Dungeon Brew

When playing 3.5 DnD, or even the new Pathfinder, sometimes a critical hit just doesn't feel that...well, critical. Doing x2 damage is all well and good, but sometimes you want to eviscerate your foe, causing him to bleed to death, or smack him so silly he's seeing stars for a few rounds. By the same token, missing on a 1, while annoying, just isn't very descriptive. So you critical fumbled, how did you do it?

Well, thanks to Paizo's Critical Hit and Critical Fumble Decks you get a little more out of your Critical die rolls. The premise of both cards is that when you roll a 1 (for the Critical Fumble Deck), or confirm a critical threat (for the Critical Hit deck) you draw a card from the deck, compare it to what kind of attack you made (magical, natural, slashing, ranged) and that card tells you what action your critical took. Things from an extra attack roll all the way to decapitation (for the Critical Deck) or dropping your weapon to hitting yourself with your own spell (for the Critical Fumble Deck).

The Good
Besides helping busy DMs with go-to descriptions for Critical hits and fumbles, the cards keep the game lively. I use them myself and my players are always excited about a critical hit, calling for a draw from the deck almost before the threat has been confirmed. By the same token, it helps lessen the effect of a critical fumble. Sure, you are making a failure more than just an automatic miss, but from my experience the players don't mind rolling a 1 quite so much now that it comes with an interesting explanation.

The Evil
This system isn't entirely balanced. One of the critical hit cards, as mentioned above is decapitation. That is a pretty powerful thing, even when its as rare as a 1 in 52 chance already tacked on to less than 5%. A critical already has the chance to obliterate a well crafted plan by destroying NPCs and villains who were meant to live longer, adding in an additional chance for them to perish increases this problem. The other issue is that the two decks are meant to work together. You don't have to of course, you could easily use the critical hit deck or fumble decks by themselves. Keep in mind though, that in 3.5 D&D, not every monster is capable of receiving a critical hit, if you run a campaign where the players fight a lot of undead, constructs or other creatures immune to critical hits the fumble deck becomes a much more serious issue as it isn't balanced by the benefits of the critical deck.

Bang For Your Buck
Each deck costs 9ドル.99, and for that you receive 52 cards with 4 different outcomes on each one, each outcome pertaining to a different type of attack. You also receive rules with advice for how to balance the cards for use in your campaign, and some new mechanics for your game that enhance the rules presented.

The Final Verdict
I endorse these products wholeheartedly, I've been using them in my games for around a year now and they definitely keep things both interesting and fun. They are cheap, they are are well made, and they make combat a little more complex. If that's not what you want, I can see you not getting them, but if you want to make your fights a place where a man can lose some fingers, or a fighter's sword could go flying out of his grasp during a dangerous maneuver, these cards will help you make it happen.

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Hello and welcome to Paranoia. I know you were expecting to come here for a review, but unfortunately that information is above your clearance level. But don't worry, Friend Computer is here to help.

Let me explain. In the Mandatory Bonus Fun Card Game, the players take on the role troubleshooters (people who find trouble and shoot it) in an underground complex run by a benevolent, albeit unbalanced, computer. Your job is to undertake missions all while remaining vigilant against mutants, and members of secret societies. By the way, you are a mutant and a member of a secret society. You are a traitor, a well armed traitor at that. But the problem is you are on a team of other well armed traitors, all bent on proving their "innocence" by proving you are a traitor against Friend Computer. I wouldn't worry too much though, because there will be plenty of chances for you to do the same to them, or even kill them outright.

The Good
The game is fun, the rukles are simple and mission structure keeps the game engaging with a variety of objectives to complete. Added on top of all that though is the fast paced and strategic game play where every traitor for himself and danger lurks around every corner. The game maintains a sense of dark humour with great art and quotes adorning every card, not to mention missions like "Bake the Traitor" and action cards like "Spurious Logic".

