 3.5, I don’t remember any really granular system to create a true bolt-on template of abilities from the ground up.

On top of that, he uses much the same system to allow a DM to build new spell-like abilities as well.

Does it work?

Well … the only real test I think you can put it to is, as I’ve done in previous thread entries on DM-ly tools, is grab a poor defenceless monster from the SRD and fiddle with it.

Let’s start with a poor old CR 1 wolf:

Hit Dice: 2d8+4 (13 hp)
Initiative: +2
Speed: 50 ft. (10 squares)
Armor Class: 14 (+2 Dex, +2 natural), touch 12, flat-footed 12
Base Attack/Grapple: +1/+2
Attack: Bite +3 melee (1d6+1)
Full Attack: Bite +3 melee (1d6+1)
Space/Reach: 5 ft./5 ft.
Special Attacks: Trip
Special Qualities: Low-light vision, scent
Saves: Fort +5, Ref +5, Will +1
Abilities: Str 13, Dex 15, Con 15, Int 2, Wis 12, Cha 6
Skills: Hide +2, Listen +3, Move Silently +3, Spot +3, Survival +1*
Feats: Track, Weapon Focus (bite)
Environment: Temperate forests
Organization: Solitary, pair, or pack (7-16)
Challenge Rating: 1
Advancement: 3 HD (Medium); 4-6 HD (Large)

Now, wolves aren’t too bad with their Trip attacks, but I reckon wolves aren’t scary enough, and I think it should be their eyes that make them intimidating. So, we’re going to have our wolf not only cast Fear at the minimum caster level, but we’ll also make it a gaze attack and just to be silly, we’ll make it usable at will, and also, give it no saving throw. This means it’s not a spell-like ability anymore but rather akin to a supernatural ability, so, yeah.

Fear is a third level spell to Bards, so that gives us a base cost of 200 CP.
It's usable at will, which adds another +100 CP.
It has no save, which adds +200 CP.
It’s a gaze attack, which adds another +200 CP.
It's supernatural, which adds another +100 CP

Total: 800 CP. This equates to +8 to the creature’s CR, making it a total of 9. We don’t increase sizes under this system when advancing animals, so what we then have …

Size/Type: Medium Animal
Hit Dice: 18d8+64 (136 hp)
Initiative: +2
Speed: 50 ft. (10 squares)
Armor Class: 14 (+2 Dex, +2 natural), touch 12, flat-footed 12
Base Attack/Grapple: +12/+7/+2
Attack: Bite +16 melee (1d6+4)
Full Attack: Bite +16/+11/+6 melee (1d6+4)
Space/Reach: 5 ft./5 ft.
Special Attacks: Trip
Special Qualities: Low-light vision, scent, Fear Gaze Attack (Su): As the spell, no saving throw.
Saves: Fort +13, Ref +13, Will +7
Abilities: Str 16(+3), Dex 16(+3), Con 15(+2), Int 2, Wis 12(+1), Cha 6
Skills: Hide +2, Listen +3, Move Silently +3, Spot +3, Survival +1*
Feats: Track, Weapon Focus (bite)
Challenge Rating: 9

CR 9? Well, judging by the good old average stats metrics (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?623578-3-5-Average-Monster-Stats-UPDATED-TABLE&highlight=average+monster+AC+BAB), the hitpoints are right, the AC is horribly low, and the saves are sort-of in the range for a CR 9 creature. But realistically it’s dead on a ranged or kiting approach by something that can deliver damage outside 30 foot range. It has a weak Will save, but the CR system does at least allow for creatures that are easy if handled right.

But because the book doesn’t make it exactly clear that adding a supernatural or spell-like ability changes the creature’s type to Magical Beast, we don’t get any extra feats. Animals don’t pick up any feats at all. So this thing misses out on at least two feats, which I would allocated to Power Attack and Combat Reflexes, and which would have made it much more credible at CR 9. Don’t get me wrong, the no-save spell is good, but absent those additions it’s straightforward to kill once the party gets over its initial shock.

