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I bought this as part of the Complete Training Manual bundle, and I must admit that this product AND the bundle are a mixed bag. On one hand, you get all the stats and information you need to portray most kinds of characters from the genre. On the other hand, you get almost no setting descriptions or flavor. This product and the bundle come with NO background information or campaign information. Their "Hell on Earth" product helps a little in this regard, but not much.
All in all this is a decent value, but the authors need to get some campaign flavor stuff release or some modules. Something to portray some flavor.<br><br><b>QUALITY</b>: Acceptable<br><br><b>VALUE</b>: Satisfied<br>
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I bought this as part of the Complete Training Manual bundle, and I must admit that this product AND the bundle are a mixed bag. On one hand, you get all the stats and information you need to portray most kinds of characters from the genre. On the other hand, you get almost no setting descriptions or flavor. This product and the bundle come with NO background information or campaign information. Their "Hell on Earth" product helps a little in this regard, but not much.
All in all this is a decent value, but the authors need to get some campaign flavor stuff release or some modules. Something to portray some flavor.<br><br><b>QUALITY</b>: Acceptable<br><br><b>VALUE</b>: Satisfied<br>
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I bought this as part of the Complete Training Manual bundle, and I must admit that this product AND the bundle are a mixed bag. On one hand, you get all the stats and information you need to portray most kinds of characters from the genre. On the other hand, you get almost no setting descriptions or flavor. This product and the bundle come with NO background information or campaign information. Their "Hell on Earth" product helps a little in this regard, but not much.
All in all this is a decent value, but the authors need to get some campaign flavor stuff release or some modules. Something to portray some flavor.<br><br><b>QUALITY</b>: Acceptable<br><br><b>VALUE</b>: Satisfied<br>
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I bought this as part of the Complete Training Manual bundle, and I must admit that this product AND the bundle are a mixed bag. On one hand, you get all the stats and information you need to portray most kinds of characters from the genre. On the other hand, you get almost no setting descriptions or flavor. This product and the bundle come with NO background information or campaign information. Their "Hell on Earth" product helps a little in this regard, but not much.
All in all this is a decent value, but the authors need to get some campaign flavor stuff release or some modules. Something to portray some flavor.<br><br><b>QUALITY</b>: Acceptable<br><br><b>VALUE</b>: Satisfied<br>
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This product details any interesting weapons that secret agent type characters can use. They are very interesting and reasonably balanced, especially when used in the setting they're designed for. They're easy to adapt to and modern system campaign, and they can definitely surprise players who've gotten complacent.<br><br><b>QUALITY</b>: Acceptable<br><br><b>VALUE</b>: Satisfied<br>
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The Bane Ledger volume I is a monster collection from Bloodstone Press. The monsters in this book are themed, containing creatures from pre-colonial Australia, America, and Polynesia.
The zipped file and the PDF itself are roughly 850 kb. The PDF has both bookmarks and a hyperlinked table of contents. The book has a color cover, and roughly two-thirds of the listed monsters have pictures, though these are universally in black and white. The entire book is forty-two pages long, including the cover and OGL. No printer-friendly version is given, though this is largely a non-issue due to the relative lack of color and illustrations.
The Introduction mentions that most of the monsters included here are from an earlier release, the Primal Codex, and have since been reprinted here for 3.5 updates. It also notes that the document uses web hyperlinks not only for related products, but also to link key terms (such as shaken) to their entry in the Hypertext SRD. A brief list also confirms which monsters come from which cultures.
Following this is a list of monsters by Challenge Rating. This nicely breaks down the variety of creatures. The product has a fairly diverse range of CRs covered, up into the mid-twenties if you count the dragons at higher age categories (and a single creature in the low 30?s). The product has, counting sub-types of various monsters, thirty creatures altogether.
The individual entries are written well, though the lack of pictures for some creatures (such as the mannegishi) can make visualizing them difficult. However, in reading them over more than once, a number of mechanical errors become noticeable. Outsiders don?t have Native or Extraplanar subtypes. Some abilities lack Ex, Su, or Sp tags. A lawful evil creature is said to have access to the Chaos domain, etc. None of these are major errors, but they add up, and altogether they tend to sour one?s opinion of the product in question.
Sidebars dot the product, describing two new feats and a new disease. Likewise, three new animals (the piranha, electric eel, and kangaroo) are given after the main monster entries. The product closes with a single page ad for the Bane Ledger volume II, and then a page for the OGL.
