I'm torn here because the rules are actually pretty good for a rules lite narrative game, but it is by far the worst I have ever seen in terms of presentation. The artwork is horrible. The font changes constantly and is next to impossible to read in places. There are no summary or quickstart pages for reference.

the conflict resolution mechanic is to roll a d20 with modifiers, but the interesting part is that the results are compared to a "genre chart" so that dramatic actions have dramatic outcomes, and comedic actions have comedic outcomes. There's another mechanic that is similar to declaring facts to generate backstory on the fly, but I for one would like to see a second edition of this system with more Fate style aspects and good clean layout.

Although the price of the product was reasonable i was somewhat disappointed for the simplicity of the product i purchased. over all it felt like i was paying for a thought that was not fully developed.

This book, like the first LL, deals with Pathfinder "Legendary" Levels, of levels 21 to 30. What 3.0/3.5 called Epic Levels. I think they picked "Legendary" as not to confuse it with D&D4. There is a Legendary Witch in this book, which is why I got it, but the rest is pretty good as well. In particular I liked the Legendary Samurai and the Dragon Lord prestige class. I Would have enjoyed seeing more prestige classes myself, but the book's focus was "Legendary classes" and note really prestige ones. Plenty of new feats and I REALLY liked the art in this book. So at the end of the day it was worth it to me.

Doodle Dice Monster is an unusual name for a system. No mention of dragons or dungeons. No mention of space ships, far away planets or even of guns. Don't let that fool you, doodle dice monsters bring out your creative side and a whole load of fun besides!

Using your selection of dice and your ability to draw you create monsters of crazy proportions. Then you assign dice to their attributes then you duke it out. The creatures can be pretty much whatever you desire them to be. There is rules as to how to how you create your monsters (as they describe it in the book, the monster could have hundreds of limbs and eyes but these don't do anything unless you assign to them).

There is a clear set of rules as to how combat goes on. They are sensible and easy to follow and it explains how the win/lose conditions can happen. Even the colour of your die that you use can make a difference in your combat actions (and explains what to do if you have multicoloured die).

A clear glossary for any confusing terminology used throughout the rules is available as well as a list of awesome alternative rules to throw into your games as well (how about using an avatar of yourself to help you win?).

This is great fun, and a joy to play. The game is easily accessible to anyone and is a great introduction to anyone to get a feeling of roleplaying is like. I can see this being a fun convention game that is easy to pick up, easy to play for anyone and more importantly doesn't have to take an age and a half of time to get going. In my opinion, I would love to see this featured on Tabletop, or even play it more with my friends. Because half the fun is beating each other up with your created monsters and trying to win. The other half is seeing the crazy monsters that escape from the imaginations of your friends, families, random convention goers or even to see the monsters that escape from the mind of Wil Wheaton.

The only thing you could have against it is that you won't be able to make a massively long and engaging storyline, or a campaign that spans months or years. What you can have is something that you can play as filler or something that gives you a break from a serious campaign. It can give you something to help you just have a laugh without the need for hours and hours of prep.

If you want something fun, light and easy to play then this is exactly what you are looking for. I will certainly be playing with my friends for a good barrel of fun when we have a spare hour or two.

There are some concepts in role-playing games that are too good to let go of. Most of the time, these are broad ones that have become nigh-universal, like hit points or magical healing. But sometimes they become more specific, being a single character class with iconic abilities. Case in point is the warlock class, from the Third Edition of the world’s most popular fantasy RPG. While it’s technically closed content, and so can’t be reprinted, the class is popular enough that it can be recreated under the existing rules.

Which brings us to The Invoker, from Little Red Goblin Games. This thirty-page PDF presents us with their take on bringing the warlock into your Pathfinder game. Let’s see how it works out.

From a technical perspective, the product does alright, but there’s room for improvement. The PDF is set on a grayish-tan background, with slight whorls on alternating sides acting as page borders. There is a hyperlinked table of contents, which is a good thing, but the bookmarks look like they were set as placeholders that were forgotten. Copy and paste is thankfully enabled.

The artwork for the book subscribes to the “less is more” theory. There are, in total, maybe a half-dozen interior illustrations; however, these are of a surprisingly high quality, being not only in full color, but having a stylistic “weight” to them that draws attention, whether the image is an invoker gathering red energy in a fist, or a simple goblet. Hat’s off to interior art guy Carl Potter!

The invoker class itself is presented in the stylistic manner of a typical Pathfinder base class. We’re given the requisite material on their role and alignment before moving into the crunch (though their starting gold is missing, to which I say boo). The class itself is quite solid, being a medium BAB, d8 Hit Die class with one good save and fairly restricted weapon and armor proficiencies.

I need to mention right away that the invoker loses fair amount of class abilities, overall, compared to the warlock. It’s true the invoker gets more of the warlock’s invocations thanks to this class separating blast abilities from incantations, plus the invoker has pacts that it makes, but overall the original warlock does seem slightly more versatile – the invoker can’t detect magic, gets no bonus to Use Magic Device, and can’t creature magic items on their own. The class feels, unto itself, more stripped-down – take from that what you will.

The invoker’s main weapon is their mystic blast, which to those of you who are familiar with the original warlock class will recognize this right away. It has all of the hallmarks of the classic – a ranged touch attack out to 60 feet, untyped damage that goes up by one damage die per two levels. No biggie there, though I frowned at noticing the lack of an ability tag here (e.g. Ex, Sp, or Su), something that was a recurring theme throughout the book. Smart GMs will know that this should be a spell-like ability equal to one-half the invoker’s level (minimum 1, maximum 9).

Helpfully, this class separates out the ability to alter the mystic blast from other abilities that mimic spells, something the original warlock made players choose between. At every fourth level you can choose from either “blast traits” or “blast forms” that modify their mystic blast. These two categories are separate, something which I think wasn’t really necessary, since the distinction between the two types of alterations doesn’t seem to serve much purpose; what bothered me more was that the abilities listed for each seemed to be in no particular order, alphabetical or otherwise (and you can forget about any sort of summary table here).