Next, I decided to chopshop the Piranha Swarm from Stormwrack and give them wings. Yes. We’re going to make flying piranhas.

Tiny Animal (Aquatic, Swarm)
Hit Dice: 8d8+11 (47 hp)
Initiative: +6
Speed: Swim 40 ft. (8 squares)
Armor Class: 15 (+2 size, +2 Dex, +1 natural), touch 14, flat-footed 13
Base Attack/Grapple: +6/—
Attack: Swarm (3d6)
Full Attack: Swarm (3d6)
Space/Reach: 10 ft./0 ft.
Special Attacks: Distraction
Special Qualities: Half damage from slashing and piercing weapons, low-light vision, scent, swarm traits
Saves: Fort +7, Ref +8, Will +3 Abilities: Str 4, Dex 15, Con 12, Int 1, Wis 12, Cha 2
Skills: Hide +10, Listen +9, Spot +8, Swim +5
Feats: Alertness, Improved Initiative, Toughness
Challenge Rating: 4

Distraction (Ex): Any living creature vulnerable to the piranha swarm’s damage that begins its turn with a swarm in its square is nauseated for 1 round; a DC 15 Fortitude save negates the effect. Even with a successful save, spellcasting or concentrating on spells within the area of a swarm requires a Concentration check (DC 20 + spell level). Using skills requiring patience and concentration requires a DC 20 Concentration check. The save DC is Constitution-based.

Swarm Traits (Ex): See page 316 of the Monster Manual.

Skills: A piranha swarm has a +8 racial bonus on any Swim check to perform a special action or avoid a hazard. It can always choose to take 10 on a Swim check, even if distracted or endangered. It can use the run action while swimming, provided it swims in a straight line.

We’re not going to completely cheese it, so we’re just going to add two abilities: flight and the ability to breathe outside water.
Flight: 100 CP base, which covers a flight speed of 1.5xthe creature’s base speed and average maneuverability. Thus, 60 feet flight ability. Upgrades to maneuverability cost 50 CP each, so let’s just raise that to Good. And it’s another 50 CP for an extra 20 feet per round.
100 CP to fly
50 for 20 extra feet
50 for Good maneuverability

The air breathing we’ll pick up by an Air Breathing spell-like ability, Cleric 3, also from Stormwrack. That gives us 2 hours/level, so 10 hours at Cleric 3.
Base cost of 200 CP.
It's usable at will, which adds another +100 CP.
Non damaging but useful in combat, -100 CP.
Supernatural ability, +100 CP.

Total: 500 CP, or +5 to CR. Once again, we’re at CR 9.

Tiny Animal (Aquatic, Swarm)
Hit Dice: 18d8+21 (102 hp)
Initiative: +7
Speed: Swim 40 ft. (8 squares), Fly (Good) 80 feet
Armor Class: 16 (+2 size, +3 Dex, +1 natural), touch 15, flat-footed 14
Base Attack/Grapple: +12/—
Attack: Swarm (4d6)
Full Attack: Swarm (4d6)
Space/Reach: 10 ft./0 ft.
Special Attacks: Distraction
Special Qualities: Half damage from slashing and piercing weapons, low-light vision, scent, swarm traits, can cast [i]Air Breathing[/u] at will as a 5th level cleric.
Saves: Fort +12, Ref +14, Will +7
Abilities: Str 4(-4), Dex 17(+3), Con 12 (+1), Int 1, Wis 12(+1), Cha 2
Skills: Hide +10, Listen +9, Spot +8, Swim +5
Feats: Alertness, Improved Initiative, Toughness

Distraction (Ex): Any living creature vulnerable to the piranha swarm’s damage that begins its turn with a swarm in its square is nauseated for 1 round; a DC 15 Fortitude save negates the effect. Even with a successful save, spellcasting or concentrating on spells within the area of a swarm requires a Concentration check (DC 20 + spell level). Using skills requiring patience and concentration requires a DC 20 Concentration check. The save DC is Constitution-based.

