It is a very very simple system, it is a one page game system.

It does not however have any specific guidance for combat systems; just a very loose interpretation. An update utilizing a little more of the 1 page real estate with combat options would be GREAT. Experienced gamers can make it work, I think with a little more information, this would be the perfect introductory game system.

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Disclaimer: Once again, this PDF was provided to Epic RPG Blog for review purposes.

What you get: a 280 black and white PDF in 6.14" x 9.21" format.

Main review: One of the things I look for in a Savage Worlds book is mining ideas for my SAVAGE RIFTS conversion. This book definitely delivers in that arena. The disciplines from Earthdawn are presented as a series of Discipline edges, so there's plenty of ideas in there to mine. There are over 150 (I think I counted 188) adept edges, which are powered by karma points. It's a pretty good system it looks like, with adepts gaining two free adept edges per tier. Using karma points to power the adept edges keeps them from completely over-powered while making sure it feels like Earthdawn.

Overall the entire Earthdawn Savage Worlds edition does capture the feel of Earthdawn while maintaining the "Fast, Fun and Furious" aspect of Savage Worlds. The magic system refers to spell matrixes, though it's slightly different, as the matrix contain threads (power points). The system works fairly well as a standard Savage Worlds system. However, in my typical house-rule fashion, I would change it a little bit (instead of having 3 spells to start I would allow Smarts number of spells, but only allow 2 to be in the matrix, giving it a more Earthdawn flavor and making it have better utility. Additional matrices would be allowed as advances.

Chapter 1 & 2 are the same fluff you get in the Player's Guide for Earthdawn and Pathfinder. The story Inheritance, followed by Chapter 2's history, WHICH if you're not familiar with the World of Earthdawn, can be quite interesting. While there are Elves, Dwarves, Trolls and Orcs, they're not the exact same as other fantasy games, in fact, in Barsaive, dwarves are the most numerous race with approximately 32% being dwarf.

Chapter 3 covers character creation. This flows very similar to standard Savage Worlds character creation. Race, traits and derived stats are all very similar, though you start to see some variation in Edges, as you get TWO free adept edges, in addition to a Discipline edge; making Earthdawn characters a bit more powerful at character creation than perhaps a Seasoned character (which works with the fluff of Earthdawn, as adepts are much more advanced than non-adepts.) Next comes a list of forbidden and modified edges and hindrances. Gear comes next in character creation, using Earthdawn silver standard prices. Finally creation rounds out with background. Characters can choose from 8 races, dwarf, elf, human, obsidimen, orc, troll, windling or t'skrang. Most of those are obvious; though windlings, obsidimen and t'skrang are a bit different. Windlings being 18" tall fae that can only fly for short periods of time. Obsidimen are rock-like beings which are from various 'liferocks' around Barsaive. T'skrang are flamboyant pterodactyl headed lizard'man style race. The normal earthdawn Disciplines (read as a class for those who are unfamiliar with Earthdawn), are represented by edge choices with the 'free' discipline edge determining what discipline you start as. (as far as I can tell you can still train a second discipine in EDSW, just like in Earthdawn, of course it works a bit different in Earthdawn, as you could RAW, have every available discipline.)

Chapter 4 is more fluff from Earthdawn. This covers what it means to be an Adept. It gives lots and lots of information for each of the different disciplines. Basically, being an adept means that magic is strong enough in you that it flows through you and powers your abilities with magic. Each discipline guides your world view, an archer typically sees the world in arcs with various obstacles to overcome while a Warrior sees life as a conflict to be overcome. AThief sees everything in the world as riches to be won. Understanding what it means to be your discipline guides you on your path in life. Your discipline is more of a definition than your race.

Chapter 5 this is the edges chapter. Hank Woon went nuts in this chapter, converting most of the talents in Earthdawn into Edges! I mean there's almost 6 and a half pages of TABLES. Not descriptions, TABLES. There are 26 pages of descriptions of the edges. There are plenty of rock'n edges that can easily be lifted for conversions to other games. This book is gold if for nothing more than the massive number of edges.

Chapter 6 This is the Magic chapter, it's a fluff chapter, but it's really light, pretty much glazing over some information about thread magic, patterns and blood magic. It gives the basic ideas behind the mechanics of Magic. For actual spells you need to go to the next chapter.

