Occult Archetypes

A special thanks to Legendary Games for providing a review copy for this product.

Occult Archetypes is from publisher Legendary Games, a brand that frequently produces great products. Often they are divided into different categories based on Paizo adventure paths they allude to plug into but also in-house settings and entire modes of play under Pathfinder. In this case this is an 'occult plug-in' meaning that its all about Occult Adventures and the options that it presents with new archetypes and other options. There are a little over 20 archetypes in its 40 pages (along with some reprinted rules such as spells from the Technology Guide and Wizard elemental schools).

Being rather young classes, the Occult classes definitely need some room for growth and flavor and this product brings it.

The Kineticist archetypes brings us a radiation-based kineticist that's alignment-locked into non-good. One gives us a kineticist with some psychic spells. But other than that I feel like the archetypes are mostly cosmetic in the sense that they don't change any of the basic dynamics of the class although there are some cool concepts with importing some class features like channel energy and the oracle's curse. That's not to say that they are boring. There's some concepts that are mostly a matter of flavor but are really cool, like the archetype that sources the Kineticist abilities from an item rather than the character itself producing a kind of Green Lantern feel.

Some of the Medium's archetypes are obvious. Get a druidic caster mode and a psychic caster mode with archetypes to support it and also a short archetypes that tweaks a little with a lot of impact.

Mesmerist gets just two but I wasn't terribly interested in them. They give some new flavor to Mesmerist when the class is pretty narrow but I feel represent a flavor already handled by other classes. One even sprinkles a bit of Bard in there which is just blasphemy to me.

I'm a bit biased against the Psychic so this one is pretty subjective but I really am not feeling the archetypes inside. They are most pretty much a psychic only kind of like another class, particularly gaining some items from Wizard and Monk like Wizard Schools, Wizard Elemental Schools, all good saves and evasion. One even gets prepared casting. If you already a fan of the Psychic class these are pretty aggressively interesting changes that expand expectations of how the class operates but I kind of saw the Psychic as a different casting Sorcerer so adopting class features from other classes just transfers the class's boringness to a class other than Sorcerer.

The Spiritualist is another class that feels like a New Coke version of another, in this case the Summoner, and this book doesn't help by presenting an archetypes that makes the spirit even more like an eidolon. But there's also two other archetypes that give something new are imported from the occultist which are more exciting.

There's a revision on how to deal with psychic abilities with monsters to make it more in line with how spell like abilities work in monsters along with revised entries for those abilities from the more recent psychic creatures. I do have a beef with this. Not the fact that they did it or anything but there's a table for that right in the middle of the Psychic's archetypes that takes up a full page instead of it being right after the page that explains it, which is slightly confusing. Also I'm not fond of mixing some GM information in archetype books (player information) unless its a bigger book that covers a broad amount of categories of a topic. Especially since it's about six and a half pages of stuff I may or may not use really.

On a rules and rules language front I didn't notice any problems with Occult Archetypes. There are a few archetypes that are inspirational and open up new concepts and others I feel reeks of gridfilling mechanics onto the new classes. Overall its a worthwhile buy. At it's worst about half of it contains interesting archetypes that bring you closer to new concepts that you may have had trouble with before and at it's best almost all the archetypes give you a new dynamic to it's respective class and you can easily make psy-like abilities work the same way other spells work instead of being something new and weird. Honestly most of the things that I was less than thrilled with is a victim of how expanded Pathfinder is to me. Like the very concept of a fiend hunter mesmerist gives something new to the mesmerist but between almost all the divine classes, Slayer and Ranger I think I've had my fill of the concept and I don't see what the Mesmerist brings to it. But on the other hand the Mesmerist has something new to do that's interesting. Meanwhile there's straight gems like the Poison Earth Kineticist that uses radiation. I want to give this a 4 out of 5 because there's a significant chunk that I don't really care about but I think that if I look at it objectively its a solid product that expands what the occult classes can do without being huge nerfs or being overpowered so I'm bumping it to a 5 out of 5 for what it is.

You can find this over on Paizo.com here.

Tides of War: Magus/X Feats

First of all, a big thanks to Flying Pincushion for the review copy. 

The Tides of War series from Flying Pincushion has had a huge upswing and a huge downswing making this one a bit of a gamble but with high rewards. Lets see where the pendulum swings in this installment where we get some multiclass enabling Magus feats.

Now I'm not stranger to multiclassing feats. Rogue Genius Games did a book a while back with a bunch of them, some poaching class features while others actually required you multiclass. Here out of the six pages of the pdf, as with the previous Tides of War, we get only a few pages of content. For this one it's two, or more two and a half.

Some of the feats let you use your arcane pool in new ways that interact with class features from another class. You can use your arcane pool to reduce the penalty of mutagens, issue extra challenges, get more rounds of Bardic Performance/Raging Song, or get more Rage.

You can also spellstrike from outside your spell list. get benefits from killing targets of your smite or favored enemy, re-target Hex targets,

One of the more interesting ones is one that lets you spend arcane points when using a Kinetic Blade to use your hit die as your caster level for the spell.

For the most part these feats definitely do some enabling. They are simple and to the point but actually do quite a bit to make multiclassing with a Magus viable. Best of all they are written very clearly and there's a variety of ways that they help. For feats you get some hefty bonuses but really you'd have to because in all honesty some of the class combinations aren't that great and multiclassing in Pathfinder can be kind of a bust in the first place. I'd give this a full 5 out of 5 stars. It does its job and does it well and in a short amount of time. Besides that you also get some actual incentive to mix the classes more without a single trap option in the mix. Bravo.

You can find this over on Paizo.com Here.

You can find this over on DriverthruRPG.com Here.

New Paths 8: The Trickster

So if you have seen my opinions about New Paths Compendium my views of The Trickster will induce a lot of deja vu. Like a lot of it's predecessors the Trickster class follows a lot of familiar ground and fills in a huge gap but adds a bit of new to make it a real novelty while still feeling like a real part of the game. As a whole that's the main strength of the New Path classes. They feel like they could have been printed by Paizo so its pretty easy to accept them in a game as opposed to completely new kinds of systems like Spheres of Power or sharp changes in balance like Path of War. They simply fit in and play nice with base Pathfinder and as much as I like my crazy stuff like psionic wolfmen from the future, or Aboleth parasite mutants that shoot bears out of their eyes I absolutely love my purchase of New Paths Compendium and products that simply fill in the blanks that the base game leaves behind.

So what is the Trickster? Well in a nutshell it's a 20 level Arcane Trickster in the same way that the Magus is a 20 level Eldritch knight. Its basic chassis is a 3/4 BAB class with  six levels of casting. It casts from the Sorcerer/Wizard list so avoids spell list conflicts that I normally have with new classes but does put it's casting a bit ahead of the Magus in terms of raw versatility. It has a spellbook but prepares spells known rather than spell slots, so it casts like an Arcanist (also INT based casting). It has a slower progression sneak attack and at fifth level can use sneak attacks to deliver touch spells which is where the comparison to the Magus comes in. At level 15 it can do the reverse and have spells that deal damage against flat footed enemies deal sneak attack damage which applies to all targets of the spell if the spell does damage to multiple targets in one blast (Yes fireball/No magic missile) making a surprise Burning Hands really sick all of a sudden at late levels.