Swarm Traits (Ex): See page 316 of the Monster Manual.

Skills: A piranha swarm has a +8 racial bonus on any Swim check to perform a special action or avoid a hazard. It can always choose to take 10 on a Swim check, even if distracted or endangered. It can use the run action while swimming, provided it swims in a straight line

Swarms work a bit differently to normal creatures, but to me this still feels okay for a CR 9. Swarm traits make it harder to hit, it has a good amount of hitpoints, and it takes half damage from most conventional weapons, which is nice. This one isn’t too bad.

So, yeah. On that huge sample size of two, the system for adding abilities to monsters seems to work all right and is tied closely to the 3.0 CR system. It makes a nice set of rules for judging the CR of new abilities.

That then moves us on to the rest of the book. There’s a decent-ish chapter about monster tactics that should’ve been in the DMG, and then we get into a series of chapters that give more specific advice to DMs about the classes, feats, skills, equipment and magic items that different monster types should have or should consider. Aberrations, Dragons, Elementals, Fey, Giants, Humanoid/Monstrous Humanoid, Outsiders, Shapechangers, Undead – these are all covered in their own chapters. Look, the advice is Core and 3.0 based, don’t expect a fantastical tactical analysis that people on the boards could come up with, but I can appreciate the effort that was gone to; it’s more than WOTC ever really gave DMs to work with.

All up, it’s probably the points system that most shines, even if all it’s doing is to try and work with WOTC’s wonky CR system. 3/4 on this one.

On concepts and fluff:
I was pleasantly surprised that Mearls actually did put more effort than WOTC into giving advice that you can actually work with. It’s not fantastic tactical advice, but it’s better than nothing. I do think there’s some nice stuff in here in terms of slight variants to rules or stuff that makes the various types a little bit more special than they were. But I do keep coming back to the CP concept and how it gives you a more granular way of adding stuff to creatures and assessing how much more powerful it makes them (or not.) 3/4 on this one.

On presentation:
Standard two-column format, black and white all the way through. Some nice illustrations. 1/2 here.

Total: 7/10.

Next Time: Kingdoms of Kalamar Campaign Setting, Kenzer & Co.

Kalkra

2021-11-29, 03:03 PM

When you say the templates have no LA, doesn't most 3e stuff have no listed LA, because it was only invented by Savage Species? Speaking of which, the SS Web Enhancement has some stuff about where LA comes from. Linky (archive.wizards.com/dnd/files/SS_Enh.zip). Also, being able to get a full attack as standard action for a feat seems pretty good, considering that the alternative is to take a dip for Pounce. Also, I'll mention that if you can change shapes as a free action, and you get (Su) abilities, you can do some funny things with Blink Dogs. The main cheese there is Mulhorandi Divine Minion plus Exalted Wild Shape, but it seems like you can also do it with stuff from Monster's Handbook.

Also, how does applying metamagic to things without a spell slot work? And does it only work for certain metamagic feats, or is there a more general thing?

Saintheart

2021-11-30, 01:56 AM

Also, how does applying metamagic to things without a spell slot work? And does it only work for certain metamagic feats, or is there a more general thing?

It works for most of the Core metamagic feats, with the notable exception of Quicken Spell, dammit. :)

As to how applying metamagic to (Su) or (Sp) abilities, it draws heavily on the assumption that virtually all spell-like abilities or supernatural abilities key off or duplicate an existing spell effect, which allows you to calculate the "level" of the spell-like ability (caster level keying off hit dice and CHA mod in most cases). There are strictures on it - you can't use the metamagic to increase the ability's "level" by more than 1 at least to start with - but yeah, it basically takes the idea that the (Sp) at least usually has a spell level by dint of the spell it's not-casting :)

Thrice Dead Cat

2021-11-30, 08:42 AM

Saintheart

2021-12-02, 01:04 AM

Honestly, that "relative CR adjustment" should have been in the core rules to begin with. Adding a pile of stat increases or a couple of low level SLAs are wonderful things at lower CR but mean less the higher you go. Therefore really no good reason for both to be +X CR when the former is more than doubling the base creature's damage or AC bonus and the latter is a drop in the bucket.

