Positives first. The cover art is truly beautiful and the material is well-presented within.

That aside, however, this is certainly NOT worth the money. There are very few, poorly balanced new feats within this book. Many others are slightly reworded variations of feats from earlier editions of the game. It brings nothing new to the game at all and is certainly not worth even the discounted cost of $8 for these 31 pages. Actually, it's 27 pages in VERY LARGE TYPE. Front and back cover, title page, and leagal document I do not count. The print is huge to disguise the lack of content on these few pages, and what content there is is worthless. You could easily go to a website like Tenkar's Tavern, spend a few minutes talking to folks in their forums, and find FREE resources more in-depth and valuable than this.

Save your money for other, more worthwhile purchases on this site, please.

An Endzeitgeist.com review

This installment of the Feats of Legend-series clocks in at 9 pages, 1 page front cover, 1 page editorial, 1 page SRD, leaving us with 6 pages of content, so let's take a look!

The pdf begins with a handy table that sums prerequisites and feats for your convenience and then goes on to present the individual feats, so let's take a look!

-Angelic Reputation: An achievement feat, needs to have caused fear in evil outsiders; increases DC of fear spells and effect by +2 versus evil outsiders; also nets a massive +5 bonus to intimidate said foes. On the nitpicky side: "In addition, the duration of the shaken condition is increased by 1 round." is slightly less precise than I'd like it to be - it's obvious, this refers to demoralize, but RAW it extends to all shaken condition-causing effects.

-August general of Heaven: This story feat allows you to, as a swift action pronounce a challenge versus an evil outsider, gaining +1 to atk and AC. If the foe or you are attacked during this challenge, you take a -2 penalty to AC and atk for 1 round. This ability can be used at-ill, but only once in 24 hours versus a given foe. As an interesting goal, this feat requires you to defeat good outsiders in nonlethal challenges - which is pretty cool, though an actual number of HD and encounters you need to beat would have been nice. "an appropriate number" does not really help here. Upon making the goal, you get a celestial cohort with leadership score of +2 for determining the cohort's level. Apart from the minor hiccup, an evocative, interesting feat that is a great way to have good guys fight good creatures for once, without jeopardizing alignment.

-Blood of the Fold: +4 to Knowledge-checks to identify good or evil extraplanar creatures and entities; +6 if you have 10+ ranks in the appropriate knowledge skill. You can qualify for this via Eldritch Heritage and the celestial bloodline.

-Celestial Pushback: Evil creatures failing to save versus your channel energy are subject to Bull Rush, with CMB equal to cleric level + Cha-mod. This does sound very powerful, looks broken, but is actually less useful than you'd think: The good alignment means that the creature with this feat will be channeling positive energy, which makes this, via vanilla channeling, only useful versus undead...which seems appropriate. Granted, variant channeling still works, but the okay CMB-scaling still retains this as a feasible feat that's better crafted than you'd expect when first reading it. (Though low-power groups using variant channeling may want to be careful with it.)

-Choir of the Host: Cha-mod allies influenced by Inspire Greatness gain the ability to overcome, interestingly, DR/evil, making them more potent when fighting celestials....which, according to the feat's fluff, was NOT the intent - this should be able to grant the option to bypass DR/good. sigh

-Demon Hunter:1/day, gain +2 to a single attack, saving throw or SR-check versus a demon or known servant of such an entity. AT 10+ HD, this bonus scales up to +4. This is also a story-feat, though it is not properly tagged as such. To make the goal, you have to slay a named demon with HD equal to or greater than your own. The completion benefit is significant: Whenever you deal damage to a demon with a targeted spell or attack, you get a free demoralize attempt that ignores fear immunity. "targeted" should imho be replaces with "single target", since you can otherwise cause free action AoE demoralize attempts...potentially, depending on how you handle free action limitations per round. Other than that, a cool one.

-Dimming the Light: Gain +2 to saves versus Ex and Su abilities of good outsiders in addition to your favored enemy bonuses. Okay.

-Divine Aura: This feat, based on Alignment Channel (evil), adds demoralize to channel vs. evil outsiders; allows you to exchange four rounds of shaken for 1 round of frightened. Solid!

-Fiend Foe: +2 to atk vs. evil outsiders. Boring.

-Find the Conduit: Add +1/2 your level to all healing you dish out. Does not apply to items used/created.

-Fires of Heaven: Spells with the fire descriptor you cast ignore 5 points of fire resistance. Odd: Does not extend to SPs...particularly since the infernal feat applied the bonus to SPs.

-Friends in High Places: 1/day add the celestial template to any neutral or good-aligned creature on the Summon Monster spell list. Works interestingly with skeletons from Skeleton Summoner, if the creature is neutral or good.

-Heaven Sent: Requires having died before. Makes you immune to fear. Basically a reskin of the revenant-feat from the installment of Undead feats. Makes me sad that such a brief book features it.

-Heavenly Weapon: When activating the bane class ability, you receive an archon's aura of menace supernatural ability.

-Holy Warrior: If you wear your patron's symbol on armor or shield, you get +1 sacred bonus to AC (+2 if both armor and shield feature the symbol). Alternatively, you get +1 to atk when featuring the symbol on your weapon, +2 when using 2 such weapons. You either choose offensive or defensive options when taking this feat; you may take it twice to get both bonuses.

-Strengthened Aura: 1/day as an immediate action, make your Aura of Good class feature duplicate circle of protection against evil (Sic! - shouldn't that be Magic Circle against Evil?) for 1 round per level of the class that grants the aura of good.

-Strong-Willed: +4 to saves versus charm- and compulsion-effects.

-Sword of Heaven: +2 to damage versus evil outsiders. Any weapon you wield (including unarmed and natural attacks) is considered to be good aligned for purpose of overcoming DR. This does not overcome weapons with the evil descriptor and they remain evil. Can eb qualified for via Edlritch Heritage and celestial bloodline.

-Voice of Angels: While under the influence of your Inspire Courage, affected allies get +2 to intimidate checks and +2 to Will-saves versus evil outsiders and undead.

-Heavenly Mandate: When using inspire competence, he may force one target to tell the truth, duplicating basically a single-target zone of truth, that requires the target to hear him. Evocative and well-executed!

Conclusion:

Editing and formatting is much more refined than in the last book - while there are some hiccups here, they boil down to minor glitches. Layout adheres to a clean white background with blue headers. The full-color art of the angel on the cover is reproduced inside and is nice. The pdf comes fully bookmarked, which is nice to see.

Neal Litherland, Simon Muñoz and Brian Berg have crafted a collection of feats in this pdf that can definitely be considered high-concept. While, unfortunately, there are some glitches that detract from some of these feats, sometimes even on a rules-level, the matter of fact remains that there are some evocative pieces herein. While this pdf does offer some filler, it's not much. Better than the previous pdf, this is a nice, if not perfect collection. Hence, my final verdict will clock in at 3.5 stars, rounded up to 4 for the nice concepts and ideas herein.

Endzeitgeist out.

An Endzeitgeist.com review

This installment of the Feats of Legend-series clocks in at 7 pages, 1 page front cover, 1 page editorial, 1 page SRD, leaving us with 4 pages of content, so let's take a look!

