By Endzeitgeist

This installment of the Wilderness Dressing-series is 11 pages long, 1 page front cover, 1 page advertisement, 1 page editorial/ToC, 1 page SRD and 1 page back cover, leaving us with 6 pages of content, so let’s take a look, shall we?

Without much ado, we jump right into the first massive table, one 100-entry-spanning beast of minor events to liven up the explorations of your PCs in the frigid north or wintry realms – from gathering lemmings staring at frozen rivers to frost wights sitting around fires, mastodon families crossing and fissures, there are a lot of different events awaiting your rolling of the bones here.

The second massive 100-entry table features specific dressings – glacial bridges across chasms, sun cups, icicle curtains, entrances to the demiplane of ice, miles upon miles of taiga – the overall entries do well in capturing the harsh majesty and danger inherent in the frigid, beautiful landscapes of snow and ice, often, much like the event-table, coming with skills to identify particular pieces.

The penultimate page of the pdf contains 12 sample random encounters spanning EL 2 to 17 and coming with nice notes for the respective encounters, partially also suggesting the young and advanced creature template for slight variations. Overall, the encounters are okay, but more or less what you’d expect – white dragon, frost linnorm, ice giants, undead…the usual. I do like the inclusion of a glacier toad, though!

The final page then deals with the DM cheat sheet for terrain features à la chasms, icy trails, snow, blizzards etc. – and is extremely useful. And as much as like the artwork of snow-covered peaks, I wish it had been omitted for more – a short summary of exposure damage/rules would have made this page even more useful (and eliminated skipping books from the equation).

Conclusion:

Editing and formatting, as usual in offerings of Raging Swan Press, is superb – I did not notice any glitches. Layout adheres to RSP’s 2-column b/w-standard and the pdf comes in two version, one optimized for screen-use and one for the printer. Both are fully bookmarked for your convenience.

Brian Gregory gets the frigid landscapes, their majesty and dangers and it shows in this supplement- this indeed is a cool (haha) supplement that especially with WD: Extreme Weather, provides some nice synergy. That being said, the installment also feels like it falls slightly short of what it could have been – the random encounters are not that impressive and the DM-cheat-sheet could be slightly more detailed – what about falling icicle hazards and the like? Still, bear in mind I’m complaining at a very high level here – my final verdict will clock in at 4.5 stars, rounded down to 4 for the purpose of this platform for a great supplement, but one that could have used slightly more space to develop its material (e.g. by cutting the none-too-exciting encounters).

Endzeitgeist out.

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By Endzeitgeist

Companions of the Firmament is 188 pages long, 1 page front cover, 1 page editorial, 1 page KS-thanks, 1 page ToC, 1 page SRD and 1 page back cover, leaving us with182 pages of content, so let’s take a look, shall we?

Full Disclosure: This review is mostly based on the Hardcover of the book, which I got for backing the Kickstarter. With just a minimum delay and communication throughout the process, I might add. I was in no way affiliated with the production of this book.

That out of the way… Before you click on another page due to the book’s price: WAIT. Just a second, okay? Please read on, I guarantee you won’t regret it. This book is filled to the brim with crunch and in order to avoid bloating this review unduly, I promise I’ll try to be as brief as possible, given the matter at hand. Let me ask you a question to begin:

Have you ever wanted to run an aerial chase, dogfights on dragons, with manticores, chimera and giant eagles crashing into one another, while their riders duke it out in free fall as their mounts try to rip each other asunder? Have you ever wanted to blast after a dragon-riding villain and perhaps even ride your own dragon to face the tyrant as your army and the forces of darkness clash below you? Have you ever wanted to jump from the highest window of the sapphire tower, jewel of Hashk-Kanep in hand, only to land on the back of your trusty Pegasus, while the sultan’s enraged men cover the sky with hundreds, nay, thousands of arrows and bolts? If you have ever wanted to do something like that, then by all means, read on.

Do you know what all of these scenarios have in common? They don’t work properly in PFRPG.

But more on that in a very short bit – after all, this book is about helped, personal flight – from the means to achieve it, broken down by class and taking various archetypes into account, this pdf leaves, from the very first page, no doubt on how serious it handles the topic: If you have ever had a flying PC or taken any amount of time to concoct a story-line featuring the lofty skies, you’ll realize one thing as soon as you take a look at PFRPG’s flight-rules. They’re there. Somewhere.

