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#30 Rings of Defense (PFRPG) $2.95
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#30 Rings of Defense (PFRPG)
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#30 Rings of Defense (PFRPG)
Publisher: Rite Publishing
by Jason C. [Featured Reviewer]
Date Added: 07/21/2012 23:42:21

This is a collection of rings for Pathfinder/D&D3.*, so this review already assumes that you want one of those.

As advertised, this is 30 different magic rings, aimed primarily at defensive applications. They have a great deal of diversity and flavor, with solid mechanical descriptions of each of them. They vary from rings that project protective auras to allies, to those that deflect or absorb particular sorts of magic attacks. The mechanics are (for the most part) well integrated into the Pathfinder/D&D system, and are based on already-existing magic items. This is good because it means that the mechanics are not going to alter the balance of your game too dramatically.

An early designer's note gives the one example of mechanical deviation, but it's a bit of a doozy. The note indicates that fixed-DC magic items are difficult to balance at different character levels, and therefore these rings become more powerful as the user rises in level. This dramatically increases the power of the rings - and for casters, the increase is even more dramatic. One thing that D&D3 doesn't need is more powerful/versatile spellcasters. The drain on resources in creating level-appropriate magical rings is an important part of balancing that system. Because of this, several of the rings have costs or effects that are out of proportion. Characters at different levels are supposed to wear different rings! I have to mark it down one star for this.

The rings are indexed alphabetically, and bookmarked alphabetically, and I can't think of a better way off the top of my head to do it. A table in the front allows GMs to roll randomly for a ring, which is great, and oft-overlooked in treasure books.

So speaking generally, this is a good starting point for rings, but the mechanical changes in some of them make it so that you need to pay close attention to what you're using. Give it a go, it's a solid work, just be sure that you know what kind of mechanics you're introducing into your game.

I almost forgot, the work comes with a printer-friendly version, which has no graphics. This is a welcome addition. Weirdly the printer friendly version has no bookmarks. I would almost suggest that the printer friendly version, if it's meant to be printed for handouts, should instead focus on making item cards for the rings, so descriptions are not split between two pages.



Rating:
[3 of 5 Stars!]
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#30 Rings of Defense (PFRPG)
Publisher: Rite Publishing
by William W. [Featured Reviewer]
Date Added: 03/01/2012 14:30:47

Another great collection from Rite Publishing - 30 new magic rings for Pathfinder, plus a table for randomly choosing from them. All are presented in standard magic item format, and each includes a brief description of the ring's appearance. A few bits of fantasy art are scattered about, and the doc is fully bookmarked and searchable. Well worth the price if you'd like to expand your magic item selection in Pathfinder.



Rating:
[4 of 5 Stars!]
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#30 Rings of Defense (PFRPG)
Publisher: Rite Publishing
by Megan R. [Featured Reviewer]
Date Added: 03/27/2011 10:29:33

This magnificent book of bling dives straight in with a table listing the rings available herein, including cost and random rolls to allow them to be chosen as minor, medium or major treasure items. A side note mentions that if spells from either the Pathfinder Advanced Player's Guide or Rite Publishing's 101 Spells series is used in a ring's creation, enough information is supplied here so that you don't need to rush out and buy that book just so as to be able to craft the ring you want!

So, straight on then to an alphabetical listing of the rings. Each follows a standard layout that makes it easy to find the information you want, starting with what aura is discernable and the ring's CL. Other technical information includes cost to make as well as a purchase price/value, the slot it occupies in use and weight (negligable); and the other requirements - feats and spells - to make one for yourself. The body of the text describes both what the ring looks like and what it does - both as an 'in character' account of what you'll experience when its activated and in game mechanical terms.

There's quite an intriguing range of rings, mostly with powers that will come in useful during combat. Others are quite wierd - a ring of foul flavour makes your flesh taste so bad that any opponent with a bite attack really, really doesn't want to bite you twice - but at the cost of wearing a ring that looks (and smells) like it's made of rotten meat! And of course, you have get bitten once for the creature to realise just how nasty you taste. The ring of retaliation is possibly more satisfying, if anyone attacks you whilst you are wearing it, you promptly get an attack of opportunity against whoever had the temerity to hit you.

As well as being handy when you decide that there's going to be a ring in your next treasure hoard, these rings may perhaps be the talk in local arcane circles leading a character to seek to purchase or make one (or have it made for him), some might prove suitable rewards for a high-ranking cleric or noble to bestow on a worthy follower... and there's enough displayed on how they've been put together that should you have a different effect that you'd like in a ring, it ought not to be too difficult to make it so.