This pdf begins with a handy table that sums up the feats with prereqs etc. and then dives straight into the feats, so what do they do?

-Boneyard Born: +1 DC for necromancy spells, +1 to all saves versus necromancy or death effects, can be qualified for via eldritch heritage and the undead bloodline. Odd, nonstandard formatting: A feat referred is italicized, something the pdf, confusingly continues to do.

-Dark Conduit: Adds your Con-mod to Cha-mod to determine the amount of healing you receive from any negative energy. I think this feat is a bit odd, to say the least - You don't add Cha-mod to healing. UNLESS you're talking about channel energy...but this feat extends to ALL types of negative energy, which includes spells and effects that do NOT add Cha-mod to the healing. Beyond the somewhat wonky 2-attributes-modifier to one effect (somewhat mitigated by the rarity of negative energy healed beings with both Cha and Con-score), the feat is odd and confusing, to say the least. Not gonna come near my table.

-Improved Dark Conduit: Resistance 5 vs. positive energy - quite cool, since we usually don't see the like.

-Greater Dark Conduit: Whenever you kill a creature, you gain fast healing 2 for Charisma modifier rounds. (Charisma is not properly capitalized, as an editing nitpick.) Subsequent killings reset the timer. NOt a fan, since this can be kitten-cheesed for infinite healing, when a generous daily cap, HDx2+Cha-mod, for example, would have prevented basically infinite healing.

-Deathless Determination: You gain Resist Level Drain and auto-remove them after 24 hours. The prereqs of an undead bloodline and Diehard justifies the power of this feat. (And yes, again, you can qualify for this via Eldritch Heritage.)

-False Unlife: +10 to Disguise to seem undead, but you detect as evil undead of your HD when seen via detect evil. Interesting!

-Grave-Touched: +4 to Fort-saves vs. poisons. Can be taken via aforementioned Eldritch Heritage/undead bloodline-combo.

-Improved Grave-Touched: +4 to Fort-saves versus diseases, save versus poisons increases to +6. Can be taken via aforementioned Eldritch Heritage/undead bloodline-combo...which is odd, since the alternate prereqs imply that just having Edlritch Bloodline and an undead bloodline allows for the bypassing of the previous, non-improved iteration of the feat. Here, the special-line actually detracts from the functionality of the feat, since simply basing it on the initial feat would have done the job sans ambiguity.

-Greater Grave-Touched: Save-bonus versus diseases changes to +6, you gain immunity to undead-spread diseases like mummy rot as well as immunity to poisons. Again, this ´can be taken via aforementioned Eldritch Heritage/undead bloodline-combo...which is odd, since the alternate prereqs imply that just having Edlritch Bloodline and an undead bloodline allows for the bypassing of the previous, non-greater iteration of the feat.

-Scholar of Undeath: +5 to all lore-checks to identify undead and their abilities. You also increase the DC of your channel energy, command or Turn Undead by +2...which is pretty brutal, considering how channel already is powerful and has a scaling DC. Still, worthwhile and nice.

-Improved Scholar of Undeath: The base-feat's bonus increases to +10 and the DC-increase to +3.

-Greater Scholar of Undeath: +2 to all saves versus Ex and SU abilities of undead and the DC-increase for channel et al. becomes +4. The whole feat-chain is interesting in concept, though I do consider the DC-increases rather massive. Personally, I consider the bonus extending beyond +2 to be too min-maxy - personally, I will add an Int-prereq to emphasize the scholar-angle the feats imply. (And, via MAD, decrease excess Channel-DC-stacking...)

-Hardened Flesh: Your AC is treated as +2 for the purpose of confirming critical hits and you gain DR 1/-.

-Improved Hardened Flesh: AC-bonus is treated as +4 instead for the critical hit confirmation. DR increases to DR 3/- - like these two feats!

-Necrotic Poisoner: Contact and injury poisons you manufacture can affect undead. NICE!

-Reckless Revenant: You are immune to fear effects...which would be a bit much for one feat...but the prerequisite requires you having risen from the dead...which is rather cool. Sold -even more so, since it takes breath of life into account.

-Redeemed: Gain healing by positive energy, but also be damaged by negative energy as though you were alive. Can't be combined with Dark Conduit. Nice one.

-Scent of the Grave: Favored enemy (undead) characters gain scent to detect undead.

-Tongues of the Dead: Gain Necril as a language as well as +2 to Bluff, Intimidate, Diplomacy and Sense Motive when dealing with intelligent undead. Situational and okay, but not too exciting.

-Touch of the Undead: This feat: "Allows undead you command or control to deliver touch spells for you." That's the whole crunch text of the feat. All right, I'll play: HOW? At what range? Do you have to transfer the touch held to the undead? As what action? Is there a maximum range? Can unintelligent undead hold charges? This feat is well-intentioned and flavorful, but horribly fails at its given task.

-Undead Avoidance: Gain +2 dodge bonus to AC versus undead. Losing Dex-bonus to AC deprives you of the benefits. Okay, I guess.

-Universal Recipient: Okay, we end on a nice one: Reduced DC for attaching necrografts and reduced Con damage for necrografting surgery.

Conclusion:

Editing and formatting are per se solid, though people that are picky about the fonts used should know that the "o"s are slightly larger than other letters. There are a couple of faulty italicizations here as well. Layout is GORGEOUS - the pdf adheres to a two-column full-color standard with skulls on the borders and a greenish tint - this is a nice-looking pdf. The pdf sports a nice full-color artwork. The pdf comes fully bookmarked for your convenience.

Neal Litherland, Simon Muñoz and Brian Berg have crafted a book that sports some high-concept, intriguing feats - and indeed, there are some feats herein that are rather neat. You can justifiably call any content herein overpowered and it should make sense in most games, even the dark/low-fantasy-focused games. At the same time, there are a few pieces herein that don't work as intended, which detracts from, unfortunately, some of the most interesting feats herein. In the end, this is a solid book with some rough edges and hence, my final verdict will clock in at 3 stars.

Endzeitgeist out.

This was a great buy. The D&D 5e Player's Handbook is somewhat short on feat options and this book goes in depth from past editions to bring more of the mainstay feats to the fore again. I might not take all the feats, but there are enough in here that you are going to find a number of them very useful and worthwhile. Most notably, I like that they addressed some of the class abilities that a lot of 5e players were critical of. The Beastmaster ranger especially felt a little off, and there are feats in here to address some of those class weaknesses.

There's actually over 160 feats, and for sheer content, this is well worth the PDF price. I'll rate this at 5 stars, because it's a nice looking product that delivers on content missing from the new D&D game. Things seeem pretty balanced, as you need to use your bonus actions/reactions to make a lot of the impressive features work optimally.

An Endzeitgeist.com review

This installment of the Feats of Legend-series clocks in at 8 pages, 1 page front cover, 1 page editorial, 1 page SRD, 3/4 of a page blank, leaving us with 4 1/4 pages of content, so let's take a look!

After a handy table that lists the feats along prereqs, we dive right in:

-Blasphemous Tongue:Bonus to intimidate, demoralize demonic/infernal creatures by ignoring their immunity, if any, +1 DC for fear-descriptor-spells, affect potentially demonic/infernal creatures immune to fear- Now this is how you open a feat-book! Neat!

