Tides of War: Volley Fire Redux

A while ago, Flying Pincushion released an addition to their Tides of War line covering volley fire teamwork feats. I had uses for it but really the language made the feats difficult to understand and in some ways the rules as written didn't quite work. But they have since released a revision so here is a retrospective for the new product.

Like the mounted combat feats before it, this Tides of War is very short, with about two pages of usable feats but the pictures reduce it to about one and a half.

The first feat, Group Fire, is simple. Declare that you are making the special attack (A full round action) and anyone close to you with the same feat can make a shot as an immediate action at the same target. This gives everyone a plus one to attack and damage for each attacker at the cost of the participant (aside from the initiator) being staggered the next round. Its easy enough to follow and worthwhile for a gang of enemies or even a single cohort since it nets you at least a +2. There's a bit of weirdness where technically with the wording you don't need an ally to get at least a +1 bonus but given that its one shot for a full round action its not that bad since anyone in their right mind will just make multiple attacks. In fact at least it's something to do with the feat when you don't have allies which is nice I guess.

The rest of the feats require Group Fire and interact with it. Some are obvious, like the clustered shot one, and some seem to be there to compensate for situations where you only have one participant for your group fire. This is nice to have if you're an Inquisitor, or at least I assume so. I question whether or not for the purposes of Solo Tactics the participating ally gets to make an attack, gets the bonus and so on. Given the wording the I assume that the Inquisitor would be the 'source' of the ability and thus starts granting actions but not bonuses. I'm not sure how this works when she would have an ability that calls out granting a bonus to someone or even the clustered shot one. I'm guessing this is why Volley Fire and other teamwork feats function by things happening to you or you doing something than granting actions to allies. Bottom line is that I'm not sure if this is overtly useful for an Inquisitor.

For everyone else this is fine. With enough participants you can increase the threat range of weaker enemies, cluster your shots, get other ranged abilities a chance to participate, and hamper flying creatures among other things.

Everything is clear and easy to understand, which is a huge improvement from the product's previous iteration, but I do think that the inherent nature of how group fire works mucks up any ability that assumes that Teamwork feats don't grant actions or directly affects allies. Being initiated by an action as opposed to the feat enhancing an action does this as well. Case point is how Volley Fire works. As far as I can tell, only Solo Tactics gets confusing with it as it only calls out that participants don't receive bonuses but I don't think the rules intend for it to be able to grant immediate actions. Other than that I would take a hard look at any class feature that interacts with teamwork feats just to make sure.

I want to give this 5 out of 5 stars because the feats do grant new things to do and get creative with teamwork feats while being easy enough to implement, but the very premise is on shaky ground because I'm going to have to check for how it interacts with things. Perhaps Solo Tactics is the only outlier and I just have to rank all of this as mostly useless to it, but with the Inquisitor being one of the main classes that actually uses teamwork feats I'd like to not be confused as to how these feats interact with it. I also can't shake the feeling that this is inherent to teamwork feats not granting allies actions or new things to do specifically because of stuff like this. If we ignore those issues then these work fine whether you're dealing with a cohort or have a group of kobolds that you want to be a bit more dangerous.  In the end I'll give this a 'high' 4 out of 5 stars. There's a glaring issue but I don't think you'll encounter the issue in most circumstances that you'll use these feats.

You can find this over on DrivethruRPG here.

DragonCyclopedia: The Mage

Okay, a bit of a warning. This is a pretty nice class but you may never ever want it anywhere near your table.

What this is is pretty much a wizard. It has the wizard spell list and casts with Int. Has the same saves, HD and basic stats. What it does not have is a school, arcane bond or bonus feats. Instead it gets a mage talent every other level. The Talents are actually pretty interesting. They grant various buffs to different casting, one grants a familiar, one gives you access to a 'college' that has it's own talents for a form of magic. All around it's a pretty okay class.

