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This is Andre Faucher on behalf of Gamer's Haven, reviewing the product Book of the River Nations: Mass Combat, an addition to their already steadfast collection of how to run a kingdom and all aspects of it. This pdf is focused on running your army, from maintaining it to crushing the enemies of the nation.
What are some of the drawbacks of this text or rules within?
1.) Requires other texts. If you truly want to get the full flavor of this, buy the Kingdom Building and Exploration pack too. When I first bought this text I did not have that, and the conversion that they have does not mesh as well as one would hope.
2.) Maintaining the Army. While running an army is expensive, Mass Combat makes it seem near impossible to keep a standing army from fleeing into the hills with a steep maintenance cost. This can cripple the ideas of having an army ready over a long period, or even for short periods. The cost is 2 BP (with Kingdom Builder rules) or 5,000 Gold (without) for most standard troops. Doing the math, effectively to maintain an army of 100 standard militia, which costs 2 bp, that means that every week each soldier has 50 gold spent on them. Apparently every week the soldier breaks at least one major part of equipment or they eat like kinds.
What are some of the benefits of this book?
1.) Versatility. This book allows numerous combination of armies that can deal with just about any idea that the group is interested in building.
2.) Mostly Good Rules. The combat system mimics much of the standard d20 fighting system but it speeds it up and allows the game to remain interesting while throwing massive armies against each other. Perhaps the best, or at least my personal favorite rule, is the CR scaling. With the increase or decrease in number and effectiveness of troops it allows for a very balanced fight. It also has the rules for a single target... say for example a giant or a high level character. This allows the characters to finally run around the battle field and do something, rather than have the player grind through 100 soldiers.
3.) Easy. These rules are not complicated and can easily be used or adapted to make a fight go much faster allowing players the feeling of huge battles without the long drawn out pain of all the rolling.
Conclusion?
If you like the River Nations collection, this is a must buy. This is a mostly good book that caters to army based campaigns, and further expands the wonderful Book of the River Nations collection. It is a good cheap price that will save a lot of head aches, or carpal tunnel if one is actually rolling out a battle of 1,000 troops, and can be easily read and understood. The only real downside is that maintenance of armies is really expensive. However in the book they note this, as to make sure that people feel the pain of a long drawn out war. In addition historically many nations did not maintain a standing army year around, because it was too expensive, and only used them in short controlled periods.
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A great tool for running a kingdom in any fantasy game. Fantastic with any D&D style system and a must if you happen to be running Paizo's Kingmaker campaign.
Buy this book! ( Liked it so much, I purchased a gift copy, via Paizo.com, for a friend)
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Book of the River Nations by Jon Brazer Enterprises
This product is 52 pages long. It starts with a cover, ToC, Introduction and credits. (4 pages)
Chapter 1: Exploration (2 pages)
This chapter has rules for exploring hexes and how to claim them for building a kingdom. There is also some side bars to give you a idea how big a hex is to real world locations and such.
Chapter 2: Kingdom Building (14 pages)
This is a chapter on how to build your own kingdom and this is where the book truly shines. A kingdom has a stat block somewhat like a PC would have. It changes as the kingdom grows. Once a month a kingdom follows a Kingdom Turn chart to determine what happened that month. There is four steps to follow, Upkeep, Improvement, Income and Event phases. You pay BP points in upkeep.(BP points come from income or from possible PC actions), then with the points left over you can spend them to improve you kingdom, followed by figuring the income for next months BP pool. Followed by the event there is a total of 40 random events that can happen.
Next is the Leadership section, if PC's or NPC's take on leadership roles in the kingdom they effects a related kingdom aspect, there is negatives for some roles if they are not filled. There is a total of a 11 roles. Certain hexes are not just open ground and they add resources depending what they are. This is followed by rules for building a city in a hex. There is 55 building types, along with 8 special things for the main castle, and 11 open space locations. The section ends with gaining xp, losing hexes, and GM advice.