This pdf organizes them in a way that actually make them USABLE. Don’t believe me that the basic rules are just not that well-organized? What about encumbrance for flying creatures that are quadrupeds? Why is this relevant? Flying mounts can’t fly in medium or heavy barding – which doubles as counting as medium/heavy-load equivalent. Which means only light load, otherwise no dice for your flying mount to carry you aloft. I just wished I had this book prior to having to pierce this together from sentences throughout the core rule book. Now different playstyles have different preferences and hence, just about EVERY set of rules has three options – a simulation-style approach, a hybrid approach and a cinematic approach that is more focused on what’s cool. Tables of mount sizes and rider sizes in comparison to show how many passengers they can carry, negotiation with intelligent mounts -all of that is concisely broken down and explained in a clarity that would have spared me about 2 weeks of frustration, book-switching and browsing through boards. Yeah, go figure.

We get three classes in here – the magical beast rider (a cavalier archetype),who can teach his/her mount arcane talents and choose from selections as exotic as the winged cat & dog Bixie and Hainu to Griffons and Spider-Eaters. The airshaping sky pilgrim alternate monk, in the meanwhile, feels like an expertly-executed nod towards “The Last Airbender”, gaining the option to shape winds, fly etc. and, in fact, working much better than the rather lame monk base-class. (Hint for Owen K.C. Stephens should he read this – I’d love to see this made “talented”…). Now speaking of former Super Genius, now Rogue Genius Games – their Dragon Rider base-class is powerful, but many people don’t particularly like the amount of actions they eat. For those of you looking for an alternate take, herein is the Wyrm Rider, an alternate cavalier that rides on a domesticated, less dangerous species of dragon, which, while not as powerful as a regular dragon, also doesn’t eat your actions for a different playing experience.

This book being about flying companions, we get concise lists of animal companions that can fly, with entries on being ground-suitable, aerial trip CMDs, options to carry things (and people), full companion stats etc. – there is a LOT of work in these tables and they cover regular dragon cohorts gained via leadership and also faithful companions: The latter are rather ingenious options for characters in aerial-heavy campaigns that want a flying mount, but don’t have the suitable class – faithful companions can be rescued, raised etc. and, while not as efficient as animal companions, make for awesome pets. The rules here are once again an example for concise, easy to grasp material.

New race-wise, we get the Half-Fey – which comes with 6 variants that feature an ARG race-point break-down for each and range from their point values from 1 at 10 points to 4 11-point builds to 1 20 point-build for higher fantasy campaigns. Aforementioned Bixie and Hainu also get full statblocks/bestiary-style entries, as do so-called lesser chimera, which essentially are flying animals that have a rather simple template added. oh, and we get a one-page easy-to-grasp overview over flying constructs with a streamlined single look, you have all information handy on one page.

At this place in time while writing this review, I was honestly feeling like I was failing – why? Because I just can’t mention everything this book does, the level of detail it provides – take weapons – not only do we get new ones, this book also deals with the question what happens when flight is common in a setting: The importance of ranged combat and the proficiency thus required, a whole page of bardings, signaling kites, slow-burning smokesticks, aeronautic balloons – and all of these even before brooms of flying or even Thunnorad, Thor’s chariot (WITH properly spelled names for the two rams – the scholar of Scandinavian literature rejoices!) or flying Vardos enter the fray with concisely-worded and at the same time iconic rules. Oh each, OF COURSE, also are all collated in tables with appropriate NPC levels / PC levels to have them, gp value etc. – If only the regular rules were that well organized!

Now if you’ve been following my reviews, you’ll know that I consider vehicles to be underdeveloped and this book also has some ideas here – first of all, it proposes a less insane driving-DC (which I’ve house-ruled ages ago); secondly, from balloons to alchemical skiffs and air barges to batman-style kite-gliders, we get some cool additional vehicles. Yay! Suffice to say, once again, the rules are almost painfully concise and easy to grasp in their presentations.

Now remember the example at the beginning, with the sultan’s archers? Want to fly over an enemy army and rain death on them? enter missile mooks! By providing concise rules for volley-shots of large quantities of archers/crossbowmen and no less than 4 (!!!) pages of tables that include perception, CRs, XP-values, ACs, atks and damage, we get mooks for literally EVERY situation, spanning the Crs from 1/3 to 18! This chapter will get a tremendous amount of use, not only by me.

