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Superior Synergy: Fantasy

by

100462[1]By Thilo Graf

This pdf from Misfit Studios is 73 pages long, 1 page front cover, 1 page editorial, 1 page ToC, 1 page SRD and 1 page advertisement, leaving 69 pages of content, so let’s check this out!

If you’re anything like me, you breathed a sigh of relief when PFRPG got rid of skill synergies. They were clunky, overtly complicated and often forgotten. In summary, I don’t know a single player or DM who actually liked how they worked. Now that I’ve established that, let me assure you that the skill synergies herein work nothing like those in the 3.X-days of old, instead providing us with a wholly original system: Essentially, you can opt to modify skill checks with your primary skill by complementing them with a secondary skill, for example making feinting via Bluff easier if you succeed at an acrobatics skill check. These secondary skill checks, however, are anything but a sure bet: Each of the secondary skill uses has 9 potential outcomes that range from utterly failing (Dc missed by 15+) the second skill check to utterly rocking it (DC surpassed by 20+), making the additional skill use a gambit. Furthermore, the original skill DC is modified depending on the action you try: Using acrobatics to enhance your climbing, for example is against the DC of the climb check -5. Note that these secondary skill checks do not supplant the original skill checks, but add options to handling skills. The possibility to gamble and modify your primary skill checks definitely opens up some interesting new options, if you are willing to run with the additional dice-rolling they require. Advice on how to handle skill synergies and e.g. using them depending on classes are included in the deal as well.

This is by far not where synergy stops, though: The next section provides us with feat synergy-rules. To give you an example on what that actually means, I’ll take the very first of the synergy effects, adamantine lungs. To qualify for this synergy, you have to have the feats athletic, great fortitude and endurance. If you have these 3, you get the benefits of adamantine lungs, making it possible to hold your breath for 50% longer than normal. This is one of the simpler synergies, though, several other needing a selection of up to 6 feats that e.g. open up the option to use whirlwind attack to force enemies surrounding you to step back from you.

What this does cannot be understated: First of all, it provides tangible benefits for characters who take feats that may not be wholly optimized, but fit in line with an organic character development. Secondly, the synergy effects could easily be considered special fighting styles and tactics that could easily be utilized as non-monetary rewards by a DM. In fact, you could also make these synergy effects regular feats if you don’t like the general idea. While reading these effects I did not notice one I’d consider broken or uninteresting and in fact, am enjoying the whole section and the way in which the material presented can easily be modified to suit your and just about any individual game.

Chapter 4 details class synergy, which is one big love-letter to multiclassing: Essentially, the synergy-effects once again are based on having access to different prerequisites, but instead of feats, we now are talking about class abilities like sneak attack, mutagens etc. Need an example? If you’re an alchemist/barbarian, you can benefit from the Liquid Rage-effect and brew a special mutagen that restores a limited amount of rage rounds or even extend your current rage! Even more so than the stellar feat-synergy-section, this chapter opens whole new possibilities and incentives for multiclassing and customizing your characters and, once again, could also be used as story-rewards, organization-benefits etc. – in fact, you could probably craft a whole setting of cool organizations from these synergies.

Chapter 5 goes further by providing magic synergy effects, something that I bet has come up in your game: Ever had your players e.g. try to brittle structures, weapons etc. via fire and cold damage? With the rules provided in this chapter, you have now the option to make elemental physics matter in your game without being unbalancing – concise rules for all the synergy effects are provided and ensure that using magical tactics in the fights of your group finally matter. Add to that the options these synergy effects provide when interacting with terrain and you’re in for a couple of pages of sheer awesomeness. It should be noted that weird combinations like a paladin/barbarian-cross-over are included, but the author has explained that this strange combination, prohibited by alignments, will make more sense with an upcoming release.

Less obviously awesome, but nevertheless brilliant is the final chapter, which is wholly devoted to craft synergies. If you’re playing in a low magic campaign, this chapter is essentially a must-have and reason enough to justify the asking price in and of itself. Essentially, the chapter provides additional crafting rules to add mini-templates to your equipment. As with the skills, failing the second craft-skill has potentially negative consequences on the item’s usability, making adding these special qualities a gamble. The added modified properties range beyond armor-ruining weapons (which can be found here, though!) and include special vials that deal their splash damage in a larger area and even weapons that have been specifically tailored and weighted to your individual character. In order to use these synergies, though, the crafting character has to once again, fulfill certain criteria, ensuring that not everyone can craft these modifications.