It does make me wonder if there are any or corner cases where a template gives less of an impact on lower CR creatures than higher CR ones. The only thing I can think of are ones where the SLAs granted depend on HD and higher HD creatures eventually get things like Dictum or Holy Word.

Dunno about templates, but I can think of an ability like Blade of Blood in (Sp) form having more of an impact on a higher CR creature only because it doesn't cost the high CR creature as much of its life to activate it. A kobold using Blade of Blood might get a single +1d6 or something to its damage, but it'll half kill itself doing so. Not so much a hydra or similar.

Feldar

2021-12-09, 03:10 PM

I had the original Creature Collection and Relics & Rituals. The latter didn't even bother to include prices for the magic items!

To be fair, if it had folks would be debating the prices endlessly.

I actually have this book sitting on my shelf. It has some interesting ideas.

Caelestion

2021-12-10, 08:31 PM

Yes, I liked the concept of the rituals a lot.

Saintheart

2021-12-21, 08:38 AM

Kingdoms of Kalamar Campaign Setting, Kenzer & Co.

https://images2.imgbox.com/1c/f7/ApOzeB6F_o.jpg

Summary
Need verisimilitude? Want to know a lot more about Kalamar, Kenzer’s setting for D&D? Well, here’s a rundown of the entire world, kingdom by kingdom.

Date of Publication and Page Count
March 2001, 272 pages. This is technically the third edition of the book, the earlier editions being July 1994 and March 1995, i.e. Kingdoms of Kalamar as a setting has actually been around longer than you might first think.

KoK’s original editions were declared compatible for use with AD&D editions but carefully avoided trademark or copyright infringement, i.e. they were doing third party splatbooks before it was cool. It had some cult status attached to it in that the distribution wasn’t wide, but it had a hard core of fans, enough at least to presumably keep Kenzer in business anyway.

TSR, who owned D&D at the time, never sued Kenzer for these books despite a famously aggressive attitude on copyright. Leaving aside that TSR was on the verge of bankruptcy in the 90s, and the wobbly argument about whether publishing something compatible with D&D’s system is copyright infringement, that might have been because the guy with his name on the company, David Kenzer, is actually an intellectual property attorney, and therefore presumably would not have been a soft target.

This set of factoids features somewhat in why KoK, unlike virtually any third party sourcebook of its ilk, has the “Official D&D” logo stamped on it and technically counts as a canon setting for third edition.

On 1 November 2000, WOTC announced via a press release that Kingdoms of Kalamar would become an official D&D world. The two half-books that made up the earlier campaign setting texts were slapped together with 100,000 more words, and here we have the third edition campaign setting.

But it wasn’t so much that WOTC really accepted KoK was a great setting so much as that they were sort-of forced into it in order to end a lawsuit. See, Kenzer & Co. didn’t just publish RPGs. They also held the rights of republication for a comic strip called Knights of the Dinner Table, which appeared in Dragon magazine during AD&D’s run. This strip was about a gaming group that played a (then fictional) parody of AD&D called Hackmaster. (The author of that strip was also a contributor to the Kalamar series of books, it might be added.)

Wizards of the Coast republished these magazines in its Dragon Magazine Archive CD. Doing so, they – according to Kenzer’s lawsuit that followed – infringed on Kenzer’s right to publish the strip, and accordingly were liable for civil damages. Like most lawsuits, the matter was settled. And the terms of said settlement were solid for Kenzer: first, WOTC gave Kenzer the right to use the first party logos, as if Kalamar products were WOTC products, until 2008. This was a massive point of distinction for Kenzer against all its competitors of the time. And second, Kenzer got a licence to publish first edition AD&D (which likely WOTC thought wasn’t a bad thing to give away since they were in third edition by then), but which in turn allowed Kenzer to create Hackmaster as a freestanding RPG.