-Call the Damned: Add imp and gaav to summon monster I and III list; 1/day spontaneously add fiendish template to summon. One of the prereqs is italicized that shouldn't be, but that's a cosmetic glitch.

-Chains of Perdition: +2 shield bonus when wielding a spiked chain two-handed. Solid!

-Improved Chains of Perdition: Increase bonus granted to +4.

-Dark Channel: Roll d8s to hurt the living via channel negative energy instead of d6s. Ouch, but mechanically feasible and okay.

-Devil's Advocate: +2 Diplomacy and Bluff, +4 at 10th level; double bonuses versus demons and devils.

-Fiendish Codex: +2 to checks to identify fiends, gain +1 piece of info. Nice.

-Fire and Brimstone (Grit): +1d6 fire damage for 1 grit; solid, though I would have preferred scaling here. Also is erroneously called "deed" once, but oh well - functional.

-Improved Fire and Brimstone (Grit): Your bullets count as evil and magical; spend 1 grit to reroll any attack modified by Fire and Brimstone on a misfire. At +5 BAB-prereq maybe a tad bit soon for alignment-bullets.

-Improved Protection of the Pit: Increase profane armor bonus to +2; gain negative energy resistance 5, +3 and 10 in unhallowed areas.

-Protection of the Pit: Gain profane +1 bonus to AC, +2 in unhallowed areas. Pretty weak...but worth it for the end of the feat-chain.

-Greater Protection of the Pit: Gain DR 5/good, DR 10/good while on an unhallowed site. Solid and the prereqs make sense!

-Hellfire Initiate: Ignore up to 5 point Fire resistance with spells and SPs.

-Hellfire Acolyte: : Ignore up to 10 fire resistance with spells/SPs, also gain fire resistance 5. Prereq possible via Edlritch heritage. Nice.

-Hellfire Master: Ignore ALL fire resistance of a target with spells and SPs; targets usually immune still take 1/2 damage.

-Inured to the Infernal: +4 to saves versus spells and SPs of tieflings, devils, etc.

-Luck of the Devil: +2 luck bonus to one save chosen, may be taken thrice, once per save.

-Pledged to Darkness: You have an evil birthmark that helps intimidate folk...and which acts as an unholy symbol for the devil in question. Kinda cool!

-Speak of the Devil: Increase DC of planar binding-called devil to escape and gain bonus to convince devils to do your bidding, double the bonus in conjunction with Devil's Advocate.

-Tongue of the Pit: Spellcasting in Infernal, which reduces infernal creature's SR by 5 for the purpose of your spell. Has planar binding-synergy.

Conclusion:

Editing and formatting aren't perfect, but what glitches are here do not hamper the feats contained herein. Layout adheres to an easy-to-read two-column full-color standard and the pdf has some nice b/w-stock art that fits neatly. The pdf comes fully bookmarked for your convenience.

Neal Litherland's infernal feats may not all be winners - but they all have their niche, their thematic raison d'être - their justification. This humble book contains some truly cool tools that make sense by virtue of their narrative potential and that's not something I get to see too often. The lack of overpowered or broken feats herein also means that even a really low-fantasy/dark fantasy campaign can easily utilize the content herein, making this an inexpensive, welcome addition and one of the better feat-books I've read in a while. While not perfect in all regards, this still is a good, neat little book, well worth a final verdict of 4.5 stars, rounded down to 4 for the purpose of this platform.

Endzeitgeist out.

An Endzeitgeist.com review

This massive mega-adventure clocks in at 100 pages, 1 page front cover, 1 page editorial, 1 page ToC, 1 page SRD, 3 pages of advertisement, leaving us with 93 pages of content, so let's take a look!

I was a backer for the KS of this module, but otherwise was in no way affiliated with the creation of this module.

Before we get into the meat of this module, let me briefly point something out - this book does sport 4 nice feats for swamp dwellers that allow for devastating uses of the terrain. The adversaries herein, often with pretty complex builds, sport statblocks more detailed than usual, meaning you won't have to do much book-switching and also sport pretty extensive (lethal!) tactics. Finally, it should be noted that panthagators, stirge swarms and carnivorous giant lily pads are included as new monsters here.

While there is a chase card-deck for use with this module, it does not require the purchase of this deck - the book does provide regular playing card substitutions, though the chase card deck does facilitate using this particular scene. The Pdf's brutal encounters sport scaling advice and the book also sports handy milestones that show a GM when the PCs may be underleveled for a particular challenge. The book also sports Laying Waste-compatible rules for the respective combat encounters - awesome!

All right, so, this being an adventure review, the following contains SPOILERS. Potential players should jump to the conclusion.

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Players, seriously, don't spoil this one.

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All right, still here? Now that only GMs are around, here's how we begin this module - with hooks. Surprise, right? Kidding aside, the extent of detail these hooks utilize goes beyond what you'd usually expect to see - when e.g. a mad hermit spouts a cryptic prophecy, that prophecy is not only represented as a hand-out, it is delivered in a thick vernacular/sociolect - and there is ANOTEHR hand out that sports the "translated/deciphered" version...and that's not where it ends: The book actually has a clearer, third version the PCs can glean via magic - and that is represented as a hand-out as well. If you're like me, that fact alone (and the wonderful, cryptic threat included) should be enough for you to choose this one, though the others aren't bad either.

So, the PCs are traveling to the town of Wyvernglynn, an isolated outpost of civilization amidst the damp and hostile Sorrowfen swamp - and even of their way to the place, they'll be struggling, for the very first encounter with the lizardfolk that constitute the primary antagonists herein is pretty brutal and should initiate a kind of grudge-reaction...and allow a chance for PCs to turn their tails and run, for it only gets more brutal from here on out.

The town of Wyvernglynn is fully mapped and utilizes a map fans of Raging Swan Press' Village Backdrops-series may know - perched precariously behind balustrades on an island in the midst of a river at the edge of the swamp, this place certainly is not a cozy one - indeed, the Germanic-looking populace is many things...friendly is not one of them. After the local guardsmen are done with their "We're in charge, foreigners!"-routine, the PCs are free to take sidequests and research - and indeed, the settlement has been more isolated than usual, with caravans taken out obviously being the work of the raiders the PCs encountered....which is odd, for usually, the lizardfolk stick to themselves and only partake in internal struggles. The local inn's keeper, one Ostler Giodianus, also seems to be hiding something and asks for a subtle meeting if the PCs do their job well - he confides in them, telling the PCs he's being blackmailed: His daughter is missing....and indeed, the lizardfolk have a spy in town, the lethal assassin Thrazzeem, whose build is BRUTAL. The whole research and potential capture of this potent foe is btw. depicted in lavish detail, including sample read-aloud texts for GMs less comfortable with improvisation.

But sooner or later, whether the PCs defeat, kill or ignore this supreme foe, they'll have to enter the Sorrowfen...and it is here that the module pulls no more punches: The Sorrowfen has entered my conscious as one of the most compelling, unique environments I've seen in my whole gaming carreer: With brutal terrain-based repercussions (Flight = bad idea), predators galore and strange light pointing the way, this is the single best rendition of such a terrain I've seen in a module. While the town already managed to capture the hostility and grime I love in dark fantasy modules, it is with the almost sentient Sorrowfen and its unique ecology that the module truly becomes inspiring: If the mist-choked, lethal swamp and its predators, which the PCs will navigate by moving from giant lily pad to giant lily pad (each of which may be carnivorous...) is not yet enough, if the rules-relevant limitations have not yet blown you away and driven fear into your PCs, then the encounter with the local old woman oracle may just do that.