Chapter 3: Mass Combat (10 pages)
It starts with how to make a army stat block and what it means. There is 14 tactics a army can learn that lets it do special things. Resources are things that can be bought with the BP of the Kingdom building rules to improve your army, there is 10 things. Some armies have special abilities that they can use, there is 14 listed. Next it gets into training armies and vassal armies.
The next part gets into running a mass combat. There is a combat round summery. Along with 5 different basic strategies or stances a army can take and what the mods are. It talks a bit about routing armies, victory, recovery, defeat, multiple armies, and the effects PC's have in armies. The section ends with 17 sample armies and a page of GM advice.
Chapter 4: Feats (3 pages)
This section introduces two new types of feats, kingdom and mass combat feats. They help specificity with those aspects in this book. There is 4 Kingdom feats, 3 Mass Combat, and 10 normal feats.
Chapter 5: Spells ( 5 pages)
It starts with a small section on how existing spells can effect mass combat. Next it moves onto new spells. There is 29 new spells, many of them for mass combat, Such as the summon army and summon natures army. Each with nine version of each spell. There is 6 spells that have nothing to do with armies or kingdom building. They range from meh to pretty cool.
Chapter 6: Secret Societies (4 pages)
There is 4 listed societies listed in this section. Each only has a paragraph or two about them. Mostly they are new character options, two of them. The Hidden Sniper and Monks of the Green Leaf are new archetypes for the Ranger and Monk respectively. While Devout Healers and Kings Eye are new PrC's.
Hidden Snipers – The gain SA ability, Aim(as a move action can get a bonus to hit), must take bow or crossbow weapon style, and gets poison use. Gives up wild empathy, favored enemy and hunters bond.
Monks of the Green Leaf – Gets some different weapons and skills, Elemental Fist, adds more Bonus Feats options, Locate Creature. Gives up Stunning Fist and Abundant Step.
Devout Healer – Five level PrC. d8, medium BaB, 4 skills, +5 spell levels. Gains a lot of bonuses with healing.
Kings Eye – Five level PrC. D8, medium BaB, 6 skills. Gains bonuses with sneaking, social skills, lock picking and gather information. A ability to made coded messages, slight boost to SA, and will save bonus.
Chapter 7: Magic Items (2 pages)
There is 11 new magic items. Only a couple of them effect kingdom building and none effect mass combat. It would have been nice if more had effected them and even better a side bar listing some existing magic items and what effect they may or may not have. I am sure a few existing ones would make sense for that.
It ends with a OGL, Ads and kingdom, army etc sheets. (8 pages)
Closing thoughts. First let me say this is a review copy and a real copy might come with a print version. If not then I think it needs one. The artwork is ok and black and white, but it has a big wide color border on each page that would be brutal on a printer and one of the big selling points for this is all the kingdom rules and such collect for ease of reference. For the printed book it's fine of course, for a PDF though it hurts the value of the PDF. Editing and layout are good, I noticed a few minor errors here and there but not bad at all for a book this size.
As for quality it varied. Chapter 2 was very good, chapter 1 and 7 was solid. Which combined is a 3rd of the book, the rest of the chapters where mostly ok. The weakest chapter is the mass combat rules, they get the job done but that’s about it. They scream for some expansion like what was added to the Kingdom section. Of course most people know the kingdom and combat rules come from extra sections in the recent Paizo AP Kingmaker. This book collects, reworks and expands some on those rules. The spells and feats where so so, some where meh, some where pretty good, but most was ok. Not bad, not great. Three of the Archetype/PrC's where pretty good and one was meh.
So what's my rating? Well for a combined book covering all the aspects it does it's job. If you are looking for kingdom building rules, this expands things enough to make it worth buying especially if you don't own the Kingmaker AP. Mass Combat is a bit of a let down next to them, it gets the job done but that’s about it. The rest helps expand things a bit. All and all I am going to give this a 3.5 star, I would give it a 4 star if it came with a print friendly PDF. If you are looking for kingdom building rules I recommend checking this book out.
Trust me, I'm a Succubus.