Have I mentioned concise lists of flying mounts by their terrain that cover the first 3 bestiaries 8the 4th hadn’t been released yet…), the extensive rules on creating storms with wind-speeds, rain, climate, clouds, max visibility and special occurrences like lightning, hail and turbulences? Oh, for EACH SEASON and THREE CLIMATES? a concise system to create weather hazards on the fly?

What comes up, must come down, as the saying goes, and falling-rules, from simulation-style half-rounds to cinematic style options to ground-catch or mid-air catch targets are not only explained, their pros and cons are weighed and individual systems are provided for your preference. so yeah, if you always thought that Superman’s arms should have sliced Lois Lane clean in three parts – here are rules for that as well as one-glance tables that show you the amount of damage caused. And yes, unconsciousness, the diehard feat, ferocity, being big and rings of feather falling – all in here, all taken into account.

Now how to handle this grid-wise? The book actually also has various ways for you to handle this, with sidescroll, top-down, full-blown 3d via two maps and tables of vertical reach summed up cleanly for you. If you don’t want to go full-blown simulation, there are varying and all feasible abstract grid-options with corresponding rules to be found in here as well, including abstract ranges, movement etc. The Fly-skill’s maneuvers, including u-turns of varying degrees on a more simulationalist grid are also perfectly explained and detailed alongside ascending/descending. And yes, they are expanded from the basis provided to include e.g. 135°-turns, the concept of expanded flight and different ways of dealing with the problem of the face of creatures -whether you want to keep it or get rid of it – this book has you covered. Have I mentioned strong winds, flying through canopies etc.?

Gamemasters aren’t left hanging in the cold stratosphere either – this pdf literally has thought EVERYTHING through: The repercussions of common flight, from preferred weapons to the role of small folk like halflings and gnomes, the costs of maintaining herbivore/carnivore armadas of flying creatures, trade winds, guild-systems, flags & pennants, politics, ley lines, artforms (GEOGLYPHS!), strategic cliff-dwellings, food pyramids, overland travel via fly-speed distances (again, in 3 different forms) – this chapter is a world-builder’s dream and perfectly summarizes key question of what would change in a world if flying was really common.

That is not where this book stops, though – Fly maneuverability templates and companion/cohort-sheets for just about EVERY CREATURE as well as token galore for the creatures, a missile mook sheet, a rules-checklist (so you can recall which of the various options you and your players settled on – e.g. a world with trade winds, but no organized sky guilds?) and finally, a concise summary of fly, ride and handle animal-skills -all of these can be found in here as well.

Conclusion:

Editing and formatting are SUPERB – I only noticed two minor typos, one of which was my nick in the backer-list, but who cares – at this length an impressive achievement. Layout adheres to a printer-friendly, easy-to-read 2-column b/w-standard that makes the tables herein (and there are A LOT) easy on the eyes. The b/w-artwork, of which we get a LOT is rather cartoonish/very old-school in many places, whereas some pieces are downright awesome. It took me some time to get used to it, but it does have its charm. The pdf comes fully bookmarked for your convenience and if you can track one down, get the hardcover – it is solidly and very professionally produced. I’m not 100% sure whether all the creature-sheets of the KS are included with this book on non-KS-venues, so I can’t include those in my final verdict.

This book left me utterly, completely flabbergasted. I backed this when I wasn’t as dirt-poor as I’m right now on a whim and honestly didn’t expect to ever see it. One company that never released a supplement prior to this one, what can one expect? I had honestly forgotten about this book when it found its way into my mail-box – not due to excessive delay, but simply due to much on my plate. In an age where kickstarters by established RPG-companies sometimes are overdue by more than 2 years and often lack anything resembling regular communications, this was one surprise. It went promptly on my shelf in favor of daily reviewing and only after some time found its way into my hands. I read it and my jaw just dropped, smashed through the floor and hit the floor of the cellar.

I’m living on the 8th floor.

This is a once-in-a-blue-moon-book that is not only a testimony to Neil Carr’s dedication and passion to the topic of flight, but also to his work ethics: To think that ONE designer made this is mind-boggling.

