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The World of Aruneus - Orcs! A Player Character Expansion [PFRPG]

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Average Rating:3.6 / 5
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The World of Aruneus - Orcs! A Player Character Expansion [PFRPG]
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The World of Aruneus - Orcs! A Player Character Expansion [PFRPG]
Publisher: Troll in the Corner
by Ron T. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 06/18/2010 11:29:13

I very much enjoyed this expansion to the Pathfinder universe.

We tend to think of orcs as unsophisticated SOBs who exist as barbaric, drooling, blood thirsty curs. Here's a new player character race expansion that paints orcs more like steppe tribes from the late 14th century.

These orcs have a history, a society that can be easily integrated into a current campaign and they introduce a player character race that in my mind lends more to role playing and less to some overpowered, over-tweaked new half dragon/half merman conglomerate.

A previous reviewer stated that the prestige class available here, the War Leader lent more to roleplaying as well. I couldn't agree more. Here's a prestige class that essentially lets the player character lead an entire clan of orcs. That is, if the GM allows it and if they can fight, finagle and politic their way up the chain.

Some may look at it and think it an underpowered prestige class but I do not. It's a class a GM could base an entire campaign around.

The creatures included are a mixed bag. The Hram is interesting as an addition to the descriptive narrative but as a whole new species of horse may be unnecessary. The Penumbral Atavus is a wonderful creature that ties in with the War Leader prestige class and again offers more RP choices.

The inclusion of NPCs is a good thing. It gives us a few pre-made orcs and also shows what even a low level War Leader is capable of.

The magical items add a bit of flavor and are nice to have but I would have been just as happy with this expansion if they were not included.



Rating:
[4 of 5 Stars!]
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The World of Aruneus - Orcs! A Player Character Expansion [PFRPG]
Publisher: Troll in the Corner
by Jen P. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 06/14/2010 11:16:32

I got hooked on the Arunues world last week. I've been waiting for the orcs to arrive so I could start a campaign in the world with my group of five players, one of them is planning on playing an orc.

I'm not at all disappoint in this addition! The Orcs are great - slightly more powerful than a half orc as far as character generation goes, which is as it should be.

What really makes this shine is the background on the orcs. I have a motivation for my Orc PC now and the whole orcish culture to fall back on. I love the image of orcs as sort of Mongols of the northern reaches.

The Prestige class included in this is subtly powerful. There isn't any overt magic or overpowering abilities. What you do get is a role playing opportunity to have an orc player character who is also a leader of men. Well, leader of orcs. I like this - it's different enough from the included core prestige classes to make it worth playing.

The npcs are a nice touch. Easy to use, pre-packaged orcs. I wish more expansions would do this.

The Hram horse is okay - nothing special as far as beasts go but necessary to the back story of the orcs.

The Penumbral Atavus is one of my favourite parts of this whole expansion. I'm certainly going to use this in my campaign!

The magical items are okay - again nothing special, perhaps added as an afterthought?

I've given this four out of five stars for two reasons. The magical items are okay but not great. The artwork is again, okay but not great.

The price is good for getting a lot of information you can plonk right into your game and run with. A new race, a new prestige class, npcs, beasts, and pages of background and culture. Certainly a useful addition to my Pathfinder game.



Rating:
[4 of 5 Stars!]
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The World of Aruneus - Orcs! A Player Character Expansion [PFRPG]
Publisher: Troll in the Corner
by erathoniel w. [Featured Reviewer]
Date Added: 06/13/2010 21:56:45

The nice thing about this is that it is very good on flavor. You do not just have orcs out of nowhere, they have a history, political structure, et cetera. I am more familiar with d20 than Pathfinder, so I can't really tell this for sure, but it does seem a mite unbalanced on the favor of orcs.

The art is decent, though nothing outstanding, it gets the point across and illustrates concepts. However, the bit of photoshopper in me would request that in the future, images with a white background should be cut out and down to size. It also seems one image was used multiple times, though it is not the only image.

All in all? Good flavor, good stuff, potentially unbalanced. But, it's cheap, and if you need something for a campaign (in this setting or not), this will do well.



Rating:
[4 of 5 Stars!]
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