Forgotten Heroes: Scythe and Shroud (Goodman Games)

Overall, I was pleasantly surprised by FH:S&S. So far, most 3pp classes have failed to wow me.

The assassin (striker), while indeed a sneaky fellow that fights you in melee and from the shadows is, despite similar powers, nothing like the rogue. The assassin acquires study points the longer he fights an opponent (yep, works exactly like the WoW-rogue), and the more study points he has, the more damage you can deal to that enemy, by expending some or all of the study points. Innovative and looks great on paper. Aside from the book missing the level 29 powers and one of the PP-powers being horribly broken (target unconscious even on a miss), the assassin seems very well balanced.



Deathwardens (leader) are death-sensitive people who protect the barrier between life and death. They use the shield as implement, focusing on melee and short range attacks. The fluff and concept for the class is just awesome, and I love the feel and fluff of the powers (which was a big surprise to me, I expected a filler class). The crunch is solid (Petitioners Vision is just too good though: + main stats to all saves of allies in aura 3), albeit there seems to be a bit of a powercreep as you to the paragon/epic powers. Some errors can be found (Is heavenly window a burst or a blast?; Onto the Block should be an attack power), but they are fairly rare. At least half of the 4 PP's seem very interesting, and one of the others will definitely make some people laugh (Captain America inc!)

The necromancer (controller) is (unfortunately) a mixed bag, quality-wise. There are a lot of very flavorful and fitting powers (fear, undeadcharm etc) and then the weird stuff, like sprouting 10' bone horns from your body. C'mon! Crunchwise, it's definitely a weird one too. I love how the necromancer can choose between a power (some of them anyway) being an area or a close burst. A great idea that gives an awesome flexibility to the class. But on the other hand, who the hell got the idea of giving him encounter class features that costs surges. Sure, it might be fitting, but for a controller that won't have that many, it will surely either 1) cause the party to move towards the 15 minute adventuring day or 2) cause the necromancer to rarely use his class features. Both options sucks IMO. Also, they use the conjuration keyword with something that looks a bit like the summoning rules, which makes it all very confusing. The biggest problem is however the conjurations (which should be summonings), which do not obey the economy of actions - so at epic level, your summoned/conjured monster does 4d10+modifiers+conditions as a minor every round. And since it is a conjuration, it can't be killed. Heh.

With the Spiritsworn (defender) you have a warrior sworn to the service of souls, a ghost-whisperer if you will, seeking to fulfill the wishes of the departed. Again, awesome fluff and flavor to the class, and the crunch is solid. His marking is a minor, that allows him to pull in a marked creature that hits his allies - by the help of ghostly hands from the beyond.

Obviously, there is a lot more in this PDF, from some great fluff concerning the soul journey, to feats, paragon paths, epic destinies, magic items and the other usual suspects, but this review is already running way too long for being "Ultrashort". Overall, 3 of the 4 classes look great on paper, with minor issues, so it's definitely worth buying, just too bad with the missing powers and the necromancer's many issues.
Rating:* * * *

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100 reviews already

Wow.

Just wow.

I just noticed that I hit 100 reviews with the Zeidian-review. I must admit that when I started doing the ultrashort reviews last year, I never expected to review that many products. WotC and Goodman Games make up 42% of my purchases. Even though 5-star rating is the most common (27 products) rating given, the average rating is only 3,6 stars, just above average. It seems that I am incurable OBE fanboy, since their 12 products get a whooping 4,91 average. Or maybe they are just that good ;).

A few days ago, I decided to migrate from ENworld to here. The purpose of the migration was simple. I felt I was losing track of my reviews, it became increasingly "difficult" to find reviews and compare them. I am pretty happy about this new format, and in time, I hope to add more labels, so that you can find all adventures (or all campaign settings, races etc) that I have reviewed with just one click. I hope you guys like the new site, and please do not hesitate to comment, advice or critize.

Cheers
Jack99 aka Chris

Races of Violet Dawn: Zeidian (Inner Circle)

The Zeidian is a new race of grey-skinned and dark-haired travellers, devoted to guarding people or places against the evil in the world. With stats that makes them born to be rangers, this is a perfect fit.

The fluff is intriguing and helps create Zeidians with interesting and distinct personalities. The race is balanced and has an interesting feature (save against being surprised)and the racial paragon path is spot on, amplifying the feel of the race. The racial feats further enhance the particularities of the race, without ever falling into the (seemingly common) 50' deep pit of brokenness. The crunch is solid (although you can't take immediate actions on your own turn, so Backhand Slash should be a free (or minor) action) but unfortunately holds no innovative ideas.