So far as this book is concerned, it does not appear from the credits that WOTC had much, if any, involvement in its writing or editing. None of the names are familiar from third edition of the time as far as I know, and the design and writing was done mainly by David Kenzer himself and his collaborators who’d been around a while.

Kenzer himself, unlike a lot of RPG designers of the time, still seems to be around and is still president of the company named after him. They still maintain the KoK setting even if it was cut loose from WOTC an edition or two ago, and Knights of the Dinner Table is still running. This book is still available from Kenzer & Co itself, as well as on the wider internet.

Notable Features
N/A

Dreadful Features
N/A

Who it’s best for (Player/GM/both) GMs mostly. See more below.

Comments, thoughts, and rating out of 10.
Important preface here: this book has no mechanics. (Well, unless you count the afterthought table at the back of the book which give you a short build stub for the NPCs mentioned in it, or the odd small sidebar for a specific magic item or two). In short, it is almost completely composed of fluff. As such my normal rating system can’t really work here because it presupposes a balance of both, so the end result of this review is going to be a N/A in any event.

The book is meant to function solely as a guidebook and information stocking for people playing and DMing in the setting. I strongly suspect, being a newcomer to D&D, that there’s a strong legacy reason why Kenzer thought they could publish a book with no mechanics; in any other third party producer it would take immense chutzpah and even in WOTC’s Power of Faerun sourcebook a couple of prestige classes were thrown in.

Kenzer’s rough assumptions for the setting, and therefore for this book, can be found on his website:

(1) KoK was fundamentally meant to be realistic. Kenzer claims things like languages, topography, trade routes, weather, political divisions and tensions all follow real-world patterns, the idea being that the longer you’re in the setting, the more it feels like a real world. One example: each human or humanoid subrace (the hobgoblins get their own stable kingdoms) has its own language with consistent names. (They each have their own alphabets, which is a nice touch.) Whether or not this holds true is probably more for long players of the setting.

(2) Magic’s meant to be uncommon. No magic item shops, for your stuff go looking for mage academies, ruins, temples. Wizards can be confused with clerics, and in some areas they’re very rare.

(3) PCs are meant to be the heroes of the story. Which is presumably code for “No level 20 character every 5 five like the Forgotten Realms”. Adventuring companies are rare, nobody will save the day if you fail. Low level PCs can have profound effects on the world.

(4) Variety of cultures with a unique flavour.

Does the book come up to scratch on that? Well … maybe. There are certainly lots of interesting little bits and pieces in it (there’s an anti-monarchist organisation, and slavery is open and a major part of the setting, both for and opposed) but it’s not exactly Eberron for flat-out originality or combining different flavours of fantasy as such. (That said – overt support for psionics!) Chronologies, cities, constellations, the de jure gods list and descriptions, a nice chapter on languages and alphabets. Also a quick reference table about each city, what country it’s in, its population, and the size of standing armies. And a full chapter on the code of law down to setting out individual crimes and punishments, which is lacking in most WOTC books. These elements more than the setting itself might be worth stealing for your own campaigns for the verisimilitude rather than anything else, but of itself the book isn't really a huge aid to the DM either in new ways of looking at the same stuff or being mindblowingly inspiring.

A big note here in favour of the presentation. Although most of the book is just the standard two-column WOTC format, with walls of text from beginning to end, the artwork is colour in most parts and is actually kind of nice to look at in most cases. It would’ve got a 2/2 here, I appreciate someone who gives my tired eyes a break.

The concepts seem reasonably well-thought-out, and the setting feels like a sort of eastern and southern Mediterranean type setting with Vikings tacked on. But I doubt I’d touch this without sampling the other KoK books first.

Total: N/A.

Next Time: Elements of Magic, E.N. Publishing