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From my blog review at http://www.thealfredeffect.com/?p=562
Here we are again with another amazing release by Dale C McCoy Jr and Robert Brambley of Jon Brazer Enterprises. "Book of the River Nations: Complete Player's Reference for Kingdom Building" may be a long title but it encompasses everything that this book is about. The latest volume in the "Book of the River Nations" series, this latest release is available in print or pdf form from Paizo or RPGNow as well as your friendly local gaming store.
If you have read my last review of a Jon Brazer Enterprises product you know that JBE puts out some high quality content. They deliver again with this beautiful and well-written tome. Today I will be talking about the pdf version of the book.
The Complete Player Reference for Kingdom Building weighs in at 52 pages in length with the first 3 and last 3 pages given over to covers, title pages, and ads. The very first thing that jumped out to me about this piece was the beautiful cover art which extends from the front cover to the back cover. JBE work has always features very well done covers and trade dress, but I think this title has raised the bar. The interior art is gray scale and very well placed throughout the text, never more than a quarter page in size. The trade dress is aesthetically pleasing without distracting the eye or taking up too much space.
Moving on to the content which is the most important piece of any RPG supplement. Here JBE shines again with excellent layout and organization. The book is divided into 7 chapters and the contents includes page numbers for each as well as each table and sidebar throughout the book. I found looking up information to be very easy especially when combined with the easy to navigate bookmarks in the pdf.
Chapter 1 covers exploration and touches base on topics such as movement and wandering monsters. This is one of the shorter chapters in the book, but does include 2 tables and 2 sidebars.
Chapter 2 is what I consider the real meat and potatoes of the book and covers the topic of kingdom building. This is what it is really about in my opinion and I think JBE agrees because it covers 14 pages of the text. Here we have rules for leadership roles, the phases of a kingdom's turn, how to build improvements, castle building/improving, kingdom events, and experience gained from all of these activities. This truly is a comprehensive A-Z for the administration of a kingdom. Heck there are over 50 different types of buildings you can construct, 8 additions to spice up your castle, and 11 ways to develop an open space. All of the bases really have been covered here.
Chapter 3 covers another major aspect of running a kingdom, mass combat. What do you do when you go to war and how to resolve those battles. Here we have information on the army stat block, tactics that your army can use, resources/special abilities for the army, how to train armies, how to incorporate vassal armies, some sample armies, victory/defeat conditions, and how to run mass combat. This section definitely has the most crunch with stat blocks, modifiers, and a new way of resolving combat between such large groups. Everything is presented in a clear manner so it is very easy to pick up on. The author's don't get bogged down in the details of each individual soldier and instead concentrate on the essence of the force as a whole.
Chapter 4 introduces 17 new feats and two new feat types, the kingdom feats and mass combat feats. The feats here are all very logical and the benefits are well balances.
Chapter 5 brings us spells. Here we have a section on using spells in mass combat as well as 29 new spells to use. The new spells are primarily aimed at mass combat and as a GM I would not really allow them to be used outside of that.
Chapter 6 discusses organizations and secret societies. This includes 2 prestige classes, the Devout Healer and the King's Eye, as well as 2 archetypes, the Hidden Sniper and the Monks of the Green Leaf. These are not bad, but in my opinion don't really contribute a great deal to the subject matter at hand.
The final section, chapter 7, covers magic items and boy do we have some nice ones here. There are 11 items total and each one has a unique use in your kingdom. These items will give any spellcaster something good to work on crafting.
Last but certainly not least we have the appendix which is given over to 5 different blank maps and stat sheets. We have a great hex exploration map, a kingdom sheet, city district sheet, notable npc's, and mass combat army sheets. All very handy to have at the table.
Overall this is an awesome addition to any player or GM's Pathfinder RPG library. Personally I plan on picking up a print copy for my GM as a hint to allow my character to start planning his conquests. :)
Disclaimer: This pdf was provided free of charge by the publisher for review purposes.
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This pdf is 52 pages long, 1 page front cover, 2 blank pages on the insides of the cover, 1 page back cover, 1 page advertisement and 1 page containing both SRD and editorial, so let's check it out!