Most of the classic alterations were here though, such as a flaming blast that can set creatures on fire, one that sickens for a round, etc. I was a bit leery of some of the new, more powerful additions, such as the ability to have your blast do 1d2 Constitution damage (that stacks with itself!). Admittedly, most of these do say that you need to be able to use X-level of incantations (more on those in a minute) to select, but even at the upper levels that’s just asking for abuse (or more construct and undead enemies).

After this, the book takes a sharp turn into more original territory as it presents four different “pacts” that each invoker chooses when the character is created. Much like wizard schools or sorcerer bloodlines (though these have an alignment prerequisite, not inappropriately), these modify your initial class skills while also letting you have your blasts deal a certain type of energy damage (or be typeless, your choice), and provide a small bonus to the blast damage (e.g. -2 to Will saves…presumably for that round only).

The biggest addition these pacts bring to the table is that each has a list of boons and taboos that they bring to the table, with the invoker picking one of each. It’s here that I was most impressed with The Invoker, because these offer some very colorful and inspired material to choose from. If you’re a fey pact invoker, you can give up a cherished memory to apply a metamagic feat to one use of an incantation. Or perhaps you’ll want to be able to call upon a “fairy godmother” (the sort of creature this is is further described) when in need of aid. But you have to pick from taboos like not being able to lie when asked a question thrice, or not accepting a gift without providing equal compensation. It’s worth noting that not all of the taboos are things you have a choice about (e.g. cold iron weapons deal an additional 2d6 to you), but there is a discussion of what happens if you break a taboo. Oh, and lest I forget, each pact offers a hefty end-cap power at 20th level.

My biggest complaint about this section was that there were only four taboos here – demon, devil, fey, and star (the last one of which is Lovecraftian in theme). Hopefully we’ll quickly see some supplementary pacts released, because these are far too few for the book’s highlight feature.

A quick half-dozen or so feats are presented (with one letting a non-warlock earn a boon and a taboo, in what I think was the best feat of them all), before we move onto the incantations.

This section is by far the longest of the book, taking up roughly forty percent of its total page count. Incantations (though I wish they’d gone with a different name since we sort of still have rules for “incantations” – something like “exhortations” would have been better) are spell-like abilities (albeit with verbal and somatic components, and in heavier armors they have a chance of failure) that invokers can learn as they level up. They never get more than eleven of these altogether, and they’re divided into four levels a la spell levels, but they can use them at will.

About fifty incantations are presented altogether, and I was surprised at how good a job was done presenting these as all being some sort of “corrupted” form of magic – some of them require bloodletting (a sidebar describes it in more detail, but it never takes more than one point of damage), for example. Many if not most are based on existing spells with twisted descriptions, like the Borrowed Eyes, Stolen Hands incantation, which allows for scrying (as per the spell) on a creature if you have some possession or body part of theirs, which is lost as part of the casting…but you can implant a suggestion (also as per the spell) into them when you scry on them. It’s like that, all the way through.

I’d be remiss if I didn’t point out that a read-through of this book showed some places where the editing fell down. The Fey Spit boon, for example, cuts off at the end of page eleven and doesn’t conclude. Likewise, the star pact end-cap boon seems to contain the text of what I’m guessing was a (slightly overpowered) feat right after the text for the boon ends.

The worst offender though was the listing for the incantations themselves, which (beyond the occasional issue with text being bold or not bold in the wrong places) listed the “school” of each incantation as simply being “incantation.” This was grating because listing a spell school, along with sub-school and descriptor, govern a lot of how spells are utilized in regards to creatures. Presumably, where these incantations referred to existing spells, you use the existing spell’s information, but that’s needless page-flipping. The Borrowed Eyes, Stolen Hands incantation, for example, should have listed that it was divination and enchantment with the scrying and mind-affecting descriptors. That would have helped a lot for quickly and easily adjudicating some of their effects.

Also, and I can’t hold this against the book itself, there were no expanded class options. By that I mean, I keenly felt the absence of things like new favored class abilities and class archetypes. This isn’t a repudation of the invoker itself; rather, the base idea is well done enough that it cries out for more options. With any luck, we’ll soon have a follow-up supplement that adds both these, some new pacts, and hopefully more.

Overall though, these issues were bothersome but never came close to being deal-breakers. As it is, they’re the primary reason I’m giving this book four instead of five stars, because other than those this did a great job at bringing the warlock into Pathfinder. The Invoker brings all of the good parts of the warlock into your game, while also smoothing over some rough spots (remember how the warlock’s eldritch blast damage dice progression got wonky at higher levels?) and presenting some great new options in the form of pacts. True, the loss of some of the warlock’s signature class abilities does weaken the invoker somewhat, but considering what it gains in return this isn’t a terrible loss. If you want a class like the warlock, but with more options and no Pathfinder conversion necessary, invoke The Invoker at your game table.

