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| Reviews and Comments From Our Featured Reviewers |
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As well as encouraging customers to leave comments for products they've bought,
we have a number of featured reviewers tasked to give more detailed
opinions. Click their names to see lists of their
reviews.
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| Shane O'Connor | 333 reviews averaging a rating of 4.1 |
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As role-players, we tend to be neophiles. We are excited by that which is new and different; a new sourcebook, a new campaign setting, or even a new race are all seen as untapped possibilities which widen the pool of what we can draw on for our game and thus make it better. Alluria Publishing’s Remarkable Races: Pathway to Adventure plays right into that, with each product introducing a new race that’s markedly different in its own way. This is especially true for The Oakling, a product detailing a race of tree-people.
Usually, I like to review the technical aspects of a PDF product up front before I delve into the substance of what’s written there. In this case, I can’t help but blur the line, but I’ll get to that in a moment. Although short at thirteen pages, full bookmarks have been provided, which is nice. There is no printer-friendly version, but for a book this short it’s probably silly to have one.
It was the artwork, however, that stopped me cold. Not because it was bad –...
Rating:  [5 of 5 Stars!] |
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| | Darren MacLennan | 3 reviews averaging a rating of 2 |
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I'm normally pretty reluctant to slam the work of a single author, as is the case here; Jennifer Brozek is responsible for the entirety of Proverbial Monsters, so she gets to claim the lion's share of praise or opprobrium from its reviews. However, what she's done is essentially write a Shadowrun supplement in the New World of Darkness, two great tastes that go together under no circumstances whatsoever. (Actually, I have a profound antipathy for Shadowrun, but that's neither here nor there.) Once you realize that she's doing that, the utterly bizarre nature of the creatures, and the assumptions that surround them, become much more understandable. My original review contained a lot of sputtering and flailing and invocations of the luminescent, wabbling severed upside-down head of Bob Dylan, but I rewrote it slightly after I realized what was going on.
First off, the monsters in question aren't proverbial, but instead derive from superstition; if you violate the superstition, you inv...
Rating:  [1 of 5 Stars!] |
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| | Sean Holland | 174 reviews averaging a rating of 3.6 |
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Remarkable Races: the Obitu (Player Character Race) - Pathway to Adventure Edition is a 12-page PDF (10 after covers and OGL) for Pathfinder written by J. Matthew Kubisz and published by Alluria Publishing. This is part of Alluria’s Remarkable Races line which they have been adapting to the Pathfinder/OGL system.
The layout is in the standard clear two-column design. There are five pieces of art in support of the product, all of which is quite nice, very thematic and in full-color.
The Obitu are an unusual race, even among the other Remarkable Races of Alluria, initially created by a necromancer from his undead as a way to confound his enemies. The Obitu look like skeletons but are in fact living creatures in fact they reproduce by “infecting” undead and converting them into new Obitu. It is a unique construction of a race and rife with possibilities.
Next there are six new feats are provided to customize the Obitu. As the Obitu dislike the undead for all they originate from t...
Rating:  [4 of 5 Stars!] |
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| | Andrew Branstad | 84 reviews averaging a rating of 3.8 |
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This is a short PDF presenting a brand new monk class. Unlike the David Carridine-inspired kung-fu wanderer in the Player's Handbook, this class is based on the western ascetic commonly associated with Christian monastic orders. In the intro, the author makes a fairly good case for adding a class like this to the D&D game. Clerics, the author points out, are focused on a wide range of abilities beyond divine magic. There is room, then, for a focused divine caster with a set of abilities more befitting a religious scholar.
The monk class is a weaker fighter than the cleric, with fewer hit points and only one good save. I was disappointed to note that his skill list and skill points are identical to the cleric's, making the monk no more scholarly or learned than clerics. Throw in Turn Undead, access to cleric domains, and the ability to spontaneously cast healing spells, and I'm starting to wonder the point in playing a monk at all.
Eventually, the monk gains access to a unique...