Overall the Zeidian is a well-made race which can easily fit into any campaign, either as is, or it should be very simple to file off a few serial numbers and make it a elven (sub-)race. Or you could change the +DEX into +STR, and the rest of the crunch/fluff could fit just as well for the Dragonborn in your campaign. This is a PDF, that I am definitely going to be using.
Rating:* * * * *

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DCC62 Shrine of the Fallen Lama (Goodman Games)

An ancient shrine, a force of good in a dark world, has been corrupted. PC's must enter and defeat both the corrupted guards and the new evil inhabitants. Thus is the setup for another classic hack'n'slash DCC. It starts off well, with an interesting back-story and a lot of hooks, but quickly turns into something much more problematic. First of all, it's full, and I mean choke full of insubstantial monsters, all of which has not been adjusted for being insubstantial, which means they have way too many hit points (grindy combats inc!). As if that wasn't enough, it has more elite and solo creatures than any other adventure I have read so far. In fact, by far the most fights are either multiple elites or a solo. Most of the solos suffer from way too low damage output and will thus just be boring grind-fests. There are a few points of light, like a power called "coldcock" and an interesting situation with a pregnant girl, but overall, I was very disappointed by Shrine of the fallen Lama. Definitely the weakest DCC so far.
Rating:* *

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The Witch (Svalin Games)

The Witch as presented in this PDF is an arcane leader, which can focus on healing or fear. The healing-based witch, or the white witch, is a really good leader at that, +secondary stat to all surges popped and ALL death saves rolled within a decent-sized burst. In fact, make a witch with starting 18 wisdom and your allies will have 25% chance per round to stand up, coming back from dying. That's really good. Maybe too good IMO.

The mystic word, the witch's basic healing, is interesting. You leach of your allies, gaining temporary hit points when they pop a surge triggered by your spell. The at-wills seem balanced and varied, but the real problem with the class comes with the dailies. All the witch's dailies are called curses, and give (apart from the usual damage + condition) another condition, one that can only be removed out of combat and otherwise stick for the rest of the day/month/year. It sounds like a good idea on paper, and it works well for some of the powers, because the penalties do not have much relevance in combat. Problem is when they do have relevance, such as causing the target to grant CA or be vulnerable to all attacks, the curses become extremely powerful. Just too-good-powerful, bordering on broken-powerful.

The rest of the powers is a mixture of decent stuff, with a few gems (love the one where you during initiative make yourself look like a monster, giving pause to your enemies (penalty to initiative rolls) and the usual stuff that annoys me to no end, such as encounter powers with save ends effects. There is a reason (IMO) why this stuff is reserved to daily powers by WotC.

Overall, While I like the idea of the witch, and I think it has some interesting ideas, it still needs too much work for me to use it. Also, I am still at a loss about what "Target: Whoever" means ;)
Rating:* *

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Morrigan (Alea Publishing Group)

The Morrigan (or is it Morrigna, both are frequently used in the PDF, without any mention of the two being the same) is a ghoulish creature that eats the dead. It is a woman who has died during childbirth and thus has gained power to determine the fate of others. It's a cool concept, and even if you do not like the crunch of the creatures presented in the PDF; you can easily use the fluff with other undead, such as some variant ghoul. I must admit that I like the crunch as well (what DM wouldn't like an aura 10 that gives -2 to death saves?) even though it's not perfect. The Morrigan/Morrigna is listed as a lurker, but it feels much more like a controller. There are a few other mistakes/editing problems, such as wrong hit points, and a power that only makes sense if it does the opposite of what it says, but overall the powers are interesting enough. One thing I really like is how they have added fluff to some of the monster powers. This gives a much clearer picture of what the author envisioned. It's definitely something I would like to see more often, especially from 3PP's.
Rating:* * * *

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Monstercology - Orcs (Goodman Games)

The newest from Goodman Games takes us behind the scenes of one of our oldest and most common enemy. We get a new (?) take on the origin of orcs (they are the result of a failed attempt by the elves to kill all dark elves with a ritual). We learn about how orcs are, their coming of age rituals (the common orcsuperstitions are fun) and how they treat their old and young. The interaction amongst tribes and the different positions in a tribe (I like how they use the 4e orc names to do this, makes it easy to incorporate in your campaign) are also covered, as well as a few example tribes. We are also given a quick overview of how orcs interact with most other humanoid races and we get a look at the orc subspecies andhalfspecies (feral orcs, cave orcs, greater orcs and lesser orcs, including a few different half-breeds). There is some crunch as well, with new weapons, new armors and of course new feats andPP's. The feats look a bit boring but mostly balanced. Some of the PP's are pretty nasty. Bloodrage Alcolyte becomes the new de -facto must have PP for all rangers or tempest fighters. + 6 damage per attack against bloodied targets and +2 AC with light armor - yes thank you very much. The UnholyAmbusher is just nasty as well, since (from what I can see) you can get +7 to hit any creature you have CA against. Couple that with frost cheese, and you have a character that will ever never miss. There is a lot more in this 91-page PDF, including orcish religion and advice on how to implement orcs in your campaign and of course a lot of orcstatblocks . I was very much looking forward to this release, and while I can't put my finger on why, I must admit that the writing a several of the chapters didn't do it for me. Also it seemed a little light on new thinking. Overall, a bit disappointing.
Rating:* * *