The "kind" Ol' Mamma Nis, presumably an oracle that guides kids lost out of the swamps does make for a slightly chilling visit: She tells the PCs about a staff, unearthed from dread ruins, sunk in the swamp, which now is wielded by the lizardfolk to dread effect and asks the PCs to bring the staff to her...and yes, this is a bad idea, for in her hut, the missing daughter of Ostler is awaiting the disguised hag's tender claws. This encounter proved to be an exercise in oscillation: The Pcs will arrive with suspicions, then be taken in by her stew (If they eat it...horror later...) and perhaps, realize that something is fundamentally wrong: Oh, and much like Thrazzeem, she is a TPK Games-boss with unique tricks, lethal powers and a build that can send wimpy players crying for their momma. This is a pro-module and Ol' Mamma Nis pulls no punches. She also constitutes the single best classic hag-encounter I've seen so far, with the grisly truth hiding just beneath the surface. Brilliant.

Speaking of which, since I thoroughly have to emphasize that: The Sorrowfen itself will be the enemy for the PCs, the most lethal component: With ruthless random encounters and terrain features, its properties span multiple pages, sparing you the need to swap books, while generating a terrain that most certainly will have PCs reminiscing about that cozy dungeon crawl on the graveyard the other day. It's that good.

But the Sorrowfen is not only about random encounters, the module also sports a significant array of unique, planned encounters - the PCs have, for example, the option to establish an alliance with a tribe of grippli...or destroy this tribe's sacred totem for Ol' Mamma Nis - in either way, the PCs may leave this one with unique totems and/or a stained conscience. Within the swamp, the PCs may also seek out the half-sunken ruins from which this odd staff was taken, potentially allowing the PCs to piece together some clues from the troubled past of this item...and encounter yet more unique foes.

Sooner or later, though, the PCs will have to get to the lizardfolk settlement, where they have multiple approaches - Stealth is problematic; force as well...and if the PCs go in with a truce-flag and want to see the tribe's "god" alongside the shaman, then help them whatever patron deities they may have: For, foolhardy PCs will then stand, surrounded by lizardfolk-onlookers, on a cluster of lily-pads, when the massive, regenerating, serpentine heads with their breath weapons and regeneration break the surface - the eponymous Five-Fold Maw is a brutal, mythic boss that ranks among my favorite boss battles in any module. It's also exceedingly BRUTAL...and it's not the end. You see, violence does not help and even if the PCs manage to win, they still have to escape the lizardfolk's territory with the staff - while a brief insurrection buys them enough time to run, they'll be a long, long way from home...and a long way from either Wyvernglynn or Ol' Mamma Nis' hut.

Which brings me full circle to the beginning of this review: The aforementioned, deck-based chase is different from any you've run: You see, it's a chase than spans multiple hours, one that represents the PCs literally trying to evade capture against overwhelming odds in a terrain that is simply brutal at least 21 challenges...and it is one that can be slightly confusing due to a bit of information being lost in the final version of the module's chase rules. Thankfully, the information's out there, so for your convenience, should you choose to get this, here's what's missing:

" The Lizardfolk Horde (army) marker moves after all PCs have had their chance each turn. It will move onto the first Chase card at the end of the third turn after the PCs begin moving. It will advance one Chase card each turn automatically, unless the Chase card it is on says that it loses a turn. Many individual lizardfolk will be doggedly keeping pace with the PCs and harassing them (as represented by the Encounter cards), but if the Lizardfolk Horde marker catches up to any PC, that PC is considered killed or captured, at the GM’s discretion, and is removed from further participation in the Chase. However, that event holds up the Lizardfolk Horde marker and causes it to lose a turn, so PCs may realize that they have the option of sacrificing themselves to give the PC in possession of the staff a better chance to outrun the horde. Lost turns are cumulative with multiple PCs on the same card and cards that automatically cause the horde to lose a turn.

If at any time the players decide to end the Chase and make a last stand, the GM is free to play that battle out as s/he sees fit.

If any of the PCs successfully advance through 21 Chase cards, they have arrived at the hut of Ol’ Mamma ‘Nis. Go to that section of the adventure for information on how to run that encounter.

If the PCs elect to bypass Ol’ Mamma ‘Nis’ hut and run straight for the walls of Wyverglynn, they must successfully advance past 24 Chase cards. Go to that section of the adventure for information on running that final battle."

---and when the chase ends, the PCs will be fatigued and tired...and depending on their choices, they may have to defeat a hyper-lethal boss and/or a horde battle against the lizardfolk brave enough to hunt them to Wyvernglynn for a thoroughly compelling finale...

Conclusion:

Editing and formatting are, for the most part, pretty good, though here are some minor violations of rules-language herein. Layout adheres to a two-column full-color standard in swampy green in the pdf, while the softcover, alas, is only black and white - which is a pity, for, quite frankly, the copious maps and the artworks herein deserve to be in color. Regarding maps: Unfortunately, the pdf does not sport the maps as big versions you can easily print out, nor are there player-friendly versions, which is another strike against the book. The pdf comes fully bookmarked for your convenience. I actually recommend the pdf version over the print this time around.

Skip Twitchell and Brian Berg have created a module that sports an awesome atmosphere, but one that is also deeply flawed, the missing chase-scene information and the lack of player-friendly maps...

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I can't do it. F*** my nitpicking routine here, it doesn't do the module justice.

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Yes, this is a flawed book with some serious rough edges. It's also one of the best modules I've had the pleasure to run in a while. This is a downright brutal module for the pros, for the players who want a challenge; this is a module for all the fans of dark fantasy and unique locales; this is a module for everyone asking for a big, nasty wilderness module; this is a module for those of us that love the grit, the darkness, the brutal challenge that only few modules can provide.

How good is this book's prose, how awesome its atmosphere and terrain implementation, how deadly are the bosses? Well, in a lesser module, the flaws I mentioned would have me smash the book to smithereens and detract at the very least two stars. I can't bring myself to do this to this module. Even in TPK Games' canon of awesome, deadly modules, this one stands out. Much like Frog God Games' Cyclopean Deeps Volume I, this may not be a mechanically perfect module, but it more than makes up for it in its strengths - the bosses rank among the best I've seen in a published module. The Sorrowfen is downright awesome in its visuals and nasty properties. The whole, concise atmosphere generated and the savage, relentless, unforgiving, yet fair difficulty make this a module that, in spite of its glitches, belongs into the library of the discerning GM...or at least into the library of some of you out there.

If you're very picky regarding the aforementioned issues, then give this a pass, but know that you'll be missing out on a very GM-friendly, challenging, awesome module, perhaps even the best swamp module currently available for PFRPG. The fact that even an anal-retentive, nitpicky bastard like me takes a look at the book, scowls, run it, and then says "Screw it, this is awesome!" should tell you something about how good this damn beast is. I've been struggling with myself here - on the one hand, I should rate this down for its short-comings; on the other hand, I want to keep on gushing about it for even more pages than I already have. Ultimately, what made me make up my mind is the fact that the map-issue, while annoying, is not as bad as with some other modules: Being mostly site-driven and happening beyond the confines of a battlemap, their importance is somewhat diminished. Also, this is a module, not a crunch book, so mechanical precision is a bit less important than in a crunch book.