The Evil
Well the biggest problem with the game is that its out of print. Thankfully though RPGNow.com and the PDF format have come to the rescue, allowing you to purchase a copy and download it directly to your computer. Of course, this presents its own issues, mainly having to print out all the cards. While most of the cards are black and white, the clearance cards and some of the game tokens are in color. And the PDF is constructed poorly, with each card being presented on a page of its own. For the color issue I ended up using different color paperclips as tokens, and I placed a paperclip over the player reference card, sliding it up and down to denote security clearance. The other problem took a little more work, I copied each individual card as a jpeg and then placed them side by side on a .doc file. Although time consuming, this allowed me to print them out about six at a time.

Bang For Your Buck
The game costs a whopping 24ドル.95. For this you get 20 different mission cards, which act like minigames, 39 different actions cards, and a variety of tokens and player reference cards, all of which have to be printed and cut out.

The Final Verdict
I had a lot of fun with this game, I picked it up at 20% off and I loved it. My friends and I played it extensively while I worked on this article. That having been said, this game is not for everyone. If you love, or you know someone who does love, the world of Paranoia, anything Orwellian or non-collectible card games you'll love this game. For those of you who don't, you'll be better off spending it on something else.

When perusing your Pathfinder Core Book for feats there may be something you notice is missing:

Class Feats

That's right, for the most part the book is devoid of feats that alter, enhance, or play off of Class Features. Back when WotC supported 3.5 some of my favorite books were the Complete series. So I was a little sad that the book didn't have any neat little feats I could take that would make me say...a more unique cleric.

Enter LPJ Design's new line of products Undeafetable, short 2-4 page pdfs chock full of interesting and for the most part out of the box balanced feats for your class. Each product contains a plethora of feats for a single core class.

The Good
Most of the feats are balanced nicely, and add extra utility to a classes' defining features rather than replacing them or adding their own. The layout is simple and friendly, with feats laid out alphabetically on two collumn rows, and the black typeset is easily readable against the white background, which I find to be extremely important in pdf products.

The Evil
Remember what I said I said earlier about these feats enhancing abilities classes already have? Well, not all of them follow the formula. For instance there is a cleric feat that tramples over the schtick of the barbarian, allowing a cleric to rage. As if rekindling the 3.5 cleric's ability to steal the spotlight away from other classes wasn't enough, the ability isn't written in a concise manner, and raises some issues about how often you can use it.

Bang For Your Buck
Most of the Undeafetables are .99 cents, with three of them (for no known reason) being 1ドル.25. However, if you get the bundles, you can get six beautiful pdfs for 5,ドル a great deal considering that each pdf contains about 20 feats. These feats run the gamut, and you will find use in them no matter what level you play at.

The Final Verdict
All in all, I am very pleased with the product. I am looking forward to the rest of them. If they do well enough, I'm hoping they will do a series of racial feats. So cross your fingers and show your support for this great line of products.

[The following article is part of the Small Press Week blog carnival being run by RPG Blog II. Many bloggers are coming together for this event to check out some of the great things about, and coming out of smaller rpg publishers. If you'd like to see what the other bloggers have covered this week, drop by Moebius Adventures for a complete list of links.]

Chaotic Shiny Productions was nice enough to send me an advance copy of their upcoming title Martial Flavor, and I'd be remiss if I didn't share what I've learned about the book. Keep in mind while reading this that the book still has sometime before publication and is still undergoing some revisions and enhancements.

The Good Vs Evil Axis

Martial Flavor is a unique book detailing five martial traditions for use in your 4th edition D&D campaign. Each Chapter details a martial tradition, complete with backstory, feats, and new powers.

The Good
This book is presented in an easy to read format, with each new chapter detailing one of the five traditions, and taking us from backstory and hierarchy all the way to which 4th edition races interact with the tradition and how. This is followed by example adventurers, and new mechanics for making the organization come alive at the game table. The fluff and the crunch in this book is balanced amazingly well, with plenty of things both GMs and Players can grab onto and spin into interesting plot points and defining features. As I read through the book I couldn't help but think about how great it would be to play a Daikort Mercenary or a Legionnaire. Each chapter brings the tradition to life with in depth background, various examples of members, how they dress, and how their society views both themselves and in many cases the world around them. I was reminded of why I own so many roleplaying books, many of them are just as entertaining a read as a they are a useful resource.