Let me spell it out: This book belongs into the library of every PFRPG-DM. No exceptions. Ne leeway. This is the Cerulean Seas of the sky and does what Cerulean Seas did for underwater adventuring (albeit aesthetically slightly less appealing) for flying, aerial combat, aerial campaigns etc. I’m going a step further: Players wanting to play flying characters should get this and get their DM a copy. This book is a milestone, a glorious beast that came from nowhere and that shows that having no track-record is never an excuse for faulty rules-language: This is as tightly worded, as concisely phrased as any book by Paizo, perhaps even beyond it. It covers all topics, intelligently and in varied ways and manages to deliver something for ALL playstyles, with huge amounts of customization-options. This is a RULE-book to judge all rule-books, a supplement that ups the ante, a book that is a superb example on what kickstarter can deliver – “Companions of the Firmament” is as important for PFRPG as Cerulean Seas, as the APG or Psionics Expanded; This is a Rulebook of the highest caliber that will be used all the time – you have no excuses; Unless you don’t want to cover flight at all (then why are you reading this?), this book should be considered one of the best possible investments into rules one can currently make. This is revolutionary in much the same way as Ultimate Campaign is when combined with Legendary Games’ stellar supplements to actually make the system work.

Unless you’re very focused on artwork/layout, this pdf, and that I can guarantee, will NOT disappoint you – the sheer amount of useful rules, options etc. herein mean that there is no way I could rate this any other way that offer the highest praises. If there were ten stars, this would be 10/10. If there were 6, this would be 6/6 – by any scale I apply, this ranks among the apex-books in its usefulness, coolness, level of detail it covers and foresight. This must be a 5 star +seal of approval, a hot contender for the no. 1 spot of my Top Ten of 2013 and the most furious, impressive first product I’ve seen any 3pp produce in ages. Miss this at your own peril.

Endzeitgeist out.

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By Endzeitgeist

This supplement of Rocks Fall Games is 28 pages long, 1 page front cover, 1 page editorial, 1 page ToC, 1 page of SRD, leaving us with 24 pages of content, so let’s take a look, shall we?

So what exactly is this? Well, as the frame narrative explains, the information herein was extracted from the notes of necromancers – both the note on why this notes are preserved as well as said necromancer’s introductory text of megalomania set a nice stage for the crunchy content, for herein, we are introduced to a wide variety of zombies, from CR 1/4 to CR 11 – all of which come with their own pencil-drawn b/w-artworks and accompanying, aptly-written fluff-text that guides us like a red thread through the creation of the undead menaces.

Starting off with CR 1/4 undead plague rat zombies, it becomes apparent that more than just standard zombies roam these pages and via giant crab zombies, zombified goblins, manticores, wyverns, shambling mounds, dragon turtles, ogres, dire crocodiles, griffons and ankheg zombies up to rabies-infested dog zombies, to dire bat and treant plague zombies as well as a variety of fast zombies (trolls, ettins and girallons) are here for your perusal.EDIT: Flawed CRs, for example, have been fixed. On the weird side – the fluff mentions that the writer has killed a purple worm zombie with phantasmal killer, which seems unlikely – assuming at least Int 18, the worm at fort +17 would have had to fail quite badly AFTER botching the will-save. Nitpicky, I know, but still – its minor incongruities like this that break my immersion, which the prose managed to otherwise maintain quite well. Also: Where is the purple worm’s swallow whole ability? The zombie-template specifies that attack-based qualities are retained and swallow whole fits the bill and while there seems to be some ongoing controversy regarding this one, I would have loved to see it. Still, not featuring negatively into my rating. The final entry of this supplement provides us with the Horror of Weavestorm, a kraken-zombie at CR 9 – damn cool!

Among the zombies herein, we also get the new bile zombie-template (CR +1), which, with its digestive acid and breath attack is applied to a gargoyle zombie -think acid-zombie à la Left 4 Dead’s Belchers.

Conclusion:

Editing and formatting are very good, improved now with statblock glitches addressed. . Layout adheres to a parchment-style 2-column full-colour background and the b/w-artworks are nice to get at this low and fair price-point. The pdf comes in a massive 4 versions – two in full colour and 2 more printer-friendly iterations. Both versions come in regular quality and in HQ-versions for those with good printers – nice!

Kristofer Konkel and Charles Marleau of Rocks Fall Games has created a nice supplement that wraps statblocks in a cool frame-narrative that should prove to be rather inspiring for DMs: The tactics of the nameless necromancer are rather sinister indeed and prose-wise, this pdf actually is rather fun to read, so that’s definitely a plus. What I don’t get is that there are so many different simple templates/modifications for zombies out there – why does this pdf only use two of them? Why no alchemical or gas-burst zombies? What about relentless ones? Adding one or two here and there would have increased the value of the pdf and provided more variety for DMs to choose from – the new template is a step in the right direction, but why hasn’t it been applied to the ankheg? Or substitute cold for acid and apply the template to the ankheg-zombie for a nasty surprise if the PCs guard versus acid and get hit by another energy….