The first thing you'll notice when checking this pdf out, is the ToC with the accompanying introduction on the first page, the extensive bookmarks and the clear and easy to read two-column layout. This book is a compilation and expansion of the kingdom building rules for PFRPG's Kingmaker AP that makes the system more accessible for players. Due to probably not everyone owning the AP, I'll try to sum up the rules as we go. Thus, let's get to building our very own kingdoms!
The first 2 pages depict what is necessary to build a kingdom in the first place - exploration. After the concisely-written notes, we are introduced to the mechanics you need to run your kingdom - there are 4 phases in a kingdom's turn, upkeep, improvement, income and event. Almost all checks are related to a single mechanic and the player's decision, allowing for luck, skill and planning to determine and influence the success of a given kingdom. "But wait", you might say - "what about all the players in my campaign?" Fret not, each can fill a role in the kingdom and both the kingdom building and regular roleplaying are important. Especially when taking a look at city building, the next section of the book, in which you'll also find stronghold building guidelines and rules for the development of open spaces, the connections between PC- and Kingdom-level become fairly evident. Want an academy with scholars in your city? Well, buy one!
Edicts and events add a spicey touch to the building of nations and finally, there's the mass combat chapter in which the clash of armies, their equipment and special abilities, vassal armies etc. are detailed. Players in battle and the change from units to PCs and back is also mentioned along a selection of several sample armies.
On the rather-PC-centric-side, we get 17 feats mostly dealing with leadership and terrain-movement like swimming. For small armies of casters, we get so-called mass-combat spells, i.e. spells that can only be cast as long, huge rituals and subsequently be disrupted. Which, at least in my opinion, as a concept make for great instances when the PCs try to prevent the casting of a mass combat spell. There are some non-mass-combat spells here, too, just so you know. :)
Next up are two prestige classes, the devout healer, a healing-centered caster, the hidden sniper alternate ranger-archetype and the King's Eye, the kingdom's master-spies. There also are 2 pages of magic items, an exploration map, a kingdom sheet, a city district sheet, a sheet to keep track of notable NPCs and a mass combat army sheet. All the sheets are top-quality, easy to read and concisely presented.
Conclusion:
Layout is clear, adheres to the two-column standard and serves its purpose. The b/w-artworks are ok, though nothing to write home about. Editing is ok - I only noticed 2 mistakes on all the pages and both were minor typos. I only noticed one formatting error, a case of two capital letters in the beginning of a sentence. If you're reading this review, though, that's not what sparks your interest, but rather whether you should buy this book. To cut a long rant short: If you've ever entertained the notion of your PCs owning a keep, expanding it, ruling and participating in the complex notions of politics rather than just be henchmen of rulers, this book is for you - the rules from kingmaker are concise, cool and easy to grasp, but hard to master. And this book actually delivers all you need, compiled into an easy-to-hand-out reference that will make it even easier for your players to understand the rules and immerse themselves in the great prospects of rulership That being said, the book unfortunately is not perfect - while it's a great resource for kingdom & city building, the rules fall short when it comes to mass combat, at least in my opinion. Yes, they are good. Yes, they are necessarily abstract, but I'm spoiled by 3.5's "Cry Havoc" and would have LOVED to see an expanded take on the rules and more content in that section - more spells, monster rules, more special abilities for the units etc. I realize that this complaint might be unfair, but it's all that keeps me from all out declaring this the ultimate resource on kingdom & city building and mass combat. As it stands, I still love kingdom & city building and will continue to use my own rules for mass-combat. But that's just my preference. What's my final verdict, then? It's a great book, but it could have been the reference in more than being just a reference guide, but rather THE reference. Combined with the few typos, I'll settle for 4 stars and a hearty recommendation. Anyone who plans to run Kingmaker should get this for his/her players and the same holds true for anyone planning on having the PCs acquire a kingdom/city - for you this book is a must-have.
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This pdf is 7 pages, 1 page front cover, 1 page editorial/SRD, leaving 5 pages for the new monsters.