There's also an option called Forte that serves as kind of a Order/Bloodline package choice that represents a focus. One makes you significantly better at acrobatics checks, one gives you a familiar that does quite a bit of extra things, like sneak attack and functionally giving you the Inquisitor's Solo Tactics with it. One makes feint pretty desirable. One allows you to steal spells but is about the only ability in the entire book that I have serious questions about. Its unclear whether or not the stolen spell is itself negated or if the stealing has to occur within a certain range or exactly when the opposing caster is casting. Either way it looks like it can swipe spells from other spell lists and cast them for a short amount of time. Plus later on they can hijack ongoing spells and control them.

The rest of the class features are mostly filler-ish or expected things. It gets six +1s to a number of  skills over the course of the class, three bonus feats from a limited pool or a metamagic feat. They get uncanny dodge/improved uncanny dodge, trapfinding and evasion. One interesting thing is that they can make ranged disable device and sleight of hand checks as if they were using mage hand to do it. Something everyone ever had tried to do before realizing that's not how the spell works.  Eventually they can hijack ongoing spells and control them.

 In the end I have to criticize an INT based caster with 6+INT skills per level. This can easily be seen as a "better Rogue" from that standpoint alone. Although that's true for a lot of things the class feels like the Rogue dropped all of it's worst abilities and replaced them with good ones. But overall, I like the class. I've seen a few 20 level arcane trickster type classes and this one fills in the checkboxes that I think are the most desirable things about the concept. Using mage hand to steal/disable, steal spells, cast with versatility. I also have to praise the points where it keeps in room for expansion with it's Forte class feature. Its a rather simple class that fits in about 5 pages but it's packed with so many small smart choices that brings it together. The Fortes make the focus of the class drastically different from each other, the Arcanist casting keeps it from being boring but still keeps it spontaneous, stealing control of spells, not shoehorning a talent selection (which would have made for a huge chunk of choice paralysis since spells are also involved.). I think this class fits in great next to the Magus in filling up concepts that fit in the six level arcane caster space and is probably my current favorite chassis for the concept. I think I can confidently give this five stars out of five. I'm sure that others will love it.

You can find this over on Paizo.com here.

A Page of Scrolls

A big thanks to Casey Brown for the review copy.

A Page of Scrolls is an adventure that serves an adventure that serves as part one for more to come. As an adventure product I'll try to get by without any spoilers to players while still giving a general impression of what it's like.

The backstory of this book is such: Big evil guy takes over the city and the citizens spend almost two decades ousting him in an insurgency campaign. However now the city is getting an influx of refugees fleeing from some threat in a nearby civilization.  The PCs are there for reasons looking for adventure.

The first bit is probably the most difficult of the adventure to manage. It starts off with the PCs helping to free a pickpocket but its in a way that the PCs have to be altruistic enough to step into things that's not their own business. With a bunch of typical adventurer types the scene plays out to make at least one party member want to get involved. but I've had plenty of tables where the party would just avoid something like this. Overall this is the fault of not having any real assumptions that the PCs have to fill in. They don't start off with an inherent direction and aren't in any direct danger so the pieces that kick off the entire story is somewhat avoidable.  On the flip side the PCs have to definitely not be Lawful Stupid or they're liable to burn the whole town to the ground.

Other than that the adventure is fairly basic. As the first instance of an adventure path it is lacking a few things. Mostly more locations to interact with and a guide to leveling for those of us who don't do leveling by XP. It also feels much more like a module over the beginning of an adventure path. I would say that with a normal party this all will take three sessions to complete the adventure even if they blow a lot of time roleplaying. Its basically a go in the dungeon and find a thing quest that's more complicated than it seems but still simple for the adventurers. I can definitely see it as a good generic thing for first time adventurers to get into without being overwhelmed by a bunch of story things that don't matter. This is still while giving enough details to know that the area is a lot more complicated and is capable of delivering more adventure and more complexities as time goes on.

The adventure gives you quite a bit to set the mood and flesh out details, particularly at the beginning. It also leaves room for expansion. The appendix gives you enough to work with to liven up the experience for the players. Despite needing to hit the rails hard at the beginning the city is expanded enough where you can sandbox a bit once the adventure proper is started. Once you get to dealing with the dungeon at hand the whole thing is pretty dense. I'm sure you're going to retreat to level and rest at least once. If you're running with a bunch of optimized characters the whole thing isn't terribly challenging but whenever a whole group of monsters show up there are variable amounts that the book lists so that you can up the challenge. If they get to level three though it will be a cake walk either way. Normal adventurers will be challenged a bit but nothing too stressful. 

The artwork is charming for what it is. It feels very old school and more evocative than detailed. The dungeon maps definitely feel home made but not in a way that really detracts from the whole experience. There's definitely roleplaying opportunities outside for the dungeon.

Overall I like it. Its simple but can lead to a lot which is what one would expect of a 'part one' adventure. I cannot see it as the first book of an adventure path because really not much happens but it is a pretty decent module that can be used as an intro to your own adventures. You have what serves as a home base with lots of opportunities and problems which serves as great 'blank space' for more story. It has some rough edges but covers a lot of bases and gives you what you need to run a decent adventure that leads to greater things.  I want to give it four out of five stars but I'll knock it up to five because really whatever adventures are further down the line makes or breaks it. Its decent and does it's job well but isn't particularly memorable, except for that it's hinting at more exciting thing and leaving threads to go there easily, whether it's further adventures from Casey Brown or something that you make up yourself.

You can find this over on Paizo.com here.

Kineticists of Porphyra 2

I liked Kineticists of Porphyra so now we'll take a look at it's sequel. Both have been popular lately on Paizo's weekly top 10 lists so we'll also see if that popularity is deserved. Big thanks to Purple Duck Games for the review copy.

The last Kineticist of Porphyra filled in some blanks allowing the Kineticist to grow to be as robust as other classes. These blanks were pretty obvious but now we get into the slightly odd choices and elements that expand a bit past the 'bender' feel of the class. This starts with the first archetype, the Divine Conduit, that is somewhat of a Kineticist given it's power through divine intervention. It has to be good, has an aura of good and gets 'Kinetic Smite', effectively a Smite Evil for Kineticists. The rest of the powers pull a lot from the Paladin in some way except for a growing DR. Overall it gets cool powers that are well worth what they give up; elemental defense and a few wild talents for  a mount, healing, smite, a defensive boost and DR. All in all I'd go for it over any kind of elemental cleric for the streamlined theme. The Dragon Pact Kineticist is a bit hard to read being littered with exclusive wild talents that give it various dragon form abilities and breath weapon abilities making separating wild talent rules text hard to separate from class feature description until you run into a new class feature. once the whole thing is sorted out you're left with a sort of spell-less Dragon Disciple. I like it well enough where I'd put it above normal Dragon Disciple, again for the streamlined theme. The fusion Kineticist is a bit of a yawn. Nothing wrong with it but it's just a basic 'two elements at level one' kind of deal which is great for early levels but it's not like you're lacking in that kind of option at mid levels for normal Kineticist. Its a grid to fill.  The Hex Kineticist continues the theme of side-jumping Kineticist into mimicking other classes, this one obviously being a witch. By now this habit gives me the feeling that the kineticists non-spell magic system is being used to replicate a pseudo-Spheres of Power effect. They get a familiar that can later be an elemental gun, and Hexes.