Rating:  [2 of 5 Stars!] |
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| | Megan Robertson | 371 reviews averaging a rating of 4.2 |
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In the Introduction, the author remarks that the ruleset herein presented was written to meet the needs of the convention-going wargamer, for whom a typical complex set of wargame rules is too complex to learn from scratch during a single convention game. So he set out to write some rules that were simple to pick up quickly, yet still managed to reflect the style of warfare of the American Civil War period. This is followed by notes on the requirements for running the game, assuming standard 15mm miniatures are to be used.
Next comes an overview of the way American Civil War armies were organised - although similar there are minor variations between Union and Confederate forces. Naturally an enthusiast for the period will have more detailed information to hand, but for someone who just wants to try out an ACW skirmish or two, this does fine. This moves on to more arbitrary ways of measuring the 'quality' of a given group by means of assigning a 'morale class' to them. This gets slig...
Rating: [4 of 5 Stars!] |
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| | Joe Kushner | 13 reviews averaging a rating of 4.2 |
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To my perception, one of the biggest hits among Game Masters, is a big old book of monsters. When Chaosium had opportunity under the OGL and their deal with Wizards of the Coast, who produced a full color Call of Cthulhu d20 hardcover, to make a Monster Mallus for 3.0/3.5 and didn’t take it, I thought it a massive lost opportunity. Game Masters of the Dungeons and Dragons game want to bring in elements of the Cthulhu mythos. Paizo and Green Ronin, along with others, have been tweaking the material that’s open for years. This doesn’t count the various homage such as WoTC’s own Far Realm and various critters from the beginning like Mind Flayers.
For me personally, this is a great product in that I’ve been waiting for more material in this vein for a long time. While the old 3.0 hardcover from WoTC was nice, it’s great to have this material in 4th ed. Between the original Deities and Demigods, which was essentially useable with 1st and 2nd edition, this means we’ve got eldritch goodne...
Rating: [5 of 5 Stars!] |
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| | Jason Corley | 89 reviews averaging a rating of 4 |
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When I saw this come across the site, I blinked at it. "Did someone actually write the fictional RPG that B.A. Felton did in Knights of the Dinner Table?" I asked. The answer is yes, yes they did. And, perhaps surprisingly, it's quite good!
First, let's get something out of the way: this is absolutely, positively NOT a parody game. It's humorous, with all sorts of dog- and pet-related humor, but the humor isn't parodying roleplaying games at all. This is a real game. It is really meant to be played, for real, no takesy-backsies.
In this game, as you can see from the description, the players take on the roles of dogs. Each dog has several statistics describing their strength, fighting ability and ability to influence humans and other animals. The system is a simple roll-over percentile system for most tests. You also have "Tricks", special doglike activities that give you particular abilities (such as shaking a smaller opponent like a ragdoll in your jaws). Combat also follows th...
Rating: [4 of 5 Stars!] |
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| | Jeff Greiner | 3 reviews averaging a rating of 4 |
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This is an interesting concept that with this implementation I would definitely allow into my game for players, but not something I'm likely to highlight as a key point in my game setting.
The mechanics seem balanced, but don't expect a new class with a slew of new powers. What you do get is a bunch of new items, a reskinned Ranger that is a little bit awkward of a solution, but a workable one, and a new warlock pact.
All in all, a good product that is easily worth the price if you're interested in tossing elementally charged cards around your game.
Of note: This was a Pick of the Episode on The Tome Show and you can hear more about it here http://thetome.podbean.com/2009/09/13/the-tome-ep-115-halfli-
ng-cleric-and-pacing/...
Rating: [4 of 5 Stars!] |
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| | Edward Healy | 4 reviews averaging a rating of 2 |
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NOTE: This review tackles both the Judge and the Player map products.
The Southern Reaches map is part 18 of the Wilderlands of High Adventure series. There are actually two maps, sold separately - one for the Judge and one for the Player.
The Judge map is decent. It is detailed enough that a campaign could be set wholly within the Southern Reaches. The abundance of natural boundaries makes dividing up the region into geo-political units an easy task. However, for $3.00 I wish they'd included the Player map, instead of forcing one to purchase it for an additional $1.00.