How to rate this, then? You may well call me a hypocrite, seeing how rigorous I usually crack down on the lack of player-friendly maps or issues like chase-info missing mentioned above. I am all too aware that I ought to penalize the module for this. But I am also beholden to my passions and it is this passion (or so I hope!) that I manage to transport in some of my reviews, the passion which I hope, from the bottom of my heart, you, dear readers, share. I am very passionate about this module. I absolutely adore this book. I love it. It's absolutely glorious, evocative, challenging, well-written and unique. It's an accumulation of almost everything I love in a module and a prime example of the level of difficulty and variability I look for in such a beast. In short - I can't bring myself to rate it down. I really, really can't. If you're like me and, at the end of the day, want a book written in great prose, unique environments, deadly foes - the whole deal - then this is 5 stars + seal of approval for you. As a reviewer, I need to scratch that a bit as a concession to the book's objective flaws, no matter how great I think this is - hence, my official final verdict will clock in at 4.5 stars + seal of approval...and yes, I'm rounding up here. ;)

One final note: With more editing, player-friendly maps and sans the chase-glitch, this would have made my Top Ten-list of 2015. I wouldn't even have had to think about whether to include it or not. Thank you for bearing with me through this rambling diatribe...now book your trip to the Sorrowfen and watch players gaze in wide-eyed fear at what you throw at them...

Endzeitgeist out.

An Endzeitgeist.com review

The fourth installment of TPK Games' series that redesigns feats to scale with character levels covers the feats from Ultimate Magic and clocks in at 28 pages, 1 page front cover, 1 page editorial, 1 page SRD, 3/4 of a blank page, leaving us with 24 1/4 pages of content, so let's take a look!

All right, by now you know both the basic principle of the series and how the series works: Basically, you get additional benefits at certain character levels, with common progressions being 7th and 14th level; 9th and 16th level also constitute a common progression ladder and some feats also increase in potency at 18th level or 10th and 17th level - basically, the idea is a rough 7-level progression for most of them.

Now regarding the scaling benefits, much like the third installment of the series, we get effects that go thankfully beyond straight numerical escalation - Extra Ranger Trap, to give you an example, adds +2/day uses of ranger traps at the first scaling threshold and later increases their DC. Action-economy progression for e.g. Fast Empathy also deserves mention. Gliding Step's third progression allows for the expenditure of ki at 18th level to ignore all difficult terrain for 1 round in addition to its straight scaling benefit - which makes sense at such a high level. Remote Bomb's scaling distance (only requiring line of effect), is also nice, and Resilient Eidolon allows you to keep your eidolon around while you sleep at higher levels.

In fact, some of the feat-upgrades herein allow for whole new builds to be efficient - the Shaping Focus' scaling, to name one, allows for up to character level = druid level for the purposes of wild shape - at 18th level more than okay, especially considering the solid scaling step before. So yes, this book does have its moments, where it shines and does so brilliantly. At the same time, this one is less refined in its rules-language than Vol. III: Spell Bluff's scaling options e.g. mention that "you gain no negatives when dueling a caster whose spells are modified by Silent Spell or Still Spell" - the thing is: The vanilla rules for spell duels do never result in "negatives" - did the author mean "penalties"? I don't get how this one is supposed to work and reading up on spell duel rules didn't help. On the plus-side, Starlight Summons getting concealment and later Hide in Plain Sight? That's quite badass. Versatile Channeler getting rid of the -2 penalty for channel purposes at 14th level also is rather interesting.

I also like the decision to make Word of Healing, at 14th level, apply at full potency at a range of 40 ft. Adding two spellblights via Blighted Critical can also be considered a rather nice option in my book and Channeled Shield Wall's scaling bonuses and high-level DRs make sense and implanting bombs is nasty - after 24 hours, long-term implanted bombs no longer count towards your daily limit - evil empires and villains will make ample use of this one...

Conclusion:

Editing and formatting are very good, I noticed no particularly glaring glitches, though there are a couple of italicizations missing. Layout adheres to a printer-friendly two-column full-color standard with solid b/w-artworks thrown in. The pdf comes fully bookmarked for your convenience.

The Feats Reforged series is hard to review - basically, you have a bunch of feats that you already know and add scaling benefits to them - as a reviewer, what to do? List feat upon feat's scaling options? Boring. Complain about base feats? Unfair. However, if you're a bit familiar with me and my work, you'll probably have guessed correctly that I do loathe quite a few feats out there - and Ultimate Magic is partially banned at my table for a reason, so no, I don't have a high opinion of the source-material this pdf draws on.

At the same time, though, as a reviewer, my task is to determine whether the feats herein do a good job at translating the source-material to a system wherein the feats scale. It is in this context that I'm rating this book. And it is in the context that I can say that Neal Litherland and Brian Berg have done a good job.

While there are some rare and minor hiccups among the formal properties, the vast majority of the scaling feats herein makes sense and even adds dimensions and new build options to the base feats. It is with new effects and intriguing effects beyond the numerical scaling (which is usually implemented in a well-done manner) that this book shines. While I STILL refute, adamantly, I might add, the series' claim that unilaterally adding these to the game does not change balance (this is wrong since some characters frankly get more feats and thus more use out of scaling feats), I gladly acknowledge one fact - even in the cases where I frankly dislike the base feat, the reforged iteration tends to add something new, something more to the table.

A further benefit of this series is that it helps in rare-magic/low-magic games to keep the scales - though wide-scale implementation for the monsters etc. will be a lot of work for the GM, I can see a lot of tables that will welcome this particular aspect over the annoying Christmas Tree syndrome. How to rate this book, then? Well, ultimately, we get a lot of good material here. While personally, I preferred Vol. III and considered its formatting/wording a teeny tiny bit more precise, this still constitutes a worthy addition to the series. Hence, my final verdict will clock in at 4.5 stars, rounded up to 5 for the purpose of this platform.

Endzeitgeist out.

This book, as the name states, includes twenty new feats for anyone interested in being diabolical (in the truest sense of that word).

Things I liked: Some new feats for using spiked chains. I wished they did more than grant a shield bonus but you take what you can get to make such a flavorful weapon more appealing. Two new grit feats for adding hellfire to your shots! Hell to the yes. Pun fully and unabashedly intended. Hellfire Mastery feats to let you ignore some fire resistance. Fire resistance is so common it seems. These feats are a tax, but worth it to make a dedicated fire specialist. Feats for social interactions. The game isn't all combat and some feats to intimidate demons that are otherwise immune or to put the fear of the devil(s) into other folk that recognize the monster you've pledged yourself to are great.

For two bucks this is a great buy. This book can be utilized by more than just evil characters; make a character cursed by devilish forces or who made a pact with devils to hunt demons. So many great ideas that can be fleshed out by these feats.

I honestly found myself more thrilled with this book than I expected. I knew it'd be fun but while reading it I caught myself grinning that evil GM grin.