Chapter 7 Spells. This is where the Savage Worlds edition did a better job than the Pathfinder edition at 'feeling' like Earthdawn. Power Points were given a quick name change to Threads. Mechanically this has no real different effect than a name change, but thematically it makes sense. As I said before, I think I would make Matrices act as the focus for which of your many spells you have available NOW. This is an issue that Savage Worlds has, and it's one of the few things I don't like about Savage Worlds, same as I don't really like Sorcerers in Pathfinder because they lack the utility of choice. In Savage Earthdawn, you suffer even more by being limited to THREE spells. Thus making spell casters a poor choice to me, and spells like Crunch Climb a trap that locks you into a limited use spell.

Chapter 8 Gear. Well it's a gear chapter, so of course there's gear in it, including the many cool items from Earthdawn that make it unique like the Tri-spear and Troll sword. Now I don't think it's perfect, for some reason dwarf swords actually give dwarves a bonus to parry, and only trolls can wield a troll sword one-handed, not obsidimen. I'm happy to see several things make it into this edition. Hawk Hatchets were always one of my favorite weapons in Earthdawn, so I'm quite pleased to see they made the cut. I'm also very glad to see that 'Mystic Armor' ratings made it. One of the other things that makes this version FEEL right. A minor issue in this edition is the lack of stacking armor. But with the smaller armor values it makes sense that stacking would cause issues. I would still allow armor to stack, taking the better value from the combined set. For example, wearing Fernweave over Chainmail would give +2 Physical/+4 Mystic armor. Another very Earthdawn set of items are blood charms, minor magic items that have many varied uses; Hank did another great job converting these items to keep the feel of them.

Chapter 9 covers religion, it covers the 12 passions, including the 3 passions who went mad during the Scourge. Now the difference between Passions and gods, is the fact that all the passions were once mortals. So they're more looked to as examples to strive towards. Questors are hinted at, but no edges are given for player Questors. Typically all the passions are given attention, but Questors actually strive toward the ideals of a single Passion and are typically rewarded with additional powers that they tap into with their magic.

Chapter 10 is about Barsaive, This is where the game takes place. Barsaive is Europe during the Age of Legends. It's a quick overview which is fine, as most players will be leaving their kaers (magically sealed underground cities) or citadels (magically sealed surface cities) and exploring the area around them at first, so you don't need too much information about the World, except that it's scary and for some reason the Horrors are not all gone. For some reason the magic levels which were supposed to drop back to nothing stabilized at a level high enough to sustain many horrible creatures, but also great challenges to make a legend for yourself with.

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Wow, where to begin? Let's begin with the disclaimer, the PDF was provided to me by RedBrick,LLC for the purposes of review.

Getting that out of the way; Earthdawn requires a different view of gaming, so the rules for the Pathfinder version DO NOT, I repeat DO NOT stick to pure Pathfinder Rules. This is going to upset some people looking to just have a Barsaive campaign setting using Earthdawn rules (If you want that, use the basic rules and just use the background info.) The rules presented in the EDPG (PFRPG) are more of a hybridization of Pathfinder and Earthdawn.

Remember my background, I'm a huge Earthdawn fan, I have a near complete set of 1st edition books (missing the Blades adventure, and the Earthdawn Journals). I have the LRG 2nd edition, and I have 3rd edition (all core plus Cathay). I've been involved with Pathfinder since Alpha Testing, and I am an Adventure Path charter subscriber. So I know both systems well.

The book starts out with the standard fluff that is in the Earthdawn books, including reference to spell matrices, which aren't included in the spell casting system. During Character creation there are differences, the point values of purchase are based upon the Earthdawn point chart rather than the Pathfinder point buy system. (I don't see where using a standard 25 pt buy wouldn't work, so if you want to use the standard chart, no issue as far as I could see.) The races have different stat numbers than normal PFRPG players are used to seeing, but, that is in the tradition of Earthdawn, so I see what direction the designers are coming from.

Each character starts with a discipline feat, this gives you access to an adept's discipline (determining which adept skills and talents you gain access to.) Without knowing how Experience is going to be handled from the Game Masters guide, I don't know exactly how everything will work out, I mean will fighter based archer be completely inferior to a ranger based one simply because he has less skill points? Will the fighter based one be superior due to the extra feats. I'm still not sure how classes are handled specifically. I think that you can multi-class to your hearts content, though each of the adept feats (not adept skills) has requirements you might not meet if you aren't careful.