With the statblock glitches now purged, I can settle for a final verdict of 4 stars -a promising start for Rocks Fall Games’ new series.

Endzeitgeist out.

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By Endzeitgeist

Horns of the Hunted, a plug-in module for the Kingmaker AP, is 32 pages long, 1 page front cover, 2 pages editorial, 1 page ToC, 1.5 pages of how to use/introduction, 2 pages of advertisement and 1 page back cover, leaving us with 23.5 pages of content, so let’s take a look, shall we?

This being a review of an adventure-module, potential players are hereby advised to skip to the conclusion to avoid the imminent SPOILERS, which btw. also extend to the Kingmaker-AP to a lesser degree. You have been warned.

Still here? All right! Generally, this module is intended to happen at around 6th level, near the end of “River Run Red”, i.e. the second Kingmaker module. Bow one of the imho weaker aspects in one of my favourite APs (and many others) is the lack of foreshadowing of the BBEG – and this module addresses this particular gripe via a henchman of Nyrissa, one bound fey warrior named Harakund. His devious plan focuses on acquiring unicorn-horns to allow his mistress control over the Gnarled Forest. Things get more complicated, though – Harakund’s entourage contains a forlarren in love with a satyr bard who may yet be saved from damnation.

On the first anniversary of the PC’s kingdom, their celebrations are interrupted by a young lad, distraught and crying, pointing them to the mutilated corpse of a unicorn. Getting a pouch of special dust from one of the NPC-confidantes they have acquired by this point, the PCs are off to a rendez-vous with one of the remaining unicorns in their lands. Unfortunately, before the unicorn can relate any information, their meeting is crashed by the Furious Hunt – namely a troupe of Buckawns riding worgs (that have been nerfed of their ability conjure forth insect swarms – an ability I’ll return to their arsenal. Player complaining about swarms being unfair are wusses… but design-wise, for a wide audience, definitely the right decision – not all groups enjoy the thrill of impending TPK and are experienced enough to handle such a challenge.)

Especially, since the second encounter follows hot on the heels of the first, with fey wolves attacking with rather men wolf tactics. After that, the PCs are on the chase – the hunters have taken one of the unicorns and a cool chase is one – 9 instances await the heart-pounding hunt for the hunters, aligned in an easy-to grasp one-page flow-chart. Neat indeed! There also are two hunting groups to spice up the chase and track via the special dust the PCs received. Aforementioned Forlarren sorceress (awesomely depicted by Pete Fairfax) proves to be the one covering the escape of the hunters -and there is the moonstone key to follow the fey into their lands.

Stepping through, whether with the Forlarren defeated or not, the PCs meet an actually rather friendly faun who may prove to be a font of information for the PCs. Among the other forces they meet, there would be a grizzly with functional butterfly wings (who can actually be reasoned with – neat!). It should also be noted that from spring to summer to autumn, this fey realm follows thematically the progress of seasons, with the third season pitting the PCs against giant twigjacks and finally, at the heart of winter, they have to deal with Harakund himself – a dread cold rider, riding a deadly rimefrost goat. This and the penultimate encounter both come with glorious maps, btw. Reward-wise, beyond saving a unicorn, the module offers for cool benefits on the kingdom-ruling context and even offers some synergy-benefits when used with Ultimate Campaign. Neat!

Conclusion:

Editing and formatting are top-notch, I didn’t notice any glitches. Layout adheres to Legendary Games’ parchment-style 2-column standard and is full colour. The maps by Alyssa Faden are superb, but come sans a player-friendly version without numbers etc., somewhat limiting their usefulness as handouts. The original pieces of full-colour artwork herein are interesting – Pete Fairfax utilizes a soft style of pastel-colors that lend a distinct, hand-drawn flair to the module without compromising in quality – and I really like it, since it is very distinct from standard artworks, lending the product a unique sense of identity. The pdf comes fully bookmarked for your convenience.

