Pincers Down, My Favorite Insectoids

Length: 14 pages total: 2 pages front and back covers; 1.5 pages credits and licensing; 10 pages of content; .5 pages of GM advice.

Format: 2-column, with a single information table spreading from side to side. Overall, laid out well and easy to read. I noticed 15 typographical and grammatical errors while reading, but they were mostly unimportant and did not cause confusion or diminish the quality of the book.

Art: The front cover art is cropped from an interior piece, and the back cover has what appears to be a cropped photograph of a moth. 7 pieces of interior art, 6 of which represent various Entobians and 1 half-page scene featuring 2 Entobians in a forest. All of these interior pieces are in color and of very high quality; they make a strong impression and immediately made me want to play a character of this race. Many insectoid creatures from bestiaries are hard to relate to but the artists for this book (Dean Spencer and Eugene Jaworski) did a great job humanizing the Entobians and making them look like real adventurers and characters rather than monsters.

The Entobian: This book presents a new race of six-limbed "insect people" to be used for making player characters or NPC's. They are very interesting creatures in the sense that they begin play in a larval form, but may take special Metamorphosis feats to drastically change their form, both physical and mental. Before getting into the mechanics, there is a page and a half dedicated to describing the Entobians' physical features, ecology, society, relations to other races, alignments and reasons for adventuring. This is all quite flavorful and definitely worth reading. At the end of the descriptive section, there is a chart listing the vital statistics for generating random starting ages, heights and weights.

Larvite, the basic Entobian, has these racial traits: +2 Dex, +2 Cha, -2 Wis; Small size with the appropriate adjustments; Fast speed of 30ft.; Familiar Foe, granting a +1 to attack versus vermin; Insect Mind, granting +2 bonus to saving throws against charm spells and effects; Natural Weapons in the form of their 2 mid-legs dealing 1d4 damage; Skilled, granting +2 to Acrobatics and Climb, lost after metamorphosing; Spin Silk, the ability to create 30ft. lengths of silk rope that biodegrades after a day, lost after metamorphosing. It is possible to play with these abilities all the way to level 20, but if you choose to take the Prepare for Metamorphosis feat, you can take a further feat to metamorphose in several different ways, described below. These special feats are irreversible and mutually exclusive. Before applying a metamorphosis feat, the Entobians are genderless, but their new forms are strictly divided with only one female form—the Matron. The Larvite's body resembles a caterpillar.

• Coleophite, available at level 7, changes the basic racial traits, trading the ability scores for increased Con and Str at the expense of Dex, adding natural armor, situational DR and able to fly at a speed of 25ft. with poor maneuverability for a number of minutes per day equal to their level. Coleophites resemble beetles.

• Eulite, available at level 9, changes the basic racial traits, trading the ability scores for increased Str and Wis at the expense of Con, adding darkvision, adding shocking grasp as a spell-like ability usable once per day and flight with a speed of 30ft. with good maneuverability a number of minutes per day equal to their level. Eulites resemble moths.

• Farfalite, available at level 8, changes the basic racial traits, trading the ability scores for increased Dex and Int at the expense of Con, adding displacement once per day as a spell-like ability and the ability to fly with a speed of 40ft. with good maneuverability for a number of minutes per day equal to their level. Farfalites resemble butterflies.

• Larvite Lifer, available at level 6, gives up your chance for metamorphosis and increases your size to medium, your natural attack damage die to 1d6, and also increases your height and weight, as shown on the aforementioned chart. This form is the only one that does not require Prepare for Metamorphosis.

• Matron, available at level 15, is unique in that you choose two of the other forms and blend their mechanics together, as well as increasing in size, as the Lifer. The Matrons resemble a cross between the chosen forms.

• Moscanite, available at level 7, changes the basic racial traits, trading the ability scores for increased Con and Dex at the expense of Cha, adding low-light vision, acid resistance, the use of acid arrow once per day as a spell-like ability and the ability to fly with a speed of 30ft. with average maneuverability a number of minutes per day equal to their level. Moscanites resemble flies or mosquitoes.

Apart from these feats, there are several others that an Entobian has access to, starting with Prepare for Metamorphosis, which basically acts as the feat Toughness until you actually metamorphose, at which point the extra hitpoints are lost and it becomes a feat-tax. The other feats include one that improves a Larvite's ability to make silk rope, even allowing its use in a limited capacity after metamorphosis. There is a feat called Glowworm that allows the Larvite to shed light from their abdomen as a free action that sounds neat at first, but as-written, the ability is lost after metamorphosing, which seems a shame for an Entobian planning on becoming a Lightseeker.

After the section on feats, the book details an Entobian-only prestige class called The Lightseeker, who are designed as fast, roguish spelunkers who double as front-line fighters. They have several good abilities, and I'd definitely be tempted to play one for mechanical and flavor reasons.

The final section consists of example stat-blocks for the Larvite, Coleophite, Eulite, Farfalite and Moscanite, all with class levels. This is a helpful section for seeing the possibilities, but it is unfortunate that there was not room for an example Matron or Lightseeker and I did notice a few mechanical errors in these stat-blocks. In the example Larvite's, the melee section says that it only has 1 natural attack instead 2. The example Coleophite has acid resistance, with no corresponding feat, special ability or class feature to explain how. The example Farfalite was missing the section pertaining to melee attacks entirely. I did not pore over them for very long, so it is possible that there are some errors I missed, but these examples are not that important to the book as a whole. I count the Larvite's as a typographical error in the Format portion of my review, but the other two are harder to categorize without speaking to the writers.

Verdict: I really enjoyed this book and highly recommend it. The metamorphosis feats add a lot of versatility to this race and all of the flavor text and great artwork drew me in, immediately making me want to introduce this race to my campaigns.