The Blightdaemon (CR 4) is a small, imp-like harbinger of disease and comes with a new disease. The Death Adept (CR 8) is an undead priest with divine casting abilities. Kind of like Huecava, but more focused on being an undead cleric. Mantians (CR 5) are giant, preying-mantis-like creatures that come with their own poison I don't get why they don't get keen claws or more damage on their primary attacks. Their defensive qualities list "Compound Eyes", but not what they do. I gather that, similar to Dreamscarred Press's Dromites, they grant the Mantians +2 to Perception checks, but I'm not sure whether that's already fractured in the +8 racial modifier to perception they get or whether having compound eyes grants them additional benefits. It should be noted that this does not impair the usability of the creature, though, so I won't detract a star. Remembrents (CR 3) are shrieking, corporeal undead with some spell-like abilities. Rock-Ophidians (CR 3) are minor dragon-like beings that can spit acid and for a limited amount of time harden their scales. This is a rather strange ability, as no in-game explanation or true reason is given for the creature to have this ability.
Conclusion:
Layout adheres to the 2-column standard and is printer-friendly b/w. The b/w-artwork the monsters get is old-school and for the price very nice. Editing could have been better - I noticed a relic "a" in one of the statblocks, an adjective/adverb-mix-up in the Remembrents text and a mix-up between horde/hoard in the Ophidian-text. Due to the shortness of the pdf, I think they could have been avoided. Apart from the typo-pet-peeves of mine, I have another point of criticism: In e.g. stark contrast to the "Monsters of the River Nations"-book, the critters in this pdf lack any iconic quality whatsoever. Mantians are Mantis-like creatures and do exactly what you'd expect. The same goes for the other beasts - they just feel generic. And unfortunately uninspired. There is nothing wrong with the creatures or their mechanics per se and their artworks are ok. However, none of them felt unique or inspired in a way that made me want to use them in my campaign. While the pdf is cheap, I still can't recommend it - due to the low price, my final verdict will be 2 stars.
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Book of Friends and Foes: Under the Mountain by Jon Brazer Enterprise
This product is 8 pages long. It starts with a cover, credits and ToC. (2 pages)
Friends and Foes (5 pages)
There is five NPC's in this book. Each NPC takes up a full page with a black and white image. Each one has 3-4 paragraphs of background information on them and full stat blocks.
Sak'Aeda – CR 6 Dark Creeper Ranger.
Samm Kull – CR 6 Human Fighter/Rogue.
Night Wraith – CR 7 Elf Vampire Rogue.
Dead-Eye Grimpick – CR 5 Dwarf Cleric.
Marrin Rubneck – CR 6 Human Commoner/Warrior.
It ends with a OGL. (1 pages)
Closing thoughts. The editing and layout was pretty good, could have used a little more polish, I did notice a few grammar and spelling errors. The artwork is black and white and ok. The background on the NPC's are ok, there is a few hooks to use them as foes or friends all for the most part. But none of them stood out as something that really grabs you either. If you are looking for some fully stated NPC's to keep around handy for use. Then this is worth picking up. So what's my rating? I am going to give this one a 3 star. Worth the cheap price but could have used more work.
Trust me, I'm a Succubus.
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Book of Beasts: Wandering Monsters 1 by Jon Brazer Enterprise
This product is 7 pages long. It starts with a cover. (1 pages)
Monsters (5 pages)
There is five new monsters in this book. Each monster takes up a full page with a black and white image.
Blightdaemon – CR4 daemon. A disease based creature.
Death Adept – CR 8 undead. A type of undead priest.
Mantians – CR 5 magical creature. Large praying Mantis creatures.
Remembrent – CR 3 undead. Kinda a weak version of the banshee sorta.
Rock Ophidian – CR 3 dragon. More like oversize acid spitting salamanders.