Matthew Goodall has not reinvented the wheel here, but oh boy does this serve its purpose perfectly – lighting up the task of kingdom-ruling at a place where it is imho all but required, this fast-paced action-romp adds a superb change of pace to kingmaker, blending cool action, iconic imagery and a cool planar sojourn while making the actual storyline of the overall AP work better. This module doesn’t just have cool encounters, intriguing adversaries and options to actually spare foes and solve encounters without killing everything, it actually makes the overall AP run smoother thematically. So…fun module. Diverse challenges. Improves overall AP. Synergy with Ultimate Campaign/Rulership-rules. If you can’t guess by now – “Horns of the Hunted” should be considered a required addition to the Kingmaker-AP, a module that improves the overall experience and well-worth 5 stars + seal of approval.

Endzeitgeist out.

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By Endzeitgeist

Hobgoblins: Blood, Iron and Honor is 10 pages long, 1 page front cover, 1 page SRD, leaving us with 8 pages of new content to make hobgoblins more distinct, so let’s take a look, shall we?

Kicking off with a brief discussion on the nature of savage humanoids and hobgoblins in particular, we dive right into new class options to make these goblinoids feel more distinct, namely rather martially-themed archetypes, the first of which would be the Hobgoblin ensnarer, an archetype of the rogue base-class: All about setting snares fast to catch prey (and even not setting them off), the archetype per se is a nice idea – but ultimately a one-trick pony that falls to the wayside when compared to similar trap-centric full base-classes à la the Vauntguard. Also imho a lost chance to boost non-lethal damage-dealing capacities to further drive home the slavery aspect – but per se, for NPCs, an ok archetype.

Number two among the new archetypes would be the expeditious arcanist for the wizard, who may drastically cut preparation time in the morning and 1/day, as a full-round action that provokes an AoO and has you flat-footed for an additional round, exchange a given spell they have prepared with another eligible one. At 13th level, the class gets an interesting ability that would allow it to prepare spells from scrolls – prepare, NOT LEARN, i.e. even though the arcanist doesn’t need his/her spellbook, to prepare the spells, they still have to be learned prior to preparation. The downside of this approach being, that while you may e.g. prepare 3 casts of shield from a shield-scroll, upon completion the scroll burns out.

Clerics may now opt to become Heart’s Blood Ritualists, who exchanges his granted domain abilities for the ability to, as a full round action, kill dying creatures elaborately, netting allied hobgoblins a +1 luck bonus to atk and damage and penalizing all other creatures within 30 ft by the same amount. These bonuses scale up by further +1/-1 at 8th and 15th level and additionally, the ability consumes a channel energy attempt for the day. At 8th level, these ritualists are symbols and when reduced to below 0 hp, all allied hobgoblins within 30 ft get +ritualist’s cha-mod to damage for one round. Per se cool – but also expends channel energy , which usually would take a standard action. While I’m nitpicky here, the pdf ought to specify the type of action or lack thereof the ability’s activation takes – I assume no conscious effort of behalf of the ritualist, but still. Over all my favourite archetype so far, if a bit weak due to the VERY limited, not improving range of its signature abilities, which will fall behind comparable domain abilities in power at higher levels – especially since the ritualist gets no domain powers at all.

The Manstalker is an archetype for the ranger class and comes with one damn fine high-concept ability beyond its other option to track humanoids better: Concise rules for tasting and remembering blood and identifying humanoids by the taste of their blood – kudos, especially since mixed/boiled blood, dilutions by water/acid etc. are also part of the deal! Also, since they are specialized in killing intelligent humanoids, those dropping to or below Int 3 are more likely to survive an encounter with these nasty hunters. Nice idea there!

Fighters of the hobgoblin breed may now chose to become master tacticians: They can not only gain bonuses to stealth when ambushing, they may also explain their plans to allies to share the bonus and are also rather adept at using combat manoeuvres… and honestly, I really like this archetype. It’s not particularly complex or Hobgoblinish, but it will make for a nice addition to NPC-bandit leaders everywhere. Barbarians may opt to become ruthless pursuers. These get bonus feats to Step up to foes and deal additional damage when stepping up to foes and dealing damage. As a cool drawback, the class loses one round of rage when failing to deal damage on the previous round. Rather cool!

Bards may now opt for the Singer of Triumphs Future-archetype, who may bind a weapon used to kill a foe and gains weapon focus with it and later enhance the weapon via stored spells and may add weapon enhancements to stored spells for the purpose of overcoming SR. Instead of fascination they get fear-countering camaraderie and instead of inspiring competence, they may grant a single ally fast healing. Bloodletting is also interesting, allowing a singer to focus on a foe – whenever the singer is dealt damage, the target also suffers a point of bleed damage that stacks with itself. At 18th level, singers may expand said ability to multiple targets. All in all, a nice take on a savage, more martial bard.