There are new elements. Poison and whatever Viscera is supposed to be. I had to google that and I still don't quite follow how a viscera 'element' is supposed to work. I'm going to go with 'gross body kinesis' based on what the element does, but the point is that we're getting deeper into the non-element territory of elements to manipulate/produce and leaning closer to Pokemon elements. Poison gets an acid blast and Viscera shoots bones I guess.(I'm thinking Marrow from X-Men). The new composite blasts are obvious given the new elements but the new elemental defenses being a bit cool and powerful but a little situational depending on what you're doing so no better or worse than normal elemental defenses. It does open spell resistance and rotating energy damage resistance which is nice.

The new infusion wild talents have some of the same criticisms I had last time. Some of the talents are pretty powerful for what they do and at what level although I have to say that all of the overpowered looking ones seem to have an insane burn cost. If you're set on using them they can end a fight pretty fast but you're not going to be doing anything too interesting later. These are mostly status effect kind of deals like dealing ability score damage or continuous damage (crippling to enemy casters). The utility wild talents are less extreme but definitely keeps kineticist on the path of a themed caster rather than a thing-bender opening up things like making zombies. It also kind of sets it off more anti-caster abilities like the ability to force concentration checks, counterspells and continual damage.

Between all the new wild talents there's a focus on beefing up the new elements but lots of elements get some love with some cool effects so you're going to have to go digging even if you're just a vanilla kineticist focusing on one of the main elements.

From there we have some new feats. Some things that are pretty fun. There's one that I have a bit of a thing against, mainly because it opens cans of worms for cross company utility talents than anything abusive I can think of within normal or Porphyrian Kineticist options. There are some new magical items. Well a lot. Some of them I had expected to already exist but apparently they don't so there's a bonus on that front. After that we leave off with a sample Dragon Pact NPC before OGL text.

I felt like Kineticists of Porphyra had the theme of grid-filling, expanding the Kineticist class to elements and archetypes that seem like a natural fit or a logical extension for the class. Meanwhile KoP2 goes a bit off the reservation with it's elements and if I were to describe a theme it would be a distinct hatred of casters. On one front, the archetypes creepily seek to replace other casters and replace them as doppelgangers. Despite lifting mostly from the Paladin, if you're good aligned the divine archetype is a suitable replacement for divine casters in terms of themes. Then there's the Witch and Dragon Disciple branded ones. On another front a number of the new wild talents replicate spell functions to the extent that you can even perform some necromancy. If you can sort through the fiddly bits you basically can replace all casting with wild talent 'casters' and the flavor remains untouched.  Then there are the talents that outright do bad things to casters, numerous ways to deal continuous damage, spell resistance, good counterspelling. Its like the Kineticist not only wants the option to beat casters to a pulp but take their place as a less diverse but 'all day' caster.

Whether or not this is bad depends entirely on how you feel about the Kineticist in general. If you love the class and want it to be a bit more thematically or to do something other than being a blaster caster then this is a pretty decent product. It gives you new and exciting things to do and although I mostly did a single read through, I have not found any real problems in terms of rules and typos.

I would give this 5 stars out of 5. I have somewhat of a sarcastic tone with this product but it really does open up quite a bit and gives more utility to handle more esoteric problems and do cool things. This book kind of brings them up a bit past simply being an elementalist which does kind of bring it out of it's niche but also evolves the class a bit. During the playtest I felt like the Kineticist and it's Wild Talents felt like Spheres of Power-lite and I can definitely feel it here as the class branches itself. These are things that I really like, hence the five star rating. 

You can find this over on Paizo.com here.

Meditations of the Jade/Lotus

Anyone Remember the Pathfinder Player Companion? Inside was a new feat type for Monks. I don't know about anyone else but for me those were terrible. Meditation feats, the feats in question, could be taken in place of monk bonus feats and represented getting bonuses for meditating. The entry feat gave you a one time +1 bonus to a roll if you meditate for one hour after 8 hours of rest. From there you can take more feats that give you different effects for the day that can be quite good or just offer another minor bonus. Then there's Combat Meditation which lets you meditate for a full round to gain instant benefits from other feats often with their own limits. I thought this was a neat mechanic but not much about it appealed to me because there weren't that many of them and there wasn't a real way to build around them. Plus I saw Combat Meditation and Meditation Master as pretty steep feat taxes for the kind of bonuses along the line.

Luckily Amora Games has release more meditation feats to let this new little subsystem play out, which is a great thing. The list of feats for monk bonus feats has always been awkward to me and meditation feats feel like a flavorful substitute that should have been a mainstay in the class rather than a small blip in a Player Companion. Potentially as big as style feats.

In Meditations of the Jade the feats are honestly not that exciting, at least in terms of combat effectiveness. There are a few that get cool and interesting, like the ability to spit poison, making a shadow double once a day, using dimension door, or detecting magic and invisibility, but others feel like they're more in there for flavor, like being able to switch styles in mid combat by using a swift action.  I would say that half of them are nice to have or do something mildly exciting while the other half I wouldn't ever take considering that Meditation Master is already kind of a feat tax. This being a small book its hard to really judge because a few good ones can make the product good enough for most purposes and the low price tag doesn't hurt. I would warn customers not to get TOO excited but if you like the idea of monks getting a bit of divination and a bit of teleportation then this is a solid 4 out of 5 stars once you ignore the stinkers.

You can find this over on DriveThruRPG.com here.

In Meditations of the Lotus we are greeted with all kinds of excitement. Self healing, the ability to cheat in a bunch of ki points, reroll will saves, use ranks as BAB (okay that's kind of dangerous.).  There are some that interact with Grit, Panache or Stamina that I feel aren't really needed but if you're multiclassing then it couldn't hurt. As exciting this is I keep getting the feeling like these are going somewhere but aren't quite there, but I guess I was expecting something more outrageous and wuxia. At the very least more effective combat applications for meditations. The feats inside instead stay well within usual design paradigms and try to do the best they can.  What I really want to say is that I wanted more monk fixes out of meditations but what I got isn't bad and can still be useful. Especially things that interact with ki since a ki ability intensive build needs as many of those as they can get. Overall I would give this 5 out of 5 stars. May of these I would gladly take with a few exceptions.

You can find this over on DriveThruRPG.com here.

New Paths Compendium

I have a lot of love for Kobold Press' products and it starts with New Paths Compendium, my first Kobold Press purchase. This book fills in a lot of mechanical gaps and adds a lot of flavorful options that I use constantly. If you want to add meaningful options to your game from new classes that just 'fit' and options that expand your Gunslinger, Monk and others you need this book. Five stars for being such a huge boost to my games.

You can find this over on Paizo.com here.

Retrospective:

My old review doesn't convey how good this product is because other reviews on Paizo.com already go into a lot of details so I just wanted to add my stars to the mix. I mentioned this a few times on this blog before and usually use the term 'gridfilling' and in the most satisfying of ways. If you want Pathfinder as a game to feel a step more 'complete' then this is a good book to start. Solid new classes, new archetypes, new feats and even some new alternate rules, this book has so much to give.

I've seen a lot of third party classes and what I take from the New Path classes is that they stand out by not exactly standing out. They feel more 'classic' as if they were a natural part of the game than being bogged with new expectations, paradigms and alternate resolution systems. They feel like they're supposed to be a part a Pathfinder from day one.

From new classes you have the Battle Scion, a full BAB arcane caster that feels very much like a Paladin with blaster capabilities than divine might. It's signiture move is shooting magic missile-like laser beams. It actually seems a bit wimpy at first level but by 6th level it's all kinds of tanky as the numbers catch up.