There are a fair number of large towns on the map, leading me to believe that it is a densely populated area. Furthermore, the proliferation of citadels tells me that it's not a very peaceful region. I could be wrong, of course, since I have not read the optional campaign material available for use with the maps. Regardless, for $3.00 there is enough here to be worth the price.
The Player map is... lacking. ...
Rating: [1 of 5 Stars!] |
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| | Peter Ingham | 241 reviews averaging a rating of 3.8 |
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Everybody loves a good monster, and everybody loves a challenging and exciting battle where fortunes sway back and forth until through sheer brilliance the PCs finally prevail. And one of the beauties of RPGs in general is that there is infinite choice in battle - you can use a variety of tactics, you have a variety of combat and magical options, you have terrain to exploit and you can even run away. Essentially, a good battle and a good monster will allow you to dabble in all these aspects of combat, where each round is different from the last. I mention this because The Hero's Bastard deals with a new monster that effectively takes one of those listed options away - the option to run. When dealing with the The Hero's Bastard, or Morekareth, it's not fight or flight, but just fight. And that changes the ball game quite a bit.
The Hero's Bastard is a short 8 page pdf product presenting a new monster for the Pathfinder RPG. The product comes as a single pdf file, and is professionall...
Rating: [4 of 5 Stars!] |
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| | Ron McClung | 30 reviews averaging a rating of 4.2 |
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CthulhuTech
By Ron McClung
Catalyst Game Labs in conjunction with Wildfire LLC and Black Sky Studios have released a twisted vision of a dark future, combining anime-style mecha with the Cthulhu mythos. This stand-alone roleplaying game uses the Framewerk system and is contained in a full-color hardcover book with amazing art and a compelling premise.
The game’s story is deep-seated in Cthulhu mythos and mixes it with world politics and sci-fi technology to create a world of amazing potential. Set in the year 2085, Earth as we know has changed. Since the discovery of arcanotechnology and the creation of the first mecha, global war engulfs the planet. Man’s expansion into space has attracted the attention of aliens called the Migou. Evil cults plot against the world government, summoning creatures from beyond. Mecha war machines walk the Earth battling the alien and cult forces.
Players take on roles of people in a war-torn Earth surviving under the New Earth Government (NEG),...
Rating: [5 of 5 Stars!] |
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| | Nathan Collins | 239 reviews averaging a rating of 3.8 |
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After eagerly reading through Feats 101 this morning, I wanted to send it to other publishers who are making books of Feats to show them how it is done. Feats 101 is a true feats supplement for the Pathfinder System. The 30 page supplement is neatly filled with 101 feats to enhance your characters. It is the best book of feats released for the system so far.
Feats 101, written by Steven D. Russell and published by Rite Publishing, is delicately laid out. A feat table precedes the feat listing, listing the feats in alphabetical order, with exception for feat chains, which are listed with their preceding feat. The table is written very concisely. Whereas many feat books attempt to save space by briefly, and often inaccurately, posting a blurb description of the feat in such a table, Feats 101 goes the extra mile of including at least a two sentence explanation of the feat function. Not to be outdone, the layout also includes useful bookmarks that allow the reader to navigate by alphab...
Rating: [5 of 5 Stars!] |
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| | Shannon Appelcline | 1 reviews averaging a rating of 3 |
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Does it job. Not particularly exciting, but if you want a nice lizardfolk tribe, this is the resource to buy.
Rating:  [3 of 5 Stars!] |
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| | Nathan Russell | 3 reviews averaging a rating of 3.7 |
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The first four pages of this product are just the cover and images of "assembled" figures, kind of redundant. Once you get past these, however, you get 6 different kind of skeletal undead, including a chariot and dragon (just like the cover shows). They are attractive and nicely represent the figures - they kind of remind my of "old school" undead, I can't put my finger on exactly what it is that does this, they just do. The mounting system is neat, giving you a nice big base that helps the figure stand up. There is, however, a lot of white space around the figures (between legs, bows, boney protusions) which is a real pain to cut out - which means it is either time consuming to assemble, or you are left with big white spaces. It might be nice if in future sets Cerberus offers "plain" figures with the white space and then the same figure with some kind of background to save some fiddling!...