The pdf ends with several pages of reference sheets to facilitate usage of the new rules herein.

Conclusion:

Editing and formatting are good, though not perfect – I noticed several misplaced blank spaces and other minor glitches. While not impeding my understanding of the rules or generally being a hindrance, another pass at editing would have been nice. Layout adheres to a full-color 2-column standard and the artworks are a bit cartoony for my tastes. if you own “The Spellweaver”, you know what to expect. The pdf comes with a printer-friendly version as well as a separate reference sheet pdf. What can I say? Whether you like the new skill synergy rules will depend mostly on whether you consider the additional dice-rolling a pro or a con, but enough rules and variants are covered to tailor the content to your game by restricting the usage of the synergy skills.

While I’m still a bit undecided on the section on skill synergy, the other synergies covered are gold and no-brainers – whether you include feat-synergy as story-rewards, feats or flat-out synergies, the chapter is a definite winner. the same holds true for class synergies and finally, magic and craft synergies, which provide options galore as well. Even better, while all of these synergies could be added to your campaign, the rules are open and versatile and enable you to introduce them in just about any way you like to your campaign, cherry-picking and customizing the content.

Supremely ambitious in scope, Misfit Studios’ second pdf is a challenging design that retains top-notch customizability while providing easy to insert, fun and smart rules to your game, making this humble pdf a true winner and very hard, if not impossible, to dislike. In fact, my only gripes with the massive and extremely versatile content lie in the minor editing glitches and a personal dislike of the art-style. Usually, I’d go 4.5 stars and round down to 4 due to aforementioned glitches, but that would, quite frankly do injustice to the stellar design and content herein, where in fact one chapter alone would make for an excellent supplement, let alone that many brilliant ideas. I really enjoy this book and would love to see a POD, as I consider this pdf worthy of being printed and while I’m not 100% sold on the skill-section, I do still consider this pdf an excellent example of stellar crunch-design. Thus my final verdict will be 5 stars, with the seal of approval missed by only a margin and remain with a definite recommendation. Congratulations to Steven B. Trustrum!

Endzeitgeist out.

Superior Synergy: Fantasy is available from:

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Lizardfolk of the Dragon Fang

by

88537[1]By Thilo Graf

This pdf from Raging Swan Press is 23 pages long, 1 page front cover, 1 page inside of front cover, 1 page editorial, 1 page back cover and 1 page containing SRD and ads, leaving 18 pages of content.

As with all recent TRIBEs-installments, we once again get some lines from a poem/song/prophecy about the tribe on the ToC-page – nice. We also, of course, get the obligatory page introduction to reading the statblocks for novice DM.

After the one-page chapter title, we get 2 pages on the history, religion, nomenclature and tactics of the tribe. Some potential for strife within the tribe is also given here.

Then, we get a page containing 3 new battle feats for use by members of the tribe:

  • Pierce: You may use a ranged attack to attack an enemy within range increments of your weapon as a standard action. If you hit, make another attack at -2 against a target no more than 10 ft. away from the first one. The second target also has to be within the first range increment of your weapon.
  • Great Pierce: You may use a ranged attack to attack an enemy within range increments of your weapon as a standard action. If you hit, make another attack at -2 against a target no more than 10 ft. away from the first one. The new target also has to be within the first range increment of your weapon. You can continue to make these attacks until there are no more valid targets or you miss.
  • Improved Combat Casting: Stacks with Combat Casting, gain a + 2 to Concentration when grappled, reroll one concentration check per day prior to the result of the first one being known. You have to take the second one.

Ok, I’ll have to comment this. I think “Pierce” and “Greater Pierce” should also work for piercing weapons, but ONLY against additional targets behind the first one. Otherwise you get a rather comical and ridiculous image of a javelin ricocheting through a party of PCs. That’s just my 2 cents, though.