The Elven Archer is kind of an odd duck, basically a Ranger's chassis that got turned into a Arcane Archer base class, but it's specific to elves. It comes with a Dwarven Crossboyer and a Halfling Slinger that are specific to the races they're named after but curiously it also comes with the Mystic Archer which is the same thing but not race specific. Why the Mystic Archer doesn't headline the class I have no idea but hey, a full BAB 'arcane' archer is pretty great.

If you were around enough to be a fan of the Factotum from 3.5 the Savant is kind of a spiritual successor. An grand skill monkey and the ability to suddenly grab abilities to be a skill monkey, warrior or caster. It can even pull off mimicking a race and a few racial abilities.

The Shaman is a spontaneous Druid. Not much to say beyond that. It has more to it than that of course. It selects from a list of supernatural abilities, it heals instead of summon animals and a few other things, but it wild shapes, has an animal spirit guide (works differently from animal companion) and casts druid spells. It's the Druid's Oracle.

One thing awkward and cool is the Spell-less Ranger. which is exactly like it sounds. A pure martial Ranger that I actually think is kind of better. At the very least is more awesome since it has a variant where it's a wildshape without spells class.

The Theurge is a 20 level Mystic Theurge. It does basically nothing but cast spells and have class features that make casting spells better. But it has the most broken spell list in existence so there's that.

Then there's the White Necromancer, conjurer of the elusive good zombies in case you want to be a necromancer without being evil.

Past that you get some support for the classes already talked about but also some AMAZING support for the Monk, Ninja and Gunslinger, which seems like a random selection but comes with ninja clone jujitsu so I'm not going to complain.

There are feats and spells that do a lot more than support the classes inside. There are some nice style feats. There are also some condensed feat chains to make scaling combat feats and instructions on how to make more, which is pretty sweet. I like to use those.

There are new alchemical arrows that I use a lot. Rules for Scaling Magic Items. Then the best thing about the entire book. Tracking sheets for arrows, favored enemies, wild shape and prepared spells.

Seriously this book has so much and since it all plays so nicely with the base game it became a very frequent mainstay and full of popular choices. I especially recommend this for people who want 'more Pathfinder' as opposed to adding weirder elements from third parties, like psionics or something that shifts paradigms that the game sets up. 

Adventuring Classes: A Fistful of Denarii

This is a simple pdf with almost a dozen new classes. They're mostly mixtures of other classes making them somewhere between alternative classes and hybrid classes from the Advanced Class guide. Your mileage may vary as they aren't terribly robust classes that do anything new but since none of them are spellcasters they can make nice additions to your player's options. For the most part I feel like I could recreate the general theme or mechanics with existing options; Well except for the Scholar class.

The Scholar introduces nothing truly new but it has a lot of ways it can go and works out as a jack of all trades non-caster that really works. It even has the option of getting a few spells making for the dabbler that some bards try to be but their focus on spells and performances prevent them from truly achieving. Really the pdf could have been worth the price if it were just about the scholar and some cool feats.

Oh yeah the feats. The feats range from standard support for the classes in the book to gamechanging support for non-casters. Rogue and Dex melee strikers get two feats that bring them up a notch while not being truly unbalanced. Seriously some of the feats have become staples in my games.

I was going to give this four stars because most of the classes are things I wouldn't take but the scholar class and a good chunk of the feats are good enough for the price which overcompensates for the price leaving me to put it up to five stars.

You can find this over on Paizo.com here.


Retrospective:

This product has not aged that well. Since it's come out we've gotten a lot more out of even the weaker spell-less classes and the Advanced Class Guide came out giving us some mainstream martial classes along with archetypes and other support. This has made the classes of AFoD still solid to pick but kind of stagnant. Even my favorite, the Scholar, is getting a bit outclassed without the support to bolster it's theme.

As I said, the classes are still solid, and the feat support is still inspired. For the budgeted 3pp consumer I would still recommend it for a bit of martial diversity, but it's badly in need of an update and I don't think that all the classes would survive the transition. There's just better out there even within just Paizo options.

That said, the thought that went into this product is what put Tripod Machine on the map for me. Most of it's flaws are due to the product being ancient and in some of the aspects Paizo has not even caught up. Since then I've been keeping an eye out for large releases but sadly the only one is on the horizon, that being the space opera supplement from their kickstarter Conquest of the Universe.

Advanced Bestiary

Have 5 stars.
Seriously this is just really good for a GM. Its more than a bestiary or a compilation of templates, or an NPC book. Its all three. In fact its more considering that the templates are often very involved. This massive book effectively multiplies the entries in all the bestiaries and NPC codexes saving me a ton of trouble and making for incredible encounters.

You can find this over at Paizo.com here.

Retrospective:

My original review for this was rather short. Others has posted reviews in great detail and I just wanted to add my stars to the mix, but really there isn't all that much to say.

The product is very basic. Its a big fat book full of creature templates. The templates are diverse and create a lot of interesting abilities and plot hooks. Each template has an example creature that is either an NPC or monster that has the template. So the entire book is one part bestiary and one part 'pimp my monster' but has some weird NPCs in there.

To understand how good this is, think about how many monsters you have. We have five bestiaries, an NPC Codex and a Monster Codex. Each of those creatures when they have a template applied is pretty much a new monster given that these templates are far reaching and add some bit of flavor. So the amount of creatures you have at your disposal multiplies with each template. With, what I'm guessing is 200 templates, some of which have multiple 'modes' you can seriously  never have the same creature twice for a really long time. Gone are the days when your players can predict how a creature works completely, even if it's the same monster they've seen dozens of times. Monsters that they've fought at level one can show up more often with newer and more diverse abilities. My usual method of advancing monsters has been applying class levels but with this many templates I can do quite a bit very simply. I could even design entire campaigns around some of the templates because they do more than add a few plusses but can add a new dynamic or a new kind of enemy. Besides that the book is effectively a new bestiary given the amount of sample monsters.

This book reduces a lot of work for any GM and has been one of the most useful books I have to make encounters more interesting or buff up a monster that wasn't too interesting to fight. It is pretty much an automatic five stars simply by how often it  gets used.

Thunderscape: World of Aden

Other reviews have discussed this in greater detail about the contents so I'll keep this short, pointing out the things that stood out to me.

I'm a big fan of mixing magic and technology. I love properties like He-Man, Thundercats and Flash Gordon so for a while I was on a huge lookout for Pathfinder products that would satisfy my need to run a few Magitech or Dungeon Punk campaigns. Thunderscape is the book that satisfied me in ways that other similar products didn't. Part of that is because of how the technology guide works (I'll get to that) and part of it is the flavor it evokes but for the most part its the options given that just work out for me.

Chapter 1 didn't strike me as terribly special until I got to the Ferrans. The Ferrans are a cool design and kind of make for 4 races rolled into one without getting super complicated. If you want a diverse 'furry' race then these guys will be lots of fun to play with.

Chapter 2 introduces 9 new classes. While the EntoMancer and Mechamage strike me as something that could be a Druid or Wizard archetype the remaining 7 classes are new, fresh and well designed. I cannot imagine running a dungeonpunk campaign without them. I could go on and on about these classes, they are really the MVPs of the book.