Rogues in games are the surprising members of any adventuring party. You don't generally think of the rogue as the good guy, but instead the guy who came along for the money. For that reason I have generally avoided playing rogues, in the fear that I would find them boring, and slightly one-dimensional. Little Red Goblin Games saw this interesting class and how under-used it was - and released a module for it! The Rogue's Gallery is all about the the rogue class in Pathfinder RPG and gives it a lot of love. With a massive pile of new feats, Equipment, skill uses, rogue talents and new prestige and alternate classes - you have loads to play with! It also helps with a good section showing that there is more to a rogue than the money-grabbing roleplaying angle. I would start by saying the artwork through the book is great. The book is brilliantly laid out and shows a real touch of quality to it. It really has that great first impression when I read through the book and can really make you appreciate what you are reading so much more. They start the book with a very, very important point. Good is not nice. It explains that the rogue can be a chaotic good character, doesn't mean he won't be arrogant, rude, independent rule-breaker! With the four general archetypes you can look at it will certainly help get the character-storming session going to help you make a rather interesting character! I think they could have gone into this more - the four archetypes only fill one page after all! The next section moves onto Rogue talents. It also introduces trick talents. What makes them unique is that you can only use these once during a given combat. A trick generally only works once then the enemy is prepared for it! They are all interesting little things that can really help a rogue pull off an excellent combo or get them out of a terrible situation, but don't feel overpowered at all. I particularly like "Living on a Prayer" and would love to build a rogue that uses that alone! With sixteen rogue talents in there - you have a lot more choice as well to build upon. Then we move into new skill uses. Finally, I can get a bit more swashbuckling with my rogue with being able to use "Use Rope" skill to swing from a rope! I can use that escape artist check to get my enemies to be flat-footed! Brilliant! That is something that put me off rogues quite a fair bit. Either you MUST attack before they do to catch them flat-footed or hope you can get a flank and they don't hit hard. But imagine if you can stand behind the paladin tank and create your enemy flat footed to then dash around next round and get your sneak attack in! Yeah! Suddenly rogues look really cool to me! The feats I am still umming and erring over. I really like them, but they seem really powerful at higher levels. Then again that is when rogues can really suffer in power compared to other classes. With nine new feats to choose from though, plus another five teamwork feats as well, you can really get some great combinations kicking off and getting a real flavour for the kind of rogue you are building. Without really building a few more higher level rogue builds and actually playing a few of them as well, I can't really make up my mind about them. I owuld hate to include this other great supplement into our higher level game and suddenly feel the balance really topple. An interesting concept brought up in the book is the idea of Morale damage - where your rogue can force a creature's will to fight to eventually snap which forces them to yield. Not only do I love the idea of creatures actually giving up rather than ALWAYS fighting to the death - but it makes it clear that the party's experience shouldn't be penalised for achieving this - moreover they should get the normal experience for doing so! Well done LRGG! Pathfinder than get really hack n slash when it wants to - so reminding players they don't have to kill every single thing they come across is brilliant. The alternate class is another great idea - encouraging players not just to view their rogue as some kind of in for the money one-dimensional creature but instead beyond that and something more exciting. I won't go into too much detail about the prestige classes and alternate classes here - you should buy the book and have a read for yourself! Suffice to say, I think they are superb and are really winning me over to the rogue side. Finally we have a huge host of equipment to go through. All of them still aimed of our little sneaky friend but some are certainly usable by other classes who have a certain affinity to sneakiness (ranger, I am looking at you). The magic items are brilliant ideas that aren't necessarily brilliant in improving your combat skills but they help you avoid a lot of the nastiness to start with - especially ghostlight powder. Finally a wonderful section called "Circus of Krineska". This is a wonderful piece of Lore to include in any game setting as well as a brilliant plot hook for anyone who is planning to play a rogue (or a similar class) and wants a background filled with trouble! Further it has a brand new god to include in your games with a great introduction as to why she should be feared! Overall this is a brilliant little supplement with plenty to keep you interested and amused. I am pretty sure now I am going to have to try playing a rogue using some of the items from this supplement and not only will I be able to show players that rogues are all just about the money and not about the characterisation but also have some excellent tricks up my sleeve and a whole world of trouble following at my feet!

This whimsical resource presents rules for the fantasy of what it's like to be a man. Emphasis on the FANTASY.

I've been a man my whole adult life: beard, sideburns, deep voice, flannel. In real life it's usually not as good as the PDF suggests, just like becoming a real Druid (although possibly being spiritually fulfilling) doesn't allow you to call forth lightning, and that real British intelligence field operatives don't enjoy James Bond movies as much as regular people. This fantastic presentation of what it is to be a man may not be as thrilling to people who really are men, but it might be fun for kids or women to imagine the awesomeness of being a man.

I would very much like to see the (ahem) companion work for the Woman character class, with features like Feminine Intuition, etc., if it could be done in a non-offensive way.

What are you waiting for? It's FREE! Get it!

Originally posted at: http://diehardgamefan.com/2012/04/11/tabletop-review-the-tome-of-manly-things-pathfinder/

Have you ever wanted to create a Pathfinder character that was fit to be in a Ye Olden Spyse commercial? Ever made a character that was a human male, but it wasn’t a Man? This supplement is for making Men, a class AND race (…and if you need any other designations just write in “man”). The Tome of Manly Things is your ticket to badassery, beard growth, and general hirsuteness should you desire it to strengthen your manly aura.

Overview

This little supplement is a bit of parody perhaps, a little tongue-in-bearded-cheek for those who want a good chuckle or an evening of beer & pretzels role-playing. What is it exactly? Well, imagine if you tried to come up with a class for Chuck Norris, or Richard Riddick, or some other manly force of nature that seems to supersede the laws of the universe mainly on account of his gender-specific badassery.

A Man will get a “Beard Bonus” at certain levels, and at other levels will get special abilities like “Manly Breach” where the Man gets a damage bonus (and extreme satisfaction) after breaking another object. There are descriptions of various facial hair that a man may sport to gain one bonus or another. For instance, the “Mutton Chops” will “give the wearer an air of competence that tells others he’s good at what he does”; oh yeah, they also give you retractable claws operated by the command word: “snikt”.

This supplement supports the Man up to level 20, where you will receive the “Man’s Man” bonus that gives you extra “Man Cards”. Oh I didn’t tell you about the Man Cards? Each Man starts out with a number of these cards dependent on his Charisma and how awesome he is (who decides that I wonder?). The player may use these cards to get bonuses, but the GM may take them away if he feels that the character has acted in a less-than-manly fashion. You can get Man Cards back by riding a wild gryphon or pushing a tsunami back into the ocean or doing something else in that vein.

What Do I Think?

This supplement is a good chuckle. I could easily see a session using this class take some hilarious turns for the right group. One of my biggest laughs besides reading all the abilities gained through the various levels was with the “Lay on Beard” ability that allows someone to lay on hands to grow or regenerate a beard, or to equip a magical beard on someone else. Hey, it’s free and it’s funny (to me, anyway), and I think it is well-written and presented.