Rating: [3 of 5 Stars!] |
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| | C.M. Brendelson | 2 reviews averaging a rating of 4 |
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In almost every RPG created, gamers can’t get enough of two things: classes (or class-like options) and races. For my first staff review, I took a look at a new race supplement by a small indie publisher, so this week I thought it’d be fitting to explore a class that’s been integrated into the 4e products. I found that class in One Bad Egg’s witch doctor.
For those of you that aren’t familiar with the 4th Edition of Dungeons and Dragons, the classes are separated into four different types: Controller, Striker, Defender and Leader. Unfortunately the original D&D Player’s Handbook only included one of the Controller type (the wizard) and so larger gaming groups had to either settle for two wizards in their campaign or players had to look elsewhere to find another Controller to add to their party.
One Bad Egg’s witch doctor fits perfectly into that Controller type, but stands apart from WotC’s Wizard in a number of unique ways. First off, the Witch Doctor uses two implements that ...
Rating: [4 of 5 Stars!] |
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| | Flames Rising | 15 reviews averaging a rating of 3.9 |
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A Flames Rising Review:
First, let’s talk about what the four files are in this PDF package. The main file is the game itself, a fourteen page set-up to a story about a forgotten Hollywood set. The second file is a nine page primer for new players. Third is thirty-eight pages of character sheets. The fourth and final file is ten pages of reference sheets. Considering that the new player primer and reference sheets may have to be printed multiple times, storytellers may want to charge admission to this game to off-set printing costs. Yep, I’m still seeing no printer friendly options despite all my “helpful” suggestions with my reviews.
I find the story intriguing because it taps upon a time in Hollywood when it was still fascinating. Many of the Kindred feel the same way, ushering in the story. The thirty plus characters in this adventure (a social/mental adventure with next to no physical altercations) are a properly conceived and diverse mix of film makers, lawyers, criminals, v...
Rating: [4 of 5 Stars!] |
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| | Mark Meredith | 4 reviews averaging a rating of 4.5 |
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Kobold Quarterly has been around for a while now, having just reached the double digits (congrats, guys!) and their magazine keeps getting better.
They’ve recently expanded the length of the magazine to account for more 4e material, which, as a 4e player, I really appreciate. They make it obvious that they won’t be reducing their 3e material, but expanding on their 4e (and most likely more Pathfinder as well).
Now, just because I’m a 4e player doesn’t mean I don’t care about things like Pathfinder, so I was pleased to see them put a preview of the new game right near the front of the magazine. In the sneak preview, they talk about what’s changed from 3.5 to 3.75, and more importantly, what’s stayed the same. Also, there is a new Prestige Class, the Shadowdancer, a group who strikes from the darkness.
There’s a fantastic article by Michael Brewer, Quinn Murphy and Jonathan Jacobs about Skill Challenges called “Swords Against Darkness”, which includes a few very cool skill chall...
Rating: [5 of 5 Stars!] |
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| | will wong | 2 reviews averaging a rating of 1 |
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Download wasn't a PDF, it was several HDC files which Seem to require hero designer to open.
Rating: [1 of 5 Stars!] |
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| | Stu Venable | 1 reviews averaging a rating of 5 |
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I just read about half of Kobold Quarterly #11, and I have to say, I'm blown away -- this is probably the best RPG periodical I've ever read.
And I do not say this lightly: I've been playing RPGs since 1978, I've purchased and/or subscribed to more RPG mags than I can count (I even wrote an article for Steve Jackson's old Roleplayer). Your magazine has surpassed the quality -- in editorial and artwork -- of any magazine I've read.
We've posted a review on our podcast, Happy Jack's RPG Podcast at http://www.happyjacks.org/?p=269 (the show is NSFW)....
Rating: [5 of 5 Stars!] |
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