There are new weapons, armor and material that are pretty standard but I'm not really a fan of new gun and vehicle rules as they kind of disrupt assumptions and makes you have to convert when porting in or out. The all star here is the concept of Manite and Manite Engines. Which give precedence to have a source of energy allowing you to port in Technology Guide Items that could believably be run with steam.

There is also a lot of Aden lore which while does nothing for me, I mostly use the book for homebrew settings. It is a pretty fascinating world though.

There is also a mini bestiary giving you some new and really evocative monsters to work with.
If you want to run a Dungeon Punk this book will give you pretty much all you need including a setting and some races to work with. I recommend it above anything else I've seen unless you really need a more detailed and robust chapter on technological items. That said there have been PDF crunch books about six of the classes as of writing this review and those expanded the classes ENORMOUSLY so I wouldn't be surprised if I see a technological item pdf that will make me eat my hat.

I'm giving it five stars. I can't imagine running an Ebberon-like magitech setting without these options. and the world of Aden is a fun Ebberon replacement that is full of flavor.

You can find this over on Paizo.com here.

Retrospective:

I'm sticking to my guns here. The classes in this book, especially after the class expansions are extremely interesting and the entire book is worth it just for that. Since the book compares well to Eberron I'll use that as a grounding point; Eberron introduces the Artificer, one class that interacts with magitech, while Thunderscape introduces four, plus 5 others. As mentioned above two of those classes are pretty much Wizard or Druid with weird abilites. After that one class is not much different from a fighter in flavor. But the reamaining six classes are 100% unique. (Okay well the medium and thaumaturge have some flavor similarities but mechanically handle them very differently and the medium came after this was released.)

The fluff grew on me the longer I've had this book. Even if you don't play it straight it still has a lot of interesting elements that can inspire homebrew campaigns.

The rest of the book is pretty 'meh' for me though. The new firearm rules aren't really great. The new vehicle rules are functional if you want a more simplified way of doing things but overall aren't really helpful to me because it doesn't fully play nice with the rest of the game, meaning that new vehicle options are less valuable to latch on to it. This does mean that you have to make some GM decisions when it comes to the Thunder Scout. The new equipment is just kind of normal until you get to Manite Engines, but they have more potential than actual usability. The monsters are really good but there are only a few of them.

Really if you get this, its because you want a more magitech steampunk than what Pure Steam offers and you want class that fit more than just the Gearhead. And I really mean that. I think I've said this in my Pure Steam review but as much as both products do on their own they have way more value together as they are each what the other isn't. I really wish they could just merge the two books to fill out each other's gaps.

Deep Magic

I like this book a lot. If I had my guess as to what Ultimate Magic 2 would look like, this would be it. More than just a book of spells Deep Magic supports magic in a lot of different ways.

The first chapter essentially gives spell lists by theme, discussing each with some flavor and providing some spell books that can be found containing the spells. There's also some smackling of rules such as new wizard schools, Ioun Stones, and leylines. This does mean that you wind up having to read the theme before you can find some rules, for example; there isn't a list of arcane discoveries unless you find a sidebar somewhere. This organization may be jarring but it has been a breath of fresh air for me as I tend to pick my spells and options by theme as opposed to sort out and optimize.
The new spells vary in usefulness and brokeness but nothing truly past the Core Rulebook in power per spell level. The spells also support other Kobold Press classes such as the Elven Archer and White Necromancer, which is a pretty big plus if you have those and ignorable if you don't There are also little side bars that give a bit more fluff to the spell themes.

Chapter 3 is a huge pluss for me. Ink magic seems out of place as it looks like it should have been in

Chapter 1, as it doesn't give new rules to the extent of the Glyphs and Runes. The Glyphs and Runes are winners for me by being means for even non-casters to get a touch of magic. Basically you take a feat or two and you get a static bonus and some scaling access to magical effects. Some of these are lifesavers and add quite a bit of fluff if you're running anything involving Norse gods or aboleth.

Chapter 4 introduces Incantations from Zombie Sky Press so if you don't have that its a fun bonus.

Chapter 5 and 6 give bloodlines, archetypes and mysteries. Nothing that special but they support a lot of themes introduced in chapter 1 and look like a lot of fun if you're working a theme.

Chapter 7 has some fluff and rules for undead crafting, familiar stuff and homuculi. I didn't look too deep into this chapter as I felt it didn't add too much that wasn't already achievable in the game. Plus it's a short chapter with just a few bits of crunch to look at.

Lastly there's some NPCs to throw at your players.

Overall I think this massive book is well worth the price. It brings life to a lot of themes that have been neglected and gives a lot to do with the flavor to match. Its more than just a list of options which I appreciate but will be difficult to sort out if you're just looking for those options. I'm giving it five stars despite that and some minor editing mistakes because as a whole this is almost mandatory for cool options for making magic.

You can find this over on Paizo.com here.

Retrospective:

I've seen a lot of comments about a number of the spells in Deep Magic being broken. Which is probably true. There are a number of spells that aren't exactly more troublesome than Core Rulebook spells but they're just as bad which is pretty bad. In using this book I've never noticed. Partially this is because I don't let my players touch the spells unless they come from archetypes or other class options. adding hundreds of new spells is inherently troublesome if the spells are at all exciting, and there are lot of exciting spells, because of the cherry picking they allow. What I usually do with third party spells is leave them for PCs to find in a library or dungeon so that they have a reason to discover things. While martials get some power creep too due to the runes this is still a book of magic and magic is pretty pervasive. This can get extra bad if you allow players to cherry pick spells from this book without offering some kind of martial power creep as well.

For me, this book has been has proven to be as exciting as I thought it would be but lately the use of it has been dwindling. When the Spheres of Power train arrived a lot of people jumped on board and this lead to sharp dislike of spells and spellcasters so sadly I don't really use it anymore. Then I started planning a scifi campaign and it just felt like there was no space for it without arbitrarily overloading players.

The Book of Martial Action 1 and 2

Out of all the third party products I've picked up Book of Martial Action 1 is the first I'd have to penalize for simply not being enough.

The product contains a series of feats that allow you to generate a pool of points based on your BAB that you can spend on martial techniques. Each technique is it's own feat and the martial pool can be regained during the day.

Its a bit similar to Book of 9 Swords but dispenses with the whole 'vancian' techniques, however its is very sparse and shallow leaving me preferring this system but wishing it were longer. The product comes with martial pool archetypes for a number of classes but while that's nice I was left with a hankering for more techniques especially the 2-4 point ones so that I can do more with the pool.
A+ product but gets a C+ for just not being enough.

I was a big fan of The Book of Martial Action I so I was excited to see this.

The PDF consists of new technique feats divided into 5 schools. There is a Tank school, a speedster school, a dueling school, a buff school and a trickery school. Like before each technique feat uses points from an opt-in martial pool that refreshes after a minute of rest. If you're familiar with Path of War/Book of 9 Swords/4th edition these effectively makes them encounter abilities but since they are point based you can pull of a few large stunts or a lot of smaller ones. I like it a lot better than the 'Vancian' maneuvers of Path of War.

The new thing is the schools of techniques and they are a huge hit for me as they put a lot of flavor into the technique feats.

My least favorite part of the pdf are the new base classes representing each of the new martial schools. Because they are not nearly as robust as any other base class I cant help but to see them as unneeded class bloat, especially since I own a lot of third party products with new base classes. I'd much rather just use an archetype from the previous book or just get one base class that was flexible enough to represent any school. As it stands they feel like some extra content I don't care for but someone else may.