Done in the similar theme and vain as Pathfinder's Monster Codex, Altered Beasts presents you with many variants of the Gnoll. The biggest advantage of Altered Beasts is it's Pathfinder and D&D 5e compatibility. The layout is easy and user friendly. Moving from PF to D&D 5e is not an issue.

Often times gamers get bored with fighting the same old same old this however gives you new options to spring on your unsuspecting players. As a long time gamer it's exciting to see well thought through monster variants. Some of the Gnoll options are pure GM delights, such as the "Den Mother" & "Plague Bearer" while others like "Demon-Possessed Gnoll" & the "War Chief" are built to put the hurt on your players if they're only expecting run of the mill Gnolls.

All in all this is another great TPK product and I'm looking forward to the following Altered Beasts volumes.

20 Infernal feats is a pdf that obviously goes over feats related to all things infernal. The pdf is 5 pages of content, 1 cover, 1 credits, and 1 OGL.

I liked this short pdf. It has feats that are useful if you are fighting infernal outsiders or if you want to utilize the powers of infernals. I liked how it could be useful to good or evil characters. That is a real plus.

If I was ever running a specific kind of campaign that had my players fighting demons and devils a lot, I would want all my players to have a copy of this pdf. I think it could be very useful. In a general campaign, I am not 100% sure it would be that interesting to players or not.

I have a couple things that I am being nitpicky about but this is my opinions about cons of this product.

I enjoyed the art. However, I could see some people being offended by the image Baphomet from Levi's "Dogme et Rituel de la Haute Magie."

The feats Hellfire Acolyte, and Hellfire Master are both cool feats that grant the character fire resistance. Which works fine for say a human or halfling who have no form of Fire resistance. However these feats do not explain what happens to a character that already has a form of Fire resistance like a Ifrit. Do they stack and add together? If a brief comment was added about that, I would feel that each feat is a little more complete and there would be no question.

All in all I liked 20 Infernal feats. It sparks an interest in running a Infernal themed campaign (an evil one, or good one where the characters hunt infernals). I rate 20 Infernal feats 4 out of 5 stars.

If you advertise a product to be 5e compatible, please, put as much thought into the 5th edition versions as you do for the pathfinder versions. This is a pathfinder product with some half hearted attempts at 5e stat blocks. I don't want to have to scan the pathfinder version of the monster to see what the intent of the beast is meant to be. They should both be fully realized. If I was rating this as a pathfinder product, I would give it 5 stars however..just a half baked 5e product.

While this book has some interesting additions to make combat more delightfully lethal ( Highlight being confirming crits? Nah. You crit when you crit. Confirming it just means you do even more hilariously huge damage, along with some other nasty effects! ) and some interesting classes / feats to go with the new rules.

However a full third of the book is just copy-pasted tables of weapon types, with slightly different numerical values depending on weapon size. Something that easily could've been done with a small / medium / large value on a single table for each weapon type, as well as making it easier to use!

An Endzeitgeist.com review

This pdf clocks in at 6 pages, 1 page front cover, 1 page editorial, 1 page SRD, leaving us with 3 pages of content, so let's take a look!

-Crusader: +1 to atk with favored weapon, 1 max dex cap limit less in armor, 1 armor check penalty less. Okay.

-Extra Blessing: +1 BLESSING. Not "use of a blessing", full-blown blessing - minor + mayor. This is very powerful.

-Extra Fervor: +3/day uses of fervor.

-Project Aura: Expend fervor as a full-round action to project aura as a 15-ft.-cone and treat your warpriest level as twice as high for the purpose of stunning creatures, for they are treated as if they had cast the appropriate detect spell and studied you for 3 rounds. Thankfully, a Will save can prevent that and reduce the effect to shaken.

-Improved Project Aura: Also add minor buff for allies and increase cone-size to 30 ft.

-Greater Project Aura: Expend more fervor to increase the duration of the stunned/shaken effect and also increase the save DC. The DC-scaling per fervor point feels a bit high to me - +1 round at 2 uses of fervor, why not also go for that with the DC? Stunned is pretty much save or suck, so I don't think this would be weak.

-Improved Sacred Armor: + Cha-mod minutes duration.

-Greater Sacred Armor: Enhancement increases by +1 for a maximum of +6.

-Improved Sacred Weapon: Treat sacred weapon as if your warpriest level was +1 higher, +1 at 5th level and every 5 levels thereafter. I assume this refers to the level-based sacred weapon base damage progression; If it does, it ought to have specified that it does not apply to the enhancement-bonus scaling inherent in the base ability, since that one also improves damage.

-Greater Sacred Weapon: Increase enhancemnet bonus by +1 to a maximum of +6. See, this one sports no ambiguity.

-Insightful Strike: Substitute Wis-mod as atk-governing attribute instead of Str or Dex when using the deity's favored weapon.

-Improved Insightful Strike: Add Wis-mod to crit-confirmation rolls with the deity's favored weapon.

-Ranged Fervor: Use fervor at 30 ft. range, requiring touch attacks - see, this one is pretty awesome and concisely presents a downright awesome option!

-Sacred Armor Flexibility: Expend fervor as a move action to switch the armor enhancement on your sacred armor. Nice!

-Sacred Weapon Flexibility: Same flexibility, but for sacred weapons.

-Summon Raiments: This summons forth armor/weapons for "divine energy" - does that mean channel energy? Fervor? No idea. Non-functional as written.

-Vigilant Blade: Enhance sacred weapon as a free action for 1 fervor.

-Zealot's Strike: Expend 2 fervor tod eal max damage on the next successful attack, +4 to crit confirmation rolls. Why not limit the maximum to base weapon damage? As written, it can pretty easily be cheesed.

-Zealous Healing: Excess healing provided by fervor translates to temporary hit points of up to warpriest level.

Conclusion:

Editing and formatting are good, but not perfect - from the mentioning of the bogus "divine energy class ability" to lower caps "dc" and similar small glitches, the pdf does sport some minor hiccups. Layout adheres to TPK Games' parchment-style two-column standard and the pdf has no bookmarks, but needs none at this length.

Brian Berg and P.J. Harn deliver a solid expansion of warpriest feats that do deliver some much needed flexibility. The feats skirt the line from solid to absolutely awesome - the ranged version of fervor is a pretty genius adaption of the ranged channel-ray alternate rule from the cleric reforged and the added flexibility for sacred armor/weaponry is cool. On the other hand, the offensive aura feats left me rather unimpressed and there are some minor quibbles in editing and wording and some minor balance concerns that drag down the pdf. In the end, we are left with a solid little pdf that is slightly above average and definitely useful for warpriests. Hence, my final verdict will clock in at a solid 3.5 stars rating, rounded down to 3 stars, mainly because not enough feats blew me out of the water and due to some of the editing/wording being pretty subpar.

Endzeitgeist out.

An Endzeitgeist.com review

The third installment of TPK Games' reimagination of feats as scaling with the levels clock in at 68 pages, 1 page front cover, 1 page editorial, 1 page SRD, leaving us with a massive 65 (!!!) pages of content..but what do these pages cover?