They could have put more content in there, especially since there is no mention of beer-driven special abilities and there could have been even more beards or something to fill out the near-blank page 7 of the PDF. Those are my only complaints though, I think they did a good job with the manly abilities and making it a workable class (if not seriously playable for more than a session or two).

Very enjoyable read, would work well for a light hearted fun campaign. I wish there were more supplements like this.

Epic level gameplay – that is, advancing beyond twenty class levels – has long been the sticky wicket of Pathfinder. Ever since Third Edition’s attempt at epic-level gaming turned out so underwhelming, Pathfinder has been unwilling to venture beyond 20th level, and while many are fine with never going back to such heights, there are still plenty of players who want to take their game beyond this final boundary.

Now Little Red Goblin Games has answered that desire, presenting Legendary Levels as the first product for the Pathfinder RPG to allow for characters to continue advancing beyond the 20th-level barrier. Let’s crack the covers and see just how legendary this book is.

Exactly seventy pages long, Legendary Levels hits most of the technical specifications that we hold for an RPG PDF. It presents full, nested bookmarks, as well as a hyperlinked table of contents. It does lack a printer-friendly version, however, which may be an issue for your printer given that the pages are set on a grayish-tan background. I didn’t care much for the book’s interior artwork, which has both black and white and color pieces; I found it to have too much of a “rough” or “unfinished” look about it, as though more clean-up could have been done. It’s a minor point though, as there’s comparatively little art here.

It’s also worth noting that the book didn’t clearly identify its Open Game Content and Product Identity, something the OGL requires it to do (and the Section 15 was barren, too). I mention this only because this becomes a problem if anyone else wants to use what’s here in their own Pathfinder-compatible products down the road. Hopefully there’ll be an update fixing these issues.

After a brief introduction to “legendary levels” (as a note, I liked that the book’s authors decided to rename the entire concept of post-20th-level as “legendary” rather than “epic”), the book’s first section acts as an overview of some of the major game mechanics that legendary game-play utilizes. Of particular importance are divinity scores and legendary damage.

The divinity score represents the character actually manifesting a divine spark that can, if grown, transform them into an actual deity. I personally applaud this integration of legendary levels and gaining godhood, since I think that once you’ve reached such a high-level of gaming, having your characters start to become divinities is a natural progression. However, you don’t HAVE to increase your divinity score…some classes, mostly the spellcasters, have this increase incrementally as they level. However, you can also boost it with specific feats, or by gaining followers (that is, people who revere/worship you).

It should be noted that this is very different from Third Edition’s divinity rules, in that having a divinity score has little mechanical impact on your character, something I think a lot of players will appreciate. Interestingly, an accompanying chart shows how much your divinity score increases based on how many followers you have, and what sort of gods are found with what scores (e.g. a low score is like a regional deity, a higher one is like a primal force, etc.). Having said all of that, I noticed that it’s hard to get your divinity score high enough to start earning followers if you don’t have legendary levels in a spellcasting class.

Legendary damage, by contrast, is essentially damage so powerful that it can be instantly fatal. Dealing legendary damage to a creature is the same as damaging it normally, but the damage includes a Fort save which, if failed, reduces the target to 0 hp. There’s no single way to gain the ability to inflict legendary damage, but rather it’s found in the abilities of various legendary classes and prestige classes.

The book introduces a few concepts here that it goes into more detail on later (such as true dweomers), but there are a few other aspects to this first chapter that I wanted to touch on. For instance, it also reintroduces legendary uses of skills. This is, much like the old epic level rules, a table with various skills listing very high DCs for greater effects. It’s also the first part of the book that rubbed me the wrong way. I can recognize the problems with super-high skill DCs to achieve effects that magic can pull off at very low levels (e.g. a very high Acrobatics check allows you to be effectively weightless…which I suppose is okay if you can’t just fly), but I consider that to be a problem inherent to the mechanics of Pathfinder, and so can’t really be helped very much.

What I really didn’t like about these legendary skill uses was that, as with normal skill uses, a lot of these present static DCs which, once you can meet them, allow for abuse. You know how Diplomacy has the old problem of, once you’ve got a high bonus, you can make anyone your friend? Well, hit a DC of 40 plus the other guy’s Charisma modifier, and you can make him literally worship you. I can tell you that I’d never allow that in my game.

Beyond this, Legendary Levels does keep presence of mind enough to give us the necessary (but easily-overlooked) basics for leveling our characters beyond 20th level. We get XP progressions to 30th level with the fast, medium, and slow advancements, as well as a listing of GP values by level, and iterative attack values (which, interestingly, allow for more than four attacks if your bonus is high enough to gain more iterative attacks).

Note that all of these expansions stop at 30th level. The book never actually says this is as high as PCs can possibly go, but it seems to be the default assumption (it also briefly mentions gestalt play, but this seems like an extended sidebar more than anything else). Likewise, there’s nothing said about advancing existing classes. Even the basic eleven classes aren’t advanced so much as they’re given a ten-level supplementary class…

It’s on that note that we move into the second section of the book, which presents the legendary classes. These eleven classes are legendary mirrors of the eleven classes from the Core Rulebook. Somewhat oddly, as I mentioned before, these are considered separate classes from their non-legendary counterparts, but they go out of their way to make sure they function as extensions of them (e.g. levels in legendary barbarian are treated as levels in barbarian for all barbarian class features). Once again, the book breaks from Third Edition’s epic level conventions as these all present standard (for their class) progressions for BAB and saves.

The classes themselves are too many to go into detail here, but some major themes are notable. A big one is that legendary damage is a major facet of class advancement, both in terms of dealing it and being able to protect yourself against it. Some of its uses seem better than others, but not egregiously so. There’s also a very clear attempt to increase the power of martial characters versus their spellcasting counterparts; these characters seem to get more over the course of their levels, and have greater emphasis on legendary damage.