Clerics may also opt to become Thrallminders, specialists of the animation and control of lesser undead. At 3rd level and every 3 levels after that, they also may opt to learn a ritual that takes 10 minutes to perform and has a fixed price in gold – a total of 8 such rituals are provided and they allow the thrallminder to enhance undead this way – from netting them fast healing to granting them craft skills. I noticed a glitch here, though – the thrallminder gets the command undead feat at 1st level, allowing the archetype to control undead. One of the rituals enhances opposed cha-checks to make undead do things – which is useless. Why? Because, admittedly confusing as it is the command undead feat is not based on the command undead spell, but rather on its more powerful big cousin, control undead, which does not require this opposed check, granting absolute control. Hence this particular feature is in need of revision – and it shows that the design intention isn’t 100% fulfilled – getting a SLA à la command undead (spell) as a bonus feat is weaker than the regular command undead feat. Also, the rituals are in addition to existing clerical powers and while the archetype is limited to only one domain, which needs to be death or the undead subdomain, that still feels a tad bit powerful, especially since clerics already are excellent necromancers…

We also get the new hobgoblin bloodline for sorcerers, who gets access to a barbarian’s rage (albeit with 3+cha mod rounds instead of 3+con-mod) and some melee-enhancing powers. I actually liked this combination of sorcerous powers and at least basic melee capabilities.

Interspersed throughout the pdf, we also get 6 racial feats, which allow hobgoblins to shrug off pacifying compulsions, provide cold resistance, a teamwork feat to show their discipline and +1 bleed damage. There’s also a feat that allows you to extend racial exclusive benefits to allies of other races and a feat that allows you to be treated as a hobgoblin in addition to your regular parental races. The latter did strike me as perhaps more appropriately represented by a trait, though, whereas the former NEEDS a requirement that it ONLY works for hobgoblins – as written, it works for any race and with some of the rather powerful racial powers out there, that could become problematic – casting e.g. spells that would require scales to make sense in-game would now be open to non-scaled races etc. – a whole can of worms there…

Conclusion:

Editing and formatting are very good, I didn’t notice any significant glitches. Layout adheres to Interjection Games’s easy to read, elegant 2-column b/w-standard and the pdf comes sans bookmarks, which at this length is still, though barely so, acceptable. Artwork is thematically fitting stock art – not of the humanoid, but of the elegant classic b/w-pictures kind.

This pdf has some really neat mechanics and concepts inside, concepts that should help you make hobgoblins feel more distinct – as such, in this endeavour, it works. And archetypes like the barbarian one, the sorc bloodline and the ambush specialist fighter are rather cool – if a bit tightly focused for my tastes. That being said, I’m NOT going to rate this pdf as if it were a player-supplement – if taken as such, the archetypes would feel too specific, too streamlined towards one particular end – in most cases, at least. As a DM’s toolbox to enhance hobgoblins in your campaign, the pdf works rather well and should make the race feel more distinct. That being said, there still are minor hick ups in here and while most archetypes have something going for them, others were not as compelling – as a DM-toolbox, I’d still consider this a 4 star file. Hence, my final verdict will clock in at 3.5 stars, rounded up if you use the pdf as a DM, rounded down when looking for fodder for PCs – since I think the former is closer to the design-intent, my review will round up for the purpose of this platform.

Endzeitgeist out.

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By Endzeitgeist

The fifth installment by John M. Stater’s massive Hex Crawl Chronicles-series is a massive 60 pages long, 1 page front cover, 1 page editorial, 1 page ToC,3 pages SRD, leaving us with a massive 54 pages of content – at the low price-point an excellent bang-for-buck ratio!

This being an adventure-review, the following contains SPOILERS. Potential players should jump to the conclusion.

All right, still here? Much like the fourth installment, we get two full pages of hexes to crawl through, though approximately a third of them are made up by the sea. As with other Hex Crawl Chronicles, it should be noted that this is a wilderness sandbox, where PCs journey from hex to hex, stumbling over adventure and embarking on player-driven quests – this is essentially one huge sandbox in the truest sense and hence, not all adversaries that can be found or fought here adhere to one CR or come with complete statblocks, though you’ll find no shortness of those in here -from CR 15 Bonny Prince Andus and his 4 subcaptains to two more lords and their subcaptains, we get quite an array of different pirates to shake up and change the dynamics of these places. While build-wise, these being are not particularly complex, we at least get them spiced up with magi and even a multiclass duellist – though personally, I wouldn’t have minded a gunslinger here as well.