Then there's the controversial part. The single most interesting and broken thing: It casts spells infinitely. Basically you can only have one spell prepared at a time, but you can prepare spells as many times as you want per day. Preparing a spell takes a full round action for the first level. As you level up your lower level spells can be prepared faster while your more powerful spells still take a full round to prepare. You don't have a spell book but you can spend money to memorize a new spell. You are capable of learning spells from a new level at the same rate as a wizard. If you're familiar with the Wizard's spell list this is broken beyond reason. About the only place it's not broken is in mid combat when you have to start preparing things while being attacked but the out of combat versatility is way too much.

But I'll give it this, in combat it is pretty worthless so there's that. And that's why it has such a high rating really. Its a different kind of wizard that wins in different ways. A more interesting and dynamic way and if the wizard spell list were different I'd allow it. But this thing is way too good out of combat, to the point of probably being able to avoid it altogether. But you may be able to have fun with it and I'm just paranoid so I'm leaving it with three stars but noting that I won't let this class ever touch my games.

You can find this over on Paizo.com here. 

Retrospective:

Its been a while but my feelings on this class stays the same. I still marvel at how it's designed and how it has this 'all day' aspect to it that feels more natural than spell slots. But there's the whole issue that spells themselves, particularly the ones on the Wizard spell list, are so pervasive that I don't feel comfortable with this thing having access to higher level spells too many times a day. I'm just too afraid of using this and it's neat design is the only thing that's keeping it from a one star rating.  

Pacts and Pawns: New Pact Magic Options

I recenty got a package in the mail. In it was a copy of Pact Magic Unbound: Vol. 2. I was excited to see some new material for a pact magic but also excited that some new support popped up on my radar from d20pfsrd.com publishing.

The pdf spends quite a few pages giving a crash course in Pact Magic. It’s potentially useless information as I probably would not get this product without Pact Magic Unbound. I guess if anyone gets this product on accident they have more of an idea of what’s going on.

Chapter One gives us three new spirits. I can see myself using them as the flavor is very interesting and the powers are fun and work well with the flavor. You’re essentially channeling the spirit of a trickster gunman (complete with a magic intelligent gun), a spellsundering Barbarian, and an unholy abomination from the stars.

Chapter Two gives some new archetypes. The first one is hilarious, an occultist that forces spirits on others granting the bad pact effects but none of the powers. The later abilities mostly revolve around making the target of a successful forced binding miserable. Oddly enough this makes the Occultist feel more witchy than the Witch base class. Then there’s the Legion Occultist, an Occultist that seems to be honing in on the Summoner’s flavor. Basically the Occultist binds spirits into creatures made of various material. Then there’s the Soul Armorer, a Paladin(and Antipaladin!!!) archetype that smites whatever the bound spirit does not like.

Chapter Three introduces a subsystem similar to schools of magic or war colleges in the Magic/Combat of the Inner Sea Campaign Setting books. Your mileage depends on whether or not you use War Colleges and Magic Schools mechanics in your games.

At the end there is some bonus content advertising Pact Magic Unbound Vol. 2, which I just got in the mail so I won’t discuss here. What I will discuss is that I saw this trend on a previous d20pfsrd product and it seems appropriate considering that d20pfsrd.com is a, er, Pathfinder SRD. Now if only I got sneak peaks at cool things I have NOT already bought.

So would I play with it?
Despite the pages of redundant information and information that I may or may not use, the new Archetypes and Spirits really sell this for me making up for the actual page count with strong crunch. By my count this pdf has extended into Barbarian, Gunslinger, Summoner, and Witch flavor, making Occultist even more versatile without losing it’s own flavor. As a bonus the Paladin/Antipaladin archetype looks really fun. The most important part is that the options in this pdf make me dream of ways to play with them.

So would I allow it at my table?
As far as I can tell there aren’t any errors that make it hard to play RAW. It also supports something I already own without stepping on toes. There is nothing that would wreck my games or would be hard to deal with as a GM. As a player the Organization information is not something I want to see when there could be more archetypes, but as a GM I see more tools for use.