Overall the crunch is not useless but not broken and brings fun new things to do as opposed to full-attacking.

Retrospective:

When the stamina system came out with Pathfinder Unchained I fell in love with these books all over again, but by then I also had Path of War from Dreamscarred Press so there was a bit of complementing and a bit of conflict. 

Martial actions definitely have some power creep but way less than Path of War so it puts the GM in a position to decide just how much power creep is acceptable. Despite the power creep martial actions have costs that keep them somewhat more in line with Paizo feats and they have the unfortunate side effect that more martial action feats mean that you have several powers competing for the same pool of points. This means that while they add an interesting dynamic to the game they aren't all that powerful and they definitely aren't as pervasive as Path of War maneuvers and certainly not spells. If Path of War is more your speed then I cannot recommend these books but  if you want a slight nudge for you martial characters they aren't bad products. 

I will say that these aren't as popular with players as I wanted them to be. When you have access to better classes that can mix it up with fighting they just seem like a long list of more feats to think about and the high cost of some of them make them less accessible. Really, if you take a technique feat at the level you qualify for them, using it means you spend almost all your martial pool which puts an end to using them for a bit. The lower level ones are great but I could stand for the higher ones to be less powerful to  have less of a cost.

So overall I think being enamored with this has more to do with the novelty. Pathfinder Unchained has been out for a while but we still haven't had many third party things doing something with stamina but Martial Actions go really well with stamina  giving you a sort of a set of 'martial powers' that can boost classes like the Fighter without ignoring it and replacing it with a new class with a new martial mechanic. If something new came out that was more expansive and streamlined then I'd drop this pretty fast because for right now martial actions seem to fall more into enabling niche builds than being a martial revolution. I still love these products but I can see where it could have been 'more', and would definitely love to see the concept helmed by others.

 You can find this over on Paizo.com over here for part one and here for part two.

The Combatant

Per week on Paizo's forums there are at least two threads discussing the Fighter class and what may or may not be wrong with it. In these threads there are common themes to proposed fixes. The Combatant in this product feels like it reflects a number of those proposed fixes despite it's insistence that it is not attempting to replace the fighter.
Essentially the Combatant is the fighter at it's core but with the following differences.
Good Reflex save.
4+INT skill ranks per level.
Acrobatics is a class skill.
Does not need dex requirement for TWF.
The biggest change, Armor/Weapon training is absent, and in it's place are Martial Art Styles. Martial art styles are combat styles associated with a number of feats. If you possess feats within a martial art style you have then you get bonus abilities based on the number of feats you have of that style.
For example if you have 3-5 feats of the archery style, you may ignore up to half your level in circumstance penalties to ranged attacks and stealth becomes a class skill. As you gain more archery feats you get up to 5 more abilities of increasing strength. Some of the feats are on multiple style lists so since you gain 3 martial art styles throughout your levels, you can get a number of extra abilities if you synch them up. The abilities themselves are either obvious numerical bonuses or something amazingly complementary. (like pounce) Overall these are huge boosts of power and versatility making the Combatant a pretty competent beast in combat.
The product also comes with a number of new combat feats and honestly, if you don't use the Combatant class you'll want to use the feats. A lot of them are amazing. A few feel very at home with a monk and a number I would call Must Haves.
Overall for the price of one dollar you're getting a lot. A spectacular class AND useable feats. Very useable feats. The price takes this from being a nice product to one that is silly not to buy.

Retrospective

After having this class for a while I have to say that it is not all that popular of a pick. If you're looking for a fighter fix for a buck then this is your guy but the feats inside have counterparts elsewhere and if you collect good combat feats and Fighter support then this class falls a bit short. Between Bravery Feats, Fighter Nuances, the new Fighter options from Paizo's Weapon Master Handbook, and stamina, the fighter is a beast. And even cheaper than that you can pick up Dreamscarred Press' Path of War if you want to replace the Fighter rather than fix it up. I guess what I'm saying is that the appeal of this product greatly depends on your previous collection and your budget. It is pretty much a better fighter. but doesn't have much support beyond the base class so if you're popping it in for a mostly Core Rulebook game this will shine a lot but the power creep for martial classes kind of stepped up when it comes to peripheral material.  

You can find this over on Paizo.com here.

Blood and Steel: The Fighter

Blood and Steel: The Fighter is an archetype focused pdf based on the fighter core class plus a few extra goodies.

The archetypes themselves ranges from enabling a specific flavor to enabling a specific tactic. I'll give my impression of each of them. Some of them have the potential for abuse, but really I think that's something the fighter class could use.

Beast Hunter: This archetype has less to do with beasts and more to do with entangling enemies with disabling weapons. It looks fun but less lethal than standard Fighter.

Gun Fighter: Its a fighter with a gun. Imagine a Gunslinger without grit and a bunch of bonus feats. That's pretty much it. Not particularly exciting but as far as I know there is no other non 3pp gun archetypes for fighters so it seems to have a place.

Harpooner: This looks less useful if you're not playing a water campaign, so seems more like an NPC archetype.

Highborn fighter: The main difference that jumps out with this archetype is that you gain 4+int skill ranks, Charisma can replace Dex for AC,CMD and Reflex saves and a butteload of Charisma can potentially boost your damage really high thus enabling Charisma as a potential primary stat.
Iaidoka Master: If you've seen Rurouni Kenshin, you're effectively battousai the manslayer. Its awesome but has on ability that may be too powerful.

Navaja: The highlight of this archetype is the ability to leave weapons inside the enemy to impose penalties. I'd rather see a rogue with this ability but it is a fun and funny ability although I can see how TWF and quickdraw can make this goofy.

Siege Engineer: another NPC archetype by virtue of not getting a free siege engine.
Thrower: A chucking Fighter. It is what it says on the box. Looks fun.

Wicked Wrecker: If you were to play a rugby character who decided to put on spiked armor and go adventuring this is the archetype to use.

Following the archetypes are new combat feats. None of them are really impressive or are gamechangers but they do their job within their niche and none of them feel truly useless.
After that are two new pieces of equipment, the Battle Parasol (?!) and the Harpoon (different from normal harpoon.), then a new mundane shield that sheds light (sadly throwing it does not deal fire damage).

Then there are new magic weapons/wonderous items. Nothing exciting but nothing bad. Mostly enabling the archetypes.

Past this is bonus content; Select entries from Rite Publishing's 101 Magical Armor and Shield Properties and 101 Magical Weapon Properties. (I have one but not the other so it was good advertising on the other.)

Overall I'd recommend Blood and Steel. The archetypes seem fun even though a few seem more at home as NPCs. I definitely see myself using a good chunk of these as a player and a GM. My only real criticism is that for an entire pdf on fighter this seemed rather mundane as opposed to something so gamechanging that you NEED to buy it for all your fighters. I'd give it a 4.5 rounded up to 5 for being a solid product in general.

Review: Tangible Taverns: Simon's Dinner Theatre

This one is a bit hard to review. This is mostly because it's kind of more of the same from the previous Tangible Tavern I've reviewed so there isn't much I can really say about it. This one is one place with a lot more fluff and a lot more opportunities to wedge in a campaign but the same thoughts apply. Spoiler alert: I like it. But lets see what it's actually about.