The Pirate Coast is a truly intriguing place, culturally – once inhabited by Stone Giants and riddled with their monuments, nowadays the colonial sea people (white-skinned travelers that arrived from over the sea), the Bull-god-worshipping, island-dwelling Bucranians and the xenophobic, mechanically savvy yet emotionally crippled “Last Men” weave a cultural panorama somewhere between memories of Mu, Crete’s lore and late colonial anarchy – and yes, elven and dwarven ethnicities are also covered here and rumour-tables offer additional incentives for adventuring.

Now unlike regular adventures, herein we get an array of locales, depicted in sufficient detail for DMs to develop or run as sidetreks – and oh boy do some of them breathe imagination and panache: Take the little valley and its shallows, where dinosaur ghosts manifest and a temple left by the ancient elves hides not only a deadly portal into annihilation, but also a boon if the PCs manage to solve the complex’s weird riddles. Or what about a sword guarded by energy-drain-causing swarms of deadly butterflies and their mindless zombie slaves, perhaps all following the commands of green slime hiding in the hearth…or some other being that has crafted this strange micro-ecosystem…

Death awaits foolish adventurers disturbing sealed away pit fiends and a valley that is often visited by the lord of all horses may also see potential problems if the adventurers lay their hands on his centaurs or equine servants. Covens of hags, clouds that cover you in gold, served by oblivion wraiths, goblin tribes, lonely cambions, strange dwarves led by an opal-eyed “seer”, granite cliffs hiding the mansions of stone giants left behind from ages long gone, giant beaver-dams, a neutral sect of hermit monks, ritual sites of alien, long-forgotten gods from the outer dark – and even Zarathustrans, monks that believe they have transcended humanity -all of these and so much more can be found within these pages. Fur-traders, seal-headed humanoids, oracles of the woods,, a windswept plain where the spirits of the 4 Black Winds may be conjured forth, a fully mapped mini-dungeon, an alchemist who grows obedient women in vats, hunting grounds of killer squirrels, a wood-craver that can create doppelgänger made of wood, a bored goddess of fortunae, trbes of warrior-nymphs, rainbow-crows guarding divine fire… There is fodder for weeks upon weeks of adventure herein.

Conclusion:

Editing and formatting are good, though by far not perfect – I noticed minor inconsistencies here and there, double letters etc. Layout adheres to a printer-friendly two-column full-color standard and the pdf comes fully bookmarked for your convenience.

Author John M. Stater and PFRPG-conversion chief Skeeter Green have delivered us a supplement that brims with raw ideas – so many in fact, that I wager you could easily spin a whole campaign around the ideas herein. Skeeter Green has learned from part 4 and this installment of Hex Crawl Chronicles offers more variety – alchemists, magi etc. make for more versatile builds than in the previous installment and statblock-wise, we get a lot of material, though personally, I’d upgrade the magical items of most beings herein, especially of the high-level NPCs. That being said, you won’t buy this for the statblocks – you buy this for the IDEAS.

Whether to supplement Skull & Shackles or Savage Tide with free-form wilderness (h)exploration or to add to Freeport or Razor Coast, this mini-setting (for that it is) brims with more awesome ideas that almost demand being made into an adventure than some campaign settings I’ve read. With a touch for blending familiar and lien, we are taken on a ride into realms both wondrous and distinct, where piratey coolness and a sense of Sword & Sorcery rawness mix and foolish PCs might meet their demise by annoying the wrong hermit. Now all great? Almost. For a supplement about pirate coasts, there is a distinct lack of storm/seas phenomena & ship-combat and the like and no stats for legendary pirate ships can be found in these pages – which is a bit of a pity. Still, I can’t find it inside me to rate this down for its flaws – it offers too many good ideas and an just about unbeatable bang-for-buck ratio; This could literally be 1/2 a year of diligent roleplaying! Half a year spent with fun, wonder and excitement and the thrill of very old-schoolish danger. Final verdict? In spite of the flaws, 4.5 stars, rounded up to 5 for the purpose of this platform.

Endzeitgeist out.

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