There are definitely elements I wish I had seen in this edition that weren't there. I wish the spell system was there from Earthdawn, I love spell threads and spell matrixes. It is one of the things that set Earthdawn apart from D&D back in the day, the lack of the Vancian spell magic system.

I will definitely be trying the system out, there's a lot to it, and it will REALLY require some getting used to. But I might just prefer the Original Earthdawn, as it is one of my favorite systems. I think that the system has plenty of elements that bring the feeling of Earthdawn to Pathfinder.

Cost: $29.99 for hard copy (when it becomes available), and $17.99 for PDF.

Value: Tough one, as I've stated before, Paizo set the bar on PDF sales. However RedBrick is a smaller company, so if you want to run this game, it's your call. Support a smaller game company because they're bringing something unique to the game.

Artwork: It features pretty much the same artwork from the older editions of Earthdawn (minus the crazy Mayan style covers from 3rd edition).

Rating: 16 of 20

Find additional reviews at www.EpicRPGBlog.blogspot.com in addition to updated commentary and house rule ideas to make the Pathfinder version MORE like Earthdawn. Note: this review varies slightly from the review posted on my blog, the review on the blog is more personalized.

Quick Look: This is a streamlining of the Interface Zero Rules regarding Hacking. Interface Zero already created a different style of Hacking that Shadowrun or Cyberpunk. As the Hacker doesn't jump into the system, instead he manipulates objects in real-time, the TAP providing him insight as to what's happening visually in hyper reality (Basically a skin over the real world). Only the new hacking rules make it more sleek, bringing it back in line with the Fast, Fun, and Furious design philosophy of Savage Worlds. It's a 14 page PDF. Mostly Crunch, with fluffy examples. I especially love the art on page 6 and the layout artwork.

Main Review: I'll break the review out into quick sections, There's a nice cover illustration, followed by the ToC, then on Page 1 David Jarvis introduces the book and how it came about through feedback with players. Page 2 and 3 cover the changes to the skills, edges and hindrances, including removal of some to complement the streamlining. Pages 4 through 7 describe the Hyper Glove in detail, including the basic modes, control, edit and destruction. The hyper glove itself can be quite the expensive piece of hardware once it's all tricked out, but you're gonna need it if you're hacking a Military Access Network! Page 8 is pretty neat, as it lays out all the Mods for the Hyper Glove, from the Lethal Mod (making your VR attacks lethal damage), to the VR Overlay Mod, letting you re-skin the world with a theme of your own choosing, So if your character wants to see the world in a medieval theme, guards might have repeating crossbows? Page 9 and 10 covers the actual hacking rules, yup, just page 9 and half of 10, simple = fast, fun & furious. The other half of Page 10 to the end covers the different networks and the consequences of failing a hacking roll against them. From the simple Public Access Network, where you might just get nailed for 1d12+2 non-lethal damage at the worst, to a Military Access networks where you might get your synapses fried to a crisp by 3d10 LETHAL damage, all the while locking down the building and powering down, you're in deep in the deep at the mo' ami!

Cost: $1.99 for PDF

Value: It's a bit pricey for a core update, but it's definitely a must have! If it wasn't such a great update, I would say wait for the full book, but if you're playing...get it NOW!!!

Rating: Epic, the new rules really are much simpler and willl lead to faster games, and best of all, the other players aren't sitting around waiting for you to be DONE hacking the system...

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Disclaimer: Provided by GunMetal Games for review purposes.

First Glance: With bright red background and heavy borders, this appears to be a bit cluttered at first. The graphics are top notch for a small company. Better than the art for many major game companies really. Only Paizo and Alderac come to mind right off the bat with consistent awesome artwork. It's 67 pages of crunchy, meaty, savage goodness. (Note: As this PDF is layered properly it was easy to turn off the background and borders layers for ease of viewing...This is a bonus, not a bummer.)

Core Review: This product delivers from the word go. The fictional writing is great, especially with the interaction of the hackers in the sidebars, which runs the entire book, from the neighborhoods to the NPCs. Pages 5-15 are neighborhoods, from Chinatown to Pacific Heights this gives a good indication of what you're in for in San Fran. The next 7 pages cover the organizations operating in San Fran, there's 13 of them, so you can imagine there's plenty of space for conflict.