It ends with a OGL. (1 pages)
Closing thoughts. Layout and editing are good. I didn't notice any obvious errors. The art work is black and white but very good. The five monster are pretty interesting, I thought the Blightdaemon and Death Adept was the most interesting. Taken as a whole the monsters are solid and so is the product. It gives exactly what it promises with very good artwork and no obvious flaws. It is a very clean PDF with no borders so very print friendly. If you are looking for a few new monsters then this is worth the buck fifty asking price. So what's my rating? I am going to give it a 5. I didn't notice any obvious errors and while the monsters weren't great they was good, but the artwork was very good which honestly is almost worth buying just for the art.
Trust me, I'm a Succubus.
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This is just a summary of a longer review originally posted on The Alfred Effect: http://www.thealfredeffect.com/?p=437
Overall this is a very solid product that is especially useful for any character with religious inclinations, but would make a great read even if you have not thought of this. I am personally using some of the great ideas here for an inquisitor that I am playing in a homebrew campaign. A great read for both players and gamemasters, check it out.
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Book of the River Nations: Feats, Spells, and Secret Societies by Jon Brazer
This product is 14 pages long. It starts with a cover. (1 pages)
Feats (3 pages)
There is two types of new feats. Kingdom feats and Mass combat feats, as well as a few general feats. The kingdom feats help with the kingdom building mechanics and the Mass Combat feats help while using the Mass Combat rules. There is 17 new feats, three of them are mass combat and three of them are kingdom feats. The other eleven are normal feats.
Spells (5 page)
There is 29 new spells, 6 of them are spells to be used any time and 23 of them are spells to be used in mass combat rules. There is also side sections talking about using other spells in mass combat and in kingdom building. A couple of the spells where pretty cool I especially liked Wall of Tentacle's, a few where versions of existing spells (overland travel like expeditious retreat but can be cast on others and helps with overland travel checks), most of the mass combat spells are ok. Not great not bad.
Secret Societies (4 pages)
There is 4 listed societies listed in this section. Each only has a paragraph or two about them. Mostly they are new character options, two of them. The Hidden Sniper and Monks of the Green Leaf are new archetypes for the Ranger and Monk respectively. While Devout Healers and Kings Eye are new PrC's.
Hidden Snipers – The gain SA ability, Aim(as a move action can get a bonus to hit), must take bow or crossbow weapon style, and gets poison use. Gives up wild empathy, favored enemy and hunters bond.
Monks of the Green Leaf – Gets some different weapons and skills, Elemental Fist, adds more Bonus Feats options, Locate Creature. Gives up Stunning Fist and Abundant Step.
Devout Healer – Five level PrC. d8, medium BaB, 4 skills, +5 spell levels. Gains a lot of bonuses with healing.
Kings Eye – Five level PrC. D8, medium BaB, 6 skills. Gains bonuses with sneaking, social skills, lock picking and gather information. A ability to made coded messages, slight boost to SA, and will save bonus.
It ends with a OGL. (1 pages)
Closing thoughts. It has decent black and white art works. The layout and editing where pretty good. Other than the nice borders it is fairly plain and print friendly. As for the feats, a few was pretty cool, some was meh, but most was ok, not great and not bad. Same can be said for the spells. As for the societies I think that is a bit of a not as advertised. I was expecting information about societies not Archetypes and PrC's. They wasn't bad, they just wasn't what I was expecting. The Devout Healer and Kings Eye are both pretty good, as is the Hidden Sniper, but I was pretty meh about the Monks of the Green Leaf. All and all it is a solid product. So what's my rating? I am going to give it a 3 star. It is a solid book that is worth the money if you are looking for feats or spells to help with the Kingdom Building and or Mass Combat. It is less useful to others.
Trust me, I'm a Succubus.
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A review of 2 BTRN pdfs
Three big scabs to start with:
no index; no TOC on one volume ; no intro to speak of.
Seems to be a largely rehash of existing PF material.
Impolite: their new material not identified as such, just inserted along with the PF:KM rules.
It would have been nice to see
"here's what you'll be getting into"
"here's what you're looking at"
Peeve:
they out no DEF # on city form, would have been easy fix, they just copied the form from PF:KM rotely.
did tidy up the city form
clip art for new building types.
new ideas for XPs?