This one is about Simon's (deceased) Dinner Theatre. A place costing a whole 2 gold to get in and only has the special and expensive drinks but also comes with a show. There are twelve plays described but really  you can do any plot related thing you want. The dinner theatre is detailed enough where you'd want to use it in multiple campaigns so I'm already contemplating femme fatale divas relevant to the plot. There are of course rumors and events tables that are interesting but general enough to move whatever plot you have going. There are also NPCs along with their stat blocks so you aren't stuck having to dig around the NPC Codex or Dungeonmaster's Guide.

Its nice to have something in the ole GM arsenal for a place to get information and have a night out for the PCs that aren't perpetually blood and dirt stained hobos. There's always one party member that wants to participate in a bit of swank and NPCs that would want to meet somewhere more cultured than The Drunken Barfight.  It's also a virtual idea factory capable of fitting into a lot of campaigns and inspiring new details about a campaign. I'm already deciding how to make it a central fixture of a campaign due to the amount of work it saves and the flavor it evokes. I can't really think of reasons to give it anything below five out of five stars. Sure it's not the prettiest pdf and Augustus is weirdly powerful for a tavern owner but my main criteria for whether or not something is good is if I feel compelled to use it and I really feel compelled to use this so it gets a full five stars and I'll get back to it at the end of the year to see if it's among my favorite releases of 2016.

You can find this over on Paizo.com here.

Review: Book of Heroic Races: Advanced Androids

After some fluff we get to a reiteration of the Android racial traits along with some extra alternate racial traits and regular ole traits. The 5 alternate racial traits are pretty good to me. There's a bit of difficulty with the wording on the divine racial trait but they do diversify the Android in terms of flavor. The same can be said for the fluff both before and after the racial traits. Between their entry in Pathfinder Player Companion: People of the Stars and their first appearance androids don't have that much flavor text so this was sorely needed. Beyond that the alternate racial traits opens up doors for classes that are generally hard to use with an android.

As I moved on to the archetypes and class features I noticed that this is the second BoHR I've looked at so far to support Psionics with a Cryptic and Psion archetype. The archetypes themselves are somewhat the highlight of the book for me as they take some classes and really make them a part of the race, more so than a lot of other archetypes that could be tacked on to any race without consequence. Same goes for the racial class features.

From there it's mostly the same as previous Book of Heroic Races. There are new racial feats, a new philosophy (as opposed to deity), spells and psionic powers, another archetype (weirdly in the religion section rather than the racial archetype section.) and android NPCs.

Like the previous BoHR this expands quite a bit but I think a lot of fun was had on the crunch on this one in a way that goes a bit beyond the previous entries I've reviewed so far. That doesn't mean the fluff is lacking either. A lot of space is put into describing how androids work in a world. Overall I think that it's a bit more far reaching and flavorful that the android options in People of the Stars, a book that I was very happy to get so I think this one deserves a full 5 out of 5 stars and I'm putting it on my list of potential favorites for this year.

You can find this product over on Paizo.com here.

In the Infinity Matrix campaign I plan to downplay Paizo classes so I'm a bit unlucky that there is so much to support those classes. But it also supports Psionic classes which I plan to push for the campaign and there is enough that is class agnostic to give it to my players for use. I had my own plans for the fluff of Androids since they were basically summed up as 'of mysterious origins' because they were mostly just lost machine-people found on Golarion, but here there's a lot about how they think and interact with others and each other so I'm definitely making this the baseline for how androids work in addition to adding an actual origin.

Review: Kineticists of Porphyra

Since Occult Adventures came out I've seen a few products crop up to support the new psychic classes to bring them up to the bulk of options that other base classes enjoy. This product from Purple Duck Games is based on the Kineticist.

After some fluff to explain how kineticists work in Porphyra we kick off with new archetypes for the kineticist. There are four. Some are obvious ones such as the Elemental Avatar that controls earth, air, fire and water, and the Elemental Scion that focuses on one element. The other two feel like they represent the ends of the martial caster spectrum where the Cerebral Kineticist that gets mental buffs instead of physical ones and changes it's main ability score from Con to Int, then there's the Kinetic Duelist makes for a straight melee battler kineticist. The ones that need them, Elemental Avatar and Kinetic Duelist get some archetype specific wild talents to support them.  Honestly I'm a little concerned that these types of archetypes weren't the first that Paizo made when I did some light digging to check for redundant concepts. Beyond the archetypes that needed obvious representation the same could be said for the new elements in here, Light, Sound, and Time.

The new elements of course come with a whole list of wild talents which take up most of the rest of the document, about 30 pages worth of talents. If the previous paragraph sounds like a lot of grid-filling, it certainly feels like it, and the wild talents follow the same route. Not that this is bad, particularly since these are grids that should have been filled from the beginning, but nothing particularly exciting happens if you're familiar with tropes of the new elements. If not then you'll have a blast (heh) because most of the effects are worth having making choosing actually pretty difficult. In some cases they're almost be too good since there are so many paizo wild talents that I'd gladly pass on. I'm also just wary about any status effect infusions since you risk handing out status effects like a witch hex only with more damage. Of course I could not playtest all of these as there are quite a few of them so for the most part I had to make guesses so your milage may vary. (As a side note, sometimes Kineticist Abilities are hard to judge. Comparing them to spells they resemble is one thing but you also have to take into consideration burn, burn mitigation, the fact that the Kineticist barely does anything outside of it's Kineticizing. ) Some you do have to suspend a bit of disbelief like Calming Tone, a utility talent that functions as Charm Person that's associated with sound. The Wild talents aren't limited to the new elements. They cover up to Occult Origins in element considerations which is nice.

After the new wild talents are a few feats the probably should have been printed by now. One to reduce how much burn you get and one to gather more energy among other very obvious ones. Then the product ends with a Kinetic Duelist NPC stat block.

This product seems to have some new and exciting things in it but it mostly achieves this by filling in concepts that I had expected to see in a Paizo book rather than something high concept and obscure. Especially things like Elemental Avatar due to the popularity of things like Avatar the Last Airbender. Sure you can achieve a similar effect with vanilla Kineticist but its not the same. But the fact of the matter is that Paizo did not print these concepts yet and these fit in pretty well without being trap options so the gridfilling is all positive leaving me with new ideas for characters and material to bring them to life, which is what a product like this is supposed to do. If I had an actual criticism it would be that I'm suspicious of how good some of the options are, or at least I would be if I had some faith that the kineticist chassis had a real way to abuse these things so I'm willing to give it 5 out of 5 stars until something comes up at the table.

You can find this product over on Paizo.com here.

Review: Astonishing Races: Grippli

When I first bought Paizo's Advanced Race Guide my wife immediately cooed at the sight of the art for gripplis. And who can blame her? The little squirts are adorable frog-men that you just want a plushie of and have the cutest name. Unfortunately as a small 6 race point creature and not much else to them, they are completely unappealing to play. Plus they have pretty much zero flavor text making them bland to boot.  Well today I look at Fat Goblin Game's Astonishing Races: Grippli. I'm not sure what to expect, as I have only really seen four products from FGG, with things either being genius or terrible with nothing in between and I have yet to see how they handle underrepresented races.

The start is very promising with a much more lengthy description of the race. Seriously, there's five pages of fluff before you get to the racial traits. And the lore is very lovely detailing them as very sociable although as a result of crippling fear of loneliness. Adding to their general cuteness it makes you want to pick up and huggle the first little kermit you see.