Altogether, the Bane Ledger is a good source for monsters with an ?old-world? feel. However, the execution leaves something to be desired. The rules errors and monsters without illustrations (which are very important for creatures) make this book feel like it didn?t live up to its potential. Regardless, GM?s looking for monsters with a folklore feel to them will be served well by the Bane Ledger.
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<b>LIKED</b>: This product had an excellent selection of creatures from pre-colonial cultures. The sidebars with the new disease and new feats were quite well done also.<br><br><b>DISLIKED</b>: Rules errors popped up a number of times throughout the book. Also, many of the creatures lacked pictures, which are important for displaying what the monster looks like.<br><br><b>QUALITY</b>: Acceptable<br><br><b>VALUE</b>: Satisfied<br>
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It's not too easy to find d20 supplements for a WWII-era campaign. This supplement did a great job of getting my game group's PCs ready for a European theater campaign pre-1939 and early war period. I would recommend it for anyone considering running a front line or espionage type of game in the late 30's/early 40's.<br><br>
<b>LIKED</b>: Extensive information about new classes, skills, and feats related to the era. Good optional rules for combat scenarios (rules like Suppression, etc). Nice tables for weapons and vehicles.<br><br><b>DISLIKED</b>: Needed a little more editing for grammar, but it doesn't tkae away from the functionability of the booklet.<br><br><b>QUALITY</b>: Excellent<br><br><b>VALUE</b>: Very Satisfied<br>
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This 13 page PDF (19 with cover, credits, OGL declaration & 3 pages of advertisements) provides 22 new talent trees for use in D20 Modern games, and four martial arts feats.
In the D20 Modern system, not only do characters have Feats as in the D&D3.x/D20 system, but they also have Talents. Talents are extraordinary abilities a character can acquire, each basic D20 Modern class, Strong, Fast, Tough, Smart, Dedicated, & Charismatic has a number of talent trees available to it, receiving a talent each even numbered level. Talents provide character?s with unusual bonuses to various actions, or enhanced abilities or new actions, such as the Strong Hero?s Damage Reduction Talent, which provides points of damage reduction at various levels, or the Smart Hero?s Exploit Weakness Talent, which lets him substitute his INT modifier for his DEX or STR modifier on an attack, from the Strategy Talent Tree. The talent trees are specific to a character class, unlike most Feats, and offers abilities that tie into the basic class? ability based theme. However, the selection of talent trees provided in the SRD is fairly anemic, with the Smart only having two talent trees available to it, most other classes having 3 or 4.
The 22 talents trees mentioned in the title break down into three talent trees for the Strong Hero class, consisting of 17 different talents. There are five talent trees for the Fast Hero class, made up of 20 different talents. There are four talent trees for the Tough Hero class, consisting of 21 talents. There are only two talent trees for the Smart Hero class, dividing 13 talents between them. There are six talent trees provided for the Dedicated Hero, splitting 31 talents between them. Finally, there are just two talent trees for the Charismatic Hero, divvying up 12 talents between them.
The talent trees for the Strong Hero class are Brawler (which would have been better titled Grappler since all of its talents provide grappling related abilities), Melee Brute, and Rage. The talent trees for the Fast Hero class include Accuracy & Precision, the talents from which offers bonuses to hit and bonuses to damage, respectively, with ranged weapons. Also available to the Fast Hero are the Lightning Fists, Speed Wrestling, and Agile talent trees, the talents of which offer multiple unarmed attacks, multiple grappling attacks or other bonuses, and bonuses to reflex saves and enhanced dodging, respectively. The talent trees for the Tough Hero class include Grappling Resistance, the talents of which provides bonuses to AoO made against those trying to grapple him, an reduced damage, Survivalist, the talents of which provides various bonuses and enhancements to resisting exposure, starvation, and dehydration, Thick Skinned, the talents of which provides natural armor bonuses, and Toughened Grappling, the talents of which provides bonuses to grappling and allows the character to attempt to fatigue opponents he is grappling with.
The talent trees for the Smart Hero class include Arcane Secrets, the talents of which provide ability bonuses and spell casting & Psionic ability enhancements, the talents require spell casting or Psionic talents however, and Brains over Brawn, the talents of which allow the character to use his intelligence bonus on attacks, or to gain an advantage against opponents on a successful Knowledge (Tactics) check. The talent trees for the Dedicated Hero class include Astral Sense, the talents of which provide bonuses to spot check, or allow the spending of an action point to detect hiding or invisible creatures, Dedicated Warrior, the talents of which provide attack bonuses with a favored weapon, Divine Balance, the talents of which provide bonuses to dodge or reflex save, Hated Enemy, the talents of which provides bonuses when fighting an opponent of that type, Nature Lore, the talents of which provide bonuses to terrain related skill checks or special movement abilities within a favored terrain, and Zen, the talents of which provide bonuses to spot and listen checks, craft checks, and combat bonuses. The talent trees listed for the Charismatic Hero class include Fancy Fighter, the talents of which allows a character to cause opponents to act as if shaken, cower, or fight defensively, and Heroic Deeds, the talents of which allow the character to add his Charisma modifier as bonuses to attack and defense checks.