To be clear, there are no legendary classes specific to the new classes from the APG, UM, or UC (though those classes are occasionally referenced in areas like the new spells). Likewise, there’s no mention of archetypes here. The book does present legendary classes to the three new base classes given in other Little Red Goblin Games’ supplements, though, which will be of limited use to anyone not owning those books. Five new prestige classes, which seem to be for those who can’t take legendary class levels, are also given; these cover a broad enough array to be fairly generic (e.g. juggernaut or lord of war for martial characters, archmage for arcane spellcasters, etc.) in terms of what classes they’ll appeal to. I do wish there’d been something built more towards multiclass characters here, but at least those characters get a nod in the feats section.

The feats section (which was annoyingly lacking in a summary table) did present a fairly robust set of feats to round out what can be done at legendary levels. The aforementioned multiclass characters are noted in that there are feats that grant limited access to some of the class abilities from the legendary classes. The bulk of the spellcasting feats are impressive for what they offer (High Magic puts an automatic Intensify Spell effect on all spells below 5th level that you cast, for instance, to keep low-level spells relevant), but once again, the combat-focused feats get the most emphasis, though it’s more equitable. It’s a bit of an easter egg that we’re given summary charts for the bonuses and penalties given by Power Attack, Combat Expertise, and Deadly Aim at the end of the section.

True Dweomers are presented next. Most of the basic information on them is presented earlier, in the book’s first section where it goes over legendary spells; in this case, spell levels top out at 12th, and full-progression spellcasting classes automatically gain access to those slots as they level up. However, for true dweomers (which don’t have a spell level per se) you can only use one per day, and learning EACH ONE requires taking a feat! The Sacred Spells presented next are slightly more generous, not having the once-per-day restriction, nor requiring feats; moreover, they have spell levels, and so can be prepared by legendary clerics and oracles. Both types of spells only have about a half-dozen examples presented, however, which I thought was rather limited.

Legendary encounters is presented next, and this short section of the book was also disappointing for how sparse it was. Leaving aside the possibility of legendary NPCs, this section had far too little for characters that have surpassed 20th-level. There are four templates here: the legendary creature template (which, ironically, is a simple template; though for all its bonuses it doesn’t seem to live up to its +20 CR adjustment), the deity template, the godspawn template, and the colossus template (which can only be applied to constructs, and is where the rules for colossal+ creature sizes are found). Unfortunately, the authors’ diligence from before isn’t to be found here, as not only do these latter three templates not have CR adjustments, but there’s no listing of the XP values of creatures with a CR of higher than 25.

The book’s final section covers legendary magic items. Not artifacts, these are magic items (specifically armor and weapon properties, rings, rods, and wondrous items) taken to legendary levels. To its credit, the book does talk about the rules for crafting these (and even legendary mundane weapons), and does present us with bonus pricing for legendary weapons and armor. The magic items themselves aren’t bad, but I found some (though not all) of the weapon and armor properties a bit dull – a crushing weapon does double damage, and enemies take a -2 on attacks and damage for 1 round on a critical hit. Much more fun is a volcanic weapon, which is a flaming weapon that spews frickin’ lava on a critical hit!

The rings, rods, and wondrous items are where the real fun is at. Rings of Immortality, the Trident of Pressure, the Godly Vessel (trap the soul of a dead god inside, and when you wear it, you can grant spells and answer prayers as that god!) are all very fun items that are more what I think of when it comes to legendary gear. A brief section on scaling up normal magic items with varying bonuses (e.g. bracers of armor, cloaks of resistance, etc.) ends the section.

Overall, Legendary Levels is a good book, though not without its flaws. Its strength is clearly focused on the mechanics of taking the PCs above 20th level, and it does a surprisingly good job of it. From the de facto level thirty limit to the prestige classes and feats to help out multiclass and non-Core-class characters to its attempts to rein in spellcasters as it boosts martial characters, there’s a lot to admire here. However, the book does have some problems (overlooking the occasional spelling or grammar error), such as a lackluster skills section and an anemic section on legendary-level enemies.

Still, possibly notwithstanding the need for an expanded CR-to-XP table, none of its problems can’t be taken care of by an enterprising GM that knows what to exclude and what to prepare beforehand. Likewise, for players that want to extend their game beyond 20th-level, what’s here is invaluable, simply because it presents a framework that’s workable and fun. Legendary Levels gives you what you need to take your game into truly legendary territory. Just be sure to keep a close eye what needs to be tweaked, and you’ll have a lot of fun with what you find here.