The next 8 pages are what I usually look for first...crunchy character info. First we start out with a neat hindrance called: Nano-infection, a nanite virus, totally cool, totally futuristic and affects the wild die associated with a specific trait. (This could easily be worked into a normal hindrance such as a chronic disease for your non-scifi games). Next is the new edges. Four of them, Bedroom Eyes (Social), Bounty Hunter (Professional), Feral Throwback (Racial) and the Sword-Whip Training (Combat) edge for the swip from the equipment section. The next thing covered is the Occupations. These are one of the unique elements of IZ, making it slightly more complex than a standard SW game, but I like it, gives clarity of a purpose in life, without nailing you down to a class. The two introduced here are the Caravan Guard and the Professional Escort...yes that kind of professional escort, a companion you might say. Next up...Mad Max style gear from Road Wear, a new Armored jacket and Armor suit...plus wasteland survival wear. Only three new weapons, but man, start with the SWHIP, the sword whip, a heavy blade that can extend out to have reach 1 (with reduced dmg.) and you should probably pick up the edge as well. Next up is a big beefy carving knife...a 3 lb twin titanium blade with a carver motor in it...YIKES! I love it. Last up is a 50Cal sniper rifle...makes big holes in things including heavy armor, it's effectively a Barrett 82. Two new vehicles, the bay runner (a sea motorcycle effectively) and the Wasteland chopper, complete with gorgeous artwork show a nice chopper mounting a mini-gun on the handle bars...Then there's the designer drug, Black Zombie, nasty stuff, which is perfect for sadistic gamemasters. The final piece of gear is "Pipe Cleaners" a catchy name for a hacking filter for the less than perfect San Fran local web. [Also provided in the book are the racial templates for Rat Hybrid (pg 6) and Bull Hybrid (pg 28) characters]

The next section is pure genius!! City Trappings. Really this is brilliant, effectively it is templates for anything from a building to an entire nation. Each trapping has unique characteristics based upon it's trapping, so a building that has brown-outs obviously has power issues, unreliable power makes hacking a little more risky. The trappings are Black Market, Brown Outs, Combat Zone, Humans Only, Hybrids Only, Interdicted Zone, Kingpin, Martial Law, Military Base, Slum Dogs and Wilderness. Really these are awesome and worth the $8.99 in and of themselves.

Next up is "Salvage Tales" 4 pages of crunch for rummaging through ruins. These are also rules that can easily be used in other SW games, or even converted for scrounging rules for other systems. A quick bounty generator for those bounty hunter characters is provided, then we're on to Plot Hooks. Seven plot hooks are provided, not bad at all. The book rounds out with almost 30 NPC stat blocks, some of which are unique NPCs, typically leaders or major contact for an organization and typical members of those organizations.

Artwork: As I said in the Quick Glance, GMG puts out top-notch artwork that surpasses a lot of Big Game companies...The cover is awesome with the Bull hybrid toting the mini gun...

Family Rating: TEEN! With drugs, violence, and sex this supplement, like its parent setting, screams parental discretion advised.

Value: Oh yeah this is easily worth the $8.99 the PDF costs!

Rating: Epic!!

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This is a review of WarLands miniature game produced by Aberrant. www.aberrantgames.com Find more reviews at EpicRPGBlog.blogspot.com

What is it: WarLands is a 20mm scale miniature war game set in a post-apocalyptic world. Mad Max in 20mm scale. Note: this is also equivalent to 1:72 scaled plastic models

Rules: If you’ve always liked vehicular combat games, but hated how long they took to play, this may be the solution, Movement is simplified into Slow/Cruising/Fast, the exact numbers based upon the type of vehicle, fast for a truck is only cruising for a bike. The system uses 2d6, with modifiers, such as RC or CC (ranged or close combat). Damage is based upon the rolled damage, each die calculated separately, using exploding dice is always fun. Double sixes on the attack roll automatically cause a critical. Criticals can be brutal, and one can turn the tide of a combat in seconds, everything from a lucky escape, to a ruptured fuel, to a vehicular explosion. Balance is maintained using point buy for vehicles and pedestrians. On aberrantgames.com there are free ezines called Data Dump which covers all of Aberrant’s games (Though there aren't currently new zines). With the release of the full rulebook, Mac's Bodyshop is where it's at, while the addition of more background is nice, the real meat of this product is the ability to field unique models, a la Car Wars. I scavenged parts off my old Epic minis to get lots more turrets and large bore guns to put on the vehicles, so whether I'm running a Rattler or a more beefy truck, this just plain rocks.