Finally, 4 martial arts feats are included, Devil Finger, which causes damage that cannot be healed normally, Locust Leap, that allows character to make leaping attacks against opponents 10 feet away or more, One Ton Kick, which is a kick that can knock the target back, and Zen Combat Focus, which provides bonuses to the character?s melee combat actions.
The PDF itself is a passable affair laid out in two columns, with easy to read fonts and tables, a few text-boxes, white text on a red background (a major ink waster), are used as well. The cover illustration is ok, a dark-red textured background with a line art piece of a female martial artist, and the title text in large black type. However, you will likely want to skip printing it to save ink. There are eight pieces of interior artwork, all line-art, about half of which are of good quality, and the other of poor quality. There are also 3 pages of ads tacked onto the end of the product, another ink waster.
Overall, this is a decent product. A majority of the talent trees in this product focus on combat abilities, which can be good or bad depending on the campaign. Some of them, such as the Tough Hero?s Grappling Resistance talent tree, or the Strong Hero?s Rage talent tree don?t feel very thematically appropriate to their class. Also, the value of the grappling based talents seems a bit dubious for most campaigns (Unless the campaign involves pro wrestler?s fighting evil, which would be cool.) The Accuracy and Precision talent trees for the Fast Hero class are also kind of iffy thematically, and would work just as well as feats for all classes. So, if a GM or player finds any of the talent tree?s appealing, this would make a good product to bulk up the talent trees available in the D20 Modern rules.
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<b>LIKED</b>: Brains over Brawn talent tree, Hated Enemy talent tree.<br><br><b>DISLIKED</b>: Too many grappling based talents, Why 3 pages of ads?<br><br><b>QUALITY</b>: Acceptable<br><br><b>VALUE</b>: Disappointed<br>
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This 13 page PDF(18 with cover, credits, OGL declaration & 3 pages of advertisements) provides 22 new talent trees for use in D20 Modern games, and a new use for Treat Injury, transplant surgery, and a new feat, Transplant Surgery.
In the D20 Modern system, not only do characters have Feats as in the D&D3.x/D20 system, but they also have Talents. Talents are extraordinary abilities a character can acquire. Each basic D20 Modern class, Strong, Fast, Tough, Smart, Dedicated, & Charismatic has a number of talent trees available to it, receiving a talent each even numbered level. Talents provide character?s with unusual bonuses to various actions, or enhanced abilities or new actions, such as the Strong Hero?s Damage Reduction Talent, which provides points of damage reduction at various levels, or the Smart Hero?s Exploit Weakness Talent, which lets him substitute his INT modifier for his DEX or STR modifier on an attack, from the Strategy Talent Tree. The talent trees are specific to a character class, unlike most Feats, and offers abilities that tie into the basic class? ability based theme. However, the selection of talent trees provided in the SRD is fairly anemic, with the Smart Hero class only having two talent trees available to it, most other classes having 3 or 4.
The 22 talents trees mentioned in the title break down into five talent trees for the Strong Hero class, consisting of 17 different talents. There are four talent trees for the Fast Hero class, made up of 16 different talents. There are only 2 talent trees for the Tough Hero class, consisting of just 7 talents between them. There are three talent trees for the Smart Hero class, dividing 13 talents between them. There are four talent trees provided for the Dedicated Hero, splitting 19 talents between them. Finally, there are four talent trees provided for the Charismatic Hero, divvying up 14 talents between them.
The talent trees are fairly solid, most offering significant enhanced abilities instead of just modifiers to a few skill checks. Some of the standouts are the Mighty talent tree for the Strong Hero, letting him add his Strength modifier to various saving throws, allowing the character to draw on his Herculean physique to give him the extra oomph to resist the effect. The most interesting Talent tree available to the Fast Hero is the Quicker than the Eye tree, the Talents of which, with the expenditure of an action point, let him move so fast as to seem a blur to other character?s, granting the character a concealment based miss chance against foes. The standout talent tree available to the Tough hero is the FX resistance tree, which provides him bonus to resist FX abilities, achieving a hefty bonus of 20 plus his Tough Hero class level with the Maximum FX Resistance capstone talent.