We also get new spells:

  • Snake Staff (Clr 5, Drd 5): This spell is reprinted from the APG, courtesy of Paizo, and is marked as such.
  • Acid Bolt (Sor/Wiz 3): Either send clinging acid via touch attack to your enemies or coat a weapon in it.
  • Bite of the Viper (Adp 2, Drd 2): Grants you a poisonous bite weapon. Why is this not on the Witch’s spell list? I think the spell practically screams “Witch”. Oh well.
  • Swamp Kin (Adp 1, Drd 1, Sor/Wiz 1): Negates some penalties of moving through bogs. Another spell that should also be available to Witches.
  • Swamp Kin, Mass (Adp 3, Drd 3, Sor/Wiz 3): As above, only mass. Dito on the Witches.

The page also includes a modified spell-list for Adepts of the Dragon Fang tribe.

The tribe also has 3 unique magic items, complete with lore sections and their own pieces of artwork:

  • Blood Spiller: A human bane spear that returns to the thrower and is made from darkwood.
  • Dragon Fang: Made from the fang of a black dragon, this dagger may add acid damage on critical hits.
  • Staff of the Serpent: The staff can cast poison and snake-related spells, including Snake Staff.

After that, we’ll get the statblocks of the Lizardfolk, complete with three encounters (Raid EL 7, Kobold Emissaries EL 4 and Swamp Ambush EL 8 – all with information to modify them). Even better, though, we get a cool sample ceremony of the tribe – exactly that is what makes a tribe come to life in my opinion. Awesome! Thankfully, in contrast to e.g. the Kobolds and Troglodytes, the Lizardfolk get an extensive side-box on environmental modifiers to help you run encounters in the tribe’s given environment, the swamp. The stats are:

  • Dragon Fang Warrior (CR 1)
  • Elite Dragon Fang Warrior [warrior 4](CR 3)
  • Dragon Fang Scout [expert 4](CR 3)
  • Dragon Fang Shaman [adept 2] (CR 3)
  • Lizard Familiar (of the normal Dragon Fang Shaman)
  • Dragon Fang Greater Shaman [adept 6] (CR 5)
  • Lizard Familiar (of the Dragon Fang Greater Shaman)

Two variant Lizardfolks are also provided:

  • Cliffborn Lizardfolk (CR 1): Better climbers
  • Unseen Lizardfolk (CR 1): Chameleon Lizardfolk

We also get the war trident weapon as well as all the information to make Lizard Kings.

The tribe also features several important personalities of the tribe and it is here I thought “YES!” to myself: The personalities come with personality, distinguishing marks, mannerisms and hooks. Apart from the King, that is.

  • Sesskarr, the Lizard King [Lizardking sorceror (black dragon bloodline) 9] (CR 11): Sesskarr comes with almost half a page of his own tale on how he became what he is now. I loved it and I think it’s a nice substitute for the roleplaying information of the other personalities!
  • Groth [Troglodyte Druid 10] (CR 10): A twisted, dark Druid, he urges the tribe and its king toward evil.
  • Alssarrass [Lizardfolk Adept 12] (CR 8): Peaceful wife of Sesskarr and foe of Groth.
  • Brethikk [Kobold Fighter 9] (CR 8): Wielder of Blood Spiller, this former Kobold King now serves as Sesskarr’s bodyguard.

Conclusion:

Editing, layout and the b/w-artwork are top-notch, as I’ve come to expect of Raging Swan products. While I personally don’t like the Pierce-feats, that’s just a personal opinion. I’d also like to see information/support for the APG-classes and still think that some of the spells should be on the spell-list of e.g. Witches. Apart from that, though, this installment of the TRIBES-series once again goes up and beyond what one would come to expect and finally, we get mannerisms, hooks, etc. for all the important personalities. The items rock, too. I would have liked to see more on the tactics of the tribe, but due to this being my only true criticism of the file, I’ll settle once again for a five-star rating – an excellent addition to the series.

Lizardfolk of the Dragon Fang is available from

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Elspeth Black

by

89855[1]Faces of the Tarnished Souk – Elspeth Black

By Thilo Graf

This pdf from Rite Publishing is 13 pages long, 1 page front cover, 1 page editorial, 1 page SRD, 2 pages of advertisements, leaving 8 pages for Elspeth, so let’s dive in!

I’ll go through the 3 incarnations in reverse order, from her lowest CR up to the highest. People who’ve followed my reviews probably know that I have a soft spot for Elans and this file details one. “Elan” you say? Yep, as this instalment of Faces of the Tarnished Souk is a collaboration between Rite Publishing and Dreamscarred Press, offering support for my beloved PFRPG-psionics. AWESOME! Can her 3 incarnations stand up to this great premise? I’ll see!