Well, essentially this book covers the feats from Ultimate Combat and introduces scaling mechanisms into them. Now the pdf does mention the topic of balance - and whether this changes the balance of the game. The basic stance taken by the pdf is "no", as long as you apply the scaling mechanisms to adversaries as well. personally, I am not sold on that, seeing how classes with many feats necessarily receive more benefits from the scaling of feats. That being said, I do consider the impact/power-increase to be relatively conservative, so no rating penalty for that. Another thing - this review is NOT, I repeat, it is NOT about whether the feats from Ultimate Combat are well-designed...or balanced for that matter. This review is about TPK Games' take on the feats, on their scaling mechanism and on whether or not they live up in creative/concise ways to the premise of the pdf. So no, my admitted loathing for some Ultimate Combat feats and their at times problematic rules-language will not reflect negatively on this pdf. If it manages to fix an issue from the source material, though, I'll happily point that out.

The scaling paradigm for the feats usually assumes a scaling on 7th and 14th level, 12th and 19th level, or 13th and 20th level, with powerful, high-prereq-feats sometimes coming with less scaling. Now the first feat herein already is an interesting example for why this pdf does have something significant to offer - the upgrades of Adder Strike allow for the application of two doses poison to three body parts and later, even to apply two doses to any number of eligible body parts. This scaling goes beyond boring numerical escalation, adding a surprising tactical diversity to the scaling, one rarely seen in the Feats Reforged series so far - so consider me intrigued. And yes, this extends to quite a few other feats - Arc Slinger's second augmentation, for example, allows the benefit of Point Blank Shot to be applied at 150% of its usual range when used in conjunction with slings/sling-staves.

What about e.g. Betrayer, adding a penalty to attacks on the round following your betrayal? Impressively, the feats themselves often provide whole new tactical options I quite frankly did not expect to be present - take blinding throw's second upgrade, which lets you count as +1 size category when using the feat. If you're like me and just love TPK Games' Laying Waste-book on critical hits, you'll also enjoy e.g. Boar Style's option to cause bleed damage and the advice on handling the use of Laying Waste in conjunction with this superb critical hit system. It should be noted that e.g. the massive damage rule and similar optional rules are taken into account as well whenever they are relevant - impressive to see this pdf go above and beyond.

High-level siege commanders may, for example, assemble siege engines much, much faster, whereas efreeti style's cone-blast can be expanded to full 30 ft., whereas sap masters of higher levels may treat rolled 1s as 2s and later even 1s and 2s as 3s when dealing nonlethal sneak attack damage to adversaries. Increased base damage dice for blowgun darts can also help retaining the usefulness of certain builds.

Indeed, while some components of the rules language has very minor hiccups, the significant majority of the feats herein go quite an impressive step beyond what I consider the numerical escalation school of game design, either providing much-required additional options for less than optimal feats or simply, brand new options, which in diversity, if not in power (thankfully!) reach the added level of tactical depth of mythic feats in their more shining iterations.

Conclusion:

Editing and formatting, while not perfect, is a significant step up from the blunders that have haunted the classes-reforged series - these components can be considered more than satisfactory in their execution. Layout adheres to a parchment-like two-column standard that is easy to read and the pdf comes with bookmarks by alphabet and the good type of unobtrusive hyperlinks. While I would have liked each feat as a bookmark for more convenience when using the electronic version, I won't penalize this pdf for it. The artworks in full color are sparse, but we don't get these books for the artwork now, do we? Content over bling any day for me!

I'll be honest with you -I wasn't looking forward to reviewing this pdf, mainly because Feats Reforged-pdfs tend to be an insane amount of work that is also not particularly rewarding from a reviewer's perspective. Or so I thought. The first two installments of the series did what they said on the lid - they took the core-feats and APG-feats and made them scale. Mostly sans issues, so yeah, great files, case closed. I expected this book to be pretty much the same deal. It's not. In the capable hands of lead designer Chris Bayes and Brian Berg, this pdf went beyond what I would have expected from it, delivering quite frankly more interesting options than a book with this scope almost has a right to. Certain crunch-projects look downright like WORK to me. Not the "inspiring" type of design, but, capital letters "work" - Legendary Games' mythic feats and spells fall into this category and so did the feats reforged-books. These are assignments I personally would not be too keen on. They are immensely useful, but for my part, the designers of books like that have earned their compensation - design like this can be rewarding, but it also takes a lot of dedication.

It is of utmost importance, then, to acknowledge books that are just like this and still manage to retain a sense of wonder, of versatility. Books that don't fall into the trap of just devising one set of numerical escalation design-rules and then stick to it, but instead go the long, high road. Not the road of least resistance or the fastest, but the one with the best results. I consider this installment of feats reforged to be just that. It is astonishing, baffling even, that such an assignment has produced such an interesting book. When I reviewed Vol. 2 of the series, I wrote that I'd be skeptical regarding how TPK Games would deal with the problem feats herein, how the line would go on. If this is the new face of Feats Reforged, then consider me excited. Even though Ultimate Combat contains some of my most loathed feats for PFRPG, even though I consider the base material far from perfect, the sheer passion and versatility of the design, especially within such a tight frame, is impressive.

While I still won't like quite a few of the feats in UC, the matter of the fact is that I am much more inclined towards just about ALL of their scaling versions. In quite a few instances, coal has been turned not to rough diamonds, but at least into something that sparkles, that has a shine. If this accumulation of praise was not enough indication - I am perfectly willing to consider the scant few issues herein, all of which fall into the "minor" category or are based on issues with the base feats, simply less than relevant when compared to the surprising wellspring of ideas found herein, of all places. Add to that the relatively concise balance and we have an obvious final verdict: 5 stars + seal of approval. If waiting this long for a new reforged-book results in this level of awesomeness, I'll gladly wait for the next book!

Endzeitgeist out.

An Endzeitgeist.com review

The second of TPK Games' redesigns of base classes clocks in at 17 pages, 1 page front cover, 1 page editorial, 1 page advertisement, 1 page SRD, leaving us with 13 pages of content, so let's take a look!

All right, so let's dive into these guys - the reforged barbarian receives much the same stuff you know from the base class - but with some modifications. First of which would be the addition of survival and stealth to his class skill list, which makes sense to me - lore is rife with suspicious barbarians that prowl the less civilized lands. In an uncommon twist, ref-saves have been upgraded to a medium progression - while not standard for class design, that is not a paradigm I'd consider sacrosanct - so yes, interesting.

Now in a rather interesting take, TPK Games have eliminated the movement bonus the standard barbarian receives in favor of a bonus to movement when charging, including a further increase in str-mod by half when charging for devastating charges. While this makes low level charge-builds exceedingly lethal, per se not something I'd consider broken. It should also be noted that reforged barbarians receive mobility at 5th level. In an interesting take, rage now has a fortitude save to prevent the temporary fatigue at the end of the rage - per se another choice that may add a small bonus, but not one I'd consider problematic.

As a variant to rage, whirling frenzy is provided - this nets the barbarian +4 to str (untyped, should be morale analogue to rage), +2 dodge bonus to AC and ref-saves and essentially allows him to flurry - +1 optional attack in full attacks, but at -2 to all attacks, INCLUDING AoOs the bonuses sclae to +6/+3 and +8/+4. Additionally, the barbarian does not receive indomitable will, but does receive evasion while in a whirling frenzy. This variant provoked a knee-jerk "OMG, OP"-reaction from me that was only partially justified. While the flurry is extremely strong for a full BAB-class and the bonus-type glitch sucks,, the lack of con-bonus means that these barbarians are more fragile. In the end, testing did show that due to proficiencies etc., this does not break the game, though it is a pretty strong option that is not for every game. Still, apart from the bonus hick-up, not something I'd condemn.