Green Leaf Monk Prestige Class
seems out of place, little flavor text or intro.
why does a GLM fit in with a river nation ?
or is he a foil ?
The Mass Combat spells are launched into without
intro. They are not explained, contexted, or referenced.
Could you at least point out into which book the rules relate ?
They may be wonderful spells, but since I don't have the
MASS COMBAT base book, and the author's didnt mention
where to get one, they just made 2/5ths of their own book
into a mere side-bar.
Later on I find they sell a MC rulebook, but given the material so far, why would I get it?
In other publications, the author will, upon first using an acronym or abbreviation, spell it out. ie(THACO, To Hit Armor Class Zero)
but here in the River Nations, everyone automagcially knows all terms.
The Generic City forms at the end are somewhat more useful
than the color ones by paizo.
The King's Eye seems excellent,
and some of the Feats seem good & useful.
The Green Leaf Monk is excellent ruleswise, but seems an after thought and could use expansion and at least throw a bone to the player or DM: "Why is this guy in the middle of my campaign world?
I can only barely recommend it, and then only for the few nuggets to add onto KM:PF (which means Kingmaker adventures in Pathfinder, thank you.)
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Book of the River Nations: Exploration and Kingdom Building by Jon Brazar Enterprises
This product is 2o pages long. It starts with a cover. (1 pages)
Exploration Rules (2 pages)
This has rules for exploring land. It has movement rate and a few other things in it.
Kingdom Building (12 pages)
This section has rules for building a kingdom, random events, rules and positions of powers with the effects they have. Taxes, buildings and the effects they have etc. It is a quick simple yet effect set of rules for building a kingdom.
It ends with 4 pages of sheets, exploration map, city district sheet, kingdom stat sheet, and NPC sheet and a OGL. (5 pages)
Closing Thoughts. This is the exploration rules from Kingmaker AP 1, The Stolen Lands reprinted. The kingdom building rules is the rules from Kingmaker AP 2, River Runs Red, with 3 extra pages of information. Looks like a few more buildings and kingdom events are added to it. Other than the new sheets which are helpful and 3 pages of new buildings and kingdom events, it is just the information from the two Kingmaker AP's combined together in one book in a print friendly format. Again I find this one hard to rate as it depends a lot if you have the AP's and if being able to print the information is important to you.
My one critic is I wish the kingdom events had been it's own chapter. That way you could print it out and give everything but the events to the players, that would have helped make this better and more useful. As it is for 3 bucks, if you don't have the AP's and want some quick and simple kingdom building rules, then I would give it a 3.5 star. If you have the AP's but would like the new buildings and events and want a print friendly copy, then I would give it a 3 star. If you just want a print friendly version or just want the new buildings etc, then I would give it a 2 star.
Trust me, I'm a Succubus
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Book of the River Nations: Mass Combat by Jon Brazar Enterprises
This product is 12 pages long. It starts with a cover. (1 pages)
Armies (4 ½ pages)
Next it jumps right into army stat blocks with a paragraph introduction. It deals with the armies stats, build cost, consumption(to keep the army going) special tactics it can learn, special abilities the army might posses. Final it closes with training armies and vassal armies.
Running Mass Combat (2 pages)
This section is how to actual run a combat between two armies.
Sample Armies ( 2 ½ pages)
This section has 20 sample armies with stat blocks to use for them.
It ends with a army stat block sheet and a OGL. (2 pages)
Closing Thoughts. This is mostly a reprint of the mass combat rules from War of the River Kings adventure from the Kingmaker AP. I looked at the two of them, there is roughly 5 pages of stuff in the AP. This book minus OGL, sheet, cover and art. Has roughly 8 pages. Which is a couple of pages of extra stuff. I didn't notice any obvious errors and the art is fair black and white art. The layout is clean and very print friendly. This is a tough one to rate. While most of the information is reprinted and slightly reworded, some of it is new. If you have the AP with the information this gives you a print friendly way to print out just that information and it has a little extra. For those people it is likely a 1-3 rating depending on how important it is to have a print friendly copy. For those that don't have that AP then this would be all new stuff and a lot more useful, in which case I would likely give it a 3-3.5 rating.