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Codex Venenorum (One Bad Egg)

To use poison or not to use poison, that is the question. The latest product from OBE breaks down the poison creation process into easily followed steps, giving us a system to create an endless stream of poisons to use on our players (or our DM's monsters for that matter). The system is smooth, and absolutely open for abuse, but they admit as much. It's still a really good system, you just need to "check" and "evaluate" the poison as a whole before you use it. Along with the rules for poisons, we of course also get a long list of nasty new poisons (more than 80, from Arsenic to Blue Deception, new mechanics to end (save ends, short rest ends, extended rest ends - it's even better than it sounds - very cool mechanics there) the effects, new conditions (exhausted and muted), a long list of special qualities to make greater variations in our poisons and a lot of fluffy advice and knowledge about how to describe the very diverse poisons, the different poison families, how to harvest poison from poisonous creatures and the rules for it, exposure, decay and antidotes. We also get tables for creating cool names and determining things like process and components and much more so that they sound and feel like real fantasy poisons. Seriously, it's poison galore, and if you like to use poisons and are tired of just ongoing 5 or 10 damage and never get to "tick" more than once, this PDF is simply a must have. But Mr. Hicks, please add a list of the poisons indexed by level in the PDF, for an easy overview!
Rating:* * * * * *

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Kingdom of the Ghouls (Wizards of the Coast)

With the last instalment (E1 -Death's Reach) one of my complaints was that it didn't feel epic enough. Either the guys at WotC thought the same, or they read my little reviews (okay, I need to learn to keep that ego in check). Either way, they have totally redeemed themselves with KotG. Sure, at it's heart, it's still just another classic "Sorry, your princess is in another castle"-adventure, much like Thunderspire Labyrinth, but Kingdom of Ghouls is however in a different league than TL. Deal with an ex-exarch of Vecna, check; strike a deal with "Death", check; travel through an undead the size of a mountain, check; battle on the edge of the infinite vortex that is the Abyss (yep, if you fall, you FALL!), check; and last but not least, face of the exarch of Orcus and his pet Balor on top of a sea of ghouls, CHECK! Except for a non-rail-roady story, KotG has it all. Some very cool new monsters with nasty abilities. What looks to be very cool skill challenges (negociating with Vocar, travelling through the White Kingdom, travelling through the undead mountain and negociating the heart of a player with an ancient ghoul), awesome combats -The hydra on the lake of necrotic acid, the ghoul minions re-enacting Hamlet with a demilich(!), the surprise in Sigil where everyone on the market square turns out to be angels sent by Vecna and of course the final spout with Doredain, which as mentioned takes place on a sea of living (okay okay, undead) ghouls. Had the adventure been more sandboxy and had a few more of roleplaying opportunities, it would have been near perfection. But it's still darn good.
Rating:* * * * *

Eberron Player's Guide (Wizards of the Coast)

The EPG does it's job. It provides enough information about the world of Eberron for a player to get a general feel of the setting and enable him to make a character which aligns with the world. How useful the book will largely depend on whether you play in Eberron. Most people who play D&D most likely do not play in Eberron, and neither do nor will I. So just how useful is this book? Well, I guess it's usefulness to non-Eberron players is directly related to the artificer, the PP's and ED's, the new pantheon and the related feats, the 3 new races (2 really, since we already have warforged in eDragon). I must admit that in that regard, the book surprised me. I had only briefly looked at the artificer playtest, as the prior version never caught my interest. But I really like this new artificer. It appears to be a solid and flexible (a great mixture of weapon melee or ranged attacks, magical ranged attacks and summons) class, with lots of potential for roleplaying quirks (lunatic gnome tinkerer anyone?). The Pantheon is really awesome, and it's different from the core and FR pantheons, making it even more interesting. I am not quite sold on the Kalashtar (although it does have some interesting mechanics) and the Warforged (I doubt I ever will though), but the changeling is definitely becoming a permanent fixture in my campaign. Last but not least, the PP's are very flavorful and interesting (God I love the chameleon - was that you Ari?), especially those tied to Eberron. But it should be fairly easy to file of the serial numbers and use them in your own campaign. Overall, and even though I really like the swordmage and FR, I think that I will get more mileage out of the EPG than I have gotten out of the FRPG and it is thus a book that I am not afraid to recommend to any DM, whether he plays Eberron or not.
Rating:* * * * *