Her low-level incarnation is

  • Lady Elspeth, Agent of Blackblade (Elan Psychic Warrior 4), CR4 – Nice build, although there is a minor typo, with her name in the “During Combat”-section being written like exponentials. Other than that, a nice build! (1 page)

Her mid-level incarnation is

  • Elspeth Black, Operative of Blackblade Section X (Elan psychic warrior 5/metamind 1/war mind 1), CR 7: An even cooler build that utilizes two complementary PrCs to their potential. Cool!

We also get 2 magic item properties, “Reshaping” and “Weightless” (both featuring an extra “h” in the CL-section)and 4 new magic items. The items are:

  • Crystal Key, Lesser: Open a portal to a specific plane 3/day. Do not travel with the user.
  • Crystal key, Greater:  Like their lesser variant, but they do travel with their user.
  • Gate Key: Like the Greater Crystal key, but works for any plane.
  • Gloves of Activation: Bonus to Use Magic Device, three sets are given in the construction section: +2, +5 and +10.

We also get 3 new feats:

  • Battlefield Intuition: Add Wis-modifier to Initiative, stacks with other modifiers.
  • Combat Advice: Move action to grant allies +1 to damage and attacks
  • Command: Gain command points equal to your level. Each time you use a move action to direct/command your allies, you can spend command points up to your Cha-mod to grant allies competence bonuses to their rolls.

Items and feats take up about one and a half page.

Additionally, there are 1.5 pages of stats for the 3 different incarnations of Elspeth’s Psicrystal, Raze, as well as a little sidebox on its personality – Nice!

Her high-level incarnation (CR 15) takes up 2 pages and is

  • Elspeth Black, Executive Officer of Blackblade (Elan Psychic Warrior 5/Metamind 5/War mind 5) Much to my delight, this statblock also features a whole paragraph on a potential cohort of hers, including names and short characteristics.

As is the standard in the FotTS-series, Elspeth also gets 1 page of aptly-written character background, including dream-burning information and a side-box on how to use her.

Conclusion:

Layout adheres to the RiP-standard,  artwork is nice and the additional content provided (especially the feats) make this a nice deal. Once again, we get complex statblocks and her lower-level incarnations might make for nice rank-and-file Blackblade operatives. The fluff made me curious about the organisation and I’d like to know more about it in a future supplement. Given that I’m a sucker for psionics and that this character simply rocks, I’d immediately settle for 5 stars. Due to the minor glitches, I’ll rate this 4.5 stars, rounded down to 4 for the purpose of this platform. (If the glitches are taken care of, this is a straight 5-star-file!)

Faces of the Tarnished Souk – Elspeth Black is available from:

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Obsidian Twilight – A Place beyond Hell

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85179[1]

By Thilo Graf

This pdf from LPJ Design for the Obsidian Twilight setting is 32 pages long, 1 page front cover, 1 page SRD, leaving 30 pages of content.

It should be noted, that although extensively bookmarked, the bookmarks don’t work in my copy of the file.

The full-color book kicks off with 3 pages of artwork/introductory quote, adhering to the OT-layout.

After a bit more than 1 page of introduction to the H’laqu, featuring exciting and cool prose, we already dive into the creeping corruption of the H’laqu in the form of new Taint and Ritual feats. (~4 pages)

The feats are:

  • A Stitch in Time (Ritual): Close an extra-dimensional rift. Damn cool feat, but I would have loved to see DCs for concentration checks to maintain the ritual while under attack, as this is exactly what I’d do with it: Make PCs defend the ritualist.
  • Bait: With a Bluff check vs. Will save, you can anger enemies and provoke them into attacking you. Nice feat.
  • Black Blood (Taint): Makes you immune to poisons and diseases, but the DM may choose a drawback. This would be totally OP, but due to the drawback as well as the fact that in OT, poison and disease are ever-present, this feat works.
  • Black Whip: Use whip-like rifts in reality as weapons. Stats for the weapon are provided and the point is: Black Whips ignore armor and only the +X bonus of magic armor provides any benefits against them. While not entirely conform with PFRPG-design, this is also a nice throwback to the days of second edition and thus I can’t really criticize it. If you’re diehard-set on "new" rules, note this.
  • Cult of Black Glass: Become a member of the cult and gain access to its resources. Standard membership feat.
  • Empty of Life: You are soulless. Nice rehash of the "Hollow"-feat from RL.
  • Experiment (Taint): H’laqu experimented on the character, giving him/her a monster ability, but also disfiguring him/her. This is actually a nice storytelling device as well as versatile as hell. Due to being subject to DM’s approval, balance is fine, too. Great idea.
  • Eyes in the Darkness: Gain true seeing due to a traumatic experience, but your will save may never be higher than your level. Due to Prerequisite: WIS 18+, this feat may actually work, although true seeing is still quite powerful.
  • Eyes of Darkness (Ritual): Summon Corvidim to do your bidding. Nice.
  • Fugue: Enter a trance-like state that grants bonuses, but after completing a set task, the DM gets control of your character untill the end of the Fugue. Awesome idea, nice mechanics (although I would have prefered them to scale with levels) – nothing to complain about.
  • Full of Life/Unlife: Gain more HP, be repugnant to the H’laqu
  • Hag-ridden (Taint): The character is inhabited by a contained fragment of the H’laqu, drawing on its power. Great roleplaying potential there! Two thumbs up.
  • Hand from beyond (Taint): Gain an additional, incorporeal tendril-attack.
  • Hidden Knowledge (Taint): Tap into H’laqu knowledge for bonus in skill-checks or augury. I like it.
  • Hollow Man (Taint): Gain +2 AC and +5 HP, but be destroyed when you reach 0 HP due to being only the shell of what you once were. I can see this a consequence for resurrecting a PC in my homebrew campaign – Another great feat!
  • Horrific Countenance: Gain a Fear Rating. This feat is problematic, as its only benefits refer to a mechanic originally from "Darkness & Dread", reprinted in "Horrific Fears". If you don’t own one of these books, the feat won’t do anything for you, as the Fear Rating rules are not summed up in this book. Usually I wouldn’t be bothered if that’s a part of the setting, but the rules are not in the Campaign Setting book for OT, which somewhat limits their availability to OT players and DMs.
  • Mark of Darkness (Ritual): Only for H’laqu cultists, this feat lets you call the attention of the dread H’laqu.
  • Numb the Mind (Ritual): A ritual to steel one’s mind against the darkness, this unfortunately also uses the Fear rating mechanics.
  • The Bitter End (Ritual): Prepare a shard of Obsidian to summon a Abyssal Arm. Nothing to complain, cool concept.
  • The Gap of Worlds (Ritual): Ritual that helps H’laqu create a new breach.
  • The Gone (Ritual): Summon a black man of the H’laqu.
  • Withering Stare (Taint): Stare at an enemy to give him penalties. As there is no save against this penalty and no drawback, this feat seems kinda strong to me.

After that, we get new spells:

  • Antilife Bolt (Wiz/Sor 3): Temporarily reduce maximum Hitpoints of enemy. Cool spell!
  • Antilife Ward(Clr/Pal/Wiz/Sor 4): Create a warding zone antithetical to creatures of this reality.
  • Become Shadow (Sor/Wiz 6): Sperate one’s shadow from the body and send it towards enemies.
  • Beyond Alignment: Ignore alignments and its restrictions for some time – might have consequences. Unfortunately, this spell only lists as level 8, but does not say for which spell-lists it’s supposed to be.
  • Black Meteor Shield (Sor/Wiz 4): Gain a shield that damages attackers and gives a bonus to AC.
  • Black Meteor Strike (Sor/Wiz 6): Damage spell that creates damaging terrain.
  • Black Pit (Hiding place between the Planes) (Sor/Wiz 6): A sanctuary that might be invaded. Cool spell.
  • Black Sand (Sor/Wiz 5): Engulf and suffocate enemies in damaging sand. Cool terrain control/battle magic.
  • Black Talons (Druid/Ranger/Sor/Wiz 3): Ignore the additional protection offered my magic items. This spell can, depending on the setting, be extremely powerful. In OT it works, but I’d caution anyone to use it in another setting.
  • Dark Eye (Sor/Wiz 5): Nice Scrying spell.
  • Emptiness (Brd/Clr 2, Sor/Wiz 3): Automatically fail the next will save or save against H’laqu infection.
  • Face of Fear (Brd/Clr 3, Sor/Wiz 4): This spell once again utilizes the Fear Rules mentioned earlier in the review.
  • Immaculate Dissection (Brd/Sor/Wiz 4): Gain a bonus to damage and attacks against a creature. more importantly: Be able to look up the write-up of the creature. I hate metagaming feats, spells and mechanics like looking up critters, knowing the abilities of enemies etc. and thus loathe this spell.
  • Insignificance (Clr/Sor/Wiz 8): Makes one experience the horror of one’s insignificance, temporarily shaking the target and planting suicidal tendencies in them. Great concept for a spell, cool execution.
  • Life Sign (Clr/Pal/Sor/Wiz 4): Essentially a circle of protection against H’laqu.
  • Mind Trap (Brd 4, Sor/Wiz 5): Create either the illsuion of a fighting challenge in one’s mind or a puzzle for the recipient to solve. Quick and dirty rules for the fight and puzzle are also given. NOW we’re talking. This is what a spell should be: Iconic, cool and versatile and full of nice potential.
  • Planar Shears (Clr/Sor/Wiz 5): Shear connections of planar creatures – Great storytelling device and useful in battle, although stripping planar creatures of all supernatural abilities, albeit temporarily, might seem a bit harsh.
  • Shardstorm (Drd/Sor/Wiz 5): Both shield and a way to attack enemies.
  • Squirming Maw (Clr/Sor/Wiz 9): Combination of Swallowed by Darkness and some Abyssal Arms. I like it.
  • Sterilize (Clr/Drd 3, Sor/Wiz 4): Kill all germs in an area, curing diseases, but also weakening the immune-system of the recipients.
  • Swallowed by Darkness (Sor/Wiz): Massive Annihilation spell that DOES conform to PFRPG standards and instead of insta-killing recipients, deals massive amounts of damage. This spell rocks.
  • Void of Despai (Clr/Sor/Wiz 5): Grants penalties to enemies, does not specify which kind of penalty though. I guess that’s the reason for this spell being such a high level – it’s supposed to stack with other spells.
  • Whirling Void (Clr/Sor/Wiz 8): Burst Swallowed by Darkness with a sucking effect. Nice.
  • Whispering Madness (Brd/Sor/Wiz 6): A curse that slowly drives the target insane. Very cool.

There is also another nice sidebar with aptly written prose, granting us more glimpses at the world of OT.

We also get new monsters, prefaced by the H’laqu creature type, which is surprisingly well-thought out: They are susceptible to normal weapons, but resistant to spells and magical weapons. Nice idea to make PCs drop that killer blade and take up the pitchfork. I really like that each monster comes with three quite extensive adventure seeds that are more detailed than "Kill X" – a nice innovation I hope will continue in future books of OT. Each monster comes with its own, original and simply gorgeous artwork. Even for the beautiful OT-line, these artworks rock and are on par with Paizo and WotC.

  • Abyssal Arm (CR 6): Thorny, dark appendages that seek to crush and draw the mortals to their doom. The seeds are very good.
  • Bacterial Macrobe (CR 3): Giant floating bacteria. How cool is that? Oh yeah: The adventure seeds rock, too!
  • Black Glass Mites (CR 2): Actually a swarm, this vermin is a nice way to slowly introduce the H’laqu at lower levels. Their adventure seeds are nice.
  • Black Man (CR 8): Fully infected creatures, these could work as a kind of H’laqu boogeyman. Their adventure seeds are once again, top-notch.
  • Corvidim (CR 2): A take on crows with a hivemind. Ok and has some nice story-telling potential.
  • Infected Land (CR 5): A quite versatile piece of H’laqu-tainted land, this mobile piece of corruption ranks among my favorite critters from this excellent bunch. The adventure seeds once again provide ample inspiration.
  • Meteor Golem (CR 15): Quite powerful and cool take on the Juggernaut-from-the-stars-trope.
  • Nyxsus the Surgeon (CR 30): This is it. The major player of the H’laqu. The one to stand up against Calix Sabinus and the like. Of all the high-CR-major-players of OT, this is by far my favorite. Why? Well, because his mechanics are interesting. This CR 30 guy has an AC of 10. And under 200 HP. And is still a credible and terrible threat due to the cool defensive abilities and the feeling that he is truy unique. Great job! His seeds rock, too.
  • Viral Macrobe (CR 4): Big, bad flying viruses that can reproduce. Fast. With your HP. Damn, I love them. Once again, the seeds are inspiring.
  • Void Elemental (CR 5): Free floating holes in reality that are sentient. Nice, but my least favorite of the critters. The seeds, again, are imaginative, though.

