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.