I'm giving this five stars out of five.  I’m going to use this.

You can find this over on Paizo.com here. 

 Retrospective: 

My feelings stay the same but this one is a bit ill timed. Soon after there was a Kickstarter for a fat new book compiling and adding to Pact Magic, which still hasn't come out yet. Then there's a new class from Paizo with a similar theme which has been absorbing all the attention away from Pact Magic making it a hard sell. This all means that I didn't get as much use out of this as I wanted. Right now it's a neat little pdf but chapter three is the most useful at the moment.

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. 

Class Acts Compendium.

There are a lot of bad things in this book. There are also a lot of good things in this book. Its pretty tight and concise making it a pretty dense book in terms of content. It opens up about as much class content as Ultimate Magic or Ultimate Combat. Its a fairly generic and unnecessary book bringing only a few inspired options along with a ton of option bloat. Overall for the price it expands potential list of choices without breaking the game and I see myself selecting quite a few of them so it rounds out at about four stars. Nothing special but nothing to sneeze at either and brings a lot to the table for a decent price.

You can find this over on Paizo.com here.

Retrospective: 

I agree with my previous short words on this. All the classes (Up to Ultimate Combat) get some love and a lot of territory gets opened up. Some of the archetypes are just plain bad and there's nothing groundbreaking that shifts balances or offer incredible new ways to play but it offers heavy amounts of crunch for a lower price than one of Paizo's hardcovers. Each class gets at least two archetypes and each class gets a slew of suboptions. 

However this product does suffer when you have your hands on other third party options. As I have leaned more on third party classes and options that do shift balances and offer new ways to play these options have seen less and less light until the point where its basically gathering dust now. There are just a lot of exciting things going on in Pathfinder for players to go gold digging through ignorable to 'pretty okay' options to get their build just right. 

I can't say that this is bad because really its not. If you have games that focus on Paizo classes and want to open them up as much as Ultimate Magic or Ultimate Combat does then here is your product and for a decent price tag. If you're more into expanding into psionics, spherecasting, martial maneuvers and new ways to resolve magic an fighting abilities then this might be a pass. If you do like the idea then I would recommend that you print this out and bind it at your local print shop and that you get this product rather than the multiple parts that make it up. The stress on printing is very low and isn't broken up by multiple OGL statements. Also even the ones with bad options have material that is very desirable so you'd want to get them all in one shot rather than pick and choose. 

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.

Cooking with Class

I love the idea of making food matter more for gaming but to some extent I don't feel like this book exactly delivers. It gives a lot of fluff that I've used in a lot of games but not too much crunch and the crunch that's there never gets used in my games.

On one hand I use the menus and food by region a lot but not much else. It has some great discussions about fluff but you won't be reading this too often or using too much out of it. I'm giving three stars to reflect this.

You can find this over on Paizo.com here. 

Retrospective:

I was excited to get this product and despite disappointment over what it could actually do I wanted food to be a bigger subject in my games but as time went on and the book became less and less used I just forgot about it. Even worse I've already made reviews on my blog that cover similar angles that are vastly superior. Dire Rugrat's Tavern series gives you a lot more bang for your buck in terms of making a resaurant feel alive and giving plot hooks that blend into and work with campaigns. Flaming Crab released a book on food that matters. Heck there's even a fat book that I haven't posted yet that gives you a lot to work with from weapon damage for bar items to new wondrous food items. Cooking with Class is just outclassed on all fronts making it borderline useless. Its easier to replace it with two items which combined are much cheaper and a thousand times better. 

At best there are three prestige classes that do not help in cooking at all and stink of fringe 3.0 design. 

I maintain my three star rating because it's not an inept product. You can get some value out of it and there's no overpowered crunch and some fluff to guide you along, it's just underwhelming and most of what it offers can be handled with a quick google search or some forethought.

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.