Martial Flavor is a proud addition to that design philosophy. How many times have I looked through my Martial Power book and wished it went into greater detail on what it meant to be a fighter? Well, Martial Flavor offers plenty of material for that. With this book in hand you never have to worry again about your ranger looking like any other ranger. Make the character stand out, make him a Fox in a Daikort Pack, picking his way through a shady marshland with the greatest of skill. Perhaps what is so great about this book is that it not only helps you create unique characters, but it gives you in game mechanics to make those decisions actually mean something. For example if you are an Ellesin fighter, then you are the king of mounted combat, able to take brand new feats and powers to reinforce just how good you are at mounted combat.

The Evil
I know it is a growing trend with RPG book these days, but this book just doesn't have an index. The bookmarks in the pdf are amazing, but I'm one of those weird individuals who likes to print off his pdfs for long perusals in the sunlight. Beyond that, I have one word to share with you: Background. The backgrounds in this book are more akin to those that appeared in Dragon for the Scales of War (SoW) adventure path. As such they are a little more powerful than the streamlined system that is presented in the Player's Handbook 2 and Eberron Player's Guide. That having been said, some of the backgrounds even blow their SoW cousins out of the water. Chief among these is the Ikanoi, which gives you cold resistance equal to either Wisdom bonus or Constitution bonus whichever is lower, and as such is definitely something that could level with you, especially if you are playing a shaman. Compare that feature with the Sijara's background which gives them Bluff and Diplomacy and class skills and +1 to each and you see some variance in background utility even amongst the book itself.

Bang For Your Buck
So you are thinking about picking Martial Flavor up from Chaotic Shiny. Well, it retails for 19.95 so lets take a moment and examine what you get. In this 56 page tome of a gaming pdf you get an astounding 88 feats, which cover both Heroic and Paragon tier, as well as new Multiclass feats. Some of you may be wondering why one would need new multiclass feats, so be amazed because this book has 12 alternative class features to further customize your martial warrior. You also get several new utility powers for your martial classes that really flesh out how your martial warrior is different from your typical Points of Light model. But lets go back to those feats because there is one thing I'd really like to point out. A whole slew of those feats are for characters who excel at Mounted Combat, and some of the new powers and alternative class features help support the concept. If you have EVER wanted to play a mounted character in D&D 4e, then this is the book to buy, even if you don't use the tradition that goes with them. Heck, even if you want to have a mounted character from a different power source, you will find what you need in those feats. Though obviously if that's all you want you may want to look elsewere for your mount fix.

Now, what if you are a GM? Well, then this is still a pretty good resource for you, although admittedly you are missing out on some of the fun by not being able to play any of the neat new character concepts this book helps deliver. But that doesn't keep you from introducing the Legionnaires of Arytis, or throwing your part against a well trained Daikort Pack. You can easily stat out some great NPCs that will ride both sides of the ally/enemy fence. I know I keep talking about them, but I myself will be dropping the Daikort into my home campaign, they are just too great of a DM tool to not use, and the bevy of information on each tradition gives you what you need to not only run adventures featuring these warriors, but entire campaigns built around them.

The Final Verdict
If you have a martial character, or you plan on playing one then this book belongs on your digital bookshelf. The sheer number of new feats and powers and other goodies contained therein means you WILL find something of use even if you never use the martial traditions that are linked to them. As just one example you can easily mine out the entire mounted combat tidbits (like the Mounted Fighter talent and the list of racial rider feats) and use them as is. As for GMs, since the GSL came out I've purchased my fair share of products, and I haven't seen many that come to the level of dedication, balance, and just plain cool things to put in your game. The text is well written and evocative, the sidebars are placed well and are informative. Here's the gist of things, if I was to write about all the great things in this lengthy pdf I would have to go on for pages, because there is so much great material contained within.