The Tactical talent tree is the most interesting available to the Smart Hero, from this tree, the Outsmart Talent, with the expenditure of an action point and a successful check, allows the character to avoid all attacks from a particular character for a number of rounds, and the Keen Attacks talents let him, with the expenditure of an action point, increase the critical range of his attacks. All of the 3 talent trees provided for the Dedicated Hero class seem desirable, I found the Virtuous talent tree most interesting, as it allows the character?s single-minded dedication to an ideal or ethos to provide him with bonuses on skill uses, for the base Virtuous talent, and, with the expenditure of an action point, even inspire his friends & allies, or discomfit his enemies, using the (Greater) Aura of Virtue, and Aura of Righteousness talents, respectively. The Charismatic Hero has the Intimidating talent tree available as a standout, giving character?s a chance to get in touch with their ?Inner Batman?. Honorable mention goes to the pulchritudinous talent tree, for using the Gygaxian pulchritudinous in its title.
Finally, the new use for the Treat Injury skill, only available for use by those character with Treat Injury and the Surgery feat, lets a character, on a successful DC 25 skill check, transfer hit points between characters, healing them by transplanting organs, skin grafts, or blood transfusion. If the character doesn?t have the new Transplant Surgery feat provided in this product, they suffer a -4 penalty to the skill check, and can only transfer one hit points to the transplant recipient for every 2 points provided by the donor. The Transplant surgery feat removes the -4 penalty, and allows a 1 to 1 transfer. Additionally, the Life Support talent from the Dedicated Hero?s Selfless talent tree, allows this to work on a 2 for 1 basis, if the surgeon posses the Transplant Surgery feat, otherwise it is on a 1 to 1 basis.
The PDF itself is a passable affair laid out in two columns, with easy to read fonts and tables. The cover illustration is ok, a brown-red textured background with a stylized illustration of a trench-coat clad individual weathering some kind of blast from ominous looking figures emerging from a row of cars in the background, and the title text. However, you will likely want to skip printing it to save ink. There are six pieces of interior artwork, most of which are merely passable line art, including a repeat of the cover art. The illustration in the Charismatic Hero talent tree section is a standout, being of higher quality than the other pieces, and an ?h4wt chixx0r? to boot. There are also 3 pages of ads tacked onto the end of the product, another ink waster.
Overall, this is a solid product, filling in the rather limited selection of talent trees provided in the D20 Modern SRD. I recommend it to both D20 Modern players and GMs looking to expand their character creation options.
<br><br><b>LIKED</b>: Lots of substantial ability based talents, instead of +2 to skill talents<br><br><b>DISLIKED</b>: Why 3 pages of ads?<br><br><b>QUALITY</b>: Very Good<br><br><b>VALUE</b>: Satisfied<br><BR>[THIS REVIEW WAS EDITED]<BR>
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Bane Ledger I is a 42 page monster pdf from Bloodstone press, and collects the monsters from their original Primal Codex after updating them to the new core rules revision. Bane Ledger I now forms part of Bloodstone Press' Primal Legends line, along with other titles such as Bane Ledger II. The pdf is all about monsters, and presents about 30 different monsters, although if you can all the sub-varieties in the dragons, mammoths and other monsters, there are more than 50 individual monsters that can be used in your campaigns. The layout and art is generally good, with some visually impressive art images, although unfortunately not all the creatures in this pdf get their own art and hence one must rely on the descriptions given. The cover art features one of the creatures in this pdf, the civatateo, an undead creature created when a creature of royal status dies while giving birth.
The monsters in this pdf are all mythical, legendary or extinct monsters taken from different cultures in our own world, such as American, African, Polynesian and Australian monsters. A handy table provides the particular region for each monster, and allows DMs to select monster from a specific region that best fits their own campaign world, although this is not required. A table is also provided to sort the monsters by challenge rating, and the CRs vary between 1/2 for a piranha, to a whopping 32 for the ya-o-gah. There's a good selection in between for every challenge rating, so most DMs will immediately find something useful in the pdf for their particular party.
Different types of monsters are also reasonably well represented, although there are no humanoids, constructs, giants, oozes or plants. Of the remaining types, dragons, aberrations and outsiders feature quite strongly, followed closely by undead, fey, animals and magical beasts. The mechanics for the most part is solid with very few errors barring the occasional size modifier that got left out of an attack bonus calculation or other minor errors one can pick up through casually scanning the stat blocks.