There are full "army" lists, with 4 levels of play based upon points. 0-150 points is patrol level, 150-250 Skirmish, 250-750 Battle, and 750+ full-on War. The play-test game we played was about 300 points. I had a champion kicking it on the watch tower with a 50cal rifle with a laser sight, that was fun, I also fielded 3 scrap mechs. At 20 points each these are under-priced. Wielding a mini-gun but having the ability to aim is a bit unbalanced. I want to see the ability for scrap-mechs to have interchangeable weaponry, but at our house, that's an easy fix. Twin 50Cals? Oh, that sounds FUN! The main force you can choose from is the Warriors of the Wastelands force. The second list is Nomads. The last is Lotek. Nomads and Lotek have specific special rules which apply to the forces, the Lotek forces have poor tech weaponry, but are brutal in hand to hand. Noamds don't fight for control of the force, so no power struggles mid-game between leaders and champions, making it a more stable force, but as they barter more, they have to roll on a special table for loners.

Loners are individuals that join for pay, aka Mercs, or The Stranger and his Dog...I think he might be named Max the Mad or something like that....If you want a sniper for your Lotek force, a loner might be what you're seeking, since he won't be subject to the Lotek rules. It's an interesting way to make your force more varied.

There are some errors in the book, but many of them have been addressed in the FAQ on the Aberrant Forums. No big deal, that's first print for you, at least they're addressed quickly, unlike some companies.

Miniatures: Decent, the vehicles are resin cast, with white metal accessories and figures. Being 20mm scale it’s easy to pull in WW2 or modern miniatures for additional pedestrians, even axis and allies figures work pretty well scale-wise. (Though I wish there were some good post-apoc 20 mm mini lines out there, until Aberrant can get pedestrian figs made. Though using paper minis for the pedestrian minis is an option as well, there are already some of those out there, even if there are only 25mm ones, just printing them at 80% size makes them 20mm.)

Comprehension Level: Excellent, The rules are simple, the action furious. It’s one of the fastest miniatures games I’ve played. You can get lucky penetrating shots that change the course of the game very quickly. When you roll doubles, you automatically get to roll on the devastating table, if you roll a 1, Kaboom, vehicle destroyed. Makes for a pretty fun game.

It's free, it's useful, which is good, because it's not very pretty...

Book of Beasts – Monsters of the River Nations Review

Disclaimer: This is a review of material provided to me free of charge for the purpose of review.

First Glance: From a quick perusal, it looks very promising. Nice artwork, bold trade dress, and 20 unique monsters and 7 additional pages of material.

In Depth: Many low CR monsters, from the stumble fish to the Night Caller and Mature Piranha. Though my favorite of the new monsters is the Giant Fly Trap, I’ve always had a soft spot for nature fighting back. The Dire Fly Trap is even more vicious. Those are my favorites, there are a few of the monsters I’m not as convinced with. The Addanc has a strange name, which is an odd crocodile/beaver aberration. I’m not a fan of the Hatethrall Demon since it’s a disembodied head is strange for a demon, and the Hydrus has a new Combat maneuver, which doesn’t have an explanation, in addition it’s a bit of an undercon at ½ CR. The other monsters are all well-crafted creatures.

Extras: In addition to being a monster book, it is a resource book for the River Nations campaign setting (not to be confused with the River Kingdoms of Golarion.)

In Conclusion: A strong book, with something useful for almost any campaign, it’s not perfect, but I do recommend it.

I give it 4 stars because it's good, not the best, I would give it 4.5 if the option was available. It's an A, not an A+.

Review of Book of the Faithful 1 – Power of Prayer

Disclaimer: This is an honest review of a material that was provided to me free of charge for the purpose of said honest review. I am in no way affiliated with the company in question.

First Impressions: After a quick perusal of the material, I was definitely interested as any new mechanics get me excited.

What you get: You get 5 pages of material, excluding trade dress.

Art: Good quality black & white hand artwork.

Fluff: Nice Fluff, I enjoy the background prayer info.

Crunch: What you get. There is 1 magic item; three prayer books in the equipment section. The best part is the mechanics for the (prayers), a quick, once daily effect based upon which deity you call upon, minor effects, but really well thought out. I’ll have to see them in action with play testing to see if any are over-powered, but minor tweaks would be all that is needed.

Grammar & Editing: Minor, nothing to really be concerned about.

Value: Excellent value for the 99 cent price tag. As there are new mechanics, players would need their GM Approval to use the mechanics. I would want it in my library and would consider it a good purchase for me.