Trap Sense is modified into danger sense, granting a bonus to perception as well as the minor bonus to ref-saves and AC versus traps. Damage reduction is moved down from 7th to 5th level, +1 every 4 levels thereafter (not an issue since DR is probably the most overrated rules-component in PFRPG) and instead, at 7th level, the reforged barbarian receives Diehard hard-coded into his frame-work. The higher levels remain untouched, ability-wise.

We also receive a host of FCOs, -which are pretty cool - reduction of AC-penalties for drow, more claw/bite damage for catfolk, better mobility AC-bonus in dim light for fetchlings -the FCOs tie into both race and class and make sense and rank among the best examples for them. The one for (half-) orcs deserves special mentioning - +1 round rage per level feels very strong to me. I would have gone at least +1/2. Thene again...half-orcs are one of the notoriously weaker races, hence the ability to excel at arguably their iconic class may be in the realm of what one might consider valid.

A new archetype is also included, the cannibal. Instead of charging strike, these guys receive a secondary bite attack. Additionally, they may eat the heart (or what passes for it) of a fallen foe slain in the past minute to regain hp or rage rounds equal to their HD - before you pull out the kitten-bag: Yes, they can eat kittens since the mechanic is tied to their own HD, not the one of the enemy, but a daily limit prevents the ability from being broken. It's not as elegant as it could be, but it works.Imbibe Spirit uses a similar mechanic, but the actual bonus it grants has been lost to a formatting glitch - I have no idea what the ability does. Consume Vigor grants fast healing equal to the creature's HD, but fails to specify how long it lasts - two unfortunately massive glitches that render a cool archetype unusable as written.

A total of 33 new feats are provided - they range from damn cool to broken as hell: Take Butcher's Blade - whenever you hit a foe with power attack, you receive a swift action, AoE-intimidate check to all who see you within 30 ft. Usually, AoE-demoralization is a class feature, not something that can relatively cheaply be bought as a feat. Brotehrs of Steelwould be another example - while awesome, it simply is too strong - choose one ally at the begin of any combat - as long as one of you isn't flat-footed or flanked, neither is the other - this is much more powerful than many a teamwork-feat option and probably should be remade as one - as soona s two characters require this feat, it would make more sense/feel more balanced. The Camel Punch-feat that increases the damage dice of unarmed strikes by +1 should also be kept out of the hands of monks - A default strategy to improve damage output for these guys is size-increase and stacking +1 size on that via a feat is just nasty. Especially since another feat allows you to be treated +1 size when charging - do you see the stacking insanity...yeah...not gonna happen anywhere near my game.

Interesting, though quite some work to track, would be "Deep Wounds" - the bonus damage from power attack has its recovery rate reduced to only 1 of these hp per day - while not feasible for every campaign, especially low magic campaigns will enjoy this one. Eyes of teh Jaguar would be weird - the feat nets you low-light vision 30 ft. Problem being - low-light vision has no range. You either have it, or you don't. Darkvision has a range, though...so which is it?

Improved Diehard is a rather weak feat that could use a power-upgrade - not dying until you reach negative con + 1/2 level isn't that impressive; Here, for once, I would have went full level. Improved Mobility is BROKEN - it eliminates AoOs from threatened squares. Flat-out. One caveat - if you lose dex-bonus, are slowed, staggered etc., you also lose the benefit. Still, this is weird - it invalidates mobility and its increased emphasis in the reforged barbarian - this feat needs to die a fiery death. I do like the feats that allow for a bonus to str and con-checks, since both usually receive no love whatsoever. A cohort-less variant of leadership with twice the number of followers, based on str, should be interesting for humanoid warlords and str-based weapon-hurling is also okay. I also like the counter-power attack-feat that negates the bonus granted by power attack, unlike the foes combined BAB+str-mod is 4 higher than yours - interesting mechanic to counter one of the most used feats. Savage Strike allows you to trade in AC for damage-boost, which si also an interesting option. Unquenchable Flame is another feat, which, while high in concept, needs nerfing - once you run out of rage, you may continue raging, but are shaken and receive 3 points of non-lethal damage per round. Infinite rage at level 5. When rage-rounds are quite often used as the resource for rage powers, feats etc. - so, does the barbarian still count as having rounds of rage left, or is only the rage maintained? If only the latter is the case -all right.

The pdf also provides a total of 15 new rage powers: +2 damage versus foes below 50% max HP smells of 4th edition's bloodied condition to me and requires tracking, so not a fan of that one. On the other hand, Favor of the Forebearers is awesome - as a swift action, you may expend one round of rage to invoke the forefathers and add the ghost touch property to your weapon for one round. Using rage to temporarily boost ref-, will- or fort-saves, critical confirmation rolls, less duration of charms if your indomitable will doesn't do the job. On the nitpicky side, 3 rounds of rage for turn undead may be a cool option, but the wording "as a cleric" is misleading - turning undead requires a feat that not every cleric has. conical AoE sonic damage for rage rounds also makes sense to me and the level cap prevents abuse and to explicit novas. Using immediate actions and rage to negate 5 points of damage received also is a neat one, as is the option to temporarily boost DR and even grant yourself fortification. Generally, these rage powers include some cool gems.

Conclusion:

Editing and formatting are this pdf's weak points - while generally, there are not many glitches per se, the archetype is ruined (which is a damn pity) and quite a few feats should not have went even past a fleeting mechanical editing. Layout adheres to a printer-friendly two-column standard and the pdf comes with nice b/w-stock art. The pdf comes fully hyperlinked and bookmarked for your convenience.

I did not look forward to this review. After the balance disaster of the Reforged Cleric, I did dread this one. This pdf is the labor of lead designer Brian Berg, with additional content from PJ Harn, Jason Linker, Ben Kent, Kevin Mickelson and David Miller and the pdf reflects that - quality, alas fluctuates from "glorious" to "awful." First the good news: The reforged barbarian is actually a cool alternative. It may be a tad bit stronger than the standard barbarian, but not by much and all changes make sense to me - they enhance the fluff and feel of the class. So if you wnat this pdf for the variant class alone - go for it!

Alas, the supplemental content is a mixed bag - from the cool, but unusable archetype to feats that range from cool to "Does the designer know which system he's designing for?" to the rage powers, this pdf's issue can be summed up in one sentence: Lack of a developer. The disparate voices and wildly fluctuating quality of the writing means that this pdf does have some awesome, glorious pieces of crunch that will most definitely see use at my table, but also that it features some horribly broken bits and pieces that need to be plunged into the deepest pits of the abyss. With a bit more care, this pdf could have been a 5 star + seal of approval book; It has all the makings of one. Alas, the at times sloppy fine-tuning has taken that away. Try as I might, as much as I love the base class, the ideas herein - with this amount of flaws, I cannot go higher than 3 stars. As a grab-bag and for the base class, definitely worth the low asking price, though.

Endzeitgeist out.