After that, we’re introduced to the cult of black glass, the aforementioned H’laqu cult with information of the H’laqu as deities for clerics as well as three more adventure seeds.

The H’laqu-infection their very presence may bring to mortals, is detailed in a three-stage process, resulting in verious bonuses and penalties and culminating in a kind of new racial template, the so-called "Shattered". I like how the infection is handled and how at the last stage, there is a sliver of hope to retain a piece of one’s personality when becoming one of the shattered. Once again, rules for immunity as well as adventure seeds are provided.

The final two pages of the book detail breaching points and their mechanics, I.e. places where the H’laqu have rent time, space and magic. Characteristics are provided and sufficiently creepy, as are the adventure hooks.

Conclusion:

This book is beautiful and follows the nice Obsidian Twilight layout and the monster artwork ranks among the best I’ve seen in any 3pp’s books and even on par with some Paizo/WotC-artwork. Editing and formatting have improved significantly in contrast to the older OT-books, I noticed no formatting errors apart from the one spell and almost no typos. More importantly, though, there is content: Expertly written fluff that gives one glimpses of the world of Abaddon and the H’laqu. Plus: This book actually IS rather horror-themed and the monsters reflect this: PCs have to fight intelligently to defeat these critters.

So let’s get to the crunch: Some of the feats, especially the rituals, can be considered plot-devices and I actually like them for what they do. They would have benefited from more concrete rules to disrupt the rituals/keep them up while being attacked/shot. I would have liked to see more taint-feats in place of the ones that use the Fear Rating mechanic, which I quite frankly think, shouldn’t be in this book, as it’s not part of the standard OT-rules. What I was missing, were psionics as an established part of the world of Abaddon that just, at least to me, scream H’laqu. Now, with Psionics Unleashed out, it would have been awesome to see them get some Lovecraftian love. Perhaps in an additional pdf? The spells are vastly superior to those in the campaign setting: They have their unique flair, some are downright clever and I enjoyed most of them. The true stars of the book, though, are the new monsters, the new H’laqu-type, the information on the cult and especially the adventure seeds that are enough to design a whole campaign on the creatures. The biomechanics of the H’laqu are iconic, cool and use some very imaginative mechanics, especially in the case of Nyxsus. I would also have loved to see more biomechanics. The prose is great and I’m looking forward to reading more.

So what’s my final verdict? While I love most of the content of the book, I have to acknowledge that there are some glitches and some of the feats as well as the metagamey spell don’t appeal to me. However, what really irked me, was the usage of the per se great Fear mechanics without specifically mentioning it or including it in the basic OT-rules canon. Considering these downsides, I’d settle for 3 stars, but the amount of adventure seeds, the quality of the prose and the inspiring artwork, I’ll settle for a 4-star final verdict. If you’re thinking about a semi-lovecraftian (in the pulpy style) invasion of strange beings into your campaign setting, give this a try. For the low price, it’s worth it.

Obsidian Twilight – A Place beyond Hell is available from:

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Advanced Feats: The Summoner’s Circle

by

85173[1]By Thilo Graf

This is the as-of-yet longest instalment of the Advanced Feats series from Open Design, containing 19 pages, 1 page front cover, 1 page editorial/ToC, 1 page SRD.

As all the books of the advanced feats series, this one starts with a discussion/introduction of the class.

After that, we get the meat of the book, the 30 new feats. The feats are:

  • Aerobatics:Gain flying manoeuvrability and speed
  • Balanced Spellcaster: No concentration checks for motion
  • Cannibalistic Casting: Lose Con to cast more spells
  • Clockwork Summoning: Summon clockwork versions of the normal summons
  • Controlled Charge: Charge without reducing AC
  • Enhanced Scent: Double the range of the scent ability
  • Enlarge Breath Weapon: Innate breath weapon Increase area by 50%
  • Enlarge Wall: Double the dimensions of walls
  • Fast Spell: Reduce full round spells to a standard action
  • Fleet of Foot: Turn while charging
  • Giant Step: Increases the size of 5-ft. steps
  • Hardened Spell: +5 bonus to spell DCs against dispelling and identification
  • Improved Concentration: +2 bonus to concentration checks
  • Improved Multiweapon Fighting: Gain additional off hand attacks
  • Improved Resistance: +2 bonus to spell resistance
  • Improved Shield Ally: +1 bonus to shield ally benefits
  • Multihanded Weapon: Use more than two hands on a weapon
  • Raw Magic: Sacrifice spells for level bonus to d20 roll
  • Shifting Wall: Walls from spells can move
  • Sizeshifter: Forgo size evolutions
  • Spirit of Vengeance: +1 bonus to attack and damage against last opponent that hit you
  • Stay Down: Prevent opponents from standing up
  • Strengthen Link: Share magic item benefit with eidolon
  • Tail Tricks: +1 bonus to CMB for trip and grapple
  • Toss Foe: Throw grappled opponent
  • Touch of Grace: +1 bonus to all saves
  • Unstable Evolutions: Adjust 2 points of evolution when eidolon is summoned
  • Vampiric Summoning Spell: Drain health from summoned monsters
  • Wall Mastery: Add holes to walls you create
  • Weaken Link: Eidolon and summoner can both use a chosen itevm slot

Comments on the feats:

  • Cannibalistic Casting: Ability damage for spell-casting. The comment admits this feat to be potentially being prone to abuse and I agree, though in another way: PCs will find it hard to to heal the damage in most campaigns, due to magic not working in healing them. What about another feat I didn’t like from “Witch’s Brew” that reduces ability score damage by 2? That would lead to unlimited 1st and 2nd level spells.
  • Clockwork Summoning: As a Zobeck-fanboy, I really like this one.
  • Enlarge Walls: Nice idea, as area control via walls is something I can see summoners excelling at.
  • Fast Spell: Cast faster at cost of half the spell’s duration. God is this broken. How many battles are long enough for the high-level spells to actually run out during the battle? This will lead to almost ALL SPELLS that are eligible being cast like this. No way, not in my campaign.
  • Multiweapon Fighting and its mini-feat-tree gets some advice on how to e.g. balance it with multiple sets of arms.
  • Spirit of Vengeance: +1 to attack and damage against the last enemy who damaged you. This feat actually seems underpowered to me and I don’t really get why it’s in this book.
  • Strengthen Link: I’m not sure whether this has a benefit if only the summoner and not the eidolon has the feat or vice versa. the text only mentions what happens if both have this feat.
  • Toss Foe: Cool feat, but I feel it should have been a combat maneuver instead that gets stronger by using a feat like this.
  • Touch of Grace: + 1 to all saves. Come’ on. NO ONE buys books due to feats like this. This is filler, plain and simple. Also, it’s a boring feat-choice. And has nothing specifically to do with the summoner.
  • Vampiric Summoning: Leech the energy of your summoned creatures. good idea, solid mechanics.
  • Wall Mastery: Huge possibilities for PCs to fight clever and dirty. I really like this one.

Then, we get three sample builds, the chess master, the mythic rider and the master of arms, all including eidolon builds.

Finally, as a neat bonus to this instalment, we get a 1-page Eidolon char-sheet.

Conclusion:

I do consider the summoner-class to be quite complex and thus was not exactly looking forward to do the math for this review. Surprisingly, the signature feats for the eidolon presented herein (at least as long as you heed the balance-warnings from the boxes!) are balanced. Editing is top-notch, I didn’t notice any obvious typos. Formatting suffers from one glitch: The table of feats lists 31 feats, one of which is not in the book and actually is featured in “Witch’s Brew”, namely “Usurp Spell”. While many of the feats actually feel “Summonerish”, i.e. use his battle area control, enhance his eidolon etc. (“Vampiric Summonings” being among my favourites), some are just plain filler. “Touch of Grace” and “Spirit of Vengeance”, I’m looking at you! All in all, while most are mechanically cool, some just felt like either filler or simply not as focused on the class as I would have liked them to be.

In addition, I don’t like the cover (which more or less made me giggle…)as well as the cut-out black silhouettes throughout the book. They look somewhat amateurish.

Thus, my final verdict will be slightly lower than for “Witch’s Brew”, a good 3.5 stars, rounded down to 3 for the purposes of this platform.

Advanced Feats: The Summoner’s Circle is available from:

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