Rating:
[4 of 5 Stars!]
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Creator Reply:
I wanted to thank Megan Robertson for taking the time to do a review of our product.
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#30 Rings of Defense (PFRPG)
Publisher: Rite Publishing
by Thilo G. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 01/03/2011 12:28:25

This pdf is 12 pages long, 1 page front cover, 1 page editorial, 2 pages ads and 1 page SRD, leaving 7 pages of content.

The first page lists the rings in a huge table, complete with old-school 1d%-rolls and prices - a nice nod for grognards. The rings range from 400GP to 120.000 GP.

After that, we get the magical rings. Before going into details or examples, I'd like to mention a clever, elegant design decision: The problem of fixed DCs of abilities in circumvented in several of the rings abilities, by using the formula DC 10 + 1/2 HD of user + Cha-mod (or 1/2 Cha-mod). I really like this solution, as it keeps the rings interesting for a broader scope of levels and fights the trend to use Charisma as the dump-stat. The rings are presented with a fluff text, Price, Construction requirements etc. -Ring of Adjournment: Deny attacks of opportunity -Ring of Aegis: Deflection bonus in combat plus miss chance for ranged attacks -Ring of Allied Protection: Deflection bonus, can be extended to allies -Ring of Armored Charity: Two rings, bearers can transfer individual armor class bonuses -Ring of Blood's Shield: Save you from bleeding, stabilizes you -Ring of Condemnation: Denies effects of desecration for undead, damages undead, aberrations and outsiders -Ring of Divine Defiance: Protection from alignment-based attacks -Ring of Determination: Ignore detrimental conditions for a time, but can't be healed -Ring of Evil's Embrace: Gives demonic DR -Ring of Exorcism: Dispel Magic Jar -Ring of Forbearance: Grants DR/magic -Ring of Foul Flavor: Keeps biting enemies away -Ring of Guiding Light: Know about negative conditions of a person -Ring of Heroic Sacrifice: Ward an ally and take his/her damage -Ring of Hidden Echoes: Hides wearer from blindsight, tremorsense etc. -Ring of Life's Embrace: Sacred bonuses on AC and saves, minor damage to Undead at dismissal -Ring of Life's Grace: Retry a save against a negative condition -Ring of Preservation: Deflection Bonus -Ring of the Protected Flanks: Cannot be flanked for a limited amount of time -Ring of Random Reflections: Distort reality to deflect ranged attacks, spells etc. at allies/enemies a select number of times -Ring of Retaliation: Gain an AaO if hit by a melee attack a select number of times per day -Ring of Righteous Allies: Know the conditions of allies, grant bonus to allies in 20 ft. radius -Ring of Safeguards: Deflection bonus, can be doubled for a short time -Ring of Scent's bane: Thwart scent ability -Ring of Spellguards: Absorb spells -Ring of Spell's Spike: Cripple enemy casters -Ring of Supernatural Shielding: Bonus against supernatural effects -Ring of Thief-taking: Bonus against disguise and sleight of hand -Ring of Truth's Touch: Dispel illusions -Ring of Winter's Embrace: Deflection bonus and fire resistance. Many of the rings have several incarnations, lesser and greater ones.

Conclusion: This file is exceedingly hard to rate for me, as I have unfortunately already reviewed the sequel, 30 unique magical blades. 30 rings of defense is more printer-friendly than the 30 blades, being b/w and using mostly art recycled from other RiP-products. I like that rings get some love, but I do miss unique pieces of artwork for the rings - yes, I realize, I've been spoiled by the good sequel. I didn't notice any obvious editing or formatting glitches. That being said, some of the rings I found interesting, some of them did not impress me, for me the file was hit-and-miss. Especially due to one fact: I loved the unique stories in the sequel and would have loved to see more fluff for the rings to bring them better to life in the game. That being said, I LOVE the design decision with the scaling DCs of many of the ring abilities. In any case, you get a lot of rings for a few bucks - with the lesser and greater variants and the +1 to +5 range, you actually get 99 rings. Due to the amount of content and this elegant design decision, I'll settle for a solid 3 stars - add one if you're especially into the crunchy side of magic items.



Rating:
[3 of 5 Stars!]
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#30 Rings of Defense (PFRPG)
Publisher: Rite Publishing
by Thilo G. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 01/03/2011 12:28:25

This pdf is 12 pages long, 1 page front cover, 1 page editorial, 2 pages ads and 1 page SRD, leaving 7 pages of content.