The concepts and ideas behind each of the monsters is thoughtful, interesting and generally good, although given the origins of most of these ideas that should be expected since these creatures have supposedly captured the imagination and dreams of people for hundreds of years. The concepts and ideas in turn translate well into the mechanics, although in some instances not in a terribly exciting or evocative fashion. Where the pdf is really lacking however, is in the descriptions and details of the various monsters. Information beyond the idea and one or two lines of description would've fleshed the concepts out a lot better, given the monsters life and coupled with some information on ecology enabled DMs to make the best logical use of these creatures.
Despite the lack of descriptions, this is a good pdf with an enjoyable selection of interesting creatures, including the ga gorib that enjoy playing games of stone throwing with passing travellers, the flesh-eating impundulu, the legendary piasa or 'storm bird', the wendigo that stalks and hunts evildoers, and the ya-o-gah, the creature that is the embodiment of winter and cold. Overall it's good to see these creatures of legend come to life in a d20 game, although it would've been much better to see more descriptive detail.<br><br>
<b>LIKED</b>: The variety, number of creatures and creature concepts behind the creatures provide for interesting and enjoyable creatures for DMs to use in any campaign. Given the selection of different challenge ratings, there's something here for all levels of play as well. <br><br><b>DISLIKED</b>: The lack of descriptions and details on the creatures beyond the concept was disappointing. In addition, some of the different creature types are underrepresented and a wider variety of types could've been included in the pdf.<br><br><b>QUALITY</b>: Very Good<br><br><b>VALUE</b>: Satisfied<br>
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Bane Ledger, Volume 1, is a monster source for D&D/D20 and part of Bloodstone Press? Primal Legends line. It draws upon real world mythology for its monsters, drawing from African, Australian, American and Polynesian legends for this collection.
The collection includes 24 monsters and 3 animals, ranging in CR from ? to 32[!], my count differs from the 25 listed as some of the monsters have sub-variants (mammoths, for example, comes in steppe, woolly and dwarf variants). There are animals, fey, monestrous humanoids, undead and even some outsiders, a good mix of types and power levels.
The creatures are interesting including such as: the Impundulu, a necromantic creature (from Africa) that is beautiful for a few hours after it feeds then it reverts to its visibly undead state. A useful creature to act as a companion for a villainous necromancer. (Though it may have been better served by a template.) A take on the Wendigo that is unusual, as a powerful and good protector of holy places. Along with two new dragon types, of the nature type, storm and summer.
However, the creatures descriptions are limited many have minimal descriptions. ?An angiaks is about the size of a newborn infant. Since it is incorporeal, it is weightless.? is an example of one of the worse offenders. Further, most of the creature have only a minimal context of where they fit into the ?mythic ecology? of the culture they come from or suggestion on what sort of scenario they might be used in.
The mechanics are solid, though nothing innovative. The layout is acceptable, though keeping it to one creature to page would have made printing and referencing just what was needed for an adventure easier.
Overall, a solid product for those who would like some unusual monsters for their campaign.<br><br>
<b>LIKED</b>: Fascinating creatures drawn from all around the world.<br><br><b>DISLIKED</b>: The lack of adventure seeds makes it slightly less useful then it could be.<br><br><b>QUALITY</b>: Very Good<br><br><b>VALUE</b>: Satisfied<br>
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"Potions" for D20 Modern. Not as flashy, though, they change the drinker/imbider, giving them enhanced abilities for a limited time. <br><br>
<b>LIKED</b>: It's good guide to build some other alchemy-type serums for a Modern game with more fantasy elements, but not completely a fantasy setting. Does that make sense?<br><br><b>QUALITY</b>: Very Good<br><br><b>VALUE</b>: Satisfied<br>
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Relatively short lived chemical power ups for Japanese, Soviet and German soldiers. Note there is some overlap in serums so there isn't 101 different effects (more like 50ish). With proper visial effects, this should help scare your players.
I wish there were more serums and less overlap.<br><br><b>QUALITY</b>: Very Good<br><br><b>VALUE</b>: Satisfied<br>
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It's simply a nice little collection and overview of secret societies and organizations from around the world. Most are based on those common and popular in conspiracy theorist lore.<br><br>
<b>LIKED</b>: Well organized, easy to read.<br><br><b>DISLIKED</b>: I would have liked a little more detail about how some of the more "modern" organizations operated and all of the societies' interactions and conflicts.<br><br><b>QUALITY</b>: Acceptable<br><br><b>VALUE</b>: Satisfied<br>
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First time I'd bought anything from the 1948 series. Very interesting<br><br><b>QUALITY</b>: Acceptable<br><br><b>VALUE</b>: Satisfied<br>
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