When we get to the actual crunch we get a reiteration of grippli racial traits but also a sidebar suggesting to choose two extra Alternate Racial Traits to make them more playable which makes me happy. Interestingly the alternate racial traits come with their race point costs so that you can bring them up by the appropriate number. Like a lot of people I feel like the race creation costs are somewhat out of balance and I would never let anyone make a race from scratch due to this, so this is definitely a dangerous precedence but for the grippli alone it doesn't come off terrible with the racial traits being fairly mundane. Here I noticed a few typos (Like Vermin Hunter not making the word 'Attack' plural) but none that  cause any confusion or will be noticed at first glance. Of course there are Racial Subtypes that describe types of grippli you can make using the alternate racial traits.

Grippli favored class bonuses are greatly increased in number and come with a surprise. Instead of that boring list of what the favored class bonus does there's some flavor text added. The favored class bonuses are exciting without them, and believe me they are pretty exciting, but its nice to get some flair with them.They also get an alchemist archetype, (not as exciting as the racial discoveries that come with it and boy are those a blast. One of them literally.) a Cavalier order, (Needs some Clarification to be useful.) and a Ranger Archetype, (not badly designed but nothing I would particularly take.). There are also new grippli mundane items and a monstrous mount in the form of a giant dragonfly, and new feats and traits. Most of the feats and traits are pretty mundane but some of them will make you want to roll up a grippli.  The magic items, not so much although they are wonderfully written and are cute items and spells that draw out flavor. I can see these being handy for just encountering them.

The document ends with a table of random features. They have no mechanical purpose but again it's cute.

So the name of the game with this product is FLAVOR. I wanted more flavor but at some points this is way more wordy than it needs to be. This can definitely be a good thing because grippli in the base game have almost no flavor but this does mean that it's not a crunch masterpiece. It favors making grippli more adequate and worthwhile to play than loading it up with a lot of options. This isn't to say that there aren't useable options here, and really only one bit had me a bit confused as to how it worked, I'm just not jumping out of my seat to play a grippli over the crunch. I will be jumping out of my seat to play a grippli over the fluff though, which is really appealing here. As it stands the Crunch is valuable but not exciting and the fluff goes above and beyond.

As a PDF the book is ridiculously easy to navigate and is pretty and easy to read.

If you're going to play with grippli you're definitely going to want this if you want them to be playable or interesting.  I rate it 5 out of 5 for bringing grippli up to a level of interest in playability that's worthwhile with very few hiccups along the way. Easily a Player Companion quality race book.

You can find it over on Paizo.com here.

Review: The Zephyrus

This one has been making it's rounds on the Paizo forums. For a few days I couldn't see a reference to Final Fantasy's Dragoon job without mention of the Zephyrus. Being free it's not hard to take a look at it and at least judge for yourself but if this is completely off your radar I would suggest checking it out.

Its a full BAB class with good reflex and fortitude saves. It's main class feature is a leaping charge and a leaping  attack. Both have scaling d8s for extra damage but one is a full round action charge that deals a lot of extra d8s and one is a standard action that deals less d8s. Of course it gets a lot of jumping and charging class features to help it be more mobile and bouncy. It's High Jump Class feature adds it's level to Acrobatic checks to jump, Tactical Charge  lets it charge through allies and difficult terrain and even through enemy spaces. It gets armor training as per the fighter ability. His charge speed scales up to +50ft at lvl 20. It takes less damage from falls.

They also get a bloodline like package called Lancets that allow them a significant skill boost, some bonus feats and some extra abilities abilities based on the Lancet's theme.

Overall, on paper it's a more 'neat' than amazing. Being less than ten pages worth of crunch it feels more lackluster than it could be. With just five Lancets it has room for diversity but overall pretty bland. In play, however, it's pretty fun. it plays out like an ambush diversion tank with the right feats. Close quarters is not as fun due to many of the abilities making you want to move a lot but if you have a lot of enemies that are scattered about you wind up being a pinball of death. Because of it's shortness I don't expect anyone to really give it a second glance but its worth playing at least once and I hope to see more of it since it's a solid class that has a lot of potential. In a previous article I noted that a lot of ARMR free classes were buckets of potential that needed more support. In the Zephyrus' case, more lancets, archetypes and probably some feats would be nice. On it's own the pdf does stand on it's own more other novelty classes I've seen to the point where if I could see it as a class that I'd play more than once. If I had something bad to say, it would be that I think Leaping Charge would need to be more defined, specifically that it being a type of charge I wonder if it lowers AC for a round, whether or not I'd get the bonus to attack rolls or any other benefits from charge related feats. Some of that information I had to extrapolate based on the other abilities the Zephyrus has which was slightly annoying.

For anyone wondering if this adequately represents the Dragoon from the Final Fantasy series; Well it's the closest thing I've seen so far. It jumps and drops a lot of burst damage which is close enough I guess. More importantly it's a simple but solid class that doesn't die at the drop of a hat and is useful as an ambush caster sniper.

So my final verdict would be 4 out of 5 for it being a solid class that grants a new play experience but needs a bit of clarification and some more options to spice it up, but this being free business and that it actually does look like a Final Fantasy Dragoon rounds that up to 5 out of 5.

You can find it over on Paizo.com here.

Review: Letters from the Flaming Crab: Culinary Magic

Its exactly what it says on the tin. There are recipes that are very well formatted and easy to understand. Each dish is special in that it creates some sort of magical effect. But this product makes me angry. Why?

We spend four and a half of the 12 pages of the book on traits, feats, items, and even two archetypes, which is all well and good, most of them aren't that noteworthy but they're cute and flavorful and some of them have some real mechanical value, definitely things I'd pick up on a character that likes to cook, but what I really wanted was more food.

Yes its petty but the fact that this product is not it's own series but part of the Letters from the Flaming Crab series makes it worse. I need more food! There are 16 recipies which add well to the wondrous food from Red Dragon Inn: Guide to Inns and Taverns, and can add some flavor (Ha!) to Dire Rugrat's Tavern guides, but the book is only 12 pages long and nobody ever has enough food. Why can't books like this be 100 pages long? I feel like a fat guy at one of those expensive trendy places that have sliders that take one bite to eat. Sure it's delicious. The format and wording is good, the addition of instructions is flavorful, its crunchy enough to be interesting, but its over before I'm ready so now I'm just hungry.

I need more food. And for that matter, I need more exotic ingredients too. Some of the recipes require things like a Prestidigitation spell or an owlbear egg and things like the owlbear egg is the kind of thing that turns breakfast into an epic quest. That needs to happen more.

So despite it's shortcomings is it worth a bite? Well as I said above, its a nice product. If your players are like me or my players cooking is something a lot of people want to do but there's no mechanical incentive to invest in the skill so you're just throwing skills in the garbage can just for kicks. I also hear about all kinds of questions about cooking and cooking magically. I've seen only one other product that actually tackled the subject adequately and even then I was still starving so this product is a huge step in the right direction. Someone over in Flaming Crab Games knows how to make some fluffy crunch that's cute and relevant. I will say that in terms of actual flaws, some of the effects could easily be first level spells so a rare ingredient or steeper monetary cost could be more desirable, but overall its pretty good. Just not as good as the food, of which there needs to be more of. I'll give it 5 out of 5 stars but it comes with my expression of disappointment that it's not longer.

You can find this over on Paizo.com here.