The first page lists the rings in a huge table, complete with old-school 1d%-rolls and prices - a nice nod for grognards. The rings range from 400GP to 120.000 GP.

After that, we get the magical rings. Before going into details or examples, I'd like to mention a clever, elegant design decision: The problem of fixed DCs of abilities in circumvented in several of the rings abilities, by using the formula DC 10 + 1/2 HD of user + Cha-mod (or 1/2 Cha-mod). I really like this solution, as it keeps the rings interesting for a broader scope of levels and fights the trend to use Charisma as the dump-stat. The rings are presented with a fluff text, Price, Construction requirements etc. -Ring of Adjournment: Deny attacks of opportunity -Ring of Aegis: Deflection bonus in combat plus miss chance for ranged attacks -Ring of Allied Protection: Deflection bonus, can be extended to allies -Ring of Armored Charity: Two rings, bearers can transfer individual armor class bonuses -Ring of Blood's Shield: Save you from bleeding, stabilizes you -Ring of Condemnation: Denies effects of desecration for undead, damages undead, aberrations and outsiders -Ring of Divine Defiance: Protection from alignment-based attacks -Ring of Determination: Ignore detrimental conditions for a time, but can't be healed -Ring of Evil's Embrace: Gives demonic DR -Ring of Exorcism: Dispel Magic Jar -Ring of Forbearance: Grants DR/magic -Ring of Foul Flavor: Keeps biting enemies away -Ring of Guiding Light: Know about negative conditions of a person -Ring of Heroic Sacrifice: Ward an ally and take his/her damage -Ring of Hidden Echoes: Hides wearer from blindsight, tremorsense etc. -Ring of Life's Embrace: Sacred bonuses on AC and saves, minor damage to Undead at dismissal -Ring of Life's Grace: Retry a save against a negative condition -Ring of Preservation: Deflection Bonus -Ring of the Protected Flanks: Cannot be flanked for a limited amount of time -Ring of Random Reflections: Distort reality to deflect ranged attacks, spells etc. at allies/enemies a select number of times -Ring of Retaliation: Gain an AaO if hit by a melee attack a select number of times per day -Ring of Righteous Allies: Know the conditions of allies, grant bonus to allies in 20 ft. radius -Ring of Safeguards: Deflection bonus, can be doubled for a short time -Ring of Scent's bane: Thwart scent ability -Ring of Spellguards: Absorb spells -Ring of Spell's Spike: Cripple enemy casters -Ring of Supernatural Shielding: Bonus against supernatural effects -Ring of Thief-taking: Bonus against disguise and sleight of hand -Ring of Truth's Touch: Dispel illusions -Ring of Winter's Embrace: Deflection bonus and fire resistance. Many of the rings have several incarnations, lesser and greater ones.

Conclusion: This file is exceedingly hard to rate for me, as I have unfortunately already reviewed the sequel, 30 unique magical blades. 30 rings of defense is more printer-friendly than the 30 blades, being b/w and using mostly art recycled from other RiP-products. I like that rings get some love, but I do miss unique pieces of artwork for the rings - yes, I realize, I've been spoiled by the good sequel. I didn't notice any obvious editing or formatting glitches. That being said, some of the rings I found interesting, some of them did not impress me, for me the file was hit-and-miss. Especially due to one fact: I loved the unique stories in the sequel and would have loved to see more fluff for the rings to bring them better to life in the game. That being said, I LOVE the design decision with the scaling DCs of many of the ring abilities. In any case, you get a lot of rings for a few bucks - with the lesser and greater variants and the +1 to +5 range, you actually get 99 rings. Due to the amount of content and this elegant design decision, I'll settle for a solid 3 stars - add one if you're especially into the crunchy side of magic items.



Rating:
[3 of 5 Stars!]
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#30 Rings of Defense (PFRPG)
Publisher: Rite Publishing
by Shotgun G. [Featured Reviewer]
Date Added: 10/08/2010 04:22:57

Tired of the same magical rings of protection? Then this is perhaps the suppliment you need.

30 new and improved rings, each with unique abilities to help not just the individual; but also the whole party. With a tabled list of all the rings, it provides a great resource for GM's to give unique items to their players.

From the minor Ring of Foul Flavour (makes bite attacks taste horrid) to the powerful Ring of Heroic Sacrifice (damage transfer). Also each ring can be easily adapted to make it more or less powerful; depending the GM's need. From minor to major, each infuses the item with great durations or uses per day.

All of the items have detailed descriptions of what the rings look like, abilities and special rules (like X times/day); it will add a different kind of flavour to the game.



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
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