This is actually a nice little supplement. It reminds me a bit of Rite Publishing’s “In the Company of Monsters” series, where the writer presents a new PC race for any given campaign that uses the Pathfinder system (particularly Rite’s very own Kaidan setting) as well as a racial paragon class that takes advantage of the new race’s inherent abilities (i.e., the Stonewarden class from In the Company of Gargoyles or the Hishoken class from In the Company of Tengu). The only thing here, however, is that instead of taking a pre-established mythological creature like a minotaur or a kappa and developing an inventive, race-specific 20-level base class around that creature, Little Red Goblin Games had the initiative and ingenuity to create a character race of their own--namely, the body-shifting, daylight-sensitive Ravan, whose oldest members are the mutated product of a magical experiment gone wrong that involved a bizarre, semi-living substance from the plane of shadow called “deep violet” that has since become part of the entire race’s biochemical makeup and the source of their strange and wondrous ability to sculpt their own bodies. In addition to the Ravan is their given racial paragon class that members of other races can also adopt, should they, too, become subjected to ingesting any given amount of deep violet. This class is called the [Spirit] Shaper—a stealthy melee combatant whose insight into the darkness within his/her own body not only makes him/her more resistant to illusions and negative energy and more competent in maneuvering through dark areas, but also (and more importantly) able to shape his/her own form to suit his/her current needs, from enhancing his/her senses and bolstering his/her running and jumping ability to secreting a slippery oil from his/her skin and growing such appendages as horns and arm spikes to secreting a slippery oil from his/her skin. Some shapers can even exude a crackling cold mist from their hands or forge a secondary personality to resist compulsions, increase his/her Bluff skill checks, and even cast first-level Wizard/Sorcerer spells twice per day. Thankfully, the mechanics described in this supplement prevent any player playing a Shaper from spamming this ability by only allowing said player a set number of shapes active at one time equal to ½ his/her Shaper level plus his/her Wisdom modifier. Also, shapes using the same body part (e.g., head, hands, arms, feet [and legs], and body) cannot be used at the same time as other shapes that use that same body part, and any polymorph spell or effect used on a shaper renders these shapes useless until he/she reverts to his/her “normal” form. Also, any “reserve” shapes a Shaper is allowed to adopt are determined by this/her racial class level, thus further ensuring a sense of balance for the class that maintains the class’s usefulness while also keeping it from being overpowered in respect to similar classes as the Ranger or Monk. Furthermore, a Shaper’s shapes are divided into initial shapes and shapes that are only accessible upon attaining level ten, when said Shaper gains the True Shaping class ability. In short, both the Ravan race and its racial paragon class, the Shaper, are pretty impressive, although I do have an issue with the way the writer(s) listed the Shaper’s shapes in a manner that is identical to the way the Shaper class features are written. It just makes the document a wee bit harder to read in that respect, and it doesn’t help that there aren’t any tables discussing these shapes, either, and telling the reader exactly what they are, what they do in a nutshell, which of the five body systems each shape is connected to, and when they become available to a given Shaper character. Otherwise, I very much enjoyed this supplement and would highly recommend it to any Pathfinder player looking for an odd yet unique race and base class to add to his/her game.

There’s a certain irony in calling new products for role-playing games “supplements.” That’s because when one hears “a supplement for a role-playing game,” it’s easy to think that it’s something that’ll enhance the “role-playing” aspect of the game, when in fact it’s usually presenting new rules that have little to do with playing a role. In fact, most books are content to ignore that aspect of the game and happily present new mechanics with barely a nod towards actual role-playing. But every so often you find a sourcebook that actually tries to take thing in a new direction…that bends things back towards actually playing the role of your character. Such rare supplements present what can only be called ingenuity.

And from Little Red Goblin Games, we have the Tome of Ingenuity, for the Pathfinder RPG.

Sixteen pages long, the Tome of Ingenuity hits several of the high-water marks for a professional PDF product. It has full bookmarks, albeit fairly simple ones to major sections only. Copy-and-paste is fully enabled. The product’s layout is fairly well-done also; only rarely is space wasted on a page.

The book’s visual design was aesthetically pleasing; the pages are set against a tan-grayish background, and there were several pieces of full-color interior art that were quite stylistic (and certainly a welcome change from what seems like the same recycled packages of stock art that appear in a lot of third-party products these days). It’s worth noting that there’s no printer-friendly version of this book, nor one optimized for other formats (e.g. your e-reader, etc.), but those are forgivable oversights.

After the (helpfully hyperlinked) table of contents, the book opens with a brief introduction, wherein it rather boldly declares that the classes it presents revolve around the creativity of the player, “creating a meta-level of gameplay” for Pathfinder. It’s a rather audacious claim to make, so let’s take a look at what the book offers and see if it backs it up.

The first major portion of the book deals with a new base class, the noble. An opening notation discusses how this class is intended for players who really enjoy getting into character when they play, and that the GM is encouraged to assign bonuses or penalties to their Charisma-based skill checks depending on their role-playing.

The noble is a medium-BAB based class that is a decent combatant, but is a master of the non-combat situation. Their skills and skill points don’t quite live up to the rogue (especially on points), but it’s worth noting that the list could easily have been smaller – a certain subset of skills are highly important to this class, primarily Diplomacy, and the rest take a distant second.

The thematic power that the noble gains, right at first level, is their ability to inflict morale damage. I’ll go over the morale damage mechanic shortly, but here I’ll say that their primary method of inflicting morale damage seems a bit too powerful for me, dealing 1d4 points of morale damage per class level, plus Charisma modifier – it’s limited in that it’s a Diplomacy check versus an enemy’s DC, but pumping up a skill bonus is incredibly easy in Pathfinder. Add that this is a standard action (though it provokes) and can be used an unlimited number of times per day…that just seems too powerful. I’d have brought down the damage and/or limited its uses per day, had I been designing this class.

The majority of the noble’s remaining class powers tend to focus on expanded and improved skill checks, but there are some combat-centered ones, mostly based around further uses of morale damage, and (somewhat oddly) teamwork feats.

The use of morale damage itself is worth mentioning, because the Fourth Edition of a certain popular fantasy RPG has brought this issue front and center. Unlike that game, which has morale damage being simple hit point damage alongside physical damage (and, in doing so, changing the nature of what hit points represent), morale damage in the Tome of Ingenuity is tracked separately, and in most respects is basically the same as nonlethal damage.

I found this to be intriguing, because while it’s a small change it’s also one that just works. When an opponent’s morale damage exceeds their hit points, they’ve lost the will to fight, and basically surrender (though they can defend themselves). Beyond that, there’s a few notes about what creatures it can and can’t affect, but other than that it’s basically nonlethal damage; in fact, I’d have been tempted to just rule that morale damage is nonlethal damage, since the differences are so small, but separating them works just fine as well. As it stands, I’m rather surprised at just how well this innovation functions as its own rule…I just wish the book presented more options to bring it into wider play, but we’ll get to that.

The next new base class is called the skirmisher, and for some reason I had a sort of alternate rogue in mind when I saw this class’s name. In fact, I was wrong, since there’s no easy analogue for what this class offers. Oh, the class’s role is clearly stated to be the guy weaving in and out of combat, lightly armored and cutting a swath through his foes with finesse and guile. So it certainly sounds rather rogue-ish. But in practice, the class is anything but.