All of that having been said, I can understand if the price tag turns you off of the book. In today's market, and especially without having seen for yourself just how much material is packed in here it can be tough to make that kind of commitment. Comparatively though, this is essentially five products at 4ドル each. Each one containing about 22 feats, plenty of utility powers and other tools and material to boot. Thinking of it that way makes the price make a little more sense. That having been said, if your interested, but just haven't made up your mind yet you can see a few excerpts at this page of Chaotic Shiny's website. In my opinion you should save up some cash and mark November 1st on your calendar so you can be one of the first to spice up your adventuring life with some Martial Flavor.

This is going to be a change of pace for me that I hope becomes a regular part of the Dungeon Brew experience. I mentioned awhile back that I wanted to diversify the content here and this is one of the steps towards that goal.

I recently took a look at Black Wyrm Games new adventure "War of Worldcraft" as part of a blog carnival being organized by Ed Healy of too many podcasts to mention (most notably Atomic Array) and I'm going to share my discovery with you.

The Good vs Evil Axis

War of Worldcraft is an exiting adventure that gives even the most harried of GMs a fully-fleshed and highly entertaining adventure with no necessary prep time. Everything the gamemaster needs is right there, from in depth descriptions of villains to tables on the defenses of every object your players could dream of interacting with.

The Good: The adventure is a highly entertaining read, written with a level of tongue-in-cheek wit that really helps sets this product apart. The game can be played with only a quick read through, meaning that even the busiest of GMs can easily run the module without having to drop hours into customizing it for his group. Oh, and speaking of customizing the author Michael Satran has done a great job of providing advice and extra content for the game master who does want to expand on the base adventure. The product is very modular, and even if you never play the adventure the various villains in the book and the information given on the MMORPG Megaworld can help to inspire adventures of their own.

The Evil:One of the biggest issues I had with this product as I ran through it was the font they used because I could barely tell apart the bolded words from the unbolded. As you may have guessed this is a very minor detail, but it was something that bugged me as I was reading through the pdf. Another thing that I think would have helped this product out was some sort of table of contents, while the pdf has quite the in-depth bookmark system I'm certain that the lack of some sort of table of contents can make finding your spot after flipping pages or taking a break difficult.

Bang for Your Buck
The hard copy of this book clocks in at 9.95 and the pdf sells for 6ドル even at rpgnow.com. So, what do you get for your money? The adventure can easily span two nights of play as written, and Michael Satran includes various plot seeds, alternative battles, and other extras that can stretch the module to fill about five nights of hardcore gaming.

Beyond the extra material included for the module, there is real detail given as to how to use the material in the book that an enterprising GM can use to fill up an entire campaign of play. The owner of this wonderful 43 book gets two super-powered villains, various robotic adversaries, a mysterious and evil organization that has the power to create super-villains, several fully-realized locations that can be visited again and again, and of course the adventure that ties it all together.

The Final Verdict
This is easily one of the best modules I've seen all year. And even if you never intend to run the game the vast amount of material packed into those 43 pages can easily be shaped and molded into whatever you want making this one of the most useful adventures of 2009. The book was well-written, and if you use the pdf and its bookmarks well organized (although the physical copy can't quite live up to the electronic version in that department).

I definitely recommend picking this book up if you intend to run Heroes Sixth Edition, and although it loses a lot of its utility with a different system this adventure can easily be modified to work with any superhero game system.

Want to learn more about War of Worldcraft? Read on...

• Atomic Array: War of Worldcraft (Atomic Array 031)


• Game Cryer: Review by Chris Perrin


• allgeektout: What Makes War of Worldcraft Worth It


• Apathy Blogs: Online Heroes


• Roleplaying Pro: War of Worldcraft – It’s Not What You Think

Drop by BlackWyrm today!