Review: Book of Heroic Races Advanced: Changelings

I already went through the first Book of Heroic Races from Jon Brazer and that was pretty nice so I have high hopes for this new Advanced series as it goes through some of the less detailed entries of Pathfinder races. The first one up is Changelings, the female gender-locked race of half-hags.

The book reiterates the changeling racial traits before granting some regular traits that they can take to be a bit more haggy. It also introduces a bunch of alternate racial traits, one of which is a paternal heritage, which is not only something missing from normal changelings but immediately makes it a very versatile race with a lot more flavor.

Of course the fluff that I liked in the first BoHR is back and welcomed here since changelings do not get that much of a write up in Paizo's books. Some of the fluff gives me the goosies as it inspires ideas for NPC and PC characters that I haven't considered before. Instead of a dull product of hag assault you get some thought and feelings making the race come to life and become more appealing to play.

Then we come to the racial archetypes. Here the class and replaced class features are at the top right after the name and the fluff text, something I don't understand why it isn't done more often, particularly with Paizo material. It makes reading archetypes and knowing what to replace so much easier. Besides that, the new options are interesting in flavor, not terribly complicated but are things I would take for what they replace. There are also new bloodrager and sorcerer bloodlines and new rogue talents. Most are things I would take. They add a lot of flavor and I don't immediately look at them as being too weak to pick. The options being interesting is meaning a lot for me because with so many third party products there are a lot of options to choose from so being interesting enough to really want to be a changeling is giving the product a huge compliment. The same amount of flavor and useability goes for the racial feats.

The eye dye, a racial item designed to hide the changeling's nature, is boring as an item but feels like a hot item for a changeling.

There are new deities for changelings. oddly this is where a few divine casting classes get archetypes. See my above comments for their quality.

The following spells are 'meh' unless you're a bloodrager or alchemist. If you are a bloodrager or alchemist You're definitely going to want to cast some of these.

After new magic items are some changeling NPCs, which are always welcome because my collection of non-core race/non-monster stat blocks is limited at best.

Overall I like this. If you are like me, the changeling in the Advanced Race Guide just isn't enough. Its just another half-human race that doesn't have much support to hold itself up. Not even the fluff was really good enough to make this more than a race to pass in favor of another human. This book on the other hand gives a lot of flavor and besides that touches on a lot of things I look for in a supplement. In particular it saves me time and imagination with new deities and NPCs, and it inspires with new things that feel like a natural part of the changeling race. I'd give this one a 5 out of 5 stars and hope that the rest of this series adds as much imagination and inspiration to other one page wonders of Paizo's races.

You can find this over on Paizo.com here.