A quick glance at its class table shows it looking surprisingly sterile. Most of its class features are bonus feats and expanded ability to score crits. The major inspiration here, however, comes from its Creativity power. This power lets the skirmisher, on an attack roll, voluntarily lower their roll to an adjacent number on the d20 and, if that still hits, gain a special effect based on the new number…presuming they can evocatively describe how they score that special effect. It sounds complicated, but in practice it’s incredibly simple and easy to execute. It’s a power that quite literally demands that the player be able to role-play how his character fights, or the power becomes a liability.

Interestingly, while the skirmisher can use the Creativity power at will, there’s a notation that talks about how ex-skirmishers – which it seems to imply are multi-class skirmishers – take a limitation on how often they can use this power. It’s rather ambiguously worded (which is unfortunate) and seems out of place since Pathfinder did away with multiclassing restrictions. At least…that’s what I thought, until I realized why that particular caveat is there; without it, it’s simply too tempting to dip into one level of skirmisher just to gain Creativity, and then never advance any further in the class.

Following this is a new ten-level prestige class, the kotodama master. For those who don’t know, “kotodama” is a Japanese belief that words have power, regardless of who says them or hears them (at least, that’s my admittedly imperfect understanding). For this prestige class though, which is based around the power of spoken traditionalist values, who hears them is very important.

The kotodama master has a small suite of powers, but the major one is their faux pas ability. This allows them to speak aloud a traditional value, and those who don’t save a value are forced to follow it. Nine such values are given, with things such as “women don’t belong on the battlefield” meaning that female characters cannot directly attack or be attacked, or “men need no comfort” which keeps male characters from regaining hit points. It’s a fascinating concept, and sits well in that virtually any class can take levels in it (though it’s clearly skewed towards being for the Noble base class). My one complaint about the class is that it’s other ability should have been staggered – that is, placed on the even-numbered levels to offset how the faux pas powers are gained at odd levels – which would nicely have avoided this class having four “dead levels” where no powers are gained.

Roughly a dozen new feats follow, most of which serve to boost abilities of the classes presented here. There are some duds though, such as Vixen (giving you a +3 bonus to Diplomacy against male humanoids…why not just take Skill Focus (diplomacy) for more universal results?). This section missed out by not having ways to allow the existing classes in the Core Rules to access ways to deal even a little morale damage (the closest it comes it helping out multiclass nobles deal more), as that mechanic is the one with the widest potential appeal for all characters, regardless of class. It’s an opportunity that wasn’t recognized.

Overall, the Tome of Ingenuity lives up to its name. Oh, it’s an imperfect book to be sure – it has the odd typos and grammatical errors, some sections are slightly unclear in what they mean, neither base class lists their starting wealth, and I’d have retooled some aspects of the classes themselves, but these are all minor issues, and could probably be addressed in an update. What’s far more noteworthy is that these classes do a great job of tightly integrating their mechanics with actual role-playing. From the noble’s bonuses when using cutting words to the skirmisher’s descriptive Creativity, and even the kotodama master’s literal enforcement of conservative values, these are materials that make you get involved in who your character is and how he does things.

What could be more ingenious than that?

“At last” sighed the gnome as he packed the last of the arcane powder he had made into the shell casings. He had managed to make a dozen whilst the paladin once again told his tale of killing the ogre.

“With these I could take out one of those mammoths from the north let alone and ogre Kelrind! let me show you” He took hold of his musket, dextrous fingers loading one of the new bullets as he raised it and fired towards a nearby boulder. With a loud crash the musket recoiled and the boulder cracked along the middle before flames covered its mass. The Paladin spluttered his coughed on his water and fell backwards in a heap. The gnome simply smiled.

This is what I imagine after reading Tome of Munitions by red goblin. It’s a small expansion for Pathfinder: Ultimate combat which adds some alternate skills to the gunslinger class, more feats, more guns, more prestige classes and more items. All of which are good things in my book.

Now I’ve never been a big fan of the gunslinger. I`ve always been the paladin/fighter type in most of my games but this book has opened me to new ideas for my characters, like the Dragoon. The dragoon is basically the heavy armoured range fighter of the party who goes around challenging the biggest, gribbly, drooling mess of a monster he sees and riddles the beloved jebus out of it with holes. Or there’s the swashbuckler who goes around shooting people in the back with all the style and grace of Johnny Depp on tequila. Then there’s the “ascetic shooter” a.k.a the bullet monk, the one who usually goes around with a couple of pistols because sometimes his feet aren’t fast enough and can knock you seven ways to Sunday with them.

Then there’s the higher level stuff, the prestige classes. There are two of them, the living legend and Eldritch engineer. Living legend is essentially john Wayne of pathfinder, giving deeds like Gust of wind to blind your opponents or you feeling lucky pardna? Which actually lets you fire your gun without a bullet in it (also has the best first sentence of any ability in the book). Of course my favourite is the Eldritch engineer, the jack of all trades of guns. Basically it’s a spell caster with a gun that can transform into any gun he wants, just bang it’s a musket , bang it’s a gnomish grenade launcher, bang it’s a orc rocket launcher! I`ll be honest it’s this kind of character that has made me excited for the next pathfinder game I play.

Onto of these cool classes the book has pimped you out for choice of guns and magic gun powder. They have given two guns for every race that reflect their different traits. The dwarven pistol for example is fired like a blunderbuss but is one- handed or the Dragon breath cannon which is a freakin flame thrower! The magic gunpowder isn`t something to scoff at either though you do need to know certain spells if you want to create some. Like Burning hands? Let me show you incendiary powder which engulfs your target in flame ontop of the bullet now lodged in his spleen, what about exploding runes? Well its cousin snaprock powder makes its area of attack into a land mines of d4 damage.

All in all I’d say this little addition to anyone’s pathfinder collection is well worth the cost. It opens up new and interesting avenues in the gunslinger class that I look forward to exploring when I next have the chance.