So in short if you don't have the AP in question and you want some simple quick mass combat rules this is worth picking up, then I would give it a 3.5. If you do have that AP and would like a little extra and a print friendly version then it is still worth two bucks but not as good of a bargain then, then I would rate it a 3. If you have the AP and have no use for printing it out, then likely this is a product for you, in which case it is a 2. Most of the extra information is sample armies but not all of it.
Trust me, I'm a Succubus
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Book of Beats: Monsters of the River Nations by Jon Brazar Enterprises
This product is 36 pages long. It starts with a cover, credits, and ToC. (4 pages)
Monster Entries. (21 pages)
Some are obvious what they are like the snapping turtle and Piranha, below is a list of what new monsters are in the book.
Addanc – croc/beaver (neat monster but really odd mix)
Autumn Death – new undead, neat idea.
Avowed Reaver – fire elemental type
Bog Scum – new type of ooze, also nice.
Fly Trap, Giant – plant monster
Fly Trap, Dire – see above.
Forest Giant – defender of forest, cool idea, but I had one issue with the fluff.
Frost Mite Swarm – new swarm
Garmunchi – kinda non evil ogres
Hatethrall Demon – new little demon, meh.
Hydrus – weird lizard animal
Lemkin – new fey
Night Caller – small magical bird
Piranha, Mature
Piranha Swarm
River Dragon – legless, wingless, swimming snake dragon.
Riverswell Spirit – cool new undead.
Shrine Stone, Animated - construct
Silver Bell – plant monster
Skate Spider, Giant
Skate Spider, Swarm
Snapping Turtle
Snapping Turtle, Dire
Stumble Fish
Appendix Humanoids (4 pages)
Cursed Brethren - undead that during the day look human. Kinda reminded me of Pirates of the Caribbean movie a little. I am guessing that is what they was inspired by, regardless it is a neat idea and well written. Two stat blocks for them, one of the rank and file and one of their bandit king.
Grammy Beshic – Gnome NPC that lives in the forest, has a new magic ring as well.
Appendix New Drugs and Gambling (1 page)
This has 2 new gambling games, well one game and a fight club. With rules on how to run them and how the odds work. It also has one new drug.
Appendix New Haunts (1 page)
This section has new haunts. 6 new haunts, four of them fit very well with the forest theme, two of them not as much but still good haunts.
Appendix New Templates and Diseases. (1 page)
There is five new templates one can apply to monsters and 8 new diseases all of which fit the theme pretty well.
It ends with one ad, OGL and back cover. (4 pages)
Closing Thoughts. All and all I liked the book, the art is nice black and white art. Most of the monsters I thought fit well in the theme as did most of the rest of the book. The stat blocks are easy to read and understand and the book is laid out well. Other than the cover it is a plain simple black and white book, very print friendly. I do have a few minor critics with the book. The fluff with the giants in one part, in that they sleep in branches of tree's I thought was odd. They are 15ft tall that would be some massive tree's. I think they could have left that part out.
My only other issue was some of the stuff just didn't really fit a forest/river theme. The Hatethrall Demon and Avowed Reaver being the two big ones. The hydrus just seemed weird, it seems like it does what it does just because. Now the rest was well done, I would have liked to have seen a few more fey, natural and planet monsters myself but that is personal preference. So whats my rating? Well it is a good book over all, I have a few minor issues with it. I am giving it a 4.5 star review.
Trust me, I'm a Succubus.
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Like all products in the d66 line, this table provides 36 interstellar war names keyed to a random scheme using 2d6 in a fashion similar to using 2d10 to produce a 1–100 result. Although a few of the entries are a bit odd (Social Network Revolutions) and several are specifically tied to Traveller lore (Dumosif Conflict), GMs running other games (Star Wars Saga Edition, in my case) could find it very useful as well. Each name costs only about 1.5¢, so it’s hard to lose with this purchase.
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