This work jumps straight in with all the eagerness of a new convert, beginning with the Zealot prestige class. The Zealot is one whose faith in whichever deity he has chosen to revere is so strong that it enables him to withstand trials and tribulations, and even grants him special abilities unavailable to mere mortals. Many resort to mortifying the flesh, and indeed they cannot wear armour or use shields if they wish to be able to access their powers! Fortunately one of those powers is a supernatural toughness. Perhaps that's why one requirement for the class is to be of lawful alignment - without that rigidity, respect for order, even a fanatic might turn tail and run.

The Zealot also develops unarmed combat capabilities, even if he has not studied them before, and as his power and devotion grows damage that is done to him - even by himself - is mystically inflicted on his enemies as well. He can also sacrifice himself, stepping into the path of any attack directed at a friend and taking the damage, although apart from a noble feeling he doesn't get any tangible benefit from so doing. There is clearly role-playing potential here, for those wishing to have their character develop extreme fervour for their faith. It would also be suitable for senior members of any fanatical cult that might develop in your campaign world.

Next up, another prestige class, the Exorcist. These folk specialise in using the power of their faith to defeat demons and devils, so naturally you need to choose a faith to follow that is opposed to such entities, modelled by the requirement to be of a good alignment. Various powers are granted to aid in this fight, including dealing positive energy damage and the ability to mimic the effects of silver and cold iron when attacking foes that are vulnerable to them. Fire spells are particularly potent, too.

The work rounds off with a few new feats, and an alternate special power for any cleric who fancies being a military Chaplain. This is Rites of Battle, which gives the cleric some access to the Paladin spell list. It's not very clear how this is any improvement on just taking levels in the Paladin class, although there does not seem to be any alignment requirement - normal spell requirements still apply, though.

Overall, there are some interesting ideas here and considerable role-playing potential. Some of the concepts could do with further thought and rather clearer explanation of just how they are supposed to work mechanically within the game, however. If you are looking for novel ways to develop a cleric character, this might be of interest, and it is worth noting that the only requirement for a Zealot is that he is lawful, so if it is appropriate a character of any class may develop this fanaticism!

I can’t quite recall where, but I once heard a joke regarding wrapping presents that you intend to give others: “Gifts are like fish – you wrap them badly and they stink.” While it’s not exactly the same for PDFs, there’s something of a truism there; you can have the best idea in the world, but if it’s presented poorly, it won’t catch on. That’s the thought I had in mind while I read A Tome of Wicked Things, from Little Red Goblin Games.

A Tome of Wicked Things major problem is that it typifies the home-made product that’s put together without professional design. What does that mean? Well, for one thing it means that the book is eleven pages long, yet forty megabytes in size. That’s a huge ratio, and can slow down how well your PDF reader processes each page. This may have something to do with the fact that the file is viewed (at least on my Acrobat Reader) as a PDF/A file – I looked it up; this means that the file was originally some other sort of file that was converted to PDF.

Beyond that, there are no bookmarks to be found here, though that’s not too bad in an eleven-page file. Moreover, I was pleasantly surprised to find that word-searching and cut-and-paste were both available in this file. The text edges right up against the left edge of the page though, literally having no indentation at all, which is rather odd to see.

I won’t even mention how it doesn’t clearly identify its Product Identity or Open Game Content, nor reprints the Open Game License, which it’s required to do as an OGL product.

Visually, the book isn’t too terrible. The pages are all given a dark gray background, and the black text seems blocky and emboldened, which actually makes it stand out quite nicely. There are a scant few illustrations, being pictures of individual characters, through the book, and there of respectable quality. However, they serve to emphasize the times when large amounts of blank space are left open, such as between sections – this is wasted space that should be filled with something.

But enough with the harping on the technical details, what does this book actually present? To summarize, it’s a very short supplement for antipaladins, from the Pathfinder Advanced Player’s Guide.

More specifically, this book presents new favored class options for antipaladins of the core races, five archetypes – themed sets of alternate class abilities which must be taken as a package deal, along with a half-dozen new feats.

I enjoyed the new favored class options, but some of them seemed better than others. For example, Half-orc antipaladins just add Intimidate as a class skill, which runs counter to the idea that a favored class bonus adds a little something extra at each level. Likewise, the human favored class bonus of being able to use an additional touch of corruption per day was flat-out better than the dwarven favored class bonus of +1/2 per level on Knowledge checks against people you have a grudge against. Oh, and lest I forget, gnomes and halflings weren’t represented here at all.

The five class archetypes the book presents are the black knight (who fights dirty and mocks chivalry), wrath reaper (using negative energy to damage the living, even as it corrupts you), disciple of discord (chaotic neutral warrior who revels in anarchy), red sword (berserker who lives for bloodshed), and infernal champion (devoted servant of evil gods and powers). Some of these struck me as being quite well-done, such as the black knight with its sneak attack and poison use replacing more straight-forward abilities like smiting good, or how the wrath reaper can inflict status conditions upon their enemies but undergo some sort of corruption, like needing to eat flesh to survive. Others, like the disciple of discord, left me a little cold. Why have a chaotic-but-not-evil version of the more traditionally evil antipaladin? It seemed a bit unnecessary.

The half-dozen feats presented at the end of the book were more prosaic than the class archetypes, offering things like a +4 to confirm critical threats, or exchange the negative energy damage of the antipaladin’s touch of corruption ability for unholy damage. Oddly, most of the feats were named “Vassal of…” with the names of traditional evil powers (e.g. Astaroth, Xaphan, etc.).

Ultimately, A Tome of Wicked Things has some good ideas, alongside some that aren’t so good. Its contents are a decidedly mixed bag, but what kills it is how poor the technical presentation is. The book feels very homegrown and it shows, and that’s a shame because it’s killing the finer parts of what’s here. A Tome of Wicked Things is just as wicked as it wants to be, but it punishes you for reading it almost as much as it will the players who face off against antipaladins using its material.